Chapter Twelve
At this point I was more annoyed at Bebe than frightened. I was pretty sure she was wandering around downstairs somewhere and we would see her in just a moment or two. Jill and I went down to check on the dumbwaiter, but the basket hadn’t arrived in the kitchen where the opening was.
I ran back up to the second floor, but it hadn’t landed there either. So where was it?
Back down to the kitchen, we leaned in and realized the kitchen wasn’t the end of the line. The opening went on down into what must have been the basement. Not a place I wanted to explore.
And anyway, where was Bebe?
We called and went through every room. No sign of her. Now I was really panicking. Had she gone outside? I tried the kitchen door, but it was locked. By now my heart was racing. I ran to the front door. It was locked too. What was going on? Was it the ghosts again? Or something even more sinister?
I pulled out my cell phone and tried to call Roy. No service.
“Jill, try your phone,” I called back to her. “Hurry!”
“No service,” she responded. “How about you?”
“The same.”
I swung around and faced her. “What can we do?” I said, trembling with fear and anxiety. “Quick! We have to do something!”
Jill was as desperate as I was, and she looked it. “Let’s…let’s try to break a window and get out,” she cried.
“Wait.” I held a hand up and looked around the room. “Hey, you ghosts,” I said in a loud voice, “I know you’re here, watching us. I just have to tell you that we plan to bring Mandy back very soon. Bebe just wanted to see what the situation was like here before we brought her back. You know where Bebe is. Please, please let us get to her. We need her in order to bring Mandy back. So please….” My voice broke and I had to grip hard to keep from letting tears come. “Where is she? Give me a sign.”
I turned slowly, looking in every nook and cranny. Nothing. No sign. No anything.
“Thanks a lot,” I said, and I began running down the hallway, pounding on the walls. Bebe had read there were secret passageways. Well, where were they? There had to be a way to access them.
“Bebe,” I called. “Are you in there?” I pressed and I pounded, and Jill mimicked me, doing the same thing.
I turned into the library and pulled books off shelves, pressing sides of bookcases, searching, searching.
“Bebe!” I called. “Can you knock on a wall? Can you show me the way?”
Suddenly I realized that I didn’t see Jill any longer.
“Jill!” I called. “Where are you?”
Nothing.
I was having a hard time breathing now. I was so angry, so scared. Jill was gone too. What next? I kept running down hallways and pounding on the sides of bookcases, hoping to find that lucky one that would turn into the room and open a doorway into the secret recesses of this evil old house.
I tried to use my cell again. No service. No earthly use to it. I threw it down in frustration and went back to pounding walls.
Then I got an idea. That dumb waiter—it went down to the basement. Maybe, just maybe…..
I ran back to the kitchen and opened the cabinet door to the dumb waiter, looking down into the dark space below. Just the cold air wafting up gave me the creeps. There was no way I would ever go down there, especially not alone. No way.
I looked down, holding my breath, and someone walked by the opening vista. I held back an involuntary scream. It wasn’t Bebe and it wasn’t Jill. I held my breath. I saw something move. Then someone spoke, but the voice was too soft for me to make out what he said. But it was a he. That I could tell. And it wasn’t a ghost.
I didn’t think he’d noticed me up here looking down. I stepped back carefully, out of sight, breathing hard. I was going to have to go down there—down into the basement.
No! Everything in me rebelled. I didn’t want to go. Just thinking about going made me feel like I was about to pass out.
I closed my eyes. Spiders like huge tarantulas crawled into my mind. Bugs and snakes and worms and gooey stuff you didn’t want to identify. And all in the dark. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go down there.
But what if Bebe was down there? Maybe Jill? I had to go. I had to do what I could. Some man was down there, and what was he doing to Bebe? Jill? If they were alright, they would have called up to me. They weren’t alright. Someone had to save them. And that someone was going to be me.
For just a moment, I thought I was going to throw up. But I got myself together and I took a few deep, cleansing breathes. Then I went as softly as I could toward the door to the basement. The only way this was going to work was if I had a lot of luck. If I could think of any other way, that is what I would do. But I couldn’t. So here I went.
When I started for the door, I was shaking so hard I wasn’t sure if I would make it. Funny thing, though. By the time I’d got the door open and was starting down the long, winding stairway, the shaking stopped. I began breathing normally. In fact, I was cool, calm and collected—almost as though I was moving in some sort of phony reality, something unreal and totally controlled. I took each step slowly, softly, and descended into the gloom.
Cold, dank air swept toward me. The smell of old, rotting things filled my nostrils. My foot slipped. Terror shot through me as I lost my balance. But I caught myself, clinging to the iron railing that ran alongside the stairs. And my will was ice cold.
I was going to find Bebe and Jill if it was the last thing I ever did. Instinct told me that whoever had grabbed them was intent on doing something very bad, very ugly, and I couldn’t let that happen.
I heard a soft, muffled moan, and it wasn’t coming from any ghost. In fact, I could have sworn it was Bebe. I bit my lip hard, holding back the urge to call out to her.
My eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness. I thought I saw the bottom now, and over toward the wall, two bound objects stacked together like logs. My heart began to race again. Bodies. But if there was moaning, they were still alive. Relief washed over me and I held onto the railing for a moment, letting my heart settle down.
Three or four more steps and I would be at the bottom. The only trouble was, I couldn’t see the whole basement from the stairs. Half of the area was beyond a curved wall. I had no idea how big that area was, or what was in it. But what could I do? I had to go on down.
Two more steps to go. I could see the bodies pretty clearly now. Bebe and Jill were both tied up like mummies in ropes and a gag. But neither of them seemed to be conscious. What had he done to them?
One more step. I knew this was the dangerous one. Taking in a deep breath, I took the leap, stepping to the floor and turning quickly toward the part of the room I hadn’t been able to see.
But before I could focus, a hand grabbed my throat, and I was suddenly struggling to breathe at all.
“Come in to my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” a rough voice whispered harshly very close to my ear. “Mele Keahi, I finally have you. Now what to do with you? There are so many options.”
I struggled and gasped, trying to breathe and he finally released my neck enough so that I could take some air in. I caught my breath and managed to get a look at him. Middle-aged, dumpy, curly hair. He looked…he looked a lot like pictures of Alexander Pennington. But that was crazy. Alexander had been almost 90 when he died. This man was about forty or fifty. Just the age that Alexander’s son who drowned would have been today. Could this possibly be “Junior”? How could that be?
“Who are you?” I managed to grind out.
“Never mind,” he said, slamming me hard back against the wall. “Just know that I’m the rightful owner of this place. All the rest of you are trespassers. You know what they used to do to trespassers in the old days, don’t you? Shoot them. That’s what you people deserve.” He shook his head. “I was doing okay until you showed up, little lady. You and your many friends. You ruined everything. Now it’s time for me to ruin a few things for you. It
’s only fair, don’t you think?”
He let go of me and stood back, gazing at me as though he wanted me to agree that he had every right to do whatever he wanted to the lot of us. I rubbed my neck where he’d grabbed me and tried to stay calm. I thought as fast as I could, trying to remember a spell or a magic chant Aunty Jane might have taught me in the past, something that might help me now, but somehow, nothing came to mind. What good was magic if you couldn’t remember how to access it?
Talking. That was all I had.
“It’s not fair at all,” I said. “You can’t hurt people just because you’re mad at them.” I glanced over at Jill and Bebe. “What did you do to my friends?”
He was pacing in front of me now, glaring at me. “Eh, a little chloroform never hurt anybody.”
“Oh.” I drew in a sharp breath. “Did you know what you were doing? Did you give them a dangerous amount?”
“No. Don’t worry. I’ve worked many years in the doctor’s ward at the home. I know what I’m doing.” He pushed his chest out as though he were proud. “There were doctors there who asked to have me help with some of the surgeries. Did you know that? I was the best in my ward at helping the doctors. I learned a lot. So don’t worry about the medications. I’ve got some good stuff with me. I can kill them easily and they’ll never know it.”
My heart jumped and skipped a beat. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe again, but for a very different reason.
“No,” I said. “You can’t.”
“Sure I can. I’m going to have to head out of here real soon. I can tell. They’re going to be looking a little harder now that you three are going to go missing. So I’ll dump these two here and take you with me.” His grin was sickening. “You’re a cute little thing anyway. You might keep me amused for awhile.”
I stared at him. “You’re crazy.”
Fury filled his face. “Don’t say that,” he cried. “Don’t ever say that to me.”
I tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go.
“I’m going to have to tie you up too, aren’t I?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said quickly. “No, I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll help you. Just tell me what to do.”
“You’ll help me?”
“Yes. Just like you helped the doctors at the home.”
That seemed to calm him down. “The doctors were good to me most of the time,” he mused, almost to himself. “But I had to kill one of them so that I could escape that night. It was too bad, really. He’d always been okay to me. But you have to do what you have to do sometimes.”
“I…I’m sure you meant well,” I lied. This was insane but I thought I was beginning to get a picture of what was going on here. In order for my theory to be true, this had to be the boy who drowned twenty years ago. So he didn’t drown?
“What is your real name?” I asked him.
“Matt,” he said. “They call me Matt Tyson at the home. But I know that isn’t my real name.”
“What is your real name?”
“Alexander Matthew Pennington,” he said proudly. “I still remember it from when I was a kid and I lived here. But my parents had to send me to the home after I pushed my sister off the balcony. They said I had to be managed. They told me I wasn’t Alexander Matthew Pennington anymore. But I knew the truth and I never forgot it.”
I was numb. So impossible, and yet so obviously true. This was the boy who was supposedly drowned. But he wasn’t drowned. His father sent him off to be “managed”, probably in a mental facility. And under an assumed name. Oh my.
But that wasn’t important right now. Getting away from him was. Somehow I had to incapacitate him so that I could get Bebe and Jill out of here before he tried to kill them.
I looked at him. He was looking through a medical bag where he seemed to have stored a lot of drugs he’d taken from the home. He pulled out a syringe and set it down on a table. I took a deep breath, wondering if I could knock him down if I ran at him hard. Something told me that was not the way I was going to win. He was just too big, too solid.
There was a knife lying on the table, too. He’d probably used it to cut the ropes he’d used to tie up Bebe and Jill. If I was quick, if I could move like lightning, maybe I could grab it before he noticed and plunge it into his heart. I didn’t have much choice, did I? My own heart started to pound.
He was talking as he worked, but I wasn’t listening any longer. My heart was pounding in my ears anyway. I was watching, biding my time, trying to pick the right moment.
He filled the syringe with something and laid it down, then turned toward me. It was now or never. I leaped out, grabbed the knife and slashed it toward him, aiming for his chest. I thrust with all my might, gathering every nerve, every muscle, every impulse and launched. For just a split second, I thought I’d done it. But then I was flying across the room and landed hard against the jagged wall. I lay where I ended up on the vile, filthy floor, coughing up something that tasted like blood. So much for a future in knife fighting.
Chapter Thirteen
And Matt was still talking. He sounded annoyed, but not threatened in the least. I cringed.
“Don’t, Mele. Let me get this done and then I’ll deal with you. You’re making it very difficult to imagine that I can take you with me. I mean...are you going to be attacking me all the time? I don’t think I can go for that. Maybe you ought to get a dose of this stuff I’m fixing for your friends. You deserve it after trying to pull that trick on me. Let’s see. Okay. Just stay there on the floor for now. If you try to get up, I’m going to hit you again and you might lose a few teeth this time. So just give me a minute here….”
I felt like crying in frustration. What was I going to do? But suddenly I noticed that there was something else going on. There was moaning again. But this time…maybe it was the ghosts.
I sat up. Matt had noticed it too. He stopped and listened, then looked at me.
“What’s that?” he said.
I didn’t answer. I was pretty sure I knew. Was this good or was this especially bad? I wasn’t sure.
The moaning got louder, and now there was wind to go with it, knocking things down. A huge flock of bats flew through the basement, chirping and creeping me out. But they creeped him out too. He yelled, almost in a panic, and batted at them as they circled his head.
The funny thing was, all this commotion was happening right around him, as though he were making it happen with his own evilness. Wind and bats and bad smells and moaning and objects flying through the air—it was all happening to him, not to me.
I jumped up, ignoring my aches and pains, and reached in to his medical bag. Just as I hoped, my fingers connected with a damp rag. The chloroform. Without even thinking, I grabbed it and smashed it into his face and then held on while he thrashed against it.
In no time at all, he crumpled to the ground. The moaning stopped. The bats disappeared. The winds died down. And I heard Roy’s voice at the top of the stairs.
“Mele. Are you down there?”
By the time he got to me, I’d begun to collapse.
“Roy,” I said, reaching toward him as though he was going to take care of everything. He held me tight and I melted and was ready to spend the rest of the day in his arms.
“Bebe and Jill,” I managed to point out. “Call 911. They need medical attention.” And then I closed my eyes and laid my head on Roy’s muscular chest. I was over and out.
Fifteen minutes later I got my second wind. I was sitting on the old leather couch in the library. I could hear the paramedics taking Bebe and Jill away. One of them prodded me for a few minutes, trying to get me to admit I needed medical attention. I put him off, promising to go on my own to the urgent care clinic. Suddenly I noticed Aunty Jane was sitting on a chair by the fireplace. And Mandy was with her, Sparky at her feet. What?
I waited until the paramedic left the room.
“Aunty,” I said in a whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“I brought
Mandy back where she belong,” Aunty said stoutly. As I watched, she put the enameled box so like something my mother had once had on the side table. “You can thank me later, when you feel up to it.”
I shook my head, wondering if maybe I’d hit it too hard or something. “Really? But how? How did you get here?”
“Never you mind. I managed just fine.”
“But…”
She sighed. Mandy grinned. I rolled my eyes.
“Come on, tell me what happened. You’re driving me crazy!”
“Okay, here’s how it went. Your Roy fella came to the house to look for you. Mandy and me, we watched him and his partner walk around the house. I was debating whether to try to talk to him or not. You remember that last time? I talked to him just fine. Remember?”
I had to admit, I remembered. Her talking to Roy probably saved my life that day. But that was then-this was now!
“Okay, while we watching, his cell phone buzzed. I looked over his shoulder. He had a text from you. He said to the other fella, ‘She’s at the Pennington House.’
‘“Okay,” says the other guy. “Let’s go.”’
“I knew this would be our chance. I grabbed Mandy and we hopped into his car even before he got in. There was plenty of room. And we got to ride in a police car. Mandy liked that. So here we are.”
I frowned, trying to puzzle this out. “But I didn’t send a text. I tried, but there was no service in this house.”
Aunty nodded. “It was Dante. He took care of that. He said you threw your phone, so he picked it up and took it outside where it could get service and then he wrote the text message. He was hoping Roy would see it. Then he came back in the house and got the ghosts together to help you down in the basement.”
I closed my eyes and remembered what had happened. “I’m glad they did help me,” I said, my words heart-felt. “Do you know….?”
I was going to ask if she knew who the ghosts were who’d helped me, but a couple of transparent apparitions had joined us. I hadn’t noticed them at first, but now they were plain to see. I looked at them carefully. “Who are you?” I whispered.
Little Ghost Lost (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 5) Page 12
