by B. J Daniels
“I’m sorry, but the clothes are going to swallow you,” he said as she, still in the blanket, padded barefoot to the bathroom. “I apologize. That’s the smallest I could find.”
She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later and handed him his blanket, now neatly folded, along with his jeans and belt. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of her. She’d rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt but the hem dropped past her knees.
The knitted slippers were a little floppy but would work. He knew her bare feet had to be sore after running through the pasture the way she had. Just a bad dream? That was a hell of a long way to run in the middle of the night because of a bad dream.
“I couldn’t keep the jeans up,” she said. “But I will borrow your shirt and slippers. I’ll see that you get them back though.”
“No hurry,” he said, looking forward to seeing her again, even though he’d been around long enough to know that there was something going on with this woman, more than bad dreams.
Chapter Four
The house was quiet as Alexa let herself in. She’d feared that the front door might be locked. Or that someone in the house had heard Marshall’s truck as he dropped her off.
But as she stepped inside, she heard no sound of life. It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn that the occupants weren’t early risers. She hurriedly mounted the stairs and walked the long hallway to her room, making as little noise as possible.
Once inside her room, she finally let out the breath she’d been holding. The last thing she wanted was to have to explain where she’d been or why some neighboring cowboy had brought her home at daybreak with the smell of beer on her breath.
She smiled at the thought of how her brother would react—let alone Sierra—as she started to take off the shirt Marshall had lent her. She caught a whiff of his male scent and slowly lifted the sleeve to her face, breathing him in, her smile widening at the memory of the sweet, bashful cowboy.
Reminding herself of her first instincts about him, the wanton desire and the darkness, she quickly stripped off the shirt, her nightgown and his slippers and headed for the shower. She couldn’t explain either sensation she felt. But standing under the spray she let herself admit how much she’d enjoyed the handsome cowboy, his home and even his dog.
Later, after she’d dressed in a blouse and skirt and sandals, Alexa made her way downstairs to the empty kitchen. She’d barely gotten a pot of coffee going when Sierra walked in wearing a robe and slippers. She looked as if she’d just woken up and Alexa couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were red and puffy as if she’d been crying.
She was reminded of last night and the fight Jayden had had with one of the women from this house out near the pond.
“Good morning,” she said to her sister-in-law.
As Alexa handed her a cup of coffee, Sierra gave a small grunt and dropped into a kitchen chair. Alexa joined her at the table, cradling her cup in her hands and watching Sierra through the steam.
Was it possible her brother had gotten her here under the pretext that the house was haunted and trying to hurt him, but something else entirely was going on and he knew it? Or at least suspected it?
After a few sips of coffee, Sierra seemed to stir. She blinked as if only then aware of Alexa’s presence. “So how did you sleep?”
“Fine.” She could feel Sierra’s blue eyes boring into her. Did she know about her nightmare last night or her excursion to the neighbor’s?
“I put a down comforter on your bed. Was it warm enough?”
“It was perfect.”
Sierra nodded and took another drink of her coffee, seemingly content with the answers, but Alexa could tell that something was bothering her. What had made her eyes puffy and red this morning?
Alexa got up to refill their cups. When she came back to the table, Sierra was pulling a tissue from her robe pocket and blowing her nose. “Allergies,” she said when she saw Alexa looking at her.
Feeling relieved, she started to fill Sierra’s coffee cup, but her sister-in-law quickly put her hand over the top to stop her.
“Can you read coffee grounds?”
Alexa felt as if she’d been slapped. She’d suspected Landon had told his wife not only about their mother, but also his suspicions about her as well. Now there was no doubt, was there?
“No.”
Sierra looked disappointed. “What about tea leaves?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t read anything but printed words,” Alexa said as she refilled her own coffee cup, then motioned to Sierra’s, who reluctantly moved her hand to let her fill it. She was trembling with indignation as she took the pot back over to the counter. She knew she shouldn’t be so upset, but she couldn’t help it.
No one in Spokane knew about her mother or the world she’d come from, and Alexa liked it that way. She had made a point of putting that life behind her the moment she’d left home. Now she felt betrayed by her brother and hurt. She should have realized that he didn’t have the same kind of abhorrence about growing up with a fortune-teller for a mother that she did. His friends probably found it amusing, his background unique.
“Landon said you were touchy about your powers and didn’t like using them, but I thought since we were family…” Sierra said, pouting.
Powers? Sierra made it sound as if Alexa was a superhero. She started to tell her that there were no “powers” and that knowing too much was a curse. Just like knowing that Sierra was the wrong woman for her brother. But Carolina and Gigi came into the kitchen, followed close behind by Archer and Devlin. As Jayden came in and plopped down in a chair across from Sierra, Alexa watched the three women for a reaction.
Sierra didn’t even bother to look up. She was still pouting. Carolina began to pour all of the men coffee as Gigi made herself a piece of toast.
Whoever had been down by the pond last night with Jayden must have patched up things with him. But he’d been with one of them and Alexa had seen how intimate the argument—and the making up—had been.
One of these women was cheating on her husband.
But which one?
With Landon running scared, Alexa feared what she’d witnessed last night was at the heart of what her brother had to fear in this house.
EMMA CHISHOLM SAT ACROSS the table from the sheriff, telling herself she wasn’t all that surprised that Aggie Wells had managed to get away. Next to her, Hoyt was trying hard to contain his anger. He was scared. She was too.
“I just don’t understand how this could have happened,” he said to the sheriff.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Aggie managed to make the switch before the van reached the hospital. That means she had help.”
“Who?” Hoyt demanded.
“We don’t know yet,” the sheriff said.
“This homeless woman who Aggie substituted for herself, she’s admitted that she was paid to pretend to be Aggie?” Emma asked.
The sheriff nodded. “Aggie told her exactly what to say. The hospital had no reason to question that the woman wasn’t who she was supposed to be. As far as they knew, we sent them a homeless alcoholic named Aggie Wells. If she hadn’t gone through alcohol withdrawal and almost died, it is hard to say how long it would have been before we discovered she wasn’t Aggie Wells.”
Emma shook her head. “You’re afraid the real Aggie will come back here.”
In the heavy silence that followed, Hoyt said, “If she isn’t already here.”
The sheriff looked uncomfortable. “I can’t keep deputies watching the house.”
“Of course you can’t,” Emma said, cutting off whatever her husband was about to say. “Nor can we live with a deputy parked outside our door.”
“There’s the chance that Aggie will run as far away as possible,” the sheriff said. “I have been in touch with Aggie’s brother and niece. They swear they haven’t seen her, but I think the niece has. She’s just a high school student, so I’m sure she had nothing to do with the
switch with the homeless woman, but I think she gave her aunt money to get away. The brother definitely didn’t help her. He promised to call if he heard anything from Aggie. I believe him.”
“Someone helped her. I’ve worried all along that she has an accomplice,” Hoyt said.
“Aggie made a lot of…maybe not friends, but people she helped over the years. She could have gotten any one of them to help her,” the sheriff said. “Her brother said she used to brag about all the people who owed her and would do anything for her if she asked.”
Hoyt swore under his breath.
“I’m following up on a lead concerning the driver of the mental hospital van who picked Aggie up in Whitehorse,” the sheriff continued. “He was recently employed at the hospital. Apparently they go through a lot of staff. They had checked this driver’s references and they were fine. But when they tried the numbers again, they’d been disconnected.”
“Aggie really is incredible, isn’t she,” Emma said, awed by how Aggie had maneuvered her way out of this. She doubted there was anything the woman couldn’t do if she set her mind to it. Including killing her. But if her original intent had been to frame Hoyt for the murder, she was going to have a much harder time doing it herself, given the trouble she was in.
“I just don’t believe she wants to harm me,” Emma said.
Hoyt scoffed at that. “She’s crazy. Who knows what she’ll do.” He put a protective arm around his wife. “Find her,” he said to the sheriff. “Find her before she strikes again. In the meantime, I’m not letting Emma out of my sight.”
Emma groaned inwardly at the thought that she was now a prisoner in her own home.
AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE, Alexa studied her sister-in-law, torn between hoping it wasn’t Sierra whom she’d seen with Jayden last night by the pond—and almost wishing it was. The sooner Landon got out of this house—and this marriage—the better off he’d be.
She hated that she felt this way and reminded herself that Landon adored Sierra. It would break his heart if his wife was cheating on him. But she couldn’t help wondering if his “accidents” could have something to do with whatever Jayden was up to.
Alexa could feel even stronger undercurrents in this house this morning. Whatever had been at the edge of her consciousness gnawing to get in seemed even more determined as she excused herself and went to find her brother. She feared he needed more help than even he knew.
Sierra had said that she and Landon had taken a room on the north wing of the house, so she headed in that direction, hoping to talk to Landon alone. This house was such a maze of hallways that she quickly got turned around and wasn’t even sure she was still headed north. She stopped to get her bearings and froze as she heard crying.
The desolate cry sounded like a woman sobbing her heart out. Goose bumps rippled across her flesh as she moved down the hall, the mournful wail growing louder, until the hallway ended. Stopping at the dead end, she stood listening. The crying seemed to be coming from inside the wall.
In this part of the house, a variety of woods had been used as a wainscoting that rose three-quarters of the way up each wall, with a very ornate, flocked wallpaper pattern on the upper part above it. Alexa touched the wood. It felt like a block of ice. She quickly drew back her fingers, unable to suppress a shudder.
Suddenly the crying stopped as quickly as it had begun. She took a step back and let out a startled yelp as she bumped into someone. Panicked, she spun around, half expecting to see the woman she’d heard crying.
“You heard her, didn’t you?” Landon asked as he reached out to steady Alexa.
“Who?” Her heart was pounding. For twenty-three years she’d avoided seeing dead people. Alexa didn’t want that to change and yet, in this house, she feared that gnawing presence would win if she didn’t get out of here soon.
Her brother gave her an impatient look. “The Crying Woman.”
“The Crying Woman?” she repeated, trying to slow her racing pulse.
“That’s what we all call her. We’ve all heard her at one time or another.”
Her cynicism won out over her earlier fear. “But none of you have ever seen her, right?”
Landon swore. She could feel anger coming off him in waves and felt her own rise in her. His betrayal still stung. He’d gotten her here under false pretenses, and he’d told his wife and friends about her and their mother.
“How can you mock something you obviously heard as well?” he demanded furiously. “You do realize why you have to pretend it isn’t real, don’t you? It’s like whistling in the dark. Well, sis, there’s really something evil out there and you can whistle all you want, but that isn’t going to save you. Or me.”
She hated how much he sounded like their mother. “Could I have a word with you alone before you go down to breakfast?” She didn’t like standing out here in this hallway. Not because she believed there was some crying woman ghost, but because she didn’t want their conversation overheard. It was bad enough that the people in this house already knew their family secrets. She didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.
He nodded, still clearly angry, but opened a door behind them and led her into the room he shared with Sierra. Like her own room, this one had been decorated with some of the same touches. Only this one had a fireplace, one that had been used recently. She caught the faint hint of smoke and saw that some papers had been burned. The lower corners of several sheets that hadn’t fully burned could still be seen in the charred remains.
As she turned, she noticed her brother was limping. “What’s wrong with your leg?”
He gave her an impatient look. “Another accident.”
Her heart lodged in her throat and all her earlier resentment and anger toward him evaporated. “What happened?”
“I went down to get a glass of milk last night and I fell down the stairs.” His tone made it clear that there was more to the story.
“Are you telling me someone pushed you?” she demanded.
“More like something, but what would be the point in telling you? You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Landon—”
“Alexa,” he said, pleading suddenly in his voice, as well as fear. He stepped to her and took her shoulders in his hands. “You can exorcize whatever is wrong in this house. Mother used to—”
“It was a trick. Mother couldn’t—”
He pulled free of her again, his face twisted in anguish. “You have always lied about your talents. Don’t lie about Mother’s. I saw her do amazing things time after—”
“It was all just illusion, Landon.” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. But she wished it was. If her mother had no gift, then her daughter couldn’t have inherited it.
He stared at her in disbelief. “How can you discredit something that our mother believed in so strongly? It wasn’t just what she did for a living.” He moved to the window, turning his back to her as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. “She wanted you to have what she did. She really did see it as a gift. While you…” He turned to face her again, his face twisted in pain. “You mock something I would give anything to have.”
“Don’t say that.” She hurriedly crossed herself, the motion, like the words, coming before she could stop them.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re afraid of it. That’s why you block it. You think it’s something evil.”
“No, I told you—”
“Stop lying. You profess to be such a skeptic, a true cynic, but you just proved otherwise. What else are you lying about?”
“Landon—” Alexa reached for her brother, but he took a step back.
“I got you here because I desperately need your help. Don’t even bother to tell me that you don’t have the sight because I have never believed you. Maybe you fooled Mother—”
“Wouldn’t that prove that she couldn’t see as well as she pretended?”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I know you, Alexa. You are the only person who can help me. Are you
going to keep denying that you can’t until it’s too late?”
“Landon, I can see that something is wrong, but are you sure it isn’t something more personal going on in this house?”
“Personal?” His face twisted into a mask of pain. “You think this is about Sierra and me? You think she had something to do with my accidents?” He let out a choked laugh. “I know that you don’t like her. That’s it, isn’t it? But that you’d think she would try to hurt me…”
“Landon—” Alexa reached for him again but he quickly sidestepped pass her and stormed out of the room.
She started to go after him but Sierra suddenly appeared in the doorway, blocking her exit.
MARSHALL FELT A LITTLE guilty for what he was doing. But he couldn’t quit thinking about last night and Alexa Cross. She worried him a little. No, more than a little.
“Don’t be looking at me like that,” he said to his dog lying a few feet away. Angus sighed and closed his big, brown eyes as if to say, “Do whatever it is you have to do and leave me out of it.”
“Oh, come on, you were as taken with her last night as I was,” Marshall reminded the dog as he typed Alexa Cross into the computer and held his breath. Her name came up dozens of times. To his relief they were all pertaining to articles she’d written as a reporter for several newspapers during her career, including in Spokane, Washington, her latest job.
He felt relieved. She was a reporter, just as she’d said. Had he thought she’d lied about that? No. So what was bothering him?
Marshall laughed at the thought. A woman comes screaming across your pasture out of the darkness in the middle of the night dressed only in a thin—very thin—nightgown and faints in your arms. You have to wonder, right?
He moved the mouse down the list, taking note of the articles she’d written. Interesting, but nothing unusual or odd about any of them. In fact, the ones he called up and read were heartwarming stories about people. She had a nice writing style; he felt her compassion in the words she used.