So over the course of three months, three months where she’d endured getting a dress and fittings, picking out bridesmaids’ gowns as well as bridesmaids, she’d stashed away as much money as she could put her hands on…even going as far as to steal money from her father’s wallet several times. But her jackpot had been going to the bank and emptying the account her grandmother had set up for her when she’d come to visit.
“Mad money,” her grandmother told her quietly over lunch when she’d been just eighteen. “You might find yourself in a sticky situation and need to get away. This will be your saving grace.”
And it had been too. All four million dollars of it. The only little glitch she’d had was she couldn’t take it all without someone approving. But lucky for her, her grandmother was the one the bank had called. It was the last time she’d spoken to her.
“Is this man—the one I’ve read about—is he your choice?” She told her no, never. “Didn’t think so. You do know that you’ll not be able to contact me. Or anyone else until this is over. If it’s ever over.”
“I figured as much.” She’d read as much as she could on how people who wanted to run and hide got caught. “I’m sorry.”
“Pshaw. You just keep ahead of them one or two steps and I’ll see what I can do for you here.” Addie told her she loved her. “And I you too, child. So much. I’ll miss you so much.”
She’d been twenty-one when she left. On her birthday, as a matter of fact. And now here it was her birthday again, five years later. Looking at the bag again, she wondered how much of it she’d have if she went to her parents right now and told them how things were going to be.
“Nothing. And they’d still make me marry that man.” Joel Buckley was not going to be anything to her, ever. Addie laid her head down on the floor and tried to think of something else, and her mind drifted to her dream.
The man that had spoken to her…not the one who had killed her. Addie ran her hand over her chest and could swear she could still feel the blood there. That other guy had ripped her heart out, and there had been nothing to stop him.
“I don’t blame the nice guy.” She didn’t either. Addie had seen the fear in his eyes, felt it almost when the other man had appeared. But it was this house that terrified her the most. It was in her dream with them this time.
She’d been dreaming about the man for several months now. Addie could never remember his face, though she tried hard enough to do it. All she could remember about him was his voice and how sad and lonely it sounded. He always told her he had no idea who she was, but she’d never told him she knew who he was.
Never saying his name made him seem like a stranger. But Nick Stark had been on her mind since she’d been a teenager. The first time she’d read about him killing his stepfather and how he’d been put into foster care after. Her parents, of course, thought he should have been put in prison, but not her. She remembered the conversation that had been the starting point of her obsession with the young man.
“Children should have no rights other than what their parents tell them. Why, if they did, think of how things would be going now.” Addie wondered even then if her mother had any idea what was going on in the world other than her garden club and the country club. “If I had my way, I’d strap him to a table and fill him full of lethal drugs. One less degenerate in the world, if you ask me.”
“The paper said that the man raped him and his sister.” Addie’s mother looked at her as if she’d completely forgotten who she was. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind her, but her mother spoke first.
“Rape indeed. All children make up stories to make themselves the victim on one thing or another. The man was probably a loving man who had nothing more to do with all this than that man last week did. You remember, darling. The man who was accused of killing his entire family because the ghosts told him to.” Addie looked at her parents, wondering who was the most stupid. At the time she’d been all of twelve and knew then that her family was much different than others she’d known.
Her father was Dalton West of the West Iron Works. Her mother—another Addison but went by her given name and not the shortened one as Addie did—was a socialite. And she was damned good at it too. Her parents had been born rich and would die richer. Something that Addie knew from the time she formed her first thought.
“What if he’s telling the truth?” She’d asked her mother, knowing that she was pushing the limits of her mother’s temper. “What if this man really did those things to him?’ Her mother tisked at her and rang the little bell by her side. When May came in to see what she needed next, her mother looked at her.