Page 74 of The Gilded Cuff
“A place I go to think sometimes.” He led her from the room.
***
Hayden zipped up her suitcase and checked her phone one last time. No new messages. That was good. Her brother Wes had arranged a flight to Colorado tonight. She’d called their family’s private pilot and gotten him to take her to their destination first, beating her brother’s request by a mere minute. She smiled with glee. Her bug on Wes’s phone was still intact and she knew everything that he knew.
Including the biggest news of her life.
Fenn Lockwood was alive, in Colorado, and in danger. She was going to get to him before Wes. She was tired of being his little sister and not her own person. No one liked being a shadow, especially not her. She would prove she was a woman to be reckoned with. She would rescue Fenn and bring him back and earn the respect of the community she’d been raised in. Returning to Long Island with the long-lost boy everyone believed dead, she would in a way return the innocence of her world. The northern shore of the island had suffered greatly after the kidnapping because the Lockwoods, a strong social and economic force in Weston, had withdrawn almost completely from life for at least a decade after losing Fenn. The golden gleam of promise that the mansions had basked in had long since been shrouded in the mists of the tragedy and it was time she burned away the heavy cloak of fog.
Maybe then her parents would stop pressuring her into situations that would leave her married to a wealthy man, who would start sleeping with a mistress the second their vows were spoken. Every girl she’d known in prep school seemed stuck in a bitter, loveless marriage and suffering the plights of mothers with spoiled children. Such would be a fate worse than death for Hayden. There had to be a purpose to her life, something that motivated her. She only wished she knew what that was.
She dropped her phone into her purse and gripped the handle of her luggage to lift it off the bed. She was ready to get out of here. Colorado would be a blessed change of scenery from the choking closeness of the elite community on the island. She loved it with all of her heart, but the people in it seemed determined to drive her insane with their petty concerns for money, clothes, and pride. Hayden would be happy to do without the glamour.
Twenty minutes later, she was easing back in the cushy seat of her family’s private jet. Her brother, Wes, wasn’t due to leave until an hour after her, thanks to her flight. The pilot was sure he could get her to Colorado and then get back in time to pick up Wes without her brother ever suspecting she’d gotten there first. He’d figure it out eventually, but she’d take the advantage of the head start while she could. If the pilot didn’t get back in time, Wes might have to fly commercial. Hayden sniggered at the image of her brother trapped in standard first class.
Hayden loved her brother, but as any person with siblings understood, you could love someone who drove you insane half the time. Wes was overbearing and overprotective. She had every right to explore her passions at the Gilded Cuff, just as much as he did. She was twenty-four years old, old enough to make her decisions and live her own life. If it took rescuing Fenn Lockwood to prove to Wes she could handle herself, then so be it.
Her head fell back against the pillowed headrest and she shut her eyes. She tried to imagine what Fenn would look like. He was probably as handsome as Emery was. She prayed he wouldn’t be as stubborn and frustrating as his twin. Sleep crept in at the corners of her consciousness as the exhaustion of the previous day caught up with her. Her images of Fenn were soon tainted with flames, the roar of an exploding brewery, and the terror of thinking Emery was dead. She had to find Fenn. She couldn’t watch Wes endure through that pain again. She hadn’t even been born when the kidnapping occurred, but she’d grown up with beneath the cloud of sorrow and the distance her brother put around himself because of losing his friend. She shivered and slipped deeper into dark dreams of Fenn and the fate that awaited him if she couldn’t get there in time.
Chapter 18
POLICE ATTEMPTED TO GET THE SURVIVING CHILD TO SPEAK OF HIS CAPTIVITY, HIS BROTHER, AND THE THREE MEN WHO HAD HELD HIM.THE BOY WAS UNRESPONSIVE TO ALL INQUIRIES.PSYCHOLOGISTS BROUGHT IN TO EXAMINE HIM HAVE STATED THATEMERYLOCKWOOD IS SUFFERING FROM SHOCK AND WILL LIKELY SUFFER FROM POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.AT THIS POINT, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DETERMINE WHETHEREMERY WILL EVER BE ABLE TO SPEAK OF WHAT HE ENDURED.
—New York Times, September 30, 1990
The graveyard was a few miles from the Lockwood estate, nestled in a secluded part of the woods well away from paved roads. Sophie sat next to Emery in the front seat of his car of choice, a dark gray Porsche Cayman. Its engine purred seductively low as he turned the vehicle off the road and onto a gravel path heavily infiltrated with rebellious grass. The smooth ride turned jarring as they rumbled along. Sophie rolled her window down, letting the wind tug her hair wildly in different directions as she studied the surroundings. Thick copses of trees dotted the sides of the path, making it impossible to see much beyond the forests to any part of the land beyond them.
Wherever they were going, it wasn’t a place frequented by cars, or people. Emery kept his gaze straight ahead, his jaw set as he switched gears in the Cayman, slowing it down to a gentle roll. The thick scent of rain and wildflowers teased her nose. Turning the car around a narrow bend of trees, Emery stopped in front of a massive wrought-iron gate. Dead ivy vines clung to the gate’s elaborate scrollwork-styled entrance. A massive padlock hung around the gate’s connecting points.
Emery shut the engine off and unclicked his seat belt. “We’ll walk from here.”
Sophie joined him at the entry. Through it she could see about a quarter of a mile of land serving as a private graveyard, with a large, light gray stone wall sealing it away from the wilds that surrounded it.
“What is this place?”
“My family’s private cemetery. The Lockwoods have been here since the pilgrims set foot on North American soil.” Emery pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. He made quick work of the padlock and let it drop to one side of the gate as he opened it. The hinges creaked loudly, protesting the movement, but he pushed hard and they opened enough for them to slip through.
A chill settled into the base of Sophie’s skull and that ancient animal instinct of awareness that she was not alone took over. She slowly turned her head, seeking the eyes she felt were focused on her and Emery, but she saw no one in the woods. Only trees and shadows.
“It’s this place,” he whispered. “You always feel as though someone’s watching you.” He reached over and took her hand, gripping it firmly in his.
“Did I ever tell you about my Granny Bells?” she whispered back. Strange as it was, she felt safer whispering, as though it wouldn’t wake the dead.
“I know very little about your family, Sophie.” His eyes met hers as they walked. The impliedI’d like to know morecame with a gentle squeeze of his hand around hers.
She sighed. “I’m so used to asking everyone else about their lives, I forget to share my own.”
“I can see that,” Emery chuckled. They were walking down a worn path in the grass where dirt was more prominent from hundreds of years of feet stamping along a singular route.
“Well, I was born in Kansas. That’s where my dad’s family’s from. They’re farming folk, lots of brothers, sisters, hardworking types. My mother’s family is a little more blue-blooded. East Coast based. My mother’s mother, Grandmother Belinda—everyone called her Granny Bells—moved out with Mom to Kansas when she married Dad.” She couldn’t help smiling at the memory. Her father hadn’t been all that eager to share his wife with his mother-in-law, until he met Granny Bells. She was, as her father put it, a rare and unusual breed of cat, which was a polite way of saying the woman was a bit on the crazy side but more interesting than disruptive.
“And you liked her, your Granny Bells?” Emery’s eyes were warm as he paused in their walk. He leaned back against a tall monolithic tombstone and pulled her close so their waists and hips pressed together. He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers locking loosely at the small of her back.
“I loved her. She was a queer sort of woman and many people thought she was crazy, or that old age had made her that way. But I don’t think so. She used to tell me about our ancestors, the ones who lived in Salem at the time of the witch trials.” Sophie remembered the light in the old woman’s eyes when she spoke of magic and spells. “We used to talk, Granny and me. She’d tell me things that would sound crazy to repeat out loud, you know? But I swear, deep down I think they’re true. Like I was born with a sixth sense that sometimes surfaces when I need it to. I always knew which man was guilty of a crime when I started investigating. The police would have me come down to the station to see the suspect and I could just tell who it was. I’d get this feeling, like spiders were crawling all over me, and I’d just know. The police would have to have more than a gut feeling to find proof, but I didn’t. I’d do some digging of my own and then find a way to get the police involved when I found enough evidence, since I wasn’t bound by the law like they were.”
Sophie, who’d been looking away as she spoke, turned back to Emery. He was studying her, curiosity and understanding mingling with interest on his face.
“Sounds crazy, right?” she joked, but it came out a little forced.
