Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,121

of the portrait on the wall. The massive, framed painting of a little girl and her corgis frolicking in some garden hung open like a door.

A secret passage.

I smiled to myself. I guess I didn’t need that screwdriver after all.

Walking back out, she pulled her hat off her head and smiled at me with her full lips and white teeth. She’d cut her hair. The A-line, shoulder-length bob curtained her long neck, strands hanging in her face and over her beautiful eyes, her green a shade darker than Will’s.

“How are you here?” I asked, taking in her tight jeans that were a lot more practical than the dress pants I’d arrived in, and her fitted, brown leather jacket that matched her rubber-soled brown leather boots.

She was dressed to run. Dirt scuffed her jaw, and she pulled off her gloves, black gunk embedded under her nails.

And then I registered what she had said a moment ago, my spine straightening. She’d watched us in the drawing room last night?

She’d been here, hiding. For at least a day.

I shot off the bed. “Did you put me here?”

I pinched my eyebrows together, anger suddenly replacing the relief I’d just felt.

But her eyes darted to mine. “No,” she said, knitting her brow. “God, no. I promise. I have no idea why you’re here.”

“Then why are you here?” I demanded, tightening the towel around me. “How…where did you come from? How did you know about the secret passageways? Where are we?”

I had too many questions, and the confusion from when I’d arrived started to bubble up again. No one had any answers.

She opened the painting wider and leaned down, pulling out a black duffle bag. Walking over, she dug out some clothes and handed them to me, remaining silent.

I looked down at the jeans and long-sleeved black T and...

Yes. Underwear and a bra.

She’d packed for this. She knew she was coming here, unlike me.

I swallowed, staring at her. “Alex?”

Why wasn’t she talking?

She shuffled the stuff in her bag, refusing to look at me.

“Alex.”

Finally, she said in a low voice, “We’re on an island. In North America.”

“Canada?”

She hesitated.

“Where in North America?” I pressed. “East Coast, West Coast, New England…?”

But she just spun around, taking her canteen into the bathroom and refilling it.

An island…

Was it deserted? Was it near the mainland? Shit. There were millions of islands out there.

“Alex?” I barked.

Goddammit.

But she whisper-yelled at me. “Emmy, shut up.”

I glanced at the door again, remembering we had a house full of men on the other side who didn’t know she was here.

And even though I was glad she was, she wasn’t putting me at ease.

I don’t know why you’re here, she’d said. So she knew why she was here, then?

“How long have you been here?” I demanded.

How long had she been hiding in the walls? I heard those sounds the night I arrived. She hadn’t been hiding that long, right?

But even as the thought occurred to me, I watched her eyes shift as she filled her bottle, and the fury boiled over.

“I arrived on the shipment like you,” she said in a low voice.

I charged over, grabbed her water bottle, and threw it. I fisted her collar and shoved her away, growling. She stumbled backward, tripped over the toilet, and fell onto the ground, landing on her ass. She broke the fall with her hands and her eyes flew up to me.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” I gritted out as quietly as I could. “Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to me?”

All this time. She’d been watching all of us. What the hell was going on?

She breathed hard, but she never blinked. She knew she’d fucked up.

“You’ve been hiding in the walls,” I pointed out. “It didn’t occur to you at some point to grab me, too?”

“Of course, it did,” she said, climbing to her feet again and picking up her bottle. “It just got complicated.”

I closed the distance between us and swatted her about fifteen times lightly in the chest. Goddamn her.

“Are you hitting my boobs?” She batted at my hands. “Seriously.”

I didn’t know what was going on, and while I was momentarily grateful not to be as alone as I thought, I had no doubt she had the answers I wanted and was refusing to give them to me.

This was bullshit.

She caught her breath, and I stood there, not at all scared if she decided to hit me back.

But she didn’t. She just cocked an eyebrow, saying, “Save it for the plutocrats.