Priscilla looked back over at her. “Who’s Zeke?”
“Our caretaker. He’s been here nearly as long as I have. He’s seen things. You should ask him.”
“Oh, I certainly will.”
“I should also tell you,” Mrs. Devlin said, standing up again, with some difficulty, “that my grandson and his wife have just arrived. They will be living here with me now, taking over the care of the place. Zeke and I have gotten too old to do it all by ourselves anymore.”
“Is that the lady who drove up while we were outside?” Priscilla asked.
“Yes.”
“She went off into the woods,” Neville said. “I guess looking for the woman who was hiking.” He smirked. “To apologize for Priscilla screaming her head off, I imagine.”
“I tell you,” Priscilla insisted, “her face was covered with blood.”
“Perhaps she scratched herself in the thicket out there,” Mrs. Devlin said. “Or it was mud. It gets very swampy a few feet into the woods.”
Priscilla sniffed. She wasn’t entirely convinced that what she’d seen had not been a ghost.
“Anyway,” the old woman continued, “I haven’t yet filled in my granddaughter-in-law about some of the more distressing chapters in the inn’s history. I didn’t want to frighten her too badly on her first day. And since you’ve obviously read everything there is about the Blue Boy Inn, I’d appreciate you not bringing it all up with her. At least, not quite yet.”
Neville made a face in surprise. “You mean to tell me, her husband brought her to live here without telling her about the history of this place?”
Mrs. Devlin pursed her lips. “We decided it was best to tell her when she got here.”
Neville laughed. “Because otherwise, no sane person would ever have come.”
A tight smile stretched across the old woman’s face. Priscilla took it to mean that Mrs. Devlin was saying, Ah, but my granddaughter-in-law isn’t sane.
“You must be tired from your drive,” Mrs. Devlin said, lifting an old copper key off a nail on the wall near the sink. “I’ll show you up to your room.”
Priscilla and Neville stood to follow her.
“So were the killers of any of those who were murdered here ever found?” Priscilla asked as they headed back out into the hallway.
“Most of the deaths here were simply tragic accidents,” Mrs. Devlin said, leading the way through the narrow, musty corridor, not looking back as she spoke.
“Well, that poor man whose head was never found,” Priscilla said. “That was no accident.”
“No, I suppose it was not,” the old woman replied. “Andrew McGurk died here before my time. My husband’s father owned the place then.”
“And the little baby who disappeared,” Priscilla asked, “except for her arm?”
Mrs. Devlin paused near the stairs. “For the life of me, I don’t know where Zeke or Jack are,” she said, evidently done with speaking about murder and death and ghosts.
“That’s all right,” Neville said, grabbing their bags. “I don’t mind hauling them myself.”
The old woman frowned. “Not a good way to treat our guests. I apologize.”
They started up the stairs.
“But please,” Priscilla said. “Tell me about the baby.”
“I had just arrived here,” Mrs. Devlin said. “Had just married my husband. And I suspect, in that case, it was a kidnapping gone wrong. The mother was a rich heiress. She was running away from her father, and some goons were after her. I think they thought taking the baby might get them quite the ransom.”
“But why would they cut off the poor thing’s arm?” Priscilla asked.
“You’d have to ask them,” Mrs. Devlin said.
They had reached the top of the stairs.
“Here’s your room,” the old woman said, unlocking the door.
They stepped inside. It was small, neat, low-ceilinged. Mustiness pervaded everything. The four-poster bed was small, carefully made. A three-drawer dresser stood beside the single window. Except for a straight-backed chair, that was all the furniture in the room.
“And Sally Brown?” Priscilla asked. “The girl who died in this room?”
“Before my time, too,” Mrs. Devlin said. “But what my mother-in-law told me was that poor Sally got word that her fiancé had died in Germany. This was during World War I. And so she slit her wrists. That was the cause of the blood on the walls.”
“But her body was never found,” Priscilla pointed out.
“I was told Sally ran outside to bleed out,” the old woman said matter-of-factly. “I suspect bears and coyotes finished off her remains.”
Neville shuddered. “Such a delightful history.”
“Even if they weren’t all murders,” Priscilla said, “these were very traumatic deaths. Suicides make for some of the most frequent ghosts.” She looked over at Mrs. Devlin. “Do many people report seeing Sally?”
The old woman nodded. “Yes. Many do.”
Priscilla smiled.
“Then I’ll let you get settled,” the old woman told them. “I’ve made some rabbit stew if you’d like some for dinner. Otherwise, there are some decent restaurants up in Sheffield.”
“Thank you,” Neville said.
Mrs. Devlin left them alone.
“It was a ghost I saw out in the woods,” Priscilla said. “I know it. I’ll bet it was Sally Brown!”
Neville flopped down on the bed. Dust puffed up into the air.
“I don’t think I could eat rabbit stew,” he said.
Priscilla was examining the wallpaper for bloodstains. “We’re going to get what we paid for here, I’m certain of it.” She looked over her shoulder at Neville. “We’re going to have a major close encounter with the spirit world here. I can feel it in the air!”
Neville could only groan.
12
Annabel spun around to see who—or what—was behind her.
“Jack!” she shouted.
Her husband was grinning sheepishly. Standing beside him was the hunched-over figure of Zeke.
“I didn’t mean to scare you, baby cakes,” Jack said.
“Well, you did,” Annabel replied.
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to take her hands, but she pulled them away.
“What is this, Jack?” Annabel pointed down at the ground. “This stone?”
The name seemed to glare up at them.
CINDY DEVLIN
“That’s my little sister,” Jack said, very quietly.
“You never told me you had a sister,” Annabel said, her voice harder than she meant it to be. “Never, in all our years together.”
He looked at her. His eyes shone with pain. “It’s always been difficult to talk about Cindy,” Jack told her.
“She was a very sweet little girl,” Zeke offered. “Such a tragedy.”
Annabel looked from them down to the grave marker in the leaves, then back to them again.
“Why is she buried here, in the middle of the woods?”
Jack smiled sadly. “She’s not buried here. That’s just a stone Dad put up to remember her by. To give us someplace to come to.”
“Her body was never found,” Zeke explained, his old yellow eyes finding Annabel’s.
“What happened to her?”
Jack took in a long breath, and then let it out very slowly. “She just disappeared. She—must have gotten lost in the woods or something. There was no trace of her.”
“Except—” Zeke began to say.
But Jack shot him a look that shut him up.
“Except what?” Annabel asked.
Jack hesitated. “We found blood. A lot of it.”
“She was a sweet little girl,” Zeke added. “The sweetest, really.”
“I’m sorry to hear this,” Annabel said. “I wish you had told me about her before.”
Jack sighed. He made no response.
“In fact,” Annabel went on, “I wish you had told me a lot of th
ings before we came here. Such as all the deaths and murders that took place at the inn over the years. When did you think you’d tell me, Jack? You must have known I’d find out as soon as we got here.”
“Who told you about all that?” Zeke asked.
Annabel shifted her eyes over to the old man. “The woman at the market.”
“Ah, that Millie, she’s a busybody,” Zeke grumbled.
“I was hoping Gran and I could tell you, in our own way,” Jack said.
Annabel looked down at the little white stone marker. “You knew I wouldn’t come if I had known this place had such a lurid history.”
Jack took her hand. “Babe,” he said softly. “We’re no strangers to lurid histories, you and I.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Annabel asked.
“Just that . . .” Jack seemed to search for the right words. “We needed a place to start over. And I think the Blue Boy Inn needs to start over, too. You and I . . . we want to put our pasts behind us. So does the Blue Boy.”
She frowned. “That’s not likely, with all these ghost tourists seeking the place out.”
“It’s true that there have been some unfortunate tragedies here,” Jack admitted. “But the town made way more of them than they were. Over the course of more than a hundred years there have been some deaths here. Some perfectly peaceful. Some not so peaceful. That’s to be expected anywhere that’s been around for as long as the Blue Boy. But the locals like to tell stories, and every new death here has been woven into a never-ending tale. Legends of ghosts and death curses sprung up. And the tourists started coming.”
Annabel was still looking at the marker for Cindy Devlin.
“If she got lost in the woods,” Annabel asked, “why was there a lot of blood?”
Jack sighed. “The police chief thought maybe a bear got her. There had been sightings of bears not long before she went missing.”
“And where was the blood?”
Zeke stepped forward. Annabel had almost forgotten he was there.
“On the back steps and down the path,” the old man said. “I found it. We’d been calling for Cindy all morning, when she wasn’t in her bed. And then I went around back and found the blood. . . .”
“My father speculated she got up in the night for some reason,” Jack said, his voice thick with emotion. “And she went out back and that’s where the bear spotted her. . . .”
“But why was her body never found?”
Jack shrugged. “The police scoured the woods for her. The bear must have . . .” He couldn’t speak. “She was so little, you know.”
Annabel reached up and touched his cheek. She had been so upset about not being told about all this history that she hadn’t been very compassionate. This was his sister that Jack was talking about. This was a childhood tragedy that had apparently scarred him so badly he’d never been able to speak of it before.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Annabel said, stroking her husband’s bristly cheek.
“We thought we’d find something of her,” Zeke piped in. “But nothing. Just the blood.”
“And then,” Jack said, finding his voice, “the town went and turned it into another example of the murder curse on the Blue Boy Inn, adding poor little Cindy to their long list of ghosts that haunted the house.” He shook his head. “I never told you, sugar cakes, because I’ve always hated that part of the Blue Boy’s history. As far as I’m concerned, we’re putting an end to it.”
“Good,” Annabel said. “We stop marketing the place as a haunted hotel. Get it out of those guidebooks. Debunk the ghost stories whenever anyone asks about them.”
“That’s a mighty fine sentiment,” Zeke said. “But without those ghost tourists, I’m not sure you have a business. What else could bring people out to the middle of nowhere to a rundown old house?”
“So we change the place from rundown to fabulous,” Annabel replied. “We modernize. We renovate from top to bottom. Make it comfortable and loaded with amenities. We are on some gorgeous property here. In the spring and summer these woods will be in full green bloom. And in the fall I can only imagine how magnificent the colors will be. I’d love to redo the gardens, make some paths, maybe put in a Jacuzzi. We’ll make this place the perfect getaway destination. We won’t need ghosts to sell it.”
“I think you have the right idea, babe,” Jack said.
Zeke gave them a crooked smile. “Not sure what Cordelia will think of ripping the place up.”
Annabel felt her back stiffen. “She asked us to come here, didn’t she? She wanted us to take over the place. If she wants this place to stay in business, she’ll agree. Otherwise, none of us can afford to keep this house going. We’d have to put it on the market. . . .”
“Oh, no,” Zeke said. “I know Cordelia wouldn’t want to do that.”
“Then it’s settled,” Annabel said. “We’re going to make this an entirely new place, with an entirely new reputation, aren’t we, Jack?”
“We sure are, sugarplum,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into him.
Overhead a crow screeched in the bare limbs of a tree.
13
Cordelia listened to her guests moving above her. They seemed like nice people. Strange, like all the ghost tourists were, but nice. She especially liked the man.
Nothing would happen while they were in the house. She would see to it.
She’d been seeing to it for a long time. Now she was old. She was giving the Blue Boy over to Jack and his wife. Could she sleep easy, knowing they would be the ones to take over from her in safeguarding the house?
Annabel was a wild card. Cordelia wasn’t sure about her. She seemed obstinate. Defiant. Too independent.
That could prove problematic.
She wished once more that Jack hadn’t brought a wife.
For a moment her thoughts wandered to Jack’s father. Her son. He’d brought a wife to the Blue Boy Inn, too. And two little children.
But Cordelia pushed the thought out of her mind.
She heard the sound of her guests upstairs running water. They were washing up. They would be downstairs again soon.
The old woman made her way into the living room. It was a big, open space, furnished with just a few antique wingback chairs and a long table in front of large bay windows. The windows were cloudy. How many years had it been since Cordelia had washed them? But what did it matter, really? The bushes outside had grown up so thickly in front of the windows that they nearly obscured the sunlight anyway.
It was better that way, Cordelia thought. This house—and especially this room—needed no prying eyes looking in from the outside.
The living room was dominated by the old stone fireplace in the center. The hearth extended four feet out into the room, and the mantel was a good six feet. But the fireplace was devoid of any tools hanging at its side. There was no pot hanging inside, even for show. In fact, the opening was bricked over. No fire could be built there. The bricks enclosed the path down to the firebox and sealed off the flue. They had been installed with care and precision. Cordelia knew this. Because she had helped lay the bricks.
She heard the back door squeak open.
“Gran, we’re back!” she heard Jack call.
With a final glance at the sealed-off fireplace, Cordelia headed toward the kitchen.
14
Roger Askew was a mean son of a bitch.
He’d just told that busybody, dried-out old fruit Millie Westerbrook at the general store to stick it where the sun don’t shine, and then added that since nothing had been stuck there in ages for her, she’d probably enjoy it.
Millie had been giving Roger a hard time because he smelled like whisky and dropped the F-bomb in front of some little kids. Why couldn’t the bitch just mind her own business?
So Roger had just paid for his pack of smokes and slammed out of that goddamn place.
As he trudged through the path in the woods, he realized the reason he was in such a fou
l mood was all because of Tammy.
His girlfriend.
Rather, his ex-girlfriend. At least she would be, after today.
She was a lazy, good-for-nothing bitch. Roger had asked her to do one simple favor for him. Run down to the store and get him some cigarettes. And she’d said she had to pick up that brat of hers, Jessica, from school. Like the kid couldn’t have waited five minutes? Tammy was just so goddamn selfish. She never did anything for Roger.
She hadn’t even been putting out lately.
He stopped on the path, tore open the pack of cigarettes, shook one out, placed it between his lips, and lit it.
He sucked in the smoke. Ah, yes. He’d needed that.
Roger was going to be twenty-nine in a couple of weeks. It was time he made a clean break. He needed to give Tammy the old heave-ho. He deserved a girlfriend who appreciated him.
Not one who bitched at him all the time to find a job.
He’d had no choice but to quit the last one. The manager of the Jiffy Lube was a fucking prick. He’d had it out for Roger. Always on his case, making him take the worst of the freaking lemons that people drove into the place, the cars that were literally ready to die, and Roger was somehow supposed to get them purring smoothly again. Finally, he’d told his asshole manager to go fuck himself, and added that, since it had obviously been a long time since anyone had fucked his scaly self, he’d probably enjoy it.
That was one of Roger’s favorite insults.
Up ahead on the path, he saw someone walking toward him.
Roger hoped it wasn’t anyone he knew. He was in no mood to say hello to anyone. All he wanted to do, in fact, was punch someone. He had a temper. He knew that. He’d served time for beating up a few people, and Tammy had threatened to have him arrested the last time he’d hauled off and whacked her across the head. So far he had yet to smack that brat of hers, not that Jessica didn’t have it coming. But Roger knew if he ever hit the kid, he’d have to deal with the freaking banshee her mother would become.
He hated kids. Even his own. His daughter was probably eight or nine years old by now. She lived with her mother up in Pittsfield. Roger hadn’t seen her in three years, but still her bitch of a mother kept demanding he pay child support, and Roger was damned if he was going to fork over the little bit of cash he had to a kid he never saw and who he had doubts was really his, anyway. So now the mother-bitch had offered him a deal. Give up all parental rights for all time and she’d stop hounding him for money.
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