by Lisa Childs
“Cursed,” Bonita murmured again like she had earlier.
“Be careful,” Evelyn said. “Don’t cut yourself.” As if her sister was a child, she guided her away from the shards of the bowl—to the side of the kitchen.
Bonita was quite childlike. Even Rosemary had talked softly and gently to her, as if not wanting to frighten her. Like Edie had frightened her. She had never been good with children even when she’d been one herself.
The woman stared at her with wide eyes—eyes that looked glazed with fear or maybe with drugs. Was she on something?
As a reporter, Edie had seen it all. Or so she’d thought. This island was something else, though, something almost sinister. Maybe the judge was right; maybe her story was here. “Why is it cursed?” she asked them again.
Evelyn gasped again. “We’re not talking about it.”
“Why not?” Edie asked. She’d googled the place when the judge’s clerk had told her that was where he was going today. “It’s a matter of public record that this treatment center used to be some old asylum for the criminally insane.”
“They weren’t criminals!” Evelyn exclaimed. “They weren’t—”
“Some were,” Edie insisted. “That’s what I read.”
“Cursed,” Bonita murmured again. “They were cursed . . .”
“The people?” Edie asked. Maybe that was how the woman explained mental illness, not as a disease but as a curse? Maybe it was easier for her to understand that way.
“You need to leave,” Evelyn said.
“Really?” Edie asked. “Why don’t you want me asking you about the hall?” Rosemary must have asked about it, and they’d seemed to embrace her—quite literally.
“The place is cursed,” Evelyn said. “You shouldn’t even talk about it. And you need to stay away from it.”
“Why?” Edie asked. “What happens there?”
“People disappear . . .” Bonita murmured the reply.
“And some are never seen again,” Evelyn added with a glance at her sister.
Excitement coursed through Edie. This was the story. A damn big story ... and sure, it might prove dangerous. But that had never stopped her before, and it wouldn’t stop her now.
Chapter Fifteen
Hands reached out of the darkness, holding her down—pulling her legs apart, hurting her. She cried out, but a hand covered her mouth. So many hands . . .
So much pain . . .
A cry burning her throat, tears burning her eyes, Rosemary jerked awake. And the scream tore free of her lips and echoed off the walls of the rose room.
Her heart raced. Sweat beaded on her brow. Usually when Rosemary awoke from the nightmare, she tried to block it from her mind—tried to forget it. But this time she reached into her memory, searching for details.
Had she seen Whit’s face then, in the darkness ... ?
Had it been his hands holding her down? Was he the man hurting her?
He swore that it hadn’t been him, that he’d never touched her that way. Dare she believe him?
God help her, she wanted to. She wanted to believe that it hadn’t been him, so she hadn’t been wrong to have that crush on him so long ago.
But if he wasn’t Genevieve’s father, who was?
Genevieve . . .
She had to find her, had to make sure that she was all right. She was all that mattered now—not that nightmare, not how she’d come into the world.
Only Genevieve mattered ...
* * *
Evelyn’s door creaked open and moments later a shadow fell across her bed. “Bonita?” she asked—even though she knew.
Her sister didn’t often come into her room, but she knew why she had. She’d heard it, too.
“She’s screaming,” Bonita said, her voice tremulous with fear. “Like they screamed . . .”
Evelyn didn’t know who they were—specifically—but she knew Bonita was talking about the past. Her past ...
What she remembered of it ...
Unfortunately, she remembered too much—sometimes—when a scream like Rosemary’s jarred her memory.
“Is somebody hurting her?” Bonita asked.
Evelyn pulled back her blankets and patted the mattress beside her. “No, nobody’s hurting her. It’s just us here.”
Bonita settled onto the bed beside her. “Just us?”
“Yes,” Evelyn assured her. “She must be having a bad dream. That must be why she screamed.”
“Nightmares,” Bonita said, and she trembled in the bed next to Evelyn. “Nightmares . . .”
Bonita had them, too, and often screamed in her sleep like Rosemary did. Evelyn knew why—because of Bainesworth Manor, because of what they’d done to Bonita while she was there. Why did Rosemary scream? What monsters haunted her dreams?
Were they old monsters—like Bonita’s? From her past? Or were they new ones brought on by not being able to see her child? Brought on by the curse of Bainesworth Manor?
Rosemary shouldn’t go back. But until she found her daughter, she would keep returning so she would learn what Evelyn didn’t want to tell her. She would find out that he’d called—that Dr. Elijah Cooke wanted to see her again.
Evelyn shivered, and Bonita tucked the blankets around her shoulders like she was covering up her beloved doll. “You’re cold,” she murmured.
No. She was scared.
For all of them . . .
Rosemary Tulle was reopening all their old wounds, bringing back all their nightmares and bringing danger to their door. Evelyn hadn’t been able to protect Bonita all those years ago when their parents had sent her off to Bainesworth Manor.
Would Evelyn be able to protect her now? From the past? And from the curse haunting them anew?
* * *
She glared at him. Hell, that was the only way she looked at him now—on the rare occasions when she actually looked at him at all. “I could have driven myself to work,” Holly said.
An image of Rosemary Tulle’s crumpled car sprang to Deacon’s mind. He shook his head. “No, the roads are too slippery.”
“You’re driving,” she said.
“I’m an experienced driver,” he said, “with special training for defensive driving.”
She snorted again. “Like there’s any reason to have to drive defensively on an island.”
“You’d be surprised,” he murmured.
Somebody was after Rosemary Tulle. The fender bender on the bridge had been no accident. He’d already suspected as much before confirming his suspicion the night before. After dropping Rosemary at the boardinghouse, he’d inspected what was left of her rental car. The brake line hadn’t been frayed or damaged in that previous crash. It had been neatly cut.
Somebody had sabotaged Rosemary’s car. And it must have happened when she’d been at the manor.
The gate to the employee driveway opened as they approached. He hated that Holly worked here, which was probably the reason she’d applied and the reason that Cooke had hired her. Elijah was a sadistic bastard—just like the rest of his damn family.
And Holly ...
She hated him. If it didn’t hurt so damn much, he probably would have been relieved that at least they had one thing in common.
“Don’t pick me up,” she said, reaching for the door handle before he’d even stopped the SUV. “I can get a ride home.”
“No,” he said. “Not from this place . . .” He didn’t trust anyone who worked here.
“Stop it,” she said. “Stop blaming the hall for what happened.” She glared at him again—hard. “When we both know whose fault it really is.”
He knew; she’d rather blame him. For once he glared back at her. “You don’t know as much as you think you do,” he said. “You’re young and you trust the wrong people. That’s why you’ll wait for me to come get you after work. Or you won’t ever be coming back.”
“You told me to get a job,” she reminded him.
“Not here,” he said. “And you know it . . .�
��
A slight smile curved her lips even as her dark eyes glimmered with hatred. “It doesn’t bother me to be here,” she said, “because I don’t have a guilty conscience.” She threw open the passenger’s door and stepped out.
When he turned the key off and stepped out, she whirled back toward him and gasped. “What are you doing? You’re not coming in!”
Maybe she thought he was going to make good on his threat to make her quit. Or get her fired ...
“I have police business here,” he told her.
“Yeah, right . . .” she murmured as she turned toward the employee entrance.
“Holly!” he said, his voice sharp enough that she whirled back to face him.
“A woman was nearly killed leaving here yesterday. Somebody here is responsible for that.”
Her brow puckered. “What are you blaming them for now? That she wasn’t healed? Sometimes people are too screwed up to help.” Her face flushed now—with embarrassment or anger. When she glared at him again, he determined which. “Other people have screwed them up too much!”
He sighed. She was young. So damn young ...
Like Rosemary’s daughter, the missing Genevieve . . .
“Hey!” he shouted.
She flinched like he’d slapped her, which made him flinch with regret. He lowered his voice and asked, “Do you know anything about Genevieve Walcott?”
“Is that who almost died after leaving here?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.” At least he didn’t think so. “The person looking for her got hurt. Genevieve supposedly ran away from here.”
Holly shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t interact with the guests. I’m just a dishwasher.”
“You could do dishes at the diner,” he said. But he knew why she chose to work here—to punish him.
“Dad . . .” She turned away then and pushed open the door to the employee entrance. It wasn’t locked.
Genevieve could have slipped out that way. But then how had she managed to get through the gates without anyone seeing her leave? Especially when cameras were everywhere?
Deacon pushed open the door behind Holly, who turned away from the timeclock to glare at him. “Dad, you’re not supposed to come in this way.”
He did a lot of things he wasn’t supposed to do—which was probably why he wouldn’t be reelected. He wasn’t going to worry about that now, though. All he was worried about was doing his job—for however much longer he had it—and protecting his daughter and Rosemary Tulle.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her.
“You’re going to get me fired,” she said. “I’m already late.”
He chuckled. “Cooke isn’t going to fire you.” Not when he knew how much Deacon hated her working there. Cooke . . .
That was whom he wanted to see. No. Not wanted. Had to see . . .
It would have been easier going in the front doors than walking from the back of the enormous hall. But he didn’t get far down the hall before a familiar-looking security guard greeted him.
“Sheriff, what are you doing here?” his deputy asked. But instead of wearing his uniform, he was wearing a suit.
Deacon wasn’t surprised to see him here; he knew his deputy had two jobs and one allegiance. To his twisted family ...
“I need your security footage from yesterday,” he said.
“Do you have a warrant?” Warren asked.
“Soon,” the sheriff said. He’d left voicemails to a prosecutor and a judge but had yet to hear back. Maybe they’d called Elijah first. If that was the case, he might never see that footage.
“Then you won’t have long to wait before we hand it over,” a deep voice chimed in.
Deacon turned to find Elijah standing behind him. Unfortunately, he was not alone. Elijah’s cousin David stood next to him. He was still taller and broader than his younger cousin, like he’d been in school, but not as tall or broad as he’d seemed back then to Deacon.
After sparing him just a brief glance, Deacon ignored David and focused on Elijah. “Rosemary Tulle nearly died after leaving here yesterday,” he said.
Elijah’s long body tensed. “What?”
“Someone cut the brake line on her car,” he said. He glanced back at David again, gauging his reaction. Back in school, he’d always done Elijah’s dirty work for him. Of course, Elijah could have assigned the task to the youngest Cooke, since Warren had been curiously unavailable despite being on duty yesterday. “She rolled it and was lucky to have survived the crash.”
Elijah gasped. “Is she all right?”
“I said she was lucky to survive,” Deacon reminded him.
Elijah persisted, “How badly was she hurt?”
Deacon sighed. “Concussion, bumps and bruises . . .”
“Nothing broken?” Warren asked. “Doesn’t sound like it was all that bad.”
“Whoever cut the line wouldn’t be up on murder charges,” Deacon conceded. “But there’s enough of a case for attempted murder.”
Warren snorted. “Doesn’t sound like you have a case at all or you’d already have that warrant, Sheriff.”
Building a case was never easy on the island, especially when this damn family closed ranks on him. Unfortunately, Warren had already been working as a rookie deputy when Deacon had been elected sheriff nearly four years ago. Not that he hadn’t had cause to fire him since ...
“Why would anyone try to kill Rosemary?” Elijah asked—with a familiarity that had Deacon’s guts tightening.
“Because they don’t want her finding out what happened to her daughter,” Deacon suggested.
Elijah shook his head. “Nothing happened to her.”
“So she’s here?”
“You obviously know she’s not,” Elijah said.
“Rosemary told me what you claim,” he said. “The minute I showed up at the wreck all she wanted was for me to find Genevieve.”
“Genevieve?” David repeated the name as if he wasn’t familiar with it.
But Deacon wasn’t fooled. He’d learned long ago to never trust this man. Hell, he’d learned back when they’d all been just boys.
“She’s a young guest who left of her own accord,” Elijah explained to his cousin. “She must have had a friend pick her up from the hall.”
“Why was she being held against her will?” Deacon asked.
“Of course she wasn’t being held here against her will,” Elijah said. “Her parents dropped her off for a stay—”
“And she didn’t want to stay,” Deacon interjected. “Just like all those other girls whose parents forced them to stay here. They were right to want to leave.”
A muscle twitched in Elijah’s cheek as he clenched his jaw. It was David who spoke for him. “That was a long time ago, Howell,” he said. “That had nothing to do with any of us.”
Deacon narrowed his eyes. “I’m not so sure . . .”
“Not with me,” David insisted.
That much was true. David and Warren were related to Elijah through the shrink’s father’s family. It was through his mother that Elijah was a Bainesworth.
“And you have nothing to do with Genevieve Walcott either?” Deacon asked his old nemesis.
David shook his head. “Don’t know her. Never met her.”
“What about you?” Deacon asked his deputy. He was younger than the rest of them—closer to Genevieve’s age.
Warren shook his head, too.
Elijah glanced at his cousins’ faces then, as if he was trying to gauge if the men were telling the truth. Or did he know that one of them was lying?
“So you have no idea where she is?”
Warren shook his head.
“And you?” he asked Elijah.
“As I told you, she left of her own accord,” Elijah said. “Her parents chose not to file a missing person’s report because she’s nearly eighteen. They’re not concerned about her.”
“Rosemary is concerned,” Deacon pointed out. So concerned that her
search for her daughter was probably going to get her killed ...
“Rosemary isn’t legally Genevieve’s parent,” Elijah said. “I could only release information after Genevieve’s legal parents authorized me to do so.”
Deacon snorted. “You’re all by the book now? That’s why you wouldn’t tell Rosemary what was going on? Or were you just wanting to cover your own ass?”
“You’d know about covering your own ass, Sheriff,” David said, and he glared at Deacon in the same hateful way that Holly had.
“I don’t have anything to hide,” Deacon said, and he stared hard at the Cooke men. “I doubt any of you can say the same.”
But what were they hiding this time?
Chapter Sixteen
Rosemary stood alone in Dr. Cooke’s office just a couple of days after her interview. This time he hadn’t been waiting for her when she’d arrived. In fact she wasn’t sure where he was, just as she wasn’t sure where he’d gone the day he’d finally told her what happened to Genevieve. To hide her daughter’s belongings? Or dispose of them?
She couldn’t believe that Genevieve had run away and not contacted her to at least let her know she was all right.
“Are you all right?” Dr. Cooke asked.
She whirled away from the windows she’d been staring out to see that he stood behind her. When had he come in? How long had he been watching her? She glanced around the darkly paneled room, looking for security cameras, because he could have been watching her the entire time.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she replied. “I didn’t get the messages you’d left for me at the boardinghouse.” Evelyn hadn’t told her that he’d called; she only learned about the calls when she’d replaced the cell phone lost in the crash.
He smiled, but it did not warm the iciness of his eyes. “I totally understand,” he said.
She doubted that—unless he knew how afraid her landladies were of the hall, unless he knew how scared they were that she would be hurt. Because she knew their concerns, she wasn’t angry with them for keeping his messages from her. It wasn’t as if she would have been able to come out the day before anyway—not with how sore she’d been. She also hadn’t had a replacement vehicle from the rental company yet. Fortunately, she’d had the insurance the sheriff had joked about; otherwise the rental company might not have given her another loaner.
