Chapter Twelve

The vanity found a new home at Hillhaven house. The Chadwick’s had settled in a retirement village on the outskirts of Boston. No one was surprised by their decision not to return to Scarlet Falls, least of all their daughter, Trinity Chadwick Creed. They had found the atmosphere elsewhere much lighter and to their liking although if any grandchildren came along in the future it might change their minds.

Hillhaven was empty save for Samuel Creed’s office and his collection of strange and unusual things steeped in mystery that belied their seemingly ordinary appearance—a rusty red wagon, a single tiny Mary Jane shoe, photographs, musty letters and now a chestnut dressing table with an empty frame where its mirror had been.

To this day, Maddy shivered when she thought of anyone ever opening its drawer.

Marcus Wildes was an FBI agent sent undercover to investigate Gracie’s death. The night she’d run into him after her near encounter with Evelyn’s wrath in the spooky old Victorian with its drop cloth forest, he’d been conducting surveillance. They’d found DNA under Gracie’s fingernails. They’d also found forget-me-nots in her shallow grave. The second meant nothing to Wildes. The first led him to Tom McCall after having tested Sheriff Constantine with negative results.

Maddy had blown the element of surprise. Tom must have seen them talking and had run off wary of Marcus Wildes’ suspicions. That and her intimacy with Constantine had put her in extreme danger.

Amelia was the one who figured out what to do. Her efforts to bring the chest to the falls and dump the remains seemed to quiet Evelyn’s restless spirit for good. Perhaps her body and soul had been reunited in an afterlife Maddy had never imagined could exist.

Gracie’s old friend and fellow paranormal investigator was also the one who discovered the resemblance between William Constantine and Avery Wildes. Later, she’d shown the daguerreotype to Maddy. The same light eyes. The same thick hair. The same slight smile on a lean, handsome face. It had been eerie to see her lover’s face staring back at her from 1866 wearing union blue.

They’d done an ancestry search online to find out more about Constantine’s family. The relationship between the Constantines and the Wildes was distant, but the resemblance had resurfaced after multiple generations. He had thought the job of sheriff had brought him to town, but now it seemed there might have been darker pulls at play.

Marcus Wildes had been taciturn about his own connections to the Wildes family, but something told Maddy that Amelia wouldn’t merely accept the agent’s silence. Apparently, the two very different kinds of investigators had known each other long before Amelia had even heard of Scarlet Falls.

∗ ∗ ∗

A rich and fragrant aroma woke Maddy from an untroubled sleep. She stretched and inhaled.

Espresso.

Constantine had brought his machine and she’d made a place for it on her kitchen counter. She’d found other places for all of his things. Her craftsman wasn’t temporary anymore.

Gibbons II touched his cold nose to hers and Maddy opened one eye. The yellow tabby had recuperated from his plummet to near death. He blinked at her then turned to jump to the floor. He padded out of the room with only a slight limp to indicate he was any less than he used to be.

His possible progenitor still slept for eternity on an embroidered pillow across town.

The cat who had helped to save her life yowled for pate in the kitchen.

Maddy smiled when she heard Constantine whir the can opener.

She rose and shrugged into a uniform shirt left hanging over the bedpost from the night before. She didn’t bother to do up the buttons or brush her hair. She didn’t put on anything else. She walked into the kitchen with sleep-mussed tangles, not looking for coffee or pate.

Constantine stood in sunrise glow with his steaming mug in his hand. His chest was bare. His cotton sleep pants sat low on his lean hips. He had begun to gain a little of the weight he’d lost in the battle to maintain autonomy from Evelyn’s spirit.

Maddy walked up and wrapped her arms around him from behind. His warm back heated her chilled breasts.

“I don’t think your uniform is quite regulation, Ms. Clark,” Constantine growled.

He turned in her arms and leaned to kiss her. They were both still satiated from a long night of loving, but Maddy always enjoyed her first taste of morning coffee on Constantine’s lips.

“A person who plants a garden believes in tomorrow,” Constantine murmured near her ear when they came up for air.

“What?” Maddy asked.

Her brain had gone fuzzy from the kiss and also from his hands. He’d set his mug down on the counter and now both of his hands were cupped on her bare bottom beneath his shirt.

“It’s a quote I saw after you came to town. It stayed with me. I hadn’t believed in anything after my partner’s death. I saw you believing day after day after day. It changed something in me. Your belief in tomorrow. I wasn’t as hollow as I’d been before,” Constantine said.

“That’s why Evelyn wanted me gone,” Maddy said.

“With Gracie, I think Evelyn was afraid of discovery. With you, she was afraid of being completely exorcized,” Constantine agreed.

She’d always wondered about Constantine and Gracie. Now she knew. There hadn’t been any romantic feelings between them. Only Gracie’s search for evidence of Evelyn’s existence and Constantine’s determined fight against the very idea of an entity who might try to penetrate his stoic control of his grief.

“You’re a good sheriff,” Maddy assured the man she held. He buried his face in her neck and pulled her closer.

“I’ll be a better one now that my eyes are opened,” Constantine said. “My instincts told me there was something wrong in Scarlet Falls. I should have listened.”

“Samuel Creed says the town is haunted because of a curse. He says one of the women who was drowned as a witch in 1692 swore vengeance on the Chadwick judge who ordered the dunkings. She was a Wildes, by the way. The woman who cursed the town,” Maddy said.

Her words caused Constantine to straighten and smile.

His smiles came easier to him now, but that didn’t make her any less warm whenever she saw them.

“Not so sure I’m willing to stretch my beliefs that far. Witches and curses and…” Constantine said.

“Hauntings,” Maddy said. “Trinity says the accidents that happen especially at night are malevolent spirit activity.”

They both stood silent after that holding each other close. Outside the town started to wake with the sun. Garage doors opened. Blinds rose. Cars started to move down the street.

They’d had firsthand experience of a malevolent spirit of the worst kind.

“But you want to stay in Scarlet Falls?” Constantine asked into her tousled hair.

Maddy thought of all the work she’d done and all the work she still had to do. Gardens to create and gardens to reclaim. Weeds to cut back and tame. A whole town to save, one flower bulb at a time.

She nodded and looked up into Constantine’s clear blue eyes.

“You were right. I do believe in tomorrow.”