Page 6
CHAPTER 5
M orning light filtered through The Red Lion’s front windows, catching dust motes that danced above freshly mopped floors like tiny golden spirits celebrating the return of sunlight. Tessa sat alone at her favorite corner table, surrounded by what Oliver had laughingly dubbed her “heritage application command center”—an impressive fortress of documents, photographs, and architectural diagrams that made her look either very professional or completely obsessed.
She was leaning toward obsessed, if she was being honest.
Though the pub had been approved to reopen for limited evening hours—a victory that had involved considerably more bureaucratic charm than she’d known she possessed—her days remained oddly quiet. Not exactly calm, mind you, but quiet in the way that old buildings could be quiet while still humming with invisible activity.
A sharp clink behind the bar cut through the peaceful stillness like a crystal bell being struck with surgical precision.
Tessa glanced up from her papers, already knowing what she’d find. One of the clean tumblers she’d arranged in a perfect line earlier that morning had shifted, turned slightly askew from its original position as if someone had picked it up, examined it thoughtfully, and set it down just a few degrees off from where it belonged.
“Good morning to you too,” she called out conversationally, already knowing there’d be no verbal response.
She exhaled slowly and turned her attention back to the organized chaos of research materials spread across her table. Among the carefully categorized documents, brittle newspaper clippings and black-and-white photographs traced The Red Lion’s long and occasionally dramatic history. One yellowed article from 1947 celebrated the pub’s triumphant postwar reopening with the sort of optimistic enthusiasm that only made sense in the aftermath of surviving the unsurvivable. Another photograph showed a group of smiling locals raising pints in celebration, scaffolding still clinging to the building’s exterior like the ribs of some great protective beast.
The lights above her head flickered—once, twice—before settling back into their normal, reassuring glow.
Tessa’s pencil paused mid-note, hovering over a timeline she’d been constructing of major renovations.
These supernatural oddities had started immediately after they’d discovered the skeleton, with the sort of perfect timing that made it impossible to dismiss as coincidence. At first, she’d tried to rationalize everything away—faulty wiring from the police investigation, stress manifesting in overactive imagination, the sort of tricks an old building might play when its routine was disrupted. But there had been far too many incidents since then to chalk up to ordinary explanations: unexplained drafts that raised goosebumps on perfectly warm afternoons, light bulbs flickering in patterns that seemed almost conversational, glasses shifting positions when no one was near them, and yesterday, most unnervingly, a bar stool that had somehow dragged itself several feet across the floor while she was upstairs changing clothes.
The sort of phenomena you absolutely could not mention out loud if you wanted to keep your liquor license and your reputation as a serious businesswoman.
One part of her—the organized, practical part that had successfully managed this pub for three years—wanted to start keeping a detailed log of every incident. Dates, times, atmospheric conditions, possible explanations. The other part of her—the part currently working frantically on a heritage application that represented her only real defense against corporate bulldozers—knew exactly how that would look to the council. A desperate pub owner inventing colorful ghost stories to drum up tourist attention and sympathy votes.
Her thumb hovered over Harry Crighton’s name in her contacts. He’d been there during the discovery—felt the temperature drop, seen the mirrors crack, witnessed things no reasonable explanation could account for. And according to Harry, that was just another Tuesday. He claimed, loudly and to anyone who would listen, that he’d once been a ghost himself—a spirit from Culloden Moor given a second shot at life—and said he could still see others.
Tessa believed in ghosts. She’d felt them in the pub more than once. But a ghost who came back with and got a body and another shot at life? That part she wasn’t sold on. Still, Harry didn’t deal in friendly warnings or quiet concern. If he thought something was wrong, he’d say so—loudly. And calling him meant involving Daphne. And Daphne meant Oliver. And Oliver’s attention could either save The Red Lion…or blow the whole thing apart.
She set the phone back down on the table with a decisive click.
Instead, she reached for her grandmother’s journal—a leather-bound treasure whose cracked cover felt warm and familiar in her hands, like holding onto a piece of her own history. Inside, the pages were filled with her nan’s distinctive looping script, faded but still perfectly legible. Stories Tessa had grown up hearing during countless afternoon visits were preserved here in her grandmother’s own voice, more precious than any official historical document.
“The Red Lion had a soul,” one entry read in that familiar handwriting. “During the worst of the Blitz, when the sirens screamed and the ground shook, you could feel it wrap around you like a protective embrace. As if the building itself was determined to keep its people safe.”
Tessa closed her eyes for a moment, resting her fingertips on the words that somehow made the strange happenings feel less frightening and more...purposeful. This wasn’t just about preserving walls and rooflines and architectural details. This was about memory. About legacy. About the countless lives that had passed through these rooms over the centuries—and in at least one heartbreaking case, ended beneath them.
Another soft clink echoed from behind the bar.
This time, she didn’t bother looking up.
“I’m working on it,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “I promise. Just give me a little more time.”
The air in the pub seemed to still, as if something invisible had settled into patient waiting.
Running a pub hadn’t been part of Tessa’s original life plan. Before The Red Lion, she’d worked a dispiriting string of forgettable jobs—waitressing at chain restaurants, bookkeeping for small businesses that treated her like an expensive necessity, a mercifully short-lived attempt at office management that had ended when she’d told her supervisor exactly what she thought of his “efficiency initiatives.” Nothing that had ever felt like it belonged to her, or like she belonged to it.
But when her grandmother died and left her a modest inheritance along with decades of stories about this particular pub, Tessa hadn’t hesitated for a moment. She’d poured everything—her savings, her energy, her dreams of creating something meaningful—into saving The Red Lion. It was a place she’d adored since childhood, where her grandfather had once worked behind the very same bar where she now served pints and preserved memories. She could still remember being seven years old, sitting at one of the corner tables with her legs swinging freely, tracing the carved initials in the wood while her nan told stories and slipped her crisps when her mother wasn’t looking.
Even back then, The Red Lion had felt magical. Enchanted in the way that special places could be, where the boundary between past and present seemed gossamer-thin.
Now it was hers. Her responsibility, her sanctuary, her stand against a world that seemed determined to replace everything meaningful with something profitable.
The lights blinked again—twice this time, deliberate as Morse code. A chill breeze rose from absolutely nowhere, fluttering her carefully organized papers before settling them back down in almost exactly their original positions.
“I know,” she said softly, understanding flooding through her with surprising clarity. “I’m trying to help. Just trust me, all right?”
The supernatural stirrings quieted, leaving behind a sense of watchful patience that felt oddly comforting rather than unsettling.
Tessa stayed there for a while longer, surrounded by echoes and half-remembered stories, gathering her strength for the battles ahead. Whatever was happening in The Red Lion— whoever was trying to communicate with her—she had work to do.
The Red Lion was worth fighting for. And apparently, she wasn’t fighting alone.
Sebastian’s penthouse office commanded a sweeping view of London’s financial district, the skyline stretching in every direction like a testament to successful urban development. Steel and glass towers caught the morning light, reflecting it back in brilliant flashes that spoke of progress, profit, and the sort of architectural ambition that had made his family’s fortune.
He stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, quarterly portfolio forgotten in one hand, his gaze inexplicably drawn to a narrow gap between the modern blocks—a barely visible sliver of older roofline that shouldn’t have registered from this height but somehow demanded his attention anyway.
The Red Lion. Even from miles away, the bloody place was haunting him.
With a frustrated sigh, he turned back to his pristine desk where orderly stacks of renderings, spreadsheets, and zoning files represented the smooth, logical progression of Westfield Development’s Lion Square project. Every detail had been calculated, every obstacle anticipated, every profit margin optimized.
Everything was perfectly aligned. Except for one missing signature.
His gaze fell on the silver-framed photograph positioned at the precise edge of his desk blotter—his father at some long-forgotten award ceremony, jaw set in determination, eyes steely with the sort of focused ambition that had built an empire and destroyed a family. Sebastian had been twelve when that photo was taken, already expected to carry the Westfield legacy forward like some sort of corporate torch passed between generations.
“A Westfield never hesitates,” his father used to say, usually while criticizing Sebastian’s tendency toward what he called “excessive deliberation.” “Opportunity is wasted on the timid, and the timid don’t build dynasties.”
And yet, for all his decisive action and unwavering determination, the man had died alone in this very office, slumped over acquisition reports at the age of sixty-two. His heart had simply stopped, worn out by decades of relentless ambition and an inability to recognize that some victories weren’t worth the cost.
Sebastian studied his father’s face in the photograph, recognizing his own features in the sharp angles and determined expression. The drive, the precision, the calculated ruthlessness—he’d inherited all of it, cultivated it, turned it into a weapon that had made him wealthy beyond most people’s dreams.
But had he also inherited the ending?
He shook off the morbid thought with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d spent years avoiding uncomfortable introspection. The Red Lion acquisition was clean, legal, and potentially very lucrative. A textbook example of strategic development that would revitalize an underutilized area while generating substantial returns for investors.
The only complication was Tessa Lawson, and her inconvenient refusal to behave like a rational business owner faced with an generous offer.
Sebastian’s computer chimed softly—a calendar alert for the quarterly investor gala, one of those tedious but necessary networking events that kept the money flowing and the board members satisfied. He opened the RSVP list out of habit and paused when he reached a particular entry.
Oliver Graham – Attending: No
Note: “Sending regrets due to family commitments. Currently preparing to relocate outside London. Will follow up separately regarding historical preservation opportunities in the area.”
Of course. Even when Oliver wasn’t actively interfering, he managed to complicate things from a distance—silent, strategic, positioning himself as the thoughtful benefactor while Sebastian played the role of corporate villain.
Sebastian’s jaw tightened with familiar irritation. If Oliver Graham wanted The Red Lion preserved as some sort of historical monument to his own nobility, then Sebastian wanted it demolished even more. The rivalry that had started at university had evolved into something more complex over the years, but the basic competitive instinct remained unchanged.
He turned back to his strategy document and began composing a new directive: increase the acquisition offer, apply additional zoning pressure, identify and eliminate potential preservation obstacles before they could gain momentum?—
His phone rang, displaying an unfamiliar number.
Sebastian nearly sent it to voicemail—investors could be frustratingly unpredictable in their communication preferences—but something made him reconsider.
“Sebastian Westfield,” he answered with his most professional tone.
“Westfield? It’s Harry Crighton.”
Sebastian straightened in his chair. That Scottish accent was definitely memorable, even filtered through phone static.
“You were at the pub last week,” Harry continued without preamble. “During the whole business with the skeleton.”
“Yes,” Sebastian replied carefully, wondering what possible reason Harry could have for calling him directly. “What can I do for you, Mr. Crighton?”
“This isn’t a social call,” Harry said, his voice carrying an edge that suggested this conversation was going to be significantly less pleasant than Sebastian had hoped. “Consider it more of a friendly warning.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at his reflection in the window. “Is that so?”
“Tessa’s under enough stress without you circling her pub like some sort of corporate vulture,” Harry said bluntly. “She doesn’t need demolition threats piled on top of everything else she’s dealing with right now.”
Sebastian bristled at the characterization, though he couldn’t entirely deny its accuracy. “My interest in the property is purely?—”
“Save the corporate speech for someone who cares,” Harry interrupted with the sort of casual dismissal that suggested he’d heard plenty of similar justifications before. “I’m calling because my boys have started talking about something that might concern you.”
“Your boys?”
“Malcolm and Ewan. My twin sons. They’re four.” Harry’s voice softened slightly when he mentioned them. “They’ve been having some...unusual conversations since we visited the pub’s cellar. Talking about a ‘sad man in the corner’ who wasn’t there when the rest of us looked.”
Sebastian felt his fingers pause on the keyboard, an unexpected chill running down his spine.
“They say he wears old-fashioned clothes,” Harry continued, his tone matter-of-fact—like he was reading off a grocery list, not describing a potential haunting. “Looks lonely, they tell us.”
There was a pause, just long enough to feel intentional.
“I haven’t seen him myself,” Harry added, voice quieter now. “And that’s the bit that bothers me. I usually do. Ghosts, I mean. Comes with the territory when you’ve been one.”
Sebastian blinked. “I’m sorry, when you’ve been what?”
“Ghost,” Harry said flatly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Culloden Moor. Long story. Ask Alice.”
“Right,” Sebastian said slowly.
“Anyway, he keeps asking about someone named Rebecca.”
The name hit Sebastian like a physical blow. Rebecca.
One of the forensic officers had mentioned it during the evidence cataloging—the letter clutched in the skeleton’s hands had been too fragile to read completely, but the name at the top had been clearly visible. Rebecca Ainsley. At the time, he’d dismissed it as historically Now it was clawing its way to the front of his consciousness with uncomfortable insistence.
“I fail to see how this relates to me,” he said, though his voice sounded stiff even to his own ears.
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Harry replied. “But I thought you should know before I mention it to Tessa. Figured I’d give you a heads-up, professional courtesy and all that.”
“Why me specifically?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line—the sort of weighted silence that suggested Harry was choosing his words carefully.
“Because you were at the pub when it happened,” he said finally. “And if something’s been stirred up by all this digging around, it might not be just Tessa’s problem to handle.”
Sebastian didn’t respond immediately. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound either dismissive or crazy.
“She’s trying to hold that place together,” Harry continued, his voice gentling. “The pub, the heritage application, all of it. Maybe give the woman some room to breathe instead of pressuring her into a sale she doesn’t want.”
Sebastian found himself hesitating, then heard himself say, “Of course. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”
The lie slipped out so smoothly he almost believed it himself.
“See that you do,” Harry said, and the connection ended with a decisive click.
Sebastian stared at his phone for a long moment, then set it down and turned back to his computer screen. The cursor blinked expectantly in the middle of his half-finished acquisition strategy document.
Instead of continuing his business plan, he opened a new browser tab and typed: Rebecca Ainsley, London, 1940s.
Just research, he told himself as the search began loading. Due diligence. Understanding the historical context that might impact the development timeline. Nothing more than professional thoroughness.
But as the search results loaded, a memory stirred—half-formed and unsettling, like something long buried clawing its way to the surface.
He’d been having strange dreams since the night they’d discovered the skeleton—dreams filled with the smell of damp stone and falling earth, the sound of distant explosions, and always, threading through it all, a man’s voice calling the same name over and over again.
Rebecca.
And suddenly, Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure they had been dreams at all.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Successful businessmen didn’t believe in ghosts or supernatural visitations or any of the other nonsense that seemed to follow Tessa Lawson around like an atmospheric disturbance.
But as he scrolled through decades-old records and wartime photographs, Sebastian couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched by someone with a very personal interest in what he might discover.
Someone who had been waiting a very long time for these particular questions to finally be asked.