A Murder at Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  “Yes. I think she is.”

  “And that changed all of our lives forever.” He stood and paced the floor. “I almost married Brooke! Jordan was going to be a brilliant attorney! Their parents have never gotten over—”

  “I know.” Dixie didn’t stand or confront him. She stayed seated with her legs casually crossed, as if she had expected everything he said. “I know. The house may have done you a favor on that one.”

  “Mama!”

  She examined her fingernails and pushed at one of her cuticles. “You know, the problem with losing someone when they’re young like Brooke is that we have a tendency to forever see them with blurry edges and a bit of gloss. With so much taken away from us, we lose perspective. We romanticize who they were and how perfect everything would have been if they had lived. In reality, we don’t know what that would have looked like. People change. We change. Maybe we change in ways we were supposed to all along. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Dixie glanced to the outside yard and Mason wondered if she not only referred to Brooke but also to his father.

  “The truth is that the manor played the biggest role in Brooke’s death. Being at the manor is what changed everyone’s lives forever.”

  He exhaled hard, trying to get rid of the grief that rolled inside of him nonstop. Whether it was grief from losing Layla or from learning she had killed Brooke, he really wasn’t sure. “This is all just too farfetched.”

  Dixie pressed her hands together as if she were going to plead with him or say something that she really needed him to hear.

  “Do you remember when you were in high school and we would talk about some of your friends? I could tell you all about them, how y’all interacted with one another, things that they thought or did—"

  “Yeah, I didn’t like that.”

  “Why do you think that was? Honestly.”

  “Honestly?” He struggled whether to hold his tongue or just to let the truth out.”

  “Honestly.”

  He went with the latter. “Because I saw that kind of thing destroy our lives once before. It’s not about needing to fit in or needing someone else’s approval, it’s more than this stuff just not making sense to me. I didn’t want to be a part of it then, and I don’t want to be a part of it now. There’s no logic in it. It’s just—look, no offense, but I can’t be a part of Layla’s paranormal stuff. That’s not the life for me.”

  “Son, I adore you, you know that. But you and I both know that you don’t like anything that leaves you feeling out of control. You’re just like your father was in that way. You like a strong sense of order, everything going according to plan and knowing what to expect.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Dixie leaned forward and clasped her hands. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except that life doesn’t always go according to plan. So you need a strong gut to understand what’s really going on and to figure out the right thing to do next.”

  “This is hardly about intuition.” He plopped down in his father’s recliner and felt an odd resemblance to the man that used to sit there.

  “If you want to see what’s really going on here, then you need to see beyond the seen.”

  He didn’t look at her. This type of discussion is where they parted ways.

  “You came back here because you love working with your hands, you love Charleston, you love being near your family, and you love Layla in a way you can’t explain. You gave up New York and all that money to do what makes you happy for a change. Now you’ve got that within your reach, and you’re going to let this get in your way?”

  “An unexplained pregnancy and ghosts and murder are big things, Mama. Look, I get that there is something unique about her dreams, but I don’t get the rest of it. I don’t get how she killed Brooke or got pregnant—”

  “The manor has a place within it that—”

  “No, I am not going there. I just don’t—” He waved her off.

  “Okay. Well. Suffice it to say that the manor will take whatever happens in her dreams and make them real. Besides, she didn’t choose any of those things. She’s just trying to deal with it as best she can. If you were smart, you would forgive her. You would help her.” His mother stood and pointed her finger at him, and he knew something serious was coming. “Fears are to be faced, Mason. You’re running from yours.”

  His mother’s words took the wind out of his sails as only she could do. He had to admit, he felt like he was running hard from something. To his mind, running from some things was just wise.

  They squared off with one another across the den that hadn’t changed since he was in high school. He wondered which side his father would have taken if he were still here. His, probably.

  “You are going to have to decide which is more important to you—Layla or your stubborn need to control.”

  “This is not about control.”

  “While you’re at it, you need to forgive Reverend Milligan and everyone else in that community who nearly ran us out of town.”

  “This is not about forgiveness either,” Mason said.

  “It is, actually. It always has been.”

  “Some people don’t deserve forgiveness. What they’ve done is too heinous.”

  “Forgiveness is about your attitude, not their actions.” She narrowed her eyes. “And some people do deserve forgiveness, Mason.”

  She left the room and he stared outside, feeling that he had made a bad decision by following his gut and coming home to Layla—one that boxed him in, one that made him unhappy, and one that had led him to yet another dead end.

  30

  Layla held tight to the interior door handle of her mother’s car in part because her mother drove too fast and also so she wouldn’t reach over and smack her. “You had no business going through my trash can. That’s invasive.” She didn’t think her daughters could hear her since they were in the back seat with their earbuds in, but she wasn’t sure, so she scream whispered.

  “I was taking out the trash—like I always do—and ten positive pregnancy tests is hard to ignore.” Jayne Ella shook her head as though she tried to move hair away from her face, but her hair was styled too tight for that, and Layla thought she looked ridiculous.

  “Glad you took the opportunity to count. Sounds like you did more than just glance into my trash can. Sounds like you were digging.”

  “Matters not. You have really gotten yourself into a situation here, missy. And with two girls who you’re supposed to be setting an example for, no less.”

  Layla felt her cheeks grow hot. “Nice judgment, Mom. First of all, I have nothing to be ashamed of, and when my girls are old enough, I will happily tell them my story. I’m proud of the role model that I am for them.” She glared at the facade of Alcott Manor as her mother turned on to its pebble drive.

  This was the week when the restorations were supposed to be completed and celebrated by the entire Alcott family. A party had been planned weeks in advance, heralded by Tom before his death. Nothing fancy, the catering was potluck, although Jayne Ella had hired a band. With everything on pause yet again, Layla had requested that they postpone the festivities. After all, there really wasn’t anything to celebrate. Thanks to Jordan, city inspectors were in and out looking for problems, and after yet another death, Mason’s team had stopped their work.

  But the family chose not to call off the gathering. The general consensus was that since there were things they needed to discuss, they would turn this evening into a family meeting. They decided to show their support and make it known in every way that they would overcome these challenges, too. They even ordered wrist bands for everyone, imprinted with the words Alcott Strong. Layla didn’t wear hers. Jayne Ella wore three.

  Jayne Ella parked the car beneath one of the majestic oak trees and reapplied her lipstick. Layla stared at the manor. She wouldn’t step foot inside. In fact, she hadn’t wanted to come to this stupid party at all, except Jayne Ella insisted they bring the girls. She
had gotten them all excited about the gathering behind Layla’s back such that it was impossible to talk them out of coming. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to allow her daughters to come here without her.

  Asher was in there somewhere, probably watching her if he could. A burning sensation lit in her chest.

  She couldn’t help but think that if they had never camped on the back lawn of Alcott Manor that everyone’s lives would have been completely different. Her dreams would never have gotten mixed up with reality, Brooke would never have been killed, and maybe she and Mason might have spent the last ten years together.

  She looked at her girls in the back seat, giggling and singing along with whatever was playing on their tablet. Of course in this alternate reality, that didn’t happen where she was with Mason, she wouldn’t have Anna or Emma. She didn’t think she could bear that. They were her life.

  “Disgrace,” her mother whispered and dropped her lipstick into her make-up case.

  “Yes. It is,” Layla said, though she knew she and her mother were referring to two different things. She placed her hand just below her belly button, where her newest baby resided. Dixie had slipped and said him when they last spoke about the baby. She didn’t know if she meant that generically or if she had an unguarded moment and shared the baby’s gender.

  A boy. A son.

  Possibly? She smiled to herself and envisioned her life with a boy—lots of blue in the nursery, baseball games, playing catch in the back yard. She wouldn’t be able to reuse any of those girl clothes she had saved. Anna Kate and Emma Cath would spoil him silly and insist on carrying him everywhere like one of their dolls. With a mother, two sisters, and two grandmothers around, the child’s feet wouldn’t touch the floor for the first five years of his life.

  “Girls, run on around back. I hear the band playing already, so y’all can dance. I’ll be there in a minute. No cake, Emma Cath! Do you hear me?”

  Her girls bounced out of the car with smiles and giggles, completely unaware of their mother’s state of mind. She was grateful for that, at least. “Do not leave the great lawn, and do not go into the house, do you understand?”

  Their “Yes, ma’am’”s overlapped, and they skipped and hopped their way around the manor.

  When Layla was sure they were out of earshot, she stepped close to her mother. “Mason told me that he called me and came to see me after Brooke was killed.”

  Her mother brushed imaginary dirt from her pink and black flower print dress. “I don’t remember that.”

  “I think you do, Jayne Ella. I think you deliberately kept that information from me so I wouldn’t have any hope to be with Mason. And so I would marry Asher.”

  Her mother shook her head and shrugged as if she had no idea what she was talking about.

  Layla leaned closer to her mother. “Mason said that he called and came by numerous times before he left for school and you never told me.

  Jayne Ella stopped brushing her dress. She licked her lips and met Layla eye to eye. “Fine. He came by, and he called. Are you happy? I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. You loved that boy, and he only had eyes for someone else.”

  “Didn’t want me to get my hopes up?” All at once, she realized how she had dutifully followed her mother’s orders. Don’t get your hopes up. Hadn’t her mother said that at every turn of her life?

  She remembered that horrible, hot, blustery day when her mother told her and Peyton that she and their dad were divorcing. He had met someone else. Someone younger, prettier. Jayne Ella made a point to emphasize that on that day and many, many times over the years. Like younger and prettier was some sorcery that held sway over their weak father. He had succumbed to the siren’s call. “What a fool,” she often said.

  It might have been that day when Layla learned not to get her hopes up, and it became a preprogrammed response.

  “You mean you wanted to intervene and control my life because you didn’t think I could manage it well enough on my own. Or maybe it was that you didn’t think you could manage your life well enough on your own.”

  “What? You never had a chance with Mason and I didn’t want him leading you on. Asher was interested. You didn’t have any other options. I was trying to help you,” her mother scolded.

  “I think this is called projection.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Layla thought her mother’s self-awareness might not completely fill a thimble. “I had options. Mason was interested in me. We had a chance. You kept us apart. Your arrogant interfering kept me from the man I was supposed to spend my life with.” Her voice was scratchy from yelling without raising her voice.

  “I didn’t know why he kept coming around that summer with his tail between his legs. But I wasn’t going to let him ruin what you had started with Asher. I didn’t want you to spend your life lonely.” Tears clogged her throat.

  “Things could have worked out for us if you had just stayed out of the way.”

  “Mason always tried for some kind of perfectness ever since his family got knocked off their social standing all those years ago. You could see it in his eyes with that the football scholarship, the job in New York, Brooke. He wasn’t for you.”

  She wanted to say that he wasn’t that way anymore. That he had grown up. That the better side of him, the more meaningful side of him she had known through the years had won out. But she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even entirely certain now that her mother had been wrong all those years ago.

  But the way her mother’s words implied that Layla wasn’t good enough made her feel competitive, so she said, “You know, whenever Asher felt threatened, he had this way of keeping me in line. He would curl his hand into a fist like this, then he would punch me here.” Layla pointed to the center of her stomach. “Or here.” She pointed to her ribs. “Sometimes he aimed for my back, but it was most often on my torso. So no one would see the bruises.”

  Jayne Ella’s freshly pinked lips parted, then she whispered, “Layla, no.”

  “So you’ll understand if I’m not pleased with what you did.”

  Her mother faced forward, her usually tall stature deflated.

  Layla got out of the car to let her mother sit with that news for a while, but to her surprise, her mother got out as well. Jayne Ella adjusted her dress, hooked her purse on her arm, and started toward the manor. Layla stood in her way.

  “Mason and I shared a kiss years ago, before Brooke got hurt. I realize that may sound like nothing, but it meant something and not just to me.”

  She expected her mother to apologize or to at least cry, but something hardened in her eyes.

  “We had a chance all those years ago. He was going to break up with Brooke, he said he was going to ask me out. He came back to Charleston in part for me. That’s what he told me.”

  “Then where is he now?” Jayne Ella finally said quietly. “When you need him most? I would guess this wasn’t in his plan?” Jayne Ella gestured to her daughter’s midsection.

  She knew her mother’s way of making her feel cheap and rejected had more to do with the emotional pain from her own divorce than anything else. But it stung. Every time.

  “Ladies! Join us!” Her mother’s two sisters appeared on the wide front porch of Alcott Manor, looking tan and relaxed and holding mint julep cups. “Alcott Strong!” they sang.

  “Hey, girls!” Jayne Ella broadcasted her ever ready smile and party-happy voice. She wrapped her arm around Layla’s shoulders and whispered, “You’ll have to move on without him. Find a way to pick up the pieces. Make a life for yourself with this new baby. I’ll be there with you every step of the way, of course.”

  Layla dropped back as though she had been punched in the gut. Jayne Ella plowed ahead. This was exactly what Layla was afraid of, her mother’s continued and controlling presence in her life. And the absence of Mason.

  She glanced at the newly painted pillars of Alcott Manor. When she had first arrived several we
eks ago, she thought things were finally changing for her. Now it seemed she had gone from the frying pan to the fire.

  Asher would enjoy this turn of events. Nothing made him happier than when her freedom was just beyond her reach.

  Mason drank a glass of beer and watched all ages of Alcott family members dance on the wide green lawn under endless strands of sparkling white lights. Tonight’s gathering was supposed to mark the end of a long, hard era for Alcott Manor. It was supposed to launch the beginning of a far more prosperous one. At least that’s how Tom had it planned.

  Instead, Mason had had to make a presentation to the family members about the fact that the restoration was still ongoing. He explained to them that it would have to continue on for a few more months. Might be a year. Much of it depended on what the inspectors found. And yes, some of the repairs were being challenged. Yes, another person had died at the manor. He fell from the scaffolding. Accidents happened. Mason left out the part where the scaffolding had literally fallen apart beneath him and that he might have fallen onto a circular saw.

  He had tried talking with Jordan again, but she wasn’t taking his calls.

  Jayne Ella came through the house with her sisters over an hour ago. He’d waved to her, but she managed to look right through him as if he didn’t exist. Layla must have told her that she was pregnant, that he was the father, and that he had broken up with her.

  Layla’s girls danced with each other on the back lawn to the loud band music and dashed among the other guests in an occasional game of tag. Whenever they needed something they went to their grandmother or another relative. There was no sign of their mother, and he assumed she stayed away because of him.

  He drained the glass and placed it on the kitchen work table he had completed in time for tonight. The wood was finally smooth and its original stain restored thanks to his hours upon hours of hand sanding and finishing.

  His fingers moved along the smoothly polished grooves. When he chose to work on this table, he had plans for it that involved Layla. Simple dreams that were out of his reach now—toasting with a glass of wine by candlelight, making plans for the future.