Haunted Fixer-Upper, The (25 page)

That
had to mean Stan had killed Gordon, right? He was furious with him right before his murder. How would I find out? He would never confess. And the police were too busy pointing fingers at Reed.

“So y
ou’ve been seeing your wife’s spirit too?”

He nodded.
“Yes. I tried to stay away from this town. I wanted to erase the hurtful memories, but I guess she doesn’t want me to do that.”

I
paused. “Maybe she just wants you to solve the crime of her murder.”

“
I was the one who they accused of killing her. They will never go after Stan,” he replied in a low, tormented voice.

“Why did they not arrest you?”
I asked.

“W
hen I had an airtight alibi because I was at work, they had to let me go. Of course I couldn’t stay in this town. I had to get out. I lost my job, lost the house, lost my wife. I’d lost everything.” A look of despair had settled over his face.

“
Who owns this cabin?” I scanned the area.

“
It was abandoned. It belonged to an old man years ago, but when he died it just set empty. I took a chance that it would still be here. I just had to come see the house again.”

“
How long have you been here?” I asked.

“A month
. Like I said, I had to see what had happened to the house. Then I saw a man who was around it a few times. A few times people were doing things to it. Then I saw you come by.” He pointed in the direction of the plantation.

“
We actually bought the house. I want to make it grand again.”

He nodded.
“I’d like to see it brought back to life. My wife loved that place. She would have hated to see it in this condition.”

“She is seeing it in this condition,” I said.

“You’ve seen my wife too. How is that?” he asked.

“
Yes. I think she is happy with what we are doing though.”

“She was a beautiful woman.”
His eyes lit up.

“
Why didn’t you say something when you saw me?”

“
I didn’t know you and trust me, I am not wanted in this town.”

“
How do you get your food?”

“
I have a car. I drive all the way into another town where people don’t know me.” He pointed over to a black car that was parked under several trees.

I nodded. I guess that made sense.

“Would you like to come and see the house?” I asked.

I couldn’
t believe that I was now talking to this man who I had once thought was a killer.

He stared at me fo
r a couple seconds, then said, “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He stepped out from the cabin and closed the door.

“I have to tell you that I thought maybe you were the killer coming to kill me.” I searched his face for a reaction.

“
So you knew that I was accused of killing my wife?” he asked.

“No, not at first
. But I was talking about the other murder that recently happened.”

“
There was another murder in the house?” he asked.

“
No, not in the house, but it was the man who owned the house,” I said.

“
That house doesn’t bring good luck to the owners, I guess.” He released a heavy sigh.

I didn’
t even want to think about that. “Well, he wasn’t killed while he owned the place. He’d just sold it to us first. My boyfriend and I fix up old houses. Well, we have only fixed up one other one, but I’d like to do more.” I was blabbering. “Anyway, I was the one who discovered him.”

“
That must have been awful for you,” he said.

“
It was terrible.” My mind burned with the memory.

“
Do they know who killed the man?” he asked.

I shook my head as I stepped over a broken branch.
“No, not exactly.” I paused. “Well, they have questioned my boyfriend, but he in no way had anything to do with the man’s death. He just happened to be the one who found his body.”

“
That sounds like what happened to me.”

“
You found your wife?”

He looked off into the distance, but d
idn’t answer. He didn’t have to because I saw it in his eyes.

“
I’m sorry,” I said softly.

After a minute, I said,
“I’m trying to find out who killed the man. His name was Gordon Millerton.”

“
Never heard of him,” he said.

“
I don’t think he’d been in town long.”

“That would explain it.”

“What you said about Stan explains why your wife had his name written in the appointment book.”

He looked at me
, confused.

“
I found an appointment book tucked away in a closet,” I said.

That wa
s when I remembered that I hadn’t found the book, Mama and Lacey had and I still hadn’t heard from them. I quickened my steps. I needed to look for them and Reed too.

“
It’s funny, you know,” I said, “I suspect Stan of killing Mr. Millerton. Someone from town told me that he’d recently been accused of another murder and gotten off from that too.”

“
The son of a bitch,” he said.

“
I have no way to prove that he did it though.” I frowned.

“He’s good at covering his despicable crimes.”
His face tensed with anger.

We finally reached the
opening from the woods to the property and stepped out from the shade of the trees. The sun was now shining brightly and Blake shielded his eyes.

“
The bright takes getting used to again,” he said.

Reed’s truck
still sat in the drive. Where had he gone?

“
That’s my boyfriend’s truck, but he wasn’t in the house. I haven’t talked to him and I’m getting concerned. I haven’t heard from my mother or best friend either. They don’t answer their phones.”

At the back of R
eed’s truck, I spotted a paper. We walked over to the truck and knelt down.

“It’s a newspaper article,”
I said.

It was the same copy like I’d gotten from the library. There was a sticky note
on it. At the top was written ‘
From the desk of Gordon Millerton
.’ Had Reed found the papers that Mr. Millerton had wanted to give him? Did that mean Reed had figured out who had killed Mr. Millerton? My stomach twisted into a tight knot. Something was wrong. I felt it.

Blake
looked over my shoulder and I glanced at him. He had a strange expression. I guess it was painful for him to see the article and to relive what had happened all over again.

“
I guess my boyfriend must have dropped these papers.”

I hadn’t seen the paper
when I went in the first time, so maybe Reed had been with someone else and they’d dropped him off. Yeah, that had to be it. He was probably inside working already and wondering where in the heck I was. He couldn’t stay mad at me for long.

“
Would you like to come inside now and look around?”

“I’
d like that very much.”

I wasn’
t sure if I could do the same thing if I was in his situation. As I moved further past Reed’s truck, I noticed more items on the ground. I reached down and picked them up. It looked like contents that would come from a woman’s purse. In my hand I felt a small comb, a mirror, lipstick, and… a peppermint candy. There had been one just like this next to Gordon’s body. All the pieces had come together in my mind.

“Is everything okay?” Blake asked.

I nodded. “Yes, it’s fine. Let’s go into the house, okay?”

We walked up the path toward the house and my cell phone rang.

“Can you give me just a minute? It’s probably a call from my mother or my friend.”

He nodded and walked
over to the front porch steps and sat down. Blake seemed like a nice man and not like a killer at all. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so trusting of him, but I was. And I was usually one of the most suspicious people around, but something was telling me he was different.

When I glanced at the numbe
r displayed on my phone, I didn’t recognize it. I clicked open the phone.

“
Alabama, this is Carrie.”

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“
I found more information that I thought might interest you.”

“Really?”
I asked.

“I found out what kind of boots Stan wears. Don’t ask me how I found out though.”

“I probably don’t want to know.”

“He wears a size eleven and he always wears the same boots,
Carhartt.”

The adrenaline pumped through my veins. “I knew it. I knew he’d been in the house when we weren’t there. I just don’t know how he got in when it was locked.”

“Oh, also you asked if I knew Evelyn. Well, I found out that she used to work for his father. Apparently she was his alibi years ago when he was accused of another murder. I guess you’re surprised to hear he was implicated in another murder, huh?”

“
Not really. This is news about Evelyn though. Thank you so much, Carrie.”

Just then
, movement from the house in the upstairs window caught my attention. It wasn’t Reed, it wasn’t Lacey or my mother… the face looking back at me was Evelyn Arlington.

Chapter Thirty

My stomach hit the ground. Evelyn
had a blank expression on her face. What was she doing in the house? She held something in her hand—I soon realized it was a gun.

“
Is everything okay?” Carrie asked, bringing me back to the conversation.

“
I’m not sure,” I said, still looking up at Evelyn’s menacing glare.

Before Carrie had a chance to reply,
my phone went dead.

I glanced down at the phone. The message said there was no service. With a shaky hand,
I stuffed the phone back into my pocket.

“What’s wrong?” Blake
asked.

He couldn’
t see the face that I was looking at.

“
Do you know a woman named Evelyn Arlington?” I asked still looking up at the woman.

“Yes, she is the bitch
who gave that piece of garbage Stan an alibi.”

I
swallowed hard. Something wasn’t right. I didn’t know what was going on, but I had the feeling I was about to find out.

“
Why do you ask?” he said.

“
Because she is in the plantation staring out at me right now. She doesn’t look happy.”

“I’
ve had run-ins with her in the past. She doesn’t like people not sticking to the historical restoration codes. She always had a screw loose in my opinion,” Blake said.

“She’s a little obsessed,” I said.

He jumped up from the step. “Well, let’s go inside and see what she wants.”

Was she in there with Reed?
Did he know she was staring out the window at me? I walked up the steps and Blake followed me into the house. The rooms were dark since the sun was at the back of the house. Shadows loomed in every corner. I didn’t hear a sound, no footsteps or anything.

“
Reed, are you in here?” I called out. I didn’t yell loudly. For whatever reason, I felt like I needed to be quiet. What had Evelyn done with Reed? And where was my mother and Lacey?

“
Maybe we should go upstairs and confront her,” I said.

Blake
nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

Blake and I eased up the steps, o
ne by one, trying to keep the noise to a minimum. When we reached the top of the stars, I pointed to the first door and he nodded. We walked over to the bedroom and I eased the door open. I poked my head in just a bit, but the room was empty. We continued to every room, but no one was there.

When we reached the room at the front
of the house where I’d seen Evelyn looking out the window, I paused. Taking in a deep breath, I nodded at Blake. He mimicked my motion and on the mental count of three, I opened the door. I exhaled when I realized that room was empty. My emotions were mixed. At the same time I wanted to find Evelyn and I didn’t want to find her. What could I say? She might be small, but she was a very scary woman.

“She’s not here,”
I whispered. “This is the window where I saw her.”

“
Maybe she went downstairs.” Blake walked back to the door and peeked out.