He needed to learn how to let go, which was easier said than done.
The simple truth was that he had been proud when she had accosted him, demanding that he allow her to leave The Mount and head back into the serpent’s pit she had hailed from. His protégé was no longer the naïve, broken little girl that he had almost given his life for. She had faced the less than favourable opinions of his brothers, the stern judgement of his father. She had handled the truth of her own origins with dignity. She was determined but never harsh, shrewd but never manipulative. She had proven her worth, many times over and earned her position within his ranks. It was impressive to see that she could still surprise him so whether she was doing something incredibly risky, it did not matter.
She was his kin. If she suffered, he suffered and he did not suffer for long.
He would wait, just outside a place that he hated. For as long as it took.
Chapter 7
‘There’s something that you need to know,’ Amanda said as she and Martha walked the short distance back towards their family home, a place that had seen so much angst in the past month since her father had been killed. After their talk, she had decided to pack up and leave the studio early. It wasn’t every day that a girl’s long-lost sister came home and she wanted to be at home. With her family. However difficult it was to be in the house just then.
‘I’m listening,’ her sister replied succinctly.
Martha had barely spoken since they had talked. Not even when Henry White, Amanda’s very charming boss, had tried to engage with her as he let them out of the locked gallery. She had not intended to be rude, Amanda knew that much. She held herself tall but seemed to carry the world upon her slender shoulders. All of this had to be hard for her, given how she had only just found out how bad things were. The passing weeks had been difficult as hell for Amanda herself but time had a way of taking the edge off and she had distractions, people that could help her forget, at least for a little while. For Martha, all of the trauma was raw.
No wonder she seemed so withdrawn.
As they walked the wide, chestnut lined streets, she carefully tried to vocalise what she felt she needed to get off her chest. She had debated over whether or not she should share her latest secret, unsure of how her older sibling would react. But keeping secrets felt wrong, especially now. Martha had travelled far to be by her side. She owned her honesty.
‘I told you about Joe earlier on when we talked,’ she said. ‘You know that I said he’s my boyfriend but he’s also psychic?’
Her sister smirked ever so slightly. ‘I remember.’
‘Well, he works for an agency that look into bad things that happen. Things of an unusual nature.’ She paused, glancing over to gauge the reaction. Martha remained silent, almost pensive, so she carried on. ‘The agency is right here in town. From what Joe says, they do a lot of good and have helped a lot of people. With their problems.’
Martha nodded, astutely deducing, ‘You hired them.’
‘Not exactly,’ Amanda quickly assured. ‘I just asked Joe if he could take a closer look into what happened to Dad. He didn’t want to get involved because of our personal relationship so I went in and I talked to his boss instead.’
‘You went over his head?’ Martha asked, sounding almost like she was impressed.
‘No, not really. It’s not like that at MPIA. They’re pretty relaxed about ranks and stuff.’
Her sister raised an eyebrow in her direction. ‘Did you just call them empire?’
‘M.P.I.A.’ Amanda clarified. ‘It stands for Marytown Paranormal Investigation Agency.’
‘Of course it does.’
Trying her best to ignore the derision in her sibling’s tone, Amanda pressed on. She had suspected that this would not be an easy conversation. It was why she had not broached the topic with anybody else. Esther wouldn’t understand and the only other people that she was even a bit close to knew her father before he died and were moving on with their lives. It would have been unfair to burden them with her problems.
‘Maxwell – that’s Joe’s boss – was really sympathetic,’ she said. ‘After we talked, he told me that he would assign somebody to my investigation and that they would speak to their contacts within the police to gain access to the file. He asked for a list of people that Dad knew and did business with and said that the person he had working on it would want to come over and take a look through the study and Dad’s things and stuff.’
‘Okay,’ Martha said, drawing out the first syllable.
‘I’m not asking for your blessing,’ Amanda asserted quickly. ‘I just want to make that clear. I started this on my own and I’m going to see it through, whatever the outcome. I don’t know if what I’m doing is for the best but I have to do something. I know that there was more to what happened than the police said. I saw him, Martha. He was in danger. And I’m not telling you about this to put pressure on you. I don’t expect you to get involved or to do anything.’
‘What is this all about, Amanda?’ Martha stopped, holding up her sister with a gentle hand upon her forearm. There was a tenderness in her familial copper eyes, concern. In that moment she looked so much like their mother that it brought a lump to the younger sibling’s throat. Gale Ford had been beautiful when she was a young woman and Martha looked so much more like her than Amanda ever had. It was hard not to be envious of her sister’s dark hair and big, expressive eyes. She was such a mirror image of Gale that it was difficult to see anything of their father in her at all. Elegant even in her concern.
Amanda felt a premature pang of guilt for what she was about to say but it needed to be done. It would be so unfair to Martha not to give her fair warning. Taking a deep breath, she finally disclosed, ‘My investigator at MPIA is an old friend of yours.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s Parker,’ she said, carefully. ‘Michael Parker.’
The only reaction that Martha made for a disquietingly long time was the intermittent blinking of her almond-shaped eyes, as if she were struggling to process whatever thoughts were running through her head. Time had seemingly not erased that name and the person who owned it from her memory and it was kind of nice to see that she did not pretend otherwise, very dignified. It showed that the relationships that she had once had, beyond those with her family members, still meant something to her and that she had not forgotten the people that had once mattered.
‘I thought that you should know,’ Amanda reaffirmed. ‘I didn’t want you to just bump into him and for things to be awkward and for you to feel like I kept it from you.’
‘No…’ Martha replied, her voice oddly muted. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeah. I just didn’t… He’s still here?’
‘He is,’ Amanda confirmed. ‘I think that he went a way for a little while. To the army or something. But then he lost his folks and so he came back. Joe tells me that he had it rough for a bit but he sorted things out and stuck around. He’s made a good life for himself.’
‘He and your boyfriend are close?’
‘Oh yeah. They’re like best friends. I think Parker sees him as a little brother.’
‘Is… Um… When exactly is he supposed to be coming by the house?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘We never made a specific appointment. I’m supposed to call him when I’m free and he said he’d shoot over. But it is okay, it can wait. It’s not…’
‘No,’ Martha interrupted, shaking her head. ‘No, don’t worry. This is important to you, Amanda. You seem to need this. I won’t stand in the way.’
She swallowed down the emotion that welled in her throat. ‘Thank-you.’
The two of them continued the walk, down the chestnut-lined pavements that ran along the route that led from the gallery to the heart of the town. The evening was melting into the dark of night, the way illuminated by street lamps. Before too long, they reached the outer perimeter fence of the park. The Ford house lay jus
t beyond on the southwest corner of the surrounding street and though you could walk around, it was that little bit quicker to cut through. Quicker and much more scenic. Amanda loved walking through town after dusk. There was just something so serene about the immaculately laid out rows of listed Edwardian houses and the beautifully landscaped gardens in moonlight. Marytown was a magical place. It truly was.
As they reached the park gates, Martha’s steps faltered. Amanda stopped and looked back at her, growing concerned at the tension that had set into her sisters whole body, as if she were afraid of something. Furrowing her brow, she enquired, ‘Are you alright?’
Martha swallowed hard. ‘Do you mind if we go the long way around?’
‘Sure,’ she conceded. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘It’s fine. I’m just… enjoying the walk.’
Amanda looked at her sister for a long moment. It was clear that there was something more to her trepidation, almost as if she wanted to avoid the park because she had bad memories of it. Strange. From the little Amanda could recall from the years of her childhood when her sister was around, they had enjoyed going to the park. In the summer holidays, they would splash in the fountain and Martha would push her on the swings in the playground.
What could have happened to make her so avoidant?
Chapter 8
The house was quiet when they walked in the front door, illuminated by soft lighting that gave it a peaceful feeling. Stepping into the hallway, one might have been mistaken to think that all was perfect when in fact all had gone to hell. Heading straight up to the second floor, where the majority of the living rooms were, Amanda peered down the narrow hallway before turning back to her sister. ‘I need to go and freshen up. Being in the studio always makes me grubby.’
‘Okay.’
‘Mum should be in bed by now. Esther’s probably gone out to run some errands. She tends to do that in the evening once she’s settled for the night. She’ll be back soon.’
‘Alright,’ Martha replied, though she wasn’t sure that she liked the thought of Gale being left alone when nobody was home. Anything could happen to her. It must have been obvious in her tone because Amanda added, ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.’
‘Right.’
‘I know this is hard,’ she consoled. ‘Most days she just sits in that room and stares out of the window like she’s searching for something but none of us can figure out what. She eats, just about barely. While Esther gets things ready for the evening she stares at the TV.’
Martha frowned. ‘She never used to watch TV.’
‘She doesn’t watch it now.’
That hit Martha like a sledgehammer and she felt instantly guilty. ‘Oh.’
‘There are lots of books in there,’ Amanda offered, as if she were trying to cheer her up and take the dejected slump out of her shoulders. ‘If I’m home during the evening, I switch it off and read to her. She seems to like that and I think I remember that you liked books too.’
Martha smiled, softly. ‘I do.’
Amanda smiled in response. ‘Well, maybe tomorrow evening you can pick a book out.’
‘I’d like that.’
Amanda nodded. ‘Right, I need to go clean up.’
‘Amanda?’ Martha stopped her sister just as she was about to turn away again. ‘Would you mind if I took a look around the study while you sort yourself out? I’d like to see where it happened and I don’t want to just go in there uninvited.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You know where the key is, right?’
‘Right.’
While Amanda continued down the left hallway, where her bedroom was seemingly still located, Martha watched her until she turned the corner before heading back down the stairs to the ground floor which was still apparently barely used apart from the kitchen and small dining room to the rear. Off the entrance hall was a grand, open reception room which was filled to the brim with decorative antiques that were probably worth more combined than most families ever saw within their lifetime. Mr. Ford might have been a terrible role model but he had always been an astute businessman. Art and culture had always been a lucrative venture in Marytown. Not really all that surprising when the entire town was essentially a painstakingly crafted canvas.
Martha had never cared about the business that put her supper on the table. She’d liked it even less when the reception room was filled with art dealers, entrepreneurs and other hoity-toity upper-class types, schmoozing over bubbles and nibbles while they made deals and admired the Ford collection. When she had, on the rare occasion, been invited to mingle, she would almost always wind up beneath a table somewhere, out of sight where she liked it best. She had never, ever been a part of that social circle. It was hard to consider that a regret.
The bureau / drinks cabinet, was located in a small anteroom off the grand room. Martha located the spare key easily enough, nestled within the glass confines of an upside-down whiskey tumbler. It made her feel a little bit sad to think that Amanda must have put it back exactly where her father would have left it. That sweet, naïve little girl.
The dead man’s study was to the right of the main staircase. As she slipped the key into the lock Martha couldn’t help but feel an elicit rush of rebellion. Mr. Ford would have hated her entering his private room, snooping around. He would have hated it even more that Amanda had let her breach that threshold without even a moment of hesitation. After all, she was his child too, right? If she asked to see where he spent the last moments of his miserable life then that was fine and perfectly expected. It wasn’t like she was about to dance around in there. Probably.
The inner sanctum of Mr. William Ford was as deep as the corresponding lounge on the other side of the staircase but twice as wide, having been knocked through to make more room for his royal highness. The window which he had allegedly fallen through took up a large part of the back wall, long crimson curtains framing it like redcoat sentries. The three-tiered candelabras were affixed to the high, vaulted ceilings, operated by an extensive series of dimmer switches so the occupier could find the perfect hue of lighting to fit their current mood.
Martha put them on. Fully lit. So she could see everything. And there was a lot to see.
Desks and shelves flanked almost every available wall, overflowing with books and files, stacked up like towers in a ramshackle city. Martha had no idea what sort of information they all held and it would take months to go through them all. She did not envy the police and wondered briefly if they had come to their conclusion simply to avoid the manpower it would take to seek clues in all the nooks and crannies. She then couldn’t help but go on to wonder if Amanda’s hired investigator would do a more thorough job of it… No.
Not her business. She was so not going to get involved with that. Any of it.
A huge, decorative red and gold rug flowed across the floor in the middle of the room like a gauche centrepiece that oddly turned Martha’s stomach when she looked at it in spite of her never seeing it before. In fact, as she moved in further she became more and more aware of an eerie energy that seemed to linger within the space – not malevolent, simply esoteric and alive like it was trying to speak to her, whisper secrets that were not quite audible. It surprised her as it should not have been there, whatever it was. Amanda’s beloved father was a mystic null, which meant that he had absolutely no psychic or magical potential at all. Energy of a mystical nature should not have been within the study. It was… not right.
Something had happened in there. She just wasn’t sure what.
Before she had too long to contemplate it though, there was a deep, monotone bing-bong noise from deep within the house. The doorbell. Martha froze for a moment. It wasn’t her house but not enough time had passed for Amanda to finish cleaning up and Esther wasn’t home…
Groaning to herself loudly, she realised that she was being ridiculous fretting over something so mundane. It most likely was her aunt, returning home from her errands. She probably had groceries or so
mething and could not reach her key.
Leaving the study open, Martha trailed down the stairs to open the door.
The person standing on the other side was not her mother’s sibling but somebody else entirely – a good-looking young man with messy, shoulder-length, sandy brown hair. His grin upon seeing her was open, friendly in its enthusiasm. Dressed in a denim jacket and short sleeve, black logoed t-shirt that had an image of Yosemite Sam, pointing his two pistols to the sky and the words “Say Your Prayers’ with scruffy jeans, he looked like every other young man that had skipped college in order to drop by and say howdy. Not at all like her elderly aunt.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked, somewhat confused.
He grinned. ‘You’re Martha, right?’
‘I am,’ she hedged, mentally preparing herself to be alert for danger, if that was what this strange visit was. Not that anybody, or anything, should know that she was in town.
He took a couple of steps closer, into the covered porch out of the light shower of rain that had apparently started up again. The closer proximity made Martha realise that this trendy young caller was not what he seemed. His appearances were a very cunning disguise. Like a buzzing of energy, Martha could feel what lingered beneath his surface. It made the hair on her arms prickle so quickly that she had to actively resist the urge to rub them smooth.
However, he did not mean her harm. He wasn’t there for her.
This was Amanda’s psychic boyfriend. And he was a very powerful young man indeed.
The young psychic grinned mischievously as he witnessed the realisation of his identity cross Martha’s face. He offered out a hand. She stood there, staring down at the outstretched appendage for an uneasy moment before shaking her head. He smirked, seemingly pleased in the knowledge that she had been able to read the dangerous potential that crackled in the air between them and commented, ‘Amanda said you were good.’
Sins of the Father (Bloody Marytown Book 1) Page 5
