by Nic Saint
He frowned. “I don’t get it.”
She grinned. “That’s pretty obvious. I’m a collector, Chuck. Only I collect people. Professionals like you.” She ticked off on her fingers. “I’ve got a mailman, a carpenter, a plumber, a gardener…” She gave him a beaming smile. “And now I’ve got myself a bona fide movie star, haven’t I?”
He shook his head, not comprehending. “You collect professionals?”
“That’s right. You could say it’s a hobby of mine to own every profession out there, which is quite an ambitious project if you think about it.”
“You’re crazy,” he said. “Stark raving mad.”
She laughed again, that same maniacal laugh she’d emitted before, and it was obvious that his words weren’t wide of the mark. She was nuts.
“Words like ‘crazy’ are so easy to hurl at a person,” she said, drawing daisies on the cement floor with the tip of her espadrille. “But how can you know for sure? Are you a mental health professional? A psychiatrist?”
He wasn’t, of course, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make a sound judgment call. This woman was nuts, and if he knew anything about nutters it was that they were easily swayed. So he tried another tack. He produced his most winning smile. “You don’t want to do this, honey. Collecting people is a crime, didn’t they teach you that in high school?”
“Of course I know that,” she snapped, her mood abruptly taking a turn for the worse. “Which is why I’m going to collect a lawyer, a policeman and a judge as well. Then if there’s trouble ahead, they can tell me what to do.”
“What does your father think about this, huh? Or your mother? Do they even know about this hobby of yours?”
She produced a pout. “Daddy knows. And Grandpa, of course. He’s the one that started all this. Mommy doesn’t, but then she’s not around much. She left me and my daddy years ago, and I’ve hardly ever seen her since.”
Classic, Reece thought. Little girl spoiled rotten after mommy left, and now daddy doesn’t know what to do with her. He probably thought she was collecting dolls, not human beings. “And where do you put all these people?”
She smiled again. “Here at the Manor. We’ve got plenty of space.”
“Manor? What manor?” Where had she taken him?
She smiled mischievously. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She pushed herself off the wall. “Get some rest, Chuck MacLachlan. Soon you’re going to meet the other professionals, and I need you fit and rested for that occasion.”
“You’re going to introduce me to the others, huh?”
She grinned. “Oh, yes. It’s going to be great fun, you’ll see.” And with these words, she tripped out the door and slammed it shut behind her.
He sighed and shook his head. What had he done to deserve this? Then he thought of something. The girl said they were in a manor. And judging from this old cellar, it was probably some ancient place. And if there was one thing he knew about old places like this, it was that they were full of ghosts.
So he called out, “Hello? Um, ghost people? Can anybody hear me?”
There was a soft rattle coming from beneath his feet, and he stared down. Then, before his surprised gaze, green smoke started rising between the cracks in the floor. Its green tendrils swirled around him and rose ever more until they enveloped him like an acrid fog. He coughed as the fumes penetrated his lungs. Then he fell onto the cot, collapsing into a heap.
Chapter 13
While Reece enjoyed his captivity, his friends were oblivious to the fate that had befallen him. Reece had a habit of spending a big chunk of his day either at the gym or doing his daily laps at the beach. Since his body was his instrument, he needed to keep it perfectly honed and in tip-top shape at all times. So unfortunately for him, he wasn’t being missed at the moment.
In fact, Alice was too busy consoling a grieving ghost pony to worry about her fiancé. She, Rick and Fee were staring at the stuffed version of Tony, shedding actual tears. She knew that this wasn’t possible, but there it was. Like Our Lady of Lourdes, Tony the Pony was performing a miracle right here in their home.
Then suddenly, the ghostly pony piped up, “My new master is in trouble.” Until that moment, he’d been lamenting his fate incessantly. Especially the fact that his beloved Ines had decided to give him away as a present to Reece. But now he suddenly snapped out of his self-pity, and repeated, “My new master is in big, big trouble.” He seemed as surprised by this as his audience.
“What do you mean, your new master?” Alice asked.
“My old master has gifted me to Reece. He’s my new master now.” Tony bared his teeth, which was his way of smiling. “I remember Reece now. When he first came to me, he didn’t know a pony’s ass from his tail. It took him weeks to learn how to ride me, then finally when he graduated to a horse, he regretted having to desert me. Mainly because I was a lot closer to the ground than a horse. But I liked him. He was sweet, and we got along great.”
“Yeah, Reece is the best,” said Alice with a smile. Then her smile faded. “He’s in trouble?”
Tony nodded his large head. He’d collapsed onto the floor and was swishing his tail forlornly. “He’s been kidnapped.”
Alice clasped a hand to her mouth. “What?!”
“Reece has been kidnapped?” asked Fee, shocked.
The pony nodded again, something which Alice had never seen a pony do before, but then this was no ordinary pony, of course.
“Yep, he’s been abducted, and now he’s going to be locked up in that dungeon for the rest of his life unless we do something to save him.”
“Where is he?” Rick asked. “Who’s taken him? And for heaven’s sake, why Reece?”
Tony closed his eyes. “So many questions,” he muttered. “Lemme see. He’s at some place called Hartford Manor? Sound familiar?”
Alice looked at Fee. Of course they were familiar with Hartford Manor. It was a well-known haunted house—or at least rumored to be.
“Hasn’t that place been deserted for years?” Alice asked.
Felicity bit her lower lip. “No idea.”
“I’ll ask Dad,” Alice said curtly, before taking out her phone. Happy Bays’s chief of police was sure to know the story about Hartford Manor.
Chapter 14
Grover stared down at the glass table where the proof of his wife’s unfaithfulness lay in all its starkness. The glossy pictures depicted Emilia in a state of undress and in provocative poses with a man who could easily be Grover’s son. The guy was buff and handsome and looked like a young stud in his prime. That was the risk when you married a woman half your age, Grover thought ruefully: she might go off and conduct affairs with men of her own age when she grew tired of you.
He sighed and shook his bulbous head, then raised a haggard face to his visitor. The detective who’d snapped the pictures looked like a rumpled bedspread, with his jowly face and worn-out overcoat, and was unruffled. He probably saw this stuff every day. His name was Gerry Finnegan, and he’d come highly recommended.
“How long—” Grover swallowed, then resumed speech. “How long has this been going on?”
“Well,” said the gruff detective, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his gray overcoat, “at least since college, and probably long before that.”
Grover hadn’t expected he could be surprised after watching his wife perform acrobatics with a stranger. “Before college? What do you mean?”
The PI shrugged. “As far as I can tell the guy was her high school sweetheart. Been an item since tenth grade or something.”
“Tenth grade?” Grover’s lower jaw dropped. He snatched up one of the pictures and studied it more closely. Then he saw it. This guy... was that guy. His wife’s lawyer. The one she called when she needed some legal advice.
“He’s her lawyer,” he said feebly.
Finnegan grinned. “Yeah, he’s upped his game from giving advice to delivering other services.” When he saw Grover’s dismay, he pulled his face into the
requisite expression of commiseration. A good detective knows that he should never make fun of his client’s misfortune. At least not if he wants to get a retainer. “Yeah, he’s a lawyer, all right. Just made partner at Stephenson, Stephenson, Stephenson and Stephen & Son. His name is—”
“Hogston,” Grover said brokenly. “Romuald Hogston.” It was hard to forget a name like that. Especially since Emilia often referred to him as her best friend. She’d assured him that he was gay, though. Judging from these pictures he was anything but gay. “So this has been going on for years?”
“Years and years and…” He coughed when Grover gave him a level look.
Of course. His friends had all warned him against marrying Emilia. A classic gold digger, they’d called her, and now he had to admit they were right all along. He’d only started suspecting something a couple of weeks ago when he’d accidentally caught a message flashing on her phone. She’d left it in the bedroom when the phone had beeped. He’d been reluctant to check. Her phone was always beeping, but he just happened to see the display lighting up. Something about a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton. For some reason, it had drawn his attention, so he’d read it. Then had wondered why Emilia was meeting a friend at the Ritz when she could meet them at the condo.
He’d scrolled through her messages, and had found some more intimate ones that had aroused his suspicion. So he’d hired this rumpled detective on Chazz’s recommendation.
“I don’t know what to do,” he sighed, plunking down on a chair.
“Divorce her,” the guy said. “Hit her with this evidence and divorce her ass. She’ll never get alimony and then she and this dude can live happily ever after on his lawyer’s salary. Good luck with that.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple.” Then he realized he was discussing his private affairs with a detective, and gave the man a stern look.
Finnegan, who seemed to feel he’d overstepped his boundaries, gave him an apologetic grin. “So what do you want me to do? Keep following them around? Snap some more shots?” He seemed very eager, and Grover reflected that here was a man who loved his job, which was pretty rare.
“No, that’s all right. I’ll pay you whatever I owe you and let it go at that,” he said, half to himself and half to the guy. He needed to think. Needed to figure out what to do next. He disliked scandals. If word got out about this, it would reflect badly on both himself and his business, and he couldn’t afford that. No, he needed to think before he acted. So he gave the detective a feeble smile. “Thank you, Mr. Finnegan. I’ll show you out.”
“No worries, Mr. Calypso,” said the man. “I know the way.” Then, as he walked away, he turned. “Oh, just one more thing, sir.”
“Mh? What’s that?”
“I overheard Mrs. Calypso and this guy talking about a pregnancy? So now I’m wondering if this is your baby she was talking about or…” He didn’t complete the sentence, for Grover had uttered a startled cry.
God, no. Was Emilia pregnant? That did it. It sure as heck wasn’t his baby. He quickly changed his mind. “Keep on following her,” he instructed, “and gather all the evidence you can about this baby.”
“Will do, sir,” said the detective, well pleased.
Five minutes later, Grover was talking to Chazz Falcone, his best friend and fellow billionaire, requesting an urgent meeting. If there was anyone in the world who would understand his plight, it was Chazz. And another five minutes later, he was walking briskly, on his way to The Parton, the club he and Chazz shared on the corner of 69th Street. Emilia had taken things too far. He could forgive her this dalliance, for the sake of his business and his family. But he couldn’t forgive her saddling him with a child that wasn’t his.
Chapter 15
It didn’t take Reece long before he realized he’d been knocked out again. Now he was strapped to a table, ankles and wrists tied, and a weird guy stood bent over him, studying him carefully through horn-rimmed glasses. He was rangy, and his face looked like skin stretched over angular bone.
The moment the guy noticed his subject was awake, he grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about that,” he said with a chuckle. “Big guy like you might put up some resistance, so my daughter decided not to take chances.”
“What’s going on?” Reece asked groggily.
It just went to show that he wasn’t Chuck MacLachlan but an actor playing a part. If he was Chuck, he’d have managed to get rid of these restraints and would have kicked this guy to kingdom come already. As it was, he simply lay there, wondering why he felt like a bug being dissected.
If this were a Crunch Time movie, the guy would be a crazy scientist, subjecting him to some medical experiment, possibly injecting some experimental substance into his bloodstream that would turn him into a mindless robot doing the bidding of the next Adolf Hitler. But this was real life, which was why he decided to ask the question. “Who are you?”
“I’m Dr. Cieslok,” said the man with a proud smile, “Dr. Anselm Cieslok. And I’m a taxidermist.”
Taxidermist. The word sounded familiar, but since he didn’t bring his dictionary—and they’d taken his phone—he decided to probe further. “So you’re one of those Uber guys, huh?” he ventured. “Taxi driver?”
The man seemed unsurprised that Reece was unaware of the meaning to the word. “A taxidermist is an artist, my friend. An artist whose work often goes unnoticed and unappreciated. My specialty is the stuffing of humans. I used to do animals, of course, but I found stuffing humans a more rewarding pastime, so that has become my specialty. Most fascinating work indeed.”
Reece frowned. “Lemme see if I get this straight. You stuff humans—as in, you take a human being and you… stuff him?”
The man smiled. “That’s right. I see you’re very clever, Mr. Hudson.”
“Thanks, buddy.” He thought about this some more. It was ironic, he felt, that just that morning he’d received a stuffed pony as a gift, and now he was meeting a stuffer. Then a thought occurred to him. “Say, you didn’t happen to stuff a pony recently, did you? A pony named Tony?”
“No, I didn’t,” said the man. “Like I said, I specialize in humans.”
“Oh.”
“Yes.” The man’s eyes glittered. “And my, oh my, Mr. Hudson, aren’t you a wonderful specimen.”
Only now did Reece notice that a full array of medical instruments was laid out on a tray. “Um, what am I doing here exactly?” he asked, craning his neck to take in the room. It looked like a medical facility, set up in some underground lair, judging from the concrete walls and lack of windows.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Mr. Hudson. The moment the procedure is over with, we’ll dress you up in your favorite outfit, and you’ll look superb.”
“Procedure? What procedure?”
The man clucked his tongue. “Come, come, Mr. Hudson. A smart man like you?”
He thought about this for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “So I’m strapped to a table, in some medical room, with a taxidermist specializing in stuffing humans hovering over me, a bunch of surgical instruments nearby…”
The man nodded patiently. “So…”
Suddenly he got it, and his eyes went wide. “You’re going to stuff me!”
The man clapped his hands slowly. “Excellent, Mr. Hudson! Ten points!”
“But—but—but why?!”
“Hasn’t my daughter gone into all of that?”
“Your daughter? You mean the hot blonde with the mental issues?”
The man’s face clouded. “There’s no need to become vulgar, Mr. Hudson.”
“She told me some cockamamie story about collecting professionals.”
“Exactly. That’s what we do around here. And you’ll be happy to know that you’ll be the star of the show, the pride of our collection. A genuine Hollywood movie star, no less.”
“You’re nuts!” cried Reece. “You’re all nuts!”
“Now, now, Mr. Hudson. Name-calling simply won’t do. Every genius ahead o
f the curve has been called a nutcase at some point. So I’ll just take it as a compliment.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment!”
“Nonetheless, I’ll accept it as such.” He waved a scalpel. “You see, other people collect stamps or butterflies or Star Wars figurines. My family collects human beings. And since it’s very hard to keep them while they’re alive—you have to feed them, clothe them, take care of their personal hygiene needs—it’s much, much easier to simply stuff them and put them on display. No fuss and no drama, you see?” He laughed. “Do you agree this is a brilliant setup?”
“I agree that you’re a complete fruitcake!” Reece cried.
The man wagged the scalpel in Reece’s face. “Name-calling again.”
“Just let me go, you nutbag!” Reece cried, tugging at the restraints. “I swear you’re going to regret this!”
“Not a chance,” said Dr. Cieslok. “Quite the contrary. I’m going to enjoy this immensely. Now if you’ll simply relax, this will be over with in no time.” He bent closer, studying Reece’s sculpted chest muscles. “Very nice. You’re a prize animal, Reece. The best specimen I’ve had the pleasure working on.”
“Get away from me, you freak!”
“I’m not going to lie to you. This might sting a little,” warned the doctor. “You see,” he added with a grin, “I like to stuff my subjects alive. That way I can preserve the natural expression of their eyes.”
“What the heck!” Reece yelled as he watched the doctor draw nearer.
“That’s it!” exclaimed Dr. Cieslok happily. “That’s the expression we need. Now could you do me one favor, and say ‘Hot potato’ into the camera?”
He pointed to a camera mounted on the operating light over Reece’s head. “That’s right. You’ll be thrilled to know that we’re filming this entire procedure. Your final performance, Mr. Hudson! Your swan song!”
Reece closed his eyes. This was a nightmare, he thought. This was simply a nightmare. Any second now he’d wake up and find himself in bed with Alice, knowing it had all been a terrible dream. But then the doctor prodded a finger into his ribs, and he opened his eyes, yelling, “Watch it! Tender!”
