by Bobbi Holmes
“You have ten minutes,” the officer told her before leaving them alone.
Beau stood up and walked closer to Heather; bars separated them. “How can you help me?”
“Oh, I lied about that. I just needed to talk to you.”
He frowned and started to yell for the guard. She pointed a finger at him and wiggled it upwards. He flew up to the ceiling and hovered there a moment before coming back down. His feet landed on the floor. No longer calling for the guard, he stared at her, wide-eyed.
“Don’t do that again or you’ll be sorry,” Heather said in a low menacing voice.
“What are you?” he stammered.
“I’m a witch,” Heather said brightly.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she pointed her finger at him again, and he could feel himself lifting off the ground. He immediately stopped talking.
“That’s better,” she said. “I have something to tell you, and then I’ll leave. Don’t interrupt me, or I’ll put you up there and send you spinning like I did at the barn.”
Beau swallowed nervously and said nothing.
“I put a curse on you. You will starve yourself. From this moment on, you’ll be unable to eat or drink. You’ll either starve to death or die of dehydration…although now that I think about it, it will probably be from dehydration. I’m pretty sure a person can go without food longer than water. Either way, you’ll be dead. Unless you break the curse.”
“How do I do that?” he asked dully. He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. It all sounded absurd, but he didn’t know how he could explain what had happened back at the barn and just a minute ago.
“There is only one way to break the curse. You must tell Police Chief MacDonald why you wanted to kill the Marlows, and why you wanted Walt Marlow’s diary, and you need to tell him everything. Until you do that—until you tell him everything—you won’t be able to eat or drink. Do you understand?”
Beau stared at Heather yet said nothing. She flashed him a smile and turned, heading for the door. Just as she was about to ring the buzzer for the guard, she looked back to Beau and said, “By the way, you really shouldn’t hit yourself.”
The next moment his right hand flew up and smacked him in the face.
Forty
Heather Donovan must have hypnotized him. That was the only thing that could explain what he had experienced. Plus, she had been there at the barn. While he remembered her coming after he first experienced the floating and spinning, she could have made a suggestion for him to forget when she had arrived. Yes, he told himself, that was exactly what happened. But whatever power of suggestion she had over him was certainly gone now. He took a deep breath and told himself to stop being foolish. There was nothing Heather Donovan could do to him unless he allowed it. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply, cleansing himself of whatever influence she had exerted over him. After fifteen minutes he took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and smiled.
Standing up, he walked over to the sink in his cell and picked up the cup. He filled it with water. But before he could get it to his mouth, it flew out of his hand and out of his cell, spilling all the water before rolling to a corner across the room. He stared at the cup and then looked at his hand.
When a guard brought lunch a few hours later, Beau made some excuse for dropping the cup and how it had rolled out of his cell, and asked if they could hand it to him. The guard looked at him suspiciously and warned him not to throw things.
After the guard left him alone, Beau sat in his cell, looking at his lunch. He remembered what she had said, “You will starve yourself.” He thought about the water glass and how it had flown out of his hand. After a moment he laughed at himself and said, “You just dropped it, you fool.”
He picked his sandwich up from the plate and brought it to his mouth. Before taking a bite, he felt pressure on his hands, and to his horror, he watched as his own fingers squished the sandwich and then threw its pieces from his cell, landing on the floor just out of his reach.
Edward Junior was spending the night with a friend, so Police Chief MacDonald took his youngest, Evan, to dinner at Lucy’s Diner. Just as they finished eating, he received a call from Brian; Beau Stewart wanted to confess, but he would only talk to the police chief.
MacDonald took Evan with him to the station. They had already brought Beau to the interrogation room, and he was waiting there with Brian when the chief and Evan arrived. Father and son paused at the door leading to the interrogation room while the chief gave Evan instructions on where to wait. MacDonald noticed his son was not paying attention to him, but looking at the closed door behind him, leading to the interrogation room.
MacDonald was about to reprimand his son for not paying attention when Evan grinned and said, “Hi, Marie, what are you doing here?”
“Helping your father,” Marie told him, giving the boy a little wink.
“Marie’s here?” the chief asked.
With a grin, Evan looked up at his father. “Yes, she said she’s helping you.”
Furrowing his brows, the chief looked at the space where his son had been staring and asked, “What are you up to, Marie?”
Brian left the chief alone in the interrogation room with Beau Stewart and went to the adjacent office so he could watch the exchange through the two-way mirror. Stewart had been in their custody for a little more than twenty-four hours, but he looked horrible; confinement did not agree with him, which confused Brian because lockup in their station was fairly tame. Currently, there were no other prisoners, they kept it clean, and the staff never mistreated inmates. If convicted, Stewart would never handle the big house.
Looking into the interrogation room, Brian watched as the chief took a seat across from Beau, who sat with his hands on the table as his fingers fidgeted nervously.
“I see you’ve waived your right to an attorney,” the chief said.
Beau nodded. “I want to tell you everything. Why I wanted Walt Marlow’s diary. Why I wanted to kill them. But I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning is a good place,” the chief suggested.
Beau told the chief about the murders committed in his family. Knowledge of those murders stayed in the family and passed to the next generation with the understanding to keep the family secret. One reason had to do with Wilbur Jenkins’s death.
“Our family never bought the land from Jenkins. Jenkins wanted cash and agreed to take less than market value because he wanted to travel and needed the money quickly. He took his papers to Beau Porter, but instead of paying him, they murdered him, buried his body on the property. They forged purchases of sale. Our family built our entire fortune on that land.”
“And you could have lost everything if the truth came out?” the chief asked.
“When I read Moon Runners, I recognized so many stories my mother told me. Events you wouldn’t find in a newspaper. I figured Marlow had to have taken his story from a diary or letters left behind from Walt Marlow. My mother told me about Ambrose murdering his brother after he came home drunk—after crying on Walt Marlow’s shoulder over Charlene leaving him. Beau Junior didn’t know they had killed Charlene. But that night, when he told Walt about Charlene leaving him, he must have also told Walt about how Ambrose and his father had murdered Jenkins for the land. He must have, because Walt obviously figured if they had murdered Jenkins, they probably murdered Charlene too. Walt Marlow was friends with Charlene; he undoubtably knew she was black and that she didn’t have another lover. He must have written it in those letters, because there wasn’t a diary.”
“Why did you buy the land from your cousin?” the chief asked.
“Earl was a weak man. He told me years ago he would never share the family secret with his daughters. I didn’t trust him to keep it. He’d already squandered away his share of the inheritance, so he wouldn’t lose anything if it came out. I’d been trying to buy that property for years. I feared once he died, his daughters would sell it, and then whoever bought
it would learn our family secret. Once the authorities started doing DNA matches on the remains, I figured if Marlow came forward, told them what he had read in those letters about Jenkins’s murder, they could get a match for Jenkins’s remains and prove that story true. We would lose everything.”
“You planned to remove the remains and dispose of them?” the chief asked.
“Yes. I remember the selling agent making a comment about the barn having a concrete floor; he found that unusual. At the time, I wanted to laugh. He did not understand why that concrete was really there.”
When Beau finished telling the chief all he had to say, he asked timidly, “May I have a drink of water, please?”
Brian continued to watch from the adjacent office and thought it odd how hesitantly Beau took the glass of water the chief handed him. The manner in which he brought it to his lips, it was as if he was reluctant to take a sip. When he finally did, Beau’s expression transformed, as if all his troubles had melted away, and he wasn’t facing prison time. He finished the entire glass and then asked if he could have more. He was practically giddy. When he finished, he leaned across the table and whispered something to the chief, but Brian couldn’t hear what he said.
“What did Stewart whisper to you at the end?” Brian asked the chief after they returned Beau to lockup. The chief had already gotten Evan from the lunchroom, and they were getting ready to head home, but first Evan visited the bathroom while his father waited in the hallway, talking to Brian.
The chief didn’t answer immediately, but finally said, “He told me Heather Donovan is a witch, and we need to watch her.”
“Did he say witch or bitch? I know she visited him in lockup this morning. I don’t understand what that was about, but he said he wanted to see her.”
“It was witch,” the chief said with a smile.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Pearl Huckabee stood on her back porch and sniffed the air. Someone was barbecuing steaks. Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply, and her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast at Pier Café that morning. That was when Carla, the waitress with the purple-this-week hair, told her how someone had attacked the Marlows over the weekend, and they ended up in the hospital. Apparently, they’d released Danielle yesterday, but Walt Marlow wouldn’t be home until today, according to Carla. Pearl suspected he was already home, and the aroma of steaks cooking was probably coming from their yard. Leaving her patio, Pearl went inside to see what she had in her freezer for dinner.
They had gathered for an impromptu barbecue, the friends of Beach Drive, along with Marie and Eva. It was early for dinner, but too late for lunch. Yet they figured after three days of hospital food, Walt would probably appreciate a steak, no matter what the time.
Lily and Ian provided the steaks, Heather picked up salads, bread and dessert at the deli, and Chris brought wine—the good stuff, Danielle’s favorite. Chris and Ian barbecued in the outdoor kitchen while the others sat nearby, discussing recent events.
“I can’t believe the police found Charlene’s trunk in the barn after all these years. Why didn’t they just get rid of it?” Heather asked. “And why did they have it in the first place?”
“Charlene had her trunk with her because she was meeting Beau in the barn, and they planned to run away together. She showed up early, and his father came home unexpectedly,” Eva said. “According to Charlene, they stored it up in the attic rafter for years, but the Stewarts took it down and looked through it, which did not make her happy. But I don’t know why they kept it initially.”
After Chris repeated Eva’s words, Ian said, “They probably kept it as a trophy,”
“The chief tells me the Kings have agreed to a DNA test,” Danielle said. “Which doesn’t surprise me. All along, they just wanted to find out what really happened to Charlene.”
“I wish I could tell them Charlene’s happy now, and she has moved on with her beloved, Beau Junior,” Eva said. Chris continued to play interpreter, letting the non-mediums know what Eva had said.
“I don’t get how they both haunted the old Barr place yet didn’t know the other one was there,” Heather said.
“It works that way sometimes,” Eva explained.
“Raven told the chief when she learned of Beau Stewart’s involvement, it didn’t surprise her,” Danielle said. “Not that she had any idea Charlene’s lover had been his distant cousin, but she knew about the family’s history with the Klan. It was something her grandmother had told her about when she had interviewed her for their family history. None of them were happy when he announced his bid for the Senate, and it looked like he had an excellent chance of winning.”
“I guess they don’t have to worry about that now,” Chris said.
“There was another thing the chief told me,” Danielle said. “There was a photograph of Charlene and Desiree Davis in the trunk, and Kiara King looks a lot like Desiree.”
“There was something familiar about Kiara when I first saw her,” Walt said. “When I learned about her connection to Desiree, I realized why she had looked familiar. I’m surprised I didn’t figure it out sooner.”
The conversation turned back to the ghosts haunting the property, and Heather said, “Most of them didn’t even realize they were dead.”
“Which lends to the confusion,” Danielle said.
“But Earl understood he was dead. He knew everything about all of them,” Heather said. “Why didn’t he tell them?”
“I don’t think he understood how to go about it,” Danielle suggested. “And I believe Dolly understood she was dead. She knew those were her remains. But she had so much anger. She couldn’t move on. I think saving us helped her put some of that anger to good use, and she was able to accept what happened and finally continue on her journey.”
“Did you ever find out why Wilbur attached himself to Beau’s remains? Did he think they were his?” Ian asked.
“He knew they belonged to Beau. He wanted to return them. Wilbur felt obligated to Beau since he had tried to save him. And poor Beau was perhaps the most confused of all the spirits there,” Danielle explained.
“But I thought Wilbur didn’t even realize he was dead when Marie first met him, and he was looking for that bag,” Heather said.
“Heather, don’t you understand by now? A spirit who is not completely aware of his death might in some way understand he’s dead, yet in another way still believe he’s alive. While Wilbur felt obligated to Beau for trying to save his life, it didn’t mean he understood he was dead,” Eva explained. Once again, Chris repeated the words for the non-mediums.
“Wilbur visited me in the hospital before he moved on,” Walt told them. “He explained why he blamed me for getting himself killed.”
“Yes, Walt, the poor example,” Danielle teased.
Walt gave her a playful nudge and said, “It was because he heard how I sold my grandfather’s business after I inherited everything, and then traveled abroad for a year. He said he wanted to do that too. He didn’t want to be tied down with the responsibility of a family inheritance, but he wanted more than a year.”
“Sadly, it didn’t work out for him,” Danielle said.
“Did they all move on?” Lily asked.
“Yes,” Eva said. “Earl was especially excited to go; he’s been waiting for years. I imagine it’s rather quiet over at the old Porter place about now.” Again, Chris repeated her words.
“So what happens to Beau Stewart now?” Lily asked.
“I don’t know what will happen with him. But they have arrested his kids, too. Not sure how they feel about their father rolling on them,” Danielle said.
“You can all thank witchy woman for that,” Chris said, waving his spatula in Heather’s direction. They all laughed.
“That was rather brilliant of you,” Lily told Heather.
Heather gave Lily a slight bow and said, “Thank you.”
“What about me?” Marie asked.
“We make a good team, Marie,” H
eather said.
“I wonder what will happen to the Stewart estate?” Ian said. “That will be a legal nightmare.”
Lily looked at Danielle, who sat on the end of Walt’s lounge, and asked, “What I want to know, what has any of this taught you, Dani?”
“Like don’t go poking around in a serial killer’s backyard,” Chris suggested.
“What it taught me?” Danielle repeated the question and looked to Walt with a soft smile. Resting her right hand on her stomach, she said, “It’s reminded me how uncertain this life is, and there are some things…some things I don’t want to put off any longer.”
The Ghost and the Witches’ Coven
Return to Marlow House in
The Ghost and the Witches’ Coven
Haunting Danielle, Book 26
The mediums of Beach Drive don’t take rumors of a witches’ coven seriously—not until it threatens one of their own.
Meanwhile, Officer Brian Henderson can no longer ignore the secrets of Marlow House. Can he handle the truth?
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Haunting Danielle Series
by Bobbi Holmes
The Ghost of Marlow House, Book 1
The Ghost Who Loved Diamonds, Book 2
The Ghost Who Wasn’t, Book 3