The Haunting of Winchester Mansion Omnibus

by Clarke, Alexandria

  April 26th, 1996

  I’m dying. Okay, I’m not dying, but it sure feels like I am. My pulse is racing, my lungs feel tight, and my stomach keeps lurching as if I’m going to hurl. I always liked to think that if Alex ever reciprocated my feelings and actually asked me out, I would’ve been as smooth as Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Nots. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Alex?

  Unfortunately, I did not tell Alex to just put his lips together and blow. Here’s the great news: Alex asked me to junior prom. I can’t believe I just wrote that. Alex asked me to junior prom. Wow. I’m not usually at a loss for words, but just… wow. Every girl in school would kill to walk into prom with Alex Lido, and for some unspeakable reason, he wants to go with me. However, here’s the bad news. When he asked me, I spit on him.

  Who asks a girl to prom right as she takes an enormous gulp of lemonade? He spent the rest of the lunch period with a stain on his shirt. In hindsight, he brought that upon himself. Seriously, you cannot present a woman with a dozen roses and not expect her mouth to drop open in shock.

  The other kicker was Patrick’s face. I guess Alex never told him that he wanted to ask me to prom. Patrick’s angry. I understand why. It’s his junior prom, and he wants to spend it with his best friend, not his kid sister. But as much as I love my brother, this is an opportunity that I can’t pass up. What are the chances Alex and I win prom king and queen? I would look great in a tiara.

  I closed Caroline’s journal, my mind made up. I wanted to speak to Alex Lido. Both Caroline and Patrick knew and loved him, and if there was anyone who might know something about the Winchester kids’ secret jaunts, it was their mutual best friend. I packed up the VHS tapes and the photo albums, storing them under the desk for safekeeping. Down the hall, the construction crew worked tirelessly to fix up the kitchen. Soon, it would be time to start tearing apart this room. We would have to donate or sell the rest of the Winchesters’ things, a thought that weighed heavy on my heart.

  In the kitchen, Bodhi and Ethan knelt on a rubber mat, their heads hidden from view as they inspected some kind of plumbing issue beneath the sink.

  “Hey, Ethan,” I said.

  He poked his face out from underneath the counter. “Hi, darlin’. How are you?”

  “I’m great. I’m glad you’re here actually. Do you know who Alex Lido is?”

  With a groan, Ethan pushed himself to his feet. “Of course. Everyone knows Alex. He helps his dad out with the restaurant nowadays.”

  I bowed my head in thanks. “You just answered my question before I even asked it. Do you think he’d be there now?”

  “I imagine so. Why?”

  “More blog stuff,” I said vaguely. “I’m going to drop by.”

  Bodhi slid out from beneath the sink and tossed a set of keys toward me. “Take the truck. You really need to stay off that ankle.”

  So I left Ethan and Bodhi to their plumbing and rode into town for the second time that day. Lido’s Restaurant was relatively slow by the time I got there. It was mid-afternoon, and there was a lull between lunch and dinner. Most of the tables were empty, save for the odd late lunch date. I walked in and waited awkwardly by the front door. A server soon approached me, taking a menu from the host’s stand.

  “Hi, there,” she said. “Table for one?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Alex,” I told her. “Is he around?”

  “Sure. One minute.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen, and I took a seat at the bar. A large television broadcasted a replay of a Seattle Mariners game. I watched absentmindedly for a minute or two before the door to the kitchen swung open again.

  Alexander Lido looked much the same as he had twenty years ago, but now there were lines around his deep, sparkling eyes and his dark hair was now cropped close to his scalp. But his award-winning smile, highlighted by those dimples, was just as effective now as it had been then. He wore a black shirt, sculpted jeans, and a baseball cap. When he spotted me at the counter, he filled a glass from a beer tap and slid it across the bar. I caught it before it could topple off the end of the counter.

  “Brewed that myself,” he said, coming my way. He stretched his hand out, and I shook it. He had a firm, warm grasp that reminded me of Bodhi’s. “I heard the new girl in town wanted to see me. Anything I can help you with in particular?”

  “Yes, actually.” I took a sip of beer. It was refreshingly light, with hints of grapefruit and citrus in the aftertaste. I looked at Alex’s nice smile. “I was wondering if you could tell me about Patrick and Caroline Winchester.”

  In less than a second, Alex’s grin faltered and fell.

  17

  Lido’s

  Immediately, Alex busied himself with polishing glasses, buffing them so vigorously that one fell out of his hand and hit the floor.

  “Sore subject?” I ventured. Another waiter stooped down to sweep up the broken glass.

  “You could say that,” muttered Alex, avoiding my gaze.

  “You were Patrick’s best friend.”

  His eyes snapped up to focus on mine. “How do you know that?”

  I gestured toward the trophy case at the front of the restaurant. Inside, there was a picture of the Golden Eagles football team. Patrick and Alex were both front and center. “Doesn’t everyone know that?”

  “Yeah, but it’s been a long time.”

  I passed my beer from one hand to the other and contemplated whether or not to ask for a basket of onion rings. “You knew the Winchesters well though.”

  “I did.”

  “How did you meet them?”

  Alex turned his baseball cap around so that it faced backward then leaned on his elbows on the bar top. “Why does an out-of-towner like you have so much interest in a family that hasn’t been around for twenty years?”

  Alex’s bottomless blue eyes were inches from my own. I suddenly understood that he was the type of man who knew that his mere presence had an effect on people. While he didn’t appear to blatantly take advantage of that fact, he was aware that he could manipulate anyone just with his body language. I looked into my beer.

  “I live in their house,” I answered matter-of-factly. “I’m also writing a feature on the Winchesters for my blog. I wanted to make sure that I have an accurate representation of all of them, including Patrick and Caroline.”

  I expected Alex to retreat behind his invisible shield of emotions. Clearly, he wasn’t fond of talking about his dead best friend. However, to my pleasant surprise, he sighed and answered my question.

  “I met Patrick at football camp the summer before our freshman year,” he explained. “We were the skinniest kids on the field and determined to prove that we could play better than the guys on the varsity team. I think we bonded over that. By the start of the school year, we were practically fused together.”

  “All I ever hear about Patrick is that he was a star on the football field.” I swirled my glass around to even out the foam on top. “But what was he really like?”

  “He was a total goof,” said Alex, smiling as he sifted through his high school memories. “The teachers loved him because he somehow managed to disrupt class just enough to break up the monotony, but not so much that it was considered disrespectful.”

  “Class clown, eh?”

  “Yes, but he was more than that.” Now that the ball was rolling, Alex wanted to talk about his best friend. He spoke animatedly, and his eyes lit up with the memories of the past. “Pat was a great listener too. People always think teenagers are so wrapped up in their own problems, and admittedly, most of us were back then. Patrick was different though. He cared about other people. If it weren’t for him, I don’t think I would’ve made it through high school.”

  “Why not?”

  Alex poured himself a shot of bourbon. “My parents went through a really rough divorce. They argued non-stop. Basically sued each other into the ground. We nearly closed the restaurant. I spent a lot of time hiding at Pat’s house. His par
ents, Christopher and Elizabeth, were good people. I think they realized I needed a place to crash while my mom and dad worked their problems out. Do you want something to eat?”

  My stomach rumbled. Despite this morning’s extravagant brunch, my metabolism was in fine form. “That’d be great.”

  Alex snagged a passing waiter. “Hey, will you put in two orders for the catch of the day?”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  Alex thanked him and turned back to me. “Anyway, Patrick was much more than his football fame.”

  “Losing him must’ve been really difficult for you,” I said softly.

  He pivoted away, glancing up at the score of the baseball game that played on the television. His voice sounded thick when he answered. “Hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.”

  I gave him a minute to recover, quietly nursing my beer. He turned his cap back around so that the brim cast a shadow over his eyes, cleared his throat, and sipped his bourbon.

  “What about Patrick’s sister?” I asked. “Did you know Caroline well?”

  “Of course I did,” Alex replied, the twinkle returning to his eyes. “She always tagged along with me and Patrick, much to Pat’s chagrin. I didn’t mind. I adored Caroline. Mind you, I couldn’t always keep up with whatever she was talking about. She was much too smart for me.”

  “I heard you went to prom with her.”

  Once again, Alex fixed me with a penetrating stare. “Okay, now I’d really like to know where you’re getting your information from. This is personal.”

  I considered telling Alex that I had found Caroline’s journals in her old bedroom. He probably would have loved to read them, especially if he had such a soft spot for Caroline. But then I remembered why I was having this conversation with Alex to begin with. Someone in Black Bay had murdered Caroline, and advertising my possession of possible evidence was not a good move.

  “Someone in town mentioned it,” I said instead with a nonchalant shrug.

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. “They gave you the wrong information. I asked Caroline to go with me, yes, but she never actually made it.”

  I paused with my beer halfway to my lips. “Why not?”

  “Because I had just turned eighteen and she was only fifteen,” he explained. He poured another glass of bourbon for himself. “Her parents liked me and all, but I guess they thought that there was too much of an age gap. Plus, Patrick wasn’t particularly pleased with me when I asked her to go with me.”

  The server delivered our lunches then, setting down two steaming plates of fresh fried cod, onion rings, and tartar sauce. Alex offered me a fork and knife wrapped tightly in a napkin.

  “Thanks,” I said. “So what happened with you and Patrick after that?”

  “We fought,” Alex admitted as he unwrapped his own silverware. “We brawled right there in the hallway at school. It was the only thing we ever disagreed on. I think it was also the only time Pat ever got in trouble for something.”

  I squeezed an onion ring flat, dipped it in a ramekin of ketchup, and popped it into my mouth. “Did the two of you make up?”

  “Partially,” said Alex as he dumped his coleslaw on top of the fish. “But things felt different after that. Pat clammed up every time Caroline and I were in the same room together. The three of us couldn’t hang out anymore the way we used to.”

  “Why was Patrick so upset over you wanting to date his sister?” I asked, discreetly studying Alex as we ate.

  “I never knew,” he replied with a wistful shrug. “I think it just surprised him. It surprised me, you know? I always liked Caroline, but I never thought of her that way until she changed.”

  “Puberty will do that.”

  Alex rolled his eyes. “Not like that. She used to be really shy around me when she was younger. I didn’t really have the chance to get to know her. She became more talkative when she got older. Sometimes, if I was waiting on Pat, I’d talk to Caroline. She blew my mind most days. You should’ve heard her go on and on about the stuff she learned in her AP classes. I could barely keep up. Anyway, I guess Pat thought that the only reason I was at his house so often was because I wanted to see Caroline.”

  “Which was half-true,” I guessed.

  “I loved all of the Winchesters equally,” Alex declared. “I never thought that would somehow be a bad thing. And then the night they died—”

  He cut himself off abruptly, taking a bite of his meal to avoid continuing his sentence.

  “What happened on the night they died?” I asked gently.

  Alex lifted his cap nervously, running his hand over his buzzed hair. “I saw them. Before they got on their parents’ boat. I was working here, and they stopped by to say hi.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yeah. It was a little weird. Good though. They were laughing together when they came in, and Pat sort of nudged Caroline toward me. They sat at the bar and drank Shirley Temples, watching me bus tables. It was the first time everything felt normal since the whole prom debacle.”

  “Did they tell you they were meeting their parents afterward?”

  Alex shook his head. “Nah. Everyone knew the Winchesters went out on the bay every Friday if the weather was good. They even took me with them sometimes. Pat and Caroline said goodbye and headed out. For twenty years, I’ve wished that I asked them to stick around the restaurant that night.”

  I realized that I’d been shredding my paper napkin into bits as Alex spoke. Like everyone else in Black Bay, Alex was under the impression that Caroline and Patrick had died on their parents’ boat. To make matters worse, he partially blamed himself for their deaths. I reached across the bar top to pat Alex’s hand.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I told him quietly. “There was nothing you could’ve done to prevent that from happening.”

  “If I had just—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Don’t you dare blame yourself.”

  For a minute or two, we just sat like that, my hand over Alex’s and the bar top between us. The commentary for the ballgame prattled on. At the front of the restaurant, the door opened to admit an elderly couple for an early dinner. The catch of the day went uneaten on our plates.

  I sniffed, blinking to stop my eyes from watering, and pushed away from the counter. “I should get going. Thanks for telling me about Patrick and Caroline.”

  Alex cleared his throat. “It was nice actually.”

  I pulled out my wallet. “What do I owe you?”

  “Don’t worry about it. On the house.”

  “All right. Thank you.” I turned to leave, but the picture of Alex sitting alone at the bar, his own unfinished meal in front of him, caused me to pause. “Alex? If you like, my husband and I would love for you to come visit us at the house.”

  He nodded in appreciation, his stunning blue eyes remarkably solemn. “I might just do that.”

  As soon as I climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck, closed the door, and shifted into first gear, I burst into tears. I’d gotten more than I had bargained for out of my conversation with Alex. He was closer to the Winchesters than anyone else I’d spoken to so far. If the reverent way he reminisced about Patrick and Caroline was any indication, Alex practically considered them family. It was terrible. All these years later, Alex suffered from the loss of his best friend. I thought about me and Bodhi. Would we ever heal? Or would we go our entire lives haunted by one fatal mistake?

  The drive back to the house felt eons longer than usual. It wasn’t good to be alone with my thoughts. They had drifted to a dark place, a place with brambles and vines that snaked around me and sucked me deep below the surface of reality. I rolled down the windows, hoping the breeze might help to clear my head. I tried to remember my conversation with Alex from an analytical standpoint. One thing stood out to me. Even though Patrick and Caroline had been grounded that day, they were out and about in town. If they didn’t get on the Winchester family sailboat after they left Lido’s restaurant, then where did they
go?

  Sunset beckoned on the bluff. Creeping rays of peachy light pierced through the front windshield as I pulled into the front yard. Bodhi and the crew lounged outside, eating pizza and drinking beer as they enjoyed the warm summer night. When Bodhi saw the truck, he hopped up from his comfortable seat on the ground and opened my door for me.

  “The guys bought pizza,” he said, kissing my cheek. “Would you like some?”

  I rested my forehead against Bodhi’s chest. He smelled like pine needles and musk. “I ate in town.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I think I’d just like to be alone. Is that okay?”

  There was a worried tilt to his mouth, but he said, “Sure. Of course.”

  I waved to the rest of the crew and headed inside. I went straight to the office, where my research from earlier hid beneath the desk. I found the VHS tape I was looking for, popped it into the player, and sat down on the floor to watch it. As Patrick, Caroline, and Alex appeared on the television screen, I felt something cold press against my left side, as if someone with icy skin had sat down beside me.

  “He loved you, you know,” I murmured. On the screen, Alex spun Caroline around in a chaotic dance beneath a shower of colorful fireworks while Patrick looked on laughing. “He told me today. I hope you know that.”

  No one spoke back, but the frosty presence next to me grew chillier still.

  “Where’s Patrick?” I asked, the thought occurring to me at random. “You’re dead but still here, right? So where has your brother gone? Did he pass over?”

  There was no answer. Caroline was no longer the conversationalist she claimed to be when she was alive. Either that, or she didn’t have the ability to conduct a conversation in her current state. I sighed, slumping against the ornate desk. On the TV, Patrick and Alex lifted Caroline onto their shoulders. But there was a fourth face on the small screen, reflecting from outside the office window.