The House of Memory (Pluto's Snitch Book 2) Read online

  “Then we at least have to try. I want this over.”

  I called everyone to the table. Reginald sat close beside me, his uninjured hand on my shoulder. He would guide me through this.

  “Camilla,” I said, “you have a choice. Do you want to try to accept this . . . shadow?” I avoided the term past life in deference to Dr. Abbott.

  “Is it really a choice?” she asked.

  “It is. You can leave Roswell House and Alabama. You can build a new life with David anywhere in the world, and I believe you’ll be free. The entity seems attached to Roswell House.”

  “But she will always be here, waiting, wanting me to return—won’t she?” Camilla brushed a tear from her cheek. “I’d rather face her now, with my friends, my fiancé, here to help me.”

  I nodded. She had made her choice. And I had learned that it wasn’t up to me to choose. “Once again, hold hands.” With the candles flickering and the moon, at last, lighting the lawn outside the house, I began. “Nina Campbell, we call upon you to appear before us.”

  Outside the window, I saw the twin girls. They watched us. And behind them others arrived. The lawn filled with the dead that Nina Campbell had harmed. I couldn’t believe that gentle Camilla had anything to do with this woman who’d done such terrible things, seemingly without compunction. I had much to learn about the spirit world, though. My job now was to assist, not to understand.

  “Nina Campbell,” I said, my voice more forceful, “we demand you come forward.”

  I saw her then, just as everyone at the table gagged at the stench of death. She came forward, a tall, slender woman with luxuriant chestnut hair piled high on her head. When the candlelight touched her face, I inhaled sharply. Her amorphous features were like those of the child in my dream about the underworld. Nina Campbell belonged to neither the light nor the dark. Her time had come and gone, and she clung to a house that had never been hers.

  “I name you, Nina Campbell. Spirit, ghost, demon, or lost soul, you will leave these premises and allow Camilla and David to live here happily.”

  “Milksop. I’ll have no part of this.” She had no mouth to speak, and the others clearly couldn’t hear her.

  “You will leave. I will cast you out.”

  “I will kill her.” Nina shifted behind Camilla. She towered over her—a black, dense energy. Camilla winced as if in pain.

  “There’s pressure on my chest,” she said, struggling to stand but unable to do so. “Please, I can’t breathe. Make it stop.”

  Reginald’s fingers pressed into my shoulder. “Keep going,” he urged.

  “Nina, you must leave this house. You are the past, and there is no place for you here.”

  A howl of wind burst through the room, guttering the candles. We gagged on the odor of decay, but no one left the table, and Camilla gulped in oxygen when the pain relented.

  “I name you, Nina Campbell, and your sins. Judgment awaits you, and there is no more delay.”

  “I’ll take the milksop with me,” she said.

  Camilla cried out and crumpled. I tried to rise, but Reginald held me in my seat. “Finish it,” he commanded.

  I’d memorized the words Madam had taught me. “You have no power here. You were unwanted here even by the man you killed for. You must leave. That life is over, and you must face your transgressions. Camilla has her own life, her own path. She has left you and your evil choices behind.”

  “I’m stronger than she is. I can inhabit her, control her, make her do my bidding. I made her cut her man, and I’ll make her do worse.” Nina spiraled into a dark cloud and disappeared into the top of Camilla’s head.

  Camilla sat up and shook free of David. Zelda attempted to restrain her, but she backhanded her friend. When she looked at me, I knew Nina was inside her. “Give me a knife,” she said in a voice hoarse and unfamiliar.

  I had merged the two, but I’d underestimated Nina’s strength. She’d overpowered Camilla. Before my very eyes, the tender young woman I’d come to help disappeared. A harsh, cruel woman took her place, her mouth twisted into a victorious smile.

  “What should I do?” I asked Reginald while the table was transfixed by Camilla’s transformation. She seemed to grow taller, stouter. The soft planes of her face hardened, and lines formed on either side of her mouth.

  “David, fight for Camilla,” Reginald said. “Bring her back.”

  David gripped her hand and stood to face her. “I don’t care who you are or why you’re here, but you will get out of the woman I love.”

  Camilla’s laugh was haughty. “I’ve bested better than you. I brought men to their knees, begging me to spare their children. I cut their throats ear to ear. I’m not afraid of you. Would you like to see what I can do to this person you love?”

  “A physical change is not possible.” Dr. Abbott’s words lacked conviction.

  Camilla cried out in pain, doubling over and sobbing. Zelda was instantly at her side, a frantic look on her face.

  “Help her,” Zelda begged.

  “Stop it!” David said, panicking.

  Nina laughed. “She is not a strong woman, is she? I will break her.”

  “Fight, David,” Reginald said. “Her bond to you is stronger than Nina’s power. Make her remember.”

  Dr. Abbott looked horrified, but he didn’t move from the table.

  David found a fresh wave of courage. “Camilla, you and I will raise our children in this house, in a loving family. But you have to fight. Push her back. Push her out. You are not controlled by this thing. Come back to me.” He let go of her hand and grasped her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “Remember, darling, we’re going to lace the bannister on the stairs with passionflower vines and Confederate jasmine for our wedding. The blooms will fill the air with such sweetness.”

  Camilla’s lovely face twisted into something unrecognizable. “She’s mine. I’m in her now, and she’ll never be your sweet Camilla again. She can’t erase me. I’ll have my due.”

  “Don’t give up, Camilla.” I encouraged her, though I saw no trace of the young woman remaining. Nina Campbell had completely taken over her body. But Nina was not simply a spirit from the past; she was something else. A shade of another life lived.

  “Tell her she’s good,” I urged David. “Make her remember who she is now, in this life. Not the past.”

  “Camilla, I fell in love with you because of your gentle spirit. You are the kindest person I’ve ever known. But you’re also strong. You make the world better, and I won’t let you go. You are loved. And you deserve only joy. Don’t let this angry apparition destroy our chance for happiness. Come back to me, to my love for you.”

  “Shut up, you fool.” Camilla spat in his face.

  Zelda gasped and stood. “Camilla! Stop it. Fight her.” She grabbed Camilla’s hand and defied the entity that now controlled Camilla. “I won’t let you have her.”

  David wiped the spittle away. “Camilla, you and I will have everything Nina ever wanted. A love stronger than the two of us apart, a marriage we choose and that we’ll honor each day we live together. A family of laughing children to run across the lawn. And we will live it here, in Roswell House.”

  “You’ll never get her or the house.” Camilla’s body bent backward in a way I feared would snap her spine. “I will destroy her before I give up.”

  “You’ll never have her.” David captured Camilla in his arms. “I’ll kill her and burn Roswell House to the ground. I swear it to you. She would not want to live with such a horror inside her. Let her go, or I’ll damn us both to hell.” His grip on Camilla’s neck tightened, and she began to struggle to breathe. “Get out!”

  Camilla’s body contorted, then went limp.

  “Lay her on the floor!” Dr. Abbott commanded. He checked her pulse at her throat. “We’re losing her.”

  Something hard struck the wooden floor. Multicolored marbles rolled toward Camilla’s prone body. They’d dropped out of thin air, it seemed, causing the othe
rs to gasp. Then I saw the girls. The twins came forward, marbles falling from their hands.

  “I can’t believe this,” Dr. Abbott said as he knelt beside Camilla and stopped several of the marbles with his hand. “We have to get her to the hospital.”

  Beside the doctor, I saw Camilla’s gentle spirit appear. She was the tender Camilla beloved by her friends, but I was terrified that she’d abandoned her body, that she’d quit fighting. “You can’t be in this house,” Camilla said to the girls, though no one other than me could see them.

  “We belong. You have to leave. She will kill you.”

  Camilla’s spirit solidified and grew stronger as she brushed her hand over one twin’s hair. “I’ll help you escape this place. I’ll take care of you.”

  “No, Camilla, don’t go!” I had to bring her back. She couldn’t let Nina win. “David, call Camilla back. Tell her she has to accept the past, that she can reconcile all of it later. Tell her she can defeat Nina—because she’s loving and kind. She can help the others trapped here. But she can’t let Nina have her flesh.”

  David tenderly lifted Camilla’s head. “I don’t care what happened in the past. I know who you are now, and I love you. Together we’ll sort this out, but you have to fight or I will lose you.”

  A swarm of flies dived at Camilla’s body, and David and Dr. Abbott shielded her.

  “Get out,” the girls said. I joined in, motioning for Reginald and Dr. Abbott to join me. “Get out. Nina Campbell, get out. You don’t belong here. You never did.” We were a ragtag chorus that grew in strength as we chanted the same words over and over again.

  “The past can’t be undone,” David said to Camilla, his lips close to her ear, “but it isn’t who you are today. You learned and changed.” As the flies dropped dead around them, David lifted her up. “Sit up and fight!”

  Camilla’s eyes focused, and she looked around.

  No one else saw the dark mist that left her. No one living. The twins saw it, and together they chased it out of the house. When they were gone, the door slammed shut.

  The house sighed. Everyone heard it and looked around.

  “Could I please have some water?” Camilla asked.

  “Whatever you need,” Zelda said. “Whatever you need.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Dr. Abbott drove Reginald to the hospital, where he would remove the bullet. Kuddle was conscious but restrained, and Dr. Abbott promised to send the police to retrieve him—as well as to pick up Martha Campbell and ascertain her role in Reginald’s shooting and the abduction of the young girls. I believed Martha had helped turn out the stolen girls, but I had no proof. The sheriff would have to make his case in that regard. God willing, Martha, Kuddle, and the doctors involved would all face justice for using helpless young women for profit.

  The storm had passed, but the rain seemed to have intensified the sweltering heat. Zelda and I sat outside Roswell House with Father Gregory. He was still upset with us, but he was thawing. As we told him the story of the missing girls, Jason Kuddle’s role in what appeared to be a prostitution ring using young women stolen from rural areas, he dropped his anger at us for conversing with evil spirits. He was a good man at heart who’d been confronted with things he was unprepared to witness.

  Per his promise, Dr. Abbott also called Judge Sayre and Minnie. They looked almost as frazzled as we felt when they arrived at Roswell House.

  “The whole town’s in an uproar,” Judge Sayre told Zelda and me. “I have no doubt you two are at the bottom of it. Did you have anything to do with Camilla Granger’s escape from Bryce Hospital?”

  “Yes, sir,” Zelda said. “We took her. She’s here, and we want you to marry her and David. Right now. Before Maude gets wind of it.”

  Judge Sayre assessed his daughter for a long moment. “A good plan. Where are the bride and groom?”

  “They’re inside.” I hadn’t wanted to leave them there alone, but they had insisted. Camilla had to believe that whatever had lingered there to torment her was gone. She would never attempt to injure David again. And the only way to prove it to her was to allow her and David to wander Roswell House alone.

  “Oh my,” Minnie said. “Are you sure—but of course you are or you wouldn’t be out here in this swampy heat.”

  “Father Gregory, would you serve as witness to the wedding?” Judge Sayre asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Then let’s get on with the ceremony. If Maude learns Camilla is here, she’ll descend on us like a starving vulture.”

  I laughed out loud. Judge Sayre seldom expressed his true opinion, but he was on the money.

  “What about Reginald?” Zelda asked.

  “He’ll understand. Time is our enemy.”

  We went inside and gathered at the base of the beautiful staircase, candles lit and glowing brightly, and Judge Sayre performed the ceremony that bound David and Camilla as man and wife and that transferred her care to her husband. Maude Granger no longer had any say-so in Camilla’s future.

  And not a moment too soon. Maude arrived just as the nuptials concluded. She brought with her two Montgomery police officers. We met them on the front lawn.

  Maude charged toward us, hurling orders like cannonballs. “Charge that man with kidnapping. Detain both of those women. Where’s the other man, the one with the mustache?”

  Camilla’s voice was a calm contrast. “Mama, I’m no longer your concern. David is my husband.”

  “Get in that car right now,” Maude commanded.

  Camilla took David’s hand. “Go to hell.”

  I couldn’t tell if Camilla had grown from her experience, or if perhaps she had absorbed a bit of Nina Campbell’s power and strength. Only time would tell.

  “How dare you?” Maude raised her hand as if to slap Camilla’s face, but David grasped her wrist.

  “Touch my wife, and I will snap your neck.”

  Minnie and Judge Sayre came through the open door to the lawn. “It’s time for you to disappear, Maude Granger,” Minnie said. “You’ve done everything in your power to destroy your own daughter’s happiness. Now she’s free of you. We all are.”

  David released Maude’s wrist. “I know you now, Maude Campbell Granger. I know your mother’s deeds and how you learned at her knee. None of that impacts Camilla. But you, you are another matter. Remove yourself from my property.” David turned, and he and Camilla walked away, entering Roswell House and closing the door.

  Judge Sayre took control. “Officers, there’s a murderer tied up in the dining room. He needs to be transported to jail. Take him with you, and I advise you to get back to your duties.”

  Maude was left standing alone in the yard while everyone else went on about their lives. This was the fate she’d earned and deserved, the one thing she couldn’t abide. Being ignored.

  Two days later, we sat in the sunroom of Sayre House, the shade cast by the beautiful trees dancing fitfully in a welcome breeze. We sipped lemonade with a zip, laced with some bootlegged rum, and Zelda told her father and mother the whole story of Camilla’s abduction and ultimate rescue. Zelda didn’t have Tallulah’s husky voice, but she was a natural-born storyteller. I listened with great appreciation as she added just enough embellishment into our great escape from Bryce and the near accident on the road when we’d almost been waylaid. Reginald had only one small detail to add, something he’d learned during his hours as Kuddle’s prisoner. The crooked private investigator had arranged the posse that had attempted to block us on the road from Tuscaloosa, just as he’d paid the drivers of the car to run us off the road at the catfish camp. Kuddle had intended all along to get rid of Reginald and me and anyone else who might be asking the wrong questions.

  Minnie put a hand over her heart. “Thank goodness. I had no idea what was truly going on.”

  “But we have the perfect ending for a wild story. Scott is going to love this. Maybe he’ll even write it into a story. And you, too, Raissa. I can’t wait to see what you make of the ev
ents.”

  I did have several ideas—and now that I would be returning to the solitude of Caoin House in the morning, I would have time to write. Nothing had ever sounded quite so lovely as the idea of long hours, sitting in my bedroom, staring out at the oak grove, and letting my imagination hold sway.

  Reginald and Judge Sayre enjoyed a lively debate about the ongoing investigation into Bryce Hospital. I still wasn’t certain I believed that the eminent Dr. Perkins was not involved in the prostitution ring and had never suspected that the pretty girls who conveniently showed up and “desperately needed” his surgery were kidnapped young women.

  Somehow he’d convinced the police he wasn’t involved, aided in part by his three-week hitch in Vienna. Dr. Bentley and Dr. French were another matter. Both doctors had admitted their part in the wretched operation. They’d been taken into custody.

  Joanne Pence and Ritter Ames had been found, safe and unharmed. Nurse Brady, who had begun to suspect foul play, had helped the young women hide on the hospital premises. She’d been able to move them from place to place to avoid detection. Both had been returned to their families. I’d received a note from Mrs. Ames thanking me for my part in saving her daughter. I couldn’t read it without crying.

  Zelda plopped down beside me on the wicker sofa. “Come to New York. Both of you. I would adore introducing you to my set of friends. You’re very proper, Raissa, but I sense that underneath you’re dying to be modern.”

  “I would like that.” The thought of a New York trip appealed to me. “Reginald would fit right in. He has the polish of a big-city man.”

  “He would. He’s an enigma, isn’t he?”

  I wondered if Zelda sensed Reginald’s secret. If she did, she wouldn’t care. She and Tallulah were dedicated to living their own lives and allowing others to do the same. “Maybe we will. I’d love to see New York City when it’s decorated for Christmas. Maybe this winter we can talk Uncle Brett into taking the train up. It would be such fun.”