The Haunting of Brynn Wilder: A Novel

by Wendy Webb

  It all seemed to circle back, to overlap, as though everything that had happened to me recently was connected somehow. My mother’s death, me coming to Wharton and specifically to LuAnn’s, meeting Dominic, the house in Cornwall, the mysterious woman in number five, Alice, even the odd death of the woman at Harrison’s House. A thread was running through it all, I just knew it, but I couldn’t see it clearly enough to pull it.

  I found myself passing by the police station, and before I had a chance to even think about it, I pulled open the door and went inside. Three desks sat empty as a coffee maker made percolating sounds on a table next to the wall. A middle-aged woman behind a fourth desk by an office door—Nick’s?—was talking on the phone and tapping away at her computer. She looked up when I walked in, and gave me a smile and a nod, holding up one finger to let me know she wouldn’t be a minute.

  “I’ll send a squad over, Darlene,” she said. And then, to me, “I’ll be right with you.”

  She picked up a microphone. “Harry,” she said into it. “Darlene thinks some kids got into her shed and made off with her ladder. Will you go check it out?”

  Harry responded with a quick, “Sure, Sandy,” and she set down the mic. I couldn’t help smiling. Small-town police.

  “What can I do for you?” Sandy said to me.

  “I’m wondering if Nick Stone is available,” I said.

  She cocked her head toward the door to her left. “He’s not usually here on Saturdays, but he happens to be in his office today.” She picked up the phone. “There’s a woman here to see you.” She looked at me. “What’s your name?”

  “Brynn Wilder,” I said.

  Nick’s door opened before Sandy put down the phone.

  “Hi!” he said, smiling at me. “Come on in.”

  I walked around Sandy’s desk and into Nick’s office, a warm wood-paneled room with a bookshelf on one wall and a window overlooking the street on the other. A corgi was curled up on a dog bed in the corner, eyeing me.

  “That’s Queenie,” he said, closing the door and hopping up onto his desk as I sank into the leather chair opposite. “She’s the closest we get to a K-9 unit here.”

  I smiled, not completely sure why I was there. Now that I was in front of the man, I didn’t quite know how to ask the question that was rumbling through my mind.

  “What can I do for you?” Nick said. “There’s not any trouble up at LuAnn’s . . .”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” I said. I looked at him and winced. “I’m afraid this is going to sound rather odd.”

  Nick chuckled. “After what I went through with Kate a couple of years back, there is literally nothing that’s going to sound odd to me. So, fire away.”

  “I’m wondering if you’ve identified the woman who passed away at LuAnn’s over the winter,” I said.

  Nick looked at me for a long moment. “That’s not odd.”

  I gave him a small smile. “You haven’t heard the rest of it.”

  Nick chuckled at this. “All downhill from here, is that it?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “I thought I’d ask the sane question first.”

  “To answer that sane question, we have not identified her, unfortunately,” he said. “Why do you ask? Do you think you might know who she was?”

  “No, I just . . .” My words trailed off into a sigh. “I think she might be haunting LuAnn’s. Or me, specifically.”

  “Well, that’s not good,” he said, frowning.

  “You believe me?”

  “Yes,” he said, simply. “I believe you.”

  “Is her body still here?” I asked.

  “County coroner’s office,” he said. “I’ve got a guy searching missing-persons reports, but if nobody identifies her within three months, which it’s nearly been now, she’ll be cremated.”

  A shudder passed through me, and my stomach did a quick flip.

  “That’s standard,” he said. “Her ashes will remain with the coroner for three years after that, along with all of the information we have from her. Autopsy results, photographs, just in case someone comes forward within that time.”

  “What did she die of? Can I ask that?”

  “Natural causes,” he said. “There was no foul play, nothing like that. The coroner put her at about ninety years old.”

  “Ninety. Wow.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said. “Whoever she was, the lady had a good run.”

  “Do you still have a photo of her on file?” I asked.

  He slid off the desk and turned to his laptop. After a few clicks, he turned the screen my way. I didn’t even need to see it to know it was her, but the sight of her, lying there, lifeless, jarred me in a way I couldn’t quite explain. It tugged at the depths of my soul. She seemed familiar somehow. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  I nodded. “That’s who I saw. The poor lady.”

  “If you see her again, ask her who she is,” Nick said, a smile on his face.

  I thanked him and walked out of the office and into the sunshine.

  I wondered what had drawn that woman to LuAnn’s. How she happened to be there during the last days of her life. Why she was sitting in front of the fire, in her nightgown and sweater, writing in a journal in a completely empty, dark hotel. Dying alone in that place, with nobody around her. Or even missing her. A profound sadness descended on me. I made my way down to the lakeshore.

  I perched on a large flat rock and listened to the waves rolling into the beach. The sound of it was so rhythmic, so hypnotic—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—it was like a meditation. My breathing slowed; my heartbeat slowed. The sadness receded, caressed away by the waves. It’s okay, Brynn, the lake seemed to be saying to me. It’s okay. She’s at peace now. She’s where she wanted to be.

  There, with the lake whispering my name as it lapped at the shore, I began to feel that maybe we’d never know who she was and why she was there. And I would have to be content with the mystery remaining. Sometimes, I thought, there aren’t any answers. Only questions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  On the spur of the moment, I bought a ticket and hopped onto the ferry. I climbed the narrow metal stairway to the top deck and stood at the railing as the ferry chugged away from the dock and into the lake. The cool breeze on my face and the sight of the tree-lined, rocky islands in the distance were restoring. It was true what people said about this lake. It was magical and comforting and healing, as though the big water embodied God Himself. Maybe it did. All I knew was a sense of peace wrapped itself around me when I was near this water. It was like nothing else I had ever felt in my life.

  It was right to come here to Wharton. This place was healing my broken spirit. Since the day of my mom’s diagnosis, through her treatment, and ultimately to her death, my world, my life and everything in it, had been thrown into chaos. My relationship I thought was going to last a lifetime? Gone. My mother, gone. My good, sweet dog who was by my side through it all, gone. My passion for my career, gone. I was in a state of mourning for all of it, stumbling through the days like an avatar of myself, a person encased in a shell of ice.

  Only now, in these first days in Wharton, I was beginning to thaw.

  Curious, I thought, the juxtaposition between the peace the lake exuded and the strangeness, even fear, that came from staying in LuAnn’s haunted inn. But then it occurred to me: Maybe it wasn’t only the lake that was healing me. Maybe it was LuAnn’s, too.

  A shiver ran through me.

  I had never been a particularly religious person. I felt more at one with . . . something . . . when I was out in nature than when I was in a church. I certainly didn’t have any answers about life after death, either. When my mom got sick, I read book after book about people who had near-death experiences, who had indeed been dead for a time and came back to tell about it. I wanted to know for certain, was almost desperate to know that, somehow, she would live on. That her life force wouldn’t simply extinguish. But, not being a person of strong faith who believe
d unequivocally that our spirits went to heaven when we died, I had my doubts about those near-death survival stories.

  When my mother died, I was not only washed away in the tsunami of grief, but I was also consumed with the utter blackness and fear that descended when I thought about her simply not being there, or anywhere, any longer. That the powerful spirit that was my mother was just . . . gone. And, when my time came, would I be gone, too? Would I be nowhere?

  Before my mom got sick, I had never much thought about death and had never quite understood people who had an intense fear of it. But when my mom was dying, the notion of life after death suddenly became a vital part of my psyche. The idea of being extinguished haunted my darkest thoughts.

  Those were the thoughts going through my mind as the ferry pulled into the dock at Ile de Colette. Now that I was there, I didn’t quite know what I was going to do with myself. It was around lunchtime, but after that massive breakfast at LuAnn’s, I was still stuffed. I didn’t have my car, so taking a drive was out. Maybe I’d just walk to Jimmy’s for a quick glass of wine before catching the ferry back to the mainland.

  When I got there, I was surprised to find Dominic and Alice sitting at a table playing checkers. Jason and Gil were nowhere in sight. Dominic’s face lit up when he saw me as I walked in. He raised his hand in greeting, waving me over.

  “Great minds,” he said as I sank into the chair next to him. “I thought an island getaway would be just the thing after this morning. When I didn’t find you, I asked Lady Alice to be my date.”

  “You’re terrible! It’s not a date,” Alice said, giggling. “Jason would be upset to hear you say that.”

  Dominic laughed. “You’re way out of my league anyway.”

  I beamed at him. What a nice thing to do, taking her for a day out. For her, and for Jason and Gil. The bartender came around and took our drink orders, chardonnay for Alice and me and a gimlet for Dominic.

  “I like it here on the island,” I said to Alice. “It has such a laid-back vibe.”

  “Laid-back vibe,” she said. “Yes, it does.” Alice looked from Dominic to me and back again. “I like your vibe, too,” she said. “Your vibe together.”

  I felt the heat rising to my face.

  “I do, too,” Dominic said.

  Our drinks came, and I took a sip of my chardonnay, grateful for the distraction.

  “Oh!” Dominic said to me, after taking a sip of his gimlet. “You didn’t hear. You left before Simon called. They got word from the coroner about the cause of death of the woman at Harrison’s House. He called to let LuAnn know, and of course she told everyone.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about another elderly lady dying a mysterious death in Wharton. It seemed rather like an epidemic. But I asked him to go on, anyway.

  “Natural causes,” he said. “Heart attack.”

  I furrowed my brow. “But what about the posing? The way she had her hands crossed over her chest?”

  Dominic shrugged. “Only Jonathan saw that. Well, him and the EMTs. And they’re not saying anything, according to Simon. He is officially going with, ‘It’s a sad and unfortunate event, condolences to the family, thoughts and prayers from Harrison’s House,’ that sort of thing. He’s hoping any whispers of strange circumstances will be put to rest.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. “But it doesn’t change what Jonathan saw.”

  “I guess we’ll never know,” Dominic said.

  Alice pushed back her chair and stood. “I have to go now,” she said. “I need to be home before my kids get off the bus. I like to meet the bus. I don’t know why every mother in the neighborhood doesn’t do it. But anyway, I’m taking the girls shopping for dresses. I told them this morning before they left for school that we’d all get new dresses today.”

  Dominic motioned for the check and handed the server some cash. “Keep the change,” he said.

  “What’s the occasion for the new dresses?” he asked, offering Alice his enormous biceps. She slid her thin arm around it, and he put his other hand on top of hers. “Is there something special happening?”

  “We’re having a party for Jason’s work buddies,” Alice went on. “Oh, the girls won’t be there for most of it. They’ll be put to bed. I know they’ll stay up, though, those little devils.” She laughed then, so sweetly. “But I wanted them to have some festive new dresses to mark the occasion.”

  “And for you, too,” Dominic said. “But you don’t need a new dress to show off your beauty. You could go to the party in rags and still be the most beautiful lady there.”

  Alice beamed. “I know you’re just flattering me,” she said, patting his hand. “It’s nice to hear, but don’t you get any funny ideas, mister. I’m a one-man woman.”

  “And that man is Jason,” Dominic said. “Lucky bastard.”

  “Jason,” Alice said, turning her head this way and that. “Where is he?”

  “At work,” Dominic said. “But he’ll be home soon. Don’t worry.”

  Alice stopped. “Will I have time to take the girls shopping before he gets home? I don’t want him to come home to an empty house.”

  “You’ll have time,” he said.

  He led her out of the bar so gently and lovingly I wanted to burst out crying.

  His car was parked in back, and the three of us got into it. We drove to the ferry in silence, but I could feel Alice’s agitation as though it were a tangible thing, hanging in the air.

  “Will we get home in time?” she said finally. “I don’t know where Jason is. Do you? Is he okay? Can I get out of the car?”

  “No,” Dominic said, his voice stern. “You know it’s not safe to get out of a moving car. You’ve told your children that.” He reached out his hand and took hers.

  “Yes, you’re right,” she said. “Not safe. I’ll stay where I am.”

  We all stayed in the car during the ferry ride. Dominic whispered to me that he didn’t think it was safe to go onto the deck, what with Alice’s apprehensiveness. I agreed. I was content to feel the swaying of the boat as it chugged along toward the mainland, and I noticed Dominic was texting. He caught my eye and nodded, and somehow I knew he had been texting Jason.

  When the boat docked, we waited our turn and then pulled off. We were back at LuAnn’s in no time, and the three of us climbed out of the car.

  “Is Jason here?” Alice said, and just then, the man appeared, walking out the door with arms outstretched.

  “There’s my girl!” he said, enveloping her in a hug. “Did you have a good time?”

  “The best,” Alice said, smiling at Dominic and me. “I like them. They’re good people.”

  “Yes, honey, they are,” Jason said, leading her away. “Gil’s waiting for us upstairs.”

  And just like that, all thoughts of taking the girls shopping vanished. Alice’s nervousness ceased. She took Jason’s arm, and at that moment, she was where her heart lived. Next to him.

  Dominic and I stood in the parking lot, watching them go. All at once, I felt exhausted from the day’s events.

  “Up for a movie?” Dominic asked. “Really watch one all the way through this time.” He smirked. “I think you’re beat, and I am, too.”

  “That sounds great,” I said.

  There was no happy hour on weekends, thankfully, but we took the back stairs anyway to avoid any people who might happen to be in the restaurant. A few minutes later, I was changing into my jammies. Sure, it was still daytime, but movie watching required movie-watching attire. Dominic had agreed.

  Two nights in a row with this man. That’s what it was shaping up to be. I started to wonder where this was heading, but I intentionally stopped that train of thought. It didn’t have to be heading anywhere. And if it was, I didn’t have to monitor it. Let it happen, girl; just let it happen. I was done micromanaging my life. It hadn’t got me too far, up to now.

  I rapped softly on his door. Thankfully Jason wasn’t crouching in the hallway to catch me in the act. Dominic ush
ered me in, and I saw he had lit a fire in his fireplace, bathing the room in a cozy glow. All at once, I felt my exhaustion and wanted nothing more than to curl into his bed. But I just stood there, hesitant.

  “You’ve had quite the day,” he said, motioning toward the bed. “Let’s just relax.”

  He didn’t have to ask me twice. I slid into the bed and rested my head on his nest of pillows.

  “What would you like to watch?” he asked, curling in beside me and grabbing the remote. “It looks like we’ve got new-ish releases on demand on cable here.”

  “Anything you want,” I said. And then I eyed him. “No horror.”

  He chuckled at this with such a look of devilish joy on his face that it brought a tear to my eye. He noticed and gently wiped it away.

  “What’s this?” he said.

  “Tears are really close to the surface these days,” I admitted to him. “You looked so joyful just then, that it reminded me of . . . joy, I’d guess you’d say. I haven’t had much of it in my life lately, and just today I was thinking that I was close to rediscovering it.”

  He smiled at me and ran a hand through my hair, pushing it out of my eyes.

  “That’s what you got from today,” he said to me, his voice silky. “A day in which you threw up, fainted, and for all intents and purposes saw a ghost. Yet somehow, you found the joy.”

  I smiled up at him. “It sounds sort of weird when you say it like that.”

  “No,” he said. “It sounds sort of magnificent. Many people gravitate toward the negative, wrap themselves around it and define themselves by it, even when circumstances don’t warrant it. They’ve always got something to complain about, even when the sun is shining. But you mined the positive out of a day that contained a whole lot of strangeness. That’s difficult to do, and it shows what kind of person you are. It shows what your spirit is.”