The Inn (20 page)

N
eville didn't think he should be listening to Annabel and Jack argue on the front porch. He stood up from the couch in the parlor and started to head up to his room, but then decided on a different destination.

What had Tammy seen down in the basement?

Perhaps he was being foolish to go back down there by himself. If there was some mad killer loose, the same one who'd cut off that bloke's hand and kidnapped and/or killed Priscilla, Neville might run smack into him down in that dark, dusty space.

But he had to go down there. He had to find some answer to give Priscilla's parents.

Her mum's voice still rang in Neville's ear. How upset she'd been when he'd finally called to give them the news of Priscilla's disappearance. She had blamed Neville, saying her poor darling daughter must have run off because of something he had said or done. It was the only way the distraught woman could make sense of the whole thing. Neville hadn't had many facts to give her to refute her theory. He was scheduled to return to England in a few days, and he didn't want to fly back over the pond without some understanding of what had happened to Priscilla.

He made his way down the stairs.

He saw nothing. What could possibly have spooked that poor girl so terribly? Neville tried to yank open the ash dump, but the padlock held firm. He hoped the police could get in there soon and inspect what was inside.

He was moving away from the chimney when he stepped on something on the floor. In the darkness he hadn't seen it. Evidently no one had.

He stepped down and scooped up the small object in his hand.

It was a ring.

Priscilla's opal ring. The one she used to attract ghosts.

He slipped the ring into his pocket.

Given the tension between Annabel and Jack, he wasn't going to bring the ring to them. He didn't trust what might happen. Instead, he was going straight to the police station and give the ring to Chief Carlson.

R
ichard pulled up in front of Millie's store, turned off the ignition, and just sat there for a while. Such strangeness at the Blue Boy Inn. He had no idea what to make of it.

In his head, he was running through all those cold case files again. What was it about that place that had resulted in so many deaths and disappearances?

The first strange death had occurred more than a hundred years ago at the place. And they had kept coming. Richard had been especially repulsed by the story of poor old Andrew McGurk, whose body had been found up there decades ago, but not his head.

And the most heartbreaking story was the little baby whose arm was found. The child's poor mother had been so distraught. That case, too, had remained unsolved for decades.

Richard got out of the car and headed inside Millie's. The little bell over the door jingled.

“Well, if it isn't our hardest working public servant,” Millie sang out from behind the counter. “What can I do for you today, Richard?”

“Just come to pick up some supper, Mil,” he told her. “It's going to be a late night at the station tonight.”

He headed down the cereal aisle.

“Hey, chief,” Millie called over to him. “Do yourself a favor and at least buy some ground beef. Enough with the Cheerios.”

“There's nowhere to grill a burger at the station, Millie,” Richard said. “I'll stick with my cereal and milk.”

“How about some ham and cheese at least? I've got some nice hard rolls. . . .”

“Too much trouble,” Richard said, the box of Cheerios under his arm as he headed over to the coolers to fetch a half-liter of milk.

“You must have a microwave there,” the clerk said. “How about a nice Lean Cuisine? They've got some new ones. The salmon's pretty good. I've had it myself.”

Richard lifted the milk out of the freezer. “Thanks, Millie, but my taste buds are in kind of a rut.”

She shook her head. “What you need is a good woman to cook for you.”

He smiled as he set the milk and cereal down on the counter. “Like I've said, you keep turning me down.” He winked at her.

Millie smirked as she rang up the items. “How are things out at the Blue Boy?”

The chief shrugged. “Not sure. Lots of questions.”

“What is it about that place?” She accepted Richard's ten and gave him back his change. “I've been here since I was fourteen, and that was a long time ago. And ever since, there's always been something weird up there.”

“That's true, Millie. We're looking into it.”

She placed the milk and box of Cheerios into a paper bag. “I sure feel bad for that sweet girl who came all the way up here from New York to live at the place. Annabel. That was her name, right?”

“Yes,” Richard said. “That's her name.”

“What kind of husband doesn't tell his wife about the unsavory history of the place he's taking her to live?”

“I don't know, Mil,” Richard said, taking his dinner.

“I mean, that Jack Devlin had to remember how his poor little sister disappeared, and how his father went crazy. . . .”

Richard lifted an eyebrow. “His father went crazy?”

“Well, that was the rumor. He'd come up here, too, just like Jack is doing now, to take over the place after his father died. I remember he was a very nice man. But then he changed. Started acting all weird and secretive. Then, of course, when his wife died from breast cancer and his daughter disappeared—well, people who saw him said he went completely off his rocker.”

“That can happen, Millie,” Richard said, “when you lose someone you love.”

He waved good-bye to her and headed back out to his car.

Driving to the station, Richard didn't think there was anything unusual about Jack Devlin's father “going crazy” after his wife died.

After all, Richard had almost gone crazy after Amy died.

So many specialists he'd sought out. So many second, third, fourth, and fifth opinions. And still Amy had died. Richard was a police officer, sworn to defend the public, to protect lives—but he had been unable to find a way to save the woman he loved.

For a while after Amy's death, Richard had blamed himself. He had thought he might go mad. He understood exactly what Jack Devlin's father must have gone through.

How very much Richard still loved his dead wife. He still physically ached for her presence beside him in bed at night. He could still smell the fragrance of her hair on his pillow, could sense her energy in the rooms of his house—even though Amy had never lived here in Woodfield with him. Even though she had been gone for so many years.

Could he ever love another woman? Could he ever allow another woman in his life again?

His mind flickered to Annabel Wish.

Richard couldn't deny that he'd been attracted to her. The first woman he'd felt that way toward in a very long time. She had looked so pretty, so vulnerable and yet so strong, too, standing there in the sunlight in the woods. Those were qualities Amy had had as well. Strength with vulnerability. Richard had found Annabel extremely attractive as he'd walked beside her, crunching through those fallen leaves. He had been filled, in fact, with the desire to kiss her. He had resisted the urge, of course.

But a momentary attraction to a woman did not mean he could love another woman. It did not mean he was ready to fall in love again. It only meant he was still alive, still a man, still with very natural desires. The chemistry, in other words, still worked.

He couldn't deny that he'd found Annabel Wish a very beautiful woman.

He thought of her up at that house. She was going to need his help, and Richard would be glad to offer it. That husband of hers was not to be trusted.

Richard had been extremely frustrated by Tammy Morelli's refusal to bring harassment charges against Devlin. “No, Richard, no,” she'd kept repeating. “I can't do that. Already half this town thinks I'm a slut. They'll blame me.”

“That's crazy talk, Tammy,” Richard had told her. “You did nothing wrong! That man tried to take advantage of you. He shouldn't get away with it.”

But Tammy had kept shaking her head. “I just want to start living my life. I don't want anything dragging me down. Roger is gone and I'm starting new. Me and Jessica. I don't want any court cases or newspaper headlines. I just want to get on with things.”

Her eyes had narrowed as she had looked at Richard.

“And I don't want anything more to do with that place. The legends are true, Richard. After what I saw, I believe them!”

And what had Tammy seen?

Richard pulled his car into the station lot. The reason any case Tammy might bring against Devlin might fail was because she also said some other things had happened at the Blue Boy. And if people questioned her about those things, they'd question her claims about Devlin as well.

Tammy had claimed she'd seen a little man eating a human arm.

Richard had dutifully taken all the details down in his report. The little man, Tammy estimated, was no more than three feet tall, maybe less. He was slender, and had a bluish tint to his skin. Kind of like the blue boy on the sign out front. Richard understood the power of suggestion when under distress. Clearly, that was the explanation for Tammy's little blue man. She was upset and anxious after the harassment from Devlin and imagined she'd something horrifying. Richard thought psychologists called it “counterprojection.”

Still, he worried about Annabel in that house.

He got out of the car and headed inside. He'd been right when he'd told Millie he had a long night ahead. He needed to get the ball moving on a search warrant. If he had to drive up to see the judge personally tonight, he'd do it. He needed to arrange a forensics team to check out that chimney. And he needed to finish going through all the cold case files relating to the Blue Boy Inn.

There was something very odd about that place, and Richard aimed to figure out what it was.

He was surprised to find the Blue Boy's English guest waiting for him when he reached his desk.

“Chief,” Neville said, “I have something very important to tell you. And
show
you.”

He opened his hand to reveal an opal ring.

“M
aybe I'm crazy to be going out with you to the tile store, as if everything back home is all peachy keen,” Annabel told Chad, sitting beside him in his truck as they rattled north on Route 7. “But after yesterday, I just had to get out of that house.”

“I don't blame you,” Chad said, looking over at her. “A little time away will do you a world of good.”

She smiled over at him.

“Seriously,” Chad continued. “Think to the future. Someday this crap will all be over. They will have caught the guy who killed Roger and maybe killed Paulie and Priscilla, and you can go back to making the Blue Boy a first-class destination.”

That was what she needed to do, Annabel thought, watching from the window as the countryside flew past her. She needed to focus on the renovation. She needed to throw herself into it—transforming that house from its gruesome past to something new, something she could call her own. She had to think ahead, and not dwell in the past, or wallow in her delusions.

Annabel ran the risk of decompensating again. She couldn't let that happen. During her time in rehab, she had been told over and over again how important it was to stay strong in her mind. She had a tendency to retreat when things became difficult. It was sort of like the way some people curled into the fetal position to take shelter from the hard realities of the world. Annabel called it her “black hole.” She'd sink down into it and her mind would go berserk. She'd imagine things. She'd hallucinate. She'd fall into a world that wasn't real, that existed only in her mind. She'd believe nothing was safe.

She supposed it had started all those years ago when she was a little girl, locked in the closet by Daddy Ron. The young Annabel would fall down into a rabbit's hole of illusion, imagining Tommy Tricky and all the terrible things he would do to her. This had been her tendency ever since, when she became afraid or anxious. She'd withdraw, decompensate—tumble down into her black hole where nothing made sense.

But she could no longer allow that to happen in her life.

Despite what Tammy Morelli claimed to have seen, Tommy Tricky
did not live
at the Blue Boy Inn. Annabel had to believe that. Tommy Tricky was a childhood fantasy, told to her by Daddy Ron to frighten her. Tammy had been frightened by Jack, and then she had hallucinated, much as Annabel had done herself. To believe anything else, Annabel was convinced, would have been to admit madness.

And she was not going to do that.

Last night, Jack had been conciliatory. He'd taken Annabel in his arms and kissed her tenderly, explaining how much he, too, wanted to start over, to make the Blue Boy theirs, to free it from its lurid past. That was why he was so resistant to the police searching the place. Annabel was cool and reserved, remembering what Chad had told her about Tammy. Once again, she chose not to confront Jack. She planned to do so—she wasn't going to just let this slip by—but not just yet. Annabel wasn't sure she could trust her husband anymore. In fact, she'd become a little bit afraid of him. She worried that Jack would blow up at her, or try to control what she did, and if Annabel had learned anything during her time in rehab, it was how to stay safe. Nothing was more important than that. So until she felt safe with Jack again, she was not going to bring anything up with him that might set him off.

Of course, things couldn't stay this way. This was no kind of marriage. Annabel knew she and Jack were at a breaking point. Either they got through this, or they didn't. Not for much longer would she live with Jack's volatility, or stand for his continued flirtation—and maybe more than that—with other women. She would see how the next few weeks went. If things only got worse—if Jack remained hostile to a police investigation, for example, or if he continued to seem angry and distant—Annabel would suggest they needed some time apart. She had no family other than Jack, so she had no idea where she'd go. But surely there must be some old friend in New York who would take her in. Or, if necessary, she'd go deeper into debt and stay at a hotel. If she needed to get out of here, she'd find a way.

But Annabel wasn't running just yet. For the moment, she would stay on course. One of the other things she'd learned in rehab was to resist the urge to flee. She learned that she was strong enough to face anything. So she would persevere for the next few weeks, keeping her mind clear, resisting the hallucinations, rejecting the fear. She would resist feelings of paranoia. She was safe here.
Safe!

And so she would push on with the renovation, the plan to make the house her own. She had no other choice. Otherwise, she might decompensate again and wind up nearly catatonic, as had happened yesterday morning. Annabel would not go down that road again.

“Kind of lost in thought over there, aren't you?” Chad asked, interrupting her reverie.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Annabel said.

“No need.” He smiled over at her, revealing dimples in his cheeks. “I know you've got a lot on your mind.”

“Well, maybe it's time I put some of it
out
of my mind.” She returned his smile. “So, tell me, Chad. Do you plan someday on taking over your father's business?”

“That's the goal. My brothers aren't into it. But for me, I've loved remodeling houses ever since I built a loft in my bedroom when I was nine.”

“Nine!”

Chad nodded, his eyes on the road ahead of him. “I've always been good with my hands.”

Annabel laughed. “I'm sure your girlfriend appreciates that.”

Chad looked over at her and smirked. “Annabel, was that a double entendre?”

She blushed suddenly. “I guess it did sound that way. But not what I meant. I just meant a woman likes to have a handyman around the house.”

“Still sounds dirty,” Chad said, laughing. “But the point is moot. I don't have a girlfriend. Not anymore.”

“What happened?”

“Not really sure. I was dating this girl Claire ever since junior year of high school. I guess she just got tired of waiting for me to marry her, and she gave me the old heave-ho a few months ago.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.'

“It's okay, really. If I'd have really been in love with her, like she said, I would have asked her to marry me a long time before that.”

Annabel frowned. “Well, did she ever ask
you
to marry
her
?”

“Oh, plenty of times.” Chad switched on his turn signal. “I'm just not the marrying type, I guess.”

They headed off the highway.

“That's okay,” Annabel said, looking off into the miles of bare, shivering trees on the side of the road. “Marriage isn't for everybody.”

Chad looked over at her. “Is it for you?” he asked, and then quickly added, “I'm sorry. That was too personal.”

“No, it's okay,” she said. “To be honest, I'm not sure.”

They were silent after that.

“Here we are,” Chad announced a short time later, steering the truck into the lot outside a shop called B
ERKSHIRE
T
ILE
& P
AINT
. “Let's go in and let our imaginations run wild, shall we?”

Annabel smiled.

But as she headed into the shop, her own imagination was already racing far ahead of either of them. It was something Neville had said to her, late last night.

“I suspect this will all be cleared up in the next few days,” he'd whispered, out of earshot from Jack, after he came back into the house from some trip into town.

Annabel had asked him what he meant, but he'd just smiled enigmatically, his finger to his lip.

What had he meant? He'd appeared so certain. He'd still been asleep when Annabel left with Chad this morning, so there had been no chance to question him further.

But Annabel prayed he was right.
All be cleared up in the next few days.

Passing through the lot, Annabel noticed a few tiny snowflakes swirling through the air.

“We're supposed to get a big storm tonight,” Chad said, sticking out his tongue to collect some of the flakes. “Guess these are the first arrivals.”

Laughing, they made their way inside the well-lit shop. With music playing and cash registers jangling, people laughing and cell phones ringing, Annabel felt her anxieties evaporate. She was comforted that, at least for the moment, she was back in the real world, far away from the dark warrens of the Blue Boy Inn.