She turned away from the public west wing and started up the stairs that led east. She wasn’t sure how Brandon would feel about her snooping in the house’s private wing. Especially after what he’d just confessed. But just in case he didn’t like the idea, she wasn’t going to wait to ask permission. Better to ask forgiveness, as the saying went. Better still to find some evidence of murder—either Charlotte’s or her father’s. Then she wouldn’t have to ask for anything.
Climbing the steps, Marie moved out of the light of the foyer and into the dark, enclosed portion of the staircase that led up to the rooms on the third floor. She groped along the wall. She had no idea where the light switches for the stairs and halls were located in this wing. She had only been in this area of the house a few times when she was young. The last time she’d ventured this way, she’d been exploring the house with Lexie. When her father had discovered them in the private wing unaccompanied and without permission, he’d grounded her for a week and called Lexie’s parents. After that, they’d confined their exploring to the ballroom, parlors and guest quarters of the public wing.
She gripped the banister, feeling jittery in the dark, as if her father were going to jump out at any moment and demand to know why she was there. She smiled at the thought. She wouldn’t mind being grounded for a week if she could see his face once more. She wouldn’t mind at all.
Reaching the third floor, she stopped and tried to get her bearings. The rain sounded as if it was coming down harder now, its patter a constant din on the roof a full floor above her head. Located on a jut of land, Drake House offered views of the water on three sides. She peered through an open door facing the forest side of the house. The nursery. Big enough to house half a dozen children, it stood empty now, the whimsical carving of animals along the ceiling molding merely a reminder of the next generation of Drake children who would never occupy this space. She passed several locked doors she remembered were the nanny’s quarters and various other rooms before reaching the back staircase that led to the third floor.
If she remembered correctly, Charlotte’s study overlooked the east garden, which would put it at the end of the wing. When her father was first working up plans with Lexie for redesigning the garden’s landscaping, he’d mentioned how enthusiastic Charlotte had been, since her rooms overlooked that part of the property.
Unfortunately, she’d died before work on the garden began.
Marie forced her feet to move down the dark hall. A door facing the water side of the house stood open. Despite a shimmer of unease at the back of her neck, she stopped in front of an open door and peered inside.
The wet glisten of rain and water shone through windows unencumbered by draperies. Heavy, masculine chairs clustered in the sitting area. The scent of leather hung rich in the air. She stepped farther into the room, to the next open door and the chamber beyond. A bed big enough for five people faced a window overlooking Chesapeake Bay.
The master bedroom suite.
Marie’s pulse pounded in her ears. It didn’t take much imagination to see Brandon in that bed, leaning back against the pillows, his bare chest gleaming in the first glow of the morning sun.
She shook her head. Blocking the image in her mind’s eye, she returned to the hall. She felt like that girl again, exploring places she shouldn’t, indulging in feelings she had no business feeling. She needed to forget what she and Brandon had together all those years ago. Forget the hurt. Forget it all.
Hearing Charlotte’s voice and smelling her scent in the psychomanteum might or might not qualify her as insane, but going through the same thing over and over with Brandon and expecting a different outcome was the definition of insanity. She needed to wipe Brandon from her mind…and her heart.
Swallowing into a dry throat, she walked farther down the hall. She passed the open entrance to Brandon’s study and skipped the door she knew led up to the widow’s walk on the roof. At the eastern-most end of the wing, she stopped at a locked door and pulled the ring of keys from her bag. Trying each, she finally found the one that fit. She let herself in and flicked on the light.
Lamps artfully positioned around the room gave off a soft glow. The room was as feminine as the master suite was masculine. Dainty antique chairs covered with silk damask gathered around a fireplace. Built-in bookshelves flanked an ornate antique desk. Pillows decorated a floral sofa. And the scent…jasmine.
She drew in a deep, slow breath. Sure enough. The same scent she’d noticed last night. The same one she’d smelled in the psychomanteum. This wasn’t her imagination. She wasn’t crazy. This was real.
Like last night, she let the scent lead her across the study, toward the windows and the desk positioned underneath.
If Charlotte’s spirit was responsible for the scent of jasmine and the voice she’d heard in the psychomanteum, maybe she was trying to tell Marie something now. “Charlotte? Are you here?”
There was no reply.
“Is there something to find here?”
Again, silence answered.
Great. Now she was talking to herself. At least there was no one home to hear. She could just imagine how Brandon would feel about her wandering through the house calling out his dead wife’s name. “Charlotte, if that’s you, did you commit suicide?”
A sharp thud came from somewhere in the house.
Marie jumped. Was that an answer? Or was the wind kicking up outside? “If that was you, Charlotte, it wasn’t clear enough. You talked to me in the psychomanteum. Why not talk to me now?”
No sound. Just the scent.
Marie eyed the antique desk under the window. “Is it the desk? Is there something inside?” She didn’t wait for a response this time. She pulled open the top drawer.
Empty. The second was empty as well, and the third. She moved to the closet, then on to the built-in wall units. There was nothing to be found. Brandon might have left the furniture in the room, but he’d cleaned out all Charlotte’s personal things. Marie wondered what he’d done with them.
A creak sounded from the hallway. The soft, slow beat of footsteps.
Brandon.
Marie turned away from the empty wall units and walked to the door, her skin prickling with nerves. She told herself she was being ridiculous. There was no reason to sneak around, no reason to hide what she’d been doing. If Brandon didn’t want her looking through the house, he wouldn’t have given her the full set of keys. Still, the thought of facing him again after what he’d revealed in the car left her a little shaky.
No matter. She wasn’t going to hide from him the rest of her time in Jenkins Cove. She needed answers, starting with what had happened to Charlotte’s personal papers and possessions. She was going to get to the bottom of Charlotte’s and her father’s deaths, and she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way. Especially not the past.
She crossed the room and opened the door. The hall was dark, and for a moment all she could see was a shadow.
A shadow without a cane. A shadow too short to be Brandon.
Suddenly the shadow rushed toward her and an arm clamped around her throat.
Chapter Nine
Rain spattered cold on Marie’s cheeks. She could feel hands gripping her under her arms, pulling her. Her feet dragged over something rough.
She must have passed out.
She remembered the shadow, remembered the arm across her throat, bearing down. Her head throbbed. Her stomach swirled. Her throat burned like fire.
But she could breathe.
She scooped in breath after breath of cold, moist air and tried to fight her way to consciousness. She tensed her muscles. She forced her eyes open.
Color exploded in her head. Her vision swirled, dark and light. The night closed in around her. She saw the water far below, and white lines stretching on either side of her. They were the rails encircling the widow’s walk.
She was on the roof.
She gritted her teeth and tried to clear her head, tried to think. Hell, she did
n’t have time to think. She had to move. She thrust her arms up, lashing out at the hands dragging her. She bared her fingernails like claws, trying to dig her stubby nails into flesh.
A blow rained down on her head, and rough hands pushed her into the railing. The top rail hit low on her thighs, but her upper body kept moving, flipping, carrying her over.
She hit the sloped roof. Air exploded from her lungs. She coughed, gasped, tried to breathe. Her body started to slide.
She scrambled to find a handhold, a foothold, but wet with rain, the shingles felt slick as ice. Her fingers slipped. Her feet thrashed.
And still she kept sliding. Closer to the edge. Closer to the three-story drop to the ground.
Her hand hit something. A roof vent. She grabbed on, the steel cutting into her fingers. Her legs jutted out over the roof’s edge.
She stopped.
She clung to the vent, afraid to move. Rain pattered on her back. Water sluiced around her, beneath her and emptied into the gutter that ran under her legs. Her heart pounded against the wet slate. She slowly, carefully scooped in a breath. Then another. Her lungs screamed for more.
She peered down, past her dangling legs. She could see the gentle lighting of the east garden through the misty rain below. The concrete bench glowed pale against dark leaves of holly. So far down…so far…
She grew dizzy and closed her eyes. The edge of metal cut into her fingers. Her muscles trembled and ached. Her fingers started slipping.
Oh God. She was going to fall.
Pressure closed around her wrist and held her fast. Not cold like the rain, like the slate and steel she clung to, but warm as a human hand.
She looked up into the night. Through the rain the widow’s walk railing gleamed white against a black sky. She was alone. Totally alone. And yet she could feel a hand on her wrist, a hand that kept her from falling, a hand that kept her safe.
“Marie?” a woman’s voice screamed. Not from the roof, but from below. “Oh God, Marie! Hold on! We’ll be right up.”
Marie didn’t know how long she clung there, the unseen hand binding her wrist, before she heard a clatter on the roof.
“Over here. This is where I saw her.” A thump came from above. “We’re here, Marie. We’re coming for you.”
The same woman’s voice. A voice Marie recognized. “Chelsea?” What was Sophie Caldwell’s niece doing here?
“Hold on, Marie.”
Something scraped against the slate shingles above her head. A large hand encircled her wrist, replacing the pressure that had stopped her fall. “I’ve got you.”
She looked up into a man’s eyes. Rain sparkled in his dark hair. He gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. You can let go now.”
She forced her fingers to obey.
He pulled her up, slowly, gently, until the two of them reached Chelsea on the widow’s walk.
“Thank God,” Chelsea said. “It’s a miracle you held on. It took a few minutes to rig a rope. We were afraid you’d fall before Michael could reach you.”
And she might have.
Marie looked out over the wet slate. Her whole body trembled. Her legs felt like loose sand. “Something held me. A hand. It kept me from going over the edge, but I couldn’t see anything there. It was like…” She searched for the word, but her mind balked. Even after the experiences she’d had lately, she didn’t want to say it out loud.
Michael gave a knowing nod. “A spirit?”
“Yes.”
Chelsea and Michael exchanged looks. “Let’s go inside,” Chelsea said. “We have a lot to talk about.”
WHEN BRANDON MOUNTED the steps to the kitchen entrance of Drake House he was surprised to see the lights still on in Edwin’s quarters. He’d sat in the boathouse for hours and listened to the rain patter on the roof, trying to process what had happened with Marie, trying to get his head straight. And even though he didn’t feel any better than he had when he’d left, he thought by now it would be safe to return to the house. He thought she would be asleep.
He unlocked the kitchen door and stepped inside. The door to the butler’s quarters stood open. “Let me check your eyes again, just to be sure.” A woman’s voice. Not Marie.
He crossed the kitchen and peered through the open door.
A blond woman leaned over Marie’s chair. She directed a flashlight to the side of Marie’s cheek and peered into Marie’s eyes, one after another. “Looks good. I think you’re going to survive.”
Alarm prickled along Brandon’s nerves. He stepped forward into Edwin’s sitting room. “Survive? Survive what?”
“You must be Brandon.” A man nearly as tall as Brandon with the build of an athlete pushed himself up from a chair. He stepped across the room and offered his hand. “Michael Bryant. This is Chelsea Caldwell.”
Brandon made the connections in his mind while shaking the man’s hand. He nodded to the blonde. “You’re related to Sophie Caldwell?”
“My aunt.”
So they’d made their introductions, but no one had answered his initial question. He focused on Marie. “What happened, Marie? Are you hurt?”
Marie wrapped her arms around herself as if she was cold. She looked so small sitting on the love seat. Small and fragile.
“Marie had an accident,” the blonde supplied.
Something inside him seized. He struggled to keep himself steady, to stay calm and wait for the details instead of racing to Marie and gathering her into his arms. “What kind of accident?”
Marie glanced from Chelsea to Michael. “Thanks so much for everything you’ve done. And everything you told me. I think it’s better if I talk to Brandon alone, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea.” Chelsea exchanged looks with Michael. Brandon led them to the front entrance of Drake House. “Thank you,” he said as they plunged out into the rain and ran to their vehicle. Brandon locked the door and set the alarm behind them.
When he walked back into Edwin’s sitting room, Marie was still huddled on the love seat. She looked as if she hadn’t moved a muscle. A welt rose on her scalp, just above her right ear.
“You’re hurt.”
“Just a bump and a headache. I don’t have a concussion. Believe me, Chelsea has been checking me every hour. I guess I just have a hard head.”
His gaze moved down to her neck. Although she had a throw blanket wrapped around her shoulders, he could see a bruise starting to purple on the pale skin of her throat. He swayed a little on his feet. “And that?”
“I’ll tell you about all of it. But first, you’d better sit down.”
Brandon didn’t move. “Who did this? Have you called the police?”
“They were already here.”
“And a doctor? You need to see a doctor. We need to get you to a hospital. I’ll call Josef.”
“A paramedic was here, too. I’m just bruised. I’m going to be fine. Now sit down.”
He couldn’t. He needed to do something. Sitting felt too passive. Besides, the only place he wanted to sit was in the love seat beside her. More than anything he wanted to take her in his arms and keep her safe. “I’ll stand.”
“Fine.” She explained how she’d been looking through Charlotte’s study, how she’d thought she’d heard him return from the boathouse, how she’d been attacked. When she got to the part about being thrown off the roof, he started pacing, a habit he’d broken since he’d injured his leg. A habit that saved him now. “Why didn’t I hear any of this? I should have heard something. I should have known. You could have died.” Damn him. Marie had already been attacked once since she came to Drake House. Why in the hell had he left her alone? What had he been thinking?
“Chelsea found me. She and Michael saved me.”
He managed a nod. What he wanted to do was smack himself in the head…or worse.
He ran a hand through his hair before walking back the length of the room. He hadn’t been thinking. Not about anyone but himself, anyway. He’d simply wante
d to get away. Far away. Where he didn’t have to see the pain and disappointment in Marie’s eyes. Where he wouldn’t be tempted to take her in his arms and make promises he feared he could never keep.
At least Chelsea Caldwell and this Michael had been here. Brandon eyed Marie. “Why were Chelsea and Michael here? And how did they find you on the roof?”
“Chelsea sensed I was in trouble.”
“She sensed it?”
“She sees things other people don’t see.”
“Like what? The future?”
Marie watched him. A little too closely for his comfort. “She sees ghosts. They communicate with her.”
His stomach felt as if he were cresting in a roller coaster and hanging in midair. “You’re joking.”
“You know the mass grave we’ve been hearing so much about? Do you know how the police discovered it?”
She’d lost him. “What does the mass grave have to do with what happened tonight?”
“A spirit named Lavinia appeared to Chelsea. Michael saw her, too. The spirit led them to the graves. She helped them figure out the truth.”
“Let me guess, Lavinia was one of the people buried in the mass grave.”
“Yes.”
He massaged his forehead with his fingertips. What kinds of stories had Chelsea and Michael been telling? “You don’t believe all this stuff, do you?”
Marie watched him a long time. Rain and wind beat against the windows and whistled over the chimneys of the old house. He was about to ask again when Marie finally spoke. “Yes. I do.”
“You’re kidding.”
She narrowed her eyes to caramel-colored slits. “You don’t believe there are things in this world that we don’t understand?”
“Things like ghosts?” He couldn’t even believe they were having this conversation, and he still had no clue where it was leading. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Would you believe if you saw one? Or heard one?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I might.”
“Would you believe if I told you that a ghost has contacted me?”
Christmas Awakening Page 8