Courtney moved around the bar and placed a hand on Shaw’s upper arm. “They need peace, Shaw.”
He knew whom she meant. “What do you have in mind?”
“Let me talk to them.”
That surprised him. “You think you can?”
“I think they’ll listen to me.”
He nodded. “Okay.” He removed a digital recorder from his pocket and placed it on the bar.
Clark laughed, allowing his nervous tension to bubble out of him. “You mean now? It isn’t even dark yet.”
“Doesn’t have to be dark,” Tori told him.
When had she become an expert in paranormal investigation? Shaw smiled his appreciation her way. She returned his smile with a smirk.
He punched the record button. “Shaw Bennett, Courtney…Jepson, Tori Downing, and Jordan Clark. It’s three eighteen p.m., Sunday, May 4th, 2014. Courtney Jepson is taking the lead. Go ahead, Courtney.”
She closed her eyes. Nothing happened for the longest time. Shaw wondered if she’d actually fallen asleep. Tori shifted as if she was tired of the whole mess. Clark cleared his throat, and Shaw shot him a warning glare.
Courtney placed both hands on the bar as if bracing for what was coming. “Victoria, I read your diary. I know you want the world to know what happened to you. I promise I’m going to tell your story.” She paused. Her face a mask of concentration. “Please, show yourself. I want to talk to you. I need to tell you something important.”
Still the room was eerily silent.
After a while, Tori stood next to her, slipping her arm around Courtney’s shoulder.
“Victoria, I’m Esther’s great-granddaughter. You talked to me before. I’m here and I’m alive and I’m not angry. You wanted me to find out who killed you, and I think I have. Please let us help you.”
Shaw pressed a hand against Clark’s chest and moved the two of them back away from the women. He was mesmerized by the intensity on their faces. Courtney had been right. She had sensed the need to approach Victoria Hamilton with a woman’s sensibilities.
After awhile, Courtney’s shoulders dropped in apparent defeat. “I’m sorry, Shaw. This isn’t working.” Distress showed on her face. A deep frown creased her forehead. She would start crying any second.
Tori squeezed Courtney’s shoulders. “It’s okay.” Then her eyes brightened. “That’s because we’re doing this in the wrong spot. We should try this in her bedroom.”
Shaw nodded. “That’s where she appeared the night Lucy died. Let’s go—”
“No.” Tori grabbed Courtney’s hand. “Just me and Courtney.” Her eyes pleaded with him. “I feel it Shaw. She won’t talk to a man. Every man she ever knew let her down.”
Now, how did Tori know that?
He tried to hide his disappointment. Courtney closed the gap between them and placed a hand on his cheek. “Trust me.”
He nodded. “I do.”
Tori stared at first one and then the other of them. “Oh, I see how it is.”
Shaw shook a finger at her. “Don’t even start, Tori.”
Tori laughed all the way to the staircase. “Are you coming, Courtney? Shaw can wait for you outside Victoria’s bedroom.”
“I will. I’ll be right outside the door.”
****
Caroline’s body had long since been removed, but the unmistakable feel of death hung in the air.
“You saw the whole thing, didn’t you?” Tori asked.
Courtney drew in a deep breath. “Yeah. That’s a fake wall.” She pointed toward the mirror. “That’s a two-way mirror. There’s a peephole back there.”
Tori touched the glass with her fingertip. “Yeah, you’re right. Two way glass.” She turned to face Courtney. “How are we gonna do this?”
Courtney shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Tori took her hand and pulled her toward the bed. “Gray and I got a response when we laid down on her bed and just started asking questions.”
Courtney yanked back on Tori’s grip. “No way. I’m not lying on her bed. That’s creepy.”
“This whole thing is creepy,” Tori muttered. She hit Courtney with a piercing stare.
She couldn’t stand the guilt trip Tori was laying on her. “Oh, okay, but if… Never mind. Let’s just do this.”
Was Shaw just outside the door in the hallway as he’d promised he’d be? She was depending on that. She was depending on him. It felt good to depend on someone who was…dependable.
Tori stretched out on the bed. Courtney sucked back her deeply seated fears and did likewise. Then, Tori pressed the record button on Shaw’s digital device.
“Tori Downing and Courtney Cren… Jepson.” She paused. “Sorry, I’m having a hard time getting used to using your real name.”
“S’okay. Everyone is. Go ahead.” Well, not many people knew she hadn’t really been married to Jared or that she wanted to go back to her real name. She anticipated the confusion that changing her name would cause should she ever decide she could come out of hiding again.
“Sunday, May 4th, 2014 at three twenty-nine p.m.”
A long pause before Courtney drew in a deep breath and began. “Victoria, my name is Courtney Jepson. I read your diary, and…”
Before she could finish, a ball of light formed in the corner of the room.
“That was fast,” Tori said low beneath her breath. “You think she was waiting for us?”
Courtney pretended to ignore her and continued. “Is that you, Victoria? If it is, can you come closer?”
The room chilled as the orb moved toward them.
“I’m really sorry about what happened to you and to John and to your child.”
The orb pulsed, and the already dim light in the room darkened. Courtney’s head began to feel lighter and her skin began to crawl with electrical pulses.
Tori rubbed her arms. “This feels weird.”
“Shhh.” Courtney hissed at her. “If you want the world to know who killed you, I promise I’ll tell your story.”
The glow spun as if in a whirlwind, bits of light flaking off and floating in the room around them. It expanded until it had formed an opaque mass.
“Victoria Downing, Pearl’s granddaughter, is here with me. She wants the world to know the truth. You asked her to help you. She knows the truth now. She wants to help you rest.”
The mass formed into the shape of a woman. Her hair moved and shifted as if a gentle wind moved past her. The iridescence of purity streamed from her. White light glowed where her eyes would have been.
“You can go home now. Let go and rest.” Courtney sensed the spirit’s skepticism and tried another tactic. “We know the truth. We believe Esther either killed you or got someone else to kill you. Are we right?”
A burst of light shot out from the apparition’s eyes settling on the bed between Tori and Courtney at about the spot where Victoria might have been lying when someone killed her.
Courtney kept going. “We know that Pearl hid the truth because she hated you. We know that you always loved John. We know about your child. Your great-granddaughter’s name is Laurel. She lives here in Hill County.” Courtney sat on the side of the bed, no longer able to stand lying on her back. She dared to face the ghost of Victoria Hamilton. “John is here, you know. He’s angry with you. You lied to him, Victoria. Maybe if you told him the truth, you could both let go and rest. I don’t know why you left him, but he won’t rest until you tell him that you’ve always loved him. That you’ll always love him.”
Tori gasped and Courtney shifted her gaze in the direction of hers. Another mass had formed, darker than Victoria’s, but still glowing with a dimmer light.
“Tell him, Victoria. Tell him the truth.”
The dimmer light grew and expanded and formed into the shape of a man. A tentacle of iridescence shifted toward the brighter light until the two forms were touching.
The woman speaks truth.
Nothing audible. Yet the words vibr
ated in every nerve of her body. She glanced toward Tori. Tears flowed down the other woman’s cheeks. Courtney wanted to rise from the bed, but her feet didn’t even feel attached to her legs. Numb from the knees down.
“I can’t move,” Tori whispered.
“Neither can I. Please be quiet.”
She thought she heard Tori snarl at her.
The dimmer mass enveloped the lighter one, and the two exploded into a billion points of light.
Forgive me.
Courtney wasn’t sure which of them was speaking, but she believed together they had found a way to forgive. A rectangle of light so shiny she couldn’t gaze on it opened up on the ceiling. Every point of light that had formed from the two masses drifted toward the opening. Within a matter of seconds, they were gone, and the rectangle closed up.
Courtney fell back onto the bed, exhausted, as if every ounce of energy she had ever possessed was consumed.
The two women remained quiet for probably five whole minutes before Tori shattered the unearthly quiet in the room with her opinion. “You have to tell her story now, you know.”
Courtney smiled, more to herself than to Tori. “I’ve already started it.”
The door cracked open, and Shaw peeked his head around the jamb. “Are you two okay in here?” He glanced around the room. “Well, if nothing is ever going to happen, you don’t have to stay in here. This room is creepy.”
Tori rose from the bed. “I’m going to get rid of everything in here and lighten this room up. It’s the best bedroom in the house, and I want it to be mine.”
Shaw stared at her as if he thought she was insane.
Courtney hugged her, ignoring Shaw and his confusion. “Pearl’s spirit is at the bottom of Ashley Creek. Those two are at peace now. I think you can live here without worrying about getting your throat slit in the middle of the night.”
Tori laughed. “Or me trying to stab Gray.”
Courtney’s brow wrinkled.
“That’s another long story. But I think I got rid of that problem.”
She looked to Shaw for an explanation. He stared at her without blinking, and she was certain he’d fill her in on the details after they said goodbye to Tori.
“Let’s get out of here. I have other things I need to do today.” Shaw motioned toward the door.
Just as they were leaving, Clark’s phone vibrated. Courtney watched him as a variety of expressions crossed his face. The man would be no good at poker.
He disconnected the call and spoke to Shaw. “The crew located two bodies out at Laurel Heights, and our guys have already made an ID. Like you said, I insisted our people do the identification. One of them was Omar Cooley and the other was Zeke Richards. They are going to finish the job, but it already looks like there was a meth lab under the rubble.”
Tori wiped her hands on her pants. No doubt, her experience had brought the sweat for her just like it had for Courtney. “Well, maybe Laurel can move back in there. Gray said she made peace with Celeste.”
Clark shook his head. “I don’t know about that. There’s still an angry entity in that house.”
Courtney’s eyes met Shaw’s. “James,” they said in unison.
Shaw wiggled his eyebrows. “Are you up for another paranormal encounter? You seem to be good at getting ghosts to go home.”
She exhaled hard. “That took everything I had in me, Shaw. I don’t think I can do this again today…or ever.”
“We’d be a pretty good team. I have a sixth sense. Tori can touch things and listen to the spirits. Shaw can piece together the history. And Courtney…she seems to be able to send them home.” Clark’s observation made them all stop in their tracks.
Tori laughed hard. “Oh my God, Clark. If we leave Gray and Josh out of this, they’ll kill us, and then we’d be haunting them.”
Shaw nodded. “You’re probably right.” He took Courtney’s hand in his, obviously unashamed of their developing relationship. “But… That is something to think about, Clark.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Shaw glanced around the meeting room at Shaw’s Landing. He’d opened the doors of the restaurant and invited the whole crew. He suspected the remote abandoned building was probably the safest place for them all to meet. As long as everyone had been careful to make sure they weren’t followed.
The coffee was fresh. The cooler was full of sodas. The pizza was from the best parlor in Fairview. The company was buzzing with excitement. Everyone who’d ever had anything to do with the Standridge or Grayson murder investigations was present. Everyone except Laurel Standridge and Chase Peterson. He had not been able to contact them in time. Tori Downing was sitting so close to Mitchell Grayson he couldn’t have wedged a piece of paper between them. Josh McCord had escorted a still shaky Ashley Rivers to the Landing. Ashley had only been aware of recent developments through McCord, but Josh hadn’t wanted to leave Ashley by herself for any length of time. Jordan Clark sat alone, not really engaged in the conversation around him. Next to Shaw sat Courtney Jepson.
He wanted to keep the atmosphere relaxed. Too much tension had existed for these people for too long. He wasn’t hosting a party. This was a conference. But he wanted everyone to wind down a little so all the facts could emerge, and he could put all the pieces together. Shaw was dealing with a very large puzzle.
As Josh ripped up the last piece of pepperoni pizza from the box, Shaw cleared his throat to get their attention. “You know I didn’t ask you all to come here for the fun of it.”
“Well, no, we didn’t think so. None of us are sure you know how to have fun,” McCord said with a bit of sarcasm.
Was he really that uptight? He knew how to have fun. He glanced at Courtney, and she shrugged as if she agreed with Josh. A sly smile appeared beneath her hand and she turned her eyes away. He thought he glimpsed a bit of a blush creeping up her neck.
Shaw waited a moment to let the under-breath snickers subside. He cleared his throat to regain their attention. “There has been so much going on here in Hill County that I’m losing track of everything. The last few days, I’ve felt pulled in a hundred directions. My captain is getting testy. He wants me to wrap it up, and he thinks I should have answers by now. I don’t see how I can provide answers when new questions keep popping up.”
“We really do appreciate you coming up here to help with all this,” Tori offered.
Grayson nodded his agreement. “We pulled you into a big mess.”
Messes were kind of Shaw’s specialty, but he wasn’t going to say so. Might sound a bit like bragging. “So we are all here together to try to make sense of everything we’ve learned, and to come up with a game plan for what needs to be done next. I’ve already set some things in motion, but I need to orchestrate how the scenario is going to play out. So I need to organize all the information we have. Before we are through here, I need to know what you know.”
Josh was interrupting again. “Yeah, I get the idea you’ve gotten Gray into something he can’t get out of easily. And what the hell? Gray and Tori fighting. Look at them. I don’t believe it. I was told not to believe everything I hear. So what am I gonna hear next? The whole town is buzzing about how Gray killed Jeremy Haskins and Halsey covered it up. What gives with that? How’d the media find out about it? Did you tell them?”
Shaw drew on his vast reserve of patience. Knowing Josh McCord required quite a bit of it. “I’ll get to that.”
Josh rolled his hand for Shaw to continue. He forced himself not to react when he wanted to inform the man with a few choice words that he didn’t need McCord’s permission to do anything.
“There has been an undercurrent of evil surrounding Hill County for years, and I think it comes from two sources. The decisions that Alfred Hamilton made ninety years ago and the decisions Fred Haskins made twenty-five years ago.”
Chairs shifted. Elbows propped on tabletops. All eyes were on him. He felt the weight of fighting the various problems this group represented. It was too much f
or one man to carry. They were asking a lot of him, and he’d give them all he had, but he needed every one of them behind his plan to bring Haskins down.
Grayson scooted his chair closer to the table. “Tell us what you want us to do, Shaw. We’re listening to you. Everything seems to have gotten out of control. We need someone to make sense of it.”
“You have our attention and our cooperation,” Tori added.
Cooperation from Tori Downing without having to fight for it. Amazing.
Courtney reached over and grasped his hand. Without a word, she’d said it all. She finally fully trusted him. Whether he was a cop or not.
“I’d like to clear up all the paranormal activity surrounding Laurel Heights, Victoria House, and Ashley Ridge because I think the hauntings have made the events in the natural realm harder to deal with.”
Every head around the table nodded. So far so good. He seemed to have everyone on board with his theory about where to begin the process of unraveling the whole whopping crapshoot.
“Okay, so what we’ve learned over the past couple of days is that a lot of the paranormal activity started when Alfred Hamilton divorced his first wife, declared his daughter Pearl illegitimate, and married Victoria Hamilton. I believe Courtney and Tori helped Victoria Hamilton let go and leave today. Hopefully, Victoria House is no longer haunted.”
“Wow, how’d that happen?” Josh’s voice rang with curiosity. Of course, he’d want to know. He’d had a close encounter with Victoria Hamilton’s ghost.
So Shaw told the story, including what happened in Victoria’s bedroom earlier that day as Courtney had told it to him.
“Then there’s the haunting at Laurel Heights. There are still quite a few questions unanswered about that haunting. Clark tells me there is still a dark entity in the house. I believe the entity is probably the ghost of James Standridge. To me, that makes sense because Celeste disowned him, and Laurel inherited what he believed was his birthright. It would be a reasonable conclusion that he would still be angry enough to harm Laurel in some way. Laurel has Celeste’s dairy now. She’s supposed to be reading it, and she said she’d contact me if there was anything in the diary I need to know. I really believe the truth about what happened years ago at Laurel Heights is in Celeste’s diary somewhere.”
Shaw's Landing (Haunted Hearts Series Book 4) Page 23