A Murder at Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  “Mr. Mason says that sometimes when people die, they can visit you in your dreams. Do you think that’s what Daddy was doing?”

  Mason swam to the shore and handed Anna Kate the rope swing. Winston yipped and jumped on the grassy bank as if he wanted a turn. Anna Kate swung over the still lake and squealed with joy just before she landed with a loud splash.

  He had insisted they come out to the lake for a swim. “Give the girls a change of scenery. Let ‘em run free for a while.” Something they both knew they couldn’t entirely do at their grandmother’s house. She refused until the girls overheard his offer on the phone and begged their mother into submission.

  She and Mason would have to learn to coexist and co-parent anyway, she rationalized. Might as well start today.

  “Maybe. I think those visits are happiest after our loved ones have crossed over.”

  “Has Daddy crossed over?” Emma pursed her lips in all seriousness.

  “I think so. Yes.” She thought of Asher’s charred body that she had left on the kitchen floor of the dead zone. He was definitely gone from this Earth, from her life.

  Emma looked in the direction of her sister’s laughter. “Is he going to be happier now?”

  “I hope so, darlin’.”

  Emma nodded, her mother’s answers sufficient for the moment.

  “I like your bikini, Mama. Red’s my favorite color.”

  “Thank you, love.’” Layla had decided that even though she was a few pounds shy of her goal weight, she should enjoy the bikini she had bought for inspiration several months ago. Soon she would look like she was storing a watermelon in her belly.

  “Can I go play with Anna Kate?”

  “Go on, sweetheart.”

  She took off toward the tree and the rope swing and to make memories with her sister. Memories, Layla hoped, that would overpower and replace the ones she’d gotten the other night.

  Layla didn’t want her to tell her girls that their experiences were just a dream. But that was the truth. She would add to the story later, when they were older.

  Mason pulled on a T-shirt and walked Winston and both girls to where Dixie stood at the back door of his house. She held a large green basket filled with various things. Toys, Layla supposed. She waved to Dixie, who waved in return.

  They had had a good visit when she first arrived. Dixie was very excited about becoming a grandmother and Layla was feeling less anxious about babysitting support. Neither Dixie nor Jayne Ella worked full-time and they both wanted babysitting rights. She thought she might have to work out a schedule between the two of them to keep the baby time evenly divided.

  “They seem to be doing well.” Mason sat next to her and hand dried his wet hair.

  At the sound of his voice, the butterfly wings took off in her belly. It was too soon for the child to recognize its father’s voice. Neither of her girls kicked or danced in recognition of their father’s voice until Layla was in her second trimester. Nevertheless, it happened.

  “Yeah. Definitely better,” she finally said and turned to Mason.

  “They think it was all a dream?”

  “A bad dream, yes. I’ll tell them more when they’re older.”

  Mason opened his mouth to say something but didn’t.

  “Thanks for letting my girls swim out here today, they needed this. What are they doing with Dixie?” she asked quickly.

  “She wanted to do some games with them. Hopscotch, I think. She’s never had girls, you know.”

  Layla’s heart ached with bittersweetness at the sight of her daughters being welcomed by Dixie and graciously so.

  She realized she didn’t know when she and Mason would talk again. It might not be until the first prenatal appointment and that could be awkward. So she decided to share something she couldn’t say when the girls were around.

  “Thank you for your help last night with Asher, for going into my dream—I know that was incredibly strange. You could have just left, gone on about your business. Instead, you risked your life for us.”

  He nodded and pulled at a thread from the blanket.

  “Well, I would do it all again in a heartbeat.” He reached for her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. “I owe you an apology.”

  She couldn’t catch the tears. Pregnancy hormones, she thought. They dictated when you were strong and when you would cry. She knew she would have absolutely no control for several more months. At least she had been able to keep her face from crumpling, she reasoned. That was so embarrassing.

  Mason squeezed her hand in a be-strong-I’m-with-you kind of way.

  “A couple of things occurred to me when I was tied up in that dream with Asher. Things I should have realized a long time ago.”

  “Oh?” She wanted to tell him to just leave it be. He was off the hook. She didn’t need anything. Except for partial custody of his mother, that is.

  “First, my mother told me a long time ago that I needed to forgive the people that nearly ran us out of town. At the time, I didn’t really see the value of that. I thought the revenge of success and a life well-lived was a better option. It occurred to me the other night that that has left me rooted in the past. Sort of kept me a prisoner to all that anger. So, I’ve let that go.” His expression was serious but peaceful. He had finally reconciled with the past and it made her want to do the same.

  “Second, I’ve lived in a very different reality from you and Dixie. It’s easy to deny that something exists, especially when you don’t want it to be real. Or because you don’t want your loved ones to be a part of it. I think I’ve built up a type of allergic reaction to all things paranormal and I shouldn’t have put that off on you. I’m sorry.”

  She noticed a sadness in Mason’s eyes that she hadn’t seen earlier. A kind that came from carrying a burden, a regret. She had an intimate familiarity with this emotion and could recognize it at fifty feet. “Thank you.”

  “Makes me a little sick to think that I acted like the people that came against Dixie and our family all those years ago. I’m really sorry.”

  She nodded with gratitude.

  “Whatever influence the manor has over your dreams, you obviously wouldn’t have asked for any of that to happen. Just like Dixie never asked to see people’s personal business.” He sat upright.

  “I certainly never expected to lose control over my dreams. I never wanted them to intersect with reality, let alone Asher.” She hated saying his name. “Or Brooke. I’d dreamed hundreds of times before that night and the only reality I’d ever affected was my own state of mind which was the way the dreaming was supposed to work. I hope you can forgive me. I know you must have loved Brooke.”

  He touched her hand, tenderly, gently. “You couldn’t have known Brooke and Jordan were going to be hurt. No one could have predicted that.” He turned his wrist, where partially healed scars covered rope burns and glass cuts. “Besides, had they not been drunk that night, maybe they would have woken up before they hit the ground.” He shrugged.

  They would never know for sure, but Layla had suspected the same thing. She appreciated the validation that came with hearing Mason say it aloud.

  Something inside of her settled and strengthened.

  “Hindsight being what it is, I can confidently say that I was never meant to end up with her. Whatever she and I had was all just high school and youth and—that’s been over for me since the first kiss you and I shared. Before that, even.”

  A tingling warmth spread through Layla’s chest.

  “Strange things happen at Alcott Manor. I hope you can let yourself off the hook for that,” Mason said.

  She thought maybe she could. Finally. She felt an unfamiliar and yet comforting peace inside of her. She breathed relief that her secret was no longer her own and that the guilt no longer carried any power over her.

  “Come here. I want to show you something.”

  She threw on her black crocheted cover up with the goddess sleeves, and they walked to the dock.
Along the way, Mason pulled several papers from his bag and tucked one into his pocket.

  “These are just some rough drawings, but see here. This is the deck,” he pointed toward the house. “And here’s my solution to the afternoon sun dilemma.”

  She examined the hand-drawn plans that she thought might have been to scale. “A retractable roof?”

  “Yeah. Depending upon where the sun hits, you can close it or leave them parted. These are shades along the top to keep out the heat.”

  “It’s perfect,” she said and giggled quietly at her use of the word.

  “It’s possible.” He smiled. Not the winner’s smile that she had found so intoxicating, the one that created a ripple inside of her that could morph into a wave and sweep her off her feet. No, this one was sweet and soft and she thought she might cry again.

  He must have sensed the shift in her emotions, because he rubbed her arm with a gentle touch. “There are so many reasons why you have always been one of my favorite people in the world. One of the best is that you have this way of guiding me beyond my own world, beyond limits I thought I had to live within. A way beyond other people’s rules.”

  He held her hands in his.

  “You were right that I needed to open my mind to possibility instead of perfection. There was this moment in your dream where your girls wanted so desperately to stay with their father and make that work, and it just hit me how that wasn’t possible. I remember saying, ‘We can’t live in the past.’ I think that’s when I realized that I had been. Somehow, ever since the Milligans ousted Dixie, I got more and more intent on everything needing to be a certain way. Just so.” He made an imaginary box in the air with his hands.

  “Right angles,” she said.

  “Right angles. I wanted certainty and order and the sense of security that gave me. But the more I pushed for that, the more Dixie explored her gifts. And as you know, there’s nothing about ghosts and readings and whatnot that’s easily explainable. It’s all very loose and that shit just freaks me out.” He waved his hands in the air and she chuckled.

  “I didn’t want her or anyone I cared about to be hurt again. I didn’t want your dreaming to be real because I couldn’t protect you from what might happen with that. In general, I can’t stand it when things don’t go according to plan. Misplaced good intentions, I guess. I’m sorry I put that on you. I ought to have been more open-minded.” His sigh was heavy and final. “Can’t fix the past, as I’m learning. So, I’ve forgiven people that I needed to instead.”

  His fingertips grazed her belly, and the warmth in her heart intensified even more and spread, filling her entire chest like a balloon.

  The first time she felt that warmth, she had been a teenager. A senior in high school, graduation just around the corner. All grades were in and the only thing left were the parties. In fact, her own mother had organized a campout on the great lawn of Alcott Manor for that weekend.

  She and Mason were at the lake, this lake. They had skipped the entire day of school to swim and hang out. They sat on the dock, maybe the very one they stood on today, and they talked about their future. Warm breezes had swirled around them that day, as soft and sweet as a memory. The scent of oleander hung close to them. Their ideal future seemed within their grasp.

  He had all kinds of plans. When he asked her what she wanted to do, she said she wanted to be a nurse. And then there was that warmth in her chest and she said that she just knew something good was coming. She knew she was going to be happy. He kissed her. With their feet dangling in the water, his tongue grazed against hers in the most perfect kiss.

  She let her hopes soar that day, higher than they’d ever been. Because she just knew. In a flash of inexplicable insight, she knew. They would marry and they would have two girls and a boy—the youngest with dark hair and ginger eyes just like his Daddy.

  Tears slid down her cheeks. There was no stopping them.

  His expression was clear and confident. Not at all conflicted as it had been at their last discussion.

  She recognized that feeling in her heart now: love. It was love. She had been in love then, with Mason. At the time, she thought that he loved her, too. Now she knew she was right.

  “If there are any more dreams, though, I can think of a couple that I’d like to repeat.” He winked and smiled, and the warmth in her chest spread to her cheeks.

  He pulled a loosely rolled set of documents from his pocket and stared at it for a long moment. A gentle breeze blew through the pines and skated across Layla’s back.

  “This is for you.” He handed her the papers.

  “What is it?”

  He nodded to the scroll in her hands. “Open it.”

  She unraveled the papers and scanned the legalese. DEED was the only word that made sense. “Deed? Deed to what?”

  He gestured to the house behind him.

  “Your house?”

  “Your house now.”

  “No, Mason. This is your home!”

  “I was happiest here because of you, because of the times we shared. I don’t want to be here without you.”

  “Mason—”

  “Layla, I promise that if you will give me the chance, I will do everything I can to make you as happy as you make me.” More tears fell as quickly as he wiped them away.

  “We don’t have to do this. The baby was unexpected and you were in a dream. My dream. We would have handled our time together differently if either of us had known that pregnancy was a possibility. I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

  “Ha!” He laughed loud enough to cast an echo across the lake. “Obligated? I left an entire life and a career in New York just to be near you. That’s not obligation, that’s—this is—” He gestured to her midsection. “I can’t believe I’m going to use my mother’s words here.” He sighed with another laugh. “Guidance. This is just meant to be. I don’t know how you feel and obviously this is your choice. But in my world, Layla, all roads lead to you. They always have. I’m standing right here, with you, on this land that used to be our favorite place, because I followed my happiness. I followed my heart. I’m right where I want to be. Where I’ve always wanted to be.”

  He reached into his front pocket and offered her a ring from bended knee—a large oval labradorite center stone set in gold and surrounded by square diamonds. “It’s not traditional, but I thought—”

  “The stone,” she gasped.

  “I found it the morning after the dream with the cave.” He pointed to the other side of the lake. “In my hand, oddly enough. There are two more and I thought we might have necklaces made for the girls.”

  “This is the same stone from the cave, the one from my dreams.” She spun around and looked across the lake to the cave where they had swam, where he had proposed. It was nothing more than a wide arch of tree roots over a section of the lake, nothing like her dream. “It’s not there, it never was!”

  His winner’s smile broadened and the wave hit her hard. “You have to believe in possibility,” he said. He slipped the ring on her finger. “Marry me, Layla.”

  The blinding glare of the sun on the water reflected on her face. In a blink, she circled to the past and back again. She and Mason on this dock so many years ago and now again today, the future she’d known was theirs, finally within reach.

  Although they weren’t alone. Because the butterfly wings moved fast against the inside of her belly, as if to applaud her decision, as if he knew how happy she finally was, and as if he had known all along that this was the way it was meant to be. She pressed her hand against her abdomen and felt the joy of a dream fulfilled.

  Continue the Adventure with A Stranger at Alcott Manor

  To continue the adventure with Alcott Manor, turn the page and keep reading for an excerpt from: A STRANGER AT ALCOTT MANOR …

  Epilogue

  It was midnight when Peyton finally arrived at Alcott Manor. She scanned the interior from her front door vantage point and pronounced it hands-down gorge
ous.

  She hadn’t seen the house since the restoration was completed, and though she knew generally what to expect, she hadn’t expected this. Glimmering gold wallpaper, exquisite oversized chandeliers, gas lamps, solid wood double doors, stained glass windows. Nothing less than perfection.

  She could easily see Senator Benjamin Alcott and his wife Anna hurrying through the house in 1880s costume, tending to guests, entertaining the President of the United States, living life as it was before the turn of the last century.

  That’s what the public would want to see as well. And that’s why she was here. Well, that and she had to get out of Boston.

  Yes, her family had asked her to get the manor ready for tourists by preparing exhibits and story boards, setting up tour paths, writing tour scripts, and developing relationships with tourism outlets. But she took the job because if she had stayed in Boston, he wouldn’t have let her live. He would have killed her.

  She was overtired, because in the thick and aging quiet of the manor, she thought she heard the distant sounds of a party. Chatter, cheers, laughter—and did she smell food?

  She caught sight of several ancient cameras on a table at the far end of the room. Dusty photo albums were stacked and scattered among them, and black and white photos peeked from the inside pages. There were also several newspaper articles, cut and layered in a pile. The museum must have been left these for her as material for the exhibit boards.

  Most of the articles highlighted those who had gone missing or died in the manor. She flipped through them quickly, having seen them all before. There would be a section for these on the tour. People would want to know more about the macabre mysteries of the manor.

  The album binding crackled when she lifted the cover, like the opening of a door into another time. Women in long white dresses and men in suits stared at her from these captured moments. No one smiled and she wondered if they knew when the photo would be taken or if they just stood there, poised and perfect, waiting for a moment they couldn’t predict.