Free Sunshine and the Shadowmaster by Christine Rimmer

the receiver met the cradle.
    â€œI’ll take it,” Lucas said from behind her. He was carrying what looked like a small gray suitcase. “It’s probably for me anyway.”
    â€œAll right.” She moved out of his way.
    He set the little suitcase on the table. Heather realized it was a laptop computer when he flipped it open and she saw the screen. Then he went and answered the ringing phone.
    The call was from Mark’s mother. Lucas launched into a detailed explanation of the day’s events.
    Heather left him alone and went into the living room, where she tried her best to watch a situation comedy while she waited for her clothes to dry. When the show was over, she went down to the basement, folded the clothes and took them upstairs to put away.
    Then she stuck her head in the kitchen, where Lucas was sitting at the table typing at the laptop. The phone rang again just as she entered the room. He got up to answer it. She mouthed a good-night at him and he waved in response as he muttered “Hello?” into the mouthpiece.
    Heather went upstairs, brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas. She climbed between the sheets and switched off the light, thinking she was tired enough that she’d be asleep in minutes.
    But sleep was fickle after all. The phone kept ringing. And since she had an extension by her bed, she was jarred from a doze twice before she reached over and unplugged the darn thing. But then she could still hear it, down in the kitchen, distant but disturbing. And after a while, she found herself waiting for the low drone of Lucas’s voice as he dealt with the people who called.
    Finally, very late, the house fell silent. Either Lucas had turned off the ringer and let his answering machine handle things, or they were giving him a break for the night.
    Heather lay, wide-eyed, listening to the silence, wondering what was the matter with her. It was perfectly quiet now. She shouldn’t be lying there staring at the ceiling waiting for...what, exactly?
    She realized what it was. She was waiting for sounds of Lucas moving around down there, for the noises that would mean he was getting ready for bed. She was having trouble relaxing because she hadn’t heard the water running in the bathroom, or the creaking of floorboards that would tell her he was settling down in the room below hers. As soon as she heard those sounds, she could relax.
    So she waited some more.
    But the sounds didn’t come.
    After a while, she just couldn’t stand it. She slid from her bed, pulled on her robe and tiptoed barefoot out to the small landing at the top of the stairs. She leaned over the rail and looked down the stairwell into thick, unrelieved darkness. As far as she could make out, all the lights were off down there.
    Treading carefully, Heather went down the stairs. When she reached the dining room, she paused, her hand on the newel post. The door to Lucas’s room was opposite where she stood. It was closed. No light gleamed under it. Apparently Lucas had gone to bed without her hearing him.
    Heather dropped to the bottom stair and leaned her head against the newel post. She wanted to go to Lucas’s door and knock on it, to ask him if he was all right. But then again, it seemed inappropriate to go knocking on his door in the middle of the night.
    So she did nothing. She sat there in the dark at the base of the stairs, tired enough that she fell to musing.
    Across the hardwood floor, between herself and the door to Lucas’s room, loomed the big, polished mahogany dining table. The rich wood gleamed in the spill of moonlight from outside.
    That table had once belonged to Lucas’s grandmother, Cecilia Drury, back all those years ago, when the Drury Ranch claimed most of the land for miles around.
    Rory, Lucas’s father, had been Cecilia’s only child. People said Rory had loved only one woman: Bathsheba Riley, whom he’d lost forever when Oggie Jones came