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  All of this Teagan took in with a hurried glance, the bulk of her attention being reserved for what she really sought: a way out. There were three wooden doors in the room: one in the far wall and the other two on either side of the armoire. Scrambling from beneath the soft comforter, Teagan slipped out of the massively carved bed with a feeling akin to that of a lobster escaping the pot. The floor beneath her still-in-place tennis shoes was gray-tiled with scarlet colored rugs scattered here and there. She half-tiptoed, half-ran to the door in the far wall, unable to make up her mind which was the more important just now, stealth or speed.

  She gripped the thick steel handle, and turning it down, gave the door a tug. Nothing happened. She tried again, but still the door stayed stuck fast. With a sinking sensation, Teagan realized it was locked from the outside. Not prepared to give up yet, she next tried the other doors near the armoire. One turned out to be a deep walk-in closet with shelves and racks enough to hold an entire department store full of clothes. Most of them were stuffed too.

  The other door let into the roomiest bathroom she had ever seen, featuring an immense tiled tub and a long granite topped counter with two clear glass sinks and dozens of drawers. The floor was tiled and the rugs, towels, and shower curtain continued the theme of scarlet and black. In the corner near the tub, a small stone fountain beside a potted plant provided a soft trickling noise. A long settee along another wall gave the room more the atmosphere of a place meant to lounge in than to carry out the bodily necessities.

  An immense round metal-framed mirror hung over the bathroom countertop, looking as if its impressive weight should have dragged it right down from the wall. Teagan hardly recognized her own reflection gazing out of it. Her face was pale, her eyes wide, and she had a wary expression, as if expecting something horrible to leap out in front of her at any moment. She hesitated long enough to run her fingers through her dark hair in a useless attempt to tame the wild tresses. Something about her elegant surroundings made her do that.

  She reentered the bedroom and told herself she had come to the end of her fruitless search. There was no other way in or out. This room lacked even a window, although it would have done her no good anyway this high above the ground. As she scanned the room with a sinking feeling of despair, her gaze returned to the framed picture she had first noticed on waking. It was a newspaper clipping. Curiosity made her move closer to study the two men photographed. The one was definitely Sir, but she didn’t recognize the second man. There was a small caption beneath the picture. It read:

  J. Rotham of NationBank closes deal with board of directors.

  Suddenly, Teagan knew two things about Sir she hadn’t known before—his identity and his occupation. Unless the other man photographed was Mr. J. Rotham. Somehow she doubted it. Sir struck her as being too vain to display monuments to other people on his walls. Unfortunately, Teagan could see no way either bit of information would be of use to her until she got out of this place.

  Nevertheless, appetite whetted by her first discovery, she looked around the room with a new eye. Hadn’t she been full of questions about Sir and his psycho behavior? It seemed she was in the right place to learn some answers if she could only set aside her fears long enough to do some exploration. She might even find something of use here—maybe a weapon she could use to defend herself if he returned. Didn’t all rich businessmen sleep with pistols under their beds so they could shoot themselves when their businesses went bankrupt? A quick peek under the ruffled bed skirt revealed that one, at least, did not.

  Teagan moved on to the tall armoire. She felt a little uneasy opening its heavy doors, as if Sir might somehow sense his things being rifled through and come swooping out of nowhere to stop her. Nothing of the sort happened, of course, and the armoire held nothing but more clothing, neatly pressed suits in every variation of the colors black and gray. As if he didn’t have enough of those in the closet. There were even a couple of tuxes, complete with shiny black shoes to accompany them. And ties, dozens of those.

  Teagan swung the armoire doors closed and went on to examine a neighboring set of shelves built into one corner of the room. She cast only a brief glance over the titles. Books on business, personal finance, self-help books… She would never have pegged Sir as a man who needed a book to teach him how to operate a computer but apparently he did. He also seemed to have a surprising interest in medicine and science. There were a lot of those books on his shelf too.

  For fiction his tastes were less varied—and surprisingly nerdy. An entire half of the shelf was devoted to fantastic novels of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and the undead. It seemed odd to think of a man like Sir sitting back in the evenings to crack open the covers of books with names like Blood Dawn, Chill of Death, and Under the Full Moon.

  But his reading tastes didn’t tell her much about him. She moved on to a nearby chest of drawers. The first few drawers were nothing but socks and underwear. No interesting discoveries there.

  It was in one of the bottom drawers that she stumbled across an unexpected discovery. This space was filled with odd articles of winter time clothing: gloves, scarves, and thick woolen socks. Teagan almost closed the drawer, but at the last moment she caught sight of something out of place. There nestled among the other things was a thin white envelope. Why would such a thing be kept with his winter accessories unless he had placed it there to hide it?

  Snatching up the envelope, she studied the outside. It was addressed to Mr. J. Rotham of NationBank and had a return address in Vermont. The postmark told her it had been mailed three months ago. That was about all her amateur detective work could tell her without looking inside. Luckily the top had already been slit and she had only to tilt the envelope upside down for its contents to come sliding out. It held a folded letter on plain, cheap paper.

  Unfolding the note, Teagan found the message inside was so messily scrawled it was hardly legible. With effort, she made out some of the lines. They all seemed to be angry rants and threats against Sir for foreclosing a loan on a failing business—Glintwood Options. There was no explanation of what sort of business this Glintwood Options was, but the letter’s writer made frequent references to groundbreaking discoveries and amazing advancements to benefit the human state, all of which would now be halted due to the actions of Mr. J. Rotham.

  The letter closed with an ominous hint of revenge that would have left Teagan feeling deeply uneasy had she been the recipient of such threats. Had it made Sir uneasy? That would explain his hiding the letter away. Teagan privately thought in his place, she would have felt more comfortable tossing it into the fireplace than slipping it into a drawer only a few feet away from her bed. Who needed the constant reminder of an unnerving exchange with such an unpleasant man? Then again Sir’s own moods could be black enough, maybe he regarded the note as more of an amusing curiosity than an object of disturbance.

  She flipped the envelope over and studied the return address again. There’d been no signature in the letter but there was a name here—Dr. Mortimer Green. “Sixteen hundred Old Pine Road, River Falls, Vermont,” she read aloud, committing the address to memory. One never knew when this sort of information could come in handy. A subtle idea was already nudging at the back of her mind about how she might turn this Dr. Green’s desire for vengeance against Sir to her advantage. If she got out of here alive, that was.

  It was as she formed this very thought that she became aware of a soft rattling of the handle on the door leading out of the bedroom. There was a faint clinking noise, like that of a lock being turned, and then the door was creaking open. Teagan shoved the letter and its envelope back into the bottom dresser drawer and slammed the drawer closed not a second too soon.

  Chapter 9

  The door swung open and in stepped Sir. Expressionlessly, he took in her position. Teagan backed away from the dresser, trying to move casually but feeling as if all the focus of the room somehow pointed toward the hastily closed drawer. Why was he looking at it like that? Had
she left it open a crack? Was a sock or something dangling out? It took an extraordinary effort not to cast a guilty glance that direction. She eyed the room’s single passage of escape, already vanishing behind Sir’s back as he swung the door shut behind him.

  As he moved further into the room, Teagan took a step backward but he only walked around the space, inspecting its contents as if expecting to find something tampered with or missing. It seemed a colossally arrogant gesture for someone who had just acted as he had to now be concerned about her stealing his things… Teagan almost forgot she had in fact been guilty of both meddling and stealing in this place. Never mind, she told herself. She’d had her reasons.

  The memory of that prompted her to exhibit a level of courage she didn’t truly feel. She broke the silence by saying, “I hope you won’t think I’m prying if I ask just what fate you have in mind for me and how long you plan on keeping me here.”

  For the first time he switched his attention from their surroundings to look directly at her. Teagan was careful not to meet his eyes. In the past, that had proved a dangerous thing to do.

  “Keeping you here?” he repeated. “I’m sure I hadn’t thought of doing anything of the kind. I don’t know whether or not you’ve noticed…” His tone was ironic. “But this place happens to be my bedroom. And while you’re fairly pretty and lively enough company, I think we’d be a bit crowded over time. Besides I’m not comfortable with strangers rifling through my belongings or helping themselves to any shiny little valuables they happen to pick up.”

  Teagan was still too unnerved by the last scene between them to fall into the trap of his easy conversation now. “Don’t try to pretend I’m anything less than a prisoner here. Why else would you have brought me to this room and locked me in?”

  “Locked?” He feigned confusion. “I don’t know what you mean. The door opened perfectly easily for me. But I apologize if you felt yourself for one moment—how did you put it—a prisoner?”

  Teagan was finally working up enough nerve to insert her own note of sarcasm as she said, “If I was always free to go at any time then explain to me what I’m doing here.”

  He shrugged. “You took some sudden spell as silly girls often do and fainted dead away in my living room floor. Would you have preferred I let you lie there?”

  Teagan didn’t buy his explanation for a moment and kept a guarded watch on him as he circled around the room. He paused before the dresser and eyed the bottom drawer. Was it her imagination or was there a tiny scrap of white showing over its edge?

  He continued with, “You know for a young woman who lives alone on the city streets you appear to have an unusually fanciful imagination. How old are you anyway? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

  As he spoke he crouched on one knee before the drawer. Teagan’s attention was so wrapped up in what he was doing she forgot herself enough to give information she wouldn’t normally have shared with this man. “Twenty-two,” she admitted, nervously watching him slide the drawer open to free the white envelope that had been caught over its edge.

  “Hmmm,” he said, handling the envelope. “I wouldn’t have thought it. Surely a woman of your age knows better than to pry into others’ things—or at least not to get caught if she does.”

  He replaced the envelope over a pile of socks and slid the drawer shut again. Teagan thought he would say something more about her infraction or concerning the contents of the letter but he surprised her by changing the subject entirely. “I’ve been giving some thought to the proposition you made earlier,” he said, facing her suddenly.

  “Prop—proposition?” Teagan couldn’t think what he was talking about. The only concern on her mind right now was how quickly she could get out of here before he took on another of his unpredictable, sadistic moods.

  “Yes. The one about my paying you a sum of money to keep my secrets secret.” A faint smile hovered around the corner of his lips. “Although you were being overly dramatic when you formed your ridiculous threats about exposing certain of my personal actions to the public, it’s true I’m a man who values my privacy in all things. I would as soon my ‘rituals,’ as you call them, didn’t become the talk of the town. People wouldn’t understand.”

  Teagan didn’t understand. However all she said was, “I won’t tell. I won’t speak a word of anything I heard or saw here. I promise if you’ll just…”

  “Just let you go?” he finished. “But I’ve already told you you’re free to come or go as you please whenever the notion strikes you. It’s wild ideas like this talk being locked up that make you seem immature beneath your years.”

  He could call her immature. He could call her anything he liked for all she cared, so long as he meant the part about allowing her to leave. She was still half convinced he had some ominous plan of silencing her permanently. While she had to fear that, her chief thoughts were on beating a hasty escape as soon as possible. To that end, she headed for the door.

  Anticipating her action, he moved to block her exit.

  “You said I was free. You said I could go.” Teagan didn’t care if she babbled or if there was a panicky note to her protests. “I’ve told you I won’t speak to a soul about—”

  “Ah, but you see that’s where we both know you’re lying,” he interrupted. “With an imagination and a curiosity like yours, you’re not capable of keeping a secret for the space of an hour out of my sight. Not for anything as paltry as a mere promise anyway.” His tone sharpened. “That’s why I’ve devised a much better way of keeping you quiet.”

  Teagan’s eyes widened as he stepped nearer.

  “Money,” he said softly. “That’s the one thing that will keep your greedy little heart satisfied. It’s the one thing that could buy your silence. I don’t mean to take you up on your exact offer, of course. That would be more than you deserve, and besides, such an easy flow of cash would only make you greedier. You’d be returning to me again and again as long as I kept opening my wallet for you and the day I stopped doing that, you’d betray me.” His expression grew dark. “If there’s one thing I despise it’s a blackmailer.”

  Teagan shivered at his tone. “Then what are you suggesting?” Some inner part of her was shocked at the question—shocked she could care about money at a frightening time like this. But another deeper part of her was pricking up its ears with interest. He had been right in his assessment of her. The hint of money was probably the only thing that could have stirred her from her fearful state just now.

  His expression said he had noted this. “My plan is to give you a chance to earn your money,” he said. “I think you already know how.”

  Teagan bit her lip. “The rituals?” she asked uneasily.

  He smiled humorlessly. “If you want to call them that, yes. It’s a chore I’ll need performed again from time to time and you’ve proven you’re capable of carrying it off well enough. Learn to obey my instructions more thoroughly the next time around and I don’t think we’ll have any more unpleasant incidents like the last. What do you say?”

  Teagan swallowed. “Will you be here on those occasions?”

  He asked, “Would you come if I were?”

  “No.”

  “Then I won’t be.”

  She was astonished at herself for even considering the idea. Twice before need had forced her to voluntarily step into this man’s lair and both times she had regretted it. Only a few minutes ago she had been thinking she’d do anything just to escape this place. Apparently experience hadn’t made her any wiser. The suggestion of money was about to draw her again into the very trap she dreaded.

  She voiced none of these thoughts aloud however. When she opened her mouth it was to say, “I’ll take the job—but only on the condition I am never to see you in person. I’ll come here at the times you designate. You can leave me my money and any instructions in a note. But I don’t ever want to bump into you while I’m here. You—you kind of creep me out a little.”

  She didn’t care whether he found that l
ast admission amusing or not. The whole deal would hinge on his response. She’d had enough of his weird moods and the scenes he created with them. No price was worth putting herself through any more of these unnerving experiences.

  Luckily, he seemed undisturbed by her insistence. “I think we have ourselves an understanding,” he said.

  “Not so fast. We haven’t discussed some details yet. Just how often am I supposed to come here?”

  “As often as I ask it,” he said simply. His tone made it clear she wasn’t going to get any further answer on that.

  “All right. Fair enough,” she said. “But if I’m going to be kept at your constant beck and call I expect to be well paid for it. The pocket change you gave me last time didn’t see me through a week. I know you’re worth plenty more.”

  “What I’m worth,” he said, “is none of your concern. If I’m going to employ you, I want it clear it’s you who work for me. I’ll be setting the amount, and you can take it or not.”

  He didn’t make her ask again but named a monthly sum so large Teagan at first thought she was mishearing. “Is that—is that dollars or cents?” she asked incredulously.

  He smirked. “Dollars. I’ll eventually arrange a regular payment system, but for now I’ll give you a portion of next month’s payment in advance. Obviously you need it.” His gaze swept up and down her skinny figure and grungy clothing.

  Teagan wouldn’t let herself be rattled. He could insult her all he liked at this point. The kind of money he was talking could float her for weeks if she was careful. She could get herself an apartment, get off the streets… Suddenly she saw possibilities she hadn’t imagined could be open to someone like her. Just to have a dry roof over her head would be a relief. There was just one glitch in the whole system.

  “How permanent is this job going to be?” she asked.

  She had the sense somehow that he was disturbed by the question. “The length of time is indefinite.”