Dawn Mad-ee-son…
Ignoring the mind games, she tried to slip her fingers to the back of the portrait, expecting it to move away from the wall. But it didn’t. The frame was bolted permanently, like a flat fortress that could never be breached.
Then it happened, right in front of her.
In slow—or was it fast?—motion, the woman’s eyes closed, as if in sleep.
Dawn’s breath chopped past her lips.
Why was she still what-the-helling all this? She knew the pictures contained spirits. She’d at least been told that much. Or maybe she’d just inferred it…. Anyway, seeing one of them in the flesh, or whatever, made this all too real—much harder to deny, because even with all she’d been through, all she’d learned, that’s what she still wanted to do.
Keep denying everything.
“Dawn,” said a much lower, much more immediate voice.
She gazed toward the office again, toward the slightly open door. Had it been the boss this time? His tone seemed different, maybe because it was unfiltered by the constraints of those high-quality speakers. She’d heard him sound that way only once before but there was a less ominous quality this time….
“Jonah?” she asked. It seemed okay to call him that right now, with him sounding so human…so here.
The door scraped open a few more inches, an invitation.
Her body went Pavlovian, a throb working between her legs like the stiff ticks of circular seconds. Heat primed her in anticipation, in the hope that she would get a sexual fix to tide her over again.
Just until she could get back to normal.
Her heartbeat banged in her ears, through her belly, as she made her way there. She pushed open the door, greeted by cool air and a faint, unidentifiable scent that did more to stir her up than calm her. She felt like she was listening to a crack of thunder split the sky, like she was waiting for a bad storm to hit.
But fear didn’t stop her. She was lured beyond endurance, and it wasn’t for the first—or probably last—time, either.
Stepping inside his dim office, she saw the lone flicker of a candle ensconced in its iron-and-glass casing behind the massive desk. A tongue of reflection teased the surface, where a scar marked the wood, hinting at a ripple of violence in The Voice’s past. It looked like an ax blade had made itself at home there, not that he’d ever told her the story.
Or ever would.
The candle flame imitated the waver of her heartbeat. “Jonah?”
No one answered as she scanned the rest of the room: the lifeless books and heavy, closed curtains, the ever-watchful TV that seemed to have been lulled to a nap.
The portraits of the other women.
She stopped near the picture of an empty field of fire, but as her eyes focused on the familiar scene, she did a double take.
Like the portrait in the hallway, this one wasn’t empty anymore.
The fiery landscape now showed a person she’d never seen. The subject faced away from the room, a red cape covering any hint of a body, a long sheen of tousled dark hair masking everything else. It reminded Dawn of the woman downstairs above the fireplace mantel—the colors, the tone….
Entranced, she began to move toward it.
A gust of jasmine perfume spiked through the room, mixing with a sound that made Dawn think of a torch being brandished in attack. With the accompaniment of a deep, sirenlike laugh, the candle behind the desk guttered.
Adrenaline burning, Dawn crouched in response to the sudden darkness. The door slammed, and she spun around, darting toward the now-barred exit.
What was The Voice trying to do? Control her through fear this time?
“Shhhh,” he whispered from somewhere on the right as she tested the locked doorknob. “Quiet, Dawn.”
It seemed as if he were actually here in the flesh, standing in the corner near a bookcase. The situation made her think of that other time Jonah had come to her like this, when she’d confronted him about luring her to L.A. with Frank as bait and he’d tried to tell her he hadn’t planned it that way, even though that’s how everything had worked out. Of course, he’d gone invisible when it came down to interacting with her; at least, that’s what she thought he’d done. Even though his touch had felt more real than usual, she hadn’t been able to see him in a mirror across the room, a mirror reflecting her every movement—not his—even as his hands and mouth had remained on her body.
As she listened to him stir in his corner, she halted, remaining low to the ground near the door, tuning her ears in to his movements.
This was a guy who usually preferred to enter her during mind play, never physically. So what was he doing now? What did he have planned today?
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “Waiting a long time.”