CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Calder
We walked around a little bit more and then Eden left for the appointment she had for a massage at the spa while I went back up to the room to watch another movie. I went over the spring water thing in my head, but couldn't come to any conclusions. Was it possible it was just a coincidence? What connected Hector to this place other than the fact that Eden was pretty sure Hector had brought her to this state after he abducted her? I guessed it would make sense that the first council member he would try to recruit—Eden's father—would be within driving distance. And it would be more likely that Hector would have heard Eden's father's story—it was practically local.
I lay back on the bed, not bothering to turn the TV on. My mind kept going around and around Hector's connection to Indiana, and now, this place in particular. There was the Pluto Water name—a Greek connection—just like all the other Greek connections in our religion and so many other parts of Acadia. But what did it mean? I had no clue. Was it possible Hector had simply been traveling through this part of the country and had liked the idea of the spring and sought it out in another place—in Arizona? So many things were possible. And we'd probably never truly understand any of it.
I shot Xander a quick text about the water and told him to look it up online and let me know what he thought. He texted back and told me he was working, but that he would when he got home.
Before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep and Eden was running her fingers through my hair gently. I opened my eyes and gazed up at her beautiful face, smiling sleepily. There was something almost fearful in her expression. "Hey," I croaked out.
"Hey yourself," she said softly.
I sat up a little bit. "You okay? How was your massage?"
"What? Oh, it was good. Nice." She stood up and headed toward the bathroom. "I'm going to shower all this lotion off me and then we can go to dinner?" she called behind her, closing the bathroom door.
I furrowed my brow slightly. "Yeah, okay," I called.
We took the shuttle bus to the restaurant a few miles from our resort that the front desk recommended. The atmosphere was romantic and the food excellent, and we held hands throughout our meal, but Eden seemed distracted. When I asked her about it, though, she just said the massage earlier must have fogged up her brain. And then she'd offered me a warm smile and squeezed my hand.
We went back to the hotel early and Eden got in bed and took out her book, and so I switched on a TV show and had fallen asleep before it even ended.
I was woken up by Eden's hand dipping below the waistband of my briefs and I moaned out.
"I finished my book," she said in my ear. "Were you asleep?"
"No," I lied, not willing to put any kind of halt on what she was doing.
She slid her hand downward and squeezed me gently. I groaned again. She dipped her hand lower and cupped my balls in her palm. "Oh God, Eden."
I rolled over and took her face in my hands, kissing her mouth deeply until those sweet little moans I loved so much came up her throat.
"Tell me about your book," I whispered when I'd broken free from her mouth. I smiled against her neck before I feathered my lips over it lightly. Lust shot through me as she bent her head back and arched her body into mine.
"Hmm," she hummed as I pulled her tank top up and over her head. My mouth immediately went for her sweet, pink nipple. I knew she loved it and so did I. As I sucked and teased the stiff peak, she ran her fingers through my hair.
"Hendrix Cooper, drug-addicted, alcoholic manwhore, and lead singer of Devout Wenches, has a one-night stand with who he thinks, in his inebriated state, is a crazed groupie."
I brought my head up. "Devout Wenches?"
Eden made a frustrated sound in her throat and grabbed my head, pushing it back toward her breast. I grinned and resumed what I'd been doing. She sighed.
"What he doesn't realize until later is that it was actually his assistant, Polly Honeycutt, a poor southern girl whose whole family died when a tornado came ripping through their small trailer park. She was forced to find the first job she could and of course, fell secretly in love with the damaged but lovable bad boy."
"Damaged?" I scoffed, moving to her other breast and kissing it once, lightly. "He sounds more like a complete mess."
Eden moaned as I sucked her nipple into my mouth, laving my tongue around it. She wrapped her legs around my hips and ground up against my hardness. I made a strangled sound in my throat. God, she felt good. I moved my hips in slow circles against her to the rhythm of my mouth. We were both silent for several minutes, desire making us speechless.
"Aren't we all, in our own way?"
I paused, trying to remember where we'd been. "True enough," I agreed, kneeling up so that I could remove her bottoms.
As I brought her shorts and underwear down her legs, she said, "Anyway, he had his reasons. He had been abused by the headmaster at the boarding school where his parents sent him because they couldn't be bothered by him, and although he cried out for help for years, no one ever came to his rescue." She shook her head, sorrow passing over her expression. I paused. Was I supposed to comfort her or keep going here? But Eden kicked off her bottoms and sat up, bringing her mouth to mine.
We kissed in that position until I was throbbing so hard that I couldn't stand another minute. "Eden," I groaned.
She blinked at me, her eyes shiny and half-closed. Then she pushed me down on the bed and removed my own underwear quickly.
She got on top of me and held my erection in her hand as she pushed down on it, impaling herself. I groaned out at the tight, wet grip of her.
Eden closed her eyes and started moving up and down very slowly. "It was a long road for them," she said, her eyes still closed. "Hendrix had to go to rehab and he had to fire his manager, Naomi Garnet, who was constantly trying to get in his pants and ruin things for him and Polly in shrewd and evil ways." She began moving faster and I felt like I might pass out with how good it felt. I reached up and took her small, perfect breasts in my hands and ran my thumbs over her nipples until she threw her head back and started riding me faster.
I felt my orgasm swirling through me, my balls drawing up tightly against my body. And then it hit and I groaned out loudly with the sudden, intense pleasure, bucking my hips up into her. Eden gasped and then fell forward on me, moaning out her own climax. God, I loved that.
I brought my arms up around her, enveloping her small back and just held her there, breathing in her sweet scent and loving her so intensely, it made my heart speed up.
"Polly," she said in a voice a little above a whisper, "you deserve a man who is going to love you in ways that make you feel like the angel you are. Someday maybe I'll be that man, but right now, I'm not. And I love you far too much to offer anything less. Wait for me, Polly. Believe in me. Be my reason for fighting."
She was silent for a second as I waited.
"I'm sorry, Hendrix," she whispered. "I can't." I felt the wetness of a tear fall onto my shoulder as I waited again.
When she was silent, I said, "And then?"
She shook her head against my shoulder. "And then nothing. That was the end."
"What the hell?" I asked, feeling an outrage that I wouldn't have admitted to.
"It's a cliffhanger," she said. "We'll find out what happens in three months."
"You bet your ass we will," I said.
Eden started laughing and I slipped out of her with the movement. She brought her head up and gazed down at me. "I'm pregnant," she whispered.
My whole body froze. She continued to watch me closely as I gaped at her. "I . . . what? I thought . . . you said . . ."
She nodded her head, moving off me and lying down on her side. I turned toward her. "I know. I'm shocked, too. The doctor said it'd be highly unlikely I'd ever conceive without assistance. I don't know what to say. I feel like I tricked you or something." She continued to watch me, her eyes wide and filled with worry.
"Eden," I said, gently, my heart finally stuttering back to life. I brought one hand to her stomach. She sucked in a breath.
"Are you . . . are you happy?"
I was shocked, not quite feeling ready to parent a baby. But I knew how much Eden had ached having our other baby stolen from her, how much we both had ached. And then thinking she'd never be able to have another. A feeling of relief, followed quickly by joy, filled my heart. I brought my hand up to her cheek and whispered, "Yeah, I'm happy. Are you?"
Tears filled her eyes and she nodded her head. I pulled her close and just breathed with her for a few minutes. "How far?" I asked.
"About five weeks, I guess. I don't know. I bought a test at the drug store we stopped in today and took it in the bathroom down at the spa." She sniffled against my chest.
"Did we make this baby in the Bed of Healing?" I asked with a smile.
Eden laughed out a small half-laugh, half-cry. "I think we did."
I let the news sink in. "It feels right. It feels like a second chance," I whispered.
Eden nodded and sniffled again.
A part of me felt inadequate . . . I still didn't have a name, an identity, let alone the ability to support them yet. But I knew one thing. "I'm going to protect you, both of you," I said. "I won't let anything happen to you."
Eden leaned back and studied my face, her eyes troubled. "I know you will," she said. "Never for one second will I ever doubt that."
I breathed in deeply and pulled her closer. We fell asleep in each other's arms - a small, new life nestled between us in the safety of Eden's body.
In the darkness of night, Eden shook me awake. "You're dreaming, Butterscotch," she said softly, gentleness in her voice. "You're dreaming of them."
I let out a harsh breath, trying to get my racing heartbeat under control. I brought my hand up to my hair and gripped it. A feeling of deep dread had settled somewhere inside me and wouldn't release its hold. "Yes," I gasped out.
"You haven't had a nightmare in a long time," she said softly, laying her head on my chest and wrapping her arm around my bare middle.
"I know," I said, starting to relax a little bit.
"Is it because of the baby?" she asked.
"I . . . maybe." I pulled her closer. "But only because I want to keep you both safe." She kissed my skin softly.
"You will keep us safe. I trust you, Calder," she said, tenderness in her voice.
For the first time in a very long time, I said a prayer to the God of Mercy. I wanted so desperately not to let her down.
**********
The next day was chillier than the one before and so Eden put on a big sweater and I layered two long-sleeved shirts before heading out to breakfast. The air was crisp, but the sky was cloudless and blue overhead, and there was that faint smell of burning leaves in the air that I had learned to associate with fall since being in the outside world.
I held Eden's warm hand in mine and we lingered over our food. The dread of the nightmare released its grasp in the bright light of day and I was feeling hopeful. It had to be normal that I would have a few bad dreams, that the nightmares would come back temporarily. Eden had given me some big news and it had rocked me, and naturally it brought up memories of the first time we'd created a life, and how cruelly that life had been taken from us.
"We should think about leaving today or tomorrow," I said, glancing at Eden. She had her hair pulled back from her face and her sunglasses were resting on top of her head. Her thick, black sweater came all the way up to her chin and the dark knit right up against her skin made it look ever creamier than normal. Or maybe she was just glowing. "I think you should go to the doctor as quickly as possible to make sure everything's all right."
Eden's eyes met mine and she nodded.
"As soon as we get back, I'm going to ask the police to help me get a social security number like they're doing for Xander. I can't wait forever for someone to come forward. It likely won't ever happen, and I have a life to build for us." Marrying her was even more important than ever to me now. I wondered distantly how Carolyn was going to take this news.
Eden nodded, glancing at me worriedly. "Okay."
I watched her pick at her food and after a few minutes, she said, "I have an idea." She looked at me a little nervously.
"Uh oh," I joked, one side of my mouth quirking up.
She laughed. "I know, right? No, really," her expression went serious, "I know we haven't had much opportunity to talk about that water thing from yesterday, and chances are it's a coincidence, I guess. But I can't help but wonder if Hector not only passed through here, but . . . oh, I don't even know." She pursed her lips. "I thought maybe we could go to the local library and just look up a few things."
I frowned. "What kind of things?"
Her expression became pensive and she chewed on her bottom lip. "I don't know. But I think it's worth a try. If nothing comes up, nothing comes up. But we're the only ones who know about this possible connection to French Lick, Indiana. The police aren't going to look into a hunch about spring water. If we don't try, no one else will. And who knows if we'll ever be back here."
I smiled across the table at her. "My little knowledge seeker," I said.
She let out a breath and then laughed softly. "That's your fault." She winked. "What do you think?"
I considered it for a minute. "Yeah. Okay." I crossed my arms in front of my chest. It suddenly felt chillier.
My phone dinged and I looked at the text:
Xander: Dude, Pluto Water? Sounds like our holy water. ???
Me: I know. We think so too. Not sure what to make of it. Looking into a few things. Will let you know.
Xander: Okay. You all right?
Me: Better than ever. You good?
Xander: Yeah
Me: Talk soon
Xander: Later
We asked the waiter about the nearest library and then gathered our things. It was within walking distance.
Less than ten minutes later, we were walking through the doors of the public library.
"What are we hoping to find here?" I asked in a hushed tone as Eden looked around.
She headed toward a librarian unloading a cart and I followed. "I'm not sure," she said. "Like I said, maybe nothing. I thought we'd look back at some newspapers from the time when Hector took me from Cincinnati and brought me to Indiana, maybe even someplace close to here."
I furrowed my brow, but followed her.
Thirty minutes later, we were looking through the library's internal computer system, going through the local paper for what, I wasn't sure. The librarian had explained that back copies of other papers could sometimes be found online, but they were such a small town, the newspapers were only catalogued there. Eden sat and scrolled through the top stories as I sat beside her, just watching. I was happy enough just to sit and stare at her. Plus, the quiet was nice as I considered the many things we'd need to do when we got back to Cincinnati.
After a while, Eden huffed out a breath and turned to me, a small, embarrassed smile on her face. "I don't even know what I'm doing, or what I'm looking for. I'm wasting our vacation."
I leaned back in my chair, taking in her disappointed expression. I shook my head, thinking for a second. "Okay, wait, let's go over the timeline. That one you had on the back of your door? Do you have it memorized?"
She laughed a soft laugh. "Sadly, yes. Why?"
"Okay." I leaned forward and put my elbows on my thighs. "So, we're looking at articles that came out about the time you were abducted. But," I considered things for a minute, "Acadia was formed years before that. Wouldn't it be safer to assume if something happened that, I don't know, inspired Hector to form Acadia, that that event would have happened right before?"
Eden looked upward, considering my words. "You might be on to something there. So, from what we know from the police and when the land was purchased, Acadia was formed a year before you were born, whether you were born there or not." She glanced at me and then away again. "So, maybe we should look back at articles from the few months prior to that?" Her eyes were shining. I couldn't help but to feel like it was a bit of an adventure, too, despite the topic.
"Let's do it."
Eden looked forward at the computer again, concentrating, and I sat back in my chair while she scrolled.
As she focused on what she was doing, I glanced around the library, people watching for a few minutes. There was a young couple at one of the computers arguing in whispered voices. There was a mom picking out bright-colored cardboard books with her toddler. My eyes lingered on the child who was excitedly reaching for the books his mom handed him, hardly being able to believe we'd have one of those little people soon. I wondered if we'd have a boy or a girl . . . who he or she would look like. When I glanced back at Eden, she was leaned into the computer, focusing intently on something. When she looked over at me, her face was drained of color.
"Hector's real name was Thomas Greer."
My whole body froze. I immediately looked around and then stood and moved my body to protect Eden as if Hector would somehow materialize because of what she had just said. "How do you know?" I whispered harshly, leaning my head in toward hers.
"This," she squeaked out, pointing at the news article on the screen.
I leaned in and looked over her shoulder. My eyes scrolled quickly through the article and then I went back and read it more slowly, something icy filling my veins.
There was a picture of what was very clearly a younger Hector at the top of the page, with short-cropped hair and wearing a dress shirt and tie. The title of the article said, "History Professor's Family Murdered in Robbery."
"Oh, God," Eden croaked out, her eyes not leaving the screen. She brought her fingers up to her lips as we both read on.
The family of Indiana University Southeast Greek History professor, Thomas Greer, was found murdered early Sunday morning. Professor Greer returned home from a conference to discover his wife, Alice, and five-year-old daughter, Danae, stabbed to death in their home. Police don't have any suspects at this time, but are speculating it was a home invasion robbery. Our source at the police department is telling us the Greer home could have been targeted because Thomas's wife, previously Alice Lockwood, was the heiress to an Australian mining fortune and the thieves most likely anticipated the presence of money and jewelry. The family had planned to accompany Thomas Greer on his trip, but his daughter became sick at the last minute and they stayed behind.
We scrolled forward, our eyes glued to the screen. We came upon a few, short articles, but no more information was offered. After a couple months, the case had grown stagnant. The police didn't have any suspects and Thomas had a foolproof alibi. He'd been at the conference the entire weekend and presented several times.
My mind raced. An Australian mining fortune. Well, that answered the question of where Hector's money came from.
I watched as Eden did a search for Greer's name, but no more articles came up.
"Look at this," Eden said quietly, pointing her finger to the bottom of a short article on the screen. I looked closer and read aloud. "Alice Greer (née Lockwood), and Danae Greer will be laid to rest this Saturday at Our Lady of Mercy cemetery."
"No, this part," Eden said, moving her finger down.
I read quickly through "survived by" names, most with Alice's maiden name and then stopped when I got to her mother-in-law's name. Willa Greer.
"Willa . . . she was his mother," I said softly, picturing crystal blue, ageless eyes.
Go to the far, left corner. It's the only place where you'll live! And somewhere in my barely lucid mind, those words had come back to me. And because of it, I had survived.
"Yes," she said, a disbelieving note in her voice, "and look at this."
I squinted at the screen again, to another article where they had taken a statement from Willa Greer. She was standing in front of her business, a Fortune-telling shop in downtown French Lick right next to another small tourist store. "Madam Willa, Past, Present, Future Told. Come Inside." I swallowed hard, not completely understanding what it meant. Another sign on her shop window declared, "Holistic medicine sold here - treat ailments of all varieties."
There is room for me here. Here I'm useful.
I snapped back to the present as Eden pressed print with shaking hands, stood up quietly, and grabbed the article copies as they came out of the printer. She folded them and shoved them in her purse and then shut everything down and grabbed my hand. She pulled me out of the library.
When we stepped outside into the crisp fall air, we stopped and I took a big breath. I leaned back against a column in front of the building and wrapped my arms around her and hugged her close. "Hey," I whispered. "You have to stay calm. You've got a little life inside of you."
Eden nodded her head. "I know," she whispered against my chest. "It's just a shock. Seeing him . . . hearing about his past. I don't even know what to feel. Oh my God, Calder, we found him."
"I know," I said quietly. "And I don't know how to feel either."
She tilted her head and looked up at me. "None of that . . . none of that makes it okay what he did."
I shook my head, staring unseeing at the parking lot in front of me. "No, it doesn't. In fact, it might make it worse—making victims out of others, taking you from your parents when he knew what it felt like to lose a little girl, causing your miscarriage." My hand automatically went down to her still-flat belly.
Eden was quiet for a minute. "Did he," she bit her lip, "just go crazy after what happened to his family, or . . .?"
"I don't know. Maybe the police can look into it when we give them his name."
She shivered against me and I pulled her tighter. "Yeah, maybe." When she looked up at me again, she asked, "Should we call them from here and tell them what we found?"
I furrowed my brow. "We're heading back tomorrow. Let's let them know when we get back. The very last thing I want is for a bunch of media to show up while we're still here. It's the very thing we needed to get away from."
"True," Eden said. "Hector . . . Thomas is dead anyway. I guess it's nothing that can't wait another day. We need to call Xander, though. He needs to know about this."
"Let's bring all this to him tomorrow, too. That way we'll be able to show him all the articles. Plus, we should be there in person to drop this bomb on him."
Eden nodded. "Yeah, you're right." We stood there for a few more minutes holding each other. I glanced down at Eden's purse, half of Willa Greer's face showing on a small corner of one of the articles sticking out of the top. Thank you, I said in my mind, pulling Eden closer.
We headed back to our room and we took a bubble bath together in the large tub, soaking in the warm water, just enjoying the intimacy, but mostly lost in our own thoughts. "Danae," Eden whispered. "It's unusual. I bet it's a Greek Princess or something like that."
I kissed her shoulder. "Probably. You were right. All the Greek stuff . . . he was a Greek History teacher. God, my girl is smart." I smiled against her skin and rubbed my nose over it, trying to make her smile, to make a little bit of the melancholy that had been surrounding us since we'd left the library dissipate.
Eden laughed softly. "Think the police have a position open for me?"
I laughed. "If they're smart, they do."
Eden rolled over in the water and brought her hands to my face and kissed me softly. After a few minutes, the water began to cool, and my blood began to heat. We got out of the bath and dried off and I made love to her in the spacious hotel room bed.
We ordered room service after that, content to spend our last night there wrapped up in each other. Personally, I felt like I needed that after what we'd found out earlier in the day. I needed to reset my emotions and find my equilibrium again and there was no better way to do that than to block out the world and focus solely on Eden.
The next morning as I was drying off from the shower and throwing my stuff back in my bag, Eden sat at the small desk scrolling through the Internet on her laptop. She turned to me. "What would you think about driving through the town Indiana University Southeast is in? The college Thomas Greer worked at?"
I paused. "Why?"
She tilted her head. "I don't know. I thought I might recognize something there . . . maybe the house where he kept me? I went out into the yard every now and again . . . What do you think?"
I went over to her and squatted down next to her chair. She turned toward me and took my hands in hers. "Eden, if you need that, I'll do it. But I don't want this to upset you. I don't want to risk your health in some way—"
"I'm stronger than that, Calder," she said. "And besides, knowledge, information, it has always made me feel more powerful, more in control. Plus, we're so close. I don't know if we'll be back this way, you know? Once life gets underway," she put her hand on her stomach in an unconscious gesture, "we won't want to focus on any of this. We'll want it behind us in every sense."
I breathed out and smiled gently at her. "Yeah." I paused. "Sure, we'll drive through the town a little bit and then we'll head home."
She nodded. "Okay." She tilted her head, obviously thinking. "Do you think . . . well, Hector tried to recruit my father as the first council member and he was basically local. You were among the first people who lived in Acadia. Do you think maybe you were local, too? I mean, obviously he came back and forth between here and Acadia, and then he brought me here."
I shrugged. "Yeah, but he gathered the other people who lived at Acadia from all over. I could be from anywhere. I'll probably never know." A feeling of loss squeezed my chest, even though I had no idea who I was grieving for, if anyone at all. Perhaps it was mostly because I knew no one was grieving for me.