Hidden Sanctuary, page 17
“Joshua’s not the one who hit her,” Griffin said.
“Are you protecting Joshua Adriano?” Catrina demanded.
Griffin’s face turned stony at her accusation, and he stared at her as if unsure what to say. I imagined it wasn’t pleasant, but a heartbeat later, he replied, “I do not protect men who hit women.”
“He’s right,” I said, backing him up. “Joshua didn’t do it. When we met him at the funeral, his hands were unmarked, and you can’t hit someone that hard and not bruise your knuckles.”
She looked uncertain whether to believe us, but then gave a nod.
My stomach unclenched at her acceptance. It wasn’t much, but it was a start, and it felt good to know that not everyone in the room was against us. I hadn’t had to prove myself this much since I told my parents I was a dowser.
“Then who did it?” Eve asked.
“His father. Simon.”
A gasp of surprise went through the room, but when they looked at each other, it was with realization and not disbelief.
They hadn’t suspected him, but they weren’t surprised. Still, I felt I knew a bit more than they did.
Hubris, my mother’s voice warned. No one likes a braggart.
The voice in my head made me want to roll my eyes, but I held off, since it had a point. Now was not the time to crow. Besides, I needed them to trust me enough to give me free rein so I could interrogate Pauline. “I’ll admit,” I said. “Why she accused her husband and not the real perpetrator leads to some interesting theories, but that’s all they are, theories. At least until we talk to Pauline.”
“And you shall do that,” Catrina said, as if offering an ultimatum. “It is time for the truth. Let us talk to her and see what is the truth and what is the lie.”
Finally. Rising from the couch, I stumbled, shaky now that I was on my feet.
Griffin caught my arm and steadied me. “Why didn’t you tell me about this dowser thing before?” he muttered as we followed Catrina and Rhys, with Eve bringing up the rear.
I squeezed his hand. “Because I didn’t want to see that look on your face.”
“Which look?”
“The one I usually get. The look that says I need to be locked up and given medication or shock treatment. Granted, you don’t have that look, but I see an inkling of disbelief.”
He frowned. “Tru, it’s not that I don’t want—”
I put my finger against his mouth. “I know you want to believe, and that means more to me than you’ll ever know. You will believe soon enough. I promise you that.”
“I will?” he asked, his lips moving against my fingertip.
“You will,” I replied. “Trust me.”
We reached the top of the stairs. Eve’s husband, Nick, sat on a four-legged stool outside the door, his large frame cramped even though it was a sizable hallway.
I had to admit I was relieved to see they had a guard outside Pauline’s door. They might have placed it for her protection and mental comfort, but it suited my purpose of keeping her confined.
Nick rose when he saw Griffin and me within the small group walking toward him. “What’s going on?”
“We need to talk to Pauline,” I said. “Alone.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he replied.
“I agree,” Catrina stated. “You may talk to her, but we will be present. We have questions, as well.”
The others murmured agreement.
I groaned in frustration. “I need time alone with her. I’ve already told you what she was, and showed you that the tiles were fake. What more do you want?”
“But other than that, your stories and your big, stomping feet, we really know very little about you,” Catrina said.
“And I don’t know much about you,” I countered, realizing the depth of that small truth. “Please,” I begged. “Pauline and I have a bond of sorts. She’ll talk to me. I know it. I can find out where she hid the real tiles.”
Eve sighed and looked as if she might waver. I pressed my point home. “We’ve got to trust each other sometime. Otherwise, we’ll never find the tiles.”
“What happens if she confesses?” Catrina asked. “You have already said you do not plan to give the tiles to us.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. But we have to find them first.”
They did not look convinced.
“You can listen in,” I offered. “This is an old house. How thick can the walls be?”
“Thicker than one would think,” Catrina said.
“Then leave the door cracked open,” Griffin suggested. “If you’re all in there, we’re limited in what we can say to her. If it’s just us, we have a little more leeway, and we might need that. There’s a lot more to Pauline than any of us thought.”
They glanced at each other, silently deciding what to do.
“You have ten minutes,” Catrina said. “We will even close the door, but do not think that we cannot hear you.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. They seemed to be good people who meant well.
I hated to be the one to keep them from completing the mosaic, but I’d made a promise, and I planned to keep it.
Griffin shut the door after we entered the room. It was small and sparsely furnished. White walls and a slanted ceiling with exposed beams. Wood floors. The furniture was old but in good condition.
Pauline lay on the bed with her eyes closed.
Griffin stepped forward.
I held up a finger to indicate that he should give me a minute.
Keeping my footfalls as silent as possible, I went to the bed. I don’t know if it was the lack of makeup or that her wounds had blossomed, but she appeared more bruised than when I last saw her. Her right eye was purple and swollen, and the bruises on her arms were in the shape of fingers.
“Pauline,” I whispered. “Wake up. We need to talk to you.”
She grumbled in her sleep.
I smoothed her hair away from her face. I’d trusted her.
And she’d betrayed me. I wanted to shake her awake and demand answers, but I held my temper.
“Pauline,” I said again, using a singsong voice.
Her eyelids fluttered and her brown eyes locked on to mine.
She screamed.
Between her hysterics and the group rushing in, it was almost ten minutes before Griffin and I were alone with Pauline again. She sat on the bed, head bent. She had an undeniable beauty even when she cried and was horribly bruised. Her nose didn’t get snotty and her pink cheeks added to the overall effect of a wronged fairy princess.
I didn’t believe it for an instant. I wanted the truth from her and would settle for nothing less, even if I had to pull it from her bit by bit. “Tell me what is going on,” I demanded. “Why did you lie to me?”
“I do not understand,” she said, hands twisting at her skirt.
I took a step forward, but a firm hand pulled me back. “Take it easy on her. She’s had a rough time,” Griffin cautioned.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I whirled to tell him to wise up, that she was scamming us, but as soon as I saw his expression, I hesitated.
He didn’t believe her. He was using the classic good-cop-bad-cop ploy. Acting as if he was on her side in order to throw her off.
He winked at me, confirming the charade.
I blew him a silent kiss, then turned back to Pauline. She still sat there, sniffling into a handkerchief. “Enough,” I said, yanking the linen square from her hand and tossing it to the floor, playing bad cop for all I was worth. “Now tell me why you did it.”
She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I know what I did was wrong,” she said, her voice raw. “But I did not know what else to do.” She looked past me to Griffin, pleading with her big eyes for him to save her.
Nice try. “You could have told us the truth,” I sneered.
“I was afraid. If he found out I had access to tiles and left them behind, he’d never have forgiven me.”
Simon. “Are those bruises even real?” I questioned. Taking her chin in hand, I rubbed my shirtsleeve over the bruise on her cheek. She flinched, and when I looked, the cloth was free of makeup.
They were real. A pang of regret sliced through me, but I ignored it. I’d seen what she did with compassion. I glared at her, furious with her for being a liar and with myself for caring. “You’ve lied to me from the moment we met. Hurt people. Stolen items that don’t belong to you.” I jabbed my finger into her sternum, almost knocking her over. “Why should I believe you now?”
“She’s hurt,” Griffin said.
She smiled at him, grateful for the intervention.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. I felt like I was in a bad soap opera. “Fine.” I reined my bad-cop persona in a notch.
“Let’s get down to why we’re all here today.” I grabbed a wooden chair, straddling it and leaning against the back. “Where are the tiles, Pauline? You know, the ones you beat an old lady to steal,” I said, taking one last stab.
“They are here,” she replied, brown eyes meeting mine and looking as sincere as a saint’s. “I gave them to Catrina. Ask her.”
“I did.” I took a deep breath, readying myself to deliver the blow of truth. “They’re fakes. You know it. I know it.”
For a split second, her eyes narrowed. Then she ducked her head and gave a little sniff. “They cannot be.”
“They can and they are.”
She shed another tear and looked past me to Griffin.
“Maybe we should come back later,” he said. “Give her time to think and rest.”
She smiled at him as if he was her knight in shining armor.
Knight, my fanny. “Maybe I should force the information out of her,” I said, thinking that Griffin was taking his good-cop act a little too far. “Or call her boyfriend. He seems adept at slapping her around. Maybe he can beat it out of her.”
I couldn’t see Pauline’s face, but heard a sharp intake of breath, and her neck flushed pink.
I grinned at her unexpected disclosure. I’d hit a patch of truth, and I knew just where it led, though the thought made me sick.
But not so sick that I wouldn’t use it. I tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at me. “Does your husband know you’re sleeping with his father?”
Her eyes widened, but what I saw wasn’t outrage at the accusation. It was sheer, unadulterated panic. I felt it. Knew it.
And would follow it to the end.
“I do not know what you are speaking of,” she said. “I am no adulteress.”
“Yes, you are,” I said, wishing she’d admit the truth for a change, and wondering if that was beyond her capabilities. “Your lover gave you those bruises. Griffin and I saw the evidence on his hands.”
She blushed deeper.
“The question is,” I continued, “was it done in anger or as a ploy to gain sympathy? To gain access to this house and these people?”
She jerked away, and when her eyes met mine, all pretenses were gone. I was seeing the true Pauline. Calculating. Ruthless. Cold.
And to think I once envisioned us as friends.
I felt like a fool.
“Do you know what those tiles do?” she asked. “What these women plan?”
“Yes.”
For a brief moment, she regarded me. “Are you quite sure?”
I sighed, becoming more annoyed with the drama. “Yes, I am. But you seem to be missing the point. I don’t care about you, your abusive boyfriend or what your intentions are. I don’t care what their intentions are. All I want are the tiles you stole. As to the rest of them, you can duke it out with Catrina if you want.”
And Catrina would win. I wasn’t sure I liked the uncompromising Marian, but I respected her.
Pauline’s lips pressed tight, and once again, she looked past me to Griffin.
I shifted, blocking her view. “Don’t bother. He’s not going to save you.”
Her eyes glittered. “Out of curiosity, how did you know they were fakes when the others missed it?”
“The same way you did. I felt their energy.”
Her skin went white as parchment. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice panicked.
“You felt them. Their energy,” I insisted.
“I did not!”
“You did,” I said, watching her face twist in defiance. “Don’t deny it. You’re like me. We’re descended from women who created the mosaic.”
“I am not one of them,” Pauline shouted.
“Of course you are,” I replied.
“I am not!” She jumped to her feet, eyes blazing. “Simon would never—” She bit the sentence off, hesitated and sat back down.
“Simon would never what?” Griffin pressed.
“Allow it?” I prompted, fishing for information.
She looked away.
“Believe it?” Griffin asked.
She remained mute.
“Trust you?” I suggested.
For a brief second, she stiffened. Bingo.
It seemed I was on a roll. “He doesn’t know, does he? Doesn’t know what you are.”
She whirled to face me. “You do not know anything!”
I rose and stepped into her personal space until I was so close we were almost touching. “Give me back the tiles, or I’ll tell him, Pauline. I’ll tell him all those important little details that you neglected to mention. Your lies. Your screwups. Your heritage. And I’ll find the tiles, anyway. I found you. Don’t think I can’t find them, as well. It’ll just take me longer, and I don’t like wasting my time.”
Her face grew red again, but it wasn’t with false sorrow or embarrassment. It was pure rage.
For a moment, I thought she might spit on me.
“Let’s give her time to think it over.” Griffin took my elbow and pulled me away from her and out of the room.
I took one last glimpse as he shut the door. Pauline stared at me, her hands clenched.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he said once he closed the door. “You have a mean streak.”
“No, I don’t,” I huffed. “I was bad cop.”
“No, he’s right,” Nick said with an appreciative smile.
I smiled back. “Where is everyone?”
“Ana and Robert pulled in a few minutes ago. They’re helping them unload the car. And Ana,” he finished with a grin.
We nodded and went downstairs. “I’m sorry we’re late,” I heard Ana say as we came down the steps. “I just can’t sit still for long.”
“I think she took twenty bathroom breaks,” Robert’s voice teased.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, her voice indignant and laughing. “You have a small child kicking your bladder and see how well you do.”
We entered the crowded living room to find Ana and her belly were the center of attention. “Tru?” Ana said, her eyes catching mine.
Robert pulled her close, every ounce the protector to his pregnant bride. “What are you doing here?”
“She followed Pauline,” Eve explained. “Long story short, we were wrong to trust Pauline. The tiles she gave us were fakes.”
“Are you sure? All those bruises…” Ana shuddered.
“Yes. We listened in at the door while these two—” she motioned toward Griffin and me “—interrogated her. It gets worse. She’s working with Simon.”
“Merde,” Ana whispered.
A loud thud sounded from upstairs. We all looked up toward the noise. “Get the fire extinguishers,” Nick shouted from the top of the stairs. “There’s smoke, and she’s barricaded the door!”
Chapter 16
I didn’t have time to feel like an idiot for leaving Pauline alone and, apparently, with the ability to make a fire. Was she trying to kill herself?
Doubtful.
More than likely, she was trying to distract us so she could escape and get to Simon, the tiles, or both before I did.
Oh hell.
I ran for the front door in time to see her Mercedes roar up the lane toward the main road. My first thought was to follow her, but there were more pressing problems—like saving the farmhouse before it burned to the ground.
I went back in the house, running into Ana and Robert as he hustled his pregnant wife out the front door.
Squeezing past them, I took the stairs two at a time. The door to Pauline’s room hung on its hinges. People and ever-thickening smoke filled the hallway. I looked through the open doorway. The bed was on fire, flames licking the wall behind it.
“Back off!” Nick shouted. He and Griffin charged into the room, shirts pulled over their faces and fire extinguishers in hand.
I heard them coughing and the sound of the extinguishers as they worked to put out the blaze.
Rhys pushed past us hauling two large kettles and a quart-size cooking pot. “Come on,” he shouted, organizing a bucket brigade from the bathroom to the door.
With Catrina filling buckets, we formed a line and joined in. This is insane, I thought as I handed a bucket down the line to Rhys. We should be calling a fire department. Professionals.
Even I didn’t want to tackle a structure fire.
Someone thrust a kettle of water into my hand. She must be using the tub, I thought, a little light-headed as my mind tried to make sense of what was happening.
Caught up in moving water, I lost track of time. Five seconds or five minutes later, Griffin emerged from the smoky bedroom. His hair was singed and there was a demarcation line between sooty and unsooty skin from where he’d held his T-shirt over his mouth. “It’s out,” he declared, letting the extinguisher drop to the floor.
“Open the windows,” Catrina said, coughing. “Before we all suffocate.”
While everyone else took a room, opening doors and windows, venting the smoke, I returned to the bedroom to see if Pauline had left any clues. I knew she was headed for Simon and the tiles, but I wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw the damage. The room was salvageable but would need work. She’d set fire to the mattress, but also the opposite wall, using a length of fabric as fuel. I poked at it with my foot.
