Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(49)

Looking over her shoulder, she saw a door beneath the curving staircase and went over to it. There was a brass bolt lock at the top and she flipped it free before trying the handle.

Pay dirt.

On the other side, there was a set of rough stairs, lit by cloudy, ancient yellow lightbulbs. She glanced behind her. No one was paying any attention to her and more important, Fletcher was nowhere to be seen.

Slipping into the stairwell, she closed the door after her and descended, her heels making a clipping sound that echoed around her.

Damn, they were loud.

She paused and removed her pumps, slipping them into the Birkin. Making no noise now, she moved even faster, her instincts on high alert. God, the staircase went on forever, its stone walls and floor reminding her of an Egyptian pyramid, and she felt like she was halfway to China before she came to the first landing. And still there was farther to go.

As she went down, the temperature dropped, which was good. The cooler it got, the more focused she became until her headache was gone and her body was nothing but harnessed energy. She felt as if she were on a rescue mission, although damned if she knew who or what she was springing from the basement.

The stairs dumped out into a corridor made of the same stone as the rest of the house. Lights mounted in the ceiling glowed dimly, barely penetrating the darkness.

Did she go left or right? To the left, there was just more hallway. To the right . . . there was just more hallway.

Go to the right.

She went down about fifty yards, maybe seventy-five, her stockinged feet quiet, the only sounds the bumping of her bag on her ribs and the rustle of her clothes. She was about to lose hope and turn back when she found . . . a huge door. The thing was like what you’d expect to run across in a castle’s dungeon, all studded with iron supports and with a sliding bar lock as thick as her thigh.

The moment she saw the thing, she started to weep uncontrollably.

Sobbing, she walked up to the stout oak panels. At about eye level, there was a peephole of some sort. She arched up onto her tiptoes and looked—

“You shouldn’t be down here.”

She wheeled around. Fletcher was standing right behind her, one of his arms discreetly behind his back.

Claire wiped her eyes. “I’m lost.”

“Yes, you are.”

She slipped one hand into her shoulder bag and another into her suit jacket pocket.

“Why did you come down here?” the butler asked, stepping nearer.

“I wasn’t feeling well. When I found the door under the stairs, I wanted to get away from the crowd so I just wandered down here.”

“Instead of going out to the gardens?”

“There were people there. A lot of them.”

He wasn’t buying it and Claire didn’t care. She needed him to get just a little closer.

“Why didn’t you go into one of the drawing rooms?”

When he got in range, she flipped her pump out of her bag and sent it skittering across the stone floor to the left. Fletcher pivoted to look at the sound and she took out the Mace that was on her key ring and put it to his eye level—so when he turned back and lifted up the hypodermic syringe he held in his palm, she nailed him right in the face.

With a howl, he dropped what he’d been going to use against her and shielded his eyes, stumbling backward until he banged into the far wall.

Mace was illegal in New York, of course. And thank God that was one law she’d been breaking for the last ten years.

Moving fast, Claire grabbed the needle, shoved it into the butler’s upper arm, and pushed the plunger down hard. Fletcher squeaked then slumped into a heap on the stone floor.

She didn’t know whether he was dead or tranquilized so she had no idea how much time she had. Running for the prison door, she broke two nails as she struggled to get the bar to slide free.

Urgency made her frantic, giving her the strength to move what felt like hundreds of pounds of iron up and back. When the barricade was out of the way, she gripped the toggle handle, wrenched it downward, and put her whole body into dragging the door open.

Candlelight. Books. A dark, lovely scent . . .

Her eyes shot across the space. To a man who was rising up in utter disbelief from a desk full of . . . drawings of her.

Claire’s head swam, a screaming pain robbing her of sight. Her body sagged and then her knees gave out altogether, the stone floor no cushion whatsoever as she went down.

At once strong arms were around her, picking her up, carrying her over to . . . a bed with a velvet duvet and pillows as soft as a dove’s wing.

She looked up at the man and tears poured from her eyes as she touched his face. God, his beautiful face was that of her dream lover, the one who had been keeping her up at night, the one she had been mourning during the day.

“How did you come back?” he asked.

“Who are you?”

He smiled. “My name is Michael.”

The pain in her temples abruptly eased . . . and then the memories came to her, a rapid-fire collage of images and feelings and smells and tastes . . . all of Michael and her, together in this room.

Claire grabbed on to him and buried her face in his hair, sobbing at the near miss, at the fact that had Miss Leeds not died now, Claire might never have come back because she’d been determined to leave the firm.

And then she got pissed and shoved him back. “Why the hell did you do that! Why did you let me go!” She punched at his chest. “You let me go!”