Chapter Fourteen

Day 02

Clara Lee opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, until she realized that it was not her ceiling.

Once that first flare of panic cleared the last of the sleep from her head she sat up, and immediately gasped as a bolt of pain shot through her chest. When she grabbed at it she felt bandages, and beneath them strange lumps. And then it kicked in that she was naked, which started her shivering even though the room was warm.

The room was warm. As she pulled the sheet free to wrap around herself she looked around the room. It had to be at the beach because she could see ocean outside, and hear the waves through the cracked opening. It was light and airy, with a big, comfortable bed, a vanity table that looked well-stocked, a wardrobe and chest of drawers, and through one open door a bathroom. The other door was closed.

Before she checked that other door Clara checked the wardrobe and chest. Thankfully both contained clothes in her sizes, right down to the shoes. Not a clue to whom they might belong but she was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, she pulled out a likely set and stepped into the bath to quickly dress. It was also well stocked with toiletries; whoever lived here had comfortable tastes. As she dressed she took the opportunity to see what was going on with her chest, which hurt whenever she moved wrong. Whatever it was had been neatly bandaged, thankfully. Under the bandages were three neatly stitched cuts and three large lumps that hadn't been there when...wait, what had happened?

She drifted back to the vanity while she remembered. She had been riding in the park, enjoying the wind in her hair and the crisp autumn morning, glad for every chance to get out before the snow drove her in to the gym. She remembered this van pulling out in front of her out of nowhere and falling and...no, that was all she remembered.

By then she had kind of fallen into the vanity chair, and now she automatically picked up the brush there, also the kind she used, and started pulling it through her hair, trying to get it tidy. Her eyes drifted over the items laid out there, not really seeing them for a moment, until some part of her brain called her attention. There were prescription bottles there, with her name on them, although no clue as to the pharmacy. She opened them and recognized what she took regularly. And with them was a glucometer and testing kit. Although she felt fine she opened it and checked, found her blood sugar to be a bit high, but not to the point of being worrisome.

Wherever she was someone intended for her to be here. Not some random woman riding in the park, her. But who was the someone who brought her here? Who did this to her?

Time to explore.

So far everything around her had been silent. She moved to the unopened door, listened carefully, then cracked it open and had a look. Beyond all she saw was an empty room. She opened it, stepped out cautiously and found herself in a hallway with three other doors. On the far side it ended in a window. The other seemed to open into a larger space.

It seemed a truism of most scary moves that things crept up from behind you because no one ever looked there. Clara decided to check the rooms at the far end of the hall first, just to make certain no one was hiding there. They turned out to be empty bedroom suites, the furniture draped with dust cloths, the toilets winterized. But the fourth, the one directly across from hers, had been opened.

And it was occupied.

She crept in quietly. There was a man sleeping in that bed, one deeply asleep enough to be snoring lightly. In the clear light she could see that he had the look of a poet about him, with an elegant face and unruly hair. That he was showing the barest hint of wanting a shave indicated how long she had been sleeping. Thankfully he was draped with a sheet as she had been but it had slipped enough for her to see the bandages on his finely muscled chest. A fellow victim then. She assumed the leather folder on his nightstand was his wallet, intended only to peek at his driver's license to learn his name, and was surprised to find a badge there.

"Agent Reid?" She asked, hoping to wake him. "Agent Reid?" No reply. She could try shaking him awake but that would never do so instead she disciplined herself to suppress the usual urge and went to peek in his bathroom, finding it empty. Leaving him to what was likely a drugged slumber she crept on, checking two more hallways on this floor, four bedrooms each, all of which were empty and closed. Whoever brought them here had tucked them into the two bedrooms closest to the stairs and had...left them? Could she be sure?

There was no hope for it but to check the rest of the house. She rambled through every room clockwise, checking every closet and cupboard that could be anything close enough to conceal a person. She didn't stop to look at anything else along the way, she just looked for people. But she didn't find a one, other than the sleeping poet there was no one. Finally she checked outside and found out that they were on an island. "Maybe I should have tried for a triathlon instead of a century." She muttered as she eyed the distant shore.

All right, there was no one. There were two locked doors she had found, a big roll up down in the cellar and one with an odd sort of lock at the bottom of the stairs. She wedged chairs under that door and the cellar door just in case and went around the ground floor again, this time taking in the house. It was comfortable; she had to give it that. It had everything she could possibly want in a house and more. But then it was likely designed for her and the poet, the sugary cereals down in the cellar and the flavored creamers in the upstairs fridge were not for her, neither was the piano in the parlor. The lab balance in the kitchen was, as well as the tea for the pod-type coffee maker. She'd been meaning to try one of those, looked like she had her chance.

The kitchen did hold one other wonder, a binder left square in the middle of the island, labeled Information. She decided to leave it for the poet and instead set about opening a bottle and loading it into the water cooler, then filling the pot. As she set it to working she looked out the window toward the south. "All right Grandfather." She murmured, speaking to her ancestor as she liked to do when she needed the strength. "Any idea what to do about this one?"

She'd later take it as a sign when she heard soft footsteps on the stairs.