by Kay Hooper
A lucky “catch” if the woman wanted a fun time in bed.
But a very elusive lover if she expected anything more.
He suited Nellie perfectly.
A man who drove the right car and wore the right clothes and knew just how to make himself agreeable.
Nellie had wondered, once upon a time, what kept such a paragon in a fairly boring little backwater town like Baron Hollow. But she thought she knew now.
Because here he was Victor Rayburn, and his opinion on just about anything mattered. He was from an old, established family highly respected in the area, with parents who had left him a couple of reasonably thriving businesses that other people ran for him, plus a very large house and enough land that it could almost be termed an estate, and numerous rental properties that brought in nice income.
But even with all that, most anywhere else he would be just another good-looking, charming man with a fair amount of money and an aversion to matrimony and other long-term relationships. Which meant he would be rather ordinary.
So Victor had chosen to be Someone Special in Baron Hollow rather than being Someone Ordinary in another place.
She was pretty sure that at forty he had thoroughly enjoyed his life to date, and that he had no regrets. But she was also pretty sure that something had changed recently, and even though Nellie was only a part-time reporter for their small local daily—and did that mostly for kicks—she’d caught the whiff of some kind of interesting story over the last week or so.
Though they’d never been on especially close terms, it was obvious that Vic and his cousin Emma were both harboring a new tension these days. Since…since sometime around when Jessie had arrived, now that Nellie thought about it.
Nellie frowned, trying to decide if the hostility between the cousins had begun since Jessie’s visit. She wasn’t sure. Nellie had barely been aware of Jessie when they were kids, and she’d caught only a glimpse or two of the other woman around town in the last few days.
Not that she’d expected anything else; Jessie hadn’t viewed her as a friend fifteen years ago, so it was highly unlikely she would view her as one now, and the feeling was mutual. Nellie had always been casual friends with Emma, but this being a small town and the both of them small-town women, they tended to see each other at various committee meetings or town events; theirs wasn’t the sort of friendship that involved lunches out or other deliberate social plans.
In any case, there was really no way for Nellie to know for sure whether Jessie had been the cause of tension between Victor and Emma unless she managed to corner Emma and ask her about it outright. But Emma had been uncharacteristically elusive, even slippery, in recent days, and Nellie had been granted no opportunity to satisfy her curiosity.
Especially since Victor had been evasive as well.
Nellie leaned forward, looping her arms around her upraised knees, and stared absently toward the bathroom door, watching steam curl out and begin to reach upward for the ceiling.
Jessie. Was she still the irresponsible, dramatic troublemaker she had been when she’d put her little Ford Mustang in gear and Baron Hollow in the rearview mirror at seventeen? Or had Jessie Rayburn changed as they had all changed in the ensuing fifteen years?
EVEN WITH THE driven determination to break through, it took more strength than she thought she had left to do it again—and she had the suspicion that it would cost her.
She decided to think about that later.
When she did break through, she was more than a little surprised to find herself where she was, though she wondered why she should be. She had worked out for herself that Jessie’s walls were up and reinforced with all her considerable will; for whatever reason, Jessie had closed herself to the spirit world.
This one was more open, even if she didn’t know it.
She had never even met Nellie Holt, but in this in-between place where she found herself, she knew this woman. At least up to a point. She knew who she was, her name, odd little facts about her.
She knew she could trust Nellie.
Even so, she hesitated. To find, in such a small, interconnected town, people she could be absolutely sure weren’t in some way involved…that was hard. Finding somebody who might actually care and help Jessie—and Emma—before it was too late was even harder.
So far, he had gotten away with killing for a long, long time; if that didn’t change, if he wasn’t stopped, he’d only grow bolder. He might decide he was truly beyond the law, that he’d never be caught.
Especially if he felt threatened, felt that he had no choice except to move swiftly to protect his secret. By taking the chance of changing his hunting methods.
By going after someone local.
Like Jessie. Jessie, who was busy uncovering a past that threatened his secret.
Jessie, who had a history of running away, and was so very vulnerable because of that.
Because who, really, would be surprised if Jessie disappeared, if she “ran away” again?
Not even her sister.
The spirit drifted closer, frustrated yet again because she knew her presence was unseen, unfelt.
It was humbling to watch the world go on without you, she had realized. Even in the best of times, it had to be that. But this wasn’t the best of times, and, dammit, she needed help.
Someone had to stop him, and soon. Because once he got rid of Jessie, and perhaps even Emma…he could go on killing for years without anyone being the wiser.
This town needed help. All his future victims needed help. Jessie and Emma needed help. They needed someone or something to stand between them and the monster.
At the very least, they needed someone who knew the monster existed.
It would be so much easier, she thought, if she could just explain things. Lay it all out. Ten minutes of straight talk, even five minutes, would do it. Hell, two minutes and she could get an important point or two across. But even if she’d had the strength for that, and even if someone opened a door for her so she could have had those five or ten minutes, there were things the universe just didn’t allow.
Both the living and the dead had their own roles to play—and some things had to happen just the way they happened.
Still, she wasn’t entirely useless, even now. There were a few things she could do.
So she focused, concentrating as hard as she’d ever concentrated in her life, and did all that she could to offer what she knew all too well was a dangerously enigmatic warning.
TEN
Well, to be fair, Nellie mused, Vic hadn’t changed all that much in fifteen years.
In his entire life, really.
And she didn’t think Emma had changed. Despite going to the other side of the country to college, with scant visits home during those four years, she had returned to live in her family home when she could easily have gone elsewhere, still the friendly, sweet-natured, small-town girl she had always been, with a pleasant sense of humor and a career as a teacher that allowed her to take regular summer trips exploring the country and even the globe. But no matter where she went, she always came home. And she was still the girl who kept her mother’s single strand of pearls as a treasured heirloom.
She almost never wears them, though. I wonder why.
It was the sort of niggling question that had driven Nellie to write for the local paper even though she didn’t have to earn her living; she certainly wasn’t wealthy, but frugal parents had left her a nice little inheritance and a house with no mortgage, so she was able to indulge herself with an interesting part-time job and quite a lot of very satisfying charity work in the community.
Right now, it was the niggling little question that was occupying her. She liked puzzles. She liked mysteries. She liked trying to figure things out, for a story or an article—or just her own satisfaction.
Working for the paper just gave her a legitimate reason to express her curiosity.
To poke my nose into other people’s business.
She leaned
over and reached into the top drawer of her nightstand, drawing out a notebook and pencil. She turned to a fresh page and made a note to herself, not even sure she could come up with a good reason to ask Emma about the pearls—or her newly tense relationship with her cousin, for that matter.
Not that Vic and Emma had ever been really close, but they’d been at least outwardly casual with each other for as long as Nellie could remember. Even as young people, they’d seemingly gotten along, once the ten-year age difference wasn’t really a factor.
So what was going on now? And why did they need to meet at the office of the family lawyer to discuss something? It shouldn’t be inheritance stuff; Rayburn House as well as various other properties and funds had been left to Emma and Jessie when their father had died five years back, and Nellie could well recall Vic’s surprise that his uncle had left him a treasured classic car (which he now happily drove) because he hadn’t expected to be left anything at all.
As far as Nellie knew, Emma had never cared about that car, had certainly never resented Vic inheriting it, and had most certainly had her hands full managing the bulk of her father’s considerable estate, especially with Jessie’s absence at the time—and since then.
The only change that might have affected the cousins’ relationship, as far as Nellie could see, had been Jessie’s sudden and—to her, at least—unannounced visit.
So what dust—or dirt—had been stirred up by the return of the prodigal daughter?
Nellie sat there with her knees drawn up, pencil tapping absently against the notepad for a few moments as she thought about that. She could come up with various ideas easily enough, because she had a lively imagination—really too lively for the newspaper business, her boss had told her more than once.
But the problem right now was that her ideas were all over the place, from simple to soap-opera dramatic; without a person or event to start her off, some inkling of what was going on inside the Rayburn family, there was really no reasonable way for her to guess.
Eventually, she sighed and gave it up for the moment, returning her attention to the bathroom door, where steam was emerging thicker now and beginning to crawl across the ceiling toward her. She watched it for a moment, not really thinking about anything until a familiar, idle thought crossed her mind.
If he uses up all the hot water, I’m going to be pissed.
Sighing, she glanced down as she started to close the notebook.
And caught her breath, an icy finger trailing down her spine.
There was her note to herself to find a casual way to ask Emma about the pearls. Her handwriting, of course. Of course.
Beneath that, more than halfway down the page, a series of ragged letters slanted drunkenly across the lined paper. They hadn’t been there when she had made her note. She didn’t remember writing them, and they most certainly weren’t in her handwriting.
HELP ME…MURDERED
FIND THE TRUTH. BE CAREFUL.
HE’S WATCHING.
JESSIE…THREAT
PROTECT EMMA
The message wasn’t written in pencil. It was…red. Nellie moved a trembling thumb and slowly tested a letter. It smudged wetly on the page.
Blood.
Nellie stared at the message, trying to wrap her mind around the impossibility of it, her throat suddenly dry as she swallowed, an icy finger skittering up and down her spine. Usually, she enjoyed a good mystery.
This one scared the hell out of her.
WHEN NAVARRO EMERGED from his room after the storm had finally passed and his headache had eased, he discovered innkeeper Penny Willis in the large foyer area that was a central hub for the common rooms, hallways, and main stairway leading to other parts of the house, having a quiet but firm conversation with the three paranormal researchers.
He lurked, still in the hallway.
“…guests can’t be disturbed. I realize that you wish to explore the house but, really, occupied rooms are off-limits, and right now nearly all our rooms are occupied.”
The woman, a slender brunette with an earnest expression, said, “The family floor has the greatest reputation for events—if we could just do a walk-through some evening when Miss Rayburn isn’t at home—”
“I’m sorry, Miss Templeton—”
“Hollis. We’re not much for formalities.”
Penny’s expression showed a fleeting, wry realization of that, but all she said, firmly, was, “The family floor is off-limits to guests at all times. Miss Rayburn only allows the sort of investigation you want to conduct when she isn’t in residence here. Unfortunately for you, she’s here all summer.”
“But if we asked her—”
“I’ll pass on your request. I give you my word.” Penny’s voice was even firmer, kind but definitely discouraging any further discussion of the subject.
The one named Hollis looked at her male companions, disappointment on her face. The older of the two men shrugged and said, “We can do some research in the family archives, and I have contacts in other paranormal research groups who’ve been here. We can at least go over the ground that’s already been covered.”
The younger, taller man added calmly, “Best to get the preliminary stuff taken care of anyway, and avoid a needless duplication of efforts. Maybe Miss Rayburn will allow us access to the family floor later on. And there’s still the town, the other locations known to be hot spots. Should keep us busy for a while.”
Hollis still didn’t appear happy about it, but shrugged in her turn, clearly leaning toward defeat, however unwillingly. “Yeah, yeah. I guess. But, Miss Willis—”
“Penny.”
“Penny, thanks. You will tell Miss Rayburn we have the utmost respect for her privacy and, if allowed access, will certainly not disturb her home or spend any more time there than is absolutely necessary for our purposes?”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” She looked at her fellow researchers. “Gordon, if you want to get started in the library, maybe Reese and I can take a walk around Main Street and get some preliminary readings. This might be a good time, what with the storm just past.”
The older man nodded and headed for the inn’s library and family archives without further hesitation. Hollis and Reese, each carrying what looked like a laptop-sized shoulder bag, nodded to Penny and headed for the front door.
Navarro waited until they were well out of sight and Penny heaved a faintly exasperated sigh of relief, then came out of lurker mode and joined her.
“I thought I caught a glimpse of you,” she said to him.
“Figured I’d avoid them as long as possible,” he said.
“Smart man. Like I said, we’ve had paranormal researchers here before, even regularly, but this group seems especially keen to visit the family floor.”
“And Miss Rayburn doesn’t allow it when she’s in residence. Yeah, I heard you tell them.”
She tilted her head slightly, a definite curiosity in her eyes. “Do you two know each other, by the way? Yesterday, when she came out of her office, it looked like you might.”
Deliberately, Navarro said, “I never met Emma Rayburn until yesterday.”
“Ah. My mistake.”
Navarro decided she wasn’t entirely convinced, but didn’t waste his time trying to change her mind; he had a hunch that would only make her more certain that they had, in fact, met before, and that there was some unusual, interesting reason why he was denying it.
He suspected Penny loved a good story even more than the writer he pretended to be loved one.
So he merely nodded and left the inn, bent on doing more exploring to try to satisfy the nagging feeling he had that he shouldn’t look to the mountains for his answers, even after finding human remains there.
The answer was closer; he could feel it.
The same way he could feel something dark in the very air of this seemingly peaceful, pretty little town.
POLICE CHIEF DAN Maitland eyed the two paranormal researchers sitting in his of
fice and tried not to register too much disbelief. “You want permission to hike up to where Jane Doe was discovered?”
The woman shifted a bit as if in discomfort, and said, “You’ve already given her that designation? Poor soul.”
“There wasn’t a lot left to identify,” Maitland told her. “I didn’t have much choice in what designation or name to use.”
“But surely dental records—”
“Her skull wasn’t recovered.”
This time, the attractive brunette looked a bit queasy. “Oh. I see.”
Her partner glanced at her, then looked at Maitland. “We’ve viewed crime scenes before, Chief.”
“Far as we can determine, it isn’t a crime scene. In all likelihood, either she fell or else her body was dumped there after she was killed.”
“So maybe an accident and maybe not?”
Maitland sighed. “Right now, I’m considering it a potential homicide due to several factors, which, as I’m sure you’re aware, I can’t discuss outside the investigation. But unless and until we get an ID, there really isn’t anywhere for the investigation to go.”
The man who’d introduced himself as Reese DeMarco nodded. “We don’t want to step on any toes, Chief. And we don’t want to get in the way. But sometimes we are able to…glean bits of information potentially useful to law enforcement.”
“You’ve helped the police before?”
“Well, we’ve provided information. Whether it’s been useful is something we haven’t been told. We’ve found that most law enforcement agencies don’t like to admit that any of their leads were obtained through unconventional sources.”
Maitland tried to imagine what the people of Baron Hollow would think if he followed a lead offered by a self-avowed psychic. Legend, myth, and reputed hauntings aside, his community was a hardheaded, hard-nosed one, by and large, and he knew very well they weren’t much impressed by self-avowed psychics.
He kept his expression neutral, however. Because he didn’t see the sense in offending visitors when Baron Hollow depended on their tourist dollars, and because he preferred to at least pretend he was a man with an open mind.
