The House on Foster Hill

by Jaime Jo Wright

  The wrinkles at the corners of Joy’s eyes deepened with sincerity. “Well, I say we stop ruminating on what could be and discuss what is. You both like to leave me out of the discussion as if I were some old gooney.”

  “That’s not true,” Grant said, and winked at Kaine. But she still wasn’t feeling the humor.

  “Joy, I want to protect you. I don’t know who this guy is, but he doesn’t seem to discriminate who he targets. He’s even set his sights on Grant.”

  “Well, don’t that beat all!” Joy took a drink of water, then plunked down the glass. “Listen here, I’ve got at least thirty years on you both, and I was born and raised in Oakwood. Why don’t you lay out all you’ve found so far and see if I can fill in any gaps?”

  It was a nice thought. But Joy wasn’t a historian. Even Patti, with her fixation on Foster Hill House, couldn’t fill in the gaps when Grant questioned her at the library. Joy was just a loving eccentric who worked at a gas station to provide for her special-needs daughter.

  Grant didn’t seem to care, though, and he launched into a recap.

  “Gabriella was definitely held at that house against her will, based on what we’ve read in her writings that we found at the house,” Grant finished. “The amazing thing is, whoever she was, she had faith that could move mountains. She saw hope where most women would see abandonment.”

  “See?” Joy poked her fork in Kaine’s direction. “Hope isn’t a waste of time, sweetie. You’ve got to cling to those promises, and the Lord will provide the rest.”

  Kaine didn’t fully believe it. “He provided for Gabriella by allowing her to be murdered and stuffed in a tree.” She shot a wary look at Megan. She didn’t want to upset the girl, but Megan met her eyes and smiled.

  She nodded. “It’s okay, Kaine, I’m fine.”

  Smart as a whip, that Megan.

  “Kaine Prescott.” Joy’s voice had an edge to it and turned mother hen on her. Kaine had no choice but to listen. “You’re looking at things backward. As if this life and all it has to offer is all there is. It sounds as if this Gabriella could teach us all a thing or two about seeing beyond this world and setting our eyes on Jesus instead.”

  Kaine’s bite of lasagna went down in a hard swallow. Jesus. Not just God, but Jesus. Joy was as blatantly evangelical as they came.

  Joy shifted her attention back to Grant. “I’d be curious to read what Gabriella wrote. Especially since my grandmother knew Ivy.” She folded her hands and rested her elbows on the table. “She said Ivy never discovered who Gabriella was, why she was murdered, or what happened.”

  Grant gave a nod. “That’s pretty much what Mr. Mason indicated, and Patti affirmed. Ivy’s memory journal was never completed and there was no record of how it all ended.”

  “Were Gabriella’s writings in a journal also?” Joy glanced between Grant and Kaine.

  “Not exactly,” Grant said.

  “That’s the really creepy part,” Kaine inserted.

  “They were pages, buried beneath the floorboards in the third bedroom,” Grant added.

  Kaine pushed her plate away. “She wrote her thoughts in the margins of an old book. Great Expectations.”

  Joy’s face blanched. Her elbows slid from the table, and her hands bumped the edge. Her plate jumped from the force, clinking against the wood when it landed. Megan stopped chewing and stared at her mother.

  “Did you say Great Expectations?” Joy whispered.

  “Yes.” Grant reached out to touch Joy’s hand. “Are you all right?”

  Joy shook her head. Color returned to her face, but her hands shook. “Just a moment.” She pushed up from her chair and disappeared down the carpeted hallway.

  “What was that all about?” Grant said.

  Megan smiled and wiped up some of the water that had splashed from her mother’s glass. “Momma has Great Expectations in her room. It was Grandma’s favorite book.”

  Kaine cocked an eyebrow at Grant.

  He speared a green bean with his fork. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  Joy returned with a shoe box. She pushed her plate out of the way, set the box on the table and removed its cover. “This was my grandmother’s.” She pulled out a lace doily. Then a hardback book. The title was embossed in gold. “She cherished it, but never let anyone read it.”

  Kaine tried to calm her excitement. Because Great Expectations was a popular classic and still in print, there was nothing strange about a family having an old copy stored on a bookshelf. Or in Joy’s case, in a shoe box. But, like Grant said, it couldn’t be just coincidence.

  Joy ran her hand over the book’s front cover. “I remember one day—I was maybe eight or nine at the time—I saw it in a drawer in her bedroom. I pulled the book out and was going to open it, but my grandmother found me with it.” She looked up at Kaine, her eyes reflective with unshed tears. “It’s the only time I ever remember her raising her voice to me. She propped it up on a high shelf and I never touched it again. Not until after she died.”

  “You believe her book relates to Ivy somehow?” Grant spoke Kaine’s thoughts.

  Joy took a deep breath and tapped the book with a long fingernail. “You just wait and see, young man.” Opening the book, she rotated it so they could see. A beautiful, cursive script filled the margins. She turned the page and then another, and another. Almost every page included handwriting surrounding the text. “This isn’t just a novel—it was my grandmother’s diary. She wouldn’t let anyone read it because it held her private thoughts. After she died, and I found it, that’s when I saw it was her diary and I knew why she wanted no one to read the book.”

  Kaine leaned forward in anticipation. “Just like Gabriella.” The image of Gabriella’s pages popped into her head. “Your grandmother chose the same book and the same style of diary entries. That cannot be chance.”

  After helping Megan to another piece of lasagna, Grant looked at Joy and the book in her hands. “Do her writings explain anything?”

  Joy blanched. She shut the book. “I don’t know. I never read it.”

  Grant folded his arms on the table. “Why?”

  The older woman sagged onto her chair, staring at the book for a long, silent moment. “I couldn’t. I can’t. I keep remembering her face that day she discovered me with it. She wasn’t just stern, she was . . . panicked. Anxious. It upset her very much.”

  Kaine wanted to ask if she could read it. After all, the book might hold the answers she’d been searching for. But Joy had the appearance of someone guarding a treasure chest, someone with no intention of unlocking it anytime soon.

  “You can’t tell me my grandmother didn’t get the idea to write in the margins from someone. Who writes their diary in an old book? And there’s this.” Joy reached into the shoe box and pulled out a page taken from the novel. “I always thought this was my grandmother’s. Now I wonder.” She opened her grandmother’s copy of Great Expectations and compared the page to it. “Just as I thought: The typeset doesn’t match. This page isn’t from the same copy.”

  Grant reached for the page and studied it a moment. He looked up at Kaine. “I think this matches Gabriella’s copy. Remember the little fleur-de-lis printed at the top corners of each page? This one has it.”

  Kaine took the page Grant offered her. He was right. “How is this possible?”

  Joy shook her head and held the book to her chest. “This has to prove one thing I’d never considered and my grandmother never implied.” For the first time, Kaine saw Joy as fragile. “My grandmother didn’t just know Ivy Thorpe; she knew the dead girl of Foster Hill when she was alive.”

  Chapter 36

  Jvy

  Darkness swamped Ivy’s vision, and her scream was muffled as a hand pushed a rough cloth into her mouth, pressing her head into her pillow. Dazed from being woken from her sleep, she kicked at her mattress, clawing her attacker’s arms. The memory journal she’d been writing in before she fell asleep dropped to the floor with a thud. Ivy ca
st a wild glance over the man’s shoulder to her open window. She’d only wanted to enjoy the warm nighttime air of spring. Instead, she had opened the way for Gabriella’s killer to find her.

  “You didn’t die.” The voice grated in her ears. She squirmed in his grasp, but he tied the gag behind her head as she twisted, her bedcovers tangling around her feet.

  Hear me, Papa. Her inner cries for help had no effect on awakening her father. Ivy’s attacker dragged her from the bed as Ivy thrashed. Her foot kicked the organ stool at her desk, but it was too solid and heavy to tip over. This time the intruder was prepared for her fight and yanked her arms behind her, wrapping bindings around her wrists. The coarse fibers of rope rubbed her wrists raw as he tugged it tight. Like Gabriella’s bruises, and the yellowed bruises of Maggie. She’d told Joel of her suspicions about Maggie several hours ago, before retreating to her room and her memories. Now, the fear she’d seen in Maggie’s eyes clawed at Ivy.

  She whimpered around her gag and kicked at her attacker as he threw her back on her bed and grabbed at her feet. She caught a glimpse of peppery dark hair and a craggy face, but within seconds he had overpowered her and bound her legs at the ankles. Mr. Foggerty? Or no. No, it wasn’t him. Her brain was still cloudy from being startled from her sleep, and her breath was knocked from her when he slung her over his shoulder like a bag of flour. Ivy squirmed against him, her bedroom door opening under his free hand. Her muted cries were futile. She knew her father was a heavy sleeper. It was how she and Andrew had snuck from the house night after night for their midnight escapades.

  The man moved like a thief, silent and strong. His grip around her was impressive, as Ivy was no lightweight. But by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, she could tell he was breathing heavily.

  She was dumped into the back of a wagon, which jolted and rolled away, bruising her with every bounce along the road.

  Of all the risks she’d taken, the lectures from Joel for being reckless, and now she had been taken from her own home. Her own bed! When the wagon finally stopped, Ivy kicked to brace herself so she could twist onto her knees. She raked her face against the wagon floor, working her jaw back and forth to attempt to free herself of the gag. Her captor flung open the back of the wagon and grabbed Ivy’s bound ankles, pulling her toward him. As he did, her gag finally freed.

  “Let go of me!” she screamed.

  “Shut up.” He dragged Ivy from the wagon, and her shoulder slammed against the earth. Pain shot through the shoulder and down her arm, taking her breath away.

  “Stand up,” the older man demanded. He yanked her to her feet, then reached down to slice free the ankle binding. “Now walk.” He shoved her forward, her wrists tied in front of her like a jailed prisoner. She tripped and stumbled along.

  The man’s dark silhouette was unmistakable. Instinctively, Ivy knew all along where they were going. Foster Hill rose above her, mocking her with its ominous shadows. Like Gabriella, it appeared this place was there to consume Ivy’s life.

  She was forced up the porch stairs and over a threshold. Her captor shoved Ivy in front of him. “Go.” He pushed again, and Ivy contemplated running. If she bolted past the stairs toward the rear of the house, could she make it through the back door before being caught? She wiggled her wrists in the rope that tied them. Her skin was already raw. Now was her chance, for there wouldn’t be another.

  Ivy catapulted forward, her shoulder catching on the banister of the stairs as she ran. A shout. Pounding of footsteps behind her and then her abductor slammed Ivy into a wall. His furious black eyes drove into her, along with the full length of his body. He pinned her against the wall, and Ivy’s skin crawled beneath the pressure of him against her. She may have at one time suspected Mr. Foggerty of being involved somehow, but now he would have been a welcome relief.

  Her abductor glared at her. “Never run again,” he hissed, running his finger down the length of her neck and along the top of her nightgown. He eased back and, with a grunt, hoisted her over his shoulder again. Ivy struggled to regain her breath as his shoulder drove into her belly.

  His boots pounded on the stairs. The hallway floor passed below her, the shadows never ending, his footsteps echoing in the empty house.

  Why would he bring her here? Why not just kill her as he’d tried to the first night here when he shoved her down the stairs? He had to know the house was one of the first places Joel and Sheriff Dunst would look when they found out she’d been taken.

  They stopped in the middle of the third bedroom. Ivy saw the familiar bed, and fear like she’d never known flooded her body.

  “No. No!” She beat against the man’s back. He swore and dumped her on the bed, straddling her as he did so. The soiled linens smelled moldy, but Ivy turned her face into them and away from his.

  “None to hear you, none to care,” he whispered into her ear as his hands trailed down her side. Ivy lurched with her shoulders to fight him off. Her head collided with his nose, and he flung himself away from her with a growl, holding his face.

  He pulled a knife from where it was tucked into a sheath that hung from his belt. He sliced at her restraints, freeing her hands. She surged forward, but he was prepared.

  “Oh no you don’t.” The man’s grip bit into her arm, leaving blood from his nose on her sleeve. “In here.” He opened the closet door with Ivy struggling against him.

  “Let me go!” she demanded. Ivy attempted a scream, but he clapped his hand over her mouth. The empty closet proved only to be a gateway. Her attacker worked at the back wall and slid open a loose panel to reveal a small space behind it.

  No. Good Lord in heaven, no. Ivy’s eyes widened at the secret compartment. She knew instinctively that more women had been hidden behind this wall. She wasn’t the first. Perhaps even he had hidden here, watching them during the times she and Joel had searched the house.

  Ivy dug her feet into the floor as he pushed her toward it. She wrestled against his grip, but he shoved her with a force she couldn’t match. She plowed into the back wall of the compartment and fell to the floor. She put her hands out to feel the confines of the space. There was barely enough room for her to turn around.

  She looked up and locked eyes with him. Black eyes. A scruffy face that might have been handsome were it not for the voluminous beard and long hair tied back with a leather cord. He was at least fifty years of age. Ivy had never seen him before.

  Evil shone in his eyes. “Go ahead and scream. It doesn’t matter.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  His lips tightened. “You surprised me the first time. I didn’t expect you in my house and I wanted you dead. In a way, I’m glad you didn’t die after all. I’m down two girls, so you’ll have to do as a replacement—for all my needs.”

  Ivy launched forward as he slid the panel across the opening. Her hands slammed into the wall as it sealed her in. She pounded on it with her palms.

  “Let me go!” It was a futile plea against the wickedness she’d seen on the man’s face.

  Ivy closed her eyes, even though the darkness of the tomb-like space had effectively blinded her. She slumped against the wall, telling herself to breathe, to remain calm. But remaining calm was near to impossible as she began to understand how it felt to be buried alive in a place that threatened to steal a woman’s soul.

  Chapter 37

  Kaine

  We want to see the family trees of my great-great-grandmother Ivy and of Joy Wilson, as well as the family tree of Myrtle Foster.”

  Mr. Mason, museum curator, blinked. He looked nonplussed, as if the museum was there merely to provide entertainment for the few tourists who were historically inclined. Certainly not as an archive for research. But he was adorable, in a curator sort of way, and Kaine felt sympathy toward the man for his looking like a deer in the headlights. His wispy gray hair perked on top of his head with more interest in life than he seemed to possess.

  He took a sip of coffee from a green thermos.
“I’ll see what we have,” he said, then ambled off toward the back room.

  Kaine suppressed a smile. “I think we should’ve gone with my suggestion. Online databases are more thorough now. Haven’t you watched those TV shows that trace celebrities’ ancestors back to the Tudors?”

  Grant’s expression scolded her mildly. “I have. But sometimes I prefer paper.”

  Kaine slugged his arm. “Traditionalist.”

  He smiled. “Let’s start here and then we’ll pull up whatever else we need online.”

  “If there is anything.” Kaine figured the way Oakwood went about protecting records, they probably wouldn’t have a thing submitted to any online database.

  Mr. Mason shuffled back into the room. He laid a manila folder on the counter that stood between them. “That’s all I could find.” He scratched his head. “I know we had more at one time, but Patti probably put them somewhere. That woman and her infernal filing. Not to mention there was that break-in back in the sixties. I think some stuff got swiped along with Ivy’s quilt.”

  “Did you work here then?” Grant asked.

  Mr. Mason chuckled. “I was in my early twenties. Rather than volunteering my time at a museum, I went to go fight in Nam.”

  “Oh.” Kaine nodded. Vietnam War.

  “I didn’t know you were there,” Grant said with a quizzical look.

  Mr. Mason nodded as he flipped open the folder but said nothing more on the subject.

  Kaine and Grant exchanged glances and decided to let it drop.

  “Here.” Mr. Mason tapped a copy of old scribblings. “This is Joy’s family tree. Wilson is her married name, so most of this will show you the line of the Slaskis, Joy’s maiden name.”

  “What about Ivy’s family tree?” Grant said.

  “We all know there’s not much on her,” Mr. Mason muttered. He began thumbing through some loose papers. “Must’ve got stolen too or something. Here. An old Wisconsin census from 1915.”