Читать книгу Behind The Veil - Joanna Wayne - Страница 12

Rebecca Smith snipped the emerald thread, laid her scissors on the table and held up the full satin dress for a critical look at the finished garment. The fabric swished as it fell into iridescent folds, catching the glow of the bright overhead lights.

Standing, she held it to her shoulders and took a few twirls around the room. It was the first piece of clothing she’d made for herself in months, but she’d outdone herself this time. The fabric was fabulous, the color rich, the sheen almost glittery.

Stopping to admire the finished creation in front of the full-length mirror, she could almost imagine herself attending a ball in old England. It would be the perfect dress for the Fall Extravaganza. On that night the town of Moriah’s Landing would be transported back in time, to the way it had been the year it was first inhabited. The night would be magical, a celebration that would hopefully dispel the sense of danger and fear that prevailed every fifth year when McFarland Leary was said to rise from the grave. If everything went as planned, tourists from miles around would flock into the narrow streets to celebrate the town’s three hundred and fiftieth anniversary year in a spectacular evening of dancing, vignettes, music and food.

If all went as planned, they would return to their homes when the festivities were over—alive.

The dress slipped through Becca’s fingers, and she barely caught it before it fell to the floor of the shop. The uneasy feeling that had lurked just beneath her consciousness all day had leapt to the forefront, icy and onerous and threatening to squeeze the life from her lungs.

She hated these moments when she seemed to slip into the depths of some world far beyond the one she knew as a simple seamstress. She never told anyone about these experiences, the same way she never admitted that she was anyone but Rebecca Smith, a young woman with simple values and meager expectations. It was better this way, made her less of an oddity, gave people no reason to pity her or to speculate about her past.

She laid the dress across the worktable, then walked to the front window and stared into the grayness of twilight. The streetlights had come on along Main Street, tiny globes of illumination, blurred and dulled by the thick fog that coated the air. A black car pulled up in front of the liquor store next door and a tall man in a pair of worn jeans and a windbreaker climbed from the passenger side of the car and sauntered to the entrance. He nodded and waved when he caught sight of her watching through the window. She waved back.

Moriah’s Landing was ordinarily a quiet, safe town in spite of the popular tales of witches and warlocks and ghosts who rose from their graves to kill innocent women. She didn’t believe in such nonsense, anyway. Humans committed murders, and though the town of Moriah’s Landing had experienced its share of those, there was no reason to believe that evil still lurked in dark graveyards or strolled the rocky beaches at midnight.

No reason at all, unless you believed the legend of McFarland Leary, a man who’d been dead for centuries and still rose from the grave every five years to torture and kill innocent females.

Or if you bought into the stories that circulated about the monster on the hill. She closed her eyes, and the image of a lean, brooding man with swarthy skin and dark, piercing eyes walked through her mind. Thick hair fell across his forehead and hung past his ears, only half hiding the nasty scar that crawled down the right side of his face.

Dr. David Bryson. Living in the Bluffs, his formidable castle of stone and menacing turrets, guarded by hideous, lifeless gargoyles that bared rusted teeth and sharpened claws.

When she thought of danger and foreboding, his was always the face that appeared in her mind, and still the man intrigued her. She’d asked questions of all her friends, listened to the talk about him, watched for him, half hoping he’d materialize from the shadows when she walked home by herself after dark.

She’d spotted him one night just as she’d finished turning the key to lock the shop door. He’d been standing at the corner near her shop. She’d looked him straight in the eye, studied his features in the faint glow of the streetlight. Her heart had beat erratically, but she’d stood as if frozen to the spot, mesmerized, drawn to the man half the town claimed was a mad murderer.

The jangling of the telephone jolted her from her thoughts. She took a deep breath and forced the image of Dr. Bryson from her mind before she answered. “Threads. How may I help you?”

“Becca, it’s Larry Gayle. Some of us are heading over to the carnival tonight. Want to join us?”

She hesitated. “The weatherman is predicting thundershowers.”

“Aw, come on. It’s Friday night. Kat and Jonah are going, and if it rains, we’ll duck into one of the bars along the wharf.”

“In that case, count me in.” She hadn’t seen Kat nearly enough since her friend had fallen in love with and married Jonah. Jonah was with the FBI and Kat was one of the toughest private investigators around. Still, it had been a rough year for Kat. After twenty years, the man who’d killed her mother in Kat’s presence had finally been arrested. The first of the infamous Moriah’s Landing murders of twenty years ago had been solved. The last three had not.

“What time?” she asked, pushing thoughts of the murder aside.

“I’ll pick you up about seven,” Larry answered, “unless that’s too soon.”

Her gaze rose to the clock over the door. It was already a quarter after six, but it was only a ten-minute walk to the room she rented from the Cavendish family, and it wouldn’t take long to slip into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. “I’ll be ready.”

A few minutes later, she’d straightened her work area, hung her dress on a hanger so that the wrinkles could fall out and turned out the lights in the shop. Pulling the door closed, she fit the key into the lock and turned it, checking before she walked away to make sure the lock had caught and held.

There was little breaking and entering in Moriah’s Landing, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious, especially since she only managed the shop for the owner. One day she hoped to buy it, but for now she was content to have a job she enjoyed.

Picking up her pace, she turned off of Main Street and onto a narrow unlit side street. It was the one secluded area on her short walk home. It didn’t really frighten her, but still she always picked up her pace when she started down it. The lots on either side of the road belonged to one of the Pierces, but they had never built here.

The wind blew in from the ocean, sharp and damp and prickling her flesh. Not a great night for a carnival, but she was relieved not to be staying home tonight. The chilling presence that had haunted her all day began to swell into an almost palpable sensation as she rounded the last corner and walked beneath a canopy of tree branches and shadows.

If she believed in witchcraft, she would fear she was one, and that the chill inside her predicted the imminence of danger or death.

If she believed. But she didn’t.

DAVID BRYSON WALKED the rocky path along the edge of the craggy cliffs and stared down at the swirling water as it crashed against the treacherous rocks below. Once the sight had filled him with awe and excitement. Now it was only a bitter reminder that it was the place where he had lost his world.

Some claimed he’d also lost his sanity that horrible night five years ago, and perhaps they were the ones who understood best.

Instinctively, his hand moved to his face, and his fingers traced the jagged lines of the scar that ran from his right temple to below his ear. The facial disfiguration, his conspicuous limp and the hideous patches of coarse, red skin on his chest and stomach were always with him to remind him of the explosion.

Still, the plastic surgeons had worked wonders, rebuilt his face, transformed him from something so ghastly he couldn’t bear to pass in front of a mirror to something merely hideous. The doctors had saved his life even while he’d begged them for the release of death. To this day, he’d never fully forgiven them.

“Dr. Bryson.”

He turned at the sound of his name and located the lone figure standing behind the Bluffs. The man was no more than an outline in the deepening darkness, but David didn’t have to see his butler to recognize him. He knew the voice well.

He waved and called up to him. “I’m down here, Richard.”

David took one last look at the water below him, then tilted his face and examined the turbulent layers of dark clouds before starting back up the rocky path.

Too bad about the gathering storm, but if the carnies were lucky, it would hold off for a few hours. The carnival had been a highlight of the fall season for years, coming to town just after the students at the all-girls college of Heathrow had plunged into the sea of sorority activities and before they became immersed in serious studies.

Memories sneaked into his mind. A kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel, Tasha’s body pressing into his as they spun on the Tilt-A-Whirl.

A ragged ache tore at his insides. He fought it by pushing his body to the limits, ignoring the stabbing pain in his right leg and jogging up the slippery path that ran along the edge of the cliff. In minutes, he’d covered the ground between him and Richard and stopped at the man’s side.

“You risk your life when you do that, sir.”

“What do you expect from a madman?”

“Indeed. You’re no more mad than I am.”

“You need to get out more, Richard. Mingle with the townspeople. They’ll tell you what an insane monster you work for.”

“I take no stock in the tales of people who walk around in fear that some old ghost is going to rise from the cemetery and kill their virgins.”

“Ghost tales are good for tourism.”

“They’re the invention of superstitious fools. There’s evil in this town, cruelty, too. But it doesn’t come from ghosts or witches.” Richard turned and started back toward the house. David followed him, wondering as always what he’d do without the man.

Richard Crawford had come to work for him five and a half years ago when David had returned to Moriah’s Landing and purchased the Bluffs. Richard’s hair had grayed around the ears since then and receded from his forehead, but he was still fit and youthful for a man who’d celebrate his sixtieth birthday this year.

More important, Richard was probably the only one who understood how much David still loved his dead fiancée. He missed Tasha’s voice, her smile, the way she’d made him feel. She’d been so young and innocent. And beautiful.

“…dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Richard. Did you ask me a question?”

Richard turned and raised an eyebrow. “Is something the matter, sir?”

“I was just a bit preoccupied. Nothing new.” He’d told Richard repeatedly that he didn’t need to refer to him as sir, but the man was from the old school, and even though he was as much friend and confidant as servant, Richard always made certain to keep that defining edge of separation between them.

“I asked if you were ready for dinner,” Richard repeated. “The cook’s gone for the day, but she left everything in the oven. It will take me only a few minutes to serve it.”

“Dinner. I’d almost forgotten that we hadn’t eaten.”

“I think you would forget to eat entirely, sir, if someone weren’t around to remind you.”

“I might at that. It’s my work that keeps me going these days.” His work and a new fascination, one that frightened him even more than the impenetrable moods that had almost destroyed him after Tasha’s death. One that he would never dare mention, not even to Richard.

“Will you be going out tonight, sir?”

“Maybe later. First I plan to go back to the lab and work.”

The question was ritual. The answer was automatic. After dinner, he either went to his office in the dark corridors beneath the rambling castle or to the test tubes and microscopes that filled the west wing of the Bluffs. He’d work until his mind was numb and fatigue robbed him of the control that kept his inner demons in check. Then he’d lose all perspective and turn into the madman every one believed him to be.

He’d slip from the confines of the Bluffs and drive to the edge of town. He’d park his car and walk the streets and back alleys, searching endlessly for answers he never found. One day he would. And when he did, revenge would be swift and unbelievably sweet.

Becca Smith was not part of the answers or the revenge. But lately, he’d ended up on her street far too often. Something about her haunted him, and try as he might, he couldn’t seem to shake her from his mind.

Richard paused at the back door. “I hear the whole town is gearing up for the Fall Extravaganza. Perhaps you should go. One night of fun won’t ruin your reputation as a serious scientist.”

He touched his fingers to the scar. “I’d frighten the children.”

“With one little scar? I seriously doubt that, sir.”

“With one ghastly scar. I suppose I could dig out the mask I wore in the first years after the explosion and go as the Phantom.”

“Just go as yourself. I predict you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

David turned away. “Moriah’s Landings has always had lots of surprises for me. Only one was ever pleasant, and in the end, it was the cruelest surprise of all.”

“That was five years ago. Besides, test tubes make lonely bedfellows.”

“True, but they never pull away in disgust when I stand in front of them.”

David pushed through the door and stepped inside the bleak interior of the Bluffs. Nothing but grays and browns and thick, opaque draperies. Tasha had planned to redecorate the place, fill it with light and brighter fabrics to compliment the richness of the dark woods of the furniture.

Her plans had died with her. Without Tasha, there was no light. Besides, he’d lost all interest in the structure that had so intrigued him when he’d purchased it. Now he spent most of his days in the lab or out staring at the water breaking over the treacherous rocks at the foot of the jagged cliffs.

A bleak and isolated life. But a few miles away, the carnival was in full swing. Coeds’ laughter, painted horses, music, a kaleidoscope of colors. And for the first time in five long years, he felt himself almost wishing he were part of it.

He closed his eyes for a second as Richard walked ahead of him toward the kitchen. He expected Tahsa’s face to materialize in his mind, but this time it was the image of Becca Smith that danced behind his eyelids. Tall and willowy, her long blond hair falling around her shoulders.

He’d have to be very careful if he left the house tonight. And he knew he’d leave. The town was already beckoning.

“STEP RIGHT UP. All you have to do is break three plates to win a prize. Or give me the prize you have walking next to you, and I’ll hand over all the stuffed bears I own.” The hawker tipped a faded baseball cat at Becca as she and Larry walked past his booth.

“Keep your bears,” Larry said. “I know a good thing when I see one.” He grinned and wrapped his right arm around Becca’s shoulder, slowing so that Kat and Jonah could catch up with them.

“Do you want a bear?” Jonah asked Kat. “I pitch a mean fastball.”

“Let’s see. A bear or a beer? I’ll take a beer.”

“Aw,” the hawker groaned. “She’s only kidding. Every woman wants a teddy bear. Or how about one of these cute pink cats? Come on, ladies. Help me out here.”

A large drop of rain plopped on the tip of Becca’s nose, the first of the evening. “Looks like our luck is running out,” she said, quickly forgetting the hawker, who was already rescuing his best prizes from the unprotected edge of his booth.

“Head for Wheels,” Jonah said, indicating the biker bar down by the wharf. “It’s the closest cover.”

The four of them took off running, leaving the lit area of the carnival behind and heading toward the wharf as the rain grew harder. They cut over to Waterfront Avenue by dashing down the street between the ice cream parlor and the fortune-telling stand, both of which had closed for the evening.

A gust of wind coming off of Raven’s Cove blew rain into Becca’s face and whipped her clothes against her body before they finally reached the overhang in front of Wheels. They stomped the mud from their shoes and pushed through the door of the bar to a loud twanging of guitar music from the aging jukebox.

“Tables are all taken,” a buxom blond waitress said as she sashayed by them, “but there’s room at the bar.”

“The bar’s fine with me,” Jonah said, “as long as the beer’s cold. How about you ladies?”

“I can handle that,” Becca said.

“I’ve been known to straddle a stool,” Kat agreed, slipping out of her wet jacket and tossing it over a hook by the door. The others followed suit as a couple of guys moved over to give them four seats together. Becca and Kat took the inside seats so they could talk to each other over the music and loud voices.

The middle-aged bartender wiped his hands on a stained apron and leaned over the counter. “Looks like you got caught in the rain. You must have been at the carnival.”

“Yeah,” Jonah answered. “Poor planning on our part, Jake. If we’d started at the far end and worked our way back, we’d have been at the car by the time the rain hit. As it was, we were at the end by the wharf.”

“Well, at least you got to see it all. Not that it changes much from year to year. What’ll it be?”

They gave him their orders, and Becca and Larry showed their IDs. Jonah and Kat didn’t bother. Jonah’s cousin had owned the bar across the street before he died, and both Jonah and Kat had been in Wheels often enough that the bartender knew they were legal age.

Becca propped her booted feet on the foot rail and let her gaze scan the dim bar while Larry excused himself to go to the men’s room.

The wharf area always intrigued her. The environment stripped away pretense and social niceties. What you saw was what you got, and no one bothered to mince words just to spare someone’s feelings. Like the two men who were sitting a few seats down from them. She wasn’t eavesdropping, but their gruff voices carried easily.

“I’m not afraid of no damn ghost. Not after what I face day in and day out. I say if that Leary fellow rises from his grave, put him on a fishing boat and send him out into a raging storm. One giant wave, and the man will go running back to his safe spot six feet under.”

“Well, someone killed that girl. Matt Jackson was the first cop on the scene and his old lady told mine it was as gory a sight he’d ever seen. Blood everywhere. Hardly had a drop left in her.”

A guy in faded jeans and a worn leather jacket banged his fork on the table. “Would you guys keep it down? Some people are trying to eat in here.”

Kat waited until the bartender set the beers in front of them. “What is this about a murder?”

He leaned in close. “A young woman, late teens or early twenties. Some boys out on their mud bikes found the body in the bushes off of Old Mountain Road just before dark. The police are trying to keep a lid on it until they find out more about it, but you can’t keep anything quiet around this town. You know that.”

“Did they identify her?”

“Not as far as I know. She’d been dead awhile. That’s all I heard.”

Becca felt herself getting sick and wished she hadn’t eaten the chili-soaked hot dog at the carnival.

The man two seats down from Becca broke into the conversation. “It’s that Bryson fellow that done it.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that when you have no proof,” Kat warned.

“I got all the proof I need. The man sits up there in his castle all day, supposedly brooding over some lost lover. Then he comes snooping around town at night. I’ve seen him plenty of times. If he wasn’t up to no good, he’d show himself in the daytime like a real man. He did it. I’d bet my Harley on it.”

Jake slid a foamy beer toward him. “Your Harley? Put up a night with your woman, and I’ll take your bet.”

“Marie wouldn’t have you, you beer-splattered buzzard.” He took a long drag on his beer. “So are you on the side of the beast?”

“I’m not on anyone’s side,” Jake answered, “but I don’t think the man’s dangerous. He’s just a little addled, that’s all. You’d be, too, if you lost your fiancée the way he did.”

“Humph!” The second man slapped a beefy hand on the counter. “I say he was the one who murdered Tasha Pierce. She went up to that haunted house of his to break up with him, and he killed her. Almost killed himself in the process.”

“He’s crazy, all right,” the first man added. “Should be locked up in that same hospital where they put that poor Cavendish girl when she was kidnapped from the graveyard.”

The words ground into Becca’s mind, and David Bryson’s face appeared in front of her, so real she felt she could reach out and touch it. The beer almost slipped from her hands as she set it back on the bar.

“This talk is getting to you, isn’t it?” Kat said, turning her attention to Becca. “You’re shaking, and perspiration is popping out on your forehead.”

“It’s the smoke and the stale air,” she lied. “I think I’ll step out the door and get a breath of air.”

“You’ll get wet.”

“I’ll stay under the overhang,” Becca assured her, already climbing down from the barstool.

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. Please. Stay and visit with Jonah. I’ll be just outside the door.”

Kat touched her arm. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She walked away, yanked her jacket from the hook and pushed through the door. Once outside, she leaned against the side of the building for support. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the wind howled around the corners and cut through her light windbreaker.

Only the real chill came from somewhere deep inside her. She’d had the crazy feeling all day that something terrible was going to happen. Now she found out a young woman’s body had been found off the road leading up to the Bluffs.

But how did she know? Why? She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket.

“Rebecca Smith.”

Her heart jumped to her throat at the sound of her name. She spun around and stared at a figure, half hidden in the shadows of the old clapboard building. He stepped toward her. Her knees grew weak and rubbery and she stood frozen to the cement beneath her feet.

Escape would probably be impossible, anyway. The beast from the Bluffs had come for her.