Darkwood Manor. Jenna Ryan
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good, so it’s you and me, snake, and I’m betting you’re poisonous.” She backed along the dusty roll until it ran out. “Katie?”
Her cousin didn’t reply.
Spying the movement again, Isabella gauged the distance between her and the stairwell. Grandpa Corrigan said she should face her fears. No problem, she could do that. She’d face the spot where she’d seen the snake from the far side of the entry hall.
She glanced over her shoulder. It wasn’t in Katie’s nature to play games. If her cousin wasn’t answering, that meant she couldn’t hear, ergo, she’d probably left the house for a smoke.
Still walking backward, Isabella retraced her steps to the front door.
“Going on a diet tomorrow,” she decided, squeezing through. “Katie, are you out here?”
But there was no one on the porch or in the weed-choked yard. And nothing to see or hear except gusts of wind, a sky full of purplish clouds and several thick branches pressed against the windows to her right.
“Terrific,” she murmured and ran the list of possibilities.
Katie never smoked indoors, so, yes, she’d have come out here to light up. But she wouldn’t leave the property without a word, and they’d only been apart for a few minutes, so she couldn’t have gone far. On the other hand, the floor inside was a minefield of rubble and broken furniture. She might have ventured into a room, tripped and hit her head.
Isabella slid damp palms along the sides of her pants. Grandpa C swore snakes wouldn’t bite unless distressed. But then Grandpa C had marched up to and fearlessly across enemy lines numerous times in the Korean War. His idea of danger varied greatly from that of his granddaughter.
Easing back inside, she hung her shoulder bag and camera on the newel post and started for the room with the carved molding. It wasn’t a gargoyle as Katie had suggested, but an angel, one with vacant orbs for eyes and an expression that sent an unexpected chill fluttering over her skin.
Because the space ahead was shuttered, she had to feel for a wall switch. A weak light appeared at the far end of the room. Directly ahead, however, the shadows remained virtually impenetrable.
“Not quite so much to love about my job at the moment,” she reflected, then raised her voice. “Katie, can you hear me?”
Something shifted behind her, and she spun. But there was no one in the doorway or beyond that in the entry hall.
Exasperated by her overreaction, she regrouped and made her way carefully along the wall.
Wind whistled through cracks in the shutters. A branch banged against the siding at random intervals. The floorboards sagged and protested.
Ahead of her, a chunk of plaster toppled from a mound she could barely make out. Next to it, she spied what looked like a huddled body.
Her heart spiked. Keeping her hand on the wall and her sights fixed, she approached it.
A door at the far end of the room creaked, causing her to look up.
She realized her mistake instantly. With her concentration thrown forward, she had no time to react when her foot landed on air—and her momentum sent her tumbling into the blackness below.
FROM THE SHELTER OF a damaged shutter, the man outside watched the woman inside stumble and fall. Served her right, he thought, twitching an irritable shoulder. Now maybe she’d leave.
He couldn’t do business with a snoopy female hanging around. Bad enough that big galloot from the coach house kept tromping around the perimeter of the property. With luck, he’d topple off a cliff and, if she didn’t die here, take the blonde and her camera with him. Maybe some clever third person could make that happen.
On the other hand, he might not be thinking this through quite right. Lose the woman, lose the chase rabbit. Was that the best-case scenario for him?
A slow grin lit his face and made his black eyes glitter. Bad luck for the rabbit might be a lucky stroke for him. Let the woman be the focus, the diversion, the target. Leave him free to go about his business.
As he melted into the thickening twilight, the man found himself hoping the pretty blonde rabbit wouldn’t die too soon.
ISABELLA’S MIND REELED. What kind of moron put a single step in the middle of whatever this room was? Ballroom, grand hall, dining room? More to the point, why hadn’t she brought a flashlight from the car?
As her vision cleared and the pain of her hands-and-knees landing receded, the shape ahead resolved itself into a filthy tarp. Which relieved her because it wasn’t Katie and set her nerves back on edge because there was still no sign of her cousin.
An obvious thought occurred as she pushed herself upright. Katie never went anywhere without her cell phone.
She pulled out her own cell phone and punched in Katie’s number. Waited. Hissed at the pain in her left ankle when she stood, then reminded herself she deserved it for not paying attention to her surroundings.
Four rings later, Katie’s voice mail picked up. Frustrated, Isabella left a message, closed her phone and, walking carefully, picked her way to the back of the room.
The door to her left stood ajar. It screeched like an angry crow when she moved it. As she crossed the threshold, she told herself the feeling of being watched came from her mind, not from the premature darkness that had begun to spread throughout the house.
Beyond the weathered walls, purple clouds had given way to brooding black, and she could hear the wind picking up. The first raindrops hit the windows as she started along a dusty corridor toward—what else—another door.
A veritable maze of interconnecting hallways, the ground floor seemed to go on forever. She passed through two kitchens, a pantry, a massive library, three dining rooms and a dozen other spaces whose purposes eluded her.
Part of her could visualize Darkwood Manor as a Corrigan-Ross property, but a much larger part was struggling with the certain knowledge that Katie wouldn’t have ventured in this deep alone.
Spotting a thin door, she wedged it open. Uneven stairs topped by a rickety wooden railing descended from dusky shadow into fathomless black. Welcome to the cellar, she realized. Yuck.
Hesitating, she tapped her fingers on the jamb, then hit the light switch. “I can’t think of a single reason why you’d be down there, Katie, but on the off chance you’ve lost your mind, I’ll check it out. And be really pissed off if I find you.”
From a point far below, she detected a scrape, possibly a trace of smoke. When she leaned forward, a moaning floorboard blotted the sound out, but she knew what she’d heard, and it hadn’t been the foundation settling.
A bulb at the bottom provided only a weak wash of light, barely enough to make out the mud floor. Although the stairs looked sturdier than the railing, she’d encountered dry rot before and fully anticipated it here. Still, what choice did she have?
She set her foot on the first step. When it didn’t splinter, she moved to the next. And the next.
Her scraped palm stung against the stone wall. Her breath wanted to hitch. She wouldn’t let it, but couldn’t stop the prickles that raced over her skin.
“Not going to freak,” she promised herself. “Just please don’t let it be a snake pit down—”
She broke off, sucking in a startled breath as the handrail and one of the treads cracked in tandem.
Her foot shot through the plank, forcing her to grab the portion of railing still attached to the wall. That it held surprised her—but not as much as the arm that hooked her waist and hauled her upright before her trapped ankle snapped in two.
For a moment, Isabella’s head swam. Then her brain clicked in and she swung her head to face a man. Possibly young. Definitely strong.
He smelled good, she noted, like