Shallow Graves (The Haunted Book 1) Read online

  In the morning, after the man…

  His eyes flicked upward again, but James Harlop was gone, having receded deeper into the Harlop Estate.

  As he made his way quickly around the side of the building post-haste, his shoes sticking in the sloppy mud as he pulled Amy along with him, his thoughts drifted to Ruth inside, alone, reading in the fireplace room.

  Should I…?

  Amy stumbled, and he bent down to pull her out of the mud. Like Robert’s clothes, her jeans and t-shirt—the same ones she had been wearing ever since Sean Sommers had knocked on their door with the letter—were covered in brown stains.

  As they made it toward the front of the Harlop Estate, the rain pelted them relentlessly, as if trying to impede their progress toward Robert’s Mazda. The rain was so powerful at one point that Robert had no choice but to turn his face back toward the house.

  His gaze first fell on the cracked steps, then the massive wooden door, before coming to rest on the weak light coming from the room in the front, the one that Ruth was reading in.

  With his eyes trained on that window, he continued to move toward his car, which was parked in the center of the roundabout drive.

  She’ll be okay. It’s her husband, she’ll be fine.

  But when a shadow passed in front of the light, he suddenly felt a pang of guilt.

  It’s not my problem; my job is to save Amy.

  “Daddy?” Amy said, drawing him back out of his head.

  Robert looked down at her, and only then did he realize that they had stopped walking.

  “Let’s go,” he said, starting to move again. Less than a minute later, they finally made it to his Mazda and he pulled the rear door open. Without a word, Amy hopped inside. Robert shut her door and then got into the driver’s seat, not caring that their wet bodies were soaking the upholstered seats.

  I’ll call. I’ll call the police.

  Robert teased his cell phone out of the pocket of his drenched jeans and wiped away some of the water with his hand. The screen was soaked, but thankfully it still turned on.

  He thumbed 9-1-1 and hit send.

  Nothing happened.

  “What the hell?”

  The cell phone showed zero bars, but Robert was under the impression that you could make emergency calls from pretty much anywhere in the USA. That 9-1-1 always worked.

  He tried again, but the screen went black, and it refused to turn on again.

  “Fuck!” he swore, momentarily forgetting that Amy was in the backseat.

  Evidently the rain had ruined his phone, or 9-1-1 worked everywhere in the US except for Hainsey County.

  Except for at the fucking Harlop Estate.

  His eyes darted back toward the house. He could no longer see movement in the front window, and he was beginning to doubt the shadow he had seen earlier.

  After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time that his eyes had played tricks on him.

  A lightning flash illuminated the brick exterior of the house, revealing every one of the millions of nooks and crannies and crevices that marked the whitewashed surface in amazing clarity.

  “Daddy?” Amy suddenly asked. Robert’s eyes flicked up at her in the rearview. “Are we leaving, Daddy?”

  Robert chewed his lip.

  Fuck.

  He looked down at Mr. Gregorius, forgetting that he still had the animal clutched tightly in his hand. After a moment of contemplation, he reached back and handed it to his daughter, who quickly grabbed it. The animal’s wet body slopped as she squeezed it and a smile graced her pretty face.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  Robert couldn’t leave Ruth in there with a homicidal maniac. Not if it was her husband, brother, lover, or a fucking apparition…it didn’t matter who or what it was.

  He just couldn’t do it.

  With a sigh, he put his hand on the door handle, but a moment before pulling it wide, he turned back to Amy.

  “I want you to stay here, Amy. Stay in this car, and don’t come out no matter what. Stay low, stay quiet. In the morning, if…”

  He let his sentence trail off.

  If I don’t come back, and then what?

  Then he remembered his conversation with Cal.

  “If I don’t come back, Uncle Cal will come get you in the morning. Listen to Cal. You can trust him.”

  Something dark passed over her heart-shaped face.

  “If you don’t come back? Why wouldn’t you come back, Daddy?”

  Robert shook his head and opened the door to the roaring rain. He stepped outside and then looked back at his daughter.

  “Please, Amy. Just stay inside. No matter what, stay inside the car.”

  When she nodded, dripping water onto her arms that were wrapped tightly around Mr. Gregorius, he felt his heart break. No girl should be without her mother, and yet he was putting her at risk of losing her father as well by heading back inside and confronting a would-be child murderer.

  His mind flicked to the dark pools that had been Patricia’s eyes.

  Is—is a child murderer. Patricia never fell off that roof. No matter what Ruth says, her daughter’s death was no accident.

  Robert felt his mind waver, again reconsidering the best course of action, what would be best for Amy.

  But then a scream, a throaty, guttural cry, cut through the rain and wind, and his mind was made up for him.

  “I love you, Amy,” he said before closing the door. “I love you so much.”

  And then Robert ran back toward the Harlop Estate.

  Chapter 22

  The interior of the house was silent, as quiet as it had been when he had first arrived hand in hand with Amy, debating whether or not they should follow Ruth inside. The old leaden windows did a surprisingly good job at keeping the sound of the rain out, reducing even that to a dull, forgettable pitter-patter.

  Robert went to the sitting room first, his sopping shoes squishing so loudly that they made the notion of sneaking up on James out of the question.

  Ruth’s rusted wheelchair was where he had last seen it, but it was empty. Her book was closed and lying beside it. His eyes darted around the room, and it was all he could do to keep his gaze from lingering on the photographs on the mantle. He needed no further affirmation that the two people on the roof had been Ruth’s daughter and husband.

  Both of whom were dead.

  No, not Patricia…it was Amy. I caught Amy.

  Robert was about to leave the room and head upstairs when his eyes fell on the myriad of wrought iron tools standing upright beside the long condemned fireplace.

  Remembering the way that the man on the roof had pushed Amy off without hesitation, and the sheer size of him, his outline thick and tall like a linebacker, Robert was suddenly struck with the notion that perhaps it might be best if he had something to protect himself with. If he had hesitations about what Landon Underhill might do to him if confronted, then dealing with James Harlop emptyhanded was out of the question.

  As quietly as possible given his soaking shoes, Robert made his way to the fireplace and inspected the tools. All of them were covered in a layer of dust, and they were wrapped together in the circular holder in such a way that he couldn’t tell which handle belonged to which tool. The first one he grabbed and pulled out was a broom. He quickly jammed it back into the holder, cringing at the clanging metal-on-metal sound that it made. His hand closed on another handle—all of which were the same—just as he heard a muffled cry from somewhere far above him.

  The thin veneer of calm that had befallen him suddenly broke, and without even looking—please don’t be a shovel or scoop—at what fireplace tool he had grabbed, he yanked it out and hurried toward the bottom of the stairs. He hesitated, only for a split second, but then the sound came again and he was spurred to action.

  It wasn’t a cry, he realized, but a gasp. As if someone was struggling to breathe with a pillow on their face.

  Ruth is being smothered.

  A quick glance reve
aled that the wrought iron tool gripped in his white knuckles was the poker.

  Finally, something that went right.

  As Robert bounded up the stairs, he shifted from dragging the tool to flipping it over his shoulder like a prehistoric man lumbering along with a club. But while his appearance matched the ferocity of such a man, inside his stomach was aflutter.

  He wasn’t even sure that he would be able to actually strike someone with it, no matter the circumstances.

  Robert made his way toward Ruth’s room first, his pace slowing as he approached the half-open door. He became distinctly aware that the gasping and wheezing sounds that he had heard as he mounted the stairs were actually becoming less audible as he neared.

  He didn’t want to think about what that meant.

  Taking a deep breath and steeling himself with courage he didn’t know he possessed, Robert put his left hand against the door, aiming the poker in his right straight ahead, and shoved the door wide.

  The scene before him was so shocking that he almost dropped the poker. At the last second he caught it, but his grip was off balance, and the tip fell to the hardwood, making a thick thock sound as it embedded itself in the wood.

  James Harlop was hunched over the bed, his back to Robert. But in response to the sound, he slowly began to move, turning to face Robert, his thin hair soaked with rain. Like when he had seen Patricia Harlop in the basement—a hallucination, not real—the man’s eyes were a dark black that filled his entire sockets. His mouth, but a thin line beneath the bushy reddish mustache, was twisted into a horrible sneer, spit mixing with the rain and dripping from his lower lip. The thin skin on his forehead was tight and crinkled as if holding his expression was incredibly taxing.

  Robert glanced around James Harlop’s head and he quickly affirmed his worst nightmare.

  The man’s hands—thick, gnarled mitts of a laborer—were wrapped tightly around Ruth’s throat. Ruth’s eyes were completely red, and there was a speckling of broken vessels around her eyes that stood out on her face, which had acquired an unnatural bluish hue. The woman didn’t seem to notice Robert—she was too far gone to realize much of anything.

  James opened his mouth to say something, but instead of words coming out, his mouth just kept getting larger and larger, much like Patricia’s had in the basement. It was disgusting, horrific, but it was also somehow hypnotic. Robert found himself staring into the abyss, but the deeper he looked, the more he realized that there was something in there. Squinting, he tried to focus on the flashes of white and blue. It took him a moment to realize that it looked like an ocean, or some body of water, with small waves lapping the shore. He thought he could even hear the sound of the sea.

  Ruth suddenly gurgled, bringing Robert back.

  Real or not, Robert couldn’t, wouldn’t, let this man murder Ruth. Without thinking, he lunged forward.

  For such a big man, James Harlop was quick. He released his grip on Ruth’s throat and spun toward him. His massive hands went out in front of him, preparing for Robert’s attack. But before they reached each other, lightning suddenly illuminated the otherwise dim room.

  Robert lunged again.

  When the thunder followed, it took the lights with it, leaving all three of them in complete and utter darkness. Robert, perspiration beading on his already soaked forehead, panicked and swung the fireplace poker in a long, sweeping arc. It struck something hard, sending a shockwave up his hands and wrists. The hard surface suddenly gave way, which was quickly followed by a grotesque slurping sound.

  Then the lights flicked back on and Robert screamed.

  Chapter 23

  James was gone and the poker was embedded in Ruth Harlop’s skull. Either of these facts alone should have been enough to break Robert.

  Even with the lights out, there was no way that James could have gotten by him and out the door without bumping into him. And the window beside Ruth’s bed was still closed.

  Robert’s face melted and he collapsed to his knees and started to cry.

  “No,” he moaned. Like a child, he spied Ruth Harlop through the cracks in the fingers that covered his face.

  The woman’s eyes had rolled back completely in her head, and her mouth was slack. Spit was drying on her chin, and her face was nearly completely purple. The poker, the side piece, the hook used to maneuver burning wood in a fire, was lodged in the left side of her head, just a couple of inches above her temple. Part of her skull on that side was pushed inward slightly, rendering the shape of her head more oblong than round.

  There was less blood than he would have thought; the initial impact had sent a speckled geyser across the pillow and then on the hardwood, but it wasn’t far enough to hit the far wall. A thick line of the dark substance coated the side of her face, and there was a fist-sized pool on the pillow that seemed viscous, saturated.

  The sight of the blood made his stomach flip.

  “Where—where did you go?” he blubbered. Like a crazed person, his eyes darted about the room, trying to figure out how it was possible that James was no longer in here with him.

  He had been here, Robert was sure of it. He had been strangling Ruth, his wife, Robert’s aunt, and Robert…he had wanted to save her. All he’d wanted to do was save Ruth, Amy, his wife…and himself.

  Weeping, his arms suddenly felt too heavy, and they fell from his face to his sides, the backs of his hands smacking limply on the hardwood.

  “Why?”

  The word was only answered by the rain plodding against the heavy windowpanes.

  After a while, a long while, Robert somehow managed to haul himself to his feet. His whirring, pragmatic mind had made no headway on trying to figure out what had happened. But he knew that he couldn’t stay here, on the floor, crying, especially not while Amy was out in the car alone.

  And he couldn’t leave Ruth here, like this, either.

  Robert checked his cell phone again, and was offered momentary relief when it actually turned on. But he still couldn’t dial out.

  Slowly, he made his way to Ruth’s body, trying to only look at her out of the corner of his eye. She was dead, that much was certain; in fact, Robert thought that she might have been dead even before being struck in the head, which might explain the lack of extreme blood splatter.

  His rational mind kicked in again.

  Would the autopsy prove that? Could a pathologist be one hundred percent sure that she was already dead before I brained her?

  His thoughts turned to the police officer, Officer Dwight, the sympathetic man who had delivered the news about Wendy, and imagined explaining the scenario to him.

  So, your wife left you with a pile of bills that you couldn’t pay? And then your house foreclosed?

  Yes.

  And then, let me get this right, you say that a man you have never seen before shows up at your door and hands you a letter?

  That’s correct.

  Okay, good. I just want to make sure that I’m following along correctly. So in this letter, there is a message from an aunt that you’ve never heard of…

  Yes.

  …and in this letter, from this aunt you never met, she promises that if you take care of her on her death bed, she will give you her mansion after she dies?

  Yes, I know—

  Convenient, isn’t it?

  It’s the truth.

  Okay, okay. Imagine I buy this entire story. So what happened next? How did we end up here, with Aunt Ruth lying dead in the bed with a poker sticking out of the side of her head?

  The rest of the story would sound even more insane…dead girl in the basement with a rat, a dead man pushing his daughter off the roof…

  No, he couldn’t just call the police. If he had been worried about leaving Amy an orphan by confronting James Harlop, contacting the police would render this a near certainty.

  Robert swallowed hard and mustered up the courage to go right up to the bed. Pressing his lips together tightly in case the urge to vomit overcame him, he
stared down at Ruth Harlop’s face, her bluish skin so thin in places that he thought he could see the gleaming white bones beneath.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  And then he made up his mind.

  No police officer would believe his account of what had happened. Robert wasn’t even sure he believed it.

  He would have to take matters in his own hands…there was no other option.

  Robert averted his eyes and grabbed the poker. It came free much easier than he had expected. What followed was a horrible wheezing sound, like a vacuum inside Ruth’s head had been released, and it was all he could do to avoid glancing at the gaping wound that had been left behind.

  Gently placing the poker on the ground, he turned his attention to her body next.

  Trying to convince himself that it was just a body, just like seeing Wendy first at the morgue, then in her coffin, he swallowed continuously, prepared to move his face away in case he felt the need to puke.

  This tactic staved off any sickness, at least for now. With a gulp of fresh air, Robert reached across the frail woman’s corpse and grabbed the sheet on the other side of the bed. With a quick yank, he pulled the two sides together, wrapping Ruth’s body in a loose cocoon.

  “I’m sorry,” Robert said again, only this time he wasn’t sure if his words were directed at Ruth or at himself.

  Chapter 24

  Ruth Harlop was much lighter than Robert would have thought, even given her emaciated form. After all, he was an accountant, and the majority of his exercise came from lugging three-ring binders around and not bodies wrapped in sheets. Still, he had little problem hoisting the woman’s body over his shoulder like some sort of cannibal’s picnic blanket. Even getting to the stairs wasn’t all that difficult, and adrenaline fueled him to the bottom landing. After a short rest, he dragged Ruth’s corpse across the front hall and peered cautiously out the window beside the door.

  Robert was only greeted by the sight of more rain. Still coming down hard, he could barely make out his own car, the lights off now, parked just a couple dozen steps from the last of the dilapidated cement stairs.