“Or you won’t let yourself leave.”
“Maybe.” The accusation was true. “I haven’t found what I seek.” What was she seeking? She couldn’t remember, but she was definitely searching for something.
“Why should you find it?” he asked. His voice was harsh and as stern as his face. There was nothing about him that seemed to like her, or show a modicum of compassion. But she knew she wasn’t a threat to him. Instead a mere annoyance.
“Not a question I can answer.”
“Have you looked?”
“Not enough. I don’t know where to look.” That was the second half. First, she didn’t know what she was searching for, second, she didn’t know where to look. He thought her a stupid, silly girl, and she had nothing to convince him otherwise.
“You must go up the mountain to find what you seek.”
The mists came in and she was being drawn away. Or the hill of bodies was drawn away, and her instincts told her it wouldn’t come back. She was being pushed away.
She woke with a start, that same jerk she did when she feared she was falling. Her stomach was twisted in knots and the sheets were again damp with sweat. The unease from the dream lingered, but her senses absorbed the calm silence of the room. The fire dying.
Getting up, she replenished the coal and then hunched by fire until it built up more warmth. That horrid dream again. And more night sweats. Maybe she should worry that she actually had a fever that was causing her so much trouble at night. It could even be poison.
With a wince, she pushed the thought away, along with the feelings of uselessness. Everyone thought she was a stupid and silly girl, and how could she argue? Even her dreams were saying so. But they had also said that what she sought was up the mountain.
What a strange thing to be told in a dream. What did it mean?
What she sought was Oliver, and now her dream had told her that what she sought was up the mountain. The Roman soldier had said so.
Staring into the fire, she blinked. Why would her mind tell her that? Also that horrid bird. It was the same one that had smacked into the window, but that had definitely not been a dream. It had been real. The sound of it smacking into the glass was still with her.
Her mind was drawing these things together. The bird, the legend. Her search. And her dream was telling her he was up the mountain. The mountain had been searched. Still, the Roman told her he was there.
What they knew now of that man’s methods, the culprit responsible for this, was that he sedated and stored them in the hotel until he carried them away, like he had with her. It could be that he’d waited until after the search and then carried Oliver up there somewhere. In the cart. That must have been where she’d been taken too.
With her chin on her knee, she forbade herself from thinking the thought that was just under the surface of her conscious thoughts, the fact that in her gut, she felt that Roman wasn’t a figment of her imagination. He was the one, or one of the ghosts, roaming these mountains.
What did that make the hill of bodies? His victims? His company? Or was it how he saw the place he dwelled? It certainly wasn’t a scene her mind would have concocted. Battle and bodies wasn’t her purview, but it certainly had been his.
Discomfort crept like icy water down her spine. She didn’t like him, and he didn’t like her, but she’d been drawn back into that same dream on a number of occasions now. And he was telling her to find what she sought up the mountain. That’s where Oliver was.
Chapter 29
“MR. WEBER!” CLEMMIE CALLED as she reached the empty lobby. It was early, and she’d waited since waking up from that dream—nightmare was a better description.
“Ah, Mrs. Rowland,” he said, emerging from the back office. “How may I assist you?”
“We have to search the mountain again.”
“We already searched the mountain, even the surrounding ones.”
“I believe I was being taken to where he took the others. They are up there. I’m sure of it. From what we know now, he sedates his victims and stows them somewhere in the hotel before carrying them away. And I think he waited until the search was done before taking Oliver there.”
“I’m not sure people will be glad to search again. We searched the hotel.”
“Yes, but after Oliver was removed. We must search again. He isn’t anywhere else, is he? We’ve looked. And yes, I understand that many were questioning whether he has simply left me, but two other men have disappeared as well. These men have been placed somewhere.”
“And if we find them, based on your urging, the constable will be convinced of your guilt. If not, he will accuse you of distraction.”
Clemmie hadn’t thought of that. It was true. “That cannot matter. The important thing is to find Oliver.” A new hope inside her wouldn’t be quelled. If not to find him alive, then at least to find him to take home to his family. It was hard to think of him as her family. They’d known each other such a short amount of time. “We must find him. It is all that matters. Constable Luchon and his suspicions will be to be dealt with afterward.”
“You seem very adamant today. Now full of energy after seeming so drained yesterday.”
For a moment, Clemmie considered telling him of the dream. “Yesterday was difficult, but today, I feel like this is the right thing. We will find him if we search.”
“If you insist, I will try to organize a search. It will be more difficult this time as people will be reluctant to search ground they’ve already
