When Twilight Comes - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,15

sound of Lexi’s sweet voice, Jenna checked the entire suite to make sure there was no one hiding there. Relieved, and finally starting to relax, she went into her bedroom and opened her suitcase.

She hadn’t packed much, just a few clothes for herself, and most of Lexi’s. She’d had to move quickly once she’d gotten the call from the private investigator, telling her that he believed her ex-husband had taken Lexi back to the home Jenna had shared with him.

“Let the police handle getting your daughter back,” the private investigator had advised.

“I’ve already tried that route.” The man obviously didn’t know Lorenzo Dante. “This is something I have to do myself.”

Stripping off the black clothing now, she tossed it aside and put on the complimentary thick white, terry-cloth guest robe hanging in the closet. She pulled it around her, snuggling into the warmth, trying to chase away the chill that ran bone deep, as she looked at the duffel bag full of money.

Hurriedly, she zipped it closed and stuffed it into the back of the closet. Tomorrow she would figure out a way to get it to Lorenzo.

In the meantime, she and Lexi were safe, she thought, repeating it like a mantra. At least for tonight.

She couldn’t wait to soak in the huge old-fashioned tub. Maybe tonight, for the first time in a long time, she would be able to sleep.

Or maybe not, she mused, as she sensed that same strange charge in the air that she had earlier. It breezed past her, a brush of icy breath against her bare skin, leaving her with that sense of a presence in the room with her.

She checked the whole suite once again, unable to stop herself. There was no one there, just as there hadn’t been earlier.

Back in her bathroom, she began to fill the enormous tub with hot steamy water and almond-scented bubble bath, compliments of Fernhaven.

She shied away from thinking about Lorenzo. Or the money in the duffel bag in the back of her closet. To her surprise, her thoughts veered to the man in the old black-and-white photograph from the hotel’s opening night. Funny how she thought she could smell the smoke from his cheroot….

With a shudder she realized that the man in the old photograph resembled the one she’d thought she’d seen at the window of the third-floor hotel room tonight.

But that wasn’t possible. There was no one else in the hotel, Elmer had said.

Jenna frowned. Lexi was the one with the overactive imagination, not her.

Exhaustion, she decided. What else could it be?

A low hissing sound directly behind her made her whirl around. Fred was crouched in the doorway of the bathroom, his wide-eyed gaze boring into the corner of the window seat across from her.

Jenna stared at the spot where Fred’s eyes were transfixed. There was no one there, of course.

She snatched up the cat.

“Fred, I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said as she carried him back to Lexi’s room. He protested as she started to close the door so he couldn’t get out. “I’m not going to have you waking me up all night with that foolishness,” she whispered.

He just stared at her with those big eyes, then looked past her, jumping as if someone frightening had just come up behind her.

She swung around, knowing even as she did that no one would be there. Then she glared down at Fred, who had stopped hissing, but seemed to be watching the doorway, as if whoever had been there had left.

“Honestly, Fred, you’re really starting to annoy me,” she whispered, scratching his ears. He began to purr, pushing against her fingers, golden eyes closed in contentment. “Oh, how quickly you change your tune, you old faker.”

She moved to the bed to reassure herself that Lexi was sleeping soundly. The child’s face was angelic in sleep. She had Clarice tucked in the crook of her arm. Jenna leaned down, needing to touch her daughter, to assure herself that she was real, that she was here, that she was safe.

Jenna pressed a soft kiss on her baby girl’s cheek, then remembered the water running in the tub in her bathroom. Closing the bedroom door, she rushed back and hurriedly turned off the faucet before the tub overflowed. Then, unable not to, she looked at the spot Fred had freaked over. Nothing but an empty, sparkling tile bench.

That’s what she hated about cats. They jumped at nothing and generally spooked her. Darn that cat. She couldn’t help