Addison Lockhart 02-Rosecliff Manor Haunting

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  Then there was his sidekick, Addison, a woman whose keen interest wasn’t centered on the house itself. He’d kept a sharp eye on her during the tour, noticing the way her eyes darted around, never pausing long enough to focus on any one thing. He wondered about the real reason she’d asked to use the restroom.

  Rose placed a hand on his shoulder. “She knew Shadow’s name. Do you really expect me to believe you just happened to mention him to her? You hated that cat as a boy. You teased it relentlessly.”

  “I didn’t hate the cat. I’ve never cared for cats. I’m a dog person.”

  “Exactly my point. Why mention the cat at all?”

  Derek stepped back inside the house, closed the door, and turned. “You worry too much.”

  She was right to worry, of course, and to express her uncertainty. He’d lied when questioned about the fur ball minutes ago. Even now, he wasn’t sure why he’d done it. Better to corroborate Addison’s story for now than admit his instincts about her may have been wrong. His mother had enough to worry about. Still, there were questions he needed answers to.

  How had she known the cat’s name?

  And even stranger—how the hell did she think she saw the cat alive and in the library?

  CHAPTER 14

  Thomas Gregory was an easy man to find. Almost too easy. After a quick pit stop at one of the few bookstores in town, not only did a female store employee offer precise directions to his place, she also wrote his physical address on a piece of paper, folded it, and offered it to Luke along with a wink and smile.

  So much for privacy.

  Or hiding one’s motives.

  When Luke unfolded the bit of crumpled paper, he was startled to find the unexpected freebie that came along with it—the female employee’s own phone number scribbled beneath Tom’s address. Luke shook his head then laughed, acknowledging the girl in a polite “thank you but no thank you” tone of voice. He then draped an arm around Addison and walked outside, tossing the note into a trash receptacle behind him.

  CHAPTER 15

  In the time it took Luke and Addison to drive to Tom’s place, Addison had read through the chapter Thomas devoted to Rosecliff Manor in his book Pleasant Valley: A History in Pictures. In the chapter, he accused police officers of several things—shoddy detective work, failure to thoroughly interview all witnesses, and Addison’s personal favorite, failing to figure out the true motive of the crime. His words were baseless and presented with an overabundance of bias, almost like the claims he made were accompanied by a personal agenda.

  Tom’s house, if one considered a fifth-wheel trailer popping a squat on an otherwise vacant property a house, was located on a ten-acre parcel of land with no other dwellings around it. Halfway to the trailer, a man Addison assumed was Tom stepped out of an open door, sitting on one of the metal, fold-down steps in front of him. Steaming cup of coffee in hand, he watched and waited as they approached.

  Tom was nothing like Addison imagined, his look more tree-hugging hippie than non-fiction book author. Dressed in a pair of light blue, relaxed-fit jeans, a gray crew neck T-shirt, and Teva sandals, he was young. Late twenties in her estimation. He wore a pair of oval-shaped, rimless glasses over his eyes, and had long, straight brown hair bundled into a loose ponytail behind his neck.

  Luke spoke first. “Thomas Gregory?”

  The man took a few swallows of coffee and leaned back, resting his elbows on the vinyl floor just inside the camper’s entrance. “It’s Tom. Who’s askin’?”

  “My name’s Luke, and this is Addison. We heard you wrote a book on some of the historical homes in the area.”

  “I did. What about it?”

  “You made some interesting assumptions about the Clark girls, Vivian and Grace.”

  Tom lowered his head, making a face like he’d grown weary of the topic. “I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else. I don’t regret what I wrote in the book. I gave my honest opinion, and I stand by it. It’s called freedom of speech, dude, and this is a free country. Too bad if people don’t like it.”

  “An opinion isn’t the same thing as proof,” Luke said.

  “I know it isn’t. That’s why I stated it was my opinion and mine alone. Didn’t matter though. They all flipped out over it.”

  “Who did, the Clark family?”

  Thomas swished a hand through the air. “Nah. The Clarks never bothered me. Have to say, I was surprised they didn’t. I mean, it’s a small town. I heard they were angry.”

  “If not them then who?”

  “All the old-timers around here—the ones who were alive when it happened. Most of ’em accused me of being a failed author who only wrote the book to make a quick buck.”

  Or to garner attention, as Derek had blamed him for earlier.

  “Are you trying to make a quick buck?”

  Thomas eyed Luke for a moment then extended his arm to the side, grunting out a laugh. “You can see how rich it made me. If it was money I was after, I wouldn’t have written a book about a place only the people who live in it care about.”

  Looking at Tom now, Addison had no reason not to believe him. His jeans were clean, but ripped in three places. Not in a fashionable way—in an old, worn-out way. The mug he drank from had a small chip around the base. It looked cheap. Thrift store cheap.

  He wasn’t showy, and he wasn’t vain. Still, there was more to it than one man’s opinion. There was motive. She just needed to find it.

  “If you didn’t write it for the money, why write it at all?” Addison asked. “You could have included a few photos of the house and omitted the rest. You didn’t.”

  “If you’re trying to accuse me of—”

  “We’re not here to accuse you of anything. We have our own suspicions about what happened to the Clark girls, and they have nothing to do with what you said or didn’t say. We’re after the truth.”

  Tom raised a brow, taken aback by her statement. “Really? Why?”

  “Our interest in the details of what happened is genuine.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Luke said.

  “If it’s such a big deal to you, why don’t you do your own digging?” Thomas asked.

  “We are, and we have been,” Addison said. “Rose Clark and her son Derek didn’t have much to say.”

  “You talked to the Clarks?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “I tried. Once. I drove to the house. Rose opened the door. I told her I was writing the book and what I planned to say. I said if she had anything to say on the subject, I’d like to hear it. She slammed the door in my face.”

  “You saw the police report, right? That’s what you said in the book.”

  He nodded. Addison continued.

  “Would you mind if we sat down, asked you some questions about what was in it?”

  Thomas glanced back, then looked at Addison and said, “I’d invite you inside, but my humble abode is a mess right now.”

  Except, it wasn’t a mess at all.

  From her vantage point, Addison had a clear view of the front half of the trailer. It was pristine. No dishes in the sink, nothing left out on the counter, and no décor to speak of except for a small, wallet-sized picture of a woman in a wooden frame sitting on the windowsill. When he’d turned back a moment earlier, the photo seemed to catch his attention.

  Questions filled Addison’s mind.

  Who was the woman in the photo?

  Why did Tom say his trailer was dirty when it wasn’t?

  What was he hiding?

  Her gaze lingered on the picture long enough for Tom’s apprehension to kick in. He hopped off the trailer steps, closing the door behind him. Motioning to a wood, chipped, sun-damaged picnic table several feet away, he said, “Let’s sit here.”

  They sat.

  “Why are you interested in the Clark girls?” Tom asked. “Idle curiosity? You read the book and now you want more details? If so, I’m not your guy.”

  Addison shook her head.

>   “What then?”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Personal, how?” Tom asked. “Are you related?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Why not?”

  She’d have to do better if she expected him to open up. “I may be able to find out the truth about what happened the night they died. The real truth. I don’t know how much it matters to you, but it matters to me.”

  He set the coffee cup down. “I wouldn’t have taken the time to write about it if it didn’t.”

  “And I wouldn’t have taken the time to come here today if it didn’t mean something to me. So help us. Please.”

  He crossed his arms, resting them on the edge of the table. “What do you want to know?”

  “You saw a copy of the police report, but some of the things you said in your book aren’t found in a standard police report. Where did you get your information?”

  “I have a source.”

  “What source?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” he said.

  “Were you even telling the truth when you said you actually looked at a copy of the report?”

  “There’s a waiting period. You just don’t go in, get a report handed to you right away. Sometimes it takes days. And even then, you’re only viewing a copy. Who knows what they leave out of those things? A little whiteout, and a person wouldn’t even know what they’re missing.”

  “Are you’re trying to say you viewed the real report, not a copy?”

  He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I’m not saying anything. And, just so you know, if any part of this conversation gets around, I’ll deny it. All of it.”

  “I get it.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “We just met. You don’t have any reason to trust us.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t.”

  “Trust goes both ways.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It goes one way. I’m not trying to gain your trust. Look, the two of you seem nice enough. You have to understand, there are things I can’t say, things I don’t have any right talking about, things told to me in confidence.”

  “Is there anything you can tell us?”

  He paused, thought it over. “Okay, I’ll say this. I ordered a copy of the police report to cover my ass. I knew once the book came out, there’d have to be a paper trail proving I actually ordered the report in order to make what I said legitimate. But let’s just say it may not have been the only information I received.”

  It wasn’t a lot to go on, but it was a start.

  “I still don’t see why the Clarks’ story interests you.”

  “You and me, we’re not the only people trying to find out what really happened the night those girls died. They may be gone, but not everyone has forgotten.”

  There was someone else, someone using Tom to stir up conversation again. Although small, the portrait of the woman in Tom’s window was familiar. Too familiar. “What makes you think Vivian and Grace died under mysterious circumstances?”

  “For starters, you have to consider what investigations were like back then. Grace and Vivian died in the mid-seventies. Forensics was limited. We’re talking Polaroid pictures. AFIS wasn’t in place yet. There were no camcorders, no light sources capable of detecting things like fibers or body fluids, things not visible to the naked eye. No DNA fingerprinting. The list goes on.”

  “Even if they had better technology at the time, there’s still no proof the girls’ death wasn’t accidental,” Addison said.

  “Oh no? The police report stated they found a doll on the roof of the house. You could say it was the doll that led police to believe the girls fell while trying to retrieve it. It’s the only logical explanation, right? I mean, it’s not like they were up there daring each other to jump out of a third-story window.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Wouldn’t it be interesting to process the evidence again? The doll, the attic, what the girls were wearing that night?”

  “You really think they’d find anything in the attic after all this time?”

  “Rose has a neighbor who’s lived in the neighborhood since 1973. According to her, once police closed the case, Rose locked the attic and never allowed anyone in there again. If she’s right, it’s been preserved in time. I mean, I’m no DNA expert, but it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? On the night of the party, no one admitted to being in the attic. Everyone said the girls must have been in there alone. Know what I think? Someone is lying.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Luke slid open the top drawer of the dresser, pulled out a tiny square box and propped it open, staring down at the lustrous, circular-shaped jewel centered on top of a platinum wedding band. A smile spread across his face as he thought about how disheveled Addison had looked the day they met, when she hired him to do the restoration work on Grayson Manor. She was so fragile then, so adrift after losing her mother. Bright-eyed and with an innocent charm she wasn’t even aware she possessed, no woman had ever made such an intense first impression on him.

  Up to then, he’d led a good life, a content life. He was a bachelor and proud of it. He’d reworked every square inch of the historic one-bedroom house he purchased in his twenties until it looked brand new again, even better than the original.

  Over the years, he’d had several relationships, a couple of them serious, lasting more than a year. None proved strong enough to span the test of time. They were all decent women. Kind women. Any one of them would have made a good choice for a lifelong companion. Just not a great one. In every one of those relationships there was always something missing, something holding him back from reaching the point of a proposal.

  Until now.

  Until Addison.

  They hadn’t even been together a year, in fact, they’d only known each other for a few weeks before he looked in her eyes one day and realized there was no question about where his future would lead. No question about who he’d share the journey with. Now, he couldn’t imagine a single day without her in it.

  The night before, his proposal was all planned out. Where he’d do it. How he’d do it. It had festered in his mind for weeks until it was only one night away, and then the craziness started. And somehow now it didn’t seem fair. Not to her. Not to the twins. Her mind was clouded now. Occupied. Unable to process the one thing he thought would make him burst if he couldn’t tell her.

  He gazed on the ring one last time, snapped the ring box closed, and concealed it beneath layers of folded T-shirts.

  It could wait.

  And he could wait.

  Even if he couldn’t, he had to.

  CHAPTER 17

  At exactly one o’clock in the morning, Luke’s snoring gave Addison the green light she’d been waiting over two hours for. He was asleep. Time to put her plan into action. Part of her hesitated for a brief moment. She regretted sneaking out of the house this late at night without telling him. It almost felt like a betrayal, like she was going behind his back, even though she wasn’t. Or maybe she was. Either way, her intentions were good. She meant well. She knew what had to be done, knew the potential danger. She also knew it was something she’d be glad she did alone if it all went wrong.

  The tires on Addison’s car crunched along the dirt driveway until she made it onto the road, her eyes still fixed on the second-story window of the room she’d walked out of not two minutes before. The lights were still off. He was still asleep. A positive sign.

  Twenty-nine minutes later she flicked the car’s headlamps off, inching to a stop in front of a vacant lot next to Rosecliff Manor. She ducked between two bowed iron rods in the gate, slid through, and made her way to the back of the house. Twisting the mini-flashlight to “on,” she beamed the tiny light across the yard, scanning the area. Earlier she’d spotted a ladder leaning next to the shed out back. It was long enough for her to climb to the second-story window,
the same window she’d managed to crack open when no one was looking during the tour earlier.

  Ladder in hand, she lined it up with the window and began her ascent. With Rose’s bedroom located on the main floor and the attic on the third, she could only pray she could get in and out without arousing suspicion. Four steps up, the flashlight slipped from her hand, clanking on one of the ladder’s steps before breaking apart on the ground. Addison froze. How far had the sound traveled? Far enough to wake a neighbor? Far enough to wake up Rose?

  Several minutes passed in silence, the only source of light coming from a partially clouded moon. She took a step, then another. She reached the top, slid open the window, and climbed inside. Flattening her body against the wall, she inched her way to the room’s edge. She rounded the corner and began her second climb of the night, this time on the narrow steps leading to the attic.

  The attic door felt as solid as it was wide. Using the tip of her finger to find the keyhole, she dug her other hand inside her pocket, slid the key all the way inside the hole, and turned it. The lock didn’t click, but when she pressed forward, the door cracked open, filtering a musty combination of dust and grime. She pressed her nose to the sleeve of her jacket to quench the desire to gag.

  She reached out a hand, feeling her way along the wall for a light switch. There wasn’t one, and without her flashlight to guide her, she had little choice.

  In a hush, she said, “Vivian, if you’re here, show yourself. Please.”

  Silence.

  “Vivian, please. I’m here to help. I remember now.”

  A delicate child’s voice answered, “Do you know how to help us?”

  The voice was Vivian’s.

  “I’d like to try,” Addison said. “I need to talk to you and your sister about what happened the night of your parents’ party.”