by Tamara Berry
Annis’s expression remains impassive. “Can you? What does she say?”
“She’s helping me solve the murder.”
That, at least, causes a twitch at her temple. Without losing eye contact, she asks, in a much gentler voice, “That would be the bones that were found?”
“No. That would be the dead body that I found. The dead body everyone thinks I made up.” I root around in my bag and pull out my phone. I may have given Inspector Piper my only physical copy of Rachel’s sketch, but I’m not so lost to common sense that I didn’t snap a picture of it the second she finished drawing it. I hand the phone to Annis. Since she already seemed to know so much about me being here in the village, I can only assume she’d be equally acquainted with other visitors.
“This is him.” I tap the screen. “Can you recall seeing him before? Maybe passing through town recently? Stopping by to admire the architecture?”
She takes the phone with a slightly lifted brow and gives it a brief perusal. “Sorry, he’s not familiar. Like I said, my curate tends to handle the tourist trade. We have a guest book, though, if that might be of interest to you.”
Since I don’t know the man’s name and I doubt he’d have so blatantly advertised his activities in the first place, the book is of little use. “No, thank you. But if it’s not too much to ask, I would like to take a look at older church records.”
“Older records?” she echoes.
“Yes. Benji—the boy who works at the village museum—said that if I wanted to search for a specific person in local history, that would be the best place to do it.”
“Who are you looking for, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Anyone named Xavier.”
“Xavier . . . ?”
“I don’t know.” I offer her a self-deprecating shrug. I didn’t realize until I uttered my request aloud just how feeble it sounds. “I have no last names and no other identifying information. But I know the name doesn’t appear anywhere in the Hartford files, so it must belong to some other family.”
“And this will help you and your sister solve a murder?”
From the way Annis phrases the question, I can’t decide if she’s asking out of genuine curiosity or out of concern for my mental and spiritual well-being.
“It will help me make sense of what’s been happening up at the castle,” I hedge. “Which, to be fair, is exactly what I’ve been asked to do. If you’re concerned about whether or not the Hartfords would approve, you can call Nicholas. He’s the one who hired me.”
“Oh, I never call Nicholas if I can avoid it,” she says with a disarming grin.
When my only reply is to stare gape-mouthed at her, she adds, “Well, it’s not the least use, is it? He never tells anyone what they want to hear, and then somehow turns every conversation around so he ends up getting his own way.”
Although the portrait she paints is one hundred percent accurate, I’m having a hard time digesting the information. “You know Nicholas?” I manage.
“Of course. How do you think I’m so well-informed? He sought my advice before going to seek you out—you won’t mind if I tell you that I had my reservations? But I can see now that you’re exactly what was needed.”
My head whirls with the implications of her forthright speech, but foremost in my mind is that I should have known something was up when Nicholas urged me to attend services today. It’s the exact same thing he did with the dovecote—telling me what to investigate and when to investigate it, controlling my actions from afar.
Almost as though he’s a puppeteer. Almost as though I’m his puppet.
“But how—?” I begin, more bewildered than I care to admit.
“You’re not familiar with small English villages, are you?” She releases a kindly cluck. “We like to pretend we’ve adapted to modern times, but the reality is that we’re just as married to our traditions now as we used to be. Nicholas helped me get my posting after I was ordained. I grew up here.”
“Then you know Thomas, too?” I ask. “And Fern?”
“Oh, yes.” She nods as though her intimacy with the family is the most natural thing in the world. “Nicholas and Thomas were a few years ahead of me, and the last thing they wanted was a grubby schoolgirl hanging on their every word, but I used to follow them around whenever they came into the village. I don’t have to tell you that I fancied Thomas something terrible. He was bidding fair to become a dish, even back then.”
For the first time in my life, I wish I had a better religious education. Annis is the first person I’ve encountered who might have answers to the unique family dynamics up at Castle Hartford, but I have no idea how to gauge her loyalties. She seems trustworthy, and I feel like there must be some kind of confessional rule in place to protect me, but everything is still so murky. How can I be sure that any questions I ask her won’t find their way back to the castle? To Nicholas?
“Did you ever go with them on their quest to find the smuggling tunnels?” I ask, sensing this to be the most neutral territory.
She finds nothing odd in the question. That’s how much apart of the local folklore those tunnels are. “Not directly, no. But you could often see them heading out for the day—ask anyone around these parts, and they’ll tell you the same. Fern might have looked like the ringleader, marching those two little boys around, but no one ever doubted it was Nicholas who really wanted to find them. He’s always had that masterful way about him.”
I stop breathing; the picture that Annis’s words conjure up is one I’m having a difficult time seeing clearly. Not because I don’t believe her, but because I do. For the second time in as many days, I’ve been presented with an incongruous timeline of the Hartfords and Thomas in their youth. When Nicholas spoke of being bundled up by Fern, I’d assumed it was a figure of speech—one of those Britishisms that gets lost in translation. But Annis has just confirmed that my initial estimate of their respective ages was off.
Way off.
“Annis—Vicar Brown—Your honor—” I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m supposed to call you.”
She chuckles. “Annis is fine.”
“Annis, can you tell me how old the Hartfords are?” I don’t wait for her to answer. “Is Fern older than Nicholas?”
“Oh, yes. Well-preserved, isn’t she? She always was accounted a beauty in her youth, but in my mind, she only improves with each passing year.” Annis pauses and bites her lower lip, her eyes cast upward as if doing the mental math. “Let’s see . . . the year she turned thirteen was about the time she stopped showing up in the village with the boys in tow. Thomas was nine, which would have made Nicholas around ten or eleven.”
I shoot up out of the pew so fast it causes my head to spin. Annis isn’t too far behind.
“Are you alright?” she asks. “What did I say?”
I don’t answer her, too caught up in the implications of her revelation. All the pieces of the puzzle might not be falling into place yet, but I’m starting to get a clearer picture—and I’m not at all convinced that I like what I see. If Nicholas is younger than Fern, then he’s not the heir to the estate. Fern is. She’s the one who could decide to sell, the one who holds the fate of the Hartford lands in the palm of her hands.
All that talk of primogeniture and Vivian being sent to a home, of the possibility that Cal has been disguising himself as Xavier to drive down the property price—this whole time, it’s been about Fern.
In other words, it’s Fern who stands to inherit. It’s Fern who has everything to gain. It’s Fern who has everything to lose.
I don’t realize how pale I’ve become until Annis touches my arm, forcing my attention back to my present surroundings. “Eleanor, perhaps you should sit down again. You look as though—well, to be perfectly frank, you look as though you’ve just seen a ghost. What is it?”
I shake my head, unable to answer her and therefore unwilling to try. I have no idea what I’ve stumbled on, but a deep sense of unease f
loods through me. Nothing Annis has just told me is revelatory in an extraordinary way—one look at the family’s driver’s licenses would have done just as well to apprise me of their respective ages. In fact, now that I think about it, the only person who told me with any certainty that Nicholas was the family heir was Rachel, who isn’t the most trustworthy source of information. She could have easily misunderstood the details of the succession.
It’s all those other things that alarm me: the death of a mystery man as interested in the Hartford family genealogy as I am; Thomas’s disappearance; Cal slipping his dinner hostess a thousand pounds to secure an introduction to Fern . . .
“Cal,” I gasp.
“Yes, Eleanor? What about him?”
Oh, nothing. Just that however little a fake ghost might compel Nicholas to sell his property, Fern would be much easier to sway. In fact, Fern has already voiced her willingness to pack up and leave the castle behind. One or two more torn dresses overnight, and she’ll probably sign over the deed tomorrow.
Nicholas was right from the start. He is smarter than he looks, our Cal. He may have even been the one to plant the bones under the stairs in an effort to oust Fern faster. After all, he admitted to having access to bodies, didn’t he? The very first night I met him, he told the tale of a cemetery attached to a recent property he’d sold, displayed an irreverence for the dead that not even I can match.
“Eleanor?” Annis prods.
I don’t explain my sudden start. “Nothing,” I say with a forced smile. “It’s only a thought I had. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me, but I should probably head back to the castle. Besides, you must be very busy on a day like today.”
“Nonsense. I always have time to help a friend.”
“Is that what we are?” I ask, somewhat taken aback.
“Well, I meant Nicholas, but I do hope you and I can be friends, too.” Her smile contains all of its earlier warmth as she takes my hand and presses it. “Especially if you’d like someone to talk to about your sister. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you aren’t alone. Not if you don’t want to be.”
I don’t know how to take her words. They recall me to a sense of my current situation, to the fact that I’m burdened with a man who’s dead and a sister who’s not. Unfortunately, there’s no time to unpack it all now. I have no idea how the dead man and the missing bible page fit in with everything yet, but I feel certain I’m just a fake spell or two away from figuring it out.
“I have to get back there,” I say. “I have to get home.”
“Home?” she echoes.
I blush as I realize what I’ve just said. “I mean that figuratively, of course. The place I’m staying, the castle. I should get back before anyone starts to worry.”
I don’t wait to see if my hasty explanation holds. I have no more of a right to that castle than, say, Nicholas Hartford III, but, like him, I’m finding it more and more difficult to cut myself off from it. And I don’t even have the excuse of dozens of ancestors buried nearby.
I do, however, have a plan.
If Cal thinks he can use a ghost to spook Fern into selling a castle, then it’s only fair that I use a ghost to spook Cal into admitting it. I know just how I’m going to do it, too. Not with bones and not with a Ouija board, but with the one thing that’s never, in all my years of ghost hunting, let me down.
In other words, it’s time for Madame Eleanor Wilde to hold a séance.
Chapter 20
“I need you to tell me everything you’ve discovered about Cal Whitkin.” My phone is once again jammed under my chin as I attempt to multitask. “And I need you to tell me fast, because I have about five percent battery and no way to access my power cord.”
“Hello to you, too,” Liam promptly responds. “What happened to your power cord?”
“Four percent and counting. Here kitty, kitty. Nice kitty, kitty.”
“That’s it. I’m booking a seat on the next flight out there. You’ve finally cracked.”
I sigh and draw the dish of tuna out of the cardboard box I’ve upended on its side. Even this demonstration of my innocence isn’t enough to get the cat on the opposite side of Thomas’s kitchen to look at me. She’s been sitting above the sink, twitching her tail and disdainfully staring out the window, for at least half an hour now.
“I haven’t cracked. I’m trying to abduct a cat, but she isn’t being cooperative.” I glare at the animal in question. I’d hoped the scent of the fish would draw her close enough that I could drop the box over her head, but she’s no fool. I’m going to need to rethink my strategy. “The stupid thing would rather die than go with me. I’m no Dr. Doolittle, but I’m better than a slow and painful death by starvation.”
“That’s up for debate,” Liam mutters. He’s a much better sport than the cat, however, and starts rattling off what I need to know. “Cal Whitkin, forty-three years of age, college dropout, self-made man. Never married, no kids, net worth of around a hundred million, though that number varies depending on who you ask. Let’s see, what else? He loves long walks on the beach and—”
“Three percent,” I warn. “Stick to the facts, if you please.”
“That is a fact!” Liam protests. “It says so on his dating profile.”
Despite the fact that the cat has finally turned to face me, the twitch of her nose belying her disinterest, I allow myself to be momentarily diverted. “You dug up his dating profile?”
“I’m very thorough. Apparently, he loves both walking on the beach and flying kites.”
“Aw. That’s kind of sweet.”
“Don’t fall too much in love. He claims to only date women who are ‘into fitness.’”
“Gross.” I may not spend much time online, but even I know into fitness is code for unrealistic body expectations. “Okay, so he has an obscene amount of money and no class. I knew both those things already. What else?”
“Not much. Most of his money comes from real estate, though he kept himself buoyed during the housing bubble by buying up struggling tech companies.”
“What kind of tech companies?” I ask.
“Software development? I dunno, Ellie, the guy is pretty straightforward. I mean, you can’t get that rich without a little shady dealing, but nothing pops out. Maybe he just really loves that Fern lady.”
I snort. “Sure.”
“It happens, you know,” he says, picking up on my disbelief in an instant. “Sometimes there aren’t any ulterior motives. Sometimes people just do things because they care.”
First of all, that’s not true. People always have ulterior motives, whether it’s money or sex or power or any combination thereof. Secondly, no one would stay in a castle to be cold, hungry, and beset by murderous ghosts without a very good reason.
I mean, I’m still here, obviously, but that doesn’t count. My motives are nothing but ulterior. I’m attempting to kidnap a cat out of a missing man’s house so I can use her in a séance, for crying out loud. If that doesn’t smack of shady dealings, I don’t know what does.
“Do you think a laser would do it?” I ask.
“Do what? And where would you even get a laser?”
“There has to be some kind of app,” I reply, but I give up on the idea anyway. Thomas’s cat doesn’t strike me as the sort to go for playfully pouncing after electronic lights. “Not that I have the battery for it. Which reminds me . . . It might be a few days before I can call you again, but it’s not a big deal, okay? No worrying and no flying out to rescue me. I’m really close to solving this thing. I know it. Save your energy for Winnie instead.”
Liam’s silence says almost everything: disbelief, disapproval, dismay. My phone’s warning beep says the rest.
“She’s holding on, right?” I ask. “She’s stable?”
“Yeah, Ellie. She’s holding on.” He hesitates before adding, “The real question is, are you?”
I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that my phone choose
s that moment to go dead. Maybe apprehensive is the best word for it. Although I’ve been alone in the cottage since I walked in, the solitary silence of it engulfs me all at once. A cell phone might not be much protection against a murderer, but at least it was something—a helpline, an escape. With that last tie to my real life severed, I’m more adrift out here than I realized. It’s almost like being stranded on a strange, foggy island.
Which, from a geographical standpoint, is exactly what this is.
“You’ll save me, right?” I ask the cat. “You won’t let me come to any harm?”
Giving up on the box trap entirely, I set the tuna on the counter, well within the animal’s reach. Finally interested, she offers a tentative sniff.
“Oh, sure,” I mutter. “Now you want to eat. I don’t know how cats got such a mysterious reputation. You’re more like a spoiled toddler than an underworld beast.”
At the sound of the word beast, the cat’s ears twitch.
“Do you know that word? Beast? Is that what Thomas calls you?”
The cat’s ears twitch again. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a sign, the name does seem to fit. It’s not as if I can call her Cuddles.
“Okay, Beast.” I prop my chin on my hands and stare at the animal, willing her to heed me. It’s a stretch, I know, but I’m running out of options. “You obviously like it here, and I’m sure you have a secret food source I don’t know about, but live up to those centuries of vilification and help a medium out. Come with me to the castle, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Beast licks her paw.
“I don’t need you to do much, just appear ominously in the background once or twice in the guise of a witch. Will you do it? Meow once for yes and twice for no.”
Beast blinks.
“Honestly, I’d have a better chance trying to get assistance from Nicholas. I hope you’re not just a figment of my imagination. I’m already close to losing all my credibility around here as it is.”
