Craven Manor(73)

“I mean, the house catches fire within a week of him moving in. That’s insurance fraud 101, right?”

His companion snorted. “Or maybe he just doesn’t know how fireplaces work. This Kane guy is barely more than a kid. It’s no different than my cousin on his learner’s license buying an expensive car and crashing it.”

“Exactly. He’s young. Twenty, maybe twenty-two. How’d he get this house? Where’re his parents? It’s just this kid living in a burnt-up mansion in the middle of nowhere. I’m telling you, something’s fishy.”

“Keep your voice down, idiot. Fishy or not, we’re getting paid up front and in cash. As long as I don’t have to chase down overdue invoices, I’ll gladly turn a blind eye to a bit of weirdness.”

“Still, though—”

“I heard him telling Terry he inherited it. Apparently some great-great-great aunt or something took a shining to him as a kid and wrote him into her will.”

“I wish I had a rich aunt.”

“Don’t we all.”

Brief laughter broke the tension, but the reprieve didn’t last long. The first man spoke again, his voice so quiet that Daniel had to tilt his head close to the door to make out the words.

“There’s something else. This house is weird. All of these instructions to not come until after dawn, not to explore the garden, not to stay after dark—”

“He likes his privacy. Rich people usually do.”

“And I keep hearing footsteps and doors opening, even when Kane is out of the house. I’m thinking maybe we’re not alone here—”

“You’re getting paranoid, man.”

“Don’t you feel like you’re being watched? I mean, hell, just look at this place! It’s like it walked out of Halloween Town. If any house was going to be haunted, wouldn’t it be one like this?”

“Are the ghosts going to get in the way of me doing my job? Because unless they do, I honestly don’t care.”

“I think the cat… laughed at me.”

There was a very long pause. Daniel folded his arms across his chest and bit down on a smirk.

Finally, the first builder spoke again, sounding defensive. “I’m serious. That cat has been following me everywhere. This morning, I hit my thumb with the hammer, and its mouth opened right up. I swear it was laughing.”

“All right, you’ve officially gone round the bend.”

“Shut up!”

“If the house bothers you that much, put some more energy into your bloody work. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get out.”

“Fine.”

Daniel, keeping his feet light, crept back to the table and settled into the chair. Although the foyer’s damage was extreme, the stone walls had hindered the fire’s progress deeper into the house, and most of the rooms were still structurally intact. He’d had to scrub soot off the dining table, but then, there’d been so much dust on it that it had needed a deep clean anyway.

The scruffy black cat sat pin-straight on the tabletop, overseeing Daniel’s work. They made eye contact, and Daniel couldn’t repress his grin any longer.

He kept his voice to a whisper. Bran’s ears were good enough to pick it up. “If I’d been there, I would have laughed, too.”

The cat’s jaws opened, and he exhaled a soft, hissing imitation of a chuckle.



Six Weeks After





Daniel shivered, despite four layers of clothing. He leaned his back against one of the lichen-crusted trees. Tendrils of mist coiled around him, but they were thin that night and didn’t obscure the crypt ahead of him.

The flowers and bushes he’d planted had taken root. Most were dormant in the latter half of autumn, but come spring, Annalise would be surrounded by a carpet of colour.

Bran emerged through the trees to his right. Daniel was gradually getting used to the man’s silent appearances and departures. For the first few weeks, it had been incredibly unsettling to look up and see the tall figure in the doorway when no footsteps had heralded his arrival. Now, it was just another quirk he’d adapted to.

Daniel raised a hand in greeting but couldn’t manage a smile. “The police stopped looking for Kyle today.”

“Ah.” Bran came to a halt beside Daniel and leaned against a tree. “I’m sorry.”

Daniel shrugged. He was glad Bran hadn’t been happy at the news. He knew it was better for them and for Craven Manor if the police enquiry died, but at the same time, it seemed horribly final. Kyle hadn’t even had a funeral. There hadn’t been anything left of him to bury; all that remained were Kyle’s bag—stuffed full of coins from Bran’s study—and black soot staining the statues and mixed in with the dry mud.

No one except Daniel and Bran knew that Kyle had travelled to Craven Manor that night. He’d left the hospital without checking himself out. The police’s main theory was that he’d sustained more damage to his brain than the doctors had first assumed and wandered away in a delirium. They thought he might have perished in an abandoned building—there were plenty of those in his city—or strayed into the woods and died of hypothermia. Kyle didn’t have any family beyond Daniel, so no one was hounding the police to prolong the search. He would live on their database as a missing person, albeit one who wasn’t actually missed.