Page 9

R ory watched Kate as she took in his proclamation.

Really, she took it pretty well, but maybe she didn’t believe him.

The general consensus in town was, Oh, poor Rory Throckmorton got stuck in the creepy old inn and scared himself into a frenzy.

Everyone would rather act like they didn’t believe him when he said the inn was haunted, even though they’d shift uncomfortably and not quite meet his eyes.

Then they would bark out a laugh trying to convince themselves he was joking.

It was much easier to believe he’d dreamed up what happened to him.

He hadn’t.

As crazy as it sounded, he’d been there, there in the past with the British occupying the inn.

He had watched Prudence Worthy betray her father and the rebels’ cause.

His experience had to be real. No way could he know what he did—know what he had spent the next several years researching and verifying—if it hadn’t happened to him.

“Tell me,” Kate said.

He wondered if she was humoring him, yet something in her dark brown eyes told him she was willing to listen. He realized she was the first person who had ever really given him permission to share what he knew.

“I’ll do you one better,” he said. “I’ll show you.

” He stood, strode toward the inn, and paused briefly to glance over his shoulder.

Kate still sat in the Adirondack chair, her white T-shirt and tan shorts in bright contrast to the dark blue of the chair, watching him.

She hadn’t moved, but he could tell she was tense, poised to jump up and follow, yet hesitant to go down this path. He understood.

Who really wants proof their home is haunted?

But what he had to show her was better. Because he was pretty certain this secret had not been in her real estate disclosures.

“You want to see? You want to know the truth about your property? About what you now own? Because I know the answer to the enigma of the wind you hear at night, where it comes from, and why. I can answer the riddle of the Hazard Inn.”

“Mayfield Inn.”

He gave her a half-grin at being corrected. “Sure, if you say so.”

She shot up, like a jack-in-the-box just released. She even wavered a bit before she steadied herself. Rory took off again, knowing she would hustle to catch up.

“Where are we going?”

“Down into your basement.”

They were on the back porch, and from the sudden creak in the wood he knew she halted.

He could almost imagine her suddenly growing roots where she stood.

He turned back and took her arm. “Come on, it’s your inn.

You need to know.” He tugged lightly. She blinked up at him, her eyes growing darker even as they widened.

But then her lips tightened in determination.

She had a beautifully expressive face. At her quick nod, Rory started moving again, not exactly dragging her with him. He could sense her reluctance.

At the entrance to the basement, he stopped.

“You have to want it,” he told her.

She nodded, resigned, and reached for the doorknob.

Her breath whooshed out. “I couldn’t do this alone. But with you here…” she trailed off, her next words soft, almost a whisper, and he had a feeling he wasn’t really meant to hear them. “I am the innkeeper with a capitalI.”

Kate gripped the doorknob and turned. The heavy oak door swung open with a loud creak and Rory couldn’t help it, he laughed. At Kate’s wide-eyed stare, he apologized. “Sorry. Some things don’t change.”

He reached in and flicked the light switch.

“Glad to see the power works. It didn’t when I was a kid—I stumbled around in pitch black for hours.

” Stepping inside the narrow space, he noted the wooden stairs had been repaired.

He took three steps down and paused for Kate to get the nerve to follow.

He appreciated her bravery. Others might not understand, but he recognized in Kate her heightened senses, in tune like his own to a level many remained unaware of their entire lives.

He knew he’d scared her, and to someone else that might seem bizarre because they would never understand why they should be scared.

Knowing was a decision.

He knew there was something off, or rather on, about the inn. He’d known it for the last eighteen years.

“Okay, then,” she said.

They stepped down the stairs to the bottom.

The basement hadn’t changed much since Rory had been there.

A single light bulb swung on a long cord over an uneven 12x12 stone floor, the space bare except for empty racks lining the walls.

As it had been two hundred years before, the basement appeared to still be set up as a wine cellar.

One with a secret. Because storing wine had only ever been a cover for the American rebels and what they were really up to.

Rory walked straight to the rack on the far wall.

He gripped the edge tightly and swung the rack out wide.

Dust billowed up and out, rolling in waves over them.

They both coughed, the kind of long, hard hacking cough that made you bend at the waist. Rory cleared his throat first and spoke, his voice raspy.

“Sorry, I guess no one knew to clean up behind this before you bought the place.”

Kate inched closer and peered past him. “I don’t think anyone knew it was here,” she said, wonder in her voice.

Rory studied her. “Really? So I’m the only person who knows the secrets of the Hazard Inn?”

Kate gave him the side-eye. “Mayfield Inn and stop teasing me.”

“Half teasing. Look,” he ducked under an arch and pulled her through with him, “you have a hidden room.”

She blinked owlishly. “I…it’s so dark. I can’t see. Hang on.” She backtracked out of the room and up the stairs in record time, leaving him alone and wondering. Was it an excuse? She’d hightailed out of here. Would she come back?

In a brief moment of anxiety, Rory’s heart pounded.

Suddenly he remembered being shut down here alone, the door jammed.

He took a shuddering breath, two, then three, before reminding himself he wasn’t a kid anymore with a dead cell phone.

He always kept his charged now in case he ever got locked in somewhere.

Besides, Kate would never do that to him.

She wasn’t a mean teenager like the so-called friends of his youth.

Still, he jerked his phone from his pocket and confirmed it had service. He breathed easier knowing it did, and it wasn’t a bad idea—checking on that—especially if they were about to go exploring. If she came back down.

“We needed more light.”

He looked back and up to see Kate framed in daylight at the top of the stairs, brandishing a clunky 90s flashlight. Man, but he would have loved that at fourteen. She headed down, and the door behind her stayed open.

“Doorstop,” she said with a grin. “After what you told me, I want a clear way out. Here.” She handed him the big-ass flashlight and twisted another, smaller one on in her hand. It lit up the entire space.

“Cool tiny tactical flashlight, that.”

She gave a quick nod. “Yeah, it was a gift from a client after…well, anyway, a gift.” She angled it into the room.

It lit everything up instantly and then dimmed to nothing.

Just then a breeze rushed at them. It started at their feet, flowed up to swirl around them like it was checking them out, then went up with a swirl around their heads, tousling Rory’s hair and causing Kate’s to billow up and out.

Rory breathed easier when it left them to surge through the basement and up the stairs, rattling the door hard, then harder, causing the rubber stop to come loose.

When the door slammed shut at the top of the basement stairs, momentarily cutting them off from the light, Kate shrieked.

Even Rory had to admit it frightened him, but he was not a callow teen anymore.

He wouldn’t be deterred from sharing what he knew.

Kate grabbed for him, and he pulled her close. “Hey, it’s okay.”

She clung, molding her body to his. And who could blame her?

It’s what he would have done if he could have when he discovered this place so many years ago.

But he was not falling down this time and being drawn into the past. Intuitively, he wrapped his arms around her, providing comfort for her and for himself.

He’d be prepared this time.

He knew not to succumb to the voices.

If they spoke.

He rubbed her back a little, unsure if he was trying to reassure her or prove to himself that he was resolute. When she stopped shivering, he clicked on the decades-old flashlight. It wasn’t as bright as Kate’s had been, but it illuminated the space.

“This’ll work.”

Kate took a breath and stepped away. “Sorry,” she said. “And thank you. I don’t usually scare that easily. Apparently my super, long-lasting, never needs to be replaced battery died. Glad I brought backup.”

Rory tucked the flashlight under his chin and made boggle eyes at her. “Brahahaha.”

She laughed and slapped his arm lightly.

“Come on,” he motioned toward the room behind him. “I think you’ll get a kick out of this.”

They stepped into the stone room together. The ceiling was low. Rory had to stoop a smidgen, but Kate could just stand up straight.

“What is this place?”

“It leads to that.” Rory shone his light toward a stone wall at the back. When Kate frowned, he moved toward it, stepped to the side, and disappeared.

He heard her gasp, “Wait. How did you do that?”

He peeked back around the edge. “The wall only appears to go evenly all the way across. The way the stones are set, it blends. See how they’re staggered? It looks like one solid wall straight across, but there’s this gap. He stepped out and then back in and around so she could see.

“It’s like you’re a magician. You just vanish.”

“Wild, isn’t it?”

Kate came over to see for herself. She frowned. “But why? I mean, what’s the point? We’re in the wrong country for it to be a priest hole.”