Last Whisper (2 page)

Eventually Brooke rolled onto her back again, stared up at the shining painted stars, and fell into a light sleep. She dreamed of one of her grandmother’s tales of a beautiful princess who had once lived in a castle in the Black Forest of Germany. The princess had waited for a handsome prince to come for her, but years went by and she’d nearly given up hope when her father and his servants had carried in a huge stag her father had shot with an arrow. “There is something strange about this deer,” the father had told the princess. “In my heart, I know I should not have shot him. But he isn’t dead. We will care for him until he is well, Daughter, and then we will release him again into the forest.” That night the
princess learned what was “strange” about the deer. Under her gentle care, he had gradually turned into a man, explaining to her that he was really a prince who’d been turned into a deer by a witch jealous that he did not love her. For years he had roamed the forests, waiting to meet his princess, but unable to do so until he could enter her castle and show her who he truly was. The deer-turned-prince and the princess had kissed, and then—

Brooke jerked awake. Something was wrong. The atmosphere of the house seemed to jitter and throb with tension. Brooke stiffened as her senses grew more acute. She could hear voices, but they were partially lost beneath the loud tones of “Cinnamon Girl,” which her mother must have been playing over and over. Brooke strained to listen, but all she heard was Mommy’s voice, full of the stridency Brooke hated. On went the music. On went the voices.

Not again, Brooke thought desperately. Please don’t let them have another fight. If they did, something terrible would happen. She didn’t know how she knew this, but she did. She rolled into a ball, battling the dreadful certainty that disaster was stalking a dark path to her house.

She put her hands over her ears. “Stop it; stop it!” she chanted beneath her beautiful, glowing stars, trying to drown out the cacophony of sounds traveling up the stairs. “Stop shouting. Stop fighting!”

Brooke closed her eyes. She willed herself back into her dream of the prince and princess in their castle in the Black Forest, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t escape the commotion downstairs. She couldn’t escape the air of menace taking over the house, creeping into her soul.

And then, although she still covered her ears, she heard it—a loud sound like a firecracker going off. Then another. And another. But it wasn’t the Fourth of July or New Year’s Eve. No one would be setting off firecrackers in early October, especially in this quiet neighborhood. Brooke knew from watching television what she had heard. It was a gun being fired. Once and again and again.

Trembling, she took her hands away from her ears. All she heard was music. Then the music stopped and there was nothing. A terrible nothing.

She slid from her bed and crept to her door. I shouldn’t do this, she thought. If I get back in bed and go to sleep, I’ll wake up in the morning, the sun will be shining, and everything will be all right.

But Brooke couldn’t force herself back into bed. The silence downstairs drew her as irresistibly as the fatal Sirens’ song had drawn sailors in the little bit of ancient Greek stories her grandmother had read to her. Brooke slowly turned the handle and pushed open the door an inch. Still silence. Then another inch. More silence, but not a peaceful silence.

Chills raced over her although the night was only chilly and she wore flannel pajamas. But she knew she had to see what was happening downstairs, no matter how cold she was, no matter how her hands trembled, no matter how painfully her heart thudded in her chest.

Forcing herself down the hall from her room, Brooke took hold of the mahogany banister and started down the flight of stairs. Usually her mother told Brooke to stop flying up and down those stairs before she fell and broke an arm or a leg, but no one had to give her a warning to slow down tonight. Her dread grew with every step downward, but she went on relentlessly. By the time she reached the last stair, a cold sweat had popped out on her forehead beneath her blond bangs.

Then she saw it, the thing she’d feared, the thing that had caused both the chills and the sweat, the thing too awful to be fully realized with one glance.

Her mother lay sprawled in the front hall washed in cool night air seeping in from the open front door. Her slender body was twisted, the lower half turned to the left, one leg wrenched at the knee and bent outward, her upper body turned right at her waist. Scattered beneath her rested white roses—a dozen delicate long-stemmed roses Zach had brought home for her yesterday, now crushed and garishly
splashed with bright, crimson blood. But worst of all, nothing was left of Anne’s beautiful face—nothing except a pulpy red mass pointed right at her daughter.

And above Anne stood her husband, Zachary Tavell, holding a gun aimed at Brooke.

“I can’t believe someone is actually thinking of buying this house,” Mia Walters said. “How long has it been since we’ve even shown it?”

“You mean shown it to anyone who was interested, not just someone we dragged there on a tour of other houses?” Brooke Yeager shook her head, grinning. “At least six months. Certainly not since you started at Townsend Realty.”

Mia peered from Brooke’s car at the late-summer dusk falling on the South Hills section of Charleston, West Virginia. “I just wish we didn’t have to be showing the place at night. I had plans.”

“A date?”

“No. To color my hair. My dark roots are showing,” Mia giggled. “And I
insist
on keeping my hair the same color as yours. Do you realize how lucky you are to have
naturally
wheat blond hair?”

“It’s my German and Scandinavian heritage.” Brooke
paused, forcing herself to say brightly, “Both my parents were blond. They looked like brother and sister.”

Mia, who knew Brooke’s father had died young and her mother had been murdered, clearly didn’t know what to say and began fiddling with the CD player. “You’re listening to a country music CD? I thought you hated country music.”

“Patsy Cline is in a class by herself. Besides, I do a rockin’ version of ‘Walking After Midnight.’ ”

“I’ve heard you singing at your desk, Brooke,” Mia said dryly. “Remind me never to go to a karaoke bar with you.”

Brooke burst into laughter. Mia was twenty-one and had been with Townsend Realty for only two months. The owner of the firm, Aaron Townsend, had assigned Mia to Brooke for training. The two had hit if off immediately. Brooke knew Mia looked up to her—she’d started dressing like Brooke and even bleached her light brown hair to blond—but Brooke liked the girl for her intelligence and sense of humor, not her blatant admiration. Brooke hoped that in a few more months Mia’s confidence would grow and she’d begin to develop her own style.

“Aaron really should be showing this house,” Brooke said of the boss she barely liked. “After all, it
is
night. Or it will be when we’re trying to tour the place.”

“That’s why he assigned us,” Mia said dismally. “He has plans.
Real
plans, not like coloring his hair. He and one of his snooty girlfriends are probably entertaining other snooty people, or going to the symphony, or eating snails or raw beef at some fancy restaurant.”

“If I know Aaron, he simply didn’t want to waste time showing this lost cause of a house tonight,” Brooke returned. “Most likely he’s home alone or with his sister watching television and drinking a bottle of those vintage wines he spends a fortune on. I don’t think his life is half as glamorous as he tries to make everyone believe.”

Mia smiled. “That makes me feel better. I
hate
to think of the rest of the world being out having a good time while I’m—”

“Stuck with me?” Brooke interrupted.

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” Brooke laughed. “I’m not stupid, Mia. I’m sure nothing could be more fun than spending your evening showing this nightmare of a house with me.” She slowed her car slightly, peering closely as they passed a lovely one-story stone house on Fitzgerald Lane. White numbers painted on a piece of dark wood jutted from a brick post near the street:
7313
.

“That house isn’t up for sale, is it?” Mia asked.

“No, I just remember it fondly. I visited there several times when I was a kid. I thought the house was beautiful and the people who owned it were wonderful, and I wanted desperately to live there. I almost did.”

“You almost lived there? What happened?”

Brooke jerked her mind back to the present. “It was during the awful time after my mother’s death. I won’t bore you with all the details. I’m just glad to see that the house is as pretty as ever.”

They turned right on Sutton Street. Although they only traveled a block, the area looked run-down and nearly deserted. Mia groaned. “Oh God, there’s
our
house hulking back in the woods. Who on earth designed that place, anyway?”

“I don’t know. I think the architect obliterated all mention of his name from the blueprints, then killed himself after it was built.”

“Really?” Mia asked innocently.

“No, but he should have.” Brooke turned into the long driveway. “I don’t see a car. Looks like we beat our prospective buyer to the spot.”

“Lucky us.”

Brooke pulled up to the house and they both got out of the car. We look like twins, Brooke thought. She wore a tailored periwinkle blue suit with her long hair pulled up in a French twist. Mia had selected an aqua suit cut the same as Brooke’s, and had pinned up her slightly shorter blond hair. The prospective buyer will think this is the Townsend Realty
uniform, Brooke thought, amused. At least Mia wasn’t wearing pearl earrings and stood an inch shorter than Brooke’s five foot six.

“This house is
really
ugly,” Mia said, gazing at its long, low, tubelike gray lines and tiny windows. “It looks like a submarine. I wonder how the owner’s wife felt about it.”

“He wasn’t married. According to Aaron, he was extremely odd and a recluse. He bought two acres surrounding the house and some land across the street, too, so he could ensure his privacy. That’s why there are no houses near it. He wouldn’t sell the land.”

“I doubt if he had many bids on it, anyway. Who would want to live near the neighborhood submarine? You’d think you were in an amusement park.” Mia shook her head. “I guess there’s no way we can avoid going inside.”

“Not if we want to sell it. And please put a smile on that pretty face and emphasize all the good points to our customer.”

Mia looked glum. “This house doesn’t have any good points.”

“Okay. You just smile, Mia, and I’ll emphasize the good points. The last five years have turned me into an expert at making a disastrous house sound like a jewel.”

“If you can sell this place, Aaron owes you a
very
big bonus.”

When they entered the musty house, Brooke was glad they had arrived before the client. “Let’s open some of the windows and air out the place,” she told Mia.

“You mean those portholes masquerading as windows? Even on a breezy day not much air could creep through them.”

“Then we’ll open the front and back doors, too. And turn on the air conditioner. It must be eighty-five degrees in here. If Aaron hadn’t just dropped this in my lap, I would have come earlier to prepare the place.”

“It doesn’t matter. It won’t sell.” Mia forced open a small window. “This house is a lost cause.”

“Nonsense, young lady! Every piece of property is just waiting for the right buyer!” Brooke said with gusto.

Mia groaned. “Oh no. When you start quoting our esteemed leader Aaron Townsend, I know we’re in trouble.”

They prowled through the house, turning on lights, checking the cabinets and closets to make sure no vermin had gotten up the nerve to creep in and die. Decaying mice never made a good impression on a buyer, Brooke told Mia solemnly, making the girl giggle. When they’d inspected the entire house, they sat down in an ugly yellow booth in the kitchen.

“It’s still hot in here,” Mia complained.

“I know. We should have stopped for soft drinks on the way, but then we might have spilled them on the beautiful gravel gray carpet.” Brooke glanced at her watch. “The client said nine o’clock. It’s nine twenty.”

“He can’t blame traffic. There’s hardly any at this hour.”

“But he
can
blame the maze of Charleston’s one-way streets. Or his unfamiliarity with the South Hills region.”

“Or he might say he didn’t know the Kanawha River separates South Hills from the downtown section of Charleston.”

“There you go. He had trouble finding a bridge. We’ll allow him fifteen more minutes for that.”

At quarter to ten, Brooke looked at Mia. “Forty-five minutes late and no call on my cell phone. He’s a no-show.”

“So we’ve sat here all this time for nothing.”

“Nothing! Why, I’ve had an enchanting evening sweating in my good suit and scouring my brain for nice things to say about the house and wishing I could slap Aaron for pushing off this ordeal on us.” Brooke stood up. “I say it’s time to get out of here.”

“No argument from me,” Mia said, then asked almost meekly, “May I drive your car? I love the feel of a new car.”

“Certainly.” Brooke fished in her purse and came up with the keys. “Just don’t bang into anything or run us into the river. River water doesn’t do much for new-car smell.”

“So I’ve heard. I promise not to go over eighty miles an hour.”

“You’ll also pay for the speeding ticket,” Brooke laughed. “Come on, kid. Let’s abandon ship.”

The moist, heavy air of a night late in August descended on them as soon as they stepped from the slightly cooled house. Brooke locked the front door, then turned to see Mia hurrying to the driver’s side of the Buick Regal. Brooke would have preferred a sportier model, but the one she’d chosen was excellent for driving clients around, with its comfortable seats and plenty of legroom.

Brooke walked past the headlights a moment before Mia flashed them on bright. “Just trying to get my bearings in here,” Mia said distractedly. “I don’t want to flip on the windshield wipers when I mean to turn on the blinker.” Brooke climbed into the car and shut the door. “Okay,” Mia said gaily. “I think I’ve got everything located. I’ll be really careful—”