The Secret Night

She started to offer a stinging retort, then clamped her mouth closed. Briggs was one of the men in Caldwell’s inner circle, and it was dangerous to anger him.

Quickly, before she could get herself into trouble, she grabbed her brown suede purse from the nightstand and slipped into the adjoining communal bathroom. Thankfully, her roommates had already gone to breakfast, so she had the bathroom to herself.

The face that peered back at her from the mirror was taut with anxiety, and Emma struggled to coax a dreamy look into her blue eyes. She’d seen that look often enough among the women, her sister, Margaret, included, who drifted like Stepford wives around the Refuge.

Her own mind was still functioning independently, but the place was getting to her in insidious ways. Not a night went by now that she wasn’t waking from the same shockingly vivid dream. At first, she’d had only nightmares, most of them about her own death—at the hands of Damien Caldwell.

In the past week, though, a new dream had replaced the nightmares. A dream about a darkly handsome man she had never met, yet he knew her, mind, body and soul, as no one else ever had. Her dream lover came to her out of a misty darkness, taking her into his arms, kissing and caressing her and soothing away all her fears—until he vanished, leaving her hot and frustrated.

She dragged in a breath and let it out slowly and evenly, reminding herself why she was staying in this scary little community.

A month ago she’d gotten a letter from her twin sister burbling about how she’d come to the Refuge for a self-actualization seminar and decided to stay. Emma knew it shouldn’t have surprised her. Their own mother had been a dud at raising a family, and Margaret was always searching for a sense of stability, of security, of home. Joanie Patterson had been married four times and had lived with more than a dozen guys. Luckily for her, only one of the marriages had resulted in offspring—twins—so she’d only had two daughters to neglect while she focused on the series of men in her life.

With the uncanny intuitive bond identical twins often shared, Margaret and she had taken turns mothering each other, with Margaret far more likely than Emma to get the laundry done or a hot dinner on the table when Mom failed to show.

The lack of actual parenting had made Emma independent, self-reliant, freewheeling. She’d been in and out of so many brief relationships that Margaret had warned her she’d end up like their mother if she wasn’t careful. The warning had brought her up short, and she’d been cautious—and unsatisfied—ever since.

She and her twin might look alike, but their personalities were very different. In fact, their home life had had just the opposite effect on her sister. Margaret was always solicitous and caring, but introverted and a bit insecure. While Emma had pursued her dream of becoming an artist who created beautiful pieces of silver jewelry, her sister had worked summers and afternoons in the quiet of a health food store and, later, as an accountant. And she had never stopped looking—unsuccessfully—for a father figure in the men she dated.

So at first Emma had been delighted to find out that Margaret was attending a self-actualization seminar in Maryland. It sounded as if her twin was branching out, and her latest enthusiasm wasn’t simply another inappropriate older man.

Yet something about her sister’s letter, saying she was staying indefinitely at the Refuge, had triggered Emma’s “twin intuition.” She had sensed that not all was well with her sister, so she had looked up Damien Caldwell on the Internet.

What she’d learned about him had made her stomach clench, starting with the title he’d made up for himself—the Master. She wanted to know where he had come from and how he’d become so successful so quickly, but there was no information about him prior to two years ago, when he’d bought the Refuge after the millionaire who owned it had died.

Since then, it appeared that Caldwell had run the estate—really, more like an entire enterprise—as a cult or a commune, using his self-help seminars as a lure to rope in converts. Apparently if the people who attended the seminars were susceptible to his…his what? Charisma? Mind control? then he would invite them to stay on.

Unfortunately, Margaret had turned out to be one of them. No surprise, really, given that the Master exuded “paternal” authority.

Worried about her sister, Emma had signed up for Caldwell’s weekend-long seminar. She’d hoped that, face-to-face, Margaret would respond to her, as she always had. But their former connection seemed to be lost, replaced by her twin’s devotion to Caldwell.

Worried sick and unable to abandon her sister, Emma had managed to come across as “worshipful” enough to be asked to stay at the Refuge—at least on a trial basis.

But this was the second time in the past few days that the Master had asked to see her alone. Why?

Did he know that in the middle of the day, when everyone was busy, she’d been sneaking around the mansion, looking through his private papers? Lord, if someone had seen her and told Caldwell, she was a dead woman. And she feared that was no exaggeration. People had disappeared from the Refuge. Usually it happened in the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping. The next day, it was as if the person had never even existed, as far as the zombies living here were concerned.

Knowing she couldn’t keep Caldwell waiting any longer, she splashed cold water on her face and dried off with a paper towel. Then she hurried down the hall to the stairs.

The Master’s study was at the back of the mansion. As she stood before the closed door, she ordered her heart to stop pounding. It failed to cooperate.

“Come in,” his deep voice called out in response to her knock. “And close the door.”

As she stepped into the room, her gaze focused immediately on the man’s broad shoulders and shaggy dark hair, which he wore at shoulder length. That and his black coat made him look a little like a taller version of Johnny Cash in his prime. But there was nothing folksy about Damien Caldwell. He radiated a malevolent power. At least that was how he came across to her. A lot of other people, including her sister, obviously saw him differently.

He was standing by the French doors, gazing out across the manicured lawn that sloped down to the Miles River, but he turned from the window, fixing her with his penetrating gaze—more intense than the eyes of any other man she had met. She knew many people—both men and women—had lost themselves in their fathomless depths.

To distract herself, she focused on a tree outside the window.

“Thank you for coming, my dear. I know you must be eager to get to breakfast,” he said in the gravelly voice that grated on her nerve endings. His accent was strange—not anything she could identify except to know that it wasn’t American.

“I’m always glad to see you,” she answered.

“But you’re nervous,” he countered.

“Yes. Your personality is so…magnetic. When I’m with you, it’s hard for me to think.”

“Just relax. I wanted to compliment you on your work. How are you getting on with the other silversmiths?” he asked.

“Very well,” she answered, hoping it was true, now that she had tamped down her creative flair for design.

Caldwell had a genius for discovering people’s talents and putting them to work for the good of the commune. Some Refuge residents traveled to Baltimore every day to work in offices and bring their paychecks “home.” Some ran his e-mail-based publications business. Others did publicity for his seminars. Margaret was kept busy doing his bookkeeping. And still other residents, like her, had special talents that Caldwell could exploit.

Emma had learned her craft from Betty Blanchard, a master silversmith in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Two years after starting to work with Betty, she’d begun supporting herself on the sales from her original jewelry, first as an employee, then as a partner. Thank God Betty had been okay with her rushing off to Maryland. She understood the twin thing.

Caldwell moved from his place beside the window, gliding toward her almost as if his feet didn’t need to touch the floor. He stopped directly in front of her.

When he reached out a hand, she looked down at it. To her surprise, his nails were yellow and brittle, with grooves running from the nail beds to the tips. Even though his skin was smooth, those nails made him look a hundred years old.

She stood very still while he stroked her shoulder-length hair, her cheek, the side of her neck, her back.

Closing her eyes, she endured his touch. But when his hand drifted to the top of her breast, she took a quick step away.

“Don’t,” she said softly.

“You don’t enjoy intimacy?”

She had heard the women talking about their sexual experiences with Caldwell and had considered what to say if he put the moves on her. “I’ve had some bad experiences with men. That makes me cautious—even with you.”

He tipped his head to one side, studying her. “Speaking your mind is one of the qualities that makes you stand out.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “If you meant it as a compliment.”

“I’m thinking about how I mean it,” he said with a chuckle.

But she wasn’t fooled. He truly was weighing her merits, and she was sure her very life hung in the balance.

“You should go on, before you miss breakfast.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, and she exited the room.

She had to get out of here. But how could she leave Margaret at this place?

She couldn’t. Not alone.

It was extremely hard for Emma to admit she needed help. If her mother’s example had taught her anything, it was that the only person she could rely on—besides Margaret—was herself. Now Margaret was lost to her. And every day she spent at the Refuge had driven her closer to the conclusion that this was a situation she couldn’t handle on her own.

So she had come up with Plan B.