Iron House

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Jessup stood in front of a small mirror in the bathroom of his quarters. He’d woken at six, taken a long, troubled walk in the woods, then made coffee in the same pot he’d had for fourteen years. He showered while it perked, shaved with great care and dressed himself in a white shirt and the crisp khaki pants he favored. In the mirror, his face was lean and lined, the deep tan of summer making his teeth and hair seem whiter than they actually were. He was trying to put a Windsor knot in a paisley tie, but his hands were shaking.

He took a deep breath; started over.

Abigail was lying to him. Not little lies, but big ones. First, she’d taken the gun, then she’d disappeared only to come back bloodstained and injured. She wouldn’t tell him where she’d been or what had happened. He didn’t know what upset him more-the thought that she was in danger, or the fact that she had not included him in whatever that danger was. The woman was his life.

Didn’t she know that?

Didn’t she care?

He finished the knot, cinched it tight and thought the worry showed in his eyes. They were blue and clear and too old to be looking out from the mirror with such hurt. But he could not change the man that sixty years had made him out to be, and didn’t want to, either.

He pulled a chain to turn off the light, then left the bathroom and walked into the tight, narrow living area where he’d lived so much of his life. He’d been here for two decades and knew every inch: the stone fireplace, the walls of books, the corner where he liked to lean the walking sticks Abigail had given him over the years. He sat on the sofa and looked at the boots he’d taken off after his walk. They were old and leather, built to protect the lower leg from briars and shale and snakebite. They stood in the same corner, and from sole to top were slicked with clinging, black mud. He’d seen the same mud on Abigail’s pants and shoes when she’d finally come home last night. The same damn mud, black as pitch and reeking of rot. Only one place on the estate had mud like that. So, he’d gone walking. He’d gone looking for something, and found it.

But what did it mean?

He sat for a long time, staring at those boots. He thought of many things, and only stirred when the knock came on his door. Then he rose quickly, because only Abigail came here. Because he knew the way she knocked. “Nice of you to think of me.” He stepped back and let her in. “I thought I would have to track you down.” The anger boiled up unexpectedly, the worry and fear, a sense of betrayal so profound he missed things he might otherwise have noticed.

“Jessup, I-”

“Save it.” He kept himself rigid. “I found the car.”

“What?”

“You ditched it in the bog at the south end of the estate. You ditched it and you walked back. You lied to me.”

“What if I did?”

“There’s blood all over it.”

Her stance hardened. “To hell with the car.”

He noticed the difference, then. The fierce, hot eyes and elevated color. The rapid breath. The sense that she was not her normal self. She swayed minutely as she stood, then stepped closer, sweat like dew on her skin, the smell of lavender and honey.

Something was off.

The eyes, he thought, but more than the wide, dark pits at their centers, more than the glassy sheen. It was like a different soul lived behind them, a dangerous, different soul.

“Kiss me,” she said.

“What?”

“Kiss me. Do me.” She touched his arm, and he stepped back.

“You’re not yourself.”

“No, I’m not. Life is a cruel joke, and I’m not myself.”

She pressed so close he felt the heat of her skin, the touch of her fingers on his belt. He saw the fine pores on the slope of her nose, the black hunger that drove her. “Stop.” The word came hard.

“I thought this is what you wanted.” She touched his buckle. “All these years…”

He lifted her hands from his waist. “Not like this.”

“Like what?”

He felt his features stiffen. “Please don’t do this to me.”

“Don’t you want me?”

“I want you to get out.”

“Jessup, please…”

He jerked open the door, voice breaking. “Stop torturing me and get the hell out.”