The Blackwood Files - File One: Family Secrets

by Terri Reid

  “I received a phone call from my real estate agent,” she said, “about the property on Mayfield.”

  “The Blackwood house?” Reece asked.

  She nodded tightly. “Yes, it seems that a young couple would like to buy it,” she said. “And they want to pay cash for it. The asking price. The only stipulation is they want immediate occupancy.”

  “And why is that a problem?” Reece asked.

  “They want the ownership in a blind trust,” she said.

  Reece templed his fingertips together. “Well, that’s not entirely unusual,” he replied.

  “When I told her that I would feel much better knowing who the house was going to,” Amy added. “And begged her to secretly take a picture of the sweet couple, she sent me this.”

  She handed her phone over to him, open to the messaging application. A side view of Brooke and Art sitting next to a desk was on the screen.

  Reece leaned back on the desk. “Well, my dear, it seems that giving Brooke the money from the trust fund didn’t work out as well as you had planned,” he said.

  Amy stood up and slapped Reece. “If you hadn’t decided to have her fired from her job, she would have been too busy to look for a new place to live,” she screamed.

  Reece rubbed his cheek and nodded. “Well, we can just tell the realtor we don’t want to sell,” Reece said. “We’ve taken it off the market.”

  Amy stepped away from him, shaking her head. “No. No, I’m afraid the cat is already out of the bag,” she said. “We will be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives until we know whether or not Brooke will be able to get her memory back. Maybe it’s in our best interests to move things along and see what happens.”

  “So, you think we should sell it to her?” he asked.

  Amy turned and smiled. “Yes, we should sell it, and we should make sure we create a few surprises for her.”

  “To jog her memory?” Reece asked.

  Amy shrugged. “Or to make her think she’s losing her mind. Either one will work for me.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Brooke pulled up behind the old pickup truck that was owned by the O’Reilly family, now parked in front of her new house. It was filled to nearly overflowing with her things from Niki’s house and some of the items Niki was going to need once she arrived the following day.

  Art exited from the driver’s side and Tom from the passenger’s side, both continuing the conversation they must have started in the car.

  “Porch first and then house,” Tom argued.

  “No, one trip, up the stairs, into the house and in whatever room it belongs,” Art replied. “It’s more efficient.”

  “No, if we get all the stuff up to the porch and then carry it in after that, it will be more organized,” Tom reasoned.

  “Brooke,” Tom called from the back of the pickup. “We need you to settle this argument.”

  Shaking her head, Brooke climbed out of her car. “Yes,” she asked, walking over to them.

  “Porch or inside?” Tom asked.

  “Should we open it up before we decide?” she asked, dangling the keys from her hand.

  “Great idea,” Art agreed, he stepped forward and opened the wrought iron gate for her.

  They all walked up the sidewalk and climbed the five steps up to the large, wraparound porch. Brooke unlocked the door and pushed it open, but before she could step inside, Tom swept her up in his arms and walked over the threshold.

  “What are you doing?” she squeaked.

  “Carrying you over the threshold,” he said, still holding her. “It’s good luck.”

  “It’s a tradition based in kidnapping,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mirth.

  He grinned. “And what’s wrong with a little kidnapping between friends?” he teased.

  “Put her down, Tom,” Art said, a little miffed that he didn’t think of that himself.

  Tom looked over his shoulder. “Spoilsport,” he complained and then winked at Brooke before he put her on his feet. “Okay, let’s get her unpacked and settled.”

  Art, Tom and Brooke emptied out the truck and her car in about twenty minutes and then created temporary bedrooms by inflating queen-sized air mattresses in two of the upstairs bedrooms.

  “This is nice,” Tom said, sitting on the bed-sized mattress.

  “Well, I thought if Niki and I were going to have to stay here for a while, without our real beds, we might as well be comfortable,” Brooke said.

  “When is Niki arriving?” Tom asked.

  “She ought to be released tomorrow,” Brooke said as she slipped sheets over a mattress. “I’ll pick her up at noon.”

  A few minutes later, Art came up the stairs with things Brooke didn’t recognize. “Are those Niki’s?” she asked, looking at the sleeping bag and backpack. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before.”

  Art shook his head and put the items down on the floor next to Niki’s bed. “Actually, they’re mine,” he said. “I was hoping you’d let me spend the night.”

  “Whoa, working fast dude,” Tom said. “Way to sweep a girl off her feet.”

  “Shut up, Tom,” Art replied, his facing revealing his embarrassment. He turned to Brooke. “I just would feel better knowing that someone else was here with you, in your old house. At least for your first night.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “That would be nice. I appreciate it.”

  Tom stood. “Come on, bro,” he said to Art. “Let’s return the truck and get your car, then you can be back here before dark.”

  Yeah, that would be good,” Brooke agreed. “I think I’ll feel more comfortable knowing there’s someone else here once it gets dark.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Once the O’Reilly men had left, Brooke unpacked the boxes in her bedroom and in the bathroom. She puttered around on the top floor, in the ballroom turned conference room, putting together the shelves they purchased. She filled the shelves with office supplies and then rearranged the office furniture that had been delivered while they were moving things in.

  She looked around, her hands on her hips, and sighed. There was nothing else she could do on the upper floors. She had to go downstairs and start unpacking the kitchen. And she was slightly terrified.

  She checked her watch. Art and Tom had been gone nearly ninety minutes, but they lived on the other side of town. If traffic was bad, the round trip could take them two and a half hours. She started down the stairs slowly. “Please let the traffic be good,” she prayed aloud.

  She stopped in the living room and looked around. Dusk had already fallen and the street lights shone through the transom window above the door. The curtains had been drawn and the house was filled with unfamiliar shapes and shadows. Looking around, she searched for the light switch. She was sure the living room had a switch that also lit the hallway.

  Finally finding it, she flipped it on, flooding light into the rooms and breathed a sigh of relief. It looked fine. The house was fine. It was great actually, she thought, looking at all of the old wood bathed in soft light. Yeah, this was going to work.

  With a smile on her face, she walked down the narrow hallway toward the kitchen. “I’m good,” she whispered to herself. “This is a house filled with mostly good memories…”

  She turned into the kitchen and screamed.

  Blood. Bright red blood. Both sides of the French patio doors were covered with large splatters of blood, still dripping downwards. She clapped her hands over her eyes and screamed again. She was back there. Back to the day her father was murdered. She remembered the blood, so much blood.

  She stumbled backwards towards the hall and ran to the front door. She had to get out of the house. Had to get away from the blood.

  Grabbing hold of the door, she started to pull, when it opened on its own. Terrified, she screamed again.

  “Brooke!” Art exclaimed, coming into the house. “Brooke, it’s just me.”

  Strong arms gathered her close. “
What’s wrong?”

  “The blood,” she cried, her voice breaking. “The blood.”

  “What blood?” he asked.

  “There,” she said, turning in his arms and pointing towards the kitchen.

  He looked down at her. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Can I leave you and look?”

  She nodded.

  Art rushed from her side into the kitchen. He looked around. Everything was the way it had been when he left. Boxes on the counters, some dishes piled next to the sink. But there was no blood. Anywhere.

  He turned when he heard her walk up behind him, heard her soft gasp when she saw what he had seen. She took a deep shuddering breath. “Art, I swear when I walked into the kitchen a few minutes ago the glass doors were covered with dripping blood.”

  Art walked over to the doors. He checked the doors, the floors and even opened them and looked outside; there was no trace of blood anywhere. “I’m sorry, Brooke,” he said. “Maybe it was a reflection.”

  She shook her head. “It was bright red,” she insisted, walking to the door and placing her hand on the glass. “Bright red, dripping blood.” She looked up at him, desperation in her eyes. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  He looked at her and thought about how she’d handled herself the last couple of days, thought about her courage and her determination. He met her eyes and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do believe you,” he said.

  She leaned against him and let out a hitching breath. “Thank you,” she whispered, still shaking from the experience. “Because, quite honestly, I don’t know if I would have believed me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her for a moment. “How about if I get the kitchen arranged, and you…” He looked around. “Do something else?” he suggested.

  She looked up at him and nodded. “Thank you,” she said. “Maybe I need to avoid the kitchen for a little while.”

  “We can order in,” he suggested.

  “Pizza?” she replied. “Deep dish?”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  Chapter Fifty

  Once Brooke had gone upstairs to the third floor, Art started to reexamine the space. Maybe there was something he was missing. He turned towards the counter when Bruce suddenly appeared before him. Art jumped. “Do you have to do that?” he asked.

  Bruce shrugged. “It seems that I do,” he replied. “What happened?”

  “Brooke walked into the kitchen and saw the sliding doors covered with blood,” Art explained. “But when I walked in a few minutes later, there was nothing there.”

  “Do you believe her?” he asked Art.

  “Yeah, I do,” he replied.

  “Then what are we going to do about it?” Bruce asked.

  Art began digging through the boxes in the kitchen and finally found a flashlight. He picked it up, turned it on and shone it in Bruce’s direction, the beam traveling completely through his body.

  “I’m going to do what I do best,” Art said. “Detective work.”

  He slid open the patio doors and walked outside. He sent the light’s beam downward to illuminate the area between the base of the door and the decking. He moved the flashlight slowly, examining each inch, and then he saw it. Stooping down, he touched the dark spot laying on the aluminum runner. It was still wet and looked more like a blob of gel than liquid. Rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger, it felt like glycerin, and if he were a betting man, he would guess that it had been colored with food dye.

  “That’s supposed to be my blood?” Bruce asked. “It’s kind of thick.”

  Art nodded. “Yeah, but pressed between two sheets of thin plastic, and slapped against the glass, it would appear pretty frightening. Anything thinner wouldn’t have worked.”

  Bruce gazed around the yard. “They know,” he said. “Don’t they?”

  Art nodded and then went back into the kitchen and found a small, plastic container. Taking a clean plastic knife, he scooped the remaining sample of the “blood” off the porch and into the container. “I’ll get this examined,” he said. “But I’m not hoping for much.”

  “How the hell did they arrange this?” Bruce asked.

  Art he walked to the edge of the deck and shined the flashlight on the soft ground below. “There’s your answer,” he said, looking down at the footprints on the ground next to the deck. “They were waiting until she came down by herself. It was meant for only Brooke’s eyes.”

  “Because they wanted to scare her?” Bruce asked.

  Art shook his head. “No, if they wanted to just scare her, they would have left the blood dripping,” he said. “This was meant to make her doubt herself.”

  “And make you think she’s imagining things too,” Bruce added.

  “Yeah,” Art agreed. “They want her to be vulnerable.”

  “So what are you going to do about it, kid?” Bruce asked.

  Art gazed at Bruce for a moment, a little irritated at his attitude and then nodded slowly. “I’m going to make the house a little more secure,” he said.

  He went back into the house, closed the patio door and locked it. Looking around, he found a piece of wood the former tenants had used to secure the base of the sliding doors and slid it into place just above the interior exposed runner.

  Picking up the container, he placed it in the back of the refrigerator, hidden behind several other objects.

  “That’s it?” Bruce asked. “That’s all you’re going to do?”

  Ignoring Bruce, Art pulled out his phone and made a quick call.

  “Hi, Da,” he said. “It’s Art. Is Mrs. Rosensteal still looking for a place for Moose?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Well, I think I’ve found the perfect place.”

  A few moments later, he hurried up to the third floor to find Brooke.

  For a house as old as this one, Art found the stairs to be surprisingly solid. They didn’t seem to creak or moan like most staircases in old houses. Although that would have been a bonus for most homeowners, Art really didn’t like the fact that someone could sneak up the stairs, as he was doing, without the early warning system of a creaking staircase.

  He stepped onto the third floor hall, walked quietly down the hall and stopped at the doorway to the ballroom. The room was magnificent; the ceiling was over twenty feet high with floor to ceiling windows on one entire side. The walls had been papered with a silk covering that was a soft dusty rose with strands of darker rose shot through it. The old curtains complimented the paper with a cream and rose floral pattern. The floor was solid oak, and the beauty shone through even under the layers of dust and dirt.

  Brooke was sitting on the floor in the middle of the ballroom going through an old box he didn’t recognize as one they’d carried in.

  “Brooke?” he called from the doorway.

  She jumped and then turned, her hand on her heart. “Art,” she gasped. “You scared me to death.”

  He entered the room and walked over to her. “Seems like there’s a lot of that going on around here,” he said as he sat down next to her on the floor. “I came up to tell you that I found some blood on the outside base of the door.”

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “After you left, I got a flashlight and checked the outside of the door,” he said. “I knew there had to be a logical explanation to what you saw.”

  Brooke realized that she hadn’t really thought he actually believed her. She had assumed he was just placating her downstairs. “You really believed me when I said I saw blood,” she said in wonder.

  He shrugged casually. “I told you I did.”

  She smiled and nodded. “Yes, of course you did,” she said. “And then you found some?”

  “Well, yes and no,” he replied. “I went outside and found a drop of dark liquid on the base of the door. When I touched it, it felt more like glycerin than blood. I took a sample, and I thought we could get it tested. Then I looked at the ground next to the patio.”

  He stopped and put his hand
on Brooke’s shoulder, making sure he had her attention. “There were footprints outside the door,” he said. “Someone wanted to scare you. Someone who knows who you are and what you saw.”

  She gasped softly. “How could…”

  “Did you see who owned the property before you did?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “It was a trust,” she said. “There was only a number and a bank’s name.”

  “Well, we could get Niki to run it down,” he replied. “But I don’t think that’s really necessary. I think we both know who the last owner was.”

  “Reece,” Brooke said, shaking her head in regret. “How could I have been so stupid? Of course he would own it.” She looked up at him. “So, do we pack up and move out?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” he replied. “I think we need to be aware that we aren’t safe here, so no one takes any risks. But I think having you here is important until you can remember what happened that night.”

  She nodded and looked slowly around the room. Suddenly, she didn’t feel as safe as she had a few minutes earlier.

  Art watched her face and felt as if he could read her mind. Her childhood home had turned back into a place of terror. “Brooke, I—” he began, and then the doorbell rang. He grinned and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll get that,” he said. “I think I might have a solution to the problem.”

  Art hurried down the two flights of stairs to the first floor. He smiled as he saw through the sidelights his Da being showered with kisses by an enthusiastic Great Dane who could easily reach the tall policeman’s face. “This creature is going to eat you out of house and home,” his father grumbled once Art had opened the door. “I turned my back on it for one moment, and it had scarfed down half the lunch your Ma packed me. And it didn’t even show a single sign of remorse.”

  Art grinned. “Well, I know Ma’s cooking,” he said. “I wouldn’t have regretted it either.”

  Timothy handed Art the dog’s lead. “Well, good luck to you,” he said. “I’ve a bag of food here on the porch and his water dish, too. He ought to do the trick for you.”