“Excellent point,” Carlton said. The edge in his voice caught my attention.
“You suspect someone!” I twisted so I could watch his profile. “Who?”
“Casting suspicion won’t do any good right now. Let me just say, if Brett is still alive, we’ll find him and bring him back.”
When we turned down the driveway to Caoin House, I choked on a sob. When my tears had settled to a slow drizzle, Carlton spoke with great tenderness. “Brett is a tough old bird. I think you’re correct. He’s alive, and someone has taken him. Perhaps as a Good Samaritan or maybe for ransom. We’ll know soon enough.”
The rise and fall of his voice was comforting, and his reasonable tone and words helped me gather my raw emotions.
“Pray that we receive a ransom request. If they’ve taken him for another reason—”
“Because he stood up for a young man who happened to be a Negro?”
“Whatever their ulterior motives might be—it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is getting Brett back safely.”
“Yes.” My voice was raspy and worn.
“You’re tough, too, Raissa. More than you know. Now buck up. We have to face what awaits us at Caoin House. While our attention is on finding Brett, we have to assess how serious Reginald’s injuries are and how we’re going to deal with them.”
We’d take care of Reginald until he was well, and for as long as he chose to stay. I didn’t say it, but there was no other option. He was now a part of Caoin House, and I would nurse him back to health.
Travis stood at the top of the steps when we pulled up. He trotted down, moving with grace and agility, and opened my door. “Thank goodness you’re home. Mr. Reginald is in a bad way. I have to find Mr. Brett, but I couldn’t leave a wounded man alone.”
“How badly is Reginald hurt?” Carlton asked.
“He’s unconscious. Dr. Martin checked him over. We owe the doctor for his conscientiousness because he truly didn’t want to be in Caoin House. He said his wife had a terrible experience here.”
I ignored the comment. “Why didn’t he take Reginald to the hospital?”
“He’s better off here. There’s nothing else they can do for him in the hospital.” He cleared his throat. “Dr. Martin said if there was swelling on the brain, he might be permanently . . . injured. We were instructed to keep him quiet and calm.”
“Did the doctor give any indication of time? When he might wake up?” I was desperate to talk to him.
“If he doesn’t wake up in the next twelve hours, it won’t be good.” Travis looked everywhere but at me. “It’s serious. When the brain swells, it can be . . . bad.”
“I can’t believe he survived with those injuries,” Carlton said. He got out of the car and put the key in my hand. “I’ll head back to the accident scene with Travis. You stay here and take care of Reginald.”
“You can’t leave me here alone with a man who might be dying. What if he gets worse? What if—” I broke it off before I humiliated myself. Now wasn’t the time to be a coward.
“I’ll leave you the car. If you need help, drive to the accident scene. The sheriff or his deputies will find me. Someone will help you.”
I doubted that. Sheriff Thompson had made it more than clear that he viewed me as an intrusion. A woman who didn’t know her place. If I were lynched, he wouldn’t hunt for my killer either.
The key dug into my palm, I gripped it so hard. “Thank you, Carlton. Please, find Uncle Brett.”
“Winona is on the way,” Travis said. “She’s bringing her son to help. I didn’t know if we’d need a strong back, but if something should happen, he can get Reginald into the car.”
“Go.” I stepped back, unwilling to detain them but afraid to enter the house alone.
I wasn’t trained in medicine, but Alex had written me more than once about friends who’d suffered concussions from shells and grenades. If the bleeding filled the brain cavity, even if it was drained off, there was always damage and most often death. If the pressure in Reginald’s head became too great . . . I wished Alex had never included such vivid details.
Travis stared directly into my eyes. “Mr. Brett wouldn’t concede defeat. Ever. That’s why we’ll find him, and Mr. Reginald will wake up soon. He’ll wake up and be his old self.”
“Don’t lose hope,” Carlton said. “Now, let us go. The more people looking, the better our odds. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
The sun would be breaking in a few hours. Searching would be a lot more productive, but it might also be too late if Uncle Brett was severely injured. I watched them drive away with a sense of dread. The night sounds of birds and small animals scurrying were suddenly magnified. It made me ashamed to admit it, but I was afraid. Afraid of Caoin House and afraid for my friend and uncle.
The taillights of Travis’s car had barely disappeared when Eli shifted from behind a tree in the oak grove. He wore the cavalry uniform, forever crisp and fitted to emphasize his physique. While I might have sympathy for him, I had no time for his games. He made no effort to come closer or to communicate. He merely watched.
“Go away!” I shouted. “Go away now!” I whirled and ran into the house, slamming and locking the door. The foyer echoed with emptiness. I was alone in the house with a seriously injured man and spirits I knew to be malevolent.
Reginald’s room was on the same wing as Uncle Brett’s, and I went there with great trepidation. I didn’t want to see my friend helpless and possibly dying. I wondered why the doctor hadn’t insisted on taking him to the hospital, but it was true that he would receive the best care here at Caoin House. Winona would help me organize professional nurses, and he would be given all that we could provide.
I tapped on the door out of habit and entered his room. A lamp burned on the bedside table. He looked so at peace, I feared he was dead. I rushed forward to find a pulse and stopped a foot from the bed. To my utter horror, the jigger had been placed in a rocking chair pulled close to my injured friend. The evil little monkey head, teeth bared, stared at me. Travis hadn’t put the toy there. I didn’t want to think who, or what, might have done so.
Ignoring the toy, I forced myself to the bedside. Reginald’s olive complexion was ashen. A lump on the side of his head made me flinch. My mother had always said, though, that if the lump developed outward, then it was the best outcome of a blow to the head. That was surely little consolation to Reginald in his limbo state between life and death. The terrifying thought that the spirits in Caoin House might come to take him tormented me. I controlled myself. A pulse beat in his neck. The flow of his blood was steady and rhythmic. It was a good sign, and I would take whatever I could get.
“Reginald.” I smoothed his hair back from his forehead and then picked up the cloth in a bowl of cool water Travis had left at the bedside. I stroked his face with the damp cloth, then put it on his forehead. Maybe cooling his brain would be helpful.
“You’re going to be fine.” I spoke with determination. “You’ll wake up and be just like new, except for a terrible headache. The pain of the headache will be so severe it will nauseate you, but that will pass. You’ll tell me what happened and how we can find Uncle Brett. I’m sure he’s okay. We just have to figure out where he is.” I hesitated. “And who has him. No one can help us but you, so you have to wake up soon.”
I immersed the cloth in the cool water, wrung it out again, and reapplied it to his head. The swelling was just above his temple. In my mind’s eye I could see the accident happen—the car traveling along in the dark tunnel of trees, the sand grabbing the front wheels and twisting them so that the forward impulsion of the car and the trapped wheels resulted in the car flipping over. Reginald’s head must have struck the dash so hard it rendered him unconscious. Uncle Brett may have been thrown from the car.
Reginald’s wound showed broken skin in a peculiar shape—rectangular. To pass the time as I cooled his forehead, I tried to think what along a car’s dashboard could make such a mar
k. I’d examine the car closely when I got a chance.
I pushed the horrid little jigger out of the chair and kicked it under the bed.
Holding Reginald’s hand, I talked to him. I spoke of New Orleans and Madam and the future. At last his regular breathing lulled me to near sleep. Still holding his hand, I leaned forward and let my upper body rest on the bed beside him. I wanted to stay awake, but I couldn’t. I felt as if I were falling into total blackness, and I let go.
A clicking sound brought me to wakefulness. Reginald lay rigid in the bed, his eyes wide-open and unseeing. For a moment I thought he’d died, but the clicking came again. It took me a moment to realize his right hand was tapping on the bed frame. A distinctive pattern, one that was repeated over and over. Short staccato taps followed by longer ones.
Reginald was as still as death, except for his right hand, and it moved with a frenetic energy that terrified me, tap-tapping against the bed frame. It was as if Reginald had died, but his hand remained alive. His wide-open eyes stared blankly, and the tapping fingers communicated desperate need.
I wanted to push back from the bed, from the frantic fingers. My only thought was escape, but I couldn’t move. Reginald’s dancing fingers cast a spell on me. They wanted to communicate, those long and slender fingers so well manicured.
At last, the fear receded. As my logic took control, I recognized the possibility of Reginald’s tapping fingers. The pattern was rhythmic, repetitive. In his military training, Alex had learned Morse code. He’d signed his letters to me with the dots and dashes that spelled out “I love you.” Was it possible Reginald was trying to communicate in that manner?
I grabbed a pencil and pad from the desk near the bed and began to jot down the series of dashes and dots that were repeated over and over and over at an ever-increasing pace. I had no clue what the series might mean, but Uncle Brett kept a codebook in the library. At one point, before the telephone lines had been connected to Caoin House, he’d communicated with his business in town with a key and the code.
The more Reginald tapped, the more I believed he was communicating with me. He was giving me a clue or a direction or something. I had to figure out what his taps and silences meant. Before I lost my nerve, I ran out of the room and to the library. It took me long moments to find the book on the fourth shelf, but I grabbed it and ran back to Reginald’s room. His hand had stilled. In the lamplight, he looked dead.
I checked his pulse and discovered that the steady beat remained calm and measured. For all the hand activity, his breathing and pulse were unperturbed. How was that possible? It was almost as if his hand had acted of its own volition. I could easily remember the sequence of sounds.
I opened the codebook, found the key, and translated. I, N, E, M, I, N, E, M, I, N, E. It was the same four letters over and over again. Inem, inem. It didn’t make sense. I moved down the list of letters until I hit upon the right combination. Mine. Mine.
My heart grew to a thrumming lump that pushed the air from my lungs. Reginald’s sightless eyes stared into nothing. His pale profile never changed, but I knew the person in the bed was no longer Reginald. Not now. Not any longer. Reginald was gone. He belonged to them now. To her. Mine. Eva had him in her grip, and she wanted me to know it.
If I was ever to find my uncle, I had to save Reginald. He had to be released from the hold Eva had on him. If he could awaken, he’d tell me what had caused the wreck.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I’d never felt more alone and less competent to handle the task before me, but self-doubt had to be mastered. There was no one else to turn to. Winona would soon arrive. She would watch over Reginald, but it was up to me to solve the puzzle of Caoin House. If I wanted to save Reginald and find my uncle, the mystery about the past and what had happened to Eva, Elise, and the three young boys who’d died at Caoin House, as well as Robert, had to be solved. While Robert hadn’t been the man I’d thought him to be, he still hadn’t deserved to be murdered.
I had four clues—the button torn from a white shirt, the locket left behind with Eli’s photograph scratched out, the daguerreotype of the semiclad young pirate, and the gruesome child’s toy, the jigger that appeared in places it should not.
All but one of those items had come from the attic. Answers would be found in that dreaded place. I couldn’t wait for Winona. I had to take action. If Eva was capable of manipulating Reginald’s hand—and I had no doubt that she was behind the Morse code message—she was capable of doing much more to his unconscious body. She could possibly kill him. And would, without hesitation, if it suited her needs.
I kissed Reginald’s cheek, urging him to hang on, and retrieved the jigger from under the bed. Fear and revulsion mixed as my fingers grasped the toy, but I fought back my qualms. Uncle Brett kept flashlights in the guest bedrooms, and I found one and strode through the silent house toward the third floor and the entrance to the attic. As I crossed the darkened ballroom, lit only by the stars and moon, my nerve faltered. Approaching the door at the top of the narrow stairwell, I wanted to wait for Winona to arrive and ask her to come with me. Too much was at stake for cowardly delay. I climbed the narrow steps.
A low, rasping sound came from behind the attic door, as if someone were moving furniture. My fingers clutched the doorknob, which was freezing on a hot summer night. I turned it slowly, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. The beam of light I swept across the room revealed strange and dangerous shapes. I fought to remember it was only furniture beneath the dustcovers. But it was more than chifforobes and trunks there. The room contained another entity. Something furious and deadly.
I walked farther into the room, and a hunched body scurried over the bare floor behind the furniture. The bony arm of the poor child reached to me from my imagination, but the flashlight beam revealed nothing but the ordinary clutter of an attic. I walked toward the trunks I’d been exploring when I’d found the photograph.
I put the jigger on the floor. “I’ve brought your toy back.” If there was an entity in the attic who might help me, it was the boy.
“Child?” I asked. “I know you’re angry, but I need your help. I don’t know what happened to you or why you’re here, but I need you. Unless you want to spend eternity in this attic, help me.”
Silence. The attic held only heat and the smell of old things. The boy wasn’t interested in finding the answers that might free him. My understanding of lingering spirits and whether they could be good, evil, or both came from my reading, and conversations with Reginald, who’d passed on what he’d learned from Madam Petalungro. The famed medium contended there were malevolent spirits who couldn’t be helped and didn’t want help. They fed off their power to terrify mortals and to wreak mayhem in the lives of those they’d targeted.
The entities at Caoin House wielded great power. They could move physical items. The necklace Winona had found in Isabelle’s room and the jigger placed on the chair beside Reginald’s bed were only two benign examples. Children had died in the house. And so had Robert. Were ghosts responsible? I didn’t know.
The entity I identified as Eva left no doubt that she was malevolent. Whatever happened to her at Caoin House had left her furious, and her fury manifested in dangerous ways. She’d rendered me immobile on my last visit to the attic. And Eli, my gallant Confederate ghost, had powers of his own, appearing on the lawn and promising secrets that might be a trick.
The young boy, though, I hoped to reach. By nature, children were innocents. No child should spend eternity in a hot and dirty attic, hiding behind furniture and playing with a monkey head.
“I don’t know if your name is Freddie or not, but I want to help you. Reginald and I both want to help. I know you visited him.”
Something scuttled near the back wall. He was listening.
“I’m not sure I can change anything for you, but I will try. I believe if I can understand what happened in the past, I can bring justice. If it’s true that injustice binds some spirits to this pla
ne, then maybe I can set you free.”
Movement and noise came from my right. I swung the flashlight and watched as the heavy cloth covering a small mountain of furniture slipped to the floor. I walked across the attic and shifted the beam across several dressers. Hatboxes, stacks of newspapers flaking and molding, and the smell of something dead and decomposing made me reluctant to step closer. But I did. I’d been through too much to back away now. I pushed the newspapers aside, inciting an attack of sneezes, and burrowed beneath the heavy furniture. Tucked far back was a flat-topped trunk bound with leather straps. The monkey jigger sat atop the trunk, a key in its wretched mouth.
“Thank you,” I whispered as I unlocked the trunk. It was possibly a trap. I’d investigate the trunk only to find something horrible or nothing at all. My actions were taken on faith, a belief that at least one spirit haunting the attic wanted me to find the truth.
I knelt beside the dusty trunk and opened the lid. A musky scent filled the air around me. An age-stained bit of white silk peeked from beneath the rough wool of a cheap, heavy coat. I removed the mud-crusted coat and several layers of newspaper and revealed a baby girl’s heirloom silk christening gown. I pulled it out, and two incredible silk booties and a matching bonnet fell to the floor, along with a lace-edged handkerchief. EKW. Eva Kemp Whitehead.
I’d found a trunk with her things. Perhaps an answer would be there, also.
As I went through the old clothing, riding gloves, and boots, I tried to sense the woman Eva had been before her brutal murder. She’d demanded food for the starving women and children of Mobile. She’d been the jewel in the crown of Mobile society. A lover other than her husband had written her passionate letters. And she’d kept a photograph of a half-naked male prostitute. But who had she really been?
As I dug through the items of female and child clothing, I realized the trunk had been packed with an eye toward a trip. The items chosen were necessities, not luxuries, with the exception of the child’s christening gown.
The Book of Beloved (Pluto's Snitch 1) Page 24
