by B. J Daniels
“Yes. She was in a room directly above my mother’s,” Anna said.
“What happened to the baby’s body?” he asked joining her at the window.
She shook her head. “I can only assume he got rid of it and locked my mother up in Brookside.”
“Is it possible she’s still alive?” Brandon asked.
“I doubt it. When Brookside closed, my father would have made sure she was never allowed to tell her story and there was no other place for her to go that he wouldn’t be found out.”
Brandon went cold inside at even the thought that any of this could be true. Mason VanHorn had a reputation for being a bastard and Brandon had seen firsthand how vindictive he could be. But he couldn’t imagine the man doing something so heinous to his own wife.
“You don’t believe it, do you?” she said, putting the envelope away. He could hear the hurt in her tone.
“I’m sorry, but you have to admit this is one hell of an accusation. You’re sure that this woman who wrote the letter didn’t get it all wrong? For all you know, she might have been suffering from dementia. None of this might be true.”
“That was my first thought. That’s why I contacted Sarah’s niece, who was with her when she died. Sarah was rational and very much in control of her senses when she wrote the letter. The niece didn’t know what was in the letter, but had mailed it at her aunt’s request nine years ago. If the letter hadn’t gotten lost, I might have been able to talk to Sarah before she died.”
Brandon moved around the room, too restless to sit. “My God, do you realize what you’re accusing your father of here?”
“Yes. And not just my father. He had to have had help that night.”
“Dr. Ivers would never go along with this,” Brandon said.
Anna nodded. “I called Dr. Ivers. He said he didn’t even know my mother was pregnant. So it must have been Dr. French who ordered the bed rest and delivered the baby. It was right after he left that Sarah said she didn’t hear the baby cry again. She never saw the body. She just assumed my father had taken it out somewhere and buried it.”
If she was right, Mason VanHorn had gotten away with murder—and much worse. “What about this Dr. French?”
“I gave his name to the private investigator I hired and now she’s missing.” She looked at him as if to say, how can you not believe me? “Before that, she was able to verify that Dr. French was on staff at the Brookside Mental Institution during that time.”
“Twenty-seven years ago.” Brandon raked a hand through his hair. “Was Lenore able to verify that your mother was a patient?”
“No, unfortunately the hospital was privately owned and when it suddenly closed, the records were lost. At least, that’s what we’ve been led to believe.”
“You think someone has them?” he asked in surprise.
“My father would have made sure my mother’s medical file never got into the wrong hands. But also to make sure Dr. French never got a guilty conscience and decided to talk.”
“That’s what you were looking for in the safe.”
She nodded. “I know my father has the records. They would implicate Dr. French.”
“It would also implicate him.”
“Yes. Kind of a Mexican standoff.”
“How do you hope to prove any of this without records and the only witness dead?”
“The only witness isn’t dead. Dr. French was in the room when the baby was born. I assume my father was also.” She shivered. “I used to have nightmares that one day Dr. French would come for me, too.”
He took her in his arms. He wanted to tell her that Dr. French would never get his hands on her. But if she was right, if her father had gotten rid of not only a baby but her mother with the help of Dr. French, and now both men knew she was on to them, then her life was in danger.
“Let’s go see if we can find that private investigator,” Brandon said, wanting to keep moving.
* * *
ANNA WATCHED the beach as they crossed the lake to the marina, half-afraid she would see her father or one of his flunkies waiting for them on the other side. Or worse, Dr. French.
But no one paid any attention to them as they tied up the boat, got into her rented black pickup and headed for Sheridan, Wyoming, and the motel where Lenore Johnson had been registered.
“I still think we should go to my brother with this,” Brandon said.
“Cash is already looking for Lenore Johnson, the private investigator I hired,” she said.
He had the pickup window down, the summer air blowing in. The cloudless day reminded him of cherry Popsicles.
“According to the agency, he will file a missing person’s report in forty-eight hours,” she said. “I have that long to get some proof.”
Brandon couldn’t see how after all these years she would ever find the proof.
“They will be running scared now,” she said as she drove south down the two-lane. “That’s why I called Dr. French and left a message telling him I was coming for him. But they will think they can handle me. They know I don’t have any evidence.”
“You contacted Dr. French?” he asked in surprise, glancing over at her. “Wait a minute, you’re using yourself as bait. You expect them to come after you.”
She smiled through her tears. “I have to do this. I owe it to my mother and the sibling I lost.”
He understood. But how much did a child owe a parent? He thought of his own mother. “She wouldn’t want to see you get killed, though.”
“I just want to rattle them. It might be the only justice I get. They won’t kill me. Not unless they think I really do have something against them.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what worries me.” If VanHorn had gotten rid of a baby he believed wasn’t his, and had his wife locked up in Brookside for years and possibly had her murdered when the place closed, why wouldn’t he kill again to hide his crimes?
“Did you ask your father about this?”
Anna nodded. “He told me the same story he’d told Sarah.”
“I always thought he idolized you,” Brandon said.
“When I was little. But something changed. The day I turned ten, he told me I was going away to school. I cried and pleaded with him to let me stay. Maybe the mistake I made was telling him that one day I would marry a cowboy and live on the ranch.” Tears welled again in her eyes. “I think I saw it in his face that day. He never let me come back after that. Not even for a visit.”
He heard the bitterness in her voice—and the longing. “You were just a kid. Would you have really come back to the ranch if he’d let you?”
“In a heartbeat. I love the ranch. It was the only place I ever wanted to be and he knew that,” she said. “I used to think he didn’t want me around because I looked too much like my mother, that it hurt him too much to see me.”
“And now?”
“Now I think he kept me away so I’d never find out the truth.”
Brandon hated the pain he heard in her voice. Damn Mason VanHorn for hurting his daughter—not to mention the other crimes he might have committed.
“If we can find the private investigator you hired…”
She nodded and smiled through her tears. “From that day on the curb when I shared my Popsicle with you, I knew I could count on you.”
His gaze locked with hers and he felt desire course through his veins. He wished her eyes weren’t that honey color or her hair so dark and luxurious or her body so lush. He wished her lips weren’t bow-shaped or her laugh so musical. He wished he didn’t want her so badly.
Because no matter how this ended, he could never have her. Not the way he wanted her. Forever.
* * *
AT THE SHADY REST Motor Inn, Anna told him that the motel clerk said she never checked out but all of her belongings were out of the room the next morning. “I was staying at the same motel in case she came back. She never did.”
“What about her rental car?” he asked. “I assume she flew
into Billings and rented a car there. That’s what most people do since there isn’t a commercial airport near here.”
“I checked with her office. She always rents from the same agency. The car hasn’t been returned.”
“Okay, what about flights?” he asked.
“She hasn’t used her return ticket, her office said.”
“Well, maybe we can take a look at the room she stayed in. I know it’s a long shot.” He opened the pickup door. She was already out by the time he came around to her side, and headed for the motel office.
Anna knew he was hoping that Lenore would turn up safe and sound and provide an explanation for everything—one that didn’t involve her father. She felt her own hopes of that slipping away. Lenore Johnson was either in trouble—or way past it. Anna blamed herself for involving the private investigator.
Inside the office, the clerk at the desk let them have the key to the room Lenore Johnson had rented but warned it had been cleaned.
“Were you working when Ms. Johnson was a guest here?” Brandon asked.
The young woman shook her head. “Jo was. She’ll be in soon if you want to talk to her.”
They took the key and walked down the cracked sidewalk to Room 12. The door creaked as Brandon opened it. Anna stepped inside the room, which was identical to the one she’d rented.
She looked under the bed while Brandon searched the bathroom and small closet. Nothing.
When they returned the key to the office, Jo had taken over the desk.
“Sure, I remember her,” the older woman behind the counter told them. “Haven’t seen her since Saturday, though, when she came into the office for directions.”
“Directions?” Anna and Brandon both echoed.
The woman behind the counter laughed. “You two been married long? Pretty soon you’ll be finishing each other’s sentences.”
“We’re not married,” Anna said, feeling shy. She didn’t dare look at Brandon.
“Oh, sorry. You just seemed like such a perfect couple,” the woman said almost dreamily.
“Lenore Johnson asked for directions, you said,” Brandon reminded her.
“Oh, yeah. Come to think of it, I thought it was strange.” The woman shrugged. “But hey, that’s what I’m here for, renting rooms and giving directions.” She sighed and looked at them, and must have realized they were still waiting. “She wanted to know how to get to the old Brookside Mental Institution.”
* * *
SHERIFF CASH MCCALL spent the day working on the Emma Ingles case, as well as trying to track down the Virginia private investigator, Lenore Johnson.
He’d come up empty and was about to give up when he got a call from a friend of Emma Ingles.
Her name was Betty Osborne, she was seventy-six and made the best sweet pickles in the county. She had dozens of blue ribbons from the fair to prove it.
“I was just thinking about Emma today,” Betty said, “and I knew I had to call you. I remembered something she’d said to me after she took that horrible job up there at Brookside.”
He waited.
“She only took it because she needed the money. It’s a crime what social security pays.”
“Something she said to you?” he prodded gently.
“Yes. I don’t think she minded the work. All she had to do was be there. She watched a lot of television, you know. I can’t imagine being up there alone at night. Gives me chills just to think about it. You know, Emma almost married my second cousin, so we’ve been friends for years.”
Cash was beginning to think he’d have to remind Betty again when she said, “Emma told me she heard voices coming from that wing where that woman was killed. You know, the one who was horribly murdered all those years ago.”
“Voices?” He’d heard stories of the place being haunted for years. This was nothing new.
“Hushed voices,” Betty said. “Like someone inside one of those padded cells in that disturbed wing. Someone crying out for help.”
* * *
“I HAVE TO GET INSIDE Brookside,” Anna told Brandon as they left the motel office. She could tell that the last thing Brandon wanted to do was go to Brookside. She was dreading it more than she wanted to admit. But if Lenore had been headed there right before she went missing, then maybe the answer to her disappearance was also there.
“Why do I get the feeling that you have a plan?” he asked grinning over at her. “A plan I’m going to hate.”
She smiled. “Sorry, but I need you to pretend you want to buy the place.”
“It’s for sale?”
“A local Realtor is handling it for the state. Haven’t been many takers, I guess,” she said.
“I would assume not. It’s just a huge white elephant out in the middle of nowhere,” Brandon said.
She figured that, like her, he’d heard the stories about the place. When she’d asked about Brookside, every waitress and motel clerk had a horror story to tell.
Brandon opened the passenger-side door of the pickup for her, but something caught her eye. A headline in a newspaper box near where he’d parked the pickup.
Like a sleepwalker, she moved toward the newspaper box: Brookside Security Woman’s Death Ruled A Homicide.
Anna felt Brandon come up beside her. “Do you see that? Do you think it could have anything to do with Lenore’s disappearance? It says Emma Ingles worked at Brookside and was killed sometime during the night. That was the same day Lenore went missing.”
Brandon sighed. “All roads seem to lead to Brookside.”
“According to locals, the place is haunted,” she said, and climbed into the pickup.
He slid behind the wheel. “You don’t believe in ghosts.” He made it sound as if he were waiting for her to reassure him of that.
“If there is something going on at Brookside, it isn’t ghosts who are doing it,” she said as she handed him her cell phone.
“Cell phones don’t work out here.”
“Only in some places. Also depends on the phone.” She rattled off the Realtor’s number. “He’ll believe you want to buy the place quicker than he will me.”
She watched him tap in the numbers. “Don’t mention me. I want to do some exploring on my own while you keep him busy.”
“Great idea,” he said sarcastically, then, “Hello, Frank Yarrow? I’m interested in Brookside. I understand it’s for sale. Yes, my name is Brandon McCall. Actually, my family is interested in purchasing it.”
Anna nodded her approval.
Yarrow agreed to change his schedule and meet Brandon at Brookside in forty minutes.
“That will give us time to look around outside the place,” Anna said.
Brandon shifted into gear, heading for the isolated old mental hospital as the sun dipped behind the mountains and the day grew cool and dark.
CHAPTER TEN
Brandon drove out of Sheridan, following the Tongue River as it wound its way north. The road rose into foothills; huge cottonwoods grew at the river’s edge, tall gray sage dotted the arid landscape as the land ran from the river toward the Bighorn Mountains.
“I don’t like the idea of you alone in that place,” he said.
She smiled and touched his cheek with her fingers. “I won’t be alone. You and the Realtor will be in there with me. If I need you, I’ll holler.”
He didn’t look convinced, but she knew he would do it. He would do anything for her, she thought.
Even risk his life.
“Thank you,” she said beside him.
He shot her a look, his gaze softening. He grinned at her and reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I haven’t pulled it off yet. Thank me when you find some evidence that will put an end to this.”
“Can you fix the door so we can get back in later tonight if we have to?”
He nodded. That place was spooky as hell in the daylight. He didn’t even want to think about going up there at night.
Realtor Frank Yarrow had been beside himself at the
thought of selling Brookside. And Brandon doubted it was just for the commission. Yarrow had hesitated a little about showing the place, mentioning that it would be getting dark soon.
Brandon had to smile. Obviously the Realtor didn’t like going up there at night, either, but who could blame him?
Fifteen miles out of town, Brandon turned onto the dirt road. There had once been a weathered sign that said nothing more than Brookside, but it had been gone for years.
He looked over and saw Anna gripping the handle on the dash as he started up the winding dirt road. Rockslides and weeds had narrowed the road to only a single lane in places.
The sun had set. In the twilight, the mountains were purple. Below them, the Tongue River twisted through deep green grass and huge leafy cottonwoods. A flock of geese made a dark V of flapping wings against the horizon.
The highway disappeared behind them as the narrow road rounded the mountain, culminating in a half-dozen switchback curves all headed upward. On one side of the road, there was mountain; on the other, rocky cliffs that dropped down thousands of feet. There were no guardrails. No trees. Nothing to stop you if you drove off the road but the rocky bottom below.
As he came around the last turn, Brookside rose up, black against the dying sunset, a huge looming brick edifice three stories high.
Brandon heard Anna gasp and realized this was the first time she’d ever seen it. Brookside had that effect. Even when you knew the place was just over the rise, it always came as a surprise. Partly because of the isolation. Partly because of the ominous-looking shape of it.
The building was an odd U shape, with the two wings jutting back from each side. The high metal fence had three razor wire strands on top that only a fool didn’t know once kept things in, not out.
The iron gate had long since been torn down. Brandon drove through but didn’t go up the circular drive, now filled with weeds. He parked a good distance away in a flat spot that was once a lawn.
The windows along one wing had the sun reflecting off them, making them look like golden eyes. The rest of the building was dark. No other cars were parked out front.
He turned to Anna. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
