Second Nature (Crimson Cove Mysteries Book 2)

by Tara Brown

  “What the what?” Rita scowled.

  “Stay clear of them. They’re a form of evil you likely haven’t ever endured.”

  She chuckled and nodded. “I don't do well with being nice to little brothers.” She cocked a dark eyebrow. “But big brothers, that I can handle.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So cliché.”

  “I know it and I don't even care.”

  We climbed out of the car.

  “Hi, Robert.”

  He bowed his head. “Miss Lainey, how are you?”

  “Pretty crappy, Robert. This is Rita.”

  “Of course it is. Miss Marguerite, how are you?”

  “Keeping on. Thanks, Robert.”

  “Uhm.” I cleared my throat, not even sure how this would go down. “We came to see Lori. We had some questions.”

  His kind eyes sparkled. “I will fetch her, if you want to wait in the front room.”

  “Okay.” We walked to the sofas and sat. It was weird being at Lindsey’s house to ask her cook things without her here.

  Lori came in, walking quickly and wiping her hands on her apron. “What’s going on?” She was impatient and hateful, as always.

  Rita nodded at the chair before I could talk. “Have a seat.” She sounded badass.

  Lori flinched but took a chair.

  “We know you worked at that Silver Hills and we need some answers.”

  Lori pulled back. “Oh, okay. Well let’s just say I can’t give you any. I signed a non-disclosure form. Have a nice day.” She got up but I snapped, “Sit!”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she got comfortable in the chair again.

  “My maybe-boyfriend is missing. My friend is dead. My friend’s dad is dead. Your sister hurt Mr. Bueller, preying on a weak widower. She blackmailed him. It isn’t going to be hard to add you to that list of people screwing with us when it’s handed over to the feds. So stop being a bitch and answer our questions. We aren’t going to tell anyone what you say. This is for us. It’s to verify some things. After that we leave you alone.”

  Rita cocked her head and pointed at me. “That's right. Now talk.”

  “What do you want to know?” Lori sighed.

  “When Vincent’s mom arrived at Silver Hills was she suicidal or had her husband tried to kill her?”

  Lori’s eyes widened. She gulped and shook her head.

  “We know the truth. We just need you to verify it.”

  She swallowed another lump in her throat before she nodded. “Let me just say, it was never believed that she had tried to self-harm, regardless of what the institution was paid to write down.”

  I winced, sorry for his poor mother. “And she and Rachel’s mom were friends?”

  “Closer than sisters. I have a sister, trust me I know this.”

  “In all the time you worked there, did you see my mom or any of our other parents go there, for anything?”

  Her eyes widened. “Everyone finds themselves at Silver Hills eventually. It’s not for bad things, mostly just sadness or addiction.”

  “Does any of it seem like it would be something the rest of us should fear? Is anyone crazy or psychotic or twisted?” I hated asking this.

  She nodded once, very slowly. Her eyes darted to the right. “There was once a person in your little group who wasn't all there.”

  “Who?”

  Sweat started to form on her brow as she hesitated, driving me to the brink of my own insanity. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, clearly afraid of the words she was about to speak. “Her name was Lucinda Wentworth.”

  “The Wentworth family? They never lived in Crimson Cove. My family sees them all the time in Manhattan. We’ve always been good friends. I don't think I was even born when they first became close.”

  I turned and gave Rita a look, wondering if this was why she was sucked into something she had no part in. But my mind moved too quickly, shoving off from that thought and into another. “I knew the Wentworths too. I must have been very young. I hardly recall them, but I do. I was maybe three or four.”

  “Yeah, three. It was the year I started at Silver Hills, thirteen years ago. They replaced a lot of staff because of Lucinda Wentworth. She stabbed one of the nurses in a fit of rage. We lost half of the staff to it.” Lori shook her head.

  “Why?”

  “The hospital covered it up. Said the nurse died of a stroke. Covered up the actual cause when they had her ‘accidentally’ cremated before the body could be seen by anyone other than employees and paid-off police officers. The nurses quit, refusing to take part in the cover-up. One of the nurses tried to go to the press. She was killed in a car accident. Everyone else hushed it up then.”

  Hendricks? Was this his role?

  Rita paled. “Lucinda Wentworth, the husky brunette with the brain damage?”

  “Lobotomy, you mean?”

  I gasped but Rita looked confused. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a procedure that's not done anymore.” Lori looked like she didn’t want to say anything else.

  “It’s a neurosurgical psycho-procedure done to disconnect the prefrontal cortex—”

  “Whoa, dumb it down.” Rita waved a hand. “I don't understand how or why psychos would do surgery.”

  She was definitely not a nerd, regardless of typing fast and knowing some nerdy people. “It was done in the past to disconnect the wires in your head so the signals in your brain didn't move. There was no firing.” I rolled my eyes. “Like a zombie. You can do basic motor function but that’s it. When Rosie Kennedy got hers they asked her to recite the Lord’s Prayer as they cut away tissue in her brain. When she wasn't able to talk anymore, they stopped cutting. But it was too much. They left her like a coma patient essentially. She went from being mentally delayed to a vegetable almost.”

  “The Kennedy family?” Rita still looked confused, but it became disgusted confusion.

  “JFK’s sister.” Lori nodded.

  “I didn't know that.”

  I sighed. “It was a terrible crime to do to someone then, in the forties. Now they are not done. It was terrible.”

  “Lucinda’s parents made her a vegetable? Why?” Rita was taking it hard. “Lucinda doesn't talk or do anything. She can eat and sit in her wheelchair. Her own parents made her that way? She can’t walk or talk or do anything. She stares out the window all the time.”

  Lori pressed her lips together for a moment before whispering, “I haven’t ever told anyone that story.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “Lucinda was the only person I ever saw at Silver Hills who might have done something like what’s going on here now. But as you have seen yourself, Rita, that would be impossible. She’s unresponsive.”

  “Sometimes she doesn't get the food in her mouth. She’s got to be close to thirty, and she can’t eat alone.”

  “She’s twenty-five,” Lori offered with a distant smile.

  “That's too old for diapers.” Rita looked like she might cry. “I guess too young for adult diapers.”

  I reached over and took Rita’s hand in mine. “It’s terrible what they did.”

  “Oh, it’s terrible, Lainey. But they had no choice. She was a sick and twisted girl. She got put in Silver Hills because she was a rich kid. She should have gone to a place for the criminally insane.”

  “What?”

  “That's what I’m trying to tell you. She was crazy as hell before she got to Silver Hills. She stabbed that nurse fifty-some-odd times. She killed cats and dogs and once even gave a baby a bottle of bleach when her friend was babysitting. The baby didn't drink it, thank God.” Lori nodded. “She was nuts and violent.”

  I swallowed hard. “You know lobotomy patients can regain lost abilities, right? The brain can heal itself.”

  It was Lori’s turn to pale as she shook her head. “I don't know anything about them. They aren’t done anymore. We didn't even study lobotomies.”

  “By the end of her life, Rosie Kennedy could walk. She never spoke again, and she certainly di
dn't do anything remarkable, but she did walk again. Her arms moved a bit. And then there was Howard Dully, a school bus driver, who became sort of the voice for opposing lobotomies. He eventually regained everything, but memories of his early childhood. They’d said he needed one when he was really little because he was a schizo, but he wasn't and over time he got better.” I looked at Lori. “If he got better, Lucinda might have as well.”

  “But she’s slow and fat and not able to leave her wheelchair,” Rita pointed out the flaw in the theory.

  “But she has money and everyone underestimates her. So no one is likely to be watching what she’s doing. If she’s the killer, she’s hired it out. But she’s planning it all. For all we know, she’s watching us all.”

  “Ohhhhhhh shit. Good call,” Rita recoiled. “So she’s all like that Stephen Hawking dude and just running it from the wheelchair. Yikes.”

  “Right.” I agreed and fought the urge to point out that Stephen Hawking and Lucinda likely didn't have much in common, but Rita was catching on so I left it alone.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” Rita pulled her buzzing cell phone from her pocket. “Hello?” She got up and walked from the room.

  Lori gave me a worried look. “You think this is a possibility?”

  “Maybe. I think we need to add this to the list of conceivable things.” I sighed. “I need to find Jake.”

  She offered me a sweet smile, one I never got from her. “I know you do, sweetie. And you will.” She offered a wink and stood. “If I think of anyone else, I’ll let you know. But honestly, in the years I worked there, I never saw anything like Lucinda Wentworth.” She left the room. I sat very still, contemplating why Lucinda Wentworth would hate me and my friends or any of our parents.

  It was just another branch, another start with no answers or conclusions.

  “We gotta go now!” Rita ran past me, headed for the front door. I got up and ran with her. She jumped in the driver’s seat and started the car. I was barely in when she started driving away.

  “Where are we going?”

  “That was my friend in New York. Rachel’s phone pinged at Sage’s house.”

  “Oh shit!” I closed my eyes and tried to see how and why that would be the case.

  “Look at y’all cussing up a storm now.” The Southern version of Rita was back.

  I smiled and nodded like my Latin teacher had told me to do when I didn't understand something. Her being a New Yorker and a Southerner was about as conflicting as the Civil War had been.

  She passed cars, driving like a city girl, making me grip the seats so hard my broken nail throbbed. When she skidded into Sage’s driveway I flinched, imagining how angry Tom the douche—no jerkface—would be. I needed to get a handle on my cussing before it became something I couldn’t stop, and I ended up like one of those girls who used the F-word as a noun, adjective, verb, and adverb.

  We raced inside, blowing past Hennessey and rushing to Tom’s office.

  Sage was bent over the desk, leaning on her elbows and looking like she might pass out any second. “Hey.” She sounded like she had already been sleeping.

  “Rachel’s phone is here.”

  Sage’s eyes popped open. “Oh God, the killer’s in my house?” She turned, looking about the large mahogany décor and pointed at the doors leading into other rooms. Her breath became ragged as she turned in a worried circle. “We should run.”

  “No. We should fight.” Rita nodded, grabbing a vintage golf club from the wall.

  “Okay. Tom has a master key. We lock every room as we leave it. Maybe we can trap the killer in a room or an area and then call the police.” She opened the desk and paused. “Oh shit.” She lifted Rachel’s very obvious gold-flecked case with the iPhone not in it. “Do you think—?”

  “Tom is the worst person we know, but I don't think he would kill someone.” I shook my head.

  Sage dropped the case onto the desk and pointed at the bloodstain on the corner of it. “Holy hell.”

  “I could be wrong.” I grabbed Sage’s hand and the large master key from the drawer. “Let’s just keep moving.” I hurried to the other two doors, slipping the key in and locking them.

  Then I rushed the door on the left side of the room and opened it, poking my head in cautiously. It was Sage’s mom’s office. More of a light and airy sort of room. No one was in there, but I checked the closet just to be sure. I sent a text to the group chat.

  Testing.

  We all stood, listening for anything.

  The silence was an obvious answer. Rachel’s phone wasn't there. We all walked in, and I locked the door with the master key. “The study is sealed.” Like my house, each room could be sealed from the inside with the master key. It prevented anyone going into your office when you ran a company and wanted secrecy and discretion. Trust no one was the mantra of the rich.

  We locked up her mom’s office and crept into the butler’s pantry. I locked the two doors, the one to outside and the one to the office, as Rita sent a text.

  Testing, testing.

  Lindsey messaged back: What are you doing?

  I texted: Ignore everything you see from us unless it’s to call 9-1-1. We’re at Sage’s.

  Okay, she responded.

  We crept into the butler’s kitchen and locked up the pantry. Sage’s cook gave us a look. “Ignore us and stay in this room. Don't let anyone in, no matter what.” Sage gave the order as she sent a message: Hello?

  The eerie silence broke. A phone started going off to the right of us. We gripped each other as we walked to the kitchen through the archway. The sound was coming from the buffet in the corner. Sage dragged us to it, lifting her fingers slowly and pulling back the drawer. A phone with the words ANSWER ME on the back sat ringing. “That's like the ones I found in Ashton’s room.”

  She lifted it up and clicked the side of the phone, turning off the noise of the alarm.

  “Was it set for now?” Rita looked even more scared.

  “It’s password protected. The alarm’s going to continue to go off. That was snooze.” She walked to the freezer and put the phone in. “It’s full battery. We won’t ever be free of this noise until it’s dead.” She opened the large freezer and threw it in.

  We walked out into the main hall and great room. Every shadow cast and large piece of furniture might as well have been a killer. My hairs were each standing on end and my breath shot in and out from the stress.

  Creeping along, we checked every corner, nook, and cranny.

  The problem with massive houses was that the main floor was seven thousand square feet. After half an hour and a bunch of heart attacks over nothing, we headed upstairs.

  I went first, somehow roped into that by the other two taking the stairs one at a time. Even with my sprained ankle I went faster. I turned left and headed for Sage’s mom’s room.

  “Tom’s gone, right?” I asked softly as we got to the large double doors.

  “Yeah. He’s in Denver for three more days.”

  Putting my hands on the door handles, I took a deep breath before opening them slowly and letting go with a slight shove to both, revealing the room.

  Inside we stayed together, exactly as we had done on the main floor.

  In each spot we texted and listened but nothing happened.

  We all sat on the bed and listened for the phone but there was nothing, just us.

  “Emily’s room, then yours and Ash’s?”

  Sage nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Is anyone here?” Rita asked, gripping her golf club.

  “No. My mom and Em are shopping today, thank God.”

  We got up and walked from the room, locking it with the master key.

  The suspense had come and gone and come and gone, so by the time we were in Sage’s room, I was fairly calm again.

  Until the music started.

  I gave her a look. “Did you text?”

  Sage shook her head at the same moment as Rita.

  The song wa
sn't one that any of us, including Rachel, would have used for a ringtone. It was soft and playful like an old lady would listen to as she reminisced about her childhood.

  Rita plugged her ears and shook her head, starting to freak out. “This is when the ghost comes and kills everyone. She’s going to come from the mirror or some shit like that. And I look like I could be black. I’m technically like a quarter. And I’m the only one who knows that Lucinda bitch,” her voice cracked.

  Sage wrinkled her brow. “What?”

  I couldn't fight the laugh, even if it was nervous. “Black people always die first in horror movies.”

  Rita started to giggle anxiously too. “You know my ass is getting killed first. I have the mocha skin tone.”

  I laughed harder as the creepy song got louder.

  But it wasn't louder.

  It was just joined by another phone playing the same song, but closer.

  We stood, all of us obviously afraid to move, and listened as the song started to play in stereo around us.

  I looked up at the ceiling. “It’s coming from upstairs.”

  “Oh, friggin’ hell.” Sage got up and walked down the hallway past Ashton’s room. “The attic?”

  “Yup.”

  I texted the group: 9-1-1 standby. We might need it.

  All our phones buzzed, making us jump—even me and I had sent the text.

  With heavy breathing and trembling fingers, Sage opened the door to the attic without the master key. It was unlocked.

  She gave me a look. I glanced at Rita. None of us looked ready, but we stepped inside and closed the door, locking us in with whoever else was in the house.

  We crept up the stairs. Again, I ended up leading the way. I peered around the wall at the top of the stairs, my eyes widening as my jaw trembled. I shook my head in twitches, waving them back.

  A figure stood in the middle of the room with a black hoodie. The creepy song was so loud I could hardly hear my own fearful heartbeat.

  I watched and waited but the figure didn't move. He stood perfectly still in the middle of the room, wearing jeans and his dark-gray hood up. Beyond him was something else.

  I recognized it right away. It was a bloody hand, bound and pulled in the direction of the ropes around its wrist.