The Uninvited. Heather Graham

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      4

      Tyler stood in the attic of the Tarleton-Dandridge House looking at the disarray.

      Someone had been searching—for what?

      He wanted to straighten up the room; it was far easier to figure out what was missing when everything else was in the right place. He’d need to involve others with that, which he didn’t want to do quite yet. He’d had offers from the board to come in and help, but he’d turned them down. He’d actually lied to Nathan Pierson, telling him he preferred to wait until he was sure the police were finished with their forensics before bringing anyone else in.

      The police were finished. And after speaking with Detective Jenson, he knew they weren’t expecting to find anything useful, unless by some unlikely chance they were to lift foreign prints—those not associated with the four guides or the board members, whose prints they’d already taken. If they were really lucky, they’d come up with prints belonging to someone with a criminal record.

      He wanted to work with Allison Leigh for the obvious reasons. She was the one who’d found the body and who knew this house backward and forward, along with the history. He’d gone through the biographies and résumés of the employees and the board, and there was no one better qualified to help him than Allison. She was in denial right now; he assumed that would change.

      So far, although he had a sense of being watched in the house, Tyler hadn’t seen a single movement, felt a brush of cold air or even heard an old board creak.

      The house was waiting—or those within it were. Waiting and watching.

      He left the attic and walked back down to the second floor, taking a few minutes to go into every room. He’d been glad to hear from Nathan Pierson that there was no plan by the board to give up the house. It was on the national historic register, of course, so there was virtually no threat that it would be bulldozed. Meticulously restored, the Tarleton-Dandridge House was one of the finest examples of early Americana he’d ever seen. It would be a shame if it was closed to the public to become the offices of an accounting agency or a bank.

      Tyler paused at Lucy Tarleton’s room. He walked inside to look at the painting of Beast Bradley.

      Here, as Tyler had observed before, he was portrayed as a thoughtful man. He appeared to be strong, but almost saddened by the weight of responsibility. He’d been a man with well-arranged features, handsome in youth.

      Interesting.

      Next he studied the painting of a young and innocent Lucy Tarleton, a woman as yet untouched by death and bloodshed. He noted that there was something about Lucy’s eyes that made him think of Allison. There was definitely a resemblance, although it was true that many young women, dressed as Lucy, might look like the long-gone heroine.

      Tyler stood very still, allowing himself to feel the house.

      Again he experienced the sensation of being watched, but there were no sounds from the old place, nor did he see anything or notice any drafts.

      He headed down to the study where he’d left his briefcase with his computer and the records Adam had arranged for him to receive.

      They recorded many instances of normal life and death—many births had taken place in the house, although sadly two of the mothers had died in childbirth. A number of people had died in their beds of natural causes, one Dandridge at the grand old age of a hundred and five.

      During the War of 1812, Sophia Tarleton-Dandridge and her husband had owned the house; they’d taken in a wounded soldier and he had passed away. He was buried with the family in the graveyard behind the stables. A family friend had come to the house after the Battle of Gettysburg. He was also buried in the family graveyard.

      Sad and tragic deaths due to warfare, Tyler thought. Not unexpected and not the kind of thing that would produce anything terrible.

      But then, Beast Bradley had been the terror that touched the house....

      Looking further into the family history, Tyler saw that another death had been that of a young Dandridge girl in 1863. He wondered if she’d been in love with the Civil War soldier who’d died. She’d taken rat poison and killed herself soon after his death.

      He shuddered. Hard way to die, rat poison.

      And another hard way to die—a bayonet through the chin. He tried to imagine how it had happened. Julian had sat down, his musket held between his legs. He’d leaned forward and set the soft flesh behind his jawbone on the blade of the bayonet. Then he’d lowered his head with enough force for the blade to go through that soft flesh and his throat? It seemed almost impossible.

      Unless he’d been helped.

      Fascinating though the historical events were, Tyler was more interested in Julian’s death and the deaths of people who had died closer to the present. There’d been several of those, starting in the late 1970s.

      One of the docents, Bill Hall, had been found at the foot of the staircase. While closing up at night, he’d apparently tripped and fallen down the stairs, landing at an angle that had snapped his neck.

      Eight years ago, a college student, Sam Daily, had told friends he was going to break into a historic house and rearrange a few items as a joke. It hadn’t gone so well; he’d tried to dismantle the alarm and a wire had shorted out, sending electric volts shooting through him. He’d been discovered on the ground near the back door the following morning.

      Tragically the joke had been on him.

      Just three years ago, another of the older docents or tour guides, Angela Wilson, had been found dead in Tarleton’s study. She’d been sitting in the same chair, in the same position, as Julian Mitchell. She had died of a massive heart attack.

      One death from a fall, one from electrocution and one from what might well be a perfectly natural cause for someone of Angela’s age, a heart attack.

      And now a man dead of a bayonet shoved through his throat—as if he’d set his own chin atop it for the blade to run through.

      Tyler drummed his fingers on the desk.

      He was here because of Adam Harrison. Adam had a love of and connection to various historic properties. Technically, the Krewes were Adam’s teams, so they went where Adam Harrison requested they go. Everything that had happened here could have been natural or accidental.

      But Adam had a knack of knowing when things weren’t right.

      Add in the trashing of the small office in the attic….

      Someone had been looking for something. What? And why?

      And how did any of it relate to the fact that Artie Dixon was in a coma?

      Tyler СКАЧАТЬ