The Betrayed. Jana DeLeon

downstairs rooms, checking windows and exterior doors to ensure no unwanted guests could enter.

      By the time she had finished her review of the downstairs, she expected Zach to arrive at any moment and had been unwilling to start poking around upstairs. She preferred instead to get her meeting with the contractor out of the way and delve more into her past when she was alone again with the memories that she couldn’t seem to access.

      She had just decided to head upstairs and get a feel for the rooms there when her cell phone rang. She checked the display and frowned. It wasn’t a number she recognized, but it definitely wasn’t in Louisiana.

      She answered and was happy to hear Alaina’s voice.

      “I’m so sorry,” Alaina said. “I meant to call earlier, but I didn’t charge my cell before leaving, so it’s dead as a doornail. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to break away from the family and call you. I hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten.”

      “No, of course not. How is your...er, mother?”

      Even though she didn’t really know Alaina at all, it still felt strange calling another woman her sister’s mother. She wondered how it felt for Alaina.

      “She’s doing fine, considering. My brother has a service lined up for home care until she can get around again, but they are on another job at the moment and not expected to free up for another week at least.”

      A twinge of something—sadness...jealousy—passed through Danae when Alaina said my brother but she pushed it aside. Their stepfather hadn’t given any of the girls a choice when he’d sent them away. Alaina couldn’t help it if she’d gotten a decent family, while Danae had gotten an addict. That was simply the luck of the draw.

      “I’m glad she’s okay,” Danae said.

      “Me, too, but the timing couldn’t be worse. I’m so sorry I had to dash out this morning like I did. I have a million things to talk to you about. If I started now, I probably couldn’t finish by next year.”

      Danae smiled. “I know.”

      “But first things first—I am so glad you don’t have to stay in that house. When I thought about you staying there, my chest hurt so bad I felt like it was in a vise.”

      “I’m at the house now. It’s not exactly a welcoming sort of place.”

      “No, but it’s more than that. It’s...I don’t know... Oh, I’ll just say it. I think there’s something wrong in that house. I know you don’t really know me, but I promise you, I’m not a fanciful sort of person. And given my profession, my senses are better honed than many. I know something’s off. I can feel it in every inch of my body.”

      Danae tensed at her sister’s description. It was the same way she’d felt since she’d walked into the house.

      Alaina sighed. “I bet I sound like a crazy woman.”

      “I almost wish you did, but you’re not crazy. I feel it, too. And let’s just say my survival skills are as finely tuned as your ability to recognize when things don’t add up. They’re firing on all eight cylinders here. But I have no idea why.”

      “I don’t, either, and that’s what concerns me the most. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I wish you wouldn’t go there at all.”

      “William has hired me to go through the paperwork and attempt an inventory of the valuables, so I don’t have a choice, and I really want to do the work. I want to discover things about our past. Things I’ll probably never remember.”

      Alaina was quiet for several seconds, then finally she said, “I tried to find you—you and Joelle. I started writing letters to Purcell when I was in high school, asking him to tell me how to find you. I even tried sending him a letter on the law firm’s letterhead when I got to Baton Rouge.”

      “But he never answered,” Danae finished. “He wouldn’t have. I spent months looking for that opening where I could get to him, but there wasn’t one. He was a mentally disturbed old man who only cared about himself. He never would have helped any of us.”

      “You’re probably right. I understand why you want to try to find some of the things that were torn away from you, but I still don’t like the idea of you being in that house alone. Can you at least work at your cabin until I return?”

      Danae felt a tickle of warmth run through her. The concern in Alaina’s voice was so sincere and passionate—something she’d never experienced until now. It was everything she’d ever wanted and something she’d never counted on getting.

      “When we get off the phone, I’ll grab some files and take them home with me today. The contractor starts tomorrow, so I won’t be alone. He’s young and looks like he’d be good in a fight.”

      “Well, I guess that’s all right.”

      Alaina didn’t sound the least bit convinced, but Danae couldn’t exactly fault her when she wasn’t convinced herself.

      “Purcell’s office is upstairs at the end of the right hallway,” Alaina said. “The room I stayed in—our childhood room—is at the end of the left hallway, right over the kitchen. The power is out in the office area of the house, so it will be dark. There’re some flashlights and a lantern in the laundry-room cabinet.”

      “Thanks. That helps a lot,” Danae replied as she committed all the information to memory.

      “Danae,” Alaina said, “I know this is going to sound completely odd, but I have to ask you something.”

      “Okay.”

      “Do you believe in ghosts?”

      Danae’s breath caught in her throat. Of all the things she’d thought Alaina might ask, that hadn’t been anywhere on the list.

      Before she could formulate a reply, she heard background noise on Alaina’s end.

      “I’m so sorry,” Alaina said, “but I’m going to have to go. I’ll call you again as soon as I get a chance.”

      Alaina disconnected and Danae set the phone back on the counter. Ghosts? Sure, all kinds of rumors about the house and its other-than-earthly inhabitants wafted about the Calais locales, but it was the sort of thing she’d expect in a small town with a run-down, isolated house. It was not the kind of thing a reputable, hard-nosed attorney would normally come up with.

      It made Danae wonder exactly how much she didn’t know about the night Alaina was attacked.

      She leaned back against the counter and blew out a breath. All the work she’d done to simplify her life. No strings, no baggage—at least not the physical kind. She’d even come to Calais with an assumed identity simply to avoid the looks and questions she was sure would come. And in less than a day, her life had become more complicated than it had ever been.

      This is what you wanted.

      And that was what she needed to keep reminding herself. In the past, she’d kept her life simple by avoiding anything beyond surface-level relationships, but she’d come to Calais to find her family. She couldn’t have it both ways. If she wanted a family, she had to drop her guard, at least where her sisters were concerned.

      She pushed herself off the counter and headed upstairs for the first time. She paused on the landing, trying to remember what Alaina had told her about the layout. Right was Purcell’s office. Left was the girls’ room—the room Alaina had been staying in when she was attacked.

      Danae took one step in that direction, then froze. Was she ready to see the place where she’d spent her very limited childhood in Calais? If she had no memory of that room, then the chances of her remembering anything were so minuscule as to not exist. Not that she’d had any concrete expectation of remembering things she’d last seen at two years old, but she’d hoped for an emotional tug—something that let her know a piece of this place was part of her.

      Something