by John Manning
Carolyn’s face betrayed her confusion.
Mr. Young trained his old eyes once more on her. “You have investigated such things, Carolyn,” he said. “Such things that live on the other side of our human senses.”
“You’re referring to-the supernatural?”
He nodded.
So Mr. Young’s “secret” had something to do with the supernatural. Carolyn had suspected it might. So many of the cases she had investigated had defied easy solutions. At the FBI, she’d been called several times to investigate “paranormal” activity, so much so that she became one of the “go-to” people in the Bureau for these types of things. For example, there had been a series of strange deaths surrounding an abandoned church on Cape Cod, where a whole town was nearly wiped out by some mysterious killer who was never officially identified, but whom residents believed to be a malevolent spirit. Then there was the eerie haunting of another village not far away, where the ghost of a celebrated killer from a hundred years ago seemed to have returned to kill again. And then, most recently, there had been a series of brutal murders of several students at a girls’ school in upstate New York-ritualistic slayings some blamed on the devil himself.
Of course, there was never conclusive “proof” of otherworldly or supernatural forces at work. But sometimes there was simply no other explanation. Investigating such stories had opened Carolyn’s mind to the possibility that science and logic could not explain everything. Over the last two years, Sid had gotten her involved in a couple of far-out cases. One wealthy woman, being sued by her husband for divorce, began to practice voodoo on him; although the official investigation could never prove it, Carolyn’s meeting with the husband left her convinced he was a zombie, and it was only through a strange woman who called herself a witch doctor that Carolyn was able to “wake him up” from the curse. Maybe he’d been faking; maybe he’d been psychotic; maybe he’d been on drugs. Still, it was all pretty exciting no matter what.
“When Sidney suggested you for my project,” said Howard Young, “I had no idea how truly perfect you’d turn out to be.”
She smiled. “So have I allayed all your concerns?”
“Most.” His face grew solemn. “Because what I need your help with is perhaps beyond any of our understanding.”
“Mr. Young, perhaps it’s time you finally tell me what exactly it is.”
“Patience, Carolyn. All in good time. First I must caution you that I have brought others in to help me in the past, and every one of them has failed.”
“I see.”
“Over the last fifty years I’ve worked with dozens of experts. And each time-” His face grew sad. “Each time we have met with failure. Now the time comes when we must address this issue again. And, given my age, it is certainly my last attempt to get it right.”
Carolyn was starting to feel a little strung along. “Mr. Young, please,” she said, “I’d like to give you my opinion on whether I can help you, but until I know more details…”
“The fact that you came all the way up here after our brief meeting in New York shows you are at least intrigued,” he said.
“Yes, of course I am.”
He smiled. “And I suppose my offer of payment is also a motivation.”
“I can’t deny that.” Carolyn held her eyes steady with his. “One million dollars is a great deal of money.”
“For you, perhaps.” He gave her a little smile. “But it is a pittance I’ll be glad to pay-if, and only if, Carolyn, you are successful in what I need you to do.”
“Well, until you tell me what it is, we can’t know, can we?”
Mr. Young looked terribly sad. His eyes glanced off toward the window. Beyond lay the rocky Atlantic coast. With the room suddenly quiet, Carolyn could hear the crash of the surf far below on the rocks.
“Mr. Young,” she asked, “are you all right?”
His eyes flickered back to her. They were moist. “I am an old man, Carolyn. How much longer I have to live is unknown. If I should die-someone must carry on my work. Someone must find the answer to the secret I have kept so long.”
“Mr. Young, I don’t know yet if I’m the right person for you, or even if your project is one that I will want to take on. But you’ve certainly left me eager to find out.”
He smiled, clasping his old, veiny hands in his lap. “That’s all I can ask for now. Thank you, Carolyn.”
“But I must say…if it’s something that has baffled the experts, I’m not sure I can do any differently. I’m not necessarily an expert on the supernatural, Mr. Young. I’m an investigator. I go to other people for expert opinions.”
He nodded. “I wanted you precisely because you are not an expert. You are a researcher. You don’t pretend to have answers. You go out and find them.” He chuckled. “Sid said you could be like a dog after a bone. What I like about you is that you will persevere and not rely on what is supposedly known or what is considered the accepted wisdom. You will dig. You will hunt.”
He was talking in riddles. What was this secret?
“There is one other reason I chose you, Carolyn.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And why is that?”
“Because you’re a woman.”
She laughed. “How does being a woman qualify me?”
“Because you will understand how a woman feels. How a woman loves.”
She considered his words. “So this project-this secret of yours-concerns a woman.”
He nodded. “Possibly.”
“But how do you know that I will understand how a woman loves? Perhaps I have not experienced what she has…”
“Oh, but you have.” His eyes were hard now. “I needed to know something about you before I met you. So I learned a few things.” He paused. “Such as your relationship with David Cooke.”
A short expulsion of breath escaped her lips.
“I know all about him, Carolyn.”
Once again, Carolyn felt on the defensive. Her lips pursed tightly. “Well,” she said, “you’re a regular FBI investigator yourself.”
“A wealthy man can find out anything he wants,” Howard Young said. “Believe me, Carolyn. I don’t bring up his name to cause you any pain. I will not use the information to hurt you or harass you. It is just to say that I understand you-and I hope you will bring your own understanding and compassion to this project.”
David. Even here-even in this strange house, on this faraway rocky coast-his name came back to haunt her. Would she never be free of him? For a second, all the old pain came flooding back-the lies, the tricks, the deceptions, the fear. Mr. Young was right about that much. Carolyn knew how a woman loved. She had loved all too well and been burnt for it. A day didn’t go by that her heart didn’t still ache for David-despite all he had done to her, all the terrible things she’d had to endure.
Not least of which was losing her savings and everything she owned. She was still paying off the debt David had racked up in her name. He had been one very shrewd operator. So the offer of a million bucks, especially with all of the obligations Carolyn had…there was no way she could pass that up.
Still, she didn’t like that Howard Young had delved into her past. She didn’t like being reminded of David. But hadn’t she researched peoples’ lives, uncovered secrets they’d rather not have her know? So she held her tongue. Carolyn let her emotions subside as they sat there in silence for several minutes. Finally, the old man spoke again.
“A wealthy man can find out anything he wants,” he repeated, “except, sadly, the one thing that has eluded me now for all these years.”
She managed a tight smile. “Which you aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
He just looked at her.
“You’re expecting me to discover it on my own,” she said.
With great difficulty, Mr. Young rose from his chair, steadying himself on the arm. Carolyn stood along with him. He straightened his twisted back the best he could and looked over at her, crooking a finger to follow him.<
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“I might not tell you,” he said, “but I will give you some very important clues.”
He shuffled forward, out of the parlor and back into the foyer. Carolyn thought it odd, but she stood and followed him. Once again they crossed the great marble floor, their footsteps echoing in that vast space. At the far end of the foyer there was a door. Mr. Young pulled it open. There was a whiff of mustiness from the darkness within. Then Carolyn discerned the steps going down.
“The basement?” Carolyn asked.
Mr. Young said nothing, just took his first tremulous step down.
He moved down the stone steps with a purpose, even if he seemed at all times ready to topple over. The only light came from small narrow rectangles cut high into the walls of the basement. At the bottom of the steps was a stone floor. The dim pink light allowed Carolyn to make out crates and old furniture, a dressmaker’s dummy and a steamer trunk. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust and draped with cobwebs. Mr. Young didn’t pause to look at any of it. He just kept moving as fast as he could, which was not very fast, across the floor. Carolyn followed.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
At the other side of the basement was a rusted iron door. Mr. Young was fumbling with some keys that he had taken out of his pocket.
“This was the servants’ quarters when I was a boy, in the years right after the First World War,” he told her. “Of course today we are far more egalitarian, and we let the servants go home at night to their own homes and families.”
Carolyn tried to smile, but the darkness and mustiness made her uneasy. She had the distinct sense of being watched. It reminded her of her experience with George Grant, the man she believed had been turned into a zombie. Carolyn had been truly unnerved when she’d turned around to see him looking at her. Sid would later try to say he was just a con man trying to spook her. But Carolyn sensed something more. Grant’s eyes had been glassy, his skin cold and clammy. For weeks afterward, she had slept with the lights on, thinking George Grant was there somewhere, watching her.
With a shaky hand, Howard Young managed to unlock the door. It swung open with a creak into the darkness within.
“This is where the secret lives,” he said.
“Are you trying to frighten me, Mr. Young?” Carolyn asked.
“In your line of work, I imagine you are hard to frighten.”
He didn’t look back at her, just walked inside. Whether she was spooked or not, Carolyn couldn’t tell; it was true that, after episodes like the one with George Grant, she didn’t frighten easily. But she could see clearly that Mr. Young was afraid. The old man was trembling now, so much so that it seemed as if he might fall over. Carolyn watched as he steadied himself against an old sofa covered with spiderwebs. He let out a long breath.
“So what is it about this room?” Carolyn asked. “What do you mean the secret lives here?”
Howard Young seemed lost in thought. “I remember coming down here as a boy. I’d sit up on this bed and listen to the stories she’d tell. We all did. She was the best storyteller.”
“Who is she?”
Mr. Young was still trembling. Carolyn was now seriously concerned that he’d fall down and break his hip. That frightened her more than some unknown thing in the basement.
“I could not have imagined then what this room would become,” the old man intoned. “When I was a boy, this place was filled with laughter. With happiness. With good cheer.” His voice broke. “With love.”
Carolyn glanced around. A small window high on the far wall had been boarded over. The light was very dim, hardly allowing her to see. But she scanned the walls and the floor. Except for the old sofa and a broken table, there was nothing in the room.
“Mr. Young,” she said. “Where is the secret?”
“Here,” he said plainly.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
They stood in silence a moment.
And then she saw it.
The words on the wall.
They were not there when they first came in. She knew that much. The words on the wall had just suddenly appeared.
ABANDON HOPE.
And no matter how dim the light, Carolyn could see they were written in blood. It was still wet and dripping down the wall.
Chapter Two
Douglas Desmond Young IV was determined to arrive at his Uncle Howard’s house well before any of his worthless cousins. Leaning forward on his motorcycle, he gave the Harley more gas. The wind rushing at his face and through his hair electrified him. He was looking forward to seeing old Uncle Howie again. It had been a little over a year since he’d last been up to Maine. Uncle Howie liked him because Douglas joked with him and kidded him. He didn’t try to kiss his ass the way the others did. Uncle Howie called Douglas his “little hoodlum,” and Douglas supposed that’s just exactly what he was. And always had been.
Crossing the Maine border from New Hampshire, he accelerated the Harley even more. He knew he was breaking the speed limit. But who the fuck gave a damn? Like one of these hick mountain cops could ever catch him.
Douglas let out a laugh as he sped down the highway. His laughter trailed behind him like his long blond hair. On his right, he passed a young woman driving a white Corvette. He blew her a kiss as he zipped around her car. She waved back at him, but Douglas was in too much of a hurry to even think about stopping, no matter how pretty she had seemed to be.
Douglas had just turned twenty-four. Both his parents were dead, and he had no brothers or sisters. His father had been the grandson of Uncle Howie’s older brother, so that actually made the old man Douglas’s great granduncle-but to Douglas, he was just Uncle Howie, his closest living relative. Odd, that. So many generations between them and still there was no one more closely related to Douglas than Howard Young. He’d lost his father when he was fourteen. Dad had died of a heart attack at Uncle Howie’s house, in fact. A year later, Douglas’s mother took her own life by sticking her head in the gas oven. Douglas had gone to live with his father’s sister after that, but when he was eighteen, Aunt Therese had followed Mom’s example and offed herself with pills. Guess she figured Douglas was finally all grown up and could take care of himself from then on.
And he did. He did just fine. He decided against college, even though Uncle Howie had offered to pay for it. Instead, Douglas worked a series of jobs as a carpenter, a landscaper, and an unlicensed electrician. Then he’d signed on to a merchant ship for a year and sailed from San Francisco to Tokyo to Sydney. After that came a gig as the skipper of a shark-watching cruise off the coast of Maui. That took up another year. But once he hit twenty-four, Douglas figured he ought to start thinking about settling down. He didn’t care much about money, but he knew he’d need some if he was ever going to be more than just a gypsy. So he hopped on his bike and headed north to Uncle Howie’s. It might be more than a month before the scheduled family reunion in October, but Douglas wanted some time alone with his uncle. He intended to remind the old man that he was the last of his kin, all he had left in the world.
And that was something his prissy cousins could not claim.
Douglas was the last of his branch of the family. If his great-grandfather hadn’t died so young, it would have been Douglas living in that big old mansion on the cliff. His great-grandfather had been the eldest son. It was he who should have inherited the estate. But because he died-another one of those mysterious family deaths that seemed to plague the Young family-it had been Howard who became master of the great house, the controller of the family fortune. That’s why Douglas’s cousins, especially that prissy Philip-and his equally prissy offspring Ryan and Chelsea-brownnosed the old man the way they did. It was always, “Oh, Uncle Howard, can I get you anything?” “Uncle Howard, you look so fit and well!” “Uncle Howard, I’m going to name my first son after you!” It made Douglas want to puke.
Up ahead was the exit for Youngsport. The family was so rich the town was nam
ed after them. Douglas angled the bike and slowed down a bit as he headed onto the off-ramp. He thought he could smell the sea from here. He’d always loved the scent of salty air and briny water. It brought back happy memories. It made him think of the days when his dad and mom were still alive. They’d come up here to Maine from their house in Connecticut and picnic on the great lawn that ran alongside the cliffs. Douglas would watch the seabirds dive into the ocean to catch fish. Sometimes Dad would take him out on a skiff and they’d dive off the sides, swimming in the cold, clear, blue water. Those were good days. Everybody had seemed so happy.
Roaring the Harley down a winding, maple-tree-lined lane, Douglas was glad to be back in Maine. He hadn’t called Uncle Howie to tell him he was coming. He didn’t want his cousins getting wind of his early arrival. If they did, Ryan would no doubt hop in his Mercedes-Benz and head north to join them, his obnoxious twin sister Chelsea probably in tow. They weren’t about to allow their vagabond cousin Douglas any free, uninterrupted time with Uncle Howard. Douglas just laughed. He knew Uncle Howie would be glad to see him. He always was. The one thing Douglas wished was that Brenda had accompanied him. It would have been good for Uncle Howie to see that he was finally serious about a girl, that he might really be ready to settle down.
Except he wasn’t. Not really. He didn’t love Brenda, and she had figured that out. She was a great girl, but the sparks just weren’t there. Douglas had never known sparks. Maybe they were just fairy tales. But Dad had said he’d felt sparks for Mom. “She is my morning, noon, and night,” he’d said. Douglas figured Mom had felt the same way, since after Dad’s sudden death during a family reunion in Maine, she pulled inward, becoming sullen and depressed. That was why she’d taken her life.
No such passion existed between Douglas and Brenda. “Face it, Douggie,” she’d said, when he’d asked her to come with him on this trip. “I’m just an ornament for the back of your bike. You just want to show me off to all those rich relatives of yours. You just want them to think you’re gonna get married and be a respectable member of the family. I know you too well, Douggie. I know you don’t really want to marry me.”