Twiceborn Read Free Page B

wouldn’t take long. I strained after odd bits of memory that wouldn’t stay still to be caught.
    “I went to the address. There was a garden—a big garden.” Big for The Rocks, anyway. Most of the houses there were well over a hundred years old and all crammed in cheek by jowl with their neighbours in neat little rows. “I remember lots of trees. Someone was waiting for me.”
    “Man or woman?”
    “Don’t know.” I clenched my fists. What the hell was the matter with me? I tried to bring back a face, a voice, anything, but there was nothing but fog. “I guess they gave me the package, because I definitely had one when I got to the shopping centre. Oh, boy, did I have one.”
    His gaze was suddenly sharp, predatory. “What does that mean?”
    “It was addressed to me. A note telling me not to go home, for God’s sake.”
    “A note? On normal paper?”
    “No, on the flayed skin of virgins. Of course on normal paper!”
    He rose, clearly agitated. I was missing something here, but before I could ask, he thrust the bucket into my hands, looming over me. “Where is it now?”
    The intensity of his expression was alarming.
    “In my bag.” I gestured vaguely out into the shop.
    In a moment he was back with the bag, note in hand. He scanned the brief message. “Shit.”
    “What do you mean, ‘shit’? Do you know who it’s from? Why should I check into a random hotel on the orders of some lunatic who won’t even sign their name?”
    He said nothing, staring down at the note as if he could read a whole novel in its scant lines.
    “Don’t give me that poker face, buddy. If you know what’s going on you’d better tell me.”
    He looked up, forehead creased in a frown. “Makes no sense to me.”
    Liar. I could tell, the way his eyes didn’t quite meet mine. All those years of practice being married to Jason had well and truly fine-tuned my personal lie detector.
    “Don’t bullshit me, Ben.” I put the bucket down and surged to my feet. Marvellous how a little rush of righteous anger could make me forget my heaving stomach and pounding head. I glared at him, nose to nose in the tiny kitchen.
    Or nose to collarbone, at least. He towered over me, which meant I always ended up looking like a Chihuahua yapping at a Great Dane when I had a go at him.
    “A person I don’t remember gives me a cryptic note saying I’m in danger. How is that possible? A good half-hour of my life has simply disappeared into a black hole. Gone. Have I been drugged? What am I supposed to do now? Go to the police and accuse someone I don’t know of doing something I don’t remember? They’d lock me up.”
    “You can stay at my place.” His deep voice had the soothing tone I’d heard so many times before when I’d cried on his shoulder. Now it just made me mad.
    “So you think I am in danger? Why?”
    “Look—”
    The bell on the counter dinged. “Yoo-hoo! Anyone there?”
    “I’ll get it,” said Ben. “You stay here. I’ll be right back.”
    I glared at his back as he escaped into the shop. Talk about saved by the bell. He was my closest friend—one of my only friends, since the accident—but how much did I really know about his past? Only that he’d been Jason’s best friend till Jason had dumped us both, and that he ran a costume shop and occasionally a rather peculiar courier service. Like me, he had one sister and a couple of nieces, and he kept pretty much to himself. No girlfriend, despite looking like Eric Bana’s sexier twin.
    And that was about it. He was a pretty private guy. I’d trust him with my life, but I knew I couldn’t trust him on this. He knew something he wasn’t telling.
    In the shop the customer asked for Elizabethan costume ideas and their voices receded as Ben led him through the racks to the English historical section. There were a lot of choices on that rack. They could be lost in Elizabethan England for a while.
    I massaged my aching temples. I could wait here, but if I didn’t