Page 35 of Never Leave Me
Her muscles tensed. She couldn’t let them harm Harrison. For now, she’d have to stay silent about his healing and cooperate with Lionel so they’d focus on her. It was the best way to keep Harrison safe.
As the divider rolled up, the car slowed. She glanced out the window and attempted to gauge where they were taking her. Unfortunately, with the twists and turns of the roads, she’d lost track of the direction and couldn’t regain it. Besides, she wasn’t familiar with the Kent countryside. For all she knew, they’d gone north past London.
Regardless, if she could find a way to escape, she had to take advantage of it. Josie’s life was at stake. Already Ellen felt like she’d wasted an entire day with traveling, and she was anxious to return to Chesterfield Park. Ellen had to find a way to connect with Marian and communicate the need for holy water.
The car turned onto a winding gravel driveway. As branches brushed against the car, Ellen gathered that the driveway was overgrownand seldom used. The thumping of tires over planks told her they were crossing a bridge.
They drove a short distance farther into a garage or outbuilding of some kind. Then the car slowed to a halt, and the motor was silenced.
She didn’t resist when her captor forced her from the car and guided her across a grassy yard to a side entrance of a dilapidated castle. She racked her brain for information on all the castles in and around Canterbury and Kent. The area was home to many beautiful old structures—Chesterfield Park among them. And while she’d visited several other historic places over the years, she couldn’t identify this particular fortress.
As they worked their way through the ground floor, she could tell from the few dark corridors they passed through that the castle wasn’t currently lived in. The chairs and couches were covered in sheets. Beautifully carved mahogany side tables and bookshelves were layered with cobwebs. Large oriental rugs and the wood floors were coated with dust.
Not a single light seemed to work, and they used flashlights. Even so, she could tell the estate had once been elegant. Knightly armor stood near an embroidered wall tapestry. They passed by paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts, even a medieval-looking curio cabinet with a collection of old glass bottles.
As they started down a steep stairway, she shivered from the cold, musty dampness rising to meet them. The stone walls were wet in places with trickles of water forming thin veins. Jasper led the way, and her other abductor formed the rear, his gun a constant reminder that this wasn’t a voluntary expedition, no matter what Jasper might claim.
At the landing, she stumbled over a dip in the floor but caught herself. Darkness pressed in even more. They had to be in theunderbelly of the castle where the dungeons had once existed. Were they planning to lock her up down here?
She clutched Harrison’s suit coat tighter around her shoulders, his sandalwood aroma still lingering in every fiber. Oh Harrison. What must he be thinking now that she was gone? He would be frantic with worry, wondering what had happened.
Ahead, Jasper reached an arched door made of slabs of thick oak with an ancient lock. He pounded against the door, and they waited long seconds before he pounded again.
Finally, the door creaked open and light spilled out, illuminating the stone passageway. They were ushered inside a chamber, and she was temporarily blinded by fluorescent bulbs. Voices and the beeping of monitors surrounded her.
“She was easier to get than I expected,” Jasper was explaining to someone. “The ruse with airport security bought us the time we needed to get to the plane first.”
Ellen’s vision adjusted to the sight of what appeared to be a laboratory, with computers and screens along with medical equipment of all sorts—syringes, needles, beakers, flasks, and chemicals with detailed labels.
An older, balding scientist in a white lab coat and wearing rubber gloves approached. His thin face was placid, his expression almost pleasant, but his gray eyes regarded her like she was a specimen under a microscope rather than a human being. He glanced at Jasper and waited. For an introduction?
Jasper nodded. “Oh yes. Dr. Lionel, this is Ellen Creighton. Ellen, this is Dr. Lionel.”
Ellen examined the scientist again more carefully. This was Dr. Lionel? The CEO of Lionel Inc.?
“Miss Creighton, I’m pleased to meet you.” Dr. Lionel spoke softly with a slight accent. She’d once heard her father and Marian discussing that he was Austrian, that his family had started thebusiness long ago, before Mercer. “After so miraculous a healing, you must know we could do nothing less than study what has taken place in your body.”
“Jasper mentioned doing tests.”
In the bright light of the laboratory, she could see that Jasper was still as handsome as always. He was fair-haired with a Captain America–like appeal. She should have suspected last May when he’d flown into Canterbury to be with Marian in her coma that he was a weasel, especially when he’d started flirting with her. Of course, she wouldn’t have been interested in him, even if he wasn’t Marian’s almost-boyfriend. But at the time she’d been so distraught that she’d trusted him more than she should have.
“Yes. Tests.” The detached coldness in Dr. Lionel’s eyes was frightening, and she suspected this man was capable of doing anything to further his own interests, that he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt either Harrison or her if it benefited him.
All the more reason to keep the news of Harrison’s healing a secret. She lifted her chin, hoping she appeared braver than she felt.
10
HARRISONWANTEDTOPOUNDSOMETHING.Anything. But he forced himself to sit in his wheelchair at the table in the library without moving.
With her back facing the wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, Sybil Huxham stood in the center of the room and had positioned herself so she could see all entrance points, including the door and windows. Whenever he was with her, he noticed she was savvy like that, tuned in to her surroundings, her keen eyes seeing every detail.
In black jeans, black leather jacket, and black combat boots, she had an aura of toughness. While she wasn’t Harrison’s type—because she wasn’t Ellen—she was beautiful with straight brown hair, porcelain features, and stunning green eyes. She was young—twenty-seven—and had served four years as a police constable for the Kent Police before being hired on as a private investigator for ABI, the Association of British Investigators.
She crossed her arms and leveled an intense look at him. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He was tempted to squirm but remembered he was still pretending he was paralyzed. “I’ve told you everything I can.”
“You haven’t said enough.” She spread her feet slightly, her gazedarting to the long windows that overlooked the gardens behind Chesterfield Park. She locked in on something and seemed to catalog the information before turning her sharp eyes back on him.
