Grave Doubts (A Paranormal Mystery Novel) (16 page)

Curious, Lee
leaned in to study the back row of frames, letting her eyes roam across the
photos. Suddenly, her heart nearly stopped. In the back corner was a small
pewter frame holding a picture of Bud and Diane standing before a storefront. Bud’s
arm was around Diane’s shoulders, and he was grinning as if he’d just had the
best sex of his life.

Why would Emily
Maddox have a picture of Diane? Especially a picture of Diane with her own
husband?

Before another
thought could cross her mind, Lee reached in and pulled the frame from the
shelf and quickly dropped it into her pocket. She was just about to turn away,
when something behind the frame caught her eye. When she leaned in for a closer
look, she sucked in a pocket of air large enough to float a boat.

It was the onyx
bird!

Feeling dizzy,
she reached in with an unsteady hand to grab it just as Mrs. Maddox called out
from the kitchen. Lee’s hand froze about an inch from the bird.

“I’ll be with
you in a moment,” Emily called.

Lee held her
breath. Finally, she turned her head and chanced a reply. “Take your time.”

She turned back
to grab the bird, leaning the heel of her hand on the shelf. The shelf wobbled and
suddenly tipped forward, sending everything to the floor with a crash. Lee was
too shocked to move. A pile of frames lay at her feet, while the onyx bird had
disappeared.

“My god, what
was that?” Emily rushed into the room.

Lee just stood there
as if grounded to the spot. She would have said something, but her tongue seemed
to have swollen to fit the inside of her mouth. Maddox quickly made a sweep of
the entire room and stopped when she saw the mess on the floor. Her cat had
become startled and flown to the other side of the room, where it now sat
carefully watching them.

“Agatha!  What
in heaven’s name did you do?”

Emily bent down
to clean up the mess. Lee should have acknowledged her role in the disaster,
but stood mutely watching Mrs. Maddox as she grabbed two of the frames and put
them on the shelf, chiding the cat as she went.

“She’s done
this before,” she said. “Such a pest!”

Lee
contemplated leaning down and taking the pewter frame out of her pocket so that
she could pretend to pick it up, but Mrs. Maddox scooped up the remaining
frames before Lee could move. She positioned the frames in exactly the way
they’d been before, stopping at one point as if she was missing something. She
paused and Lee held her breath. Suddenly Maddox turned and scanned the floor.

“There should
be one more,” she mumbled. She bent over to check underneath a chair. “What’s
this?” she asked, pulling something out. She looked at it for a moment and then
turned to Lee, holding the onyx bird in her hand.

The blood rushed
to Lee’s head, and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

“I…uh…I’m
sorry, that’s mine. It must have fallen out of my purse.”

“Really?”  The
other woman glanced over at Lee’s purse sitting innocently on the chair. There
was a long pause before she said, “It’s quaint. Where did you get it?”

“Uh . . . a
friend gave it to me.”

Mrs. Maddox
handed over the bird. Lee wrapped her fingers around the figurine, feeling the
warmth of its body heat her hand again. Emily Maddox glanced at Lee’s other
hand stuffed inside her pocket, then seemed to think of something. She turned
to grab an old leather frame holding the picture of Bud and a friend in
tuxedos.

“This is a
picture of my husband. Did you know him?”

Her head turned
back so swiftly Lee took an involuntary step backwards. Lee looked at the photo
and was surprised to see Mrs. Maddox pointing to the blond man standing next to
Bud.

“He used to
work at the medical center. I thought maybe you'd met him,” she said.

“I…don't know
too many of the technicians.” Lee clamped her mouth shut when she realized that
she wouldn’t know Bud was a technician. Silently, she prayed Emily hadn’t
noticed her mistake.

“Too bad.” Mrs.
Maddox turned her attention back to the picture. “This was taken just after our
wedding. He's good looking, don't you think?”  She held the photo out for Lee,
once more pointing at the blond man.

“Yes,” Lee
replied, wondering why Emily Maddox was attempting to pass this man off as her
husband. She didn’t know whether she should acknowledge the mistake, or go
along with the game and pretend she had never met Bud. She decided to stick
with the original scenario despite her blunder.

Several seconds
lapsed while the other woman quietly regarded Lee. The moisture began to form
under Lee’s armpits. All she could think of was getting away. She glanced at
her watch.

“Emily!” she
almost barked. “I didn't realize it was so late. What with the dog and all, and
the…this, I really need to be going. Why don’t I call you in the next few days?” 
She grabbed her purse, vaguely aware that she’d just contradicted the deadline
she’d established when she arrived. Maddox followed as Lee hurried to the door.

“That would be
fine. Let me know when you’ll be back in town.”

Lee attempted a
smile and opened the door to step outside. “Great, I'll give you a call.”

Lee backed out of
the door, attempting to appear calm. As she made her way back to her car, a
myriad of questions flashed through her mind. Had Emily Maddox realized she’d
stolen the pewter picture frame? And why in the world was she trying to pass
off the blond man as her husband? But what if the blond guy really was her
husband? If he was, then who was the guy calling himself Bud Maddox at Twin
Rivers Hospital?

Once inside the
car, Lee turned back to the house and caught a glimpse of Emily Maddox closing
the front door. Only then did the woman’s last words register, raising one
final question.

How did Emily
Maddox know Lee was from out of town?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was almost eight o'clock when
Lee pulled into her driveway. She had stopped for a quick dinner on the way
home, but hadn’t eaten much. She was physically and emotionally exhausted and
could only think about a hot bath and bed. Whatever she thought her amateur
investigation would be like, this wasn’t it. Emily Maddox was as weird as
Pauline Bates. Bud Maddox gave her the creeps, and Diane’s death had thrown her
into a deep depression. But it was the image of the onyx bird peeking at her
from the back of Emily Maddox’s bookshelf that had invaded her thoughts all the
way home. It was frightening to think the small figurine could move around on
its own. It was even more frightening to think it was trying to tell her
something.

She had switched off the car lights
and was rubbing her eyes when the flicker of something in her upstairs bedroom window
caught her attention. She peered through the windshield, but decided it had
only been a reflection from the street light behind her. She grabbed her keys, drew
her purse over her shoulder and climbed out of the car just as a breeze swirled
a handful of leaves around her feet. Two big birch trees at the corner of her
property rustled in protest of the wind, and somewhere up the street a dog
barked.

With a yawn, she began moving
towards the front porch. A single bulb above the detached garage threw light
halfway up the path, but dissipated quickly, leaving Lee to walk part of the
way in deep shadow. The porch loomed ahead, and Lee headed quickly for the
light from the front door, contemplating the last half pint of ice cream in the
freezer before her bath.

She was just passing the big corner
bushes, when the porch light flicked off. Lee stopped short, completely engulfed
in darkness. Slowly, her fingers found her long car key and pushed it to the
front. It was the only weapon she had.

She couldn’t see above the bushes
that crowded the porch, but strained to hear any noise emanating from the front
of the house. Overhead, the trees shifted restlessly. Behind her, a bush
stirred. When something moved through the bushes along the pathway, Lee panicked
and turned and ran for the car.

She’d almost made it, when she
heard a soft bark and snapped to attention. She’d left Soldier on the back
porch with access to the backyard. She veered towards the gate and the
protection of the dog. Lee reached for the gate latch, fumbling with the lever
and sneaking glances over her left shoulder. Soldier was in the yard and pushed
against the lower part of the gate, whining and pawing at the ground. The
bushes along the walkway rustled again, and Lee nearly wet her pants. Her hand
slipped. Soldier began throwing her eighty-plus pound frame against the gate,
barking a high-pitched alarm. Frantically, Lee struggled to unhook the latch.

With a snap, the gate released and
swung open with the full weight of the German Shepherd behind it. Lee flew
backwards, landing on her back in the damp grass, her head bouncing off the
ground. A cat emerged from the bushes and skyrocketed across the lawn. Soldier leapt
into action, landing a big paw on Lee’s shoulder as she launched herself in hot
pursuit.

Lee lay there for a long moment
staring up at the night sky, listening to the canine’s fading bark, all thought
of imminent danger gone. She tried to catch her breath, but it came in short
gasps, and her heart pounded so heavily it reverberated on the ground beneath
her.

What a fool she was. This was the
second time in two days she had been humiliated by a cat. Perhaps danger still
lurked around the corner, but at this point, she didn't care. She was drained
of all incentive to move until a shadow loomed above her, and a rough tongue took
a sloppy swipe at her face.

“That's it!” she announced, pushing
off the grass.

Lee got up, and the dog sat down,
as if waiting for the praise she was surely due.

“Just until this weekend and then
back you go to Corvallis,” Lee snapped, pointing a finger in the dog’s face.

Lee grabbed Soldier’s collar and
dragged the dog back to the open gate.

“You are in the dog house,” she said,
closing the dog in the backyard again.

Just then, the tan sedan screeched
away from the curb in front of the house and headed south. Lee took a deep
breath. She didn’t like that car and wanted to know who owned it. But, she
wasn’t about to go around to the front door. So, she picked up her purse and decided
to enter the house through the back door.

She left the dog on the porch
again, and used her key to open the back door. She stepped into the back
hallway, closing the door behind her. She moved down the hallway to the front
door and peered through the small window. No one was outside. She flicked the
light switch up and down and the light flickered a couple of times. It was only
a faulty switch. She’d ask Patrick to take a look.

Lee always left a light on in her
dining room, which fronted the street, but the rest of the house was dark. She
turned on the entryway light, and threw her purse and coat over a Shaker-style
chair next to the staircase.

“Life is getting just a little too
spooky,” she said out loud, rubbing her shoulders to warm herself up.

To her right, the living room remained
cloaked in darkness, while the hallway to her left created a murky tunnel
running to the back door. She walked back down the hallway and was just turning
into the kitchen, when a hand emerged from the darkened study behind her and
covered her mouth with a sweaty palm.

Lee tried to scream, but all she
could manage was a muffled grunt. A second hand grabbed her right wrist and
spun her around, slamming her up against the wall. Suddenly, a man’s full
weight was pressed against her. She twisted her head to the side, gasping for
air, but he was much taller and heavier, and the weight of his body forced the
air out of her lungs. She was pinned to the spot and his knee was shoved into
her groin.

Lee tried to get her arms free,
hoping to scratch at him, but he used his shoulder to immobilize her head and
then grabbed her other wrist and wrenched both hands behind her back. He used
one hand to encircle her wrists like a handcuff and then leaned into her again,
chuckling.

She could smell a hint of a musky
aftershave under sweat and body odor and could feel the scratch of a coarse
sweater against her cheek. Lee couldn’t see the intruder’s face, but the top of
her head fit just beneath his chin. She thought he was wearing something over
his head, but couldn’t be sure.

Lee tried to shout, but couldn’t
seem to get enough air into her lungs. She tried to break free, which seemed to
please her attacker more than make him mad, and suddenly, she realized it
wasn’t his knee anymore in her groin. Panic welled inside her, and she pushed
off the wall a few inches, trying with desperation to raise her knee up to
block his intent. With a sudden jolt, he slammed her backwards again, bringing
his lips next to her ear.

“Ssshhh,” he shushed with a deep
whisper.

With his entire weight pressed
against her, she was helpless. She stopped moving, gasping for air. Tears slid
down her cheeks. Then she felt his hand.

“No!” she whined.

Before she could take another
breath, his fingers had slipped underneath her sweater and down her jeans. Lee
pushed against him again, twisting and struggling to free herself, but he only
chuckled with deep satisfaction.

Keep moving, she thought. Make it
difficult. But it didn’t work.

His tongue slid across the tip of
her ear, sending a shockwave through her entire body. She cried out, but his
fingers were moving downwards, struggling to get past the elastic band of her
panties.

Oh God, she thought. This wasn’t
happening. This couldn’t happen. A loud bang sounded in the background, and Lee
thought maybe her head had been slammed against the wall. But it happened
again, and she realized it was something else. It was Soldier, trying to get
in. The fingers faltered. There was another bang, and Soldier started to bark a
high-pitched alarm, her paws actually hitting the window in the back door.

Suddenly the attacker was gone.

He disappeared into the night,
leaving Lee a shrinking, sobbing mess.

She slid to the floor, shaking
violently. It was a full ten seconds before she realized Soldier was still
barking and pawing at the back door. She struggled to rise, using the wall to
propel her into a standing position. Still gulping for air and crying, she
stumbled up the hallway and opened the door. The dog bounded forward and slid
to a stop long enough to stick her nose into Lee’s hand. Then, she headed
straight for the front door. But the attacker had slammed the door shut and
Soldier threw herself at the closed front door in a frustrated attempt to
pursue him. Lee had no doubt that had Soldier made it inside in time, she would
have had the satisfaction of watching the dog make mincemeat of him.

Lee slid down the wall to sit on
her heels and waited for Soldier to come back up the hall. When she did, Lee
grabbed her collar and drew the dog close, burying her face into her fur.

“Thank you, Soldier. Thank you,”
she sobbed. “You’re a good dog, Soldier.”

Then, she just cried.