Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 3: Valley of NightmaresHis to PossessThe Girl in BlueThe Ghosts of Cragera Bay

by Jane Godman

  Brynn turned to Reece. “That would be a huge conspiracy.”

  Reece shrugged. “Maybe it had to be. How long does Kyle’s list go back?”

  “I don’t remember off the top of my head,” Carly said. “But about twenty-five maybe thirty years.”

  “One man per year, that’s twenty-five to thirty men—and women, too, depending on how long Paskin was involved. Are you telling me three people could have pulled that off without anyone in the village becoming suspicious?”

  “You’re right,” Brynn said, nodding. “The man who found Kyle after he’d been attacked knew that there was more than just one person involved. He lied about where he found Kyle, even moved Kyle’s car to discredit his story to police. And God knows, Harding would jump at anything that made Eleri look guilty.”

  “I believe that. We just met the man,” Declan said.

  Brynn’s gaze narrowed. “I thought he had been fired.”

  “He was,” Declan said quickly, the sudden chill in Brynn’s voice catching him by surprise. “We went to see him because he’d been the lead detective in the murders.”

  “You shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

  “I wanted to know why the man was convinced Eleri was guilty, when everything I heard indicated she wouldn’t have had the physical strength to overpower these men,” Declan explained. “Harding said witnesses came forward claiming they saw Eleri with the victims just before they disappeared.”

  “They’re lying,” Brynn said, jaw tight, eyes hot and fixed on him.

  Declan held up both hands. “I believe you. But why did they lie to the police? We thought,” he nodded to Carly, “they did it for attention. Fifteen minutes of fame saying they saw this dangerous woman with her next victim, but maybe that wasn’t it at all.”

  “They lied to hide what was really happening at The Devil’s Eye,” Reece said.

  Declan nodded.

  “Did he say who the witnesses were?” Brynn asked.

  “He did.” Declan shrugged. “But the names meant nothing to me.”

  “One was Sean Leonard, he and his mother run the inn where I’m staying. There was another, a woman, Dott or Dodd,” Carly said, frowning.

  Brynn’s eyebrows shot up. “Olivia Dodd?”

  Carly pointed at Brynn. “That’s it.”

  “Olivia Dodd was one of the people Ruth Bigsby murdered back in March,” Brynn said. “She used to come with some other ladies a few times a week to do the cleaning.”

  “That’s a weird coincidence. What about the man who helped Kyle?” Declan asked.

  “Murdered,” Brynn said. “Presumably by Howard or Paskin.”

  “People really have a habit of turning up dead around here,” Declan muttered, almost to himself. He stood and started to pace. “How many people do we think are a part of this? And why would they kill their own people?”

  “They didn’t,” Brynn said. “Olivia was killed by Ruth. They killed the man who helped Kyle when he escaped, but he wasn’t one of them.”

  “He knew about them, though,” Carly said. “Maybe not who they were, but that they existed. That they were killing people. How many other people who live here know, or suspect something and keep silent?”

  “Not as many as we probably think, otherwise there wouldn’t have been so many people afraid of Eleri.” Declan stopped pacing and rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, his mind turning over every detail. He felt like he was sitting in front of a huge jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces, he just had to fit them together and he would have the whole picture. “There may have been a reason this man suspected what was going on, but wasn’t sure whether Eleri was one of the players. Maybe he’d been involved at one time, or knew someone who had been.”

  “Small villages like these, the longer people live in them, the more they know about each other. If this has been going on for nearly thirty years already—” Carly shrugged “—maybe it’s been going on longer than we even know.”

  Could she be right? The possibility left Declan a little lightheaded. A conspiracy like that going on here for more than thirty years, someone living at Stonecliff would have noticed something in all that time. Hell, even if Carly wasn’t right, and people had only been killed based on Kyle’s dates, someone should have seen or heard something.

  “Do you think our father knew?” he asked Brynn.

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t know. I never thought about it. I only spoke to him twice while I was here. And neither conversation went well.”

  Because she’d been after this house, what money their father had left? Now that he’d met his sister, all of Warlow’s stories just didn’t hold water.

  “What did he say to you?” Declan asked.

  “I’d grown up believing he was dead, that both my parents died in an accident when I was three and I was sent to live with my grandparents. When Eleri contacted me at the end of February, I learned that none of that was true. My mother had died, but not until I was around eleven, and my father was still alive so I came here to meet him. He was less than thrilled by the prospect. He didn’t want me here any more now than when I was a kid. I also learned that my mother was crazy and tried to drown me, and that’s why I was sent away. The last time I spoke to Arthur, I confronted him and he confirmed it. I tried to see him before we left for Holyhead, but he refused.”

  Whatever flicker of guilt he felt at not meeting his father before the man died vanished. His first instinct about Arthur James had been right all along.

  “But do you believe he’s capable of being involved in what had been going on at The Devil’s Eye, or at least helping to cover it up?” Carly asked.

  “Absolutely,” Brynn said without the slightest hesitation. “He’s covered things up before. He knew Meris tried to drown me, but let Eleri take the blame—she was six years old at the time—because he didn’t want the stigma of another crazy wife.”

  “Another crazy wife?” Declan asked. “Did he lump my mother in there, too?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Honestly, I didn’t know he’d been married three times. Neither did Eleri. I’m pretty sure he meant Eleri’s mother. She either fell from the cliffs or jumped from them, depending on which version of the story you believe. Of course, having learned what I have about Meris, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d given her a push. Meris had already set her sights on Arthur, was pregnant with me and living here before Eleri’s mother died. Actually, your mother seems to be the only one who left this place alive and with her sanity intact.”

  Even if Warlow had tried to imply otherwise. His mother had run from Arthur while pregnant with Declan, then lived in hiding for nine years. Parental abduction would be the legal term for what she’d done, and Arthur could have involved the police, would have probably won custody once he and his mother had been found. But in all the years he and his mother had been running, she hadn’t been afraid of the police—just Arthur. Why wouldn’t he have contacted the authorities?

  “What Arthur knew or didn’t know is a moot point right now. The man is dead,” Reece interjected, leaning forward to peer out the door and into the hall. He sat back, but lowered his voice. “Maybe we should be asking how much Hugh Warlow knows?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Intellectually, Declan knew Reece was right. Hugh Warlow had lived at Stonecliff for years. He’d served his father, and his great uncle before. If anyone had his thumb on the estate’s pulse, it was Hugh Warlow. But something inside him rose up to reject the notion.

  Warlow had been his saving grace these past weeks. The man had guided him, taught him with patience and a sense of humor. He’d answered his questions, showed him all of Stonecliff with a genuine love of the place.

  And he’d lied—over and over again.

  Brynn had never come here to manipulate her dying father for his fortunes, and she and Eleri hadn’t abandoned a sick, dying man who’d needed them—neither had he, for that matter.

  Memories of Warlow waiting for h
im outside his building back in August, the certainty that he had something hidden in his coat, that he’d been about to do something, played out in his head. He’d written the experience off to exhaustion, nerves, but what if he’d been right all along?

  “Eleri’s been convinced Warlow was involved somehow with Paskin and Howard,” Brynn said. “She’s certain he saw Paskin the night the man tried to strangle her in her room, then he lied about it to the police.”

  Brynn’s words so incongruent to her casual tone caught him like a slap. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Did he look as stunned as he felt? What all had gone on here before he’d arrived?

  “Before the arrests, while Eleri and Kyle were trying to track down the killer—or killers, actually—she woke up with a man in her room who then tried to strangle her. It was too dark for her to see who. Warlow heard her scream and he found her in her room, but her attacker managed to slip out without being seen. Paskin admitted to Eleri that it was him, and she’s convinced Warlow saw him and kept quiet.”

  “If Eleri didn’t see Paskin leave, isn’t it possible that Warlow missed him, too?” Carly asked.

  “I guess.” Brynn shrugged, clearly unconvinced.

  “I think we need to talk to Eleri and Kyle,” Declan said. “They had direct interaction with the killers—they’ll have the most insight. Maybe Paskin or his wife or the doctor said something that might tie all this together or give us something to follow up on.”

  “No,” Brynn said, sharply. “I don’t want her to know.”

  “You’re going to have to tell her at some point, Brynn,” Reece said, gently. “She’ll be angry if you keep this from her.”

  “I know, but not yet. Let’s just give it one more day until we know for sure.”

  “One more day?” Carly’s voice rose. “Andy is missing. He could be dead if we wait one more day.”

  “You don’t know what it was like for her,” Brynn said, shaking her head. “I hate to think what it will do to her if she thinks it’s starting all over again. If your friend was taken by someone who is tied to Howard and Paskin, nothing will happen until the first. If he wasn’t, nothing Eleri or Kyle can tell us will help anyway.”

  Brynn had a point, but Declan didn’t want to delay longer than he had to. In the meantime, they could at least exhaust whatever options they had left. “Where’s this round room?”

  “I’ll show you,” Reece offered, and stood. He turned to Brynn. “We shouldn’t be too long.”

  “I don’t know why you’re telling me that,” Brynn said, getting to her feet. “We’re going with you, after all.”

  Reece stiffened. “You two wait here. There’s two of us. We’ll be fine.”

  “We’re not splitting up—especially for you to go there.”

  “One man is already missing. No need to add to the numbers,” Carly said, as she moved to stand beside Declan.

  “And four is better than two,” Brynn added.

  Reece looked to Declan as if seeking support. Declan chuckled. “I know better than to argue when I can’t win.”

  * * *

  Declan woke with Carly curled up against his side. Her eyes were closed but a faint vertical line creased the flesh between her brows as if even in sleep she was worried.

  The round room had been a bust. The doctor’s cottage on the edge of the village had been unoccupied, a for-sale sign nailed to a tree at the end of his driveway. Knowing about the men who’d been kept in the dovecote in the field behind the cottage, the women who’d been tortured and murdered there, he doubted whoever owned that property would have any better luck selling than he would.

  The dovecote, perched on a gentle sloping hill about two acres from the stone cottage, had been dark and empty, no sign that anyone had been in there in months—which Reece assured them no one had.

  When Carly asked how he could be certain, Reece had shot her a pointed look that said “how do you think?”

  Declan wasn’t sure he believed Reece saw ghosts, could communicate with them as he claimed, and while they’d been there the man barely gave any indication he’d seen anything at all. Maybe Declan had expected something more theatrical, Reece’s eyes rolling back in his head, body convulsing before he spoke in some alternate voice. Instead, a few sideways glances as if something had caught Reece’s eye that the rest of them hadn’t noticed.

  In the end, they were no closer to finding Andy.

  As an afterthought, they’d checked out Morehead Lodge. That the house was unoccupied, and its short distance to The Devil’s Eye made it a likely hiding place. But there was no sign anyone had been there in months. There were so many empty buildings in Cragera Bay, Andy could be hidden anywhere.

  It had been late by the time they returned to Stonecliff. Brynn and Reece stayed in the room she’d used when she’d last visited, while Declan and Carly had practically collapsed from exhaustion onto the bed they’d shared the night before. He’d managed to clean up the mess in his room from the previous night before Carly had called to tell him about Andy, but he’d yet to replace the light fixtures. And there was no way he’d spend a night in this house without leaving a light on. Yet as tired as he’d been, sleep had been a long time coming.

  Light footsteps had thudded down the hall outside his room. Doors slammed throughout the house. He hadn’t bothered to get up to investigate. He already knew there would be no one there—at least no one he could see. Instead, he’d lain on the bed, gaze fixed on the ceiling, his mind turning over every detail they’d discussed the night before.

  Hugh Warlow had lied to him about his sisters, his father. Really, he shouldn’t have been surprised. His mother wasn’t a woman who scared easily, but something that happened here had sent her running. Still, he couldn’t understand why the man had gone through so much trouble to manipulate him. Just so Declan would stay on at Stonecliff? How would that have benefitted the butler, other than allowing him to keep his job and access to The Devil’s Eye?

  Cold sweat slicked his skin. Could Warlow have been involved in the murders? Could he have Andy now?

  Declan slipped out from under the blankets before pulling them up over Carly’s shoulders. He moved as quietly as possible, careful not to wake her up. While she hadn’t spoken to him once she climbed into the bed, Declan could tell by her breathing that it had taken a while for her to fall asleep, too. She blamed herself for what had happened to Andy, and no matter how many times Declan tried to assure her that she wasn’t at fault, that she could never have guessed this could happen, she wouldn’t let herself off the hook.

  As he tugged on jeans and a T-shirt, he glanced at her cell phone on the edge of the night table. The screen was dark. No texts. No calls.

  Damn it.

  He left the bedroom and went downstairs to get the coffee started. A little caffeine was exactly what he needed to get rid of the murkiness wrapped around his brain from so little sleep. As he approached the kitchen, the hiss of frying food and voices stopped him outside the door.

  “Miss James,” Mrs. Voyle said, her tone oddly stilted. She must have been feeling better. When he spoke to her yesterday, her voice had sounded weak belying her insistence that she’d be well enough to return to Stonecliff. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “We arrived last night, after you’d gone, I guess. I’m just making breakfast, saving you the trouble.” Brynn’s voice, about an octave higher than normal, sounded as uncomfortable as the housekeeper’s.

  “I see. Is Eleri with you?”

  “No, just Reece and me. We came to meet Declan.”

  And because another man was missing and who knew what that meant? Still, Declan kept quiet, unwilling to interrupt the awkward exchange just yet.

  “Of course.”

  Silence stretched between them. The savory scent of whatever Brynn was cooking reached his nose and his stomach growled. He tensed as he was about to enter the kitchen, but Mrs. Voyle’s voice stopped him.

  “I’m glad you’ve come b
ack. I owe you an apology.” Again, a moment of silence before Mrs. Voyle said, “You’re staring.”

  “Sorry,” Brynn said. “You caught me off guard.”

  “I was wrong about you, wrong to judge you by your mother’s actions. I was wrong about so many things. I would like to apologize to Eleri, also. Will she be joining you here soon?”

  “I don’t think so. I can tell her for you, or give you her number and you could tell her yourself,” Brynn said.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Voyle said, thoughtfully. “I’ll do that.”

  How had she treated both his sisters that she felt compelled to apologize? Anger lit inside him when he thought of all the lies Warlow had fed him, but what truly infuriated him was the fact that he bought into them so wholeheartedly. He should have known better; he should have looked deeper, and he still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t.

  He entered the kitchen and Brynn smiled at him from behind the stove. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

  “I’ve slept better,” Declan muttered.

  As if to illustrate his point, a loud bang from somewhere in the house split the quiet. Mrs. Voyle, putting together Warlow’s tray, started, but pressed her lips together.

  “I could have done without listening to that all night,” Declan added, going to the cupboard for a mug. Someone, Brynn he guessed, had already made coffee.

  “It’s a child,” Brynn said, turning over the bacon in the pan with her fork. “Reece said he’s about six or seven.”

  A slick shiver slid over him. “Does that mean this kid died here?”

  “Maybe. Reece saw him, but the child hasn’t spoken to him.”

  “It’s gotten worse since I got here. Did Reece say if whatever is here is gaining strength?” Some distant voice in the back of his head was screaming that Declan shouldn’t believe any of this, that somewhere over the past two weeks he’d slipped into some episode of The Twilight Zone. There were no such thing as ghosts, and people sure as hell couldn’t speak to them, and anyone who claimed they could was either a con artist or crazy. But after everything he’d seen and experienced for himself, the idea that Reece could communicate with the spirits haunting Stonecliff seemed completely logical.