Midnight in Christmas River Page 7

  I shrugged.

  “He wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea, but he agreed to help.”

  Warren rubbed his chin again, a worried expression coming across his face.

  “What’s that look about?” I said, taking a sip of my beer. “Don’t tell me you think the place is haunted now.”

  “No, it ain’t the dead I’m worried about out there, Cinny Bee,” he said, a note of seriousness in his voice. “I just don’t like the idea of you in the woods at that hour. You might not find a ghost, but you could run into some unsavory character.”

  “Don’t worry yourself,” I said. “Daniel won’t leave my side. And the last thing any of those unsavory characters you’re talking about wants is to cross paths with the Sheriff of Pohly County.”

  That seemed to ease his mind a little, but I could tell the prospect of us out there still concerned him.

  “Well, you two be careful in those dark woods, nonetheless. Bundle up because it’s gonna be a cold one tonight.”

  He grinned, his eyes lighting up with mischief.

  “And give my regards to Ruth Gallagher’s murderous spirit for me while you’re there,” he said with a rakish wink.

  I shook my head.

  “This beer better be on the house, old man.”

  “Always is, Cinny Bee. Always is.”

  Chapter 18

  “Are you actually reading his book?”

  Daniel raised his eyebrows and glanced at me over the edge of a new hardback copy of The Lady in the Glass.

  “It’s part of my research.”

  “Research?”

  Daniel lowered the copy and gazed out the windshield at the darkening woods.

  “Yeah. I’m trying to research just how many marbles this guy has left and whether I ought to call a psychiatrist and save us a cold night in the woods.”

  “Daniel Brightman,” I rasped. “He’ll hear you.”

  I fixed my eyes on the cabin. Through one of the massive windows, I could see Ashcroft Black sitting at a handcrafted juniper desk, hammering away studiously on an antique typewriter.

  Apparently, writing on an old-fashioned typewriter was another one of the author’s eccentricities.

  “Doesn’t look like he heard anything to me,” Daniel said, letting out a bored sigh.

  He returned his attention to the book, holding up his phone and using the flashlight app to pore over the pages.

  “Look, I know how crazy this all sounds,” I said. “I don’t even really believe any of it. But you know what I do believe, Daniel? That Ashcroft is scared, alone, and needs help. Now, I don’t know him very well, but I’ve never turned away anybody who asked for my help before. And I’ll be a turkey on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving if I’m gonna start now.”

  I noticed there was a hint of a smile on his lips as I ranted.

  “What?” I said.

  “You don’t have to explain any of it to me, darlin,’” he said, his voice softening. “I knew your sense of philanthropy is so strong, you’d come up here by yourself to stake out the cabin if it came down to it. I only came along because I couldn’t stand the thought of you being out here alone in the cold.”

  He gave me a gentle smile that made my heart melt a little.

  I reached over, squeezing his hand in a gesture of appreciation.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “And anyway, I couldn’t have my wife turning into a turkey on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, now could I? What would the neighbors say?”

  He said the last part in a teasing tone, but I let it go on account of him willing to spend the night in a cold car.

  I looked back at the cabin, watching Ashcroft. He was about the most studious-looking person I’d ever seen, and it seemed as though nothing would be able to break his concentration.

  I supposed that was part of what made him so prolific.

  “Do you think he’s really crazy?” I asked.

  Daniel shut the book, tossing it on the dashboard. He pocketed his phone, shifting in his seat.

  “I don’t know. But meeting him just now hasn’t exactly convinced me of his sanity.”

  We’d arrived about half an hour earlier and I’d introduced Daniel to Ashcroft. The author hadn’t necessarily been unfriendly, but not overly friendly, either. He was still wearing that old flannel robe and his face was pale and haggard. He seemed a little guarded and on-edge and answered Daniel’s questions with curt responses — something that surprised me considering how candid he’d been with me earlier. And the fact that he’d asked us for help in the first place.

  But when I had a chance to think about it, I wondered if the fact that Daniel was a real sheriff put Ashcroft on edge. With Lorna Larimer seemingly leaping off the pages of his books into reality, maybe seeing a real-life Sheriff who might have looked vaguely similar to the main character in his series had shaken him.

  Ashcroft had invited us to stay in the living room of the cabin, but Daniel declined, saying we’d get the best view of the woods from out in the car.

  “I am willing to consider that Ashcroft believes he’s seeing a ghost,” Daniel said, digging his hands into the pocket of his jacket. “Now, he said earlier that he got the initial idea for Lorna Larimer’s character from a dream he had about a young woman at the bottom of a lake. What’s to say he’s not dreaming this apparition up now? Maybe it’s some form of daydreaming gotten out of hand. You know how those creative types are. They act different sometimes.”

  “I guess that could be,” I said.

  I hoped it was, in fact.

  “What I don’t understand is how come he just doesn’t leave here?” Daniel said, reaching for the canister of hot coffee that I’d brought and filling two small camping mugs with the liquid. “If it all started when he moved into the cabin, why not just leave Christmas River?”

  “He told me when I was here last time that he’s got nowhere else to go. Apparently, he and his wife just sold their home in New York. She’s living with a friend right now or something — they’re going through some marital troubles. Plus he’s on a tight deadline for his next book. He said he doesn’t have the time to just pick up and move.”

  Daniel took a sip of his coffee, gazing at Ashcroft typing.

  “See? All of that amounts to a lot of pressure right there,” Daniel said. “And stress can cause people to act crazy sometimes.”

  A sharp gust suddenly railed against the car, and the pines all around us shook in the growing darkness.

  “Looks like we’re in for a cold night, Cin,’” Daniel said, looking up at the sky through the windshield. “You know, we could always call it quits and go home anytime you want.”

  I made a scoffing sound.

  “Speak for yourself, Sheriff. A little cold never bothered me none.”

  Daniel looked over, a sparkle in his eyes.

  “All right, partner,” he said. “I can stand it if you can.”

  I smiled.

  Daniel poured me another cup of coffee and we waited for the ghost of Lorna Larimer to appear.

  Chapter 19

  It turned out that despite my big talk, I wasn’t much for stake-outs.

  I woke up around midnight to the sound of Daniel quietly talking on the phone.

  I didn’t know exactly how long I’d been asleep for, but I’d still been awake when Ashcroft left his typewriter and shut off all the lights in the cabin for the night. I imagined that he had gone to bed after that.

  “No, no. It’s fine, Billy. I can be there in half an hour if you need me.”

  I sat up straight, feeling a sharp pain in my neck — I’d fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position.

  “All right, well let me walk you through it at least,” Daniel said.

  I looked over at him and silently mouthed the words “What’s going on?”

  He pressed his hand against the speaker of the cell phone.

  “Accident on Highway 20. A DUII driver wra
pped his car around a telephone pole. Turns out he was trafficking a sizable amount of prescription meds. Billy and Owen caught the call and have a few questions about procedure.”

  “You sure you don’t need to go out there?” I said, my voice coming out scratchy.

  “They’ll be fine. I’m just gonna talk them through a couple of things. You get back to sleep, Cin.”

  He popped open the truck door and started getting out.

  “Daniel, you don’t need to—”

  But before I could finish the thought, he’d slipped out, shutting the door gently behind him.

  I watched in the rearview mirror as he went around the back of the truck, pacing a little in the faint glow of the cabin’s porch light as he talked into the phone.

  I sat up straighter and rubbed the back of my neck. The tip of my nose was about as cold as a freezer-burned Popsicle and the rest of my body wasn’t much warmer. I brought the heavy wool blanket I was under tighter around my shoulders and fought off a few shivers.

  I scanned the woods in the distance, looking for any sign of movement or of anything out of the ordinary.

  There was nothing unusual. Just darkness and more darkness.

  I looked back at the time on the car dashboard. It glowed 12:01.

  I let out a long sigh.

  Maybe Daniel was right. Maybe what Ashcroft really needed wasn’t us sitting out here in a car, waiting to see a ghost. Maybe what Ashcroft needed was a psychiatrist. Somebody to help him with what was most likely a mental health issue.

  I glanced at his book, still on the dashboard. I picked it up, staring at his photo on the back.

  In addition to his failing marriage and his upcoming book deadline, I imagined that his life in general — the part about being a famous author — might have caused continuous, grinding stress. I thought about what he’d said the day before. About how if he could give those young writers any advice, it would be to stop writing.

  Those were the words of a bitter man — a man who no longer felt good about his work or his life.

  Maybe this apparition business was the beginning of a nervous breakdown.

  And maybe me giving any sort of credence to this hallucination by being out here was the most unhelpful thing I could do for Ashcroft Black—

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move.

  My blood turned cold.

  And then… it turned to ice.

  I blinked hard for a moment, sure that my eyes were lying.

  But when I opened them up again, she was still there.

  Pale skin, dark hair — a scowl on her face that reminded me of a starved wolf. Dressed in a billowing white lace gown — just the way Ashcroft described her in the book.

  She walked through the woods, the porch light illuminating her figure.

  It was her.

  Lorna Larimer.

  She was real.

  Chapter 20

  With trembling hands, I popped the car door open and stepped out into the frigid night air. I could hear the faint sound of Daniel still talking somewhere behind the truck, but I barely registered it.

  It took everything I had not to scream.

  I watched in choked terror as she weaved through the pines toward the cabin. Her skin was paler than moonlight, and her long black hair was tangled with what looked to be wet seaweed.

  All I could seem to do was stand there, watching as she got closer and closer to the house.

  She made no noise as she walked — almost as if she was a swan gliding across a placid lake.

  I swallowed hard, my mouth drier than graveyard dirt.

  This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening...

  But it was.

  She approached the cabin, walking up to the bedroom window where Ashcroft was sleeping.

  She seemed to know exactly where he would be.

  Lorna stepped up to the window. She curled her hand into a fist and held it up, ready to knock on the glass.

  “Daniel!”

  My voice came out as a hellish cry and reverberated throughout the woods.

  Lorna Larimer snapped her head to the side, looking dead at me.

  Her face twisted into an angry glower.

  I nearly screamed again.

  Daniel ran up beside me. I gripped his arm.

  “Cin, what’s—”

  His voice cut out abruptly.

  He saw her, too.

  “What the hell—”

  A moment later, Lorna Larimer was running away from the cabin like a wild animal.

  Chapter 21

  I stopped running, leaning forward, sucking in freezing forest air.

  “I don’t understand,” Daniel said, coming back toward me. “We were right on her heels, and it’s like… like she just—”

  “Vanished,” I choked out.

  Daniel held out his flashlight, spinning it around the dark woods, looking for any trace of the spirit.

  Lorna had been fast. Wickedly fast. She’d had a good head start on us, but despite that, we’d made up the distance. We’d nearly closed in on her when she ran behind a stand of pines and seemed to disappear into thin air.

  But then again, what would you expect from a ghost?

  I swallowed hard, staring at the frozen ground.

  Had this really just happened?

  I had seen it with my own two eyes, and so had Daniel. But seeing something and actually believing it were two different things. And as I stood there, sucking in wind and trying to catch my breath, I couldn’t seem to wrap my mind around what had happened.

  “You saw all that, right?” I said, needing to hear some sort of confirmation that it was real. “You saw the ghost of Lorna Larimer?”

  I peered at my husband in the dark, unable to make out his facial expression. But his silence said it all.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said when he didn’t answer. “I can’t believe Ashcroft’s really being haunted.”

  I watched as Daniel walked a few feet away from me, shining his light in the distance, still trying to find her.

  I swallowed hard.

  My heart was still doing double time.

  How could such a thing be possible?

  It didn’t make any sense. But there was no doubt in my mind that I had just seen Lorna herself.

  Daniel walked back toward me, the beam of the flashlight illuminating the area in front of him.

  “Ashcroft’s being haunted, all right,” he said coming up next to me.

  He brought the flashlight up, showing me something in his left hand.

  I felt my mouth drop slightly.

  I reached out, touching the small swatch of ragged fabric, feeling its rough edges.

  Cheesecloth.

  The kind you might find at a craft store.

  Or maybe a Halloween costume store this time of year.

  I looked back up at Daniel.

  “Only I don’t think it’s a ghost doing the haunting, Cin.”

  Chapter 22

  “Who would want to hurt you, Mr. Black?”

  I held my frozen hands in front of the crackling fire in the hearth and watched Ashcroft’s face as Daniel asked the question.

  Ashcroft was holding the piece of cheesecloth we’d found on a sharp branch in the woods, stroking it and crumpling it up in his hands, as if the cheap fabric somehow held the key to the question.

  It felt good sitting beside a warm fire now. I was tired and could have used a hot shower and a warm bed after our long stakeout. But at least the time spent in the cold hadn’t been wasted.

  Dressing up as a ghost and scaring somebody might have been chalked up to a harmless Halloween prank in most circumstances.

  But dressing up as a ghost and purposefully trying to harass a man with a heart condition was a lot more than just some Halloween shenanigans.

  In some books, it might even be called attempted murder.

  Ashcroft didn’t answer Daniel’s question for a full minute. H
e gazed into the fire, stroking his dark beard.

  I would have thought he’d been happy to find out it wasn’t really a ghost haunting him.

  But I supposed knowing that someone was after you was still a frightening prospect, and he seemed to be just as troubled as he’d been before.

  “I don’t know,” he finally muttered, not looking at Daniel. “I really… I mean, I’ve had people who hate my books. I’ve had some fundamentalists write death threats to my publisher because they’re convinced I’m doing the devil’s work by writing about the supernatural. But I’ve never given much weight to those letters. They’re a given for authors in my genre.”

  “What about someone closer?” Daniel asked. “Someone you might have crossed or somehow upset?”

  Ashcroft gazed into the fire, not answering.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Where’s your wife right now, Ashcroft?”

  He looked over at me with a wounded expression, and I wondered if I should have phrased it in a more delicate way.

  But it was a practical question. The argument that Kara and I overheard had ended with Ashcroft’s wife implying she would use other means to get him to sign papers. Most likely divorce papers.

  It seemed to me that gave her a motive for wanting to scare him — and possibly to do more than scare him. She also knew he was staying at the cabin, and she could have easily hired an actress to play Lorna.

  “My wife’s working in Portland,” he said in a grim voice. “And I know what you’re thinking and why you might think it, Ms. Peters. But Ana wouldn’t do this to me. There’s no reason to drag her into this.”

  He looked from the Sheriff to me.

  “It’s got to be somebody else.”

  “Well, then who?” Daniel said.

  Ashcroft scratched his face absentmindedly.

  “I don’t know. But perhaps you scared them off, and this is the end of it.”

  He stood up and then grabbed his cane, walking slowly over to his writing desk. He rifled around in the drawer for a long moment, coming back with a checkbook and an elegant fountain pen.