If Ever I Fall: Book 3 of The Six Series
Page 11
It grew very silent as Grant and I listened for Mina to answer.
“What? What are ye not saying, Mina?” Brenda sounded shocked.
I had a feeling the next thing to come out of Mina’s mouth would not only floor Brenda, but upset Airen as well.
Airen came back into the dining room with a large tea tray filled with cups, a steaming pot of tea, and all the fixings. “Ye’ll have to excuse them. They have an odd way of talking things out.”
She set them on the table, wiping her hands down her pant legs with a sigh. “I’ll just go and get them.”
I grabbed her arm, halting her as Brenda’s holler boomed throughout the house. “And ye think that changes things?”
Airen jumped as her hand flew up to her throat. “Oh, Mum.” She sagged until she was sitting on the arm of my chair.
Putting my arm around her, I kept her from sliding to the floor. Grant cut me a look of warning, like an adult calling out his son for bringing home a girl he didn’t approve of.
“Ms. Campbell, do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Grant asked.
Airen’s eyes never left the doorway that led to the living room.
I tightened my hold around her to get her attention. “Airen?”
She turned her widened eyes on me. “Huh?”
“Grant asked if you knew what they were talking about.”
A confused look came over her face. “Grant?”
Oh, shit! He’d never introduced himself by his full name. “Agent Grant Jackson…” I said, nodding in Grant’s direction.
The scowl on his face smoothed as she turned her head to look at him. “Just an auld quarrel they canna get over.”
Before Grant could ask her anything else, Brenda stormed into the kitchen with arms loaded full of photo albums. “This is a whole lot more serious than I thought, Agent Jackson. And believe me when I tell ye, I’ll do whatever it takes to get the likes o’ him off the streets and out of our lives once and for all.”
Grant stood, taking the heavy load from Brenda and putting it on the table as a white-faced Mina came in and sat down.
“Ladies, I will do everything in my power to do just that,” Grant assured them. “Now, let’s start out with the name de Fleur and work from there, since Mrs. Campbell had such a strong reaction to it.”
“Reaction, aye, but it’s no what you might think,” Brenda answered, going around the table and moving the top two photo albums. Picking up the third one, she flipped the pages open, remaining quiet until she found what she was looking for. When she found it, she set the book down facing Grant.
“A house?” Grant asked, pulling the book closer to him to get a better look.
The photo had been taken in the early 1900s, Brenda told us. Not long after her grandmother had acquired it in a trust left to her from her own mother. As children, Brenda, Mina, and Robert had spent many a summer at that house on the coast of Ireland.
“Not just any house. That house has a history. An auld one,” Brenda replied, pulling the chair out next to Grant and settling in. Her fingers stretched out to slide lovingly beside the old photo. “It’s gone now, but before that, it belonged to my great-great-great-grandmother on my mother’s side. There’s a curse on that land, ye ken?”
Airen huffed beside me. “It’s all stories, aye? The Scottish and the Irish will make up just about anything to keep something interesting.”
Mina, mid-pour of a cup of tea, set the teapot down hard against the table. “Ye shouldna talk so, Airen! Ye ken what has happened in our family because of that house!”
My interest peaked. “What happened?”
Mina waved off my question, picking the teapot up with an unsteady hand.
“Death, Aiden. Death happened to our family,” Brenda answered.
“It’s not cursed. Death happens, Auntie. There’s naught we can do to change that. No one lives forever,” Airen disputed, rolling her eyes with a shake of her head.
Grant tapped the photo album with his thumb and then flipped the page. “The house was close to the water, I’m assuming, but was it rocky cliffside or beach?”
“No cursed? In the first month of our great-great-great-grandmother’s marriage, her first husband was killed on the beach returning home from a shipping venture. She found him halfway down the beach from where his skiff lay overturned in the sand with a knife sticking out of his chest.”
Years later, our great-great-grandmother’s husband went out riding his horse. She watched from the window as the horse reared up, tossing him off. She ran over to where he lay unmoving on the ground, the horse nibbling the grass beside him, and him with a broken neck.”
And let’s not forget our great-grandmother, whose husband was out tending the sheep when a heavy fog rolled in, disorienting him. He ended up walking right off the cliff and fell to his death on the rocks below. If that’s no a curse, then what is?”
“That’s all circumstance, nothing more,” Airen replied back hotly.
“Aye? And what of my grandfather? He just decided to take a swim in the well for fun? And my father? Ye ken what happened to yer granddad,” Brenda said, leaning forward, staring intently at Airen.
Airen rolled her eyes. “The reports showed he was drunk when his car went off the cliff, Auntie. Ye ken it as well as I do.”
“Yet he never drank a drop in his entire life,” Mina answered before Brenda could reply.
“And yer father?” Brenda asked, her voice changing to make the question less harsh.
Mina gasped, bringing her hand up to her mouth.
Airen seemed surprised. “My father died of a heart attack. At home.”
“Did ye ken that yer father had been out to the old house taking measurements? Did ye not know that yer parents were going to be moving ye to Ireland to take over the upkeep of it?”
“Brenda, no!” Mina cried out.
“Ye canna keep it from her anymore. I’ve stayed quiet all these years. I’ll no do it anymore,” Brenda said, giving Mina a stern gaze.
“I think I would have known if my parents were moving us. There would have been boxes and everything else,” Airen said, looking over at Mina for confirmation.
Mina never looked up and never disputed what Brenda had said about the move.
“The day yer father died, he was drawing up new plans for the house. He’d gone out to inspect the roof and the foundation, but there was no saving it. It was also on the day yer father died of a heart attack that the house collapsed in on itself. The House de Fleur is no more. Do ye still think it’s coincidence, lass?”
Airen shot out of her seat. Chest heaving, she pointed her finger between Brenda and Mina. “Ye picked one hell of a time te tell me all o’ this. How could ye?”
She ran out of the room and up the stairs, her door slamming hard in its frame, cracking like a gunshot.
Brenda’s face, tinged in remorse, looked down as she took a few minutes to compose herself.
They were the longest minutes of my life, because all I wanted to do was run up the stairs and check on Airen. Hearing news like that in the midst of strangers was not only unfair, but it was also earth shattering. But I couldn’t do that. I needed to stay and hear the rest of what Brenda hadn’t said. The information about Robert. And I prayed she’d give us something solid to go from, so we could nail the bastard once and for all.
Getting caught up in Airen’s family was never the plan. I had to remember that.
“My apologies, Agent Jackson. But ye have to understand all of it in order to understand it at all,” Brenda said, breaking the silence.
She looked over to where Mina sat, stone faced and just as pale. “Mina, it wasn’t my intention to hurt ye, but she needed to know. She deserved to know.”
Mina’s lips pressed tight, forming a rigid line of white. Seeing she wouldn’t get anywhere with Mina, Brenda turned back to Grant. “It’s a terrible history of the house for sure. And I really don’t know why Robert would choose to use de Fleur as his alias.”
“Is, or maybe was, there a history of mental illness in your family?” Grant asked, pulling a notebook and pen from his pocket.
Mina’s eyes snapped up, zeroing in on him. “Ye ken what our brother is like, Agent Jackson. That alone should give ye the answer ye seek, but, aye, there is a history of it. The original great-grandmother was said to have gone mad after her husband was murdered. She raved about pirates and ghosts who visited the house at night. She ended up leaping off the cliffside herself to escape it, or so they say.”
“What happened to the house in between her death and the next generation taking possession?” Grant asked as his pen scratched against the paper.
“It remained unoccupied until her daughter was of marriageable age. Once married, her daughter moved into the house. The house has had more unoccupied years than it ever had anyone dwelling in it,” Brenda answered.
Grant looked up from his notes. “You said that during the summers, you and your family would go there. Was there any odd or strange occurrences that happened to you back then?”
“Nay, by then, it was just a place we visited a couple weeks out of the year. Mum didn’t want to live there, but Da thought we should at least make sure it didn’t fall into ruin. Us kids would play, and they would do whatever needed to be done to keep the old house standing for one more year. And at the end of the month, we’d pack up and head back home.”
Grant added more notes to the paper as the clock on the wall ticked against the silence of the room.
“I ken what he wants, Brenda,” Mina said.
Grant’s pen stopped moving as we both sat up a little straighter, leaning forward.
Finally, something we could work with!
“Go on then,” Brenda said, moving to pick up her teacup as Mina twisted her hands in her lap.
“Remember the last time Granny came with us to the house?”
Brenda set her cup down with eyes squinted, as if recalling back the memory. “Aye, I ken it. It was the last time we went there together before Da’s accident. I think I was around sixteen at the time.”
“Do ye remember being stuck inside that one afternoon during the storm? To keep us entertained, Granny told us stories about the history of the house,” Mina asked, looking up from her lap and at Brenda.
“Oh, aye, I remember. She told us the stories about the pirates and how they hid their gold and other valuables there. I remember laughing when she said that if we lifted the house up in the air, we’d find enough gold to buy… Oh my God, that’s it, isn’t it? He thinks there’s gold in the foundation? But that was just a story. Da told him it was just a story!”
I shot a look at Grant, knowing his thoughts had to match my own. If there had been gold in the foundation and Robert had taken it, it would have been enough to live the life of the terrorist he’d become. Grant dipped his head slightly at me as if agreeing.
“Mrs. Campbell, since the house collapsed, have you done anything with it?” Grant asked.
“After my husband Aaron’s death, Brenda and I decided that instead of handing it down again, along with the curse, that she should sell it.”
“And I did. Which is how I was able to purchase the coffee shop and keep it running. I also paid off Mina’s house and put a good chunk of money away for Airen. So ye see, if it’s the land or the old ruins of the house he wants, he canna have it. It’s no longer ours to give.”
“It’s no the house he wanted anyway. It was what could have possibly been underneath it,” Mina told her.
Brenda seemed confused. “What do you mean?”
“Aaron and I went down to the house together, before we told ye we’d take it over. We hadn’t seen it in years, and he wanted to get an idea of the condition before we made our final decision. We walked the floor, tapped on the walls… everything to check the soundness, because Aaron said if the structure wasn’t any good, it would cost too much for us to repair it.” She sighed as if what she said next was a burden lifted from one shoulder only to be placed on the other.
“Under the stairs where the old bookshelf sat, remember it?” Her eyes flicked to Brenda. “It was knocked over, laying on its side as if someone pulled it out from under the stairs and shoved it over. Well, I didna believe it, even seeing it, but there it was nonetheless, a doorway that led below the house, into the foundation.”
Brenda gasped. “No…”
“Aye.” Mina dipped her head, leaning forward as she went on to tell the rest of her story. “It had the looks of an old root cellar. Dark and damp. You couldna see a thing past the first step, so Aaron grabbed a torch and made me stay above in case the stairs let go. When he got to the bottom, he called for me.”
Tears trickled down Mina’s cheeks, her eyes clouded with the past as if she stood in the underground room. “Da’s jacket was there, along with an empty bottle.”
Mina dabbed at the corners of her eyes with a tissue she’d pulled from her pocket as Brenda sat back in her chair, staring off across the room as if looking into the past. Both completely silent after Mina’s revelation.
It made me wonder what the connection to their father’s jacket and an empty bottle had with Robert de Fleur and the old house. What bridged that to him coming back and seeking out Airen? Even if Airen were the rightful owner, what would he have wanted from her? He could have snuck onto the property without contacting his family. There had to be more to it than that.
“Mina, did you report your findings?” Grant asked, steering the conversation away from the history of the house and dove right into the facts of the death of their father.
Mina jerked as if she’d been slapped. “No. I’ve never told a soul about it until I said something to Brenda earlier and ye just now.” Squeezing the balled-up tissue firmly in her hand, she straightened up in her seat and continued. “Ye see, our family had been through enough after our father’s death. Bringing to light that I’d found not only the missing jacket but an empty bottle together would have ruined us completely!”
“Mina, do you remember when Robert took off a few nights before Da’s accident?” Brenda asked, fingers tapping restlessly against the table.
“He’d told Mum he was going to a friend’s and didn’t show up until a week later, just after they fished Da’s car from the rocks below. Aye, I remember. He didn’t seem the same after that. Did he?” Brenda asked, but it sounded more like she was speaking to herself.
“Nay, he didn’t. What if Da found Robert there? What if Robert is the reason Da had the accident? What if it wasn’t an accident after all?” Mina’s voice broke.
“I think ye need to look into that house and the land it sits on, Agent Jackson. Mina might have the right of it. Why else would Robert call himself de Fleur and then come home demanding the ownership was turned over from Airen to him?”
“How do you ken that’s what he wanted?” Mina asked, the color completely leeching from her face.
“What else would he have wanted Airen for? He kens the ownership is handed over from daughter to daughter. I didn’t have a daughter, so it would have been handed over to Airen. He wasn’t around when I sold the property. In his mind, it’s still in our possession, which means he either tried to get on the property and can’t, or he wants the legal rights to the property to search the rest of the land for something based off stories told.”
Knowing Robert’s background and the business dealings he had, the property itself would be more valuable than anything. He’d be able to use the private beach area for his own personal interests—child trafficking.
If the property were secluded enough, he would be able to use it for the same things his ancestors had spoken of over the years. He’d have the perfect setup to hide what needed to be hidden, and no one would be aware
.
With his assets frozen, he’d need money. What if there had been gold under the foundation and he’d found it? Maybe even moved it and only took a little at a time so that he could have a cushion to fall back on if he ever needed it?
“Would you happen to have the name of the buyer? I’d like to talk to them and see if they’ve had any unusual occurrences there since they’ve bought the property,” Grant asked Brenda.
“Nay, it was a company that bought it, but their contact information is on the contract. I’ll have to go to the bank and get the paperwork from my safety-deposit box,” Brenda said, nodding along with his request.
“How do we know yer no in on it with Robert?” Mina asked, cutting a look of disbelief at Brenda. “He could be, ye ken?”
Grant loosened the tie he wore and shrugged off his jacket, “The damn things choke me half to death,” he said, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.
He was getting comfortable. The sort of comfortable he got around the table at Cole Enterprises when we sat down to go over large amounts of intel.
“Ladies,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows, “you’ve been kind enough to open your home up to me and give me a lot of information that you didn’t have to. In turn, let me tell you why I’m dead set on taking care of Robert de Fleur,” he answered, telling them about Jared’s kidnapping and the connection Robert had to it.
“So you see, I have just as much interest in getting him off the streets as you do. And with your help, he won’t get away from us this time,” Grant said, standing as he finished his story.
“Mrs. Anderson, if you don’t mind, I’ll pick you up tomorrow and take you to the bank. After hearing everything, I don’t think it’s safe for any of you to be alone.”
Brenda nodded. “I appreciate that, Agent Jackson. What of Aiden? He willna be in danger now because of his presence?”
Grant looked at me, as if thinking about it before he said, “You might be right. Do you have anywhere else to go?”
Anger rolled through me. He was pulling me from the case, or at least the part he’d set me up for. I wasn’t ready to walk away from Brenda and Airen without knowing that Robert held no threat over them.