"And why would I do that?"
"What you're doing is wrong. They're innocent, aren't they? They don't deserve this."
He stood slowly, towering over her. And he closed the scant distance between them. When he grabbed her face, she tried to shrink back, but his grip was too strong.
"Go home, Jaden. You don't belong here."
"I would love to wake up. Right now."
"Leave St. Sebastians. Or you'll end up like them."
He looked down into the abyss, at the river of fire. And then he pushed her over the cliff.
She was in free fall.
She screamed as she fell. She could feel the heat of the fire enveloping her, growing hotter the closer she came to the bottom.
She jerked upright in bed, still screaming.
She looked around the bedroom, blinking, expecting to see him. But he wasn't there. And she was awake.
She touched her jaw where he'd grabbed her and was surprised at the raw pain she felt. In a moment she was in the bathroom, looking at her reflection.
"What the hell?"
She stared at the bruises on her face, the circles of flesh where his fingertips had dug into her skin.
This had never happened before. She'd never carried an injury with her from a dream. Never. Did that mean he could touch her in the waking world, now? He'd never been able to before.
She looked at the clock and saw that it wasn't quite eight, yet. Still, she went to the kitchen. She opened cabinets, her hands shaking because she hadn't been able to shake off the feeling of falling and falling and falling. And the heat. Her skin had been melting. She'd felt her skin melting.
"Damn it!" she said, slamming a cabinet door shut.
She went to the great room, almost running. And that's where she found it. A bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey. She didn't bother going for a glass. She opened and drank. She drank until her hands stopped shaking, then she drank a little more. When she stopped, she settled on the floor cross legged, breathing heavy.
None of the dreams had been like that. She'd felt her skin melting. And now her face was bruised.
What the hell was going on?
He wanted her to leave St. Sebastians. That much was clear. But why? What was it about this place that would cause him to attack her? Well, he'd always attacked her in dreams. She'd just never felt it before. He'd never actually touched her before.
"He's stronger here," she said, then capped the bottle and returned to her aunt's bedroom. She had to get dressed and find out what about St. Sebastians unnerved the entity so much.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kenda sat in his office, a large coffee mug on his desk sat forgotten. He'd stopped at Aunt Edna's Bakery as he would any morning, but today he was hoping to run into Jaden. But she hadn't been there.
He'd had a bout of temporary insanity when he was leaving his house. He'd actually thought about showing up on Jaden's doorstep and... he wasn't sure what he'd do once she answered. Leave her the signed copy of The Stand. Ask her to lunch later in the day. What?
He'd never been this drawn to a woman before, and he wasn't quite sure what to do with all the emotions jumbling around in his brain. He didn't even know her. She could be a certified lunatic for all he knew.
"Don't do anything until tonight," he told himself.
"Talking to yourself now?"
Kenda hadn't seen Chris enter the office. He was dressed in blue jeans, a sky blue button up shirt, and had his hair pulled back and away from his face. Chris was the only man Kenda knew who could pull off colorful clothing and still look masculine. Pink, sky blue, he'd even worn a pale green suit once. Kenda had tried that same suit on and had looked ridiculous.
He looked down at his own clothes. Standard navy suit with the standard red tie. Boring. Jaden would probably take one look at him tonight, when he was standing with his brothers and Nico, and forget he existed. He was like plain, yellow wallpaper when his brothers were around.
"Hey!" Chris snapped his fingers in front of Kenda's face. "Snap out of it. We need to leave now if we're gonna make it to the old Lancaster Mansion on time."
Kenda got to his feet. "What time is it now?"
"Nine-thirty."
"We're supposed to be there at ten, right?"
"Yep."
"So we have what, five minutes to catch the ferry to the island?"
"You know it never leaves on time."
His mind was snapping back into place, returning to where it should be. Work. "This would be a huge deal, Chris. Can you imagine how incredible it would be to remodel that place? To see all the nooks and crannies. I hear the maze hasn't been touched since the last Lancaster left the island."
"Sounds like a lot of work to me, since it would be me and my team doing all the actual labor. You get to do the prissy part."
"Design isn't easy. Especially when we're looking at a place like the Lancaster Mansion. We have to update it, but not so much that it doesn't retain its old world charm."
The Lancaster Mansion had sat vacant for well over a decade, on the cliffs that overlook the town. The location was prime. It had panoramic views of the ocean, and it was surrounded by forest, on a small island about a mile out. Getting to the old mansion proved difficult at times. Once you got to the island, there was the matter of driving up the mountain to get to the house. The road flooded whenever it rained, and bad thunderstorms always knocked down trees. Legend had it that old Mrs. Lancaster didn't want anyone in her home, so she warded people off with the flooding and downed trees. But the old mansion was truly a beauty. Kenda couldn't imagine anyone who could afford the house wouldn't buy it just because some occasional flooding. He was of the opinion that the thing really keeping people away was the legend that went with the house. The most recent had to do with the last residents, the Lancaster family. The Lancaster's oldest son, Jimmy, had gone crazy one night and killed his entire family with a baseball bat, before throwing himself off the cliff to the beach below. He'd died on impact. Before Jimmy, a child had gone missing on the estate. He had belonged to a workman who was their redesigning the garden. The boy's body was recovered nearly a year later, in the maze. The Stevenson family had lived there in the early 1900's. Father, mom, three sons and four daughters. All found dead the morning after Thanksgiving. Nobody ever knew what happened to them or how they died. The mansion was filled with stories like this. Deaths and disappearances. These days people believed the old mansion was haunted. Nobody went up there. Workmen refused to step foot on the property for fear of dying a painful death or disappearing.
Fortunately for Beryl Chambers, the Brownings weren't a superstitious lot. If hired, he'd go to the mansion every day, if necessary.
Kenda slid on his suit jacket, adjusted his tie, then remembered to grab his coffee before he left the office.
They walked to Chris' car. Kenda slid into the passenger seat, happy to have something other than Jaden to think about. Fortunately, the day was nice. Not a storm cloud in the sky. It should be an uneventful drive.
There wasn't any traffic getting to the pier. Summer, with the inflow of tourists, could be a real pain. But it was still too early for that, he supposed.
They got there just in time to catch the ferry. Chris drove his car up the ramp then parked it. They got out and walked to the upper level. Kenda never tired of this ride. The views were spectacular. Most people took the ferry to go out to one of the small islands to fish or to get to the city on the other side of the water. By car the drive from St. Sebastians was an hour, but by ferry it was ten minutes. Clyde, the ferry captain, had probably assumed he and Chris were spending the day in the city. When Chris told Clyde that they were going to the Lancaster Mansion, Clyde nearly fell off the side of the boat in shock.
"We may be doing the remodel," Chris explained.
Clyde pushed his cap aside and wiped at beads of sweat along is forehead. "I wouldn't go there if I were you. Not for all the tea in China."
"A woman lives out there now.
Beryl Chambers."
"Yeah, I know her. Know of her. She never comes to the mainland, did you know that? Just stays out on that cursed island by herself all the time. It's not natural."
Kenda stepped closer to Chris, sure he'd misheard. "You've never taken her into town?"
"Nope. Not once. I make food deliveries once a month, but that's all. Just leave what she ordered at the dock."
They crossed the rest of the way in silence. On the water, you couldn't see the house. At least not from this side of the island. All Kenda could see were trees.
"How big is her family?" Kenda asked, as they neared the pier.
"Oh, I didn't tell you? You're gonna love this. It's just her. She's a widow."
"One person in that big house? On the island? Does she know about the stories? That might change her mind about living there."
"I don't know."
"Well, the realtor would have had to tell her."
"Yeah, yeah. But I don't think she'd have cared."
"Wouldn't care that her house is the site of numerous deaths and disappearances? That it's haunted?"
"Allegedly haunted."
"Allegedly haunted," Kenda agreed. He didn't believe in ghosts, but you couldn't legally allow someone to purchase a house without disclosing the fact that people all over St. Sebastians believed it was haunted.
At the pier, they climbed back into the car and started up the steep incline toward the mansion.
"Who sold her the house?" Kenda asked.
"Honestly, I have no idea. And it doesn't matter. She's not that kind of person. I've only spoken to her over the phone, but I get the feeling she doesn't go in for hauntings and stuff like that."
The black fence that enclosed the property came into view. It was about twelve feet high, and grown over with shrubs and weeds. Kenda would have loved to see the house in its heyday, but it had been like this for as long as he could remember.
The gate was open, so Chris pulled in.
The state of the property within the gate was even worse than he remembered. The grass was overgrown and there were weeds everywhere. The flagstone path was broken in places, with weeds growing up through cracks and fissures. He knew there was a maze on the property, and he shuddered to think what it would take to get it back in shape. But then he saw the house. It loomed ahead, at the end of the driveway. While the rest of the property was in disrepair, the house continued to look regal and stately. Sure, there were things that would need to be fixed and updated, but from where he was sitting, the house was incredible. It was two stories, but it flowed with the land it was built on, curving off toward the backyard on the right side of the house. The left side of the house was bookended by a patio. Further left of the patio was the garden and maze, although Kenda couldn't see it from the car.
"Wow!" Kenda said, at last.
"I know. It's a lot of work, but can you imagine the result?"
"If I could buy this place, I'd buy it today."
"You and me both. Oh," Chris pointed out the window. "There she is on the patio."
They parked, then got out and walked to her, Kenda marveling at the beauty of a woman for the second time in two days. Though, he could tell she was much older than Jaden, she was stunning. Her long, dark hair fell to her waist. He'd never seen a woman with hair that long. Though, he wasn't sure of her heritage. She could have been black, Hispanic, or even Middle Eastern. Her features didn't match any one ethnic group. She was dressed in a flowing green dress that fell to a few inches below her knees. And she had on red heels that should have made it difficult for her to maneuver around the overgrown property. But she didn't look winded or out of sorts when they approached her. Rather, her face seemed to glow with good health, and her smile stunned him anew.
"Christopher and Kenda Browning," she announced, approaching them on her stilts and offering a hand. "I'm so pleased to meet you both."
Chris took her hand first, shook. Kenda followed suit.
"Please, call me Chris."
She stood there for a moment, staring from one of them to the other. Nodding, she said so quietly he nearly didn't hear her, "I think they've finally gotten it right." Louder, she announced. "This will do."
"Um..." Chris started, then trailed off. "...You mean..."
"Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I want to hire your company."
"Well, there's the matter of—"
"Well of course I plan to show you around first. Don't be so silly." She clapped her hands once and laughed a bit.
Kenda looked at Chris, who looked as befuddled as Kenda felt.
"Cash," she said. "I hope that's all right."
"Well, of course."
"You should know," Kenda began, "that people believe the house is—"
"Haunted. Yes, I know." She turned in place, the smile still fixed to her face. "A good ghost story really adds to the ambiance of the place, don't you think?"
"Well..." Kenda stalled.
"Let me show you around."
They started in the garden. Kenda had a pad with him and a small camera to take pictures. The original garden had been colorful and vibrant. Although everything was dead now, as they walked and she spoke of different flowers that had been planted, he began to get an image in his mind.
"How can you be so sure?" Kenda asked. "I can see the garden is clearly marked, but for most of the plants, there's no way to be sure what was planted here."
"Oh, I didn't tell you?" She swept an arm out, indicating the garden as a whole.
"Tell us what?" Chris asked.
"There's a journal. A garden journal, complete with illustrations of flowers and..." she paused to look at them over her shoulder and smile, "...and the purchase history of domestic flowers and some of the more exotic ones. Mrs. Lancaster loved her flowers. You can see that love in the way she wrote about them. And the care." She stopped walking again. "You do have someone on staff that can restore the garden? And it's to be a restoration, not a new design. I want it to look exactly the way it looked when the Lancaster family was here."
"Of course," Kenda said. "We don't have any gardeners on staff, but we will contract out for this project."
There were a number of overgrown bushes. Kenda imagined they'd originally been placed strategically around the garden. Now they seemed like nothing more than a mass of shrubs. No shape or discernible form, just a blob of green.
There were also water fountains. They were cracked and covered in mold, but at one time he'd bet the entire tableau had been a wonder. Then there was the sound of the ocean. The further they walked, the more he could hear the waves crashing far below. If he looked out into the distance he could see the ocean. This property seemed almost magical.
"You've got a real treasure on your hands," Chris was saying. "Once we return your home to its former glory, it's going to be a showplace."
Off to his left and down an incline, a mass of tall hedges came into view. Branches jutted out in every direction and leaves, long dead, rotted nearby. The hedges towered at least twelve feet high.
"Is that the maze?" he asked.
She looked to where he was pointing, then nodded. "That's the last thing I want you to tackle. It may be the biggest project."
"Can I see it?"
She stared at it for a moment, shook her head. "I don't think today would be good. There's still a path inside, if you can believe that."
"After all these years?"
"Yes, but it's treacherous. The branches are sharp and they cut, and you're not dressed to be wading through an overgrown maze."
"What's that further in? Round and gray? You can see it over the top of the bushes."
She waved this off. "Some kind of sculpture. I'm not sure. I haven't been to the center of the maze, but the journal talks about the construction of a water sculpture to be placed at the center of the maze."
Suddenly, Kenda wanted to see that sculpture. He wanted to see that maze. True, he wasn't dressed for it, but he had other suits. "Are you sure we can't
go inside today?"
"No. Another day, when you're dressed properly."
She and Chris continued on, but he lingered where he was. Maybe he could find pictures of it online. There had to be something from when the murders happened.
"Kenda?"
Kenda looked ahead at Chris, who'd called him. Kenda looked at the maze one last time.
*****
The day had been an odd one, to say the least. They had gotten the job to do the Lancaster Mansion remodel without putting forth much effort at all. And the money; Kenda couldn't wrap his head around making so much money on one job.
Kenda stepped into his house and headed for the kitchen. One thing was for sure, he'd been so focused on gathering everything that was needed for a remodel that he hadn't had a minute to think about his beautiful new neighbor. But now that he was home, he realized he'd be seeing her in just a few hours.
"If she goes for Chris, or Tyler, or Nico, no big deal," he told himself. He reached in his fridge and got out a bottle of water. "It's happened before, it'll happen again. No biggie."
But he thought he just might feel differently this time around, if this one edged toward one of the other guys. He actually wanted this one. So he had to do his best not to blend in like wallpaper. He had to make sure she noticed him somehow, he had to be more engaging than them.
"Right," he said, then took a swig of water. "That'll be the day."
CHAPTER SIX
Jaden couldn't believe how quickly the day had flown by. She'd split her day between the historical society and the St. Sebastians Museum. She hadn't learned anything. Sure, she knew how St. Sebastians had come to be a town, and when it had become a town, but there'd been nothing in the pages and pages of documents, and letters, and newspaper clippings that gave her a clue as to why the Man in White would want her out of this town. Now it was close to six, and she hadn't even started getting ready. She'd come home around three, sat on the bed for a minute to rest her legs, and had promptly fallen asleep.
By the time she got to the gallery it was close to eight and a small line had formed at the entrance.
Jaden (St. Sebastians Quartet #1) Page 4