The Ghosts of Cragera Bay (22 page)

“You heard me, Ms. Evans.”

“It’s doctor, actually, Detective,” she snapped. Her pulse thudded in her ears. What was happening?

“Get out of the car,
Doctor
Evans.”

“Why? What is this about?”

Miller let out an impatient sigh, reached an arm through her window and popped the lock, then pulled open the door. “Out of the car.”

Head spinning, she released her seatbelt and stepped onto the gravel shoulder.

“Face the car and put your hands behind your back,” he instructed, his voice robotic.

Fear and outrage burst inside her. “Are you arresting me? On what charge?”

“Hands. Behind. Your. Back.”

She swallowed the panic swelling in her throat. What had happened that police suspected she was involved? It must have been something they found with her car, but what? Still, she turned and did as she was told. Cold metal snapped into place around her wrists. Her chest squeezed so tight, she could barely take in air.

“You have to tell me the charge,” Carly said, wishing her voice hadn’t trembled. “I have rights.”

He ignored her as if she hadn’t spoken a word. Instead he reached into her car, took her mobile from the console and popped out the battery before he dropped both into the pocket of his expensive suit jacket.

Miller’s passenger door opened and a man climbed out. Not another cop like she’d expected, but Sean Leonard, whose mother owned the inn.

Slow dawning washed over her like a wave, nearly knocking her off her feet. She turned to Miller. “You’re one of them.”

He smiled and her insides shriveled. Gripping her elbow, he shoved her toward his car. As they passed Sean, Miller nodded at Declan’s Land Rover. “You know what to do.”

The younger man smirked and hurried to the driver’s door and climbed in. As Miller pushed her into the backseat of his car, Sean pulled away in the Land Rover, disappearing behind a curve in the road as if she’d never been there at all.

She turned to Miller. “What are you going to do to me?”

He chuckled, the sound scraping her nerves. “That all depends on Meyers.”

Chapter Seventeen

Declan’s gaze bounced between his computer screen and the list of names he’d written on the lined pad next to his laptop. He’d heard from Allen. His stepfather had found the books in Declan’s mother’s safety-deposit box. They were indeed journals, though more records of experiments with The Devil’s Eye and eventually the people killed there.

“Why would your mother have kept these?” Allen had asked, rightfully horrified.

Insurance.
“I’m not sure, but I’ll find out,” he said, instead. “Does it say anywhere who wrote the journals?”

“Jonas Worthing—his name’s on the first page, in 1937.”

Declan had thanked Allen and said goodbye, then gone to his computer, searching for which family lines dated back the furthest in the village, people who might have felt obligated or proprietary of Cragera Bay. People willing to kill for its perceived success.

His own family went back three generations, including his great-uncle who had purchased the property and left it to Arthur, who in turn left it to him. The Paskins went back five generations in the village, though with the death of Stephen Paskin, his wife and son, that line had been wiped clean. Dr. Howard’s family went back three generations, the Leonards’ four. He could easily see Sean Leonard mixed up in all this. It would have been easy for him to lie to the police about Andy checking out of the inn. Even Olivia Dodd, who had claimed to police she’d witnessed Eleri arguing with one of the men, her family went back three generations, also. Her father had died four years ago, and she back in March, so only her mother was still living and the woman was in her late sixties.

Sean Leonard was his best bet. If he couldn’t find Warlow to shake Andy’s location of him, Leonard would have to do.

His cell phone rang and he snatched it up, catching a glimpse of the time just before he answered the call. Three o’clock. The afternoon had flown by, and Carly had been gone for over two hours. Surely she should have been back by now.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Brynn.”

He frowned. They should have been back by now, too. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, sort of. I called Eleri last night to tell her what’s been going on. I didn’t want her caught off guard in case…”

Her voice trailed off, but he knew what she was going to say. In case the worst happened and Eleri fell under suspicion again.

“Anyway, she and Kyle have decided to drive up. Reece and I are going to meet them before they reach Cragera Bay and try to talk them into going home. If something has happened to Carly’s friend and Eleri is anywhere near the village, she’ll be right back to being suspect number one. Reece and I will be back by tonight, though. How’s everything there?”

“Quiet.” Far too quiet. Where the hell was Carly? “I should go. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay. Take care of yourself.”

“You, too.”

He ended the call and dialed Carly, but her voice mail picked up right away. Anxiety washed cold over his skin. Something was wrong. She never turned off her phone, and he doubted she’d start now with everything that was happening.

His stomach churned as he grabbed his jacket and pulled it on while he half jogged down the stairs. Once in the hall, he strode toward the door.

“Declan.” Warlow’s voice echoed in the quiet foyer like a death knell. Declan spun around and faced the man standing inside the study doorway. Cold fury snaked inside him. His hands itched to wrap around the man’s throat and choke the living shit out of him.

“Whatever you might be thinking of doing, you should know that I have your lovely Dr. Evans. Without instruction, my man with will kill her.”

His stomach bottomed out. He wanted Warlow to be lying, but knew from the bastard’s smug expression that he wasn’t.

Impotent rage shuddered through him. Declan swallowed hard and tried not to think of what could be happening to Carly right now—if she wasn’t dead already. “What do you want?”

Warlow smiled and swept his hand through the study door. “Come join me, Declan. It’s time you finally learn of your family’s true legacy and where you fit in.”

Declan dragged his heavy feet across the patterned tile floor. He wanted to grab Warlow, smash his fist into the man’s face until he told him where Carly was, but he wouldn’t risk her life.

Warlow lowered himself into the chair behind the desk like a king taking his throne. Declan sat opposite him. His gaze flitted to the edge of the desk where he and Carly had been together last night. His chest ached.
Let her be okay.

“How much do you know?” Warlow asked, tilting his head to one side.

“I know that the families who have lived in Cragera for generations are killing men at The Devil’s Eye. I know that Meris tried to kill Brynn because she believed she would be granted eternal life and I suspect my father had the same plan for me. And I know that you are involved in all of this.”

Warlow chuckled, and Declan’s temper shot up another notch. “I’m not involved. I’m the leader. I gathered them, organized them, showed them the power that The Devil’s Eye wielded. Some of them required a little convincing—like your father—but once they see what they can have, the success that can be theirs, they all give in to it.”

“What is that power?” Declan asked, not so much because he was interested, but because he was stalling, trying to find a way to trip the man up so he would tell him where he had Carly.

“When you give life to The Devil’s Eye, just as our ancestors did, when you feed the ground it rewards with prosperity.”

“Prosperity?” Declan shot him a pointed look. “No one here is living like a movie star.”

“Those who are faithful find their success. When faith wavers, so do the gifts they were given. We’ve fallen behind, thanks to Ruth Bigsby. We had plans for Langley, but she killed him, left him to be found and drew the attention of the police. Our punishment for not providing a harvest was the discovery of the men at The Devil’s Eye, leaving us vulnerable. And now, because we’ve had to be cautious, look at what’s happened to Cragera Bay. It’s fading away, eroding. But the faithless have been eliminated, and tonight we shall offer our harvest, and once more the village will thrive.”

Andy.
“Who did you eliminate?”

A scowl darkened his features. “Those bumbling fools who made such a mess of things. None of them deserved what I’d given, and I wasn’t sorry to lose any of them. Stephen Paskin did good work, I suppose, and he was easily appeased, but he had become increasingly reckless. The good doctor I didn’t trust not to turn on me, and Paskin’s wife I knew would turn without her husband to keep her in line. They had to be eliminated.”

“You killed them?”

“By my order if not my hand.”

How had he managed it? Even though Dr. Howard had been in the hospital, he’d been in custody. There would have been police watching, and Dylis Paskin had been arrested.

“You have a cop.” The idea popped into his head like someone flipping on the light in a dark room. It made sense. Someone with the police could have manipulated evidence, kept his partner fixated on the wrong suspect. “Miller.”

Carly had gone to see Miller, was probably with him now. Did she have any idea of the danger she was in? Panicky restlessness built inside him. He had to get to her.

“You have a good mind,” Warlow said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. “I almost killed you that night, back in front of your flat. Did you know that?”

The man’s words, spoken so casually, iced his blood. “Really? I thought you wanted to bring me back here for that.”

“Your father wanted that, and I followed his order because I knew he planned to betray us both. He should have left me Stonecliff. I am its rightful owner, not him, not you by some accident of birth. He promised me Stonecliff, but he left it to you anyway. I had the knife in my hand when that girl came running up. She saved your life. And as annoyed as I was at the time, I think it’s a good thing. You and I will work together very well.”

“You could not have misjudged this situation more.”

“If this were chess, you’d be in check. No moves left to make. No cards left to play, if you prefer.” Warlow leaned back in the chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “I have what matters to you, and you have nothing left to bargain with.”

“That’s not true. I know where Jonas Worthing’s journals are.”

Warlow laughed. “So do I. That housekeeper sent them to your mother, didn’t she? Your father was always far more concerned about those books than I was. There was nothing in those pages to incriminate us. But I suppose he feared any police attention could lead them to The Devil’s Eye. Or perhaps he simply let your mother go—he always had soft spot for her that he never did with the other two. Or perhaps he believed he’d get a son from Meris. Which never happened, and I must admit I played a part in cutting his chances short.”

“You killed Meris?”

“She embraced The Eye like few who had come before her—too much as a matter of fact. She even claimed to have been a descendent of the Worthing family—an out-and-out lie—and she challenged me. So I waited and one day I saw my chance. A quick shove was all it took to send her tumbling down the cellar stairs and then there was no more Meris. I should imagine she didn’t know what hit her.” He chuckled again and sat up straight. “Besides, she’d been with Arthur for more than a decade and never produced a son. I doubt it would have happened.”

“Why wouldn’t The Devil’s Eye give him one?”

The man’s gaze narrowed. “Perhaps he didn’t deserve one after wasting so much of his time on wives.”

“And killing his daughters wouldn’t have brought him eternal life?”

Warlow shook his head. “When one sacrifices blood, it must be a worthy sacrifice. A man’s first-born son, his heir. What loss would a daughter be?”

Of course, how had he missed it? “Meris tried to kill Brynn.”

“Meris believed she understood the power better than I. She was wrong.” Warlow stood. “We’ve talked enough. It’s time for you to fulfill your legacy.”

Declan wanted to tell the man to go to hell, but Warlow had Carly and Andy. He had to go with him if he wanted to find them. He glanced at the window. Gray clouds had blotted out the blue, turning the day gloomy, but it was still daylight. “It’s not even dark.”

“We operated under the cover of night to keep those who didn’t know of us at Stonecliff from finding out, but now there’s no one to hide from. Come, The Devil’s Eye is waiting.”

Declan didn’t know if his father got what he’d been promised, but he sure as hell got what he deserved.

* * *

“Home sweet home,” Miller said, dragging Carly through the front door of Stonecliff. Her wrists ached, and her fingertips tingled from spending nearly two and a half hours sitting in the back of Miller’s car, parked halfway up the drive from the house.

She’d asked the detective question after question, hoping he’d give a hint as to whether Declan was safe or not, but he’d ignored her while he played Flappy Bird on his mobile. Eventually, she must have started to wear on his nerves. He looked up from the small screen long enough to tell her that if she didn’t shut her mouth, he’d shut it for her.

Finally, he’d received a text and started the car rolling toward Stonecliff.

The house was silent now, no sign of life. No sign of Declan. Her throat squeezed. “Where is he? Where’s Declan?”

The man shot her a nasty smile. “Deciding whether you live or die, about now.”

He shoved her into the parlor and toward the settee. She dropped onto the edge of the cushion, but held herself tense. First time he looked away, she was going to bolt.

Miller flopped onto the chair nearest the cold fireplace and started another game on his phone.

Carly’s gaze darted around the room while she worked through her best chance for escape. She needed to lose him somehow, to get some distance between them. If she made a run for the stairs, he might not be able to find his way in the confusing passages upstairs, where every hall looked the same as the last. She wasn’t sure she could maneuver them, but she’d take her chance and slip back downstairs using the servants’ stairwell, or even double back to the main stairs.