by Grae Lily
Johanna contemplated for a few moments, the sound of all of those gathered outside reverberating through the walls of the manor.
"We have to do something." She said.
"What can we do? I don't know anything about that girl. Do you?" Sarah looked at Johanna.
"No, of course not, but we can't just let them do this and get away with it. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? I don't even understand what they think he's guilty of. His wife died. A lot of people die, but why do they think that he had something to do with that?" Johanna was growing more and more confused with each passing moment. She didn't believe for a second that the anger that spewed from the mouths of the citizens of River's Bend was solely due to this poor young woman's death. She believed there had to be more to the story than that.
Sarah stood up, brushing off her clothing. "We're going to wake him up. Let's go downstairs. There are some things you need to know."
Johanna banged her forehead up against the wall as Sarah walked down the stairs.
There are too many secrets in this house, she said to herself.
Behind her, the floor creaked. The master bedroom door slammed shut immediately after she heard the floorboards move.
"What was that?" Sarah called up the stairs.
"I don't know." Johanna peeked in the room at Milan to make sure he was still asleep. He hadn't moved. "I'll go check."
She went to the master bedroom door, putting her ear to the door to listen for the sound of any movement. A faint light shone through the window. Given the amount of camera crews outside the home, she could attribute the light to them.
Sarah stood on the landing, watching as Johanna put her hand on the knob to open it. Together, they took a deep breath. Johanna closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that what she suspected wouldn't be true and opened the door, slowly.
"Is someone in here?" She whispered.
There was no response, just the noise from those that were standing outside.
"Hello?" She asked as she took one step into the cold room.
Still nothing.
Sarah crept up to the threshold, peeking in, her eyes wide as saucers.
"See anything, Johanna?"
Johanna jumped, letting out a scream.
"You scared me. No. There's no one in here. I think it was just the wind." She informed Sarah.
Outside the chanting grew louder, "Murderer. Murderer." They repeated.
"Shut the windows." Sarah told Johanna.
Checking them, each of the windows was sealed tightly, dust and cobwebs lay on the window sills.
"They haven't been opened in a long time." Johanna was confused. There was no reason for the door to have slammed shut all of a sudden. No windows were open. The room was too cold for a hot, summer night. It didn't make any sense to her.
Sarah looked around the room, visibly shaken. She said, "We need to get out of here."
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Johanna looked up at the closed door and asked, "Is this house haunted?"
Sarah hesitated, taking in a quick breath of air.
Milan stood at the top of the stairs, listening to their exchange. He answered Johanna's question, "No, it's not haunted."
Johanna studied both Milan and Sarah's faces. Frown lines shone on both of their faces. There was something that they weren't telling her and she wasn't going to let another moment pass without knowing the truth behind the manor and the tunnel.
"Someone needs to tell me what's going on. I can't help you here, if I don't know the truth. Are you guilty of something?" Johanna hated to ask, but too many strange things had happened and, if her instincts were correct, something much worse was going to happen very soon.
Milan looked at Sarah. She confirmed that she was planning to fill Johanna in on some of what had happened.
"Get to it, then." Milan clapped his hands and retreated back to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
"You know," Sarah started, "every family has a history. I'm sure your family has a long standing history. What is it?"
Johanna was instantly annoyed. This wasn't supposed to be a conversation about her life and her family's history. She wanted answers and had grown tired of being given the run around when it came to the secrets about the Merced family.
"No. You're not going to beat around the bush with this. I need to know. My family and our history has nothing to do with whatever nonsense is going on here." Thinking for a moment, she turned around and moved to go back up the stairs. "I'm not going to do this. You people are up to something and I don't like it. I don't think I want to stay here. I'll find another job. This is too much for me. I don't need this."
Milan came out into the hallway, stopping at the landing. "Stop." He ordered her. "What are you doing?"
"Getting out of here." Fear took hold of Johanna. Having him stand there, ordering her to stop, reminded her of why she'd left Indianapolis. A flood of memories of her ex-boyfriend ordering her around and threatening to hurt her, rushed into her mind. Panic set in. She immediately went into defense mode and put her hands in front of her to shield her face from harm.
"What are you doing? I'm not going to hit you? What do you think I am?" Milan was defensive and hurt now.
"I'm leaving. I can't stay here if you two aren't going to be totally honest with me." Johanna rushed past him to get her things.
Milan looked at Sarah. She said, "She deserves to know."
Sighing, Milan raked his hand through his tousled hair and followed Johanna.
Knocking on her partially closed door, he asked, "Can I come in?"
"No." Her reply was short.
"Johanna, please?" He begged.
She opened the door, taking a step back to allow him into the room.
"It's your house. Do whatever you want, but just so you know, none of those people out there are going to leave you alone until you come clean or make them leave somehow." She warned him as she rushed around the room, picking up the few things she'd removed from her bags.
Milan sighed before he turned to speak to her. "Can we sit and talk?" He motioned for the twin bed in the center of the room.
Johanna nodded, sitting at the far end of the bed near the window.
"This house isn't haunted. Neither is that tunnel. This house was my home. I loved this place. My family loved this place. Some bad things happened and," he paused, rubbing his temple. "Things changed after my father died. My mother became very depressed and refused to leave the grounds. She stopped seeing people and socializing. It was too much for her. She felt like she was all alone in the world, but she still had me." Milan's voice broke as he recalled the events.
"Kind of like how you are now. You stopped seeing people and stopped living your life, didn't you?" Johanna challenged him to face what he'd become. “What about what that reporter said? What did she mean that every woman that comes here winds up dead?”
"That's not exactly true. Some things have happened, but not in the way that she made it sound. This was a long time ago. My father died about seven years ago. My mother remained here with me and Sarah and some of the other staff. She tried to function, but it didn't work. I don't know. I guess she couldn't figure out who she was without my father. She got worse. She lost weight. For a while, Sarah is the only one she'd allow anywhere near her. She didn't want anyone to know how bad things had become for her." Milan's eyes moistened with tears. “Then, I met my wife and things changed for a while. I thought she was better, but I guess she wasn't.”
"How did she do it?" Johanna asked.
Milan swallowed his emotions. Putting his head down, he whispered, "She swallowed a bunch of pills. I don't know. I guess, she walked outside and went to the tunnel. I don't know why. Maybe, she just wanted to be alone." He started to cry as he recounted the story. "I was at work and when I came home, she wasn't here. Sarah had been out shopping. My mother acted like she was okay. She pretended to be having a good day, but, I guess, that was to get rid of us while s
he did it."
"Did you find her? Where was your wife?" Johanna felt sorry for him.
He shook his head. "No, I called the police when I couldn't find her. The Sheriff came down and acted like things were fine. He assumed she was doing better. We all did. Then, a few more hours went by. It was getting dark. Sarah and I had gone looking for her and couldn't find her. I didn't know what to do. We checked everywhere we could think of. Next thing I know, Tuck Johnson goes into the tunnel and comes out screaming that he found her."
"I'm so sorry." Johanna didn't know what else to say. Milan's shoulders quaked as he sobbed. "I can't imagine how difficult that must be for you."
Rubbing the tears from his face, Milan stood up. "She was just gone and all I had was memories of her in this house. Nothing had been finalized. Technically, my mother didn't really own it. My grandparent's attorneys controlled everything. They held it in trust for me. My grandfather had left it to me, but with a caveat. I had to be married. After I got married, I couldn't just take the house away from my mother, so she stayed here with us. To answer your question, my wife had gone out of town for the day. She didn't come back until it was too late.”
"So, you stayed here, where she died and what? Did you plan on staying in the house? Did your wife want to stay here after that happened?" Johanna thought she was beginning to understand.
"I loved this house. I stayed because I didn't have anywhere else that I wanted to be, but at the same time, I didn't want to be here. Sarah stayed on with me and some of the other employees, but it wasn't the same. This was my mother's home. She held things together. The rest of us just benefited from it." He stood up and looked out the window, shaking his head at all the commotion.
Johanna's heart ached for him in that moment. He wore his pain for all the world to see and some to fear. Life had thrown so many rifts at him and he'd never had time to recover. As she watched him, seeing his shoulders slump and chest heave, she wished she could reach out to him and hold him, to tell him that everything would be okay, but she knew that it would have been inappropriate.
He moved her in so many different directions just by being who he was. She'd never felt so invested and so protective of anyone the way she did for him. He made her want to scream and pull her hair out at the same time because he frustrated and angered her so, but she also wanted to hold him and comfort him.
He glanced over at her. "You think I'm guilty too, don't you? That's why you're looking at me that way."
Surprised, Johanna gasped. "No. I don't think you're guilty of anything. I was just... Well, I was just thinking. You know, all of this is a lot to take in."
He nodded, knowing full well how insane his world must have looked to an outsider. He instantly regretted bringing her into his home and into his life at this time. She was too young and too innocent to have been thrown into a world of chaos and misguided loyalties.
It hadn't gone unnoticed that the other former employees and close friends he'd acquired over the years hadn't returned to offer support or encouragement or to inquire as to whether or not he needed their assistance. He was sure that they'd heard that he was back in town by now. He couldn't blame them for not wanting to be involved, considering the rather unusual circumstances he found himself in yet again, but their noticeable absence did sting nonetheless.
"I didn't hurt Paulina. The thought never even crossed my mind. I loved her very much. She was everything. She breathed air into me when I thought there was none left for me. I know that probably sounds silly or overly dramatic, but that's the truth. Losing my parents in such a short time frame, nearly broke me. They were everything up until I met her, then, she became a part of my everything, if that makes sense." Milan rubbed his eyes, still standing at the window, listening to the sounds of everyone down below.
Johanna cast her eyes down, taking in this new information, still not understanding how things could have gone as far as they had. She asked, "Why did the whole town, turn on you? That didn't just happen overnight."
He shrugged, "They were scared or angry or who knows. All it took was one person to have doubts and soon people started talking. Before I knew it, they were pointing fingers at me and there was nothing I could do or say to make it stop. When I was young, there were rumors of another death here. It was a long time ago. These stories about the tunnel aren't entirely new. They've been spun over and over again."
"Who blamed you initially?" Johanna stood up to look out the window at the crowd. "Was it Sheriff Acker?"
Milan nodded. "Yes. This may sound like I've lost my mind, but I don't really blame him either. Small town sheriffs don't usually deal with a whole lot of horrible incidences. I think a lot of it was that Paulina was young and so well liked and she did so much for and with everyone. It was like no one wanted to believe that she died. I know that I didn't, but it was true. The rumors about the house and that damn tunnel sparked a whole slew of new rumors and crazy stories. People wanted to believe that there was a connection and that three women couldn't possibly die at the same place by coincidence."
"Paulina died in the tunnel too?" Johanna was shocked by that information.
"I don't know. No one knows exactly where she died. What we know is that we found her body in the tunnel." Milan sighed.
"Wait. Wait. Wait. What you're saying is that both your mother and your wife were found dead in the tunnel on your property and the other one from a long time ago? Was that a woman too?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
Milan swallowed hard. "Yes, all three were relatives of some sort. I don't know why. I can't let myself make a connection between all three deaths because that would make me crazy."
Sitting on the bed, Johanna shook her head in surprise. "How could that happen? Did the other woman go missing too? How did she end up in the tunnel? How did she die?" Johanna was asking all of the same questions that all of the people standing outside the manor had asked hundreds of times over the years.
"I don't know much about my great aunt's death. That was before my time. She'd come here from Spain with my grandfather. My understanding is that it was a tragic accident, but I really don't know how or why. As for Paulina, I came home and she was gone. I assumed she was running an errand. I called the police after a couple of hours and we searched. The next morning, someone out walking their dog found her in the tunnel." Milan closed his eyes as he recalled the events.
"No one searched the tunnel before?" Johanna asked.
"Yes, we searched it. The Sheriff and his deputies checked it. She wasn't there the night before." Milan explained.
"Then, how did she get in there and when? Wasn't anybody watching the property?"
Milan shrugged. "She must have come back from wherever she was. Johanna, I really don't know. I've asked myself this over and over again and haven't found the right answer. She died. No one knows how or why and I don't have an explanation as to how she ended up there. This is a small town. We don't have the resources that other towns have. A deputy was patrolling the area, but he didn't notice anything."
Johanna looked up to the ceiling. "That's why they blame you."
"Yes, that's... " Milan started, before he was interrupted by loud screaming coming from outside.
"You killed her! How do you sleep at night, knowing you murdered your wife and child?" The shrill voice screamed, hushing the crowd with its chilling accusation.
Chapter Ten
“Johanna, Milan asked me to tell you to please take the boxes from the hallway to the cellar and the boxes from the master bedroom are to be dropped off at the second hand store on Main Street.” Sarah explained the orders just as Milan had requested.
"So, he's really going to do it, then?" Johanna looked around at all of the items Milan had gathered up and thrown into boxes overnight.
Sarah sighed, looking down at all of the family heirlooms and trinkets that were going to be discarded, answering, "Yes. It looks that way. Now, let's get these loaded into the car as quickly as possible. Those monst
ers outside don't need to see what's going on here."
Johanna peeked outside at the reporters who had set up camp on the street in front of the property. The crowd that had gathered dispersed in the wee hours of the night, allowing Milan and the women a few hours of quiet after a long day of accusations and questions being thrown at them.
"Do you think they'll come back today?" Johanna asked, meaning the local residents who had waited over five years to finally be able to say what they'd believed about Milan and his wife's mysterious death.
Sarah could barely keep her eyes open, the stress showing on her face. She shrugged, saying, "In this town, it's hard to know what people will or won't do. Let's just be prepared in case they do. Behave normally. We haven't done anything wrong and we can't let them think we are afraid of them."