Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [76]
He glanced up, meeting my eyes from a few feet away, and slowly nodded. “Yeah. I hate to think I’ve had some filth in and out of my house, spying on my private life for three months, but it absolutely makes the most sense.” His mouth pulling tight and his thick lashes lowering halfway over his eyes, he added, “Someone’s ‘gaslighting’ me, like in that old movie. But who? And why?”
His anger had eased, and had probably been replaced by embarrassment…even pain. Which made perfect sense. Who would want to think someone could be so twisted and hateful? I was feeling violated after being here a short time—I couldn’t imagine how he had to feel.
“I don’t know who, but I might have an idea why. It seems to me that somebody’s trying to get you—and now me, judging by the thing with the attic, and the carriage—out of this house. Anyone feel they have a claim on it?”
“Uncle Roger had no other living relatives.”
Scratch that. “Okay, how about potential buyers? Has anyone been after you to sell it?”
“The day the will was read, my uncle’s attorney told me there were interested parties who’d approached Uncle Roger before he died. I told him to forget it, just as Uncle Roger apparently had, several times.”
That sent a chill up my spine, though at first I wasn’t sure why. “Did they persist?”
Rubbing a weary hand on his forehead, he nodded. “Yeah. The lawyer’s called a couple of times, asking if I’ve changed my mind.”
I almost said aha in triumph. We were on to something. I knew it. Hey, I did this for a living. “So we contact the attorney and get the name of the buyer.”
Simon reached for the phone, which startled me into a laugh. “Uh, babe, you do realize it’s three a.m., right?”
“Oh. Right.”
Suddenly feeling that late hour in every bit of my body, I rose to my feet and stretched. “I think I’ve had about as much as I can take for the night.”
Simon nodded and stood beside me. “You think you’ll be okay sleeping here tonight?”
I knew what he meant, of course. It was possible—unlikely, given the late hour—but still possible that someone was lurking somewhere in Seaton House. The very thought of it made me sick. “Well, if they are, they know we’re on to them now.” I raised my voice. “And that they better get the hell out before we find them and have them thrown in jail for a few decades.”
An exaggeration, I was sure. But worth a shot.
Simon laughed softly, the tension seeming to ease from his shoulders for the first time in hours. “The bedroom has one door and it locks.”
“And you have a big dresser we can shove in front of it, right?”
Laughing, he dropped his arm across my shoulders and led me into his room. Once we were inside, with the door locked, I glanced at the dresser and cocked an eyebrow.
“You were kidding, right?”
I shook my head.
“You want me to break my back and be no good to you at all?”
“I’ll be on top.”
He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me tight. “That sounds fantastic. But how about we use the chair instead?”
I eyed the chair, piled high with his clothes from the costume party, and grunted. “That won’t keep anyone out.”
“Oh, I’m not worried about keeping someone out. If someone gets in, you can bet I’ll be waiting for him. The chair will, however, make some noise, guaranteeing nobody can sneak in on us.”
I didn’t want to think about Simon being put in the position of having to defend himself against anyone ever again. Hopefully though, it wouldn’t come to that. Whoever had been tormenting him was a damned coward as far as I was concerned, lurking in the shadows, playing vicious tricks. A scavenger—a hyena—picking him off piece by piece then scurrying away like a rodent. He wouldn’t face Simon head-on.
So, nodding, I said, “Okay. You can save your back, we’ll use the chair.” And as he picked it up to place it beneath the chair, I added, “But I still get to be on top.”
WE SLEPT LATE the next