Demon Marked Read Online Free PDF Page A

But if Madelyn still owned those shares, she didn’t need to worry about cash when— if —she returned.
    A second, smaller room lay beyond a connecting door—Rachel Boyle’s office. Unlike Madelyn’s office, all of the tables and cabinet surfaces had been cleared of papers. Ash opened the drawers and looked through the shelves, hoping to find a personal item of Rachel’s. Anything. A single object to touch, to hold—and to see if it felt familiar.
    She finished the search and came up empty. Nothing of Rachel remained here, and Rachel’s own apartment had been let to someone else shortly after her disappearance. She’d been survived by her parents in America; her belongings had probably been shipped to their home. Which meant Ash had nowhere left to look for answers—at least not in London.
    So her next step would be finding Nicholas St. Croix.
    Was it odd that no evidence of Madelyn’s son existed in this house? Ash thought it must be. No pictures of Nicholas as a boy graced the tables; no family photos depicted happier times. Did Madelyn order them removed from her sight—out of spite or pain—or had they simply never been a part of the décor?
    Curious, Ash followed the hallway to the master bedroom. Maybe Madelyn hadn’t expunged Nicholas’s presence from her house; perhaps she’d simply kept the evidence somewhere more private.
    Or perhaps not. Ash opened the door to another expensively appointed room devoid of any personality other than “tasteful.” Aside from Madelyn’s painting in the library, the entire house could have been anyone’s home—except that anyone else would have left more of an impression on their surroundings.
    Unless, of course, this house did reflect Madelyn’s personality: sophisticated, disinterested . . . perfect.
    But not everything was perfect. Something seemed wrong. Ash studied the room, trying to determine what didn’t fit—and for the first time, not searching for something familiar, but just looking . Her gaze landed on the bed. The blankets stretched unevenly over the mattress. A pillow lay askew and dented at its center.
    Someone had been sleeping in that bed. How long ago? A housekeeper wouldn’t have left it like that. Breathing in through her nose, Ash detected a recent scent that she’d begun to associate with male —and a connection suddenly lurked at the back of her mind, that half-seen lightning, that forgotten word.
    Like Cinderella, a memory—another story. Who’s been sleeping in my bed?
    Ash knew the answer to this one: Goldilocks, who’d broken into the bears’ house. Although Ash had broken into this home, that wasn’t the connection that teased her. She didn’t sleep in anyone’s bed, not even her own.
    Every night, she’d lain motionless beneath her blankets when the nurses had ordered her to, but she hadn’t actually slept in almost three years.
    So what was her mind trying to tease out of this memory? Ash moved closer to the bed, attempting to follow the tenuous association formed between now and Before. She didn’t care about the man who’d been sleeping here. He wasn’t in this room now, but a connection to her past was . . . somewhere.
    What was the rest of that story? Who’s been eating my porridge? That wasn’t her, either. Though she’d eaten whenever they placed a meal in front of her, Ash hadn’t been hungry. Since her escape from Nightingale House, four weeks had gone by without food passing her lips.
    Perhaps her mind wasn’t trying to remember an association with the story itself; perhaps the connection lay in the circumstances in which she’d heard it. But she couldn’t remember that. She couldn’t remember who’d told the story to her—or even whether she’d read it, instead. She couldn’t remember where she’d been, or when . She tried to, but came