Maxwell smiled softly at her. He looked handsome when his hair was ruffled and his beard shaven. “More than anything.”
Lily sat up and tried to rub away her migraine. “Max, I’m married.”
“I know a lawyer. He handled my inheritance. I’m sure he can take care of the necessary arrangements.”
“Vincent won’t want that,” Lily said dreadfully. “Everything is happening too fast. Maybe we can try again. Some other time.”
Maxwell crinkled his brow. “What do you mean?”
Lily gave him a look.
Maxwell’s eyes went wide. He stood up and paced around the room.
“It’s my decision,” Lily said firmly.
Maxwell stared at her like she had blasphemed. “I don’t think that’s fair.”
Lily glanced at her belly. She was wearing one of Maxwell’s t-shirts that looked like a dress on her.
“I want this family,” Maxwell stated. For a brief moment, he reminded her of Vincent Gregory.
Lily’s fear bubbled up. Had she fallen into the trap of another horrible man? Would this be her fate?
Maxwell took a deep breath. “For so long, I’ve had this emptiness inside of me.”
“Since your parents died?” Lily asked.
“Way before then,” Maxwell admitted. “Lily, you’re the first and only person to give me peace. I understand that this child, our child, is not something you want--”
“I do want it,” Lily interrupted. “But just not now. It seems like I only moved in yesterday.”
“But we’ve known each other our whole lives. This is the logical progression of our relationship.” Maxwell tried to keep a lid on his frustration, but it was building.
Lily sniffled. “Vincent will find out. He’ll come to the hospital, just you watch.”
Maxwell walked around in front of her and lowered to his knees. He took both her hands in his. “Then let’s have the child here. No one needs to know. We can get an in-home doctor. I have all these antique toys and a dollhouse we can put in the nursery. If people ask, I can say it’s my niece or something.”
“How do you know it’s going to be girl?”
“I don’t , but I want it to be someone like you.”
Lily smiled sadly at him. I’m not as good as you think I am.
“Will you do this with me?” Maxwell asked.
Eyes watering, Lily nodded. “Yes. I will.”
Maxwell pampered her in the months leading up to the birth. Every day, he smiled, sung, sometimes danced with her in the foyer--a skill she never knew he had. Lily tried to share his joy. The morning sickness made it hard. As promised, the doctor showed up every few weeks to check on Lily.
A few weeks before the birth, Lily heard Maxwell talking privately with the doctor in the upstairs hallway. Lily pressed her back against a corner and listened.
“You’re twisting my wrist here, Quenby,” the gaunt doctor said. He was a tall, skeletal man with circular glasses, thin lips, and thinner chestnut hair. “I can’t keep canceling on my patients.”
“You do this, I burn those files--the ones about the mysterious deaths.” Maxwell said. “But if you fail me or her, I’ll destroy you. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” the man said with a twitching lip.
Maxwell shook his hand. “Be happy I haven’t called the cops already.”
“That wouldn’t be the Quenby way,” the doctor said with an angry grin.
“I suppose not.”
Lily rubbed her belly, thinking about the child and the house it was being brought into. She’d be bound to the same family that bankrupted her parents after one bad sale. Lily felt like something squeezed her heart.
Lily gave birth in one of the guest bedrooms. Her screams echoed through the hall. Maxwell watched with pure horror as Dr. Waxen performed the emergency C-second. Lily remembered the pain and the blood puddling on the bed sheets and dripping on the white hardwood floor. It seemed like the room spun. Lily clenched her eyes tight.
“Women have been doing this since the beginning. You’ll make it,” Maxwell said. His voice seemed faint and far away.
Suddenly, the screaming stopped. There was a soft cry. She opened her eyes and saw the pink child swaddled in a cloth and cradled in her arms. The baby looked so fragile and small, like a small breeze would break her.
“What should we call her?” Maxwell asked.
“Evelyn,” Lily replied, relieved the worst of it was over. “It means life.”
“Evelyn it is,” Maxwell said with a tired smile.
After Lily had recovered and Maxwell burned the doctor’s old case files, they stared at the child sleeping in the nursery’s crib.
“She looks a lot more like you,” Maxwell said.
“Maxwell,” Lily said seriously. “I think we should put her up for adoption.” Lily cut him off before he could protest. “I’m twenty-two years old. I know I sound like a broken record, but it's just too much.”
With a heavy frown, Maxwell said. “Let me raise her. You can leave and visit if that’s what you want.”
“Vincent will find out, and he’ll hurt you,” Lily said.
“I don’t care,” Maxwell replied.
“He’ll hurt me and her.”
“He won’t,” Maxwell said with determination.
Lily showed him the letter she fetched from the mailbox that morning. “It’s from Vincent. He wants his child back.”
“His child?” Maxwell asked suspiciously. “Lily, what does he mean?”
“It means she’s not safe,” Lily said. “You’re not safe.”
“I can fight back,” Maxwell argued.
“It’s not just Vincent,” Lily replied. “It’s the lies, the blackmail, everything that your family does.”
“And you think I’m like them?” Maxwell said with offense.
“Aren’t you? I saw what you did to that doctor.”
“That was different.”
“It was the deceit and constant threats that got your parents killed. How do I know the same won’t happen to you? Your loneliness kept you safe because you had no weakness. Now, you have me and you have Evelyn. She could be out one day and some vengeful person from your past could take her. Use her against you.”
“I can change,” Maxwell’s said. “It may take time, but I can get rid of my family’s evil, if that’s what you want.”
“Put her up for adoption, Maxwell,” Lily begged. “Not for my sake, but for hers.”
For the first since she had chosen Vincent over him, Maxwell looked sick with grief. “I know she needs to be with good people…”
“That’s not us,” Lily affirmed his words. She felt guilt crushing her.
Without a word, Maxwell left the nursery. Lily looked down at the child and wept. “It’s better this way,” she whispered.
Evelyn gnashed her teeth and looked at her hands. The AC buzzed. The trailer’s painted walls seemed to close in. Evelyn wanted to smash something.
“Maxwell listened to me.” The gray-haired woman refilled her iced tea. “He wasn’t mad, but… broken. I couldn’t live with myself because of it. I couldn’t live with him because of it. So, the night after the adoption, I packed my bags and left him. Left Adders. Never remarried. Never made myself beholden to another man. I became my sole provider.”
Evelyn’s heart raced. She couldn’t bring herself to face the woman.
“Maxwell changed, as he promised he would. It took a few years, but he cleaned up his family name. But it came a little too late. After people started going missing, old and new enemies teamed up to bring him down.”
“What do you mean?” Evelyn asked.
Lily smiled crookedly. “It’s my turn to ask a question, remember?”
Evelyn huffed and gestured for the woman to ask.
“Do you hate me?” Lily asked.
Evelyn thought about it. “No.”
“Why,” Lily scrutinized.
“Because I choose not to,” Evel
yn replied sincerely. “Now, tell me what happened to Maxwell, and why there are the bones of five people in my basement.”
25
Party of Five
“Human bones?” Lily asked with a horrified expression.
“You don’t know about them?” Evelyn asked.
“No, I… that can’t be true,” Lily said.
“It is.” Evelyn replied. I talked to the victims. “The killing stopped after Maxwell vanished.”
“It wasn’t just the killings that ceased,” Lily replied. “Maxwell stopped visiting me too.”
Evelyn pinched the bridge of her nose. She glanced up the painted mountain vista on the wall and then at her mother. “Maxwell visited you after your separation?”
Lily set her glass aside and rubbed her eye. “He did. Once a year.”
“Do you remember the dates?” Evelyn asked.
Lily opened a lap stand drawer and withdrew a small notepad. She flipped through pages of notes and doodles. “I like to keep track of things, otherwise I might forget.” After a few moments, Lily found the page and handed the notebook to Evelyn. The visitation days took place between 1998-2002. Wide-eyed, Evelyn scoured her own notes.
“No way,” Evelyn said.
“What is it?” Lily asked.
“The murders all took place during the days he visited you.”
“That means he couldn’t have murdered those people,” Lily thought aloud.
“Maxwell’s innocent,” Evelyn declared. “I can’t believe it.”
The phantoms were right. It was a setup. Someone planted the bodies in the basement. Someone who knew the house and its secret passages. “You said new and old enemies worked together to bring Maxwell down. How did that happen?”
“Rumor says there was a break-in, but you won’t find that in the news. The people who attacked Maxwell acted quickly and efficiently, making sure there was nothing left of him.”
“Who are these men? I need names.”
“I have none to give,” Lily replied. “I’ve been out of Adders for too long to keep track of the movers and shakers. They had enough clout to bury the violent nature of Max’s disappearance, so that says something about the social standing.”
“One of the men who attacked Maxwell could be the real killer. He may have directed the attention onto Maxwell for the perfect getaway. After all, the majority of the town still believe Maxwell killed those people and is attacking again. We need to prove it to them that Maxwell is innocent by finding the real killer.”
“You speak as if Maxwell is still alive,” Lily said.
“That’s because he is.”
Lily’s leathery face turned pale.
“I saw him,” Evelyn admitted. “He stopped the man who was trying to kill me.”
“All these years…” Lily’s voice trailed off. Her eyes glossed over.
Evelyn leaned forward in her seat. “That’s why I came here, Lily. With the hope that you could help me find him, and, in light of this new revelation, save him from the false accusations. Can you help me?”
Lily gingerly approached Evelyn. “I want to. More than anything, but what can I do?”
Evelyn stood up. “I don’t know, but there must be something.”
Lily looked at Evelyn with a sad smile. “You’re tall like him, you know that? You have his gusto, too. Evelyn, you aren’t the woman I imagined you to be.”
Evelyn listened to Lily speak.
“You’re much better than that. Much better than me. I can’t give you anything you don’t already have.”
“Come home with me. We’ll finish this. Together,” Evelyn declared.
Lily looked around the room, the painting on the wall, the spiraling birds painted on the ceiling. “This is my home now. I’m sorry, Evelyn. But I’ll only weigh you down.”
“Mom,” Evelyn’s voice cracked.
Lily wrapped her arms around her daughter. Evelyn returned the embrace. “I said I forgave you. Return with me. I’ll let you meet my husband. I can take you to my crappy apartment in Detroit. For the first time in our lives, we can be a family.”
Lily pulled away from Evelyn. “I broke your father. I won’t break you, too.”
“You think I’m still that fragile infant?” Evelyn chuckled with frustration.
“I’m your mother,” Lily said firmly. “To me, you’ll always be that fragile infant.”
She could see in her mother’s tired blue eyes that her mind was set. Evelyn cracked a smile. “At least I can tell Terrence where I got my stubbornness.”
“That’s his name?” Lily asked.
“It is.”
“Is he a good man?”
Evelyn nodded.
Lily stopped herself from crying too much. She hugged her daughter a final time. Evelyn said her goodbyes and walked out the trailer. Her mother watched her from the doorway with her arms crossed over her jean jacket and her eyes wet with tears. As Evelyn escaped down the dirt and wooden road, she saw her mother close the door to her trailer and Evelyn’s life.
During the drive back, Evelyn listened to the clacking of her tires on the road. She thought about Lily’s story and the timeline. Dr. Gregory, the man that had paid Terrence’s medical expenses, had been kind to Evelyn since their first meeting. Was he really Lily’s husband? She didn’t know what to think of it. Another clue from Lily’s recollection came to mind as well. Dr. Waxen, the gray-haired skeletal practitioner who questioned if Evelyn was the killer. By the way he licked his thin lips, he was hoping she was, and for some other reason than turning her in.
Evelyn shuddered. She focused on the road. It would be another long two-hour ride to Adders.
It was dark as she rumbled down the red brick path to Quenby House. It would be a night of strategizing, she knew. With Lily unable to help her with Maxwell, all of her hopes for finding him were up in the air. Worse, there had been no news of nine-year-old Bella Day. The phantoms were convinced that her vanishing was connected to the killer, but without any more bodies or missing people showing up, Evelyn wasn’t quite sure. Moreover, the killer was patient, only killing once a year and only on the days Maxwell was away. Evelyn might be in this for the long haul. I sure hope not.
Quenby House cast its glow from its rectangular windows and stood as a beacon in the darkness. She guessed that Terrence was nervous when he was alone and left all the lights on. It was kind of a sweet thought.
But that was when Evelyn noticed something was wrong.
Five cars were parked out front of the mansion, forming the edges of the brick circle. Going from left to right, there was a new Lexus the color of champagne, a red sports car, a BMW convertible, and two cruisers owned by the sheriff’s department. Evelyn parked in the center of them and stepped out. A breeze howled in the night. The tall trees beside Quenby swayed. Their branches clawed at the air. An unseen owl screeched. A cloud drifted over the near-full moon.
Five figures stood silhouetted on the second-floor exterior balcony, in the same place where Terrence had waved her goodbye.
“Mrs. Carr!” A familiar voice shouted. “Glad you could join us!”
“Sheriff?” Evelyn called out to the silhouettes. “What are you doing here?”
Another voice said, “We decided to stop on by and enjoy a meal. Welcome you to Adders, officially.”
Evelyn tried to recognize the voice. “Mayor Timberland?”
“Indeed,” the shadowy figure replied. “I know we got off on the wrong foot the last time we spoke. I thought I’d make amends. Ordered y’all the best barbecue Adders has to offer.”
Evelyn locked her car. She felt her skin crawl. “Where’s Terrence?”
“He’s inside,” Timberland said. “Come on in. He’s been waiting for you all night.”
“I appreciate getting invited into my own home,” Evelyn said sarcastically.
“You’re funny and cute!” Deputy Painter shouted. He had the strongest twang out of all the men on the balcony. “Come on in and get yourself
something to eat. That BBQ will have you carnivorous.”
Evelyn remembered how the deputy had checked her out at the station and insulted her while she was looking into Bella Day’s disappearance. She wondered what other predators lay in wait for her. “Tell me who else is up there.”
“You’ll see when you get inside.”
Evelyn set her jaw. She felt her pulse quicken as she headed for the front door. It was moments like this that made her wish Maxwell hadn’t taken her weapons.
She stepped into the foyer. The chandelier lights were turned on low, giving the room and its red carpeted floors a dim glow. Oil paintings of Quenby lands hung on the walls. Soft blues music drifted through the house. The acoustics in the place drowned out the singer’s words. With a loud thud, the door shut behind Evelyn. Guest chatter sounded on the walkway overhead. The outside balcony door must’ve been open.
Evelyn followed the music, masking her footsteps in silence. She approached the dining room. Light spilled from the ajar door. Evelyn stretched her arm out and wrapped her fingers around the glass doorknob. Holding her breath, she stepped into the room. A three-arm candlestick stood at the middle of the covered twelve-person table. More flame-shaped lightbulbs illuminated the room from candles lining both walls. Oil paintings of great forests, farmlands, valleys, and rivers hung nearby them.
Back to Evelyn, Terrence slouched forward in a chair. He wore a baby blue button-up spotted with tic-tac sized violins. A blob of light reflected off the back of his shaven head. Lying on the table in front of him were aluminum tubs of steaming BBQ. It didn’t look like Terrence was breathing.
Evelyn loomed over her husband’s back. “Terrence?”
Quickly, he turned back to her. His hazel eyes were bloodshot. He had a new phone in his hand. “Eve.”
Evelyn let herself breathe. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m putting my old contacts into my phone,” he flashed the replacement, a cheap-looking flip phone.
“Why didn’t you tell me you had guests?”
“They just showed up. I don’t know. I was about to--”
The Haunting of Quenby Mansion Omnibus: A Haunted House Mystery Page 29
