In the dim light, she stared as the doorknob turned and Barry tested the door. She held her breath, then let it out when his steps went on down the hall. He’d expected to find it locked. If she hadn’t relocked it, he would have known she was inside. The strength ran out of her legs, and she sagged to her knees with her head against the door.
Get up! She had to find help for Liam. Using the desk beside the door for a prop, she struggled to her feet. It would be impossible to find anything in here without a light. She turned on the overhead light then turned to study the room.
She needed a phone to call for help. There was none in this room.
The walls were covered with photographs. Her gaze went from picture to picture. Every wall was covered with images of her. She approached the first wall. The pictures were from last year’s concert. One of her favorite pictures was of her and Liam together, but he’d been cut out of this print. Her hand went to her mouth to hold back the scream that struggled to be released.
Downstairs, Barry had said, “I killed you once. I can do it again.” Had he planted the bomb under Jesse’s car? She remembered that Liam had talked about his upcoming outing with Jesse for a couple of days beforehand. Could Barry really have been so diabolical?
The expression on his face downstairs slammed into her mind. Yes, the man could be that evil.
In a fog, she moved to the next wall. And found the woman she thought was herself was, in fact, another woman. Though they looked very much alike, this woman’s hair was darker and her nose was different.
In fact, she reminded Alanna very much of her sister, Neila.
A sinking sensation swirled in her gut. She remembered what Paddy said about Neila running off with a “fancy lawyer.” In the Charleston area. Yet she stopped contact with her great-grandfather and her mother. Could it be?
The music box. It had to be the one Alanna remembered as a child. It belonged to Neila.
She had to sit down a second. Everything was slamming into her. She sank onto the chair in front of the computer desk. The computer was on. She stared at the open web page. A search engine.
She had to get help. She rubbed her head. Think, think. There was no phone, but there was the computer. She quickly ran a search for the Charleston police department. There was no emergency e-mail link, so she clicked on the directory of personnel. Detective Adams had a contact link there, so she dashed off a quick plea for help.
Who knew when he’d get it, though? And there was no link on the website for reporting a crime. She was on her own until help arrived.
Hattie. She’d said to come to her if she was in trouble. Maybe she could get outside and reach Hattie. The old woman might be able to talk to Barry.
She stared at the screen again. The truth about Barry and Neila might be here already. Her fingers typed in her webmail address, and she waited for the mail to arrive. There, the one from Paddy. She clicked it open, and an image filled the screen.
Barry stood on the left, his smiling face turned toward the woman next to him. The woman on the wall. Neila.
Alanna tried to wrap her mind around it. She’d known of Barry’s obsession with her great-grandmother by the way he talked about her picture and the music box. Had he gone out and tried to find his own version of Deirdre through her and Neila?
Heavy steps came back down the hall and paused at the office door. She stared at the doorknob as it turned again. The steps went on past and around the corner. Was he going to get another key? He likely had a second key somewhere. The one she had couldn’t be the only one. Barry was too organized, too methodical.
She swallowed hard and looked around for a weapon, anything to defend herself. The room held only a desk and chair, a few filing cabinets, and an armchair. Maybe there was something in the cabinets. Easing open each drawer quietly, she searched for a gun but found only files.
The closet. She moved to the other side of the room and opened the closet door. It was empty, but there was a panel in the back of it. A drawer pull was on the side of it. She yanked it open and realized she’d found a passage to a stairway leading up.
And a way out of a locked room. She rushed to the door and gently slid back the deadbolt so he would not know she’d been inside, then smoothed out the rug and flipped off the light before hurrying back to the hidden stairway.
Inside the old staircase, the air smelled dank and dusty. Alanna stifled a sneeze as she pulled the panel shut behind her, plunging the space into total darkness. Feeling her way, she crawled up the steps, counting them as she went. On the seventeenth stair, she came to a tiny landing. Her hands roamed the wood floor until she found the door.
She raised herself to her feet and fumbled for the doorknob. Turning it, she practically fell into the next room. She blinked in the dim light coming in through the many windows. The ballroom. She was in the ballroom.