The Wells Brothers: Luke Read online

  “Sun’s not down yet,” Mikki said. “And wow, no fun or larks.”

  Always a smart mouth. He shot her a look.

  “I’m sorry.” She smiled sweetly. “Do continue, Professor.”

  “Now, dear.” Elspeth tapped the table lightly. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Change of subject. Luke, tomorrow we’re driving into town to talk to the antique and art restorer and organise a time for him and his assistant to come out and have a look at things. While there, we’re going to pick up a few things. Do you want to come?”

  Seeing as how he’d intended to do some shopping in town while researching the property in the library, Luke asked cautiously, “What’s your time frame?”

  “Man of business,” Mikki muttered, drowning her words in Milo.

  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.”

  The second room was similar to the first, only the wallpaper in this one was curling off the wall, hanging in strips to the floor, big pieces missing from the walls.

  “Kind of like skin peeled back in strips,” Elspeth whispered in her ear.

  “Thank you very much for that visual.” Mikki ran the beam over the room. “Man, this room is more dilapidated than the rest of the house. You sure people have lived here since? Because I’m telling you, it looks like no one has lived here for years.”

  “Early on, dear, when the owner first passed away. They never stayed long, so it’s been deserted for about twenty years.”

  “Some of this place looks like it was never touched since the 1800s.”

  “You’re right.” Elspeth played the light over the walls. “Maybe the renters didn’t get around to changing things.”

  “Why not? You rent something like this, you’re going to change things, get rid of the rot and such, not leave it up here.”

  “It does look like a lot of this stuff is from the original owner’s time.” Elspeth rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe the people who rented liked it.”

  “Enough to leave it to rot?”

  “Or maybe they didn’t have permission to move things. Or maybe they just didn’t care enough.”

  “You rent, you want to live decently.”

  “It is a little odd, but then maybe the furniture wasn’t so bad back then.”

  “Huh.”

  Placing her hand on the bed head, Elspeth gave it a small shake. “Sturdy as. I bet some of this furniture can be rejuvenated for use for the gu
ests.”

  Mikki pulled a face. “Sleep in a dead person’s bed?”

  “Sweetie, we don’t know that anyone died in this house.”

  “The old man did.”

  “I mean in this bed.”

  “Women died all the time in childbirth.”

  “This is a single room, Mik. Look around.” Elspeth gestured with the torch, the light flickering over the walls. “Single women didn’t have kids back then, only married ones, or loose women or those poor souls who got up the duff and were then left stranded. I would think that those generally weren’t in a fine house like this. The lady of the house gave birth in her double bed.”

  “And the loose women? Or shamed ones?”

  “I don’t think there was any scandal like that attached to this mansion.”

  “Ah, but we don’t know for sure, right?” Anticipation crawled through Mikki. “There could be a hidden diary here somewhere, or notations in the library. This place could reek of shame and scandal that remains hidden to this day.”

  Elspeth flashed a grin. “The Victorian times hid a lot of scandal.”

  “Man, it’d be great if we could dig up some juicy gossip.” Mikki braced one hand on her hip as she looked at the bed. “If we could find out stories about the servants, the people who lived here, pair them with photos and put them up on the wall as informative history on the house for the guests to read and see, they’d be good conversation pieces, don’t you think?”

  Elspeth tapped her chin thoughtfully. “You know, I think you’re onto something.” She pointed a finger at Mikki. “Tomorrow while I talk to the antique restorer and dealer, I want you to go to the local library and find out what times they’re open, as well as what kind of history they have on this place. Also, we need to see if there is a local museum in town, they might have more history.”

  “Be even better if we could track down long-lost relatives. They might have some photos they’d part with,” Mikki suggested.

  “Mik, you are on a roll.” Elspeth patted her shoulder. “Tomorrow is going to be busy.”