Instead of answering he shook his head. “Not here. Not down here where...someone might be watching.”
They both knew who he was talking about. She nodded, and let him walk her back upstairs. Dear God, she was tired.
“Oh, wait,” she said. “We have to make breakfast for everyone.”
“Not today,” he told her. “I let everyone know they were on their own for this morning. That should give the Good Eats Diner a little extra business, and give us a little time alone. I want to talk to you about our ghosts.”
“I just want to go to bed. That’s what I want to do.”
“Ghosts first, sleep second.”
She managed a little laugh for him. “Spoilsport.”
They made sure to lock the door behind them this time. Katie put the keys into her pocket. She could just drop them on her dresser for now...
When she realized he was bringing her outside instead of upstairs she tried to tug her hand out of his grip. “Riley, I’m still in the clothes I threw on last night. I haven’t even showered!”
“You look amazing,” he promised. “Besides, where we’re going no one’s going to care if you’ve brushed your hair yet.”
“Wait. What?”
He smiled at her with that smile he did so well, and took them both out the front door. Katie noticed Jason Maldeeves standing off to the side in the little television common room, looking very embarrassed as he talked to one of the other guests. However red his face might be, Katie noticed him showing off a string of pictures on his cellphone. No doubt they were the ones he’d taken when he’d snuck downstairs.
Her Inn was going to be famous, apparently, whether she wanted it to be or not.
“Riley, seriously. Where are we going?”
“We need help with our ghost problem.”
“Well, sure.” She was confused. Obviously, they both agreed on that, but how exactly was an early morning stroll around town going to help with that? “The ghosts are back there, if you remember. In the Inn.”
Ha. In the Inn. Her overly tired brain thought that was very funny.
Riley’s eyes had glazed over with the memory of what they had seen in the basement. “I know the ghosts are back there. How could I forget? Look, I think we’re in over our head here. The Inn...it’s like some sort of magnet for the dead.”
“What?” In spite of everything that she’d seen and heard there herself, she found that hard to swallow. “So you think our Inn is what, some sort of vortex for evil or something? Like in the original Poltergeist?”
He grimaced and did not laugh with her. “At this point I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find a Native American burial ground under our basement floor. Would you?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t argue either because, yes, she could picture that happening.
“Anyway,” he said. “That’s not what I mean. There’s been so much death at the Inn, and it’s left all this negative energy there. All these ghosts. We don’t even know the entire history of the Inn. A few days ago you found out it was a whorehouse.”
“Brothel,” she corrected him. “I prefer brothel.”
“Whatever. No matter what you call it, there’s stuff that happened at that place that we don’t know about. As a result, we’re haunted by angry, restless spirits.”
“I know all this, Riley.” She smiled at one of her neighbors as they passed each other on the sidewalk, self-consciously combing her hair with her fingers and hoping that no one was listening in on their conversation. “I think maybe some of them just need a helping hand to leave, you know? Like, they’re harmless, but still there. But then there’s others...”
“Like Anna Vykroft,” he said, saying the name out loud for her. “She and her husband are going to cause problems. I can feel it.”
“I know. I was hoping that after we removed Anna’s bones from the wall that she would find rest, and that Boris would be able to get over his guilt in the afterlife and both of them could move on.”
“Is that how it works?”
They stopped at the further end of Main Street. Katie chewed over his question in her mind. Was it ever that easy with ghosts? “I don’t know. I mean, in other haunted houses it was always a matter of finding out what the ghost wanted and then basically asking them to move on.”
“Really?” He took her hand in his, both of them needing the comfort of the other’s touch. “Because I seem to remember you telling me about your friend, and a Ouija board, and a priest sprinkling holy water around an attic.”
“Well, yeah, sure...but that was a very dangerous case.”
“Isn’t that what we have now?” he asked her.
Katie wanted to argue, but she remembered the way those flames had poured out of Anna’s eyes, and she remembered the hatred that woman held for her husband. She did not want an entity like that residing at her Inn. Not for one more day, not for one more hour.
He saw the look in her eyes, and he didn’t have to ask. He knew she agreed. “I don’t think it’s ever going to end for us, until we make it stop.”
He turned her around, showing her where they had stopped. The Grace Community Church.
“What we need,” he told her, “is an exorcism.”
Chapter 21
“Hello, you two.”
Once they were inside, Reverend Keller greeted them warmly from the front of the church, where he was draping a white cloth over the altar. “Don’t mind me, I just came back from Herman’s laundromat. I wanted to put this out before I forgot. I believe God’s altar should not be adorned with any religious icons, but that doesn’t mean it can’t look nice.”
Katie had been in the church only a couple of times before but she knew that Brent Keller took his idea of an unadorned church seriously. There were no statues of Jesus, or Mary, or anyone for that matter. The windows were stained glass but without the scenes of angels in the clouds or other religious symbolism that she was used to seeing in other churches. In fact, the only symbol that he had anywhere was a cross suspended from wires on the wall behind the altar, made from rough cut two-by-fours nailed together.
As if she’d asked him about it, Brent said, “I believe the symbolism of religion is what turns people off. If a statue of Jesus has skin that is too light, for instance, people become offended because he doesn’t look more Middle Eastern, like he historically should. Then they stop coming because they’re mad at the symbol. I want people to be able to focus on God when they’re here.”
She had to admit that made sense, in a way. Katie much preferred to keep her moments with God private. She had never seen a reason to come to a public place like a church and pray with other people. She didn’t have anything against the people who did pray that way. It just wasn’t for her.
“So,” Brent said to them, finishing with the cloth for the altar and stepping around to meet them at the double row of high-backed pews. “What can I help you with?”
He motioned them to the front pew, and Katie sat down next to Riley. Brent joined them. He seemed a lot more accustomed to the hard wooden seat than Katie’s backside. It was seriously uncomfortable.
“Well,” Riley said to him. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
Katie seconded that.
Brent crossed his legs and draped his hand over his knee, the very image of patience. “I’ve got time. You made an appointment, so I made sure to clear my schedule just in case.”
Katie gave Riley a look. “You made an appointment?”
“Well, yeah,” he shrugged. “I wanted to make sure he had time to meet with us. This isn’t going to be a quick story or anything.”
Hearing that, the Reverend’s eyebrow went up. “Well. Now I have to say I’m intrigued. Are you two having trouble? I can give you advice, but it’s not really my field of expertise. I never got around to marrying, you see. But, I know an excellent marriage counselor over in Concord. I can put in a call, if you like.”
“What?” Riley quickly waved that idea away. “No
, it isn’t like that. Katie and aren’t having any problems like that.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. So. You’re looking to get married then?”
“No,” Riley said quickly.
Katie turned away so he wouldn’t see her expression. He didn’t have to be all that deadest against it.
“Um. Okay,” Riley said now, trying to change the subject back to the reason they were here in the first place. “You heard about the State Police being at the Inn yesterday, right?”
Brent nodded. “How could I not? You’re the talk of the town, sad to say. Especially after that mess with Maggie Harper leaving all those poor dead souls in the basement to rot. Now another one?”
“This one was a little older,” Katie told him. “She died in 1921.”
“Oh? Well. I’m not sure that makes it any better.”
“Us either,” Riley agreed.
“All right. Well.” Brent scratched at the side of his cheek thoughtfully. “Were the two of you looking for me to cleanse the Inn? Because I have to tell you, that’s more of a Catholic thing. I can bless the property, if you like.”
Katie cleared her throat. She hoped this didn’t make them look like a couple of crazies. “Reverend Keller, the problem is that we have ghosts haunting the Inn. Violent ghosts. What we want...what we need, I mean, is someone to get rid of them.”
His eyes got wider and wider. “Oh. I see.”
Riley held onto Katie’s hand tighter. “We wouldn’t ask, except we’ve both seen what angry ghosts can do. We need Boris and Anna’s ghosts gone from the Heritage Inn.”
“Boris and Anna...?” Brent started to ask them.
Then the light came on behind his eyes, and his mouth formed this perfect little O.
“You mean,” he said, slowly getting the words out, “Anna and Boris Vykroft? The ones who started the fire back in 1921 that burned all those people to death?”
Huh, Katie thought to herself. Apparently, everyone around here did know that story.
“Yes,” Riley answered. “Those same two ghosts. We don’t understand how, but somehow Anna’s body was buried behind the wall in our basement. We’ve seen them both down there, and we know that if we don’t find some way to remove them things are going to get much worse.”
The Reverend eyed them both in turn. “What you’re asking for is an exorcism.”
“Exactly,” Katie said. “We know that might not be something you usually do, but we need your help. We can’t just leave the ghosts there.”
“I see. And you’ve both seen these ghosts?”
“Yes,” Riley said, but then corrected himself. “Well, actually Katie’s the one who saw them. It was how we found the body of Anna Vykroft in the first place. You see, Boris buried her there, like we said, and we think that he feels guilty about that and now his spirit can’t rest and of course with Anna buried in a wall and I can only imagine how upset that would make a soul feel--"
Brent held up a hand for them to stop. “Let’s try this. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
“All right.” Riley took a breath, and began. “The first thing you need to know is that the first women who settled here in Twilight Ridge were witches.”
They took turns telling the story. Katie started, giving Brent a brief history of the haunted houses she’d been in, and the spirits that she had encountered in each. They talked about the haunting of her own mother’s house, and how that had brought her and Riley together. It was a very long, rambling discussion of the afterlife and death and the things that didn’t always stay in the shadows.
Katie built up to talking about the fire in 1921, and the death of Anna Vykroft, and how after the fire Boris must have stolen Anna’s body from the hospital and brought it to the Inn.
“At the time,” she said, “the Heritage Inn was a...um, place where prostitutes lived and worked.”
“A whorehouse,” Brent clarified.
That word coming out of a pastor’s mouth surprised her. “Um. Well, I prefer brothel but, yes. Apparently, Boris Vykroft came there quite a bit. So I’m sure no one would have thought anything of him bringing in a large bag and taking it downstairs.”
“With his wife’s remains in it,” Riley added. “Whatever was left of her, he buried it behind the stones in the wall and then sealed her up again.”
“Yeah, I got it,” Brent said to them, closing his eyes and swallowing like he’d just tasted something disgusting. “Look, I know you believe everything you’re saying, but you have to admit it’s a bit too fantastic for someone to believe just off the cuff like this. It reads like a Stephen King novel.”
“But, why is it so hard to believe?” Riley asked him. “You’re a man of God. You believe in Heaven and the Devil and the immortal soul, right? All that stuff? Aren’t ghosts just the souls of the dead that haven’t moved on to Heaven?”
“Well, that’s a matter for debate, actually. Listen, the Devil, God, Heaven and Hell...that’s all well and good. I mean, sure. Any pastor worth his salt has to believe in all of that. The Devil is real. God is real. But ghosts? I think you’re really stretching the boundary of what anyone will believe.”
“It’s all true,” Katie protested.
“So you say.”
Katie’s heart sank. She didn’t want to tell anyone about this in the first place, but now that she had exposed this part of her life to the one person who should understand, she was being shot down.
What were they supposed to do now?
After a brief, awkward silence, Brent shuffled on the seat and gestured helplessly with his hands. “Let me tell you a story. This isn’t something I like to talk about but since you’ve been so honest with me about your own fears, I want to explain to you where I’m coming from. Why I’m reluctant to believe this story of ghosts.”
“It’s not a story,” Katie insisted.
“I know you believe that.” He shrugged. “Let me tell you what I believe...”
Chapter 22
“I wasn’t always a, uh, man of the cloth as you put it.” He nodded to himself, as if confirming what he’d just said. “Once I was just a regular guy, working shift work at a lumberyard in Massachusetts. I had a girlfriend, and a place of my own, and this sweet cherry red Mustang. I used to baby that car. Wax every Sunday. Regular tune-ups. I spent more time with that car than I did with actual people.”
He laughed as he said it. Apparently, there was a humor in that statement that Katie had missed.
“So anyway,” he continued. “Everything was going great in my life, you know? I had everything just the way I wanted it. No responsibilities. Nothing to tie me down. I was free, and I was fierce, and I didn’t really need anyone. Not even my girlfriend. Not even God.”
Katie had trouble picturing Brent like that. Ever since she had known him, he seemed like a decent man intent on giving everything he had to his community. Granted, she hadn’t known him for long, but thinking of him having this other side was hard to accept. Recently she had started to believe he had secrets, but then what man didn’t? Maybe his secrets were a little darker than she realized.
Something told her she was about to find out.
“I drove the same route home from work every night. Every single night, three miles down, right turn, another four miles through farm country, another right turn...well. You get the idea.”
He took a deep breath. Before he could continue, he looked up to the cross for strength. “I had started going to a local bar after work for a few drinks with the guys. Just a few, and sure I was maybe a little tipsy sometimes but I always made it home just fine. Always. Until...there was one night when I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Riley asked.
“It wasn’t my fault,” Brent answered quickly. “I was on that same route, driving it just like always, and sure I had a few drinks but it wasn’t my fault. The kid ran right out in front of my car and there was no time for me to stop.”
Katie found herself staring at him. She coul
dn’t help it. He’d just admitted to running a kid down with his car. That was terrible enough, but what was worse was how Katie could tell that he wasn’t taking responsibility for what he’d done. Not really. Everything he said was an excuse.
He wasn’t that drunk. The kid ran out in front of him. No time to stop.
Just excuses.
“Anyway.” He snuffed a shaky breath, and rubbed at his temple like he was trying to soothe a headache. “I drove home and reported it right away, and the police came, and they investigated everything but by then I’d downed another half bottle of whiskey to calm my nerves. They couldn’t prove I’d been drinking before the accident. They couldn’t charge me with anything.”
Riley squeezed her hand. He was thinking the same thing that she was. He might not have been arrested for anything, but he was certainly guilty of a lot.
The Reverend stood up, pacing between the pews and the altar, back and forth. “I’ve thought about that boy lots of times since then. Never once, in all that time, have I ever seen his ghost.”
Katie blinked at him. “That’s why you don’t believe in ghosts? Because that child’s ghost never came to visit you?”
“Of course. I waited, every day, for him to show up and point out my flaws, or haunt me with an accusing stare, or anything. He didn’t. It wasn’t my fault, but I still watched for him around every corner. I never even found out his name. Where’s his ghost? Nowhere. It never happened. It changed my life, though. That was the turning point. I became a pastor and turned my life around and dedicated myself to helping people. Even so, that little boy lost his life that day.
Katie found, in that moment, that she didn’t like Brent Keller very much. He might be a long way from that man who cherished his Mustang and who had killed the little boy, but in a lot of ways, he was still the same.
Katie stood up now, too. “I don’t care if you believe us. There are ghosts in our Inn. If you aren’t going to help us then we’re wasting our time. Let’s go, Riley.”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 57
