Against the Wild (12 page)

Lane picked up another potato and started peeling. “So how did you happen to take a job way out here? Did you know Dylan before he bought the lodge?”

“Lord, I've known the Brodie family for years. I kept house for Dylan's father in Anchorage. He was raising Rafe, Dylan, and Nick all by himself. It wasn't easy.”

“He was divorced?”

She shook her head. “His wife, Caroline, died of breast cancer. The boys were in their teens by then, but it was still hard on them.”

“My mother died the same way. I helped nurse her through those last awful months. It was a very special experience. We became more than just mother and daughter. We became best friends.”

Mrs. Henry cast her a look that seemed to hold a hint of approval. “After Clay died—that's Dylan's father—the brothers drifted apart. Dylan got married, and Emily was born. One day I got a phone call from Dylan, asking me to move to Juneau and work for him.”

As she stirred the hamburger in the bowl, she flicked a glance toward the door to be sure no one was listening. “Mariah wasn't much of a mother.” Another quick glance. “Or wife, for that matter.”

The words stirred Lane's interest. “Why did Dylan marry her?”

“I think she just swept him off his feet. He was younger, wilder. And Mariah was beautiful. One of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. Blond and fair and way too pampered. They met in college in Seattle. Dated for less than a year, then got married. I think Mariah thought she could convince Dylan to stay in Seattle, but Alaska is his home.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Dylan took a flying job in Juneau and loved it, but Mariah never got used to Alaska. The remoteness, the weather. She always hated it up here.”

“I think it's beautiful.”

“Yes, but it's hard living. If you aren't born to it, it takes a special kind of person.” Mrs. Henry's direct look was assessing and tinged with warning.

“If you're wondering what my intentions are toward Dylan, you don't have to worry. We're attracted to each other, and I like to think we're friends. But neither of us is interested in a long-term relationship. I have a business in Los Angeles, a company to run. My home is there.”

“I didn't mean to pry,” Mrs. Henry said, though Lane felt sure she was completely unrepentant.

“Dylan and Emily are your family. You have a right to protect them.”

The older woman relaxed. “I can see why Dylan and Emily like you so much.”

Lane smiled, pleased by the notion. “You're wonderful with Emily.”

Mrs. Henry sighed. “I keep hoping she'll get past whatever keeps her from speaking, but the doctors all warned us not to push her too hard.”

“Dylan said something about her mother leaving. I gather that was the cause.”

The older woman broke a couple of eggs into the bowl with the meat. She grunted. “Damned woman just up and left one night. Didn't even say good-bye to her daughter. Ran off with some salesman headed back to Seattle.”

“Seattle isn't that far. Doesn't she see her daughter at all?”

Mrs. Henry's eyes sharpened on Lane's face. “Why, no. I thought you knew. Mariah was killed in a car accident six months after she left. Her drunken boyfriend got both of them killed.”

The potato peeler paused in Lane's hand. How sad for a child to lose her mother at so young an age. It had been nearly unbearable for her, and she'd been twenty years old.

“So Emily's mother's death compounded the problem,” she said. “It made Mariah's leaving final.”

“That's what the doctors say. It's hard to know the mind of a child.”

“Especially one who won't tell you what she's thinking.”

The older woman sighed. “It's been very hard on Dylan.”

“Yes, it has. I can see the hurt in his face every time he looks at her.”

Mrs. Henry went back to her meat loaf and Lane didn't say more. She wished there was a way to help Emily, but she wouldn't be staying in Alaska. Encouraging the little girl to form an attachment would only end up hurting her.

Lane finished the potatoes in silence and set the peeler on the counter. “Is there anything else I can do, Mrs. Henry?”

“I appreciate the offer, dear, but I'm kind of set in the way I do things.” She smiled. “And I think it's time you called me Winnie, don't you?”

Lane felt a soft pang in her chest. “I'd love that, Winnie.” Lane untied the apron and handed it back, then turned and left the kitchen, glad Dylan and Emily had someone like Winifred Henry to look after them.

She recalled the subtle warning she had received. Winnie was afraid Dylan would get involved with another woman who would abandon him and his daughter. It wasn't going to happen. She and Dylan were friends. They lived two different lives in two different worlds.

There was nothing either of them could do to change that. Lane ignored a little pinch in her heart.

Flames licked over the grate in the small rock fireplace in Dylan's sitting room, lighting the area with a warm red-and-orange glow. Lying spoon-fashion on the sofa, Dylan drew Lane a little closer against him. He loved the way her slender curves fit so perfectly with his, loved the feel of her silky red hair against his cheek. They had made love once already. It was ridiculous to want her again.

He smiled. Lane's eyes were drifting closed, and he had to admit, it had been a long day for him, too.

“It's getting late,” he whispered, gently kissing the nape of her neck. “Why don't we go to bed? We'll sleep a lot better in there than on the couch.”

She murmured something and slowly opened her eyes, sat up on the sofa, and yawned. She was wearing one of his T-shirts and nothing else, and as far as he was concerned, even that was too much.

His groin tightened. He couldn't remember a woman who turned him on the way she did.

She glanced toward the door. “I don't think that's a good idea, Dylan. What about Emily and Winnie?”

At supper, he'd noticed the change in Lane and his housekeepers' relationship. Winnie clearly approved of Lane, and yet he knew with certainty the older woman wouldn't encourage any sort of relationship that went beyond friendship, even if they were just sleeping together, which she could pretend to ignore.

Winnie hadn't liked Mariah. She wouldn't want him to risk falling for an outsider again.

Dylan caught Lane's chin, leaned down, and very softly kissed her. “I get up early. I can wake you when I leave and you can go back to your own room.”

She glanced back at the door. “I don't know. . . .”

Before she had time to argue, he lifted her into his arms and started striding toward his bedroom. He would let her get some sleep, though he'd rather make love to her again.

He had almost reached the bedroom door when he heard it. Soft and unidentifiable at first, then growing louder, becoming crystal clear. It sounded like a child crying.

“There! Do you hear that?”

Unease trickled through him. “Stay here.” Setting Lane on her feet, he grabbed his jeans off the floor and pulled them on, then walked over and opened the door.

The crying continued, a sort of sniffling and then more tears. At least there was no ghost in sight.

Dylan strode down the hall and quietly opened Emily's door, but she was sound asleep, Finn draped over the foot of her bed. He closed the door and turned, caught a glimpse of something in the hallway, something hazy and without much form; then it was gone.

“Did you see that?” Lane was dressed in her jeans and T-shirt and standing in the doorway of the suite.

“I'm not sure what I saw.”

“I think . . . I think it was the ghost.”

“Bullshit. There's no such thing.”

Her chin hiked up. “Then who was crying?”

Dylan gritted his teeth. “I don't know. Maybe the wind has found a spot to seep through that makes a sound like that.”

“You saw something. Admit it.”

“I didn't see a blue Indian.”

“No, but—”

“Look, Lane. I'll admit something unusual is going on. Tomorrow I'll do whatever it takes to figure out what it is. In the meantime, why don't we try to get some sleep?”

Lane shook her head. “I'm awake now and it's getting late. I think I'll stay in my own room.”

He could see by the stubborn tilt of her chin it wouldn't do any good to argue. “All right. If you're sure that's what you want.”

She bit her lip. He could read the indecision in her pretty green eyes. It relieved him a little to know she didn't want to sleep alone, either.

“I think it's for the best.”

He just nodded. “I'll see you in the morning.” Holding open her door, he waited till she disappeared inside, then closed the door and walked back into his sitting room.

Dragging a chair over to the doorway, he sat down facing the hall. Lane was right about one thing. Something was definitely going on.

Three hours later, he woke up still sitting in the chair, irritated at himself for falling asleep. The only thing he had to show for his efforts was a stiff neck and a bad disposition. Whatever was happening in the house, clearly he wasn't going to figure it out tonight.

Dylan yawned. Setting the chair back in place, he closed the door and padded off to bed. He hoped like hell he'd be able to sleep.

 

 

Breakfast was a quiet affair the next morning. Emily finished early and went outside to play with Finn. Neither Caleb nor Paddy O'Ryan had shown up. Lane and Winnie weren't doing much talking, either.

“Sleep okay?” Dylan finally asked Lane, just to stir her up a little and see what she'd say.

Faint color rose beneath the bones in her cheeks. “Actually, I did. After the excitement was over, I slept very well.”

Winnie looked up from her place at the end of the table. “What excitement?”

“Last night, we heard something that sounded like a child crying,” Lane said. “I've heard the same sound before.”

Winnie wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “It wasn't Emily, was it?”

“No,” Dylan said.

“I've heard it a couple of times,” Winnie said, suddenly unable to meet his eyes as she toyed with the food on her plate. “I checked on Emily, but she was asleep.”

The bite of eggs Dylan had taken seemed to stick in his throat. “Why didn't you mention it before?”

“I knew you'd heard the rumors. You had enough on your mind trying to get this place in order, and I didn't want to upset you. But now that we're talking about it, I might as well tell you the rest.”

Dylan set his fork down next to his plate. “Crap, what else?”

“At night, before I go to bed, I always check the windows, make sure they're locked. But every once in a while when I get up in the morning they're unlocked.”

His stomach was churning. “Anything else?”

“The pictures on the walls . . . sometimes I find them hanging upside down.”

“Jesus.”

“I saw a ghost, Winnie,” Lane said. “It was an Indian warrior, but it was kind of blue and I could see right through it. I saw it upstairs in the hall outside my bedroom. I think it was there again last night.”

“Oh, dear.”

Stifling a curse, Dylan looked up to see Paddy O'Ryan walking into the kitchen with Caleb right on his heels.

“We got a problem, boss,” Paddy said, his red hair sticking up, windblown and in need of a comb.

“Some of the crew heard about the murders that happened out here,” Caleb said. “One of the guys claims he was driving home after dark a couple of days ago and saw blue lights in the attic window. This morning, there was writing on the wall in one of the bathrooms we've been working on in the guest wing.”

“Writing,” Dylan said darkly.

“That's right,” Paddy said. “And it looks like it was painted in blood.”

Dylan came up off the bench, slammed his napkin down on the table. “Son of a bitch!”

“Most of the crew took off—all the guys from Yeil. The plumber headed back to Waterside. They say they aren't making enough to work in a haunted house.”

Dylan's jaw felt tight. “I've got to see this. Upstairs or down?”

“Downstairs,” Caleb said.

Heading out the kitchen door, he strode through the formal dining room, across the great hall, and into the guest wing. Just as Caleb had said, a wall in one of the bathrooms had been painted with streaky red letters. Crimson dripped eerily all the way to the floor.

“Tlingit?” he said to Caleb.

“Looks like it.”

“What's it say?”

Caleb's mouth edged up. “I don't have a clue. But one of the guys from Yeil is a full-blood. He claims it says, ‘Leave. Now.'”

Dylan walked over and ran a finger through one of the red streaks on the wall.

“Is it blood?” Lane asked, appearing in the doorway, her face a little pale. Dylan hadn't realized she'd followed them.

He sniffed the red on his finger, recognized the coppery scent. “Yeah, it's blood.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Take it easy—all of you. Okay, I won't argue anymore. I'm convinced something strange is going on. As of right now, I'm not stopping until I figure out what it is.”

Lane and Caleb exchanged a glance. Neither of them believed he would find anything normal that could explain the odd happenings.

“Caleb, as soon as you and Paddy finish breakfast, we're going to do a room-by-room search of this place. The crew won't work. Guests won't come if they think the place is haunted. I still don't believe in ghosts, but I'm beginning to believe someone wants us out of here. We're going to find out who the hell it is—and why.”

 

 

While the men finished eating, Dylan went back to the guest wing bathroom. Using a clean square of white cloth, he took a sample of the blood on the wall. Back in the office, he phoned a friend who worked at the DNA Diagnostic Center in Juneau. The lab was mostly used for paternal DNA testing, but Rex Doheny, an avid outdoorsman and fishing buddy, would be able to tell him whether or not the blood was human.

“You got a sample?” Rex asked, after Dylan explained the situation, calling the incident vandalism—which he actually believed it was.

“I've got one. I'll bag it and fly it up to you this afternoon.” The fastest he could get a letter or package to Juneau from Waterside was seventy-two hours. Taking his own plane, at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, it was less than a two-hour flight from Eagle Bay. He could be up and back before nightfall.

“Give me a call when you get to the airport,” Rex said. “I'll come pick you up. Give us a chance to catch up and save you a trip into town.”

Relief trickled through him. “That'd be great. I appreciate the help. I owe you and Sarah a weekend at the lodge once we get it finished.”

“Sounds like a deal to me. I'll see you late afternoon.”

Dylan ended the call. He needed to get the sample to Rex as quickly as possible and get back home. Things were happening he didn't understand, things that could wind up putting people in danger. Until he knew exactly what was going on, he needed to be here making sure everyone was safe.

“You're flying up to Juneau?” Lane stood a few feet away. He hadn't heard her walk into the office.

“That's right. I need to know if this is human blood. I don't think it is, but I need to be sure.”

“If you think it was vandalism, why don't you call the police?”

“Because I'm trying to keep a lid on things. And I want to take a look at the house, see what I can find out.”

Caleb walked in just then, his jaw set, a long black braid resting on each shoulder. As part of the deal they had made, Caleb owned a percentage of the lodge. He wanted it to be successful as badly as Dylan did.

“Where do you want to start?” his friend asked.

Dylan raked a hand through his hair. “Upstairs in the family wing, I guess. That's where most of the activity has been. We'll search every inch of it, see if we can't find something out of place.”

“We're gonna need a ladder and some flashlights,” Caleb said. “I'll go get them.”

The men walked out into the hall to find Paddy O'Ryan waiting, looking as grim-faced as he and Caleb. While Caleb took off in search of a ladder and flashlights, Dylan and Paddy headed upstairs.

He didn't expect Lane to fall in behind them, but it was all right with him. Lane was smart and she had seen the “ghost.” Maybe she could be of some help.

“What're we looking for?” Caleb asked when he arrived on the second floor, setting the ladder down in the hall and spreading it open.

“Could be anything. We heard crying. If it wasn't real, it had to have been recorded and delivered through some kind of speaker.”

Caleb nodded, beginning to get on board with the idea. “Okay, so we look for a speaker that's small and unobtrusive, probably wireless.”

“Sounds right.”

“What else?” Paddy asked.

“If the windows were opened at night, it had to have been done from inside. Same with the pictures being turned upside down, and the writing on the wall. We've got hand-locking dead bolts on all the doors, so a key isn't going to work. Look for some sort of secret panel, some kind of entrance that would let someone into the house.”

“That's a scary thought,” Lane said.

“Makes sense,” said Caleb.

“Paddy, you take the two empty bedrooms up here. Caleb, you and I'll work the hall.”

“Emily's outside with Finn,” Lane said. “I'll look around in her room.”

He smiled, appreciating the fact she was willing to keep an open mind and not just dig in her heels about what she had seen. “Thanks.”

He watched her disappear into Emily's bedroom. As far as they knew, nothing had happened in there, but Em wouldn't have said anything if it had.

Paddy headed for one of the empty bedrooms while Caleb went up on the ladder and began searching the seam between the wall and the ceiling. Dylan got down on his hands and knees and ran the light along the baseboard.

For the next half hour, he and Caleb quietly searched the hall, floor to ceiling, even pulled up the rug in a couple of places. Nothing.

Finally, Paddy came out of an empty bedroom, shaking his head.

“Nothing?” Dylan asked.

“'Fraid not, boss. Maybe there really is a ghost. You ever seen that movie,
Amityville Horror
?”

“No, and I don't want to. Why don't you take a look in the attic above this wing? There's an access panel in the ceiling at the far end of the hall.

“Will do.” Paddy borrowed the ladder to climb up in the attic; then Caleb carried it back to where he had left off his search. Minutes dragged as the search quietly continued. Dylan was beginning to wonder if his idea was as crazy as it sounded.