The End of Temperance Dare: A Novel by Wendy Webb

Author:Wendy Webb
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781477824115
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2017-06-05T18:30:00+00:00

I awoke to the sound of screaming. Was I dreaming? But no, there it was again. My room was pitch black—the sky had evidently clouded up again, obscuring the stars and moon that usually illuminated my room at night. I quickly felt around for the light switch, threw on my robe, and flung my door open, hitting the switch in the hallway as I did so.

I saw Brynn hurrying down the hallway toward my room. Her face was ashen.

“Was that you screaming?” I asked her.

One by one, doors opened, and heads poked out into the hall. “What’s the matter?” someone said. “What’s going on?” said another.

Richard materialized—I hadn’t noticed him coming down the hallway from his suite—and put a hand on Brynn’s shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked her.

She looked at me with wild, terror-filled eyes. “Somebody was in my room.”

The group gathered around us. “What do you mean somebody was in your room?” Cassandra said, cinching the belt on her blue satin robe. “Didn’t you have your door locked?”

“Of course I had it locked,” Brynn snapped at her. She turned to me and took my hand, and I could feel that she was physically shaking. “Come and see.”

She led me to her suite, the others following behind. The door was standing open, the light on. She pointed to the study. “In there,” she whispered. “Look.”

I started to cross the room toward the study, but Richard took my arm. “Let me go first,” he said and then turned to the others. “You all stay here. Just in case.”

He and I moved into the study, and both of us let out a gasp. On the desk, the old, weathered journal sat open, its pages ripped out and strewn all over the desktop, the chair, and the floor.

I turned to Brynn. By this time, Henry was standing with her, a protective arm around her shoulders. “You didn’t do this yourself, obviously?”

“Obviously,” she said. “Look closer. Look at the individual pages.”

I picked one up and then dropped it again, as though it had burned my fingers. Scrawled across the journal entry on the page, in black ink, were the words: Lies Lies Lies Lies. And there it was on the other pages, written over and over again.

“Holy Jesus,” Richard said, his voice low. “Who would do something like this?”

Brynn turned her face into Henry’s chest rather than look at that scene any longer. I could see her shoulders shaking. He rubbed her back and cooed, “There, there, my dear. There, there.”

“Okay, listen,” I said, trying to take charge, my voice a bit louder than I had intended it to be. “Brynn, I need to know exactly what happened.”

No response. “Brynn,” I said, taking her arm. “Turn around and tell us what happened. You’re safe now. We’re all here.”

She did as she was told, and I led her out of the study and into her bedroom. She crawled into her bed and sat propped against the pillows. As the others gathered around her, she took a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

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