Shaw's Landing (Haunted Hearts Series Book 4)

by Denise Moncrief

  Jared had sworn the location was safe, that no one else besides Cooley knew about the underground room or the entrance to the tunnel. No one else except Jared and Lucy Kimbrough and the three illegal immigrants, who had appeared and then disappeared during the four months Cooley had used the room for one of his many labs. That’s why Courtney thought it might be a good place to hide from the cops until she could figure out where to run next, but that decision was just another mistake in a life filled with awful choices. Jared Crenshaw was her most recent bad choice. She had been kind of hoping he’d be her last.

  She rolled her shoulders to relieve the knot of tension that had formed right between her shoulder blades, and then she closed her eyes, allowing her mind to drift back to the horror of the previous evening.

  Courtney’s eyes popped open when the squeak of rusty hinges woke her from a restless sleep. She rolled off her makeshift bed, scrambled to find a place to hide, and managed to wedge into a tight recess in the wall. Across the dimly lit room, Lucy Kimbrough backed through the door to the tunnel.

  To Courtney’s horror, Lucy was dragging a body. A limp body.

  A thin red line sliced across Caroline Grayson’s throat and splotches of crimson decorated Lucy’s shirt. Caroline’s long blonde hair dragged the ground, picking up debris from the dirty floor. When Lucy shifted her weight, Caroline’s head flopped to the other side, and it seemed her glassy eyes stared straight at Courtney.

  Courtney froze, barely inhaling shallow gulps of oxygen. The heavy air in the underground room made it difficult to breathe even when she wasn’t freaking out and afraid for her life. She glanced toward the door and calculated her chances of making a break for it without Lucy catching her. No, Courtney had to wait her out and hide in the shadows. Thankfully, Lucy seemed oblivious to anything except dragging Caroline. If Courtney waited long enough, maybe Lucy would leave and never know she had been there.

  She pressed her hand to her chest and tried hard not to move even one twitch. Across the semi-dark room, Lucy popped a latch and a door swung open. Courtney had only been on the other side of the door once. Behind it was a set of stairs that by-passed the first floor and climbed two flights to the second floor of Victoria House. A system of hidden passageways began at the top of the stairs. Someone who knew how to navigate them could watch undetected whatever was going on in any of the bedrooms.

  Across the room, Lucy tugged Caroline toward the open doorway to the enclosed stairwell. Lucy stopped, jerked once, and turned to scan the basement room as if she’d sensed another presence. Courtney wedged further into the recess in the wall. If she tilted her head at just the right angle, she could observe Lucy and possibly go unnoticed.

  Her hiding spot was too small for her to fit comfortably. Actually, it was a thin crawlspace between two walls that hadn’t been sealed off properly rather than an intentional recess in the wall. Her elbow bumped something loose, and she caught the object before it fell to the ground.

  A book. It flopped open, and she could make out spikey handwriting covering the pages. A diary maybe? She refocused on Lucy and sucked in a relieved breath, still clutching the book in her hands. Apparently, Lucy was so engrossed in dragging Caroline that she hadn’t seen or heard Courtney’s movements.

  Lucy swatted at the back of her head as if something was messing with her hair, but no one was in the room with her except Courtney and the dead woman. Lucy’s actions weren’t making much sense, but then, she often acted psycho.

  She dropped Caroline’s feet and knelt beside her. “We’re almost there, Caroline. You wanna sleep in Victoria Hamilton’s bed, don’t you?” She leaned closer to the dead woman, her lips near Caroline’s ear, which seemed kind of ridiculous since Lucy wasn’t whispering. “How much you wanna bet that Tori Downing has done it with your husband in that big ole bed?” She let loose vicious cackles that could have brought a corpse back from the dead.

  But Caroline was good and dead. The woman wasn’t going to resurrect.

  “I didn’t do this for them, you know. I did this for Josh. It’s my gift to him.” The woman shook her head at Caroline as if outdone with a misbehaving child. “You should have never come back to town. Everyone tries to take Josh away, but he belongs to me.” Lucy hooked her arms around Caroline’s ankles, rose to her feet, and began dragging the dead weight behind her again. “When I’m done here, I have one more thing I need to do.” Lucy huffed as she and Caroline disappeared through the door.

  The clunk clunk of Caroline’s head hitting each tread of the stairs as Lucy made her way higher and higher caused every one of Courtney’s taut nerves to jump.

  She moved to the open door and listened.

  Lucy’s deranged voice filtered down to her from the landing above. “I’m gonna find Josh, and I’m gonna make him tell Courtney the truth.”

  She pushed away from the door to the stairwell. Walking backwards, she kept her eyes focused on the stairs. When she made it to the tunnel, she spun on her heels and raced down the passage at breakneck speed, risking injury. A spasm ripped through her gut, and she pressed her hand against her mouth.

  When she finally rushed through the door into the woods at the other end of the tunnel, she turned and stared, waiting for Lucy to emerge, but she didn’t. In the shadows of tall trees and large brush, Courtney bent over and heaved. Then terror seized her. Would Lucy find her upchuck?

  Courtney searched the ground for a tree limb with some leaves still attached, and when she had located one, she began dispersing the vomit, pushing it under brush and covering it with dirt. When she was done, she scanned the area for a hiding place. Her eyes riveted on a motorboat bobbing in the water. Lucy had obviously traveled across the lake. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the motorcycle Courtney had hidden in the bushes a few yards away from the access door to the tunnel.

  She wasn’t yet ready to give up her hiding place. Eventually, Lucy would have to come out of the house the way she had gotten in, and then Courtney would have the basement to herself again. What was the likelihood that Lucy would return to where she had dumped Caroline’s body? Surely, the woman would snap out of the psychotic trance she was in and realize she needed to stay far, far away from her victim.

  Even if Lucy left and didn’t come back, Courtney could only stay there a few more days, just until Caroline’s body started getting ripe enough the stench permeated the entire house. For a moment, she contemplated calling the Sheriff’s Department to report the death. That’s what a decent person would do, and she considered herself a decent person, but she decided against calling them. If she ended up in the custody of the Hill County Sheriff’s Department, she would never see freedom again. No, she would keep quiet and never let anyone know she’d seen Lucy drag Caroline into the house. Sooner or later, the new owner of Victoria House would find Gray’s dead ex-wife. By then, Courtney planned to have moved on.

  Clouds rolled across the big bright moon that had hung in the night sky and plunged the woods into a deeper shade of darkness. Courtney guessed that it was already past midnight. It seemed the worst things happened in the middle of the night.

  She hung out in the woods and watched the tunnel door until Lucy emerged, got into the boat, and rowed away. It wasn’t until Lucy was a good ways from the shore that the rev of an outboard motor disturbed the quiet of the lake. After a few minutes of anxious waiting to make sure Lucy didn’t come back, Courtney traveled the tunnel and reentered the basement room. Grit scratched her tired eyes. Weariness overwhelmed her, but she had to remain alert. She dropped onto her makeshift bed, keeping her eyes trained on the access door, her mind concentrating on every bump and creak.

  She must have spent hours waiting for Lucy to return and confront her, but once Lucy had left in the boat, she never came back through the tunnel. Courtney finally lay down, hoping to get a little sleep before she had to figure out where she was going to go next. No matter how she tried to coax her tired mind to slow down, it wouldn’t stop recalling the horrifying site of Caro
line Grayson’s slit throat.

  Her fear of Lucy had died along with Lucy. She’d watched as Tori Downing had killed the Hill County deputy in Victoria Hamilton’s bedroom only a few hours ago. Caroline and Lucy. Two more potential restless spirits to haunt Victoria House.

  It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Lucy had dragged Caroline into the house. After getting very little sleep and doing a lot of pacing, curiosity had finally gotten the best of Courtney, and she’d climbed the stairs and found her way into the passageway behind Victoria Hamilton’s bedroom wall. A peephole had allowed her to watch what was happening inside the room.

  Lucy Kimbrough had somehow managed to kidnap Josh McCord and had taken him to the house, dragging him into the same bedroom where she’d dumped Caroline Grayson’s body. She hadn’t come through the basement as she had with Caroline, so Courtney assumed Lucy had brought him through one of the entrance doors on the first floor of the house.

  So many people had entered the scene before the whole thing was over. Just when the situation had gotten intense between Lucy and Josh, Gray had busted into the room with Tori. Then Sheriff Halsey had appeared just in time to see the… Courtney still couldn’t believe she’d seen a ghost or two. Somewhere in the middle of all the confusion that had ensued, Tori had killed Lucy Kimbrough. Just when Courtney believed the situation couldn’t have gotten any more complicated, a man from the Arkansas State Police had arrived and taken charge of the aftermath.

  So many people involved. The state cop would have hard time sorting it out. She didn’t envy him the job.

  She only wished that Josh McCord hadn’t been mixed up in it.

  There had been bumps and bangs coming from the floor above her all afternoon. When all the activity in the house died down, perhaps she could snoop around the kitchen upstairs and see if there was anything left behind that she could eat before she left. But no, she didn’t dare, not that she had a clue how to get into the main part of the house without going all the way around the property to the front door.

  Perhaps the state cop had called in more cops and they were already upstairs investigating the death of Caroline Grayson. Her stomach muscles suddenly tensed as a new fear hit her. A sense of urgency overwhelmed her. If she waited too much longer, someone would search the grounds and find the bike and possibly the tunnel entrance.

  Her stomach growled as if to emphasize her desperate situation. She grabbed the helmet and the diary she’d found in the crawlspace from behind the bar. The helmet was a little too big for her, and she didn’t have to wear it, but she didn’t want anyone to recognize her, and the headgear hid her identity. Once she emerged into the sunlight on the other end of the tunnel, she peered at the display on the pay-as-you-go phone Josh had given her. Just enough bars, just enough battery, and just enough minutes left to make one phone call.

  She was tempted to call her mother. Trudy Jepson was probably freaking out. Courtney’s heart longed to hear her mother’s voice, to ease her mother’s mind. But she couldn’t call her. She had to use what was left of the battery to call Josh. She clicked the display off. Her one phone call would have to wait. No doubt, Josh would spend the next few days facing a lot of questions he didn’t want to answer.

  A stab of pain shot through her temple as she considered the truth and how much of it Josh knew and how much of it he might tell. The truth was dangerous.

  She pressed her fingers to the ache in her head. No doubt, another migraine was coming on her. Sometimes she wondered what smelling the fumes from meth cooking had done to her body. She drew in one more breath of fresh air before she rolled the bike out of its hiding spot. A gust of cool wind blew around her, picking up a few fallen flower petals from a nearby bush and whipping her hair around her face. Storm clouds had formed in the southwest again. She shoved the helmet onto her head, straddled the bike, turned the key, set the clutch, and shifted into neutral. After a few attempts at getting it started, the motorcycle rumbled to life.

  Once she had escaped the peninsula without anyone following her, she headed out onto the highway toward town. The air rushing past her played with the tail of the button down she wore over her t-shirt. The over-shirt had been Jared’s. It was the only thing of his she’d ever wanted. The material was the softest chambray, and it had actually reminded her of her mother. Trudy’s old housedress was made of the same blue fabric.

  ****

  When Courtney reached the Fairview city limits, she still didn’t know where she was going to go or what she was going to do. Without money, she couldn’t stay at a local motel or even buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter at the supermarket.

  She blinked back a tear as she waited at a stoplight. A couple of months ago, she had made a move to become independent and had applied for a cashier position at the grocery. The manager had offered her the job, but when Jared had found out about it, he’d flown into a rage. So it was then she knew there would be no job and no way out for her. No way out unless one of them died, and she had truly believed she would be the one to go.

  Courtney turned onto Chelsea Lane, a street filled with older houses, inhabited mostly by elderly widow ladies. She was almost to the intersection with Mimosa Street when she turned the bike around. The white, two-story house in the middle of the block belonged to Sally Grayson.

  She couldn’t go home, she couldn’t involve her mother, and she couldn’t go to the cops. It was too late for that. Sally’s son, Lt. Mitchell Grayson, was the only deputy in the Hill County Sheriff’s Department she would consider turning herself in to, and at the moment, he had other things to concern him. Lucy Kimbrough had murdered his ex-wife, Caroline. She couldn’t ask Gray for help, but she could ask his mother. Mrs. Grayson had always liked her. At least, Courtney thought she had.

  She glanced around the neighborhood to check if anyone had noticed her before steering the bike into the driveway and heading around to the back. No one was out and about at that time of day. Once she had killed the engine and dismounted, she climbed the three steps to the back stoop. Mrs. Grayson opened the door before Courtney lifted her hand to knock.

  Gray’s mother spoke to her through the screen, her hand wrapped around a walk-around phone. “Can I help you?” The woman’s eyes were wide, and her voice trembled just a bit.

  What was wrong with her? She looked like she’d just seen a ghost.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Grayson. Of course, you don’t recognize me.” Courtney removed the helmet and smoothed her hair with her free hand. “It’s me Courtney…Jepson.” She’d decided to go back to using her real name. There was no one and nothing to stop her from being herself any longer.

  She wasn’t going to waste any time grieving the death of Jared Crenshaw. After all, she was the one who had badly injured him before Lucy Kimbrough had finished him off. Yeah, Courtney had injured Jared…with a screwdriver.

  He wasn’t actually her husband. They had simply lived together long enough that everyone thought they’d gotten married, especially since Jared had insisted that she take his last name. She wasn’t sure anyone outside of Jared’s world remembered that she was alive, anyone except Josh McCord and her mother.

  Josh’s heart had been in the right place. He’d tried to make the decision to leave Jared a simple one for her, but her relationship with Jared had been more complicated than a simple choice to stay or to leave.

  “Courtney? What are you doing here?” Deep suspicion coupled with a touch of fear shadowed Sally’s expression.

  Courtney couldn’t stop staring into her gray-blue eyes. The woman’s eyes weren’t the same color as Gray’s. His were almost violet. No one else she’d ever met had eyes as blue as Gray’s, except for Jeremy Haskins. It was like an angel and a devil had inherited the same physical characteristic. Funny how Gray and Jeremy had such similar features and such dissimilar personalities.

  Courtney shook the thought away. Sometimes stray thoughts just seemed to pop into her mind. Josh used to tell her she’d be a good writer becaus
e she had a good imagination. She never saw herself as anything more than someone’s wife, and maybe one day, someone’s mother. An old-fashioned idea because a woman could be a wife and mother and anything else she wanted to be these days, but if it were her choice, Courtney would be a stay-at-home mom.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you.”

  The woman began to close the inner door. Courtney scrambled to find the right words before Sally slammed the door in her face. “I know the cops are looking for me, but I promise I didn’t have anything to do with Jared’s death. I would turn myself in to your son right now if I could, but I can’t because—” She stopped before she said too much. Maybe Gray wanted to tell his mother about his situation himself.

  “I can’t help you.”

  Courtney straightened her shoulders. She pressed her fingers against her forehead trying to ease the throbbing pain. “Please. I need someplace to stay. Just for one night. Just until I can figure out what to do.”

  “You’re mixed up with a lot of dangerous people. If I let you in my house—”

  “I’m not asking to come inside. Just let me sleep in your garage.” She wanted to smile, but the expression wouldn’t spread across her lips no matter how hard she tried. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.” She hadn’t meant to sound so pathetic.

  “How about going home to your mother? I bet she’s worried sick about you.”

  Courtney’s heart sank. Gray’s mother was going to refuse her. She’d wasted her time when she could have been further down the road toward God knows where.

  “I don’t want her to know what I’ve…” She lifted her chin. “Never mind. It’s not right to bring you into my trouble. Please, just give me ten minutes before you dial 9-1-1.”

  She rushed off the back stoop, anxious to get away from the Sally’s judgmental stare.

  “Courtney, stop. I’m not going to call the police.”

  Door hinges screeched behind her, warm fingers wrapped around her elbow, and Courtney reluctantly turned to face Sally.