A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) (22 page)

Something stirred close by. A something she could sense more than see. She flipped open her cell phone and punched in his number. He wouldn’t like her bugging him again, but she didn’t care. She was really scared now. Maybe she should run back to the house, but it was a long way. Better to head for the street and wait for Jayson there. Everyone was gone by now and no one would see her and tattle to her mother. “Dammit, Jayson, you better pick up or…” Then, thankfully, she heard his voice, “Hey, I ran into and…”

She never heard the rest. Her cell phone clattered to the ground, as the blow caught her on the back of her head and she slid into utter darkness.

***

He crushed the cell phone with his heel, then looked down at his prize, lying in a pool of cold moonlight that had fingered its way through the thick tangle of trees until it haloed her head. She looked like an angel. His angel. He had hit her harder than he’d intended. There was blood….lots of it, but he knew head wounds always bled a lot. But he couldn’t risk leaving a trail for someone to follow. Maybe the police had smartened up, since the last time he’d been hungry.

He picked up the cell phone pieces and shoved them in his side pocket, then kicked some leaves over the drops of bright blood that glistened wetly. Tearing off a strip of her clothing he bound it around her head and surveyed his handiwork. She was still breathing…shallow, rapid, breaths. He didn’t want her dead just yet.

She moaned and he nudged her with his toe. She lay quietly then. Reaching down he scooped her up in his arms. She was heavier than she looked, but, then, he was older now. What had been so easy a long time ago was not so easy any more and it was a long way to the cellar,
if
it was still even there. Maybe it had been bulldozed for some little ranch house that looked like every other one. He should have checked ahead of time. Prepared. Made sure everything was ready, but she had been an opportunity he couldn’t resist. Like Rayne had almost been. He laughed. She had been faster than he had thought, especially in those shoes! But she had been so very beautiful. Dancing in the moonlight. Dancing for him.

He found himself whistling, as he slipped through the dark on paths and trails he’d thought forgotten. He felt like a boy again….eager…hot…swollen with desire. She stirred slightly and he looked down at her face. She was beautiful and the right age. He didn’t have the white dress. It was with Breanna, who he never thought to see again after he buried her. But there she was…at the seance… looking for Devon.

They shouldn’t have been there that night…following him…spying on him. Didn’t she realize he had done it all for her? So he wouldn’t be forced to violate her, though she tempted him in a hundred ways she didn’t even realize. Or perhaps she did?

But the others had done nicely. There had been nothing to stop him from doing what he wanted to
them
…no inconvenient conscience to rear its ugly head. But then, maybe he had never been overburdened with one of those anyway. Maybe that was his peculiar blessing. One he didn’t pass on to his son.

Bah! Son! It was laughable really. A sissy boy! He had wanted a son who had his passions, his strengths and, instead, he had sired two daughters! But Devon’s body made a useful tool and this one would satisfy all his needs, even without the dress, which would have looked so very pretty on her.

He sighed. He was getting tired, but he couldn’t stop. Almost there. Even this body was not as strong as he needed, but it did his bidding. Devon had been stupid. It had been a mistake to kill him and release him from that pathetic shell he limped about in for so many years. Now he was free to do what he wanted and he would never be caught. How could anyone catch him? He was as intangible as fog….the wind…a wisp of smoke. They might catch Devon, probably would, but there’d be others. Pathetic Devon deserved to be caught!

Ah, there was the chimney from the old house silhouetted against the sky. The cellar doors would be over there, just to the left.

He lay Brittany on the ground and pushed his way through the vines and brush that had overgrown the old foundation, then struggled to open the doors that were rotted through. It was blacker than the pit of hell below, but that didn’t bother him. The dark was part of him now and he didn’t need light to see where he was going or what he’d be doing.

He remembered everything and his groin tightened even harder in anticipation. This time Devon would have to do it…not puke and piss himself like he did before. This time he would
make
him do it. He was too powerful to be denied anything…especially by his puling son, who had turned out to be an even bigger disappointment than he had ever thought possible. He would make a man of him tonight. He smiled as he picked up his prey and carried her below.

***

Charlie was surprised to find a young man with a tattoo of something crawling up his neck and silver studs bristling from his nose and lower lip, pounding on their front door after she had thought everyone had left for the night. His eyes were wild, and he was almost incoherent, but she managed to catch, “She called me up and I answered, but she didn’t say nothin’. I heard the phone fall and she moaned or somethin’ and then I couldn’t hear nothin’. Just dead air. She was supposed to be waiting near the gates till I got there, but I was runnin’ late. She wasn’t there so I come up here, thinkin’ maybe she’d be here.”

“No one’s here but us. Who are you looking for?” Charlie asked, as Meg joined her from the kitchen, where she and Freddie had been raiding the fridge.

“Her name’s Brittany…Brittany Nelson…she was with the caterers. She was goin’ to cut out early then me and her was going to head up to Butte Point and…, Anyway, like I said, she wasn’t down by the gates, so I come up here.”

“Meg, why don’t you take, what was your name?” he mumbled ‘Jayson’ and she nodded, “into the kitchen while I call the police.”

Some thirty minutes later a patrol car rolled up in front of the house. Merritsville only had one officer on duty at night, Dooley Fitts, and he wasn’t particularly pleased to be called out to Hensley Hall.

Charlie and Meg led him back to the kitchen, where Jayson sat, drinking a cola. Apparently, Jayson was well known to the local cops. “Well now, Jayson, what are you up to tonight? What’s this about Brittany going missing? You know you aren’t supposed to be messing with her. Didn’t her daddy tell you he was going to beat the hell out of your sorry ass…excuse me ladies…out of you the next time he saw you hanging around her?”

Charlie had heard enough. “That’s not what is important here. He was supposed to meet her…was talking to he on her cell phone…when something apparently happened. And, we didn’t report it at the time, but someone chased my sister up from the lake just a few days ago. Not likely to be a coincidence. Maybe we should start by looking at where Brittany was supposed to meet him?”

Fleetingly, Charlie wondered, as she led the way down the drive, where Zack was. Maybe he’d left for the night? Surely, if he was still in his room, he would have been curious enough to see what was going on, since he was every bit as nosey as she was!

It had grown colder, since they’d been outside earlier. The moon had settled deep in the trees. They could hear Annie’s dog howl once, as they passed that way. Her windows were dark. She must be sound asleep, Charlie thought. Lucky her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through a whole night. Sometime before they ‘won’ the house, the never-ending blood sucking renovation, Meg’s parade of ghosts, and the ‘tax bomb’ Adrian had dropped. And too many other things she really didn’t want to think about.

They continued to follow the drive past the fountain with its nymph and satyr that now sprayed water, after enough money had been thrown at it. “All part of your curb appeal” Rayne had told them more than once. And each time it drained their pockets even more. They reached the gates and looked around. “Let’s fan out , but stay close. One missing is one too many,” Charlie said. They pushed through the bushes and swept the area, calling Bittany’s name, but there was no sign of her.

Annoyed that Charlie had taken charge, Officer Fitts gave them his take. “Jayson, you said you were late and she was pissed. Maybe she’s just making you worry. Probably hitched a ride back home by now. Can’t do nothing for twenty-four hours anyway. That’s the rule. Twenty-four hours on a missing person report. Come down to the station tomorrow. Though if she’s still missing by then, I imagine her folks will have beat you to it.”

Charlie looked at Meg. “Which one of the girls was she?”

“The one with the long dark hair. Really pretty…maybe seventeen.” Meg replied. “I have a really bad feeling about this!”

Charlie shivered. Another Breanna look alike. She couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would ever see Brittany alive again.

They walked back to the house and waited in the drive, until Jayson and Officer Fitts climbed in their cars and drove off. “Better get Freddie and we’ll get him walked,” Charlie told Meg, “and we should check on Rayne. She and Adrian must have had a row. She went up to her room as soon as the last guest left and didn’t say a word.”

“I saw that. And he left early. Hey! Who’s that coming up from the lake?” Meg asked excitedly. “Let’s get inside and lock the door.”

Charlie sensed who it was before she even saw him clearly. It was Zack. The wind teased his dark hair and his eyes were deeply shadowed, as he stepped out of the darkness. “What are you doing prowling about in the dark?” she asked.

“I might ask you both the same question. Is something going on?

“There’s a girl missing,” Charlie told him tensely.

He grabbed her arm and asked, “Who is it?”

“Bittany. She worked with the caterers.”

“I’m betting the one with the long dark hair, right? Another Breanna look alike,” he told her.

“Yes. I’m getting Rayne out of here in the morning. You never answered my question. What were you doing out there in the dark?”

“You still don’t trust me do you? I wanted to see where Rayne had been that night and I wanted to see the ‘Folly’ on the island so I rowed over. It’s a lonely place. Beautiful in the moonlight, but lonely and rather sad. Now doesn’t that sound silly coming from a guy like me?”

“It was their favorite place…Breanna and Devon’s. They used to go there in the moonlight…sneak out together,” Charlie replied.

“How do you know all this? Have you been holding out on me?” he asked, brushing back a strand of silvery hair from her face.

Meg had been watching their exchange with a mixture of interest and disgust. Or was it envy? She wasn’t sure, but enough was enough. “Seems I’m as invisible as one of my ghosts. I’m taking Freddie inside. He already did his thing in the bushes, while you guys were
talking?
”

But Charlie hadn’t heard a word she said. “We found Breanna’s journal. Her ghost led Meg to it. I think I’ll let you see it now,” she told him, still shivering from his touch.

“And not before?”

She smiled. “I wasn’t ready. It’s upstairs in my room. I’ll check on Rayne, while we’re up there. I think she had a row with Adrian. He took off early and she went up to her room. Meg,” she called, looking around for her sister, but she was gone.

“Meg!” she called again, this time frantically, just as the door behind her popped open and Meg said, “If you had bothered to listen to a single word I said, you’d know I was safely inside…with Freddie. We’ll be in the kitchen in case
anyone
is interested.”

Charlie flushed, uncomfortably, only too aware of what Meg was trying to tell her. Making sure the door was locked behind them, she led the way up the front staircase and down the hall. She paused outside Rayne’s door and listened. All she could hear was the sound machine she had borrowed cranking away on
Rain Storm
. Light poured from the crack beneath the door. She turned the knob, but it was locked. “Wait here, Zack. I’ll get the journal and bring a key. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

She was back in moments. Handing him the journal, she said, “I think you’ll get a feel for what really happened here, but there are no answers in there, at least to the questions we’ve both been asking.”

“Like where Devon is?” he asked, slipping the journal into his jacket pocket.

“Exactly,” she whispered, as she opened the door and looked inside. Every light was on. Her sister lay huddled beneath a pile of blankets…her head covered with a lavender towel. She was sound asleep and snoring, quite loudly, something that would have horrified her had she known. But she was safe and Charlie breathed a sigh of relief.

But she was alone with Zack and her reaction to his presence really terrified her! Locking the door behind her, she called a quick “Good night,” over her shoulder and bolted for the back stairs, but he caught her in two strides and spun her around.

His dark eyes bored into her’s and she felt a strange melting sensation in her knees. His hands gripped both her shoulders tightly and she could feel his heat scorch her bare skin. He gave her a shake, a hard shake, then told her, “I don’t know what’s going on here. The only person that ties all this together is supposed to be dead. The train wreck. But nobody checked very deeply into the identity of the man they brought back here. He had Devon’s wallet…was the right age, size, and coloring, but his face was mutilated. The family identified him and the police let it go at that, even though they considered him
a person of interest
in both the murders and disappearance of his sister. You don’t think Devon is dead and neither do I. There’s a good chance that he was after Rayne the other night and now has Brittany. I want all of you to get the hell out of this place till he’s captured or killed.”