Carolina Mist (4 page)

4

T
he first of November could not have been more gray. The sun struggled to break through sullen clouds—themselves gunmetal gray in a bleak sky—barely dispelling the fog which wrapped around the city in an insistent tangle of wispy arms. Abby finished loading boxes into the car, having dropped the backseat to double her cargo space, carefully fitting her clothes and the boxes between the electronics before tucking the e
nvelope filled with cash from
the sale of her furniture into the glove compartment. She
leaned over the front seat to root through a box, looking for
some tapes of old favorites to keep her company as she drove.

After popping the Four Tops into the tape player on the dash, Abby started the engine and, without a backward glance, pulled into the morning traffic and headed for the interstate. Once she was on
I
-95, the city’s skyline rose, shaded in mist, on her right. To her left, the Delaware River
flow
ed choppy and muddy green. She drove past the exits to Veterans Stadium and the Spectrum, neither of which she had ever visited. Just beyond, the flat-roofed warehouses of the food distribution center opened their wide doors to the truckers who would transport produce all across the metropolitan area. A few of those trucks were already competing for her lane of traffic. She pulled to her right as the first of the tractor-trailers sped past on the approach to the huge double-decked bridge that spanned the Schuylkill River. Planes almost close enough to touch seemed to float past on their way to the airport just to her left.

Beyond the city limits now, Abby accelerated and moved into the passing lane to go around a small red pickup with Delaware plates. The City of Brotherly Love, along with all
her dreams of corporate bliss, was lost in her rearview mirror, shrouded in the haze of a misty early-autumn morning.

She stopped in Delaware for breakfast and, later, had a leisurely lunch in Virginia. She’d expected to be in Primrose by dinner but zigged into North Carolina where she should have zagged, somewhere in the vicinity of the Great Dismal Swamp, and wasted an hour trying to get back onto the right road. A friendly restaurant across the street from the county courthouse in Elizabeth City served up wonderful crab cakes, a fresh salad, and a warming cup of coffee. Fortified, she set off on the last leg of her journey.

I
t was shortly after nine when she exited the highway, following, with a certain caution, the signs to the darkened road that led to Primrose. Though in her youth she’d known every bump on every road for ten miles in any direction, years had passed, and she was no longer definite. Overhead lighting was virtually nonexistent on this approach to the small town, and memory told her that there were at least two sharp curves somewhere ahead. The acres of dense woodland on either side of the narrow road seemed to close in on her, and she momentarily wished she had waited until the following day to make this last leg of her trip.

The first curve was upon her before she had time to brake for it, sending the Subaru into the opposing lane, which, fortunately, was unoccupied. She returned to her side of the road and slowed to a crawl, recalling that the next curve would be almost ninety degrees to the right. She all but crept into it, then sped up, knowing it would be a straightaway into the center of town from that point on.

Driving into a small town after it has closed for the night gives you the oddest feeling,
she thought as she passed through Primrose proper. The sidewalks were long deserted, the stores long darkened, their proprietors having gone to their homes hours earlier. The old-fashioned street lights which hung from poles every thirty feet or so on either side cast an eerie glow on the shop fronts.

“Ro
lled back the sidewalks at dusk”
was coined to describe Primrose,
Abby mused as she passed the silent storefronts. Slowing slightly, she peered through the darkness at Mr. Foster’s General Store, which appeared just as she remembered it. On past the Primrose Cafe, where the townfolk traditionally gathered for their early-morning coffee, and the hardware store, where one could purchase everything from string and thumbtacks to lawn mowers. And that was Primrose proper.

Or
was,
when I was a girl. Looks like maybe a few more shops than what I recall.

The new gas station at the corner of Harper and Cove Road took her by surprise, and she almost missed the turn. Ever more slowly, she crept down Cove Road, past the house where Aunt Leila’s friend, Mrs. Lawrence, once lived, past the old Matthews place, where Aunt Leila’s best friend, Belle, had lived.

Guess she’s gone now, too, judging by the tricycles there by the front porch.

Abby pulled to the side of the road and parked in front of a structure that, in the darkened hush, appeared less than hospitable. She turned off the motor and the headlights, took a deep breath, and opened the car door. Standing in the middle of the road, Abby focused on the magnificent building that loomed before her.

Aunt Leila’s house, built by Thomas Cassidy’s grandparents in the 1830s and subjected to expansion and renovation by successive generations, rose imposingly from behind overgrown rhododendron which obscured the entire front porch and vast portions of the second floor as well. Only the wide front steps, which seemed to stick out from the porch like the tongue of a sassy child, emerged from the darkened facade. The entire house huddled in a dreary silence, the windows of the top two floors shuttered tightly against the world without. It was—had always been—an imposing sight. Now, wrapped in the opalescent glow of mist from the river that flowed behind and beyond, the house was downright spooky.

Abby approached the long path that led to the porch with a certain amount of circumspection. As quietly as the night had settled around her, she followed the path to its end, then tentatively planted one foot on the first step, which sagged with a faint
whoosh,
no louder than an exhale, beneath her weight. The handrail was wobbly when she reached out for it, and the floorboards creaked as if in pain as she tiptoed toward the front door, where she stood almost expectantly before reaching for the knob.

“Oh, good grief,” she exclaimed, realizing she had no key with which to open the door. Exasperated with herself for having overlooked this one little item, she paced back to the top of the steps, then sat down.

“Damn. I can’t believe this,” she growled. “I can’t believe I drove all this way to reach a house I cannot get into.”

The last motel she’d passed was about sixteen miles back. She figured she had roughly enough gas to make it to Mr. Foster’s General Store.

She rose with great annoyance, shaking her head in disbelief at her stupidity. As she turned her head to the left, she saw the outline of the planter on which Aunt Leila had kept her African violets in the warm months. Small clay pots lined its white wrought-iron shelves. Abby paused, a memory begging for attention. When she was a child, Aunt Leila had often left a key for her under the third pot on the third shelf. She lifted the pot and ran her fingers across the spot where it had stood. Grinning broadly, she held up the key.

Thank you, Aunt Leila.

Abby fitted the key into the lock, hoping Aunt Leila had not had cause to change it. As the key and the knob turned simultaneously, the door opened with the greatest reluctance. She gave it a tentative push, and it swung an arc into the big, dark entrance hall. Taking a deep breath, she entered—slowly and on tiptoe—into the hushed halls of her childhood.

Through the inky darkness, Abby could see the stairwell rising some twenty feet back from the doorway, along the
right wall. The interior of the house was as familiar to her as her name. Even in the dark, she knew that to her immediate left was the music room, which opened into Thomas’s library. A wide hallway led past the stairwell and on to the dining room, beyond which was a butler’s pantry and the kitchen. To her right was a formal parlor, which opened to a sitting room, from which one entered a small conservatory, which Aunt Leila had called her morning room.

Standing in the middle of the entrance hall, Abby peered into the two front rooms without taking a step toward either. The furniture was covered with sheets, giving a ghostly form to every chair and settee. There was an eeriness about the house that she had not anticipated. Over all, the scent of lavender—Aunt Leila’s signature fragrance—seemed to preside.

What had Aunt Leila’s letter said about dear and gentle spirits?

Goosebumps sped up her arms, across her shoulders, and straight down her back into her legs and didn’t stop until they reached her toes.

Don't be an idiot. There’s no such thing as
…

The floorboards overhead creaked menacingly.

Old houses have noises. It’s just the pipes,
she told herself.

She forced the air out of her lungs slowly, then set her purse down on a nearby chair while she turned on the overhead light. One last bulb of the large, ornate crystal chandelier flickered uncertainly, the sudden dim light causing shadows to lengthen across the spacious hall. She took four steps forward when she heard it again.

Abby froze.

This time, the creaking was accompanied by a light shuffling sound. Inching toward the wall parallel to the stairwell, Abby tried to disappear into it, straining her ears to try to identify the sound.

A soft footfall on the top step was followed by another equally as faint. Someone was making a slow, deliberate descent. It was not Abby’s imagination, nor was it a ghost. Someone very real—a burglar? a vagrant?—was making his
way downstairs. Abby flattened herself against the wall, her fingers fanning out on either side as if searching for something to hold on to. Without a sound, she slid sideways toward the back hallway. She hoped, the intruder, whoever he was, didn’t know the lay of the house as well as she did.

Unless, of course, he’s been camped here since Aunt Leila died.

Maybe he somehow found out the house was vacant and decided to move in.

Maybe he used it as his base of operations, lying low during the day and sneaking out to commit murder and mayhem in the dark of night.

The shadow cast by the figure paused momentarily, long enough for Abby to move toward the dining room. She took two quick steps and hit the table that stood, obscured in darkness, against the wall. Something crashed to the floor.

“If you’re looking for money, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t have any,” a woman’s voice—forced firmness barely concealing fright—announced from somewhere halfway up the stairs.

Abby slowly stepped out of the shadows and peered up the steps. An old woman, wrapped in a bright yellow chenille robe, her hand tightly clasping the handrail, stared down at her.

“Go on, do whatever it is you’re going to do,” the old woman bravely demanded, her voice holding a hint of the soft eastern Carolina accent Abby had heard so often in her childhood. “Just don’t hurt me. Rob me, take what you want. But don’t hurt me.”

“Who are you?” Relief washed over Abby like a warm ocean wave.

“Now, what the devil of a difference would
that
make?” The woman’s shoulders were tiny under the robe, frail, like the rest of her. Only her voice—the voice of one accustomed to being obeyed—appeared strong. “The silver’s in the dining room. That’s about all there is that you could carry away. Help yourself. Then get out of here so I can go back to sleep.”

Abby approached the bottom of the steps.

“You don’t look much like a burglar.” The old woman eyed her suspiciously.

“I’m not a burglar,” Abby told her.

“If you’re not here to rob me, then what the Sam Hill
are
you doing, breaking in here in the middle of the night and scaring an old lady half out of her mind?” snapped the woman. “Unless you’re one of them serial killers you hear
about on the news these days…”

“I’m Abby McKenna,” Abby told her gently. “I own this house.”

“Abby McKenna,” the woman repeated. “Abigail McKenna? Leila’s grand-niece?”

“Yes.” Abby nodded. Clearly, this was no vagrant. “Who are you?”

“Belle. Belle Matthews.” The woman came down the remaining steps to study Abby’s face. “Well, mercy me. You’re Abigail, all right. Well, then, ’bout time you got here.”

The two women eyed each other for a long moment. In spite of the old woman’s bravado, Belle was flushed, her hands trembling as her white-knuckled grip on the baluster eased.

Taking great pains to present as dignified and controlled a front as possible under the circumstances, Belle asked, “Want some tea?” Without waiting for an answer, she pulled herself up to her full height of almost five feet and swept past Abby toward the kitchen.

In the poorly lit kitchen, Belle placed a pot of water on the stove and opened a cabinet to bring down two cups and matching saucers.

They sat at a small table overlooking the darkened backyard. Abby stirred her tea and wondered how she could go about asking Belle why she was living in Leila’s house.

“Guess you’re wondering what I’m doing in Leila’s house.” Belle looked at her from over the top of her cup.

“Well
…
yes.” Abby’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise that Belle’s words so closely echoed Abby’s own thoughts.