The House on Foster Hill

by Jaime Jo Wright

  Ivy’s breaths began to come in shorter gasps, but she forced herself to pause and draw in a long one. She couldn’t afford to panic, even though hundreds of scenarios played through her mind. Her father would notice her missing the moment he made coffee for breakfast and she didn’t appear. Or he would notice her door open and that she was gone. Either way, he would go to Joel, and Joel would know where to come looking, wouldn’t he? Although, Ivy leaned her head against the wall, he likely would not consider the possibility of secret spaces behind closet walls. She could scream and pound on the wall, but eventually her voice would give out, and how would she know when or if Joel had even arrived? It was obvious her abductor would move his horse and wagon since there was never any evidence of one being near Foster Hill House before. He was well practiced, this man, and very, very organized.

  Ivy shifted as her leg cramped beneath her. She couldn’t wait for Joel, or her father, or even Sheriff Dunst. Her survival and well-being were in her own hands. The captor would return, and Ivy cringed at the reminder of his hands on her sides. The motives in his hands was evil, with intent to rob Ivy of everything precious.

  She flinched when the panel scraped open.

  “Haven’t gone anywhere, eh?” The dark eye of her captor winked at her.

  Ivy took the opportunity to memorize his face. She would need to be able to describe him to Joel and Sheriff Dunst when she escaped.

  “Here.” He shoved a tin plate at her. Ivy took it. A biscuit, beans, a small piece of cheese.

  Please, God. Not now. Not that. She tried not to flinch under the man’s leering expression. The longer she could keep him chatting, the more she could see beyond him into the closet and the bedroom to see if he was alone. The next time he opened the door, she wanted to be prepared to escape.

  “Do you have any honey for my biscuit?” Ivy couldn’t help baiting him, even though inside she was trembling.

  “Cheeky thing.” He snatched the biscuit from her plate and tossed it over his shoulder. “Now eat up. Don’t need you fainting away from starvation.” The man moved to close the door.

  “What do you plan to do with me?” Ivy’s question made him stop.

  His eyebrows shot upward and disappeared behind a shock of graying hair. His mustache twitched as his mouth twisted into a snarl. “What I do with all the girls.” He reached out, and Ivy regretted her question immediately. His hand pulled at her hair that tumbled down around her shoulders, in disarray from sleep and her struggle. He rolled a lock of it between his first finger and thumb, then plunged his fingers into her hair with force, pulling her face closer to his. “You’ll fetch a pretty penny.”

  “You intend to sell me?” The words turned her mouth sour.

  “I sell them all. But you? Only when I’m finished with you.”

  Disgust gripped her, but Ivy leaned forward. “She almost bested you, didn’t she? Is that what happened?”

  “Who?” He squinted, lines stretching from the corners of his eyes into the wrinkles on either side of his nose.

  “The girl you killed and disposed of in the hollowed-out oak tree.”

  Without pause, he shoved her backward. The panel slammed back into place. Ivy kicked at it, then again for good measure.

  Her leg cramped again in the confined space. Ivy longed to stand up and stretch. Had it been an hour or twelve? It was impossible to gauge time in her prison. She flexed her fingers and arms, unbuttoning another pearl button on her nightgown’s collar. The compartment was suffocating, and Ivy’s lungs ached for fresh air.

  She shifted, reaching out in the darkness for the thousandth time, as if feeling the wall would reveal a magical doorknob to open and provide an escape. Giving up, Ivy dropped her hands to her lap and leaned her head against the wall.

  This place was a grave. Ivy’s throat clenched. In some ways, it wasn’t much different from how she had felt since burying Andrew. Boxed into a dark tomb of routine, living day by day trapped in the memories that stopped collecting the moment Andrew died. Her father had his medical practice and people to pour his life into. He had his faith in God and a quiet, resigned peace that God knew best. God knew best? Ivy always spurned such clichés. God hadn’t righted a broken world yet. He could stop injustice and yet He didn’t. By recording memories, honoring the lives of those who had passed, and refusing to allow legacies to float away on the winds of time, Ivy had chosen to do what God had seen fit not to. In her own way, Ivy kept them alive.

  She stiffened, alert and wary, as scuffling sounded on the other side of the secret panel. Ivy scrambled to curl her legs beneath her so she could crouch with her feet firmly planted on the floor. The moment her captor opened the panel, she’d launch herself forward. Foolhardy perhaps, but it was her only option. She had no intention of waiting to see what he did with her. If Gabriella’s untold story was any indication, Ivy had best succeed in her efforts to escape or she would not survive.

  A sliver of light peeked through. Ivy caught a glimpse into the closet and the room beyond. Daylight. Thank God, it wasn’t nighttime when she would need to flee into darkness. The panel snagged, then jerked all the way open as the man pushed it aside. Without hesitation, Ivy leaped forward, her hands extended in front of her. She rammed them into her captor’s chest, and he toppled backward. His curse and yell followed Ivy as she hurried to her feet. Her toe caught on the hem of her gown and she tripped, grabbing at the bed frame to right herself.

  “What in blazes!” The man had already righted himself. She couldn’t waste time looking back. She sprinted from the bedroom, catching the eye of Myrtle Foster as she fled past the portrait. It seemed the matriarch’s expression had somehow changed. Urgent, concerned, as if she begged Ivy to hurry, to run faster.

  Fingers curled around the collar of Ivy’s nightgown, yanking her backward. She slammed into the wall, and the man flipped her around to face him. He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand. Ivy cried out, her head jerking to the side, but she turned it back in time to level a fiery glare at her captor. She would not give up, she would not die. Not like Gabriella had. She clawed at his wrists as his hands closed around her throat and began to squeeze.

  “You’re just like the other one. You won’t be reasonable.”

  Ivy opened her mouth but she couldn’t breathe. She pried at the fingers around her throat, trying to loosen them. Her cries were muffled. Ivy lifted her hands to his face, but he loosened his grip around her throat to trap her against the wall. Once again the full length of his body pressed into hers, his face so close Ivy could smell tobacco on his breath and the tiniest hint of liquor.

  “Stop fighting!” he shouted. She squirmed beneath him, but it only seemed to bring a strange light into his eyes. A light Ivy didn’t want to interpret. She calmed beneath his weight, allowing herself a moment to draw deep breaths as her mind raced with the limited options left to free herself.

  Locking eyes with her attacker, Ivy snarled, “You’re a monster.”

  He didn’t even flinch. The corner of his mouth lifted in a wicked smile.

  “They’re coming for me.” Ivy prayed they were. She prayed that her father had alerted Joel and that even now he was on his way. But she couldn’t rely on rescue. It hadn’t come for Gabriella, and she had died, maybe with Maggie watching in horror. “I know what you did to her.”

  “To who?” His growling tone implied he knew exactly whom Ivy referred to.

  “Was she the only one?” Ivy didn’t mention Maggie. Something told her to protect the girl who still lived in the shelter of Widow Bairns’s home.

  His hands snaked up her sides toward her neck. Ivy’s skin crawled at his rough and greedy caress. His fingers closed around her throat once again. “You ask too many questions. You’re just like my mother.”

  Ivy frowned, but she watched as his attention shifted from her face to the portrait behind her. The portrait of Myrtle Foster. Realization dawned then.

  “Are you her son?” Ivy managed to ask around his
stranglehold.

  He looked back at her, eyes narrowed, and pressed his lips against her ear. “‘Save the girls,’ my mother prayed. She failed. All those years, she failed.”

  In his moment of distraction, Ivy raised her foot and rammed it into his kneecap. The man Foster buckled and hollered in pain, collapsing to the floor. She ran a few steps, but his hand shot out and caught her around the ankle. Ivy fell, her chin hitting the floorboards. Her teeth bit into her tongue, and the taste of blood filled her mouth.

  “Let go of me!” Ivy kicked at him, yet he dragged her toward him and then lunged on top of her. As they wrestled, she raked at his face with her fingernails. A vile name escaped his mouth. The sting of his hand across her face blinded her for a moment, and then rage filled her. Rage for Gabriella. She had fought for her life. The evidence of her self-defense was left on her body, and Ivy recalled vividly every bruise and scrape Gabriella had been given by this man.

  A cry rose in Ivy, pushing up from the depths of her own tired and hope-lost soul. She shoved her arms upward and dug her thumbs into the man’s throat. He wheezed, and she dug harder.

  “You killed her.” Every ounce of hatred dripped from her accusation.

  Myrtle Foster’s son gagged, but he tightened his knees around her waist.

  Ivy rolled, catching him by surprise. He fell to the side, and she grabbed for the wall, bracing herself as she stumbled to her feet. She ran toward the stairs and sped down them, her hands hoisting her nightgown high. She could hear Foster tramping down the stairs behind her. His shouts filled her ears, though his words were indiscernible.

  She yanked the front door open, the daylight blinding her. Blinking rapidly, she charged down the porch steps onto the lawn and ran. Ivy sprinted down Foster Hill, as if following the footsteps Gabriella had laid before her. Her panicked vision skimmed the hollow oak tree. Gabriella’s grave. She tripped on a root in the path and skidded across the ground. Ivy fought to catch her breath, her chest heaving.

  Foster yelled at her, and she scrambled to her feet, her gaze still fixed on the tree. Ivy could almost hear Gabriella, urging her on across the breeze.

  Run, Ivy, run! Hope is waiting.

  So she did.

  Chapter 39

  Ivy paid no attention to the patter of rain as it dripped from the infant spring leaves in the woods that bordered the road to Foster Hill House. There had been an early morning rain and even now it continued to fall lightly, striking the top of her head. Her lungs threatened to explode as she gasped for air, but she couldn’t afford to stop. Not even for a moment. Ivy knew that the tiny room in that closet had imprisoned enough girls over the years to imply something far more devious and wretched. Foster Hill House was a stopover point for girls. Girls who would be sold to abusers like Foster.

  The whinny of a horse captured Ivy’s attention. She squinted as she hurried over ruts in the road. Pushing back her damp hair, she couldn’t hold back the cry of hope that escaped her throat. Joel. She watched his masculine form jump down from the back of his chestnut gelding even before it stopped prancing at the sudden pull of the reins.

  “Joel!” Ivy stumbled.

  He sprinted toward her. She righted herself and crashed into him. Burying her face in his shoulder, sucking in deep breaths, she tried to coax air into exhausted lungs. His hands framed her face as he held her away from him. She could feel his icy blue appraisal of her face. Ivy licked her split lip, tasting dried blood where Foster had hit her. Joel’s thumb brushed across her scuffed chin and over what had to be a bruise forming on her left cheekbone.

  “Who did this to you?” Joel asked, anger in his eyes. He touched her mouth, then gripped her shoulders as the sheriff rode up beside them and swung down from the saddle. Ivy glanced at the lawman, who cocked the gun already in his hand.

  “What happened?” Sheriff Dunst demanded.

  Ivy pointed down the road toward Foster Hill House. “It’s him.” Her gasps made her words barely understandable. She tried to collect herself, but her strength was depleted.

  Joel’s fingers combed the hair back from her face, and his hands pressed warmth into her cheeks while looking her in the eye. “Who, Ivy?”

  “Myrtle Foster’s son.” Ivy pulled back from Joel and cast a glance in the sheriff’s direction. “He held me in a secret room in the house. He all but admitted to doing the same to Gabriella and Maggie and God knows how many others.”

  “Why?” Sheriff Dunst barked.

  “He sells them!” Ivy waved her arm toward Foster Hill. “You must stop him. You have to arrest him.”

  Sheriff Dunst swung back into the saddle. “Joel, stay here with Miss Thorpe,” he ordered. Then he spurred his horse into a run. As the sheriff headed toward Foster Hill, Ivy shoved away from Joel.

  “We need to go. We need to get Foster, once and for all.” She marched with determination for Joel’s gelding, reaching up to grip the saddle and shoving her foot into the stirrup.

  Joel grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down. Ivy spun and slapped him across the face. The instant after her hand connected with his face, it flew to cover her mouth. What had she done? The shock of inflicting pain on Joel was enough to give Ivy pause. He didn’t react, only pulled her toward him, his hands gripping her upper arms.

  A gunshot echoed. Birds scattered from the treetops into the sky. Joel eyed them, then looked up the road to where Sheriff Dunst had disappeared, then back to Ivy.

  “I have to go, Ivy.” His expression was torn. Wanting to stay to protect her, but the obvious need of assisting the sheriff heavy on his conscience.

  “I’ll be all right,” Ivy reassured him. But something was off, a dizzy, spinning feeling. Her sight went dark, then cleared, and then Joel’s face blurred.

  “Ivy,” he said and gave her a small shake. Her skin felt sickeningly cold. “Ivy.”

  Her body started to tremble. No. Not now. Ivy urged her physical reaction of shock away. This wasn’t the time to become a hindrance and detract from the chance to bring Gabriella’s killer to justice.

  She jolted as she heard Joel curse under his breath. But as her eyes met his, his face blurred again. Ivy blinked rapidly as it seemed the wind had turned into an icy breath. Shock. She knew her body was reacting to the increase of adrenaline and the sudden reality of being within the grip of safety. Joel’s face cleared again as Ivy squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them.

  “I’ll be fine. Please—” she faltered—“go.” Blackness once again crowded her vision, and her knees turned to jelly. She remained standing only by sheer force of her will to push herself up against Joel’s grip on her.

  She heard Joel whisper, “Forgive me.” And then his mouth claimed hers in a fierce caress. At her whimper, Joel plunged his fingers through her hair, hungry, as if the years between them had stored his need and now it’d been loosed. Ivy gripped his shirt, knowing in her head he was trying to bring her out of her shock, but in her heart she understood that this moment had been cultivated from years of loss.

  Warmth returned to her skin, and for the first time she held on to him.

  “Ivy . . .” Joel’s eyes looked haunted, filled with the need for vengeance but also the necessity to be with the one he loved.

  Ivy stepped away from him, her legs stable again. “Go, Joel. Get him. For me.” She blinked back tears that hadn’t pooled in her eyes since Andrew’s death. “For Gabriella.”

  Chapter 40

  Kaine

  Foster!” Grant slammed the book in front of Kaine. She jumped, her coffee sloshing over the rim of the styrofoam cup. Patti, the librarian across the room, cleared her throat.

  “Look.” Grant pushed the book closer to Kaine.

  She grabbed a Kleenex from her purse and dabbed the coffee drips before the librarian could see the mess. “Shh. Patti is giving us dirty looks.”

  He slid his chair closer to Kaine and ran his index finger along the image of a newspaper clipping’s headline inserted between paragraphs in a b
ook about Oakwood’s history. “Read this.”

  Kaine squeezed the bridge of her nose. Grant was a bloodhound when it came to trying to figure out Ivy’s and Gabriella’s stories. She released her nose and read.

  SON OF FOUNDING FAMILY CAPTURED

  Kaine frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  “Keep reading.” Grant rested his elbow on the table, and she caught a whiff of his cinnamon latte as he took a sip.

  Yesterday, Sheriff Patrick Dunst, with the aid of Detective Joel Cunningham, apprehended Arnold Foster, member of the founding family and son of Billy and Myrtle Foster. Mr. Foster is being held in question for the murder of the unknown girl found at the base of Foster Hill. No additional details have been provided.

  Kaine read the paragraph again. “Arnold Foster was the son of the family run out of town at the end of the Civil War?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Grant leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head. “Which means the Fosters came back to Oakwood. At least Arnold did.”

  “I wonder how they caught him.” Kaine lowered her voice as she caught Patti’s eye. The woman was a gargoyle. “Did he really kill Gabriella?”

  Grant lowered his arms, and one of them came to rest on the back of Kaine’s chair. “Therein lies the question.”

  “How come no one saw this before?” She found it hard to believe that Gabriella’s death at Foster Hill House had been so cloaked in mystery when a newspaper clipping in an Oakwood historical volume was practically emblazoned with the culprit. “It doesn’t seem as though anyone ever brought up the Fosters as being a part of the mystery.”

  Grant checked the book’s copyright date. “This was compiled in the early sixties. Part of a collaborative effort of the town historians to preserve Oakwood’s history.”