Authors: Lisa Jackson

You Don't Want To Know (30 page)

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know

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“. . . remember what she used to be like?” This person was speaking over the first and second.

“Wish I could help, but it's hopeless.” A
third
woman? Dr. McPherson? This late?

Bong!

“You've done the best you can.” Male. Wyatt. He must've been talking to the psychologist. Who else?

“. . . only a matter of time . . .” This from the second woman's voice, the one she couldn't quite place.

Bong!

Each time the clock struck, her head pounded a little and the conversations became garbled, all mixed up. She cracked open the door and, seeing no one in the darkened hallway, stepped out of her room.

The air here was colder, causing goose bumps to rise.

Bong!

She nearly gasped, as the clock was so much louder in the hallway that rimmed the staircase.

“. . . have to be careful . . . she's getting suspicious.” A whispered voice barely audible over the resonate strikes of the clockâthe third woman? Or a person speaking so softly it was impossible to figure out his or her gender.

“Just be careful.” Wyatt again?

Click!
A lock sprang.
Creeeeeak.
The front door opened.

Biting her lip, her hand on the railing, Ava hurried down to the first floor to the living area of the house.

Bong!

She nearly tripped as the clock struck again and the front door closed with a thud. In the foyer, a single lamp glowed, but the cool air, laced with the scent of rain, still lingered.

The foyer was empty, the clock finishing its loud message, and Ava stepped to the narrow windows flanking the door. Through the glass, she was certain she saw two figures escaping. A tall manâWyatt, she thoughtâwith his hand on the small of a smaller figure's back. He was with a woman, probably Evelyn McPherson, and they were heading to the dock.

Despite both of their denials, it was obvious they were romantically involved. And they'd been discussing Ava. God this was so screwed up!

“. . . almost off the rails,” a woman's voice whispered through the empty foyer, and Ava's heart turned to ice. The second conversation. Of course. But where was the speaker? The house was dark aside from a few strategically placed night-lights that gave enough illumination so that she could see shapes and doorways. But with the clock resonating, counting off the hours, she couldn't distinguish the location of the conversation.

Bong!

That
had
to be the final strike of the clock, she thought. But the voices had stilled as well, almost as if it had been planned for the conversation to be disguised by the noise.

Slowly she crept toward the den. Telling herself that this was
her
house and she had every right to be in whatever room she chose, regardless of the time of day or night, she was still nervous, her heart beating rapidly, her nerves strung tight. Despite the earlier murmur of the conversation, she now felt as if she were alone, the only person up at this hour.

And yet . . .

Palms sweating, she slipped through the half-open door of her husband's retreat. The voices had come from around this area . . . right? She took two steps and saw a shadow, a flit of movement near the bookcase.

Her heart nearly stopped.

With a growl, something leaped out at her and she gasped, stepping backward as she recognized Mr. T. The cat, twice his usual size, hissed viciously, then scurried through the open door.

Ava sagged against the corner of the desk.

It was just Virginia's cat, nothing more.

Except that Mr. T isn't capable of sounding like someone whispering and creating a conversation. Nor could he cry like a baby . . .

In the distance, she heard a boat's engine roar to life. So Wyatt and Dr. McPherson were gone.
Good riddance
, she thought, then heard the first muffled baby's cry.
Oh, no!

“Mama,”
the tiny voice whispered, and her insides turned to mush.

“Baby?” Her answer was involuntary. Of course Noah wasn't in the house. She knew that, but there was something . . .

After rounding Wyatt's desk, she tried several doors and rummaged until she found a flashlight. Then, rather than turn on any lights in the house, she used the handheld light's yellowish beam to walk up the stairs to the second floor and to Noah's room. She hesitated at the door, then opened it quickly, and, her heart pounding, she shined the light in the nursery where the slats of his crib looked like bars on a jail cell, and his toys, shadowy in the dim light, looked hideous and grotesque rather than fluffy and soft. A striped tiger's eyes glowed with an evil vigor, and Noah's favorite toy dinosaur appeared more like a gargoyle showing vicious teeth and snarling snout.

Get over yourself. They're just toys, for crying out loud. Toys you didn't have the heart to give away . . .

“Maaaamaaa . . .”
Her blood curdled in her veins, and she nearly dropped the flashlight as her son's cry whispered through the room.

CHAPTER 30

“M
ama, Mama, Mama!”
His voice broken by sobs, Noah called for her. Ava's heart wrenched. Where was the sound coming from?
Where?
Frantically, she shined her light around the nursery, then hit the switch for the overhead light and the room was suddenly awash with illumination.
Noah . . . oh, baby, where are you?

“Think,” she ordered herself. There had to be a way for his little, innocent voice to project from this room to the den below and whisper through the hallways so that she could hear his cries from her own room.

Searching the ceiling and floorboards, even along the walls, she found nothing out of place. But somewhere . . . somehow, someone was piping in a baby's cries. She was certain of it. No matter what everyone else thought about Jewel-Anne, Ava was certain that she was behind this whole gaslighting thing.

With no evidence of anything awry in the nursery, she switched off the lights and walked into the hallway again. If not here, then where? The crying had stopped for now, so she couldn't follow the sound, but she doubted she would find anything if she searched either this floor or the one below. There were too many people who cleaned, repaired, or just lived in the first stories of the house. Which left the basement, and she cringed at the thought of returning to that cobweb-riddled cellar, or the third story, once occupied by servants and now considered an attic, used only for storage.

“No way,” she thought aloud. The elevator didn't run to the third story, and the access from this floor had been blocked forever, the door locked securely.

Unless someone had a key. Or climbed up from the doorway off the pantry on the main floor.

Figuring she was about to follow another dead end, she found her way to the main staircase, hurried down, and slipped across the foyer and through the kitchen. Around the pantry, she walked to the old staircase that no one used, as it was as old as the house and needed to be replaced.

Tonight, though, Ava decided to mount the rickety stairs rather than face the basement again. She flipped on the light switch, but one of the bulbs was burned out, so the path up to the second story was dim. At the second floor, she ran her flashlight's beam around the door that was locked from the outer hallway near one of the spare bedrooms. There was a flip switch on this side, similar to a dead bolt, and it worked easily, as if it had been recently oiled.

Odd.

And disturbing.

Sweeping the beam of the light over the stairs, she saw that the dust on each step was uneven and disturbed, that someone had used them recently.

She stared up the curving staircase and wondered if someone was still in the unused rooms. No better time to find out than right now. As quietly as she could, she hurried up the remainder of the flight, the beam of her flashlight catching in cobwebs and showing evidence of mice.

At a final curve, she found another door.

And it was locked, of course.
Great. Now what?
She tried the handle, but it wouldn't move, and the hinges were on the inside, so removing them was out of the question. But there had to be a way.

When she was a kid, her grandmother had employed a full staff, and not only a governess but also two maids had lived in these quarters. The door, as she remembered it, had never been locked, and the only other access was the fire escape located on the back side of the house or . . . She looked around a curve, where the stairs narrowed noticeably and wound upward, to the roof. Carefully, she worked her way up the old stairs and saw that here, the dust hadn't been disturbed, and the cobwebs were thicker as she made her way to the final door that led to the roof and the widow's walk, upon which no one had trod for years.

Of course it was locked.

She pushed her shoulder hard against the door, but it wouldn't budge.

Stymied, she ran her light around the casing, hoping to find a key tucked on the top of the door. No such luck. But someone had to get up there, on the roof, in case repairs needed to be made. Someone had to have a key. Same with the third floor. If there was a problem with water leaks or pests or whatever, someone in the house needed access. At one time, she'd had a key ring that held the keys to every room in the house, every outer doorway, even the outbuildings, but she hadn't seen those keys since returning from St. Brendan's. In fact, when she had used the car, Wyatt had given her his car key.

She'd asked about hers, and he'd smiled and said,
“Of course you can have them when you're better.”

At the time she'd been so fragile she hadn't cared, but now things had changed. Convinced she wouldn't find a hidden key anywhere on the staircase, she made her way back to Wyatt's den and began the search. Some of the drawers in his desk were locked, and after rifling through the drawers and cubbies that were open, she found nothing that would help, not even a letter opener.

She was nervous, beginning to sweat at the thought that she'd be caught snooping through his office. How long had it been since he'd boated across the bay? Was he coming back tonight? Would he find her? There had to be an easier way.

Think, Ava, think! This is your house. You've lived here most of your life. You know its secrets. There can't be just one set of keys. What if one got lost? Someoneâa caretakerâhad to have access to all the floors, to the damned roofâ

The keys in the back hallway!

Hadn't she seen them there recently?

Down the stairs she raced, nearly tripping as she made her way to the first floor and the small closet wedged between the pantry and the staircase. Inside, she shined her flashlight over a few tools, old canning jars, and there, on a hook protruding from a beam, were several key rings. They were marked: for the boathouse, the sheds, the stable and barns, and the house. She plucked the ring down and was about to leave the closet when her flashlight caught the glint of metal deep within one of the cubbyholes. She reached inside and found a separate key ring that, upon closer inspection, didn't match those she'd discovered earlier. There was a brass plate with the initials CC etched into it, and she thought they were her father, Connell Church's. They must've been his when he died, she thought, and didn't have time to think about it any further. For now, she had to get upstairs again and hope that one of the keys on the house ring would spring the lock to the third floor. She wasn't certain that Wyatt would return tonight, but if he did, Ava didn't want him to know what she'd been doing. She did take the time to rummage through the tools, however, and came up with a screwdriver in case she had to jimmy something open.

Then, up the stairs she flew, to the third floor where she tried every key on the ring, each unable to slide into the lock. Frowning, sensing time ticking by, she selected each key once, more carefully this time.

Nope. None of them opened the door to the old servants' quarters.

Shining her light over the lock again, she finally understood. The lock had been replaced at one point. Its metal plate was shiny and appeared newer than those on the doors of the lower levels. Obviously it had been changed. But when? And by whom?

A new anxiety crawled through her.

It's just a changed lock,
she reminded herself.
Not necessarily part of a conspiracy, nor the embodiment of evil.
And yet she knew in her heart that something important was hidden on the third level.

Frustrated, she looked around herself. Now what? Here, in the darkened staircase, when she was so certain the evidence she needed to prove that she'd been gaslighted lay just on the other side of the door, she was stymied. She stood on the steps, the cold air in the stairwell chilling the sweat that had collected on her skin, the house still save for the creaking timbers of the old mansion settling and the wind whistling far away.

Shining her light up the narrow stairs leading to the widow's walk, she wondered if she could unlock its small door. Why not try? From there, she could take the fire escape down to the third floor. She followed the curving stairs, and as she reached the top, she examined the lock closely, seeing it was the same vintage as most of the others in the house. Trying several keys, she heard a satisfying
click
with the fourth key as the lock sprang.

She tried to open the door, but it was stuck fast, swollen shut. “You bastard,” she muttered at the old panels, and threw her weight into it. Once, twice, three times only to get nowhere. Panting, placing her flashlight and the keys on the steps, she grabbed the handle with both hands, turned, and tried again. Finally, the old wood gave, splintering around the cylinder, the door flying open. Rain immediately lashed inside. Her flashlight rolled down the stairs behind her, thumping loudly, its beam swinging wildly over the dirty walls and ceiling before she was able to retrieve it. Cursing the fact that she hadn't bothered with slippers, she grabbed her flashlight, walked onto the flat part of the roof, and as the wind tore at her hair, stared out to sea.

The water was dark, whitecaps forming, the surf roaring. The sound reminded her of the fateful boat trip that led to Kelvin's death. The wild ocean, the bobbing boat, the ultimate doom. The memory, as cold as winter rain, was stark. Painful. Jewel-Anne blamed her for that fateful voyage and now, thinking about it, she wondered why she'd insisted they go out.

Had it been her idea?

Or someone else's?

Why, when she was pregnant, would she risk a journey on a choppy ocean when she'd suffered so many miscarriages? True, it was later in the pregnancy, but still . . . something didn't feel right about it.

Don't think about it. Not now. Move. Before Wyatt returns and you have to explain yourself!

Heart in her throat, she edged across the wet roof to the side, where the ladder for the fire escape was visible. Fir needles and years of sludge slid between her toes, but at least the walk seemed solid. She probably could go down to the second floor and climb up, through one of the guest rooms, but it was so close to Jewel-Anne's bedroom that she didn't want to risk it. No, it was better to go down from the top.

Wind buffeting her as it screamed across the bay, she found the ladder's handholds and swung a leg over. The rain was pummeling her now, and she realized if anyone saw her, she'd be thrown back into a psychiatric ward so fast her head would spin. If she made it.

On the first rung, her foot slid a little, so she gripped with her bare feet as best she could, slid the screwdriver into her mouth, and descended slowly. In one hand, she still held the flashlight as well as the railing; in the other, she held on tight to the wet, slimy handholds.

Her heart was pounding with fear, but she didn't look down, just eased from one rung to the next, slowly descending, making certain her grip was secure on a ladder that was far from stable and groaned against her weight.

What if the attic is empty? Devoid of anything but furniture draped in old sheets and spiders scuttling to dark corners? What then?

She closed her mind to the nagging thoughts and slowly descended. One foot slipped and she gasped, nearly dropping the screwdriver and losing her flashlight.

But she caught herself, and as rain poured from the sky, she reached the window of the third floor and the tiny landing that creaked and wobbled with her weight.

You ARE insane
, her mind taunted, but she went to work. Crouched on the landing, the flashlight wedged between her teeth, she trained its frail light to the windowsill where she tried to open the old window. Expecting it to be locked tight, she was amazed that it gave way easily, rattling upward with only a little pressure and no need of the screwdriver.

Finally, a break! Carefully, she pulled down on the inner shade and released it slowly so that it rolled upward without snapping before she slipped inside. The room smelled musty, as if no one had been inside for years.

Dear God, what if she'd been wrong? What if this was just used as a storage area? Ava's heart sank as she closed the window and blind behind her. Carefully, she walked through the maze of rooms tucked under the eaves. There were beds covered in sheeting, draped lamps and chairs, everything covered and eerily forgotten. In the closet-sized bathroom, there was a stained toilet and sink. The small kitchen had cabinets and chipped laminate that looked like something straight out of the 1940s, its appliances long removed.

“No one up here but the ghosts,” she muttered under her breath as she shined her light on the door to the stairs with its newer dead bolt. What the devil was that all about?

“Mommy . . . Mommy!”
Noah's voice echoed from the rafters, and Ava bit back a scream and stumbled back against an old record player in what had been a dining area. She dropped the screwdriver, then stepped on it as she scrambled to pick it up.

Her son was
not
up here! He couldn't be.

And then the broken crying resonated through the rooms again.

What was this? Not her baby. She knew better now.

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know

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