“Does she owe you any money?” he asked.
“No, she paid up in advance. She in fact paid up until the end of summer. Do you want me to get you the refund?”
He smiled. “No, keep it. I’m sure she’d want you to have it.”
“Thank you, son. I hope you’ll come here for dinner some night. Brianna, she’s grown on my father and me.”
He would like that.
“I’ll take you up on that soon,” he said, walking up the stairs.
Once in her room, he began shoving some things she might need into an overnight bag. He grabbed her makeup, some perfume, and a few books.
“I’ll pack the rest up for her, and it’ll be waiting,” he offered, standing in the doorway.
“Thank you so much,” he said, carrying the things down to his vehicle.
“Take good care of her, son! She’s a special lass!” Quinn called.
Oh, he was well aware. That’s why he’d married her. All the time he was packing her things, he was focused on only one thing.
Their child would be the next Oracle.
It was…overwhelming.
Once he was loaded up, he got in, and his face said it all. He was on an emotional rollercoaster.
“Are you mad?” Bishop asked.
“About what you said?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“No, but I think that Avalon needs to explain that to me. If it’s about my wife or my child, I should be privy to it, don’t you think?” he asked.
They agreed.
“I’m really sorry,” Nate said, owning it. “Avalon moves at her own pace. I’m sure she was going to tell you both.”
He didn’t doubt it.
It had simply been shocking. The idea that they’d come together as psychics, to have a child who would be a psychic, was shocking.
As they pulled down the street, and to the private road, they found a car broken down on the side of the road.
Laird pulled off to do his job.
“You can stay here,” he offered.
They weren’t having it.
“Hey! Can we help?” Laird asked the two men. He was acutely aware that Nate and Bishop exited the vehicle to join him.
In a way, he was glad. Something felt off.
He could hear the static kicking up.
“We have a tow coming. We were traveling, and it just died.”
“We can wait with you, if you like,” Laird offered.
“No! No worries. Just can you tell us what’s ahead? Are we heading into town?”
Laird shook his head.
They were only lost, which made sense. That happened a lot here with the tourists.
“No, you’re heading toward a private estate. It’s owned by the Monroes.”
The one man laughed. “I hate technology. It routed us here. All I wanted was a cold drink!”
They all got it.
“Turn back, and head a few kilometers that way,” he offered, pointing.
“Thank you! We’ll be heading out as soon as the tow comes.”
They got back into their vehicle, and Laird, Bishop, and Nate headed down the road.
The men?
They got into their ride and started it up.
“That was the old man’s surrogate granddaughter,” he said, pulling out the picture. “Our information was right. If she’s here, then Roxanne will be too.”
“We should go plan.”
Yeah, that would be a good idea.
Soon, they’d have a girl to grab.
Then they’d have to get out of Ireland, and fast.
Chapter Nineteen
Graymoor
W hen they arrived, the house was stirred up, and not just the living people in it. As soon as they pulled into the driveway, and got out of the car, the wind and trees around the house were creaking almost as a sign that they were coming alive.
It was…creepy.
“I hate this place,” Bishop said, running her arms up and down her body to chase away the chill. There was something about the place that wigged her out.
Nate wasn’t fond of the place either, even if it was the place he and Avalon used to tie the knot. The whole aura around the place was off, and it gave him the creeps. That was saying a lot, considering what his wife could do.
He’d never been afraid of psychics, but the ghosts there?
Yeah, not a big fan.
Heading toward the door, it was wrenched open by Maura, and she looked stirred up.
That was NEVER a good thing. As a Marine, she was as calm as a cucumber most of the time.
This house, Graymoor two point oh, had rattled her cage, and in a big way.
“Don’t even bother coming in. We have a huge issue on the estate.”
That stopped them in their tracks.
“What do you mean by that?” Nate asked.
Lucian joined Maura at the door. He pulled it closed, and they had a private conversation. Actually, it was to keep Molly from having a snack on the skeleton they’d found. Twice now, she’d tried to pull a Houdini and get to the bones.
“It seems Graymoor is actually a graveyard.”
They stared at him.
“What?” Laird asked.
“Your dog dug up a skeleton, under the tree that woman was burned alive at, and she had fun gnawing on it.”
That horrified him.
“Molly snacked on a person?”
He nodded, and then told him the entire story. It ended with Avalon saving Jagger, and them getting their asses into the house when the land began…groaning.
“Since then, it’s seemed to come alive,” Maura stated.
They all listened.
There was creaking of wind through the trees.
“I only hear…”
Then there was laughter. It was sick, twisted, and three days past creepy.
Nate changed his mind. “Okay, that’s wrong.”
They were well aware.
“I don’t think that’s the only dead body here,” Lucian offered. “I think your killer has been doing this a while, and he’s left me a few presents. Plus, the bodies tied to Lawrence Keane. Avalon said the dead were unsettled.”
That wasn’t surprising.
They had dead servants, and who knew what else.
That was bad.
“I need to see the body.”
“I suggest you stay far from the vines. They grabbed Jagger.”
Nate didn’t understand how any of this was possible.
The trees were alive?
The ground was filled with bodies?
What the hell happened to a peaceful place to hide?
This was like the mouth of Hell.
“I’ll keep my distance.”
Nate, Lucian, and Bishop followed Laird as Maura kept watch at the house. Once at the tree, they could see the hole that Molly had dug. It wasn’t that deep, but it was deep enough to hide a body through the wet season in Ireland.
They stared into the hole.
There was a skull, and more bones.
Just as Laird was about to say something, Roxy came up behind them.
“Spooky!”
They all jumped.
“Jesus! Roxy!”
She laughed. “She’s not going to hurt you. Just avoid the damn tree. The scientist in me wants to burn that bitch down—based on principle only.”
Yeah, them too.
Lucian knew what Polly had told Avalon while she was saving Jagger, and that tree wasn’t going to be standing much longer—if he had his way.
Roxy rubbed her arms to chase away the chill. There was a mist floating through the estate, and it was creepy as hell.
“What can you tell me?” Laird asked. It was handy having a coroner on call.
She moved closer to the hole, but was cognizant of the vines not far away. They weren’t moving, so she assumed she was safe.
“It’s definitely a woman. See the pelvic region?” she asked.
“Yes,” Lair
d said.
“That circular region tells me she was a woman, and that spread likely means she’s given birth.”
“How old is the skeleton?”
Roxy whistled. “Someone wants me to pull a rabbit out of my damn hat.”
“Can you guestimate?”
“Ten years. The soil here isn’t acidic, and there’s some wear to her bones, but look at the scraps of cloth around her. It’s not all degraded. I’ve seen studies where around ten years, the bones go that color, and the materials begin fraying.”
That gave him a timeline.
“So, my killer has been doing this for a decade.”
“It’s worse,” Avalon said, from behind them.
They all turned.
Lucian laughed. “I don’t know how this can possibly get worse, since I inherited a boneyard, but I can’t wait to hear this.”
“When I was trying to get to Jagger, Polly was here.”
They listened.
“She said the evil has been reincarnated.”
That didn’t sit well with Laird, who was Catholic, Lucian who owned the house, or Bishop, who wanted no part of this haunted mausoleum.
“You’re shitting me, right?” Laird said, crossing himself. At this point, they needed a miracle.
Avalon laughed. “Nope.”
Nate tucked his wife beneath his arm. “You shouldn’t be wandering around out here.”
“I’m safe. They don’t want me. I’m the last person you need to worry about. I’m their link to the living.”
Nate hoped she was right, even if that scared the shit out of him.
“What do I do about the bones?” asked Lucian. “Do we disturb her, or do we pretend we didn’t find her?”
Avalon stared down into the hole, able to use Lucian’s sight to see her.
“I say take a bone in, get it tested for any DNA, and go from there. If she’s buried, she’s buried. She’s not tied to her bones. She’ll be tied to the action that put her in that grave.”
“I wish I knew what killed her,” Laird said.
“If you pull her out, I can look.”
They all stared at the hole.
No one volunteered for that little mission. It was too damn crazy.
“Well, I guess I’m going in,” Laird said.
“Skull first,” Roxy said, kneeling by the hole.
When he dug around her skeleton, he pulled that out first.
“I can tell by the nose and cheekbones that she’s Caucasian or European decent.”
“So white. Well, that’s not going to help,” Laird said, trying not to stand on the bones. He knew this was NOT procedure, and if he ever got caught doing this…
He was fired.
Since these people rolled into his life, he’d broken just about every rule in the book.
Oh, except letting them have his gun.
It wasn’t a complete loss.
“Can you pull out her rib cage?” she asked.
“There are days I wonder why I became a cop.”
Avalon smiled. “Because you like to help people, and you think it’s sexy to the opposite sex. It’s part of your bad boy persona.”
He stared at her. “Really? I’m not being tortured enough?” Laird asked.
That made her laugh.
He yanked the ribcage out of the ground, and she fell apart. The ribs dropped, and the vertebrae did the same.
“I need a shower,” he muttered, picking up the ribs one by one to hand to Roxy.
“There’s damage to the sternum. It’s likely her heart was taken out.”
Nate knew what that meant. “You might want to run some missing person reports,” he offered. “If this was ten years ago, you might be able to solve a bunch of them.”
That did not make him happy.
Lucian either.
Avalon went still.
“We should go,” she said, her hair moving in a breeze they didn’t feel.
Nate knew that look.
Oracle had an early warning system.
When she felt like she was in danger, it would go off.
Like now.
“Grab that femur, and let’s go,” Lucian said, as the hair on his arms began standing up. “Our killer is making a move, and it’s coming,” he stated.
They pulled Laird from the hole and hustled it back to the house. Once inside, Lucian locked the door.
“I think we should all stay in,” Avalon offered. “I feel off balance.”
They stared at her.
Well, that was bad.
Maura had joined them, and she looked concerned.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Avalon couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but something was coming.
“I won’t be sleeping tonight, and neither will Lucian. We’re going to have to make sure nothing happens inside the house.”
They definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
Nate trusted his wife.
“We all stay in. I hope Molly has one hell of a bladder,” he said, glancing at his watch.
“She’ll be okay,” Laird said, but that wasn’t what had him worried.
What was coming did.
* * * O R A C L E * * *
Cork Airport
When their plane touched down, they rented a car and began the journey toward Adare.
Last they’d heard, that’s where their daughter had sent her post card from to let them know she was okay.
Once they got there, and found her, they were going to bring her home.
She had a beau in the States, and it was time for Brianna to end her fanciful flight to find adventure.
It was over.
While they’d given her the chance to go out and find herself, she’d had enough time.
Now it was about coming home, getting married, and being a wife and mother.
Enough was enough.
By the grace of God, Richard had stuck around, humoring their daughter’s silliness.
Well, it was time to wrangle her in, get her on that flight back to the States, and call it a day.
Brianna had always been a difficult child, challenging everything they’d asked of her, but this time, she was going to listen.
“Let’s find her,” Maureen Collins said.
Richard agreed. “Let’s go find the woman who will be my wife.”
* * * O R A C L E * * *
Graymoor
The Graveyard
At the house, they were all on edge. Instead of ordering in, they opted to make sandwiches from the well-stocked refrigerator.
In the kitchen, Brianna, Laird, Nate, and Avalon were in charge of making them.
She knew what was coming.
Avalon was waiting for it.
“We need to talk,” stated Laird.
“About?” Nate asked, hoping what was coming wouldn’t be dramatic.
He stared at him.
“Like you don’t know.”
“Oh, I know,” Nate said, putting ham on the sandwiches.
Avalon laughed from her spot at the kitchen island. “You’re going to ask me about your child.”
“Yes,” he said.
“And why you were told she’s the next me?”
“Well, yes.”
“I won’t live forever,” Avalon stated.
Nate stared at her. “I don’t like this discussion already, Avalon.”
She smiled at him. “Let me rephrase it so you will. At some point, I’m going to get old, cranky, and need to retire.”
“Better.”
“There will be someone who will come after me, and she’ll take over for me. Our kind in this world…we are misunderstood.”
Laird and Brianna listened.
“We struggle with who we are, what we are, and if people will be afraid of us.”
He knew he had the second he’d found out that he had a gift. It still freaked him out. Two days later, he was okay with it. That gift opened doors.
“Your daughter w
ill be born, and she will be very strong. I’m not saying she’ll be as strong as I am, since my gifts are still evolving, but she’s going to be a force to reckon with in her own right.”
“And she’ll do good?” Laird asked, hugging his wife.
“Yes, she’ll do lots of good.”
That made him happy.
“So, I’m having a girl,” Brianna said, running her hand over her midsection. “It’s weird to know that and not have to take a test. It still shocks me when I think about it.”
“In a good way, right?” Laird asked.
She smiled up at him. “In the best way possible. I have a wonderful husband, and we made something special.”
Avalon was glad they’d come together.
“When she needs help with her gifts, I’ll be more than happy to help her.”
“Why?” Laird asked. “Because she’s going to take over for you?” he asked. Call him suspicious, but he felt like there was something she was hiding.
“There’s more reason than that,” Avalon offered.
“Care to share?” Brianna asked, laughing.
“She’s going to marry my son.”
Nate dropped the knife he was using to spread mustard on the bread.
“What?” he asked.
She laughed at his response.
“I’m going to have a son, and he’s going to be the one she falls in love with. They’ll take over for us. They’ll do good, and they’ll save many lives. We are but a ripple in the pond of life. What we do today will have influence on everything else in the world.”
They stared at her.
All three of them.
“So we do have kids?” Nate asked.
“We have one. We lost our first child, but we’ll have this one.”
He wanted to celebrate.
He didn’t even mind that his wife was talking about marrying his kid off. He just wanted that chance to be a father.
He got his wife.
He was going to get a kid.
It was a beautiful thing.
Nate headed her way, and he gave her one hell of a kiss. This was a defining moment for him.
All the while, Laird was silent.
“Nathaniel, why don’t you and Brianna bring the food in? Laird and I will take care of the bottles of water,” she offered.
He practically skipped his way to the counter and then toward Brianna.
Oracle Haunting (The Phoenix Files Book 4) Page 33
