LITMIR.BIZ

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      Mariella shook her head, and reached up, wrapping her fingers around her housekeeper’s wrist. She dislodged the grip Vanessa had on Mariella’s shoulder but kept ahold of the young woman’s hand. “Told who I was asleep?”

      “The men. They’re coming. They’re coming to get you!”

      Mariella’s lips curved downward in an unmistakable sign of bemusement, but there was a loud noise from just outside her bedroom. It came out of nowhere, like a hurricane that had dropped on a hay plain. “Mariella Santiago-Marshall.” A man in a dark suit entered the room and waved a flashlight around dramatically, despite the fact that a light switch was right beside him. “Stay where you are.”

      She pulled at the crisp white bedsheet, lifting it up to her chin with one hand while the other held Vanessa’s, now out of fear rather than a desire to comfort the domestic.

      But she was Mariella Santiago-Marshall, and powerful blood pounded through her veins. Fear was something she would not debase herself by expressing. Not to these strangers who had seen fit to invade her home.

      “Like hell I will,” she muttered under her breath before assuming a mask of total control. “Perhaps you gentlemen would like to tell me just what is going on?”

      The man who’d walked in first approached the bed. Unwanted fear slammed against Mariella. There was evil in his face. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t want him in her house or anywhere near her. Why hadn’t Vanessa been able to cope with this and get rid of them all? And where was Harrison?

      Darkness cloyed at her throat as she thought of her husband. The presentiment of disaster hovered nearer.

      “We have a warrant to search the premises.”

      “A warrant?” Adrenaline spiked the taste of salt and aluminum in her mouth. “Whatever for?”

      “Links between your family and the Fixer.”

      The Fixer.

      Her stomach contracted as the ominous name slammed through her consciousness.

      “I don’t know anything about the Fixer,” she said, dropping the bedsheet and pushing to standing. Vanessa hovered beside her, and Mariella took comfort from her proximity, though the woman was slight and looked almost as terrified as Mariella felt.

      The man’s smile was supercilious. Mariella’s manicured fingers itched to slap it off his face. “That’s what we’re here to determine, ma’am.”

      It was the ma’am that did it. The way it was spoken with such contempt. “No.” Mariella was used to being listened to. In her business, when she wanted something, she got it. And usually ten times over.

      Her impact wasn’t lessened by the current circumstances. The men who were engaged in searching her drawers, pulling shoe boxes out of her wardrobe and tossing them carelessly onto the carpeted floor, and even the ones on their bellies, scrambling under the bed, paused to give Mariella their attention.

      “No,” she repeated, with a quietness to her tone that was more powerful than a scream might have been. “You will not be in my bedroom. Not now. I don’t care what that piece of paper says. Until my lawyers have seen it, you are not to be here.”

      The man’s smile grew wider. “I don’t think you understand. You don’t have any rights here. This gives me all the rights. All the power. I can do whatever I want.”

      “No, you can’t,” she responded, her cheeks slashed with color. “Get out now.”

      His laugh was her tipping point. A soft sound, it felt like blades were being drawn across her back. She launched at him, pushing his chest hard. It felt good! Pent-up emotions were powering out of her palms, hitting him hard, and she pushed until he connected with the wall opposite.

      The man let her push him. His eyes locked to hers as she hit him again and then flicked over her shoulder. She lifted her hand, ready to slap him hard across the face, but her wrist was caught in a viselike grip. Her other followed, and the unfamiliar sensation of cold handcuffs being snapped around her flesh curdled her blood.

      What the hell was going on?

      “That, Mrs. Santiago-Marshall, is called obstruction of justice.” His smarmy smile was back. “And you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent...”

      She froze, the last minute of her life playing out like a horror show before her eyes. What had just happened? What was going on? Sleep was pulling at her, begging her back to bed, to blot out the rest of the world.

      “If you cannot afford an attorney...”

      The words droned on without properly registering. She’d watched enough bad cop shows to know the Miranda rights by heart.

      “Vanessa—” A husky sound. “Vanessa. You need to find Harrison. Harrison? Harrison! Harrison, help me!”

      The knocking was back. Louder now. Where was it coming from?

      “Mariella? Are you okay?”

      Vanessa’s voice through the closed door rang with concern. Disoriented, Mariella could only stare at her bedroom. It was empty. No shoe boxes strewn over the floor. No detectives wriggling under the bed looking for evidence of her wrongdoing. The nightmare was swallowed by reality, but her heart was still hammering in her chest like a hangover of the fear that had knifed her final few moments of rest.

      Her fingertips drifted across the bed on autopilot, seeking the source of her comfort for the last thirty-two years. Whatever she’d faced in life, Harrison had faced it with her.

      He wasn’t there.

      She lifted shaking fingers to her lips as the memories that had been tormenting her sleep began to order themselves in her mind. Truth sifted itself out of the dream state, and reality crystallized.

      “I heard shouting.” Vanessa pushed the door inward. Unlike the Vanessa who’d appeared in the nightmare, the housekeeper was now as immaculate as ever, her curvaceous figure in uniform, her hair swirled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Vanessa’s eyes moved through the room and then landed back on Mariella.

      “You’re mistaken,” Mariella said, her dark eyes clashing with Vanessa’s.

      Vanessa frowned. “I’m sure I heard—”

      “No.” Mariella’s smile was perfunctory, and Vanessa took the hint after a small hesitation. “Everything’s fine.” It wasn’t, though. Harrison! Grief was as tight about her heart as the dream handcuffs had been on her wrists.

      “I’m sorry for the intrusion, then.” A hint of frustration came across in the abrupt delivery of Vanessa’s apology.

      Mariella waved a slim hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it. It’s morning now anyway. Time I was awake.” She had a day to face. A day that she somehow knew would be one of the hardest of her life.

      “Would you like anything?”

      Peace. Quiet. To find that this, too, had been a dream. Her eyes drifted to his side of the bed. A sob was rising in her chest, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone see her cry.

      “Coffee,” she said with a tight nod. “Thank you.” It was a curt directive, and the message was clear. Get out.

      “My darling,” Mariella whispered into the room as the door clicked shut. Her eyes fluttered closed and the image of Harrison as he’d been in hospital was right there. His powerful body almost lifeless. His tall frame long in the hospital bed. Wires protruding from his arms and chest, eyes closed. The background noise of machinery and technology.

      The way the sun had filtered across his face—now, in hindsight, she didn’t see the sun so much as the shadows it cast.

      A shiver ran the length of her spine, and she pushed her feet out of bed, planting them on the thick carpet and standing in an effort to stave off the coldness she was feeling.

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