The Cursed Hollow (Return to Sleepy Hollow Book 1)

by Candace Wondrak

  “Kat, I—”

  I heard no more, mostly because he’d stopped the moment I shoved him outside and slammed the door in his face. Holding the frying pan in one hand and his keys in the other, I leaned my back on the door and held in a groan.

  Ghosts? Spirits? What in the world was my dad up to? I hated calling him crazy, but he was totally off his rocker. So was his best friend-slash-coworker-slash-sugar-daddy.

  After a moment of silence, Crane knocked on the outside of the door, saying, “Uh, you took my car and house keys as well. You can keep the your father’s key, but can I at least have those back? I’d hate to have to walk home—”

  Letting out an annoyed sound, I stuck the frying pan between my side and my armpit, fumbling with the keys to take the house key off. I yanked open the door, threw the rest of the keys at his chest, and slammed it again. This time it would stay shut.

  No more talk of ghosts. Ghosts were not real.

  Or spirits, or whatever.

  I flipped the lock, peering out through the glass beside the door, watching as Crane walked away. He stepped off the porch, headed down the concrete path to the sidewalk, but he stopped halfway down, his shoulders tightening. Crane threw a look over his shoulder, as if getting one last look at the house before going. The bastard could look at it all he wanted; he just wasn’t allowed inside.

  I felt myself relax once he’d gotten into his car and drove away. “Ghosts,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head. “Fucking ghosts.” A loud noise came from upstairs, and I instantly turned my head towards the stairs. “What in the hell,” I whispered, heading up.

  The moment I reached the top of the stairs, my legs froze. A shiver swept over me as I stared at the old, yellowed globe laying in the center of the hallway, just outside the office’s door, which was now closed.

  I grabbed the globe, juggling both it and the frying pan in one hand while I opened the office door. Or tried to, at least. The door didn’t budge; I jiggled the knob, leaned my whole body against the door—nothing.

  Okay, I’d be the first to admit, this was a little creepy, but it definitely wasn’t ghosts. Ghosts, spirits, whatever you wanted to call them, weren’t real.

  “What the hell,” I muttered under my breath, releasing the knob, about ready to break down the door myself. I clenched my fingers into a fist before trying it one last time. This time, shocker, the door opened without a problem, but my relief was short-lived as my eyes scanned the room.

  The room I was just in, the room I’d followed Crane out of. We’d been alone in it, and I remembered it being much cleaner before.

  The office was a mess. Papers were scattered everywhere, all the drawers in the desk open, some of them on the floor. The books on the built-in bookcases were haphazardly tossed about. It was almost like a hurricane had whipped its way through here.

  I spotted something even stranger than the rest of the messy room: the window was wide open, the curtains fluttering about in the wind. The window, I knew for a fact, hadn’t been open before. I thought about going to close it, but it was clear someone had gotten in and out of the house quietly. I had to report this.

  I did what any sane person would do after discovering a tossed room and a possible break-in. I called the cops.

  Chapter Two

  I sat on the steps of the porch, my phone in one hand, frying pan in the other as I waited for the police to get here. For a small town, they sure were slow. My eyes studied the bits of burnt food lining the inside of the pan, and I wondered if it was the last meal my dad ate before he died.

  How disgusting was that?

  After a while, red and blue flashing lights appeared before the house, and I looked up, getting to my feet as I watched the officer park his car and slowly get out. Just one cop for a break-in, huh? Whatever. Maybe this place didn’t have cops to spare.

  I met the officer halfway, about to greet him when I realized whose blonde head was attached to the dark blue uniform. It was a blonde head I recognized, one I hadn’t seen in years. A blonde head I’d long forgotten about, mainly because I wanted to forget everything involving this place—until now, that was.

  “Well, well, well, look who it is,” the man spoke, an easy smile spreading on his face. Two deep dimples appeared on his cheeks, and I resisted my urge to touch them. I’d always been fascinated with his dimples, mostly because I didn’t have them myself.

  Oh, and also because I used to have the biggest crush on the man, although back then he was a boy. He was a boy, and I was a girl, and we spent most of our summertime together. At least until I turned eighteen and stopped coming because I was legally an adult and it became my choice.

  His teeth were white and flawless, just as I remembered. He’d gotten braces when we were twelve, and ever since he sprouted up and starting gaining muscles, I’d had the hots for him. He was even wider than he was when we were young; I’d bet any money that if I tore off his clothes I’d see a six-pack on his abdomen. His blonde hair was cut short, an inch, maybe, slightly longer on top and trimmed shorter on the sides.

  My lower stomach burned. Damn, I wanted to jump him, or climb him like a tree.

  Brom Brunt, though everyone always called him Bones. It had taken a few years for me to get used to calling him Bones, but none of that mattered now. My dad had enjoyed watching us together, I think because it made him picture us as our namesakes.

  Yes, just like that weirdo Crane, Bones was the other part of the love triangle of Sleepy Hollow.

  For those of you who don’t know the legend—here it is, short and quick: Ichabod Crane wanted to marry Katrina Van Tassel, mostly for her wealth since she was the last child of a wealthy farmer. A love triangle of sorts ensued between Ichabod and the local town hero, Abraham Van Brunt. In the end, Abraham married her, or so the story said. What really happened, how close to the truth it all was, was anyone’s guess.

  You might have noticed I kept out the most famous part of that whole story, and that’s because I did it on purpose. You see, I’m not a huge fan of the Headless Horseman, mostly because most people nowadays believed the guy in the headless suit was just Abraham Van Brunt playing tricks on Ichabod Crane.

  There was no Headless Horseman, just like there weren’t ghosts.

  “Kat Aleson, back in town,” Bones spoke, grinning. “Never thought I’d see you again. Figured you’d forgotten about us.”

  I managed to shrug. Doing anything while under the intense and handsome blue stare Bones had was beyond difficult. “I wanted to, but here I am.”

  The smile on his face faltered, a solemn expression taking its place. “Here you are, but not for good reasons. I heard what happened to your dad. I’m sorry.” His thumbs hooked on his belt, and his eyes lingered on me for a few minutes before turning to stare up at the house. “Now your call said there was a break-in?”

  Good. Right to business. No more small talk, no reminiscing. I didn’t want to talk about the old times either, as fun as spending time with Bones had been. We were both adults now, and I had no idea what kind of person he was today.

  Sexy, definitely, but was he a good guy? You never could tell with people, especially the attractive ones. Their pretty faces often held equally as pretty lies.

  “Yes,” I said, leading him to the house. We stepped inside. “I was in the room just before, then I heard a loud noise and I went upstairs to check. I found my dad’s globe on the floor and the door shut—which I didn’t close.”

  As we headed up the stairs, Bones asked, “And what were you doing before you heard the noise?”

  “I was downstairs, talking to…” I trailed off, picturing Crane’s somewhat awkward demeanor. Had I really freaked him out so badly with my attitude and my frying pan, or was he in on it—distracting me while someone else went through my dad’s office?

  We stopped just outside the office door, which I left open. Bones’s blue eyes studied me. “Talking to who?”

  “Irving Crane,” I said, noting the way Bones frowned
at the mention of his name.

  “What was he doing here, alone with you?” If a third-party outsider happened to hear his question, they might start to think he was jealous or something. That, or he really didn’t like Crane.

  My eyebrows furrowed. “He walked into the house like he owned the place, which maybe he does in a way, since apparently he was helping my dad pay the bills. He started going through the office, and then I caught him. We went downstairs, he made some tea, and he started talking about ghosts and shit, and then I kicked him out.”

  Bones started investigating the room, tossing a glance back at me. “And you didn’t hear anyone else enter the house?”

  “Nope. Just him, and it wasn’t even two seconds after he was gone that I heard the noise and came back upstairs.” I let out a loud breath, crossing my arms—kind of hard to do while holding the frying pan—as I leaned on the door frame. “I honestly don’t know how this happened.”

  “Did you plan on attacking someone with that frying pan?”

  “Joke all you want, but one whack with this on the back of your head, and you’re out.”

  His blue eyes danced with laughter. “Know that from personal experience?” Bones chuckled to himself, his wide shoulders rising and falling, catching his snug uniform over his muscles. Suddenly I could not get the thought of him naked from my mind.

  Hmm. Maybe it’d just been too long since I’d had sex.

  “Uh” was my brilliant reply. I left him to put the pan in the kitchen, cursing myself for looking so dumb. Why didn’t I set the pan down before he got here? Granted, I didn’t know it’d be him who’d show up, I didn’t even know Bones was a cop around here, but still. I felt stupid and silly.

  By the time I was ready to return to the scene of the crime, Bones was walking down the stairs, meeting me before the front door. “I closed the window for you. I would clean those papers up, if I were you.”

  I gave him a weird look. “What are you talking about? Aren’t you going to, I don’t know, investigate?”

  Bones sighed. Not once in my life had I ever heard a more manly, gruff sound. I liked it. “Kat, this is Sleepy Hollow. I’ll make a report for you, but…that’s about all I can do. Nothing was stolen that you know of, right?”

  What the hell did that have to do with anything? I shook my head. It wasn’t like I’d taken a log of my dad’s stuff the exact moment I got here.

  “We get calls like this all the time. Windows suddenly open, everything’s moved a bit, nothing taken,” Bones explained, holding his hands on his sides, puffing out his chest a bit. Or maybe that was just his chest, so big and wide and…ugh, so fucking strong. I bet his pectorals were as hard as rocks. “There’s little else I can do besides write up the report.”

  Despite his drop-dead gorgeous appearance, his words caused me to simmer a bit. “Don’t tell me you’re saying there are ghosts in this town who like to pop in and mess stuff up.” Please, really. Don’t tell me. You’re too cute to be crazy like the rest of this town.

  “We would never say that officially,” Bones said with a shrug. “But things around here aren’t like how they are in the big city. You should know that by now. The longer you’re here, the stronger you’ll feel it.”

  “I spent every summer here from when I was five years old until I was eighteen. If I haven’t felt it by now, I’m not going to. And I’m not staying. I’m doing what I have to, putting the house on the market, and then I’m out.”

  Bones took a step closer to me, and he was so close I could smell him. Some kind of body spray or hair gel or something—whatever it was, it smelled good. Made my insides all tingly and shit. Or maybe it was just his face; his jaw was a lot squarer than I remembered it being.

  “You should stick around for a while,” he said, his voice sweeping over me like a smooth wave caressing the shore. “It’s not a bad place to live. You might like it here.” A dimpled smile spread across his face, the blue in his gaze lighting up. “I could make it a habit to swing by, make sure all of your windows are shut.”

  Was he coming onto me? Was he flirting? We’d been friends before but this…this was new territory. I didn’t know how to handle a flirting Bones. A man like him had to have a girlfriend or a wife anyway, right?

  So, me being me, I decided to ask in the most ridiculous, roundabout way possible: “I don’t think your girlfriend would like the idea of you stopping by so often.” Ugh. Talk about being obvious.

  His smile widened, dimples deepening. Oh, those dimples… “It’s a good thing I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment then, isn’t it?”

  I felt my face heat up. “A very good thing.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was coming on to him—which I wasn’t because I wasn’t going to stick around. This was a one and done kind of thing.

  Another step towards me. The man stood less than a foot and a half away from me. If I stared straight ahead, I’d stare right at his chest. “I know you plan on leaving, but why don’t I give you my number? That way, in case anything like this happens again—or you want to grab a pizza like old times—you can let me know?” The way he offered, as if it was so easy, so simple.

  It kind of was, I realized as I handed him my phone, which was resting in my back pocket. I watched him enter his phone number into my phone, wondering why in the world, out of all the cops in Sleepy Hollow, Bones had to be the one to show up on my doorstep ready to investigate. Eh, not so much investigate as tell me this apparently happened all the time and no one ever freaked out about it.

  That was…that was weird, but this whole town was weird.

  As he handed my phone back to me, he said, “I might not live two streets over anymore, but I’m still close by. If you ever need anything, or if you need help with the planning for your dad, let me know.” Bones headed to the door, pulling it open. I tried not to stare at the way a vein bulged on the top of his hand.

  Hell, I couldn’t even say why, but I found it attractive. He was definitely not the boy I’d grown up with over the summers.

  “I’ll write up that report for you. If anything else strange happens around here, let me know.” Bones started to walk out, but stopped almost instantly. “Oh, and I’d stay away from Crane, if I were you.” He was going to leave again, just like that, with those ominous words lingering in the air between us.

  Crane didn’t seem like a bad guy, even if it was fishy that the office was torn apart just after he left. Could someone as thin as him scale the side of a house? I wasn’t sure. Plus, I didn’t get the whole bad guy vibe from him.

  I moved to the door, holding onto it as I watched Bones head down the porch steps. “Why?” I asked. “What’s so bad about Crane?” For a stupid moment there, I felt like I was tossed into the legend itself, caught between a Crane and a Brunt.

  “I don’t like to spread gossip, but he’s…” Bones stopped, his feet on the concrete pathway that led to the sidewalk. “He’s weird. He and your dad were up to some weird things, Kat. I would stay away from all of their research. I’d burn it all.” A dour seriousness took over his face, but in the blink of an eye, the seriousness was replaced by a smile and wave.

  I watched him go, an uneasy feeling rising in my gut. All this cryptic stuff was giving me a sick stomach. I hated how everyone was so superstitious around here. Honestly, besides all that, this town wouldn’t be half bad. Alas, everyone’s heads were so far stuck up the old legends and stories that they usually forgot this was the twenty-first century, and believing in ghost stories took a special kind of stupid.

  At least that’s what I thought, until I made the stupid mistake of crossing the bridge at midnight.

  Chapter Three

  It was late, and I was in the middle of going through all the stuff in the kitchen, choosing what was worth donating to a second-hand store and what was just trash when my stomach refused to be silenced any longer. There was nothing in the freezer that I would trust, and definitely nothi
ng in the fridge I’d want to touch with anything less than a ten-foot pole, which meant one thing: I had to go out and get food.

  I tore off the rubber gloves I’d put on—because my dad sure kept some nasty-ass shit, let me tell you—and got to my feet. Even though it’d been years since I’d been here, I knew the town couldn’t have changed that much. With my wallet and my phone in my back pockets, I left, swinging the key to the house around my finger after locking up the front door.

  The sky was an eerie pitch-black, and even though it was a cloudless night, I could see no stars when I glanced up. Nothing but the moon, which appeared to be full, or close to it, at the very least.

  A full moon. It was a wonder why these townsfolk didn’t go batshit crazy even more. Weren’t full moons supposed to bring out the crazy in people, or was that an old wives’ tale?

  I took the sidewalk, taking the long way through town to the small convenience store I knew was next to the town’s gas station. It was the only place open late, and if I remembered correctly, its prices were low, too. I was on a budget here. This wasn’t exactly an all-expenses paid vacation for me.

  The convenience store’s parking lot was empty, and I headed straight to the glass door, pushing inside. The clerk behind the counter didn’t even look up, his nose remaining down as he read whatever paper was before him. No hello, no asking if he could help me find something. Not even a glance.

  I went to the drinks in the back, pulling out a few chilled energy drinks. Next came food, and by food I meant snacks. Going through someone’s house, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of—it wasn’t a job you did while eating full, nutritious meals. It was something you did while you stuffed your face full of chips and other greasy things and hating yourself all the while.