“Hey, lady, I don’t know what happened here, but it looks bad,” the man who was tending to her said.
She lifted her hand to the back of her head and felt sticky blood matting her hair. Groaning, she pulled herself upright, her eyes squinting, trying to get used to the bright lights. As she did, her heart squeezed in fear. The room had been destroyed. Chairs turned over, the television set smashed, sheets torn and ripped from the bed, as if someone had been in a fury so wild—so blind, he’d needed to lash out at something, anything, to vent his rage. On the mirror over the bureau, scribbled in a grease pen’s bold black letters, was a simple and horrifying message: DEATH TO THE BITCH.
Worse yet, tossed onto the bare mattress was a pair of black panties, the pair she’d had stolen; it was shredded, as if sliced over and over again by a razor.
“Oh, God.” She felt suddenly sick again and the room seemed to spin around her. Her nose and mouth tasted foul, and she had to fight against the overwhelming sensation that evil still lurked beneath the bed or behind the curtains.
“What’s going on here?” the man asked. “No—wait. You just lie still. Don’t talk. Save it for the police.”
Footsteps. Shouts. People closing in, some curious, some concerned. She hurt so badly she didn’t care.
“Sumbitch, would you look at that!”
“Did someone call the frickin’ ambulance?”
“Hell, yes, but Jesus H. Christ, it looks like a bear came in here and went on a rampage.”
“Yeah, sure, and now bears cut up underpants.”
“Hang on, miss. Marge—the manager—?”
Headlights flashed against the window and tires crushed the gravel in the lot.
“Adria!” She heard his voice, roaring through the crowd, a lifeline to reach out and cling to.
Zachary! Tears filled her eyes as she tried to scramble to her feet.
“You lie still!” she was ordered.
Zachary broke through the crowd beginning to collect at the door and gathered her into his arms.
“Adria, oh, God, Adria,” he said, holding her as if he could protect her, as if the strength of his body could stave off the pain, the fear. Clinging to him, she fought the horrid sobs that suddenly clogged her throat as relief flooded through her. She was with Zachary and safe. So safe.
“Hey, you, I wouldn’t touch her!” a man advised. “Leave her for the paramedics, they’re on their way. She’s bleedin’, man, no tellin’—hey, are you her old man?”
“What the fuck happened here?” the manager yelled, only casting Adria a cursory glance. “Who did this? Holy Saint Peter, what a mess!”
“Did anyone call the police?” Zach demanded.
“Called 911, you get it all,” the manager said. A short, balding man in boxer shorts and a nightshirt, he swore at the mess. “The insurance company will shit over this one.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Zach kissed her forehead and wrapped her in his strong arms. “You’ll be okay,” he said, as if to convince himself. She shuddered and he pulled her tight against his chest. “You’ll be okay.”
She didn’t believe it for a second.
She doubted he did, either.
Failed.
You failed!
You should have killed the bitch while you had the chance. Now she’s alive, pretending to be London, bringing it all up again!
Adria’s attacker eyed the haggard reflection staring back in the mirror mounted over the hotel sink. The plan had backfired. Because Adria Nash was stronger than expected. She didn’t scare easily and now, it seemed, she wouldn’t die easily, either!
Maybe she is London.
She’ll prove it and the story will surface.
Now that she’s been attacked, the police might be suspicious about Kat’s death, the ruling of suicide reexamined.
Blood could be washed away but memories couldn’t, and the memory of London Danvers just wouldn’t die. It’s as if over the years both she and her damned mother had been elevated to some kind of sainthood. At that thought, agony ripped through the brain of Katherine’s killer, a pain so severe it cut more deeply than the physical wounds Adria Nash had inflicted.
Saints are usually canonized after they’ve died.
So see to it! Take care of Adria Nash.
Don’t let her slip away again!
Every muscle in her body screamed and her head pounded despite the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. Adria stared out the passenger window of Zach’s Jeep and tried to forget the last few hours. But scenes from the Emergency Room kept recurring while a litany of questions she’d been asked—first from the EMTs, then the nurses and finally the police—played through her mind. She was dead-tired, but figured she’d never fall asleep.
“Do you have any idea who would do this to you?”
“You’re the woman claiming to be London Danvers, aren’t you?”
“Are you allergic to any medications?”
“Did you get a look at the guy’s face or see any identifying marks?”
“Do you have an insurance card?”
“You’ve got a report in with the Portland Police Department about a previous attack? What was the name of the detective involved?”
“Does this hurt?”
“Can you give me a time line? About what time did you leave the restaurant and when did you get back to the motel?”
“Is this your husband?”
Adria squeezed her eyes shut. The night had fled by in a whirl, and it seemed that the police agreed with her that someone from the Danvers family could be involved, although there had also been speculation that she’d collected her own special nutcase, someone who had been following the London Danvers story for years.
Adria had tried to answer all the questions that had been hurled at her. She’d even managed a weak smile at the detectives’ jokes, but by the time the ER doctor had released her and Zach had tucked a blanket around her in the Jeep, she’d felt drained. Weary. And though no bones had been broken and she’d even managed to avoid a concussion, she was sore all over.
They’d spent most of the drive back to the motel in silence, both wrapped in their private thoughts, until Zach turned the final corner to the Fir Glen Motel and spied the media circus.
“Great,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
“Guess I’m suddenly popular.”
“Too popular.”
Rather than stop and deal with the press, he cranked on the wheel and turned the Jeep around to head directly east. The road was steep, winding through the snow-dusted mountains that were already gilded with the first rays of the morning sun.
“Where are we going?” she asked, though she really didn’t care as she pulled the blanket higher under her chin and tried to get comfortable. She wanted to stop running, to end this quest, to quiet the questions that raged through her mind.
“My place.”
“Your place?” she repeated as she stared through the windshield. The Jeep was climbing steadily. Snowcapped peaks of the rugged Cascade Mountains loomed ahead. “I didn’t know you had one.”
He slid her a glance—hard and stubborn, yet laced with worry. “We’re going to the ranch.”
“In Bend?” she said, shaking her head before she sucked in her breath through her teeth and winced in pain from the movement. “I can’t go there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too far away. I’ve got people to see. Meetings in Portland. Interviews and appointments with attorneys and reporters.”
“They’ll wait,” he predicted, his voice stern. He’d been silent through most of the interviews but as she’d explained what had happened, how she’d been with Polidori and come home to be attacked, he’d grown increasingly grim.
“No, Zach, really, I can’t—”
“You were almost killed tonight,” he shouted, clamping her wrist with one strong hand. Steering with the other, he kept an eye on the road as it wound snakelike through the foothills. “Maybe you don’t take that seriously, but I do. Whoever sent you those warnings has just gotten a little bolder and if he would have hit you a little harder, or in a little different place, we might not even be having this conversation right now.”