Layla
Bailey stirs sugar into her iced tea, her eyes wide and skeptical. “How many more murders did Robert say were connected to the property?”
“He only said there may have been more, but those two…well, four, if you count Shelby Morsgate’s family, were the only murders with confirmed connections.”
“I’ve lived in this town my entire life and never knew any of this,” she admits, her eyes focusing on the ice clicking in her glass. “Do you think it’s true?”
“I don’t know what to think.” I rest my chin in my hand and stare blankly at the pitcher of iced tea between us, the glass surface frosted and sweating in the unforgiving heat.
Bailey’s on break, and I should be asleep, but I doubt I’m going to sleep at all for the next several years after the stories Robert told me.
How is it possible that two women from totally different walks of life ended up following the same path to murder and madness?
“Is it weird I don’t find it totally disturbing?” Bailey asks, leaning back in her chair.
“It’s because we’re nurses.” I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “I’ve seen and heard worse stories.”
“Me too,” she breathes, wincing a bit. “Still… it makes me wonder about all the noises I hear in the house. Voices, too, sometimes. I never know if what I’m hearing is real.”
“Has anyone ever mentioned Aunt Penny going to assisted living? She’s gotta have the funds for it.”
“I’m sure she does, but no. I’ve always assumed she lived here because that’s what the estate stipulates.”
I make a mental note to give Aunt Penny’s lawyer a call tomorrow and ask about her executor. Whoever that person is would know exactly why she’s here and not someplace where she’d have a far higher level of round the clock care.
Not that Bailey and I aren’t capable, but Bailey was right when she said Aunt Penny needs more. More sun. More socialization. Better conditions in general.
She shouldn’t be locked away in a rotting house full of ghosts.
“I don’t know how you stay here at night alone,” Bailey muses, sipping from her tea.
“I’m not alone.”
“Ms. Penny doesn’t count.”
“No, Dalton’s here. He’s usually awake at night, too.”
Bailey blinks at me. “Who?”
“Dalton, the artist who lives upstairs. The guy that’s been working on all the wallpaper.”
“Did you sneak some whiskey into your tea?” she laughs, waving a hand in dismissal.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s nobody else living here, especially not an artist.”
“Uh, no… Dalton–”
The tablet between us lights up, then both of our smartwatches begin to blare with an alarm linked to Aunt Penny’s ECG machine.
“Shit,” I mumble, snatching the tablet and pulling up her stats. I’m on my feet in a split second.
Bailey and I dash up the stairs and into Aunt Penny’s room. She’s sitting straight up in bed, staring directly ahead, her frail fingers trembling as she grips her sheets.
Bailey edges around the room into her line of sight, her gaze darting between Penny’s face and the ECG monitor.
“Her heart rate is extremely high,” Bailey says calmly.
“She’s stable for now,” I answer breathlessly. Penny’s not having a heart attack. This isn’t an arrhythmia. I see nothing on her monitor that would tell me something is seriously wrong.
This is fear.
“Ms. Penny?” Bailey coaxes, smiling sweetly. “Ms. Penny, honey, you’re not feeling well right now, are you? What’s the matter?”
Aunt Penny shakes her head, her lips parting.
I move into her line of sight as Bailey closes in on the bed, her hands outstretched. “Ms. Penny, I’m going to help lay you back down now, all right?”
But Aunt Penny’s eyes flicker to mine, her expression undergoing a sharp change. Her eyes widen, her slack mouth pinching closed. She shakes her head over and over again.
“Ms. Penny?” Bailey urges, laying a hand on the old woman's thin forearm.
“Run,” Penny croaks, her eyes locked on mine.
“What?” Bailey whispers. “What did you say?”
Penny’s chest heaves, her eyes wild and frantic. “RUN! Get out! Before–before it’s too late! Before he–he finds you. Run! RUN!”
I stumble backward, my heart leaping into my throat as she tries to throw her body forward, her arm outstretched toward me.
“Go! Go! Get out! GET OUT!”
“Layla, leave,” Bailey says firmly, her eyes slightly cloudy.
“I–I—” I gape at Aunt Penny.
“Layla, go. You’re agitating her somehow!” Bailey shouts.
I snap out of my stupor and tear myself from the room, shutting the door behind me. I lean against the wall, fighting to catch my breath as I listen to the commotion in the room behind me.
“Who are you? Who are you?”
“I’m Bailey, ma’am, your nurse. Remember?”
“The girl–get her out. He wants her. He’ll trap her here. Get her out, please! You have to get her out.”
“It’s all right now. Just lay back. See? Isn’t that better?”
Soon Penny’s voice lowers, becoming more calm. Ten minutes pass while I continually check my watch, waiting for what, I’m not entirely sure.
Finally, I hear Penny say, “Do not give me any medication. Don’t give me anything. Don’t let them give me anything. Please.”
“I’m not. I won’t–”
“Promise me–”
“Ms. Penny–”
“My-my hands? My hands? Why am I–why am I so old?” Her voice breaks. “What year is it?”
I close my eyes, my heart sinking into my stomach.
“How old am I? How–how old am I?”
If Bailey says anything, it’s lost on the quiet whimpering coming from the room.
Ten minutes later, Bailey opens the door, her face washed of color as she slowly closes it behind her.
“She’s resting.” Tears cloud her eyes. She wipes them away, sniffling. “I gave her lorazepam. It’s all she would take. She thought….” She bares her teeth, her eyes pinched shut as if in pain. “She looked at her hands, Layla, and started to cry. She thought she was still young. Still in her twenties.”
My heart lurches. What happened to this poor woman? It could be the dementia, but maybe not.
Tears spill down Bailey’s cheeks, but her eyes narrow, her chest puffing out. “I’m calling her fucking doctor right now.”
“Bailey–” I start to say, desperation lacing through her name, but she rushes down the stairs. I sigh heavily, running my fingers through my hair and forcing back a sob at not only what just happened, but the idea of Dr. Ashford coming back here.
I stand conflicted in the hallway for a little over two minutes before chasing after her with every intention of telling her the truth about what happened the day that bird flew through the window.
But Bailey is standing in the supply room with her phone pressed to her ear, her brow pinched.
“Okay–okay. Yes. I’m so sorry to hear this, I–I can’t really wrap my head around it.” She meets my eyes, looking suddenly frantic. “Okay, sure. No, that’s not necessary. All right, goodbye.” She hangs up and almost drops her phone.
“What’s going on?”
“Dr. Ashford is in the hospital. He was–he’s in the ICU in really rough shape.”
For obvious reasons, this is music to my ears, but I fight the smile threatening to stretch across my lips. “What happened?”
“That was the receptionist at his practice.” Bailey sinks into the computer chair, her eyes fixed on the floorboards. “He was attacked. The police are saying it was a burglary. Someone broke into his house and stabbed him several times in his sleep. They don’t think he’s going to make it.”
I take a step backward, my heart racing. “When did this happen?”
“Very early Tuesday morning,” she says, running her hand over her face.
I nod because it’s all I can do. All I can think about is what Dalton said to me, how Dr. Ashford had something coming his way.
Oh, God. Did he do this?
I feel the urge to vomit but steel my expression. “I guess this solves one of our problems.”
Bailey nods. “He was keeping her sedated for God knows how long–or why. Fucking sick, sadistic bastard.”
“I’ll call around for a new doctor if you can stay tonight to help with Penny.”
Bailey nods, her eyes still locked on the floorboards. “I actually know of another doctor who lives here in Hahnville. She works in New Orleans, but she goes to church with my mom. I’m going to go into town and see if she’s home.”
“Okay,” I say, watching as Bailey rises and walks to the door like a ghost.
She pauses at the door, her fingers curled around the knob. “I think you scared her a little. You look like Penny from her youth, you know. That’s all.”
I’ve already let the memory of what Penny said to me in her room slip from my mind. “I know. I think you’re right.” But not really. There was something else in her warning, something that settles in my bones as Bailey walks out the door and out onto the porch.
I walk back upstairs to check on Penny. She’s asleep. Sleeping like the dead, honestly. Good, she needs it. Coming off what sounds like decades of antipsychotic medication is going to be a bumpy ride, and a long-haul, at that.
I quietly close her curtains and close her door, standing in the hallway for a moment to try to make sense of everything that’s happened in the last hour.
Dr. Ashford might die. He was stabbed repeatedly.
I remember the crimson ribbons in the sink a few nights ago and how, at first, I thought it had been blood…. And Dalton had been putting away a butcher knife at the exact moment I’d walked into the kitchen, too.
I swallow, finding it nearly impossible, and walk downstairs.
The house is quiet all around me when I walk back into the kitchen and chug my iced tea, which is now watered down and lukewarm. I pour myself another glass in hopes it’ll wash the taste of bile from my mouth as I stand in front of the kitchen window.
There’s a box in the yard that hadn’t been there before. A black shoebox sitting right in the grass.
What the hell?
I look around for Curtis. He’s nowhere to be seen. It’s closing in on 5:00, so he wouldn’t be here anyway. Maybe he forgot it, whatever it is?
I walk out on the back porch and look up at the sky and the fast moving dark clouds rolling in with the promise of more rain and more storms.
I glance back at the box, huffing out a breath.
I haven’t been out here for a while, not since my ill-fated adventure through the swamp. I keep my eyes locked on the box and refuse to even look at the tree line as I make a beeline for it, the first droplets of rain from tonight's storm bouncing off the top of my head.
I pick it up, and it’s light. Almost like it’s totally empty, but a single shake tells me there’s something small inside.
“Hmm…” I hum to myself as I examine the outside of the box before turning on my heel and carrying it back into the house. I set it on the kitchen table and back away, planting my hands on my hips.
I should be worried about whatever's in this random ass box. I have way too much to think about right now.
My fingertips prickle as I scan it, then I roll my eyes and stop forward, throwing the lid open.
I scream.