“You know,” she told him, “I had no idea what it would be like. I’m not a country girl. I’ve got the city in my blood. Born and raised in Manhattan. I miss the sounds of the city, the rush, the hustle, the constant energy.. . .”
He smiled. “My wife was originally from Manhattan. She loved the city as well.”
Annabel paused. “Richard, I can’t help but notice you speak of her in the past tense.”
He nodded sadly. “She died. I’ve been on my own for a while.”
“You miss her a great deal,” Annabel observed. “I can tell.”
“Every moment of every day,” Richard admitted.
“How hard that must be for you.” She looked over at him. “But how very wonderful it must be to have loved someone that much, and for her to have loved you as much in return.”
“Yes,” acknowledged the chief. “Yes, indeed it was.”
They were close enough now to the house that they could see the driveway. Chad’s truck was just at that moment pulling in.
“Chad and Neville didn’t come back with you?” Annabel asked.
Richard shook his head. “Chad had to pick up some things at his office. But I came out straight away after they told me what they knew.”
He pointed out another vehicle in the driveway.
“I see your husband is at home,” Richard said.
“Yes,” Annabel replied. “And for some reason, I don’t think Jack is going to be very pleased that I’m taking you down into the basement to look at the chimney.”
67
Tammy headed down the basement steps. Chad had said to measure every window, and she assumed that to mean the basement as well.
Besides, she wanted to get away from that horrible Jack Devlin, who was lurking around the parlor and dining room. Every time she cast a glance in his direction, he was looking at her.
Of course, Tammy thought, as she pulled the string to illuminate the overhead bulb, he could corner me down here more easily. But if he tried that, he’d have quite the surprise. Before making her way down the steps, she’d slung her purse over her shoulder. And inside, she carried a can of Mace. Being involved with a man as volatile as Roger, Tammy had learned to take precautions. And that prick Devlin would get a faceful of it if he tried anything again.
Once in the basement, Tammy saw that the windows were too high for her to easily reach. She realized she’d need something to stand on.
Over by the chimney, she spotted a small chest. She could pull that over.
But as she approached, the dim light above revealed something leaning against the chest.
A large doll of some sort, she thought. Propped in a sitting position.
But then—the doll’s head moved.
Tammy gasped. She heard sounds. Teeth gnashing.
All at once, the thing sitting against the chest turned its face to look at her. It was a little man—and in his hands he held a bloody arm. He was gnawing at the bones of the fingers as if he were chewing on a chicken drumstick. Catching sight of Tammy, the little man hissed at her like a cat, baring a mouthful of bloody fangs.
Tammy screamed.
68
Annabel had just come inside the house with Richard when she heard the scream from the basement. It seemed to rise up like a physical thing, pushing itself through the slats in the floorboards, causing the whole house to tremble. It caused Annabel and Richard to stop cold in their tracks.
Chad and Neville were likewise frozen for that split second of time, standing a little ahead of them in the foyer. The two men hadn’t even yet taken off their coats when the scream cut through the quiet afternoon.
Richard was the first to burst forward, heading toward the basement stairs, his hand on his gun. But he didn’t have to go far. The young woman whom Annabel had seen earlier—Tammy something, she thought, Chad’s helper—suddenly came bounding up the stairs.
She was as white as if covered in flour.
She bypassed Richard to run straight into Chad’s arms.
“Get me out of here!” she said in the highest pitched voice Annabel had ever heard. The poor woman was shaking so badly it looked as if she had epilepsy.
“What happened, Tammy?” Chad asked.
“Down there!” was all she could say, burying her face against his chest. “Down there!” Then she broke free of Chad’s embrace and bolted outside, Chad following.
“I’m going down,” Richard announced, gun drawn, heading down the stairs.
“I’m coming, too,” Annabel said.
The chief turned to her. “Stay up here,” he barked.
“I’ve got to see whatever is down there,” Annabel said.
Richard made a face. “Then stay well behind me,” he told her.
They made their way down the creaky old stairs.
The light was still burning. They saw nothing. Annabel lifted the flashlight from the floor and shone it around the near-empty basement. Still nothing. All they could see was the chest near the chimney. The door to the ash dump was still padlocked, and the key was nowhere in sight.
“I’ve got to go out and interview Tammy about what it was she saw down here,” Richard told Annabel. “Whatever it was appears to be gone now. In the meantime, I’ll need your permission to search this place, to pry open that ash dump door. . . .”
“What the hell is going on here?”
They spun around.
Jack had come down the stairs. He was angry, eyes blazing. “What was all that screaming about? And exactly why do you need to search this house?”
Richard looked at him. Annabel tensed.
“Mr. Devlin,” the chief explained, “Tammy Morelli just ran out of this basement a terrified wreck. She saw something down here. I’m going out to interview her now. I don’t know what she saw, but there have been enough reports about this house to warrant a complete search.”
The chief pushed past Jack to head back up the stairs. Annabel attempted to follow him, but Jack grabbed her arm.
“I’m not letting anyone search this house,” her husband growled.
“Jack, we have to cooperate with the police.”
“Yeah, I think you’ve been cooperating a little too closely with that guy,” he grumbled. “I saw you out walking with him, taking a little romantic stroll through the woods.”
“Jack!” Annabel was nearly flabbergasted. “You are talking crazy!”
“I’m not letting him search this house. You said yourself that we needed to stand up against this reputation as being haunted and all that.”
“Jack, this is no time to argue,” Annabel said, hurrying up the basement stairs. In truth, she had become afraid of him, and didn’t want to be in the basement alone with him.
Upstairs, she found Neville sitting forlornly in the parlor. “They’re outside,” he told Annabel, gesturing with his head toward the front door.
She stepped outside onto the porch. She could see Tammy sitting in the passenger’s side of Chad’s truck, her arms wrapped around herself. Richard was speaking with her intensely through the open door. Annabel headed toward them.
Chad stopped her halfway. “Look,” he said. “Tammy’s always been a bit hysterical. You know Roger Askew was her boyfriend.”
Annabel was stunned. “The guy whose hand was found in the wood box?”
“Yeah. So she’s easily spooked. She’s had a hard time the past few years, and I was trying to help her out. But I wouldn’t necessarily take what she says as gospel. I think she’s clean now, but she used to do a lot of drugs. . . .”
Annabel bristled. “Just because someone once had an addiction shouldn’t mean we discount their intelligence or reliability.”
“No, no, of course not, I just meant—”
Annabel cut him off. “What has she been saying?”
“It’s crazy talk, Annabel. She says she saw a little man in the basement—like an elf—eating a human arm.”
Annabel couldn’t speak for a moment. “A . . . little man?” sh
e finally asked.
“Yeah. I think she was upset about something else, though.” Chad looked over his shoulder, and then drew closer to her. “You should know about this. She might be making a complaint. She claims your husband sexually harassed her earlier.”
This was all too much for Annabel to take in. She felt light-headed, as if she might pass out.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that,” Chad said. “But it’s what Tammy is saying. And like I said, she can get hysterical at times.”
“She’s not hysterical,” Annabel managed to say.
Richard had left Tammy’s side and was now approaching them. “Take her home, Chad. She’s very upset.” The chief looked at Annabel. “I’d like to get a team out here this afternoon to inspect that chimney,” he told her.
Annabel glanced over at the front porch. Jack stood there, legs spread apart, arms crossed over his chest. He was scowling.
“I don’t think he’s going to let you,” Annabel said sadly.
“Then I’ll have to get a court order, and that could take a couple of days.”
“I’ll try talking to him,” Annabel said, looking over at Jack, “but he’s . . . different.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied, as she headed back toward the house. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
69
Neville didn’t think he should be listening to Annabel and Jack argue on the front porch. He stood up from the couch in the parlor and started to head up to his room, but then decided on a different destination.
What had Tammy seen down in the basement?
Perhaps he was being foolish to go back down there by himself. If there was some mad killer loose, the same one who’d cut off that bloke’s hand and kidnapped and/or killed Priscilla, Neville might run smack into him down in that dark, dusty space.
But he had to go down there. He had to find some answer to give Priscilla’s parents.
Her mum’s voice still rang in Neville’s ear. How upset she’d been when he’d finally called to give them the news of Priscilla’s disappearance. She had blamed Neville, saying her poor darling daughter must have run off because of something he had said or done. It was the only way the distraught woman could make sense of the whole thing. Neville hadn’t had many facts to give her to refute her theory. He was scheduled to return to England in a few days, and he didn’t want to fly back over the pond without some understanding of what had happened to Priscilla.
He made his way down the stairs.
He saw nothing. What could possibly have spooked that poor girl so terribly? Neville tried to yank open the ash dump, but the padlock held firm. He hoped the police could get in there soon and inspect what was inside.
He was moving away from the chimney when he stepped on something on the floor. In the darkness he hadn’t seen it. Evidently no one had.
He stepped down and scooped up the small object in his hand.
It was a ring.
Priscilla’s opal ring. The one she used to attract ghosts.
He slipped the ring into his pocket.
Given the tension between Annabel and Jack, he wasn’t going to bring the ring to them. He didn’t trust what might happen. Instead, he was going straight to the police station and give the ring to Chief Carlson.
70
Richard pulled up in front of Millie’s store, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a while. Such strangeness at the Blue Boy Inn. He had no idea what to make of it.
In his head, he was running through all those cold case files again. What was it about that place that had resulted in so many deaths and disappearances?
The first strange death had occurred more than a hundred years ago at the place. And they had kept coming. Richard had been especially repulsed by the story of poor old Andrew McGurk, whose body had been found up there decades ago, but not his head.
And the most heartbreaking story was the little baby whose arm was found. The child’s poor mother had been so distraught. That case, too, had remained unsolved for decades.
Richard got out of the car and headed inside Millie’s. The little bell over the door jingled.
“Well, if it isn’t our hardest working public servant,” Millie sang out from behind the counter. “What can I do for you today, Richard?”
“Just come to pick up some supper, Mil,” he told her. “It’s going to be a late night at the station tonight.”
He headed down the cereal aisle.
“Hey, chief,” Millie called over to him. “Do yourself a favor and at least buy some ground beef. Enough with the Cheerios.”
“There’s nowhere to grill a burger at the station, Millie,” Richard said. “I’ll stick with my cereal and milk.”
“How about some ham and cheese at least? I’ve got some nice hard rolls. . . .”
“Too much trouble,” Richard said, the box of Cheerios under his arm as he headed over to the coolers to fetch a half-liter of milk.
“You must have a microwave there,” the clerk said. “How about a nice Lean Cuisine? They’ve got some new ones. The salmon’s pretty good. I’ve had it myself.”
Richard lifted the milk out of the freezer. “Thanks, Millie, but my taste buds are in kind of a rut.”
She shook her head. “What you need is a good woman to cook for you.”
He smiled as he set the milk and cereal down on the counter. “Like I’ve said, you keep turning me down.” He winked at her.
Millie smirked as she rang up the items. “How are things out at the Blue Boy?”
The chief shrugged. “Not sure. Lots of questions.”
“What is it about that place?” She accepted Richard’s ten and gave him back his change. “I’ve been here since I was fourteen, and that was a long time ago. And ever since, there’s always been something weird up there.”
“That’s true, Millie. We’re looking into it.”
She placed the milk and box of Cheerios into a paper bag. “I sure feel bad for that sweet girl who came all the way up here from New York to live at the place. Annabel. That was her name, right?”
“Yes,” Richard said. “That’s her name.”
“What kind of husband doesn’t tell his wife about the unsavory history of the place he’s taking her to live?”
“I don’t know, Mil,” Richard said, taking his dinner.
“I mean, that Jack Devlin had to remember how his poor little sister disappeared, and how his father went crazy. . . .”
Richard lifted an eyebrow. “His father went crazy?”
“Well, that was the rumor. He’d come up here, too, just like Jack is doing now, to take over the place after his father died. I remember he was a very nice man. But then he changed. Started acting all weird and secretive. Then, of course, when his wife died from breast cancer and his daughter disappeared—well, people who saw him said he went completely off his rocker.”
“That can happen, Millie,” Richard said, “when you lose someone you love.”
He waved good-bye to her and headed back out to his car.
Driving to the station, Richard didn’t think there was anything unusual about Jack Devlin’s father “going crazy” after his wife died.
After all, Richard had almost gone crazy after Amy died.
So many specialists he’d sought out. So many second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions. And still Amy had died. Richard was a police officer, sworn to defend the public, to protect lives—but he had been unable to find a way to save the woman he loved.
For a while after Amy’s death, Richard had blamed himself. He had thought he might go mad. He understood exactly what Jack Devlin’s father must have gone through.
How very much Richard still loved his dead wife. He still physically ached for her presence beside him in bed at night. He could still smell the fragrance of her hair on his pillow, could sense her energy in the rooms of his house—even though Amy had never lived here in Woodfield with him. Even though she had been g
one for so many years.
Could he ever love another woman? Could he ever allow another woman in his life again?
His mind flickered to Annabel Wish.
Richard couldn’t deny that he’d been attracted to her. The first woman he’d felt that way toward in a very long time. She had looked so pretty, so vulnerable and yet so strong, too, standing there in the sunlight in the woods. Those were qualities Amy had had as well. Strength with vulnerability. Richard had found Annabel extremely attractive as he’d walked beside her, crunching through those fallen leaves. He had been filled, in fact, with the desire to kiss her. He had resisted the urge, of course.
But a momentary attraction to a woman did not mean he could love another woman. It did not mean he was ready to fall in love again. It only meant he was still alive, still a man, still with very natural desires. The chemistry, in other words, still worked.
He couldn’t deny that he’d found Annabel Wish a very beautiful woman.
He thought of her up at that house. She was going to need his help, and Richard would be glad to offer it. That husband of hers was not to be trusted.
Richard had been extremely frustrated by Tammy Morelli’s refusal to bring harassment charges against Devlin. “No, Richard, no,” she’d kept repeating. “I can’t do that. Already half this town thinks I’m a slut. They’ll blame me.”
“That’s crazy talk, Tammy,” Richard had told her. “You did nothing wrong! That man tried to take advantage of you. He shouldn’t get away with it.”
But Tammy had kept shaking her head. “I just want to start living my life. I don’t want anything dragging me down. Roger is gone and I’m starting new. Me and Jessica. I don’t want any court cases or newspaper headlines. I just want to get on with things.”
Her eyes had narrowed as she had looked at Richard.
“And I don’t want anything more to do with that place. The legends are true, Richard. After what I saw, I believe them!”
And what had Tammy seen?
The Inn Page 18