Mirror of Shadows (22 page)

It made Ella’s heart happy to read these words from her grandmother. She had been right; if she had known what to expect from the mirror, the whole experience with Willow could have been much less scary. It made her sad that her grandmother had not gotten the chance to give the journal to Ella herself, but she was glad to have it now and know that she really wasn’t going insane.

She felt close to her grandmother after reading the journal. It was a nice end to a rather unhappy day. She yawned as she put the book down on the bed stand and snuggled in with Boo. Still not used to being alone in the house, she kept quite a few lights on. With happy thoughts of her grandmother in her head and heart, it didn’t take long to fall asleep.

Somewhere around eleven or twelve, a loud boom woke her up. It hadn’t registered what the boom was, but it was followed by thunderous stomps coming up the stairs fast. In a panic, Ella looked around her for something, anything she could use to defend herself. There was nothing—a book, a glass of water, a pen. She shoed Boo, making her hide under the bed, stuck the pen in her cast, and got off the bed. Throwing the pillow to the ground, she armed herself with the large flashlight that was under it. A face appeared at the doorway—Matt.

“Good evening, sunshine,” he said, slurring his words. He had a swollen lip, his left cheekbone was bright red and rather swollen, and his left eye was sporting a purple shiner. He’d obviously been in a fight and was still rather drunk.

“What do you want, Matt?” she said, standing there in her nightgown, barefoot, holding the flashlight in her one good hand.

Looking at the flashlight, he said, “What? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“No, Matt. I’m not. What are you doing here?”

“I came to have a little chat,” he said, closing in on her.

“Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, backing up.

He laughed, but didn’t stop. When he was about two feet away, she stepped forward, swinging the large flashlight at him as hard as she could, but it had barely tapped his shoulder when he grabbed her arm. He squeezed her hand tightly, making her whimper and drop the flashlight on the floor.

He yanked her good arm hard behind her back and, standing behind her, forced her downstairs.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he said cheerfully.

He led her outside. Her bare feet met the ice cold mud. A breeze blew a chill through her thin nightgown, and still he pushed her onward. Through the ramshackle boards of the boathouse, she noticed there were lights on. He led her inside to a waiting chair near the tattered slip and the ancient old dinghy that rocked on the ripples there.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making you comfortable,” he answered. He threw her down into the chair, almost making it topple backwards, then grabbed some rope off the ground. She took this moment of distraction to take the pen out of her cast and hide it in the palm of her hand. He started to wrap the rope around her and she stabbed him hard in the bicep with the pen. He hollered and howled in pain and pulled it out as she tried to get up and run, but he had a hold of her before she made it to the door and now he was really angry. The smell of gas was all around and it was then that she noticed he had soaked the thirsty old boards with several jerry cans of gasoline.

He tied her up with her good arm behind the chair and her casted arm tight to her body. And then he punched her hard in the face. “That’s for stabbing me, you slut!” The punch had hit her square in the cheek and knocked her and the chair sideways. She passed out for only a second and found herself being righted in the chair.

“Nobody dumps me without paying for it, nobody,” he said as he continued pouring gas all around the perimeter of the boathouse.

“This time your hero won’t be able to save you. I made sure of that,” he said proudly. It dawned on her that the fight he’d been in must have been with Jeremy. She wondered if he was okay—if he was hurt or, even worse, dead.

“So you were the one that cut my brake line and sawed the scaffolding, framing Jeremy for it.”

“Well, it wasn’t hard. Stupid blue tape on his tools—what an idiot. It was too easy, really. Then there was you. My God, have you ever had a boyfriend? You were the easiest catch ever. A little flirting and you were caught hook, line, and sinker,” he said arrogantly.

“But why? What do you have to gain from killing me?”

“Your property, imbecile. Everything you have.”

“How? The will states that if I die, everything goes to the city and a couple of charities,” she stated.

“Exactly, and who owns this city?”

“The Mortons.”

“Right, and I just happen to be a Morton, not in name, but in blood. I’m Harold Morton’s grandson.”

“Oh, no, but then what happened to your grandfather?”

“Well, he was old and set in his ways. He didn’t see the value of hurrying things along. He knew that you were the last in the line of your family and that when you died, the property your great-great-grandfather swindled from my family would go back to us; we just needed to be patient. So I killed him.

“It really was quite genius. People suspected the Mortons were behind the accidents. By murdering my grandfather, the suspicions were thrown off the Mortons, especially since not many know I’m related to them.”

“What’s wrong with you? I can’t believe you’re willing to kill for a stupid piece of land—especially, killing your grandfather?”

“My family has been trying to get back what is rightfully theirs for over one hundred years and I’m the only one who is actually going to accomplish it. I’m just taking a page from the only other strong Morton in my family—Byron Morton. He was willing to kill for what he wanted; I’m just following in his footsteps.

“And now the final piece—you,” he said, lighting a match. “Parting is such sweet sorrow, but in your case, wench, not so much.” With a smile, he tossed the match towards a wall and shut the door. She could tell he barred the door somehow as she heard a hammering sound outside before the roar of the monster truck engine started and left.

*****

The flames made a roaring sound as they ate up the gasoline and oxygen. In less than a minute Ella was surrounded in flames. She tried to wiggle loose from the chair but the rope was too tight. She stood and tried to slam the chair hard on the ground in hopes of breaking it. It always seemed to work in the movies yet it was a lot harder than it looked and she only managed to break one leg, and now the chair couldn’t be sat in.

Standing bent over, she watched the flames lick the ceiling and consume the dry, rotten wood. She screamed, but that only made her cough from the smoke that was filling the shack. She got on her hands and knees and cried in between screams for help.

The fire spat and laughed at her as she watched it engulf everything around her in an inferno. It inched towards her until all she could do was step in the decrepit boat. Water was all around her, but it couldn’t help her. She was completely useless. She had no hands to swim or try and put the fire out. The heavy cast kept her out of balance. She was in a boat that she was sure if she moved too much would disintegrate around her, and the chair tied to her and the fire around her was making her feel more and more like a shish kabob.

The boat jerked to one side hard and a familiar voice yelled over the roar of the flames, “Ella!”

She turned. It was Jeremy in the water beside the boat. “Jeremy!”

“I’m going to cut the ropes; then you need to jump in the water,” Jeremy relayed as he started cutting the ropes from behind her and the chair fell away from her.

“But I can’t swim with one arm!” she screamed and coughed.

“It will be okay. Just hold on to me.”

The boards started hissing as the fire reached the water-logged pieces on the dock. They moaned and crackled all around her. She was sure the whole building would come down on them any second. She jumped in the water near Jeremy. The weight of her cast pulled her down, but her one good arm worked extra hard to bring her to the surface. Once there Jeremy wrapped her good arm around his shoulders.

“You’re going to have to tread water for just a minute. Can you do that?” he asked. She nodded.

“I’m going to flip the boat over; lookout!” Jeremy said as he pulled down the side closest to him and grabbed the other side. He tied a rope to the opposite side and pulled it with one hand while he pushed the other side with his other hand. With a loud smack, the lip of the boat hit the water and the slimy, algae-ridden bottom was now exposed.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I want you to go under the water and come up inside the boat then hold on to the bench slat. I’ll be right behind you.”

They both submerged and reappeared under the boat. They could hear the squeaking and moaning of boards moving against one another. The boathouse was about to fall on them.

“What do we do now?” she yelled.

“Wrap your good arm around my neck. I’m going to ram the doors with the boat.”

She did what he asked, not really knowing what he was doing. It took three rams and the boat broke through the doors, just as the burning boards starting raining down around them in the water.

“Okay, now you hold on to the seat board again and I will guide the boat out of here and to shore.”

Again she did as he said, amazed at his coming up with such a plan. It would have never dawned on her to turn the boat upside down to protect them from the falling building. This way she didn’t have to swim at all; she just held on and before she knew it her feet felt the pebbles of the incline of the shore. Jeremy flipped the boat over once more, freeing them from inside. They could now see the inferno that was once the boathouse. All that remained were a few upward boards, but most lay burning atop the water, dipping and wiggling in the ripples.

Before he could say anything, she wrapped her arm around him and cried softly into his shoulder. He held her close with both arms wrapped around her tightly. They stayed like that for a long time without a word.

Finally she pulled away from him slightly to look at his face.

“I’m so sorry, Jeremy. I’m so sorry for everything I said. I never believed any of it really. Please, please forgive me. I’ve been so miserable without you. I miss you.”

“You missed me?”

“I did—terribly. The house feels cold and awful without you. It doesn’t feel like home without you.”

“Do you mean that?”

“I do. I’ve also realized something else,” she said.

“What’s that?” he said, looking down at her.

“I think I’m in love with you. I think I have been for a while; I just didn’t know it.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she said as she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly under the stars. His arms drew her in even tighter and she started to pull away, but he met her with his own kiss. He was eager but tender, gentle but solid. She had been cold and now she felt a tingling hot fever flowing through her veins, slowly reaching out like tentacles to the outer extremities. Her skin was electrified and hypersensitive, as she felt the emotion in the touch of his lips.

He whispered in her ear, “I think I might just be falling in love with you too.”

She swooned in his arms. She knew then and there she was in love; there were no more doubts or questions about it.

Chapter 23

Ella and Jeremy met Marlin down at the police station. Ella showed them the deed she had found and Marlin explained to her that her great-great grandfather was indeed Willow’s son, Peter. That was why the portraits were in the attic and that’s why the necklace worked in the hearth.

As a boy, Peter admired his mother’s necklace, holding it often as a child in her arms. When he was alone on his own making a life for himself he often drew the necklace he remembered his mother wearing, missing her and his brother and sister. When his granddaughter Rose was born he saw his mother’s features in her and he had a duplicate necklace made from the drawings in his journals.

They explained that the stories were true about Willow and Byron Morton, that he had killed her to have her land, and to make sure no one would dispute the lost deed, he burned down her house in hopes somewhere inside the deed would burn with the house.

Ella relayed all that Matt had confessed to in the boathouse—his framing of Jeremy, his hand in killing his grandfather, and all for the property that Peter Owens Grey had bought from the Mortons when they had gotten into financial trouble. It had all been legal, but the Morton family would never forgive him.

It was unknown if the Mortons knew Peter Grey’s true identity, but it didn’t matter to them who owned the land as long as they got it back at any cost.

The police found Matt having dinner at his grandfather’s mansion as if nothing in the world was wrong. Evidence provided by Marlin gave the police no option but to arrest the young man for attempted murder of Ella and the murder of his grandfather.