Once Trapped (A Riley Paige Mystery—Book 13)

PROLOGUE Morgan Farrell had no idea where she was or where she had just come from. She felt as if she were stepping out of a deep, thick fog. Something or someone was right there in front of her. She leaned forward, staring, and saw a woman’s face staring back at her. The woman looked just as lost and confused as Morgan felt. “Who are you?” she asked the woman. The face mouthed the words in unison with her, and then Morgan realized … My reflection. She was looking at her own face in a mirror. She felt stupid not to have recognized herself right away, but not completely surprised. My reflection. She knew she was looking at her own face in a mirror, but it felt like looking at a stranger. This was the face she’d always had, the face that people called elegant and beautiful. Now it looked artificial to her. The face in the mirror didn’t look quite … alive. For a few moments, Morgan wondered if she had died. But she could feel her slightly ragged breathing. She felt her heart beating a little fast. No, she wasn’t dead. But she seemed to be lost. She tried to pull her thoughts together. Where am I? What was I doing before I got here? Weird as she felt about not knowing, it was a familiar problem. This wasn’t the first time she’d found herself in some part of the huge house without knowing how she’d gotten there. Her sleepwalking spells were caused by the multiple tranquilizers the doctor had prescribed, plus too much scotch. Morgan only knew one thing—Andrew had better not see her looking like she looked right now. She had no makeup on, and her hair was a mess. She lifted a hand to push a strand of hair off her forehead, then saw … My hand. It’s red. It’s covered with blood. She watched as the mouth on the reflected face dropped open with shock. Then she lifted her other hand. It was also red with blood. With a shudder of revulsion, she impulsively wiped her hands on the front of her clothing. Then her horror mounted. She had just smeared blood on her extremely expensive silk nightgown. Andrew would be furious if he found out. But how was she going to clean herself up? She glanced around, then hastily reached for a hand towel hanging next to the mirror. As she tried to clean her hands with it, she saw the monogram … AF This was her husband’s towel. She forced herself to focus on her surroundings … the plush monogrammed towels … the shimmering gold-colored walls. She was in her husband’s bathroom. Morgan sighed with despair. Her nighttime wanderings had taken her into her husband’s bedroom a few times before. If she woke him up, he was always furious at her for violating his privacy. And now she had wandered all the way through his bedroom into his adjoining bathroom. She shivered. Her husband’s punishments were always cruel. What’s he going to do to me this time? she thought. Morgan shook her head, trying to pull herself out of her mental fog. Her head was splitting and she felt nauseous. Obviously she’d had a lot to drink on top of too many tranquilizers. And now, not only had she gotten blood all over one of Andrew’s precious towels, she saw that she had made prints all over the white bathroom counter. There was even blood on the marble floor. Where did all this blood come from? she asked herself. A strange possibility occurred to her … Did I try to kill myself? She couldn’t remember doing that, but it certainly seemed possible. She’d contemplated suicide more than once since she’d been married to Andrew. And if she ever did die by her own hand, she wouldn’t be the first to do so in this house. Mimi, Andrew’s wife before Morgan, had committed suicide. So had his son Kirk, just last November. She almost smiled with bitter irony … Did I just try to continue the family tradition? She stepped back to get a better look at herself. All this blood … But she didn’t seem to be wounded anywhere. So where had the blood come from? She turned and saw that the door leading into Andrew’s bedroom was wide open. Is he in there? she wondered. Had he slept through whatever had happened? She breathed a little easier at the possibility. If he was sleeping that soundly, maybe she could get away without him noticing that she’d been here. But then she stifled a groan as she realized it wasn’t going to be that easy. There was still all this blood to deal with. If Andrew came into his bathroom and found this terrible mess, of course he’d know that she was somehow to blame. She was always to blame for everything as far as he was concerned. Her panic rising, she began to wipe the counter with the towel. But that was no good. All she was doing was smearing the blood all over the place. She needed water to clean things up. She almost turned on the faucet in the sink when she realized the sound of running water would surely wake Andrew up. She thought maybe she could softly close the bathroom door and run the water as quietly as she could. She crept on tiptoe across the enormous bathroom toward the door. When she got there, she cautiously peeked out into the bedroom. She gasped aloud at what she saw. The lights were turned low, but there was no mistaking Andrew lying there in bed. He was covered with blood. The sheets were covered in blood. There was even blood on the carpeted floor. Morgan rushed over to the bed. Her husband’s eyes were wide open in an expression of frozen terror. He’s dead, she realized. She hadn’t died, but Andrew had. Had he committed suicide? No, that was impossible. Andrew had nothing but contempt for people who took their own lives—including his wife and son. “Not serious people,” he’d often said about them. And Andrew had always prided himself on being a serious person. And he’d always raised that issue with Morgan … “Are you a serious person?” As she looked more carefully, she could see that Andrew had bled from many different wounds all over his body. And nestled among the blood-soaked sheets beside his body she saw a large kitchen knife. Who could have done this? Morgan wondered. Then a weird, euphoric calm fell over her as she realized … I finally did it. I killed him. She’d done it in her dreams many times. And now, at long last, she’d done it for real. She smiled and said aloud to the corpse … “Who’s a serious person now?” But she knew better than to bask in this warm and pleasant feeling. Murder was murder, and she knew that she had to accept the consequences. But instead of fear or guilt, she felt a deep sense of contentment. He was a horrible man. And he was dead. Whatever happened now, this was well worth it. She picked up the phone next to his bed with her sticky hand and almost dialed 911 before she thought … No. There’s someone else I want to tell first. It was a kindly woman who had shown concern about her welfare some time ago. Before she did anything else, she needed to call that woman and tell her that she needn’t worry about Morgan anymore. Everything was just fine at last.