Of Lost and Found (the Kingsborough House): Kingsborough House (Virgil McLendon Thrillers Book 4)

by catt dahman

  She moaned, but after Gina applied cream and a bandage, agreed to keep going. Howard looked embarrassed with hands out to his sides and he had a red face.

  George pointed to get the focus back on the tour, “There are swords that John Kingsborough collected, and on that wall…those are real tribal masks from Africa. Sadly, those skins are also real and are those of a lion, a zebra, a water buffalo, a crocodile, and a gazelle. The floor is simple pine, but the wear and pits are designed to give it a hide-like appearance.”

  “Did he hunt? I mean, are those his kills?” Tina asked.

  “Good question, Tina. Yes, he did hunt in Africa and those are said to be his kills. He collected guns and he and Edith went few places, but they did take occasional vacations, away from the children, to Africa. Mr. Moreau, their builder, often went along. He also enjoyed hunting. An interesting note is the Edith Kingsborough is said to have killed the zebra.”

  Vivian pointed something out to Virgil, “Those carvings look kind of African, but with the snakes twined about the figures, I think of New Orleans, don’t you?”

  “Good eye, Mrs. McLendon,” George called. “We have seen Mr. Moreau did influence designs.”

  Gina led them out of the room, “We’ll go the back way and use a back staircase down to the first floor again.” She led them to a side room that was made of brick, “Normally, moonlight is enough to see by in here, but not on cloudy nights or such. We won’t go outside, but there is a terrace there that you can view from the outside and maybe already have, from the grounds tour. It’s a place with a beautiful view of the gardens and the Kingsboroughs often retired here to watch the moon and stars from a telescope that was purchased in Europe.”

  “What are those windows on this other wall?” Ed Ripley asked. He looked upwards to the interior wall, high above.

  “Interesting inner workings that engineers have not figured out quite yet. They are some sort of clockworks, mirrors, glass, and gears that seemingly do nothing at all. It may be another trick from Mr. Moreau, a false machine, or it may be that we are just not as smart as he is.”

  “I’d like to see that in the daylight, Gina, if I could?”

  “Certainly Sheriff McLendon.”

  “Why is there a sheriff with us?” Someone laughed, “Are we suspects?”

  Virgil laughed, “Not at all. I am working on a case and every little thing amuses me.” He paused. Something tickled at his mind again.

  They viewed a room that held a doll collection, downstairs, and in the gloom, with only flashlights, it was sufficiently chilling. One of the last rooms they planned to see was the blue room, the next room they entered. Most had seen this room before, on the day tour, but it was eerie at night.

  Gina lifted the trap door so they could see the stairs descending nowhere, making sure each stayed back from falling. She opened the panels as well, watching everyone carefully. She cautioned Anita to be extra careful with her knee as the woman limped.

  Anita nodded but as she walked across the room, she stumbled over the rug and fell again, this time on her bottom, her injured leg twisting underneath her. Tina and Rick went to Anita and carefully eased her eight off her leg, but it took Anita’s husband, Howard, to lift her fully and get her into a chair.

  “It’s swelling quickly. I think it’s broken,” Tina gently examined Anita’s leg.

  Anita looked up at everyone gathered with tears streaming down her face, “I’m so sorry that I’ve interrupted the tour,” She was crying so hard that she gulped out the words.

  “Don’t even think that, Anita. We know it was an accident. We’re sorry you’re in pain,” Vivian told her.

  Gina stood up from crouching beside Anita, “Okay. We have a situation but not an emergency, so we are all going to remain calm and follow instructions. Instead of the usual, Rick will lead you way down a hall, with George and Lana following. There you will be allowed to see a seldom seen room, the yellow private dining room. It contains a full wall of windows and some of the most expensive furnishings in the house. Once there, Lana will be able to access the private kitchen that staff uses.”

  Lana nodded, “Got it.”

  “Lana, call the bar and have them bring drinks or sodas, and heavy appetizers, on the house and let everyone enjoy the ambiance. I assure you, you will all love the room and we’ll just consider this a little extra on the tour. It will run past the time allotted, but. If you wish to return to your room, that’s fine, and Rick can escort a group back to the main staircase,” Gina took a deep breath.

  “Thanks, Gina. We’ll all do exactly as you want,” Tina said, trying to ease the situation.

  “Thank you, Tina. George, you will call the hospital, please, and have an ambulance sent so we can care for poor Anita. I’ll remain with Anita and Howard….” Gina paused a second and her eyes cut over to Tina.

  Deputy Tina Rant nodded at once, “I’ll stay with you,” She flashed her badge to the rest, “That’s so you know I am legally able to keep them safe from ghosts.”

  The group chuckled.

  Vivian smiled, “I’m a deputy as well, so you all feel a little safer. I’ll stay as well.”

  Virgil asked Ed Ripley to stay, and said he would remain at the door and wait for the ambulance.

  “Okay, George, that is seven of us from a group of thirty-four. You will number twenty-seven. Correct?”

  “Affirmative, Gina,” George knew the routine and they had practiced many scenarios, “Let’s go. Rick?”

  “Moving out. Hope you feel better soon, Anita.”

  Several called out similar sentiments and a few made jokes about deputies and ghosts, but the guests felt safe and that the guides were in full control. An ending with drinks and relaxing, all on the house sounded perfect to most and only two couples planned to return to their rooms early, claiming they were exhausted but had a wonderful tour. It was two AM.

  Virgil stood at the doorway and listened, grinning a few times as he heard something funny. Anita was crying hard. Everyone else stood or sat on the floor because only the one chair was on that side of the room. ‘…because furniture sometimes has gone missing from this side of the room and many years ago, it was said a piano was found turned over’.

  For some reason, Virgil began counting, figuring dates. Lydia Kingsborough had vanished from this room and was never found. How many years ago? When was it? He ran dates through his mind, glad numbers, dates, music, and patterns came easy to him.

  As he thought, he turned back to look in the room. All was the same. There were no ghosts. Information tumbled through his brain and he fought to organize it; he was distracted by something he hadn’t really taken note of before. There was so much in the room to see, so many details, but there, on the far wall, he squinted as he looked.

  He wanted to look at it and walked over. Well above his head was a small opening. When he mulled it over, he realized this was the wall where the strange mechanics were, the ones that no one could figure out. His curiosity grew. This had to be a key to solving the disappearances. He felt as if a light had gone on in his head.

  A light.

  The odd occurrence that kept tickling his brain solidified as he glanced at his watch, lighting the face. He believed in coincidences and patterns, connections and the unexplained. By his watch, it was the exact time something unusual was happening, and the reason many guests were currently gathered in the gardens with drinks, to watch the skies. He read about it that morning in the newspaper and had heard people planning to watch.

  It was the exact time for a full lunar eclipse.

  Gina had conducted her tour from rote memory. She didn’t apply the event to that night. ‘Normally, moonlight is enough to see by in here, but not on cloudy nights or such’, was what she said. But it wasn’t a cloudy night. It was clear. Normally moonlight would shine through that little opening and into the opening across from it where there were mechanical gears and mirrors.

  Virgil looked up. That same light might come into this
room. His eyes made a line straight over to where the others were.

  Only tonight, the light was about to vanish in less than a half a minute.

  Across the room, Vivian felt a strange chill. Had she had time to think it over, she would say she felt her husband’s energy change and that emotions from him were almost palpable, “Virg?” She stood.

  Virgil’s body went ice cold as the dates in his head finished clicking.

  Lydia Kingsborough vanished during a full lunar eclipse in 1890.

  Virgil head Gina’s voice again, ‘…gone missing from this side of the room….’.

  With legs going numb, Virgil took a step, “Vivian….” He screamed her name. He felt events crushing him. He was terrified.

  With a whoosh, and a slight grinding noise, the floor beneath Anita and her chair, Howard, Ed Ripley, Tina Rant, Gina, and Vivian swept away. Everything fell into the black hole and the floor began to slide back in place.

  Virgil found a way to run and went sliding across the polished wood like a baseball player sliding head first, his hands outstretched. Ed Carter managed to grasp the floor and hang on, yelling for help. From far away there were screams.

  “Grab my hand,” Virgil yelled back.

  Ed’s eyes were huge as he clawed at the wood. He was just about to take Virgil’s hand and between them, he would be pulled up and safe because they were strong men. However, the flooring slid into place, pressing against Ed relentlessly.

  “Virg?” Ed went ridged and fell.

  The floor was normal and solid again.

  Unlike his usual action-oriented responses, this time, Virgil simply lay there for a second as shock took over. His body went colder as his teeth chattered and his head spun; grief, fear, desperation, anger, and disbelief washed over him. Absently he used his fingers to gently rub the floor, feeling for a line in the wood that would indicate where the hole had been, but the tongue-and-groove planks were perfect.

  “Vivian?” He whispered.

  Franz Litszt’s Paino Sonato in B Minor filled his head.

  It was an impossible piece to play, some said, and always exhausted those who tried. Some even claimed it could not be played by one person and required two, because it was so note-heavy and fast, full of passion, and deep. Virgil never felt he had many talents and doubted his abilities, but he loved numbers, math, and playing music and by sixteen, could play anything by Litszt.

  Music filled him.

  And then he sat up. Feeling the floor again, he could find nothing. He ran from the room and down the hall, hoping he could find the yellow rooms. A few mistakes later, and after another five minutes of being completely lost, he burst into a beautiful room decorated in shades of yellow and cream and accented with gold picture frames, gold leaf crown molding, and gold rimmed dishes in glass cabinets. All the people from the tour sat around tables. The tables were filled with cocktails, sodas, and plates of or’dourves: spinach dip with crackers, artichoke and ham quiches, stuffed mushrooms, crab cakes, cheeses, olive and tomato salad, shrimp, and bacon wrapped asparagus.

  Virgil, without thinking, grabbed some of the food from Fairalee’s plate and stuffed it in his mouth. He ate fast, starving. Confused, she handed him her gin and tonic and he drained the glass. From a pitcher, she poured him another glass, icy and filled with tiny swirls of lime, and he drank it as well. She noted his pupils were dilated so they filled his iris, his skin was white as milk, and his hands shook.

  Fairalee knew he was acting very peculiar.

  Fin Carter stood and took Virgil’s elbow, “Are you okay? Is the ambulance here?”

  George walked over as everyone watched Virgil, curiously.

  Virgil grabbed at George’s collar, “They’re gone.”

  “What? Who? Who is gone?”

  Virgil let go of the fabric and looked at Fin Carter, “Lunar eclipse. The floor…it slid away…right as the full eclipse occurred. Like Lydia Kingsborough. Lunar eclipse. The light went away.”

  “Okay. I’m trying to follow….”

  “The floor fell away. It went…and they were there…in the wrong place. Vivian….”

  Fin caught Virgil as he slumped.

  Fairalee and Fin helped him sit down.

  “Where is Vivian? Virgil…try to tell us.”

  “We’ve got to find them, Fairalee. The floor went away and they all fell…they just…fell. I tried to get Ed and he was nearly up…but he fell and the floor was back. The floor is back, Fairalee. They’re gone. Gone.” His eyes were wet.

  No one understood what Virgil was saying, but it was something that had shocked him to his core and only seeing his wife vanish could cause such shock; he already said she was gone. Fairalee felt ice cold and her hands shook as she tried to understand her friend.

  George turned, “Rick and Lana, get everyone back to the main staircase immediately. Fairalee and Fin, please come with me.” George helped Virgil to his feet and they hurried back down the hall, turning a few times, and finding the blue room. George snapped on the electric lights, wondering why they hadn’t done that while waiting with Anita for the ambulance.

  The room was empty. George’s face paled, “Did the ambulance come get Anita? Where is everyone else?”

  Virgil moaned.

  George walked over to where everyone had been, not going too close, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The chair Anita sat in was gone. Tentatively, George slid a foot onto another board, and then another, and finally walked over the place where everyone had stood or sat. Nothing and no one remained and the floor felt as solid as ever. He stared at the floor.“Could they have slipped out of the room?”

  “I watched the floor slide away. I saw them fall. I tried to grab Ed. I saw the floor snap back.” Virgil’s voice gained strength. “I saw it happen.”

  “I want you to remain right here, just outside the doorway. I will be right back. Do not move, please.” George took off at a run.

  Fairalee helped Virgil sit in a chair just outside the doorway, in the hall.

  “Virgil, you have to get it together and explain. Do you know why this happened?”

  Patiently, in fits and starts, Virgil explained, using short sentences and abbreviating the way he figured it out a few seconds too late. In a short time, Sheriff Thomas arrived with his deputies, and George returned with Lana, Josie, and Rick. Some of the staff brought in scalding hot coffee and tea that they arranged in the room across the hall with sandwiches.

  Visibly upset. Terry Cromer arrived, even though he swore he’d never come to the house at night.

  Sheriff Thomas thanked him for coming.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Sheriff Thomas demanded, worried. He was a good sheriff, soft-hearted, getting close to retirement, but for the second time in his career, was seriously afraid. Sheer terror was rolling off Sheriff McLendon, the FBI agent, Fin Carter, the girl, and George, the guide. Everyone else had big, wide eyes and were pale.

  Panic was contagious.

  Sheriff Thomas looked miserable.

  Virgil felt a desperation to hurry and find his wife, but he knew there was a process, and they were moving as fast as possible, despite the feeling that they moved in molasses. He was so frustrated, he could scream, but he explained everything once again, filling in a few details, but keeping the facts very clear as to help the Sheriff. He couldn’t help but think of the sheriff’s son having vanished ten years before.

  Fin Carter spoke up, “Sheriff, during the investigations, we have discovered that Edith and John Kingsborough and Charles Fontaine Moreau probably set many traps and allowed people to vanish, including the Kingsborough children. There were a few accidents as well, but the traps are all over, and set off by many peculiar mechanisms. You’ve seen the museum.”

  “Okay.”

  “We also have found old drawings and descriptions and Vivian managed to construct rough floor plans that showed honey-combed rooms, secret hallways, and parts of rooms blocked off. In addition, while we know of
the wine cellar, storage rooms, and the room with the stream of water, there is as much of a basement under this house as the house footprint. In other words, it’s huge and there may be subbasements.”

  “You’re sure?” Thomas asked.

  “Positive. We had already concluded that the traps dropped people into the sealed off parts of the basement and were going to isolate them. But there is more. This land was originally owned by the Kingsboroughs and was mined for silver. There was a streak of silver that resulted in quite a bit of mining, meaning there are tunnels. However, the streak of silver was small and there was nothing else to mine, so John Kingsborough’s father sealed most of the shafts, which were not extensive anyway, and the mine was closed off.”

  “Good Lord. I never imagined.”

  “It was just forgotten, I think. It was only mined for a year. John decided to build here and Mr. Moreau used the already-dug mines and basements, and built upwards; it was a perfect set-up and saved years of digging. So what we have is a honey comb of mines, basements, and subbasements under the house and sealed off. Over the years, the traps tossed victims down into the abyss,” Fin regretted his words as Virgil winced.

  “Accidently?”

  “Some. I think they were random and some were the types that one could manipulate. Edith, John, and Moreau have sent hundreds of people underground and continue to do so.”

  “I just finished marking the locations and everything I found points to the uncovered well or hole being just over there where the woods begin, deep in the brush. It’s close enough that I think, now, it must be an old mine shaft or air vent. Anyone falling in would land the same places as people here, just far away.”

  “Good Lord, “Virgil moaned again, worried about his wife.

  “Tell me who fell?”

  Virgil repeated the names and mentioned the chair as well.

  Sheriff Thomas examined the area and found claw marks in the wood’s finish; they were new. This fit with the reported events.

  “Sheriff, we have to hurry. My wife is down there and she may be injured. Please?”