A String of Beads (Jane Whitefield, #8)(63)
As she watched him on the tour she reflected that he was better looking than he had been before. She thought it might be because he had confidence tonight. He knew he had impressed her with the restaurant, and when he was here on his home ground he seemed masterful. He stood straighter and spoke with an ease that even made its way into his voice.
He stopped in the living room in front of a section of white wall and said, “Something from the bar?” He pressed a spot and a section of the white surface slid upward to reveal a granite bar with a sink, cabinets where glasses of various shapes and sizes were displayed, and rows of liquor bottles. He reached for a short, round bottle and said, “This is a really nice cognac. Perfect for sipping while we complete the tour.”
“None for me,” she said. “I’ve already had more wine than I ever drink. That will just put me to sleep.”
“You’re probably right,” he said. “And I’m going to be driving, so I’d better skip it too. A soft drink then.” He opened a cabinet that had no glass in front, and revealed that it was a small refrigerator. “Ginger ale?”
“Is it diet?”
He took out a can and looked at it. “It says it is.” He popped it and poured a glass for her and another for himself. He left the bar open and led her onward. There was an office in the place where she had guessed it must be, big and neat with a desk that showed a reflection, and a big sliding glass door to the Japanese garden. They passed three bedroom suites, all of them perfectly furnished and untouched. “There’s another one with Japanese watercolors that overlooks the garden,” he said, “and two others I made into a den and a pool room.”
That was the last thing that she heard him say before she became aware of the sun. It wasn’t shining directly on her, or making her hot. Its light just invaded her sleep until she was forced to open her eyes. She stared at the scene in front of her, trying to make sense of it. Nothing seemed all right. Where was the yellow color of her bedroom wall? And her dresser was missing. It should be right here, where she could see it when she was lying in bed on her left side, like this. She rolled and sat up.
She had moved too fast. Her head felt tender and bloated, not quite a headache but not normal either. She looked at the room and realized she had seen this room before, but couldn’t quite place it. She exerted greater effort and realized she must be in Daniel Crane’s bedroom. She was in his bed, naked. And now she admitted to herself that she could feel that she’d had sex. How could she have done that?
She tried to bring the answer out of her memory, but her mind was sluggish, like a heavy thing that she wasn’t strong enough to move. She would push it, and it seemed to be going in the right direction, returning to the dinner, the view of the deep chasm with the river at the bottom, the ride. She remembered coming into the house, some vague flashes of rooms, although in no particular order. She recalled that she had felt the effect of the wine, but that had just been a buzz. She hadn’t had the spins or even felt dizzy. And then she brought back the secret bar in the wall and the cognac. Had she had too much of that? She couldn’t remember.
Chelsea thought harder. She felt bad, frightened by the idea that she couldn’t remember. The word rape floated to the surface of her mind. Had Dan Crane drugged her? She got up from the bed and looked down at her body, then stood in front of the full-length mirror. There were no marks or scratches. But would there be? This was terrible. She panicked. She wanted to run.
She whirled, looking for her clothes. There, on the chair. Her underwear was on top, and under it, her dress—not tossed carelessly, but laid over the back of the chair to keep it from being wrinkled. She sucked in a breath. That was the way she would have left her clothes. When she had undressed in front of a man before, she had found she liked to face away from him. It made her less self-conscious and aware that he would be staring at her, and she knew that her back and bottom were pretty. She came closer and noticed the shoes. She would have stepped out of them while she was facing away from the man and left them exactly that way, with the toes pointed toward the chair. If a man had taken them off, he would have left them with the toes pointed outward, away from the chair. She looked at the clothes again. No matter who had taken them off her, the dress would have been first, and the underwear last, on top. But if he had put her dress there, would he have done it exactly the way she did? It seemed impossible. She must have done it herself. She must have done this, decided on her own to have sex with Daniel Crane.
Where was he? She realized that in the past five seconds she had begun to smell coffee. She picked up her clothes and hurried into the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it.
She turned on the shower and let it run. The water was already hot. Of course he would have one of those water heater systems that circulated hot water all the time. She stepped into the stream, letting the hot water wash over her. She scrubbed herself hard, soaping up and rinsing the lather off over and over, trying to feel clean but not feeling satisfied. She kept thinking that the water would wake her up and clear her mind, but she didn’t feel any effect.
She still didn’t remember anything that had gone on during the second half of her tour of the house. She must have been so completely drunk that she’d paid no attention to anything that he had said, and her eyes must have been closing half the time and unfocused the rest, so her subconscious mind had simply not bothered to retain the fragmentary information. How horrible and humiliating to have been so drunk. But if she had been so drunk, why had he had sex with her? Couldn’t he tell? Had she even been conscious?