Grave Misgivings

by Lily Harper Hart

  “So what?” Aaron asked, getting defensive. “He only went in there so he could play a prank on me.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I found the rubber snake in my bed.”

  Nick tilted his head to the side, considering. “He lived in the servants quarters with his mother for years,” he said. “You yourself said that you thought the passageways were originally put in so your grandfather could … fornicate … with the help. There has to be a way to move from floor to floor in the passageways.”

  “I also told you I wasn’t even born when all of that was going on,” Aaron said. “It was just a rumor that Gramps put in those passageways so he could slip downstairs without being noticed. I don’t know it for a fact.”

  “It makes sense, though,” Nick said. “What if Max discovered how to get into the passageways from downstairs?”

  “So what if he did?” Aaron pressed. “That doesn’t mean he did anything. What would be his motivation for hurting Cassidy? You said yourself that no one here has a motive … except for you and Maddie.”

  “I’m glad to see someone has finally come to their senses and agrees with me,” Marla said.

  “Shut up, Marla,” Nick and Aaron snapped in unison.

  “Maddie and I went back down to the mausoleum this afternoon,” Nick said. “We wanted to look around and be sure that Cassidy didn’t accidentally find her way down there and lock herself in.”

  “Crap. I didn’t even think of that,” Aaron said. “You obviously didn’t find her.”

  “We didn’t,” Nick agreed. “Max showed up down there, though.”

  “So?”

  “We had a little talk,” Nick said. “He said a few odd things.”

  “He always says odd things,” Aaron said. “That’s what he does.”

  “This was odder than usual,” Nick said. “He talked about being jealous of you. He talked about loving the house and wanting to be part of the family when he was a kid. He talked about … people having stations in life.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Aaron said. “I … he said he was jealous of me?”

  Nick nodded. “Was Max with you the entire night when you got drunk?”

  “Yes,” Aaron said triumphantly. “We were all together the whole time.”

  “Well, not the whole time,” Lauren said, casting an apologetic look in Aaron’s direction. “He disappeared for about a half hour. I only remember because he’d been rubbing my shoulders and I was hoping he would come back and finish the job.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Aaron said, biting his lower lip. “That still doesn’t mean anything. Why would he want to hurt Cassidy?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to hurt her,” Nick said. “Maybe she just got in his way.”

  “His way for what?”

  “Where was Cassidy’s necklace found?” Nick asked, forcing himself to remain calm.

  “In front of the window that looks into the room you’re sharing with Maddie,” Aaron said.

  “Maybe Max wanted to see what was going on in our room, too,” Nick said. “Maybe finding Cassidy there was a surprise. Without a lot of time to think, maybe Max overreacted and … did something to Cassidy because he needed her to be quiet.”

  “You’re reaching,” Aaron said. “Why would Max want to spy on you and Maddie? He’d just spent the previous two nights having sex with Marla. Sure, he said it was uninspired and she’s a dead fish in bed, but they still had sex. He’s not some sort of sick voyeur.”

  “I am not a dead fish!”

  Everyone ignored Marla.

  “He’s always had a crush on Maddie, though,” Christy said.

  Nick stilled. “What?”

  “He has,” Christy said. “He’s always thought she was pretty. He was going to ask her out until you and Brian came to blows. That didn’t stop him from trying to spy on her in the woods, though. He even admitted it when we were drunk last night.”

  “Oh, yeah, he did,” Lauren said. “I forgot about that.”

  Nick clenched his jaw, frustrated. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “What does it matter now?” Lauren asked. “You and Maddie are obviously together. It’s not like he thinks he can get between you.”

  “That’s not what he was saying to Maddie,” Marla said.

  “What do you mean?” Nick asked, snapping his head in Marla’s direction.

  “I heard them talking while you guys were outside,” Marla said. “Max was giving Maddie an earful about how she didn’t really love you and she was only with you because everyone thought you should be together. He was yammering on about self-fulfilling prophecies and how Aaron was only successful because of his family’s money and Maddie was only with you because everyone expected it of her.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” Nick asked.

  “Because I was hoping he would convince her to dump you,” Marla said. “Trust me. You could do much better.”

  Nick slammed his hand down on the table, furious. “Where is Maddie? Did she leave this room with Max?”

  “I didn’t see Maddie leave the room,” Christy said. “I did see Max leave, though. He seemed distracted.”

  “Dammit,” Nick said, grabbing a candle from the center of the table and stalking toward the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Aaron asked.

  “To find them.”

  “WHERE are we?” Maddie asked. She’d been following Rose for five minutes, and while the ghost wasn’t exactly chatty, she hadn’t been silent either.

  “This is the heart of the house,” Rose said.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Maddie admitted.

  “Here,” Rose said, gesturing toward a blank wall.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “There’s a door behind there,” Rose said. “We’re in the servants’ quarters. No one lives down here now. All of the staff lives offsite. This part of the house is empty now, but it’s where everything happened when I was living here.”

  Maddie’s heart went out to the woman. “Is this where your husband came to … ?”

  “Have sex with the maid staff? Yes.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Maddie asked, using her fingertips to search the wall for a door. “How do I open this?”

  “There’s a button on the side of the framework just there,” Rose said, pointing. “Push it up.”

  It took Maddie a moment to find the button, and when she did an audible click filled the air before the wall seemingly gave way and fell open. “What’s in here?” Maddie asked.

  “What you’ve been looking for.”

  Since it was dark beyond the wall, Maddie had no choice but to feel her way through. Surprisingly, when she moved a few feet inside, she realized that emergency lights lit the way down a narrow hallway. It wasn’t bright, by any means, but it wasn’t dark either. The lights looked to be running off of batteries.

  “Do these passageways go throughout the entire house?” Maddie asked.

  “Jim had them installed because he thought they would hide his actions,” Rose said, leading Maddie down the hallway. “That was before he stopped caring about hiding his actions.”

  “Were you … jealous?”

  “No. I was relieved. The man was insatiable. He only cared about his needs, though. Mine were never a consideration.”

  “Did you ever love him?”

  “I never did anything but loathe him,” Rose said. “I know people in town gossiped about us. I know they thought I was jealous and sad. That wasn’t the case, though.”

  “Were you really thinking of packing up your son and leaving?”

  “No,” Rose said. “As much as I hated Jim, he was a relatively decent father. He loved our son. We came to an agreement. I ignored what he was doing and he let me do what I wanted to do. It wasn’t a happy marriage, but it was a comfortable compromise.”

  “Tell me about Rosario.”

  “She was … bigger than life,” Ros
e said. “I knew she was trouble the second we hired her, but I figured she was Jim’s problem. She came to this house with plans to seduce him. It wasn’t a hard task. All she had to do was smile at him, spread her legs, and he was hers.

  “She played things differently than the other women, though,” she continued. “She teased him … and she played hard to get … and she taunted him to distraction. Once she was sure she had him, she gave him what he wanted.”

  “Was she pregnant?” Maddie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “I knew before Jim did,” Rose said. “The staff was loyal to me because they knew I would be loyal to them. When Jim tried to fire them for some imagined slight, I was the one who stepped in and smoothed things over.

  “Rosario wasn’t secretive about her desires,” she said. “She told anyone who would listen that she was going to displace me from this house and claim Jim and his money for herself. I was rooting for her. I wanted Jim to divorce me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I divorced him I would get nothing,” Rose said. “If he divorced me I was due a payout. That’s why I put up with him for as long as I did. I didn’t want a lot, but I did want enough to buy a house. I figured we could share custody and everything would be okay.”

  “What happened?” Maddie asked.

  “When Jim found out I wanted a payout to leave, he balked,” Rose said. “He didn’t want to give me money. For a rich man, he was pretty tight with the purse strings when he wanted to be. He and Rosario had plans to marry as soon as the ink was dry on our divorce. Jim put a stop to all of that when I refused to divorce him.”

  “How did Rosario take that?”

  “Not well.”

  “Do you think … is it possible … ?”

  “Are you asking me if Rosario killed me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t be sure,” Rose said. “She did wear a particular perfume, though, and that’s the last thing I ever smelled.”

  Maddie felt inexplicably sad for the woman. “Why do you think you’re still here, Rose?”

  “At first I think I was hanging around until someone paid for killing me,” Rose said. “I stopped caring about that years ago, though. Rosario never got what she wanted, so there was no reason to hold my anger close enough to darken my heart.”

  “So why are you still here now?”

  “I don’t think I can leave until … he does.”

  Maddie stilled. “He who?”

  “Jim,” Rose said. “He’s still here, too.”

  Things started to slip into place for Maddie. “Is he the poltergeist?”

  “He’s the anger,” Rose said. “Look in there.” She inclined her head toward a wooden door. “Be quick. I think he’ll be here soon.”

  “Jim?”

  “No,” Rose said, shaking her head. “The other evil.”

  Maddie had no idea what that meant, but she was too keyed up to press Rose further. After fumbling with the loose handle for a few moments, Maddie pushed open the door and found herself staring into the bowels of … Hell.

  “Omigod.”

  Twenty-Four

  “Cassidy?”

  The still form on the floor caused Maddie’s heart to race. Cassidy’s long, auburn hair was spread out around her face like a halo, and her usually peaches and cream complexion was waxy and ashen. Her hands were bound behind her back, and she was scrunched up into the fetal position. She was filthy, her top ripped at the shoulder, and her chest didn’t appear to be moving.

  “Cassidy?”

  Maddie knelt down beside her. She was terrified to touch the woman, worried she would find death instead of life. She had no choice, though. When she pressed her fingers to Cassidy’s neck, the woman jolted, causing Maddie to fall back on the ground.

  “Holy crap,” Maddie said, clutching at her heart. “You scared me.”

  Cassidy shifted her face to Maddie, taking a second to focus. “Maddie?”

  “It’s me,” Maddie said, gasping. “Are you okay?”

  “Is this a dream?” Cassidy’s eyes were glassy and distant, and the red mark on her wrist tipped Maddie off that she’d been injected with something. “Do you know where you are?”

  “I’m dead,” Cassidy said, slurring her words slightly.

  “You’re not dead,” Maddie said, crawling back toward the confused woman. She tugged at the ropes holding her hands in place, but they wouldn’t budge. “I’m going to find something to cut you loose. Hold on.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Cassidy said. “You can’t make me leave here. I’m dead.”

  “You’re stoned is what you are,” Maddie said, taking the opportunity to search the room. Rose was still standing in the doorway, her gaze fixed on Maddie. “Is there a knife around here or anything?”

  Rose pointed toward a stack of boxes in the corner. Maddie scurried over and started searching through them, pausing as she realized there was more there than boxes. “What is all this?”

  “The house has a past,” Rose said.

  “I get that,” Maddie said. “Who is the woman in these photos?”

  Rose floated over so she could see the photograph up close, frowning when the face swam into view. “That’s Rosario.”

  “It is?”

  Rose nodded.

  “Why would these photos be down here?” Maddie asked.

  “Maybe someone put them here after Rosario left.”

  “Are you sure Rosario left of her own accord?” Maddie asked.

  “I have no idea where she went.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Maddie said. “There’s a rumor that Rosario never left. Some people say Big Jim killed her to keep the pregnancy a secret.”

  “Jim wouldn’t do that,” Rose said. “He didn’t like to get his hands dirty.”

  “You said yourself that he didn’t like to pay people, though,” Maddie reminded her. “If Rosario was really pregnant, wouldn’t he have killed her rather than pay for child support?”

  “Perhaps,” Rose said grudgingly. “I still don’t think he would kill her. I think it’s far more likely that he would pay to send her away. I didn’t know a lot about Jim on a personal level, but I do know that prison wasn’t something he would ever risk.”

  That made sense. Still, there was a piece of the puzzle Maddie was missing. “Who would’ve put all this stuff in here? Who knew about these passageways besides Jim?”

  “Everyone knew,” Rose said. “It’s not like it was a secret.”

  Maddie rubbed her forehead, confused. “I just … we’re missing something.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Cassidy asked, staring at the ceiling. “Are you talking to a ghost?”

  Maddie stilled. “What do you mean?”

  “People in town say you can talk to ghosts,” Cassidy said. “I thought they were blowing smoke up my … huh, that’s a weird saying. Who would blow smoke up there?”

  “Hold on,” Maddie said, returning to the boxes and rummaging about until she found an X-ACTO knife. She moved back to Cassidy and hunkered down beside her. “Hold still. I don’t want to cut you.”

  “Why not? You’ve already ripped out my heart and stomped all over it,” Cassidy said.

  Maddie sighed, opting to remain quiet until she’d managed to saw through the cords binding Cassidy’s wrists. The second her hands sprang free, Cassidy brought them around to her front with a groan.

  “Oh, that hurts.”

  “Your circulation will come back in a few minutes,” Maddie said. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Nothing is ever going to be okay again,” Cassidy said. “It stopped being okay the second you came back to town and hypnotized Nick so you could steal him away from me.”

  “Is that what you really think happened?” Maddie asked.

  “Yes.”

  Maddie opened her mouth to argue and then snapped it shut. There really was no reason to argue with the woman. She w
as confused and hurt. Now was not the time for this conversation. “How did you get here, Cassidy?”

  “I was … I was going to go to bed,” Cassidy said, her mind traveling back to twenty-four hours before. “I was so tired. I was tired of it all. Marla made me go into those passageways upstairs. I didn’t want to, but I did it anyway. I just didn’t want to be alone.

  “We were walking around, and Marla was complaining like she always does, and then we saw … .”

  “I know what you saw,” Maddie said, fighting to rein in her temper. Given their current circumstances, getting in a fight about inappropriate spying seemed liked a bad idea. “Marla told us that you two were spying on us while we were … going to bed.”

  “He never touched me that way,” Cassidy said, her tone wistful. “He never kissed me that way. He never looked at me that way. I didn’t want to see you two together, but I couldn’t stop looking. It was like I was finally seeing what everyone – well, everyone except for Marla – had been telling me for months. Nick loves you.”

  “We love each other,” Maddie said. “Marla said you two left the passageway and went back to your rooms. We found your necklace in front of the window. Did you go back?”

  “I couldn’t help myself,” Cassidy said. “I was going to go to bed. I swear I was. I knew it was wrong to watch the two of you and yet … I had to see. I had to be sure. I’ve been holding onto the idea of Nick begging me to give him another chance. I know it sounds pathetic, but there it is. I just needed to see you two together one more time. I needed you to shatter that illusion for me.”

  “I guess I get that,” Maddie said. “It was still a violation. That was a private moment between him and me.”

  “I know,” Cassidy said. “I just couldn’t stop myself. When I got back, though, someone else was already there watching you.”

  “Who?”

  “I thought it was Marla at first,” Cassidy said. “The light wasn’t very good in there. I had to drag her out the first time. She wanted to see Nick naked. It wasn’t Marla, though.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Me.”

  Maddie swiveled quickly, the sound of the new voice causing tremors to wrack her body. Instead of the amiable smile and ready grin she’d grown accustomed to over the past few days, though, Max’s face was a mask of anger.