by Dawn Brown
They’ll devour you.
His mother’s words spoken to him on her deathbed, the last thing she would ever say to him, whispered inside his mind, but not in his mother’s voice. He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice.
A faint odor of charred wood smoke teased at his nose and everything inside him squeezed tight.
Not her, he thought, heart slamming against his chest. Not again.
The water before him rippled and frothed. Something was moving beneath the surface, coming for him. His hands felt wet and sticky, and when he looked down they were streaked with blood.
His breath came fast and hard; he wanted to back away from the churning waters. Instead, his feet slid toward the edge of the bank. A man’s pale, slack face emerged from the roiling waters. His gaze locked on dead, staring eyes. His eyes. His face.
They’ll devour you.
Declan woke with a jolt. His eyes flew open and fixed on the unfamiliar ceiling. Where was he? A confused vertigo gripped his mind before memory swept over him like a wave. Stonecliff.
He closed his eyes and let out the breath he’d been holding, sagging against the mattress. A stupid dream. Was it any wonder, after his bizarre conversation with Carly?
A part of him still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to let her come back or to take part in her craziness, but maybe she’d offer him some explanation for the things he’d seen.
He reached for his phone on the night table to check the time. Nearly five-thirty. He doubted he’d be falling back to sleep.
Throwing back the covers, he sat up and rubbed his tired eyes. Cool air chilled his bare legs and chest. He grabbed up his jeans from yesterday and dragged them over his boxers, then pulled on a sweater. Damp, drafty air still wrapped around him. He crossed the room to the fireplace and tossed a log on the smoldering coals—all that was left of last night’s fire.
He’d left the light on in the en suite, its soft glow spilling into the shadowy room, and the lamp between the two chairs facing the hearth—all in an attempt to chase away the shadow man. He shook his head in mild disgust. He hadn’t slept with a light on since he was kid too young to have started school.
He dropped into the chair at the small writing table next to the window. He had a few hours before the rest of the house woke—before Carly Evans showed up banging at his door—he might as well get a little work done, make some effort at running his business.
Once again, he considered how much easier and more comfortable he would be set up in the study, and once again a thick smothering gripped him.
Declan opened his laptop and waited for the system to boot up. His thoughts drifted to Carly once more. They’d been doing that a lot since yesterday. She was attractive—he would have had to be dead not to notice—with all that golden brown hair falling past her shoulders, serious gray eyes and a single dimple grooving one cheek when she smiled. She was different than he’d expected, more grounded despite the strangeness of her work.
Her turning up at The Devil’s Eye like that still pissed him off when he thought about it for too long, but he was intrigued by her. He wished he’d met her under different circumstances.
What if she was right about The Devil’s Eye and its high magnetic field? Would that explain the shadow man, the burned woman? Maybe even what had sent his mother running?
He thought about what Hugh Warlow had said when he asked about his parents’ marriage. The man claimed he didn’t know the specifics of why his parents separated, but he said, “Women don’t do well at Stonecliff. Your father had three wives and none of them were happy here. Perhaps it’s the isolation, but the weaker sex tends to unravel the longer they stay.”
At the time, Declan thought the man had merely been glossing over the real reason his mother left, but now…
His mother had been the most rational person he’d ever known—she would have gouged Warlow’s eyes out for that “weaker sex” remark. Did he really believe some mystical energy from The Devil’s Eye had driven her away?
Fifteen bodies had been pulled from that bog. Maybe she’d run from something flesh and blood.
What did it matter now, anyway? Both his parents were dead, and their secrets with them.
He scrolled through his email, the connection to his real life in Seattle, the normalcy, comforting. He read his personal email first. There was only one from his sister Katie. She asked him about his trip, told him about being back at school—she was in her second year of university—and at the end asked him to call her father. She was worried about him and Josh. A faint sinking feeling settled over him. What had Josh done now? As if he didn’t have enough to worry about.
He typed a quick reply, keeping things light and amusing, promising to call Allen and reminding her that he would be back in a few days.
After, he went through his work emails. He did a couple of background checks for one of their corporate companies. He left the skip traces for Jayne. It would be easier for her to manage them locally.
He tapped his finger on the polished desktop. He’d rather be doing the skip traces. Tracking people down was what he was good at. All that time living in hiding had given him a certain insight when it came to finding people who wanted to stay lost.
The sky outside his window began to lighten as much as the heavy gray clouds would allow. A steady drizzle soaked the ground, tiny raindrops zigzagging down the glass. The forest stretched out before him, all bony branches and patches of dying leaves.
He wished Warlow had put him in a room that overlooked the sea instead of the forest. Whenever he was near the window, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched from the trees.
A shiver crept up his spine, and he forced his attention back to his computer screen. He was being stupid. Even if there was someone out there in the woods, they wouldn’t be able to see him. He was just letting this place spook him.
A loud bang from somewhere deep in the house made him jump, his heart lodging in his throat.
“Stupid,” he muttered, willing his pulse to resume a normal rate. Someone had probably slammed a door. Maybe Mrs. Voyle had arrived. He stood and craned his neck to get a look at the driveway. Her car wasn’t in the courtyard. It had to be Warlow.
Even as he listed rationalizations in his head, Declan stood and crossed to the bedroom door. He pulled it open a few inches and peered out through the gap. The narrow hall stretched out on either side of him dim and shadowy, the wall sconces dark. Silence wrapped around him, eerie and strangely unnatural as if the house were holding its breath.
A shrill laugh from a child pierced the quiet and the hair at the back of his neck stood on end.
* * *
“I bet he’s changed his mind,” Andy said, a smirk curling his mouth.
Knots tangled Carly’s insides. She would have loved to tell Andy that he was wrong, that he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, but she was afraid he was right.
“It’s a large house. No one can hear me, probably.” She knocked again—louder this time.
Beside her, Andy sighed and turned absently, taking in the scenery behind them. “Place sure as hell looks haunted.”
He had a point. Dark clouds hung heavy in the sky, a relentless drizzle pelting the tin roof over the overhang. Most of the remaining leaves had been swept from the trees, leaving the woods a tangle of dark, bony branches. The sea, the color of slate and dotted with foamy whitecaps, rushed against the shore. A mix of sea brine and wet earth filled the chilly air.
While she didn’t look forward to sitting out in the rain next to The Devil’s Eye, she didn’t want to give Declan a chance to change his mind about participating—provided Andy was wrong and Declan hadn’t changed his mind already. She sighed. At least her ankle was better today.
The door opened and a tall man in a tidy gray pinstripe suit filled the opening. His hair was white and cut short. Sky-blue eyes bore into her.
“Can I help you?” he asked, deep voice cool.
“I’m Dr.
Carly Evans, this is Andy Quinn. Mr. Meyers is expecting us.”
The man chuckled. “The ghost woman.”
“I suppose,” she said, irritation prickling her skin.
“I believe Mr. Meyers expressed that he was not interested in you. I’ll tell him you were here.” The man began closing the door. Carly stepped forward and pressed her hand to the wood, stopping him.
Anger flashed across the man’s hard features, but Carly held her ground. “He’s expecting us. We have an arrangement.”
His gaze narrowed, but he stepped aside.
“Come in, but wait here,” he instructed. “I’ll fetch Mr. Meyers.” He started up the wide wooden staircase.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Andy muttered, once he was gone.
“He probably forgot to tell anyone we were coming.”
“I hope you’re right.”
So did she. With a deep breath she took in the wide foyer. The chandelier overhead cast a warm glow over the patterned tile floor and worn furnishings, but a shiver prickled her skin. There was something false about the room, as though the house were trying to lull her into believing it were benign—just a house like any other.
Carly pushed her damp hair back from her face. Maybe she was letting her imagination get the better of her again.
“Sorry,” Declan said, coming down the stairs.
God, he looked good. Low-slung jeans hung from narrow hips and a worn black T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. Messy dark hair and black stubble covering the smooth planes of his face added to his overall tousled look.
A thin flutter tickled low inside her, but she did her best to squash it. In truth, she’d been looking forward to seeing him again, which didn’t make sense. The man was a serious hindrance to her work.
Still, when those dark eyes—like melted chocolate—found hers, she couldn’t stop the faint waves of warmth sweeping into her limbs.
“I was getting some work done upstairs and lost track of the time,” Declan said, once he reached the bottom of the stairs. The older man, who’d gone to fetch him, followed a few steps behind, shrewd gaze bouncing between her and Declan.
On closer inspection, Declan’s skin was pale beneath the stubble, half-moon smudges bruising the skin beneath his eyes. He looked tired.
She frowned. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged, a frown pulling his straight brows together, and shoved his hands in his jeans’ pockets. “I’m fine.”
She could feel Andy’s frown at her back.
“This is Andy Quinn,” she said, nodding at him. “You met yesterday, but you weren’t formally introduced.”
Declan nodded and muttered a greeting. Andy responded in kind.
“Do you really believe you’ll find ghosts at Stonecliff, Ms. Evans?” the man—Meyers’s butler, she guessed—asked.
The amused derision in his tone was no doubt meant to be provoking. Instead, she smiled at him. “Do you?”
“Of course not. It’s a lot of nonsense, this.” The man said the last to Declan.
“It’s fine. Thank you, Warlow,” Meyers said.
The butler’s eyes narrowed. He clearly didn’t appreciate being dismissed. With a curt nod, he strode away.
“Sorry,” Declan said, with a shrug.
“What for?” Her mouth twitched, “Don’t you think it’s nonsense, too?”
He grinned and her earlier flutters turned into flip-flops. He really did have a beautiful face.
“So, where do we start?” he asked, wisely leaving her question unanswered.
“I’ve something I’d like to show you.” She patted the computer bag slung over her shoulder. “Is there somewhere I can set this up?”
He led her into a study. A large, ornately carved desk stood in the center of the room. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves jammed tight with leather-bound volumes ran the length of the far wall, opposite French doors that led out to a small patio and offered a view of the sea.
“How much do you know about EVP?” she asked, unzipping her computer bag and pulling out the laptop.
“Nothing.” Declan sank into the large chair behind the desk.
“Electronic voice phenomena. It’s sounds or voices picked up in recordings that weren’t there at the time the recording was made. Some people believe it’s the dead attempting to communicate,” Andy explained, standing beside her.
Declan’s brow cocked. “Some people, but not you?”
“EVP is difficult to prove.” Carly set the laptop on the desk and opened the screen. “There are so many things that the recorders might have picked up—radio waves, a CB transmission or just background noise. It’s unreliable.”
“But you obviously recorded something or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Why use a method you don’t trust?”
“Curiosity, I suppose. There were witnesses who’d claimed to have heard voices at The Devil’s Eye. I wanted to see if we would pick anything up.”
“And you did.”
She nodded. “This was recorded yesterday while we were taking measurements at The Devil’s Eye.”
She opened the audio file and pressed play.
Weeping sounded from the tinny computer speakers.
He stiffened and met her gaze. “Is that—”
She held up her index finger and his mouth snapped shut. The crying continued, deep and distinctly male, then the woman’s voice, the same one who had iced her blood the night before.
“Devour him.”
Declan’s face drained of color, leaving his skin pasty. His eyes rounded, darkened, but remained fixed on the now silent laptop. The sound bite had reached the end. There’d been more weeping, but the only clearly spoken words had played out, and left Declan looking stunned and empty.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He looked up and met her gaze, his wild and unfocussed. “How did you…you couldn’t… I never should have agreed to any of this.”
He stood and walked out of the room, leaving Carly staring after him dumbstruck.
“What just happened?” Andy asked. She’d almost forgotten he was there.
“I don’t have a clue. Wait here.” Carly hurried out to the foyer. A cool, damp draft whispered against her skin. The front door was open, and Declan leaned against the stone wall beneath the overhang. Even hunched with his back to her, she could see the rise and fall of his every deep breath.
Concern built inside her, tangling with an inborn curiosity. Those words had meant something to him.
“Declan,” she said, softly.
He whipped around, those black eyes pinning her where she stood. Some of the color had returned to his face, but his rough-hewn features were hard, shuttered.
A nervous thrill shot through her, the sensation not wholly unpleasant.
He shook his head. “I never should have started all this.”
She blinked. “What happened just now?”
“I made a mistake.” He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “You have to go.”
“All right,” she said, approaching him slowly, the way she would an animal she didn’t quite trust. “But those words meant something to you.”
He shook his head even before she finished her sentence. “You have to go.”
“I will. Andy and I will leave and we won’t bother you again. But let me help you first.”
He eyed her skeptically, maybe not believing she meant what she’d said, then leaned back against the wall. The rain had tapered off. The air, thick with the scents of wet earth and sea brine, blew soft and cool over her skin from where she stood in the open doorway. “You can’t.”
“You don’t know that. Tell me why those words scared you.”
He shot her a scowl, clearly unimpressed that she’d implied he was frightened, but he looked better, that terrible shell-shocked expression leaving his eyes.
“It didn’t scare me.” He dropped his gaze to his trainer-clad feet pressed against the crumbling flagst
one and slid his hand into his jeans’ front pockets.
Silence stretched between them, interrupted only by the patter of rain gently hitting the ground and the faint, relentless hush of waves hitting the shore.
“My mother died back in April,” he finally said, voice so low she wasn’t sure she’d heard him at all. “Cancer. She’d been sick a long time, but by April she’d been at the end. Allen, my stepfather, and I had been relieving each other at the hospital so she wouldn’t be alone when it happened.”
His throat jumped, and Carly’s chest tightened. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too difficult.”
He looked up and fixed his dark eyes on her face. “By then, between the morphine and the disease she wasn’t really there. Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded. There were stages of death and in those final stages a person’s consciousness ebbed in and out, the gaps between growing larger and larger until there was only the mechanical body functions—heart beating, lungs drawing breath—until the body shut down, too.
“Anyway, it was late and I had dosed off, but I woke up because she was touching my arm and she was trying to talk, asking me not to go. I thought she was trying to tell me she didn’t want to be alone, that she was afraid, but then she said, ‘They’ll devour you.’”
A shiver scurried up Carly’s spine. “Was it her voice on the EVP?”
He shook his head. “It threw me because it’s a woman, and those words were so close to what she’d said, but it wasn’t her. It was the last thing she ever said to me. She slipped back out and she was gone before morning. Do you think it’s a coincidence?”
“If it is, it’s pretty bloody spectacular.” But what did it mean? She didn’t have a clue. “Do you still want us to go?”
“Can you tell me what the hell is in this house?”
“Not until I’ve investigated.”
“I’ve seen things here, heard things.”
She smiled. “I know. Will you tell me?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, and pushed away from the wall. “I’ll tell you.”
