The whispers seemed to grow louder here and more distinct. The noise was almost physical. It joined with the mist on her skin and seemed to trickle into her ears.
Always.
The water seemed to whisper the word always again and again in a chorus that ran together. Trying to decipher the sounds made her dizzy.
Alwaysalwaysalwayssssss.
The heavy iron taint in the water coating her skin made her taste blood in the back of her throat. One particularly deep hole below her swirled with a cyclone of water. She had looked at it long enough to feel the suction of gravity. Her head became light and her body grew heavier and heavier..
Always.
She heard it and believed it wholly for several seconds, and for some reason that belief syphoned all her energy until she was left weak and teetering on her already sketchy footing.
“Madeline.”
Her name, her full name, startled her, and her chest expanded in a gasp of sudden respiration. Even as her name called her back from the strange weakness that seemed to claim her and call her to the rocks below, the precarious position she held gave way because of her infinitesimal movement.
She slipped.
She would have fallen.
Into the chilled and whispering water and onto the unforgiving sharp peaks of the rocks.
But strong hands grabbed her wrist and pulled her the other direction onto the mossy bank—not only onto the ground—but also full and flush against a tall masculine form that smelled of woodsy cologne.
And tasted of espresso.
It was madness to kiss a man she didn’t know and couldn’t trust.
It happened anyway. It was sudden and quick and she didn’t push him away. His lips were warm compared with hers because she’d been standing in the cold mist rising from The Falls. She’d gone weak looking at the cyclone of water being sucked into the deep hole beneath her feet as she listened to the constant hissing. It happened again in Constantine’s arms. Her head went light and she allowed the kiss to happen. Their tongues met for the briefest touch of textures and tastes before it was over as quick as it had begun.
And not once had she made a conscious decision to kiss him.
It had happened as if someone else controlled her lips, though her desires had been all her own.
“Do you have any idea how many people have fallen off those stones…or jumped?” Sheriff Constantine asked.
Maddy couldn’t move. He held her tightly with a grip too fierce for the current situation, but that wasn’t why. She couldn’t move because even to step away meant brushing against him, sliding out of his arms—skin on skin—and she was very busy not moving, not breathing, not feeling his strong, warm body against hers even as her lips tingled with the memory of his tongue.
She didn’t know why they had kissed. She didn’t know why she’d almost fallen before he’d said her name.
He was all hard muscle and tense sinew. Every flexed inch of his six feet plus form. And there was no ignoring it with her body held to his by such muscular arms.
But she tried.
She pressed her lips together and tried.
The situation was eerie even as her physical response to Sheriff Constantine was very real and very raw.
“I told you to be careful, and instead you decide to visit one of the most dangerous spots in town,” Constantine said.
He said it into her hair with his lips perilously close to her mist-dampened forehead, his warm breath fanning across her cool skin.
“You saw the photographs,” Maddy said.
“Yes. I saw them,” he replied.
That was all. No explanation or excuse for him being the main subject.
“I had to walk where she’d walked. I should have come here before now,” Maddy said. “But I was in limbo—waiting, hoping but already grieving.”
“Wandering here alone…leaving your doors unlocked…not sharing evidence…” Constantine said. “You told me you’d be careful. You lied.”
Maddy took the risk of pulling out of his arms, quickly, to minimize the sensation of her body sliding from his. He let her go, loosening his hold so she didn’t have to exert any effort beyond merely stepping away. And for some reason it was damn hard even though she should have been eager to extend the distance all the way out of town.
“Did you follow me?” she asked. No one knew she was here. Had the same been true of Gracie? Had Gracie been followed to The Falls only to never be seen alive again?
“I came here because of the photograph I saw in your room yesterday,” Constantine said. He didn’t mention the other photographs. The ones of him. Over and over, again and again.
“Did you know Gracie?” Maddy asked. It was blunt. It was reckless. She might be prodding a dangerous man.
“Your stepsister had very determined, unusual beliefs. Some of them involved the house I’ve rented for several years. For a couple of weeks last summer, I knew her. She was stalking me,” Constantine said. He rested his hands on his hips.
Maddy’s face heated even in the cool misty air. She’d seen the evidence of her stepsister’s obsession. Worse, she knew Gracie had a relentless reputation for getting the shots her employers desired.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved when she left me alone, but I always believed she’d left to chase some other ghost story,” Constantine said.
“She never would have left without her camera,” Maddy said.
“People leave Scarlet Falls all the time. It wasn’t unusual to have her pass through and away. You. Staying. That’s been the mystery,” Constantine said. His eyes narrowed and focused on her face.
“I lost Gracie, once, a long time ago. When my mom died and my stepfather decided he didn’t like the constant reminder of Mom he saw in me. I left home at seventeen. I left Gracie. And she never got over Mom’s death. Her mother had died when she was born. My mother was the only mom she ever knew. Maybe she would have recovered from Mom’s death if I’d been around or if her father hadn’t grieved so relentlessly,” Maddy said. “We reconnected about six months before she came here and disappeared. I wasn’t ready to lose her again.”
Maddy’s throat tightened and her eyes burned but she didn’t shed any tears. They were acidic against the tender base of her eyelashes, but she held them there.
Constantine watched her swallow down her emotion and then shove her hands into her pockets.
She brought out the picture of The Falls and gave it to him while it whispered behind them in real time. She tried not to hear what she’d heard before.
“This was the only photograph she took while she was in Scarlet Falls that wasn’t of you,” Maddy said.
He took it, his fingers lightly brushing hers. They didn’t discuss the kiss. How could they? It had been as impossible as her growing faint from watching a waterfall. But she noticed his inadvertent touch. Casual, yet still electric.
“She was strangled, Madeline. Probably at the time of her disappearance,” the sheriff said.
He was haunted. Even if she didn’t believe in the kind of ghosts that Gracie believed in, she would have to be blind not to see that the sheriff was definitely trailed by ghosts. Was it unsolved cases that wouldn’t let him go…or darker things?
And why kiss her here? Now?
Worse than that, why had she kissed him back, and why was she still savoring the flavor of him on her tongue?
Her gaze held William Constantine’s. She didn’t verbally express her doubts and fears in him, but he had to see them swirling behind her eyes.
He took a step toward her, narrowing what was already a marginal distance between them on the shadowy bank of the waterfall’s stream.
Maddy didn’t back away.
There was nowhere for her to go but down onto the rocky rapids below.
Constantine tilted his face to hers, coming close enough for her to imagine narrowing the gap that remained herself. Crazily, she wanted to. She wanted the warmth of his espresso-flavored mouth to chas
e the chill bite of The Falls away. And this time, this desire was all her. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t dizzy. She was drawn to him against her better judgment.
“I’ll find the person who killed her. You only need to worry about staying safe,” he said.
She couldn’t interpret his words. They could have been a threat, a promise or something in between.
Just then a disturbance of leaves and moisture rained down on them from above and a loud raspy caw sounded, echoing around them.
Constantine stepped between her and the noise, to shield her or nudge her closer to the edge, she couldn’t be sure.
She dug in her heels and looked up. They both looked up. A large crow sat on the branch of an oak tree surrounded by dry rattling leaves. It cawed again, stretching out its neck and opening its impressively sharp beak.
“A forensics team will be here shortly. We’re going to comb the area,” Constantine said. He barely looked at the bird. Maddy paid it closer attention, feeling more stalked than before.
Constantine had straightened, and she was no longer torn between tasting his lips or her own tears.
The water behind her was only water. The kiss had been a natural reaction to their chemistry and her charged emotions. She didn’t believe in ghosts.
“In that case, I’ll get out of the way,” Maddy said.
If Scarlet Falls was haunted, it was haunted by nothing more than an unsolved crime.
But she did wonder which watcher caused her spine to tingle the most as she walked away—the crow or the man?
Chapter Four
Diary of Evelyn Chadwick Wildes
October 19, 1866
My dressing table has arrived almost a year after my wedding day. Father had the gift shipped all the way from New Hampshire and, even here in the North, far removed from musket crack and cannon fire, the war disrupted commerce.
The chestnut dressing table and matching armoire plus a fine chair for the sitting room upholstered in scarlet silk damask have finally taken their places in our new home…but my husband has not.
The war has ended. The conflict is over. Others have returned. Many of them sightless or lacking limbs or even sealed in plain pine caskets. They’ve all returned.
Except for my own Avery….
He promised me ’til death. He promised me always.
∗ ∗ ∗
Maddy’s stepfather wanted Gracie’s ashes interred with her mother’s in Boston. The funeral service was a blur. So many faces and names she didn’t recognize and wouldn’t remember because her life had been separate from her stepsister’s for so long. She spoke when spoken to, hopefully in coherent sentences, but she didn’t absorb names or faces.
One man stood apart from the crowd.
Silent.
Dressed in a dark suit and a tailored dress coat, unexpectedly fine and with no trace of a hat or a badge, Sheriff Constantine didn’t bow his head. He watched. Whether he was watching her or absorbing every detail about the crowd by the marble columbarium, she couldn’t be sure.
Maddy only knew he was there, a tall lean presence that seemed to anchor her feet to the cold, damp ground.
Didn’t killers attend the funerals of their victims? Was Constantine here looking for a suspect, or did he have much darker motivations himself?
Because of the man at the edge of her perceptions, she remembered to breathe oxygen into her lungs and release it—in, out, in, out—when otherwise the horrible nightmare of laying Gracie to rest might have claimed her, too.
Turning her to ash.
Closing her into the marble vault that already held her mother’s remains.
Claustrophobia of that imagined space threatened. It squeezed her heart, causing her chest to fight her efforts to breathe.
Because of Constantine’s presence, she was able to witness them place the marble capstone. Then she was able to walk away.
He watched her. She had to be strong. She had to cope. She didn’t know why his opinion of her mattered. It just did. Was it self-preservation or pride? As long as she continued to place one foot in front of the other, she proved she was not the next victim and she proved her worth.
When the internment ceremony was over Maddy moved toward Constantine. She stopped half a dozen paces away from his side. She acknowledged his presence by meeting his eyes. There, surrounded by crypts with the long length of the marble columbarium behind her, their gazes locked.
It wasn’t the time or the place, but she suddenly remembered his kiss—the taste of espresso and the flick of his tongue. The sheriff’s lips parted and his color deepened. She wondered if he, too, remembered the taste of her as they stood in the cemetery’s chill.
The crowd dispersed around them as they stood silent, immobile, but flushed. Maddy could feel the heat in her own cheeks against Boston’s cool autumnal air. Her heartbeat sounded deep in her ears.
But then, just as she would have taken another step in his direction, just as Constantine opened his lips to speak or to urge her closer, the deputy with the sad eyes interrupted. She’d learned since that day when Gracie was found that his name was Tom McCall. She hadn’t noticed him until he detached from the thinning crowd to speak. She started when he appeared at the sheriff’s side.
“We’d better head back. We’ve got the planning session with the Historical Society about the security measures they plan to take for the Harvest Gala,” McCall said.
It sounded too loud and too brisk. A mundane statement too real, intruding on a fantasy moment that had probably been all in her head but sultry just the same.
Constantine coughed, cleared his throat and nodded at Maddy, the barest hint of a tilted chin, but the wave of hair that fell over his forehead made the gesture more…more expressive, move vulnerable, almost like a confession for what had seemed to pass between them. The wave of hair relaxed when he wouldn’t.
“Thank you for coming,” Maddy said softly.
The sheriff had been turning away, but he paused in his deputy’s wake. He looked at her again.
“You should stay here. In Boston,” he said.
Maddy looked back at the vault filled with nothing but ashes.
“There’s nothing for me here,” she said.
“Sheriff…” the deputy urged impatiently, already holding on to the door of the big SUV, but Constantine ignored him. He reversed his direction and came toward Maddy with his usual determined stride.
She put her hands deep in the pockets of her wool coat as the sheriff stopped directly in her path, only a foot away. The tumble of hair on his forehead was close enough to touch and brush back from his handsome face…which she couldn’t allow herself to do.
“Are you driving back tonight?” he asked.
It was the simplest of questions but for some reason the word tonight sounded intimate and low.
“Yes,” Maddy said. “Mrs. Jesham asked me to help with the flowers for the Gala several months ago. I’m meeting the event planner tomorrow.”
Sheriff Constantine stepped closer and took her arm. Startled, she tried to pull back from the heat generated by his grasp even through the wool of her coat and the cashmere of her sweater dress beneath. Then she realized he was only helping her toward her van where it waited by the curb.
She allowed the gesture. She walked along beside him, her heeled dress boots clicking when they reached the sidewalk but still not making her as tall as the man at her side. She missed the uniform because of the line of professionalism it drew between them. In the suit, he was more of a man and less a position. He might be dangerous. He might be a killer. He might be dangerous even if he wasn’t a killer and that was what really scared her.
His intensity. His focus.
When he looked at her he seemed to see beneath her gardens and the meticulous care she took with her appearance, to her messy heart beneath. She’d been devastated by her mother’s death. Then even more scarred by her stepfather’s rejection. He’d never been violent with Gracie. But he had been violent wit
h her. When the occasional shove had progressed to one startlingly vicious backhanded slap, she’d left. The specificity of his anger toward her and her alone had left her vulnerable and more isolated than she’d ever been. She’d lost her home and everything she’d ever loved when she’d had to walk away. Now she’d lost Gracie. On the outside, she tried very hard to be neat and polished. Underneath…well, underneath wasn’t so pretty.
Crazily, when they paused by the door of her van while he opened it, she thought about loosening his perfectly knotted tie.
“I know,” she interrupted as he opened his mouth to speak. “Be careful.”
“I was going to say ‘Be careful.’ I was also going to say that sometimes ‘careful’ isn’t enough in Scarlet Falls,” Sheriff Constantine said. “Don’t become lulled by gardens and galas, Maddy. There’s more to Scarlet Falls than meets the eye.”
Maddy climbed up behind the wheel and Constantine closed the door. William? Will? It was hard to think of him by those softer, more casual names. There was nothing soft or casual about the man who stepped back from her window as a light shower started to fall. He put his hands in the pockets of his tailored coat. As she drove away, she looked back at him standing lone and silent on the curb in the rain.
∗ ∗ ∗
Diary of Evelyn Chadwick Wildes
November 2, 1866
I spend hours in front of the mirror of my dressing table. Brushing my long dark hair is soothing. But then I notice that I’m old for a new bride. I was twenty-four when Avery asked for my hand. Well past my prime. I was thrilled when he began calling. He was handsome and sought after in spite of his lack of money. Now I wonder if the thrill I felt over his claiming kisses was one-sided. I know ours wasn’t a love match. He didn’t want to go off to war and leave his ailing mother alone. Mrs. Wildes passed away shortly after Avery marched away. Still, the Chadwick name will bring him fortune and prestige in a small town short of both commodities when he comes home. He was injured at Appomattox, but last I heard he is well-healed. Nursed back to health.
And still he doesn’t return.
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