Текст книги "A Fright to the Death"

Автор книги: Dawn Eastman

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3

Our guide led us toward the back of the hotel and to the right, where we came to a restaurant surrounded by windows. It had the feel of a greenhouse except today everything was white outside. Small tables were scattered about the room. Black tablecloths topped with white squares lent a more cosmopolitan feel to the space than I had expected. The walls displayed black-and-white photos of Paris, and the large windows shared a view of the back of the property, which sloped down toward the woods. The snow was picking up and any lingering thoughts of escaping the knitters’ convention fled as I watched it fall.

“This is our restaurant.” Wally swept his arm in the direction of the dining room. “Complimentary breakfast is here from seven until ten. Usually we recommend reservations for dinner, but I don’t think that will be a problem today.” He chuckled and then turned it into a cough when no one joined him.

Wally led us out of the dining room and gestured toward a hallway outside the door and said that it led to the kitchen and offices. He took us to the back door, where a small area had been fitted with hooks for coats.

“Sometimes our guests prefer to leave coats and such here so they can grab them quickly if they want to enjoy the gardens.” Wally pointed to the coats, scarves, and hats hanging on hooks—it looked like there were quite a few knitters here if the amount of outerwear was any indication.

I didn’t imagine we would choose to enjoy the gardens on our brief stay during a blizzard, but we shrugged out of our jackets and found hooks for them. Mac took a slim envelope out of his inside coat pocket. I saw my name scrawled on the front. He folded it and stuffed it in his back jeans pocket without looking at me.

Mac felt more comfortable expressing himself in writing and I had been the recipient of a whole box full of notes over the years. I decided to pretend I hadn’t seen it and let him give it to me when he felt the time was right. But I did wonder what could be so difficult to say that he had brought a letter with him on vacation.

We followed Wally back out toward the front and to the other side of the entry hall. This was the room I’d imagined when we’d first pulled up to the building. Rich mahogany wainscoting and subtly patterned wallpaper made the room feel cozy. Dark reds and greens accented the deep leather couches and chairs placed about the room in conversational arrangements. Worn Persian rugs anchored the seating areas. Heavy red velvet curtains looked as if they could insulate the room from any storm. An enormous fireplace with a bright and cheerful fire glowing within beckoned me toward the couch.

I sighed and squeezed Mac’s hand, for the moment forgetting that we were leaving as soon as possible.

“Isn’t this terrific?” Vi said in my ear.

I glanced upward in a reflex eye roll and saw something pink on the chandelier.

“What’s that?” I pointed.

“You spotted it!” Vi said. She patted my back.

Wally rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head.

“Spotted what?” Mac craned his neck upward to see what we were looking at.

I noticed that it wasn’t just something pink. It was also something purple and teal and lime green. Every arm of the beautiful crystal chandelier had a small tube of knitting attached.

“Yarn bombing,” Vi said. She crossed her arms and nodded decisively.

“What bombing?” Mac said.

“It’s a knitter thing,” Vi said, and patted his arm in a reassuring way. I was pretty sure no one had patted Mac’s arm in a reassuring way in many years. “When a bunch of knitters get together we just have to show off. There’s a contest for the most interesting and difficult yarn bomb. It’s supposed to be a secret until the last day when each knitter takes credit for her pieces. So you’ll see lots of little knitted items all over the castle this weekend. This one wasn’t easy to pull off. They must have gotten the maintenance guy involved. . . .” Vi walked in circles under the chandelier to get a better look at the knitting. “I would have liked to see that. He’s a hottie.”

“Are these normal knitters?” Mac whispered to me. I shrugged and moved a little closer to him. He moved his hand from the small of my back and put his arm around my shoulders.

Wally cleared his throat and gestured toward the door.

Mac and I followed quickly. I reconsidered the idea of braving the storm to go anywhere else.

We walked to the front of the hotel again and up the wide, dark wood staircase. Just as in the lounge, mahogany wainscoting gave way to Victorian-style wallpaper halfway up the wall. Torches had been placed along the hallway every ten feet or so. Fortunately, they were electric, but the effect was still one of walking into the past. We turned the corner at the top of the staircase and the sensation intensified. Tapestries hung from the walls and a large stained glass window loomed at the end of the hall. The weak outside light was unable to do it justice. I was no expert on antiques, but if any of the décor was as old as it looked, the furnishings alone must be worth a fortune.

Wally led us down the hall that ran along the front of the building. His description of the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures solidified the sense that we were in a uniquely preserved Victorian mansion.

“Here’s your room, Ms. Fortune.” He pointed to the left. “Mr. McKenzie, you’ll be in here.” He showed Mac the room two doors down. Wally pointed to the end of the hallway. “And that door leads to the turret room.” His voice became quiet and his expression indicated we should know what he meant by “turret room.”

“Tell them the ghost story,” Vi said while bouncing on her toes like a six-year-old.

Wally lowered his voice. “Ms. Greer, I don’t think I should have told you that story. I don’t know if Ms. Carlisle wants to advertise the ghost.”

“Oh, come on, Wally.” Vi gave him a good slug in the arm. “Everyone in Kalamazoo has heard the story. There’s no way she’s going to get everyone to un-hear it.”

He sighed and rubbed his arm. He glanced over his shoulder. “Okay, but not here, she might hear us.”

Mac sighed.

“The ghost?” I whispered. I didn’t believe in ghosts, per se, but in my anti-jinx state of mind decided to keep that to myself.

Wally shook his head. “Ms. Carlisle.”

“Let’s go in here,” Vi said. She led us to her door. “All the rooms are decorated in a different theme. We got the red Victorian room—it’s the best.” She glanced at Mac. “Yours is good, too. Green, I think.” She took her key and opened the door, gesturing us inside.

Mac hadn’t said a word, which indicated his level of shock that his plans had fallen apart so completely. Wally sheepishly followed Vi inside before shutting the door behind us.

The room was larger than I’d expected, and definitely red. And Victorian. Dark, carved wooden headboards loomed over the two beds. Red and white floral bedspreads matched the curtains, swags, and tassels that framed the windows. I crossed to the small sitting area and a window that faced the back of the property. Snowcapped fir trees and white-outlined branches were just visible through the falling flakes. The tops of the cars had disappeared under a blanket of white.

“You can have that bed,” Vi said. She pointed to the bed nearest the window. She stood next to me and looked out. “It’s getting pretty bad out there.” She turned and rubbed her hands together. “I’ll have to empty one of the drawers. I brought a lot of yarn, but I can store it downstairs where we have the workshop.”

Mom’s tarot cards covered the coffee table in her standard pattern. I looked away, not wanting to know what dire predictions they held. Vi had evidently been using the pendulum and it sat waiting in the middle of its yes-no cross. Wally’s eyes darted around the room.

“Okay, tell us.” Vi sat in an armchair and gestured at the rest of us to sit.

“All right, but I have to make it quick,” Wally said. “I’m supposed to be at the front desk.”

Vi shook her head. “I don’t think you’ll get any more customers today.” She waved her arm toward the window and the full-on winter storm that raged outside.

Wally’s mouth tightened at the corners. He took a deep breath. “Alastair Carlisle built the castle in 1895, after a trip to Scotland. He and his wife, Ada, had fallen in love with the castles over there and wanted to build one of their own. Ada had inherited a large piece of forested land from her father, and the two of them designed the house together using her land and his money.”

Vi waved her hand in a move-along gesture.

Wally grimaced and continued.

“During the five years it took to build the castle, Ada fell ill. By the time it was completed, she was essentially bedridden. The couple had two small boys and needed to hire a governess to watch them and begin their schooling. Alastair built a small cottage on the grounds for the governess and designed the turret bedroom for his wife.”

“You can probably tell where this story is going,” Vi broke in. “Mr. Carlisle and the governess had an affair and thought that his invalid wife would never be the wiser.”

“I was getting to that.” Wally cleared his throat. “And there’s no proof . . .”

“Well, Ada was no dummy,” Vi said, ignoring him. “Even though she was sick, it didn’t mean she was stupid. She figured out what he was up to and she was furious.”

Wally opened his mouth to continue the story.

Vi held up her hand. “She had nothing to do up in her turret room other than knit and contemplate her own death and feel betrayed by her husband,” Vi said. “So, she hatched a plan.”

“We don’t know that, Ms. Greer,” Wally said.

Vi crossed her arms, and narrowed her eyes at him. “The rumors say she told the nanny she had put a curse on her. The Victorians were very interested in spirits and many believed in ghosts. Mrs. Carlisle said if anything happened to her, she would return and curse the nanny and her husband.” Vi nodded to Wally to tell his part of the tale.

Wally continued. “According to the story, by the time the castle was finished, Ada and Alastair were barely speaking. Her illness left her confined to her room, where she heard about the happenings in the castle from her trusted maid. The governess took over the care of the young boys and eventually,” Wally said and paused with a severe look at Vi, “rumors said, Alastair fell in love with her.”

Vi nodded to encourage him.

“One night, in the dead of winter, Ada drowned in her own bathtub,” Wally said. “She had sent the maid to get some hot cocoa and by the time the servant returned, Ada was dead. Of course, there was an investigation, but they found no evidence of foul play. The police assumed she had passed out from her liberal use of narcotics and drowned by accident.”

“Narcotics?” Mac asked.

Wally nodded, and began to speak when Vi interrupted again. “Calm down, Kojack. They all took laudanum back then.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It wasn’t like she was dealing drugs.”

I placed a calming hand on Mac’s arm. Not that I needed to. There were many things I loved about Mac, but his restraint in dealing with Vi was definitely at the top of my list.

Wally raised his eyebrows at Vi.

Vi ignored him and took over the story. “Since then, rumors have flown and people say that Alastair or the nanny actually killed her off so they could be together. Her ghost looks out the upper window of the turret room and some people have seen it wandering the halls and climbing the stairs.”

“Why would her ghost be walking the halls if she was bedbound?” I said.

Vi held my gaze. “You know as well as I do that ghosts can do anything they want—it’s one of the perks of being a ghost.”

“I hadn’t realized there were perks . . . ,” I said.

Mac cleared his throat and glowered at us both.

Vi resumed her tale. “Tragically, the nanny died about a year later. She had moved in to the main house and she fell down the stairs on a perfectly clear night. No one knows why she was out of bed, or what she was doing wandering the halls. The people in town said it was the ghost of Mrs. Carlisle who pushed her. Alastair never got over the double loss of his wife and his mistress.”

“Alleged mistress,” Wally said.

Vi narrowed her eyes at him.

“Alleged mistress,” Vi said. “The boys grew up and had their own scandals. Prohibition was very lucrative—”

Wally stood, interrupting her. “I really need to get back to the desk. I’ll let the chef know there will be two more for dinner.”

“This is gonna be great!” Vi said.

4

After Wally left, Violet dragged Mac and me back downstairs to meet the knitters and to let Lucille know the “good news” that she and Mac would be sharing a room.

The knitters were ensconced in the library toward the back of the hotel. Vi led us to the doorway and swung her arm to usher us in. Mac stood motionless in the doorway and I bumped into him. I peeked over his shoulder to see what had stopped him.

The room held more yarn than I had ever seen in my life. I had been to many yarn stores as a child when Violet had dragged me along on her shopping trips, but this was overwhelming. Skeins and balls of yarn congregated in soft, fuzzy piles. Eight women sat scattered around the room, all holding a piece of knitting while a very attractive instructor spoke in that strange knitterly language. She said things like “keep your tension steady,” “don’t forget the yarnover in the middle of the fourth row,” and “I have a great new cable needle to try, plus I’ll show you how to cable without a needle—you’ll love the freedom.”

The library was smaller than the lounge, with a scaled-down fireplace and walls covered in bookshelves. Ornate Victorian wallpaper in bright green and blue covered whatever wall space was left. Two small couches and several chairs made a conversational arrangement in the center of the room. It still retained the masculine aura of pipe smoke, whiskey, and leather, and must have been Alastair’s personal refuge. He likely would have been outraged by the invasion of fluffy balls of mohair. The knitters had dragged in some dining room chairs to accommodate their group. A wall of windows showed large flakes settling on the trees.

Mac seemed paralyzed and I pushed him to get him to move into the room. Either our tussling or Vi’s loud “ahem” caught the interest of the knitters. They all turned in our direction.

Mom jumped up, letting her knitting fall to the floor.

“Clyde! Mac! What are you doing here?” Mom said as she approached. “Is something wrong? Is Seth okay? Is it your father?” She clutched my arm, and her forehead crinkled in dismay. “The cards warned me that something terrible would happen this weekend. . . .”

She and Vi shared similar delicate features but rather than a braid and brightly colored skirts, Mom pulled her hair back in a bun and favored either tracksuits (she had one in every color) or khakis and blouses.

“Mom, everyone is fine. Our flight was canceled and we came here to stay because of the storm.”

Mom relaxed her grip on my arm, and a smile spread across her face. “Oh, how fun! You can finally learn to knit. Lucille was just saying how she thinks you’re a natural.” Mom leaned closer to me and lowered her voice. “I didn’t want to burst her bubble and tell her you don’t like knitting.”

Lucille had joined us at the door by this time. She was my height, very thin, and wore her silver hair short and spiky. She turned to Mac and said, “Phillip, I’m so glad to see you. I was worried about you flying in the storm.”

Mac’s face turned a bit pink as it always did when his mother called him Phillip.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

Two of the other knitters, about the same age as Mom, Vi, and Lucille had joined us at the door. The younger ones showed a bit more decorum and remained in their seats. One of them had tattoos snaking up both arms, one sported hot pink spiky hair, and the other looked like a human Tinkerbell—tiny with a blond pixie cut.

“Oh, Lucille. Is this your son?” a short round woman with bright red lipstick on her lips and teeth asked. “He’s much more handsome than you said.” She batted her eyes at Mac.

Mac stepped back, onto my foot, and recovered by draping an arm over my shoulder. Lucille introduced the woman as Mavis Poulson and claimed Mac as her son. Mavis looked me over and returned to her seat without further comment. Her friend, Selma Stone, thin, tall, and entirely beige, shook my hand and then followed Mavis back to her seat.

The other knitters said hello and I quickly forgot their names in the sea of comments and yarn.

“Okay everyone, let’s get back to our projects!” The instructor clapped her hands. “We only have a few more minutes to work on them before dinner.”

She walked over to us and smiled. “Hello. I’m Isabel Keane.” She was petite, with short dark hair and large, expressive eyes. She had tossed a multicolored scarf artfully around her neck.

She shook my hand briefly and then took Mac’s hand and held on to it.

“It’s lovely to meet you . . . both,” she said.

Mom, Vi, and Lucille had returned to their chairs as instructed. Isabel asked us if we’d like to join them in a knitting lesson.

Mac shook his head. We smiled and backed out of the room.

“I don’t know if I can do this for the whole weekend,” Mac said. “My mother is here and that woman looked at me like I was dessert.”

“I noticed. She’s very pretty.”

“Who?”

“Isabel.”

“No, not her. Mavis—with the lipstick.”

I smiled. “Oh, her. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’m sure you can outrun her.”

“Let’s go talk to Wally and see when this storm is supposed to end. Maybe we can book another hotel and leave first thing in the morning.”

He steered me back toward the front of the building. We stopped when we got to the turn in the hallway.

“Any idiot could do your job—I don’t know why you can’t!” a shrill voice announced from around the corner. “You must be a special kind of idiot.”

I glanced at Mac. I didn’t want to embarrass whoever was being yelled at by walking in on this scolding, but I wanted to stop it as well. Mac and I nodded at each other and swung around the corner. A young woman in a maid’s uniform stood alone in the hall but I caught a glimpse of shiny black heels as they went up a nearby staircase.

The woman scrubbed at her eyes and turned away from us as we approached.

“Are you okay?” I said to her.

She nodded and sniffed. “I’m fine, ma’am. Thank you.”

She smoothed her skirt and walked down the hallway away from the stairway.

Mac sighed and shook his head. “Let’s go.” He tugged on my arm as I watched the young woman turn the corner at the end of the hall.

*   *   *

Wally clacked away on his keyboard as we approached.

He flipped it shut when he spotted us.

“How can I help you?”

“Do you have a weather report?” Mac asked.

“I just checked the radar.” Wally shook his head. “It doesn’t look good. High winds and more snow tonight. They say it will be blizzard conditions in another hour or so.”

The wind rattled the windows to punctuate Wally’s claim.

Mac slumped. “How long is it supposed to last?”

“They say it could blow through overnight, unless it meets another storm front they’re watching from the south. If they meet, the whole thing could stall right over us and then they don’t know how long it will last. The newspeople are saying everyone should check their supplies and stay off the roads.”

I glanced at Mac and felt my shoulders droop.

Mac’s grimace reflected my own emotions. When would we escape?

“We’re having a cocktail party tonight to kick off the knitting conference and Isabel Keane’s new book. I’m sure you’d both be welcome,” Wally said. He tilted his head and gave a sympathetic smile.

Mac blew out air, but then pulled himself to his full height. “I’ll go grab our suitcases before the weather gets even worse.”

“I’ll help you.” Wally hurried from behind the desk.

“Thank you,” I said. I followed them to the back door, where they donned coats and hats. The snow crunched underfoot as they stepped into the parking lot. A gust of wind almost pulled the door out of my grasp and I wrestled it closed as they made their way to my SUV.

Other than my toothbrush, there was very little in my Mexico suitcase that would be useful in a snowbound castle. I had the jeans I was wearing and one other long-sleeved T-shirt I had planned to wear on the plane ride home. The rest was swimsuits, shorts, and tank tops.

I opened the door again when I heard them approach. Stepping back, I barely avoided the spray of snow as they brushed it off while still outside.

“I’ll set these in your rooms while you’re in the lounge—unless you need something.” Snapping open the pull handles on the suitcases, Wally nodded toward the stairs.

Mac echoed my thoughts and said, “I’m not sure I’ll use any of it here—we were headed to warmer weather.”

Wally dragged the wheeled suitcases down the hall. Mac pulled me into a side hug and dropped his voice. “I think I’m going to need a drink to get through the rest of the evening.”