Stranger on the Shore - lanyon Josh (лучшие бесплатные книги txt) 📗

That was about as confused as it got.

And that was before it struck him that he would probably never see Pierce again after tonight. That realization was so painful that he instantly put it aside. There would be plenty of time on the fifteen-hour drive back to Wisconsin to figure out how he had managed to get so attached to someone he spent half the time arguing with.

He spotted his battered copy of The Great Gatsby at the bottom of his suitcase. He hadn’t even had time to take it out yet. Tears stung his eyes.

That was so ridiculous, he laughed, hastily wiping at his wet lashes. Was he having some kind of breakdown? Because he really had not been at all himself this past week.

Stranger on the Shore was dead. But Jarrett was right, there were other stories out there. It was one book out of all the books Griff would one day write. Feeling like it was the end of the world because he couldn’t write this particular story didn’t even make sense. When had this story taken over his life? He wasn’t even sure. Somehow it seemed as if for years he had been trying to get...here. But he’d only learned about Brian Arlington’s kidnapping a few months ago.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing his fingers to his temples. His head was thumping again, though not as bad as when he’d first woken in that barn in the middle of nowhere. Maybe he was having a brain bleed. Maybe he should have gone to see a doctor after all.

Once again he found himself wanting to call Pierce. And tell him what? I think I’m losing my mind?

He lowered his hands, rose from the bed, and went into the bathroom to shower and change for Brian’s Welcome Home party.

* * *

It was dark when he started through the tunnel of rhododendrons. A little way up the path, his cell phone rang.

Pierce, sounding like he was speaking in an under voice, said, “Jarrett told me you were coming to this thing tonight.”

“I am. I’m walking up now.”

“That’s a relief.” There was a pause. “I’ll see you in a few.” Pierce disconnected.

Griff walked slowly on. Leaves stirred, whispering, though there was no breeze. The arbor seemed uncannily alive. Pale petals drifted down like snow, and wings beat the air as birds swooped from one bower to the next. At the base of the trees, frogs’ voices croaked in cheerful disharmony, the changing timbres like the huffing and puffing of different-sized bellows. High overhead the golden moon peeped shyly through the interlace of leaves and branches, now and then its filmy rays catching one of the lurking bronze or marble figures, and a stag or a woman would seem to materialize in the gloom, softly gleaming, almost luminous, before fading once more into the shadows.

Griff continued walking, thinking that it must have been much like this the night Brian had been taken. Of course it was spring now, and much chillier than it would have been in June. But it must have felt like this that evening, with the Chinese lanterns and the black and white figures moving against the trees, a magical and mysterious night. A night when anything could happen.

Anything good or anything evil. Magic being an unpredictable commodity.

He thought he caught the distant notes of “Stranger on the Shore,” and realized that they must be playing music up at the house.

A scrape of sound at the end of the tunnel caught Griff’s attention. He looked up, his eyes straining the dark. A long shadow figure was coming swiftly toward him.

The hair rose on the back of his neck. He glanced around for a tree limb or one of the spiked solar lights he could use to defend himself, and then felt like an idiot when Pierce called, “I thought I’d walk down and meet you.”

What had he been thinking? That Brian was going to hire Dirk to kill him?

“I thought you were a ghost,” he called back. His alarm seemed funny now.

Four seconds later they were in each other’s arms.

Lovely to kiss in the wavering moonlight. Pierce’s mouth was hot and he’d had a drink. Griff was getting to like the taste of Black Velvet on Pierce’s tongue, and he liked the feel of Pierce’s hard arms around him. He kissed Pierce back with equal hunger, running his hand through the sleek softness of Pierce’s hair. It seemed like he could never quite get enough of Pierce.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Pierce said, when their lips reluctantly parted.

“Same.” It felt right standing here in the circle of Pierce’s arms. Too right to move away, really, and Griff wondered what Pierce would say if he suggested they go back to the cottage.

“I was afraid you weren’t going to show up,” Pierce said. “Jarrett told me he tried to buy you off. Obviously he didn’t phrase it like that.”

“It’s funny hearing you phrase it like that.”

“I know how you think now.”

Griff laughed briefly. “Yeah, but I may take him up on it.”

He could feel Pierce trying to read his face in the hazy light. He rested his forehead on the solid ridge of Pierce’s shoulder and said, “I don’t know what to do.”

Pierce stroked his back, his hand a warm weight through Griff’s blazer. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

Griff shook his head. “Everything was so clear at first. Not anymore. I had a talk with Alvin today. He swears he is Brian.”

“Did you believe him?”

“No. But I’m not sure what I’m doing anymore. Or why I’m doing it.”

Pierce didn’t say anything, just continued to stroke Griff’s back in that almost absent, soothing way.

Griff raised his head. “Can I come back to your place tonight? It’s my last night.”

“Of course.” Pierce’s expression altered. He said in a different tone, “Your last night?”

“Yeah. Either way it’s my last night. I’ve got to leave tomorrow to be back at work on Tuesday.”

Pierce was so still he didn’t seem to be breathing. Then he said, “True.” He drew back from Griff, though his hands still rested on Griff’s shoulders. “Then let’s go up to the house. You can give Jarrett your answer and then we can get out of there. I don’t want to waste tonight welcoming Leland Alvin into the family.”

They didn’t talk on the trip back to the house. Pierce seemed lost in thought and Griff had plenty on his mind already. They held hands in a loose, casual clasp as they walked.

Leaving the tunnel of trees, Griff studied the moonlit checkerboard of the sunken garden. In the green-blue distance two of the statues looked like they were playing volleyball with a glowing gazing ball.

Pierce said, “We can cut through the library.”

Griff smiled, nodding. Of course Pierce would not deign to enter and exit through the kitchen. He followed Pierce along the unlit side of the house. Pierce opened a pair of French doors that led into a small reading room. Griff had a quick impression of petit point chairs and a low bookshelf topped with a forest of silver-framed photos of the Arlington children. A crystal vase with freshly cut roses sat on the drop-down leaf of an old-fashioned secretary.

“This was Nicole’s sitting room.”

Freshly cut roses in a room no longer in use seemed to Griff to perfectly exemplify everything good and bad about the Arlingtons.

Pierce led the way through the moonlit room to a side door. He opened the door and a yellow rectangle of light from the library fell across the carpet.

Griff followed Pierce through the doorway, which turned out to belong to the small door beside the fireplace that Griff had noticed the first day he worked in the library.

The library blazed with light. It smelled of furniture polish and old books and fresh flowers. Yet it smelled wrong. Off.

Pierce stopped short. Griff nearly walked into him.

Pierce didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“What is it?” Griff glanced at him and then followed the line of Pierce’s silent stare.

At first all he saw was the broken clock. The smashed cage, the crushed blue and red feathers. His gaze traveled.