Gift of Fire (Gift #2)

Gift of Fire (Gift #2) Page 67

A strangely familiar restlessness hit Verity as she emerged from the shower and started to dress. She had just put on the red crystal earrings and was reaching for her shoes when she felt a sudden, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

"Oh, Lord. Not morning sickness," she begged aloud. She held her breath and the sinking feeling slowly faded.

She was starting to relax when she realized that her earrings were growing very warm. Verity tensed.

She immediately associated the warmth generated by the crystals with a disturbing occurrence of some sort. She looked around the room uneasily. Everything appeared to be perfectly normal, but she could not relax.

The earrings stayed uncomfortably warm, and the restless feeling became overpowering. She had felt this way yesterday when she'd been driven out of the villa for a walk, and had found Elyssa at the bottom of the cliff.

"Oh, no, not again." Verity tried to ignore the growing sense of urgency, but to no avail.

Then she thought about Jonas outside by himself and she leaped to her feet, heading for the door.

Not Jonas, please don't let anything happen to Jonas!

She was out in the hall, running instinctively toward the staircase before she realized that Jonas was all right. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she sensed that it was not Jonas who was drawing her.

But something was wrong, terribly wrong. The crystals blazed for an instant in her ears and then cooled slightly.

Verity continued down the stairs, turning down the hall to the kitchen. If Maggie was up she might be able to reassure Verity that everything was okay.

But Maggie was not in the kitchen. That in itself was unusual. Verity had learned that the housekeeper's habits were fairly predictable. By this time of day Maggie should have had a pot of coffee made.

Verity found herself visualizing Maggie Frampton as she emerged from the kitchen. Her uneasy feeling grew stronger when she pictured the woman in her faded housedress and old metal necklace. She climbed the stairs again and walked down the long corridor to the end of the south wing.

There was no answer when she knocked on Maggie's door. When she tried the handle, Verity found the door unlocked. Unable to resist, she pushed it open and called out softly, "Maggie?"

There was no response. Verity turned away, aware of the cold draft in the hall. She started down the stairs. When she reached the first floor, she kept on going.

On some half-conscious level she knew she was heading for the infamous torture chamber, but she could not explain why. She only knew she had to look for Maggie there.

A weak light burned in the basement hall. The door to the chamber of kinky delights was closed. The moment Verity touched it she knew she didn't want to see whatever was on the other side. She also knew, however, that she had no choice.

Reassuring herself that her imagination was truly out of control this morning, Verity opened the door.

She faced pitch darkness. Hardly daring to breathe, she ran her palm along the wall, searching for the old-fashioned switch. Finding it, she reluctantly flipped it on.

Two things registered at once.

Maggie Frampton lay on her back on the floor, beneath the wall of whips. There was a pool of blood beneath her head, and she was not moving.

The second thing that hit Verity like a blow was that the stone gate opening onto the hidden passageway was ajar.

For a shocked instant, Verity could not move. A wave of nausea suddenly overtook her. With an extreme effort of will she made herself cross the room to where Maggie lay.

There was a weak pulse in Maggie's throat and Verity swallowed heavily with relief. At first glance, she had been certain that Maggie was dead. The amount of blood from her head wound was terrifying.

A faint, half-familiar odor made Verity wrinkle her nose as she bent over Maggie. She knew that acrid scent, she realized suddenly. She had smelled it briefly the night she had been attacked outside the bathroom of the bed-and-breakfast inn. It was the odor of stale smoke.

Only one person at the villa smoked.

Verity started to pull her hand away from Maggie's throat. She had to get out of here—she had to find Jonas. Her fingers brushed the chain that Maggie had always worn around her neck and her red crystal earrings suddenly burned.

Guided by pure instinct and a growing suspicion, Verity gently tugged the chain from under the collar of the faded housedress.

A green crystal glittered at the end of the chain.

Verity stared at it, mesmerized by the reality of what, until now, had been only an image trapped in time.

She was trying to make sense of what she'd discovered when she heard quick, heavy footsteps in the hall.

Terror surged through her. The man who had done this to Maggie was coming back to finish his grim business. Verity knew it as surely as she knew her own name—and his.

She leaped to her feet, holding the green crystal tightly.

The metal chain snapped, but Verity didn't even notice. She turned and darted toward the only possible escape—the open corridor door.

She plunged into an endless tunnel of darkness. Where was Jonas and his industrial-strength flashlight when she needed him? Trying not to make any noise, Verity inched cautiously along the tunnel wall. She had to get away from the shaft of light that poured into the passageway from the torture chamber.

She was several feet away from the opening when she heard a scraping sound, the unmistakable noise of a body being dragged. Verity had never heard such a sound before in her life, but she recognized it immediately.

Maggie Frampton's unconscious, bulky frame was thrust unceremoniously through the opening and dumped in the corridor. A dark figure stepped in behind her and shone a flashlight beam quickly in both directions.

The beam just hit the heel of Verity's shoe as she turned and fled into the impenetrable darkness of the hidden passageway.

Chapter Sixteen

He'd seen her! She was certain the flashlight had caught her. Verity ran recklessly into the darkness, one palm scraping along the wall as a guide. How much farther to the stairs? Adrenaline was pounding through her veins as she listened for the sound of Slade Spencer's pursuing footsteps.

But a few seconds later Verity realized she heard nothing behind her. There was not even the glare of a flashlight bearing down on her. She cast an anxious glance back over her shoulder and saw the shaft of light from the corridor exit starting to narrow.

Slade wasn't going to pursue her through the passageway—he was sealing her inside!

Her momentary relief gave way to a mounting horror as the last of the light disappeared from the stone passage. The tunnel door slammed shut with a resounding thud. The silence of a tomb descended and utter darkness engulfed her.