The House on Foster Hill

by Jaime Jo Wright

  “Preserve.” Kaine nodded. “Was it compiled before 1963?”

  “Yeah, 1961.”

  “Shortly before Ivy’s quilt was stolen from the museum. Remember how Mr. Mason said other items went missing then too? Clippings and such? Our theory of a cover-up? It seems as though people did know a fuller story, but then decades later someone tried to strike it from the books. As if, when this book was published, it stirred up someone who didn’t want the Fosters’ past to come to light.”

  “Sounds like a conspiracy theory.” He flipped through the book again, focusing on the pages of photographs. There were no more news clippings, and the pictures were of random items that used to be in Foster Hill House.

  Kaine leaned in over the book. “Someone doesn’t want the truth told. They have never wanted it told. And now, my being here is bringing it all back into the light.”

  Grant stilled and reached for her hand. “Whatever the reason, we’re going to figure this out.”

  Kaine tossed him a doubtful roll of her eyes and pulled her hand back. She was tired. She pushed her chair back and stood, reaching for her purse. “I need some air.” She caught Grant’s concerned expression as she hurried away, avoiding Patti at the main desk by weaving through the maze of library tables and shelves.

  She pushed open one of the double doors to the library, and a blast of fresh air met her. Kaine skipped down the flight of stairs and across the sidewalk to a small flower garden with a park bench. The flowers were mere sprouts pushing up from the earth. Kaine set her purse down on the walkway next to them as she plopped onto the bench. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, breathing deeply of the fresh air. So much lost history. Scribbled censuses, incomplete family trees . . . Kaine knew that many people attempted to trace their roots back in time and many historical documents were incorrect, illegible, or confusing. But did the results of that family history carry the same weight that it did in Kaine’s life?

  A whiff of cinnamon and coffee met Kaine’s nostrils, and she glanced up to see Grant approaching her. She stared down at her hands, picking some old fingernail polish off her thumbnail.

  “When I was kid, I used to come here.” Grant eased onto the bench beside her. He mimicked her position, folding his hands in front of him. “I loved the library.”

  “Like you love the animal shelter, and broken hearts.” Kaine didn’t appreciate the way her words came out in a muted, cracked tone. The tears in her throat clogged her voice.

  “Well,” he chuckled, “maybe God was sort of setting me up to be the more sensitive type.” Grant smiled, and it reached his eyes, saturating his face with warmth. “But a manly sensitive,” he clarified with an exaggerated flex of his left bicep.

  Kaine gave a weak smile. It was that empathy in him that she was coming to rely on. A trait that caused her to open up and see her emotional bruises and scars. Even before Danny’s death, she’d been suffering wounds. The wounds of abuse, of her father’s abandonment, and of her mother’s death.

  “Where is God in all of this?” The question escaped her. Kaine let it rest between them.

  Grant pursed his lips and stared ahead at the garden. She was thankful he didn’t leap into an answer. Kaine knew God was here. She never doubted it. But the existence of evil was something mankind would wrestle with until God righted the world.

  Kaine twisted on the bench to face Grant. “Do you know why I love daffodils?”

  “Why?” Grant looked deep into her eyes, listening with focused intent.

  “Because they have simple layers. Tulips don’t seem real. They’re like wax flowers with five or six petals all wrapped around a center. Roses make no sense. They have so many elements to them, it’s chaotic. But daffodils? Their layers are in order, simple and consistent from flower to flower. Their yellow cheers me and makes me believe in beauty.”

  Grant nodded but said nothing. He knew when to listen, and she was glad of that.

  “I want to see beauty. Not darkness. Not death. But life and promise.”

  Her breath caught as Grant’s eyes softened and his brows drew together in a look so tender she thought for a moment she might become lost in it.

  “Our promise of life is so much larger than this moment, Kaine.” His hand came up, and his fingers trailed down her cheek. “God promises that this world will have trouble. And a lot of it. But He also promises that He has overcome it.”

  “How?” Kaine whispered, blinking furiously against tears.

  Grant threaded his fingers through hers. “He gives us glimpses now, but His plan for us is so much greater than what we see. That’s the pitfall of humanity. We look at our present circumstances, our trials, even our joys, and believe that this is all there is. But the Lord’s vision is so much broader and stretches into eternity. We limit ourselves by looking at the here and now when hope, real hope, is found in our relationship with Him and the future that Christ went ahead to prepare for.”

  “And He will come again . . .” Kaine whispered.

  “Until then”—Grant kept his hand interlocked with hers but looked back at the garden and its tiny promises of life—“we live on His promises. We hope.”

  “Like Gabriella,” Kaine murmured.

  “Like Gabriella,” Grant echoed.

  The musty smell of Foster Hill House greeted her nose as Kaine climbed the stairs after disarming the security alarm system. Their intimate chat at the library helped Kaine to regain the gumption to continue to piece together the puzzle. She and Grant drove in silence to the house, Kaine staring at the trees whizzing by. The road, paved and curved, was probably the same road Ivy had walked once, so many years before. Grant had parked the truck outside, stating he needed to catch up on some voicemails from work before he followed her in. Kaine didn’t mind. Sometimes, even as an extrovert, she needed time alone.

  Now she paused by Myrtle Foster’s portrait. Warped and torn, it had more than seen its last day on display, yet Kaine was loath to take it down. She had witnessed everything in her silent sentinel. Myrtle Foster knew the secrets of this house, had witnessed the night Gabriella was murdered, understood why Ivy’s locket had been hiding in the attic, and somehow her face reflected the grief that the horrors demanded.

  “You hated what you saw, didn’t you?” Kaine whispered, adjusting the shoulder strap of her backpack laden with books from the library. Of course, Myrtle Foster didn’t respond. But her tiny black eyes stared back, empty and sorrowful. “And they called you crazy, just like Ivy.”

  She backed away, turning toward the third bedroom. Kaine stared at the half-torn-up floor and the empty chasm where Gabriella had hid her pages. If she’d been held captive, she must have hidden a pencil stub there too. How she’d ever gotten her hands on something to write with would probably always be a mystery, but Kaine was thankful she had.

  Kaine slipped the backpack from her shoulder and unzipped it, pulling out an accordion folder with the loose pages of Gabriella’s makeshift diary. Sifting through the papers, she paused on page forty-two of Great Expectations. The ink in the margins was faded. Kaine held up a flashlight even though daylight streamed through the window.

  I choose to believe.

  Kaine lowered the flashlight to the next line.

  I know God’s presence here. Even in darkness, He is here. He awaits.

  Kaine moved to the next page.

  I am glad Maggie remains with me. She will be here when my baby is born. God provides.

  Kaine released a shuddering breath. It was evidence that Joy’s grandmother had indeed been held at Foster Hill House. So why hadn’t they run? If Gabriella was free to write on the pages of a book, to hide them beneath the floor or in the library, what had kept them within the walls of the house? And why, after Gabriella had been killed, did Maggie stay in Oakwood?

  Another line captured Kaine’s attention.

  Someday I will see His face and all of this will wash away. What will I leave behind? What will my legacy be? I choose hope.
/>   Kaine clicked off the flashlight.

  That was why Gabriella was so compelling. Her story had sucked Kaine in. Gabriella was someone who truly grabbed hold of God’s hand when life threw curveballs. No. Not even curveballs. Fireballs, really. What life attempted to destroy, God only made stronger. Gabriella’s strength reflected in her story.

  And they didn’t even know her real name.

  A door banged and Kaine started. She needed to show Grant the reference to Joy’s grandmother. Jumping to her feet, Kaine tightened the laces on her red Converse tennis shoes and scooped up Gabriella’s pages.

  She hurried down the stairs, straightening the stack of pages as she spoke.

  “You need to see this page, Grant. Gabriella names Maggie in it. We were right about Joy’s grandmother. She did know who Gabriella was.” Kaine landed at the bottom of the stairs and lifted her eyes. That was weird. Her gaze swept the entryway. She was certain she’d heard Grant enter, but the door was left open. She’d disarmed the alarm system when they arrived, so that didn’t help calm the nagging sense of wariness that drifted over her.

  Kaine went to the open front door and looked around on the porch and the yard. Grant’s pickup truck was there, the front seat empty. Fear pinged in Kaine’s mind. She scanned the tree line. Stepping out onto the porch, she caught a flash along the side of the house. The sight of the white Suburban sent panic through her. The sun’s reflection off the windshield blinded Kaine.

  “Grant?” Kaine’s voice wobbled as she yelled for him. She spun on her heel, sprinting for the door as she fumbled in her jeans pocket for her phone. Swiping the screen, she tapped Phone and then Grant’s name. She stopped just inside the front door when he answered.

  “Grant. Where are you?” she hissed into the phone.

  “I’m in the woods. Somehow Sophie got out after I left her in her kennel this morning when I had that session at the house with my client. I saw her running in the field just down Foster Hill.”

  “Someone’s here, Grant.” Kaine held her hand around the mouthpiece of her phone. She canvassed the entryway. Empty. “The Suburban. It’s outside.” She rushed to the bottom of the stairs and looked up toward the second floor.

  “Kaine, get outside and into my truck. Lock the doors. I’ll be right there. I have a feeling Sophie escaping my place wasn’t an accident.”

  Kaine slipped on the wood floor as she spun to leave. She righted herself by grabbing hold of the banister.

  “I’m going to hang up and call the cops,” Grant said.

  She nodded, even though Grant couldn’t see her. The line went dead. Kaine took a step toward the front door and the safety of Grant’s truck, but movement caught her eye. She froze.

  He stood in the doorway of the parlor. His overalls stretched over his shoulders and hung baggily on his thin frame.

  Perplexed, Kaine had a momentary wave of relief, followed by a disturbing surge of alarm.

  “Mr. Mason?”

  The museum curator stepped into the foyer, his hands nonchalantly tucked in the pockets of his overalls. Oddly, the old man didn’t seem quite so fragile now or clueless.

  Kaine backed up a step, putting the banister between her and the curator.

  Mr. Mason sniffed and looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “This place always feels so ghostly.”

  Kaine watched him warily. “Can I help you with something?” It couldn’t be coincidence that Mr. Mason drove a white Suburban, could it?

  “It’s not good being alone. Is it, Miss Prescott?”

  His words. She hadn’t tied the muffled, disguised voice from the phone calls to the elderly man, but the words were too coincidental to be happenstance.

  “I’m not alone,” Kaine ventured.

  “Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers and pointed. “You have Grant. Chasing after a silly dog that somehow got loose.”

  Kaine stared at him. Was this really the cute old museum curator? Even his faded blue eyes had sharpened and taken on a more savvy expression.

  “Why are you here?” Kaine eyed the doorway, but she’d have to get past Mr. Mason first. While he didn’t seem remarkably threatening, she hesitated when he answered.

  “You were supposed to get scared off. Silly girl. But you just kept digging.”

  Kaine blinked. It was like watching a really bad television crime show.

  “You called me, didn’t you? You’re the one.”

  Mr. Mason crossed the room and looked out the window. He spoke into the glass. “I did. But you don’t take hints very well. So, now I’m here, with everything blown wide open. I can’t hide any of it anymore, thanks to you.”

  Hide what? Kaine swallowed hard. Foster Hill’s secrets? Its history? Or something more?

  Mr. Mason scratched the spot on his head that was covered by wisps of gray hair. He furrowed his brows as if genuinely confused—or totally insane. “I’m just so disappointed in you. In everything. All these years, and it comes to this. Me. You. Foster Hill House. The tail end of a long line of family.”

  Now he was downright chilling. Kaine took a step, but he stiffened, his eyes boring into her. She tried a different approach. “How’d you get my phone numbers?” Kaine peered over his shoulder and out the window. Where was Grant? Where were the police?

  Mr. Mason smiled as he hooked his thumbs on his overall straps. “The first time you left your phone on the table at the museum, and it wasn’t hard to get the number off it when you weren’t paying attention. You really should set a passcode on your phone.”

  “And the second phone number?” Kaine was stalling.

  “My daughter-in-law. She likes to help me sometimes. It’s a nice feeling, I suppose, helping out a pathetic old man.”

  Kaine scowled. He was a stellar actor. “You manipulated her. She faked a dead car battery and got in my good graces just to use my cellphone and steal the number? She’s okay with that?”

  Mr. Mason shrugged. “She knows what it means to protect family.”

  Kaine shifted, hoping she could edge her way to the front door. “And Ivy’s quilt? You painted Danny’s name on the house and left the quilt piece here and on my windshield. How did you get in my motel room?”

  “Easy,” he laughed. “You left your motel key with your phone on the table at the museum. It was simple enough to distract you from noticing as I slipped it from you.”

  Kaine chided herself for being so sloppy. There was something in Mr. Mason’s eyes that cautioned her not to respond.

  “Your husband was murdered. Funny how much you can find about another person on the internet.”

  Kaine was taken aback. With the archaic system at the museum, she hadn’t pictured Mr. Mason searching the internet, knowing how to find his way around on a computer. Or maybe it had all been part of his act, part of his plan. Unassuming old Mr. Mason with his manila folders and haphazard methods of historical preservation. It was the perfect way to rid a town of its history.

  “You researched me?” A slow anger boiled inside her.

  Mr. Mason nodded, his hands still in his pockets. “I look out for Foster Hill House. They’ve tried to dump this place many times. And then all of a sudden they sell it to some girl from California? Sight unseen? Leave it to Patti to spill the beans on you. She always wanted this place, and a little background check on its buyer and she had your name. ’Course then I had to research you, and it was a pretty quick connection—if you know where to look and why.”

  Kaine took a few steps to the right. She eyed the front door again, calculating the distance between Mr. Mason and escape. “Did you leave the picture of Danny upstairs to frighten me away?”

  Mr. Mason pushed his wire-framed glasses up his nose again. “It seemed fitting to, seeing as you forgot what was most important to you by coming here.”

  “What is that?” Kaine took another small step. Soon Grant would arrive, along with his pit bull Sophie and the police.

  Mr. Mason faced her again, the sunlig
ht from the window beyond turning him into a silhouette. “Family. Family is most important.” He lifted his index finger and wagged it at her. “I read how you fought to have your husband’s case reopened. I was impressed. But then you gave up, and you came here.”

  “I had good reason to.” Like another freak who wouldn’t leave her alone. The same horrid man who had taken Danny from her in revenge for her attempt to help the man’s abused wife.

  Mr. Mason nodded. “I know you reported a stalker. Again, it’s horrible to be alone. You should always stay faithful to your family.”

  Kaine eased back a step. “I am faithful to Danny. To my family.”

  Mr. Mason scowled. “By giving up on your husband’s death? Running from your stalker and leaving your sister behind? Pursuing Grant Jesse?”

  Good grief! “Why do you care? Why would you terrorize me here?”

  The old man grimaced and blew a sigh threw his nose. “Because young folk these days don’t understand legacy. It’s important. It passes from generation to generation. Family should be protected, preserved.”

  “But Ivy Thorpe was my family too. This place, Oakwood, is the legacy my family left behind. Maybe I came here to preserve my roots and in turn bring some closure to my husband’s death?”

  “Oh, but you didn’t, did you?” Mr. Mason stalked toward her. Kaine backed up. The front door got farther away as he pressed toward her, leaving little space between them. He raised an accusing finger.

  “You ran away because you were scared. Scared of being alone. And you came here and disrupted everything. Digging your nose into Foster Hill House, into the dead woman, into Ivy’s tale of woe. Always the martyrs, dead souls that they are. Well, not anymore. I have spent years guarding this history, even the ugly side. But I didn’t run from it. I faced it. For my family.”

  Kaine watched a strange light spring into Mr. Mason’s eyes and glisten behind his spectacles. She had no clue what he was rambling about, but then she didn’t want to stick around to find out. With a twist of her body, Kaine sprang toward the door.

  A shout from behind alerted her. She heard the click of a gun an instant before the shot echoed through Foster Hill House.