Secret Sanctuary Part 6

Heart pounding, she opened her eyes, dispelling the vision. Bethany Peters hadn't really been hanging from the same tree where witches had been killed centuries ago. Elizabeth's imagination was playing tricks on her. It was silly to be upset by a vision, especially after everything else she'd been through that night.

Still...

She couldn't shake that tenacious unease that something watched her. That something waited for her.

That whoever or whatever had killed Bethany had some kind of connection to Elizabeth.

First Claire, then Tasha.

And now one of Elizabeth's students.

You're next, a dark voice seemed to whisper.

Chapter Six.

As the town green receded, the tension slowly drained from Elizabeth, and she began to breathe much more easily.

Heathrow College lay just ahead, a private inst.i.tution safely ensconced behind a high stone wall broken only by an electronically-controlled gate that was monitored twenty-four hours a day by a security guard. The parents who were willing to pay the steep tuition at the exclusive school wanted more than just the finest education for their daughters. They wanted a.s.surances that the young women would be safe, tucked away from the real world and protected by state-of-the-art security equipment.

Some of the girls rebelled at the school's rigid rules and outdated curfew, much as Elizabeth had once done herself at boarding school. But for some reason, she'd never found Heathrow confininga"as a student or as a member of the facultya"perhaps because coming here had been her choice.

Although it wasn't so much a choice as a need, she realized. A need for independence. A need to become her own person. A need to get away from the disappointment that was all too apparent in her parents' eyes every time they looked at her.

She'd had such potential, their expressions seemed to reproach her. How had she gone so far astray?

Elizabeth had known from an early age that she was expected to follow in her parents' ill.u.s.trious footsteps. Marion and Edward Douglas were brilliant, renowned scientists who'd made their mark in research long before they'd turned thirtya"her mother in genetics, her father in the related field of molecular biology.

They'd met at Harvard, fallen in love, married and had a baby, all in the s.p.a.ce of a year, which had always seemed so out of character for them to Elizabeth. She found it almost impossible to imagine that her parentsa"so serious now, so single-mindeda"had once been young and in love. For as long as she could remember, their work had consumed them, and nothing, not their love affair and certainly not their daughter, had been allowed to interfere.

They'd both eventually left their affiliation with Harvard to join a private research lab in Boston to which they commuted at least five days a week and sometimes seven. Their only concession to their parental obligations was to buy a beautiful home in Moriah's Landing, furnish it elegantly, and hire a full-time nanny for Elizabeth until she was old enough to be shipped off to boarding school, the same prestigious inst.i.tution her mother had attended.

But Elizabeth was not at all like her mother, and she'd rebelled against the pressures and expectations placed on her because of her heritage and her IQ. She'd hated boarding school with a pa.s.sion, and by the time she turned ten had run away numerous times.

Finally, after a frantic call from the school director, her parents had been forced to deal with her. If they sent her back to that place, she'd told them, she would just keep running away until the school was finally obliged to expel her. If they sent her to another boarding school, she would do the same thing. And one day, she might never come back.

At their wits' end, her parents had finally allowed her to return to Moriah's Landing and attend public school on two conditions: one, that she enroll in a grade well above her peer group, and, two, that she supplement her studies by simultaneously taking courses at Heathrow.

As a result, Elizabeth had graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, and when she enrolled full-time at Heathrow, she'd already earned enough credits for undergraduate degrees in both math and biology.

But after Claire had been abducted, Elizabeth had switched her field of study to criminology. That had been the last straw as far as her parents were concerned. They'd washed their hands of her and turned their attention in the last year or so to Elizabeth's younger brother, Brandon, who, at four, showed signs of a genius that far outcla.s.sed Elizabeth's. He had already been accepted to the most prestigious school in the northeast, where he would be sent when he turned six. Just two years away.

The thought of her little brother being sent to live among strangers, his young mind and imagination molded by the same robotic teachers who'd tried to constrain hers made Elizabeth almost physically ill, made her want to take him somewhere far away where he wouldn't be subjected to the same killing loneliness she'd known as a child.

It was a cliche, Elizabeth knew, but her parents had never understood her, never appreciated the fact that she marched to a different drummer. They didn't get that she had needs apart from their own, needs above and beyond the cla.s.sroom and research lab. She had a fine mind, yes, but she also had a heart. She also had the same wants and desires that any twenty-year-old had. That they, themselves, had once had and lost.

Elizabeth turned slightly, studying Cullen's profile. Sometimes she wondered if her attraction to him was yet another rebellion against her parents. If she would wake up one day to find that she'd spent a good portion of her youth pining for a man who didn't really exist except in her dreams. Because the real Cullen Ryan couldn't possibly live up to her fantasies. No man could.

He turned suddenly, capturing her with a gaze so dark, so intense, Elizabeth caught her breath. Her stomach quivered with awareness, with attraction, and she realized that whatever the reason for her fascination with Cullen, it was only growing more potent as she spent time with him.

"What?" he asked with a scowl.

"What what?" she managed to stammer.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because..." She fumbled for an answer. "I was just wondering.... You said you sometimes get a gut feeling about a case based on your training and experience. What do you think about this one?"

He hesitated just a fraction too long. "I don't like to speculate."

Elizabeth glanced at him. "You found something, didn't you?"

"I'm not going to discuss the specifics of this case with you, Elizabeth."

She sighed. "But don't you find it strange there were no visible marks on her body? It was almost as if the killer went out of his way to...preserve her."

"You're making a pretty big a.s.sumption there."

"I'm not a.s.suming anything. I'm just thinking out loud." Elizabeth paused. "Can you at least tell me if you think there's a possibility that Bethany's killer is the same one who murdered those women here twenty years ago?"

He looked surprised. "Why do you ask that?"

She stared out the windshield, noticing how the mist writhed and curled in the headlights. "It's hard to imagine a town the size of Moriah's Landing falling prey to more than one serial killer."

"Whoa. Slow down." He shot her a frowning glance. "One murder doesn't make a serial killer. I don't want talk like that getting out. Besides, twenty years is a long time for a predator to remain active."

"Not if he was incarcerated during that time. Or if he widened his hunting ground. All I'm saying is that twenty years ago, four young women were murdered in Moriah's Landing. Five years ago, a friend of mine was abducted and tortured, and I think she would have been killed, too, if she hadn't managed to escape. And now this, I can't help wondering if all the crimes could be related."

"Those women's bodies were dumped." Cullen pointed out. "They weren't hanged."

"I realize that, but there could be another kind of connection. Do you think it's possiblea"" She broke off, biting her lip.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No, tell me what you were about to say."

"You'd just think I'm crazy. Or young. Or that I'm letting my imagination run away with me." Elizabeth felt his gaze on her, and reluctantly she turned to face him.

He glanced at the road, then back at her, his gaze deep, probing. Sensuous, even though she was quite certain he didn't mean for it to be. Not with her.

But the term bedroom eyes had never been more appropriate. Elizabeth couldn't see his eyes clearly in the dash lights, but she knew they were a stony gray rimmed with darkness. His pupils were small, giving him a piercing, unearthly quality that seemed capable of penetrating a woman's soul.

"All right," she said nervously. "But please promise me you won't laugh."

He shrugged, refusing to commit himself one way or the other.

She drew a breath. "Sometimes I can't help wondering if this place, this town drives people to violence, if something from the past, something...evil resides here."

Cullen stared at her for a moment, then shifted his focus back to the road. To his credit, he didn't laugh. He didn't even appear amused. But he wasn't buying her theory. "A place doesn't kill. People kill."

"I know, buta""

He did laugh then, a low. throaty chuckle that sent a warm thrill up Elizabeth's backbone. "Don't tell me you've bought into all those old stories. Someone with your brains? I'm surprised."

She shrugged. "I'm smart enough to know there are things in this world that can't be explained."

"There are things in this world that haven't been explained yet," he said. "Big difference."

Face it, Elizabeth thought. She and Cullen were probably never going to see eye-to-eye on this particular subject. He was too pragmatic, but she wasn't surprised by his att.i.tude. She'd faced the same skepticism from her parents any time she'd tried to broach the subject of the supernatural with them.

After a moment. Cullen said, "That friend you were talking about earlier. Was it Claire Cavendish?"

"How did you know?" Elizabeth asked in surprise. "You'd already left town when she was abducted."

Cullen studied the road. "I must have heard about it somewhere. I seem to recall something about a sorority initiation." He glanced at her expectantly. "You were there, weren't you?"

Elizabeth nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She still had a hard time talking about that night. "Yes, I was there."

"What happened?"

"Why do you want to know?"

He shrugged. "Because, on the slight chance that you're right and there is a connection to this latest murder, I'll need to know anything you can tell me about what happened to her." When Elizabeth remained silent, he said. "You did say you wanted to help, right?"

He would use that against her. Elizabeth folded her arms and turned to stare out the window. After a moment, she said. "There were five of us that night. Kat Ridgemont, Tasha Pierce, Brie Dudley, Claire and myself. We were supposed to camp out in St. John's Cemetery near McFarland Leary's grave, and one of us had to spend part of the night alone in the old haunted mausoleum."

Elizabeth shivered though it was quite warm inside the car. "It was a bad idea from the start. Hazing had been banned by the college and by all the sororities years ago, but this particular sorority had a set of secret rules that pertained only to the local students who wanted to join. Most of the girls came from Boston and New York. Those of us from Moriah's Landing had to prove ourselves worthy. And we didn't really object. Not at first. We just thought of it as an adventure. All of us except Claire. She was scared even before we got to the cemetery, but she really wanted to be accepted by the sorority. She was afraid if we didn't go through with the initiation, one or all of us would be blackballed."

"What happened when you got to the cemetery?"

"A storm was about to hit. I remember the flashes of lightning in the distance, and the wind. There was a moon, but heavy clouds blocked most of the light. We had to use flashlights to locate Leary's grave, and then we drew lots to see who would have to spend the night in the mausoleum. Claire lost. We all told her she didn't have to do it, that we didn't care whether the sorority blackballed us or not, but she insisted she wanted to go through with it.

"When she disappeared inside the crypt, the rest of us gathered in a circle around the grave, joining hands to form a protective circle to keep out evila""

Cullen threw her a startled glance. "You what?"

Elizabeth's face burned with embarra.s.sment. She hadn't really meant to tell him about that part. She'd never told anyone about the spell. Not her parents, not the police, not anyone. She and the other girls had never spoken of it again. For one thing, there were too many people in town who wouldn't understand. For another, there were too many people in town who would.

She said in a rush, "Like I said, it was all supposed to be harmless. Then we heard Claire scream. By the time we got the door of the mausoleum open, she was gone. Vanished without a trace."

Cullen said grimly. "What do you mean without a trace? The police found nothing?"

"No."

"And you and the others didn't see anything? Didn't hear anything? How far away from the crypt were you?"

"Maybe ten yards."

"And someone got inside, took Claire, and no one saw or heard anything?"

Elizabeth detected the skepticism in his voice, and suddenly she was transported back to that night. Back to the terror. The awful guilt. The suspicion gleaming in the eyes of the police officers who'd questioned her.

That suspicion hadn't gone away for a very long time, and neither had the guilt. And now Cullen was making her live it all over again. The one person whose trust meant more than anything to Elizabeth was looking at her as if he didn't believe her.

She said defensively, "I don't know how it happened. Or why. But Claire has never been the same since."

Cullen threw her a careful glance. "What exactly was done to her?"

"We...never knew the details. The police withheld the information, partly for her sake, and I think partly because they still suspected one or all of us may have been involved. I think for a while they were hoping one of us would slip up."

"So you don't know the extent of her injuries?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "All we were ever told was that she was tortured before she managed to escape from her kidnapper, and her mind just shut down. When she was found in the cemetery a few days later, she couldn't tell anyone where she'd been or who had taken her, let alone what was done to her. After that, her mother whisked her off to a private inst.i.tution in another town. She's been there ever since."

"Can she have visitors?"

Elizabeth turned. "Why?"

"Because if you're right and her abduction is connected to Bethany Peters's murder, then I'm going to need to talk to her."

"It's no use. You'd be wasting your time. She can't tell you anything."

He lifted a brow. "Can't or won't?"

"Can't."

"Maybe you're right, then. Maybe I would be wasting my time." He pulled the car to a stop outside the electronic gate at Heathrow. Flushed from his warm station. George, the guard, hurried over to the car with an impatient scowl, but instead of lowering the window. Cullen turned back to Elizabeth. "If it's all the same with you, though. I'd like to try talking to her anyway."

Elizabeth frowned. "Why? You said yourself you don't really think the crimes are connected."

He gave her a ghost of a smile. "Let's just say, you have me intrigued."

Elizabeth's heart pounded against her rib cage at the look he gave her. At the way he leaned slightly toward her. With very little effort, she could lift her hand to his face, stroke her fingers along his cheek, trace the outline of his jaw, his chin, his lips. With even less effort, she could touch her mouth to his....

She glanced at George outside the window. He was peering in intently.

"I wouldn't want you to upset her," she said in a breathless half-whisper. "She's been through so much. If you start talking about that nighta""

Cullen c.o.c.ked his head. "What? She might remember something?" He stared at Elizabeth for a long, tense moment, ignoring the rap of George's knuckle on the window, the glare of his flashlight beam. "Why do I get the feeling there's something you aren't telling me about that night?"