As Goody Holcombe stood at the basement door, she could hear muffled speaking. It was her husband’s voice mingled with Dorothy’s higher pitched tones. There was arguing going on and finally what she hoped to be pleading. She heard panic and weeping. The last she heard was of mournful wailing and the scraping sounds of brick and mortar as Dorothy Good was bricked up in the wall of Evenshade’s basement as punishment for murdering young Martha Holcombe.
Buried alive.
CHAPTER ONE
Present day
* * *
“For the love of God, Montresor!”
“Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud—
“Fortunato!”
No answer. I called again—
“Fortunato!”
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.
In pace requiescat!
* * *
He had woken himself up to dreams of that shady novel, the words of the dead rolling around in his head. He had no idea why Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado was filling his dreams, but he didn’t like it. He hadn’t even liked the story when he had been forced to read it in an English Lit class years ago and thought that he had properly erased it from his brain once he had passed the class. But it was back, whispering strains of people being bricked up alive in his sleep-hazed mind. Weird how the brain worked sometimes.
It was just before dawn. He could see the sky turning shades of gray and yellow, signaling the onslaught of a new day. He rolled over in bed and ended up rolling on one of the dogs, who grunted but didn’t move. So he rolled over to the other side and sat up, wearily rubbing his eyes, accidentally kicking the other dog that was sleeping on the floor. Full-grown and over one hundred pounds each, Manitou and Aram were pure-blooded German Shepherds, brothers, because when he and his boys had gone to pick out a puppy they couldn’t decide on which one. Chris picked Manitou and Kyle picked Aram, so they ended up bringing them both home. He had two big, slobbery babies.
The little puppies had grown into enormous dogs that followed Dad around like shadows. They’d spend time with the boys, of course, but they slept with Dad because his bed was big and empty after the boys’ mother left. This morning, as he pulled on his jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt, he couldn’t even remember the last time a woman had slept beside him. Only dogs. God, he was pathetic.
The house was dark and quiet at this early hour as he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. He’d lived in this house since before the boys were born and it always had the same smell in the morning, like cold earth. It wasn’t surprising, considering the old Colonial had been built in the mid-seventeen hundreds and was one of the earliest homes in the area. Still, it was his house and he loved it. Full of men and dogs, he thought it was cozy and homey nonetheless.
The kitchen was a big mess because his youngest, Cole, had ignored directives to clean the dishes. So he rifled around the dishwasher for a spoon and proceeded to make coffee. As the sun began to rise through the tree line to the east, he poured his coffee into a travel mug and unlocked the back door. The dogs, knowing it was time for a walk, waited excitedly next to him as he opened up the door.
The animals bolted out into the dewy lawn, happy, peeing all over the place or rolling around on the damp grass. He stood there a moment on his wide porch, one that wrapped around the entire house, and watched the dogs play. He loved mornings like this, so peaceful and serene as the world around him awakened, but he always felt like there was something missing. More than once, he had wished for someone to share these mornings with. It was an old dream, but one he still dreamt.
After a few sips of coffee and watching his neighbor across the street open up his garage, he whistled to the dogs and they came running. Taking the stairs off the porch, he began to walk around the side of the house. His house was situated in a somewhat rural area of Danvers, most houses sitting on an acre or more, and several of them very old. Back in the day when the Pilgrims arrived, this area was settled by some of them and people around here still carried those old bloodlines, including him.
In fact, there was a very old home up the road that had just been sold after having sat vacant for several months. He had heard a new family had moved in so he was curious to take a look at the house and, perhaps, meet his new neighbor. He could see the house from the west side of his house, sitting on a rise overlooking the land. Evenshade, the name the locals knew it by, had been built back before the Salem witch trials. About a half mile from his house, he walked up the road with the dogs racing ahead of him, avoiding the cars that were passing by as people headed off to work. As he neared the house, which still looked cold and dark, he began to hear what he thought was a distressed voice.
Drawing nearer, he was at the edge of the long driveway when he suddenly heard a thump and a yelp. Concerned, he turned into the driveway and saw a woman, half-in and half-out of the side door, with a very large piece of furniture in her hands. As he watched, the furniture shifted and she went down on her behind.
He broke into a run, sprinting up the driveway until he came to her. A very big man with very big arms, he easily lifted up the dresser and righted it. Then he reached down to extend a hand to the fallen woman.
It was a moment he would remember for the rest of his life.
* * *
She shouldn’t have been trying to haul all of that old furniture out herself but she just couldn’t help it. Seriously! She thought to herself angrily. Who just abandons a house and leaves a bunch of crap for the people who come after them? It was that irritation that drove her into action. She had always been the hasty decision making type, anyway, which sometimes worked against her. This time, it had.
She started working at dawn. The little tables had been easy enough to take out to the big shed that looked more like a barn. A couple of chairs had followed. And then she got the bright idea of dragging out a dresser that was about three times heavier than she was. She didn’t think it would be a huge issue to drag it across the yard, so rather than wake up her sixteen-year-old son and ask for help, she was certain she could do it herself. He would have just griped at her, anyway.
It had been a mistake. As soon as she pushed and pulled the thing to the back door, it had gotten wedged against the door jamb. Frustrated, she had pushed and shoved again until it came free. Then, she was determined to drag it out onto the driveway, whereupon the thing shifted and lurched forward, knocking her onto her behind. She yelped in pain and shock because a corner had pinched her thigh, but before she could yell to her son to get his butt out of bed and save her, the piece was suddenly removed and a big hand was stuck in her face. Startled, she found herself looking up into stunning blue eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Let me help you up.”
She took his hand, grunting as he pulled her to her feet. Sheepishly, she laughed. “Where in the world did you come from?” She had a hard time looking him in the eye, feeling like an idiot. “Did you hear me screaming in the next county?”
He grinned. “I saw the Bat-Signal up in the sky above your house and came running.”
She laughed again, brushing off her backside before extending her hand. “Thanks, Batman,” she said. “You saved the day.”
“Glad I could help,” he shook her hand warmly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. In that case, I’m Cord Trevor.”
“Alix Hendry.”
His smile grew. “Nice to meet you,” he replied. “Actually, I was out for a walk and heard you yell. I live abo
ut a half mile that way.”
He was throwing a thumb over his shoulder to the east. “Good thing you keep an eye out for the Bat-Signal,” she said.
“It’s a talent.”
They snorted as the moment turned rather warm and flirty. Alix was eyeing the man but trying to make it look like she wasn’t. He was enormous, five or six inches over six feet, with a blond crew cut, superhero granite, square jaw, and a megawatt smile. When he grinned, all she could see was teeth, which made her want to grin right along with him. The man wore rimless glasses, which only seemed to enhance his excruciatingly handsome face, and the hand that had shaken hers was the size of a frying pan.
He was a big, muscular, well-built guy and she’d known him all of thirty seconds and he was already making her feel rather giddy. Tearing her eyes away from him, she gestured at the dresser.
“I didn’t think that thing was as heavy as it was until I started moving it.” She didn’t want him to see that her cheeks were flushed. “I guess I’ll have to wait for my son to get out of bed before I try to move it again.”
Cord nodded, his gaze drifting over the big, old-style, saltbox Colonial home that was badly in need of restoration. The rotting eaves, peeling paint and rotting boards had stood for untold decades, waiting, watching. The house was rather creepy.
“I’d say you’d better wait for your son and husband to get out of bed before moving this thing,” he told her. “That’s way too heavy for you. Batman says so.”
She grinned again before shaking her head, not even realizing that he was trying to find out if she was married without being obvious about it.
“My son’s the man of the house, so it’ll be him and his mom dragging this thing across the yard,” she said, making humorous gestures to go along with the statement. “But thank you for saving me from being crushed to death. I really appreciate it.”
Cord thought himself rather clever to have found out her marital status within the first couple minutes of knowing her. Increasingly thrilled to realize she was single, or at least didn’t have a husband, he realized he didn’t want to end the conversation. At the risk of making a nuisance of himself, he pointed at the dresser.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Since I’d hate to see my new neighbors get into trouble with this thing, why don’t you let me move it into the shed.”
Alix put up her hands. “Oh, heavens, no,” she said. “I couldn’t let you do that. It can wait until my son gets up.”
“I’m trying to be neighborly, ma’am. It would help if you’d just go along with it.”
He was smiling as he said it, which set Alix off to grinning again and her pink cheeks grew even pinker. She could feel them. Like an idiot, she put her palms to her cheeks to feel how flaming they were, noticing that he was smiling quite openly at her. She just laughed for lack of a better reaction.
“Really,” she insisted, “you can be just as neighborly by simply introducing yourself. You don’t need to schlep around this old junk to demonstrate it.”
He backed off, the gentlemanly thing to do, rather than argue with her. He didn’t want to come across like a pushy creep, even if she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Petite, with long reddish-gold hair that had some curl to it and a sweetly oval face with big gray eyes, she looked like a porcelain doll. He guessed she was somewhere in her thirties and from what he could tell under the jeans and jacket, she had a sexy little figure. Match her spectacular looks up with the bubbly personality and he had to admit, he was enamored right off the bat.
“I was only trying to help,” he held his hands up in surrender.
“I appreciate it, really.”
He opened his mouth to speak but the dogs, which had been inspecting Alix’s front yard, suddenly ran up and happily greeted her. They were big, wet dogs. But rather than recoil, she was very friendly with them and they loved it. All the while, Cord just watched her, trying to think of a way to continue the conversation so he wouldn’t have to continue on his walk. He really had no interest in doing anything other than standing there and talking to her.
“So you just moved in,” he stated the obvious.
She looked up from Manitou as the dog licked at her chin. “Yes.”
“Where are you from?”
“California. Los Angeles.” She stood up and wiped her dog-wet hands on her jeans. “We actually took possession yesterday, came here, and went right to bed. I haven’t even really seen the house in the daylight. This is the first time I’ve gotten an up close and personal look.”
“You didn’t see it before you bought it?”
She shook her head. “Not in person,” she said, looking at the amused, yet curious, expression on his face. “I’ve just always wanted one of these old Colonials. Out where I come from, everything is so new. No charm to anything, so homes like this have always been kind of fascinating to me. I just happened to see this one come up for sale when I was surfing the web one day, so I called the agent. Next thing I know, I own a historical home and I’m thrilled to death.”
He could see that just by the look on her face and he smiled at her a moment before his gaze drifted up over the eaves of the home. “You picked a good one, that’s for sure,” he said. “This home is the oldest one around here.”
“Have you lived here a long time?
“All my life.”
She was very interested. “Really? Then maybe you can tell me what you know about this house. I’ve done a little research into it, but there are always stories that only the locals know.”
He was very happy to tell her what he knew. He was confident he could drag it out into a half-hour conversation or, at least, come back another time to talk to her. Either way, he was eager to do it.
“Sure,” he said, pulling Manitou down from jumping up on her. “Maybe some time when you’re not busy getting smashed by dressers?”
She laughed softly. “I just made a pot of coffee,” she said. “Would… would you like some? I really want to hear what you know about the house, if it wouldn’t be interrupting your walk.”
“No interruption at all.”
“Are you sure? The dogs might have something to say about it.”
“As long as they’re not at my house, they’re happy. They like to visit.”
Her gray eyes twinkled at him a moment before giving him a somewhat alluring glance as she turned for the house. “If you say so,” she said. “Do you want to see inside? Being a local, I’ll bet you can tell me all kinds of things about these houses. I don’t have a clue.”
He probably couldn’t tell her a whole lot more, but he was more than happy to take her up on her offer, anyway.
CHAPTER TWO
“So the real estate agent didn’t give you the lowdown on the house?”
The question came from Cord, leaning against the kitchen counter with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. Alix shook her head in reply.
“Other than the fact that it was a historical house, she really didn’t tell me much,” she replied as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “She told me that it used to be called ‘Evenshade’, so I looked up what I could on the internet. An article I found said that the husband of Abigail Williams built the house in 1690, right before the Salem witch trials. His name was Ezra Hyde Holcombe and he married Abigail right after the witch trials, when she was fourteen and he was thirty-eight. Other than that, the articles I read said Ezra was a slave trader and a farmer, but not much else.”
Cord sipped at the strong coffee. He glanced around the kitchen, which was stuck in the nineteen fifties with its ugly, gray laminate countertops and ancient stove. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls and the old linoleum flooring with its black and green dots was starting to pull up in places. It smelled like mold.
“I’ve lived on the east coast all of my life,” he said. “I’m not sure how it is in California, but in this part of the country, there are some really old families and their lineage means a good deal to them. I’m part of the famil
y that was the original owners of this house, the Holcombes. The house remained in the family up until ten or fifteen years ago, but then it was sold.”
Alix’s eyebrows lifted. “Really?” she was very interested. “So you’re descended from the original owners?”
He nodded, somewhat modestly. “I’ve got history coming out of my ears.”
She grinned. “What do you mean?”
He sipped at his coffee. “Ezra and Abigail, who was one of the chief accusers at the Salem Witch Trials, had four children,” he began his story. “Elizabeth, Mary, Matilda and John. My mother’s father is a direct descendant of John Holcombe, which makes me a direct descendent also. Plus, on my father’s side, I’m a direct descendent of the Mayflower shipwright, John Trevor. My full name is Cord Van Wyck Holcombe Trevor.”
“Van Wyck?”
“Mother’s mother was a Van Wyck, one of the original settling families in upstate New York. So I guess that makes me a blue-blooded American more than most.”
Alix was impressed. “That’s so cool,” she said. Then she eyed him. “So all of that old furniture left behind belongs to you, then.”
He shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. “Not me,” he said. “My great-aunt, the last person from the family who lived here, moved out thirty years ago and let her children handle it. Then they sold it about fifteen years ago and there have been renters in the house until you bought it.”
“Oh,” she said. Then she shrugged. “Why did your family sell it, then? This house is like part of the family.”
He lifted his big shoulders. “I don’t even know. I guess it was a cash cow for a while but with the age come repairs. Maybe they just didn’t want to sink that kind of money into it and thought they’d sell it and get their money out of it. You know it needs a lot of repairs, right?”
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