“I have a call in to the doctor. He’s going to stop by the house. Maybe there’s different medication she can go on,” I continued before downing the rest of my drink. “Honestly, I’m not sure where to start. Distract me. Tell me what you found in the file.”
“That’s just it,” she said slowly like I’d asked her to put her hands where I could see them. “What I found in the file isn’t going to make you feel better.”
At least, I wasn’t surprised to hear that. “What did you find?”
“The bones are from the seventies, which means that it likely has to do with a local missing person’s case.”
“There was more than one person down there,’ I said gruffly. The small skull floated to mind, and I shut my eyes against the image.
“There was,” she confirmed grimly. “An entire family, in fact. The Thorns. Did you look into the history of this house before you bought it?”
“I know it was vacant forever. It just sat on the market.”
“But that’s not true. How did you hear about this house? It was vacant for years, kept up by a preservationist trust, but it wasn’t for sale,” she said. “It’s almost like someone wanted it to stay empty.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I stood to pour myself another Scotch. “We were told that the final member of the Thorns had passed and the house went on the market.”
“Smith,” Georgia said with the delicacy of someone defusing a bomb, “the house was never on the market.”
“That’s odd, considering I bought it,” I said in a flat voice even as my heart pounded against my chest. “Our estate agent told us about it.”
“You need to reach out and find out how they knew about it,” Georgia said forcefully, her expression growing even grimmer. “I can’t help thinking someone wanted you in this house.”
“Now you sound like him,” I murmured. I didn’t have to tell her who I was referring to. We both knew I was speaking of Alexander. “Do you honestly think there was some conspiracy to get me into this house?”
“It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you,” she said with a bemused smile that didn’t match her worried eyes. “Maybe someone planned for you to come here.”
“Who? I’m not a royal. Hammond is dead. There’s not a single one of our old associates around who will care what happens to me going forward.”
“Then why did you run away from London? Because you thought if you severed ties with the royal family, you’d be left alone?” she guessed.
I stared at her for a moment. It had occurred to me that that might be what this was about. But I couldn’t see a reason why any of them would want to come after me. Yes, I had helped Alexander. But for the most part, our relationship had been mercenary. I’d helped him for the sake of my own wife, so she wouldn’t lose her best friend. In doing so, Alexander and I had gotten along more in the past year than before, but I hardly qualified as one of his close friends or confidants. I said as much to Georgia.
She laughed. “What lies are you telling yourself? You were there with us,” she reminded me. “You actively worked against MI-18.”
“And what good would it do for them to come after me? I’ve cut ties, as you said. I doubt they have time for revenge.”
“Maybe not,” Georgia said, shrugging her leather clad shoulders. “But it can’t be a coincidence that you wound up buying this house. Not with what’s happening now. Smith, you should sit down.”
It wasn’t like Georgia to be so dramatic, so I did as she asked. Leaning back in my leather seat, I cupped my Scotch like a security blanket. “What happened to the family that lived here before?”
“No one knew until they found those bones,” she said quietly. “They think it’s them. They’re the right age. They’re trying to secure some type of DNA match now.”
“The whole family?” I asked, recalling the pile of mixed skeletons we had discovered in the cellar. The memory of musty earth filled my mouth and nostrils. I took a drink to wash it away. “How on earth did they wind up buried in my basement?”
“Almost the whole family.” Georgia hesitated.
“Just tell me,” I spit out. I couldn’t stand more mysteries or secrets. We had come here to start over, and somehow managed to find ourselves in the midst of another mystery.
“There were reports over the years,” she began. “People swore they saw Miranda Thorne near the village or in the city.”
“Miranda Thorne?”
Georgia took a deep breath. “The mother.”
“People always think they’re seeing ghosts,” I said swiftly.
“That’s just it. Smith, there were no bones that matched her age or her description.” Georgia glared at me as if daring me to interrupt her again. “And then there’s the stories.”
We’d heard a few whisperings about Thornham since our arrival, but I’d ignored it. Now I wished I hadn’t. “Village superstitions.”
“Maybe,” she agreed. “I would have said the same thing until you told me about Belle. The stories were that the mother went crazy. She kept claiming to hear voices. She would disappear for hours, sometimes days, and return with no explanation as to where she had been. Her husband even convinced her to see the village doctor. They were concerned she was having some type of psychotic break. She was being treated for a mental disorder.”
“And?” I prompted, a pit had hollowed itself in my stomach. I didn’t want to know the answer, but I had to face it.
“And then they disappeared.” Georgia swallowed a long swig of Scotch. “All of them. Vanished. The staff arrived for the day, and they were all gone. No note. No indication of where they were. The local police searched for them. They even reached out to Scotland Yard. No one ever found anything, except people who claimed to see the mother throughout the years.”
“People claim to see the Loch Ness monster, too.” But as much as I tried to deny the story having any relevance to my own, I couldn’t. A mother slowly going crazy. A family trying to help her. That was Thornham’s legacy. Was the same thing happening to Belle? I shook my head. “It’s a coincidence.”
“It might be,” Georgia said. “But are you willing to risk your family to make a point?”
“What do you want me to do?” I looked to her, the question genuine. “Because I’m out of ideas, Georgia. I’m doing the best I can, and it’s not enough. Every time I think things are getting back to normal, it gets worse.”
“Maybe you should come back to London,” she suggested. “Get her away from here.”
“What if that’s not the problem? Then I’ll just be trading issues here for more issues there. I don’t have an army to protect my family.”
“All you have to do is ask and he’ll help you,” Georgia murmured.
I shook my head bitterly. The more entangled we stayed with Alexander, the worse it would be. I couldn’t see any reason for MI-18 to come after me now. Maybe they weren’t above revenge, but getting back in bed with the Royals would only draw more attention to us. We needed to figure out what was going on here. Whatever was happening to Belle was going on in her own mind. I refused to believe that I was living in a haunted house. Being part of a political conspiracy seemed almost as unlikely since all my enemies were dead. “I can handle things.”