After an hour or so of relaxing in the cabin, we made our way to the far side of the lake. My GPS didn’t help much—a man in a gas station gave more reliable directions—but we found it eventually. It sat in the middle of the woods, no other houses for miles around. Three stories, most of the windows shuttered. The lawn around it was waiting for spring.
Rachel leaned against the car for a moment. “Whoa,” she whispered.
“What is it?” I saw her eyes flickered.
“Lots of ghosts.” She cocked her head. “I can’t see them, but I can feel them.”
“Trapped here?”
She shook her head. “They don’t want to talk. It’s more—protective. They don’t want to leave.”
Okay. That didn’t make me feel better about being here.
Tessa answered our knock on the porch. “You made it.” She held the door open with a frown. “Over here. Sara! They’re here!”
She led us through a big front room into a parlor, complete with oil lamps burning on small tables and a woodburning stove in one corner. The light from the lamps cast long shadows over the flowered pattern of the wallpaper, and big, overstuffed armchairs lined the room. A pot of tea and four delicate China cups sat on a table.
A woman in her 70s sat in one of the armchairs with a blanket over her legs. She was small, with silvery hair, a firm chin, and sharp eyes behind round glasses. She held a small glass of wine in her hand.
Tessa poured us tea. Then she stood in a corner, crossing her arms and watching us as if we were here to rob the place.
“Mr. Jurgen? I am Sara Cartwright.” She set down her wine and spread an arm around the room. “This house was built by my ancestor, Thomas Wheeler. He was Linewood’s first mayor. Practically its founder, with a few other people.”
“So you’re related to Greg Wooding.” I wonder what that connection meant. “This is my wife, Rachel Dunne.”
A slight nod. “Ms. Dunne. Yes, I was aware of Mr. Wooding here. I never met him. I don’t go out unless I really have to, these days.” She smoothed her blanket over her knees. “You’re interested in him, I think.”
“His daughter hired me. She didn’t understand why he was here, and when he died, she wanted to know more.”
Sara Cartwright seemed to think about this. Rachel and I sipped our tea patiently. “I don’t know why he came here. If he’d come to me, I would have told him he’d be safer living someplace else. Anywhere else.”
“Why is that?”
Instead of answering, she said, “You’ve met Dwight?”
“Yes. He came to the cabin last night. He seemed—unhappy that we were there.”
“Dwight is the Master at the Elwood Lodge.”
I glanced at Rachel. “They said he was the president.”
She chuckled. “That’s a better-sounding word, I suppose. No, Dwight is the Master. He controls the Lodge and everyone in it. The Lodge has been part of Linewood since the beginning.”
“They said a man named Nathaniel Bailey founded it in the 1950s.”
She shook her head. “He put up the building where it is now. The Lodge has been part of Linewood ever since Thomas Wheeler was the first mayor.”
“What do they do there?” Rachel asked. “It seemed excessively, well, manly.”
She chuckled. “Men. Men and their clubs.” She sipped her wine. “They play their little games, they have their little rituals. They say they’re protecting Linewood.”
“From what?”
“From what lives in the woods.” Sara Cartwright gestured toward the window behind me. “Every 20 years or so, they come out to hunt and feed.”
“So the people in the lake—Greg Wooding? They’re, what? Sacrifices? To appease the monsters?”
“They’re sacrifices to Ventikkan.”
“The giant rat?” Rachel grimaced “I knew the guy at the Lodge was scared of it.”
“She’s psychic,” I said.
“Yes, I knew that when you came in.” Sara Cartwright smiled at Rachel.
Tessa snorted. “Ventikkan. They made it up out of legends and folk stories. It protects the town, but they have to give it a sacrifice to bring it out. Or something like that.”
“Some say the early settlers saw a strange creature in the woods, and they gave it offerings to appease it. I don’t know.” Sara Cartwright shook her head. “But the Lodge is centered around him. Appeasing him. Placating him. That’s the Master’s job.”
I crossed my arms. This was interesting, if true. But it wasn’t really what my client was paying for. “What about Greg Wooding? Do you have any idea what brought him here?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. If he was aware of me, of our connection, he never made time to talk to me. We never spoke.”
“I saw him in town a few times,” Tessa said. “Watching the Lodge from the store across the street. Coming out of it once or twice. Or just walking on the street.”
“I asked you here because I know a little about you,” Sara Cartwright said. “Your name is well-known in certain circles.”
Should I be flattered? Or nervous? “Okay.”
“I wanted you to be aware of our history. So you can take appropriate precautions.”
“Against Ventikkan?”
“The Lodge. They’re the real power in this town. You want to watch yourself around them.”
“Most of them are okay, one-on-one,” Tessa said. “But whatever they get up to inside—that’s different.”
Rachel and I glanced at each other. “Good to know,” Rachel said.
“Thank you,” I said as we stood up.
“Take care.” She finished her wine.
Tessa poured her another glass, and then she walked us out to the car. “Thanks for coming.” She rolled her eyes. “My aunt can be a little bit much. I wasn’t sure what she was going to say.”
“She was very informative,” I told her.
Rachel looked her over. “You know there are ghosts all over the place here, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah.” She looked back at the house. “Without them to talk to I’d go crazy.”
“Are they all from the lake?”
Tessa blinked, then turned and looked through the trees, where we could see the cold water drifting restlessly. “Some of them. I don’t know their names. But yeah. Some were killed by whatever comes out of the woods, some were dropped in by the Lodge. But some—” She shrugged. “They just want to hang around.”
“It’s a nice spot for that” Rachel said.
“Yeah.” Tessa smiled. “Well, see you around.”
Back at the cabin we opened some beers and talked about what we’d learned: lots about the history of Linewood, but not very much about what Greg Wooding had been doing here.
“I told her I couldn’t promise anything,” I said.
“Maybe it should be on your business cards,” Rachel said. “’Results Not Guaranteed.’”
We lay on the sofa, facing the fireplace. I’d put the rat in a kitchen cabinet so we wouldn’t have to look at it. I thought about starting a fire in the fireplace, but I’m a city boy. I was afraid of burning the place down.
I looked at the deer over the mantle. Its dark glass eyes gazed over our heads like cameras watching the door for intruders. I wondered where it had come from, and who’d killed it. I’d half-expected Rachel to tell me to take it down, but she’d just grimaced when she first saw it and said, “It figures.” I wondered if it was part of the cabin or if Wooding had bought it.
I looked around the room again, wondering if I’d missed anything. I looked up at the deer’s head. Maybe something behind it? I looked at the two vases sitting beneath it, on either side of where the rat had been placed. They were dusty, with flowers painted on them, and I suddenly realized there was one place I hadn’t searched.
“Damn it.” I jumped up and picked up the left-hand vase. Nothing. “I’m going to feel really stupid if—"
Yeah. I found a white envelope with EMMA scrawled across it in thick black marker. “Yeah, I’m brilliant.”
“Don’t worry.” Rachel patted my arm. “You’re still the smartest private detective I know.”
“I’m the only one you know.”
“Well, yeah, but . . .” She shrugged.
I sighed. I wanted to rip the envelope open, but I forced myself to wait. “I have to call my client.”
As a therapist, Rachel understood client rules. “Yeah. Hopefully she’ll let us read it.”
I called Emma Wooding and explained the situation. It took a few minutes—I had to explain what we’d found out about her father’s family history, and she had to process that and everything I told her about the Lodge. “I’d like your permission to read this letter,” I finished, “but of course I’ll wait and hand it over to you without opening it if—”
“Read it,” she snapped impatiently.
I set the phone down and opened the envelope.
Dear Emma,
Im writing this in case I dont get a chance to tell you this in person. First I want you to know I love you and I should have done things better for you. Your the best thing in my life and I should have told you that more often. Especially after your mother. But thats done now and I cant change things, except to say what I should have said but its too late now.
I knew about this town all my life but I never came here. They told me our family was one of the first families here, but I didn care. My grandfather gave me that statue of the rat when I was 5 years old and told me stories about it and I had nightmares. So I never wanted to come here and I never told anyone about it.
I found some stuff from my grandfather a few years ago. It said we got kicked out of the town a long time ago because we didn’t like the way things were going. There was this loge—lodge—that one of my grandparents started and it was taking over the town, and the family, us, we wanted to be in charge to keep them from doing bad things but they found my great-whatever grandfather, dead out on the road, they said he been attacked by a wolf but my great grandma knew they killed him, so she took the family and left.
I guess I been thinking about this a long time and I finally decided I have to do something. I dont know what exactly but I cant ignore it any more for the rest of my life. Im old and I havent done anything right in my life, except for you I guess. Im up here now and Im going to stop them somehow. I dont know how. I dont know what’s going to happen. Scared.
I love you.
Dad
Emma was quiet when I finished. Eventually Rachel said, “Emma? Are you all right?”
We heard a sniff. “I’m fine. It’s just—out of nowhere. I never knew any of this. He never told me . . .” She was quiet again. Then she said, “I’m coming up there.”
Rachel and I looked at each other. “Okay,” I said. “I’m not sure how much there is to do at this point—”
“I want to see this Lodge,” she said. “I want to find out what they did to my father.”
“You want to be careful,” I told her. “The stories about Ventikkan and the creatures—I’m not sure they’re just stories.”
“I don’t care.” Her voice quivered. “I have to know.”
This didn’t sound good, or safe, but she was the client. “All right. We’ll see you tomorrow—”
“I’ll be there tonight.” Now her voice was firm. Determined.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea—”
“I’m coming,” she said. “My aunt can take care of my son. I need your help, but if you can’t help mwe just send me your bill on Monday.”
I stifled a groan, “All right. Come to the cabin. We’ll head to the Lodge together.”
“Thank you,” Emma hung up.
I looked at Rachel, expecting a dagger glare. She only sighed. “Clients. Am I right?”
“Welcome to my world.” I sat back on the sofa.
“Oh, I know your world all too well.” She put an arm around me. “Two-hour drive, right?”
“Ninety minutes if you’re fast.” I leaned in.
“Oh, I’m fast,” Rachel said right before she kissed me.
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