“Are you certain you’ll have anyone left to pay for a tour? This is a fundraiser. Isn’t the object to make money.”
If Bram Vanmatre said one more negative thing, Echo would be tempted to punch him.
“Look, I know you’re used to a big city where activities get numbers because of the huge population. But small towns can make events like this one work, especially when the word is out to all the other surrounding towns from Lakeside to Michigan City.” She expected the nearby Indiana residents to be as plentiful as those from Michigan state. “The tour is designed to appeal to small children as well as adults, the maze is a teenager’s idea of real scary fun, and the bash in the ballroom will be a hoot for anyone who can dance or just likes to watch. Why wouldn’t people take the opportunity to do something that sounds like such fun?”
For the first time, Bram nodded agreeably. “Locals probably wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to see Dunescape Cottage after all these years.”
Something about the way he said that put her on guard. “If we’re done...”
About to leave, she halted in her tracks once more when he said, “You didn’t tell me about the dining room.”
“An unfinished feast. The kids are really enthusiastic about this one.” Though she doubted he would be. “Dead rubber bugs. Fake splashes of blood. A sound-activated ‘roasted’ chicken whose legs wiggle. A pumping heart on a plate.”
“Appetizing.”
“Exactly.” She was out of patience and certain he could hear it in her voice. “I should get downstairs to supervise.” Time was flying. Dusk had fallen, casting deep shadows throughout the first floor. “Coming?”
“I’ll be along.”
Relieved that she’d be free of him for a while at least, she rushed off before he could think of another reason to detain her. Hopefully, he wouldn’t do his best to discourage the kids who were having such a good time transforming the parlor and dining room.
The stairwell to the basement was dark and naturally spooky. She’d have to see about installing a safety light here. A third of the way down, an errant breeze as seductive as a man’s breath ruffled the hair on the back of her neck. A chill crawled down her spine and her flesh pebbled. Though she was the only one on the staircase, she would swear she was not alone. Something about the old mansion got to her every once in a while, made her uneasy, as if something were about to happen. She was disturbed by an internal pressure she didn’t understand and therefore couldn’t put into words. She’d felt this way the day before, in the library when she’d first approached Bram.
Kind of eerie.
Like the place really could be haunted.
Then the murmur of strained voices ahead connected her back with the real world. But her mood swiftly darkened when she heard one of the girls calling, “Jason. Jason, can you hear me?”
Heart jumping into her throat, Echo flew down the last few steps and along the corridor.
Now it was Frankie’s voice pleading, “Hey, buddy, it’s me. Say something.”
Following the light spilling from an open room, she paused in the doorway to catch her breath and to assess the situation. A knot of teenagers crowded around her nephew, who lay prone on the floor, seemingly unconscious. Blood trickled from his forehead to his cheek.
“Oh, my God, Jason!” she cried, rushing toward him. “I told you guys to be careful. What happened?”
Parting to let her through, the kids avoided answering. Or looking at her.
But no sooner was she on her knees bending over him, than Jason opened his eyes and gave her a goofy smile. “Gotcha, Auntie E!”
“Jason Medlock!”
Her nephew whooped and the other kids snickered. She glared at them as she rose to her feet. “This is not funny,” Echo stated in her most authoritarian voice.
Which made the kids laugh with glee.
“Fake blood looks pretty real, huh?” Jason asked, launching himself to his feet and wiping the stuff from his forehead with a tissue.
“You’re lucky I’m young and tough and have a strong heart. We’ll talk about this later, brat,” she promised.
Even while she tried to sound stern, Echo had to swallow a smile. If she hadn’t been so scared, she might be laughing herself. Her nephew was an inveterate practical joker, but his tricks were admittedly harmless.
She ordered, “Now let’s all get serious and get to work.”
More than a half dozen rooms, some connected by inner doors, were available for their use. From the occasional piece of furniture and shelving that still remained, Echo guessed they’d been mostly servants quarters or storage rooms. She split the teenagers into two teams and set them working at different ends of the basement, while she took another look around. First they had to make certain the place was free of debris and move any obstacles out of the way.
They certainly didn’t need any real accidents.
The question of insurance was preying on her mind when the lights suddenly went out. Thinking her nephew wasn’t done with his pranks, she sweetly called, “Oh, Jason, turn on those lights.”
“Okay,” came his reply. “Where’s the switch?”
“How would I know?”
Switch? The whole lower level was shrouded in darkness. A single wall switch wouldn’t have turned all the lights off. Of course the teenagers could be playing another joke on her, each of them taking a different room, only she hadn’t noticed anyone sneaking around. Nervous laughter from a couple of the kids sounded too real to be faked. Maybe the workmen outside had overloaded the electric lines or something.
“Hey, Auntie E, cut it out,” Jason called, his voice a bit shaky. “You got me back, okay? Now turn on the lights. This isn’t funny.”
“She’s not trying to be funny,” came Cheryl’s protest from the other direction. “She’s an adult, for heaven’s sake.”
Amused by that observation, Echo nevertheless realized no one was trying to be funny.
“C’mon,” complained Yvette. “I don’t like this. Whoever turned off the lights better turn them back on.”
A chorus of, “It wasn’t me,” made Echo think they were experiencing an honest-to-God power failure.
“Maybe a fuse blew,” she said in her most reassuring voice. “Has anyone seen the box?”
“Nope.”
“Not me.”
“Somebody get the lights on!” Yvette cried.
Great! She’d have to stumble around looking for it in the dark. For some reason, the very idea put her on edge.
“Everyone stay where you are,” she called, a little relieved when she remembered, “I’ve got a flashlight.” Sort of. One of those miniature jobs on her key ring. “Give me a few minutes to find the fuse box.”
Rummaging through her jacket pocket, Echo retrieved her keys. A second later, she snapped on the tiny flashlight that had a limited range. And so, when with her first sweep she caught the dark figure near the back stairs that led up to the ballroom in its beam, she jumped.
Hoping Bram didn’t notice, she got a firm grip on her nerves. “You made it down here just in time to save the day. So where’s the fuse box?”
He was staring at her intently, making her skin prickle. The same sensation she’d had on the stairs a while ago.
“Or do you even know, considering how long you’ve been gone?”
His gaze drove into her like a living thing. Flutters threatened to turn her stomach upside down, and she laughed nervously. What in the world was wrong with her?
“Hey, what’s going on?” Jason called.
“Patience,” she replied, sending the light over the nearby walls and into the closest room equipped with a couple of workbenches. Nothing. “The fuse box has got to be around here somewhere.”
But where? The lower level was cut up into something of a maze itself, with several twists and turns.
Bram moved off toward the right. Not feeling secure without being able to see where she was setting down her feet, Echo didn’t dare follow as qui
ckly. As she moved, she constantly swept the beam before her. Suddenly she realized Bram was taking her into a part of the basement she hadn’t explored before.
Noticing the distance between them had widened considerably, she called after him, “Wait for me, will you?”
Though he glanced over his shoulder, he didn’t even hesitate. She sped up, but a second later, he vanished, as if he’d been sucked into the very dark. She stopped dead in her tracks, a chill having nothing to do with temperature creeping through her.
“Bram?” Her pulse was thundering through her like waves crashing against the beach during a storm.
“Did you find anything?” came a plaintive cry from the other end of the basement.
“No, but I’m still looking,” she called back in the most reassuring voice she could muster.
Cautiously, she inched forward and noticed a half open door. Is that where Bram had gone? Why in the devil hadn’t he said something?
Echo stepped inside the room and fought a feeling of alarm when she realized he wasn’t there. Trying not to think about how he could have so neatly disappeared on her, she inspected what she could of the interior. An old coal storage room, from the looks of it. Three bins occupied the opposite wall, looking every bit like primitive jail cells. The thought of being locked in one of them made her shudder. About to leave, she turned smack into something soft.
Another body.
Heart pounding, she gasped aloud. “Bram?”
“Sorry to disappoint you, Miss St. Clair,” came a vaguely Eastern European accent.
A second later, the lights went on and Echo heard youthful cheers. Lena Rundle closed the fusebox.
“Why didn’t you say something to let me know you were behind me?” Echo asked the housekeeper, who as usual was dressed in a dowdy colorless garment that blended well with their surroundings.
“Why... I did. Perhaps you were so absorbed in your search that you did not hear me.”
Though Echo found that hard to believe, she had no reason to distrust the housekeeper, even if she didn’t care for the woman. Lena’s comfortable-looking, matronly figure was at odds with her continually tight-lipped expression that was accentuated by graying hair scraped firmly back from her face. And this hadn’t been the first time the woman had appeared seemingly out of nowhere to startle her, either. On her first visit to the mansion, Lena had almost given Echo a heart attack. She seemed to come and go as mysteriously as Bram just had.
Jamming her keyring back into her pocket, Echo realized something else was odd. “You don’t have a flashlight.” The housekeeper had been proceeding blindly through the pitch-black basement.
“I do not need one.” Lena smiled, her dark eyes remaining flat. “I have lived here since I was a young girl. I know every nook and cranny of this house as if it were my own.”
Echo had the distinct impression that Lena Rundle was possessive about Dunescape Cottage as if it were her own, and that she disapproved of its being used for the fundraiser and considered them all intruders.
“Well, thanks for coming to our rescue.”
Lena nodded and Echo set off with a quick check to see if Bram were around somewhere, then flew down the twisting corridor. In her haste, she took the wrong turn and found herself in yet another unfamiliar area. She could hear the kids voices to the right and behind her. She’d somehow passed them right up and had landed in another murky area with several paths to choose from. Which way?
Taking a step in the direction from which she’d come, she hesitated. Instinct stopped her. Or something stronger. The atmosphere around her changed subtly, and she felt as if the house were breathing around her. She backed up. Not the house. Her. It was all in her own head.
“Aah!”
A wall forced her to a stop and her heel kicked into some containers piled against it. A metallic ping whipped her to the left. Some small object rolled onto the floor, probably loosened by her clumsiness. She was picking it up when Jason found her.
“There you are. What’s that?”
“I don’t know. I can’t quite see.”
Jason led her back in the correct direction. All the while, Echo held onto the object gingerly, then in the light, let it roll into the center of her palm. At first look she thought it a piece of costume jewelry, an earring or small brooch. But as she inspected it closer, Echo identified the object as a fancy-dress button. Something about the way it felt in her hand disturbed her. The metal was too cold. Her palm crawled and she had an urge to drop the thing. Realizing all the kids were watching, however, she got a grip on herself and moved closer to a bare bulb hanging from the low ceiling. There she inspected the piece more carefully.
“Awesome, isn’t it!” Yvette exclaimed.
“It’s something, all right.”
While she wasn’t an expert in fine jewelry, Echo would swear the gold was real, not plate. Green and white stones encrusting the button looked like tiny emeralds and diamonds, a half-dozen finely cut and polished stones of a quarter carat or so. One of the emeralds was loose in its setting.
Irrationally repulsed by such stunning beauty, she murmured, “This really looks valuable.”
“What does?”
Echo looked up to see Miss Addy descending the stairs, her expression curious. And movement from the corner of her eye assured her that Lena had not left. The housekeeper remained buried in the shadows.
Watching.
As if she were spying on them.
“I found this button,” Echo said, the metal still cold and repellent against her palm.
Wearing a faded party dress that swirled around her too-thin calves, her dark hair coifed in soft, old-fashioned rolls and decorated with a fresh flower, Miss Addy stepped closer. Her gaze on the button Echo held out for her inspection, she stopped short. Froze. Her lashes fluttered and the breath she took sounded like a gasp of dismay.
“Miss Addy?” Echo stepped closer.
The elderly woman seemed to panic and almost tripped in her haste to back up. Mark caught and steadied her, but she ripped free of his gasp and fluttered her hands at Echo.
“No. I don’t want it. Get it away from me!”
Realizing Miss Addy was truly frightened, Echo slipped the button out of sight into her jacket pocket, then was uncomfortably aware of its presence on her person. Before she could say something reassuring, Lena flew out of the shadows to put an arm around the frail old shoulders.
“Miss Adrienne, let me take you upstairs.”
“It’s a bad omen.” Miss Addy gripped the housekeeper’s free hand. “From the last party. Maybe I shouldn’t have opened the house. Maybe Donahue is angry with me.”
Lena was nodding as if in agreement, and the teenagers were staring at the scenario in silent fascination.
“I don’t understand,” Echo said before the housekeeper could take Miss Addy away.
“Mr. Donahue died on All Hallow’s Eve thirty years ago,” Lena said. “After the last fancy dress ball held here.”
A collective gasp issued from the kids.
“Then how can he be angry?” demanded a practical Jason.
“People think he’s long gone, but he’s not,” Miss Addy said, a wild glint in her faded eyes as she looked around as if expecting to see him. “He’s here with us, waiting for justice. That’s why I can’t ever leave this place. Bram can’t make me. Donahue was my twin, you know. I must stay until his spirit is at rest.”
Echo tried to calm her. “But his death was an accident.”
”Lies! Donahue’s drowning was no accident!” Miss Addy shrieked. “My brother was murdered!”
CHAPTER FOUR
MURDERED.
She hadn’t pried that out of the old lady before. Then, again, she hadn’t seen Adrienne Vanmatre so distraught, not since she’d finally found the opportunity to enter the crumbling manor invited. She’d waited for so long. Too long. But she had learned to be a patient woman.
“You been having those dreams, again, Miss Addy?” Sibyl W
ilde asked her charge as she tucked the frail bones into a chaise near the fire, that and one small lamp casting eerie shadows throughout the otherwise dark room.
“Dreams... reality... where does one end, the other begin?”
“Sometimes it’s hard to say,” Sibyl agreed, staring into the greedy flames.
She’d been haunted by dreams all her life and they weren’t reality yet. Soon, though. She could feel it in her bones. Soon all the plotting and waiting would be ended and she would have the reward that was her due.
Her inheritance.
“Grandmama Tisa used to do the dreaming when she was awake. She taught me that spirits are all around us.”
Miss Addy’s face brightened. “You believe me, then? About Donahue?”
“Of course.”
“Well, good. I wasn’t certain. Most people think I’m a loony old bird.”
Yes, Sibyl thought, though she’d never seen him herself, if Donahue Vanmatre had been murdered, she did believe his soul still wandered about Dunescape Cottage seeking release. Of course, she would say so even if she didn’t believe it. She wasn’t about to let this great opportunity slip her by. While Miss Addy was always talkative, she normally rambled in circles or went off on tangents, never quite getting to the subject Sibyl most hungered to discuss.
“Could your grandmother call up those spirits when she wanted to?”
Sibyl nodded and fed another log to the hungry flames. “Grandmama Tisa was a powerful obeah woman.” Even if she had left Haiti as a very young woman.
“What about you?”
Heartbeat growing stronger, she gave her patient a slanted look as she straightened from the fire. “I have some talent in this area, yes.”
“Teach me.”
“Why?”
“So I can talk to Donahue.”
“But you said you had.”
“Yes, yes,” Miss Addy said impatiently. “Being that we were twins, we have a special connection. I feel his presence here always, but he doesn’t necessarily appear to me when I want him to, and he leaves whenever the heck he feels like it. I never have enough time to settle some things between us. If he would ever actually talk to me. Even dead, Donahue has a mind of his own. I want to be able to find him!”
DANGEROUS, Collection #1 Page 23
