Daring Time Read Free Page A

type to be overly thrilled to discover that Ryan's sexual preferences included not just fucking a woman in his bed but tying her down to said bed in the process—among other things.
    "You driving tomorrow?" Ramiro nodded. "Do me a favor, will you?"
    "Shit. Don't make me pick you up one of those nasty milkshakes from that health-food store on Damen before I get you. Drinking those things is like chewing a mouthful of vitamins and that nut-ball lady who owns it gives me these suspicious looks, like she can smell the bacon on my breath."
    "She probably can. Pick me up on Prairie Avenue."
    Ramiro gaped at him. "You're fucking with me."
    "I'm serious."
    "Then you're just fucked. You're not actually thinking about living in that place, are you?"
    Ryan shrugged. "Maybe. Just until I sell it." He saw Ramiro open his mouth. "Can it, Ramiro. Just pick me up there in the morning, willya?"
    Ramiro shook his head as he unfastened his seat belt. "That ghost bitch must have been smoking."
    "I told you—I didn't see a ghost."
    "You saw something that fried your brain, hermano" Ramiro told him pointedly before he slammed the passenger door shut.
    Ryan was inclined to agree with Ramiro's parting shot when he turned on the light in the Prairie Avenue bedroom using his elbow. He set down the stuff he'd grabbed from his west-side loft before driving over to the mansion—a portable heater, two insulated sleeping bags that he'd zip together to accommodate his large frame, a pillow and a hastily packed duffle bag filled with camping equipment, clothing and toiletries.
    He'd bring a carload of stuff over tomorrow, maybe ask Ramiro's cousin if he could borrow his truck to transport his mattress so he could set up the brass bed.
    You've gone off the deep end at about 120 miles an hour, he told himself as he walked across the room, the wood floors creaking loudly beneath his boots. He felt like he'd penetrated the depths of a massive, sentient creature, as if the house itself was alive around him and regarding his intrusion with cold skepticism and a hint of amusement.
    For the life of him he wouldn't have been able to say when he'd made the decision to move, at least temporarily, into the mansion.
    He only knew for a fact that he wouldn't have been able to sleep in his familiar bed in his loft tonight. Thoughts of this house—of that woman in the peekaboo nightgown—would have hounded him . . . haunted him, until he'd finally risen from his mussed bed, dressed and driven over here at some ungodly hour of the morning.
    Might as well do the inevitable right off the bat, Ryan thought grimly.
    Once he'd turned the heater to a high setting, unrolled the sleeping bags, zipped them together and cleaned up in the antiquated but functional bathroom down the hall, Ryan stripped down to his boxer briefs. He retrieved the leather-bound book of sonnets from the drawer in the table where he'd left it earlier and started to head over to his sleeping bag.
    Something caught his eye.
    A portion of the mahogany mantel protruded forward an inch at chest level. It wasn't hugely obvious, but Ryan thought he would have noticed it when he and Ramiro were there earlier, considering how he'd touched and admired the workmanship of the carved wood. He pulled on the section of wood gently and then with more force, but it didn't budge. He stopped when he realized the only thing he was going to succeed in doing was ripping the beautiful mantel apart.
    The piece of wood snapped forward another inch. The skin on the back of Ryan's neck prickled and roughened. It was as if someone had just pushed an invisible button and sprung the release.
    He pulled, revealing a nine-by-nine-by-nine-inch compartment— like a drawer that had been installed into the woodwork. He reached inside and withdrew several aged black-and-white photographs. After a tense few seconds of staring at the first one, he went over to his sleeping bag and flipped on the battery-operated lamp he'd brought along for