The Haunting of Abram Mansion

by Alexandria Clarke

  “We are,” I said, “but something’s bugging me about this. My mom never had a relationship with my grandfather. If this is a way to find closure for all of it, I’m going to check it out.”

  “Good luck,” Theo said. “Just so you know, Sammy and I would hate for you to move out of Falconwood after all this. You should consider staying. Maybe not in that house—”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing,” I told her. “But my main goal is not to get tied down. Who knows? Maybe I’ll invest in an airstream like Della and Basil.”

  “As long as you drive it by our apartment every once in a while.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “I’ll take you both on a road trip.”

  Once I’d reassured Theo that I had no plans to chuck her out of my life when our time at the Abram Mansion came to an end, I hung up and focused on the road. I practiced what I might say to Charles Rainer. I had a million questions to ask him, but they were all jumbled up in my head. I should have prepared for this better. I should have taken notes on what I already knew versus what I wanted to know. Nevertheless, when I pulled up to the address I had on file for Rainer, I was anxious to ring the doorbell.

  Rainer lived in a fancy neighborhood, where all the houses were made of gray stone and about the size of one of the mansion’s enormous wings. Rainer’s house, on the other hand, was quite modest compared to the rest of the neighborhood. While the other properties boasted tennis courts and pool houses, Rainer’s plot of land had not been filled in with so many extras. It was simply his house and his lawn, which was impeccably tended. As I approached his front door, my heart skipped several beats.

  A woman answered. She was perhaps in her fifties, and she held a feather duster in one hand. “Yes? May I help you?”

  “My name is Peyton Fletcher. I’m looking for Charles Rainer.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Rainer isn’t taking appointments today.” The woman looked me up and down, taking in the handful of papers in my grasp. “In any case, Mr. Rainer is no longer looking to buy anything. How did you get this address?”

  “Please, Miss—”

  “Gupta.”

  “Miss Gupta,” I said. “It’s not about an art sale. I’m not a solicitor. I was wondering if I could talk to Mr. Rainer about Penelope Abram.”

  Miss Gupta’s feather duster quivered. “How do you know that name?”

  “I live in the Abram Mansion now,” I answered. “My grandfather, Andrew Anderson, left it to us, and I was hoping—” The door opened further, and a man appeared behind Miss Gupta. I recognized his neatly trimmed goatee and impressive head of hair instantly. “Mr. Rainer? Hi, I’m—”

  “I heard you the first time,” he said. “Are you coming in or not?”

  20

  Charles Rainer was an odd man. First of all, for an art lover, his house did not contain many examples of great art. From what I’d ascertained during my Internet research, he specialized in sculpture, yet there were no sculptures on display or, I assumed, anywhere at all. In fact, Rainer’s house was strangely bare. The walls were white or a greenish shade of gray. His furniture was clean and minimalistic. The white tile floors gleamed underfoot, reflecting my face back up at me when I looked down. The only decoration were plants. Every room featured at least three plants each: towering indoor palms, hanging spider plants that reached for the opposite corners of the room, and lucky bamboo that had been guided into beautiful twists and abstract shapes. As Rainer led me into a sitting room, he gently caressed the fronds of a tall palm tree on his way past it. I suddenly understood. The plants were Rainer’s art.

  “Can I offer you something to drink?” Miss Gupta said, abandoning her feather duster as she followed us into the house. “Water, tea, coffee?”

  “I’m—” I began.

  “I’ll get it,” Rainer interrupted. “Genevieve, what have I told you about serving me or my guests?”

  Miss Gupta—Genevieve—gave Rainer a timid smile. “That it’s not in my job description.”

  “Precisely.” Rainer patted Genevieve’s hand affectionately. “Please take a break. Have an early lunch. Something tells me you skipped breakfast this morning. Was William late to school again?”

  Genevieve rolled her eyes. “You know my son. It takes him three hours to wake up and five minutes to get ready. Do all fifteen-year-olds sleep like the dead?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Rainer replied. “I made roast beef last night. If you warm it in the oven, it tastes almost as good as it does fresh. Help yourself.” As Genevieve went to the kitchen, Rainer turned to me. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

  I took a seat on one of the white couches, found that I couldn’t stay still, and wandered around the sitting room instead. A large glass door stretched across the back wall, yielding to an impeded view of the backyard. Here, Rainer’s small garden waited to bloom. The only other thing on the property was a modest greenhouse. Rainer returned shortly, carrying two glasses of water. He set them down on the coffee table and gestured for me to sit across from him.

  “My husband’s a writer.” I shuffled my papers and photos off to the side of the coffee table, not ready to show him what I had in hand quite yet. “He’s working on a book about hydroponic greenhouses right now.”

  “Does your husband garden?”

  “No, he just writes.”

  “Then I’m afraid he won’t grasp the true joy of growing things in his book,” Rainer said matter-of-factly.”

  “Well, it’s not his book,” I modified. “Our friend Basil is the one with the greenhouse. My husband’s helping him—anyway, that’s not the point.”

  “I heard the point when Genevieve opened the door,” Rainer said. “I’ll ask you the same question she asked you with a slightly different angle. How did you discover my connection to Penelope Abram? It’s been years since I’ve heard a whisper of her name.”

  “I assume you also heard me tell Genevieve that I own the Abram Mansion now.” I handed him a picture from my stash. “I discovered a few things hidden away in the house, including old photos of Penelope… and your letters to her.”

  His eyes whipped up to meet mine. “Letters?”

  I pushed a folder toward him. “From what I can see, she kept every single one that you sent her. I think she was very much in love with you.”

  He opened the folder to find the forty-year-old letters. Earlier that morning, I’d rescued them from beneath the floorboards with Alyssa’s help. Rainer’s eyes glossed over.

  “She kept them,” he murmured.

  “All of my questions stem from one,” I told him. “Where is Penelope Abram?”

  Rainer thumbed through the letters, even lifting one to his nose as if hoping to inhale whatever was left of Penelope’s essence. “To be honest? I believe she’s dead.”

  A cramp started in my chest, like someone had stuck a pencil into my lung. “What makes you think that?”

  Rainer turned the letters so his handwriting faced me. “I assume you read through these? And if you live in Falconwood, the older members of the town would have filled you in on the Abrams’ drama. Penelope Abram was the love of my life. She disappeared with her daughter shortly before Percy’s death. People called me for years—her mother and father, friends, random acquaintances—demanding to know where she was. They all thought she had left Percy to be with me.”

  “Did she?”

  “Admittedly, that was our original plan.” He placed the letters face down on the coffee table. “We never wrote about it, lest Percy discover what we were up to, but Penelope and I agreed that she would leave him.”

  I showed him the picture of Penelope where she was covered in light bruises. “I found a few more like this, and from some of the things you wrote in your letters, I have to guess that Percy Abram wasn’t the stand-up guy everyone in Falconwood thought he was.”

  Rainer swallowed hard before replying. “He was an upstanding gentleman to everyone but his wife and child. He beat
them, carefully enough to hide the evidence from the community.”

  “Why didn’t Penelope report him?”

  “Who would have believed her?” Rainer asked. “Everyone though Percy was faultless. He had the police in his pocket. Besides, Penelope was terrified of Percy. She feared retribution if she sought justice for his abuse. She was afraid he would put Alyssa in danger.”

  “So no one else knew about Percy’s abuse?”

  “Not that I know of,” Rainer answered. “When Percy died, it was lauded as a tragic accident. The community mourned him. They reserved no thought for Penelope and Alyssa or what might have happened to them.”

  “Because they all assumed Percy was the victim?”

  “Indeed.” Rainer stood, perhaps no longer able to discuss the topic without moving, and roved around the sitting room like an automatic vacuum cleaner. “I was the only one who knew something was off. Penelope and I had everything planned out. She told Percy she was taking Alyssa to visit her grandmother in Hartford for a few weeks, a girls’ trip, as it were. Really, she was to meet me at my previous address. From there, we had planned to flee. Penelope had always wanted to live in California. It was so far away from Falconwood that Percy wouldn’t consider looking there. Once we arrived, Penelope planned on serving Percy divorce papers and a restraining order.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Rainer stared through the glass doors and into his garden. “She never arrived. I did all I could to get in contact with her, but she did not answer her phone. I even drove to Falconwood, planning to confront Percy myself, but the mansion was empty. A week later, I heard the news that Percy committed suicide—that everyone believed Penelope and Alyssa were with me. I reported them missing, but the police refused to take the case seriously. Eventually, everyone but me forgot about them. They had little family, and Penelope’s mother refused to speak to me. I hired a P.I. to find them, but years went by without any information. At last, I had to give up the search, as it was taking a toll on my mental health.”

  “You said you thought Penelope was dead,” I reminded him. “Why?”

  “Because it’s the only explanation that makes sense,” Rainer said. “I knew what Percy was: an abusive man who hid his insecurities behind an inscrutable mask. He was a monster, and I have no trouble believing that he killed his own wife and daughter before he committed suicide himself.”

  A rush of heat flooded my body. My palms and the soles of my feet were sweating. It was as if I’d needed Rainer to confirm a hunch that had been sitting in the back of my head all along: Percy’s abuse had escalated, and he’d murdered both his wife and daughter in cold blood. It was the most logical conclusion, yet I’d avoided thinking about it because of how terrible it was.

  “Why did you want to know all of this?” Rainer asked me as he observed my shaking fists. “Surely you don’t need this information to sell the mansion.”

  “No, it’s for my own research,” I said, my voice quivering. “I was curious. My grandfather—Andrew Anderson—did you know him? Percy left him the mansion after he died.”

  “Andrew Anderson was Percy Abram’s best friend,” Rainer answered. “He moved out of Falconwood after Percy killed himself. No one’s heard from him since.”

  After Rainer’s revelations, I couldn’t find the strength to drive back to the mansion right away. I sat in a café in downtown Hartford with my head in my hands for so long that the barista came over to ask me if everything was all right. By the time I got back in the car, dusk had already fallen, and I had two missed phone calls on my cell: one each from Ben and Theo. I called Ben back first.

  “Hey,” he answered, warm but rushed. “I just wanted to tell you not to wait up for me when you get home. Basil and I are observing how the temperature in the greenhouse changes overnight, so we’re going to camp out at the airstream. Where are you?”

  “Hartford,” I said. “I’m coming home soon. Make sure you eat something.”

  “I will,” he promised. “There’s leftover pasta in the fridge if you want it. Are you okay?”

  “Hmm. Why?”

  “You sound sad.”

  “I’m fine. See you tonight?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” he reminded me.

  “Right. Love you—I mean—you know what I mean.”

  Ben cleared his throat. “Uh, love you too. Bye.”

  I took a minute to clear my mind before I dialed Theo. The conversation with Rainer had completely destroyed me. I didn’t know which way was up.

  “Peyton!” Theo answered, automatically excited to hear from me. “Are you still out of town? Sammy’s been begging me to see you all day. Please don’t make me tell him no again.”

  It was the first thing to put a smile on my face all day. “You know what? I’ll be home in an hour. Do you want to meet somewhere for dinner?”

  “Is it terrible if we invite ourselves over to your place?” Theo asked. “Normally I’d say let’s go out to eat, but I’m still crunched for cash.”

  I hesitated. Things at the mansion had always been kind of dicey for Sammy. I hadn’t forgotten his random crying attack from a few days ago. Then again, with Alyssa under better control, maybe Sammy wouldn’t have too much of a problem. I was too exhausted to hang out in town anyway. At the mansion, I could wear sweats and lie with Theo and Sammy on the couches in the foyer while we watched a movie on my laptop. It sounded like a great evening.

  “No problem,” I told her. “I’ll pick up some pizza on my way home. If you get there before I do, just let yourself in. You know the code to the door.”

  When I arrived home, Theo’s car was parked outside the mansion and the light in the foyer was on. My heart swelled with warmth as I zipped my coat, grabbed the pizza, and went up the porch steps. I left Penelope’s photos and letters in the car, hoping I could leave my emotions about the issue with them.

  “Hey, honey!” I called jokingly from the front door. “I’m home!”

  No one answered. I set the pizza on the table by the door and hung my coat on the rack. The light on one of the side tables in the living room was on, and someone had started a cozy, crackling fire in the hearth even though we were well into March. Pillows and blankets were piled on the floor in front of the fireplace, along with a few of Sammy’s books, but neither Sammy or Theo were to be seen.

  “Hello?” I called, walking down the stairs. The kitchen was empty too. “Sammy? Theo? Is this some kind of a joke?”

  No reply came. I went back upstairs and followed the corridor down to the end and back, checking each room for a sign of my guests.

  “Guys, seriously,” I said, my patience waning. “I had a long day, and I’m not in the mood to play hide and seek.”

  Still, no one emerged. I checked my phone, wondering if Theo and Sammy had stepped out for some reason. It didn’t make sense. Theo’s car was parked outside. Her keys and purse were next to the pizza on the table by the front door. Her coat was hung on the rack next to mine and Sammy’s. They were definitely here somewhere. Had they gone to explore the rest of the mansion? My heart weighed heavy in my chest. If they went on a tour of the mansion without me, there was no knowing what Alyssa might do to them. I climbed the steps to the mezzanine, instinctively heading for the east wing—

  An arm looped itself around my neck from behind as I passed a dark corner. The muscled bicep pressed against my throat, trapping my breath in my chest. I struggled in the darkness as an unfamiliar voice hissed in my ear:

  “So you’re Peyton, huh?” The voice was deep and raspy, like its owner was a fan of smoking hard substances. “I’ve been waiting to get you alone.”

  In the dark window of the second-floor corridor, I caught sight of a shaved head and tattooed neck. I wriggled my hand in between my throat and the arm holding me. It loosened just enough to allow me to speak. “You must be Dylan. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but—ach!”

  Dylan tightened his grasp again, forcing the air out of my throat. “Shut up,
you stupid bitch. You’re the reason Theo won’t come back to me.”

  “Where is she?” I forced out, feeling the veins in my forehead bulging. “What did you do to her? Where’s Sammy?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.” Dylan dragged me across the hall to the windows that looked out on the front yard. “See, I followed my lovely girlfriend here. Watched her go inside and get all cozy. Looks like she’s real familiar with your place, Peyton. How’d that happen? Does she play for the other team now? I always thought something was weird about her.”

  “We’re friends, asshole,” I gasped.

  He shook me roughly, and I coughed all over the window. “I wouldn’t disrespect the man with his arm around your throat. Just a friendly piece of advice.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?” My phone was in my back pocket. If I could keep Dylan talking long enough, maybe he wouldn’t notice if I tried to call the cops. “Have you been stalking her all this time?”

  “I’m not a stalker,” Dylan said, his tone softening in a way that was more creepy than comforting. “All I want is my baby back.”

  He kept his arm flexed just enough to let me breathe and talk. I took a deep breath and said, “You might be Sammy’s biological father, but you’ll never be his dad.”

  “You think I was talking about the stupid kid?” Dylan whispered. “I don’t need a kid in my life. I want Theo. That’s it. Did you just roll your eyes at me?”

  “Sammy and Theo are a package deal,” I told him. “You won’t get her without him too. Actually, you won’t get either of them because you’re a drug-addicted psychopath.”

  He whirled me around and slammed me against the wall. Even bracing myself, the impact took it out of me. As my head spun, Dylan pressed his forearm against his chest and leaned in until he was only inches away. From such a close distance, I could see parts of Sammy in Dylan’s features, but the similarities ended there. Dylan was a scumbag, and Sammy was an angel.

  “Are you playing with me?” Dylan demanded. “You better not be playing with me, because I’ve got a gun in my back pocket, and I intend to use it tonight.”