Unhallowed Ground (24 page)

Caleb made it back in record time. Luckily—or possibly dangerously—most people on the highway were doing at least ninety, which made it less obvious that he was pushing the speedometer toward one hundred.

He was impatient at every red light he hit as he entered the city.

As he neared the streets of Old Town, he decided to pass on checking out Hunky Harry’s or even trying to call Will again.

He headed straight for Sarah’s house on St. George.

There were no cars in the drive, so he swung in off the street practically without braking. As he threw the car into Park, he saw a Bug coming around the corner. It jerked to a halt on the street just as he jumped out of his car.

“Hey!” Will called to him, walking up with Caroline just as Barry and Renee hopped out of their car.

“You haven’t found her?” Caleb asked.

“No, we keep calling and calling, but…nothing,” Caroline said, trying again as she spoke.

Caleb headed for the porch and raced up the steps.
As he got to the door, he heard Sarah’s cell phone ringing—inside.

“Sarah!”

He tried the door. It was open, and he cursed under his breath as he rushed inside.

“Sarah!” he shouted again, anxiety rising in his tone as he followed the sound of the ringing.

Her purse was on the kitchen counter, her cell phone inside it.

The others were right behind him. “Sarah!” Will shouted. He turned and headed for the stairs, then ran up them two at a time. Caroline hurried into one parlor, Renee and Barry into the other.

Caleb saw the door to the basement standing ajar. Had Sarah gone down there, hoping to find a hidden clue? He threw it open and looked down into the darkness. “Sarah!”

“What?”

He was startled when he heard her voice behind him and spun around.

She was leaning against the door frame between the kitchen and the hall.

And she was covered in mud and spiderwebs.

C
aleb was stunned at the sight of her, but he didn’t have a chance to speak, because just then Will came tearing back down the stairs and rushed into the room.

“Sarah! Where the hell have you—” He broke off and stopped dead, just two feet away from her. He’d been about to hug her in his relief, but suddenly he seemed to notice that she was covered in filth, and it gave him pause.

“Sarah?” Caroline said, crashing into Will.

Sarah offered them all a weak smile. “Hi, guys.”

Caleb had managed to tamp down his own sense of sheer panic by then and stepped back to lean against the refrigerator. “What happened to you?” he asked finally.

Renee and Barry appeared just then and stopped in silence, Renee’s mouth agape.

“I somehow managed to lock myself in the basement. I know, it’s idiotic,” Sarah said.

“And you just got out now?” Caleb asked. “People have been call—”

“How
did you get out?” Renee asked, cutting across him.

“There’s a screen window, just at ground level,” Sarah said. “I never knew about it—there’s a big hibiscus growing right in front of it. There’s dirt all piled up in front of it, too—I don’t think anyone has noticed it for years.”

“Did you just get out?” Caleb asked again.

She turned her silver gaze to him and smiled, a bit embarrassed. “Yes.”

“Sarah,” he told her, “the door to the basement wasn’t locked. It was open when I got in here. And so was your front door.”

“Oh, Lord, I could have sworn I locked it,” she said.

He saw that she was trembling, even though she was trying to be cool and slough off the experience as if it had been nothing.

But he could tell that she was badly shaken.

“Oh, my God, we were so worried. We’ve been calling you and calling you,” Caroline said.

“I’m sorry, but I’m also very grateful that you were so concerned,” Sarah said.

“Well, a lot of scary shit has been going down, and when you didn’t answer, we got worried,” Barry said.

“I know, and thanks again for worrying about me,” Sarah said again, then looked at herself and grimaced. “I think I need to take a shower.”

“I don’t think you should be staying in this house,” Renee said. “It’s creepy.”

“Oh, Renee,” Barry protested. “The house isn’t creepy.”

“She was locked in the basement, wasn’t she?” Renee said defensively.

“Apparently I only thought I was locked in the basement,” Sarah said. “You said that the door was open, right, Caleb?”

“Yes,” he said, still leaning against the refrigerator, watching her. He could see that she didn’t want anyone to see just how badly shaken she was. He wondered if she was going to tell him the truth about what happened.

“But…even if you only thought you were locked in, it’s the house that did it to you,” Renee said, shivering. “Oh, Sarah. You really have to sell this place. There are other houses you can buy. And you’ll be much happier. They won’t come with bones in the wall.”

“It’s not like I knew this one came with bones in the wall when I bought it. Anyway, I’m a historian, remember? I thrive on this stuff. And right now I’m going to take a shower, because I’m starving and I want to go to dinner, but I don’t want anyone waiting on me. You all go and get some appetizers or something. Please.”

“I don’t think we should leave you alone,” Will said.

“She won’t be alone. I’ll wait for her,” Caleb said. “Why don’t the rest of you go on? We’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” Caroline said slowly. “If you’re sure, Sarah? Because we can wait.”

“I’m sure. Please. I’ll move faster if you aren’t all waiting for me, honestly.”

Will gave her a careful kiss on the forehead—despite the muck and spiderwebs, and then the others all headed for the door, but not before Renee looked back
one last time and shook her head. “You need to get out of this house. I mean, think about all those horror movies and how everyone watching sits there and thinks, ‘You stupid idiot! Get out of the house.’”

And then they left, with Renee closing the front door in her wake.

Silence descended. A silence Caleb broke when he asked, “What really happened?”

“I told you what happened,” Sarah said. “Except that…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “I tried the door. I could swear it was locked.”

“What were you doing in the basement in the first place?” he demanded.

“I…I thought that someone was in the house, maybe Gary. The basement door was open, and I saw a light on down there, and thought—”

“Was Gary’s truck in the yard?” Caleb asked her.

“No.”

“But you decided he might be down there anyway?”

“I thought I’d heard something, but I guess the sound came from the street. Anyway, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. The lightbulb blew and I thought I was locked in, but then I saw light coming from a corner of the basement and realized that by climbing up on some old crates I could reach the screen. And it’s so old…I just pushed my way through. I didn’t realize the basement was so dirty. It’s probably a good thing the bulb burned out…. I didn’t see all the spiders.”

He didn’t believe her. Or rather, he was sure there
was more. But he knew that pushing her at this moment wouldn’t get him anywhere.

Quickly changing the subject, she said suddenly, “You won’t believe how much I found out today. I was reading a journal written by Nellie Brennan. She thought her father was a monster, and there
was
a murderer killing women here during the Civil War. A lot of people believed it was your ancestor, Cato MacTavish, but I think that was because the Yankees had control of the town and he was a Reb, so they wanted to believe he’d done it. I found another memoir that mentioned Brennan and this place, and she thought Brennan was nasty, too—him and his housekeeper, Martha Tyler. She was supposedly some kind of a witch. Here’s the thing—life hasn’t changed much. We still believe rumors with no logic, when we want to.”

“Martha Tyler
is
a medium,” Caleb told her.

“What?”

“Before she disappeared, Winona Hart spoke to a woman at the beach who claimed to be a medium from Cassadaga named Martha Tyler. So I found a Martha Tyler in Cassadaga, and went out to see her,” Caleb said.

“And?”

“The real Martha Tyler is a charming old woman who probably weighs eighty pounds on a fat day,” he said. “But she knew about the housekeeper here, because people teased her about her name when she first moved to Cassadaga,” he said, then looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I don’t really believe a house can have a personality,” he said, “but maybe it’s not such a great idea for you to stay here.”

She shook her head adamantly. “No. I think it’s important for me to stay here. I think we’re closer to the past here, that we may find a clue here—or even more fully realize something we already know here.”

She stared at him determinedly. He stared back at her.

“I own the place, and I’m staying,” she said firmly.

He let out a sigh of exasperation.

“What?” she asked.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not letting you stay alone,” he told her.

She smiled, still looking somewhat tremulous. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” she told him.

“All you ever had to do was ask,” he said.

“Okay, then,” she said awkwardly. “I’m asking. And now I’m going to shower and change, so we can go to dinner and…”

“And what?” he asked.

“Come back, and talk,” she finished lamely.

He was tempted to tell her that he wanted to do a lot more than talk.

Except she hadn’t told him the truth yet—not the whole truth. There was more to her story, and he wanted to hear it—needed to hear it—before he got in any deeper with her.

“I’ll be back down in ten minutes,” she promised, and headed for the stairs.

He ached to follow her, but he managed to wait until she reached the top of the stairs before he followed.

People were waiting for them, he reminded himself.

Too bad. They would have to wait.

The bathroom door was ajar.

Maybe she had hoped that he would come.

He joined her in the shower just after she’d sluiced away the spiderwebs and the mud.

She had just poured shampoo on her hair, and he took over, massaging her scalp and working up a lather. She leaned back against him, and when he felt her trembling, he took her into his arms.

“Sarah…”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said. “Just hold me. Please?”

He held her. Water beat out a rhythm around them, steam rose, and he held her. Then he moved, and the friction of their bodies against each other created a new kind of comfort. She was slick and vibrant, electric in his arms. He felt as if heat infused him. Thunder echoed in his head and in his loins. She pressed her lips against his neck, his chest. He slid his hands down the length of her spine, then lifted her, and the water continued its cascade of liquid fire as they made love, her back against the tile.

Eventually, pent-up emotion overrode everything physical, and they rose to a volatile crescendo together, climaxing in one another’s arms. He could have stayed that way forever, but she smiled a real smile at last, then kissed his lips, but lightly. “People are waiting for us, and I still need to finish washing my hair.”

“I can help you.”

“Out! Or we’ll never make it to dinner,” she said.

Regretfully, he set her down on the floor of the old tub and left. He toweled off, found his clothing and dressed, then headed back downstairs.

He cursed himself as he reached the bottom of the stairs. They had forgotten to lock the front door. He locked it then, as pointless as it seemed, and as he waited for her, he walked around the lower level, checking every window to make sure it was locked.

He went to the top of the basement stairs and looked down into the darkness. There was a switch near the door, and he flipped it. Nothing happened. He dug through the cabinets until he found a flashlight and, turning it on, he went down.

The basement was empty other than the crates Sarah had mentioned, which had been stacked into something resembling stairs. He trained the light on the torn screen through which she had escaped.

Anyone could have entered the house at any time through that window, he thought—especially with that makeshift stairway saving them from the long drop to the floor. He needed to make sure no one could use that window moving forward. He would have to board it up or put bars across it—or get Sarah’s friend Gary to do it.

He trained the light around until he found the fuse box. He walked over and opened it, and saw faded cursive writing labeling the different fuses to indicate which sections of the house they were linked to. He found the fuse for the basement. It had been switched to “off.”

He turned it back on, then rearranged the crates, wedging them tightly into the window opening.

It wasn’t a perfect job, just a jerry-rigged solution until something more permanent could be done, but it made him feel better.

Then he went back up to the kitchen and made certain the basement door was closed and locked behind him. For good measure, he went to the dining room and got a chair, then wedged it under the doorknob. If anyone managed to get in while they were gone, he would know.

He had just finished when Sarah came back down the stairs. “All set?” she asked.

“Not really. Hang on one minute.”

He went back upstairs and went through every room, checking every window. Houses weren’t evil—but they could definitely be used for evil purposes. He made absolutely sure that the upstairs was empty and locked, then took another cursory run through the ground floor.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked him.

“Making certain we’re alone,” he said.

She grinned. “A little late, don’t you think?”

“Better late than never,” he said lightly. “Besides, at some point, we’ll actually need to sleep, and I don’t want to worry about anyone getting in.”

They left the house, and he watched as she locked the front door. They were halfway down the front walk when she said, “You went out to see Floby about the dead woman on the beach, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“We’ll talk later. Right now I’m starving, so let’s get going.”

“You know,” Caroline said, sitting back and pushing her plate away, “I like Hunky Harry’s, but we could expand our horizons. Eat somewhere else.”

“But it’s such a nice central place to meet,” Renee said.

“Yes, but we could meet here, maybe have a drink, then wander on to another restaurant,” Barry pointed out.

“We could,” Will said. “But why?”

Sarah was happy to see that the conversation was light and trivial. Caleb was an investigator, but there was nothing the rest of them could do about the ongoing disappearances other than try to stay safe.