Karen Harper - Chasing Shadows

“So you’ve driven this stretch a lot.”

“Lately, yes. About two years ago, Francine hired me as a backup lawyer for the estate, so I’ve been back and forth. She still retains her longtime family lawyer who did her will, too, but he’s quite elderly and has been ill, so I’m slowly taking over. I can’t see hiring a plane when I can drive it in half a day. Look, Claire, I don’t want to alarm you, but I swear the white car behind us has been following us and he’s driving too damn close. No—don’t turn around. Just look in your side rearview mirror. Speaking of hoodies, it seems the driver’s wearing one, but it’s a warm day, and in a car...”

“I wish Heck had followed us. Want me to call him, see how far ahead he is, if you really think—”

“Wait. Maybe I’m wrong. The guy is going to pass us, I think. Must have been my imagination about some kind of nut or road rage. But—What the hell!”

They were on the outside lane on the elevated bridge over the water. The white car came abreast of them and swerved close. Nick jerked the wheel, moved them nearer to the edge. The barrier between them and a fall was barely door-handle high.

“Nick! Nick, look at him—the driver!” Claire cried and sucked in a ragged breath. “Am I—am I seeing that?”

Nick twisted his neck for an instant. Within a dark hoodie—no, a black shroud—was the pale, elongated and contorted face of a demon from an old horror movie. Claire screamed.

If that fiend face shoved them any farther, they were going off the edge.

6

Instead of trying to outrun the car or slam into it, Nick glanced behind and hit the brakes. Drop back! Get the idiot’s rear license plate...

But the other vehicle dropped back even slower, moved over, hid behind another vehicle—a big UPS truck, which blew the horn at the shifting confusion. Nick swore under his breath and accelerated. Claire craned around to try to see the white car in the spew of water from their car and the truck.

“I don’t see it now,” she said, her voice shaking. “Should I call 9-1-1 or the highway patrol number?”

“I can’t block a lane or go back. Maybe he’ll get off at the next exit. And what would we say? There’s some nut who thinks it’s Halloween over a month early, some damned kid, and, by the way, we don’t have his license plate, not even sure of the make of the white car. Or someone’s en route to an audition for a slasher movie like that old one, can’t think of its name.”

“It—it reminded me of that painting. I can’t think of its name, either. Actually, it brings back some of the cataplexic nightmares I used to have where I thought I saw dead people stalking me, leaning over me. Do you think it’s some sort of warning to us?”

“I think it’s some SOB jerk who just happened to choose us—and probably some others here where it’s elevated and scary. I’m not stopping, but I’ll contact the highway patrol later to report it and see if anyone else saw the same thing.”

He shook his head and flexed his hands on the wheel. “Maybe we’ve both fallen asleep together and had a bad dream,” he tried to joke, but it came out flat.

“You okay?” he asked. “I still can’t believe that happened.”

“More or less okay. You know, a lot of places are now giving ghost tours. I read St. Augustine is. Maybe he was loose from one of those—or driving home from some Disney haunted-house job and he thinks it’s funny to freak people out.”

He could tell she, too, was trying to make light of it. He appreciated the fact she was made of pretty stern stuff, so now or never.

“In the autopsy report,” he said, wishing his pounding heart would calm down, “you noticed Francine was found on her bedroom floor near the French doors that opened onto the balcony. Actually, it’s a wide gallery that goes around all four sides of the mansion on the second floor.”

“Yes. I thought that was an interesting, very specific detail.”

“I think the ME included it for a reason. I was going to tell you later, but considering what happened, I’d better mention that Shadowlawn is supposed to be haunted—but not by some moron in a car. One of Francine’s ancestors threw herself off the gallery to her death from those French doors.”

“Oh, that’s awful. Then there’s a history of suicide in the family! And that woman supposedly haunts the place? People have seen her ghost?”

“Both Francine and Jasmine say they have. There’s a second one—ghost—supposedly on the premises, one whose story is evidently unrelated. Some kind of overseer was hanged from one of the huge live oaks there on the front lawn, evidently lynched for murdering the owner after the Civil War, maybe late 1800s. When you interview some of the house staff—well, they’ll bring it up. It’s in that history book of the house, too.”

“I saw the mention of an early, violent death, but it didn’t say much else. I really don’t believe in psychic phenomena. As I told you, once I got over thinking I saw dead people and learned it was just my meds and my disease, I was so relieved. Is there a possibility that Francine or Jasmine are unstable or taking some other kind of meds that could make them delusional?”

“If so, their female ancestors and estate workers were, too. Jasmine said once that only the women in the family see the woman on the balcony. The other ghost supposedly wanders the grounds and riverbank at night and has been seen by at least one of the men you’ll interview—Gates. Be sure to ask about that when you talk to him. And the artist Win Jackson.”

She dug out the interviewee list. She’d merely skimmed it because it was only names and titles. “By the artist, you mean the photographer, Dr. Winston Jackson, PhD.”

“Right. His photos are works of art. Wait until you see them.”

“And the house manager Neil Costa and the groundskeeper guy, Bronco Gates? Bronco, really? A cowboy in North Florida?”

“He busts St. Johns River gators and Everglades pythons, not horses, but I’m going to let you make your own judgments on all of them.”

“‘Stranger and stranger,’ said Alice in Wonderland.”

“Yeah. Shadowlawn and its people are a world unto themselves, maybe more like that Wizard of Oz movie.”

“Ever read the book that came from, a children’s novel? My mother read it to us. It’s darker and scarier than the movie by a long shot. Darcy and I used to have bad dreams over it. Crows trying to peck out eyes, horrible spiders. A lot more than just those flying monkeys. That kind of book and those grotesque fairy tales with ogres and wolves in the woods haunted us.”

They were both silent after that. Even when the sun finally broke through, Nick felt a chill. He should tell her more, warn her about some things, but then he’d be not only prejudicing a witness to whatever might happen, but he might scare her off.

* * *

St. Augustine charmed Claire from the first. It seemed compact and welcoming with the small-town ambience that Naples had outgrown. The old, historic part of town where they’d be staying was lovely, with restaurants, shops, a walking mall and Spanish architecture. St. A, as Nick called it, laid claim to being the oldest continually occupied European settlement in the United States, since the Spanish had settled it—the signs boasted—in 1513.

As they took advantage of the valet parking at the hotel on the bay, the sun devoured the shroud of rain and their unease from what they’d been calling the attack of “Fiend Face.” Nick checked both of them in at the Bayfront Hilton, telling her he had some calls to make, including Heck, his home office, the Seminole County Highway Patrol and Jasmine. He said he’d meet Claire in the lobby in an hour and a half, gave her his room number and sent her upstairs with a valet he’d already tipped.