The Wells Brothers: Luke (5 page)

Ignoring her niece, Elspeth scraped
up the last of the stew in her bowl.  “Up at seven, breakfast, hit the road by
eight, be in town by eight thirty, Mikki and I will meet with our man, then do
some shopping.  Be back here by about eleven.”

“Sounds good.  Gives me time to
hit the library and do some food shopping as well.”

“You don’t have to shop for food.”

Shit, he hadn’t brought much.  He
shifted a little uncomfortably.  “I just need to buy some.”

“I’m here now, Luke.  I’m buying
the food for us all.”

“I can’t expect you to supply my
food.”

“I’m your employer.  I can supply
whatever I like.”

Mikki grinned wryly.  “It’s the establishment.”

“Huh?” Luke stared at her.

“Never mind.  Just do as she says
and it’ll go smoother.”

“Exactly.”  Elspeth overrode his
protests happily.  “I provide the three meals a day.”

Lowering the spoon, he frowned. 
“I pay my way.”

Mikki folded her arms.  “This
should be good.”

“You are paying your way,” Elspeth
said.  “You’re here working.”

“You’re
paying
me to be
here.”

“Of course.”  She beamed.

“I can’t let you supply my food as
well!”

“Sweetie, don’t be difficult.  I’m
sure you won’t eat enough to make me destitute.”

“You never know.” Mikki studied
her nails.  “Have you seen him eat?”

“You stay out of it,” Luke said. 
“Elspeth, really, I don’t feel comfortable letting you supply my food.”

Elspeth simply stood up and
started collecting the bowls.  “I forgot to tell you that Mikki and I were
coming, so I obviously forgot to tell you that I was supplying the food for the
week.  Slipped my mind.” She smiled at her niece.  “I do forget some things
sometimes, don’t I?”

“Oh yeah.”  Mikki nodded, her eyes
laughing at Luke.  “What she said.”

It was more than obvious he wasn’t
going to win.  “Fine.  Then let me make a contribution-”

“Excellent.”  Elspeth placed the
bowls in the sink.  “You buy any snacks and drinks you like, and I’ll provide
you with the wholesome food to keep you bright and alert while working for me. 
So glad that’s sorted!”

Luke looked at Mikki.

She stood up.  “Sometimes you just
have to know which fights are worth picking.”

“I’m not taking you both for
granted,” he said.

“That’s a good boy, Luke.” 
Elspeth started filling the sink with hot water.  “Now grab a tea towel, dear.”

Mikki winked at him. 
“Contribution,
dear
.”

~*~

Holding the torch, Mikki looked at
her through the beam of light.  “Ready?”

“Absolutely.”  Elspeth nodded
eagerly.  “Now, this is just a recon mission.  No cameras, no thermometers.”

“Got it.”  Mikki tugged her shirt
down over her hips.

“I just want to get a feel for
this place in the night, see if we catch any vibes.”

“Good ones only, hopefully.” 
Mikki moved quickly and quietly out of the door and down the hallway, her
sneakers making no noise on the old wooden floor except for the occasional squeak
of a not quite secure floor board.

Elspeth brought up the rear
clutching her torch.

Pausing just outside Luke’s door,
they both listened.  His deep, even breaths sounded, along with the occasional
soft snore.  With a grin, Mikki peeked in to see him curled up on his side, the
blanket pulled over his head.

Aw, sweet.

Beside him on his blanket on the
floor, Dog thumped his tail and looked happily at her, making a move to stand.

“No,” she whispered.  “Down.”

Disappointed, he slumped back to
his position, looking at her a touch reproachfully.

Luke stirred, Mikki froze, and Dog
glanced back at the stretcher.  The man shifted, sighed and resettled.  Carefully,
she reached in to grab the door handle and pull the door shut, freezing again
at the squeal of the rusty hinge.  Luke muttered, one muscled arm flinging out
from under the covers as he rolled onto his back, his face turning the other
way on the pillow, his thick hair a charmingly tousled mess on the pillow.  Too
tall for the stretcher, his big feet clad in socks popped out from under the
blanket as he stretched.  With a deep breath, he resumed snoozing.

The man could sleep, she’d give
him that. If she was in a strange house and getting disturbed by noises, she’d
be out of her bed in a flash, but no, not Luke Wells.  He slept like the dead.

It was the dead, anyway, that she
and Elspeth were hunting this night, so she closed the door the remainder of
the way, the latch clicking into place.

Elspeth nodded in satisfaction. 
“Don’t want to disturb the dear boy, he works so hard.”

“All he did was roam the outside
of the mansion,” Mikki whispered back.

“I could practically see the cogs
in his head turning.  After dinner he was sitting with that sketchbook of his,
did you see?”

Mikki certainly had, there was no
escaping noticing the man sitting on the other side of the big, old table, his
sketchpad open before him, his big hand holding the pencil that stroked across
the page as he drew and shaded, using the rubber on the other end to rub out
something he wasn’t satisfied with before resuming work.  His smooth forehead
had frowned or smoothed out, depending on what he was thinking.

Must be some thought for a
landscaper to frown.

Her only thought at the time was
how he looked sprawled out over the sketchbook, one elbow on the table, the muscles
in his forearms flexing as he sketched.  His hair, freshly washed, had flopped
over his brow and several times he’d shoved it back with his hand, long fingers
combing through it.

It had almost been enough to
distract her from the book she’d been reading.  Almost.  It took a lot to
distract her from a book.

“Now that we won’t disturb him,
let’s get moving.”  Flicking on the torch she carried, Elspeth moved ahead.

In the beams of the torches the
doorways loomed darkly, the furniture appeared to crouch, and the subjects of
the paintings seemed to look disapprovingly down upon them as they moved past.

Moving out into the main room,
Mikki and Elspeth stopped, breathing slowly almost in unison, taking in the
atmosphere.  The room loomed, the soaring ceiling, the hulking furniture, the
smell of decay and dust in the air, even a touch of mould.  And dark, so very
dark.

Oppressive? 
Steady on, old
girl, don’t freak yourself out.
  Resisting the urge to flick the torchlight
around, Mikki studied the surroundings.  A chill was in the air, the sound of
wind whistling through unseen cracks in the walls. Movement across the room
caught her attention and she nudged Elspeth, who followed her gaze.  In the
darkness there was definite movement, as though something was expanding.

Elspeth raised the torch, the beam
showing the curtain covering one tall window billow out on one side and then
flutter continuously.  As one the women moved across the room towards the
curtain, both their torches trained on the material as it billowed once more.

Man, Mikki loved these moments as
much as they secretly sometimes terrified her.  The unknown, the thrill, the
discovery.  Was it a ghost, a spirit from beyond the grave or…

Definitely a chill in this spot,
colder than where they’d stood previously, but Mikki had been to a few haunted houses
and lock-ins, and without hesitation she reached out to pull the curtain aside.

Damn.  In the glass was a hole
through which blew a chill wind. Well, no spirit from the grave was fluttering
these curtains, it was just Mother Nature.

“One down,” Elspeth said. “Another
fifty heart attacks to go.”

Mikki grinned.  “Did you bring
some Aspirin?”

“What for?”

“If you get chest pain, don’t they
say take an Aspirin while calling an ambulance?”

“I don’t think cardiac failure
from sheer terror can be fixed with an Aspirin.”

Slowly, Mikki walked around the
outer edges of the room in a circle while Elspeth criss-crossed the room in
straight lines, or as straight as she could while skirting the dilapidated furniture.

Nothing appeared, much to their disappointment.

At the end of the big room was a
doorway that led into the small alcove which contained the staircase that wound
up to the tower above the third floor, but that was for later.  A big old
office opened off on the opposite side of the hallway, but a search of that
showed nothing out of the ordinary.  It did, however, hold a couple of
interesting items such as an old desk that was big enough to park a Mack truck
on, a huge wing-backed chair with cracked leather and the stuffing falling out
of it, an old lamp, and several libraries against the walls.

What Mikki really loved was the
wallpaper.  Gold-leaf print on a maroon background, it scream ‘Man of the
House’.  While it would never work in a small room in a modern house, in these
old fashioned, large rooms it fit well.  The main entry had pale green
wallpaper with gold leaf print.  It seemed to be a main part of the downstairs
areas.

Coming together at the foot of the
staircase, they looked up the length as it edged off into the darkness of the
second floor above.

“Staircases,” Elspeth murmured. 
“Classic places for ghosts to come down.”

There was not one ghost on the
staircase, but the chill still crept up Mikki’s legs beneath her jeans.  “Let’s
go.”

The stairs creaked beneath their
feet, seeming louder in the night than they had during the day.  Mikki stopped
when her breath frosted out, but before she could alert her aunt it
disappeared.  Okay, had it really been there, one of the tell-tale signs of a
spirit, or was it the angle of the torchlight catching the dust motes in the
air?

Tomorrow night, armed with an EDI
Meter containing an ambient thermometer, she’d find out.
 
Tonight was an exploratory role. Recon, as Aunt
Elspeth always said.  A time to just absorb atmosphere, rely on their senses
and yes, to be frank, also have a chill/thrill time.  Had to have some fun
along with business, life was too short not to enjoy it while you could.

Reaching the top of the staircase,
she turned to cast the beam down the length they’d ascended, studying it,
looking for anything odd before shifting the beam to sweep around the vast room
beyond, or as far as the torchlight would go.  Nope, nothing.

Gaze going back to the bottom of
the stairs, she wondered about the old man who had been found dead at the
bottom of the stairs clutching a photo of his long-gone family. Had he died
suddenly, slowly, his life fading before his eyes?  Had he thought of his
family?  Had regrets?  Wished he’d done things differently?  Or had he been so
mentally disturbed that he hadn’t known what was happening?

Sadness like that was fodder for
spirits.  Sadness drew spirits, and the places where people died were likely to
have spirits.

“Let’s head for the far side and
work our way back,” Elspeth suggested quietly.

Treading softly, they walked
around until they hit the far wall.  On one side was the wall and doorways to
rooms, on the other the rails to stop anyone from toppling down to the ground
floor.  Up ahead was a corridor that led to bedrooms.  The other side was
identical, expect some of the rooms had been made into sitting rooms and a
writing room.  Her favourite spot had to be the big library but she hadn’t had
time to linger in there, that was for another day.

Right now was ghost hunting.

The first bedroom was large.  A
dressing table that had collapsed onto two legs, the bed in the middle of the
room with the head against the wall holding mildewed covers that Elspeth was
planning to use as a pattern for new covers to be made based on the style.  Authenticity
was the name of the game.  Old world elegance with modern comforts.

Mikki looked at the bed.  Man,
people were shorter back in the day.  This bed wasn’t as long as her bed at
home, it seemed, or maybe it was a trick of the light.  On the little table
beside the bed was an old tiffany lamp, grimy from years of disuse.  Under it
was a doily of some kind.  Bending close, she studied it.  The fragile
stitching was faded and she wondered who had made it - the lady of the house? 
The daughter?  An aunt or cousin or grandma?  Female certainly, no man in that
bygone era apart from a tailor ever stitched that she knew of, unless it was a
servant or poor person mending his own shirt or socks if he didn’t have a woman
to do it for him.

Straightening, she noticed her aunt
at the window.  Elspeth had pulled the curtains back and was peering out into
the night.

Moving up beside her, flicking off
the torch, Mikki gazed through the window.  Trees shifted in the wind that
whipped through, sending leaves skittering along the ground.  Beyond the tree
tops she spotted something and she narrowed her eyes, trying to see more.  Was
that a roof of some kind?  A pointed roof?  So hard to see in the night, but
yes, she was sure it was a building of some kind.

“Apart from the old barn and
garage, what other buildings are out there?”

“The wash house, which also housed
the head laundry lady.  There were a few old shacks that were homes for the
gardener and some married workers, however they’ve been demolished a long time
ago.  But the direction you’re looking in?  That’s where the family chapel and
graveyard lie,” Elspeth replied.

That had Mikki’s interest perking
up.  “Now that I really want to see.”

“Me too.  We can check it out
after we do our hunt here.”

“Do you know the way there?”

“Not really…”

“I doubt we’ll find the pathway in
this dark.  After we get back from town tomorrow we could find the way, check
it out in the daylight then go back in the night.”

“Done deal.” Elspeth turned away. 
“Nothing in here, let’s continue.”