Initially, I’d planned to stay a few days until I was sure the man was on the mend. Why I felt that sense of responsibility towards him, I couldn’t say. My own motives were too murky for me to figure out, so I pushed them out of my mind as I stood outside the door to his rooms.
Doesn’t matter, I told myself. He’s fine; he’s healing. He’ll heal fine without me here. Maybe I should go home now. Wherever home is.
That was a grim little thought. I had no idea where my family had been relocated to; none whatsoever. Did I even want to know? The idea of having to start all over again in a brand new life, under an assumed name, made my stomach twist. Still, there hadn’t been any help for it, like there wasn’t any help for me having to enter Carter’s private space, which I did, without even bothering to knock.
Forget him. I really am his wife for now. I can go in his rooms all I want. If he doesn’t like it…
I wasn’t sure what he could do, but it didn’t matter. The TV was off and the rooms were quiet, empty. The blankets had been smoothed back over the bed, any evidence of our meal was gone, and my suitcases had been stowed somewhere. Clearly, even though Carter had insinuated he was going to stay in bed, he’d been gone for a while, and the housekeepers had been in to straighten up while we were both away.
I stood there a moment, hands on my hips, biting my bottom lip. My first instinct was to be aggravated at him for getting out of bed when he should be resting, but I couldn’t say I was surprised. As soon as the news of possible sabotage had come through, he would’ve been impossible to pin down.
I hope he doesn’t hurt himself, I thought, rolling my eyes. Then countered that notion with, Okay, he’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. He’s among friends here. Somebody can call a doctor or get him to an ER, if need be.
But was he? Was he among friends?
James’ story about Carter’s blood possibly having the power to unleash the Stones of Fire tingled at the back of my mind, producing an uncomfortable, worried sensation.
He’s got to be wrong. Even if he’s not, these are Carter’s allies. Nobody would kill him over some half-cocked prophecy on a bunch of ancient stones. Would they?
Telling myself no, that Carter would be perfectly fine as long as he listened to his own body and didn’t overwork himself while healing, I started opening doors, looking for my suitcase. It wasn’t hard to locate. Someone had stowed it inside the massive walk-in closet. I took a moment to glance around, wondering what I could read of a man like Carter by studying his closet. Like his linen closet, back in his apartment, it was tidy, with shirts and slacks and suits hung neatly on hangers. He wasn’t a clothes horse, though. The amount of space for the number of clothing it contained was pretty ridiculous. Then again, this was only his home away from home. He’d had an apartment last fall, and I assumed he still did.
After collecting my bags, I shut the closet door and left Carter’s rooms behind, determined to seek out a housekeeper or someone who could help get me settled in another place for the night. People running all over the Costas mansion weren’t hard to find, even now, during the evening hours. Before long, I’d found someone who pointed me to someone else who pointed me to someone else. That person turned out to be a guest manager—who the heck has a guest manager in their home, anyway?—that was able to get me settled in a different bedroom. No questions asked. I briefly considered asking the guest manager to get a message to Carter about what I’d done, but decided he was the one who’d run me out in the first place, so he wasn’t likely to care what I wound up doing.
As it turned out, there wasn’t much to do. My quiet evening alone in the room reminded me an awful lot of my last visit to the Costas mansion, except that time I’d been locked inside a suite, and this time I was a prisoner only of my own reluctance to seek Carter out and to confront my family. Dinner broke up the tedium and watching TV helped distract me, but the pull of the inevitable was there, impossible to fully ignore, making relaxing impossible and sleep that night restless.
Chapter Twenty
I spent most of the following day hanging out in my new space, watching TV, alternating between worry for my family and their reaction to being moved again, wondering when I should face the music and call them, and boredom. I left the safety of my own walls to take a couple of walks around the grounds, but kept close to the house, uncomfortable with disappearing into the trees and bushes. My conscience goaded me about my family, about Carter. The latter I honestly didn’t know how to handle, but I finally decided it was time to do something about the former.
After my second walk, I stopped a passerby inside the mansion and asked if he could put me in contact with James. He was about my age, with neatly combed red hair and a button-up shirt tucked inside his slacks. I had no idea of his role inside the household, but his sandy eyebrows lifted and he asked, in a somewhat squeaky voice, “James? Not Carter?”
I bit my lower lip to stop myself from snapping back. What, was everyone around here interested in the drama between Carter and me? I’d never received this much attention in my life about my personal relationships, and I was finding I really didn’t like being in the spotlight.
Breathing out through my nose, I said patiently, “No, not Carter. James. How do I get in contact with him?”
“He’s usually in the control room. I can take you there,” he offered.
He seemed eager to please. I couldn’t tell if it was because he was a friendly person or because he was curious about the whole Carter and me situation. Either way, I accepted his offer and thanked him.
“You’re welcome. I’m Ryan, by the way,” he said, holding out his hand for me to shake as we started walking. “I’m kind of new around here.”
“Me too,” I chuckled.
Thankfully, he seemed to grasp that I wasn’t in the mood for chitchat, and kept quiet the rest of the way. We went down some steps and a few hallways, stopping outside a room with a thick, metal door that looked surprisingly out of place, considering the rest of the house.
“This is the control room,” Ryan announced. From inside, I could hear the quiet whir of machines and the clicking and clacking of computer keys.
“Thanks for showing me the way.”
“Glad to help. See you later, Ellie.”
With a smile and a nod he was gone. I stepped inside, saw a vast space with blank walls and multiple tables. Each surface was covered by a keyboard, a monitor, a screen. Every type of computer or electronic device imaginable. In the middle of it all was James, wearing a headset, typing away on a black keyboard, his face glued to the screen in front of him. Next to him stood a woman maybe in her late twenties with black, horn-rimmed glasses, spiked purple hair, and a nose ring. She held a mug of coffee in one hand. The other rested on James’ shoulder while she leaned over him to observe what he was doing.
She noticed me first, glancing up when I entered. “James,” she said quietly, poking him in the shoulder. The furious typing stopped as James also glanced up. He did a double take when he saw me standing there, whipping off his headset and tossing it onto the desk.
“Ellie, hey, how did you get down here?”
“Some guy called Ryan showed me the way. I needed to ask a favor,” I said. Feeling a little anxious, I pulled at my shirt hem to smooth out wrinkles.