Haunted

“Yeah, sorry, I had a late night,” Matt said. Aubry reminded him of a weasel. The guy was an inch or so taller than he was, which made him around six-four, but he was so skinny he appeared taller. Maybe because he couldn’t seem to get an inch of either fat or muscle on his bones, he shaved his head for a fiercer look. Didn’t help. He just looked like a hungry ferret.



“Tell me about the skull.”



“I’m just heading out for some lunch.”



“Great. I’ll join you.”



Max stared at him.



“Business appointment, huh?” Aubry said. He knew Matt didn’t like him. It wasn’t really a personal thing. Matt just thought that journalists were supposed to report the news, and not make up what they’d like to be the story that went with it.



“Give me something. I’m going to head out and interview that young lady working for you. I just thought that you might want to give me a word or two first.”



“Sure.” Matt stood still, feeling the summer sun. “Miss Tremayne is working for a firm called Harrison Investigations. They look into so-called hauntings. They do research on an area—and reveal when those who call themselves psychics are using fog machines to create ghostly images. We have a lot of folklore around here, which is usually based on fact. Every schoolkid in the area has heard about the headless girl in the forest. Miss Tremayne made use of the library to investigate the murder, determined where it must have taken place, and found the missing skull.”



“So the ghost will no longer haunt the forest, is that right, Sheriff?”



“I was never of the persuasion that a ghost did haunt the forest,” he said firmly. “And if you write anything different, Aubry, you’ll have a lawsuit on your hands.”



“Ah, come on, Matt!”



“I mean it, Aubry. You caused a poison scare here when Julie Cristopher had a stomachache one afternoon. The donut shop nearly had to shut down because you stated it was the last place she had eaten.”



“It was the last place she had eaten.”



“But she hadn’t been poisoned! She told the doctor at the hospital that she’d drunk milk she probably shouldn’t have because her brother had left it out on the table overnight!”



“Kids! What are you going to do?” Aubry said, brushing the complaint aside.



“I’m not a kid. And if you print a bunch of fiction, Aubry, I’ll see you in court.”



“All right, all right! You sure have got some hang-ups, Sheriff. Ghosts are good for a place like Melody House.”



“Why in hell does everyone believe that?”



“Because the rest of the world has a sense of romance! But excuse me, go have your lunch. I’m sure your Yankee investigator will be a lot nicer. Sheesh!”



Aubry turned and walked away. Matt was tempted to call him back and somehow tell him not to go after Darcy.



But he couldn’t.



Aubry had every legal right in the world to interview whoever he wanted.



He watched Aubry go, damning himself. He should have given the man some time, given him a better story, and he might have left Darcy alone. He considered calling Darcy to warn her. Tell her…what? Tell her that no matter what the hell she really believed, she had to tell Aubry that she didn’t believe in ghosts?



Swearing, he headed for his car. As he slid into the driver’s seat, he was startled to feel a strange urge to head somewhere, other than the Wayside Inn.



Library.



His fingers froze around the keys in the ignition. He could have sworn that he heard the word as clearly as if someone had spoken out loud to him.



Matt groaned, leaning his head against the steering wheel. They were all going to make him crazy. Had to be something on the back burner of his mind coming forward. And now, for some stupid reason, he kept hearing it echo.



Hell, no, he wasn’t getting caught up in all this.



Angry with himself, he started to drive toward the Wayside Inn.



Then turned.



Darcy hadn’t intended to go back to the library that day, but Penny was so determined to talk about the skull that she didn’t think she could stay in the house. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Penny, and like her very much. She simply didn’t want to try to explain just what her “extrasensory” perceptions were. She didn’t understand it all herself—how on earth could she explain it all to another person?



Then, as well, both Clint and Carter had been in the house. And they had wanted to talk. Clint had been charming, but too curious, winking and asking her if she could help him find the cuff links he had lost last Christmas. Carter had simply wanted to talk, to know her past, what other mysteries she had unraveled. Both had seemed to want to probe her mind, and though she liked them both so very much, she had wanted equally to escape.



She had enjoyed the library and Mrs. O’Hara, and decided to take refuge there where she could research Amy Clayton’s family. She was sure that someone in the area had to know where the family graveyard could be found, but the library, she was certain, would have local records.



She knew the minute she saw Mrs. O’Hara that the woman had heard she had found the skull. It was a small town. News traveled quickly. But Mrs. O’Hara didn’t question her, other than to ask if she wanted tea. Darcy decided to accept a cup. Mrs. O’Hara had a nice sense of perception herself—she found the record book Darcy wanted behind the desk, as if she’d searched for it as soon as she’d heard the news.



“If you’re looking for anything else local,” Mrs. O’Hara told her, “just head up to the loft level.” She pointed to stairs which led to the walkway that circled the perimeter of the upper floor. The intricately carved railings made it seem almost as if the library had originally been built as a grand old home, rather than as a public facility. Mrs. O’Hara grinned, seeing her look up and around. “Originally, this was part of an old plantation. It belonged to a man named Geoffrey Huntington, and he was very good friends with Thomas Jefferson, among other notable men. But he was a Loyalist, and the main house was burned during the Revolution. Luckily, he had this structure planned as an outbuilding, his own private retreat, and the furious Patriots were happy to keep his book collection alive and well, since he was forced out of the country. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? And everything is original. Except for some of the books, of course. Thankfully, the place was very large, because over the years we’ve accumulated many fine collections of books.”



“It’s an extraordinary library,” Darcy told her sincerely.



“On the National Register of Historic Buildings,” Mrs. O’Hara said proudly. “We may have to add on soon, though.”



“I imagine that it’s far better for a library to have too many books than too few,” Darcy said.



“Naturally!” Mrs. O’Hara agreed.



With her cup of tea and the old book Mrs. O’Hara had already found for her, Darcy curled up in one of the stuffed armchairs on the ground floor and began to read.



The Clayton family had left the area in the late-eighteen hundreds. They had, however, arrived in the mid-seventeen hundreds, and had maintained a family plot in the Christ’s Church burial ground. The record book—a horribly boring tome—listed family names, occupations, marriages, baptisms, deaths, and little more, but it actually offered a plot map of Christ’s Church and the surrounding graveyard. It wasn’t far from Melody House at all. Once the skull was deemed ancient by the proper authorities, Darcy assumed there would be no difficulty seeing that it was buried along with the rest of poor Amy Clayton.



She set the book down and looked up the stairway, noting again just how exceptionally fine the building was. Naturally, since a wealthy and influential man—who had apparently loved reading and books—had planned it for himself. But still, few towns could possibly have such a gem of a library. The stairway was winding, the wood old and polished, and it appeared that even the runner on the stairs was as old as the facility.



She decided that it was time to set the record book aside and head up to see what else she could find.



At the top of the stairway she discovered that the flooring of the loft was really little more than scaffolding. The runner extended only up the stairs, then curved into an arch at the landing, while the flooring itself then became polished wood, apparently very well tended.



Darcy began to peruse the different books. Some would be of little interest to anyone other than people who found their own family names, and yet she thought that it was quite wonderful that so many people from the area might come here and find out about ancestors. There were books with nothing more than family names on them, or titles that explained their contents exactly, such as Marriages among the Grangers of Stoneyville, and The Murtons Who Attended Grace Church. She smiled, slipping out a volume now and then, and finding most to be very old. It seemed that people hadn’t kept such simple record books in a very long time. Or maybe, life just hadn’t been that simple in a very long time.



A book on a high shelf caught her eye. The Stones of Melody House. She was delighted to see it, and once again, touched by the people of decades past who had found every little detail of life worthy of recording.



Deciding it was one volume she definitely needed to read, Darcy started to reach up for it. She was tall but she really had to stretch.



As she balanced on both toes, she heard a sudden creaking sound from the boards under her feet. Even as she frowned, the floorboard directly beneath her suddenly gave.



She grabbed frantically for the shelf in front of her. Too late, because it had all happened too quickly. For a second frozen in time, she staggered where she stood, knowing that the wood beneath her had failed, and that she was going to crash into a sheer drop. She was disbelieving, even as the simple rules of physics tore at the weight of her body.



She cried out, a whoosh of air escaping from her lungs as she felt herself suddenly plunge downward.



She grasped out desperately for any hold, all the while wondering, How? Why? Mrs. O’Hara would never have sent anyone upstairs if it wasn’t safe—