Corpses & Conmen (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 2) (13 page)

“Duh, Annie, there’s no electricity,” she said aloud, bracing herself for the descent into the inky blackness of the windowless cellar. She pulled out her cell phone and used its light to make her way down the stairs for the second time that day. Behind her, the door let in a little light, but it didn’t penetrate any further than a few feet.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and shone her light on the shelves, looking for the plastic container that held the candles. There was no label for ‘candles,’ so she pulled the one out that was labeled ‘emergency supplies.’ She laughed as she discovered that her mother had placed several packs of miniature candy bars in that container, and she pushed them aside to reveal a box of tea light candles. She pulled them out and left the plastic container where it sat, not willing to try and maneuver the thing back into place on the shelf in the pitch black dark. She was just about to turn around when she heard the door to the cellar slam shut.

Annie’s heart jumped into her throat. She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself while all sorts of dark thoughts filled her head. Did someone just slam the door closed? Had they known she was in the cellar? Why on earth would someone close a door without calling into the room first?

Forcing herself to calm down, she assessed the situation.
Yes
, the door had slammed, and
yes
, it had frightened her, but it was probably just the wind, or maybe Rory had found the door opened and closed it without realizing she was in the cellar.

Calming her pounding heart, Annie climbed the stairs carefully, clutching the candles to her chest and shining her phone’s light on each step as she went. It felt like forever before she reached the top, but she did reach it, with trembling legs and a still-racing pulse. With great relief, she passed her phone to the hand holding the candles and reached for the doorknob.

It wouldn’t budge.

She wiggled it and twisted it, but the door was locked, and Annie wasn’t going anywhere.

Annie told herself not to panic, and she really tried, but her first instinct was not to sit and wait calmly for someone to help her. She banged as hard as she could on the door. It was a solid, sturdy door, and the thick wood muffled the sounds of her hand hitting it. She heard a scuttling, scraping noise and nearly fell down the stairs, trying to see what unimaginable horror could be sneaking its way towards her in the dark.

Her phone cast its glow on the steps below her, and she saw the tealight candles. Her pulse slowed ever so slightly.
Jeez, woman, get a grip
, she mumbled to herself. She bent to retrieve the candles and nearly dropped her phone. Finally, candles in hand and her phone gripped more tightly, she sat down on the top step.

The stress of the day and the horror of being stuck in a dark, dank cellar piled on top of her, and Annie found herself wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. Her phone went dark, so she pressed the button and watched it spring to life once again. At least she had her phone. She glanced at the power level--a measly nineteen percent battery life remained. She hoped that someone would realize she was missing before the battery died, and her tired, tearful brain envisioned her mother finding her skeletal remains sometime in the autumn when she came down to the cellar to look for her hidden chocolate bars.

The screen on her phone went dark once more, and Annie nearly smacked her own forehead. She had a phone. She’d just call someone to open the door, then she would throw the candles at Marie and go up to her room and her soft, comforting bed. Annie flicked the contacts file open and called Rory, but nothing happened. She checked the phone again and found that there were no bars showing at the top--there was no service signal down in the cellar.

Annie let out a long, slow breath. She sat the candles down beside her on the steps, put the phone in her pocket, where it sat snugly, safe from the risk of being dropped onto the hard concrete floor, and she turned to the door once again. She slapped it with her palms and called out, but her own voice just bounced back at her. She balled her hands up into fists and pounded on the wood, but she couldn’t make the sound any louder that way.
What the heck was the door made of?
Finally, she gave into her frustration and let out a long, loud, exasperated scream.

Nothing happened.

Annie turned her back to the door and peered down into the velvety blackness. She let her hand drop to the candles, reassuring herself that they were still there. She had the sudden thought that maybe she’d seen matches in the box with the candles, and for a minute she felt a little better. She pulled out her phone, pressed the button to illuminate the screen, and scrambled down the stairs and across the room. The light went out, and she pushed the button again, afraid to fire up the phone properly in case she ran her battery out.

The plastic tub was still sitting where she’d left it, which was on a folding table her mother had assured her would be a fine crafting table for them. She laughed at the thought--she certainly had no time for crafting or hobbies these days. No, Annie Richards was far too busy for scrapbooking or knitting; she was busy finding dead bodies and getting herself locked in creepy old cellars.

Annie shone her phone into the box and picked through its contents. Besides the chocolate bars, there were three boxes of Band-Aids, two tubes of Neosporin, a roll of gauze bandage, a six-pack of bottled water, and a pack of sugarless chewing gum, but definitely no matches.

Annie slapped her hand against the surface of the folding table in frustration. The whole thing wobbled, but it didn’t fall over. Feeling foolish, fed up, and frustrated, Annie grabbed a bag of chocolate bars and headed back up the stairs.
If this isn’t an emergency,
she thought,
I don’t know what is.

Sitting alone in the dark, Annie opened the bag and unwrapped a chocolate bar, then chewed it thoughtfully.
When I get out of here
, she mused,
I will definitely put some battery-powered lights up in this room.
She ate a couple of the chocolates in silence, then reached up and banged the door a few more times, just in case someone was in the kitchen.

She did this a few more times, then she simply sat in silence. Occasionally she could hear a creak or clicking sound, the sounds that old houses make when you’re paying close enough attention to notice them. She let her mind drift, and found herself thinking of a time when she was a girl and had found herself accidentally locked in the bathroom. She must have been five or six years old, very young, and the doorknob in her childhood home had a terrible habit of sticking in the frame.

Annie recalled thinking that she’d have to live in the bathroom, that no one would ever find her and she’d be forced to sleep on the rug in front of the bath tub. She chuckled to herself as she recalled thinking that she could live on toothpaste and water for a few days because she’d seen a documentary on television that told her food was less important than water. Of course, in her panicked state, it hadn’t dawned on her that her parents would come looking for her, or, as it just so happened, that her mother would have to use the bathroom only ten minutes after Annie had resigned herself to her doom.

“At least I have water and chocolate,” she said aloud into the darkness, though she really wished that she had a toilet, too. She suddenly wished that she hadn’t thought about that memory. The diet coke she’d had earlier had been refreshing, but now she was starting to realize that she’d need to go to the bathroom soon, or she’d be in a heap of trouble. She crossed her legs, and tried to distract herself, but it was no good. Now she was stuck in the dark, in a cellar, where no one could hear her, and she had to pee.

Annie almost laughed out loud at her predicament, but she didn’t want to risk laughing too hard and having an accident. She was glad that she’d never stopped practicing her kegels because the more she tried not to think about having to go, the more she really needed to. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.

Rising to her feet, Annie turned and banged on the door once again, but this time, she yelled, too. “Somebody! Mama! Rory! Let me out of this godforsaken cellar! I need to go peeeee!”

At some point during her screaming rant, Annie missed the sound of the lock clicking, and as her fists rained down on the door for the umpteenth time, she suddenly realized that it was moving. Annie fell through the rapidly opening door and into Rory’s chest, knocking him to the ground.

“Annie, are you alr--” Rory didn’t get the sentence out before she’d knocked the wind out of him, and by the time he’d sat up, she was scrambling out the door, making a beeline for the bathroom.

“Sorry, Rory! Be right back!” she called breathlessly over her shoulder, deftly maneuvering through the house despite the fact that the lights were still out. A few minutes later, she emerged, calmer, less breathless, and still carrying the small pack of candles.

Now that she was in control of her emotions, Annie explained her frantic exit from the cellar. Rory listened, nodding in the dim light and trying not to laugh. Annie was sure her cheeks were glowing in the darkened kitchen. “So, I had to go. Really, really bad. That’s why I was screaming.”

Rory shook his head. “I’m not sure how you managed to get yourself locked down there in the first place. That’s a heavy oak door, so it probably didn’t blow shut on its own.” He’d answered two of her questions with his statement, but it only raised another one.

“Then how did it slam shut?” She shuddered at the memory. Annie had never thought that she was afraid of the dark, but after being locked in a pitch black cellar, she was starting to think maybe she had a very reasonable fear of dark places.

Rory frowned. “I don’t know. I came back in through the kitchen door and walked right past the cellar. It was already closed then. I swear if I’d have heard you banging on the door I would have run to let you out.” He seemed to feel so guilty about it all, and Annie realized that he blamed himself for not getting to her sooner.

“I wasn’t banging on the door the whole time,” she told him, “and I don’t think I was making that much noise through that heavy oak,” she said, trying to make him feel better. “But someone had to have shut the door.”

“You think it was your Mama? Maybe she didn’t realize you were down there.”

Annie thought this over for half a second. “No, she would have yelled down, I’m sure of it. Someone slammed that door. It wasn’t closed gently.” She shook the box of tea lights. “I don’t suppose you have any matches?”

Rory suppressed a laugh. Annie suppressed the desire to hit him. “What? What are you laughing at?”

Rory walked over to the refrigerator and reached up on top. He pulled down a metal cookie tin and sat it on the counter by the window. In the dim light, Annie could just make out a box of tealight candles just like the one she had in her hand and a box of matches.

“I made your mama keep these in the kitchen in case of emergencies,” he explained. “I didn’t want her stumbling down those cellar steps in the dark.”

Annie’s mouth fell open and she snapped it shut. “Well, then--” She was angry and annoyed, and momentarily speechless. She snatched the matches from the box with a mumbled ‘thank you’, then headed for the sitting room.

It was empty.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Annie pulled a single candle out and lit it, then sat it on the mantel of the fireplace. Its meager light wasn’t as reassuring as she’d hoped, so she lit another one and placed it a few inches away. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

Rory stood in the doorway. “I have no idea. Everybody was gone when I got back.” He motioned towards the coffee table. “I left a couple of flashlights there for the guests to use. There are a couple more in the kitchen.” He clicked his own on, and a blinding beam of light appeared. “You be Scully, I’ll be Mulder,” he teased, handing her a flashlight. “Let’s see if they’ve all been abducted by aliens.”

Annie grinned and clicked on her own flashlight. “I guess we should check upstairs, make sure Mama and Devon are okay.” Annie imagined her mother falling in the dimly lit hallway upstairs, or tripping over something in the dark. At Bessie’s age, a fall could be downright deadly. Annie tried not to let those thoughts take hold, and she forced herself to think of something else.

A quick look upstairs found Devon and the dog stretched out on Devon’s bed. TigerLily sat on the windowsill of the large picture window in the middle of the room, her feline outline highlighted by the occasional flash of lightning.

“Did your grandmother come in here?” Annie asked, pulling Devon’s attention from the video he was watching on his phone.

“Yep,”

“And she left again?”

“Yep.” Devon let out an exaggerated sigh. “Jeez, Mom, don’t tell me you lost Granny Bessie. I guess it’s a miracle you’ve managed to keep track of me all these years.”

Annie shook her head at his sarcasm. “Just stay up here until the power comes on, will you?”

Devon waved his hand in a ‘whatever’ gesture. Annie stepped back out of the room and pulled the door closed.

“He’s got his own little menagerie in there, doesn’t he?” Rory joked.

“Oh, yeah,” she replied. “This place is turning into a real zoo.”

They went back downstairs and headed towards the back of the house, checking empty rooms as they went. Finally, they stepped onto the screened in back porch and were greeted by Bessie’s cheerful voice.

“Oh, there you are! I was starting to get worried about you two,” she teased. “But, as long as you were together, that’s alright then.”

Annie ignored her mother’s not-so-subtle hint about wanting them to be a couple again and bluntly addressed the group.

“What are y’all doing out here? You do realize that there’s a thunderstorm going on out here?” She looked around. Rob and Kizzy had rejoined the group, looking much better than they had earlier that day.

“It was Marie’s idea,” Kizzy replied. “She suggested we watch the storm. It sure is pretty,” she added. “Like a little light show.”

Bessie waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, they’re alright out here. It’s not like we’re running around out in the storm. Besides, it’s passing now. Don’t you remember how you and your daddy would sit out under the carport and watch the storms when you were little?”

Annie did remember that, but she said nothing about it. Instead, she pulled her mother aside. “Somebody shut the cellar door and locked it while I was still in the cellar. Do you know anything about that?”

Bessie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, my goodness! No, I don’t know who would do such a thing! Oh, I bet it was dark in there--”

Annie cut her off. She didn’t want to relive her adventure in the cellar. “It’s alright, Rory let me out. But I want to know who could have locked me in there and why.” She looked around at the motley group of guests. “Did anybody follow me to the kitchen?”

Bessie thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. Just after you left, Frank went upstairs to get his blood pressure medicine,” she offered, “but he came right back. And Marie came out here--that’s how come we’re all out here now. She came back and told us to come watch the lightning, and we’ve been out here ever since.”

Annie frowned. “When did Kizzy and Rob come down?” She hadn’t heard anyone coming or going from behind the thick oak cellar door.

“Oh, they came down with Frank. I asked Devon if he wanted to come down with us, but he was watching theYuletubes on his phone,” she added, cheerfully oblivious that she’d said gotten the name wrong.

Annie gritted her teeth. Frank had been alone when she’d been locked in the cellar. And so had Kizzy and Marie. Any of them could have locked her in--accidentally or on purpose--and she had no idea who it was without asking them directly. The idea of asking her guests if they’d locked her in the cellar didn’t exactly appeal to Annie, but it really needed to be done. After all, what if it had been her mother locked inside the dark room or Devon?

Thinking it best to just ask everyone at once, Annie cleared her throat. She was just trying to find the best way to broach the subject when the lights on the veranda flickered to life.