Chasing Shadows (First Wives #3)(53)

Boxes of holiday decorations sat closest to the stairs. Which made perfect sense. Those things were brought down year after year, while the other stuff morphed into the dingy space.

Avery moved deeper, turning on lights as she went. Old lamps, one that had a Tiffany thing going for it. Was it Tiffany? Rare? She had no idea.

She wiped dust off an old chest and clicked the stiff locks until they sprang free. “Quilts?” The Lankfords didn’t seem like quilt people, but clearly someone had been at one time. The homemade blankets were stacked on top of each other without any other protection than the box they were in. Again, Avery knew nothing about these kinds of handmade items except that they didn’t tend to fetch any money. The chest itself was 1920s modern. The deeper in the attic she went, the fewer furnishings she found. Old toys. Some that looked much too old for something that Sheldon would have played with.

She turned a corner and found a desk that looked a lot like the one in the father’s study. Her hand hesitated before opening the drawers. A few old coins, a pen, and a paper clip. She once again looked under the desk but had no intention of searching for a secret drawer. Her quick visual made her jump.

“Hello, Charlotte.” It was big, it was black, and it was definitely alive. “You just stay right there.” She backed up on the balls of her feet, lost her balance, and fell on her ass.

She bounced up. “Okay, I’m done in here.” She’d hire a crew to bring everything into the light, and keep an eye out for the things she thought held value. But right now, she wanted out. The stale air was stealing her oxygen.

Avery dodged at least four spiderwebs before reaching the stairs. She backed her way down and brushed at her arms and legs with her bare palms, muttering, “Yuck, yuck. Yuck!” A mirror and a bathroom, that’s what she needed.

She turned around and nearly toppled over Sheldon.

She screamed for the second time that day and lunged back.

He lifted his hands. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Avery clenched a hand to her chest. “Son of a . . .”

“Sorry.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“I called your name downstairs.”

Her heart was still in her throat. “I didn’t hear you.”

She brushed at her arms again, certain a sticky web was taking root.

“It’s pretty dirty up there.”

“Yeah.”

She dared to look him in the eye and found him looking at the top of her head.

Avery froze. “What is it?”

“I think you have a hitchhiker.”

Her squealing girl meter ramped into overdrive. She didn’t care who he was or how much he creeped her out—a spider in her hair ushered her toward him. “Get it off! Get it off!”

She suddenly felt like she did when she watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. Things were crawling on her, she could feel them.

Sheldon calmly lifted a hand to her head and brushed at her hair.

She held perfectly still, eyes closed. “Did you get it?”

He backed away. “I got it.”

She finally had the nerve to swipe at her hair as she opened her eyes.

What she saw then made her head explode in pain.

Sheldon was letting the long legged, hairy spider crawl on his arm.

“What’s the matter? It isn’t going to hurt you.”

Only it was.

A spider on the inside of his arm. A tattoo.

She was going to pass out.

Avery stumbled away from him and the insect, or small animal, whatever you wanted to call it. “I’ve got to go.”

“I think you should sit down. You don’t look too good.”

She backed away from Sheldon, keeping him and the spider in sight until she found the top of the stairs. “I can’t. I have to go.”

“I’ll take it outside.”

She ran down the steps, finding air in gulps as she went.

“Avery?”

She snatched her purse and ran to her car.

For two seconds, she gripped the steering wheel, closed her eyes, and slowed her breathing.

Then she tore out of the driveway as if hell’s hounds were biting at her ankles.



Nine hours later she was stepping off a plane at JFK.

By the time she reached her hotel it was after eleven New York time.

She dropped her bag on the bed and opened the blinds wide. There would be no sleeping in tomorrow.

Her phone buzzed in her purse.

It was Liam.

She forced a smile she knew would help her sound normal and answered, “Hey.”

“Hey back. Are you still at the studio?”

Avery cringed. She’d forgotten to call Brenda.

“No, uhm, I had to fly to Seattle.” Even as she told the lie, she looked out over the dark vastness of Central Park and the skyline surrounding it. “An unexpected problem with my client up here.”

“Oh, okay. I was going to see if you wanted to grab a bite. I know how hungry you get after krav.”

“I’m going to have to take a rain check.”

“When do you think you’ll be back?”

New York was a big ass city. Lots of places to hide. “I don’t know. A couple of days, I think.”

“Must be a big problem.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”