Haunted Fixer-Upper, The (24 page)

The man in the photo was listed as Blake
Gaines. It was Amber’s husband and the man who they’d accused of killing her. Something about him looked so familiar. There was something about his eyes and his expression. I studied the picture, unable to look away. That was when it hit me. I knew who this person was and where I’d seen him before. It was the man in the woods that I’d been seeing since the first day. Why in the world was he hiding in the woods and lurking around the house? That was bizarre.

I needed to find out what he was doing there. Maybe he could give me more information about what happened when his wife had been murdered. Sure, he had been
accused of killing her, but he had an alibi and I had a gut feeling that he really had nothing to do with her murder. I dumped the papers on the passenger seat and pulled out of the parking lot. I pointed the car in the direction of McKeeley Plantation once again and drove as fast as I could without risking being pulled over by the police. They’d probably love the opportunity to arrest me.

After what seemed like forever,
I pulled into the driveway hoping to see Reed’s truck or the rental car. Reed’s truck was in front of the house, but there was no sign of Mama or Lacey. I sighed and climbed out from behind the wheel. I couldn’t wait to talk with Reed and clear things up.

I was thankful I wouldn’t have to be in the house alone. I knew there would have to be a
first time when I’d be in the house by myself, but I had to do it eventually. Sure there was a ghost in the house, but she didn’t seem to want to do me any harm. Was the ghost really the spirit of Amber, the woman who had been brutally murdered twenty years ago? That was the logical explanation. If only I could get the spirit to communicate with us.

I’
d go inside and if anything happened I would talk to her. Talk to her as if she was a living person. She probably just wanted to communicate a message to her husband. She was a restless spirit because her murderer had never been captured. I stepped into the house and called out for Reed. Silence surrounded me. There was no footsteps, no sound of tools, or even whispers from another dimension.

Things seemed different in the room. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was as if something had been moved in the room. Yes, that was definitely it. The
single metal folding chair that I’d left in the parlor had been moved. An opened package of dried fruit had been left on the seat of the chair. Someone had been in the room and I didn’t think it was the ghost having a midnight snack. I looked over to the window. Outside I saw the woods just beyond our property. Had the man from the woods been in the house? Was he homeless and hungry? Maybe he wasn’t there to cause harm at all. After all, he had run away from me. If he’d wanted to hurt me he wouldn’t have done that. I couldn’t mention this to Reed because he wouldn’t believe it. He’d have some stupid explanation for it.

I checked every room in the house, but Reed wasn’t ther
e. The only place I didn’t look was the basement. There were just some things I would avoid at all costs, and one of them was that dungeon disguised as a basement. So I didn’t want to go down there. However, I’d opened the door and called out to Reed. That was good enough, right? Besides, if he’d been down there, he would have answered. It was dark down there anyway, and he wouldn’t have been down there with the lights out.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Had Reed been outside and I
’d missed him? The sensation of eyes following me overwhelmed me as I stepped outside onto the front porch. I glanced over to the woods, expecting to see the man staring back at me, but he wasn’t there. No one was out there. Not Reed. Not even a deer. I hesitated at the first step. What was I so afraid of? It wasn’t the inside of the house so much. Plus, I’d been in a ton of haunted houses so why would this one be different? I guessed just knowing for certain what had happened in the house had gotten the better of me. The feeling would fade with time. But the feeling of the strange man in the woods wouldn’t fade as long as he kept appearing.

After walking down the steps, I decided to search around the outside of the house for Reed
. I peered up, thinking maybe he’d climbed onto the roof for repairs, but there was no ladder. That sensation of being watched fell over me again, but this time it was different. I thought I heard someone call out to me. I turned my attention to the woods, and that was when I saw him watching me again. Had he called out to get my attention? What was wrong with this man?

I hurried toward him, but he zipped behind the tree again. I rushed into t
he woods like the idiot I was, throwing caution to the wind as usual. At least I knew my decisions were foolish. There was something wired wrong in my brain which made me continue to do things that I knew could end very badly. This was taking living dangerously to a whole new level. When would I learn my lesson and stop?

But t
his time, I was determined to find out who this man was. I wanted to talk with him. I just hoped that huge dog wouldn’t be there, waiting to take a chunk out of my butt. I pushed past twigs and branches and ran as fast as I could to keep up. A branch snagged my sleeve slowing me down. Finally, after battling the dense thicket of pines, the break in the tree line where the man had disappeared last time came into view.

If
I saw the dog, I wouldn’t let it stop me. I’d push forward. The man never looked back. He kept his pace. He definitely knew where he was headed. Too bad I didn’t. He broke free from the trees and into the clearing. So far the dog hadn’t appeared. With my luck, he was probably waiting for me to step inside that clearing before he ripped my arms off.

As I broke free from the shade of th
e trees, I spotted a small cabin ahead and the man was headed right toward it. Did he live there and was he luring me into his web? Was that his plan on along? And if so, why? I’d never seen this man before that first day at the house. Maybe he was the serial killer I’d heard so much about.

The man disappeared into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind
him. All the windows were drawn shut tight and there was no movement from inside. It looked like the cabin had been abandoned ages ago. Spider webs hung from various spots on the structure and the windows had been boarded up. What should I do now? Should I approach the cabin? Knock on the door? Just how crazy was I?

The dog was barking somewhere nearby. Would he be on top of me
soon, gnawing my arms off? The thought had just entered my mind when I spotted the dog tied up at the back of the cabin. I prayed he didn’t get loose because he was licking his chops like he wanted to make me his brunch.

I hurried across the yard l
ike a cat burglar. Where was Mama’s sequined camouflage outfit when I needed it? This was decision-making time. The only option I saw was to go up and actually knock on the door.

With my heart thundering in my chest, I approached the cabin’s front door.
“Hello, I’m the woman you’ve been snooping around on and possibly wanting to murder.”

I was delivering myself right to his front door.
I stood in front of the door and listened for any signs of movement, but heard nothing. Bugs sounded around me and birds chirped, but nothing else. Even the dog had stopped barking. Finally I mustered up enough courage, raised my hand, and knocked against the wood. A shuffle of movement sounded behind the door, then a rattling sound came from the other side as if he had secured a million locks.

Reed would
be extremely disappointed if he found out what I was doing. How would I protect myself if this man attacked me? Well, it was a little too late to think about that now. That was something I probably should have thought about before I’d followed him back there. I knocked on the door again.

“
Hello,” I called. “I know you’re in there. Please. I just want to talk with you.”

This guy acted as if he had
n’t been around people for the last twenty years.

I pound
ed on the door even harder. “I’m not going away until you talk to me, so you might as well open the door now.”

Someone needed to commit me to a mental hospital for doing this. But I was stubborn, that was one thing that I couldn’t deny.
Some people might even say that was a good quality… of course those people might be crazy too, but I digress. Finally, the door creaked open and I braced myself to be attacked. All I saw was one eyeball peering out at me.

“
You’ve been spying on me,” I said.

He didn’t answer.
His focus didn’t shift from my face either.

“W
ho are you and what do you want?” I stared, but he still didn’t utter a word. “Do you know how to speak?” I asked.

“
I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Well, good. At least now
I knew he could talk. That was a start.

“
Do you want to tell me what you want now?” I didn’t hide the frustration in my voice.

“
I shouldn’t have bothered you,” he said.

Well
, that was neither here nor there now. Still all I saw was the eyeball.

“
So why were you out there in the woods watching us?” I gestured over my shoulder.

After a long pause, he answere
d, “I used to live in that house.”

I hadn’t expected that.
My stomach flopped. This was the man who had supposedly killed his wife. Was I really standing in front of a killer? No, I didn’t believe that he was the real killer. Something in my gut was telling me that his wife’s murder and Gordon’s murder were connected.

“
You lived in the house?” I repeated.

He nodded, opening t
he door just a little more so that I could see all of his face. “I lived there with my wife.”

Dark circl
es ringed his eyes and his salt-and-pepper hair was disheveled.

“Did you live in the house twenty years ago?” I asked quietly.

Of course it had been
twenty years ago. How many men had lived in the house and been accused of killing their wife? I certainly hoped no more than the one. One was my limit.

“
Yes.” He nodded.

That was strange.
The ghost has been trying to tell me something. Had she wanted me to find her husband? Did she know that he was nearby?

“
This may sound strange, but honestly, it’s a little strange that you were hiding in the woods, so I’ll just come out and say it. I think your wife has been trying to tell me something. I saw her spirit in the house. I think she was telling me to come into the woods.”

“
She’s been talking to me too. I knew that I saw her spirit. That’s why I came back here. I wanted to see that her killer is brought to justice, but I realize that’s just a dream. I don’t know why I came here. I was only fooling myself.” He ran his hand through his hair.

I wouldn’t let him give up that easily.
“Was your wife’s name Amber?” I asked.

He nodded as tears formed in the corner of his eyes. “Yes.”

“And you are Blake Gaines?” I looked at him expectantly.

He focused his gaze on mine.
“Are you going to tell the police I’m here?”

I scoffed. “No, I don’t want to tell them anything.”

He looked down at his dirty shoes. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“
Please let me help you,” I pleaded.

“
I can’t talk to you anymore.” He started to close the door.

“Do you know Stan?”
I rushed my words.

He paused and h
is face blanched. “I know him. He killed my wife.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

My stomach dropped. “You know this for sure?
”

“
I know it and everyone else in this town knew it. But his father was the mayor and they let him off.”

“
Why did he kill her?”

“
She had been his teacher. He was set to graduate, but he wasn’t making the grades he needed, so she agreed to tutor him for his final. He made advances on her and when she refused, that’s when he killed her.”

“I can’t believe they let him get by with it.”

“They covered his tracks.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“The whole damn town.
Just because his father was the mayor.”

“I
s his father still the mayor?”

“No, he died a couple years ago. I guess everyone in town is still scared to death of that family.”

“Do you have proof that Stan killed your wife?”

“He didn’t have an alibi and then all of a sudden he did. People saw him that day with blood on his clothing.”

“I read about what happened to your wife, but I didn’t see Stan mentioned in any of the news articles.”

“Yeah, the newspaper knew better than to write anything bad about the mayor’s son.”

So Stan had killed the woman when he was a teenager.

“Of course the police
botched the investigation and I couldn’t prove he did it. His father had a hand in the cover-up and having me accused as well.”