The Secret of Cypriere Bayou

by Jana DeLeon

  John’s head snapped up from the photo and his eyes narrowed on her. “How did it get there?”

  “I thought maybe you could tell me.”

  John stared at her in surprise. “Me?”

  “Well, you were upstairs all day. I thought maybe you saw the resemblance and left the photo for me, but I guess not.”

  John shook his head. “I’ve never seen this before now, and I’ve been through every room in this house on the first and second floor.”

  Olivia studied his expression as he looked back down at the photo then again at Olivia, but he appeared as confused as she was.

  “So how did it get there?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the photo looks like you. It’s easy to fake photos these days, but then the real question would be, who’s trying to scare you?”

  “No one.”

  John raised one eyebrow.

  “I swear.” Olivia raised one hand as if taking an oath. “I don’t have a problem with anyone, and very few people even knew I was coming here. Besides, there’s a whole photo album here with the same woman. Do you think someone faked all of it?”

  John frowned. “Look, I know you write books about monsters and stuff, but I don’t believe in any of that. What I do know is that a ghost didn’t put that picture on your bed.”

  “I know. I don’t believe it was a ghost, either.”

  “No one would go to such lengths unless it was personal. Are you sure you haven’t hacked anyone off lately? An angry reader, maybe?”

  Olivia shook her head. “I don’t see how. I don’t write under my real name and my publisher is very careful about keeping my real identity a secret.”

  “I don’t suppose your publisher would stoop to scaring you for a better novel, would they?”

  “Heavens, no. Something like this makes it harder to concentrate on writing, not easier.”

  “Well, despite the veil of secrecy you claim you’re under, anyone can be gotten to if a person wants to bad enough.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t think you ought to stay here. Maybe you should go to New Orleans for a couple of days. Give me a chance to poke around and see what I can find.”

  Olivia knew that what John said made sense, but she just couldn’t bring herself to agree. Olivia didn’t believe for a minute the photo was a fake. No one would go to the trouble of creating an entire album just to scare her. Even her editor didn’t know about her past. How could anyone else?

  This might be her last chance to learn something about her family, to figure out why she kept dreaming about the house. If she left now, she might not have the opportunity again. Whoever had left her the picture was probably trying to scare her, but it had done just the opposite—it had made her determined to stay and check into its authenticity.

  “No,” she said finally. “I don’t respond to scare tactics.”

  “Olivia, I can’t guarantee your safety. The doors to the house have been locked, and if someone was strolling around upstairs, one of us should have heard or seen them.”

  “Why didn’t you see them?” Olivia shot back. “You were working upstairs.”

  “Not late this afternoon. I finished upstairs and moved down to the basement. If someone came in through a window or even the front door, I wouldn’t have heard them.”

  Olivia blew out a breath. “Then I suggest both of us start poking around. I don’t like the idea that someone besides the two of us has access to this house. They have to be getting in somehow and the dead bolts are in place on both doors.”

  John hesitated for a second and Olivia could tell he clearly wanted her out of the way, not in the middle, but running didn’t fit into her agenda.

  “Fine,” he said finally. “Where do you want to start?”

  “Outside? I mean, that’s logical, right? He didn’t drop in from the sky.”

  “He certainly didn’t park in the drive and stroll inside,” John agreed. “We can walk the perimeter of the house. The ground’s soft from the rain. There ought to be footprints.” He gave Olivia a nod and headed for the front door. Olivia pulled on her tennis shoes and followed him outside.

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Olivia tugged off her muddy tennis shoes and set them on the front porch. They’d circled the house twice, searching every square inch of the ground within twenty feet of the house but they’d found nothing. On the second pass, John never spoke a single word as they searched the grounds around the house, frowning the entire time.

  He pulled off his dirty shoes and tossed them next to hers, but he stared across the courtyard, his brow furrowed in concentration. “What are you thinking?” Olivia asked.

  He didn’t answer her immediately, and after several seconds passed, Olivia wondered whether he was going to answer her at all. Suddenly he turned to face her, his eyes locking onto hers. “You’re certain the picture wasn’t there before.”

  “Absolutely.” Olivia frowned, wondering where he was going with his line of questioning, then suddenly it hit her and she sucked in a breath. “He was already in the house. That’s what you’re not saying. That he’s been in the house all this time…Oh my God. If there’re no footprints then he hasn’t left either.”

  “Maybe not. He could have left out the front door when we were around back.”

  “But he may still be in there.”

  “Yeah.”

  Olivia took a deep breath and blew it out. “Then I guess we better get to looking.”

  “And start where? There’s probably a million places to hide.”

  “My room.”

  John frowned. “Why there?”

  “Because that first night during the storm someone came into the room while I was bathing.” She explained the draft and her theory of secret passageways.

  “And then you came downstairs dripping wet, half dressed and toting a gun. Makes a lot more sense now.” He shook his head and gave her a begrudging look of admiration. “You’ve got backbone. I’ll give you that.”

  “I told you—I don’t spook easily. And I don’t like people messing with me.”

  John nodded. “I’ll bet you’re right about a secret passageway. Let me grab my tools from the basement, and we’ll start now. I don’t want you sleeping in there if we can’t secure the room.”

  Olivia watched as he walked away, wondering about the enigma that was John Landry. He was the stereotypical strong, silent type, but then things got muddy. She could tell he preferred to be left alone, but yet if he felt her security was threatened he jumped immediately into action. Olivia had no doubt that if called for, he’d fight with deadly force. He had a dangerous edge to him, something just beneath the surface that told her this man wouldn’t necessarily play by the rules if it didn’t make sense.

  I can’t guarantee your safety.

  John’s words flashed through her mind. She knew what he said was true. If someone wanted to get to her they eventually would, but for whatever reason she felt better about her chances here with John than anywhere else without him.

  JOHN TAPPED ON A WALL in Olivia’s bedroom and listened for a hollow sound, an indication that there was space behind the wall. Olivia’s story troubled him on many different levels. He still thought she was hiding something, but he believed her when she said she had no idea who could be behind the intrusions. It was clear to John that someone was playing a game with her, but why? And even though he thought she was still keeping secrets, John didn’t think Olivia had an answer to that question, either.

  Her proclamation of secret passageways for servant usage was both surprising and frustrating. It was something he hadn’t taken into consideration, but would explain why someone had been able to move through the mansion without being seen. Whoever was playing tricks with the photographs knew the mansion intimately, and that led to a whole other set of questions. Was the intruder someone from Cypriere, or was Olivia’s identity not as hidden as she thought it was?

  “You find anyth
ing?” Olivia’s voice sounded behind him.

  He rose from the floor to face her and shook his head. “No. All the walls appear solid. What about you?”

  Olivia shook her head and gave the room a quick glance. “I didn’t imagine that breeze, and there’s no other source that could have created it. The windows are sealed remarkably tight given the state the house is in and there’s no gap in the door, either.”

  “I agree.”

  She gave him a half smile. “With what part?”

  “All of it. I don’t think you imagined anything, and I think the most logical explanation is that someone entered the room.”

  Olivia blew out a breath. “I was afraid you’d think I was crazy.”

  “I never said I didn’t think you were crazy. The way you go about making a living is definitely borderline crazy.”

  Olivia laughed and John smiled back before he even realized it. Despite being in the way, Olivia Markham was a hard woman not to like. She was tough, logical, independent and definitely not hard on the eyes, especially for a man who preferred an athletic frame and natural good looks to women made up so perfectly they looked as if they’d been varnished.

  And she still needs you.

  The thought tipped through his mind like a knife and he clenched his jaw. He had no argument for the truth. Despite Olivia’s capabilities, she still had a situation on her hands that she couldn’t handle alone, which meant that now he had three women who needed something from him. And that was something he’d been trying to avoid.

  A bolt of lightning flashed outside the bedroom window and the thunder that followed made the old glass panes shake. “Wow,” Olivia said. “Looks like we’re in for another doozy.”

  Her words jolted him from his thoughts and he nodded, willing his mind to return to the business at hand—finding the secret passageway. “Weather report says it should be a short storm, but powerful.”

  “You zoned out there for a minute,” Olivia said. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No. Just thinking.” He pointed to the wardrobe. “The only section of wall we haven’t tested is behind that.”

  Olivia nodded. “I thought the first night that maybe the previous occupants shoved it there to block the passageway for privacy, but if it’s blocking the passageway, then how could someone have gotten into the room?”

  John crossed the room to the wardrobe and opened the doors wide. The wardrobe had drawers and shelves on one side and a hanging area for clothes on the other side. “A man could easily fit in here,” John said, pointing to the side of the wardrobe with the rod. “Maybe he was already in the room and hid in the wardrobe when you came in.”

  Olivia shook her head. “I opened the wardrobe on the off chance there were clean linens. Besides, even if someone was hiding there, they had to get out. The windows and door were both locked from the inside.”

  John stared at the wardrobe and frowned. “Maybe the wardrobe is the passageway.”

  “Like a C. S. Lewis book?” Olivia said.

  John stepped into the wardrobe and ran his fingers over the back panel, starting at the top. “I don’t think it’s a doorway to another world, but someone might have modified this wardrobe to cover the original opening.”

  He squatted and continued to search the panel at the bottom. In the right corner, he felt the panel give a bit. He pressed the almost unnoticeable indention and the back of the wardrobe slid silently open, exposing a narrow passageway. He heard Olivia gasp behind him as he stared at the passageway in disbelief.

  He’d known Olivia’s idea was the only one that made sense, and he didn’t believe she’d imagined the breeze in her room that first night. But thinking something could be real and seeing it in front of him were too different things—and opened an entire realm of possibilities that he hadn’t considered before.

  Possibilities that might lead him to his sister.

  He poked his head into the passageway but couldn’t see anything in the pitch black tunnel. The wardrobe barely allowed light across the threshold of the entry but the passageway ran the length of the room, allowing no illumination beyond the first foot of the opening.

  “Hold on a sec,” Olivia said, and he heard her rustling in the room behind him.

  He turned to see what she was doing, and she stepped into the wardrobe doorway and handed him a spotlight. He raised his eyebrows at her and she shrugged.

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  He turned on the spotlight and stuck it in the passageway. The woman had a point. If staying in large houses of horrors was a normal part of her job, she probably carried a more unusual set of business supplies than the average writer. He’d already been impressed with her tool set she’d brought to check the walls, complete with stethoscope. There was something to be said for a woman whose luggage included more tools and equipment than clothes.

  He shone the light to the right of the opening, but there was only a wall. On the left the passageway extended about ten feet, then appeared to end. The entire passageway was maybe two feet wide and the ceiling was barely higher than his head. Servants back then must have been short and skinny.

  “Well?” Olivia asked, poking her head into the tunnel.

  “I can’t tell if it turns at the end. I’m going to take a look.”

  “Be careful. The floorboards could be rotten or weak.”

  John shone the light down on the wooden pathway. Fresh, new lumber shone back at him. “Looks like someone kept this part of the house repaired.” He took a couple of steps down the passageway.

  “What the hell?” Olivia asked.

  He glanced back as Olivia shone a flashlight on the repaired floor.

  “Why in the world would someone make repairs here?”

  John continued down the passage, checking each section of the wall for a possible sliding panel to an off-shooting tunnel. “I think if we had the answer to that question, we’d know who was sneaking around here and why.”

  “Do you see anything?”

  “Not so far.” He covered the last couple of feet in the passageway and frowned when he realized the wall simply stopped, rather than turning as he’d hoped. He knocked and pressed on the end wall, hoping to find some way to make it shift or open but it didn’t budge. “I don’t understand. It’s a dead end.” He looked back at Olivia. “You seem to know some about the architecture of these homes. Do you want to take a look?”

  Olivia bit her lip and stared at him.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “No, yes…it’s just that I’m a little claustrophobic.”

  “You’re kidding me. With your job?”

  “I don’t write in closets,” Olivia shot back. “Give me a second.” She took a single step into the tunnel, took a deep breath, then slowly blew it out. She inched down the tunnel toward him and after what seemed like forever, finally stood behind him.

  She placed one hand on his shoulder and peered around him at the solid wood wall. “There’s got to be a way around it. Whoever replaced that flooring did it for a reason. Did you feel the edges for a release?” She pointed up at the corner of the passage end. “What’s that?”

  He looked at the corner. “I don’t see anything.”

  “There’s something shiny up there. On the framing at the top corner.”

  John shone his light up in the corner. “I don’t see anything.”

  “My flashlight caught it for a moment. Turn your light off and let me see if I can get it again.”

  John turned off the spotlight and eighty percent of the illumination left the tunnel. He heard Olivia suck in a breath, then she shined her flashlight at the corner, slowly moving the light across the studs. Suddenly, she stopped.

  “There,” she said. “Where the bracing comes down at an angle in the top corner. Do you see?”

  John looked up and saw a glint of something where the two studs met. He reached into the corner and felt lightly with his fingertips, just in case it was something sharp. But whateve
r was shining was small and smooth and connected to some sort of fuzzy material. “It’s metal.”

  “Could it be a release?”

  “No. It’s not attached to the wall and there is some sort of material attached to it. Hold on.” He balanced the object between his fingers, careful to get a good grip, and carefully removed it from the corner.

  “What is it?” Olivia asked, her ragged breathing giving away how hard it was for her to stand there.

  John looked down at the object in his palm. “Some sort of bag with a shiny clasp on top. I’m not sure.”

  “Let’s go back into the room and take a look.”

  John managed to turn around in the narrow space and followed Olivia out of the tunnel and back into the master suite. He opened his hand to show her the object as soon as he stepped out of the tunnel. Olivia’s eyes widened as she stared at the black velvet pouch with a metal clasp. John opened the clasp and turned the pouch upside down, dumping a tiny bit of gold jewelry onto his palm.

  Olivia took one look at the object and gasped. A bolt of lightning broke across the sky and the lights went out, pitching the room into complete darkness. As he struggled to find the switch on the spotlight Olivia staggered backward, and he dropped the light and caught her with one arm before she fell. He could feel her heart pounding against his chest as he clutched her warm body against his. The honey-sweet smell of her hair flooded his nostrils and his body began to respond in entirely inappropriate ways, now or ever.

  He released her slowly, making certain she wasn’t going to collapse, and retrieved the spotlight from the floor. He pressed the switch and the room flooded with light. Olivia slumped onto the end of the bed, clutching her flashlight and staring at his hand as if the object was going to leap up from his palm and attack her.

  John took in her flushed face, ragged breath and shocked expression. He narrowed his eyes at her. “I think it’s time you and I have a talk about exactly why you’re here.”

  Chapter Six

  Olivia sipped on her cup of tea and looked across the kitchen table at John. A lantern on the table cast a dim glow in the room, causing shadows to dance on the walls like the night creatures in some of her stories. She struggled to get control of herself, but her hands shook as she placed the cup back on the table.