What did that leave? Raccoons? Probably not in Wales. A fox, maybe.
He snatched up a broom leaning against the wall, then peered out the window mounted in the door. From this vantage he couldn’t see anything outside, but the scraping continued.
Positioning the broom to keep a critter from darting inside, Declan reached for the doorknob. Before he could grip the brass, the door swung inward with a gust of icy air that smelled faintly of campfire.
Nothing. There was nothing there to scratch, or open the door.
The sun had long dipped below the horizon, turning the sky twilight-blue and leaving the courtyard between Stonecliff and the coach house shadowy, the woods beyond dark.
Goose bumps studded his skin. A shiver crawled up his back. He felt like someone was watching him. He scanned the edge of trees. Two small, red eyes peered out from the black.
* * *
“I need you to come up tomorrow and bring me everything on that list I emailed you.” Carly pinned her phone between her chin and her shoulder, freeing up her hands so she could adjust the icepack slipping off her ankle.
She lay stretched out on the double bed in her room at the inn, nearly swallowed by billowy pale blue satin ruffles and a seemingly endless number of frilly throw pillows.
“Just like that?” Andy sputtered. “What if I had plans? I can’t just drop everything I’m doing and bugger off to Wales. I have a life.”
Carly snorted, inspecting the damage to her ankle. Sprained, most likely. The swelling had gone down for the most part, and the steady ache had faded since the ibuprofen had kicked in. “Your life is the same as mine—work, work and more work. That’s how you like it.”
“Aye, maybe,” he agreed, with a soft chuckle. “Have you finally talked the lord of the manor into letting us investigate?”
She might have if he hadn’t been so aggravating and she hadn’t lost her temper.
“We’re talking,” she said, carefully. It was true, in a way. They had spoken today, after all, and he had his head firmly inserted up his ass if he thought she’d let the subject drop just because he’s said so.
“Is that a yes or a no?” Andy asked, flatly. He was an excellent paranormal investigator. She’d worked with him on several cases in the past. Professional, smart, patient and without academic affiliations, making him far more likely to go along with her plan.
“It’s not a done deal yet,” she admitted.
“Then why do you want me…? No.” The humor vanished from his tone. “Bloody hell, it’s that sort of shit that gives us a bad name. You should know better.”
“I’m not suggesting we conduct a full investigation without his permission. I think we should visit this Devil’s Eye and do a little preliminary work. Then we’ll at least know if it’s even worth persuading Meyers to let us do more.”
“Are you hearing yourself? What do you expect us to do? Sneak onto the property in the dead of night and hope we’re not arrested for trespassing?”
“Of course not. It’s a big estate. No one will even know we’ve been there. Just a quick walk around, take some readings. In and out, a half hour at the most.”
“I can’t believe what you’re suggesting. If I’m caught, it could damage my reputation as an investigator. But you could lose your job at the university, everything you’ve ever published called into question. You’d have no credibility left. What the hell is it about this place that you’d risk all that?”
Her position with the university was tenuous as it was. Between a lack of funding and a department head she didn’t exactly see eye to eye with, she needed something big to save her, anyway.
“I think I’ve found evil,” she told him.
He snorted. “Well, that makes me want to drop everything and rush right there.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I’m right, this bog, The Devil’s Eye, gives off enough geometric energy that it is not only producing paranormal phenomena, it’s drawing evil to it.”
“That’s a pretty farfetched theory.”
“Just come. If there’s something there we’ll find it, then we present Meyers with our evidence.”
“If we find anything.”
“Right.”
“Then we’ll investigate if Meyers believes us?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s an awful lot of ifs for such a long trip, Carly.”
“You’re driving up from Cardiff not the moon. It’s not even five hours.”
He snorted loudly. “It’ll be five hours too long if Meyers doesn’t let us on his land.”
She thought of the man sitting across from her in the café with his unruly black hair, one straight brow cocked and a smirk twisting his lips. To think he believed he could just order her to stop her investigation, blame her for his stupid house not selling and call her a new age flake. Irritation prickled her skin. She’d get her way on principal alone.
“He’ll let us investigate. I can be very persuasive—which is how I know you’ll be up here first thing tomorrow morning.”
Andy let out a long sigh. “Fine, you win, but you better get us permission at the end of all this.”
“I will,” she promised. She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said she could be persuasive. And if persuasion didn’t work, she wasn’t above playing dirty.
Chapter Three
Declan woke slowly. Warm sunlight seeped between the gap in the drapes and fell on his face. He squinted and burrowed into the pillow. The relentless rush of the sea beating the shore at the base of the cliff filled his ears, muffled through the closed window, but still audible, making it impossible to pretend he was at home in his own bed instead of this dreary house he’d never unload.
He sighed, opened his eyes and shoved back the blankets. Maybe today he’d have good news. Maybe the real estate agent would arrive with some eccentric crazy willing to buy this dump above market value. He could head back to Seattle a rich man. Enough money to clean up the mess Josh had made of his business.
Just thinking about everything his younger brother had done sent a fresh wave of fury rolling through him. Josh had always been a fuck up. Maybe it was classic middle child syndrome. Though, Declan was so much older than Josh and his sister Katie he felt more like a third parent than a brother—especially since his mother had passed away.
Josh, who had barely squeaked through high school and washed out of college, hadn’t been able to hold down a job so Declan had hired him. Taking on his brother had been an expense he could barely manage. He and his partner Jayne were just keeping their firm going, but his mother had been sick by then, and Declan had wanted one less thing for her and Allen to have to worry about.
He’d put Josh in charge of background checks for their corporate clients. After all, how badly could his brother screw that up? He should have known better. Josh had taken payouts from some of the people he was supposed to be investigating and falsified information. Not only had his brother damaged Declan and Jayne’s credibility, he’d left them vulnerable to criminal charges.
Declan had fired Josh, paid back the clients Josh had scammed and miraculously kept them from pressing charges against all of them—Josh included. Though, Declan had been so furious at his younger brother, he didn’t think he’d have given a shit if the cops had carted his brother off to prison. Only Allen and Katie had Declan scrambling to protect Josh. They couldn’t have dealt with that, too, not after losing his mother.
This