The Girl in Blue Read online

  Awareness.

  He added to her fear.

  She had always tried so hard to appear normal while at the same time helping redirect others from danger. All too often she was too late, and she was the first person on the scene following one of the many “accidents” in Scarlet Falls. It was why she’d decided to become a nurse.

  Constant vigilance and blood on your hands wore on you after a while. You could give up or you could give all you had, and then figure out ways to give some more.

  She hadn’t needed a suspicious audience in Samuel Creed.

  Her Boston reprieve had been heady, but it had been over too soon.

  There had come a point in her dark life that she had to wonder if she was bringing the help or the hell to everyone she met.

  It wasn’t only the town that was haunted.She was haunted, too. By memories, both old and recent, and by the persistent ghost of alittle girl who seemed even more determined than ever to not leave her alone.

  Moisture pooled in her eyes as a pink wash of sunshine flowed over the gray edges of Hillhaven. Under the ever watchful eyes of Creed, Trinity tried to find her center and her peace, but she failed.

  * * *

  The box of matches sat open on Trinity’s dresser when she returned to her room. She had stopped in the doorway as she took off her coat and looked carefully around, easily resuming a routine that had been a part of her life in Scarlet Falls for as long as she could remember. It was a habit she should have kept up in Boston.

  The sight of the matchbox made her burned arm throb.

  Of course, there were matches in the house. Last night Creed must have used them to start the fire in the fireplace that was glowing when she had arrived. But he wouldn’t have carried the box upstairs and placed it on her dresser. He wouldn’t have taken one matchstick and balanced it precariously on the dresser’s edge.

  Trinity strained her ears without turning around. The whole of the almost-empty house was at her back. No whisper. No cry. No mischievous laughter.

  It was daylight. If it had been after sunset…It was worse after dark. Much worse.

  With a burst of speed, she strode to the dresser and put the lone matchstick in the box with its fellows. Then she carried the matchbox into the bathroom, dropped it in the sink and turned the tap on full blast. Only when the cardboard box was a sodden, ruined mess did she turn off the spigot. Matchsticks floated to the surface of the water as the box disintegrated. They swirled around and around as the water wassucked down the drain.

  But their hypnotic cyclone ride wasn’t what made Trinity dizzy.

  It was the horrible realization that The Girl in Blue was still haunting her after all these years and that she’d somehow found a way to follow Trinity to Boston. In her effort to become a nurse, had she instead brought death all the way from Scarlet Falls to her friend’s door?

  She scooped up the ruined matches and threw them in the trash.

  She’d seen The Girl in Blue and her matchsticks for years, but the ghost of the little girl had seemed like nothing compared to the much more aggressive entities that threatenedthe town.

  Her earliest childhood memories were filled with pain. Jeremy Wyatt had fallen from a rusty swing and broken his arm. She’d seen the push that had sent him to the ground only inches away from a sharp rock that would have broken his head instead. Susan Witcherhad ridden her bike off of Bald Knob and had needed fourteen stitches to repair her knee. Trinity had seen Susan’s helmet slide over her eyes, as if someone had wanted to blind her to the danger of the cliff’s edge.Thomas Craighad “accidentally” ingested a peanut in an ice-cream sundae and almost died. She’d seen him scoop up the deadly nut and place it on his tongue as if he’d been in a trance.

  But she’d always been afraid to label the things she’d seen.

  She would never be able to forgive herself if the fire in Boston hadn’t been an accident. They had wanted to treat her like a hero, when the reality of what she might have done made her much more the villain.

  Chapter Three

  Creed had taken over several upstairs rooms. He had watched her from one of them while she was in the courtyard. She was afraid The Girl in Blue might not be finished with her games. Once Trinity changed into a gray-fitted sweater with a matching scarf shot through with silver threads that almost made her eyes look bright, she went to check on him even though she shouldn’t have.

  Surprise dispelled some of her fear.

  Her parents had only been out of the country for a few weeks, but the rooms were filled—boxes of files, stacks of rolled, yellowed paper that proved to be maps when she fingered their edges, books, newspapers and magazines.

  Trinity slowed, walked around each room astonished by all the paraphernalia. Added to the reference materials were other things—memorabilia, knick knacks and photographs.

  There was an old rusty wagon with dented sides that squeaked when she nudged it with her foot. In the wagon, a glass jar sat full of the tiny tear-shaped rocks diligent beach combers could find on the shores of High Lake. People called the stones “Maiden’s tears.” Trinity was pretty sure every house in town had a few. There was a lone, scuffed black Mary Jane shoe small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She held it for only a second because its petite size and its missing companion gave her imagination too many gruesome directions to go. A rag doll with a dingy gingham dress and button eyes forbade her touch by simply being too freaky with its blank sewn-on stare. There was also a stuffed crow with oily black feathers and beaded eyes that glittered as they “watched” her wherever she moved.

  Trinity edged away from the bird, not liking the wicked sharpness of its beak forever frozen in a silent caw.

  In her need to put distance between herself and the bird’s impossible peck, she bumped into a stack of books piled on a desk almost hidden beneath its load. The stack swayed, but she grabbed the top book and shored up the column of dusty tomes before it could topple.

  The name “Chadwick” caught her attention and she looked closer at the glossy jacket of the book. It was all about the witch trials of the seventeenth century. She flipped through its pages. The crudely drawn pen and ink illustrations left her oddly shaken. Hanging. Drowning. Burning at the stake. Rendered in a simple hand with slashing finesse that somehow captured the pain and horror on the faces of the persecuted “witches.”

  One drowning bothered her most of all.

  It was of a bound woman being doused in a lake whose banks were lined with townspeople watching and waiting for her to die in order to prove her innocence. The “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” hopelessness and savagery of the scene made her chest tighten.

  While she’d been trying to forget Scarlet Falls for three long years, Samuel Creed literally surrounded himself with the town and its dark history.

  “I don’t like to be disturbed while I’m working,” Creed said gruffly from the doorway.

  Trinity carefully closed the book and placed it back where she’d found it. As she did so she saw the author’s name—Samuel Creed. She didn’t turn to face him. She felt like she’d disturbed a dragon in his lair, but Creed’s treasured horde wasn’t gold and precious gems. It was the dusty remains of lives long gone and the shadowed memories of souls whose restless wanderings might be responsible for her darkest fears.

  “I don’t like an audience when I meditate,” she replied.

  “You’re a beautiful woman,” Creed said.

  Trinity straightened the stack of books again to busy her hands. Beautiful? She was short and mousy. Her dark eyebrows were prominent on her face, making her skin porcelain pale. Her eyes were a light hazel and they clashed with her chestnut hair that grew so fast and so wild she constantly fought to tame it.

  No one would ever call her a beauty, least of all someone as striking as this man—this author—who had caught her rifling through his things.

  “Seen any out-of-place matchboxes lately?” wouldn’t roll off her tongue.

  She felt h
is presence closer behind her even though his feet hadn’t made a sound. She turned. Shewould not be afraid to face him, even if the flush on her cheeks and the quickened beat of her heart warned her otherwise. Considering all else she had to fear, her trepidation was ridiculous.

  “You couldn’t have accumulated all of this in only a few short weeks,” she said to his open collar. He’d come that close.

  She looked up from the intimacy of that small glimpse of skin at his throat. She met his eyes.

  The room was lit by dust-mote filled sunbeams streaming through the windowsmuted by soft red drapes. His eyes matched the onyx chip in his ear despite the light surrounding them.

  Looking at him made her feel as if she was about to fall.

  His irises were that dark, that limitless.

  Her stomach anticipated the drop. Her lungs hitched in a breath to prepare.

  “Three years to be exact. I moved in shortly after you moved out. They advertised for a boarder. You didn’t know?” he asked. His voice was even more intimate than the flash of skin at his collar. They might have been talking about something as mundane as renting rooms, but the deep timbre of his tone said that that wasn’t what they were talking about at all.

  “No. They never mentioned you,” Trinity said. They might have tried. She’d never given them the chance. Her calls were always brief. The better to forget that she dreaded coming home even as she planned and prepared for it day by day by day.

  “And no visits,” Creed pointed out.

  Trinity nodded. She also closed her eyes. It was weak, but inevitable, akin to catching herself before she could fall.

  “When I first moved in, I thought that you would be back on occasion. I imagined sleeping under the same roof and then I was glad you didn’t come home,” he said.

  Her eyes opened in spite of her best intentions. His handsome face was tilted down toward her and its angular lines were shadowed even in the morning light.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Creed said.

  “Neither should you,” Trinity replied. She leaned back against the desk to put some distance between them. Six inches was hardly a reprieve.

  The whole town had thought him most likely to crash and burn like some rebel teen, not become an historian with his books and memorabilia, and certainly not an author, although his fascination with the occult appeared obvious enough to make her quiver.

  “No. You’re right. I shouldn’t be here at all,” Creed agreed. His face tightened. Her attention was drawn by the tension in his jaw. The width of his shoulders. The way his hair brushed his cheeks. Anything and anywhere but his deep, dark eyes.

  “Do you remember that day by the lake?” he asked.

  And suddenly her gaze went back to his. His eyes were brown. If she looked long enough, if she allowed herself to look long enough…you could see the streaks of dark chocolate in the double shot of near black espresso.

  Yes. She could.

  And when she did, she realized how much heat it took to melt and blend all those rich colors to create his midnight gleam.

  “I remember,” Trinity said.

  Her focus dropped to his lips. They had been cold and blue against hers that day, but they had heated, hadn’t they? Once he’d coughed and gasped and came back to life, they had been as warm and wicked and alive as any girl could ask for in her first kiss.

  But then she’d spent the next four years of high school and three years in Boston avoiding him and his watchful eyes.

  “You tasted like hot chocolate and mint,” Creed said.

  He had reached for the end of her shiny scarf and he toyed with it. For some reason, the casual gesture caused heat to rise beneath her skin. Or maybe it was his talk about her taste.

  “I saved you,” Trinity said. It hadn’t been about flavorful kisses. It had been about life and death.

  “Did you?” Creed asked.

  He tugged on the edge of her scarf, firmly but gently. It slid against her skin until the knot caught and then the fabric grew taut against her neck. And still he tugged. Not hard, but insistent. Inexorably. She could resist. She could pull back and away.

  She didn’t.

  Instead, she let him pull her forward using the gentle tug on her soft scarf as leverage.

  He began to wind its length around his fingers—once, twice, again. That was all it took to bring her body flush to his.

  He was tall and muscular like a wall ofsolid masculine flesh. His pull had brought her much softer, but much tenser form against his. She was braving the fall by looking into his eyes again and he quirked onebrow and paused, waiting—for what she couldn’t be sure.

  Did he expect her to run away?

  This close, she could see the damp under layers of his hair and she could detect the scent of soap on his skin. He’d taken a morning shower while she disposed of matches and snooped in his rooms. She could also breathe in the faint mellow bite of the whiskey he’d had before breakfast.

  “I shouldn’t be here, but I am. You brought me back from a cold consuming darkness I’d never even known existed. There’s damnation and decadence in that, Trinity, in case you didn’t know,” Creed said. She thought she knew. Somehow. All about darkness and damnation, but not decadence….

  Crystalline seconds froze the world around them in that iced November memory, but they weren’t cold now. Not at all.

  He dropped his lips to hers in a predatory swoop that had been in the making for seven long years, but he didn’t need the hold he had on her scarf. She held herself still for his descending mouth. She tilted her chin to meet it.

  It was a mistake. She accepted the inevitable kiss with the courage she should save to face other things.

  His lips were soft, but firm. His tongue, with a hungry flick, brought a hint of expensive Scotch and heat as far removed from November chill as could be. She reached for him, her arms around his neck and one hand burrowed into his hair, but he continued to hold only her scarf as if it was a lifeline.

  To save him from what, she couldn’t be sure.

  Not Scarlet Falls. He chose to be here. He chose to dive deep into the history of the town.

  She was the one who was falling. She could feel the dark hungry maw at her feet. But holding onto Creed only made the fall more imminent.

  When she moved her hands to wrap them around the knot he’d made of her scarf, he pulled his lips from hers. Their mouths clung as if in protest for several seconds, but he gave them no mercy. He tilted his chin up to break the contact, but he didn’t let her go. Maybe because her hands were twined around his fist in her scarf and he didn’t want to jar her bandage. Or maybe because he was too busy looking into her eyes.

  Trinity shuttered them as fast as she could. She thought of puppy dogs and taxes and how far she would be behind when or if she was ever able to return to school. But somewhere in that mix, erotic thoughts mingled. Like how intoxicating the taste of Scotch was on his tongue even at 9:00 a.m. and how well its rich flavor fit with the shadows in his eyes. And more desperate and wickedthoughts, too. Like maybe, just maybe if she had to face constant threats, she would like to do it with the afterglow of his lovemaking on her lips and on her skin.

  “I can’t leave Hillhaven. I have to be here for my work. This is the oldest structure in town. Did you know that?” Creed asked.

  He still held her scarf and his eyes still burned. His lips were masculine and firm and also swollen from their kiss. They were only separated from hers by inches. She wanted to narrow that margin, but she held herself very, very still instead.

  “The lake is older,” Trinity reminded him, her heartbeat pulsing in her ears.

  “I know,” Creed said and she thought she saw the memory of breathing those bleak waters in his face.

  His fist loosened in her scarf and she released her hold so he could pull his hand free. But their bodies were still too close for comfort, if comfort didn’t involve increased body heat and an elevated pulse.

  Trinity backed away as casu
ally as her instinct to either run or kiss Creed again would allow. Every muscle in her body responded to her inner turmoil with tension. She was coiled inside and out, prepared to spring into his arms or flee. His tense face watched her careful movements with predatory stillness.

  He was no more relaxed than she.

  When a child’s girlish laughter skittered its eerie tones up Trinity’s spine, she gasped and turned toward the door. Creed reacted, too, but to her sudden movement not to the sound. He put his hand out to her shoulder as if to steady her, but his touch wasn’t comforting. Not when the laughter sounded again in the air all around them.

  None of the windows were open. There was no draft from the hallway, but suddenly an old photograph fluttered loose from one of the nearby piles of memorabilia. Maybe she’d dislodged it during her earlier snoop. Or maybe not.

  Creed bent down to retrieve the sepia-toned photo before she could reach for it herself. She didn’t have to hold it in her hands to see the brown and black around the edges where the paper had curled and turned to ash after being damaged by some long ago flames.

  The Girl in Blue.

  Trinity could see the pretty pastel pinafore of robin’s egg blue in the photograph. She’d seen that dress so many times before, disappearing around a corner or lurking in the dark. She could see the corkscrew curls that framed a cherubic face and lips made red by the photo processes of yesteryear. The Girl in Blue had been about eight or nine when the picture was taken. With a start, Trinity looked from the photograph to the ragdoll she’d noticed earlier with its creepy button eyes and back again.

  The girl in the photo held the doll to her chest.

  “Why do you have all these mementos?” Trinity asked.

  Creed glanced at the photo as if he was so familiar with it that he didn’t need to look closely before he placed it back in the pile it had come from.

  “Since that day by the lake, Scarlet Falls whispers to me. Whiskey helps. Quiets the noise. But sometimes I look and listen and find and keep,” Creed said.

  Whispers.

  So Samuel Creed was plagued by whispers. No wonder he seemed to watch her while she braced for screams.