Brynn hesitated outside her sister’s bedroom, fist poised ready to knock, but Reece’s words played in her head.
If you stay, you won’t survive.
A chill danced along her spine. She gave herself a mental shake. The man claimed to have received that message from a ghost. Clearly, he was deranged, or full of crap. Maybe both.
She rapped on the smooth wood. After a long moment, hinges creaked and the door opened a few inches. Eleri’s pale face peered out from the narrow gap.
“What is it?” Her voice was gravelly.
“That was a lousy thing you just did to me. I want an explanation. Now.”
Eleri nodded and pushed the door open wider. Brynn entered her sister’s room—similar to her own, but larger. Cream-colored walls inlaid with pale green wallpaper, a large canopy bed and every light in the room glowing softly.
“I shouldn’t have dragged you into this mess,” Eleri said, and gestured to one of the two couches before a low fire burning in the hearth.
Brynn sank onto the cushion. “Why did you? The truth this time.”
“I’m in a lot of trouble.” Eleri sat on the opposite couch. “I contacted you because you survived.”
Brynn frowned. “Drowning?”
Eleri nodded and turned to glowing coals crumbling in the fireplace. “And me.”
Cold washed through Brynn. If you stay, you won’t survive. Was Reece right? Was her sister on the verge of confessing?
“After your visit to The Iron Kettle last night, I’m sure you’ve heard all about me, and the men I supposedly killed.” Eleri met Brynn’s gaze, her eyes dark with pain. “It wasn’t me, none of it. I wasn’t even here when Matthew Langley disappeared. I’d been living in Manchester for two years, and they’re still trying to tie me to his murder.”
A twinge pulled at Brynn’s chest. If Eleri was lying, she deserved an Academy Award for the performance. The desperate, haunted expression leaving her small features drawn and tired looked real to her. “Shouldn’t his murder clear you?”
Eleri let out a humorless chuckle. “You would think so. When Harding turned up at my flat and told me what had happened, for a moment I was thrilled. I know that makes me sound terrible, but all I could think was finally they would see it wasn’t me. I should have known better. Stephen Paskin claims he saw me the night Langley disappeared. I was home in bed when it happened, but he blames me for his son, Griffin’s—” Her voice caught, but she cleared her throat and continued “For Griffin disappearing. I suppose he figures me getting blamed for one is as good as another, so long as I wind up in prison.”
Slow dawning settled over Brynn. She leaned forward, holding her sister’s gaze. “You were involved with his son.”
Eleri nodded. “I would never have hurt him.”
“What do you think happened to him?”
“He left, went to France to be an artist. He hated his father, and swore he’d never speak to him again. Stephen Paskin is an awful man.”
The man had appeared friendly enough to her, and certainly more pleasant than anyone at Stonecliff. Was her sister lying? It wouldn’t be the first time.
“How do I fit in?”
Eleri sighed. “The day Harding came to my flat to question me about Langley, he gave me some advice. He told me my best bet for clearing my name was to find one of the men who disappeared alive, and I tried, but I didn’t really know where to start. It was so much easier to track you down. Your grandparents hadn’t moved in twenty-five years.”
No, they’d lived and died in the same house. The same house Brynn had been living in since she and Zack split up.
“Most people believe I tried to drown you when we were small and that’s why Meris sent you to her parents. But it wasn’t me. Someone was with you that day. I wanted you to tell me who, but you were too young to remember Stonecliff.”
“So you invited me, hoping that once I saw the estate I would remember, and when that didn’t work you took me to The Devil’s Eye.” A mix of anger and pity ran through Brynn. Her sister had been playing games from the start, but she couldn’t imagine the desperation driving her.
“I just thought if you could tell people it wasn’t me, tell them who really tried to hurt you, then maybe they’d focus on someone else. I’m sorry. I should have told you from the beginning.”
“It’s been twenty-three years. There’s no guarantee that whoever tried to drown me is the same person who killed Matthew Langley.”
“I realize that, but if I could prove I was innocent of one crime, maybe people might consider I was innocent of the others.”
“You should have told me the truth,” Brynn said, slowly. Did she believe Eleri? Could she?
Eleri snorted and looked up, her dark eyes bleak. “Would you have come? Would you have stayed even this long?”
“I don’t know,” she told her, truthfully. “But had you told me the truth from the start, I could have saved us both a lot of aggravation. I know you weren’t the one who tried to drown me.”
Eleri’s expression morphed from sad resignation to wide-eyed shock. “You did remember something.”
Brynn shook her head. “The only thing that seeing the bog in person did was confirm exactly where it happened.”
“Then how can you know it wasn’t me?”
“I remember being in the water.” Anxiety built in her chest, memories flitting through her mind. “I remember hands pushing me under.”
Eleri leaned forward, eyes big and bright. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know who, but I remember the sensation, the size and weight of those hands.” She drew a deep breath, struggling to slow her pulse racing in her ears. “Those hands belonged to an adult. It wasn’t you, Eleri.”
Her sister let out a brittle chuckle and she shook her head, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I shouldn’t have brought you here, disrupted your entire life. I’ve dragged you into this mess and all of it for nothing.”
“Not for nothing. I just told you, I know it wasn’t you. I can tell Harding, Paskin or anyone else.”
Eleri reached up and gripped the back of her neck with both hands. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re saying, what you’re willing to say, but if you don’t know who did try to drown you, Harding won’t believe a word. Hell, even if you could tell him, he still might not believe you.”
She thought of the articles she’d read, the crazy accusations, the terrible things Thomas Grady said about her. Had Brynn stayed, would she have wound up with the same rumors connected to her name? Would people have called her The Witch of Stonecliff?
“Will you leave now?” Eleri asked, dragging Brynn from her dark thoughts.
She didn’t have an answer. Her head spun like an amusement park ride with more questions about the people she’d come from than when she’d arrived. She tried to reconcile the woman who had written to her on her birthday every year to the woman Eleri said locked her in a cellar.
“Were you telling the truth about Meris?” Brynn asked.
Eleri nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Why did she even bother asking? It wasn’t like Eleri hadn’t lied to her before. So who would tell her honestly about her mother? Certainly not her father. Mrs. Voyle had yet to speak a kind word to her; she doubted she’d be willing to answer any of Brynn’s questions. Maybe Hugh Warlow, but the man likely wouldn’t tell her anything without her father’s approval. So whom did that leave?
Dylis Paskin, maybe? She claimed to have been friends with Meris. Though, the woman had a clear and understandable bias against Eleri—understandable if her sister had in fact killed their son.
How much of Eleri’s story did she believe?
“I’ll stay one more day,” she said. After all, she’d chased after Eleri through the woods instead of changing her flight like she’d planned. Tomorrow she’d speak with Dylis and at least she would put the doubt Eleri had created to rest.
* * *
Brynn jerked awake, but didn’t know why. A dream, maybe. A noise? She strained her ears, but only silence greeted her and a growing sense of unease.
She burrowed deeper under the blankets to ward off the frigid chill in the room. The fire had burned down to a thin orange glow—the only light in the otherwise inky black.
Why was the room dark? She’d gone to sleep with the lights on. Brynn stiffened in her bed, sleepiness vanishing.
The smell teased her nose faintly at first, then thickened, filling her nasal passages and her mouth until she was nearly choking on that putrid stink. Wet, snuffling breaths rose from out of the black.
Blinding fear pierced her chest, stealing her breath and turning her insides soft. She jerked upright, scanned the darkness. A man’s shadow stood at the end of her bed, opaque black even against the dark, and two red eyes trained on her.
She scrambled onto her knees and grabbed for the lamp. Her fingers twisted the switch with a click, but nothing happened. The room remained dark.
What the hell?
Panic burst inside Brynn. Her hand shook as she turned the switch again. She tried again. Still nothing.
Gurgling breaths drew closer. She jerked her head around as the thing climbed onto the end of the mattress. Her breath lodged in her throat, insides icing over. If it touched her, she’d lose her mind.
Scrambling off the bed, Brynn’s foot tangled in the covers, sending her sprawling across the floor. Her palms slapped against the rough wood. Her knee hit with a hard whack, sharp pain shooting up her thigh. She let out a muffled sob, but didn’t stop. She hobbled as fast as she could across the room and hit the switch for the chandelier, but the light didn’t come on.
“Shit,” she whispered. White fear streaked though her like lightning. She glanced over her shoulder. That thing moved closer, sliding over the floor like a living oil slick, red stare boring into her. She yanked open her bedroom door and rushed into the hall.
Darkness wrapped around her, but she didn’t stop to look for a light. She half ran, half limped toward the stairs, pressing one hand to the wall to guide her.
Children’s laughter chimed from the black. Footsteps ran past her, cool air sweeping against her skin and stippling her flesh with goose bumps. Mind-numbing fear closed in around her, eclipsing every coherent thought except to get the hell out of there.
At last her fingers brushed the smooth, wood newel post of the stairs. Moonlight filtered through the windows in the front door, leaving the foyer gray and shadowy. She started down the steps, but a cold weight slammed into her back. Her foot slipped on the on the tread, her world tilted and she tumbled into the darkness.