Chandler didn’t remember much.
Beth poured Chandler more water, checked the IV, and asked her if she wanted Jell-O. Jell-O must be hospitals’ go-to first line of defense against most diseases, Chandler decided. Regardless, she said yes and requested cherry.
She closed her eyes and conjured up images of Peter. He was her calming agent. It wasn’t fair that she used Peter that way, and she’d never acknowledge it to him or put that honest-to-gosh pressure on a little boy. But just envisioning his face, the cross between little boy and young man. His lanky frame in his shiny, sleeveless blue soccer tank and his silver cape.
“Rustman!” Chandler exclaimed, her eyes popping open.
“What?” Hank gave her an incredulous look.
“I told Peter I’d help him make a costume for Rustman.” Chandler closed her eyes. Crap. She’d planned to get started on it tonight after Peter went to bed.
“I’m not sure who that is,” Denny chuckled, “but I wouldn’t worry about it. Kid’s gonna understand, if he even notices you’re gone. Margie said he was sleepin’. Now. Since you’re awake and kicking, I’m going to find somewhere to have a smoke. You staying with her, Hank?”
Hank nodded.
Chandler grimaced.
Denny bent and, to her surprise, pressed a kiss to her forehead. A prickly one, his mustache and beard tickling her cheek and neck. Whoever had tried to convince her that bikers were mean motorcycle gang members had been wrong—at least about Denny. She caught a whiff of cigarettes and beer that lingered on his clothes. On any other person it might have been off-putting, but for some reason, Chandler found it comforting. Familiar and warm.
She met Hank’s searching stare.
That was also familiar, yet she wouldn’t qualify the green eyes as warm. Suspicious with a softness hidden behind them that seemed to beg to get out, only something held it back. Life. Life appeared to have damaged Hank Titus. Damaged quite a few people in Bluff River, as Chandler recalled. She waited until Denny exited, then took a deep breath.
“So. Tell me about Linda Pike.”
The dusk ghost tour hosted by Lottie Dobson was a walking one.
“Wear tennis shoes,” Cru had recommended when he invited her. The ghost tour, he’d explained, would give her a feel for Bluff River’s past and how it intertwined with the circus and the train depot.
Two days out of the hospital and Chandler was feeling okay. Probably due to stress, the doctor had said. Stress had a way of making any autoimmune disorder flare up and take control. She could have told him that. The IV of medication had helped her bounce back more quickly. She just wished she could wrap her hands around the recent series of events and tug them to a screeching halt. No more murder. No more angry poltergeists. No more Hank Titus, whose explanation of Linda Pike had been woefully lacking in details.
She’d disappeared at the age of eighteen.
She’d last been seen around the train depot.
A search had ensued. Search parties. Police personnel from three different counties. Dogs. Grid search areas.
Nothing.
No evidence.
Linda just vanished.
For over thirty-plus years.
“To the left,” Lottie said, her smiling voice once again captivating Chandler’s attention, “if you look up and take note of the third-story window, it’s been reported that sometimes the silhouette of a man wearing a fedora can be seen staring out the window.” Lottie waved her arm in an upward motion toward the front of Bluff River’s civic center.
Chandler pressed her lips together, hoping when she looked up that Fedora Man wasn’t staring back at her. She lifted her eyes. He wasn’t.
“Who is this Fedora Man?” another tourist in their small tour group of eight inquired.
Cru, standing beside Chandler, took up the tale in the tag-team fashion of a seasoned guide. “No one knows for sure. In 1907, the original Bluff River High School burned down. The superintendent at the time was injured and died from the effects of smoke inhalation a day later. While the civic center today was the replacement high school back then, it stands in a different location entirely. But some consider that Mr. Ferguson’s spirit was never willing to leave the school in the hands of another, so he traveled to the new school and still lingers.”
“Yes.” Lottie retrieved her story from her son, her earrings tinkling as they bobbed on her ears. “And after the new school was built, students reported sensations of feeling warned deep in their spirits right before they narrowly escaped an accident. For example, in 1967, Karen Meade was walking down the stairs in the school when she heard a distinct whisper of a man’s voice. ‘Take cover!’ it demanded. Karen ducked under the stairway alcove just as a tree happened to break off and crash through the window at the top of the stairs. Karen would have been killed or seriously injured had she not listened to the voice. She credited Mr. Ferguson with saving her. At least his spirit, anyway. She was a firm believer after that.”
“Believer in what?” A man wearing a button-up cotton shirt of a startling emerald green crossed his arms and shook his head. “In ghosts?”
Lottie offered him a patient and understanding smile. She gave a little shrug as if apologizing for not apologizing. “The afterlife, Mr. Ford. Those who are sometimes lost between this world and heaven.”
“Sure.” He chuckled. “Okay then. I’ll play along.”
“Dereck.” Mr. Ford’s wife slapped his arm playfully. He flicked her curly red ponytail. For a brief second, Chandler was envious of their apparent affection for each other. The camaraderie they shared. Dereck must have noticed her watching them because he gave Chandler a polite grin.
She averted her eyes.
Lottie was convincing, authentic, and her sincere belief gave Chandler the chills. She looked back up at the window. A few of the others in the group raised their phones and snapped pictures of the building.
“What’s this white blob in the window?” a teenage girl asked.
Cru edged past Chandler and looked over the girl’s shoulder at her phone’s screen. “Huh.” He nodded and shot a knowing glance at his mother before pointing his index finger at the phone. “The ‘blob’ is an orb.”
“A what?” The teen curled her lip.
“A spirit orb,” Lottie said while maintaining her pleasant expression, as though she knew not everyone would understand or believe.
“Or a speck of dust.”
Dereck’s jab wasn’t missed by Lottie, who tilted her head and playfully responded, “It is the manifestation of a soul. For some reason, they’ve chosen to reveal themselves to you.”
“Is it Mr. Ferguson?” The teen’s eyes grew wide, and she ping-ponged looks between her dad and brother standing there beside her.
“Perhaps,” Cru nodded. “He tends to show himself to younger people more often. We believe he has a soft spot for youth and attempts to reach out in order to warn or perhaps find fellowship with them.”
This was a bad idea. Chandler had never bothered to fully reconcile what she believed in when it came to the concept of ghosts or the afterlife. Faith taught her that God didn’t need souls suspended between worlds, nor was He aloof and uninterested enough to let them float around without some sort of resolution. Biblically speaking, Chandler had always been taught once dead, a person was reconciled immediately with their eternal fate.
Still, it didn’t mean the idea of ghosts didn’t influence her. Chandler pulled the edges of her plaid wool coat closer and buttoned it. Somehow the action made her feel as if she were shutting out the spirits by buttoning her coat and covering her heart.
Lottie noticed. She caught Chandler’s eye and gave her a small grin. A knowing one that indicated she was very aware of Chandler’s discomfort. She turned to face the group and brushed some lint from her scarf that draped around her neck.
“Sometimes you will see the manifestation of a spirit on these walks, while other times it is simply an opportunity to remember those who have passed awa
y.”
The idea should be a comforting one, but it wasn’t. What of Linda Pike, or Patty Luchent, or—that serial killer Hank had mentioned? The Watchman? Now that would be a ghost she would prefer to stay far away from. The ghost of a serial killer had to bode evil.
Chandler wished the group would move on to the next site. She was learning about Bluff River’s history, which would potentially lend itself toward the restoration project, but it wasn’t helping her in the way she had hoped. That the small-town history would be so alive, so very tangible that it would bring with it stories of endearment, of memories one could build a visitor’s attraction on. Instead, Lottie and Cru’s stories were reawakening the struggle Chandler faced every day. That awful tug and pull with reconciling the living with the dead. With the solitary sequestering of her spirit while she lived now, breathed today, and had her heart beating moment by moment. Yet who had missed Linda Pike? Did Denny still ache for his sister? The close bond shared between siblings was something Chandler always wished she’d had. And who had grieved the loss of Patty Luchent? A mother, a father, maybe a grandparent?
It was natural for her to envy Dereck and his wife, here, as a part of the tour group, but it was creepy to be jealous of the dead. The ones whose lives had been cut short, their relationships abruptly severed. It was unnerving that people like Lottie sought to connect with their spirits. A spirit. Whatever it was.
The connection so many sought in the afterlife was the connection Chandler ached for with the living. Images of her mom and dad swam in her mind’s eye. Of their structured life together, their successes and their pride in her when she’d earned the scholarships in high school that helped pay for her college education. Of their agonized expressions when Chandler broke the news to them that she was no longer the popular and ambitious student, but instead was a knocked-up young woman whose too many evenings of alcohol and collegiate fun had tanked her future. And Uncle Neal—he’d stepped forward, stepped up and offered Chandler a new start. A beginning. One she’d sworn not to squander and sworn to prove she could do—and be a wonderful single mom. She could rise from the disappointment and show them all how she could still shine.
Instead, the shadows seemed to grow, until soon they were crowding her out. She was her own person, staring out a proverbial window, staring at those she loved and wishing she could reach out, she could touch, she could reconcile. But the void between them was silent, and they were not speaking. It seemed they’d all withdrawn and left Chandler hidden in the abandoned building that was the remains of her once-promising life.
Chapter seventeen
What are you doing here?” Chandler whispered out of the corner of her mouth as Hank’s shoulder brushed hers. He’d slipped into the tour group silently, unobserved and unquestioned. The man moved like a ninja, regardless of his impressive size.
His hands were jammed into the pockets of his gray pants. The cuffs of his button-up shirt were rolled in a messy haphazard fashion. A leather cord wrapped around his neck, and a gold coin of some foreign exchange hung from it. He’d pulled his unruly dark hair back and tied it with a band.
“Keeping an eye on you,” Hank replied. His voice was so low it sounded like a distant rumble of thunder.
“I don’t need a caregiver,” Chandler hissed between clenched teeth.
“Says the woman who was just in the hospital.”
“The ER,” she corrected.
“Same difference.”
“All the same—” she started.
“You need my protection,” Hank finished.
“Like heck I do!” Chandler’s words were far louder than she’d planned.
Cru glanced up and looked between Chandler and Hank. His brows dipped with a concentrated question. Lottie paused mid-sentence. The others in the group stared.
Chandler cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. Please. Continue.”
Lottie grinned an all-too-knowing grin that insinuated everything Chandler wished it didn’t. Cru didn’t appear particularly welcoming toward Hank’s insertion—of course, Hank probably hadn’t paid for the tour.
“Are you stalking me?” Chandler muttered as the tour moved on.
Hank cleared his throat as though coughing and then grunted out, “Hardly.”
“Crashing my date with Cru Dobson?” she countered in a wicked whisper. Baiting him, though she didn’t understand why.
An ironic smile tilted the corner of his mouth. “You’re on a date?”
“No,” Chandler admitted honestly. At least she didn’t think she was. She glanced at Cru, who walked a bit ahead of her, contributing to the tour’s narration with the skilled practice of someone who’d recited it many times before. Sure he’d invited her, but just to be nice. Right?
Hank smelled spicy. He wasn’t supposed to smell this good, especially since they were outside where the air was crisp and energizing. The spice only added to the delectable warmth an evening like this one could create. Tall oak and maple trees lined the street, their leaves occasionally floating down like miniature orange-and-yellow ghosts haunting the air. On either side, old houses stood, some ill-kept, some restored, but most looking lonelier the more south they walked. South. Toward the train depot. Toward the old circus grounds.
A warmth encased her hand, and Chandler stumbled. She righted herself as they kept moving, but every sense in her was wide awake. Hank’s callused hand had encompassed hers, like he had a right to it. She tugged, but he didn’t release her.
“On cold winter nights,” Lottie was saying, “sightseers will spot the shadowy form of a wolf prancing on the riverbank. A memorial to the people who once settled here.”
“Give me my hand back.” Chandler was fast losing her patience with Hank. He was a presumptuous walking Bigfoot.
He didn’t reply, only his fingers began to maneuver between hers, linking and toying as if to tease.
Chandler heard a stick crack beneath her tennis shoe. She glanced down, glad for a reason to be distracted as his fingers wove around hers. Her cheeks were red. She could feel them. The stick broke into three pieces, and one of them jammed between the concrete spacing on the sidewalk.
Something cold pressed against her palm. It was thin and long.
She jerked her head up to meet Hank’s eyes. They were narrowed in caution, and he gave his head a slight shake. The uninvited, warm tumbling of her stomach fled as Chandler realized Hank’s caress was mere subterfuge. His hand left hers, and Chandler gripped whatever he’d so subtly slipped into her palm.
Looking down, whatever warmth his touch had inspired in her quickly fled. A thin gold chain. A necklace? It made little sense. Hardly a romantic gesture, and yet . . .
Chandler was lifting her hand to study the necklace more closely when Hank leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Not now.”
“But—”
“Shhh.”
Chandler narrowed her eyes. Why press it into her hand if he didn’t want questions? Moron.
The group paused in front of a house directly across the street from the back of the train depot. To the right, the old Bluff River Inn rose two stories, its white wooden trim cracked and weathered, its brick walls dull and the mortar a dingy gray.
“In 1897, William Denver commissioned this house to be built for his spinster daughter, Velma. She lived here for over forty years, running it as a guesthouse for travelers who needed to rent a room for a nap, or a night, or perhaps stop for tea.” Cru paused then, and a sly smile dimpled his cheeks. He caught Chandler’s eye, though she wasn’t sure why he singled her out. Especially when he continued. “However, rumors abounded that Velma Denver was running something far more . . . er, lucrative than a mere guesthouse.”
“Enter Patty Luchent.” Lottie flared her arm wide and spread it toward the east and the costume house, whose green roof peeked just a bit above the roof of the elephant house beyond the hotel. “Patty Luchent is known as Bluff River’s first recorded murder victim.”
A ripple of interested sur
prise ran through the group, but Chandler couldn’t ignore the necklace clenched in her palm. She tried to catch Hank’s eye, question him with a stark stare. His attention was casually leveled on Lottie and her story about the fabled ghost that haunted Chandler’s office.
“She worked by day for the circus, sewing costumes and other etceteras.” Lottie winked at Dereck, who looked uncomfortable as he edged closer to his wife. “But by night it was said that Patty was engaged in . . . shall we say for the younger ears here, other pursuits. It was a perfect career to carry out on the side, considering she traveled with the circus on the train during the spring and summer. There were many opportunities to . . . branch out.”
Lottie’s laugh was charming. She knew they were all getting squirmy. She had the grace to move on to the part that better suited the ghost tour.
“But in 1928 it came to a screeching halt when Patty’s body was discovered in the costume house. Which we shall see shortly.”
They would? Chandler eyed Lottie. She’d not been told that her office was a part of the ghost tour. No one had asked her permission. But then it was a sidewalk tour, and sidewalks were public.
The necklace chain bit into her skin as Chandler squeezed her hand tighter. Cru skirted the group and led the way across the street toward the train depot. If she were superstitious, Chandler would have sworn the necklace in her palm grew warmer. Alive. Singeing her senses as if the piece of jewelry were nearing a place that meant something to it.
A distant scream rent the air.
“No! Oh dear God! Stop—noooo!”
The atmosphere flipped from a lulling ghost story to instant panic. Dereck’s wife grabbed at his arm even as he tried to free himself to run toward the scream. Hank sprang forward, charging up the hill toward the brick monstrosity of the train depot with its cemented windows and tilting chimneys. A few of the kids in the company instantly hurled themselves into their parents’ arms.
“No one do anything!” Cru shouted, fast on Hank’s heels.
The Haunting at Bonaventure Circus Page 14