Chapter Three: I Can Barely Say

Chapter Three

Lincoln

I CAN BARELY SAY

Performed by The Fray

Music filled the house from the built-in speakers, ranging from classical to country to pop. While the volume wasn't loud enough to wake my actual living neighbors at two in the morning, it was enough to keep my mind occupied so I wasn't fixated on seeing Sienna again.

Over the last two nights, I hadn't seen a glimmer of her, and I'd almost convinced myself the upheaval of the move had simply brought her back temporarily. After dwelling on it for much too long, I wasn't even sure it had actually been Sienna. Even as a ghost, Sienna had always been loud, demanding her presence be acknowledged, whereas the spirit the other night had simply slipped through the tombstones as if skimming through calm seas. A beacon of light rather than a black hole.

Still, I'd barely been able to claim three hours of solid sleep since then, which only hinted at worse to come if I didn't get more soon. The upside to my sleeplessness was that the house was nearly unpacked.

In the next few days, I'd hang the paintings on the walls, and the house would be done. As putting up art was usually a two-person job, I'd try and convince Lyrica to come down from D.C. to help me. I'd have to bribe her with something good because my gallery manager found the ambiance of the small town I'd moved to an affront to her city-girl senses.

I pulled a photography book from the box, adding it to a stack on the shelf alongside a smiling gold Buddha I'd snatched from Dad's gift pile before the State Department had shuffled it away. Everything in the study was bright and cheerful, from the paisley drapes in shades of bright blues to the robin's egg-colored arm chairs. The desk made from an antique white door and the white-washed bookshelves only added to the sky-like vibe that had me nicknaming the study my Walking on a Cloud room. It had the same light energy as the Sunshine Meadow kitchen. All the rooms of the house were purposefully upbeat except my bedroom, otherwise known in my head as the The Vampire's Lair . It was the only place I allowed myself to retreat into the darkness—where the gloom felt welcoming.

When my insomnia woke me, I didn't have to leave the shadows to keep my rules about using my bed only for sleep and sex to keep my brain programmed correctly. I could simply slip into the sitting area of the suite and watch television or read a book, letting the shadows keep me in their embrace a little longer.

In the quiet between songs, my laptop pinged with a notification, and I moved over to find a dozen messages in the secure chat app. Some of them were from my mother. Most were from Katerina. A single message from Felicity sat like a poisonous snake waiting to strike. Just seeing her name sent a chill down my spine while the subject line of I need help caused panic and then anger to rush through. The hate she'd spewed had dwindled to a stop since the beginning of the year, so what the hell could she possibly need now? How could she possibly think reaching out to me, of all people, was the way to get what she needed? I should have blocked her, but I'd learned from Dad's career that sometimes it was better to know what was coming at you rather than have it hiding and biding its time.

My jaw tightened, and even though I knew I should read it, I simply reached over and deleted the message before opening my sister's.

KATERINA: Mom's going ballistic because she hasn't heard from you in days. Don't be surprised if she's already pinged your location and sent a Secret Service detail to do a welfare check. Where's your phone?

I tapped the pocket on my sweats only to find it empty.

ME: Tell her I lost it in the sea of boxes but that I'm fine.

KATERINA: I've been a gofer for long enough in Hollywood. I don't want to be yours too. Tell her yourself.

ME: Who's the Grouchypants now?

Even as I teased, concern coasted through me. Katerina was rarely snippy. Determined and full of energy, but not usually waspish.

KATERINA: Please talk to her so she stops harassing me. I have a lot of work to get done before I'm back on set. As the assistant director, a lot is riding on my shoulders and I don't have time to keep on top of you.

A twinge of remorse filled me for making her my regular go-between.

ME: I'm sending her a note right now. But do me a favor?

KATERINA: Haven't I done you enough?

ME: Go get laid. I miss my relaxed sister.

KATERINA: Sometimes getting laid is the problem not the answer.

Her answer only spiked my worry.

ME: Hey, all joking aside, what's wrong?

It took Katerina a beat too long to respond for me to be sure it was the truth.

KATERINA: Nothing is wrong. I just need this film to succeed so I can get the gig I really want. Go back to your boxes. I have work to do.

Maybe it really was just her working too hard, but something felt off. I'd call her later. She could never lie to me when we talked, I'd hear it in her voice.

I turned away from the computer and back to the cardboard stacked in the middle of the office, my thoughts drifting once again to the message from Felicity. I was furious she could still get to me. She'd played on my fears in our relationship. Not just about the women in my life who'd experienced tragedy, but about the coldness that had filled me since my friend Leya had been kidnapped and returned unharmed, thanks to the Secret Service.

I'd thought giving Felicity what she'd wanted, handing her some of my secrets and the pieces of me I kept hidden, would shed the numbness that had taken hold. I'd thought it would allow me to feel close to another human again. So I'd made the mistake of telling her not only about my insomnia but about seeing Sienna's ghost after she'd died. Instead of bringing us closer, it had given her ammunition to use against me. Grenades she'd launched without a second thought to what it would do to me or my family.

I stopped myself just as I reached up to tug an eyebrow.

The media had been relentless last fall. All my failings had been replayed with a new viciousness. The college images of me drinking and partying were smattered with articles about my supposed abandonment of Lyrica that had led to her getting shot and the car crash that had left Sienna dead. Those old stories turned into new rumors of drugs and alcoholism, encouraged by images Felicity had taken without my knowledge while I'd been pacing a darkened room in a sleepless frustration. My parents and their PR teams had struggled to keep the worst of it at bay. We'd all known that if it had lasted further into the new year, it would have haunted Dad throughout the election.

So I'd tried to make it all go away by disappearing. I'd taken off from D.C. last August, winding up in Cherry Bay, and found the town working a bit of magic on me. My shoulders had relaxed, and my breath had come easier. After three nights in a row with six hours of sleep, I'd shown up at a realtor's office, looking for a house I could buy immediately. It had taken mere weeks to close on the Colonial but another six months to complete the renovations.

All I wanted now was for the peaceful magic that had surrounded me while I'd stayed here in the fall to return to me. I had to find stable ground. I needed this or I might just drift off for good into that dreamless sleep Katerina was so fond of quoting.

I took my irritation out on the empty boxes, using the pearl-handled switchblade passed down from my great-grandfather to slash through the packing tape and flatten them. I pocketed the knife, filled my arms with cardboard, and headed for the back door through the kitchen.

As I stepped into the frigid air promising fog and rain, I cursed myself for not adding an enclosed walkway from the house to the detached garage as part of the remodel. I punched in the code on the garage door, and as I waited for it to roll up, my gaze drifted to the cemetery. My feet froze, and my body stiffened as a lone figure slipped through the swirling mist and tombstones.

She was pale and graceful with her long hair whipping about in the fierce wind the spring storm had brought with it. She looked completely real. Vivid and alive.

Just as she had the other night, the ghost ignored me.

Maybe that, more than anything, should have told me it wasn't a hallucination. That it wasn't Sienna.

My grip tightened on the cardboard. I dragged my eyes away from the pale figure and forced my legs forward into the garage. I dropped my load onto the pile already filling the space where I'd eventually park my Range Rover. My former detail would have had a field day with me leaving my SUV in the drive where anyone could screw with it, but it had given me a sort of twisted pleasure to live outside the bounds of the Secret Service rules after years of following them.

As I left the garage, the wind bit through my sweatshirt, its sharp teeth sliding into my skin. I refused to let my eyes journey to the graveyard. Instead, I kept them pinned on the back door.

I was two steps from making it inside when the sound of raised voices halted me—a man and a woman. I couldn't hear what was being said, but the male's tone had an edge of ugly to it and hers a hint of panic that had me spinning around and jogging toward the stone wall dividing my property from the graveyard.

As the argument grew even more heated, my urgency increased. With no time to walk to the gate, I used a hand to brace myself and hopped over the waist-high wall. As I rounded the corner of the mausoleum with the broken-winged angel, my eyes landed on the woman I'd thought was a hallucination and a man in a beanie who hovered over her while the fog churned around them.

He was dressed all in black, blending in with the shadows, and she was in soft pastels that glowed like a rainbow even in the broken moonlight. The epitome of angels versus demons. Goodness versus wickedness.

His gloved hand clamped down on her arm encased in a cotton-candy pink coat Sienna would never have been caught dead in. He yanked her closer, and the woman's sneaker-clad feet slid along the dewy grass. She lost her balance and had to catch herself by placing her free hand on his chest. The man leered at her, and the look on his face was ugly in a way that made my insides twist.

"I said, let go." The woman's voice was breathless but strong, full of a command I wanted to applaud her for as I hurried to close the remaining distance.

"I won't ask you again. How long have you been here, and what exactly did you see, Willow?" the man snarled.

"I didn't see anything. Now get your hands off me." She pushed on him, and her struggle made his eerie grin grow wider.

"Maybe you saw me and came crawling. I told you I'd wear you down eventually. Now there's no distractions. No Hector. Just you and me and the dead."

If he'd expected to scare her, he hadn't achieved it. At least, she didn't show it. Instead, she raised her chin in a defiance that made me feel proud when I had no right to it. "I told you. I'm not interested."

"Hey!" I called out. My voice startled them, and two pairs of eyes darted my way. "I think she said let go."

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.

"No one you care to mess with."

He looked me over, sizing up my lean frame in nothing but sweats and beat-up tennis shoes and clearly not feeling impressed. While he had several layers of muscle on me, I had a couple inches of height and a determination backed with years of martial arts training he wouldn't know existed until he crossed the line.

As his eyes narrowed in on my face, I counted the seconds, waiting for him to recognize me, and was relieved when he didn't.

"Mind your own business," the man said, jerking again on the woman's arm. A moment of panic drifted across her face so white it matched the gravestones.

The wind whipped through the trees, but I no longer felt the cold biting me. Anger heated my veins until they roared with flames. I wouldn't stand by and watch while another innocent woman got hurt…manhandled…killed.

If I'd still had my detail, they'd have backed me up, or more likely, one of them would've taken care of the situation entirely. Instead, I was the only person who could stop what was happening.

As I stalked over the damp grass to the woman, my hand bumped against the switchblade I'd placed in my pocket. I pulled it out, flicked it open, and pointed it at the man.

"You're the one who needs to mind your own business," I insisted.

The woman's eyes widened, darting now between me and her captor. As she struggled to free herself from his grip once again, I reached for her opposite arm. The puffy jacket collapsed under my hand until my fingers collided with a thin rod of muscle and bone. It hit me all at once that she was actually real. Not a ghost or a guilt-filled hallucination. Real.

The man yanked at her one more time. The poor woman was now a tug-of-war rope between two equally hostile men staring each other down. When I didn't look away from him, when I angled the point of my knife in the direction of his face, he finally dropped his grip.

She stumbled toward me, and I wrapped my free arm around her shoulders. The tremble I'd expected in her voice coasted through her body, showing just how much he'd shaken her regardless of her brave tone. I admired the control it had to have taken to only show him a fierce calm.

"Do you want me to call the cops?" I asked.

The man stepped back, blending into the shadows. "Don't be stupid, Willow. You don't want the police involved. This was just a little warning to keep your nose out of things that don't concern you. Don't turn this into something Paul has to straighten out. Understand?" When neither of us responded, his eyes narrowed. "Let's keep it to ourselves, and everything will be fine."

Then, he disappeared completely in the dark and mist. Only a sickly, cheery tune he whistled let us know he was moving farther and farther away.

I closed the knife, pocketed it, and then looked down into the face of the woman tucked up against me. Her eyes were wide and dilated as she watched the shadows where the man had vanished.

"Let's get you out of here," I said. I slid my arm from her shoulders and took a step away. When she remained frozen, I placed a gentle hand on her elbow, encouraging her to move and then guiding her through the tombstones.

Warmth crept through me with her nearness, more than the light touch could account for. A fizzle of attraction that spoke of kisses and tangled limbs. Things this woman certainly wouldn't want after what she'd just experienced. I told myself the feelings were just because I was relieved to know she was real.

Wanting us out of the cemetery as quickly as possible in case the whistling asshole came back, I avoided the gates once more and headed for the stone wall and my house. I slid over first and then turned to offer her a hand.

At first, she didn't accept. She just stood there, chest heaving, taking me in.

The light from my back door glowed across the drive, shining on her face, and I finally realized why I'd thought the hallucination had been off the other night. It wasn't just the pink coat she wore that was a marked difference from the all-black clothing Sienna had favored. It was a thousand other tiny details. They shared the white-blond hair, fine-boned frame, and heart-shaped face, but the similarities ended there.

This woman was soft colors and warm lights versus Sienna's dark and broody. Her eyes were larger and much paler than Sienna's—a soft gray that almost blended in with the whites—and she had a dusting of freckles along the tip of her nose, whereas Sienna's skin had been completely untouched.

She was a copy that had been slightly altered.

Not less. Not worse. Just different.

It was the difference that stole my breath away and flamed the fires whispering of tangled skin, taunting me with whispered words of passion and adoration and unyielding joy.

Things I didn't want because they stirred up strong emotions I was trying to leave behind. I was damn happy to revel in the silent charm I'd found in my new home, and I was irritated it had been disturbed, frustrated that I'd been drawn into something ugly when all I'd been asking of the universe was for a few weeks of solitude and anonymity.

Why the hell had she been in the graveyard at this hour to begin with? And why the hell did I have to be the one to get involved? Where were the people who should have been looking after her? My irritation grew, morphing into anger at her for not only disrupting my peace but also for making me think Sienna had returned. For tormenting me with all my past failures, leaving me no option but to insert myself into whatever this situation had been about.

My resentment bubbled and boiled until my eyes landed on her tentative gaze resting on my outstretched palm. The sheer uncertainty in that look made my annoyance suddenly feel wrong, which only proved to anger me more. Except, this time, it was all self-directed. She'd had a terrible scare, and I was an ass thinking only of myself.

So I pushed my hand forward once more, offering even more help instead of less.