A Beauty Dark & Deadly (A Dark & Deadly Series Book 1) Read online

  A Beauty Dark & Deadly

  By Heather C. Myers

  Chapter 1

  The first thought Emmy Atler had upon seeing him was how someone so beautiful could kill his wife and her lover. Because Jason Belmont was beautiful; any woman (and even some men) who could see (and anyone who could not see most certainly could feel) his beauty. While he was relatively short for a male, standing at five foot ten, he had incredibly angular features. His face was heart-shaped, with high cheekbones. His eyes were dark, deep, and soulful, hidden behind thick-rimmed glasses. Emmy made sure to note not to stare into those eyes in fear that she might lose a piece of her in them. His lips looked soft and shapely, his top lip only slightly smaller than his bottom lip. Oddly enough, it was Mr. Belmont’s nose that Emmy was fascinated with the most; it was pointed and defined, the nostrils flaring out almost like the wings of a bird. His hair was dark and shaggy, constantly falling into his face on its own accord. It was longer than normal, coming down to about his chin. His shoulders were broad, hidden by an old, tattered robe. Emmy noticed that for a man of forty-eight, his body was still in good shape as evidenced by his clinging wife beater and loose pajama pants.

  “I’m here to answer the ad,” she said, mentally scolding herself for how small her voice sounded. Emmy was usually more forthcoming; she wasn’t used to being intimidated by anybody.

  However, Emmy was beginning to expect that Jason Belmont was a different man entirely. He had begun to develop a well-known reputation as an esteemed author after he published his first book. The man was talented, and because of that, he started making money. As always, however, night did accompany day. Jason began holing up in his home office, plagued with deadlines, appearances, and writer’s block. The papers interpreted his isolation as a strain on his marriage and even managed to uncover his wife’s secret, seven-month affair. Jason had to discover it in the papers. Next thing he knew, his wife and her lover ended up dead in a Motel 6 and he was being accused of committing the act. Two years later and after clearing his name, he took residence in his old cabin in Lake Tahoe.

  He smiled at her, causing Emmy to look away. The sun seemed to shine differently when he smiled.

  “You seem to be the only one to do so,” he told her in a soft-spoken voice. Emmy had seen Jason being interviewed on television a few months back, and she found it rather baffling that the man had a voice that sounded articulate and mumbled at the same time. It was a low tenor and gave her chills; she hoped it was because she was intimidated by him.

  “I guess that means that you’re hired,” he continued, opening the door wider – a silent invitation to come in.

  She hesitated and glanced at her two suitcases idly on the cement porch on either side of her. It had been rather presumptuous of her to assume that she would get this job, but she highly doubted that anyone else would be applying, and upon seeing his surprised look when he first saw her, she assumed that he felt the same way.

  As Emmy stepped over the threshold that would mark the beginning of the end for her, she began to reflect on why she had decided to take the cleared murderer up on his job offer. Her grandfather was a wounded war veteran who barely managed to make ends meet with merely his disability check. He was the only thing Emmy had in the world and she loved him more than anything. She was currently a senior in college, about to graduate, but instead of finishing at the moment, she saw this opportunity to help him out and decided to take it. This, of course, was against her grandfather’s strictest wishes. It broke her heart that she had to leave him, but the pay was good, and they needed it.

  “Well, I assume you want the tour then,” he said, glancing at the ground as he scratched the back of his neck.

  “Actually, could you just show me to my room?” she asked. Even Emmy could admit that she sounded rather forceful and she quickly looked away to avoid that penetrating stare of his.

  Jason paused for a beat as he stared at her intensely before he nodded once. This caused his hair to fall in his face and his hand reached up, his long fingers pushing the locks out of his face; a chain of events that Emmy expected to happen quite often.

  “Uh… yeah,” he said, and then began to lead her through the unkempt living room up to the base of the stairs.

  Emmy watched his movements with interested curiosity. They were swift and fluid, however somewhat ungraceful as well. She noticed a rather large hole in the train of his robe, which was fluttering behind the man in hopes to keep up with him. To be honest, Emmy was somewhat surprised that she was carrying both of her suitcases. She had been raised by a man who had lived in the time where chivalry was an unwritten rule and expected the men of today to have some form of familiarity with etiquette, despite it being practically extinct.

  As though Jason Belmont could read her mind, he stopped abruptly and spun around, causing his hair to curtain his face once again. Emmy had to strain her muscles to stop so that she would not run into him.

  “I apologize,” he said, after brushing his hair back. “I seem to have forgotten my manners.” He looked at her bags before meeting her eyes. “May I?” he asked, raising his firm brow.

  Emmy’s face betrayed her thoughts by turning an unattractive shade of red. Deciding not to trust her voice, she nodded and handed him her bags. Emmy made it a point to avoid accidentally touching him, and once the two bags were in his hands, she mumbled a meek word of thanks. The corner of his lips curled up in response and again, he nodded, before turning and finally ascending up the narrow staircase.

  Along with the house, the stairs were made of wood. Any pressure on certain stairs caused an alarming squeak of protest. The wall adjacent to the staircase was oddly bare, and Emmy wondered if pictures ever occupied the space. Everything in the cabin, while messy, reminded the young woman of loneliness. There was nothing that personalized the home, nothing that set it apart from the many cabins found in the Tahoe region. Murderer or not, the man was obviously very lonely.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, Jason took a step to the right before stopping and spinning around, heading in the opposite direction. Emmy watched with a quirked brow from the top of the stairwell. He seemed uncomfortable in general, fumbling with her luggage, not because he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. As he walked, Emmy noticed that his eyes were prone to watching the floor, causing his glasses to slide down the bridge of his nose. Once she was sure the man was certain of his direction, she began to follow him.

  The young woman felt about as uncomfortable as Jason Belmont did. She curled an errant strand of her hair behind her ear as she followed behind him, timid. She was beginning to get frustrated with herself; if any of her friends was asked to describe her, timid would definitely not be one of the words they would use. But this Jason Belmont made her more nervous than she would like to admit. Usually, she was quite good at quickly reading people and then adapting to whatever situation she had been placed in. The problem was, she couldn’t quite read her employer.

  He was unlike any other person Emmy had ever met before. Almost like some sort of enigma that she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to figure out. In fact, Emmy wasn’t exactly sure of anything since walking through his door. She wasn’t sure if she was afraid that he was going to kill her or that she might be in love with him. Emmy was afraid, however. That, she knew.

  “Well, home sweet home,” he said, and then his lips curled up into a tightly forced smile.

  Emmy glanced up at him and returned his smile with a fake one of her own. “For now,” she murmured, averting her eyes so they focused on the wooden floor beneath her feet.

  There was
an awkward silence that hung in the stale air. Emmy cleared her throat and then pressed her lips together so they disappeared into a thin, white line. Her eyes glanced around the nearly empty room. There was a twin-sized bed with a crisp, purple comforter, pushed in the middle of the main wall. Beside it was a rather small nightstand adjacent to the left side of the bed, there was nothing else on either side of it. A triangular shaped window took up the majority of the connecting wall, sunlight seeping through the glass and causing the majority of the shadows to all but vanish. Across from the bed, there was a humble dresser just waiting for her to place her clothes in.

  Another lonely room…

  “Right,” Jason said, raising his brow as more of his hair fell into his face. “Well, you should probably settle in. Uh… if you need me, I’ll be in my office – that’s the second door on the left. The first one is the bathroom, and my room is the last room down the hall.” He turned to leave when something inside Emmy caused her to stop him.

  “Before you leave,” she called, her voice a bit sharper than she expected. He turned again and looked at her. Emmy regarded him for a long moment, searching his eyes before she could stop herself. Emmy realized she had temporarily forgotten what she was about to say. A blush cascaded over her face and she smiled in amusement as she shook her head.

  “Before you leave,” she stated again, looking back up at him, “you should – I mean, I don’t want to tell you what to do or anything – but maybe you should tell me what you want me to do…” She let her voice trail off and then inhaled, pointedly avoiding ’s eyes.

  He watched her for a moment before chuckling softly. He raised his brow before pushing them together and then reached up to cup his lips with his index and middle finger.

  “Uh…” he began, and then scratched the back of his neck, subconsciously revealing his level of comfort. “Well, cooking would be nice. You know, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with them,” Emmy quipped before she had fully registered the thought. When she realized this, her face darkened considerably and she looked away once again.

  ---

  Jason watched her, cocking his head to the side. Even through the dark strands of his hair, he could make her form out clearly. She was uniquely beautiful with long, wavy hair that reached the middle of her back, and incredibly expressive eyes. Her cheekbones and jawline were defined, with light freckles sprinkled on her cheeks and across the bridge of her small, upturned nose. She was somewhat short, at about five foot five; he had a good half a foot on her, which gave her a delicate undertone. He couldn’t quite tell what kind of figure she had; her body was hidden under a loose grey hoodie, old blue jeans that looked quite comfortable, and worn converse shoes.

  In all honesty, Jason was rather surprised she had shown up – that anyone had shown up, in fact. Despite being cleared of all charges, he knew that many people still believe that he committed the crimes. In fact, most of Tahoe shunned him, which was a reason why he needed Emmy; she could go into town and get what had been refused to him. Normally, he had no patience for any form of discrimination, but he thought if the community saw that he was trying to keep to himself and not bother anybody, they might start warming up to him a bit and let him buy food and other necessities.

  It had been a week since he posted the ad in the local paper before she had knocked on his door. Even looking at her now, he was still slightly baffled that she had actually answered it at all.

  “And cleaning,” he continued, a very small, amused smile on his face. “As you can obviously see, the house isn’t exactly in the best shape as it has been in the past.” He paused for a long moment, peering at the young woman before him. He silently mused over how old she was. Obviously, she was young – definitely in her early twenties. Odd; his previous housekeeper had been a retired widow. She left after the murder charges were brought against him, just like everybody else had.

  ---

  Emmy noticed Jason Belmont’s eyes turn a darker shade than what she assumed was normal, and his lips were pressed tightly together. She wondered what he was thinking about, wondered what could make him so angry so quickly.

  “Anyway,” he mumbled through a sigh as he pushed his hair back with his long fingers. “I should leave you now.” With that, the man turned around and disappeared down the hallway, probably to his office.

  Emmy watched him until he disappeared before blinking a couple of times. She was really here, in his house, with this man. It was then that she realized how tense her body had become upon being in the same room with him, and knew that as long as she stayed here, she would be looking over her shoulder constantly. She sighed then, trying to get a hold of herself. The room had suddenly become too hot, so she walked over to the triangular window and opened the glass. Immediately, a nice, crisp breeze blew in, pushing strands of hair over her shoulder.

  Instead of retreating to the whole of the room, however, Emmy’s curious eyes began to survey her view. There was a very small vegetable garden located in a pocket against the house. Her brows pushed together as she regarded the juicy tomatoes, the small patch of carrots, and the tall, gold maize. She had never been talented at gardening; that had been her grandfather’s forte. Besides the garden, the cabin was surrounded by forest; tall trees that blocked the sunlight and provided a good portion of shade during the hot summer months. It also hid the cabin from view. It took Emmy a good twenty minutes of mindless searching until she spotted the nearly camouflaged red-bricked chimney upon first coming here. The main road was about a mile north, but there were many dirt trails leading every which way. Never good with direction, the young woman noted not to try and follow a trail by herself; despite how much it had been traveled by, she was certain that she would most definitely get lost. Finally, she could make out a very small sliver of a nearby lake, the sun’s rays pressing down on the water and causing it to sparkle.

  A dejected sort of grumble pressed itself against the inside of Emmy’s throat. She had prided herself on being a city girl (although, if she was telling the truth, she was really more a suburb girl). Originally from Newport Beach, California, she moved up to live with her grandfather in San Francisco just after her high school graduation. Currently, she was taking classes at San Francisco State, majoring in sociology. Now, after she had decided to prolong her senior year to take this job, she found herself in a small town, practically isolated from the world. The fact that she was shacked up with a maybe murderer was definitely not helping things.

  Emmy turned at that moment and decided that now was as good time as any to begin to unpack. She entertained the thought of grabbing her iPod and listen to music as she did so but ultimately decided against it. Jason Belmont might sneak up behind her and slit her throat if she wasn’t always on her guard. With that, she pulled both suitcases over to her dresser and began moving her clothes from the bags to the insides of the drawers. It took her about a half an hour to complete the transition, and when she finished, she pushed the empty bag underneath her bed.

  There were still a couple of items left in the second bag, and she quickly pulled them out and put them around the room. A couple of books and a framed picture of her with her grandfather were placed on the surface of the nightstand. Her journal and her writing utensils were slipped in the nightstand drawer. Finally, her laptop was placed on top of the dresser. She highly doubted there was any internet access here, but she did have over three thousand songs on iTunes. Since she knew there was really nothing to do here, she would be listening to each song in a manner of days.

  At that moment, she thought that she should call her grandfather and let him know that she was okay. She grabbed her purse while simultaneously slipping the second bag underneath the bed, adjacent to the first one. Once her cell phone was securely in her hand, she flipped it open and realized she had no service whatsoever. She whispered a swear word and set the phone on top of the small stack of books. Running her hands through her hair, she realized that she would have t
o ask Jason where the phone was (if he evenhada phone), and if she could use it. Originally, Emmy had wanted to avoid the man as much as she possibly could, but she had promised her grandfather that she would call. Emmy never had and never would break a promise to her grandfather.

  “Okay,” she whispered to herself as she slowly rose from the bed. “You can do this.”

  Emmy proceeded cautiously out her door. She tried as hard as she could to make sure she didn’t push down on the floor with all her weight so the floor wouldn’t creak. Her heartbeat was hammering, but she couldn’t rationalize why. He couldn’t –wouldn’t– kill her. He needed her help, which was why he had hired her. And even if he could get away with murder once, there was no way he could get away with it again. Plus, he had no reason to kill her. She was an innocent bystander. At least, with his ex-wife and her lover, there had been some sort of motive. He wasn’t unhinged, per se… just uncontrollably upset.

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, Emmy, she thought to herself and physically stopped in mid-step so that she might get a hold of herself. Did you just defend him?

  It had to be the air, she reasoned and continued to head in the direction of Jason’s office.

  When she finally reached the second door on the right, she realized it had been left slightly ajar. She tilted her head to the side and tried to peer into the dark room. Emmy had no idea why the room was so dark; it hurt her eyes to type in dim lighting and here he was, sitting in pitch blackness. A soft scent bristled against her small nose, and she scrunched it in disgust without even thinking, immediately recognizing it. The man was a smoker. He was currently slouching over his keyboard, staring blankly at what appeared to be a blank word document. His thick-rimmed glasses had slid down the bridge of his nose until it was resting dangerously on the curves of his nostrils. He was chewing his bottom lip, obviously frustrated with himself, with the black, white screen, or maybe both.