A Murder at Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  He had made good in life. He had come a long way from being the kid no one wanted to have anything to do with, the one who parents kept their kids from, the one who ended up with his brother as his only birthday party guest.

  His years as a football player who dated the cheerleading captain and prom queen had given him the silent revenge he’d wanted. Even going to New York and making scads of money as a stockbroker had continued the trend. No one could poke a hole in financial success, that was solid. If he were going to be completely honest, he didn’t want that payback to end. If only he could have been happy living that life, he would have stuck with it.

  Strange that he left what didn’t work to move to what he was sure would work, only to find that nightmares from the past reared their ugly head.

  Nightmares.

  More than anything else in the world, he just wanted to share a simple life with Layla. His best friend, the one with whom he had shared all his dreams and secrets.

  But these dreams of hers, the ones that couldn’t possibly be real, wrecked everything. He slammed his fist on the table and the glass crashed on the floor.

  Damn it!

  Everything he’d done was for naught.

  He cleaned up the broken glass and searched for a trash can, but they had all been taken outside before the party began. He couldn’t leave it in the sink, someone would cut themselves. He opened a small drawer to put the pieces in and saw the crayons and paper and scissors he had gotten for the girls some time ago. When he bought those items, he’d thought they might make paper dolls together. His heart slipped a couple of notches in his chest. He put the broken glass into the drawer and swept it to the side. He’d give Layla’s daughters the materials tonight before they left.

  He pushed the screen door open and nearly ran into someone.

  “Layla.”

  Her face was calm. Not happy. Not angry, which was good. Though it might have been worse than that. Her demeanor was more along the lines of…disappointed.

  He hated disappointed.

  Disappointed made him shrink in his shoes.

  She was all soft and Southern-girl-sexy in a hot pink blouse that bared her shoulders and clung to her curves. If she was pregnant, there were no signs of it in this outfit. His mind drifted back to the time before things got complicated. Before there were discussions of a ghost that threatened his life and before he knew that her dreams could leave a mark in the world.

  He kissed her on the cheek and her perfume wafted around him in a subtle gardenia scent.

  “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” he said.

  “I needed to be here for the meeting.”

  “Maybe we ought to talk,” he said.

  Her watchful eye combed the outside of the manor as though someone were spying through the walls.

  She placed a finger over her lips and pointed to the screen door that led to the inside and he wondered if someone was standing there.

  Mason and Layla walked along the outer fringe of the celebratory crowd and toward the quiet beach. Away from the manor. On the way, they passed a small marker his mother had insisted they construct. It read: In Memory of Anna Alcott. That spot was known to be the place on the property where Anna had died. Several antique rose bushes had been moved from the main garden to form a frame behind the marker.

  “Do not let the girls go into the house,” he heard Layla say to her mother, who left the gathering when she saw her daughter. “They can have fifteen more minutes, then y’all need to head home.”

  “How are you going to get home?” Jayne Ella shifted her gaze to Mason and her eyes hardened. Her lips flattened with an air of disgust.

  “I’ll get a cab.”

  “Call me if you need me,” her mother said.

  Mason and Layla walked to where the grass met the beach, where the music was distant and they could hear one another more easily.

  Layla had a compromising for-the-sake-of-the-baby attitude with him. As if she wouldn’t be around him otherwise. She had sent him a text offering him the opportunity to attend an ultrasound appointment. But he couldn’t figure out how to respond, because she couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t be.

  He was certain that they would get to this appointment and the doctor would say, “I’m sorry, honey, but there’s no baby.” Then Layla would get counseling for the stress that obviously came from Asher’s death and debt.

  The band played a slower song, a sign the evening was winding down. The tide, too, had calmed and cast forth only tired waves that sloshed onto the wet sand as if it had given up its strength for the night.

  “Layla, I wish I could understand your dreams and the manor and what happened to Brooke.” Actually, what he really hoped was that she would say the ghost-dream-stuff was all a joke. That she hadn’t really killed Brooke. He tried one last time to lean toward everything he had hoped for with Layla, but he was met with a wall. This was the same feeling he’d long recognized as a dire warning, the one that said he was in danger, the one that said he should turn back. It didn’t scare him, but it sure as hell pissed him off.

  “I just can’t. I’ve been over and over this in my head and—I can’t work it out. I don’t know how you see what I dream, maybe you have some of the same gifts as Dixie.” He looked at the ground and kicked a shell with the toe of his boot. “Isn’t it possible that there’s a more reasonable explanation for everything?”

  She stared at him as though she carefully weighed what he had said. Then she glanced at the stars in the night sky, the moon’s reflection on the dark ocean, then finally back to his eyes and said, “What about the baby, Mason?”

  A shot of panic hit him in the chest and he searched for the right thing to say. All he could find was that wall of anger he was all too familiar with. “I don’t know what to tell you about that.”

  “I know I can wait until this baby is born and we can do a paternity test and maybe then you’ll believe me. I’ve already spent a big part of my life with someone I couldn’t trust, someone I couldn’t talk to and who didn’t believe in me. So I understand why this is hard for you. I really do. It would be hard for most people. But I just can’t do this.”

  “Layla—” He reached for her and she stepped away. “Layla, please.”

  She did an about face and her skirt twirled outward with a flair. “I’ve made this mistake before. When I married Asher, it didn’t feel right. I went with him because my mother had me convinced that I didn’t have any other options.

  “Well, I don’t care if I don’t have any other options. I’ll have this baby on my own. Because if I were ever going to be with anyone again—and honestly, at this point, I don’t know that I would—that person would have to be someone who loved me for who I am. Not because I own a huge chunk of Alcott Manor. Or because you’ve built me into the image of an ideal wife. But because you think the whole big flawed and scary package of me is where you want to be. And if that’s not what you want? Then screw it. Because all I am is all I have to offer and I’m not settling for less than someone who wants the whole of it.” She exhaled hard like a final note. “Not again. Not ever.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I need space. Leave me alone.”

  He watched her storm to the beach, knowing with a knot in his gut that they were finished.

  31

  Layla stretched on the sand and stared at the half-moon that hung over the ocean. With bright stars pinned so clearly around the crescent, she would normally have thought it a gorgeous night. However, the warm breezes, the soft waves, and the cool sand were some distant ideal that didn’t reach her.

  She thought about the white cake with white icing she had seen when she and Mason walked outside. If she could get just one thick slice, that would go a long way to numbing every emotion she didn’t want to feel right now.

  She heard the murmurs of family cleaning up on the great lawn. She hoped her mother got the girls home and off to bed like she told her to. Emma had been munching
on sweets and junk food, and Layla knew she would feel ill if she didn’t get to bed on time.

  People moved in and around Alcott Manor tonight, completely unaware that Asher Cardill haunted its rooms. She had to figure out a way to get rid of him before he struck again. He and Jordan were well on their way to stopping the tours.

  She hadn’t slept well at her mother’s, but she knew better than to doze off near the manor. And she knew better than to think of Asher when she was close to sleep, close to dreaming. That combination would put her in contact with him, and she wasn’t going to do that. Not again.

  So even though the rhythmic waves did their best to lull her to sleep, she turned her energy in the other direction, just like navigating a car. One spin of the wheel and she was moving on another course. She thought of her daughters and how often they had played on this beach as a family. She worked to get herself fully awake. Then she heard Anna Kate’s laughter, round and robust and leading-the-way-infectious.

  Was this a memory?

  The girls occupied so much of her brain space that sometimes she heard their voices when they weren’t even around. Occasionally, just as she was falling asleep at night, she even thought they called her. She’d go to their rooms and find them sound asleep.

  Anna’s laugh sounded again, louder this time. Definitely real.

  Why hadn’t her mother taken the girls home?

  Layla didn’t know the exact time, but it felt late and she had told Jayne Ella… That was when she noticed Anna Kate’s laugh had an echo to it, like a trail, but with sound.

  No.

  Had she inadvertently pulled them into a dream? An almost dream?

  She wiggled her fingers in the sand to remind herself where she was, like a tether to the real world. Then she headed over the empty lawn, floating as she often did in dreams, toward the manor.

  Through the back window, she saw Asher and the girls just beyond the kitchen hand-in-hand in ring around the rosey style.

  “No!”

  She grabbed a handful of sand and mashed the grains between her fingers and under her nails. The hard tug at her midsection yanked her back to her body and awake with a gasp.

  She ran toward the manor at top speed, hoping against hope that what she had seen wasn’t real. Surely her mother had taken the girls home as she had instructed. Surely they weren’t inside sleeping where they would be susceptible to one of her Alcott-induced dreams. Surely.

  When she arrived in the living room, she saw Emma asleep on one couch with a washcloth on her forehead and Anna curled onto her side and fast asleep on the other couch.

  “There you are. I’ve been calling you, where have you been?” Jayne Ella turned the corner with her phone in her hand.

  “Is she sick?” Layla placed the back of her hand against her daughter’s cheek and was relieved when it was cool.

  “Oh, she’s fine. Just ate too much cake is all, I think. We spent about forty-five minutes in the bathroom, but she never got sick. Too much party and too many sweets. Where were you?”

  “Down at the beach. I thought I told you to take them home and not to let them into the house?”

  Layla tried to wake her daughters with a gentle shake and by calling their names, but they didn’t budge.

  “I got to talking with everyone and lost track of time. Not by much. I decided to just let them rest here for a little bit. I thought about taking them downstairs to their own beds, but I didn’t want to miss you in case you came through. They are completely knocked out.”

  “I see that.” Layla knew where her daughters were. Their bodies were on these couches, but their spirits were out and about and dancing with their father. “How long have they been asleep?”

  “Eh, not long. Fifteen or twenty minutes, maybe a little less.”

  “There you are.” Mason stood in the hallway. “I didn’t want to leave until I knew that Jayne Ella had found you.”

  Tiny butterfly wings flickered in her belly. She opened her mouth to speak and her jaw clicked.

  “Do you want me to help you move the girls to the car?” Layla’s mother spoke in a low voice to her daughter and ignored Mason.

  “No,” she answered quickly. She didn’t want their bodies and their spirits to be too far away from one another. Neither did she want her mother to notice how impossible it would be to wake them. That would worry her and she might call a doctor. “I’ll stay here with them, you go on home. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Layla guided her mother toward the front door.

  “I’ll come back in the morning to pick y’all up.”

  “We’ll probably sleep in. I’ll call you.” Layla shut and locked the heavy door and ran to her sleeping girls.

  Mason stood nearby while she tried to wake Emma.

  Layla moved between the two couches, shaking one girl, calling her name, and then doing the same with the next. “Wake up, Anna Kate. This is your mama, wake up!”

  “Are they okay? What’s going on?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you and I’m not going to waste my time explaining.” She shook her daughter by the shoulders and her body wobbled, lifeless and empty. Her baby wasn’t at home. “Emma Cath! Listen to my voice, sweet girl. Wake up!”

  “My God, what’s wrong with them?” Mason took their pulse.

  She sat on her heels and sighed hard. “They’re with Asher.”

  “They’re dead?”

  She shook her head. “No. But they’ll be in a coma soon enough if I don’t get them back into their bodies. They only have about two hours left.”

  “Asher was probably watching and waiting to pounce,” Layla said. “I must have picked them up in a light dream without even realizing it.”

  He tapped the backs of the girls’ hands and called their names. “We have to call 911, Layla. This looks serious.”

  She positioned herself on the couch, put Emma’s feet over her lap and held them close. “No. They’re trapped in this house, Mason! I have to go get them.” She breathed deeply, trying to descend into a relaxed state, one where her lucid dreaming would kick in.

  He scooped Anna into his arms, her head lolled back and her arms hung loose. “I’m taking her to the ER—"

  “Put her down!” Layla shouted, her mama bear side fierce and ready to attack.

  Slowly, Mason returned Anna Kate to the couch. He placed her arms on her stomach and moved her hair out of her face.

  “You’re scaring me, Layla. What are you doing?”

  She held her hands out in front of her as if she could calm him or keep him still. She could not have him taking her girls away, let alone running off to the hospital with them. “It’s the manor and my dreaming. I understand if this is too much for you, but right now you need to let me do my thing so I can get my girls.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “I am serious. Now I can handle this, just—you need to let me get to it.” She didn’t actually know if she could handle it. Standing up to Asher wasn’t something she had had much success with. And Asher as a ghost wasn’t someone she knew how to overcome. For her girls, though, she had to figure it out.

  “They’re not sick?”

  He glanced at the girls and ran the back of his fingers down the side of Anna Kate’s face, a gesture that softened Layla’s heart. For as much as she believed Asher to care about her girls, he had never touched them as gently.

  “I would call an ambulance if I thought they needed a doctor’s help, but they don’t. I woke up before they did. Asher has their spirits in this house.”

  He laughed once and shook his head as though he just couldn’t believe what she was saying. “Layla, you just—you’ve got to—first you say you’re—” He waved to her midsection.

  “Shhhh!” She raced to him and put her fingertips over his lips. “Don’t.” She gestured to the walls to indicate that Asher was listening.

  They stared at one another in the night shadows
of the manor and her heart begged for him to believe her. Surely one day, somewhere in the future, she would be able to look at him without missing him, needing him, and wanting him.

  When she turned toward her girls, she heard him say, “What do you need for me to do?”

  She faced him, not at all knowing how he would respond to what she was about to ask. But she needed his help. She had no idea how to kill a ghost. “Will you help me get the girls back home?”

  They stared at one another for a long moment until finally Mason nodded.

  She breathed a heavy sigh, then explained how this trip would be like the last two times he became a part of her dreams. Only Asher would be waiting for them this time. To kill them both.

  32

  Layla sat on one couch with Emma’s feet in her lap. Mason stretched out on the floor with a pillow beneath his head, acting as though he had just been selected to perform onstage in a magic trick.

  She had lowered the lights and coached Mason on deep and steady breathing. “Sometimes, if I’m meditating deeply enough, the lucid dreaming will just kick in for me. I don’t have to be asleep,” she whispered. “So, fall asleep if you can, but don’t stress about it. I might be able to pick you up even if you’re not completely out.”

  Her thumb stroked the delicate arch of Emma Cath’s foot.

  Still warm. Good.

  She checked her watch—two hours left. In that remaining time, she and Mason would somehow have to get the girls convinced that reuniting with their father was a bad idea, that this was all just a dream and they needed to wake up.

  Don’t stress. Just breathe.

  The deeper you relax, the closer you get to your babies.

  Babies.

  There were three now. One far smaller than the rest.

  She heard the antique and elongated pace of the tick-tock and opened her eyes to find a grandfather clock against the wall that hadn’t been there before. The gold base of the pendulum swung left, then right, taking its time to move from one side of the chamber to the other.