Grayson Manor Haunting

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “Were you here when it happened?” Officer Waters asked.

  Addison shook her head.

  “So how did you know he was out here?”

  “I…umm…well…he told me.”

  “When?”

  “This morning.”

  “You saw him earlier today? What time was that?”

  “Around nine, I guess.”

  Officer Waters gave her an icy stare that was more suited for convicted felons than for her. “What did the two of you talk about?”

  “He’s remodeling my house, so we went over some plans and then I left to meet with someone in the city.”

  “Who?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  The second officer spoke up, a male, Officer Jackson, who was even less enthused than his partner. “Why was he even out here, alone, with a shovel?”

  Both officers perfected their icy stare, eyeballing Addison for an answer. At the risk of being accused of a crime, she decided she’d had enough questions for one day. She clenched her hands together and said a silent prayer, hoping her gut feeling would pay off. “I need to show you something,” she said to both officers.

  Officer Jackson looked as if he had a fresh coffee brewing in the car that he needed to get back to. Officer Waters, however, actually looked intrigued. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Addison crouched down, leaning into the hole and digging her fingernails into the dirt while the two officers and her father looked on. Out of the corner of her eye she watched her father swallow—hard. He looked as if his legs were about to buckle beneath him at any moment. She dug out a foot of soil and found nothing. She dug to the left. Nothing.

  “What are we supposed to be seeing here?” Officer Jackson grunted.

  Addison didn’t know how much longer she could keep them there. Then she remembered the words her grandmother said earlier about the power that came with using both of her hands simultaneously. She deliberated the pros and cons in silence, not knowing what would happen if she tried pressing both hands to the ground at the same time. One glance at Officer Waters’s look of boredom and she no longer cared. If something was going to happen, it needed to happen now. With one hand firmly stuck inside a cast, she relied on her fingers, hoping it was enough. She flattened her fingers inside the hole and pressed down. After a moment the area to her right gave off a pale glow. Addison glanced up at both officers who looked at each other like they had a crazy woman on their hands. Whatever she was seeing, it was apparent that they didn’t. She slid her hand farther right. Something moved.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here, but we need to move on,” Officer Jackson said. He turned to her father. “I’ll need a number for you two in case we need to get in touch again.”

  Addison ignored him. She dug two fingers into the ground and wiggled them around until she felt something hard and boney. She pulled up, trusting she wouldn’t slip into another one of her visions, and breathed a small sigh of relief when she didn’t. Her fisted hand emerged from the ground just in time for Officer Jackson to start walking away.

  “You’ll want to see this,” she shouted.

  She unrolled her fingers, lifting her palm into the air for all to see.

  Officer Waters glanced at her male counterpart and said, “What the hell?!” She removed some kind of transmitter from her waist belt, pressed a button, and spoke directly into it. “This is Waters. Get McReedy out here right away.”

  CHAPTER 41

  After being grilled for over a half an hour about why Luke was among the trees in the first place, Addison stuck to the same story. She told them Luke had been running earlier that day and thought he saw something sticking out of the ground. He’d returned with a shovel to investigate. As to how he got smacked over the head with it, Addison pled the Fifth. In truth, she herself was interested in the answer to that one.

  Before long an entire crew of people arrived, and Addison was pushed back several yards from the place they were now referring to as a possible crime scene. As far as they were concerned, she’d fulfilled her obligations and was no longer needed. They’d take it from here.

  “I wonder what will happen now,” her father said on their way back to the house.

  “I have no idea, but I need to get to Luke, see if he’s all right.”

  Luke would have to wait a little longer. Waiting inside her house like she owned the place was Addison’s neighbor, Helen, who prodded Addison about what was going on in “her” woods. The police had warned Addison not to say anything to anyone until something could be confirmed, and she intended to keep quiet. She still had some investigating of her own to do. Addison simply told Helen that she wasn’t sure what was going on. All she knew was what the police had told her—they’d received a tip and had come to check it out. She assured Helen there was nothing to worry about.

  “Nothing to worry about?” Helen barked. “How can you say that? There’s a whole army of them out there messing up those woods.”

  “I’m sure they’re not trying to mess up anything.”

  “I don’t understand,” Helen said. “What could possibly be back there?”

  Addison glared at her, giving her a look that said, “You know exactly what’s back there.”

  Helen appeared to be physically pained that she couldn’t walk to the hole and make further inquiries, but her cane kept her on a short leash. Addison possessed neither the time nor the patience to speak with her any longer.

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “I have somewhere else I need to be.”

  “Who’s going to watch them?” Helen said, her eyes shifting from Addison to the woods.

  Addison laughed. “I’m not a babysitter.” On that note, she turned to leave and spotted a woman exiting a blue Honda Accord. She didn’t think much of it until the woman stepped closer. She had a familiar looking face, and when she flashed a strained smile in Addison’s direction, she realized she’d seen her before, in the vision she had when she’d touched Luke in the woods. The woman was the one grinning at her at the beach. She was part of the future. Her future. She had to be. And even though they’d never met, somehow she knew today would be the day they did.

  CHAPTER 42

  It hadn’t been a typical evening for medical examiner, Lia McReedy. When she received a call about possible bones being discovered in the woods of Rhinebeck, she’d chalked it up to nothing more than a couple of police officers who couldn’t tell the difference between an animal bone and a human bone. After several years on the job, a dead body had never been dug up before, not in her county, and she had no reason to believe that would all change today.

  McReedy arrived at the scene of the so-called crime with every intention of getting in and out within the first fifteen minutes. She had cats to feed, red and black plaid flannel pajamas to don, and a Criminal Minds marathon, which had been recording all day. Even now, she could practically taste the saltiness of the pork chops she’d thrown into the crockpot before dashing off to work. Time was of the essence.

  As she hiked through the masses of thick, towering trees, she became aware of something: a shadowy presence following close behind. The shadow remained about fifteen feet back and went to great lengths to remain unheard, until the shadow stumbled, nose diving to the ground. She turned, looking the stone-faced girl in the eye. “Are you all right?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Good. Why are you following me?”

  Apprehension cloaked the girl’s face like a deer searching for a way out of a blazing forest fire. She stopped. “I…was…ahh…”

  McReedy rested both hands on her hips. “You were what?”

  “Curious about who you are.”

  “Why?”

  The girl turned and pointed. “I own the house over there. I’m the one who found the ahh…bone.”

  McReedy glanced at her watch and sighed. “What’s your name?”

  “Addison Lockhart.”

  “Well, Addison Lockhart, I n
eed you to return to your house and let me do my job. You can’t be back here until we clear out. Got it?”

  McReedy waited for Addison to nod and turn before proceeding forward. She wasn’t the type of person to have a guilty conscience, but somewhere inside of her she felt the slightest bit guilty about the way she’d treated the girl, who looked to be around her own age. The feeling subsided when she approached the hole.

  “What have we got?” she asked.

  Officer Waters swiveled around, using her pointer finger as a guide. “See for yourself.”

  McReedy tipped her head forward expecting to find nothing more than a miniscule pile of weathered bones. The grisly, skeletal remains fused into the dirt proved her wrong. Criminal Minds would have to wait.

  “What do you make of it?” Officer Waters asked.

  “How were these found?”

  “We received a call from a woman named Addison Lockhart. She lives in the area. Apparently, the guy who’s been doing some work on her home discovered something back here earlier today, and when he brought a shovel out to investigate, someone hit him over the head with it. The girl found him here in this pit and dialed 9-1-1.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “At the hospital, I suppose. We’ve got a couple officers there waiting to talk to him when he wakes up.”

  “And the girl?”

  Officer Waters shook her head. “Strangest thing. She claims she didn’t know a body was back here, but right in front of Jackson and me, she stuck her hand through the dirt and pulled out a bone. Just like that. It was like she knew it would be there.”

  “And you’re not holding her?”

  “We’ve got eyes on her. Nothing’s been proven yet. She wants to go to the hospital and visit her handyman. We’ll let her. Escorted, of course.”

  “I wouldn’t let her out of your sight. She’s a curious one. She knows something. I can tell.”

  “You do your job and let us do ours,” Officer Jackson called from behind.

  “Jackass,” McReedy mumbled to herself.

  “What was that?” Officer Jackson asked.

  It had been over seven months since their break-up and Jackson continued to berate her like he still held a place of authority in her life. Never before had any man been so domineering, making her feel like a puppet dangling from a string. Whenever they found themselves together he followed her every movement, his eyes sharp like a hawk, never missing even the minutest details. Back when they lived together she’d plotted her escape, knowing every moment needed to be planned just right. It took months of preparation, and in the end, she didn’t just cut away the string, she ripped through it, vowing she’d never allow herself to be under any man’s thumb again. She overpowered the hawk by becoming an eagle, an eagle that was flying free.

  “At least our cause of death is an easy one,” McReedy said, looking at Waters who tried her best to conceal a smile.

  “With a big, round hole in the head, I should say not,” Waters replied. “The question is, given we don’t know how much time these bones have been in the ground, how do you tell whether it’s a male or female?”

  “Easy,” McReedy said. “From the pelvis. There are obvious differences.”

  “Such as?”

  “A male’s is narrower, more heart-shaped. A female’s is open and circular.”

  Officer Waters scanned the bones more closely. “So, what I’m looking at is—”

  “A probable homicide. The question is—why? And how long have these bones been here?”

  CHAPTER 43

  Luke was conscious but not full of conversation when Addison arrived. Two officers stood on the sides of his bed, each asking their questions in turns like Bad Cop and Worse Cop.

  “We’ll ask you one more time, what were you doing out there?” Bad Cop asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  “How’d you know the exact location of those bones?” Worse Cop chimed in.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Who hit you over the head with a shovel?”

  No answer.

  “You’d better start talking, kid.”

  The strong scent of Listerine mixed with a heavy application of Giorgio Armani cologne wafted through an otherwise sterile-smelling hall. Addison turned and locked eyes on a slightly overweight fifty-something man coming toward her. He was dressed in a black pinstripe suit and carried a metal container in his hand. Probably coffee. He was not smiling. He passed Addison and winked. It was the kind of wink that commanded a room. She didn’t know how, but she was certain everything was about to be all right.

  The man entered Luke’s room, full vocal chords blazing. Bad Cop and Worse Cop did their best to reason with him, but their efforts were short-lived and to no avail. After a minute, both officers left the room looking like a couple of teenagers who’d been busted for ditching school. Addison wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she liked it. She poked her head through the door slowly.

  Luke waved her inside. “Get in here. My Uncle Rob wants to meet you.”

  His uncle?

  Uncle Rob advanced toward her. “Robert Flynn. And you are?”

  “Addison. Luke is doing some work on my house.”

  Uncle Rob roared with laughter and looked at Luke. “Do all of your…uh…clients pay you personal visits? Maybe I’m in the wrong business.”

  Addison’s face warmed considerably and she was sure her eyes bulged out just a little. She backed up, wishing she could melt into the floor.

  Luke smiled. “I appreciate you coming down here—”

  “But you’d like some time with her, eh? One on one? I get it. My work is done here.” He turned to Addison and flipped a business card into her hand. “Lovely to meet you. Should you ever need legal counsel, you know who to call.”

  Addison leaned out of the doorway and down the hall, making sure he was gone before speaking. “He’s…ahh…interesting.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “What happened?”

  “You mean, how’d I get a big knot on my head? I don’t know. I didn’t hear anyone walk up behind me. Whoever it was knew what was there.”

  “What time was it—do you remember?”

  “Around two or so I guess. Why?”

  “That was right before I got home, which explains why your attacker ran off. He must have heard me coming.”

  “If it’s someone who knows what happened all those years ago, he or she isn’t exactly a spring chicken—not anymore.” He glanced out the window. “What did the cops find—anything?”

  “It wasn’t what they found—it was what I found. When I met with my grandmother earlier, she said when I use both of my hands together, I’m more umm, powerful, I guess. I can light stuff up, see things others can’t. I pulled a bone right out of the ground.”

  “Makes sense. When stuff was flying around the house the day you found out the dress was stolen, you put both of your hands out and that’s what stopped everything.”

  “They’re attacking the hole like a colony of ants now. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “And who’s that?” Luke said tilting his head toward the door at a police officer sitting in a padded chair with his head propped against the wall.

  “My babysitter. He brought me here and won’t let me out of his sight. They must have discovered a lot more once they dug a little deeper. I imagine we’re both suspects.”

  “At least we know what happened to Roxanne Rafferty. We may not know who’s responsible, but maybe she’ll leave you alone.”

  “My grandmother knows,” Addison blurted.

  Luke sat up in bed. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. She just kept asking me to leave Grayson Manor. I asked her why my mother hated that place, and she wouldn’t give me an answer. Then when we went to leave the coffee shop, she disappeared as soon as we walked out of the front door.”

  “So…what now?”

  “Now I find her.”

  CHAPTER 44<
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  When Addison returned home, there were more ants surrounding the hole than ever before. It was dark out, but special lighting had been brought in with the aid of a pair of generators. Her front porch had been transformed into a kind of central police hub, where everyone camped out as they waited. One guy was overheard saying they had almost everything they needed and the bones were ready for transport back to the lab. She hoped that meant they’d be leaving soon. She was tired. Her father had already called it a night, and she could think of nothing better than to follow suit.

  Even with all of the chaos, it had been good spending time with her father. His honesty had come at the right time and had left her with a profound desire to explore more about her lineage. She had so many questions and hoped that Marjorie would be able to provide the missing details about the late Miss Rafferty; perhaps during the process she would learn more about herself and what it meant to be a medium. She also wondered if Marjorie had any information about her grandfather’s whereabouts.

  Addison brushed past the small crowd and entered the house, shutting and locking the door behind her. Several times over the next hour or so she lifted the drapes and peeked out, delighted to find fewer and fewer cars dotting the landscape. As she stared out the window the fourth time, she saw the woman she had followed earlier that day—the one from her vision on the beach. The woman was arguing with Officer Jackson, but not about the case. It was personal, more intimate—at least on his end. His words were coarse and heavy, hers sharp and to the point.

  “Who is he then?” Officer Jackson demanded.

  “No one,” the woman replied. “I’m not here to discuss my personal life. Excuse me.”

  She tried to slip by him, but he braced his hands on her shoulders, locking her in place.

  She gritted her teeth. “Let go. Now! I’m warning you, TJ.”

  He didn’t. He smiled down at her, his face resembling a slithering snake. The woman glared back. She looked furious—like if she had a gun, she’d blow his head clean off.