The Ghosts of Cragera Bay (18 page)

“I know, but not yet. Let’s just give it one more day until we know for sure.”

“One more day?” Carly’s voice rose. “Andy is missing. He could be dead if we wait one more day.”

“You don’t know what it was like for her,” Brynn said, shaking her head. “I hate to think what it will do to her if she thinks it’s starting all over again. If your friend was taken by someone who is tied to Howard and Paskin, nothing will happen until the first. If he wasn’t, nothing Eleri or Kyle can tell us will help anyway.”

Brynn had a point, but Declan didn’t want to delay longer than he had to. In the meantime, they could at least exhaust whatever options they had left. “Where’s this round room?”

“I’ll show you,” Reece offered, and stood. He turned to Brynn. “We shouldn’t be too long.”

“I don’t know why you’re telling me that,” Brynn said, getting to her feet. “We’re going with you, after all.”

Reece stiffened. “You two wait here. There’s two of us. We’ll be fine.”

“We’re not splitting up—especially for you to go
there.
”

“One man is already missing. No need to add to the numbers,” Carly said, as she moved to stand beside Declan.

“And four is better than two,” Brynn added.

Reece looked to Declan as if seeking support. Declan chuckled. “I know better than to argue when I can’t win.”

* * *

Declan woke with Carly curled up against his side. Her eyes were closed but a faint vertical line creased the flesh between her brows as if even in sleep she was worried.

The round room had been a bust. The doctor’s cottage on the edge of the village had been unoccupied, a for-sale sign nailed to a tree at the end of his driveway. Knowing about the men who’d been kept in the dovecote in the field behind the cottage, the women who’d been tortured and murdered there, he doubted whoever owned that property would have any better luck selling than he would.

The dovecote, perched on a gentle sloping hill about two acres from the stone cottage, had been dark and empty, no sign that anyone had been in there in months—which Reece assured them no one had.

When Carly asked how he could be certain, Reece had shot her a pointed look that said “how do you think?”

Declan wasn’t sure he believed Reece saw ghosts, could communicate with them as he claimed, and while they’d been there the man barely gave any indication he’d seen anything at all. Maybe Declan had expected something more theatrical, Reece’s eyes rolling back in his head, body convulsing before he spoke in some alternate voice. Instead, a few sideways glances as if something had caught Reece’s eye that the rest of them hadn’t noticed.

In the end, they were no closer to finding Andy.

As an afterthought, they’d checked out Morehead Lodge. That the house was unoccupied, and its short distance to The Devil’s Eye made it a likely hiding place. But there was no sign anyone had been there in months. There were so many empty buildings in Cragera Bay, Andy could be hidden anywhere.

It had been late by the time they returned to Stonecliff. Brynn and Reece stayed in the room she’d used when she’d last visited, while Declan and Carly had practically collapsed from exhaustion onto the bed they’d shared the night before. He’d managed to clean up the mess in his room from the previous night before Carly had called to tell him about Andy, but he’d yet to replace the light fixtures. And there was no way he’d spend a night in this house without leaving a light on. Yet as tired as he’d been, sleep had been a long time coming.

Light footsteps had thudded down the hall outside his room. Doors slammed throughout the house. He hadn’t bothered to get up to investigate. He already knew there would be no one there—at least no one he could see. Instead, he’d lain on the bed, gaze fixed on the ceiling, his mind turning over every detail they’d discussed the night before.

Hugh Warlow had lied to him about his sisters, his father. Really, he shouldn’t have been surprised. His mother wasn’t a woman who scared easily, but something that happened here had sent her running. Still, he couldn’t understand why the man had gone through so much trouble to manipulate him. Just so Declan would stay on at Stonecliff? How would that have benefitted the butler, other than allowing him to keep his job and access to The Devil’s Eye?

Cold sweat slicked his skin. Could Warlow have been involved in the murders? Could he have Andy now?

Declan slipped out from under the blankets before pulling them up over Carly’s shoulders. He moved as quietly as possible, careful not to wake her up. While she hadn’t spoken to him once she climbed into the bed, Declan could tell by her breathing that it had taken a while for her to fall asleep, too. She blamed herself for what had happened to Andy, and no matter how many times Declan tried to assure her that she wasn’t at fault, that she could never have guessed this could happen, she wouldn’t let herself off the hook.

As he tugged on jeans and a T-shirt, he glanced at her cell phone on the edge of the night table. The screen was dark. No texts. No calls.

Damn it.

He left the bedroom and went downstairs to get the coffee started. A little caffeine was exactly what he needed to get rid of the murkiness wrapped around his brain from so little sleep. As he approached the kitchen, the hiss of frying food and voices stopped him outside the door.

“Miss James,” Mrs. Voyle said, her tone oddly stilted. She must have been feeling better. When he spoke to her yesterday, her voice had sounded weak belying her insistence that she’d be well enough to return to Stonecliff. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“We arrived last night, after you’d gone, I guess. I’m just making breakfast, saving you the trouble.” Brynn’s voice, about an octave higher than normal, sounded as uncomfortable as the housekeeper’s.

“I see. Is Eleri with you?”

“No, just Reece and me. We came to meet Declan.”

And because another man was missing and who knew what that meant? Still, Declan kept quiet, unwilling to interrupt the awkward exchange just yet.

“Of course.”

Silence stretched between them. The savory scent of whatever Brynn was cooking reached his nose and his stomach growled. He tensed as he was about to enter the kitchen, but Mrs. Voyle’s voice stopped him.

“I’m glad you’ve come back. I owe you an apology.” Again, a moment of silence before Mrs. Voyle said, “You’re staring.”

“Sorry,” Brynn said. “You caught me off guard.”

“I was wrong about you, wrong to judge you by your mother’s actions. I was wrong about so many things. I would like to apologize to Eleri, also. Will she be joining you here soon?”

“I don’t think so. I can tell her for you, or give you her number and you could tell her yourself,” Brynn said.

“Yes,” Mrs. Voyle said, thoughtfully. “I’ll do that.”

How had she treated both his sisters that she felt compelled to apologize? Anger lit inside him when he thought of all the lies Warlow had fed him, but what truly infuriated him was the fact that he bought into them so wholeheartedly. He should have known better; he should have looked deeper, and he still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t.

He entered the kitchen and Brynn smiled at him from behind the stove. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“I’ve slept better,” Declan muttered.

As if to illustrate his point, a loud bang from somewhere in the house split the quiet. Mrs. Voyle, putting together Warlow’s tray, started, but pressed her lips together.

“I could have done without listening to that all night,” Declan added, going to the cupboard for a mug. Someone, Brynn he guessed, had already made coffee.

“It’s a child,” Brynn said, turning over the bacon in the pan with her fork. “Reece said he’s about six or seven.”

A slick shiver slid over him. “Does that mean this kid died here?”

“Maybe. Reece saw him, but the child hasn’t spoken to him.”

“It’s gotten worse since I got here. Did Reece say if whatever is here is gaining strength?” Some distant voice in the back of his head was screaming that Declan shouldn’t believe any of this, that somewhere over the past two weeks he’d slipped into some episode of
The Twilight Zone.
There were no such thing as ghosts, and people sure as hell couldn’t speak to them, and anyone who claimed they could was either a con artist or crazy. But after everything he’d seen and experienced for himself, the idea that Reece could communicate with the spirits haunting Stonecliff seemed completely logical.

Brynn shrugged. “He says it’s different. When we were here last, aside from the shadows, he couldn’t pick anything up. It was like something was blocking him. Now, whatever that was has dissipated.”

“Is the kid the only spirit he’s seen?” he asked, thinking of the burned woman whom he fortunately hadn’t seen in days.

“In the house.” Brynn lifted the bacon out of the pan and onto a plate. “There’re more outside.”

A clatter from behind him jerked his attention to Mrs. Voyle. She’d dropped a teacup on the tray and her hand shook badly as she righted it. Lips pursed, face pale, the woman had obviously been listening to their exchange.

“Have you seen anything, Mrs. Voyle?” Declan asked. She’d clearly heard the banging earlier even if she’d made no comment about it.

“I don’t know what I’ve seen,” she muttered, without taking her attention from the tray.

“What about before any of us came here, before the arrests, did you ever hear or see anything then?” Brynn asked.

Mrs. Voyle released a soft sigh and turned to face them, her narrow face and pointed features somehow more prominent with her skin so pale. “Eleri had always said she’d seen things here, shadows watching her she’d said, but I never saw anything.

“I knew that there was something wrong with this place, but it didn’t want me, and I was certain there was something off with Eleri.” Mrs. Voyle touched her temple to drive home just what she thought was wrong with Eleri. “But the other day I was cooking. The window had gotten foggy.” She gestured to the glass above the sink. “And I saw words as if someone had written with their finger. It said ‘Kill Him.’ I wiped it away and when I turned back to the stove there was a woman. I think she was a woman. She was so badly burned.”

Declan’s stomach turned to ice and dropped to his feet. “That was the day you screamed?”

She nodded. “She just disappeared in the blink of an eye. I was terrified to come back, but the longer I thought about it, the more I wondered if it had really happened, if I’d just imagined it from all the talk of Dr. Evans’s investigation. I haven’t seen the woman since, but the noises…”

Declan didn’t share that he’d seen the woman, also. After all, he wasn’t sure if she would be comforted by the knowledge that someone else had seen what she had or terrified that the woman hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.

“I need to take this up,” Mrs. Voyle said softly, her hands still shaking when she gripped the edge of the tray. “Mr. Warlow will be waiting.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Declan said. He had more questions. Maybe she had thoughts about who else could have been involved in the murders, theories or even village gossip, but she was visibly upset and he didn’t want to push. He’d try speaking to her later, give her some time to calm down first.

Tray in hand, Mrs. Voyle crossed the kitchen but stopped at the door and turned back to them. “I nearly forgot Miss. James. When you and Mr. Conway had gone to Chicago, there was a call for you.”

Brynn frowned. “Back in April?”

The housekeeper nodded. “I’m afraid with everything that happened I’d forgotten, and then you’d gone on to Holyhead…”

“Who called?”

“Someone from Hazelwood Nursing Home. They wanted you to know that you’d been added to the visitors list for Hildy Banks. I’m sorry that it took me so long.”

“It’s okay,” Brynn said as Mrs. Voyle hurried away. She turned to Declan. “That’s interesting.”

“Who’s Hildy Banks?”

“She was the housekeeper before Mrs. Voyle. She worked at Stonecliff when my mother first came to live here, maybe even when your mother was here. I thought she could tell me about Meris.”

Would the woman remember his mother? Could she know what had happened to send her running?

“I don’t know how much she could have told me, though.” Brynn shrugged “The nurse I spoke to in the spring implied Hildy Banks was quite senile.”

“You won’t know unless you go to see her.”

Brynn frowned, slipping the plate of bacon into the oven to keep warm. “Why are you so interested?”

He shrugged. “You’re not the only one who has questions about their mother.”

She closed the oven door and straightened. “Let’s wake up the other two, eat, and then we can decide what to do next.”

* * *

Cold dread knotted in Carly’s stomach as she watched the battered Land Rover bounce down the narrow drive away from Stonecliff. Andy was gone because of her, and as irrational as the feeling was, she hated the idea of Declan being out of her sight. As if he would vanish the same way Andy had.

Of course, Declan wasn’t alone. Brynn was with him.

Reece tugged at her sleeve. “Come on.” He nodded at the path that would take them into the woods and to The Devil’s Eye. “Let’s get this done.”

His voice was terse despite his stoic expression. Maybe he hated the idea of Brynn being out of his sight as much as Carly did Declan. She didn’t ask, though. Talking about it out loud would be like tempting fate.

Instead, she blew out a sigh and followed Reece into the forest. Trees rose up around them, bare branches reaching up to the dull gray sky like bony fingers. The relentless hush of the surf against the shore followed them, mingling with tittering birds and small red squirrels darting through the dead leaves carpeting the forest floor.

“Are you seeing anything?” she asked.

Reece gave a curt nod. “There’re three men. They’d been outside Stonecliff, but they’re following us now.”

“Why don’t you ask them about Andy?”

“I will once I’m closer to The Devil’s Eye.”

“Why wait?” She didn’t bother to hide her impatience. Every minute that passed, her anxiety grew until she thought it would swallow her.

“There’ll be more spirits closer to the Eye. It will better our odds of getting an answer.”