“You risk your life when you do that, sir.”
“What do you expect from a madman?”
“Indeed. You’re no more mad than I am.”
“You need to get out more, Richard. Mingle with the townspeople. They’ll tell you what an insane monster you work for.”
“I take no stock in the tales of people who walk around in fear that some old ghost is going to rise from the cemetery and kill their virgins.”
“Ghost tales are good for tourism.”
“They’re the invention of superstitious fools. There’s evil in this town, cruelty, too. But it doesn’t come from ghosts or witches.” Richard turned and started back toward the house. David followed him, wondering as always what he’d do without the man.
Richard Crawford had come to work for him five and a half years ago when David had returned to Moriah’s Landing and purchased the Bluffs. Richard’s hair had grayed around the ears since then and receded from his forehead, but he was still fit and youthful for a man who’d celebrate his sixtieth birthday this year.
More important, Richard was probably the only one who understood how much David still loved his dead fiancée. He missed Tasha’s voice, her smile, the way she’d made him feel. She’d been so young and innocent. And beautiful.
“…dinner?”
“I’m sorry, Richard. Did you ask me a question?”
Richard turned and raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter, sir?”
“I was just a bit preoccupied. Nothing new.” He’d told Richard repeatedly that he didn’t need to refer to him as sir, but the man was from the old school, and even though he was as much friend and confidant as servant, Richard always made certain to keep that defining edge of separation between them.
“I asked if you were ready for dinner,” Richard repeated. “The cook’s gone for the day, but she left everything in the oven. It will take me only a few minutes to serve it.”
“Dinner. I’d almost forgotten that we hadn’t eaten.”
“I think you would forget to eat entirely, sir, if someone weren’t around to remind you.”
“I might at that. It’s my work that keeps me going these days.” His work and a new fascination, one that frightened him even more than the impenetrable moods that had almost destroyed him after Tasha’s death. One that he would never dare mention, not even to Richard.
“Will you be going out tonight, sir?”
“Maybe later. First I plan to go back to the lab and work.”
The question was ritual. The answer was automatic. After dinner, he either went to his office in the dark corridors beneath the rambling castle or to the test tubes and microscopes that filled the west wing of the Bluffs. He’d work until his mind was numb and fatigue robbed him of the control that kept his inner demons in check. Then he’d lose all perspective and turn into the madman every one believed him to be.
He’d slip from the confines of the Bluffs and drive to the edge of town. He’d park his car and walk the streets and back alleys, searching endlessly for answers he never found. One day he would. And when he did, revenge would be swift and unbelievably sweet.
Becca Smith was not part of the answers or the revenge. But lately, he’d ended up on her street far too often. Something about her haunted him, and try as he might, he couldn’t seem to shake her from his mind.
Richard paused at the back door. “I hear the whole town is gearing up for the Fall Extravaganza. Perhaps you should go. One night of fun won’t ruin your reputation as a serious scientist.”
He touched his fingers to the scar. “I’d frighten the children.”
“With one little scar? I seriously doubt that, sir.”
“With one ghastly scar. I suppose I could dig out the mask I wore in the first years after the explosion and go as the Phantom.”
“Just go as yourself. I predict you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”
David turned away. “Moriah’s Landings has always had lots of surprises for me. Only one was ever pleasant, and in the end, it was the cruelest surprise of all.”
“That was five years ago. Besides, test tubes make lonely bedfellows.”
“True, but they never pull away in disgust when I stand in front of them.”
David pushed through the door and stepped inside the bleak interior of the Bluffs. Nothing but grays and browns and thick, opaque draperies. Tasha had planned to redecorate the place, fill it with light and brighter fabrics to compliment the richness of the dark woods of the furniture.
Her plans had died with her. Without Tasha, there was no light. Besides, he’d lost all interest in the structure that had so intrigued him when he’d purchased it. Now he spent most of his days in the lab or out staring at the water breaking over the treacherous rocks at the foot of the jagged cliffs.
A bleak and isolated life. But a few miles away, the carnival was in full swing. Coeds’ laughter, painted horses, music, a kaleidoscope of colors. And for the first time in five long years, he felt himself almost wishing he were part of it.
He closed his eyes for a second as Richard walked ahead of him toward the kitchen. He expected Tahsa’s face to materialize in his mind, but this time it was the image of Becca Smith that danced behind his eyelids. Tall and willowy, her long blond hair falling around her shoulders.
He’d have to be very careful if he left the house tonight. And he knew he’d leave. The town was already beckoning.
“STEP RIGHT UP. All you have to do is break three plates to win a prize. Or give me the prize you have walking next to you, and I’ll hand over all the stuffed bears I own.” The hawker tipped a faded baseball cat at Becca as she and Larry walked past his booth.
“Keep your bears,” Larry said. “I know a good thing when I see one.” He grinned and wrapped his right arm around Becca’s shoulder, slowing so that Kat and Jonah could catch up with them.
“Do you want a bear?” Jonah asked Kat. “I pitch a mean fastball.”
“Let’s see. A bear or a beer? I’ll take a beer.”
“Aw,” the hawker groaned. “She’s only kidding. Every woman wants a teddy bear. Or how about one of these cute pink cats? Come on, ladies. Help me out here.”
A large drop of rain plopped on the tip of Becca’s nose, the first of the evening. “Looks like our luck is running out,” she said, quickly forgetting the hawker, who was already rescuing his best prizes from the unprotected edge of his booth.
“Head for Wheels,” Jonah said, indicating the biker bar down by the wharf. “It’s the closest cover.”
The four of them took off running, leaving the lit area of the carnival behind and heading toward the wharf as the rain grew harder. They cut over to Waterfront Avenue by dashing down the street between the ice cream parlor and the fortune-telling stand, both of which had closed for the evening.
A gust of wind coming off of Raven’s Cove blew rain into Becca’s face and whipped her clothes against her body before they finally reached the overhang in front of Wheels. They stomped the mud from their shoes and pushed through the door of the bar to a loud twanging of guitar music from the aging jukebox.
“Tables are all taken,” a buxom blond waitress said as she sashayed by them, “but there’s room at the bar.”
“The bar’s fine with me,” Jonah said, “as long as the beer’s cold. How about you ladies?”
“I can handle that,” Becca said.
“I’ve been known to straddle a stool,” Kat agreed, slipping out of her wet jacket and tossing it over a hook by the door. The others followed suit as a couple of guys moved over to give them four seats together. Becca and Kat took the inside seats so they could talk to each other over the music and loud voices.
The middle-aged bartender wiped his hands on a stained apron and leaned over the counter. “Looks like you got caught in the rain. You must have been at the carnival.”
“Yeah,” Jonah answered. “Poor planning on our part, Jake. If we’d started at the far end and worked our way back, we’d have been at
the car by the time the rain hit. As it was, we were at the end by the wharf.”
“Well, at least you got to see it all. Not that it changes much from year to year. What’ll it be?”
They gave him their orders, and Becca and Larry showed their IDs. Jonah and Kat didn’t bother. Jonah’s cousin had owned the bar across the street before he died, and both Jonah and Kat had been in Wheels often enough that the bartender knew they were legal age.
Becca propped her booted feet on the foot rail and let her gaze scan the dim bar while Larry excused himself to go to the men’s room.
The wharf area always intrigued her. The environment stripped away pretense and social niceties. What you saw was what you got, and no one bothered to mince words just to spare someone’s feelings. Like the two men who were sitting a few seats down from them. She wasn’t eavesdropping, but their gruff voices carried easily.
“I’m not afraid of no damn ghost. Not after what I face day in and day out. I say if that Leary fellow rises from his grave, put him on a fishing boat and send him out into a raging storm. One giant wave, and the man will go running back to his safe spot six feet under.”
“Well, someone killed that girl. Matt Jackson was the first cop on the scene and his old lady told mine it was as gory a sight he’d ever seen. Blood everywhere. Hardly had a drop left in her.”
A guy in faded jeans and a worn leather jacket banged his fork on the table. “Would you guys keep it down? Some people are trying to eat in here.”
Kat waited until the bartender set the beers in front of them. “What is this about a murder?”
He leaned in close. “A young woman, late teens or early twenties. Some boys out on their mud bikes found the body in the bushes off of Old Mountain Road just before dark. The police are trying to keep a lid on it until they find out more about it, but you can’t keep anything quiet around this town. You know that.”
“Did they identify her?”
“Not as far as I know. She’d been dead awhile. That’s all I heard.”
Becca felt herself getting sick and wished she hadn’t eaten the chili-soaked hot dog at the carnival.
The man two seats down from Becca broke into the conversation. “It’s that Bryson fellow that done it.”
“You shouldn’t say things like that when you have no proof,” Kat warned.
“I got all the proof I need. The man sits up there in his castle all day, supposedly brooding over some lost lover. Then he comes snooping around town at night. I’ve seen him plenty of times. If he wasn’t up to no good, he’d show himself in the daytime like a real man. He did it. I’d bet my Harley on it.”
Jake slid a foamy beer toward him. “Your Harley? Put up a night with your woman, and I’ll take your bet.”
“Marie wouldn’t have you, you beer-splattered buzzard.” He took a long drag on his beer. “So are you on the side of the beast?”
“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Jake answered, “but I don’t think the man’s dangerous. He’s just a little addled, that’s all. You’d be, too, if you lost your fiancée the way he did.”
“Humph!” The second man slapped a beefy hand on the counter. “I say he was the one who murdered Tasha Pierce. She went up to that haunted house of his to break up with him, and he killed her. Almost killed himself in the process.”
“He’s crazy, all right,” the first man added. “Should be locked up in that same hospital where they put that poor Cavendish girl when she was kidnapped from the graveyard.”
The words ground into Becca’s mind, and David Bryson’s face appeared in front of her, so real she felt she could reach out and touch it. The beer almost slipped from her hands as she set it back on the bar.
“This talk is getting to you, isn’t it?” Kat said, turning her attention to Becca. “You’re shaking, and perspiration is popping out on your forehead.”
“It’s the smoke and the stale air,” she lied. “I think I’ll step out the door and get a breath of air.”
“You’ll get wet.”
“I’ll stay under the overhang,” Becca assured her, already climbing down from the barstool.
“I’ll go with you.”
“No. Please. Stay and visit with Jonah. I’ll be just outside the door.”
Kat touched her arm. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She walked away, yanked her jacket from the hook and pushed through the door. Once outside, she leaned against the side of the building for support. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the wind howled around the corners and cut through her light windbreaker.
Only the real chill came from somewhere deep inside her. She’d had the crazy feeling all day that something terrible was going to happen. Now she found out a young woman’s body had been found off the road leading up to the Bluffs.
But how did she know? Why? She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket.
“Rebecca Smith.”
Her heart jumped to her throat at the sound of her name. She spun around and stared at a figure, half hidden in the shadows of the old clapboard building. He stepped toward her. Her knees grew weak and rubbery and she stood frozen to the cement beneath her feet.
Escape would probably be impossible, anyway. The beast from the Bluffs had come for her.
Chapter Two
The voice was hypnotic, almost haunting and emotions thick as chowder churned inside Becca. “What do you want?” she whispered, her throat so dry, she could barely form the words.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said, stepping closer.
She stared at him but only saw his profile. He kept his face turned toward the street. “You don’t frighten me. I was only startled because I didn’t realize you were out there.”
“Then I apologize for not making more noise on my approach.”
“Why don’t you look at me when you talk?”
“I have my reasons.”
“If it’s to save me from the sight of your face, you needn’t bother, Dr. Bryson. I’m sure I can handle it.”
“So you know who I am?”
“Of course. Everyone does.” And they’d all tremble in terror if they knew she was alone with him on a dark, deserted street. Yet the strange feelings coursing through her senses right now lacked the stringent sting of fear she’d felt when he’d first called her name. She pulled her windbreaker tighter. “What do you want from me?”
“Professional services.”
“In what way?”
“My house, the Bluffs. Do you know it?”
“I’ve only seen it from a distance. It appears more a castle than a house.”
“A dark castle.”
“I still don’t understand, Dr. Bryson. What does your dark castle have to do with me?”
“I’d like for you to change it. Let in the light. You know, add color.”
“Are you looking for someone to redecorate the Bluffs?”
“Yes.” He exhaled sharply, as if her saying the words gave him some kind of release. “Can you do that?”
“I’m merely a seamstress, not an interior designer.”
“But you do sometimes sew drapes and slipcovers?”
“Occasionally.”
“Then I’d like to hire you.”
His voice seemed to reach inside her and awake some unexplainable eros, which defied reason. Fear edged along her nerve endings now, but she had no idea if it was due to the doctor’s presence or to her own bizarre reaction to him. “I’m not the person you need.”
He drew away and put his hand to his face as if to shield her from the infamous scar that was already hidden from her line of vision. “You won’t have to see me,” he said. “I’ll stay in my lab while you work and you can correspond with me through my butler, Richard Crawford.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? I’ll pay you well.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t do it.”
He shuffled and stuck his hands deep
into the front pockets of his trousers. “I understand. I’m sorry I bothered you. I promise I won’t do it again.”
Hurt seeped into his voice. She recognized the sound of it but had never expected to hear it coming from his mouth. It humanized him in a way nothing else could have and made her wonder at her own heartlessness.
The door opened behind her and Larry stepped through it. “Kat said you were feeling a little nauseous. Do you want me to borrow Jake’s car and…” He stopped midsentence as his gaze took in the shadowy profile of David Bryson. His hands knotted into fists, and he stepped between the two of them as if blocking her from some type of attack. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Frightening defenseless women?”
David’s muscles tensed. “Something like that,” he said. “But don’t worry, I’m leaving now.”
“Yes.” The word flew from her mouth. She didn’t know why or when she’d changed her mind. “I accept your offer.”
David stopped in his tracks. “Are you certain?”
She nodded. “I’ll come out to your place tomorrow if that’s convenient.”
“Tomorrow will be fine. I’ll send Richard for you. Would ten be too early?”
“No. He can pick me up at the shop.”
Larry clamped his hand around her arm as David disappeared into the shadows. “What are you talking about? Are you crazy?”
Crazy? The term seemed fitting, but she wasn’t going to stand outside and argue with him about it. She owed him no explanation. It wasn’t as if they were more than casual friends. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Maybe not, but you can’t be serious about going to the Bluffs. What did he tell you? Did he threaten you?”
“No.” She pulled the door open and marched back inside the bar with Larry at her heels. She had an idea that it was going to be a long, long night.
BECCA STRETCHED BETWEEN the cool sheets and stared out the window near her bed. The rain had stopped, and the clouds moved across the night sky like black sheets being tossed by the wind. She never felt truly at home, but she usually felt safe and protected in her small, rented nook inside the Cavendish home. Tonight even the familiar surroundings seemed eerily foreign.
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