Trueblood 01-The-Consolation-Prize (3 page)

Bras and panties landed in the case.

“Anywhere with immediate vacancies has to be a dump.”

In went her flashlight.

Shit
.

The camera was the only item she picked out herself.

Ignoring the fact that she’d just resigned, Chloe wasn’t a quitter. She’d taken her driving test five times before she’d passed. She’d persevered with the violin until the other kids in care had physically persuaded her to give it up. A broken finger. She kept looking for Mr. Right-for-her even though she only ever found Mr. Wrong-for-her. But fighting with her sixth-and-a-half sense was exhausting. She couldn’t quite understand why she was so determined not to go. Was it just because the Hall held so many bad memories? Or was her sixth sense trying to tell her something different to that extra half?

There had been several instances in her life when Chloe felt she had to go with the flow no matter where it took her, even into quicksand. She’d turned down a job in London that seemed perfect, to accept one in Leeds that wasn’t. The voices had been very insistent. Now, she didn’t have a job at all. The voices’ fault or hers? Was she trying to fight fate? Had her life been mapped out already? It was that thought that made Chloe fight so much. Awkward, stubborn, pigheaded, and obstreperous were the words that appeared most often on her school report. She hadn’t changed much.

But this current was pulling her to Washburn Hall, the suffocating compulsion to make the trip as overwhelming as the one that dragged her outside the night she lost her family. Over the last fifteen years, she’d never felt the urgency as strongly as this. Three different voices. One female.

The gentler one. The two guys were very pushy. It was weird trying to argue with voices in her head, as if two sides of her personality vied for control. Chloe had told no one about them. She had a feeling she’d be introduced to a nice padded room.

She’d spent fifteen years running from the demons that haunted her; maybe it
was
time to confront them. Perhaps that was what the voices wanted, for her to face up to what had happened at the hall and understand that it wasn’t her fault. She
knew
it wasn’t her fault, yet if she’d thought of the appendicitis… Chloe also knew she was fooling herself into believing she had a choice in this. Her three-voiced extra sense wanted her to go back, and the last time it had been this insistent her family had died because she’d messed up.

* * * * *

The sixteen mile journey to Harrogate passed in a blur. The nearer she drew to her old home, the more her head ached. She felt dissociated, disconnected, distracted, dis-everything. Apart from the memories the place would trigger, Chloe wasn’t a health spa type of person. She didn’t enjoy being primped and preened by perfect looking women who tsked about her nails, her hair, her skin, then tried to sell her products that would change her life when she and they knew the only thing they’d do was leave her short of money.

She pulled around the final corner and the gates came into view. They were new, curling black twists of metal, topped by sharp, golden spikes. Chloe was tempted to stop and take a photograph but when the gates opened at her approach she kept driving. She was impressed. They’d never even closed the gates when she lived here because they’d have fallen off their hinges. The gravel on the drive was new too; no need to swerve from side to side to avoid bone-jarring potholes.

Chloe followed the road through the wood, early morning skeins of grey mist weaving through the trees and crossing her path like ghostly wraiths. She shivered even before the hall sprang into view.

The three-story, three-hundred-year-old manor house with turrets and oriel windows filled her windshield. Her heart clenched, torn between laughter and tears. She’d been happy here. Chloe had told her school friends she lived in a castle and Rufus, her pet dragon, slept in the cellar, a princess named Phoebe lived in one of the turrets, and in the stable was a snow-white steed named Angel, who sometimes had a horn in the middle of his head. The reality was somewhat different. Hugely expensive to heat and maintain, in winter months the family lived huddled in one wing and Chloe went to bed, surrounded by her soft toys, dressed in more clothes than she wore to school.

She followed the signs to the car park and then walked back to the front entrance with her bag.

The big iron door pull was gone, along with the double wooden doors. As Chloe approached an expanse of black tinted glass, it parted with a whispering breath of cold air. She stepped inside.

No thunderclap. No voice of doom. No tears. An unmanned reception desk stood in front of what had been the morning room. Low leather chairs and metal coffee tables decorated with precise sprays of magazines sat in place of her piano. It looked nothing like the home she remembered.

Chloe tapped the bell. A head shot up from below the desk. A young woman with sleek, asymmetrically cut blonde hair and a mouth full of wire stared at her with eyes that opened wider and wider. Chloe wasn’t sure whether to try and catch them if they fell out of her head.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you,” Chloe said.

Miranda, according to her name tag, continued to gawp.

“I have a reservation for four nights. Chloe Lord.”

“But it’s only nine thirty in the morning.”

“What time was I supposed to arrive?”

“After nine.”

Keeping a straight face was difficult. “Er -- it is after nine.”

“Nine o’clock tonight.”

Now Chloe’s mouth dropped open.

Miranda consulted her computer and frowned. “I didn’t think we had any guests arriving -- oh, we have you booked into room twelve.” She gave Chloe another puzzled look. “Doesn’t the sun bother you?”

“I adore the sun.” Chloe caught the horrified expression on the woman’s face and backtracked. “I always use a protective spray.” Nearly always. When she could be bothered. All right, only when it was very hot. She looked so much better brown than white. Less like a corpse, more like a sexy goddess. Ha, in her dreams.

“Is there a list of treatments on offer that I can choose from?” Chloe asked.

An information pack appeared on the desk.

“There’s a computer in your room you can use to book time slots. You’re on the second floor.

Turn left at the top of the stairs and it’s all the way along the corridor. Last door on the right.”

Chloe’s heart skipped a beat.
That room?

“Do you need a hand with your luggage?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

She made her way upstairs. There was no one around. Chloe hadn’t remembered it being so dark and gloomy. She had to squint to read the numbers on the doors, but she’d been right about which room she’d been given. This had once been the playroom. She opened it with the key card.

It was pitch black inside. Not a chink of light from any source except behind her.

Chloe crossed the threshold and it was as though all the air had been sucked from her lungs. She fumbled for the light switch and didn’t take another step until the room was illuminated; then she closed the door. Chloe turned straight to the fireplace. The wooden surround with the carved animals looked exactly as she remembered. She dropped her bag on the bed. Black metal shutters covered the window, only they were inside rather than out.
Weird
. She unclipped the screens and folded them back, letting light flood in and at once found she could breathe more easily.

On the wall opposite the fireplace was a door. Another black room. A tug on the cord revealed a bathroom with floor-to-ceiling travertine tiles, a large white tub, and separate shower. An artwork radiator curled like a shiny metal spider over one wall, towels draped on the arms. Her grandfather, who had enjoyed seeking out authentic replacements in an attempt to restore the hall to its former glory, would have choked on his false teeth, but Chloe liked it.

She sat in front of the computer with the folder of information and began to check what treatments were available. Since everything was paid for, there was no point not taking advantage of the facilities. She might find something she liked.

It wasn’t long before she understood why the desk clerk had been surprised to see her. The name of the place should have given Chloe a clue. Sunset Spa. The hours of operation were sunset to sunrise, and in mid-July that was around eight at night until four in the morning. Who on earth would want beauty treatments at those hours? Shift workers? Insomniacs?

She tapped through what was available. Thalassotherapy, hydromassage, seaweed & mud packs, aqua aerobics, aromatherapy, reflexology, shiatsu, snake massage. Chloe had no idea what some of those entailed. Surely they didn’t use real snakes. The facial with nightingale excrement was something else that didn’t appeal. There was also a swimming pool, fifteen treatment rooms, a gymnasium, steam room, sauna, and a therapeutic waterfall. Damn, Chloe really fancied an untherapeutic waterfall. She checked the free spots. Did she want a mud bath at three-fifteen in the morning? No. A full body massage at one forty-five a.m. No. Shiatsu at midnight. Maybe if it didn’t involve a small dog.

Chloe gave up and went exploring. She’d been dragged here for something; maybe her inner voices would shout “Bingo” when she found it. Everywhere was quiet and gloomy. Discovering locked doors in a place that had once been her home was disconcerting. But when she came across the annex with the swimming pool, Chloe smiled at the sight of the sparkling, crystal clear water. A childhood dream had come true fifteen years too late.

The restaurant was set out with glass tables seating four. Nourishment had been promised on the card. She’d thought that was an odd word to use and there was no aroma of food. More metal shutters covered the windows. The one thing that Chloe didn’t see, or hear, were other guests or members of staff. She and Miranda appeared to be the only ones in the place.

This time before she rang the bell in reception, Chloe looked over the top of the desk. Miranda sat on the floor on a cushion, reading a paperback and eating a Mars bar. She shot up when she saw Chloe and dropped the book, but not the chocolate. The cover of the book showed a man and woman entwined. Naked.

“I wondered about getting something to eat. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the restaurant.”

Miranda did the thing with the eyes again and backed away until she hit the painting of a fat horse that hung on the wall behind her.

“Eat?” Miranda muttered.

She rubbed her head as she stared at Chloe and with her other hand dragged up the collar of her shirt, smearing chocolate on her neck. Chloe licked her lips. Her mouth watered. Maybe there was a vending machine.

“I could manage with a snack,” she said.

Miranda went even paler. “There’s nothing available until eight tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Nothing,” Miranda repeated. Then in case Chloe hadn’t got it she added, “Nothing at all.”

* * * * *

Chloe went to get her camera, slung it over her shoulder, and escaped to the grounds from the oppressive atmosphere inside. She wondered about driving into Harrogate and going to Betty’s, a traditional tea room that served delicious food. Chloe wasn’t sure she could last until that evening, but every time she tried to walk to her car, she found herself heading in another direction.

“All right,” she said. “I get it.”

“
Good
.” That was the female voice.

Chloe burst out laughing. She was going nuts. What other explanation could there be? The voices had pulled her here and wanted her to stay. Part of her was curious to know why.

The walled garden looked as well cared for as when her grandfather had tended it. Row upon row of vegetables in a weed-free environment, frilly topped carrots next to curly headed lettuce next to -- ooh peas. Chloe loved peas. She helped herself to a peapod and split it carefully with her fingernail, scooping out the sweet green balls with one swoop of her finger. So tasty.

As she bent to pick her fourth pod, a hand clamped around her wrist.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She looked up at a tall, blue-eyed man with tousled, sun-kissed hair. Apart from the scowl, he was rather good-looking. Was he why she’d been pulled here? Maybe her voice had decided to help her find Mr. Perfect, since Chloe was making such a mess of it.

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” She’d done exactly the same as a child. Her grandmother had stopped asking her to pick the peas because there were never enough to shell by the time Chloe returned to the house.

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a not very friendly tone.

Ah, maybe not Mr. Perfect
. “I came out for a walk.”

“I mean -- here.” He nodded at the hall. “You’re trespassing. You shouldn’t be taking photographs.”

“I haven’t taken any photographs. I’m not trespassing. I’m staying here.”

Chloe stared in a pointed way at the hand still clamped around her wrist. Lovely long fingers and filthy fingernails. Ah, he was the gardener. No wonder he was pissed off. He let her go suddenly and she rubbed her arm. The itch had started up again. She tried not to scratch for too long. She didn’t want him to think she had fleas.

“Staying here?”

Chloe bristled. What was the matter with the flipping staff in this place? It was as if they neither wanted nor expected guests. “Yes…I’m…staying…here,” she repeated slowly. Maybe he was a bit thick. “I’m…booked…in…for…four…nights.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “How did you find out about Sunset Spa?”

“It was a consolation prize.”

“What for?”

“What does it have to do with you?”

He looked around and then bent his head to her ear. “Leave right now,” he whispered and walked off.

Chloe watched him stride away. Nice butt. She lifted her camera and took a snap. When he got to the gate in the wall, he turned and shouted, “And stop eating the peas.”

She broke off three more pods. By the time Chloe reached the gate, he’d vanished.

* * * * *

Back in her room, Chloe sat on the bed trying not to look at the fireplace. She should leave. If a complete stranger told her she should go, then she ought to be out of here. There was just the little problem of not being able to approach her car and she had the sneaking suspicion that if she were to try and walk out, she’d go in a circle and end up back at the hall. But if there were demons to confront, they were hiding. She’d come, seen the place without freaking out, and now she could go.