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Dark Secrets
By Rebecca York Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises Limited
All right reserved. ISBN: 0373185111
Chapter One
Twenty years in the past Falling sleet bit into Dorian's skin like shards from a broken whiskey glass. Gusts of wind buffeted him toward a stand of tall pines. The first storm of the season. Why did it have to be tonight of all stinking nights?
His arms ached from the hundred pounds of dead weight he was carrying. When he tried to pull his coat tighter, he almost dropped the bundle he'd hastily wrapped in one of the damask tablecloths. Cursing, he staggered forward.
In the moonlight, bare branches rose up in his path like the outstretched arms of bogey men. Stopping, he listened for footsteps above the howling wind. All he heard were the faint strains of a Beatles tune drifting out into the darkness. "Nowhere Man." He shivered.
Somehow out here in the cold, he'd forgotten about the others in the house. What if one of them came out? They could circle around. Grab him. Drag him back. Terrifying images slithered through his head - a man with a net leaping out from behind a tree. The net disappeared. The man's arms stretched impossibly long as bony fingers curved toward Dorian. Claws at the end tore into his face.
Shrieking, Dorian staggered back, clutching the tablecloth-wrapped bulk like a shield. Sweat poured off his skin and froze into droplets of rancid ice.
He filled his lungs with a deep gust of the cold mountain air, but wicked visions still flickered on the backs of his closed lids. Slowly, slowly, reason penetrated his fear. He was safe. Nobody had followed him out here. The guests inside were havin' a good time. Plenty of bunnies. Plenty of juice. Plenty of hash.
Special party. Special for the nosey blonde who had thought she was so smart. But he'd tumbled to her game.
Just a little farther from the house. The old quarry. Nobody's been there in years.
In the moonlight, he almost missed the rim. Only the branch of a tree kept him from pitching off the edge of the cliff into oblivion. Staggering back, he flung the bundle onto the ground.
As the cloth gaped open, a slender arm flopped out and lay across the rocky ground like a white exclamation point. Panting, he stared at it.
Some unnamed compulsion forced him to stoop and pull the material farther back. Sucking in a jagged breath, he peered down at the girl. A strand of long, corn-silk hair lay across her pale face. Once her expression had been mobile. Now it was rigid.
She'd been witty. Manipulative. Devious. At the end, she'd been afraid. The look of fear was still there - erasing everything else. Something deep inside him had responded to that fear. He'd liked it. Her defenselessness had been exciting. His mastery had been a power trip. Once he'd gotten started, he hadn't been able to stop.
Now the sightless eyes accused him. With a shudder, he reached out and closed them. That was better. He'd never have to look at her again.
Too bad he'd had to kill her. She was such a pretty chick. And sexy. Damn sexy. But it was her own fault she was dead.
A gust of wind picked up the edges of the tablecloth - whipping up the fabric like a ghost trying to claw its way out of the ground. Dorian moaned and would have run, except that he wasn't finished.
With stiff fingers he started to wrap the girl once more in the makeshift winding sheet. Then he stopped. No. He'd almost made a big mistake. If anyone found her down in the ravine, they might think she'd stumbled and fallen over the edge. But not if she was all wrapped up. He pulled the cloth away before dragging her to the edge of the cliff.
He didn't see the cross-shaped crystal slip from her grasp and bounce down into the gully; he only saw the girl as he sent her plummeting into space. Like a soul taking flight from its body.
Frozen moments later, she disappeared into the gaping chasm.
Sights and sounds were muffled by the cloth wrapped around her face, but Laura Roswell knew where she was. She'd been trapped in this nightmare landscape before. Chill air stung her skin. The wind moaned around her like a chorus of lost souls. A man's rough hands crushed her body, shifted her limp weight over his shoulder as if she were a sack of oranges - not a person.
No, not a man. It was death that held her in his icy grip. She tried to scream. The terror clogged her throat, clamoring for release, but no sound escaped from her numbed lips. She had to get away or die, but her muscles had stopped obeying her urgent commands.
God, no. Oh, please. No. The words were frozen in her soul along with the horror. She was helpless. At his terrible mercy. He could do anything he wanted with her, and no one could save her. No one would even know where he'd taken her.
Then, in an instant, everything changed. She was falling, plummeting into space, spiraling down, down, down into a midnight chasm.
In that moment, she knew she had a choice. She could either wrench herself from the dream or crash against the rocky ground below. The immobilized scream tore from her throat. Even as she catapulted from sleep, Laura realized it had been her own voice crying out in the shadowy bedroom.
She struggled to a sitting position, half expecting chilly air to sting her lungs as she gasped in a ragged breath. Ordering her body to relax, she unclenched her death grip on the covers. Her death grip on reality. Yet her fingers still trembled as she smoothed them across the crisp flowered sheets and soft wool blanket.
Darting a hand out from under the covers, she snapped on the light beside the bed. The yellow glow from under the fringed shade warmed the room she'd redecorated in Victorian splendor after her husband had moved out. She looked around at the polished mahogany dresser, the fainting couch piled with its lace pillows. The dried flowers. The cluster of framed photographs on the marble washstand. Bill would have hated it. That as much as anything had made her fall in love with the style.
Just as she'd clutched the covers, she clutched the familiar surroundings. This was her world, the cozy nest she'd made for herself, where she felt warm and comforted and in control of her life.
As she plumped the pillows behind her head, the last wisps of the dream dissipated like the scent of wildflowers drifting away on the breeze. The flowers were so out of kilter with the rest of the half-remembered images. Yet their perfume tantalized her. Dreams didn't leave an aroma. Maybe she was smelling the perfumed soap she hadn't been able to resist at Sabrina's lobby shop yesterday.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Dark Secrets by Rebecca York
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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