by Becki Willis
“I’m not seeing a thing,” Madison called to her partner. A slight whine clung to her words. “You?”
“Only if pinecones are considered valuable. If they are, we’re walking across a fortune right now.”
“I don’t see any marked trees, any half-buried stakes, and not a single hidden treasure chest. There’s no marijuana plants, no drug labs, no secret printing presses. Nothing but brush, twigs, trees, and more trees. A typical forest.” Her voice was definitely whiny as she added, “These trees aren’t even that special. So what’s the big deal?”
Their separate paths had come together at the jumbled pile of vines and thistle that some unknown animal called home. Derron pursed his lips, studying the prickly mess. “If I had something to hide, I’d choose somewhere like this.”
“Especially if that something was a litter of baby piglets or a den of wolves,” Madison fretted.
Her worries gave him pause. After a pregnant moment he ventured with a hopeful, “I don’t see any recent tracks.”
“Maybe because you’re standing ten feet away.”
Derron edged closer. He waved the metal detector through the air rather uselessly. When nothing stirred within, he moved in another few feet. “Stand back,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.
It felt rather odd allowing a man to ‘protect’ her, particularly this man. After all, she dwarfed him in size.
Against a blank background, the first thing noticeable about Derron Mullins was his handsome face and his nicely sculpted physique. But in a real-life setting, his size came into focus. His body was well proportioned and in excellent condition, but the blue-eyed man had an unusually petite build. Madison felt as if she were allowing a thirteen-year-old to defend her.
A thirteen-year-old with a gun, she reminded herself. She wisely stood back as Derron poked the nest with the metal pole.
When still nothing happened, Derron moved in with more confidence. He circled the garbled mass, poking, prodding, and peeking inside. He came back with a defeated sigh.
“Nada.”
Madison propped hands onto her hips and looked around. “So why does the man insist on keeping this mess under fence? This is one of the few places I can even stand up straight in here. Why does Hank Adams insist on keeping it?”
“Maybe he’s a sore loser.”
Chewing on her lip, Madison considered the possibility. “Granny did say he was known to hold a grudge. Steel traps and spy cameras are a bit much, but she mentioned he was mad at her and my grandfather once, and tried to sabotage everything they did. After a couple of years, he came to his senses, made nice, and they became friends again.”
“So the man is a bit overzealous. Perhaps a tad paranoid. I say it’s a case for the courts, not you and me.”
“I agree, but for the sake of earning our paycheck — not to mention the bonus Allen promised — we need to make a thorough evaluation.”
“We have. The old man is a borderline nut case. Mean and ornery.”
“The thing is, I know Hank Adams. He’s not like that at all.”
“Your ankle begs to differ, dollface,” Derron pointed out.
Because he had a point, Madison continued to nibble her lip. “So if it’s not the trees themselves or something hidden among them, it could be what’s on the other side of the trees,” she speculated.
“Which is?”
“A deep gully that backs up to Pine Bluff.”
“Unless the gully is deep enough to be standing in oil, I doubt that’s it.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
This time, Derron whined. “You’re just determined to ruin these jeans, aren’t you?”
Wondering if he would even notice additional rips, she picked her way around the thick undergrowth. “This way,” Madison instructed, ducking beneath a low branch. “But be careful coming out of the woods. The ground drops off almost immediately. Fall into the gully, and those fancy pants of yours will be history.”
***
Brash knew dusting for prints was a longshot. Taking into account the carpenters, show personnel, crewmembers, Maddy, her family, and all their visiting friends, literally dozens of people had access to the house and its grounds. He would give it a shot, but he had little hope of being successful.
Despite Nick’s insistence that kids were behind the pranks, Brash had his doubts. This didn’t seem like the work of teenagers. Known to instigate a prank or two of his own during his youth, Brash knew that most teens lacked the attention span to pull this one off. One prank, maybe. Two, tops. After that, it was on to something else, something with immediate gratification.
Something like turning a young wild boar loose overnight in the cafeteria at school. Something like listing the principal’s home phone number on Craig’s List with the photo of an underpriced vintage Corvette for sale. Something like spray-painting the trees around town blue and white to boost school spirit. Those were the pranks local kids favored, not the series of low-key events that had taken place at the Big House.
The pranks, however, were escalating. No longer so low-key. With each escalation, the random deeds shifted from being merely irksome to becoming downright illegal. Tampering with a police investigation and trespassing were only the beginning. With the messages left on the mirrors, the pranks had suddenly escalated to terroristic threats.
Not the work of kids, Brash was sure of it.
Brash had already made a running list of possible suspects, but he kept the list confidential for now. It was still a very fluid investigation.
Whoever was doing this knew something about electronics. He or she was able to bypass alarms, redirect circuits, and disrupt video feed. Instinct told him it had something to do with the overheard conversation about the journals, so the person had access to the cameras and audio inside Maddy’s house.
The very thought tightened his gut and brought out all sorts of protective instincts. Most had little to do with his job as chief of police. Every one of them had much to do with his feelings for the homeowner.
By now, it was obvious that the old mansion harbored a secret. The perpetrator, Brash hypothesized, had one of two reasons for wanting to keep the secret buried: to protect the past, or to insure the future.
If it was about the past, exposing the secret must mean the potential for dire consequences. Brash’s mind raced as he tried to imagine what those could be. The skeleton suggested a murder. A murder meant a victim and a perpetrator. They were already working the missing person angle, but it was a daunting task. They were working with a one-hundred-year timeframe, after all.
While there was no time limit on pressing murder charges, there was a time limit on lifespan. Logic told him that if the deeds were about protecting a murderer, then that murderer was still alive. He did some quick calculations in his head. Even if the murderer had committed the crime at the age of fifteen and was now in his or her mid-eighties, the crime could have taken place as many as seventy years ago. It wasn’t much, but it meant they could narrow their search to missing persons during and after the mid-1940s.
The condition of the body and the deterioration of the clothing suggested the corpse had been down in the basement for years, probably decades. It would probably be safe to overlook the last twenty-five years, concentrating on earlier disappearances. That left a rough window of between 1945 and 1990, give or take five years or so. Still a daunting task, by any standards.
Of course, it could still be about the past and not include a murder. There could be another secret hidden in the journals, something potentially damaging to … whom? An entire community came to mind. As matriarch of the town, Juliet Blakely more or less screened every resident who resided here. No ‘unsavory characters’ were allowed to rent or buy property in her namesake. Not only did she know each family who called Juliet their home, but she also knew their past. That had to amount to at least a few juicy secrets.
Miss Juliet died in 1983. Brash could pull records, cross-reference
the families who lived here then to those still in the area. That would narrow it down somewhat, but not much. Most families had deep roots in the community and chose to stay.
Nor could he rule out residents of Naomi. On more than one occasion, Miss Juliet had ruled a family non-worthy of citizenship, only to have that same family settle across the railroad tracks, warmly welcomed into the town of Naomi. Reasons for rejection could be recorded in those journals.
Brash groaned, knowing the numbers just doubled. Potentially, Juliet Blakely could have recorded secrets about anyone in the twin cities.
And if this was about the future? Those secrets meant someone had something to lose. He would need to give special attention to anyone with political, social, or financial significance. He made a few notes on his list, thinking of names to jot down.
The list was getting impossibly longer, and he had not even touched upon the more obvious possibilities. This could be a marketing ploy. Any one of the Home Again team — but most likely Nick or Amanda — could be behind the pranks, trying to drum up interest for the show. What was that saying in Hollywood? Any press is good press. People loved ghost stories. Throw in a little danger, and it made for great news coverage.
He had managed to keep things under wraps so far, but any day now, Brash suspected the media would get wind of the ‘incidents’ at the old mansion and swoop in like vultures. The first episode of the show was due to air soon. With help from the media, ratings were sure to soar for that all-important season premier.
The lines tightened around his mouth as he jotted yet more names onto his list. Just the background checks could take weeks. Months. He only had two officers. A third had been hired and was due to start next month, but that did not help now. And no matter how efficient Vina was, the woman could not do all this by herself. Not and do her regular job, which was to keep the police department on its toes and running smoothly.
A thought came to mind, curling the tightness into a smile. He could hire outside help, just as he had done before. And he knew just which temporary service to call.
***
Having successfully avoided falling into the gully, Madison and Derron skirted the perimeter of the ravine. They went opposite the direction Madison had previously taken, looking for anything amiss.
“See anything, dollface?” Derron asked.
“A healthy crop of bull nettle. My grandfather once taught us kids how to harvest the nut, but unless that’s become the latest health food sensation, I don’t think these plants are what we’re looking for.”
“Agreed. So now what?”
“I suppose there could be something down in the gully.” Her voice was rife with reluctance, not wanting to admit that might be their next course of action.
Derron pointed toward the bottom of the bluff. “Or in that cave over there.”
“What cave? You mean that animal den?”
He shrugged his delicate shoulders. “Cave, den. Tomato, tomatto. Whatever you want to call it.”
“I call it insane, if you think I’m going to crawl off in a hole where some cougar might live!”
“We’re not dressed to crawl inside a cave.” He glanced over at her wardrobe with thinly concealed disdain. “I’m not, anyway. But we could go closer, look inside.”
“At what?” she asked in horror. Visions of gnashing teeth and vicious claws flashed through her mind.
“Haven’t you ever heard the rumors?”
“About the cougars? Yes! That’s why I don’t want to go any closer.”
“Not about the cougars. About the caves.”
Madison vaguely recalled some old tales from her youth. A few of the daredevils of the day claimed to have spent the night in an old cave as part of a dare. She never put much faith in the validity of the claims. Particularly since one such claim had come from an old boyfriend, a habitual liar who had trouble separating the truth from his vivid imagination. It took her less than two weeks to discover his flair for duplicity and to break up with him.
“I heard a few rumors, but I never believed them,” she shrugged.
“My mom told me about them. She said they’re not rumors; they are actually true. Something about an earthquake thousands of years ago. It left a fault-line through the edge of River County, allowing the formation of ancient underground rivers. The waters rerouted or evaporated centuries up, leaving behind caves and tunnels.”
Madison stared at him. “You just moved here a few years ago. How do you know this, and I don’t?”
He shrugged a delicate shoulder. “My mother was a surveyor. Land was kind of her thing. She liked to poke around on rocky hills and cliffs like these. One time, she found a cave that the landowner didn’t even know about. Most of them are hidden, unless you know they are there.”
Madison searched her mind, trying to think of other hilly formations in the area. Located for the most part in a river bottom, the terrain stretching out from The Sisters was relatively flat, but here and there a high peak formed, such as Pine Bluff.
Without another word, Derron led the way toward the indention in the rocks. Once they passed the gully, Madison knew they would be trespassing on land that rightfully belonged to Hank Adams. She ignored her conscience and followed anyway.
They made their way closer to the bottom of the bluff. Navigating the irregular rocks was tricky, particularly when a wrong step could land in a tumble down the deep ravine.
On closer inspection, the bluff was more a series of layers of stone, stacked one upon another. Madison thought the ridges and changes of color might mean something, but geology had never been her strong point. Nor had rock climbing. One rocky layer tilted this way, the other that. The ‘cave’ was wedged into a corner between two sheets of limestone, not as close to the bottom as she originally thought.
“Here, girlfriend, take my hand.”
Just as Madison grasped Derron’s fingers and began to step across a wide chasm in the stone, they heard it.
It started lightly, little more than a rumble. It quickly turned into a deep growl. Deep and long. And much too close for comfort.
“On second thought…” Derron said, his face losing its color. “Run!”
Chapter Ten
Her ankle protested when she tried getting out of bed the next morning.
“You, my sorry friend, are getting too old for this,” Madison reminded herself aloud.
Beside her, Bethani groaned in her sleep. She mumbled some incoherent reply before turning over to slumber in undisturbed bliss.
Poor baby. She needs her own bedroom.
Not for the first time, Madison thought their current living arrangements lacked much to be desired. She knew it was difficult for a teenage girl, sharing a bedroom with her mother.
Soon, she reminded herself. Soon, we’ll each have a room of our own.
Madison flexed her swollen joint as she mentally reviewed her itinerary for the day. Mail invoices for jobs completed. Write Derron’s paycheck and hope it didn’t bounce. Go to Blake’s baseball tournament at eleven. Again at three if they won. Make a date with a bottle of wine and a good book. Hmm, not too bad of a Saturday.
She limped down the hall and into the kitchen, where Granny had a pot of coffee brewed and waiting. She inhaled with satisfaction and smiled. “Good morning.”
Her grandmother harrumphed. “We’ll see if you’re still saying that when you get a glimpse of the morning news.”
The smile melted away. “Please, not before my first three cups of coffee.”
“Then you’d better drink fast,” the older woman advised. She nodded to the small television on the counter, where a shot of the Big House filled the screen. She hit the remote to turn up the volume.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” the woman on the screen asked. “It’s not Halloween, but sources in Juliet, Texas tell us that the historic home of the town’s namesake has seen a recent infestation of so-called ‘haunts.’ If you recall, a little over a week ago, a skeleton was discovered in the
basement of the old mansion. No word as of yet whom the skeleton belonged to, nor whether an actual crime was believed to have been committed, but these new disturbances have shut down restoration efforts while police investigate. According to our sources, odd things began happening around the so-called Big House shortly after the skeleton was discovered. Urban legend has it that the old house is haunted, and this week, ‘ghosts’ have started to appear. The one-hundred-year-old mansion is the centerpiece for the new season of HOME TV’s popular Home Again television series, and will introduce a new format for the network’s top-rated show. The network says the new format will merge home restoration with reality television, giving viewers an in-depth look at what remodeling is like on a day-to-day basis. The first episode is set to air in just a few days, but no word yet on how long the ghosts will spook away cameras. And speaking of ghosts… In Detroit, a …”
Granny muted the volume as the picture flashed to another story.
“Great,” Madison muttered. “Just great. Now we’ll have ghost chasers underfoot and séances set up on the lawn.”
“Don’t look now, but there’s already a van out on the curb. Ghost Buffers, I believe it says.”
“Five minutes,” she mumbled. “Five minutes was all it took, and my nice little Saturday is shot to smithereens.”
“The stipulations of fame, my dear. The stipulations of fame.”
***
The cameras followed her to the baseball tournament.
Maddy sat quietly in the stands, watching as the rest of the spectators made fools of themselves. By the time she came back for the three o’clock game, the number in the stands had doubled. People sported handmade signs and silly hats, anything to snag the cameras’ attention. Cheerleaders appeared, decked out in their cutest outfits, eager to cheer their team on to victory. Never mind that it was the first baseball game they had attended this year. What better time to support your team than when you could appear on national television? A portion of the high school band showed up, blaring their horns and beating their drums in an off-balanced rendition of the school song. Countless of people stopped to greet Madison with enthusiasm, the very same people who snubbed her on the street when the cameras weren’t rolling. And all around her, the air buzzed with talk of ghosts haunting the Big House.