She held back a scream as a cobweb caught her face near the top of the stairs.
“You okay?” Brody paused long enough to glance at her.
She wiped at imaginary creepy-crawlies. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just jumpy.”
“It is kind of spooky up here, if I do say so myself.”
Against her better judgment, she grasped Brody’s arm, desperate not to lose her connection with him. He didn’t pull back or object. In fact, earlier she’d thought she’d seen a spark of attraction in his eyes. Had she been imagining things? And why did that idea fascinate her?
Finally, they reached the top of the steps. The upstairs was cold—colder than the rest of the house. And it was so dark.
She stepped closer to Brody as her eyes adjusted to the dark space and the room came into view. Memories of being here alone captured her thoughts and made her trembles return. It had been a horrific day—especially when she’d remembered all of Aunt Bonny’s stories.
“Where do we start up here?” Brody raised the lantern, casting its light throughout the room.
Her gaze scanned the place as she pushed her memories aside. Antique furniture—probably worth quite a bit—was covered with old sheets. Stacks of family portraits leaned against one wall. An entire shelf of knickknacks sat against another wall. An old filing cabinet rested in the corner.
“How about there?” She pointed to the filing cabinet.
“I suppose it’s as good a place as any.”
She remained close as they walked through the dark room. The cabinet itself was entirely too new to be an antique—it was probably thirty or forty years old. But her grandmother may have stored older documents inside.
Fanny Pasture hadn’t been one for talking much. She did things quietly, when she wanted and for whatever reason she wanted.
I wish I had a chance to ask questions, Grandma. To listen to your stories. To reminisce with you.
But it was too late for that.
Brody handed her the lantern and opened the first drawer. It squeaked and squealed before begrudgingly stretching to full length. Swarms of dust escaped, and Felicity held back a sneeze.
“These look mostly like old tax returns and insurance policies.” He feathered several pages.
“That sounds about right. Grandma was a bit of a packrat. I don’t think she got rid of much. Again, it goes back to the Depression Era. When you have nothing, you hold on to whatever you can.”
He closed the drawer and pulled open the next one. Based on the file-folder labels, it held more tax returns. How many years back did they go?
He also pulled out an old sash reading “Miss North Carolina.” He raised his eyebrows at Felicity.
“My mom and grandmother were both beauty queens. I guess I didn’t have that in my genes.”
“I’d say you do,” Brody said.
Her cheeks flushed at his words, and she wondered how to respond. Before she had the chance, Brody lowered the sash back into the drawer, shoved it shut, and opened the final drawer.
“I’m not sure how far we’re going to get with this.” Felicity felt her hope plummeting. She rocked back on the dusty floor.
“Maybe farther than we think.” He pulled out a file folder labeled “Important documents.” “Sounds promising.”
They sat on an old loveseat, lantern between them, and opened the folder. Pages of old, old papers stared back at them. There were birth certificates, marriage licenses, and even social security cards.
“Wow. Look at this. This is my parents’ marriage license,” Felicity muttered, tears springing to her eyes.
“I know this is probably hard for you.”
“I’ll be fine.” She was determined to pull herself together. This wasn’t the time to break down, but she felt like she was on the brink. All this reminded her of how quickly life could change.
Brody squeezed her knee. “There’s a lot of family history up here.”
She wiped the last trace of moisture from under her eyes. “I guess so. I shouldn’t have been avoiding it all these years.”
She stared at a picture of her mom and dad on their wedding day. She bet they would have never guessed how it all would end for them when they got married. A plane crash. At least they’d been together. For a long time, Felicity had wished she’d been with them. It seemed less painful than going on without them.
Brody reached the end of the folder. “It doesn’t look like there was anything useful in here. I’m sorry, Felicity. We can take the drawers out, I suppose. See if anything fell behind them.”
“Seems like an exercise in futility.” She hated to sound so pouty, but that’s how she felt. Like she’d been backed into a corner. Like her hope was disappearing on the horizon. Like she’d been forced to walk the plank.
“It might not be.”
Something on the back of the photo caught her eye. “Wait. What’s this?”
She pulled the yellowed, fragile paper off the back of the photo where it had been stuck. Carefully, she opened it. Just as she did, a breeze drifted through the room and snuffed out the lantern.
She practically jumped into Brody’s lap as darkness enveloped them.
Brody’s arm went around her waist. “It’s okay. Just the drafty house.”
She willed her muscles to relax, but it didn’t work. They were still tightly wound. If only she could see something. Anything.
All the stupid tales her aunt had told her about Blackbeard’s ghost haunting the place fluttered through her mind. If she heard footsteps, she was going to freak out.
As if to play into her fear, a creak sounded in the distance. Her heart nearly stopped before starting back up again at a dangerous speed.
“It’s just the wind,” Brody whispered.
He was doing something beside her. Fiddling with something. The lantern, she realized.
A moment later, light flared to life in the room.
Her heartbeat slowly went back to normal, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Suddenly embarrassed, she slid off Brody’s lap. “Sorry about that.”
“Anytime.” His voice held a teasing tone.
She glanced round the room. There was no one. No one visible, at least. Her spine remained clenched as she anticipated what might happen next.
She wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. She jolted into action and pulled the folds apart and stared at the text on the paper.
“What is it?” Brody’s breath hit her cheek and sent her heart rate into the stratosphere again.
She desperately wished he didn’t have that effect on her.
Her eyes widened as she read the text. “It’s a deed. A land deed.”
“To where?”
She scanned the document. “It appears to be a piece of property off the Perquimans River.”
“Whose name is it in?”
“William Pasture. Loretta’s husband. My great-great-great-great-great grandfather.”
They exchanged a glance.
“I think I know where we should head next,” Brody said.
Felicity nodded, excitement zinging through her blood. “Let’s go.”
An hour later, they pulled up to the property listed on the deed.
There wasn’t much there except an old cabin that was probably a hundred years old. Trees grew through its roof. Trees surrounded it, for that matter, until the building was almost invisible to the human eye.
Sure enough, a river ran beside it.
The sun was starting to sink lower, casting strange shadows on the place and promising that darkness would fall soon. The air felt cooler than before, and the snow, once beautiful, now looked ashen in places as it mingled with the dirt.
“You didn’t know this was in your family? Certainly you got a tax bill every year,” Brody told Felicity.
She pulled her North Face jacket up closer to her face, as if anticipating the cold they were about to experience. “I didn’t take care of the family’s estate. My aunt did. She was going to s
how me what I needed to do, in case of her absence . . .” Her voice cracked as she finished the sentence.
“This place doesn’t look like much.”
“We should check it out, I suppose,” she said.
They climbed out, and Brody took her hand to help her over the high grasses. The snowfall made much of the landscape limp with dampness, and clumps of grass now slumped in large heaps. Their feet sank beneath it in mud and other gunk that it was better not to see, reminding him of the Alaskan tundra. Finally, they reached what used to be the front porch.
Brody gave the door a shove. It didn’t open. He threw his shoulder into it—it panged from where he’d done the same after being locked in the closet. He ignored the pain, though. They needed to get inside the old shack.
On his second try, the door burst open.
The musty scent of a space that had been closed up for entirely too long filled their senses. Felicity had grabbed one of the old lanterns they’d brought with them. She quickly lit it and held it up.
The inside of the cabin came into view. There wasn’t much to it, and the floor looked like it could give way at any minute. There were already holes there—and trees starting to poke through the roof. Soon, nature would claim this entirely.
“It looks like no one has lived here in years,” Brody said.
“I can’t even imagine why someone in my family owned this. Was it a hunting cabin or something?”
“Hard to say.” He tipped a foot forward and tested the floor. “You should stay here. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“I don’t want you getting hurt.”
He offered a grateful smile. He really did appreciate her concern. Though they’d gotten off to a rocky start, she’d continued to surprise him. The concern she’d shown when Walter talked about his wife had touched him. “I’ll be okay.”
Her wide eyes assessed him. “You were just rubbing your shoulder. That doesn’t seem okay.”
“It will be just fine. Just hold the lantern for me.”
Hesitantly, carefully, he stepped onto the floor. It groaned beneath him.
One wrong move and, not only would he fall through the floor, he’d have to battle whatever rodents probably lived under this house. The thought wasn’t pleasant.
He took each step carefully. There wasn’t much to look at, but an old bookcase stood along the far wall with a fireplace next to it. It appeared the place was a one-room living quarters and was built before the time of bathrooms or closets.
He reached the bookcase and moved it aside.
A mouse squeaked and darted away. But there was nothing behind it. And nothing on it. As he did that, Felicity crept across the room toward the fireplace and began tugging at the stones there. None of them moved.
The only furniture in the room was an old table and chairs, and something that looked like an old desk was in the opposite corner. He’d check those out next.
“You think one of your relatives owned this place?” He pulled out drawers and searched every crevice.
“I can only assume. Though I can’t believe I’ve never heard about it before. I’ll have to ask Aunt Bonny—” Her voice caught.
“You’ll be able to ask her,” Brody assured her. “I promise you that.”
“I wish you could know that. But neither of us do.”
“If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to track down this map and get your aunt back.”
Felicity’s grateful smile was all the thank you he needed. He pushed in the last drawer and stepped back. There was literally nowhere else to look. There was no bathroom. No kitchen. Nothing.
“I’m sorry, Felicity. This appears to be a dead end. Another one.”
She stepped back toward the door and nodded slowly. “We gave it a shot, right? It seemed like a good possibility.”
As a mouse skittered by her feet, Felicity yelped and twirled around.
As she did, something crashed beside her. A piece of the wooden wall had fallen off. With the section gone from the wall, the area beneath it was exposed.
Carved there were the words “Wait Until Dark.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What does that mean?” Felicity ran her fingers over the words. Someone had carved them right into the wood.
Wait until dark.
Brody stood behind her, his presence again sending tremors up and down her spine. He continued to have that effect on her, and she didn’t like it, while at the same time, she craved more. “That’s strange.”
“It looks crude,” she muttered, studying it.
“I agree. And old. But I’m not sure it has anything to do with this.”
“Probably not. I mean, what could it mean? We don’t even know if this property has anything to do with any of this. Everything is just a stab in the dark at this point.”
“If anyone can figure this out, you can.”
She felt her insides twist. She’d told him about her massive failure, and he still had confidence in her abilities. What if she let him down, just as she’d let herself down?
Instead of dwelling on that thought, she pulled out her phone and snapped a picture. Maybe it would come in handy. She doubted it, but maybe.
“Let’s see if there’s anything under this one,” Brody reached around her, to a similar piece of the wall—a small square instead of the long, lean lines of wood that lined the rest of the house. With a little prying, Brody removed it.
Sure enough, words had been carved there also.
“The moonlight will be your guide,” he read. “That’s interesting.”
“To say the least.” Felicity snapped a picture of that also. “Are we supposed to wait until dark here and let the moonlight guide us? It’s so vague. Why would someone leave that message?”
“It’s either a clue of some sort, or someone got bored and wanted to mess with the minds of whoever found this.”
“It’s working. My mind is officially messed with.”
Brody let out a sigh. He obviously knew the same thing she did: time was ticking away. “It’s already getting late. Maybe we should grab a bite to eat and come back here. I think there’s a full moon tonight. Maybe the timing will work out just as it’s supposed to.”
“If we’re wrong, we’re wasting a lot of time.” She frowned when she thought about it. She hated the uncertainty of it all. “But you’re right. Let’s eat so we can keep up our energy. Then we can come back here and see if there’s anything to discover.”
The nearest place to get something to eat had been almost thirty minutes away from the out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere spot. Brody and Felicity had grabbed some fried herring from a local restaurant known for the specialty and eaten it mostly in silence. By the time they got back to the truck, the sun was beginning to set. They’d both ordered coffee to go, knowing they’d need it to stay awake tonight.
Brody wasn’t sure where all of this would lead, but they had to at least try. For Felicity’s sake he had to do whatever it took. He had to admit that this all seemed like a wild goose chase. But they had no choice except to participate in it, at this point.
As Brody started to turn into the lane leading to the house, he paused and let his headlights shine on the grassy area.
“What is it?” Felicity asked.
He put the truck in park and hopped out. He squatted by something on the ground, examining it a moment.
Felicity joined him.
“Tread marks,” he told her.
“From when we were here earlier?”
He shook his head. “No, if you look at them you can tell they’re wider and deeper. Here are our tracks.”
“Someone else was here,” she whispered. “Magnum.”
“I’ve wondered if he had someone keeping an eye on us. It appears he does.”
“Do you think he’s here now?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
They climbed back in the truck. Brody still had his gun tucked away safely in his waistband. He’d
use it if he had to. He only hoped he didn’t have to.
Slowly, he eased the truck over the bumpy, overgrown road. As it cleared slightly at the end, the house came into sight. But no other vehicles.
“Wait here. Lock the door.” Brody grabbed his gun.
“Be careful.” Her eyes were wide with concern.
As soon as he climbed out, she pressed down the lock. Once Brody knew she was tucked in safe and sound, he ventured around the house, looking for a sign that anyone else was here.
He spotted more tire tracks. Magnum, in his oversized Hummer had been here. It appeared he was gone now, but Brody had to be certain. He didn’t want to put Felicity’s life on the line again.
He skirted the side of the house and spotted some footprints near the windows there. He had no doubt they’d been inside. Before he checked that out, he noticed the footprints ventured from the house and toward the river. He followed them.
The prints stopped by a large oak tree overlooking the river.
He squatted by the trunk.
A hole gaped beside it.
A hole . . .
Magnum thought the treasure was buried here, Brody realized. Perhaps he thought this was Teach’s Oak.
Had Magnum found anything? Was that why he’d left so quickly? He and Felicity had only been gone two hours maximum. Was that enough time for him to find a buried treasure? Wouldn’t he still be here if he had, looking for more?
Brody let out a sigh. He didn’t know. He didn’t have the answers yet. And, until he did, all he could do was try his best.
“Anything?” Felicity asked as Brody climbed back into the truck.
He shook his head as he sat down, bringing with him an earthy scent of dirt and leaves. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold, and he instantly reached for the coffee he’d left in the holder between the seats.
“Not really,” he said before taking a sip. “Someone’s been here. They’ve been digging.”
Her heart raced with anticipation. “Did they find anything?”
“That’s the question of the hour.” He held his hand in front of the blaring heat coming through the vents. “I didn’t see any evidence that anything had been dragged out from the space. The dirt is so wet, there would have probably been proof if something large had been hauled out.”
Wait Until Dark: Carolina Moon Series, Book 3 Page 16
