“Oh, Josh. I told you to stay away from her. I told you she was trouble. Did Jared catch the two of you together again or something?”
Ashley obviously hadn’t heard that the Crenshaws were missing. Not many people did know yet. Actually, Gray hadn’t bothered to tell him that Jared was dead. Halsey had hit him with that pertinent piece of information when he forced Josh to go on leave. Of all the hurts Gray had inflicted on him, the fact that his old friend considered him a person of interest in the death of Jared Crenshaw... Well, that hurt the most.
“No, I haven’t seen either of them in weeks. I’ve kept my distance from her ever since... You know I couldn’t let her endure Jared’s abuse because of me. I had to stay away.”
Was his lie convincing? The last thing he wanted to do was be the witness that implicated Courtney in Jared’s death.
“Then why are you here and why did you punch Gray?”
“Because Courtney is missing, and Jared is dead. Murdered. And Gray thinks I had something to do with that.”
But he hadn’t really drove all the way out to Ashley’s house to tell her that.
She didn’t seem shocked or surprised. In fact, she laughed, and the sound of it wasn’t funny. “Really? Well, everybody is gonna think you had something to do with that. You have too much history with the Crenshaws for anyone to believe you weren’t involved.”
She ran her hand up and down his upper arm—a surprising move—and the sensation of her skin on his excited him like nothing else could. “I’m sorry.”
But was she really?
“That’s not why I came over...”
The sympathy dropped from her features as if she had divined what he was about to tell her.
He sucked in a deep breath before hitting her with what he needed to tell her. “I told Gray that I knew about what happened with Jeremy—”
Her eyes widened. “What? How could you tell him that?”
“Why not? He needed to know that I know. Why do you always protect him?”
She closed the gap until she was right up in his face, almost nose to nose. “Because he’s always protected me.”
“Unlike me?”
She didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.
He turned quickly and yanked the front door open. The same old argument wasn’t worth refighting. He had one more thought for her before he left, perhaps never to return to her good graces.
“You’d better watch out.” He pointed toward the closed bedroom door. “You are playing with fire. That man will ruin you.”
“Go to—”
The door nearly took his nose off as she slammed it in his face.
****
If Tori wanted to move into Victoria House, she was going to have to suck it up and overcome her fears. She had waited until the sun was high in the sky Sunday afternoon before she returned to the house. After a strong mental pep talk, she’d decided her reaction had been a bit ridiculous and there was no reason she couldn’t claim what was rightfully hers. She had simply been letting her past distort her present.
When she flipped the switch in the foyer, the entry filled with light. Perhaps the electric company had finally been out and turned on the power. She hadn’t been sure they would set foot on her property again after her angry conversation with the customer service representative, a woman who obviously knew nothing about customers or service.
Tori quickly moved into the large front living area and found the nearest light switch. No way she would roam around the house in the dark. She’d brought a brand new flashlight and fresh batteries with her just in case.
The overhead fixture illuminated the room with dim light. With a sigh of relief, she began mentally sorting through the boxes stored in the trunk of her car, trying to decide which to unpack first. Most of the stuff she’d brought with her from Little Rock had remained boxed.
No, she’d just leave it all in her car. First things first, she’d grab the cleaning supplies she’d purchased that morning at the local Walmart and begin scrubbing down... She had no idea where to start. Maybe she could better focus her energies if she took a tour of the house.
The first floor had only five rooms: a empty utility room where a washer and dryer could be installed, a large kitchen with an attached pantry, a massive dining room with two heavy-looking crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, an oversized living area complete with a huge fireplace, and a ballroom the size of her mother’s old house in Little Rock. No wonder someone had been interested in buying the place for a wedding venue. If refurbished and decorated appropriately, the location would be perfect for the purpose. All that would have to be added were a set of downstairs restrooms.
She stood next to the wall of tall arched windows that lined the lakefront side of the ballroom. Even through the streaky glass, she could see how gorgeous the grounds would be if kept up properly. A wall of azaleas along the west side of the property needed pruning. Late in the spring, most of their colorful blooms had fallen to the ground, but Tori could tell the stand of bushes displayed red, white, and fuchsia blossoms in season.
Tall trees crowded the sloping bank toward the dark water. Lake Jefferson was not a clear lake. For a moment, she wondered how many dead bodies were stuck in the sludgy bottom. Then she shook the morbid thought away. She’d been in forensics too long if thoughts such as that could flit through her mind unbidden filling her with curiosity rather than revulsion.
She sighed. Her grandmother had left her more than enough money to maintain the house and grounds. Until now, she hadn’t touched a penny of the Hamilton Trust Fund for anything but hiring a man to do minimal upkeep and act as a sort of security guard just as her grandmother had before her. In fact, she had so detached her life from the Hamilton family that she had pretended her inheritance didn’t exist for several years.
Tori’s mother Paris resented her mother Pearl for skipping a generation and bequeathing Tori the bulk of the estate, only leaving Paris a token bequest. Tori couldn’t understand why her mother was bitter toward a dead woman. That seemed a useless waste of emotional energy to her. She’d offered Paris a sizable portion of the estate, but Paris wouldn’t even talk to her about sharing the wealth. Paris hated her mother that much. Sometimes Tori felt she was the only person Paris hated more than her mother. How many times had Paris called Tori the mistake?
The room was unnaturally still. A shiver traveled up and down her body. A wave of chilled air passed over her as if the air conditioning had just kicked on, but the air wasn’t circulating. In fact, the room seemed stuffy and stale. The heavy scent of dead flowers filled her sinuses. Maybe the ductwork needed cleaning. She located a vent and stood directly under it. Odd. Nothing. So why was she suddenly cold?
She jumped when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Her fingers automatically slipped inside her purse and her hand wrapped around her mace before she twirled to face the intruder. To her surprise, she was alone in the room.
“No. No. No. We are not doing this again,” she shouted at the empty ballroom as if anyone could actually hear her protest.
The room was empty except for a grand piano shoved against one wall, a few straight-backed chairs that appeared to be falling apart, and a piece of machinery that was probably the polisher for the beat-up parquet floor.
That’s when she noticed the missing pieces of flooring. Chunks of wood had been removed, seemingly at random until her eyes adjusted to the optical illusion. Was it her imagination or did the gaps spell out tori must die?
The trembling began in her fingers and traveled up her arms.
“This is just my imagination.”
No matter how she tilted her head and moved around the room, the message was obvious.
Was her mind playing tricks on her? It had happened before. Her therapist had taught her to ask for help when she had these episodes. She couldn’t call him any longer. He had become part of her problem in Little Rock. But she had to have help. Someone who would evaluate the situation
and tell her honestly if she was losing her mind or if something odd was happening in Victoria House that couldn’t be explained. She needed someone who wouldn’t hesitate to separate fact from her imagination.
For some reason, the first person she thought of was Grayson, which made no sense because she had definitely gotten the impression he wasn’t telling her everything. Why would she ask his opinion? Maybe it was because he didn’t have a problem being blunt.
She searched the bottom of her purse for her cell phone, all the while scanning the room for any hint of a presence, natural or otherwise. Suddenly, it seemed a long, long way from where she stood to the doorway that led into the center hallway of the house. When her fingers wrapped around the phone, she yanked it from her purse. To dial Grayson’s number, she’d have to let go of the mace for a while. She sucked in a breath and deposited the canister in the compartment where she kept it for easy retrieval.
After five rings, he finally answered. “Tori, I’m in the middle of something big out here and I can’t talk right now.”
Where was out here? “I tried to call you.”
“I’ve been meaning to call you back, but things have been happening...” Loud noises, the crack of splitting wood, and the rattle of tumbling debris came across the airwaves. “What the...”
Silence from him for a long minute while the rumble of chaos crashed in the background.
When he spoke again, he sounded breathless. “Unless you’ve solved the Crenshaw case, anything else you have to tell me can wait.” The call disconnected.
She stuffed the phone back into her purse. “Jerkface wadcake.”
No one was ever around when she needed them. Ever.
Then, she regretted calling him names behind his back. He was obviously in the middle of something.
She squared her shoulders and waltzed across the room. With determination that she pulled from the deeper reaches of her resolve, she headed toward the central staircase. She stopped a moment to admire the intricately carved banisters. Nice detail. Quality workmanship. Puffing out her cheeks, she forced herself to keep moving upwards toward the landing and the balcony.
At the top of the stairs, the hallway stretched the length of the upper floor. Three doors on the left side and four on the right. She found a switch and exhaled with relief when light illuminated the hallway. The crimson carpet beneath her feet had seen better days, but it still cushioned her footfalls. One day she’d study the portraits hanging on the walls, but on this visit she would skip the trip down memory lane, avoiding any exhumation of family history.
She shoved open the first door on the right. Inside, the room housed what could have passed for a museum. Every piece of furniture was an antique, from the large four-poster bed to the mahogany wardrobe, much like a staged room in an old antebellum home. She glanced at the window. The room was on the side of the house that faced the front driveway.
This was the room. The ghostly figure of the woman had appeared in that window.
With careful steps—although she wasn’t sure why she was being so careful—she walked over to the window and stared at the flag-stoned patio below her and the drive beyond leading to the road that headed back toward the mainland.
She waited, halfway expecting some otherworldly feeling to overcome her, but nothing happened. It was as if there had never been a glowing white woman standing in that very window. As if she hadn’t felt someone tap her on the shoulder when she was downstairs just a few short minutes before.
The room seemed stale and lifeless.
Her gaze drifted through the window toward the Crenshaws’ trailer on the other side of the inlet. She focused on the abandoned mobile home. Light bounced off metal. The trailer on the opposite shore across the inlet was just close enough she could sort of make out what was happening.
A man stood on the top step. He was far enough away she couldn’t figure out what he was doing until the door popped open and he stepped back, pushing the yellow crime scene tape to the ground and flinging the door hard against the metal side of the trailer. Then, she saw the long thin object in his hand. A crowbar?
Without thinking, she yanked her phone from her purse and punched in Grayson’s number.
“Tori, I told you—”
“I’m at Victoria House on the second floor, and I can see the Crenshaw place from here. Someone just broke into the trailer.”
A string of words that his mother would be ashamed of slammed into her eardrum. “This is so messed up. I can’t leave here right now. I have to clean up—” His pause was heavy, as if he realized he’d just said too much.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Do you have the Nikon with you?”
“I didn’t come over here thinking I’d be doing surveillance on a crime scene from across a lake.” Sarcasm rolled off her tongue before she could stop it.
“Oh, of course not. You leave the camera and your kit at the office when you’re off duty, don’t you?” Strange background noises filled his pause.
To Tori, it sounded as if the earth was splitting in half wherever he was.
Then, he spoke and his voice wobbled a little. “Tori, don’t go over there without me.
“He’ll get away.”
“We’ll have to let him. I can’t come over there right now.”
“Why can’t I go check it out?”
“No, Tori. Don’t.” He waited a second. “Please, just trust me.”
She wasn’t sure she could do that. Trust didn’t come easy for her. She barely knew the man, certainly hadn’t known him long enough to gauge how trustworthy he was. But then hadn’t she just been contemplating telling him about her odd experiences at Victoria House? How much trust would that take? A lot.
“Tori? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” She licked her lips. She still had the rest of the house to inspect, and she wanted to get through with it that afternoon, but the right thing to do was to offer her help if Grayson needed it. “Do you need backup?”
She had chosen what she hoped was the right word in the situation. Backup sounded a lot better than rescue.
He made a noise like he was sucking in a deep breath. “No.”
She thought the call had dropped, but then he added something that scared her more than the possibility of paranormal activity in an old house.
“No, Tori. I have to cover something up out here, and it’s best if you don’t know how or what.” He sighed. “I’ve already told you too much.”
“Okay.”
She closed her eyes. Was it wise to be in this man’s confidence? “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I won’t even remember this conversation if you don’t want me to.”
Why was she offering to cover for him when she had made such a big deal of not covering up something before? Why did it matter to her if he got himself into trouble or not?
“Gray?”
“What?” His voice had lost its usual booming, authoritative quality.
“Be careful.”
He laughed, but didn’t sound amused. “I’m always careful, Tori, and I want you to be careful too. So don’t go over to their trailer without me. Promise?”
“I’m a trained officer.”
“So am I, and I wouldn’t go alone. Besides, I know you’re not carrying because you haven’t gone out to the weapon’s range like you were supposed to.”
She glanced at her hip, devoid of a firearm. “I was going to.”
“Promise me.”
“Okay, I promise.” The call ended without a goodbye.
She sighed and shoved the phone into her purse. Leaning against the window, she stared at the trailer across the inlet. Had the man already left? No, his truck was still parked in the driveway. She squinted, just enough to ascertain that the vehicle was the same one she’d seen the man drive away from the mobile home Friday afternoon.
After a while, he emerged dragging a large black plastic bag behind him. She bit her bottom lip to keep from talking
to herself, a bad habit she was trying to break. After pulling her phone from her purse again, she raised the lower half of the window, squatted until she had framed the scene between two large trees, and snapped several shots, hoping some deep enhancement might pick up something useful about the subject. At that distance, it was a long shot, but she thought she’d try anyway.
She squinted against the glare of the late afternoon sun as the man tossed the bag into the back of the truck. How could he have found anything useful in the trailer? She and Gray had bagged anything that appeared remotely evidentiary. Had they missed something critical? The man had returned, perhaps because his first attempt at locating whatever it was had been fruitless. Courtney’s mother might have even interrupted his search, although there was no place in the tiny trailer for an intruder to hide.
Perhaps, the key to breaking the case had been in plain sight, and she and Gray hadn’t recognized it for what it was.
After another minute or two, the truck sped away down the drive just as it had on Friday. She could do nothing about what she saw. Not without Gray. He was busy getting into some sort of trouble from which he would probably have a hard time extricating himself.
Chapter Eight
Rolling her shoulders to relieve the nervous tension that had knotted in the middle of her back, Tori purposefully ignored her unease and wandered down the hall. The next bedroom was an almost exact duplicate of the first one, except that room number one was decorated in shades of gold and green and the decorator had chosen royal blue and silver for the second bedroom.
She didn’t step into the second room. No need. She’d already decided the bed linens and draperies would have to be replaced. Her nose itched at the thought of the dust cloud that stripping the beds would create. Closing the door, she moved on to the final room on that side of the hall. She gripped the knob...and nothing. It wouldn’t turn. Wouldn’t even budge. She twisted harder, with all her strength, and then Kimbrough’s words came back to her.
The Lady died in that house, you know. They say her ghost walks the shore of the lake every night searching for her lover. He was supposed to come and take her away with him, but instead he murdered her in her bed. They say the door to that room won’t open. Like it’s permanently stuck or something.
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