The Hauntings Of Sugar Hill: The Complete Series

by M. L. Bullock

  “Avery, that’s not true. You have many supporters, not just Reed and me. Pepper thinks the world of you, and so does Lindsey. Danforth doesn’t like anyone, not even me. It’s not a popularity contest. There is no contest. You are the Matrone.”

  I stomped to the bathroom and filled a bag with cosmetics and toiletries. When I walked back out, they were still there. I felt bad for them. “I know you guys love me. I love you too. And I’m grateful for the little support I do have from the board, but it’s not enough. This has been coming for a long time. It’s time for me to get away for a while.”

  Reed spoke up now, and he was clearly aggravated. “If you abandon us, it will be harder to lobby for you. If you walk out of Sugar Hill right now, you’re basically saying you agree with Bray’s assumptions. And that’s what it is, assumptions. He doesn’t know diddly squat. And like I said, it really doesn’t matter.”

  “Apparently, it does. At least to the entire Dufresne family.” But the point about leaving Sugar Hill did bother me. Sure, I was mad. Mad as hell, actually. Mad that I’d fainted, mad that I’d thrown a party for a man who was determined to destroy me. Mad for many reasons. However, the idea of not coming back home for some time, of not returning to Sugar Hill at all, bothered me no end. I crumpled on the bed.

  “Fine, but I can’t stay right now. What do I do? I need time to think.”

  “Go to Thorn Hill,” Summer suggested. “I know it’s not your favorite place, but at least you’ll still be on the property, technically speaking.”

  I frowned at that idea. “What else you got? Hey, I could stay at the Rose Cottage. I’m sure Mitchell wouldn’t mind.”

  “He wouldn’t, but he has the only set of keys. He had the locks changed when you gave him the house, and the other cottage is in disrepair. I think it’s Thorn Hill or nothing, cousin.”

  I cast a “help me” look at Reed, but he just shrugged. “I don’t think you should leave at all. You should be downstairs telling him to leave. This is your home. You are the Matrone, Avery. Don’t go.”

  I looked from one face to the other. I was never one to run from a fight, but this was a fight I wasn’t going to win. Not today, anyway. “As much as it pains me to leave, I am going. I’ll go to Thorn Hill until we can get this sorted out. I want to know one way or another whose child I am. What’s so scary about my DNA? What would disqualify me from serving as Matrone? Find out, Reed. I’m depending on you.”

  I hugged him and Summer, who patted my back. “Well, I’m not leaving,” she said. “I’ll stay right here and make sure our guests leave. All of them. Including his high-and-mightiness, Bray Dufresne. There will be no squatters here today!” I knew she meant it.

  “Thank you, Summer. Oh, one more thing. Reed, will you grab that box for me, please? I might as well get into the real nitty-gritty while I’m away.” I pointed at the box of VHS tapes and Vertie’s journals. I’d been happily avoiding those resources the past few months, but I could no longer do that. I had to get to the bottom of all this. It was time to look at the Dufresne family tree without the rose-colored glasses. And if there were fewer branches than we all believed or many more, then so be it.

  “I’ll help you out. Let’s take the servants’ entrance. Do you want me to call Handsome?”

  “Yes, please. That would be great.”

  Summer scampered out as Reed helped me carry my luggage down the servants’ staircase and into the foyer. People didn’t use this portion of the house much, not even the staff.

  “Make sure Robin knows I’m gone. I’d hate for her to cook me breakfast and have me not be here to enjoy it.” I sniffed at what felt like a potential tear.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late to go back upstairs and put these things away.”

  “I am very sure. I need a break. Might as well go back to the scene of the crime. Hopefully, all is quiet there now. At least Jamie’s not around to stir up anything.”

  “I heard he didn’t get the job. Chief Harper says he didn’t pass the psych exam.”

  “I don’t approve of you snooping on my friends.”

  “Is he your friend, Avery? I mean, he’s not all there. I wouldn’t advise continuing that particular friendship.”

  “Are you warning me as a dutiful cousin?”

  “No, I’m warning you because I care about you.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “You don’t feel the same way?”

  We were only a few feet apart. I don’t know what made me do it, but I closed the distance in a few seconds and kissed him. I’d never forgotten our first kiss, and I’d been dying to do it again. Besides, he wasn’t my true cousin. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, was there?

  Kissing Reed was like tossing gasoline on an open flame. He kissed me back with everything he had. Before I knew it, hands were flying, and if Handsome hadn’t pulled up, I don’t think we’d have stopped. I stepped back and straightened my mussed hair, then opened the door. Reed tidied himself as he reached for the suitcases. Handsome’s tall, lean frame stepped out of the vehicle, and a young boy tagged along with him.

  “Good afternoon, all. I hope you don’t mind that I brought my helper with me today. This is my grandson, Arnold Lee, Mr. Reed.”

  “Well, hello, Arnold Lee. You are the spitting image of your dad. We went to school together. Are you driving today?”

  “Nope. He won’t let me.”

  “He will one day. I’m sure of it. You look almost old enough to drive to me. How old are you now?” Reed asked him playfully.

  “I’m almost nine.”

  “Gosh, I was close. Well, give it some time.”

  “Where to, sir?” Handsome smiled, pleased that his grandson was being treated so kindly.

  “Avery needs to go to Thorn Hill, and that’s it for the evening.”

  Handsome paused at the door handle but remembered himself. “I’ll take that luggage, miss.”

  “Thank you, Handsome—and Arnold Lee.”

  The boy closed the car door behind me, and I stared at Reed through the tinted glass. I wished he was coming with me, but I was a big girl. I could do this.

  Time to face the ghosts of Thorn Hill all by myself.

  Chapter Five

  Jessica Chesterfield

  The My Haunted Plantation crew looked like we’d been taking part in some kind of evil scientist’s insomnia experiment. Destinee, my motel roommate and fellow sensitive, had such dark circles under her eyes that you could easily believe she’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I didn’t look much better. Thankfully no cameras were rolling this morning. At least the camera guys had enough sense to sleep in.

  I was all that was left of the original My Haunted Plantation crew. Megan and the rest of the gang were premiering the new My Haunted Town show, and I barely knew the people who crowded around the table of the greasy spoon where we met for breakfast. I was so tired that eating breakfast seemed disgusting, but hey, that’s how my new team leader did things. Three hours of sleep and up again. Did this guy ever sleep? Jarvis Heights was actually a likable guy, if a bit pushy, but I didn't like him too much this morning.

  I’d been working in the field of paranormal television for the past year, and my skin really showed it. I practically looked like a ghost myself. I needed a break, both physically and emotionally. The money had been good, and when I first signed my contract with the Paranormal Channel, $20,000 a month seemed like an insane salary, but now not so much. I’d done a lot with the cash, but I found myself bored and more than a little jaded. I believed in the supernatural world, but I had serious doubts about the motives of the higher-ups at the Paranormal Channel. They wanted us to do “everything we could” to bring them some proof of the paranormal, and we weren’t supposed to fudge the data. But it happened a lot. The only really positive thing I could say about the channel was that if they found out about said fudging, they’d can your ass.

  Unfortunately, that’s what happened to Becker. Why he’d done tha
t, I’ll never know. I sighed, thinking about our last conversation. He wanted me to back him up, but I knew better than to get involved in his storytelling. Or lying, whatever you want to call it. But I missed him.

  I guess the truth was, I’d had a thing for Becker for a while. Even though he had the morals of an alley cat and made horrible decisions that called his character into question nearly on a daily basis, I had a crush that had grown over the past two years. For him to put me in such a position really ticked me off, but I still liked him. I checked my phone constantly to see if he’d sent me a text or an email. What did that say about me?

  Jarvis talked, and I pretended to study the menu. What was the name of this place again? Oh, yeah, the Iron Skillet. Hmm…that was original, not.

  “Jessica?” And then everyone was looking at me.

  “Yeah?” I said as I slapped the greasy menu down on the table.

  “First impressions, please?”

  We’d walked through Haley’s Landing last night. It was a “lost” plantation in Arkansas near the big town of Sheriff’s Bluff. It was a heartbreaking oddity, that old house hidden in the woods with trees poking out of the roof and no glass in the windows. What had been beautiful and sprawling, surely the center of a once-thriving area, had disappeared into the forest in just over a hundred years.

  “I didn’t sense anything at all,” I said bluntly. Probably too bluntly.

  Jarvis sipped coffee from a plain white ceramic mug. “Really? Not even in the ballroom? We had some significant spikes in there. You should have experienced something, I reckon.”

  Feeling cranky, I sassed back, “Well, I reckon I didn’t. If that’s all, I’d like to go to bed now.”

  The crew stared at me. Yeah, I was being rude as hell, but I didn’t care. What did they know? Dang rookies. I wasn’t a robot. You couldn’t just send me into a room and get readings. I didn’t care what the gadgets said. Sometimes they coincided, and other times they didn’t. My sensitivity didn’t work that way. And if there was nothing there, there was nothing there.

  Destinee piped up, “I had a different experience, Jessica. I had this overwhelming sense of dread in that room. Didn’t you feel that?”

  “The only thing I feel right now is tired. Very tired. I can’t seem to catch up on my sleep.”

  She didn’t respond to me but said to the rest of the group, “It was almost like the room was used to death and wanted more of it.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. She was such a liar. At least she was better at it than Becker had been. I left the restaurant and went back to the Podunk motel connected to it. I didn’t wait for anyone’s permission. Someone might have called after me, but I couldn’t be sure. I was so tired, I felt like my eyes were going to bleed.

  I slid the key into the lock and went inside, locking the door behind me. I climbed back into the bed and kicked off my tennis shoes. Oh, yeah, this was where I wanted to be. It took me all of about two minutes to fall asleep. And I slept hard. When I woke up, it was two o’clock.

  I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the blanket around me and the pillow under my head. It wasn’t home, but it was cozy. Destinee insisted on turning on the air conditioner last night, and I thought I’d freeze to death. I didn’t need a lot of AC to keep cool. But now the room felt perfect. I sighed. For a cheap motel, this place had remarkably comfortable beds. Or I had just been that tired.

  Then the feeling crept up my spine, that feeling you get when you know someone is watching you, when you know you are being spied on. I glanced around the room without moving my head. I didn’t want whoever was in here to know I was aware of their presence.

  I didn’t see anyone and called out in a soft voice, “Destinee?” She didn’t answer, but the feeling didn’t go away. I sat up slowly and then saw a figure standing silently in the corner.

  It was Avery Dufresne. The former newscaster had a blank expression on her pretty face and blood on her neck, and all her hair had been chopped off. I flung the covers back and just about screamed her name. “Avery! Oh, my God! What’s going on?” My mind told me there was no possible way she could be here, but with all my heart, I wanted to help her.

  I’d met America’s Newscaster earlier in the year when my former team members and I investigated Sugar Hill. Now, there had been an investigation. We’d found skeletons in the walls and proof of a centuries-old murder. Well, two murders. But the truth was that much more was going on at Sugar Hill, and I’d come to love Avery’s heart. She had tons of money before she came to Sugar Hill, but she had even more now that she’d been named the family’s financial representative. And she used every dime allowed for good. She helped build a hospital, funded surgeries for family members and even invested in Dufresne businesses. And she wasn’t the one who told me all this, the people around her had. They loved her. She made me wish I were a Dufresne, not because I was greedy but because it would be cool to be a part of something like that.

  I walked closer to the image, my hands outstretched, but as soon as I got close enough to touch her, the image shimmered like a pool of water that someone just skimmed their fingers across. And then she was gone. I suddenly felt cold and sad. So very sad. I heard the door open behind me, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the spot in case she returned.

  “Um, Jess? You got a minute?”

  It was Jarvis and Destinee. My roomie sat in the cheap vinyl chair with her arms crossed and a judgmental, I-told-you-so expression on her face, while Jarvis stood there looking all alpha. I was pretty sure his toned physique was the only reason he landed the job as manager. That’s how it was in this industry. The camera had to love you or you were out. And then the door opened again. It was one of the camera guys. To the average person, this unexpected meeting might have seemed intrusive, but I had signed a contract giving up my privacy for the good of the show. I had no idea what was about to happen, but I sensed a new storyline emerging. I could imagine the headlines on the paranormal blogs tomorrow.

  “Jessica Chesterfield Gets Canned for Not Faking Ghosts.”

  But that’s not what they would say at all. In fact, the Paranormal Channel’s kind blurb would say something like, “Jessica is taking some time off to take care of a personal situation. She’ll be back in the fall or next year. Or never.” What that really meant was, “We aren’t happy with Jessica’s performance. We’d like to spend some time taking a long, hard look at her contract before we fire her.”

  Jarvis ran through his lines, informing me that I’d been put on “probation” with My Haunted Plantation. Some members of the group apparently felt I might put them in danger somehow, but how wasn’t exactly clear to me. Destinee piped in once or twice to say how much she cared about me and she’d miss me, but that I really needed to refocus. She smiled and promised to keep my place for me. Yeah, right. I trusted her less than I trusted Megan, and that wasn’t much.

  I left that night. I didn’t call my parents or any of my friends back home. I would in a day or two, but for now, I rented a car and headed south to Alabama.

  Now the real work would begin. I hoped I wasn’t too late.

  Part II

  Chapter Six

  Avery Dufresne

  My arrival at Thorn Hill prompted nothing as frightening as the last time. No mystery man stalked me on the wraparound porch. No crystal chandeliers swung precariously overhead or mysteriously crashed to the ground. Even the painting of Susanna Serene Dufresne appeared benign. Just a harmless, beautiful painting of a remarkable woman whose portrait now overlooked the parlor where she used to sit with her lover and pass the time.

  And where was Ambrose? Why were there no pictures of him here? I’d only found the one at Sugar Hill, in the Angel Gallery, and I’d spent way too much time staring at him, memorizing his face. Maybe I would find one here, hanging forgotten on a wall or squirreled away in an attic.

  I did my best not to think about Ambrose since I’d heard the warnings, but it was difficult not to for reasons I
didn’t completely understand. Or wish to admit. Like a devilish mood ring, Susanna’s wedding band warmed on my finger as if to testify to that fact. Yes, it was difficult not to think of Ambrose, and it became more difficult every day. I’d told no one about it, not even Summer. I kept my rising curiosity, or whatever this was, to myself. But my resolve to keep him at bay was weakening. I found it harder and harder to resist the temptation to call out to him. To say his name on purpose, especially since he had been haunting my dreams of late.

  In the most recent, I dreamed of the two of us lying in the grass near Sugar Hill. I could see the house out of the corner of my eye. Geese flew overhead, honking as they sped by, and there was a gentle slapping of water nearby. Ambrose leaned over me with tiny bits of grass and flower petals in his hair, which fell around him like a soft halo. His white shirt was unbuttoned, and I relished the feel of the dark hairs under my fingers as I touched his chest. His wide smile thrilled me. We were happy, he and I, at that moment. He wanted me, worshiped me, loved me, and I wanted nothing more than to surrender to those expressive dark eyes and respond to his gentle touches.

  And then he began to come to me at night. He’d catch me in that place between awake and asleep. He wouldn’t actually appear, but I would know that he was there, and that he was there to please me, serve me, love me. I wanted so badly to surrender. How easy it would be!

  Speak my name, my love. Speak it, and we’ll be as one again. Speak my name, my soulmate, and all will be well.

  But I wouldn’t.

  How could I allow myself to be enveloped by his spicy scent or believe that he was anything but dead? He was a grasping spirit hoping to reclaim what he’d lost, his soulmate, Susanna. But I was not her, and it was the ring he was reaching for, wasn’t it? At those times, I had to think like a journalist. What would I say to someone who told me a story like this? I would never have believed it. No, I couldn’t engage this…thing…I had to be scientific.