Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

flat, with a wide swath of neatly mowed grass on both sides. A culvert ran along our right, a sidewalk to our left. The houses lining the beach were large, new, and expensive. This road led out of town, nothing but the National Seashore and the Bodie Island Lighthouse beyond.

“I was down this way only yesterday,” Connor said. “I didn’t see any house for sale.”

“Because you don’t know the right people,” Louise Jane replied.

“Should we have brought drinks and snacks for the trip?” I asked. “We’re almost at the end of the road, and there’s nothing else out here.” Up ahead I could see the back of the blue sign welcoming visitors to Nags Head.

Louise Jane flicked her turn indicator and slowed. She glided to a halt at the side of the road and said, “Ta da.”

Connor and I stared out the window.

“This place?” Connor said. “First of all, Louise Jane, it isn’t for sale, and second of all, we couldn’t afford it even if it was, not a lot this size sitting right on the beach. Never mind the house, which is, you might have noticed, falling down.”

“All it needs is a bit of TLC,” Louise Jane said. “It’s owned by my uncle Ralph, and even though he doesn’t live in it, he’s kept it up all these years.”

The house stood at the end of the street, on the last lot in Nags Head. It was unpainted, the wood brown and worn, scoured by decades of salt and wind. Large and multistoried, it stood on stilts, with balconies and gabled windows sticking out all over and a wide porch wrapping around the entire second floor.

“There’s Uncle Ralph,” Louise Jane said.

A man was standing next to a car parked in the weed- and sand-choked driveway. “That’s your uncle?” I said to Louise Jane.

“Yup.”

We hurried to get out of the van.

He rolled toward us, his gait that of a man more accustomed to being on the water than on land. His gray hair curled around the back of his neck, and most of his face was covered by an unkempt gray beard and bushy eyebrows. His oatmeal fisherman’s sweater, which I would have thought too hot for the day, was dotted with holes and strands of unraveling thread. His warm blue eyes were the color of the sea, his hand was outstretched, and he was smiling.

“ ’Mornin’, Lucy,” he said to me in a thick Outer Banks drawl. “Mr. Mayor.” He and Connor shook hands.

“Mr. Harper,” I said. “How nice to see you. I didn’t know you were related to Louise Jane.”

“Related to just about everyone in these parts,” he said. “Everyone who matters, anyway. And some what don’t.” I’d met Ralph Harper when he’d been a suspect in a police investigation. A local fisherman from a long line of fishermen, he was reclusive and very, very suspicious of outsiders. For some reason, he didn’t consider me to be an outsider. He’d called me a water woman—high praise indeed. I’m from Boston, but I don’t think that’s what he meant. I never had found out what he meant.

“Like ’er, Mr. Mayor?” he asked Connor.

“I love her.” Connor threw his arms wide. “Every Banker’s dream is to own a member of the unpainted aristocracy. But she needs a lot of work.”

“Which,” Louise Jane said, “is why it’s going cheap.”

“How cheap?” I asked.

Louise Jane looked at her uncle. He named a sum.

Connor laughed. “At that price, you’re going to tell me the property’s been condemned or a toxic waste dump is going in next door.”

“You didn’t tell ’em, Louise Jane?”

“Tell us what?” I asked.

“Let’s have a look around first, shall we?” Louise Jane quickly led the way to the house. “Over the years Uncle Ralph has done what he can to keep the house in some sort of shape, but without anyone living here, things do get out of control.” We climbed the steps, the old boards protesting at our weight.

“Why don’t you live here?” I asked Ralph as he unlocked the door. It creaked as it opened, and we stepped into the light-filled interior.

“Jo won’t have it,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Never mind that now,” Louise Jane said. “Look at that view.”

And we did. The main floor was completely open—no internal walls. Sunlight streamed into the room, reflecting off spiders’ webs and illuminating the dust mites dancing in the air. The large, empty room was bathed in golden morning light, and the open expanse of the sea sparkled in the distance. I could hear the faint sound of waves rushing to shore. I took a step forward, but Ralph’s arm shot out and he grabbed mine. “Better not walk around willy-nilly. Some of the floorboards need replacing.”

“There’s damp in that ceiling,” Connor said. “I don’t like the look of it.”

“Needs work,” Ralph said. “I won’t deny that. But the bones are good. Darn good. This house has stood for most of a hundred years. Gonna stand a hundred more, iffen it finds someone to love it like my mamma and granddaddy did.”

“How long has it been for sale?” I asked.

Ralph and Louise Jane exchanged glances.

“Okay,” Connor said. “What are you not telling us? Why is the price so reasonable, and why is this beautiful old house being allowed to fall into disrepair?”

“Uncle Ralph would like to live in it,” Louise Jane said. “But Aunt Jo doesn’t want to.”

“Why hasn’t it sold then?” I asked.

“Because it’s haunted,” Louise Jane said.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“We put in a conditional offer. Conditional on the inspection not turning up anything Ralph neglected to tell us. Anything structural, I mean.”

“Are you sure that’s wise, Lucy?” Ronald said. “Old houses have a way of drinking money.”

“Connor loved it on first sight. He says he’s often driven past and thought it a shame such a magnificent old house was simply abandoned.”

“Unpainted aristocracy doesn’t come up for sale very often,” Charlene said.

It was Monday afternoon, and the library was about to close for the day. Louise Jane and Bertie were having a private meeting in