Turning back, Kate moved carefully up the hall, walking as quickly and silently as she could. Once at the kitchen door, she paused to take a bolstering breath, then eased the door open a crack… and nearly shrieked in alarm. It wasn't Lucern in the kitchen. It was a stranger, a woman—a cleaning woman, judging by the bandanna on her head and the mop and bucket in her hand. What had alarmed Kate was the fact that the woman was halfway across the kitchen to the door and moving fast. Kate would never get back up the hall and out of the house before the woman appeared.
Unable to think what else to do, Kate let the door slip closed and plastered herself against the wall behind it. She closed her eyes and held her breath for good measure. The door creaked open. Kate waited. She heard footsteps move past, up the hall away from her; then she opened her eyes, hardly able to believe she hadn't been caught. She stood there for another heartbeat; then, suddenly overcome by fear that the woman would turn back and spot her after all, Kate slid into the kitchen.
The door was just slipping closed when Kate saw the cleaning woman stop outside the living room and snap her fingers, then turn around. Almost hyperventilating with panic, Kate glanced frantically about the kitchen, spotted the door on the other side. Rushing to it, she pulled it open to find stairs leading down to a basement. She hesitated, but the footsteps were now audible from the hall. The woman was coming back.
Kate stepped down onto the first step. Pulling the door almost closed, she left it barely cracked so that she could see. A heartbeat later, the kitchen door opened and the cleaning woman came back in. She moved to the sink and out of sight, then came back a moment later and left the kitchen. Kate almost stepped out again, then paused and decided to wait just in case.
She stood in the near total darkness, feeling the yawning black pit at her back, aware of every single creak the house made for approximately thirty seconds before her cowardice urged her to find the light switch. She flicked it on, and the dark was immediately chased away. Kate released a relieved breath. That was better. She was just standing at the top steps to a basement.
Her thoughts stopped as she glanced nervously down the stairs. The end of a shiny mahogany box could be seen from where she stood.
"It's not a coffin," Kate told herself firmly. Moving down another step, she tried to see more of the box. "It's some kind of hope chest. Oh, I hope it's not a coffin."
She had to go almost all the way down the stairs to see all of it, though she knew long before that it was indeed a coffin. A sense of betrayal overwhelmed her. Lucern had said he wasn't dead and didn't sleep in coffins. Or had she just assumed he didn't sleep in coffins? He had said he wasn't dead, though. But if he wasn't dead, what was the coffin for? Maybe he just hadn't wanted to upset her, so he had lied about the dead part.
He'd been right. She was upset.
"Oh, dear God," she breathed. "Sleeping with a man six hundred years older than me I can deal with, but a dead guy?" Her eyes widened with horror. "Does that make me a necrophiliac?"
She pondered briefly, then shook her head. "No. Lucern isn't dead. He had a heartbeat. I heard his heartbeat when I rested my head on his chest. And his skin wasn't cold. Well, cool but not cold," she pointed out. There might not be anyone to hear, but she felt better convincing herself. Until she heard her voice say, "Mind you, his heartbeat also stopped at one point."
Kate groaned at the reminder of the night Luc was staked. Then she muttered, "Surely dead guys can't get the wonderful erections Luc did. There would be no blood flow."
She'd become quite happy with that reasoning when her voice betrayed her again. "Of course, there's always rigor mortis to consider.
"Just open it," Kate muttered to herself in disgust. She had slowly eased her way to the side of the coffin, arguing with herself as a distraction. She continued to talk to distract herself as she reached out to open it. "There's probably a logical explanation for all this. Luc probably stores things in it. Things like a cello, or maybe shoes, or… a body." That last possibility came out as a squeak as she finally lifted the coffin lid… and saw the man lying inside. Then his eyes blinked open, he grabbed the sides of the coffin and started to sit up. That was when the lights went out. Kate began to shriek.
Lucern sat up, his eyes popping open. He thought he'd heard a woman scream. When the sound came again, he catapulted out of bed and rushed for the door. That shriek had been one of terror. He couldn't imagine what was happening downstairs. It sounded like someone was being attacked. He charged down the hall, then the stairs, and peered into the living room where one of the cleaning crew stood frozen. The woman was pale, her eyes wide with fear.
"What is it? Why did you scream?" he demanded.