The body had been carefully dug out of the wall by two troopers in light green jumpsuits, wearing disposable facemasks and heavy rubber gloves for protection. It had taken them over an hour to get here from wherever their headquarters were, with their special equipment and their serious expressions. In their own way, they were scarier than the image of Boris Vykroft breaking up the wall.
Not that the guests cared. They had all been down in the lobby by the time the fourth patrol car arrived, snapping photographs and asking questions that had been carefully ignored by the officers. They were in a haunted Inn, after all. Another dead body in the basement? That was like opening up the best present in the world.
They weren’t going to be allowed down here either, in the basement, and when the State Troopers finally went upstairs again the body of Anna Vykroft would be zipped up into that black body bag. Thank God there wouldn’t be any photos of this to hit the internet. The guests would just have to imagine what Riley and Katie were staring at.
The corpse was laid out, jigsawed together with all of her pieces found. It was definitely a woman, or so the Troopers had said. Something about the shape of the hip bones. Katie was going to take their word for it since there was hardly anything left of her except bones. Bones, and scraps of charred flesh. This woman had been burned.
Then again, Katie didn’t actually need the forensic explanation to know this was a woman, because she knew exactly who it was.
In the middle of her rib cage was the melted remains of a gold necklace. It was tarnished, and distorted, but Katie recognized it anyway. The spiral design was still hypnotic, even without being framed between two firm breasts.
The last time she saw that necklace, it had been around the neck of a woman cutting her wrists in a bathtub.
A State Trooper who she recognized walked across the basement. He was one of the officers who had been here before, and it took Katie only a moment to remember his name. Leon. Trooper Leon Moresby.
He gave a nod of greeting to both Katie and Riley, and then a slow sad shake of his head. “We have to stop meeting like this. Glad you folks are trying to make a go of this place but I really hope this is the last of the dead bodies.”
“From your lips,” Riley told him, “to God’s ears.”
“Yeah. I thought at first this might be some kind of Halloween prank, considering that’s just a couple of weeks away.” Leon shook his head, square jaw set like an anvil. “I don’t believe in God, Mister Harris. Seen too much on this job. There’s no protection from Heaven, either by God or his priests. If there were, you two wouldn’t have a dead woman stuffed behind your basement wall.”
Katie wasn’t very religious. She didn’t pray every day or fast for Lent or anything like that. At the same time she had never questioned the existence of God. She had always figured that bad people would always do bad things, but God being there kept them from doing worse.
It was good to know that if you ever really needed God, you could always turn to people like Reverend Keller for advice and help.
The Troopers who had removed the remains into the body bag zipped it up now, ready to transport it upstairs.
“Those remains will go to the crime lab,” Leon told them. “When we know who she might be, we’ll let you know.”
“I know who it is.” Katie was surprised at how quietly that came out. Every man in the basement turned to look at her. She cleared her throat, and said it again more loudly. “I know who that is.”
Leon looked down at the closed bag, and then back at Katie. “How? By the look of it that body’s been there for a few decades, and there’s nothing left of the face to speak of. How can you possibly know her?”
“It was the necklace she was wearing.”
Leon’s one eyebrow shot up. “You mean that melted hunk of metal on her chest?”
“Yes. It was a family heirloom, I think. It belonged to Anna Vykroft. She died here in town in 1921.”
From the corner of her eye she could see the expression on Riley’s face. He wasn’t happy with what she was saying, but he wasn’t arguing with her either.
“Seriously?” Leon asked her. “You’re talking about the one and only Anna Vykroft, and the fire that burned through the town in 1921? Everybody knows that story. You’re telling me that this is where Anna Vykroft got buried? How does that make any sense at all?”
Riley cleared his throat. “Welcome to our life.”
“Well, anyway.” Leon scrubbed a hand over his buzzcut hair. “I’m going to ask my supervisors about bringing in some ground penetrating radar. I know they have the equipment at Dartmouth College. It’s not a usual part of an investigation but I think under the circumstances we need to search every inch of this basement. Make sure somebody else didn’t try to bury their deep dark secrets here. Know what I mean? That is, if you two will agree to it.”
“Absolutely,” Riley said.
“Hell yes,” Katie said at the same time.
“Uh, okay.” Leon managed to sound both relieved and worried at the same time. “I’ll let you know when we have the arrangements set up.”
They walked behind the officers carrying the body bag between them. There couldn’t be much weight to it, but they took it slowly anyway, careful not to bump the bag against any of the empty shelves or drag it on the stairs on the way up.
When they got to the main floor, coming out of the basement door and then around the check-in desk, the guests were all waiting with their cameras and cellphones, taking photo after photo to make sure they didn’t miss a second of the excitement.
This was all fun and games for them. They had no idea what they were really seeing.
This was just the start. There would be worse to come.
Chapter 16
Katie had to be back at the Inn for lunch, but for now she had someplace to be.
It was a good thing that she was with Riley, and not some stud who was good in bed but stupid when it came to anything else. It was debatable whether he was handier around the home or between the sheets, but she was able to leave him in charge of the Inn to watch over things while she was gone.
If business stayed as good as it had for their opening they would have to consider hiring someone else to help run the place, but for now the two of them were a perfect team.
That wasn’t likely to change, no matter what, even with dead people buried in their basement or haunted artifacts making them act loopy.
The box tucked under her arm felt heavier than she knew it was, and it wasn’t just the duct tape she’d wrapped around it about a dozen times, either. It was the knowledge that inside was the watch that had been worn by Boris Vykroft. It was the knowledge of what that watch had done to Riley.
What were they getting themselves into this time?
Over on Hudson Street, tucked into the middle of a residential section, was Marlin McCandry’s house. Katie knew the way by foot but she was in a rush so she’d driven here. She parked the car in the driveway and then went around to the back, bypassing the front door altogether. This time of day, Marlin was usually out back in his antiques shop.
Unless he was at the library, she supposed, reading up on which horses to make bets on. Maybe she should have called ahead.
From the front, the house was a two-story ranch style with green siding and white trim, and rose bushes around the steps, of all things. The back did not match the front at all. He’d put the back section on specifically to be a shop, and it was more utilitarian than pretty. The vinyl siding was plain gray, and the door leading in was part of a garage-style overhead that could roll up and away for customers to take out large purchases, like the apothecary shelves that she’d purchased from him last week.
She knocked, and waited.
“Come on in, then,” she heard him call out to her. “Don’t make me come and open it for you. Extra charge for that.”
A smile spread across her face in spite of herself. Marlin had a way of making her feel better, even if she thought she mig
ht be haunted by a psychotic woman’s ghost.
She went inside.
There was furniture everywhere, stacked tightly but in such a way to display the best of each piece. Dressers, bedframes, lamps, coffee tables, and other pieces all politely shared the room, waiting for someone to see them and fall in love. The overhead lights were bright, and the walls were adorned with paintings to brighten the space up. They were all for sale too, of course.
Further back was a glass counter that locked from behind, where Marlin displayed jewelry and really expensive pieces like coins or documents. He sat there now, watching a small box television set, cheering on some sporting event with a beer in his fist.
“Well hey there, Katie,” he said when he realized it was her. “Come on in, then. Looking to buy something, are we?”
“Actually...” She put the box down on the counter. “Remember I wanted you to appraise something for me?”
“Ayup, I sure do. That it there in the box?”
“Yes. It’s taped up really good. You know, um, for safe keeping.”
“Easy enough. Just have to cut it open and then we--come on, you bunch of namby-pamby bastards, score! Score!”
Katie rocked back a step, thinking that he was talking to her at first, before she realized it was the game on his old television that had gotten him all worked up.
“You have a bet on this game, Marlin?”
“Ayup. One more play like that, and I’ll be out...oh, let’s just say it’ll take me a bit to make up what I lose. So. Let’s see this thing you need me to look at.”
She slid the box over to him. He picked it up, and turned it around in his hands, then looked back at her. “You’re going to make me ask, are you? Or is it a surprise?”
“It’s a watch.” That was all she wanted to tell him for now. She wanted him to make his own opinion, and tell her what he thought, without her tainting his information with stories of ghosts and possession.
“Hmm. I like jewelry. Some of my best sellers.” From somewhere behind the counter he took out a red Swiss army knife and extended one of the blades. “Let’s cut through all this tape and see what we can see.”
It took him a minute or so to saw through the layers of duct tape, and then he opened the box and let the lid just hang open as he looked inside.
“Well, my my my.” He wiggled his fingers like she’d just showed him the Hope Diamond or something. “This is a beautiful piece. Oh my, it certainly is.”
Gingerly, with both hands, he lifted the watch out by the straps. Holding it up to his eyes he scrutinized the face, and ran a finger over the dial. He nodded, obviously liking what he was seeing.
“This is really amazing. Early twentieth century. Great condition. Where on God’s green Earth did you find this?”
Around the wrist of a psychopath channeling a witch’s ghost. That was the truthful answer. Somehow, Katie doubted that Marlin would be willing to let her in the shop after she said that, though.
So she lied.
“It was part of an estate sale that I bought. So, um, what do you think of it?”
“Valuable. Worth a pretty penny, sure enough. I don’t suppose that you’d let me make an offer, right here and right--"
He turned the watch over, and stopped. She watched him mouth the words inscribed on the back.
Then he dropped the watch like it had bit him. It dropped into the box with a soft little thump and Marlin sat there, staring at it. He wiped his hands on the front of his sweatshirt again and again. “You need to get that out of here. Take it with you, please. I need to, uh, close up. Yes. I need to close up. Big day, lots to do. Sure enough. Lots to do.”
She wasn’t expecting that. “Marlin? What’s wrong?”
He pushed the box over to her side of the glass countertop. “I know where that watch came from, Katie. Funny, how you were asking me about Anna and Boris Vykroft in the library, and now you’ve got that watch right there for me to look at.”
“You know where this came from? It’s from Boris Vykroft?”
He nodded. “Ayup.”
Katie couldn’t believe it. She’d known where it came from because she’d seen it in her vision. “How do you know?” she asked him. “It doesn’t have either Anna’s or Boris’s name on it.”
“It’s part of the story, it is. The jeweler who made that for Anna talked to the newspaper about it after the fire. Said she was very insistent that it be made this way. Their hatred for each other was legendary. All part of the story.”
He scratched at the side of his neck with a beefy finger. “Don’t want that around me, Katie. Happy to have you here but...not that thing.”
Very carefully, Katie closed the top of the box. She picked it up and put it under her arm again, a lot less comfortable with it there now that the tape had been cut off.
“Thanks, Marlin, I guess.” She shrugged, because what else could she do. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, maybe?”
Halfway to the door, he called to her again.
“Katie, you should get rid of that thing. It won’t bring you anything but trouble. Stuff like that, it’s always bad. Sure enough.”
She had to agree with him, but she had a feeling that it wasn’t the watch that was going to bring them trouble.
Chapter 17
Lunch was a noisy hour of talk about ghosts.
The guests traded stories of when they were in other haunted houses, hearing creaky floorboards and feeling cold spots, and all the other crap that Katie had seen on every ghost hunters show she’d ever watched. She smiled at them when they asked questions, and politely told them that she had no idea what the police were going to find out, and made sure to spend most of her time in the kitchen so no one would be able to ask her something she wasn’t ready to answer.
She noticed that Victor didn’t say anything about the ghost of his dead sister. Katie didn’t bring it up either. She could only imagine how personal that must have been for him.
Right after the dishes were cleared away, she and Riley went outside. They gave an excuse of wanting to check around the foundation for damage, but really they just wanted some space so they could talk without being pestered by grown men and women who were acting more like teenagers watching The Exorcist for the first time.
“What are we going to do about those guys?” Katie asked when they were outside, at the back of the Inn. “You know they’re in there with all of their cameras and sound equipment and whatever else they brought with them, right? They’re searching every inch of the Inn looking for a spectral event.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. “A what, now?”
Katie laughed at how ludicrous that sounded. “That’s what one of them called it. Not Jason, it was one of the others. A spectral event.”
Riley put his arm around her. “That sounds like some sort of Halloween party, doesn’t it?”
“Well, that’s coming up at the end of the month, so.”
“Yeah, it is, and I think we should do something for the guests who book us that day. You know. A spectral event.”
Katie shoved him playfully, but he actually might be on to something. That sort of gimmick was just what places like the Heritage Inn needed to stand out. She’d have to give it some thought.
Wow, there was so much more involved with this than she realized. She wanted to give this place a year, until she felt comfortable with every aspect of Innkeeping, but then she was definitely going to hire someone competent to take over for her.
That is, if the ghosts hadn’t destroyed the place first.
“So, how bad do you think the hole in the wall is?” she asked Riley. “We can’t really see anything from out here.”
“I know. The basement walls basically come up to ground level and stop. I didn’t think we’d see anything out here anyway. I just figured you needed some time away from everything.”
She hugged him, and then wrapped her arm around his. “You know me so well.”
“As far as the hole down in the basement
, well. That’s pretty bad.” He pursed his lips as he thought about it. “I mean, the Inn isn’t in any danger. We could remove a section like that and extend the basement out, if we wanted, no problem. The danger is if the break gets any bigger. If that happens, then we’ll have problems.”
“But you won’t let that happen, right?”
“Well, I’ll try, but I’m worried our ghosts might have other ideas.”
She actually felt him shiver when he said it. That’s how she knew that he was more scared than he was letting on. The whole thing with the watch had rattled him. Of course, being the big tough guy that he was, he couldn’t let on that he felt that way.
“I’m all right,” he said, seeing how she was looking at him. “I just wish there was something we could do to keep the ghosts out.”
“Like a no trespassing sign?” she joked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” he said after a minute. “Something like that.”
“Sorry you came out here with me?”
His answer was a firm kiss on her lips. “No. Never.”
She was insanely glad to hear that. Neither of them had bargained for any of this when they had decided to take on this project. Riley could easily have said to her that her life was too dangerous for him to stick around. Or too exciting, depending on your definition.
She never wanted to lose him. Not for anything. She had to admit, though, her life had become crazy to the power of ten when she purchased the Heritage Inn. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he decided it was time to bail.
“Hey,” he said, demonstrating that crazy ability of his to know what she was thinking. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying right here, and seeing this through to the end. With you.”
“Which pretty much makes you the best man in the world.”
“Yes. Yes it does.”
She laughed at him, and drew him back in for another kiss. They had so much to do today, still, and only some of it involved the ghosts in the basement. They had to collect all the linens from the rooms and get it over to the laundromat. They had to do a shopping list. Riley was going to have to come up with a plan to fix that hole, even if he thought it was going to be all right for now. Then, they would still have the ghosts to think about.
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 55