A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery)

by Merabeth James

  Both were disappointed when no portrait of Devon turned up. “I really would like to have seen what he looks like,” Meg said, as they restacked the pile.

  “Just in case he comes to visit?” Charlie asked with a smile.

  “You wouldn’t be laughing, if he did. No, I just wanted to get a ‘feel’ for him…this boy who was capable of such cruelty, incest, and murder. Would it all be stamped on his face the same way his father’s cruel, sadistic nature is stamped on his?”

  “Probably not. He was what…seventeen… when he left? Even if they had his portrait painted at the same time as Breanna’s, he was awfully young to have his character imprinted, where everyone could see. I’m betting Devon looked as angelic as Breanna,” Charlie replied.

  “And sad…wistful…and oddly familiar. Doesn’t she remind you of someone? I mean I’ve had a lot more chances to see her, but…never mind. That’s impossible. We’ve never even been anywhere near here before and Breanna Hensley lived here all her life.”

  "If I've learned anything lately, it's that nothing, but nothing, seems impossible," Charlie said, "and I know you feel the very same way!"

  ***

  Charlie was pecking away at her keyboard in her tower hideaway and Meg was behind the house weeding a flowerbed, loving the feel of the rich dark loam, and the smell of green growing things. Her place, her garden, and she had a million plans for it. Most of which would have to wait till next year, since it was so late in the growing season, but, still, what she had accomplished…not without help…was amazing. Sitting back on her heels, she looked up at Charlie’s window and smiled. Things were good. Life was good. And the future? That would have to take care of itself. She straightened and stretched, brushing back a lock of hair that had worked its way out from under her floppy straw hat, then noticed Freddie digging under a rose bush.

  “Stop that, Freddie! The only person allowed to dig in my garden is me!” He stopped, looked up, cocked his head and took off running. “Hey, come back here," she called, then gave chase. ”If you get in the road and get yourself flattened…“ Rounding the house, she stopped in her tracks and stared at the black SUV that had attracted Freddie’s attention. His excited barking ceased and he fled behind Meg, as the door opened and a man slid out.

  He was very tall…or seemed so to Meg. His dark hair was worn slightly longer than considered fashionable, especially in Merritsville, and was streaked with gray at the temples. He was dressed all in black, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses.

  In three strides he was in front of her. Removing his dark glasses, his eyes slowly took her in and she found herself blushing uncomfortably. She knew what she looked like…sweat soaked, dirty and quite possibly not as fragrant as she had been earlier. He smiled and two deep dimples bracketed his sensual mouth. Extending his hand, he said, “I’m Zack Mallory. I heard in town that there was a possibility you might have a room to rent.”

  Meg wiped her hand on the side of her pants before she offered it with a smile. “I’m Meg…Meg Ravynne. We’re not exactly ready for guests yet. I need to get my sister”

  “I understand you will be opening a B&B. I'm more interested in renting a room on a long-term basis. I’m a writer and I’m looking for a place just like this for its ambience.“

  “Ambience we have in spades. Let me get Charlie.”

  “I’m prepared to pay whatever you ask. Two months in advance and last as well. Three months total? Easy money really. I keep unusual hours and won’t require anything from your staff.”

  “Come inside, Mr. Mallory? You’ll have to wait till my sister comes down.” He opened the door for her and waited for her to precede him, then followed her to the front parlor. “Please have a seat. I’ll…we’ll…be right back,” Meg told him still feeling flustered.

  Hands shoved in his pockets, he looked around the room and then at her. “I promise I won’t leave this spot!” he said sardonically.

  Meg sped down the hall, through the kitchen and up the back stairs with Freddie close behind her. She was breathless when she burst into the tower room. “You’ll never guess,” she began, not letting Charlie’s scowl discourage her. “We have out very first customer, Zack Mallory, a writer like you and he likes the place…the ambience and wants to stay indefinitely and he has real money…the kind that pays for all of this. Isn’t that the best news all day?”

  Swiveling in her chair till she faced Meg, Charlie smiled. “At the risk of raining on your parade, he does have references I suppose?”

  “Well, as to that, I’m sure he has. I mean you have only to look at him and you know he’s bound to have all kinds of references.”

  Charlie looked at her sister for a long moment, “You look a bit flushed, Meg, and I don’t think it's the heat. He must be quite a hunk!”

  “Well, kind of, but no. He’s, well, you can see for yourself. Come on!”

  Shaking her head, Charlie followed her sister out the door and down the stairs. They found him looking out the window. He turned around when they entered the room and Charlie was immediately aware…too aware…of what had Meg in a flap. He was ‘beguiling’, Charlie thought, and found herself wondering why she had chosen that word. Crossing the room she extended her hand, “I’m Meg’s sister, Charlie, Mr. Mallory. I hear you are interested in staying with us.”

  “Very, now more than ever,” he said with a curious smile.

  Yes ‘beguiling’ was the right word, Charlie thought. He wasn’t all that much taller than she was, didn’t have the powerful build she usually was attracted, too, but there was something about that smile. And those eyes. “Well, we have five suites on the second floor available”

  “I really was more interested in the third floor tower room. The one on the right. Is that a possibility?”

  “That used to be the butler’s quarters a very long time ago. We’ve cleaned them, but they haven’t been renovated. I think you’d be more comfortable on the second floor.”

  His smile deepened and he raked his hand through his dark hair, “I’m afraid I quite have my heart set on the tower. It’s the perfect place to write…at least for me. It’s a bit romantic and I dare say has a spectacular view. What do you say? Is it settled?”

  Charlie couldn’t argue with his logic. It was the perfect place to write. “About references…if you are going to be with us for an extended period of time, we really would like to know who will be sharing our house.”

  “Not a problem. Let me give you my card and a few names and numbers you may call," he said with a touch of arrogance. ”Do you have something for me to write on? I’m really quite harmless, you know. Haven’t bitten anyone in at least a week or two.“

  Charlie plucked a sheet of paper and pen out of the Larkin desk, they'd found in the attic, and handed it to him. Checking his cell phone to confirm several numbers, he was finished in a few moments. ”Now that we’re taken care of that, would you mind showing me the rooms?“

  With Freddie sniffing at the stranger's heels, they took the main staircase to the third floor and followed the hall to the east end. The door was unlocked and they walked in. They let their prospective tenant look around, poking into the armoire, opening the doors to the bathroom and tower sitting room. When he returned, he was smiling "Perfect! I'm at the Rodeaway Inn Room 203. Call me when you've satisfied yourselves I'm not an axe murderer." With that he walked down the hall and out of the house, leaving Meg and Charlie staring after him.

  ***

  “He has devilment in his eyes. Me very own sister took up with such a one and lived to regret it,” Annie mumbled darkly as she plunked a stack of pancakes in front of Meg and Charlie.

  The breakfast room was bright with morning light and, the warm yellow they had painted it, made it one of their favorite spots. They listened to the sounds of their new tenant carrying his boxes and bags up the stairs. They had to tied Freddie to the table leg to keep him from being a nuisance and quite possibly tr
ipping their renter on the stairs, thereby precipitating a lawsuit. At least that was one of Meg’s worries. She had a list of others.

  “Well, ‘devilment’ or not,” Charlie reminded Annie, “he’s paid good money for his rooms that would have gone empty otherwise. And all his references did check out.”

  “But anyone could have answered the phone and said whatever he told them to say,” Meg said, worrying her lower lip.

  “I thought you were all excited about having him here. I checked out the numbers he gave us and they matched the names.”

  “Why didn’t he tell us that he was a professor. He doesn’t look like any professor I ever had!”

  Charlie laughed, “Nor me! He is rather…”

  “Delectable? Maybe that’s what has me worried. And he’s so brooding and dark. And those eyes! You can look into those eyes and never find bottom!”

  At that precise moment, those very ‘eyes’ were looking at them from the breakfast room door. A smile quirked up one corner of his mouth. “Excuse me. I’ve finished moving my things in and will be staying the night. All I need from you is quiet…reasonable quiet…and complete privacy. My door will be locked. May I ask if you have another key?”

  Charlie wasn’t sure why she lied, “No. You have the only one. Would you like some breakfast? Annie’s pancakes are wonderful,” she told him, ignoring Annie’s snort.

  “No thank you. I have errands to run in town and will grab a bite there. I would like a DSL line installed in my room. Do you think that could be arranged? I will be glad to pay for any expense.”

  “I’ll call this morning,” Charlie told him.

  He smiled then and looked directly at Meg. “The eyes are the ‘windows to the soul’, isn’t that the old cliché? Good day!”

  Charlie looked at Meg, who was pushing a forkful of pancakes around on her plate. “Just what are you looking at?” Meg muttered.

  “Just waiting to see you get your foot out of your mouth so you can finish your breakfast!”

  ***

  Days passed. They could hear him coming and going…doors opening and closing....footsteps on the stairs. Or he would sequester himself for long periods of time and they heard nothing at all. At night, when they let Freddie out, they made a point of going past that end of the house. Invariably his lights would be burning. When they passed in the hall or on the stairs, he would say “Good morning!”, but little more, though his eyes brushed over them and his smile had a sensual quality that both sisters couldn’t help but notice.

  Then one morning, Annie burst into the library, where Meg and Charlie were sorting through some of the older books, still hoping for a first edition. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with excitement, “I caught him, the devil! I caught him red handed!”

  Meg’s eyes rounded in surprise. “What are you talking about, Annie? Caught who doing what?”

  “I be doing the vacuuming down the third floor hall, though I know he doesn’t like the noise. But it needs doin' and I need to be doin' it! I was just wondering why he didn’t come out, like always, and give me one of those looks of his that could shrivel me poor soul, if I wasn’t wearing me mither’s own crucifix.”

  “Annie! Please, get to the point!” Charlie prompted impatiently.

  “I be pokin’ at the bag to see if it be needin’ a change and I heard it.”

  Both sisters' immediate thought was that the spirit of Mr. Hensley had appeared and that would be the last they’d see of Annie, so they were relieved when she continued. “It was himself…your new man…footsteps in the attics, who else could it be? I crept up the stairs, quiet as a wee mouse, and opened the door a bit. The front room was empty, but I could hear rummagin’ about in the storerooms, so I came running as fast as me poor old legs could carry me. He be both a devil and a sneak thief!”

  Meg and Charlie looked at each other and then at Annie. “You stay here with Freddie and we’ll go see what he’s up to,” Charlie told her.

  “Shouldn’t you be takin’ somethin’ to bash him with?” Annie asked worriedly.

  “I think we’ll hold off on the ‘bashin’ part just yet. Ready, Meg?”

  At Meg’s nod, they headed down the hall and through the kitchen to the back stairs. Within moments they were standing in front of the narrow door that led to the attics. Charlie put her ear against it and listened. Shaking her head, she told Meg, “I can’t hear a thing. I’m going up there.”

  “We’re going up there!” Meg corrected her with a smile.

  The door opened with a minor squeak and they climbed the steep steps in single file. It was dark on this side of the house. Ahead, they could see a flashlight beam sweep the piled boxes in the second storage room. They crept stealthily forward, but the old flooring betrayed them with a loud creak. Immediately, the light went out. “He knows we’re here now,” Charlie muttered under her breath, as she crossed the room in three long strides. “You might as well come out of there,” she said with a deadly calm. The kind that had served her well in more than one situation.

  They heard a husky male laugh and he stepped from the shadows with a casual ease that Charlie couldn’t help but admire.

  “Well, it seems I’ve been caught in the act of doing what?”

  “Snooping,” Meg supplied.

  “What are you doing up here?” Charlie asked narrowing her eyes.

  “What am I doing up here?” he drawled, letting his eyes travel down her length and back to her mouth. “Simple curiosity!”

  “Which produces unfortunate consequences in felines,” Charlie found herself replying.

  “Fortunately for me, I am not of that species,” he returned with a sardonic smile.

  “I won’t fence with you, Zack Mallory. If that really is your name.”

  “I gave you my bona fides and you checked every one. I know you did because I checked on you.”

  Charlie found herself laughing, “Touché!”

  “My name is Zack Mallory and I write under a pseudonym which I won’t tell you for personal reasons. I write thrillers. Right now, I am writing a book about serial killers and this house, with it history, is the perfect place to stimulate me. For several reasons, actually, which I won’t elaborate on just yet,” he told them.

  Charlie couldn’t help but agree. This would be the perfect spot for him. And if he intended to include the mystery of Breanna’s disappearance and presumed death, as well as the murders of the other girls, how could it do anything other than further their own goal of setting things right in their home? “Okay, let’s strike a bargain. We are interested in anything you turn up for our own reasons, which we won’t elaborate on. You can poke around all you want, but you will share your findings with us.”

  “I see. You have an interest in finding out about Breanna Hensely and the other girls. And Devon. The so very mysterious Devon," he returned smoothly with a wry twist to his mouth that struck the wrong cord in Meg.

  Heatedly, she replied, “We don’t just rent a room. We live here and it’s only natural we would want to know those things. If you listened to the…”

  "Come on, Meg, before you say something we'll both regret, if you know what I mean?" Charlie told her, as she flung a steely glance in Zack's direction, and dragged her sister from the room. Meg jerked free and hurried down the stairs with Charlie close behind.

  When they reached the kitchen, Charlie grabbed Meg's arm and spun her around. "I'm sorry for dragging you out of there like that, but I don't want Zack Mallory to know any more than he has to. Okay?"

  Meg sniffed loudly. "You are forgiven this once. I'm not so sure about the next time. And there will be one. You can't help yourself."

  "What are you two quarreling about? Was he robbin' you blind?" Annie asked as she came in from outside, where she had taken Freddie "to relieve his wee self".

  “No, he’s writing a book on serial killers and is doing some ‘research’ up in the attics. Now, it's with our permission,” Charlie told her.

  “Humph!
” she replied with a snort. “He’ll be havin’ you two believin’ anything his handsome devil mouth be sayin'! Anyone who’d be writing such grisly stuff would have to be a real nutter!”

  Leaving Annie to mull things over, Charlie and Meg returned to the library with Freddie prancing between them. Settling into a pair of wingback chairs, they were both thoughtful for a long moment and then Meg said, “Maybe he is the devil! Maybe he is Devon! He's dark like Devon, though he looks a lot younger, but with botox and cosmetic surgery he could manage that easily enough.”

  “I checked his references and called the college to confirm his employment, but of course Devon would have had forty years to establish a new identity. He could be anyone by now!” Charlie said.

  “Devon was never arrested for the murders and they wouldn’t have fingerprinted him just because they were having a slow day,” Meg replied. "So there are no prints on file for comparison…even if the local police would check them for us…which they probably wouldn't."

  Charlie raised one brow, then said, “Well, looks like we’re stuck with whatever he tells us.”

  “But if we did get a set of prints, maybe we could get someone to run them for us, then we'd be able to find out if he's ever been arrested for anything under the name Zack Mallory, wouldn't we?" Meg asked, frowning in concentration.”

  “But Zack's prints wouldn't prove he's not Devon, if we don't have Devon's prints for comparison, and that's what we're really worried about,” Charlie added with a frown of her own.

  "But it wouldn't hurt to know if there's any skeletons rattling around in Zack Mallory's cupboards, though the college wouldn't have hired him if he had a felony on his record, would they," Meg asked.