A Murder at Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  “And Peyton? Is she living nearby?”

  “She’s in Boston, working in advertising. Not super happy with the big city. I think she’s a little tired of the expense.”

  “Yeah. That’ll wear you out.”

  “And how about—

  “Mason.” Her tone was gentle, but she was firm. “I’m not sure why you’re here tonight, and I sort of doubt that it’s because you thought I needed a meal on moving day.”

  He looked at the floor and chuckled. “Ah, moving days are tough. I know you’ve been through a lot lately. I thought you might want some dinner and company. That’s all.”

  She shook her head, stepped across the hall to the next guest room, where the antique dolls positioned on the shelves made her nervous. They all appeared to be staring at her through black eye sockets. She struggled with how to approach him. They’d known each other for too long to be strangers, and yet after all this time they were basically unknown to one another. So she spoke to him as she always had—directly and with a smile. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well. We’re going to have to work together, now that Tom’s gone. I thought maybe we ought to get to know one another again.”

  A twinge of hope and disappointment tangled with each other in her gut, which she found annoying. There was no hope where Mason was concerned, and she wished her heart would grasp that simple fact. She gave him a gentle smile that said she still didn’t quite believe what he was saying. Then she began to think of the tours that would begin soon enough. Mason would be a part of her past again by that point.

  The bathroom light shone from across the room and she decided to leave it on for the night. The bedside lamp was also on and she turned that one off. Mason was now backlit by the hallway lights. When she tried to pass him, he stopped her with a gentle touch and she was surprised by a ripple of desire.

  “Okay. Truth. I’ve felt awful for ten years that our friendship ended the way it did. We’re both here now. I’d like to make a fresh start.”

  An inadvertent laugh escaped from her. “Fresh start because of proximity? We don’t have to do that.” Actually, a fresh start sounded ideal. But it just wasn’t possible.

  “I’d like to have a fresh start.”

  She exhaled hard. Hands on her hips. She didn’t know what to do with this.

  “Layla, look. Ten years ago—”

  “I was really hoping we wouldn’t rehash the nastiness of how our friendship ended. It was bad enough the first time around.”

  “I’m not looking to rehash anything.” Mason’s voice was soft.

  She made a brief smile and said, “Okay.”

  She didn’t trust what he said and tried to put the moment behind her. But up bubbled the memory that wouldn’t rest. The nightmare that marked the end of so many things: the innocence of her youth, the friendship with her best friend, Mason, and her future with him as she thought it should have been. An overwhelming temptation tugged at her to dive into the endless dance of what ifs, if onlys, and last but not least, the it’s-not-fairs. She resisted the urge that felt like an invitation to hell.

  When she reached the next bedroom, one of the masters that belonged to Anna Alcott, she heard him close behind her.

  “I’m sorry, Layla.”

  She stopped mid-step and closed her eyes. It wasn’t logical, but she had longed to hear that apology for so many years. That it finally had arrived felt even better than she thought it would, and she had known it would feel pretty darn good.

  His sigh was heavy in the dimly lit room. “I should have believed you right away when you said you didn’t lay a hand on Brooke. I don’t know why the other girls were so insistent that you did.”

  A nauseating wave shifted through her at remembering Brooke’s death.

  “I shouldn’t have let our friendship end. That was a mistake.”

  She turned and faced him.

  “I don’t expect you to forgive me right away,” he said.” But I hope you can find a way. Regardless, I wanted to apologize. Finally.” He took her hand in his and squeezed it twice to get her attention, until she looked him directly in the eye.

  “I am…so sorry.”

  It wasn’t his first apology tonight. But something about this one wrapped around her heart and gave it a heads-down hug. It was an apology filled with tenderness, regret, and full-on friendship.

  “You and I had a lot of history together as friends. I clearly should have known it wasn’t in your nature to do something so violent.”

  “No, that wasn’t in my nature.”

  He slowly edged his way in front of her until they stood face to face.

  “The way our friendship ended has always bothered me—like a train jumped the tracks. So, when I knew you were moving into the manor, I didn’t want another day to go by without putting things right between us. And that’s the real reason why I’m here tonight.”

  He looked at her as if he hoped for a positive response, as if he needed it from her. His mystical ginger brown eyes were full of regret and a softness she hadn’t expected. She had missed this face, the way he looked at her, the way he could see into her, the way he cared. For so long, they had been like two puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly—the best of friends.

  She looked for them, but the walls she had constructed to keep him out and her safe were nowhere to be found. So she indulged her heart that didn’t seem to know better. She placed her hand on the side of his face and ran her thumb over his cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

  He leaned into her caress with a long blink, as if he breathed in her touch. When he opened his eyes again, they were full of longing, and for a moment she thought he might kiss her. His lips parted slightly and she gazed at him, remembering how soft his lips had been in her dream.

  Strands of crystal facets that dangled from the overhead chandelier clinked against one another in the still room. They both looked up at it and a cold chill spread across Layla’s back.

  “It’s probably just the air conditioning,” Mason said.

  The lights flickered.

  “Look out!” Mason screamed.

  The overhead chandelier crashed to the floor.

  15

  Mason and Layla picked themselves off the floor, eyeing the chandelier that lay broken where they had been standing.

  “Next time,” Asher said, although no one could hear him.

  Asher waited until they finally left the bedroom, then stared out a window. All that beachfront property. It had been his lifelong dream to own the Alcott Manor land, and that was the reason he’d married Layla Alcott. Though he would have married any stock-holding Alcott woman who would have had him, who would have voted to tear down the house, and who would have voted to let his real estate company develop the land. Layla Alcott had been the only one who fell for him.

  She hadn’t really dated in life. So by the time he made his moves on her, she was something of an easy mark. She was long overdue for a Prince Charming, so every bit of attention he gave her made him look like the hero.

  What he hadn’t predicted was that he wouldn’t be able to persuade Layla to vote for tearing down the manor and developing the land. The vote had always been narrow between the two sides of the family— twenty-one of the shareholders wanted to restore, the other twenty wanted out and to sell the land to a developer.

  Layla was fairly easy to control on most things, but damn if she didn’t hold firm on wanting the property restored. Some crap about how the house was special to her family and how it was an historical landmark that needed to be preserved.

  Bullshit.

  God wasn’t making any more land. He could have gotten a premium for that oceanfront property. He saw a hotel or maybe a mixed use land sale—residential and commercial. There were so many options, all of them profitable and enough to set them for life.

  Mason put his arm around a badly shaken Layla as they walked down the hallway. How sweet. Reunited friends.

  She should have voted to develo
p the land, then she wouldn’t be a homeless mother of two. He would have given her a share of the proceeds before he divorced her. He didn’t want to be unfair to her. He just didn’t want to be married to her.

  Though he never thought it would go this far or take this long. What he thought, when he first decided to go after her, was that the whole process would take less than a couple of years. Who couldn’t sacrifice for a couple of years when there was a huge payoff in the end? He certainly would.

  Layla left the last bedroom door open before she and Mason began their return trip down the hallway toward the kitchen for a quaint dinner together, probably. His temper burned somewhere close to where his chest used to be.

  He rushed by them and slammed the door. The two of them jumped and spun around. Layla gripped Mason’s arm. He patted her hand and said something about loose hinges and drafts. It wasn’t right that she should have a second chance at life. Much less at love. He was going to get in the way of that.

  He had had her on his side of the Alcott Manor restoration dilemma for quite a while. The haunted house stories even worked in his favor. And the people who died there? Just brilliant. Helped his cause perfectly. Especially with her.

  The house is literally killing people, Layla! It would be safer for the community, for everyone, if it weren’t around anymore.

  He could see her nodding even now. Oh, she was his little puppet.

  Layla-pup. Not, Layla-pop. Say just the right thing and you had her—hook, line and sinker. You could drag her anywhere.

  He did what he could to keep her down. Anything to keep her tied to the house and the kids usually worked. By the end of the day, she was too tired and worn out to dream or hope or even think of wanting a better life.

  Funny how that worked.

  You would think that when someone was overworked, overtired and overloaded emotionally, they would dream of a better life all the time. Like Cinderella or characters in some Broadway musical. Reaching and striving for something better.

  But he found that with Layla, she ran out of energy to dream. She forgot to hope. Guilt was effective in an evergreen sort of way, too. He never tired of using that one. Thanks to her Mom, she had so much guilt to work with. Again, pluck a few strings, and she would sing the tune so beautifully.

  He paced back and forth just yards from Layla and Mason while they sat in front of that magnificent ocean view. He was a gracious man. He could let his dream go. So he didn’t get to develop the land that he’d wanted his hands on since he had been a child. Sometimes things didn’t work out in life. He had no use for that money now anyway.

  He was dead.

  What he couldn’t tolerate, though, was that Layla might end up happy in this life. Truly, madly happy.

  He’d married her, made her feel loved, wanted and special. He gave her not just one, but two children, when she’d asked for them. He’d played his part perfectly. He’d played it so well, he should have won an award.

  Now he was stuck here in this godforsaken house that should have been torn down a long damn time ago. It was a constant reminder that she’d failed him.

  It was unfair. It was unjust.

  Look at her—thin, pretty, blonde. She was a knockout. He shook with anger at the very thought of her morphing into some beautiful butterfly while he was nonexistent. He might not be able to do anything about his life at this point. That was over. But through a fortunate turn of events, he could now place his finger on the scales of justice where her life was concerned. She was at Alcott Manor with him.

  And he knew she would sleep.

  Then she would dream.

  And that was his way into her world.

  For some reason Alcott Manor made her dream very special dreams. Powerful ones that left their mark on the world. One night when they were both asleep, and after an all-day family meeting on the back lawn of the manor, he found himself in one of her dreams. It wasn’t his own dream, he knew. Strange as it was to say, he knew he was in her dream world. It was as though he were a guest in someone else’s house. He was a visitor, along for the ride, while she drove the proverbial bus.

  She dreamt they were on the back lawn at the manor again. The girls ran in and out of the water, letting the tide chase them. He grilled hamburgers and corn on the cob outside, and Layla approached him about a divorce.

  “I told you…” he began, so emphatic when he spoke and shaking the tongs in her face. She wrestled his hand away and he burned the side of his hand on the grill. The next morning when he woke up, he had a burn mark in the exact same spot.

  Thanks to his failure in business and his murder for insurance money scheme, she was locked into Alcott Manor for a while. That meant her dreams would continue to come alive.

  If he were damned to spend an eternity here, then she should have to as well. That would be payback enough.

  All he would have to do was wait.

  “Make me a tea, would you, Lay?”

  16

  “Jordan’s back in Charleston.”

  Layla’s knife poked through the bottom of her Styrofoam container and stabbed her leg. “Ouch—” She lifted the hem of her dress over her knee.

  “You okay?” Mason examined the cut, a gesture he wouldn’t have offered to anyone else. Only a small dot of blood bloomed on her skin, but he left his hand on her leg longer than necessary. A decade had passed without a word between them, though he had not forgotten what it was like to feel the simple warmth of her skin beneath his touch. This more than fueled his attraction to her, although his sense of how to relate to her had always been far more than that.

  When he was younger, he wasn’t sure how to handle the connection that sparked between them. As if she somehow reached unfamiliar depths inside of him, places within he hadn’t yet explored. She wasn’t someone to be treated casually, and what they shared was too important to experiment with. It had been a slow realization for him that she was someone unlike any other, someone reserved for the things that mattered most in life. He thought he had always known that on some level, and yet he wondered if perhaps it had taken him too long to figure that out. “I didn’t think to pick up regular plates. Sorry about that.”

  When he had walked in the manor earlier and found her smashing that mug all to hell, he figured that had something to do with Asher. Now his mentioning the name of Brooke’s sister sent a knife into her skin. Would the two of them ever find peace, or would some part of their lives always remain rooted in that night when everything went to hell?

  “Again, I’m sorry about the chandelier. I’m going to have words with the electrician tomorrow.”

  “We’re okay, and that’s what’s most important.” Her smile was easy and familiar and reminded him of everything good, everything real, everything worthwhile.

  “Have y’all spoken?” She lowered the hem of her dress when she asked. Her hand shook.

  He started to tell her that he and Jordan had dated when they both lived in New York. It was only for a short while and nothing serious, but he thought Layla ought to know. He didn’t want her to think he was hiding anything from her. Charleston was a small town in many ways, and stories were shared more quickly than the common cold. Plus, Jordan felt jilted when he called it off, and predicting her next move was impossible. But now didn’t seem to be the right time to share that information.

  “Here and there. Not much since she got back,” he said. “We both lived in New York for a while, and I saw her more then. I think it bugged me too much that she lied about you killing Brooke. Turns out lying is something I just can’t forgive.”

  Layla didn’t look at him, though she nodded as if she knew this about him already.

  The lights from inside the manor cast a yellowish glow to the back veranda where Mason had set dinner for them. At the far end of the great lawn, the ocean crashed onto the packed sand in slow percussion, filling the occasional quiet with movement and sound. Warm breezes caressed and stroked, as if nature nudged them to talk, to reunite, to move f
orward. But Layla was reserved. Resistant, even. He tilted his head to catch her eye, to get her attention.

  She offered him a half-smile. “Long day. I’m a bit tired, I think. And the chandelier falling really shook me.” She quickly glanced over her shoulder at the manor as though someone called for her attention. Her face held the same expression he’d seen when he first walked into the kitchen tonight and found her sitting on the floor. It was fear.

  It wasn’t fatigue. Mentioning Jordan didn’t help. He looked at the same windows along the back of the house and fought the unsettling feeling that they were being watched. When he was alone in this house, he often had to remind himself that that was the case. The manor held a continual disquiet, an unrest, a lack of peace. Like a gathering was taking place within the walls and just beyond his sight. He wondered if Layla sensed it as well.

  “I understand. Everything okay downstairs in the summer quarters?”

  She nodded agreeably and talked about how grateful she was that Tom gave them the space. She was pleasant, friendly and even gracious, though something sat between them like an invisible wall, and he wasn’t sure how to get through it. He thought about how strange it was to know you were meant to spend the rest of your life with someone, when the two of you hadn’t even been on a first date. His mother had taught him to lean into that internal voice of wisdom, the one that could guide you along the right path. Now he wondered if he had misunderstood, because Layla obviously didn’t share the same sense of knowing that he did.

  “What brought you back to Charleston?” Her question was direct, her voice soft and flavored with a hint of hesitancy.

  He finished his bite, put his container down, and wiped his mouth. Then he looked her directly in the eye. He’d known this question was coming and not only was he ready, he hoped his answers would solve her resistance.

  “Several factors. Mostly a lot of soul searching,” he said in earnest and waited for another question. When it didn’t come, he kept going. In just the way he had rehearsed. “When Daddy died—”