The Witch's Stone

by Dawn Brown

  Nothing.

  Apprehension tickled the base of his skull. He started forward, toward the light and away from the car.

  “Is someone there?” he called, a little surprised that he’d managed to sound so authoritative when all the saliva in his mouth had gone dry.

  The flash again. A round, white light, weaving through the fog before vanishing once again.

  The overgrown grass tangled around his ankles as if even the grounds of Glendon House wanted to keep him from following. He stumbled over a broken flagstone, nearly losing his balance, but managed to catch himself before tumbling forward.

  When he looked up, the light was gone and so was the outline of the house and the cars. Only wet, pale fog surrounded him, as if he’d been enveloped within a cloud.

  His pulse beat fast inside his ears. But he clamped down on his growing panic. He hadn’t walked far. If he turned and walked in the exact opposite direction, he’d no doubt find himself back at his car or the house.

  He turned to do just that, but froze. Footsteps whispered over the grass. A shudder rippled up his spine.

  He wasn’t alone.

  “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  Silence greeted him. An eerie, unnatural silence. Not a bird chirped, not a forest creature stirred. Even the air seemed still.

  Then a woman’s laugh, shrill and jagged like the tinkling of broken glass, cut through the quiet, turning his blood cold.

  Caid started back, the way he’d come. The laughter stopped, and once again he found himself immersed in the unnatural silence. He quickened his pace. He wasn’t quite running, but the next closest thing. His breath sounded ragged in his ears and his leg ached miserably.

  When the ground beneath his feet switched from grass to gravel, he let out a long, slow sigh. He’d found his way back to the drive. Panting a little, he started toward the house. At least he hoped he was going in the direction of the house. If he wound up struck by a car, he’d know for certain.

  The outline of Glendon House seemed to materialize almost magically from the mist until the great hulking building loomed over him in all its decrepit glory. Never in his life had he been so glad to see anything. He mounted the steps and put his hand on the latch, but something on the flagstone stopped him.

  A bundle of white material stained dark red, almost black in places.

  Frowning, Caid crouched low and gingerly picked at the edges of the bundle. The handkerchief fell away, exposing pink, blood-smeared flesh.

  His stomach lurched, and he stumbled back, landing on his arse. He barely noticed the cool damp seeping through the rear of his jeans. His attention was fixed on the distinct lines of what could only be a human ear.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Good Christ, was that Willie’s ear?

  Caid stared down at the torn flesh, unable to look away. At least he’d been the one to find it and not Hillary.

  Hillary.

  He pushed himself up from the gravel, carefully stepped over the mangled mess and shoved open the door.

  “Hillary?” he called. When she didn’t answer instantly, he tried again, louder. “Hillary!”

  “What is it?” Her hurried footsteps thudded softly on the wood floor as she came toward him.

  Relief flooded him, making his knees week. He leaned back against the dark-paneled wall.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as she came to stand next to him. When her gaze met his, her eyes softened, the mild annoyance in her expression replaced by wariness. “What’s happened?”

  “Ye’re all right?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, but you’re not.”

  “I need to call Bristol.” He pushed away from the wall.

  “He said he would be by this afternoon.”

  “I cannae wait.”

  Hillary felt a flash of irritation as Caid started down the hall toward the study. “What happened out there?”

  He turned to face her, his skin pale, his eyes wide, almost wild. “It’s bad.”

  Fear gripped her heart with cold, bony fingers. She went to the front door and slid the bolt open. As she started to pull the door toward her, Caid, suddenly right behind her, leaned hard on the heavy oak with his forearm above her. The iron latch pulled cruelly from her fingers and the door slammed shut. The loud bang reverberated through the house.

  “What are you doing?” she turned quickly. His body was inches from hers.

  “There’s something on the step.”

  “Another animal?”

  “Worse.” He closed his eyes, as if wrestling with a decision, and shuddered visibly.

  She reached up and cupped either side of his face. “Tell me.”

  He opened his eyes, his gaze locked with hers. “An ear. A human ear.”

  The blood rushed from her face, and for a moment her head swam. She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, squaring her shoulders.

  She was okay.

  “Willie’s?”

  “How should I know? It didnae have a tag on it.”

  “Move back,” she said, turning and wrapping her hand around the door handle.

  “You dinnae wantae to see it.”

  “Probably not, but we can’t leave it out there.”

  She opened the door. The step was empty.

  Caid moved so he stood beside her. “Someone took it.”

  “An animal, maybe?”

  “One of those pesky flesh-eating rabbits you hear so much about?”

  The sarcasm both relieved and annoyed her. She shot him a baleful glare.

  “What animal, then? We’re no’ in the wilds here. Besides, what animal would approach with the racket we’ve been making?” He stepped outside, lengthening his stride so his foot landed on the gravel, missing the stone slab altogether. He snatched up a shopping bag from the ground. “Poison for the rats.”

  “Maybe they took the ear.”

  He made a face, telling her exactly what he thought of that. “Let’s get inside and bolt the door.”

  Again, he avoided stepping on the flagstone as he joined her in the hall. Hillary closed the door and slid the lock into place. Caid strode into the study and put a call in to Bristol.

  “What now?” she asked, when he hung up the phone.

  “We wait. Let’s go into the kitchen. I want a cup of tea, then I’ll tell you everything.”

  His limp seemed worse and he merely grunted when she mentioned it. Still, he didn’t argue when she told him to sit down while she set the kettle to boil. He tossed another log on the smoldering embers in the hearth, then all but collapsed into the armchair next to the fire.

  “Well?” she asked, sitting on the couch. “Tell me what happened out there.”

  “I went to the car, took the poison from the boot and saw a light shining through the fog in the garden. A torch, maybe. I thought it might be our intruder so I followed.”

  Anger washed away the lingering creepiness. “You followed? Are you insane? What if you were right--and it looks like you were. Whoever’s been breaking in also murdered Willie. You could have been killed.”

  “I doubt that would have happened.”

  “I’m guessing Willie thought the same thing.”

  Caid scowled, but said nothing.

  Hillary reined in her worry and anger. Ranting at him was doing her little good. “Did you see anything else?”

  “No, but I heard…” He hesitated. “I dinnae know what I heard.” For a long moment Caid said nothing, his gaze lost in the flickering flames. Orange, gold and shadow danced wildly across his face. “I heard someone laugh. A woman.”

  “Anne,” Hillary whispered, more to herself than him. She stood and began to pace.

  It couldn’t be. Could it? The light Caid had seen sounded an awful lot like the lights Hillary had seen the day she’d found The Witch’s Stone. Witchlights, Joan had called them. But Hillary didn’t believe in ghosts.

  “You cannae possibly think that. She died a century ago,” Caid said.

 
“You’re right. It couldn’t be, but it’s all so strange. The deaths in Culcraig are so similar to what happened here one hundred years ago. And what made Agnes contact me now about Anne? She’d had the journals for years.”

  The shrill whistle from the kettle made her start. Caid stood and crossed the kitchen, turning to look at her. “Coincidence.”

  “I think you’re wrong. I think all of this fits together, I just need to figure out how.”

  Caid shook his head. “You can think what you like, but while we wait for Bristol, I’ve rats to poison.”

  The cellar was cold and dank. The smell of mildew and damp seemed to wrap around Caid, clinging to him as he set small saucers of poison throughout the long, stone room. The pale glow from the bulb near the ladder did little to illuminate the far shadows, where faint squeaks and scurrying sounded.

  He shuddered and poured more poison pellets from the box into a faded, chipped saucer from one of the boxes piled outside that he still hadn’t disposed of. He’d get to them--eventually. As he set the dish down, the sudden scuttering of tiny claws on the stone floor to his right made him leap back. His foot struck something in the shadows and he stumbled backward, but caught his balance before landing on his arse for a second time in one day.

  What in the hell?

  Hesitantly, he reached his hand into the darkness. His fingers brushed against something rough and dry. Burlap? No. He continued to feel around. Whatever it was, curved as though wrapped in a tube shape. A rug, possibly?

  He stood and went to the ladder. “Hillary, could you fetch me the torch from the drawer?”

  After a moment her face appeared over the opening and she leaned forward to hand him the light.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “I’m no’ sure.”

  He clicked on the light and swung the beam to where he’d been standing. For a split second, the light reflected in a half dozen tiny eyes, but they vanished before he could be certain he saw them at all.

  He gave himself a mental shake and put the rats from his mind, then turned his attention to the lump on the floor tucked against the wall.

  “Is that a rug?” Hillary asked, suddenly beside him. “Strange that it’s down here, don’t you think? Agnes kept her furnishings stored in the attic. There’s nothing else down here.”

  “Agnes’s room is missing a rug.” He thought of his father’s denials and handed the torch to her. “Keep the light on me. I dinnae want any of the wee bastards to get brave and come out of the shadows.”

  With dread coiled inside him like a snake ready to strike, Caid knelt and grabbed the rolled carpet, pulling it away from the wall and closer to the light near the ladder. The sound of the rough material scraping against the stone floor set his teeth on edge.

  Hillary squatted, set the torch on the floor next to her and helped to unroll the carpet. A heavy cloud of dust poofed into the air as they unfolded the dirty floor covering. Dark, reddish-brown stains on the flattened fibers emerged almost magically with every rotation. Once the rug was completely unraveled, Caid stood and Hillary did the same. She walked around the carpet to stand next to him, careful to keep her feet from brushing the frayed edges.

  Almost without thinking, he reached for her hand and held it tightly in his own. His eyes never left the stains spattered over the faded floral design like a huge inkblot test.

  “That’s blood,” Hillary said.

  Caid didn’t argue. He’d become almost as adept as she when it came to identifying the substance.

  Tonight is the night. John Mackenzie, Andrew Howard, Duncan Fraser, Thomas’s brother from Aberdeen, and myself have agreed that we can not wait any longer. Anne Black is dangerous. She must leave Culcraig. Radcliffe has agreed to speak to her on our behalf. Should she not be willing to leave the village on her own, then we will have no choice but to drive her out.

  It is done. For better or worse, Anne Black is dead. We met at the clearing near Anne’s cottage. Mackenzie and Fraser smelled heavily of spirits, and I must admit, I considered putting a stop to our plan. Regrettably, I did not. We waited while Radcliffe tried to convince Anne to go peacefully, but she merely laughed. The others became enraged. Fraser grabbed her to pull her outside, but she broke free of his grasp and ran into the woods. The men gave chase. I would have followed, but the sound of soft weeping stopped me. I entered the cottage and found a child, no more than three years of age, huddled in the corner. Anne’s daughter.

  “Damn it,” Hillary muttered when she turned the page and found only a frayed edge where the last entry should have been. Someone had torn the final pages from the journal.

  “Something wrong?” Caid asked from the far side of the hotel room where’d they’d been forced to take up residence while the police investigated Glendon House.

  He was sitting at the only desk, laptop open in front him. When he spoke, he barely glanced away from the screen.

  “The last page is missing. Someone tore it out of the book.”

  “Who would have done that?”

  Hillary shrugged. “It could have been anyone, really, even Agnes. In this entry Roderick had found Anne’s daughter. Maybe he killed her, too.”

  Why destroy the entry if not to hide Roderick’s last horrible acts? Funny, throughout her research into Anne Black, she’d been so fascinated by why the village had turned on her, Hillary hadn’t given much thought to what had happened to her child. A dull ache gripped her throat when she thought of the frightened girl. The whole thing was so sad.

  “I cannae tell you how proud I am to have descended from a bloody madman,” Caid muttered. He stood, crossed the small room, then flopped onto the bed beside her.

  His weight next to her felt strangely reassuring. “I wouldn’t worry. The crazy, egotist gene seems to skip a generation. I think you’re safe.”

  “Pleased to hear it,” he murmured, sitting up to brush his mouth over hers.

  A slow swell of heat rose in her belly, stretching out into her limbs. She turned into him, sliding her fingers into the soft strands of his hair. The journal slipped off her lap and her computer rocked with the sudden shift of weight disbursement.

  “You should put that away.” He nipped at her bottom lip. “I’ve a much better idea for how to spend a rainy afternoon in a hotel room.”

  The sound of his voice, barely more than a low rumble, made her wet between the thighs.

  “That sounds promising.” She snapped her computer closed and set it and the journal on the floor next to the bed, then lay down beside him, her mouth seeking his once more.

  He gripped her hips, pressing her pelvis against the hard bulge of his erection. She moaned, the friction sending tiny slivers of need through her system. She loved the way he touched her. The way his hands moved over her skin, gentle, yet possessive.

  A knock at the door stopped them. Caid rolled off the bed, cursing. “Bloody hell.”

  Hillary stood as Caid strode across the room. He yanked the door open. Bristol waited on the other side of the threshold.

  “Good, yer both here,” Bristol said, not bothering to wait for an invitation. “I’ve come to update you on the situation at Glendon house.”

  “Was the blood on the carpet Agnes’s?” Hillary asked.

  “It’s too soon yet to tell. The crime scene team has taken a sample. They’re putting a rush on the results. If it’s no’ a match, you’ll be back in Glendon house in a few days.”

  “And if it is?” Caid asked.

  “A week, maybe two.”

  In two weeks, Hillary would be back in Canada. The knowledge descended on her slow and heavy, leaving her with an odd, empty feeling in the pit of her belly--and with the terrifying realization that she didn’t want to go home.

  “The case has been turned over DCI Warren. I told him about yer concerns regarding Roderick’s journals, Hillary. I dinnae think he put too much stock into yer theories, but he’d like to see the books, anyway.”

  “That’s fine,
” Hillary said, walking over to the dresser and collecting the first two volumes, then snatching the third from the floor next to the bed. She didn’t need them now, anyway. She’d already transcribed all three.

  Another step completed, bringing her closer to leaving.

  Shouldn’t she be glad to go home? To return to her family?

  Of course. Then why did the prospect of doing just that leave her feeling so hollow?

  She forced a smile and handed Bristol the books.

  “Ta. Tell me more about what you’ve learned from these?”

  Hillary frowned. “I thought Warren didn’t think too much of my idea.”

  “He doesnae, but since you found the name Fraser in there, I thought you might be on to something.”

  “I see.” She tried to squelch the sudden surge of excitement his words caused. As her work with Anne Black drew to a close, this new sense of purpose was oddly appealing. And it gave her something else to think about besides going home.

  She explained her findings from the journal to Bristol, comparing her list to the one Joan had given her. When she finished, Bristol looked unconvinced.

  “I hate to say so, but it sounds like a lot of coincidence to me. I’m no’ saying yer wrong,” Bristol added when Hillary started to speak. “But if I take this to Warren, he’s no’ going to take you seriously. I need a stronger connection.”

  “I might be able to find something if I could see the records from that year. Mrs. Semple from the historical society keeps ignoring my requests.”

  A cheerful smile lifted the corners of Bristol’s mouth. “Well, she’ll no’ ignore mine.”

  Caid listened to Bristol and Hillary’s exchange, anger building inside him. He couldn’t really be hearing this. Bristol and Hillary working together to catch a killer? What in the hell were they thinking?

  Bristol couldn’t find a clue at the bottom of a biscuit tin. And Hillary? Surely she remembered the sight of Willie’s prone form on the scuffed pub floor. He certainly remembered the ear he’d found yesterday. And that horrible, eerie laugh. A shiver skittered along his spine.