The Haunting of Cragg Hill House

by Elyse Salpeter

  “And what about the dolls?” Desmond warily eyed one resting on a rocking chair next to him. Kelsey stared into the beady eyes gleaming out of its white porcelain face. It was dressed in Victorian design as well, with an outrageous billowing dress. Kelsey swore the doll was staring at her.

  “They are Elsa’s,” Dooley said. “She’s collected them since she was a little girl. We had to put them someplace. The library seemed like the best bet because they were creeping out some of the guests when we had them displayed in the hallways. I think they give this room a great atmosphere, don’t they?” he winked. “Come, we’re having a cocktail hour before dinner and Jenella made the most decadent food for this evening. Everyone is already assembled. It would be a shame if you missed it.”

  They moved out of the dark library and into the bright reception lounge where several more hotel guests had congregated. Kelsey let Desmond escort her around the room while she thought about Ezeral Cragg’s pharmaceutical hobby. I wonder if he knew about the Fore tribe and the staff that worked with him? He must have, right?

  They were greeted by Herb, the bartender, who handed Kelsey a glass of champagne. She took a sip, pretended she liked it and then surreptitiously slipped it onto one of the busboy’s trays when they walked by her.

  Kelsey had been right earlier about the honeymoon couple. Samantha and Kathryn Joyner-Smith, Sam and Kat, had just gotten married on Long Island and were honeymooning at the Mountain House. They’d been together for eight years and would have gotten married as soon as New York made it legal, but Samantha had been battling breast cancer and they’d wanted to finish her treatment first. She was now in remission and this trip was both a honeymoon and celebration for them.

  The uber-rich couple sat at the bar. The woman, who haughtily asked to be called Lady Camille Scott, even though she was not British, nor a Lady, sipped a martini loaded with so many olives they filled the entire bottom of the martini glass. Her husband turned out to be the investment tycoon billionaire, Ernest Scott. Shipping containers were his area of interest and nearly every barge on the planet carried his products. He sat next to her and seemed to pretend to be interested in whatever she had to say. Kelsey didn’t think he was even listening. He kept asking the bartender to refill his highball. As if he needed alcohol to withstand his shrew of a wife.

  The couple with the young children did not join them in the bar. She’d been told they were braving the snow outside in the back by the fire pit, having hot chocolate and S’mores.

  The single businessman whom Kelsey had found so familiar spent most of the cocktail hour off to the side reclining in a red velvet wingback chair by the marble fireplace, nursing a scotch and scowling. Samantha and Kathryn were keenly aware of his disapproving glances in their direction, so Kat would occasionally try to aggravate him by planting a deep kiss on her partner’s lips, just to irk him. The man would shake his head, turn away and take another sip from his drink.

  Dorothea sidled up to the girls and Kelsey overheard her whispering to them. “Don’t you ladies worry about him. He’s a hot-shot lawyer who just got his ass handed to him a few weeks ago on a high profile case. Then, right after that his wife left him for her personal trainer. A woman,” she said suggestively. “So, he’s obviously a bit biased to the both of you right now.”

  Kelsey snapped her fingers, tapped Desmond’s arm, and discreetly pointed at the man. “That’s why I know that guy! You’re not going to believe this. That’s Richard Bain. He obviously shaved his mustache and goatee after the trial, but now I recognize him.”

  Bain had been all over the news the past few weeks, after the DA broke the big smuggling case by saying they’d found Misterio, the smuggler who’d been bringing contraband weapons and dangerous plants into the United States.

  Desmond still didn’t believe the story for a second. The collar, Mickie Laruso, barely topped 5’7” and was no more than one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet. There was no way in a million years that Mickie matched up to the man Desmond had fought down at the piers that one time. It didn’t matter that Misterio had been clothed in all black like a demented Ninja. Desmond knew Mickie could not have thrown a punch that knocked him to his knees. Not to mention how coincidental it had all come down. Desmond was gone for just sixty days after working the case day and night for months. Then suddenly, the week he returned, they’d found, prosecuted and convicted someone? It happened so fast, it clearly had to be a setup. But according to the department, the case was irrefutable, closed, and he was told to forget about it and move on. All that was left was the guy’s sentencing. It was now five weeks later and he was still being told, “Just leave it be.”

  They obviously didn’t know Kelsey’s boyfriend all that well.

  Mickie had screamed and hollered bloody murder that he’d been framed. That someone had paid him ten thousand dollars to watch the apartment where he was discovered with all the contraband.

  But no one believed him. Documents going back over eight years to his activities and dealings in the Middle East had appeared. There were photos, bills of sale, snitches, but Richard Bain claimed all of it had been professionally falsified and that his client was brilliantly framed. Mickie had an IQ of just 90 and there was absolutely no way he’d have been able to manage a smuggling operation all on his own. The prosecutors vehemently disagreed, citing the greenhouse lab they discovered set up in the basement of Mickie’s dead mother’s house in Flushing Queens. There had been mass panic when they discovered plants so toxic that they could have wiped out New York City if they’d been used the way they were intended. The Mayor wanted nothing more than to nail this guy to the wall and save face with the community. Mickie testified that there was no way he’d had access to the home. It went into foreclosure after his mother had died, and he’d not set foot in the place since. The evidence they collected from the house proved otherwise. The property was filled with Mickie’s clothing, a recently used toothbrush, soiled bedsheets, and butt filled ashtrays with his favorite cigarette brand. A set of house keys turned up in his jacket. The banks appeared to debunk his lies as well. There had been transfers from his savings account to the mortgage company every month for the past five years. It wasn’t in foreclosure at all.

  The courtroom sketch artists had a field day drawing Mickie appearing incredulous as the evidence poured in. They exaggerated the size of his overly-large ears and bulbous nose to make a caricature of him and for nearly two weeks he replaced the reality television stars that usually adorned the covers of the entertainment magazines. He even became a meme. “What, me?” was the tagline that raged through social media, complete with a photo of him staring directly into the camera and his finger pointed to his chest.

  The case had gone to trial and by the time the month was over his case was considered closed. That kind of speed in a major trial was unheard of, and Desmond knew they’d made a grave mistake.

  Desmond sniffed. “Bain was right all along. They do have the wrong man, but of course no one listened to him either. You know what? I think I just might have a scotch, too.” He went to the bar, grabbed a drink, and then sat down on a second wingback next to Bain’s. Within seconds, the two men were leaning towards each other and talking heatedly, as if they’d known each other for years.

  Samantha sashayed up to Kelsey. “I think you better watch out. Your boyfriend might have found a new friend. Good riddance. Get Bain off our case. And hey, nice shoes. I need to get a pair for my girl.” She wrapped her arm around Kat’s waist and together they moved to a bar table on which an extensive Charcuterie board had been spread out. Samantha plucked a grape from a cluster and popped it into Kat’s open mouth.

  Kelsey sat down on the couch and nibbled on a crab cake appetizer a server brought by. She knew Desmond was just frustrated. Not making the collar was the least of his problems right now. His reputation had taken a significant hit in the past six weeks since his return because he hadn’t yet come up with a rational excuse for his two month disappearance
. The only reason Desmond hadn’t lost his job yet was because he apparently had some friends in very high places making demands that he at least keep his position until an investigation was completed. In the meantime, Internal Affairs was making his life a living hell. But he simply couldn’t tell them the truth. Telling people that your previously unknown twin sister, asleep for over a hundred and fifty years, activated a portal to kidnap you back to your home world where you had to fight in a Buddhist Devic War before you could return home to Earth, definitely wasn’t going to fly with the department. Or with anyone, for that matter. Kelsey could see the conversation with the police psychologist going something like this:

  “Could your sister talk to us and confirm this, Detective?”

  “No, she can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she isn’t here.”

  “And where is she?”

  And then Desmond saying nothing, because to say anything approaching the truth would push him right into a psychiatric clinic.

  So instead, his feeble excuse that he’d needed some time off for family issues was obviously not acceptable. Kelsey thought he was going to have to come up with something more creative that might not sit well with him. Perhaps say his mother had a drug or alcohol addiction and he had to leave for a few months while she sought treatment. She could easily have Ari’s office set up forged documents with all the historical paperwork needed to prove it happened. Kelsey had mentioned this option to Desmond and he’d scoffed, saying he’d never put his mother’s reputation at risk like that, but Kelsey knew it might be the very thing to clear everything up. For now, he planned to just go in on Monday to the precinct, but she had the distinct feeling they would send him home and put him on leave. It’s just no one had told him yet.

  Bain raised his voice, calling for the bartender to bring two more scotches.

  Bain. What the hell are you doing here? His visiting the mountain house at the same time as Desmond could not be sheer coincidence. She didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Not even for a second.

  Chapter 6

  Five weeks earlier

  They stood opposite each other in a deserted alley. The abandoned pier was dark and filthy with mounds of trash that had accumulated with the wind. It was cold in New York City at this time of year, but they were hot and sweaty, having just hauled out the last of the equipment. Except for a few stray leaves, which would crumble to dust quickly, the underground lab was all but gone.

  Ari handed over a thick envelope to Josh. “For your time.”

  Josh clicked his tongue. “My time. Like I’m some paid lackey. You’ve known from the beginning that there were two things I wanted from this mission, and neither was money.”

  “Things change, Josh. Just take the money and let it go.”

  Josh squinted. “Things changed for who? Not me. You promised me that when this was over, Kelsey would be mine, but you went ahead and blew it all up for me. And now you’re pulling me off the Middle East assignment, too? You know I haven’t finished paying the terrorists back yet for killing my entire team.”

  “Look, I can’t tell Kelsey what to do. She wasn’t even part of this equation when you signed on to the job. You think I like what’s happened since then? You think I’m happy Desmond is back in her life? I thought we had gotten rid of him.”

  Josh widened his eyes incredulously. “Did you? Yet here he is, back from another dimension and back in her bed. Want to know what I think? I think something happened to you while you were in Aihika that you’re not telling me. I think you got cold feet about the assignment and now you can’t handle the magnitude of the job. So, what do you do now? Take the easy way out and waste a year of preparation just so you can cozy up with your new girlfriend in the psych ward and forget that all of this past year ever happened. Something happened to make you soft.”

  Ari’s faced reddened and he balled his fists. His biceps flexed. “You’re treading a thin line.”

  Josh stood up taller and the two men squared off. They were both formidable, and while it seldom ever came to blows between them, because of their natures it came close many times.

  “And what thin line am I crossing exactly, since you keep moving it, Ari? We were going to change the entire face of the Middle East. I spent the last year of my life on hold helping you, and now it’s over and I’m out of it? Just like that? The answer is no. I won’t just put my tail under my ass and walk away. If you won’t finish the job, I will.”

  Ari held out the envelope. “The job is done. Take the ten million and stop your bitching. You know what I think is really the problem? I think you’re jealous that you didn’t get to go to Aihika or Xanadu or any of the other places Kelsey has been.”

  “What, because you finally went to one of them?” Josh said. “You think I’m jealous of you? How much of an egomaniac are you?”

  “Take the check.”

  Josh swiped the envelope from Ari’s hands and stuffed it into his jeans. “Kelsey’s right. You are a narcissistic pig. I can’t believe you’re doing this. Since when do you ever give up on anything?”

  “I’m not giving up a thing. The project is still on. I’m just going in a different direction.”

  “Do the backers know this? Because the last I checked, they expected the body count to be higher. Or did things change after that ridiculously expensive fifth bottle of wine and those Gurkha Black Dragon cigars we had at Bazaar’s?”

  “The backers know what they need to know. They just asked for change and I’ll give them change. The plan is still in motion. It’s just going to take longer than expected.”

  “So the last five million isn’t going to come now, is it?”

  “I thought this was never about money?”

  “Is it coming in or not?”

  Ari raised his voice. “No, it isn’t. How thick are you? We delivered three hits and we were paid. We’re done for now.”

  “But why?” Josh said. “We’ve grown enough material to destroy countless cities in the Middle East. We could single-handedly wipe out terrorism at its source. The plan has been working to perfection. Why the cold feet, Ari? What? Did you get a heart?”

  “Shut the hell up already. You have a problem that I now have a new plan where I won’t need to murder a million people? You knew there were always risks to civilians once we moved past the testing phase. I want to minimize that. I don’t even know what you’re whining about anyway. You want Kelsey? Go win her back. You got the cash now to do it and you know exactly where she is. Oh, and good luck with that, unless you’ve got a plan to finally do away with Desmond on your own. Please, feel free to get rid of him and do us both a favor. Just don’t get caught.” He turned to walk away, but Josh grabbed his arm.

  “We’re not done with this.”

  Ari shook him off. “Yes, we are. The lab is gone, Mickie’s been framed, and everything has been put to bed. I know exactly what I’m doing in the Middle East and your services are no longer needed. I’m sorry about what happened to your team, but this goes beyond payback for a single unit. You have to let this go.”

  Josh glared. “Stop it. You’re treating me like one of your goddamned employees.”

  “Then stop acting like one. And if you remember correctly, you do work for me, or did that ten million bank transfer slip sitting in your pocket just mysteriously appear?”

  The two of them stared each other down and finally Josh spoke. “Fine. If it’s done, then it’s done. Let me just finish sweeping the lab and getting the final paperwork done with Mickie. Then I’ll get the hell out of your hair.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can finish all of it up.”

  Josh shook his head. “Nope, I don’t want you coming back to me saying I didn’t earn my keep. See you around, buddy.” He turned and disappeared down a darkened alleyway.

  Ari watched his friend go with a sense of unease. He knew this wasn’t over by a long shot. That’s not how Josh worked. How either of them worked. Y
ou had to be one of those guys to know one of those guys. The two of them were volatile, and Ari hoped that after this, Josh would calm down and re-up as a consultant training the military’s elite crews. His former Navy Seal of a friend had to do something to get all that excess aggression and anger out. He was still living in the past.

  Josh was a contractor hired for a variety of skills, and had been with this one Marine unit so long, he felt like he was a part of their team. They had all been stationed in a civilian town in Afghanistan when the terrorists came in and attacked, wiping out the entire unit and countless civilians. Josh had landed in the hospital for two weeks nursing a concussion, broken ribs, and a stress fracture to his leg. He’d gotten lucky. He’d been in the basement of a building helping members of the town organize food supplies when the building above them came crashing down. The rest of the team had not been so fortunate. He was the only one to make it out alive.

  When Ari came to him with his plan for the Middle East, he’d jumped on it, like Ari knew he would.

  As for Kelsey, it wasn’t Ari’s fault his sister didn’t want to sleep with Josh. That was really what was at the heart of this now. Josh was frustrated and upset because Kelsey wasn’t interested in him any longer. Ari knew that feeling all too well.

  Unfortunately, Desmond was still getting in the way of everything. The guy was like a parasite. If he were Desmond, he’d start watching his back, but the threat wouldn’t come from him. There was no way Ari was going to get involved with anything going on between Kelsey and Desmond at this point. While he hated the guy with every ounce of his being, he intended on maintaining a relationship with his sister. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be easy. Every time he was in the room with Desmond, he wanted to put his face through a wall even though Ari knew exactly why Desmond was mad at him and why he blamed him. Still, Ari wasn’t going to take responsibility for it. Screw him. All he cared about was Kelsey. Desmond could fall off a cliff for all he cared.