Darkwood Manor Read online

  “The fog must have a weird effect on your bullets. That pickup driver was going thirty, tops.”

  “Yeah? Maybe I should use you instead of a radar gun.”

  “Maybe you should trade your radar gun for a police special and do the job your temporarily elevated status requires you to do.”

  “I told you yesterday, your cousin’s an adult and—”

  “I’m not talking about Katie.” Because that would be pointless at this juncture. “Shots were fired at the manor today. A flesh-and-blood person squeezed the trigger of a very old rifle, then tossed it and an even older suit out a third-floor window. You want to talk freaky, there you go. I’d think, since those shots came within inches of your feet, that you’d be a little curious about who did the shooting and why.”

  As she spoke, she pivoted toward the manor. Oddly enough, the old house continued to drift above the fog. “Donovan said you were standing at the edge of the cliff….” She trailed off to stare. “There’s a light on in the house.”

  “Light!” Orry stepped backward. “It’s—it must be the moon—playing tricks.”

  Isabella watched as one light winked off and another popped on. “The moon’s obscured right now, acting sheriff.”

  “Kids, then. It’s October. Halloween’s coming. You have to expect—”

  The wail that reached them started out low and rose to an echoing screech that set Isabella’s nerves on edge and had Orry’s mouth opening and closing like a codfish. Backing up even farther, he stabbed an accusing finger. “I don’t—I’m not—it’s kids making that sound. Damn hooligans!” A yelp escaped as he hit a wall behind him.

  Under different circumstances, Isabella would have laughed. She settled for letting her lips twitch, then pressed them together and waited for him to turn and see.

  “Donovan, you bas—” A second wail cut him short. Fists clenched, he spun away to regroup.

  While the paramedics worked on the woman below, Donovan came up behind Isabella and contemplated the manor. The lights continued to fade and glow at random intervals. They went out completely when the wail ended.

  In an effort to disguise the quaver in his voice, Orry cleared his throat. “This is more than Crookshank had to deal with. Why’s the spook show expanding now that he’s gone?” He fired a resentful look at Isabella. “The whole thing started when Gimbel bought Darkwood.”

  “Meaning what, that Aaron Dark’s spirit didn’t want him around?”

  “Him or you.”

  She harnessed her rising temper. “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”

  Bolstered by the return to normalcy, Orry’s upper lip curled. “All I know is that outsiders are a pain in the butt where that house is concerned. If someone from the other side wants the place vacant, I say go along with him. What’s one old wreck to anyone in Mystic Harbor? You should pack up and leave, lady, and count yourself lucky you can.”

  “Unlike Katie.”

  Donovan gave her arm a light squeeze, nodded forward. “There’s a shadow on the ridge.”

  Isabella watched the anger, and undoubtedly most of the color, drain from Orry’s face. “This is total bull,” he muttered. “You two play spot the ghost. I’ve got an emergency to deal with.”

  Isabella barely heard him as she trained her eyes on the cliff that jutted out behind the manor. With wisps of fog streaming upward from the water, it was difficult to separate rock from tree and tree from—

  “That’s a man,” she exclaimed and tugged on Donovan’s jacket. “Do you see him? He’s standing by a three-tiered boulder.”

  “He was,” Donovan agreed.

  She drew back, stared in disbelief. “Where did he go? He was there, and now he’s not.”

  Donovan’s lips quirked. “Maybe there’s something hungry in the fog.”

  “Some carnivorous thing that swallowed him whole?” She stopped the shiver that wanted to ripple through her. “Evil doesn’t live in fog, Donovan, and people don’t vanish in the blink of an eye.”

  “Your cousin did. We will search the area around the boulder. Tomorrow.” He caught her arm before she could start off. “There’s nothing more we can do here, and Haden’s server’s still at the station. You have a sketch to draw.”

  Isabella studied him for a long moment, took in his guarded eyes and shielded expression. She saw the potential Gypsy, but no hint of the madness that had infected his ancestor.

  Until those incredible eyes began to gleam and he circled her to drop his mouth close and whisper.

  “Don’t get complacent, Isabella. Everyone he met perceived Aaron Dark to be a kind and benevolent man. Only Sybil knew better.”

  Isabella suspected that the chill shimmering through her system had more to do with the man behind her than any lingering sense of unease. She forced a serene tone. “Nice try, Black, but you’re forgetting my illustrious uncle, the Park Avenue shrink. I’ve also got your family tree in my coat pocket, the one that says you descended from Aaron’s sister’s—” she frowned, glanced around his arm “—line.”

  A screech of approaching tires filled the air as headlights blinded her. For a moment, she was simply too stunned to react.

  Whoever the driver was, he was heading straight for them. And he wasn’t slowing down.

  DONOVAN SLAMMED AN ANGRY palm on the Cave’s polished bar top. “I swear to God, Darlene, you pull a stunt like that again, I’ll tie you up and throw you off Dark Ridge.”

  “And in that single, rash action confirm every fear you’ve ever had.” Plunking her chin on the heels of her fisted hands, she batted innocent eyelashes. “Haden told me to drive fast, so I did.”

  “Didn’t tell you to knock Donovan and Isabella off the road, though, did I?” Haden retorted. He’d doused most of the restaurant’s lights and was overturning chairs onto tables with a vengeance. “Got word that a red car had flown over the cliff, Donovan. My first thought was that Isabella has a red car. I forgot she came into town with you. Darlene and me were driving fast but controlled. Then I heard the wail coming from the manor, and I panicked. Told her to step on it.”

  “So you see?” She wiggled her fingers. “Not guilty.”

  “Uh-huh.” Although he wanted a shot of whiskey quite badly, Donovan held off. “So, what’s the story with your boss?”

  She shrugged. “He wants the manor. It’s no secret. Land’s prime for development.”

  “Enter Robert Drake.”

  “Him and about five others.”

  “Yeah, but Drake’s the only one in town,” Haden called across the room.

  “That we know of,” Darlene called back.

  “Has he heard old Aaron wailing?”

  She rolled her eyes, appealed to Donovan, whose response was to circle the bar and snag a beer.

  “How would I know what he’s heard?” She gave the table-top a grumpy swat. “I know Drake wants that property more than he’s letting on. My mother saw him on Ridge Road yesterday.”

  A shocked Haden stopped stacking chairs. “George was on Ridge Road?”

  “Well, obviously if she saw Drake there. It’s not off-limits, you know. I drive it all the time.”

  “And sometimes smoke things other than cigarettes while you’re there.” Donovan tipped the bottle for a long drink. “She said she saw Aaron walk through a closed gate up at Darkwood.”

  Under his beard, Haden blanched. “You saw old Aaron?”

  Darlene shot Donovan a baleful look. “I never said it was Aaron.”

  “What, you think Isabella’s dealing with multiple spirits?”

  “I think Isabella should sell up and go home. Forget themed hotels and profit margins, just take what she can get and run.”

  “Put an X beside her cousin’s name in the loss column and close the book on her whereabouts, huh?”

  Darlene drummed annoyed fingers. “Orry thinks she’s full of crap, Donovan. No one he’s talked to saw a cousin. Maybe Isabella’s making her up.”

  “Like you made up a gate
-crashing ghost?”

  “I saw a man at the gate. One second on the far side, the next on mine. Who he was and what he wanted—no idea. I get spooked, I vamoose. Like Isabella would have by now if you hadn’t jumped in front of her. Man, you must be lonely these days, cousin. A bit of skirt, a pretty smile and you go all Lancelot on us.”

  There were things Donovan could have said, but it wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, his BlackBerry was beeping. Meant he had an email.

  Shutting Isabella’s face out—not an easy feat—he took another drink, regarded the screen and narrowed his eyes at the message that appeared there.

  ALTHOUGH SHE KNEW SHE shouldn’t, Isabella pulled on a wool jacket, grabbed her camera and a hot coffee and traded her fire-warmed cabin for a rocky seat outside.

  The fog had dispersed. Under a bright, nearly full moon, she saw more than Darkwood Manor on the ridge. The head-stones crammed onto the plateau below were also visible. Or partly visible, she acknowledged. Night continued to creep through the shadows.

  Not eager to hear that wail again, she plugged into her iPod and turned up Sheryl Crow.

  Memories of Katie swamped her. Good ones and bad. Like the road trip they’d taken to Florida after their high school graduation.

  She recalled the boy they’d fought over in Fort Lauderdale. Isabella thought he’d looked like a young Brad Pitt. Unfortunately, he’d kissed like—well, not like Donovan, that’s for sure. Not even close, she reflected, sipping her coffee and running her gaze over the manor’s brooding silhouette.

  Donovan’s face hovered in the darkness ahead. She touched a finger to her bottom lip and smiled. Would Katie have wanted him, too? The smile became a laugh. Did people need air to live?

  Sheryl segued to Bon Jovi. Moving to the music, Isabella unpacked her camera and adjusted the setting. Then a hand touched her shoulder, and her heart catapulted into her throat.

  Whipping her head around, she hissed out a breath. “God, George, I thought you were a prowler.” Not true, but as far as she knew, rifle-toting spirits didn’t wander around looking for people to accost. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Everyone’s in bed except Mr. Drake. That man keeps the strangest hours. Up all night, sleeps half the day. Do you mind?”

  Isabella shifted her coffee, used her camera to indicate the manor. “Even at a distance, the place has a sinister air.”

  George settled in, unscrewed a thermos. “I’ve felt it all my life. I’ve never seen Aaron or Sybil, but then I’m practical by nature and probably not in tune with such things.” Taking a deep drink, she shuddered out a breath. “A little brandy’ll kill the cold, but only if it doesn’t kill you first. My daddy used to make this stuff in the barn. Brandy, wine and terrible beer. The barn burned down last year with my father and brother inside. I got the lodge, but the recipes are gone. There’s only a few barrels of their home brew left.” She poured a small amount into the cap and held it out. “Keep it to a sip,” she cautioned.

  Isabella hesitated—she hated brandy—then sucked it up and did the polite thing. Although her eyes wanted to water, she managed not to cough.

  “It’s very good.” If you liked liquid fire. “Have you lived in Mystic Harbor all your life?”

  “Yup. But for a twist of fate, I’d have been long gone by now. I like the city. Unfortunately…” She took another drink, set the thermos aside. “So, tell me, what do you think of Donovan?”

  “Actually, I haven’t—”

  “Oh, come on, honey.” George batted her thigh. “I can read faces better than that. You think my daddy’s brandy tasted like gasoline—which it does—and you want to jump Donovan.”

  Isabella grinned. “You should moonlight at the Mystic Tearoom. You’re right—Donovan’s extremely jumpable.”

  “Or so women like to think.” George rummaged in the pocket of her brown plaid jacket. “The man’s sexy, he’s hot and he’s about as easy to reach or read as an October moon.”

  “Because of his connection to Aaron Dark?”

  “We all have our fears.”

  “Or phobias.” Isabella took a close second look at the base of a nearby rock. “What’s that brown twisty thing?”

  “That twig?”

  She peered closer. “Not a snake?”

  George picked up and tossed a pebble into the heart of the shadow. “No movement. I’d say it’s a twig.” She held up a crumpled cigarette pack. “Do you mind?”

  “No, go ahead, I’m used to it.” With an uncertain look at the alleged twig, Isabella asked, “Why is Donovan convinced he’s going to follow in Aaron Dark’s footsteps?”

  “Has he told you about his family?”

  “Yes, but you know it doesn’t work that way.”

  “You have a fear of snakes. Why can’t he have a fear of insanity?”

  “Mine’s a phobia,” Isabella reminded. “It’s a different thing, connected to a childhood trauma. I find it hard to believe Donovan’s ever had the urge to imprison anyone the way Aaron imprisoned his wife.”

  “Imprisoned her without anyone in town realizing she’d returned. Haden tells the tale better than I do, but the nutshell version is that when Sybil came or was brought back to Darkwood, she was pregnant.”

  “By her husband or her lover?”

  “That would’ve been the question in Aaron’s mind. All he could do was lock her up and wait until she had the child. Never got that far, of course. She did or said something that set him off. Rumor has it that after he killed Sybil and her unborn child, Aaron went even madder, until, finally, one night, he took his own life. Rigged up a rifle, tied a string around the trigger and gave it a yank. Got himself right in the throat. Local minister found him in the rose bed three days later, faceup and staring at the house.”

  The rose bed. Under the pearled moon. Isabella aimed her camera at the distant manor. “Was he wearing a black suit?”

  George chuckled. “Not sure anyone’s ever asked that question. Could be he was. Anyway, how did we get here when we were talking about you wanting to jump Donovan?”

  “Ah, well, my grandfather says I have a habit of wandering. Off topic and destination. I get sent to Dallas, I detour to New Orleans.”

  George made an envious sound. “I’ve always had a yen to live in New Orleans. Sadly, I never will.”

  “Why?”

  She motioned with her cigarette. “I’m tied to the lodge. Literally. By the terms of my father’s will, the land can’t be sold or developed for fifty years after his death. Unless I live to be a very old woman, that’ll put me well past the hundred-year mark before I’m free. And before you suggest I hire a manager and spend my winters in the South, the profit margin’s too small for me to do anything more extravagant than take the odd weekend trip to Boston. No, honey, unlike you, I’m well and truly stuck.”

  What could she say? Not much, Isabella decided, so she changed the subject and talked about the local Oktoberfest, Haden’s Cordon Bleu cooking and, most intriguingly, what had prompted Donovan to become a federal sharpshooter.

  “He’s always had amazing eyes.” George laid back on one elbow. “Darlene’s are good—I swear, she can shoot wings off a fly at thirty paces—but Donovan can do the same thing at five times the distance and then some. Just incredible eyes.”

  No argument there, Isabella thought. She drank the last of her coffee and took a few more night shots of the manor while George stubbed out her cigarette.

  “So,” she said, “is your sexy-eyed agent coming back here tonight, or am I rushing things a bit?”

  “You’re rushing things a lot.” A glint of metal in the bushes halted Isabella as she hoisted her camera bag and slid from the rock. Freezing, she looked down. “Uh, George, do people do much hunting in these parts at night?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  Still staring at the ground, Isabella endeavored to work her heart from her throat. “Well, because something just came flying out of the bushes.”

  “What
thing?”

  Half afraid to move, she pointed to a spot directly between the toes of her boots.

  There, embedded in a patch of hard earth, was a very large, very lethal-looking knife.

  Chapter Seven

  Someone had thrown a knife into the ground at her feet. From a distance. In the dark. Yet all Isabella could think about for the rest of the night was the information Donovan had uncovered.

  A check of Katie’s phone records revealed that someone from Bangor had placed a ninety-second call to her cell phone at the same time Isabella had been talking to their aunt Mara.

  Isabella knew she should be pleased, or at least relieved. But she wasn’t. Seconds after the knife landed, George had snatched it up and held it like a javelin.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” she’d apologized when she’d realized her mistake. “Donovan’s going to be so angry at me.”

  He had been; however, he’d bagged the knife anyway, sent George back to the lodge and accompanied Isabella to her cabin.

  He insisted on spending the night on the sofa. Isabella was disappointed, but did she really expect him to try and seduce her?

  Nudging her into the bedroom, he told her to get some sleep. She did, but only because she was too exhausted to think straight anymore.

  “The call to your cousin came from a pay phone,” he revealed at eight the next morning, when, tired and tousled, she groped her way into the living room.

  The smell of freshly brewed coffee hit her instantly. Grateful beyond words, she located the machine, then propped her elbows on the counter to pour and drink. “I don’t suppose you found any clues… Are those blueberry muffins?”

  “George brought them down at dawn. Guilty conscience.”

  “She reacted. I stopped being upset about that part of it.”

  “So I get to be the bad guy, huh?”

  His lazy drawl surprised her, almost as much as the glitter in his dark eyes. Both reminded her she was wearing nothing but a white terry robe that didn’t come anywhere near her knees.

  With her heart and stomach jittering, she raised the steaming mug to her mouth. “No diversions, Black. Pay phone. Where, who and theories on why.”