by Skylar Finn
His expression exhibited only surprise. Either he hadn’t known, or he was a masterful actor. “Really? What is it?” he asked.
“It’s an entire system of tunnels that runs underground, out to the toolshed, and inside the walls,” she said. “Sheriff, I think it might be how my aunt was taken out of this house without anybody seeing what happened.”
Sheriff Oglethorpe scratched his chin thoughtfully. He had investigated the disappearance of the Emily’s aunt the previous year—not just her, but the three children she was fostering and another young woman, all of them missing and now presumed dead. Emily had inherited the house from her aunt, and all its mysteries and secrets with it.
“That could be,” he said cautiously, not wanting to give her any ideas. The only thing worse than Law and Order witnesses were CSI private citizens, fancying themselves detectives. “We’ll have to take a look at it. If the person who broke into your home is still here, I’d assume that’s where they’d be hiding.”
“We think they came in through the toolshed,” said Emily. “That’s where the outside entrance is.”
Sheriff Oglethorpe radioed one of his men to secure the toolshed and asked Emily to show him the entrance to the secret passage.
“There are several,” Emily explained. She shoved the couch forward, exposing a small door in the wall. “I believe there’s one in most of the rooms of the house.”
“Well, I’ll be,” said the sheriff, leaning forward to peer at the door. He rapped on it with his knuckles, creating a hollow echo.
From inside the walls, something rapped back.
Emily gave a jump and looked at the sheriff. He gave no sign of having heard anything.
“How did you come to find this?” asked the sheriff. “Did your aunt tell you about it?”
This was exactly what she didn’t want to get into: at the time of the break-in, she’d gone inside the walls to see if the ghosts who haunted her aunt’s home—one of whom, she was certain, was her aunt—would lead her to a clue revealing what happened to them the night they all died. Emily knew that in the state of Florida, it took only two people to certify someone mentally insane and have them committed. She didn’t want to find out what the law was here.
“Well,” said Emily truthfully, “she sort of let me discover it for myself.”
“That sounds like Matilda,” muttered the sheriff, still studying the door. “Everything was always a teaching moment with her.” He looked up as one of his deputies came through the front door. “Hawkins, get me the skinniest, toughest guy out there you can find. I need someone who can navigate a tight space as quickly as possible.”
Hawkins, who had the portly appearance of a man who spent a great deal of time in a parked car, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, flushed involuntarily. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled, going back outside.
Oglethorpe turned back to Emily. “Don’t know how anybody survives at this altitude with even a few extra pounds on them,” he said pleasantly. “My daddy always told me, ‘ain’t no fat people in Colorado.’”
Emily smiled politely. Inwardly, she was startled by how casually cruel he was.
A rangy young cop with faint acne scars along his chin appeared at their side. He had the intense, eager expression of a hungry and ambitious cadet with a desire to prove himself.
Oglethorpe nodded at the door in the wall. “Think you can search that, Tapper?”
Tapper gave a brisk nod. “Yes, sir.” He immediately crouched and disappeared into the wall.
Oglethorpe looked around irritably. “I don’t have anybody else skinny on this squad? What are they feeding them in the cafeteria?” He sighed. “What happened after your husband went to talk to the person he thought was Richard?”
“I thought I heard a noise in the secret passage,” said Emily. “I wouldn’t have checked on it myself, but I thought it was something harmless, like maybe our dog had gotten in it somehow. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t stuck.” Emily gave what she hoped was a rueful-sounding laugh. “Of course, she was safely in the living room the whole time.”
“Of course,” echoed the sheriff, giving no indication of whether he found this plausible.
“I went all the way up to the attic without finding anything, so I exited the passage. I heard a noise behind me, and I realized there was someone else in the passage. I didn’t think it was Jesse, because why wouldn’t he just use the door? I ran downstairs, running into Jesse on the way, and we went out to the truck, which wouldn’t start. I called 911. We came back for our dog, sneaking in through the secret passage using the entrance under the porch. We came out in the basement. By that point, the intruder was downstairs, so we concealed ourselves until you guys got here.”
“And they just ran off?” asked the sheriff.
Again, Emily didn’t feel comfortable sharing the entire truth. The truth was, when she was hidden inside of an old chest downstairs, she was certain she had experienced the memories and emotions of the children when they had hidden in fear in the house the night they disappeared. And when the intruder opened the chest to attack Emily, it was the ghosts of the children who protected her. The police had arrived at the same time and Jesse tried to attack the invader with a sledgehammer, both of which also contributed to foiling the attack. But Emily felt certain the ghosts had been her primary defenders, and that they had formed a wall between her and the enemy trying to harm her.
Not that she wanted to tell Sheriff Oglethorpe that.
“The intruder found my hiding place right when you came through the door,” she said. “I think that’s what scared them off.”
Sheriff Oglethorpe seemed satisfied with this explanation. “If they were that easily frightened off, it might just be the same people who threw that rock through your window,” he said. “Trying to punish you for what they think your aunt did.” He frowned, adding, “We haven’t questioned the parents of that homeless girl who was living here recently. They would be my first guess.”
“Andrea’s parents?” Emily stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. Emily had questioned Andrea’s parents herself days earlier, after Andrea’s ghost had contacted her and asked her for help. There was no way they were behind this.
“Vagrants,” said Oglethorpe, shaking his head. “Can’t stand ’em. The town is crawling with them. There’s enough liberals here to feed and shelter them and keep them around. I say, let ’em freeze and starve a few nights and they’ll clear right out. Go somewhere warmer. Arizona’s not that far if you got a couple feet and a will to use them.” He chuckled to himself while Emily looked at him, appalled. Was he really suggesting the entire homeless population walk to Arizona? Just so he didn’t have to look at them?
Oglethorpe didn’t notice Emily’s expression. He was distracted by Tapper’s reappearance at his side. Tapper was now lightly coated in plaster and dust.
“Anything, Tapper?”
“Nothing, sir,” said Tapper respectfully, at attention. He reminded Emily of a German Shepherd-turned-man.
Oglethorpe turned to Emily. “Well, there you have it.” Have what? thought Emily. “I’m going to question your husband now. Why don’t you make some tea, get warmed up? Power’s back on, your heat should be, too.”
From where Emily stood, he appeared to have accomplished very little aside from his plan to reduce homelessness by creating a new Trail of Tears. He also told Emily what to do in her own house under the pretense of reassuring her. And while Emily never would have said so, she doubted very much that the rapid decline in the house’s temperature had anything to do with either the power outage or the storm.
Emily walked by Jesse on her way to the kitchen, briefly squeezing his hand. He smiled at her as the EMT bandaged his arm and Oglethorpe approached him for another scintillating round of questioning. She disliked leaving him in the hands of the sheriff, but aside from aggressively doing nothing, the sheriff seemed unlikely to cause him any real harm.
In the kitchen, Emily filled the electric kettl
e with water and flipped the on switch. As much as she hated to admit Oglethorpe was right about anything, she did want nothing more than a hot cup of tea.
The kitchen door flew open and Emily screamed.
“Oh!” The groundskeeper and maintenance man, Richard, stepped back and covered his mouth. “Emily, I’m so sorry. I saw the police here and I just had to see what happened. I had to make sure that you and your husband were okay. Are you? Is he? What happened? Did someone break in?”
Emily felt overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with Richard after everything that just happened. Against her will, she remembered Sheriff Oglethorpe’s earlier reaction and understood just what he meant by the nuisance that was Richard. He meant well. He’d been extremely kind to her and Jesse since they moved into the house, and helpful. He was one of her aunt’s only defenders in the face of the town’s open contention that she had been the one behind the children’s disappearance. Emily was sure he just wanted to make sure they were okay. She also just wanted to drink her tea and go to bed.
“We’re fine, Richard,” she said, turning back to the kettle. She made sure to only get one cup from the cupboard, lest he get any ideas. She’d get one for Jesse later. After she got rid of Richard. “Someone broke into the house earlier, but they’re gone now.”
Her back was turned, but his gasp was audible. She rolled her eyes. She seriously doubted Richard could feel more in shock than she did. “No! Someone broke into the house? Did they hurt you guys? Did they take anything?”
“Only my peace of mind,” said Emily. “Not that I had much of it left.”
“What?” said Richard, looking puzzled. He was none too quick on the uptake, and Emily suspected he was trying to picture what such a possession looked like: was it a piece of jewelry, or an article of woman’s clothing?”
“They didn’t take anything,” Emily elaborated. “And the police scared them away before they could do anything to me or Jesse. Or Widget.” She came through the kitchen door at the sound of her name and leaned against Emily’s legs. Emily scratched her ears absently.
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Richard. “I had the worst déjà vu when I saw those lights. I thought maybe…I thought maybe it was happening all over again.”
Emily felt ashamed. She’d forgotten how much Richard had cared about Matilda and how devastated he’d been when she disappeared. She hadn’t realized how much he’d grown to care about her and Jesse, and how badly he would feel if something happened to them, too.
“I appreciate it, Richard,” she said. “But we’re okay, really.”
“Good,” said Richard, sighing with relief. “I’ll just let myself out, then. Let you folks get some rest.”
“Good night, Richard,” said Emily, watching him leave.
“Good night,” he said, pulling the door shut behind him.
With Richard gone, she finally felt safe to take out a second mug. She might have appreciated his sympathy, but that didn’t mean she wanted him hanging around for another hour.
Emily poured a cup of tea as the kitchen door swung open. Emily glanced up, exhausted but smiling. “I made you—”
“That for me?” Oglethorpe took the mug from her hand. “Ah. Doesn’t that just hit the spot.”
Emily worked to conceal her annoyance. When would they leave?
Tapper popped through the door. “Do I smell tea?”
Who could smell tea? This seemed to confirm Emily’s theory that he transformed back into the K-9 half of his unit after they got back to the station.
The door swung open again. Emily looked up in despair, prepared to see a hungry Hawkins looking for refreshments, but it was Jesse at last.
“Jesse.” Emily fairly dissolved in his arms. It had been such a long and terrible night.
“We’ll get out of your hair now, folks,” said Oglethorpe, miraculously taking a hint. “We’ve got your statements and if there are any new developments, we’ll let you know.”
“Do you foresee there being any new developments?” said Jesse dryly.
Emily expected some rote and generic police response about how rarely break-ins were solved.
“It’s hard to say,” said Sheriff Oglethorpe slowly. “Given this house’s history, for your sake, I hope there are.”
Emily and Jesse stared after the sheriff as he and his deputies filed out the kitchen door. With everyone gone, the house seemed strangely silent after the chaos of before.
Emily turned to Jesse with a pensive frown.
“Jesse,” she said, “did anything about what he just said sound kind of…threatening to you?”
Jesse gazed out the door at the sheriff, trudging through the snow to his enormous SUV.
“Only all of it,” he said.
3
Emily and Jesse moved from Florida to Colorado with high hopes and a swarm of debt collectors in hot pursuit. Debilitating financial problems had left them unable to renew their lease or even pay their bills, so when Emily found out she inherited the house in Boulder from her mysterious Great-Aunt Matilda, it seemed like a godsend. They would have a place to live and if they fixed it up and sold it, they would have enough money to get out of debt.
Unfortunately, they got far more than they bargained for. Everyone, from the local property management company trying to convince them to sell cheap to vandals damaging the property with rocks inscribed with threatening messages (and Emily wasn’t convinced the two were mutually exclusive) seemed to be waging war against the couple’s chances at happiness. And that didn’t even include the home’s previous tenants, who seemed to have remained on the premises—even after death.
Emily barely knew her Aunt Matilda, estranged from Emily’s family all her life. She vaguely recalled meeting her at a family reunion once as a small child. She was startled to find herself in her will and had little concept of how she died—only that she disappeared and was later declared dead in absentia. She and Jesse had been so desperate for a new situation—for something, anything, to come along and save them—that Emily had jumped on the chance without fully considering the potential ramifications. Even if she had, ghosts and murder would not have been her first guess at problems their inherited home might present. Black mold, bad plumbing, or possible roofing issues had been the most they were prepared to deal with.
Now they were stuck there, in the middle of the mountains, with no home to return to and no way to go forward. After they moved in, they discovered that it was not just Matilda who was missing and presumed dead, but the three children she fostered and the assistant who helped her care for them, Cynthia. With each day, it became more and more apparent that they had met a bad end. Emily wasn’t sure the person responsible was gone, and after the events of the evening, she felt even more certain that they were still in town and that Emily and Jesse were next on their list.
The next morning when the snow stopped, Emily and Jesse shoveled a crude pathway from the back steps to the truck. As native Floridians, neither of them were particularly adept with a snow shovel. Jesse stayed outside to figure out what was wrong with the truck while Emily went inside to fix coffee. She came out to the back stairs with two steaming black cups.
“Well, it looks like we’re gonna need a new distributor cap,” he called up to her from the yard.
“Is that normal?” she asked, going down the stairs to join him next to the truck.
“Normal? For your distributor cap to randomly disappear from under the hood? Definitely not,” said Jesse, taking the coffee from her. “Somebody took it. Probably the same person who was here last night.”
Emily knew she needed to address the fact that they were in hot water. She would have to present an extremely good argument for remaining in a house subject to break-ins, vandalism, and several murders. It was hard to make that argument even to herself, but after the events of last night, Emily was certain that the ghosts were benevolent. She believed they sought to protect her and Jesse from the outside forces threatening them. She also believed that
they were relying on her to help them. Who else would figure out what truly happened the night they disappeared? Not Oglethorpe, that was for sure.
“I guess you want us to get out of here, huh?” she said, figuring it was best to get straight to the point.
“No, actually,” he said, taking a sip of the scalding black coffee. “I don’t.”
“You don’t?” Emily was shocked. She’d felt certain he’d have their stuff, Widget, and Emily herself loaded in the truck overnight as they slept. She was surprised to wake up in their bed instead of the cab of a moving truck, halfway back to Florida.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “If whoever broke in last night wanted to kill us, they could have. I think that somebody—or more than one somebody—is trying to intimidate us into selling this place cheap and getting out of here, and I’ll be damned if anybody’s going to rob us out of our best shot at starting a new life.”
Emily felt her determination further renewed by Jesse’s resolve. “Really?”
“Really. And if, as you say, this…supernatural presence…is benevolent, then I guess we don’t need to worry about it. Even though I hate it and it totally freaks me out.” Jesse was not one to mince words.
“I think that whoever wants us out of here wants this house,” said Emily. “And if we can find out who that is, not only can we stop them, but I have a feeling that this place might not feel so haunted anymore.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Jesse. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ve got to try and get some writing done,” said Emily. “I thought moving here would prove inspiring, but I’ve been so distracted by everything that’s going on, I haven’t made any progress on my next book. Which certainly isn’t doing us any favors financially.”
“Well, you definitely have a lot of new material to work with,” said Jesse dryly. “If you’re considering going in that direction.”
“Oh, I am,” said Emily. “I’d be a fool not to. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.” She checked her tote bag for her stainless steel water bottle. Since they moved to Colorado, she never left the house without water. “Worst-case scenario, I can always look up the house,” said Emily. “I figure it’s been here for a long time. Maybe learning about it will give us an indication of why everyone’s so desperate to get their hands on it.”