Page 18 of Stay Buried

“No way,” Malcolm said. “No freaking way. Gram owned ahouseinBoone’s Ferry?”

Perhaps if Ashley had looked through the papers in the trunkGram had pulled from the storage area behind the wall in her bedroom, she might have learned this. But she had shoved everything back into the trunk, slid the whole thing back into the storage space behind the wall, and slammed the door that night, after they’d come to take Gram’s body away. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to open it back up and look through whatever was in there, despite Malcolm’s pestering.

Logically, she knew the old trunk of papers hidden behind the wall wasn’t responsible for Gram’s death. But she wanted nothing more than to take it out on a boat to the deepest part of the ocean and drop it down where no one might ever find it.

Ashley continued to stare at the form behind the lawyer.

A woman.

Was Gram there, some ghost version, smiling at them?

Ashley shook her head, closed her eyes and opened them, sure it would be gone, but it wasn’t. It was becoming sharper. More focused.

“Yes,” the lawyer said, looking down at his papers. “Apparently it belonged to her parents, Thomas and Margaret Endicott, and she inherited it after her mother’s death. She’s left it to the two of you, again divided fifty-fifty.”

This wasn’t Gram standing behind Brian Reyes.

She swallowed the scream she felt building in her chest.

No. It couldn’t be.

She was done with all of this.

She closed her eyes, took in a jagged breath.

Malcolm exhaled a little hiss of air that came out strange and squeaky, like a release valve. “Ho-ly shit,” he said. “We own two houses now?”

Ashley shook her head in disbelief, looked helplessly at her brother. If she didn’t look at the vision in the sunlit dust, it would go away. It wasn’t real. She knew that.

The lawyer went on. “She’s been renting it out for years. The tenant’s name is Josephine Banks. She pays rent of one dollar a month,and there is a contract stating that Ms. Banks is to live in the home either until the time of her death or until she chooses to move. You’ll own it, but she’s to be your tenant. It’s an unusual arrangement, but it is legally binding. Of course, you’re free to consult—”

“A dollar a month?” Malcolm said. “Seriously?”

The lawyer nodded slowly, raising his brows.

“Who the hell is Josephine Banks?” Mal demanded.

The lawyer straightened his stack of papers, shrugged his shoulders. “I’m afraid all I know is that she’s been your grandmother’s tenant for the past fifty years.”

Ash’s attention held on to the figure that still stood in the room, as clear and real and solid as Brian in his chair.

Its face was a pulpy mess, torn open, the scalp peeled back revealing the white bone of the skull.

The figure opened its mouth to speak, its jaw coming unhinged.

A bubble of blood came out of her mother’s mouth as she hissed out the word:“Listen.”

Ashley staggered to her feet, mumbled something about needing some air, and lurched out of the room.

NINEFRANKIE

March 10 & 11, 1919

Help me, Frankie,” Uncle Thomas ordered, now down on his knees in the broken glass, feeling for a pulse at the knackerman’s neck. “Let’s get him up onto the table.”

I stepped forward, slipping in the pool of blood but catching myself before falling.

“My God!” Aunt Margaret cried as she opened the door and hurried into the room. “I was in the kitchen and heard the commotion.” Her eyes widened. “What on earth happened?”