A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) (27 page)

“I was worried I’d have lots of competition for the job, so I used Tavish who’s really been my dog for over a year.”

Meg gasped, “Used Tavish? What did you do to him?”

He smiled. “I saw you at the Town Hall, when you first came to town. You and Freddie. You brought him water in a Styrofoam cup and took him for a walk behind the bushes. You loved dogs, so I gave Tavish a sleeping pill…had to guess at the dose…and added a bit of fake blood from a novelty shop. The rest you witnessed. I’ll bet I was hired before I even drove off.”

Meg muttered, “You could have killed him! We fell for it hook line and sinker!”

He smirked and rocked back in his chair, “Of course you did. And all the rest. Tavish was a good excuse to get this apartment, too. Here, I didn’t have to be on-stage all the time. I could let the Annie character go and be myself. Wearing all her extra padding is hot and irritating, not to mention her hideous shoes.”

“Why did you come back here? I’d have thought this would be the last place you’d want to be. And who’s buried in the mausoleum…the Devon look alike?”

“What a stroke of luck that was! He was a stranger on the train I struck up a conversation with. He had no family who would miss him, was headed for a new job, and looked enough like me. I switched wallets after the crash and went on to pick up his life. And ‘presto’ I was no longer a wanted man. As, to why am I back here? I
needed
to come home, though that’s more of a feeling that a real explanation. Would you believe I entered that damned contest over and over again? And you won! How many times did you enter it?”

Meg muttered, “Just one, actually. It was Charlie’s idea.”

“I see. Fate. I wanted to come home and I couldn’t just appear and claim my inheritance, could I? There is no ‘Statute of Limitations on murder. As things were, I was dead and buried in the family crypt, but I wanted…needed to be near Breanna again. She’s here somewhere. Father never told me where he buried her. They’ll be looking for you, so I haven’t got much time

“I’m sorry, Meg, but I know you won’t be able to resist calling for help so I have to tape your mouth shut. Don’t struggle. I don’t want to hurt you any more than necessary.”

But she did struggle and tried to scream, but he was fast and he was strong. She was gagged in moments,

***

“Meg! Meg! Where are you? Why was the kitchen door unlocked? Please answer me. I’m sorry I was so bossy. Meg, please,” Charlie begged, but there was no answer and Charlie felt a coldness nibble its way to her heart.

“You don’t think there is any chance she might be hiding…trying to teach you a lesson?” Zack offered, knowing it was more than unlikely.

“Meg would never do such a thing to me. Maybe I do treat her like a child sometimes, but she would never hurt me like that!” she exclaimed vehemently, not wanting to think of the other possibility, which was far too horrific to even consider. She ran then, through the house, flinging open doors, checking every room her sister might be in and a few she wouldn’t. Like the cellars. She hated the cellars. Freddie ran with her, barking excitedly, thinking it was all a game of some kind.

Zack searched on his own until he was satisfied she was nowhere in the house. He was waiting for Charlie in the kitchen, when she finally gave up and he pulled her into his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder and allowed herself a moment of comfort, before she said, “I can’t imagine she would go outside, but we have to search the grounds. She might be at Annie’s. That’s the only place I can think of that she might go.” Without waiting for him to answer, she pushed free of his arms and was out the kitchen door, running down the drive and calling for Meg as she went. Zack went after her with Freddie close behind.

***

Meg heard Charlie and Zack calling her; they were getting much closer. Devon heard them, too, and moved swiftly, twisting his hair back into its familiar bun and pasting on his bushy gray eyebrows, then donning a floor length flannel robe that hid his sudden lack of bulk and the Adam’s apple his high necked dresses usually concealed. She watched the transformation in awe. He really was Annie O’Leary! Until that moment she hadn’t completely believed it.

He smiled, winked and ‘shushed’ her with a finger to his lips. Slipping out the bedroom door, he closed it behind him, just in time to answer Charlie’s knock. Meg moaned. There was no way her sister could even begin to imagine that she was only a few feet away, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

***

Opening the door, Annie looked at Charlie in surprise. “What’s goin’ on? I heard you hollerin’ like the banshee loud enough to wake me from me sleep!”

Vaguely, Charlie registered the thought that Annie didn’t look
quite
like herself. She was pale and drawn…and, well….keyed up, but she had no time for her now. Only Meg! Freddie began barking, excitedly and tried to push past her, but Charlie grabbed his harness and held tight. “Have you seen Meg, Annie? She’s missing and I’m frantic with worry!” Charlie’s throat tightened in fear. More than anything she dreaded what, somehow, she knew Annie was about to say.

Shaking her head vehemently, Annie’s eyes grew wide with horror. “No! Lord knows I wish I could be sayin’ otherwise. I’ll be gettin’ meself dressed and helpin’ with the search. I’ll not rest quiet till she be found safe and sound, the wee lamb.”

Murmuring her thanks, Charlie left and and Devon returned to Meg. He was smiling when he told her, “It seems Charlie and Zack are quite distressed at your disappearance. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen your sister in such a state. I’m going to get dressed and help them with the search, seeing as how I’m so worried about you.

“I want you to lie quietly here and get some sleep. No? I knew you would say that so I have a little something that will ensure you do just that. You can either take the sedative I’m going to give you, or I will have to conk you on the head,” he told her in a matter of fact way, as though he was discussing the weather. He peeled off her gag so she could answer him.

“Is there a third choice? I don’t want to be
conked
and I don’t want to drink some vile concoction. Can’t you just chloroform me like they do in the movies?”

He laughed with real amusement. “What you’ve seen in the movies and read in books is strictly ‘artistic license’. It doesn’t work that fast or last that long. So, it’s one or the other, Meg. And make it fast. I’ll have to stay with you till the sedative works.”

“Sedative,” she mumbled resignedly, before he regaged her.

He left her and she could hear him stirring about in the bathroom…the opening and closing of drawers…water running…and then he was back. He supported her head and unstuffed her mouth, then held a glass to her lips. “Drink it all, Meg. Remember the alternative.” She did as she was bid, because there didn’t seem anything else she could do. Devon was a madman…someone you didn’t argue with if you wanted to stay alive.

He sat by her side, watching her carefully. Slowly, her eyes lost focus. As though from a great distance, she heard Tavish whine and then she slipped into nothingness.

***

Leaving Annie to dress and join them, Charlie looked for Zack and found him looking through the carriage house below. It was filled with bits of old carriages, rusted wheels, mouse chewed buggy seats and cast off furniture from the house that wouldn’t fit in the cellar or attic. “Nothing here,” Zack told her. “I called Chief Beasely and he is on the way. Let’s keep searching the grounds until he gets here.” But Charlie was already out the door and headed towards the lake.

The sound of a siren, brought them back to the house. Chief Beasely had brought two deputies with him. A tracker dog was in the back of the second car. “My sister is missing,” she told him. “Disappeared from the house. We’ve been searching for her.”

The Chief smiled. “Now calm down, Miss Ravynne. Your sister is just fine. We don’t usually have them go missing two at a time around here.”

Charlie wanted to fly at him and scratch that irritating smile off his face, but Zack caught the back of her shirt and pulled her to a stop.

“I’ll take you to what we found down by the gates. We’ll continue to search for Meg. I know you think you have Brittany’s disappearance nailed on some stranger who picked her up near town, but it didn’t go down that way. And, Meg’s disappearance is connected. I suggest you call in whatever you have for a forensic team and get busy. Might as well start by putting that dog of yours, that I presume isn’t a mascot, to work. Charlie, get something of Meg’s and let’s see what the dog can find.” Zack said with a calmness he was far from feeling.

Which turned out to be zip. Meg’s trail was everywhere just as she had been
everywhere
, while Brittany’s trail led from the bench to the house and stopped. Annie had joined the search. She seemed old and fragile for the first time. “We’ve got to be findin’ her,” she told Charlie and Zack. “She be like me own daughter. I couldn’t be bearin’ it!”

“Zack, what are we forgetting? What is right in front of our eyes and we’re not seeing it? I can feel it…something’s close. So very close,” Charlie said, as they all returned to the house.

He didn’t know how to answer her, but he could feel it, too. Something
was
close…a something very dangerous.

Meg struggled awake. It was dark, her head ached and she wondered where she was. And then she remembered. With Devon. Surprisingly, the tape was off her mouth, and she opened it for her loudest scream ever, when Devon whispered close to her ear. “I wouldn’t do that. I could make your time here very unpleasant not to mention what I could put in your precious sister’s soup.”

He was lying on the bed next to her with his head propped up on one elbow. She could feel the heat from him seeping through the blanket. “You wouldn’t!” she told him with an emphatic shake of her head. Which really hurt! She’d have to remember not to do that again.

“You really don’t think I would, do you? You don’t believe I killed anyone, but I did. We have time for me to tell you exactly the what, how and why, Meg.

“You see, this isn’t the first time I’ve been back home. I came here three years ago. I missed my sister. It was like a hollowness inside my very soul, where she used to be. Amazingly, I still had a soul back then or half a one. I remember being shocked at how the place looked, a tangle of weeds and ruins. I knew they were both still alive…had asked in town…and wondered who would be the one to answer the door. . What would they say when they saw their son after almost forty years? The one they thought was dead.

“She answered the door…mother. She blinked several times and then her mouth twisted in that way she had. She knew me. ‘Hello, Mother,’ I said, ‘will we be having the ‘fatted calf’ for lunch?’ She was unamused, but then I don’t remember her ever being otherwise. She would have closed the door in my face, but I pushed past her. Then looked at her. Really looked at her! The fastidious ‘Lady of the Manor’ was
unkempt
would be the kindest way to phrase it.

“I found Father in the kitchen asleep at the table. He was an old man…shrunken like a badly washed wool sweater…wizened. His mouth gaped open. A dribble of spit made its way past his loud grunting snores.
Lord
Hensley, I knew what the servants had called him, a molester of children, murderer of women and father of me.

“I sat next to him and watched a fly crawl across his face. The room grew dark and still I watched. I could have awakened him, but I wanted that moment, between dreams and reality, when he didn’t know which one I was.

“Then he stirred and smacked his lips and opened his eyes. They widened and widened and I said, ‘Surprise, Father. It’s not a nightmare. It’s your ‘Disappointment’ back for a visit.”

“That moment wasn’t nearly as gratifying, as I had dreamed it would be. I could see a slyness come into his eyes. I asked him then where my sister was. His expression shifted from crafty to terrified…then sad…then angry. It was hard to keep up. Hatred and anger won the battle. He shouted as loud as he could, ‘What are doing here? Going to piss your pants again?’

“It seems he never forgot that one time. I would have killed him then, but he hadn’t answered me. I needed to know where Breanna was and he was the only one who could tell me. Mother came in then and I watched them whisper together, then I left the kitchen and took the back stairs to my old room.

“It was stripped bare except for my butterfly cases. I loved to collect beautiful things, mostly butterflies and moths. Breanna hated it, but she still went with me at night to stalk the giant silk moths. Have you ever seen a lunar moth, Meg? All pale green, quite large and oh so lovely,” he told her as he stroked one finger, softly, along her jaw line.

“I’m not a moth, Devon, please let me go,” she begged desperately.

“You’d make a lovely moth, Meg…just lovely,” he whispered softly, as his warm breath fanned her cheek.

“Then you’d pin me through my heart and let me mummify in a glass case? Thanks but no thanks!”

“Did you know that my father’s cane has a hidden sword? Of course, you didn’t know, how could you? He told me he used it to pin
his
collection through
their
hearts. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Maybe, in my case, it didn’t fall at all.”

She searched his eyes for mercy and found only a cold detachment, as he continued in a silken whisper, “I was telling you about my room when we got off on a tangent. As I said, it had been purged of any trace of me, but Breanna’s room was just as she left it. I pulled off the dustsheet that covered the bed and stretched out. I called to her. Begged her to haunt me. I stayed in her room…hung her portrait over the mantle and waited.