southern ghost hunters 02 - skeleton in the closet Page 19

  I swung it open.

  Inside the closet, on the dusty wood floor, sprawled the body of a man.

  His skull stared up at me, the front shattered. He wore the tattered remains of a gray uniform and his bony hands clutched a Bible. A single-shot revolver lay at his side.

  I sucked in a breath. "I think we found Pa."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  WARM BREATH GHOSTED over the back of my neck. For a second, I thought it was Ellis. Then I realized Ma Hatcher stood next to me. Her cold, gravelly voice chilled my skin. "Get. Out."

  She was a fully formed ghostly presence. I could see her without Frankie's help. Which meant she was right there with us. I turned quickly and stared straight into her burning red eyes. The closet door slammed closed, nearly striking me.

  Ellis stood nearby, stiff with shock. The ghost loomed over us, completely manifested. Livid. She grabbed for my neck, hot energy radiating off her.

  "Move!" Ellis seized me at the last second and we headed for the stairway.

  "Not yet." I broke from his grasp and ran back to the closet. This time the knob burned hot in my hand. We had to get that Bible.

  Ma hissed and reached for me.

  Ellis swore. "Over here!" he hollered from near the window. He ducked as the phantom shot a blinding stream of energy straight for him. I could see it. Feel it. Like lightning in a bottle.

  The poltergeist was firing off pure rage.

  It was also missing its legs below the knees.

  If we played this right, we could use it to our advantage.

  First, I had to be sure. "Did she have legs before?" I pleaded. I tried to remember what she'd looked like when she trapped me in the grave outside. Her dress had swirled down to the ground, hadn't it? I couldn't be sure.

  Ellis looked at me like I was nuts. "How the hell should I know?"

  "Get out!" the phantom screamed as she fired another round. Ellis didn't move quick enough. He let out a cry of pain and went down hard.

  Oh my God. "Ellis!"

  His teeth chattered and he shook all over as if he'd been hit with an electric charge.

  I realized with a start that Ma had lost her legs completely. Ellis stared at me through the poltergeist, understanding dawning in his eyes.

  "Over here!" I called, trying to draw her off, but she'd homed in on him.

  He rolled sideways as she fired a hot blast of energy. He barely cleared it. The room shook as the wall absorbed the impact.

  She lost her hips.

  "Oh my God. Ellis." I didn't know what to do. The poltergeist was going down a lot faster than Frankie did when he lent me his energy. I had to think it was because she was sending out direct, devastating shots of energy while manifesting on the mortal plane.

  She controlled more energy than I'd ever seen a ghost—even a poltergeist—handle before. And she aimed it straight at Ellis.

  "We'll go!" I protested. "Just leave him alone!"

  She glared at me over her shoulder. "Even my husband regretted it in the end," she snarled, "but a secret's a secret."

  I could actually see the energy leave her hands as she fired at Ellis, scoring a direct hit. His body seized. I stared in horror. The room smelled of burned hair and flesh.

  "Josephine!" I screamed for my friend, the only person I could think of who might be able to help us.

  Ma hissed and sent a heavy stream of hate my way. I dropped to the floor.

  Heat sizzled the air above me, charging it, making my hair stand on end. It hurt to breathe.

  Ellis didn't move. There was no way I could get around the ghost to help him, unless I went straight through her mostly missing body. Were her legs still there, even though I couldn't see them?

  I had to risk it. I couldn't let Ellis take another shot. It would kill him.

  She reared, ready to attack as I rushed for Ellis, scrambling headlong underneath the ghost.

  I made it.

  He looked awful. I grabbed his limp body, shoving it back against the wall, yanking my hands away when I felt the energy hit.

  My muscles seized; my mind blanked with pain and rage. I felt the shock of it like a thousand volts.

  "Silly girl." She loomed over me, now just a disembodied head, her face pinched with rage. "Don't you know they always betray you in the end?"

  Her ghastly features twisted as she gathered the energy to for what could very well be a death blow. I screamed. I didn't think I could take another hit. She must not either, because she shot me a feral grin.

  A red spark rippled up her neck and zipped straight through her head before I heard a pop, like a burned-out lightbulb.

  Ma Hatcher had disappeared.

  The room grew strangely quiet, the dark overwhelming. I panted hard, not even sure when I'd stopped screaming. Ellis didn't stir. I didn't even know if he was still breathing.

  My light shone on the floor a few feet from me and I scrambled to retrieve it.

  "Ellis, can you hear me?" I asked, my voice hoarse. I knew better than to ask if he was all right. He wasn't. "I think the ghost is gone."

  Ellis lay on his side, a hand over his eyes. "You're the expert," he said on a groan.

  He was alive and conscious. "Thank God." I took his face in my hands and kissed him.

  His eyes remained closed. "This is not a date."

  "No," I said, a giddy laugh escaping. "How do you feel? Can you move?"

  I helped him into a sitting position. "I can't even describe it," he said, working to recover.

  "I understand." My muscles felt stiff, my body ached, yet I felt electric down to the core. As if the energy had welded itself to my very bones. She could have killed us both.

  "I think we beat her," I said, searching the room for any sign of the poltergeist. "For now."

  That said, we needed to get out of here before she regained her energy and came back. I had no idea how long that would take.

  Ellis retrieved his Maglite from the floor. He appeared shaky, but determined. "Help me stand. We need to take another look at that skeleton in the closet."

  We did. And a few minutes later, after a bit of struggling with the door, Ellis shone his beam down on the body of Pa Hatcher.

  Now that I was able to get a closer look, I could see the spiderwebs tangled in the skeleton's empty eye sockets. The rotting remnants of dress gloves clung to his fingers. I cringed at the way his bony hands gripped the leather-bound Bible.

  I placed my light on the floor and braced myself on the doorframe as I reached down to pry the Bible from the man's cold, dead hands.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  THE CORPSE RELEASED the book, crumbling away as if it, too, had been waiting to be freed from the secret.

  Ellis's light illuminated the cracked and aged Bible. On the inside cover, generations of Hatchers had scrawled a hand-inked family history dating back to 1758.

  "Where does one write a confession?" I asked, opening to Genesis. Might as well start at the beginning.

  The thin paper felt stiff with age and I feared for the fragile book as I turned the pages.

  "I have an idea," Ellis said, so I handed him the book.

  His fingers trembled as he paged to Proverbs 28:13.

  I didn't get it. "What makes you think…?"

  Oh, my word. Black ink underlined one of the verses.

  "I went to Sunday school, same as you," he said, running a finger over the line.

  Evidently Ellis had paid more attention.

  It read:

  He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh [them] shall have mercy.

  Scrawled in the side margin, in black ink, was a missive that took up almost all of the white space on the page:

  I, Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah Hatcher, under the command of Eli Jackson, do hereby solemnly swear to the truth of what happened the day of October 17, 1863. While we were charged with manning the cannon overlooking the town of Sugarland, we left our posts.

  Colonel Vincent Wydell
challenged Colonel Eli Jackson to a duel over which Sugarland family should indeed guard the cannon. In the midst of the duel, Yankee cavalry came upon the cannon and fired a shot into the town, which lodged in the wall of the library.

  The town, believing itself under attack, panicked, sparking the fire that burned the square. We then charged down to save the town from itself, thereby abandoning the hill and the cannon once more to the Yankees, who used it to defeat the main Confederate force on the battlefield overlooking the town.

  We were not heroes that day, but prideful men who neglected our duty and the safety of our families. May God forgive us.

  Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah Hatcher

  May the Lord have mercy on my soul.

  Mercy indeed, on all of us.

  I read it again, just to make sure. "I don't believe it." The Battle of Sugarland was one big lie. Our town celebration meant nothing. And Virginia Wydell's entire extravaganza was based on a humiliating moment in Wydell history, not a success.

  Ellis huffed out a breath. "It would be bad enough for Mom to lose her fortune to Maisie, but her entire reputation? This is worse. At least for her."

  That was right. She'd never live this down. That cannonball in the wall wasn't a symbol of town and family glory. It was a permanent reminder of her family's pride, arrogance, and greed.

  I stood for a moment, taking it all in. "I still can't believe we fought each other and then we burned down our own town."

  We'd based a big part of our identity on this moment, just as Virginia had. We held festivals, took pictures, sang songs. We were in the Tennessee Guidebook.

  Right now, people were gathering by the old cannon overlooking the square, getting ready to celebrate our historic military victory.

  It was all a lie.

  He studied the passage again. "When you leave a major position unguarded, the enemy will take advantage."

  The Battle of Sugarland had been bloody and brutal hand-to-hand combat. And it had been completely avoidable.

  "So tonight, up on that hill, they're celebrating internal fighting, a lucky shot, and town panic."

  And now that I knew the truth, I couldn't help but see it. "Didn't you always wonder how our militia all ended up in the town and not on the battlefield?"

  Ellis shuddered out a laugh. "There's an old family story about how Jackson and Wydell fought a duel before the battle. The Wydells always liked to say Eli Jackson's battle wound was really just a shot from Great-Uncle Vincent."

  "Sounds like it was more truth than family pride," I told him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. "I want to tell her. Alone."

  I wanted to give him that, but… "You can't." His mother had already seen to it. She'd made an extra-large spectacle of the midnight celebration tonight, and now it was going to come back to bite her. Because we couldn't let it go on. Not now.

  "I understand. Mom set herself up for this." He winced. "She won't even see it coming."

  She might if she was the one who killed Darla. But I didn't say that. It would only hurt him more.

  The room had grown quite warm, at least in comparison to the bone-soaking chill I'd felt when we entered the house. I looked back to Pa Hatcher's skeleton, lying crumpled on the closet floor. "I'm surprised Ma Hatcher didn't destroy the Bible."

  Ellis shook his head. "I don't think a God-fearing woman of her time would dare."

  "So she locked the body in the closet with the evidence and guarded it until her death."

  "And afterward as well," Ellis added. "But she must not have known about the letter hidden in Jeremiah Hatcher's personal secretary, the one that talked about the Bible."

  "I doubt Leland Wydell found it, either." Even after he'd bought the piece and used it for his personal correspondence. "That aging leather trim must have made it easier for Darla to pry the letter from its hiding spot."

  Ellis simply nodded. "Can you walk?"

  We leaned on each other as we made our way out of the dark, abandoned house.

  I clutched the Bible to my chest. I'd never been so glad to step outside, until a gunshot sounded and Ellis dropped to the ground.

  Montgomery Silas stepped from the shadows and aimed a revolver at my chest. His forehead shone with sweat. "Hand over the Bible, Miss Long."

  "Let me at least see if Ellis is okay," I gasped, raising my hands in the air.

  "Give me the Bible first."

  I stared at him, and suddenly everything clicked. "Virginia Wydell didn't kill Darla Grace. It was you."

  His expression hardened as he pulled the trigger.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HEAT SEARED THROUGH my shoulder. My eyes felt gritty as I came to on the musty floor of the old Hatcher house. "Ellis?" I croaked.

  I could barely hear over the loud crackling noise that surrounded me.

  The room had grown hot, and I smelled smoke. A hand gripped my good shoulder and shook me hard. "Stay with me, Verity." Ellis crouched over me. "I'm too hurt to lift you and we need to get out of here."

  I opened my eyes. Flames rose from the wall directly in front of us, disappearing behind churning black smoke. The roar of the fire grew louder.

  "How are we going to get out?" I pleaded.

  "Look for a door or a window," Ellis said, covering his mouth and nose with the top of his shirt.

  I couldn't see anything that would tell us where we were. Choking smoke surrounded us. I coughed, fighting a wave of dizziness. The house was ablaze, and old wood like this wouldn't last long.

  I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket, hoping to call for help, but a black screen greeted me. Ma Hatcher had fried it.

  It wasn't fair. It wasn't supposed to turn out this way. Sweat beaded on my back and ran down from my hair. The house groaned around us.

  "Come on," Ellis said, leading me as we crawled across the warm floorboards. "I think I see the door."

  I clung to him, my eyes watering from the smoke. And I swore it wasn't an illusion, but I could almost make out the form of Josephine, shimmering into view directly in front of us. It could have been the smoke…but no. It was her! I didn't understand how I could see her, and then I realized she was kissing Matthew.

  "Josephine," I cried.

  The couple jolted apart. Josephine covered her mouth with her hands and Matthew stared down at us in shock.

  "The house is on fire!" My throat burned with the smoke I'd inhaled.

  Matthew's eyes darted about to take in his surroundings. "So it is. I hardly noticed."

  Josephine was crying now. "My house!" She darted up through the ceiling. "Oh, Pa!"

  The door stood directly behind the couple. Ellis found the knob, twisted. It didn't budge. He began wrestling with it. Desperate. Montgomery must have barred it.

  I stared at Matthew. "Get us out!"

  A calm came over Major Jackson, as if he went into battle mode. "Stand aside," he said, not giving us any time to do so before he blasted the door open.

  Fresh air streamed in, stoking the fire. Flames shot up around us with renewed vigor.

  Oh my word. We couldn't make it out that way. We were going to die in here.

  "This way!" Matthew commanded, gliding the opposite direction, toward the stairs.

  No! He was going to get us killed. We had to stay low and get out the door, or a window on the first floor. Only they were all on the front of the house, behind that wall of flames. I wanted to cry. I was already dizzy and…

  "Quickly," Matthew pleaded. "I can see. You can't!"

  "Come on," I said, attempting to lead Ellis farther back into the house.

  He clutched his bloody right side. "Stop. No…"

  "The ghost says to go this way," I choked out. "We can trust him," I added, praying I was right.

  Ellis cursed, and for a second, I didn't think he'd go into the fire with me.

  But he did. He believed in me. Together, we crawled toward the stairs, farther into the burning house, every instinct screaming at me to go back the other way.


  The stairs felt hot underneath us, threatening to collapse with every creak and moan. We pressed forward. We didn't have a choice.

  From the top of the landing, we heard Josephine weeping in her room.

  "My house," she wailed, tears streaming down her face. Fritz ran in circles around her, agitated and barking. "Do I even exist without my house?"

  "Yes," I told her. "You have us. And Matthew. And Fritz."

  She didn't appear to even hear me.

  Ellis hurried past her and tested the window. "She won't have us for much longer if we don't get out of here."

  He was right. The house would collapse under us. We couldn't make it out downstairs, and we had no exits up here. No matter where we went, we were trapped.

  The window opened without the rush of flames we'd endured downstairs. The fire hadn't reached the second floor.

  Matthew materialized and pulled Josephine into his embrace. At the same time, he pointed out the window to a sturdy pine that grew at least ten feet away. It wasn't burning, not yet. "Go, Verity. I'll push you along," he urged. The thought of jumping out the window terrified me. It was a long way down. The alternative was smoke inhalation and death. No alternative at all, really.

  "Okay," I said, trying to gather my wits. "We have to go out the window. Jump for that tree. Matthew's going to push us," I explained to Ellis.

  "Who's Matthew?" he demanded. He couldn't see.

  "A friend," I explained, making my way toward the window. "Get Josephine out of here too," I said to Matthew.

  I crouched near the edge of the window.

  Ellis grabbed hold of my shirt. "Verity, don't." He was having trouble focusing, the same as I was. We'd both be passed out from the smoke in less than a minute.

  I untangled myself from his grip. "Matthew!" I hollered, launching myself at the faraway tree.

  I fell sharply, and then I felt the smack of power against my back and a gust of air that threw me straight into the branches of the tall pine. I grabbed for the nearest branch I could reach and hung on for dear life. I wrapped my legs around the one lower, and managed a clumsy fall against the rough bark. Shinnying, I made it to the trunk and turned back to Ellis.