Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(32)

The last thing he needed was Kate in his guest suite, but at least she’d be across the living room from where he slept. And he didn’t really want Brad next door to him again with his late-night comings and goings. What a temptation Kate would be—and her room would overlook the mound site he knew she was aching to visit again, even to enter. Could she have made up this crazy story so that he would ask her to stay with him? Worse, if she had actually seen a Beastmaster mask on someone, could it have been his? And if he took her home with him, he’d be taking her right into the house where he had it hidden in the basement—if it was still there.

All those possibilities upset him, but it worried him most that she might be telling the truth. But he could not have Kate in danger, so he’d have to endanger himself.

*

That night, Kate felt really awkward at Grant’s house, not only because she still felt so shaken, but also because she was so attracted to him. At least Brad hadn’t made a fuss when Grant had called him to explain. Brad had only requested to move his own things, which he had, and Kate had insisted on changing the sheets and towels herself since their cleaning lady wouldn’t be here for a few days. Carson would probably be pleased but would order her not to get too involved. And that was much easier said than done.

She was agonizing over her relationship with Grant but also with Carson. She couldn’t fathom that the illustrious, fastidious Professor Cantrell would spy on her, then creep around a run-down garage. But he did have a copy of the Beastmaster mask—a mock-up she herself had made. She’d posted a picture of it on her website and left it in his safekeeping when she went to England. She should have asked for the mask back, but with Tess’s wedding and all, she just hadn’t. Besides, Carson was all brains and business. She could not imagine one reason he’d lock her in and try to scare her. She’d bet on Bright Star first—that he researched her website, saw the image of the mask she’d made, then sneaked around to terrify her, make her want to leave the area. Maybe she was too obsessed, working too hard on this. Maybe she had seen a buck and just panicked. No way was she going to tell Carson about seeing anything weird outside a window.

Then, of course, there was Brad, but where would he get such a mask? Brad had told Grant he’d be “gallivanting till all hours,” so at least she didn’t have to put up with him, though he would have been a sort of chaperone.

Physically, at least, she was feeling better, except for a headache that wouldn’t go away. She did not have a concussion, though the E.R. doctor had suggested she not go to sleep for several hours. She and Grant had managed to have a good laugh when she read him the doctor’s only diagnosis, that she’d had “a contusion that made her see stars.”

“I’ve been seeing stars lately, all right,” she told Grant as they sat in matching overstuffed leather chairs in his living room, looking out into the darkness of the forest toward the mound. “Stars with blood on the points and antlers with red on them, too. I’m sure of it.” With her paper napkin, she wiped sauce off her mouth from the pizza they’d brought back instead of going to the restaurant as Grant had planned.

“I can tell you’re exhausted,” he said. “You’ve really been through it lately, but I’m here to keep you awake for a while, then insist you get a good night’s sleep. Kate, about that vision of the mask through that cloudy, dirty window into the dusk—”

“Not a vision. I saw it.”

“Okay, okay. You saw a Celtic mask you are dying to match to some Adena artifact. You have to admit you’re obsessed with things Celtic and Adena. I’ll bet you dream of them, and a dream’s a step away from a vision.”

She frowned but nodded as they both looked out the window. They could see each other’s reflections there. A moonless night, it was so dark outside and barely lit in here that the glass once again acted like a huge, black mirror. Still, in the spot where his maple had been murdered—like Grant, she thought of it that way now—she could glimpse pinpoints of silver stars in the heavens.

“Want me to close the drapes?” he asked. “Are you nervous because someone might have been watching you through that garage window, and now we’re sitting here? I used to feel this was private, but since the tree theft...”

“You don’t have to pull the drapes. I like being close to the mound. I just wish I had X-ray vision like Superman—or woman—to see what’s inside it.”

He cleared his throat. “So do you ever dream Adena?”

“Not lately, but I’ve dreamed about both the Celts and the Adena. Both were tall, powerful people. Their skeletons attest to that. This may sound crazy, but sometimes my subconscious puts my father’s face on a shaman or warrior in my dreams—or nightmares.”

“So, in your dreams, they don’t wear masks? But the Adena disappeared from this area almost as quickly as your father disappeared from your young life—both tragic mysteries to you, right? So maybe that’s the link.”

She turned toward him in her big armchair and tucked her legs up under her. He sat so much closer to her than it seemed in the window reflection, so maybe that huge piece of glass distorted things—and maybe that garage glass window had, too. “I never thought of that,” she whispered. “Yes—very possible I’d make that subconscious connection. And very astute of you.”