The Witch's Stone

by Dawn Brown

  The Witch’s Stone

  Dawn Brown

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Dawn Brown

  All Rights Reserved.

  Previously Published with The Wild Rose Press as

  The Curse of Culcraig

  Cover Design by Dawn Brown.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner

  Whatsoever without written permission from Dawn Brown, except in the case of brief

  Quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  DEDICATION

  For Dave. Thank you for your endless support.

  And special thanks to Bella (E.B. Walters) for all your hand holding.

  Prologue

  Glendon House.

  The great stone manor rose up from the gloom, dark and forbidding, against the dreary gray sky. Ivy grew up one side of the old Victorian, bright, leafy, green. The large windows beneath the peaked roofline seemed to stare out like dark, soulless eyes.

  Hillary clutched the cold handle of her suitcase, the hair on the back of her neck pricking, and forced her feet to move forward. The case’s wheels wobbled over the uneven ground behind her.

  It’s an old house and a lot of fog, nothing more.

  But that wasn't entirely true. Inside, a crazy old woman waited to squeeze the last of Hillary’s savings from her bank account. Certainly explained the trepidation surging inside her.

  Still, if Agnes had been telling the truth--and some of her claims had checked out--Roderick Douglas’s journals could be just what Hillary needed to piece together the tattered remnants of her life.

  At the front door, she banged the brass knocker and waited. After a few moments without an answer, she tried again. Still nothing.

  Trepidation exploded into full-blown fear.

  What had she been thinking, to trust Agnes Douglas? The woman was clearly insane.

  For the past month, Agnes had phoned her almost every day. Sometimes to remind her to bring boots and a warm jacket, other times to complain that someone was leaving dead animals in her garden. Then, for three days--nothing. Agnes hadn’t phoned, nor had she picked up when Hillary tried calling her.

  And now, on the day of her arrival, Agnes was nowhere to be seen.

  Hillary banged harder on the door. Still no answer. Maybe Agnes couldn’t hear her knocking. The woman was almost ninety, after all, and it was a big house.

  Cautiously, she pressed the latch on the door. The hinges creaked as the heavy oak swung inward a few inches.

  Now what? Should she just let herself in? Well, she hadn't spent seven hours on a flight from Toronto to Glasgow followed by an hour’s drive on the wrong side of the road just to stand on some crazy lady’s front step.

  “Agnes?” she called, through the narrow gap.

  No answer.

  “Agnes?” she tried again, louder.

  Nothing.

  Maybe she wasn’t home. Then why was the door unlocked? Hillary sighed. Easy. Culcraig was a small village and probably didn’t have much in the way of crime.

  But Glendon House stood away from the village, alone in countryside. Surrounded by a wide expanse of tangled grass on one side and hemmed in by woods just starting to green with spring on the other.

  A sense of isolation wrapped around her like icy fingers, chilling her more than the damp air ever could.

  “Pull it together,” she murmured. So what if the door was unlocked? Not everyone lived with same deep-rooted terror of home invasion that she did.

  She pushed the door wider and moved inside, but the horrible smell of rot stopped her dead.

  Her stomach gave an involuntary lurch as the sickly sweet odor enveloped her. Covering her mouth with both hands, she swallowed the bile bubbling up her throat and scanned the wide front hall, from the chipped cornices to the dust-coated wood paneling to the sweeping staircase. There, at the bottom, half tangled in the cast iron rail, the broken, twisted body of an old woman lay in a congealed puddle of blood.

  Oh God, not again.

  Cold sweat slicked her skin, the blood rushed from her face like a reverse tidal wave. For a moment, the whole thing seemed unreal, as if she were watching the scene play out from the back row of a movie theatre. Then reality returned, hitting her like a slap. Every muscle in her body clenched, her stomach heaved. She staggered back outside and threw up on the grass.

  Chapter One

  A pounding, loud and relentless, shuddered through Caid’s body. He cracked an eye and focused on the numbers glowing red from the digital clock next to his bed. Forty-five minutes. He'd been asleep a mere forty-five minutes.

  “Christ’s sakes,” he murmured into the pillow. If the people from the flat below were looking for help rearranging their furniture again, he’d bloody murder them.

  Wearing only his boxers, he rolled off the messy bed and staggered, bleary-eyed, into the sitting room. He yanked the door open and growled, “What?”

  “Bloody hell, you look a sight.” His brother, Alex, stood on the other side of the threshold, fist poised in mid-pound.

  “I’ve been working.” Caid shrugged, flopped onto his settee, and stretched out.

  Alex moved inside, frowning at the state of the flat. And with good reason. Caid’s clothes from the past week littered the floor. Food-crusted plates, half-empty cups of tea and coffee as well as soda cans buried the desk except for a small clear area circling his computer like a moat.

  “I think you were cleaner when you were drinking.”

  “I’ve been up since seven yesterday morning, with less than an hour’s sleep, thanks to you, so if you dinnae mind, I’d like to get back to it.”

  Alex grinned, annoyingly unaffected by Caid’s harsh tone. “If you’d answer yer telephone, I wouldnae be here now. I’ve been trying to ring you for four days.”

  “Had the ringer off. I told you, I’ve been working.”

  “Right, then,” Alex said. “Had you answered, I wouldnae needed to leave Culcraig and come all this way just to tell you Aunt Agie's had a bad fall down the stairs and died. The funeral's tomorrow, as is the reading of her will."

  "That's terrible.” Caid’s memories of the old bird were hazy, but he’d no reason to wish her ill. "You’ve come all this way just to tell me that? You know there are other methods of communication besides the telephone. Email. The Post."

  "I’ve come to bring you back with me."

  "No disrespect to Aunt Agie, but have you lost yer bloody mind? What do I want to go to her funeral for? I havenae seen her since I was a lad. And I've no doubt our parents would rather I didnae attend."

  "It's no’ the funeral you need to be there for." A faint smile touched Alex's lips. "The solicitor has specifically asked for you to be present when he reads her will."

  "She's left me something, then?" Caid turned and swung his legs to the floor. Probably a collection of magazines from 1972, or something equally worthless.

  "Aye, now hurry and fetch yer things."

  "Christ’s sakes. I've work to do and cannae just bugger off to Culcraig."

  Besides leaving his fictional DI tracking a fictional serial killer down a fictional London street, he was to meet his very real agent for lunch in two days to discuss the North American rights to his last book.

  "I dinnae wantae hear it," Alex said, shaking his head. He stood and went over to the desk, his lips curling in distaste as he gathered the dishes. "Yer going. Dinnae forget a suit. Do you have one that
doesnae need pressing?"

  "What does it matter if I'm there to collect whatever trinket she’s left me?"

  "I dinnae think she left Dad Glendon House."

  Caid froze. “Why would you think that?”

  “I had an interesting conversation with her at the beginning of the year. I think she rewrote her will so he wouldnae get his hands on the house.”

  Dark pleasure unfurled within Caid when he thought of his father's reaction. James would be furious. That alone would make the trip worthwhile. There would be a certain joy in watching Glendon House converted into a bird sanctuary or whatever nonsensical thing Agnes had planned.

  Glendon House was like a badge of honor to James, that Agnes lived there a perpetual thorn in his side. And dear Auntie Agie had found a way to keep him from it even from the grave.

  “Does he know?” Caid asked.

  “’Course he does. He’s furious as well.”

  "Right," Caid said. Apprehension and excitement warred inside him. “I willnae be long."

  He showered and dressed quickly, despite the steady pounding behind his eyes. In two hours he’d be face to face with his father again. His insides squeezed and his palms grew damp at the thought. Eight years had passed since James and his mother had cut Caid out of their lives. The idea of sitting in the same room with his parents after all this time, the past between them like a giant pink elephant that no one dared acknowledge, left him hollow inside.

  He could feel himself weakening, his resolve ebbing away like a sandcastle in the surf.

  Exhaling a slow breath, Caid straightened and braced himself. He’d go to Culcraig. He was done playing the role of James Douglas’s troubled son, the eternal fuck-up. He’d rebuilt his life even with the mistakes he’d made in the past.

  After shouldering his bag, he returned to the living room where Alex waited.

  "I'm ready."

  But he didn’t feel ready. Not even close.

  "I'd like to thank you for yer patience," Inspector Bristol said.

  Hillary glanced around the small, pretty parlor of the Seilach Inn where she’d been staying the past five days since finding Agnes. "It's no trouble. Joan's been very kind."

  "That's good, then.” He shifted his considerable girth on the tiny Louis XV chair. The frame creaked in protest and Hillary wondered if the delicate curved legs wouldn’t just give out altogether. “And I appreciate yer cooperation throughout. You understand that we needed to rule you out of our investigation?”

  Her stomach dropped. Please, not again.

  For a moment, images flashed through her head like a videotape on rewind; the stern-faced judge granting her bail, her small square cell, having her fingerprints taken, the bright red puddle creeping across her dining room floor.

  She looked into Bristol’s round, smiling face, and her heart beat faster. Sure, he looked amiable enough. They always started off that way. She was only too familiar with the routine by now. A sympathetic nod, a warm smile, all the while drawing her in with idle chatter--then they pounced.

  Not that she completely blamed Bristol. Take a woman with her history and throw in a dead body--hell, she’d be suspicious too.

  “I imagine you didn’t have any problem doing that.” Her voice sounded remarkably strong, completely contradicting the anxiety swelling inside her.

  There had to be some twisted irony at work here. She’d come all this way for a chance at a fresh start, a chance to take the first wobbly steps toward rebuilding her life, and instead she found herself facing the fake smile of yet another cop. Another blood-soaked body.

  “None at all. You werenae in the country at the time Agnes died, and I’ve since heard from the Procurator Fiscal. Her death has been ruled an accident." He patted the top of his head, running his hand over his short, ginger-colored hair, as if to be sure it was still there. The tight, wiry curls looked a little like the fuzzy side of Velcro.

  "An accident?" Was he trying to trap her? She’d seen the body. There was no way Agnes’s death was accidental.

  "Aye. The time of death was consistent with a storm we had last week, and her injuries with a fall down the stairs. Likely, she became disoriented in the darkness when the electricity went out and missed her footing on the steps.”

  She wasn’t a suspect.

  Relief trickled slowly over her like a summer rain. When Bristol had shown up at the inn, she’d half expected him to produce a pair of handcuffs and lead her away. A clear-cut case of history repeating itself. Instead, he was telling her there wasn’t even a murder for her to be a suspect in.

  “A fall down the stairs? Really?”

  “Aye.”

  “She complained that someone had been watching her, and threatening her. I told you that, right?” What are you doing? He obviously doesn’t know what you did. Don’t give him a reason to find out. But if there was any chance of foul play in the woman’s death, Hillary couldn’t stay silent. Besides, he’d already said she wasn’t in the country when Agnes died. She was in the clear whether the older woman had been murdered or not.

  “Agnes was well known through these parts as a bit of a nutter,” Bristol explained. “She accused people of stealing from her, spying on her, for years. There’s never been any validity to her claims.”

  “But she was so…” Hillary hesitated, groping for the right word, “Broken. My God, there was so much blood.” She shivered, unable to stop herself.

  “I’m sure finding Agnes the way you did must have been very frightening. Especially after all that you’ve been through.”

  Her spine turned rigid despite the sick sinking in her belly. “What I’ve been through?”

  “Part of ruling you out as a suspect means looking into yer background. I know about Randall Myers.”

  The air sucked from her lungs as if she’d been kicked. “I see,” she managed barely above a whisper.

  “You must understand, what happened to Agnes was nothing more than a terrible accident.”

  Hillary nodded, her cheeks hot. Absently, she massaged the palm of her right hand with her thumb.

  “I’d appreciate if you kept Randall Myers to yourself.” Even speaking his name made her skin crawl.

  “What I learn in the course of my investigation is no’ for public knowledge, I can promise you that. You’ve no need to worry there.”

  Maybe she didn’t. Bristol had been very kind to her so far. He’d been polite and respectful while questioning her. Very different from her last experience with the police.

  She tried to smile, but the expression felt awkward on her face. “Thank you.”

  “Will you be staying on a bit?” Bristol asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she told him, grateful for the change of subject. “I’d planned to stay three weeks, but without the journals there’s no point.”

  “It’s lovely country here. You might enjoy just playing tourist.”

  “I might,” she said without conviction. Her possibilities were drying up. “I’ll certainly stay to attend the funeral tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure Agnes would have appreciated that.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “No.” A wide smile spread out over his ruddy face. “She’d probably say you were wasting yer time.”

  Hillary chuckled. “Probably.”

  “You know, her nephew, James, will likely be inheriting everything, journals included. I could introduce you. He might be willing to let you have a look at them. He’s an academic like yerself. A literature professor if memory serves. I’m sure he’d be sympathetic.”

  A tiny ember of excitement sparked within her. She’d pretty much written off the trip to Scotland as a waste of time and money, but this nephew might help salvage her plans. “I’d appreciate that.”

  “No’ at all.” He stood, and Hillary would have sworn she heard the chair groan with relief. “I must be off, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.” And she meant for more than offering to introduce her to Agnes’s h
eir. It had been a long time since anyone had treated her with the respect he’d shown once they learned she’d killed a man.

  Chapter Two

  Hillary stood in the doorway of the Seilach Inn, out of the steady drizzle, and watched Inspector Bristol drive off. The damp air chilled her skin, but strangely soothed as well. She needed the fresh air to clear Randall from her muddled brain. Somehow he’d even managed to follow her across the ocean.

  She swallowed hard, remembering the lies and accusations, and that overwhelming sense of hopelessness as her marriage and career had come crumbling down around her. Her face turned hot and her breath seemed to lodge in her throat. She had to get into the open where she could breathe.

  She returned to her room, grabbed her jacket and hiking boots, then stepped out into the cool air. After a few deep breaths, her heart rate slowed and the trembling in her hands lessened.

  Her footfalls crunched across the gravel lot as she left the inn behind and followed a worn path into the forest. The heady scents of wet wood and earth tickled her nose. Still, she couldn’t seem to keep the memories of the past two years from replaying in her head.

  She stopped walking and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting to push Randall back to that shadowy corner of her mind she worked so hard to avoid.

  Think of something else. Get back on task. Think of Anne and remember why you’re here.

  After all, according to Joan Howard, the inn’s proprietress , somewhere in this stretch of forest Anne Black had met her end at the hands of an angry mob. Joan hadn’t provided an exact location, just that it happened somewhere along the edge of the property line that separated Agnes’s land from the inn’s.

  “With the walls of Glendon House in view,” Joan had said on Hillary’s first night at the inn. They’d been sitting by the fire in the parlor after a dinner Hillary couldn’t quite bring herself to eat, Agnes’s battered body and that God-awful stench still too fresh in her mind. “Anne shouted a final curse as the men strung her up. They say that as she strangled, the tree they hanged her from withered and died. And within the next seven years, the families of each of the men who participated suffered a great tragedy.”