Dawn Brown - The Ghosts Of Cragera Bay

To be fair, she and Meyers were the woman’s only customers. There wasn’t much else for her to focus on.

How long until this café went the way of so many of the other businesses in the village? Months? Weeks? Days? Cragera Bay was diminishing as if it were slowly folding into itself until it disappeared completely. The discovery of a trio of murderers hunting in the area for more than two decades, killing countless men and women, seemed to have chased away tourists and locals alike.

“I appreciate you agreeing to meet me, Mr. Meyers,” Carly said, shifting in her seat to keep from putting any weight on her bad ankle. You jerk!

He flashed an insincere smile. “It’s my pleasure.”

“Why don’t I begin by telling you a little about my research and how The Devil’s Eye factors in?”

Meyers held up his hand, silencing her. “I’m not interested. I didn’t agree to meet you to hear about your research, and you’re not getting anywhere near my property.”

She stiffened. “Why did you invite me here?”

“Because I want you to stop.”

He’d dragged her out here and nearly broken her ankle for this? “I beg your pardon.”

“Stop asking people about Stonecliff and ghosts and murders and evil entities and God knows what else.”

“You know about the murders?” she asked.

“Of course, I do,” he said, as if she’d asked the stupidest question he’d ever heard.

“Just about the men found in The Devil’s Eye, or the other murders, too?”

He frowned, his expression turning shuttered. He didn’t know what she was talking about. “Ruth Bigsby, your father’s nurse, murdered two people, tried to kill one of your sisters and frame the other.” He opened his mouth to respond, but she pushed on before he could. “That means Stonecliff had four people killing on the property, one acting completely independent of the others. Don’t you find that odd?”

“Of course, but I doubt very much it’s the result of ghosts.”

The cynical derision in his tone fed her gathering temper. She clenched her jaw and mentally counted to one thousand. “I don’t think ghosts did it, either. I do believe there is a possibility that a high level geomagnetic energy may be a large factor in the phenomena reported on your property.”

Meyers rolled his eyes and took a swig from his coffee. “See that right there, that’s what you need to stop.”

“Mr. Meyers, if you would just let me bring in a team to investigate—”

He snorted. “That’s never going to happen. Not alone. Not with a team. Not in a box. Not with a fox.”

“I see you’re a fan of the classics.”

“I need to sell that house. What I don’t need is some new-age flake asking questions about ghosts and murder cults and magic energy.”

She wrapped her hands tightly around her teacup, half-surprised the thin china didn’t shatter in her grip. Narrow-minded ignoramuses really shouldn’t be able to get under her skin after so many years working in a field few people took seriously, but they did. He did.

“Mr. Meyers, several reliable witnesses experienced phenomena inside your home, at the bog, your own sisters among them.”

He drew in a deep breath and released it slowly as if struggling with his own battle for control. “These women, my sisters, are strangers. I don’t care what they experienced, and if they think sending you to slow down my chances of unloading the estate will get them anything—”

Laughter bubbled up her throat before she could stop it. “Believe me, your sisters want no part of Stonecliff.”

“Lucky for them, no part is what they got.”

She blinked at his animosity. He hadn’t even met these women.

“It’s not my intention to hinder the sale of Stonecliff,” she told him.

“Maybe not, but that’s the result.”

“You don’t think the dead men they hauled out of the bog might be the reason that you’re not having to beat off a long line of potential buyers? How many bodies have they found now? At least twelve, but I thought there’d been three more since the arrests.” She squinted as if struggling to remember.

“Pieces of three,” he admitted, grudgingly. “Look, the murders are hard enough to get past, but you running around claiming the place is haunted makes everything harder.”

“ I’m not claiming anything. Are you telling me you haven’t experienced anything unusual at Stonecliff? No voices? No strange smells? No shadows with red eyes?”

“No such thing.” His gaze held hers. His expression remained inscrutable, but the muscle at his jaw flicked.

He’d seen something at Stonecliff, even if he didn’t want to believe it himself.

“You can’t stop me from asking questions.”

“No, I can’t, but I’m asking you to. Think about it this way—the sooner I sell the place, the sooner you can hassle some other poor sucker into letting you onto the property to hunt for ghosts.”

She really was beginning to dislike the man. The throb in her ankle flared as if to drive home that point. “That’s not what I’m doing. I can help you.”

“I doubt it,” he said, shaking his head. He pushed back his chair, legs scraping the tile floor and stood.

“Wait,” she called when he started to turn away. He faced her, his expression impatient. “Your sister, Eleri, asked me to tell you to be careful of Hugh Warlow and not to trust him.”

Meyers chuckled humorlessly. “He said the same thing about her.”

* * *

Declan left the café shaking his head. He’d given it his best shot, but he didn’t believe for a second he’d seen the last of Carly Evans. Gauging the glint in the woman’s stormy gray eyes, she’d be back.

So not what he needed.

He sighed, shoved his windblown hair back from his face and started for his car. Despite all attempts to appear nonchalant, meeting with the woman had unnerved him. He’d expected Carly Evans, parapsychologist, to be different—pale skin and dressed in black, rings glittering on every finger or maybe some time-displaced hippie—rather than the very attractive woman in tweed pants and a white blouse beneath her blazer. His imagined version would have been much easier to dismiss.

Tall, slender, caramel-colored hair pulled back from the soft lines of her face, she’d been more attractive than he’d expected, too. Not that it mattered. She could have been a Victoria’s Secret model and he still wouldn’t let her hunt for ghosts on his land.

His land. The idea that Stonecliff was his still caught him like a kick to the gut. That he was here, in this place he’d sworn he’d never come to, was surreal. It was amazing what greed could make him do. Not greed. Desperation.

Once he reached the battered Land Rover he’d left parked in the lot near the water, he climbed in behind the wheel. There was only one other car, a silver Ford Focus. Probably Carly’s.

“Shit,” he whispered, through his teeth. She’d twisted her ankle pretty good on the jetty, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it. He should drive back to the café and offer her a ride to her car.

He was in no hurry to spend more time with the woman. Her questions had left him cold—especially the ones about shadows and red eyes—and he didn’t want her to confuse an act of common decency as a chance to change his mind. But he wasn’t enough of a prick to leave her to limp all the way to her car.

He drove back to the café, following the route he’d walked. There was no sign of Carly on the empty sidewalks. When he reached the restaurant, he pulled up to the curb, hopped out and stuck his head in the door.

The woman behind the counter set down her book and looked at him above her pink-framed glasses, eyebrows lifting. “Is there something I can help you with, love?”