A Stranger in Alcott Manor

by Alyssa Richards

  “How did you get back?” he whispered.

  She smiled, touched his face. “Hasseltine helped me.”

  “Peyton?” A voice called from across the room.

  Beau released her, held her hand to his chest.

  “Ira,” Peyton said.

  Ira Byrne stood at the doorway. “Who is this?”

  “It’s—not what it looks like.”

  “You were kissing him.”

  Peyton looked at Beau and released his hand.

  “Ira,” Peyton said. “I’m not—”

  “Who is this?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them a moment later. “This is Beau.”

  “This is Beau?

  She nodded.

  “The one who got away? That Beau?”

  She remained still. Jayne Ella didn’t know if Peyton had ever described Beau that way to anyone, but she secretly thought her daughter thought of him that way. Ira was more perceptive than she had given him credit.

  “Have you been with him for the last two days? Is that why I haven’t been able to find you?”

  Peyton was quiet and visibly swallowed hard. Whatever her daughter had done while she had been gone, Jayne Ella could tell it was something she couldn’t talk about. Not publicly.

  Peyton walked to him, glanced at the ladders and plastic and the hole in the floor. Then glared at her mother.

  “That’s what you’ve been doing while I’ve been worried sick about you?” he asked. His brown eyes were searing, searching her face. He was obviously desperate to find the promises that had been so certain and sure between them just a few days ago.

  Jayne Ella knew what Ira was feeling. She knew what it was like to discover that the love of your life had left you for someone else. She looked at Austin. His head turned from Beau to Peyton and then to his son again. Watching the action in utter disbelief.

  “Beau,” Austin said. “We need to leave. Everyone, we need to step out.”

  “No, Dad,” Beau said.

  “I don’t know what this is about.” Ira gestured to Beau. “But I’m not giving up what we have together. I won’t lose you to something that doesn’t even exist anymore. He’s your past, you realize that, right? This thing, this fling with him is nothing but a memory. Over. What you and I have together is your future.”

  Jayne Ella kept moving toward the hole she had cut into the floor, trying to block everyone’s view. “Y’all need to take this outside. I have to finish these repairs. Plumbing issues are no small concern. Especially in a house this old. I might have a wedding tomorrow to host—” Beau shot her a fierce look that made her close her mouth.

  “What do you mean you couldn’t find her?” Mrs. Miller shouted to her husband. She started pacing, pulling at her hair. “I saw her! She’s there!”

  Horace Miller tried to hold his wife but she pulled away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” his voice choked with tears.

  Mrs. Miller grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. “You have to go back. You have to get her and bring her back to me. You were close. So close! Maybe only one or two tintypes away from her. Please!” Her voice screeched.

  The life seemed to leave Horace’s body. He shook his head. “I can’t go back. It’s hell, Martha.” His eyes rolled back, his head lolled, and Jayne Ella ran to him, reached for his arm. But she missed.

  Horace passed out, fell hard against the plastic sheeting that she had so carefully hung on the ladders. The plastic veil came down, as did two of the thirteen-foot ladders, crashing with an unbearable echo in the great hall.

  Peyton ran to help. She and Beau and Ira pulled at the plastic to unravel Horace from his cocoon.

  Mrs. Miller screamed.

  She had screamed once when her husband fell—a short piercing noise that was mostly her husband’s name. “Horace!”

  But when she saw what lay hidden in the hole in the floor, she screamed long and hard.

  Peyton hadn’t seen that matching floral top and pants outfit in twenty years, but when she saw it on the skeletal remains buried in the depths of Alcott Manor, she recognized it immediately. The sleeves had ruffles at the shoulders and the pants were slim fitting. Light from the overhead chandelier caught the diamond pendant Ruby wore on the end of her necklace, the one she was so proud of, the one her father had given her.

  Mrs. Miller’s third scream was cut short by a low groan. She winced as if she were in excruciating pain, grabbed her chest, and toppled forward.

  Peyton and Ira reached for her, tried to hold her up. But she was dead weight.

  24

  Peyton fell forward when Mrs. Miller did and lost her balance. She landed hard on the sawed, raggedy edge of the opening and a sharp piece of wood poked her belly. She screamed.

  “Peyton!” her mother yelled. She called her name in the same way she used to when Peyton lived at home, and instantly Peyton felt like a child again. The sound of her voice had an upward pitch at the end and it grabbed a memory from deep inside of her. The subconscious knot was dark and slippery like bait, and her mother’s voice hooked it clean through, dislodged it from its hiding place.

  Peyton’s breath came fast and her world fell dark.

  “Peyton!” She heard Beau call her name and felt his arms around her, pulling her upright.

  He carried her to the bottom of the grand staircase. A dark circle of blood spread across the front of her dress. It hadn’t been the first time.

  With Beau’s arm wrapped around her, lending her a sense of safety, her fractured memory floated together like pieces of a forgotten puzzle.

  She looked across the hallway, remembered Ruby twirling in the red dress that was too big for her, Mrs. Miller making the tintype. Much later, riding in the backseat of the car she didn’t recognize, her dress still clean and white, feeling so sleepy in the dark. The windows low in the backseat of the car with the pillowy seats, the scent of jasmine so heavy she could taste it on her tongue.

  A man drove—she had thought it was her father. He extended his arm around Jayne Ella, who leaned close to him. His watch had a dark blue face and diamonds that sparkled in the low light—not her father. That was Beau’s father. She knew that sparkly watch.

  When the car stopped at her mother’s salon, Jayne Ella opened the back door, gave her a kiss good-night, and explained that Mr. Spencer would drive her home. Peyton was told to go straight to bed, her mother would be home soon.

  Then the car was moving again, for a long while. The dark and the motion made her drowsy.

  Tires squealed.

  Something heavy hit the windshield.

  Peyton screamed.

  They must have hit a dog or a deer. That’s what Mr. Spencer said. He made her sit still in the backseat, made her promise not to move.

  When the back door opened, Peyton braced herself to see the hurt dog. He must have been a big animal to have made such a loud noise. Mr. Spencer leaned in and, to her horror, placed the wounded, bloody dog in the back seat next to her. Except it wasn’t a dog at all. It was Ruby Lee.

  Blood covered her face and the floral print top with the ruffles.

  When Austin Spencer turned right too quickly, Ruby fell onto Peyton. She tried to scream, but the noise was lodged in her chest, held there by the horror of it all. Her mouth open, her body shaking. Ruby’s blood soaking into Peyton’s white dress.

  Next, she sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase. The sickly sweet stench of blood on her dress turned her stomach, the gelatinous feel between her fingers and its stain on her skin made her vomit. Mr. Spencer, covered in dirt and sweat, shook his finger in her face. Made her promise not to tell. “You wouldn’t want your mother to get in trouble, would you? That’s exactly what will happen if you say anything. So, we’re going to pretend this never happened.”

  Peyton wrapped her arms around herself and decided it was best if no one found out what had happened that night. Her father was leaving, he had told her that just a few days ago. She needed her mother to stay and
take care of her and her sister. She would do better than not telling. She would make herself forget.

  Numbness filtered into her brain like static, and she let it happen. Everything she had seen that night was too much to think about, anyway. Too frightening to remember.

  Peyton blinked until the room came back into clear focus. Beau was at her side. Her mother kneeled at her feet. Ira talked on his cell phone and hovered over Horace, who was coming around.

  She turned to Beau. “It was your dad. He hit Ruby Lee with his car after the bank party that was here that night.”

  Jayne Ella shook her head as if she didn’t remember. “What bank par—” Her lips closed into a seal.

  Beau rose slowly, started across the room.

  Austin stood in the dirt pit, the Miller family grave, plastic sheeting fallen behind him, one arm full of gold bars. Mrs. Miller lay belly first in the dirt. Her arm stretched over the diminutive skeleton.

  “Dad. Stop,” Beau said.

  Austin raised one finger as if Beau made a wrong assumption. “It was an accident, son.”

  Beau shook his head, walked closer to his father. “You killed her and you ruined my life.”

  “What? No! This had nothing to do with you. She was walking on the side of the road in the pitch black dark, no one could have seen her!”

  “The night you killed Ruby Lee, you set off a chain reaction that ruined my life!” Beau’s words were clipped and fueled by fury.

  Austin climbed out of the hole, his forehead dotted with sweat in the cool air. One of the gold bars slipped from his arms and clanged on the hard floor. He stooped to pick it up. “It was an accident, son. It wasn’t my fault.”

  Austin moved toward the kitchen door. “It could have happened to anyone!”

  Beau followed his father, his steps deliberate, and he pointed to Mrs. Miller’s body in the hole. “You should have admitted what you did, then she wouldn’t have blamed Peyton and she wouldn’t have sent me away.”

  Austin shook his head, continued backing to the door. “Mrs. Miller sent you away?”

  Jayne Ella and Peyton stood to the side and slightly behind Beau.

  Ira spoke in a low voice on what sounded like a 911 call.

  Austin looked at Ira. He nodded to Jayne Ella. “You’d better put a stop to this. Because if I go down, you’re going with me.”

  Jayne Ella looked at the bodies and the gold in the hole, then turned her attention back to Austin. She slipped her arm around Peyton’s waist, slowly shook her head. “No, Austin.”

  Austin stared at his son for a long moment, his eyes wide and panicked. He turned and ran.

  Beau was no more than one second behind him.

  Peyton and Jayne Ella followed. When they found them, Austin was face down on the sidewalk, Beau holding him down. Gold bars were scattered beside the two of them.

  Police and ambulance sirens screamed in the distance.

  25

  Peyton tilted her face to the sun, drank the heat into her skin. She dug her bare toes into the sand and listened closely to the music of the waves pounding the beach.

  “Thought I’d never make it here again,” Beau said. He wore his 1850s white shirt, unbuttoned, and suit pants, rolled up at the ankles. The jacket, tie, socks and shoes were inside the manor someplace.

  His hand rested on hers, and he gave it a gentle squeeze.

  Time seemed to slow with him there, as if every wave, every noise were being noticed, captured by the photographer’s eye. She wanted to hear him sing, hear him play his guitar, hear his thoughts on all things big and small.

  He released her hand. “Where’s Ira?”

  Her heart sank. Last thing she wanted to do was discuss one man with the other. “He went back to his condo to change clothes and make some calls. I think he doesn’t quite know what to make of all this.” She opened her eyes and found Beau looking at her. “I don’t know what to make of all of this. I know that I’ve really hurt him.”

  His lips flattened into a line and he turned toward the ocean.

  She couldn’t read what he was thinking, nor could she predict what he would say next.

  He might have been wondering about Horace and how he was faring at the hospital. Or he might have been thinking about his father and what was next for him. He probably never expected to see his father led away in handcuffs by police, screaming all the while at the top of his lungs.

  Peyton didn’t turn around but she knew the yellow police tape was still around the manor, flapping in the gentle breeze. Because of the gold and Ruby Lee, police and investigators would be in and out for some time.

  Jayne Ella spent the morning talking with the investigators. She had also called her attorney to be present. Before they arrived and before Austin was carted away, Peyton watched Jayne Ella climb in the hole she had dug. She ran her fingers through her hair and touched several bars of the gold. She picked up the saw and touched the plastic and the ladders. She appeared to be leaving traces of herself everywhere she could.

  Peyton assumed this was to ruin any evidence she might have left behind years before. Any fingerprints or hair or fibers found today could be attributed to the fact that Jayne Ella was in the hole today. She could claim that she just didn’t stop and think that she might contaminate any evidence at the scene.

  Peyton didn’t know to what extent Jayne Ella was involved with Ruby Lee’s death or the theft of the gold. To the best of her ability she would find out. She knew two things for certain. One, the past could not be changed. And two, the manor would remember whatever had happened.

  Beau might also have been thinking about her and what their future held, if anything.

  “What’s up with your plans for today?” He thumbed toward the rows of white chairs and the reception tent.

  “Ira and Jayne Ella called everyone a few days ago, told them I was sick, I think.” She tried to make a smile.

  He winced.

  A wave built in height and crashed hard. Seagulls squawked and fluttered into the air like they were angry at the interruption.

  “Everything got so messed up for us,” she said.

  “Yeah, thanks to my dad and Mrs. Miller. But I think we proved to one another that we’re not over.”

  She faced the ocean, her stomach queasy. No matter the move she made, hearts would be broken. Including hers. There were no easy answers. “I still have things to work out. I made a commitment to Ira and here at the eleventh hour he discovers that I’ve done something horrible. And you don’t know me anymore, Beau. I had to completely reinvent my life when you left.”

  “I know that I love you. And I think you still love me.”

  Her eyes burned with tears.

  “You should know that you, your love, that’s the only thing that kept me going all these years. It’s the only thing that kept me fighting to get home.”

  “I’ve built an entire life without you, Beau. I have a career and a future laid out for me. I have a home you’ve never even seen. I have another family that is waiting to welcome me into their lives forever.” She stood, brushed the sand from her black leggings. “I have a career now, one that I really enjoy. You don’t know that side of me, and work is a big part of my life.”

  “Okay. Okay. I get that.” He ran his hand over his jaw, stood and faced her. “What do you want, Peyton?”

  After a moment, she realized her mouth was open and she closed it. She had been so tied up with trying to figure out what she should do that she hadn’t really asked herself that question.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yeah, honestly. I’m not going to talk you into being with me.”

  “I don’t know where I belong,” she said. “That’s as honest as I can get right now. Last week my entire life was planned out. I knew who my mother was, what this manor was about. My career was set. My future was set. Now everything has changed. My family could lose the manor. Your father has literally been hiding a dead body under the floorboards for the last twenty years, my w
edding plans have been disrupted by the man I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with, the man I thought I would never see again.”

  “And that means?” He reached for her, and she stepped away.

  “I don’t know! What if you get settled here and you realize that whatever you felt for me isn’t there anymore?” she asked.

  “I know what I feel for you. That’s never changed.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know that, actually. Let me ask you something. If you married Ira, could you honestly say that you would never look back? That I would just be some distant memory to you? Because if you could, then you should marry him. You should go on with your life the way you planned it without me, and I would wish you well. But if you meant what you told me when we were together in the barn last night, that this wasn’t over for you, then you can’t marry him.”

  Beau pulled a small leather book from his back pocket. Tattered and worn. He handed it to her. “This is the book I told you about, the one I wrote in until you arrived. There’s an entry for almost every day. Sometimes just a sentence. Sometimes a paragraph. I was going to give it to you sooner, but there wasn’t really a chance.”

  Peyton held the book, afraid to open it for fear that the memories Beau had documented might swallow her whole.

  The wind ruffled his blond hair, his blue eyes sparkled in the morning light. An openness, a softness that she thought was a new wrinkle to his personality, emanated from him like a fragrance.

  “Whatever you choose, whoever you choose, I want you to know that I’ve never stopped loving you. I never gave up hope that we would be together again one day. You’re right about one thing. I don’t entirely know who you are, but I hope I get the chance to know who you’ve grown into. Because I know that on the inside, you’re the same beautiful girl I fell in love with over twenty years ago.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think about you and us, what we had and what we might have again. Although I don’t know much about your career or your life in Boston, I do know one thing. I never tried to hem you in when we were together. The life we had planned was what we both wanted at the time. If you had said that you wanted something else, you know I would have supported that,” he said.