Page 12 of Spooked (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #13)

Barking a laugh, I tell her, “Then no way would you have been able to afford the upkeep and taxes, unless you’re a multi-millionaire.

” She’s dressed smartly, and I might be an ignorant biker, but even I know her clothes aren’t designer labels.

“Believe me, you’re better off without this burden around your neck.

” Like her, I gaze at the facade. “Your aunt’s in a bind.

If it’s restored, who the fuck would want to buy a property this size nowadays?

It’s too far out of town, let alone big enough to be turned into a hotel.

And if it’s bulldozed, then the same thing stands.

It’s not the kind of area for new-build houses.

I’ve no idea who originally thought it was a good idea to construct a house here. ”

“My great-grandfather,” she says, as if my comment were a question.

“He came from the East Coast with the idea of discovering gold. And he did. Then my grandfather inherited, but the gold had run out by then, though he was left a fortune.” She pauses, then continues, “My gramma used to tell me when she first came to the house, there were servants, maids, a cook, a gardener, and a butler. But by the time I came along, it was only Gramma here.”

I really don’t want to go back inside, but there’s no point just sitting here prolonging the agony. My pulse rate speeds up just looking at the house. Before I give myself a heart attack, I reach out and open the door. “You wanted to see it, let’s go.”

It’s then that I feel her reluctance, but don’t understand why, due to her prior insistence. But maybe, now she’s here, she’s aware of just how much deterioration has occurred since she last stepped through the front door.

“We can just go back to Tucson,” I offer.

“No,” she says sharply. “I’m here now. I want the full tour.”

Thoughts go through my head, like why didn’t I leave my debrief with Bullet until tomorrow? Then he’d have been the one to have to deal with her. Or, why did I chicken out yesterday and return to the club rather than giving him the photos straight away? But I can’t go back in time, I’m here now.

She waits while I hop on my right leg to open the back door and extract the crutches, get situated, and then start to move.

There are three steps up to the entrance. I don’t miss the pitying glance she sends toward my injured leg, before she asks, “Are you sure you can manage?”

“Don’t worry about me,” I reply, deliberately trying to make accommodating my leg and crutches look easy.

Reaching the top, I twist the key in the lock, but there’s no need.

The door pushes open. It’s then I remember not shutting it properly after I’d run out like the demons of hell were after me.

At her incredulous look, I shrug my shoulders sheepishly, knowing she’s wondering why we’d made such a fuss about giving her the key.

Perhaps it’s because she’s so eager to go in, but she lets me off lightly when she could have complained about the unprofessionalism of SD Construction.

Taking advantage of her lack of attention to detail, I open the door.

After waving her through in front of me, I step into the hallway that’s lit by the golden glow of a sunset, the light casting a halo around Maeve’s head.

It’s picturesque until… what the fuck? Ducking my head back around the doorway, I notice the bright sun of an Arizona autumn afternoon.

It must be the effect of the old glass in the windows, I rationalise.

Maeve’s just standing, looking around in amazement.

Her face is relaxed as if she’s really feeling she’s coming home.

She turns in a circle, holding her hands out, as if taking the atmosphere in.

Then she turns and informs me, “There used to be a Georgian card table right there. It had an amazing walnut finish and looked just like a hall table until you swivelled it around, then it folded out showing the green felt. It always fascinated me. And there…” her hand touches mine briefly as she points to a corner.

“There stood a grandfather clock. It had a sun and moon display on it, and I loved to just stand and watch it. The bong of the chimes could be heard all over the house.” Her face falls.

“I guess my aunt sold anything of value.”

I suspect she’s right. To delay exploring the rest of the house with her, I buy some time by asking, “So how did you come to live with your gramma?”

She sighs as if the subject is painful. “My grandparents had two daughters, Siobhan and Sian.” I already know that her Aunt Siobhan was the one to inherit the house.

“My aunt was trouble from the start, according to my mom. My mom was the younger sister. Siobhan had her nose put out of joint when Mom was born. She didn’t enjoy sharing her parents, and acted out, ironically proving to be the harder child to raise, meaning Sian, my mom, became the favourite.

She excelled at everything a lady should do.

Played piano, knew how to behave in polite society, and was the beauty the whole county admired.

By contrast, Siobhan was a wild card, lost her virginity to the gardener, but all of that was hushed up.

Thinking she might be pregnant, my gramma got her married to Thomas O’Reilly, a local, recently widowed, and childless farmer, just to save face.

” She grimaces as she looks at me. “I feel sorry for her in some ways. Her life couldn’t have been easy.

My grandad had died young, years earlier.

She was only eighteen. Gramma was old-fashioned and thought there was a stigma to being a single mom.

Gramma thought she was doing her best, but as it turned out, Siobhan wasn’t in the family way.

She remained childless all her life and locked into a loveless marriage. ”

“What happened to your mom?” I ask.

After breathing in deeply, she answers, “Turns out it wasn’t just Siobhan who Gramma needed to worry about.

Mom was only twenty when she made her own mistake.

She fell in love, not with one of my grandparents’ circle, but with a man born on the wrong side of the tracks.

A tradesman.” Walking forward, she rests her hand on the banister of the stairs, caressing it lovingly.

“Dad was a good man. His and my mom’s only fault was that they preempted their wedding vows.

Then, before I was born, he died in a freak accident.

They never had the chance to get married.

The wedding bands had been bought, and Dad even had the licence.

But those truths didn’t matter. Siobhan had a husband.

When my mom birthed me six months after my dad died, my aunt had ammunition to use against my mother.

She managed to persuade my grandmother that the sister, who had a child born out of wedlock was the black sheep and not her.

She was now a respectable married woman.

She also embellished the story with lies about drugs and my mom getting pregnant as a result of going to wild parties.

She intimated my mom whored herself out to drug dealers to fund a nonexistent habit.

“When Mom tried to bring me home, Siobhan’s poison turned Gramma against her, resulting in Gramma disowning my mother.

Mom was distraught, but sucked it up when Gramma turned her back on her and made her own way in life.

” Her face lightens. “Mom was resourceful. She’d let nothing beat her.

And my dad’s parents did what they could to help out.

” As if I have any doubts, she reassures me, “I was loved by my mother and grandparents. I couldn’t have wished for more growing up.

But Gramps and Gran died from monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas boiler.

Soon after that, Mom was diagnosed with cancer.

In grief at the loss of her in-laws, she’d left it too long to get her symptoms checked out, and when they discovered the tumour, she didn’t have much time left.

” I reach out my hand to touch hers, but she shrugs my comfort off.

“Mom brought me back here. She and Gramma reconciled and Gramma took us in. Mom had hung on to the marriage licence. Belatedly, Gramma realised how good a man my father had been, and that Siobhan had filled her head with lies. As Siobhan had no children, I was the only grandchild. When my mom passed away, Gramma assured me I’d always be looked after.

In her original will, she’d disowned my mother, but she emphatically told me she’d written a new one, which left everything to me. ”

After listening to her for so long, it takes a moment for me to understand what she’s saying. “But the will Bullet’s working to, listed your aunt as the beneficiary.”

Maeve shrugs. “I can only assume she never actually got around to renewing her will.”

Or her aunt destroyed the new one, I think to myself.

“I don’t care about the money,” she states. “I’d have been happy with just something to remember my grandmother by. In the end, she was so good to me.” She gestures around her. “But it looks like everything’s gone.”

Something strikes me as strange. “Your gramma died fifteen years ago, yet now is the first time you’ve come back?”

“It was time,” she says, succinctly. “Let’s move on.

” Knowing the house, it’s she who leads me first into the kitchen, then the dining room, and then the main reception room of the house.

Any furniture remaining, she rests her hands on momentarily.

“Nothing of significance is left.” She sighs as she returns to the hall and eyes the stairs.