First Impressions Page 5

“Great,” he said, smiling, and Eden smiled back. She gathered her things and stood up. “Tell me, Mr. Granville, is your daughter for or against your dating? I couldn’t tell by her expression.”

  “Very much for it. She says that I’m a helpless man without a wife, so she wants to marry me off.”

  He looked at Eden so hard, with so much intention, that she blushed.

  “Well, ah…” she said nervously. “Uh, I’ll…come tomorrow at six. I’ll probably have a hundred questions to ask you by then.”

  “Great,” he said, standing and walking her to the door. “I look forward to it.”

  Eden thought that he wanted to say more, but there was someone waiting to see him, so he had to let them into his office. She gave a quick glance at the unsmiling Camden, then hurried from the office. She didn’t want to give the young woman time to ask her any more questions.

  Once outside, Eden got into her cheap rental car and headed toward the grocery store. But things had changed in twenty-two years, and the grocery she used to go to had been replaced by a car dealership. She thought she’d just stop in and ask for directions, but two hours later she’d leased a small SUV. By the time she’d had lunch (North Carolina barbecue) and had explored a few shops downtown, it was nearly four o’clock. After she’d filled her new car with groceries, it was growing dark. She wondered if she’d purposefully postponed seeing the house until late just so she wouldn’t be able to spend much time there. She thought she’d put the groceries away, then go back to spend the night at the bed-and-breakfast. She’d not even asked if the electricity had been turned on in the house, so it would be better to postpone staying.

  Even though Farrington Manor had once been the plantation house for a farm that covered over a thousand acres, the house was very close to downtown Arundel. Eden drove to the end of King Street, took a left onto Water Street, drove past the lush Braddon Park, then turned right over the narrow wooden bridge that took her to Farrington Manor. As she drove she saw two small houses on the left, built since she’d lived there and now pretty with flowers and ten-year-old trees. She saw that the old house that had once been the overseer’s had been completely renovated.

  On the left lay open fields that were leased to local farmers to grow peanuts, cotton, milo, or soybeans, but on the right was parkland of enormous, mature hardwood trees. Some of the trees that she’d come to know were now missing, felled by hurricanes. “God’s way of pruning,” Mrs. Farrington used to say. The high winds used to terrify Eden, but Mrs. Farrington and Melissa took them in stride, playing endless games of checkers by candlelight.

  When Eden got close enough such that she knew in the next moment the house was going to come into view, she turned off her headlights and coasted forward, her arms on the steering wheel. First a chimney, then the roof came into view. Right away she saw that the house was in better repair than it had been years ago. Eden remembered the story of the silver teapot by Paul Revere. Had Mrs. Farrington known that she had such a teapot? Or had she pulled everything from under the floorboards and taken it all to a dealer?

  Smiling with happy memories, Eden looked at the house in the moonlight. It was two stories, flat fronted, with two rows of seven eight-paned windows. At one point in its long history, the house had had double porches and a door out from the second story, but when a hurricane had badly damaged the top porch, Mrs. Farrington’s father had removed it. Now there was one wide porch along the lower front.

  Still smiling, Eden moved forward, her tires barely rolling. Suddenly, she stopped. There was a light moving about upstairs. A flashlight. Someone was inside the house!

  So now what do I do? she wondered. Call the sheriff? And what if he comes out to the house, sirens blazing, only to find out that the person inside the house was a neighbor? Or maybe it was Braddon Granville. He’d had time enough to finish with his clients, so maybe he’d decided to visit her. The thought made Eden smile. She’d liked him and had been flattered by his frank admiration of her. In the years she’d lived in New York she’d spent many hours in a gym in order to give Melissa and Stuart time alone. Movies, the gym, and working on her book. Those things had taken up a lot of her time in the last years, but today Braddon Granville had made her glad of every sit-up and leg lift. She was proud of the fact that she was the same size as when she’d lived in Arundel so long ago. Having a baby when she was so young and her skin so elastic meant that she’d been able to regain her twenty-four-inch waist.

  Eden parked her car under a tree, out of sight of the windows of the house, and quietly made her way to the front door. She tried the old doorknob. It was locked. Maybe he went in through the kitchen door, she thought as she used her key to silently unlock the door. She could call out to the person as she set her things down, but she well knew how isolated the house was. No, it would be better to be cautious. Above her head, a floorboard creaked then stopped, as though the person making the sound didn’t want to be heard. That sneaking made her forget her good thoughts. Whoever was in the house shouldn’t be there—and knew it.

  Eden stepped out on the porch and pulled her cell phone out of her handbag. She didn’t think about what she was doing when she called, not the sheriff, but Braddon Granville. He answered on the first ring.

  “Eden!” he said, his voice full of pleasure at her call. “Did you change your mind about tonight? We could have dinner at—”

  “Someone’s in my house,” she said.

  “I’m sorry but I can’t hear you.”

  Eden tiptoed down the porch steps and went toward her car. “Someone is in my house,” she said louder so she could be heard above the frogs. “He’s upstairs with a flashlight.”

  There was a pause on the phone, then the voice of a man in charge. “Get out of there right now,” he said in a tone that was not to be disobeyed. “Get in your car and return to town. I’m going to call the sheriff, and he’ll be there as fast as possible, but I want you out of there. Understand me?”

  “Yes,” she said, her heart pounding. She already had the door to the car open but then realized that she’d left her car keys inside the house. She started to tell Mr. Granville that, but he’d already hung up to call the sheriff.

  Now what? Did she crouch in the bushes and wait in silence for the cavalry to come and save her? Or did she go back into the house, get her car keys, then roar away in a torrent of gravel?

  Turning back to the house, Eden looked up at the windows and saw nothing. No moving light. What if all she’d seen had been a reflection of the moon? Had she been so spooked by Braddon Granville’s story of Mrs. Farrington’s evil son that she’d made something ordinary into something sinister? She called Mr. Granville’s office again but got his machine. She was going to look really stupid when half a dozen police cars arrived and the only intruder was a reflection on the windows of a creaking old house.

  Okay, better to face this on her own, she thought, or she was going to be the town’s source of laughter for years to come. Taking a deep breath, she went up the stairs to the front porch and opened the door. She had intended to call out and ask if anyone was there, but as soon as she was inside she again heard the floorboards creak, only this time, the sound came from the living room.

  On tiptoe, Eden crept toward the doorway. Thank heaven that most of the furniture had been sold or she never would have been able to make her way in silence. If the house were still as full of furniture as when Mrs. Farrington was alive, Eden would have had to crawl over and under surfaces to get there.

  As it was, when she got to the doorway, she crouched down low, then looked around the doorframe. She could see a man’s silhouette clearly outlined. He had a small flashlight, just a penlight really. If he were on the up and up he’d have a full-size flashlight, wouldn’t he? Eden’s intuition told her that this man was looking for something. For the silverware that she and Mrs. Farrington had hidden inside the walls? For that blasted necklace that had been in every Lost Treasures book ever written?

  Suddenly, from
some primitive instinct, she knew he was aware that she was there. In spite of all her precautions, she was sure he’d heard every sound she’d made. Had he come downstairs to greet her?

  Truthfully, she didn’t care why someone was in the house. Now all she wanted to do was get out of there and let the sheriff handle him. She just had to turn away, take three steps, get her car keys, then take another two steps to the front door. Once she was outside, she could run. And once she was inside her car, she’d be safe. But when she turned, she must have made a noise, because the man’s head came up and he saw her. One minute he was on the other side of a couch and the next he was leaping toward her. “Wait a minute!” he said as his hand shot out in her direction.

  Maybe he had a reason for being in the house. Maybe he was an innocent person. Maybe when he reached for her all he wanted to do was talk. But whatever his intentions, when Eden saw the hand come out of the dark and reach for her, she panicked. She wasn’t forty-five years old with many years of life experience, she was seventeen, she was walking home from choir practice, and a man’s hand was reaching out to grab her. Back then she’d been so innocent, so sheltered from what went on in the world that she didn’t know what the man’s intentions were until he tore her blouse and grabbed her breast. After that, she didn’t clearly remember what was done to her.

  For over twenty-seven years, Eden had been eaten with the thought, What if I’d fought back? What if she hadn’t been such a frightened little ninny that all she’d done was cry and plead with him not to hurt her? When he’d told her he wasn’t going to hurt her if she kept quiet and still, she’d been so young and innocent that she’d been reassured by his words. What if I had fought? was the question that had plagued her all these years.

  Now, it was as though she was back in that park again and was being given a second chance. This time she was going to fight. In an instant, she dropped her human persona and became a bundle of fighting fury. She kicked and she clawed; she bit and she hit with her fists. The man kept trying to hold her and he was saying things, but she couldn’t hear him—and wouldn’t have listened if she could. That other man on that night so long ago had talked to her too. He’d said that he wasn’t going to hurt her. But he had hurt her. He’d hurt her in her mind, her body, and in her life. In one act of cruelty, he had taken away her future.

  When the sirens sounded outside, the man didn’t let go of her but kept trying to hold her to him, and Eden kept fighting him with all her might. She felt her teeth sink into skin and muscle. She heard his sounds of pain when her fists hit him. She felt her nails plow deep furrows into his skin.

  She was still fighting when the front door burst open and men started yelling. The man was pulled away from her, but Eden was still too blind with memory and fear to stop fighting.

  When Braddon Granville tried to touch her, she fought him too. She couldn’t understand what he was saying when he called her name and told her his. She hit the man in the rescue uniform as he held her down so his partner could give her an injection. She fought until her body succumbed to the drug injected into it and couldn’t fight anymore.

  Chapter Three

  WHEN Eden awoke she knew she was in a hospital. The smell and the sounds were unmistakable. She looked around the small room at the picture of the seashells on a beach hanging on the wall, and at the machine next to her bed, to which she seemed to be hooked. She saw the hard gray chair by the bed, and the roses on the table at her side. Sunlight was coming through the window, so she knew it was morning.

  She lay back against the bed and closed her eyes for a moment. Vaguely, she remembered what had happened.

  “Good morning.”

  Eden looked up to see Braddon Granville standing beside her, a bouquet of spring flowers in his arms.

  “Feeling better?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

  “Better than what, Mr. Granville?” she asked, trying to sit up, but she hurt all over, so she lay back down.

  “Brad, please. After what you and I went through last night, I think we’re on a first-name basis.”

  “Who was he? What did he want?”

  “Oh,” Brad said, looking at the floor.

  Instantly, Eden knew that whoever the man was he hadn’t been a thief. She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m ready. How big of a fool did I make of myself last night?”

  “What do you remember?”

  She turned her head away. Eden remembered the other attack, but that time she hadn’t woken up in a hospital. Her parents had allowed her to miss school until her bruises healed, but nothing more. She looked back at Brad. All she seemed able to remember was hitting, biting, scratching, clawing. Who had she hurt? “I don’t remember much about last night. I—”

  She cut off because a police officer entered the room, smiling at her. He was young and strong-looking, and he seemed to be highly amused about something. “Is there really only one of you?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Eden said.

  “We were taking bets that there were at least three of you to do what you did to McBride. Brad, are you sure you want to tangle with this wildcat?”

  “Come on, Clint,” Brad said, chastising the young man but also enjoying his connection to Eden. “She’s been through enough, so don’t tease her. I’m not sure she remembers what happened last night.”

  “I can believe that,” Clint said. “But I still need to ask her some questions. What time did you get home?”

  “I don’t know the exact time,” Eden said. She felt as though she’d been thrown by a horse and trampled on. Every muscle hurt, and every molecule of her body was tired. “Could you please tell me what happened?”

  Clint started to ask another question, but Brad stopped him. “I don’t think there’re going to be any charges.”

  “Charges? Are there charges against me?” Eden asked.

  Brad put his hand over hers. “No, Eden, no one is going to charge you with anything. Young Clint here was wondering if you were going to press charges against McBride for trespassing and entering.”

  “I guess McBride is the man I…?”

  “Nearly killed with your bare hands?” Clint said, chuckling. “Yeah, he’s the one. Retired police. He said he’d fought two karate experts who didn’t fight as hard as you did. Of course, between you and me, I don’t think he fought back any. That’s why he got so beat up. They had to give him a tetanus shot for the bites. You should see the one—”

  “Clint!” Brad said sharply, “would you mind your manners, please?”

  “Yes, sir,” Clint said, obviously speaking to a man he’d known all his life.

  “Why don’t you go get some coffee? I’d like to talk to Ms. Palmer now.”

  When they were alone, Brad sat down by the bed and took Eden’s hand in his.

  “What did I do to that man and who is he?”

  “He’s your next-door neighbor. I started to tell you about him yesterday, but we got sidetracked. He rented what used to be the washhouse.”

  “So why was he in my house?”

  “Looking for the fuse box. I’d told him you’d be taking possession of the house soon, so he was on the lookout for you. There’re a couple of outdoor lights on timers at your house and last night they’d come on. But just before you arrived, McBride was using his table saw and blew out all the breakers in his place. When he looked at your house and saw that it was dark, he knew that you must be on the same circuit, so he went over there to find the breaker box. He said the kitchen door was open, so he called out, but when no one answered, he used the little light on his keychain to try to find the electrical box. He was searching for a panel by the fireplace in the living room when he saw you. He said that when he walked toward you…well, you sort of went crazy.”

  Pausing, he looked at Eden for confirmation, but all she could do was turn away. She didn’t want him to see her face.

  Brad’s voice lightened. “I think McBride was glad when we showed up. When you phoned me, I panicked and called
both the sheriff and the rescue people. I was afraid of what could happen, so I wanted to make a lot of noise when we arrived.”

  He squeezed her hand. She had her face turned away, still unable to look at him. “Eden, don’t be embarrassed. It could have happened to anyone. After all, you’ve been living in New York and—”

  She looked back at him. “Is that what everyone’s saying?” She well knew that in a small town like Arundel this would be a big story. Everyone would be talking about it. “People are saying that because I lived in New York that now I attack anyone who tries to help me?”

  Brad looked like he was going to tell her that, no, no one thought that, but then he grinned and said, “Pretty much.” When Eden groaned, he said, “Look on the bright side: No one within a hundred-mile radius is going to attack you. Hey! Maybe later you could give me a few pointers.” He put his fists up like a boxer and made a few mock thrusts.

  In spite of herself, Eden smiled and tried to sit up. Brad put a hand behind her back and helped her, then gave her a sip of water from the glass on the table. “How is Mr. McBride?” she asked.

  Brad raised his eyebrows. “He’ll live, but you banged him up pretty bad. As Clint said, he didn’t fight back. He let you hit him—and claw and bite him—while he seemed to have mostly tried to keep you from hurting yourself.” He gave her a crooked grin. “He’s a real hero. But then, I think he’s done that all his life. Clint said they received a fax of his record, and it showed that McBride was in a lot of fights when he was a cop. Shot, knifed. You name it. But he’d never met his match until he met you.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did your wife like your sense of humor?”

  “Hated it,” Brad said, grinning. “You know what the best thing about all this is? I was afraid that McBride was going to be my competition. You and him out there together. Alone. Him a big, virile-looking kind of guy, and you the best-looking thing to come to town since Susan Sarandon filmed a movie here. I was really worried.”