Warren Strict Confidence

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64596-056-0
Verlag: Skye Warren
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 2, 350 Seiten

Reihe: Rochester

Forbidden. Commanding. Mysterious. Beau Rochester has an entire house full of secrets. And those secrets are putting Jane Mendoza in danger.

She fell in love with the one man she can't have. She should leave Maine to protect her heart, but the thread refuses to be severed. The brooding Mr. Rochester and his grieving niece are more than her job. They're her new family.

She races against time to find answers and protect the people she loves. The cliffside grows dark with the misdeeds of the past. Her heart and her sanity fight a battle, but they are both at risk.

Will Mr. Rochester learn to trust Jane? And will that trust destroy her?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Warren, Skye

Leseproben

CHAPTER THREE

Jane Mendoza

It’s only after Beau has left, after the doctor has done a thorough examination, that I’m completely alone. That’s when it hits me—the gravity of my situation. For years I dragged around my belongings in a trash bag. Everything I wore was threadbare and too small. I thought that was the low point in my life. Rock bottom.

I was wrong. Rock bottom? It’s right now.

The family I thought I’d found, the love I held in my hand for a matter of seconds… Gone.

My love is dangerous. I’m alone, which has always been my deepest, darkest fear.

I’m in a generic hospital room. There is no phone on the bedside table, no jacket slung over a chair. No Get Well Soon balloon beating against the ceiling tiles. Nothing to show that anyone stays here. It could be unoccupied if it weren’t for me. It almost feels like I’m not really here. As if I could disappear. The world wouldn’t notice.

The carry-on luggage I found at Walmart was threadbare, but it was mine. It contained everything I own. And now it’s gone. Burned up in a fire.

My breath comes faster. And then not at all. I’m gasping, clenching my fingers in the coarse white sheets, pressing my face to the pillow.

Panic. The word shoots through my mind like a comet, bright and hot.

It feels like there’s a vise around my throat, but I force myself to breathe in air. It’s made of knives, the air. I drag them into my lungs. Tears burn my eyes.

I remember a coping technique one of the therapists taught us in group sessions.

Five things I can see. My hospital gown, white with light blue dots. Black scuff marks on a white rubber floor. Beige plastic trim around the base of the room, cracked at the edges. My nails, dark with soot beneath them. Scrapes on the palms of my hands.

Four things I can touch. My hospital gown, thin and abrasive. The blanket that covers me. Plastic railings that keep me in bed. Tape holding an IV to my hand, the edges curling off my skin.

Three things I can hear. A steady beep beep beep from the machines. The murmur of the nurses in their station outside my room. Far away, laughter from a daytime TV show.

Two things I can smell. Antiseptic. And brown sugar.

One thing I can taste—oatmeal.

There’s a tray of cooling hospital food on the tray beside me. The doctor left me with strict orders to eat something. I force myself to take a bite of the thick brown sugar oatmeal and swallow, though it barely registers as flavor. I don’t know whether that’s a commentary on the cafeteria or on my emotional state. Probably both.

A knock at the door.

It’s already half-open. A white man in a black suit and severe expression walks inside, not waiting for a response to his knock. “Ms. Mendoza?”

“That’s me.” My voice comes out scratchy. More than that, it hurts. It feels like someone’s sifting pieces of sandpaper against my vocal cords. I don’t want to talk to anyone, but I especially don’t want to talk to this person. A stranger. An intimidating one.

“Detective Joe Causey.” He doesn’t reach to shake my hand. Either he’s read the doctor’s report about how they’re scratched up or he just doesn’t do that. He pulls out a small notepad and pen. “I’m looking into the fire at the Rochester place.”

I glance at the notepad, where he’s already started scribbling something. I haven’t even said anything yet. What’s he writing down? “Wouldn’t that be the fire department?”

“The fire chief called me out at two o’clock in the morning to take a look at the scene.”

“Oh.” Maybe that’s why he looks so severe. He got no sleep. Technically I also got very little sleep, but I can’t imagine sleeping. I feel frantic and jumpy. After all, the fire started when I was asleep. Slumber doesn’t feel safe anymore. As if it’s sleep that led to the flames and the smoke. As if it’s sleep, instead of the fire, that’s the enemy.

“Just a few questions. Your name is Jane Mendoza. You work for the family. Is that correct?”

“Yes. I’m the nanny for Paige.”

“And last night. What time did you have dinner?”

“Six, maybe? Seven? It was my day off, so they made spaghetti without me.” Beau and Paige were dancing in the kitchen when I got home from town.

“So you didn’t cook.”

“No.”

“Did you go back to the kitchen after you ate? Make anything else?”

“Why would that—” Something catches at the back of my throat and I cough. It hurts. “I didn’t, but why would that—”

“Most accidental fires start in the kitchen. Sometimes, looking back, a person might remember leaving the stove on.”

“I didn’t leave the stove on.”

“And where were you when you first noticed the fire?”

“I noticed the smoke.” I noticed the heat, actually. In my dreams. “It woke me up. Smoke in my bedroom. I’m not sure what time it was.”

It was after we had sex.

“So you didn’t go back to the kitchen. You were around the house, going to bed—”

“Yes. We put Paige to bed, and I went to my room, and when I woke up—”

“Alone?”

I’m not trying to be difficult, it’s just that there’s a clamor in my head. A sense of urgency running through my veins. I don’t know this person. Detective? Yes. Sure. In my world, police were the people that pulled you away from your parents. They were the people who looked the other way when foster parents were abusive. “What does this have to do with the fire?”

“I’m trying to get the facts, ma’am.” He seems to set aside the original question. “How long have you been working for Beau Rochester?”

Ma’am. That’s the first time I’ve ever been called that. The word is meant to be respectful, but the way he says it feels combative. It’s mocking me because I’m not really in a position of respect. I’m nobody. “A few months. I think.” I rub my forehead. “I’m not sure. If I check my email, I would know. I don’t have my phone. It was… in the fire.”

“And how much time do you spend with the family?”

“Most of my time. Like I said, I’m Paige’s nanny, so I’m there all the time, except for my days off.” I have a vision of this gruff, serious man questioning Paige and my heart speeds up. “Did you talk to her? Is she okay?”

“I spoke with Beau—” He catches himself. “With Mr. Rochester already.”

That makes me blink. The way he said Beau was casual. Personal. As if he knows him. “Mr. Rochester grew up around here. He said that once.”

A pause. And then a short nod. “We went to school together.”

What was he like? It’s like I have a window to his childhood right now. “High school? Middle school? How long have you known him?”

He ignores this. “What made you accept the job?”

The words rise in my throat. Well, you see, Detective, the world requires us to work in order to buy things. Like food. I force down my defiance. “I’m saving up for college, but I don’t see how that’s related to the fire.”

“Would you describe your relationship with Beau Rochester as strictly professional?”

My pulse spikes. A thin neon line on a black screen jumps. “That’s none of your business.”

“This is a police investigation. I need you to answer my questions, even if they don’t feel comfortable to you. And we met in elementary school.”

I open my mouth. And close it. Something deep inside tells me not to trust this man. I don’t like the hard look in his eyes or the presumptive way he speaks. But I don’t know if that fear is coming from my past, from a lifetime of not trusting authority.

Or if it’s good, old-fashioned PTSD from the fire.

“I live in the same house,” I say cautiously. “We see each other every day. We have dinner together. There’s a natural closeness for a live-in nanny that I didn’t expect when I took the job. So I don’t know whether I’d call it strictly professional.”

A memory rises, the dark shadow of Mr. Rochester above me.

“Tell me to stop,” he mutters against my lips.

It’s already a kiss, those words. I close my eyes. A tear leaks down the side of my cheek. It’s not sadness. It’s more than that. It’s desire. It’s feeling anything at all after being numb for so long. I’m more afraid of this than a free fall down the cliff. “Don’t stop.”

“Fuck,” he says, wrapping his hand around my throat. Choking me, but without the pressure. It doesn’t hurt, but it makes me feel strange, as if I’m being possessed. “You’re too innocent for the things I want to do to you.”

“What do you want to do to me?”

“Everything.”

My cheeks burn. I’m sure they must be pink right now, but I force myself to keep meeting the detective’s pale blue eyes. “I see,” he murmurs, and I have the disturbing sense that he does see. “He’s driven. Always has been. I suppose you could say we have that in common, with one key difference. I always wanted to make something of myself right here.”

“And he went to California.”

“His own personal Gold Rush, you could say.”

There are undercurrents in his voice. Jealousy? Resentment? I suppose it would be hard to see someone he considered a peer become a rich man. I’m not immune to envy. There were times I wanted a sandwich and fruit roll-ups instead of a hot lunch I paid for with a free lunch number. Times I wanted a birthday party or gymnastic lessons or all the other...