“We met him because of his new property. The office? He was going to renovate it,” Cilla let her voice die out with the comment.
“Yeah. That building was trouble the minute he signed the papers.” He drew in a breath. “To think that someone just broke in and did that to him. No reason. A senseless act of violence.” Pent up anger darkened his tone.
“It was terrible,” Cilla agreed.
“I still can’t believe it. And worse, they don’t have any leads about who it might have been.”
“Then you haven’t heard what happened to him? Why he was killed?”
“The police have nothing. They said it looks random. There was nothing stolen; he had his wallet full of cash with him, and his keys were in his pocket.”
“He was starting a new business there too, wasn’t he?” This guy seemed willing to talk, so Cilla was going to take advantage of it, even though she was feeling a definite twinge of guilt.
“Oh, yeah. He just closed on that old building. He was going to rent out the other rooms.” He made a face. “If he could get the place habitable. It was really bugging him, that office.” He slanted them a glance. “But if you met him because of the place, I guess you knew that.”
“What do you mean? It had a lot of work to be done, I know, but I thought he said the building itself was good.” Smith had spoken up.
“Ah, I don’t know. He was nervous about the place. Said he heard weird things. He didn’t know if someone was trying to scare him, or if his imagination was getting away from him.” Carlton’s voice lowered. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. Brandon didn’t want his folks to know how upset he was about it. And he’s not the kind of guy to go off the deep end like this. He really thought something was up with the property.”
“We had heard he thought the building might be haunted,” Cilla said honestly. She wasn’t ready to reveal everything, but since this cousin had been so upfront, she felt like she should disclose as much as she could.
“Yeah, yeah, exactly.” Carlton looked relieved to be talking about the situation. “He said he thought it was haunted, and when he texted me the night before he died, he said he thought he found something in the office. He thought he knew who might be haunting the place.” Carlton frowned. “Now I guess we’ll never know.”
Cilla paused, deliberating on how much she should reveal. If this man already knew Brandon’s fears, perhaps he would be more open minded about their position.
“He called us to see if we would come out and discuss what he was seeing,” she declared. She hoped this information wouldn’t make the other man think they were crazies preying on the loss of others.
“Then you’re the ghost hunter lady?” Carlton blurted, hastily lowering his tone. “The one that Brandon was going to contact?”
“That’s me,” Cilla said thinly. Carlton had clearly had heard about her, so any deception she might have tried would be out of the question.
“Brandon told me he was going to call. He said he needed help, and you had been recommended.” He exhaled. “Wish this would have worked out better for him.”
Cilla nodded. She peered around the somber gathering. She noticed a shift in the crowd. People were beginning to leave, drying their eyes and sniffing. Carlton noticed the movement too.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go help with my aunt,” he stated hastily.
Cilla nodded and watched him hurry away. She stood for a moment, seeing the little party of black-garbed mourners make their way from the gravesite to the cars, each leaning against another. Her gaze followed the fluttering of the wind, looking farther out among the stones. In the distance was a lone figure, a dark coat whipping around his ankles, hands buried in his pockets. She felt a flash of recognition. She recalled seeing someone like this the day they had performed their simple ceremony at the gravesite for the Coulter family, putting to rest the spirit that inhabited Melissa’s home, the mother who forever mourned her children. There had been a man there, observing them, resting beneath an imposing monument, an angel guarding an ancient grave.
But this time, the shock of recognition was two-fold. She remembered his figure on that day, weeks ago. But now she realized who it literally was. Paxton was staying at a distance, his fedora tilted down to cover his dark hair, his eyes barely visible beneath the rim, watching.
“I’m telling you, it was him,” Cilla insisted as they pulled into the long driveway that led to Melissa’s mansion.
“Why would Paxton be at Brandon’s burial?” Smith was looking at her skeptically, the sunlight hitting his glasses, so she couldn’t read his expression.
“We set him on the case,” Cilla argued. “maybe he was doing the same thing we were.”
“Talking to people?” Smith slipped off his glasses and used the tail of his faded tee shirt to wipe the lenses. “You said he wasn’t talking to anyone.”
“He wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be watching to see who was there.” Cilla bit her lip. She thought about saying she had seen Paxton before, when they were at the Coulter family gravesite, but the stretch seemed a little extreme. She was tempted to try to corner Paxton, to challenge him directly, but if she was mistaken, she didn’t want to appear like some nut. She already struggled with her reputation as it was. She didn’t need any help in the crazy bits.
“I guess we can ask him the next time we see him,” Smith answered, “like now,” he added.
Cilla spotted it to. There was an additional car in the driveway that didn’t look like it belonged to any of the laborers. It was too new, too shiny, and too sporty. Unless one of the workers had decided to throw caution to the wind and bring their rather expensive car on a work site, there was someone else visiting Melissa at the house. At a guess, it was Paxton.
“Did you know he was going to be here?” Cilla asked, an edge to her voice.
“I suspected,” Smith said evasively. “Look, I knew you would feel weird talking in front of him. I didn’t want to freak you out. I didn’t know for sure he would be here, and it didn’t make sense to worry you for no reason.”
“You know I don’t trust him.”
“I get that, but so far, I haven’t seen anything that makes me think he’s up to something. I think we need to give him a chance.”
Cilla glared at him. “Then you are prepared for him to be in on any of our investigations? What happens when we come at night? Will he be along for that too?”
“How about we decide that after we’ve had a chance to talk to Melissa more,” Smith answered placatingly.
Cilla opened the car door and stepped out, slamming it closed again with a little excess force. She didn’t have to be happy about the situation. “I’m going to ask him if he was at Brandon’s gravesite,” she told Smith in a tone that brooked no comment.
They walked together up to the porch. Cilla still felt a slight chill coming to the house. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was still sensing a spirit that was active, or if she was recalling their earlier experiences. Either way, she knew what she had experienced at this house ranked right up there with the most dramatic experiences she had ever undergone.
Smith didn’t bother knocking on the door but swung the portal open and proceeded inside. Cilla followed him, still frowning. The place had undergone a substantial transformation. The destruction of the interior was more marked now, with whole sections of plaster removed to expose the structures beneath, like the ribs of a great beast.
The air was almost foggy with accumulated dust from the plaster. Cilla felt it coat her hands and face as she walked, wiping ineffectually at her cheeks.
“Melissa?” Smith’s voice was odd hollow in the torn-up space.
“In here.”
They followed her voice into the dining room which had been separated from the entry by a heavy sheet of plastic. Melissa was standing next to a folding card table, her hands on her hips as she considered some drawings in front of her.
An older gentleman in blue jeans and sturdy bo
ots was pointing out something on the paper with ink-stained fingers. Paxton was standing to the rear of the room, looking cool and unconcerned.
“Hi,” Melissa greeted them, as Cilla and Smith entered the room. “This is Thomas, my general contractor. We were going over a few of the updated plans.” Melissa’s expression was innocent, her deliberately light tone conveying what her words were not. This guy didn’t know about Cilla and Smith’s roles in the house, and Melissa wanted to keep it that way.
The older man nodded at the newcomers. “Nice to meet ya. Are you helping this young lady with her huge construction job?”
“We’re trying,” Cilla responded smiling.
“Well good. She’s going to need all the help she can get.” He gave Cilla a broad wink and turned back to the drawings, rolling them up quickly. “And I’ll have a few more of my guys out tomorrow,” he assured Melissa.
Melissa beamed at him, the expression on her lovely face enough to make any man melt. “Thank you so much,” she replied earnestly.
“Not a problem,” he responded hardily, and then headed toward the foyer and out the front door.
As Cilla watched the contractor climb into his truck through the barely visible window, she turned her eyes toward Melissa. “This is a new guy?”
“My old contractor quit. He took several of his men with him, but there were a few that opted to stay and help.”
Cilla imagined they were doing that solely because they didn’t want to let Melissa down. She had that effect on people. Cilla was just glad she was a genuinely nice person because all that beauty and grace could be used to manipulate.
“Anything new we should know about?” Cilla prodded.
“You mean supernatural?” Melissa’s eyes dropped. “Yes, I suppose there is.” She gave an uncertain gesture. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Cilla purposely maneuvered Smith between her and Paxton, who held back and was the last in their little entourage to descend into the darkness.
In the basement room, Cilla prepared herself for the macabre appearance of the false skeleton she had seen earlier. It was almost more of a jolt to discover just a mound of dirt and debris in its place.
“I found it this way this morning. It’s not only been taken apart, it’s totally obliterated.” She turned and looked at them, first at Smith and then Cilla. Lastly, she glanced at Paxton. “I swear, I didn’t come down here. I didn’t touch it, and I kept the basement locked for the entire time. I’ve had the key in my pocket, and I told all the workers they couldn’t go down.”
Cilla stood absolutely still in the dank air. She could feel the surrounding space, the expanse of it, and the heaviness of the structure above them. Her senses seemed to narrow as she felt the shiver over her skin, the beginnings of something. The prickles of a chill rushed from her neck and down her spin, and she trembled. A breathy rush, like speech but utterly unlike the mortal tongue, rasped a word.
“Go.”
Cilla rubbed at her arms, glancing toward Smith to see if he had detected anything. Her face felt like it was frozen in place, and it was taking everything she had not to cry out. Smith seemed oblivious. He was using the flashlight on his cell phone to illuminate the area in front of him, the blue beam casting sharp shadows.
“No footprints,” he stated quietly. “Seems like if you came down here and hauled that thing out, you might have left some disturbance in the dirt.”
He must not have felt anything, Cilla realized. If Fargo had been there, he, no doubt, would have alerted them to the disturbance, but without the keen senses of the animal, she alone knew they had invited an unearthly visitor.
“Do you think this is the entire thing? The figure came apart and is lying there in that mound?” Paxton had stepped forward, and Cilla could see his eyes flash momentarily in the light as he moved into the beam’s direction.
Cilla looked toward him, uncertain. She had heard the word, ‘go’, plainly as though the speaker had stood next to her in the quiet. There was something here, and it was expressing, no demanding, that they leave this place. But now she had another instinct, just as strong, that told her not to touch, not to disturb the area which held the remains of the macabre shrine. The feeling was so intense, so terrifying, she couldn’t hold her tongue.
“Stop,” she declared emphatically, halting Paxton in his forward movement. “Stay away from it.” She moved to block him, her body between the mound of what had been a haunting skeleton figure, and the man.
Paxton stopped, his expression curious and a little impatient. “I’m sorry?”
“We need to leave it. Let it alone.” She peered around the pale circle of faces. “Trust me with this. If we move anything down here, we are going to get a resurgence of problems upstairs. None of us want that.” She didn’t tell them the whole truth, the truth that just she knew. Whatever was here didn’t want Paxton to touch, Paxton to disturb its rest.
Smith continued to study her face, and predictably, he had seen the truth in her expression.
“I agree. There are some things that Cilla just knows, and this must be one of them.” He turned to Cilla, a hand gently brushing her arm. “Did you hear something? Do you know something?” His voice was taut, his eyes going from Paxton’s still form to Cilla’s strained expression.
“Just that whatever is here, is still here. And it wants us to leave. Now.”
Melissa led them out of the basement and then shut and locked the door behind them.
“There would be no one else allowed down there until we know what we are dealing with.” Melissa’s face was rigid, her normally graceful movements abrupt and sharp.
Cilla agreed with the statement. She felt certain that whatever entity was in the house was squarely centered in the ancient cellar. And it made sense. If the spirit was a remnant from the construction that predated the house, perhaps there were bits of it that yet survived down there. There had to be something that the entity was clinging to.
Upstairs, Melissa beckoned them to follow her as she headed up into the corridor that stretched left and right from the central stairs. She had the keys out again, and Cilla realized that they were in for another interesting sign since Melissa had found it imperative to lock the door.
“Like I said, compared to what is going on, this isn’t as remarkable,” Melissa paused in the hallway. “But I believe this one means something.” She halted at the door to what Cilla knew was the master bedchamber. They had been through the rooms a few months before when they had explored the building. The spacious rooms had been practically devoid of any furniture besides a dilapidated old table, which still stood by the window, and a folding chair next to it.
“I hadn’t been in here for a few days, but I came up to look for whatever furniture I could find.” She gestured to the side wall with one hand. “This was here.” She didn’t walk any further into the room, her face a mixture of revulsion and nerves. “When I saw it, I left immediately and locked the door.”
The wall had seen better days, but the cream paint, although slightly grimy, was unmarked. Or at least it had been blank until someone had created a design, an array of slashes smeared with a dark red brown substance, that flowed at least three feet wide and just as tall.
“Is that?” Cilla felt her stomach churning as Paxton stepped in front of them, drawing close to the vandalized wall.
“It appears to be mud, mixed perhaps with clay.” He glanced back toward where the rest of them were still clustered in the doorway. “It is not blood,” he assured them.
Cilla was the next inside. She was stepping deliberately and lightly, her senses on high alert. Had this been done by human hands? Or was this another spiritual intervention? It was hard to say what she was hoping for. If there was a person responsible, then Melissa was dealing with some very strange and likely dangerous individual. And if it was the entity? That wasn’t reassuring either. Cilla felt certain that the mock skeleton in the cellar hadn’t been the work of human hands. Sure, it was conceivable t
hat someone could form the structure of the body, to prop it up in the chair, to position it carefully in the cellar, but when and how? The effort it would take to construct such a thing would have been tremendous.
The smears, on the other hand, appeared to be a simpler matter. But was there someone trying to scare Melissa out of the house, or was the spirit sending a message that they all could decipher?
“It looks like a picture,” Smith spoke from the doorway. He had out his cell phone, and now that the shock had worn off, was snapping photos.
Cilla looked back toward the smears.
“Stand here and look. I don’t think you can see it as well close up.”
Cilla slowly backed away from the wall and saw that Paxton was doing the same. His steps were longer than hers due to his added height, so she heard his exclamation of surprise seconds before her eyes focused on what he was looking at.
Up close the slashes were random and meaningless. At a distance, the darks and lights come together into a sketch, and as Cilla studied it, she realized it was more than just a picture. It was a portrait, and the figure staring back from the wall was the face of a dead man.
Chapter Ten
“I realize there are individuals who could make a painting like that,” Cilla was telling Smith as they strolled together into their office. “I understand someone could have gone up there and drawn it, but I don’t know many people with that kind of talent.”
“You mean because it was so well done?”
“That and the fact you couldn’t figure out what it was unless you were standing well away from it. And the resemblance to the man in the family portrait.” Cilla shut the door behind them and tramped over to her desk. Fargo followed, immediately finding the warm spot on the hardwood floor that had been soaking up the morning sunshine. He took two quick circles around the place and dropped down, chin on his paws.
“It would be hard for someone to carry out a prank like that. I guess if you had a projector and a model, an original piece of art, you could do it. Like if someone got their hands on an old photograph of John Coulter. But that would take time.” They had only seen one black-and-white image of the founder and builder of the home, but there was no refuting the resemblance to the frightful picture on the wall.
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