The Vanishing at Castle Moreau, page 13
“An understatement, I’d say,” Deacon muttered.
Stasia fingered a strand of black hair that had slipped from her headband. “There are a lot of stories about this place,” she stated needlessly.
Deacon shifted his gaze to her and looked unimpressed by her observation. “Sure, and there are a lot of stories about haunted houses, but most of them don’t have family still alive. Prominent family. Whether you like us or not, we have a name to uphold, and your spreading slanderous conspiracies will get you sued.”
Cleo’s eyes widened. Wow. Deacon was serious about this. She glanced at Dave, who seemed to take it in stride.
“Got it, Deacon. I won’t make an issue of it. But, please, don’t stand in the way if I can find some answers here.”
Deacon considered for a moment, then said to Cleo, “Go get the tape for him. But I want to listen to it before they leave.”
Fabulous. So much for avoiding the dark and dismal. The abyss of Castle Moreau. Cleo could see the sparkle of excitement in Stasia’s eyes, but she didn’t feel the same. Not the same at all! She knew what it was like to have a history without answers, with stains that never washed out, and with demons that hounded you for years and refused to give up. She was still running from them.
In a weird way, she and Castle Moreau weren’t all that different from each other. Not really. And that was what bothered Cleo the most.
sixteen
Deacon didn’t invite Dave and Stasia into the castle. Instead, he hauled out some camp chairs he’d found in one of the many rooms and arranged them in a circle on the front lawn. The hospitality wasn’t the greatest, but Virgie wouldn’t do well with strangers entering the castle and violating her privacy.
Dave had brought a tape player with him, and after Cleo retrieved the tape, they took their seats and listened to the scratchy recording of Meredith being interviewed. When it was finished, Dave clicked it off.
Deacon nodded in understanding. “Okay, I get how that brings it all back for you.”
Dave pressed the rewind button. “I have a few questions, if you don’t mind?”
“Shoot,” Deacon replied. “But I may not answer them all.”
“Actually, they’re for Cleo.”
“Me?” Cleo shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t know anything.”
Dave’s eyes were kind, which she appreciated. It was easier to talk to him when he wasn’t acting so intense. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands folded in front of him.
“Do you have any idea why someone would leave this tape on your car?”
She’d wondered that herself. Cleo shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I assumed it was coincidental.” She palmed her fist nervously, debating on cracking her knuckles as a diversion from the anxiety welling within her. She shouldn’t be anxious. She had nothing on the line personally as far as Anne Joplin’s disappearance was concerned.
“Nothing about Castle Moreau is coincidental,” Stasia stated, then was wise enough to bite her tongue when she received Deacon’s dark look.
“You’ve never heard of Anne’s case before? Talked with someone from your home about her?” Dave asked.
Cleo cracked the knuckle of her left index finger. An X-ray into Cleo’s life was not where this conversation was supposed to go. She hadn’t agreed to that. “No,” she answered quickly. She noticed Deacon’s quick glance. He knew she was secretive and he’d been kind enough—or maybe foolish enough?—to not press for answers.
“Have you ever heard of Anne Joplin?” Stasia asked on Dave’s behalf.
Hadn’t Dave just asked that? Cleo hoped she could maintain a polite tone and disguise the tremor she felt go through her body. She cracked her middle finger knuckle. “No. Never. I’d never heard about Castle Moreau, or the stories, or the whole history of vanishing women. It’s creepy.” Not to mention when she saw spooky ghosts lurking in the castle at night. Now that shed an entirely different perspective on Stasia’s theories. Cleo kept that information to herself.
“You’re sure?” Stasia scooted to the edge of her chair.
Cleo cracked another knuckle, then froze when Deacon’s palm lowered to rest over her clenched hand. She shot him a glance. He wasn’t looking at her, but his thumb gave the back of her hand a reassuring stroke. A simple gesture. One she felt to her toes.
“She’s sure,” Deacon answered for her. He turned his attention to Dave. “How old was Anne when she went missing?”
“Nineteen,” Dave said. “The story goes—at least from what we know of Meredith’s side until this tape surfaced—Anne and Meredith had gone to a late-night party. You know the kind. High schoolers in the woods, campfire, beer, and the like. Meredith said it wasn’t far from the castle here, and it was on Moreau property.”
Deacon nodded. Apparently, he was familiar with the story but didn’t mind being refreshed. He also hadn’t moved his hand. His touch seared her skin. Stasia had noticed too, and she gave Cleo a smirk.
Dave continued, “The party broke up about two in the morning. When Meredith and some others were splitting up in different rides to head out, no one could find Anne. She just disappeared.”
“And that’s it,” Stasia interjected.
“Yeah. That’s it.” Dave heaved a sigh. “Now this tape shows up, what, forty years later? Why? And who had it all this time?”
“The recording doesn’t say a lot more than what you already told us,” Deacon said.
“No,” Dave agreed, “but Meredith’s testimony is . . . more personal.”
Stasia nodded, keeping a calm demeanor, but in her matter-of-fact way making it clear there was more to the tape than either Deacon or Cleo were understanding. “Think about it,” she said. “Meredith says she was barefoot. She indicates she was running. She didn’t stop. That doesn’t align with the overall story from everyone at the party, who said they were splitting up into different cars to leave and then noticed Anne was missing. On the tape, Meredith makes it sound like she and Anne were being chased. Hunted.”
Cleo shivered, though no one else seemed to find the idea unusual. This story was on the creepier Investigation Discovery side of things. Also, she should move her hand from beneath Deacon’s. Really. She should.
“And the words ‘isn’t anymore’?” Dave said, picking up where Stasia left off. “I mean, what is that? No one says such things about missing people. It’s as though . . .” He broke off.
“As though Meredith knows Anne is dead,” Stasia finished, then bit her lip. “I’m sorry,” she added quickly with a wince toward Dave.
“Don’t be,” Dave responded bluntly. “I feel the same way. I don’t like it, but that’s how Meredith sounds. Like Anne is dead, and Meredith knows it.”
“You think Meredith is to blame?” Deacon offered. He leaned back casually in the camp chair, withdrawing his hand from Cleo’s in an absent gesture. He probably didn’t even realize he’d touched her. He propped a leg over his knee, looking as if he were interviewing with some Hollywood reporter instead of dissecting a missing-persons cold case.
“Maybe?” Dave shrugged. “But where is she now?”
Stasia held up her index finger to make her point, and Cleo noticed she had long fingernails with skulls painted on them. “Meredith left Needle Creek in 1990, nine years after it all happened.”
“Does she have family here?” Cleo tried to help.
Dave shook his head. “That’s the thing. Meredith was a foster kid—she had a rough life. By the time she up and left, she had no ties to anyone. Not even a boyfriend.”
“But Anne had lots of ties,” Stasia said, “and nobody has forgotten. Meredith had to know we never would.”
“What’s your interest in all of this?” Deacon shot the question to Stasia, who offered him a lopsided grin.
“I’m a crime junkie.”
“That’s cold,” Deacon quipped.
Stasia pursed her lips. “Someone’s gotta remember the cold cases. The cops sure don’t.”
“They can’t,” Dave said. “The number of unsolved cases is more than they can handle, what with their limited resources. It’s not uncommon for family or well-meaning citizens to pick up the case and keep searching after the investigation gets shelved by the authorities. Stasia helps me with our personal investigation. She’s got a sharp mind for this sort of thing.”
“So, if Meredith is gone now, who was the cop in the recording?” Cleo felt like she’d earned back control of her emotions.
“That’s what I want to know,” Stasia said. “He could still be around, still have some answers. Maybe Meredith said something to him after they stopped the recording.”
“Well . . .” Deacon slapped his knees to end the conversation and show he needed to get back inside. “You all have fun figuring it out. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”
“You can,” Dave quickly stated.
Deacon paused.
Dave didn’t miss a beat. “The fact is, Castle Moreau is intertwined in this because it was on Moreau property that Anne disappeared. You have a vested interest in helping us solve the case.”
“No, I don’t.” Deacon furrowed his brow. “I have zero vested interest in this. Are you threatening me with more publicity stunts?”
Dave shook his head. “Not threatening, just being honest. Think about it. If we find out something did happen here at Castle Moreau, that somehow this place is involved, it’ll leak to the public eventually whether we want it to or not.”
“No one’s found anything to substantiate that accusation in forty years,” Deacon argued.
“Sure, but they didn’t have a lead like this one with the tape. It’s a whole new angle. Meredith and Anne being chased? Not the party scene like everyone believed it to be? Anne being presumed dead by her own friend? A potential cop we can talk to? This could bust the case wide open.”
Deacon’s mouth settled in a grim line. Cleo was surprised when he met her gaze and seemed to search her face for some answer or help with the situation. She offered him a small smile. She could be a friend if he needed one, and any person who tried to live under the radar and avoid attracting attention to himself needed a friend. It was just who could and couldn’t be trusted that was the problem.
She entered the kitchen looking for something warm to drink, coffee or tea. It was past nine at night. She gripped a flashlight, not trusting the castle’s vintage electrical system to not flicker out and leave her stranded in the dark. Cleo had no issue with admitting she was a fraidy-cat, and then add her debacle the other night with the unidentified apparition, and yeah, she felt safer with a flashlight in her hand.
“Scared of the dark?”
“Gosh dang it!” Cleo yelped and swung her flashlight beam directly into Deacon’s face.
He held up a hand to block it, and she flicked off the flashlight.
“Wow, a little dramatic?” Deacon grinned, and if the light over the kitchen stove wasn’t already on, Cleo figured there was enough electricity in that smile to light up the entire room.
“You scared me!”
Deacon propped his feet up on a spare chair and leaned back in the one he was sitting in. In front of him on the butcher-block table was a mug of something piping hot.
Good grief. The man was wearing flannel pajama pants. Flannel! She figured a man who was wealthy and chic would have luxury silk pajamas, but flannel? It was so Midwest and so . . . sexy.
“There’s more coffee in the pot,” Deacon offered.
“Thanks,” Cleo mumbled. Her thoughts were a dramatic mixture between a middle school girl at a slumber party and a grown woman struggling to understand a tumultuous attraction.
She padded over to the coffeepot, thankful she still had her bra on under her T-shirt and was wearing knit shorts that covered well past her thighs. She had no desire to be lumped into the typical Deacon Tremblay grouping of women seeking his attention. She’d take his attention, but she wasn’t going to grasp for it desperately. No. Cleo corrected her thoughts. She wouldn’t take his attention either. The dream of a drop-dead gorgeous celebrity falling for her was a trope any female would fall for, but then there’d be press and publicity, and her ability to stay hidden would fly out the window like an uncaged bird.
“Coffee doesn’t pour itself.” Deacon observed her standing by the pot, not moving.
“Oh,” Cleo responded. “Yeah.”
“I have to say, you’re probably the least talkative woman I have been around in a long time.”
“Sorry,” Cleo said.
“Don’t be.” Deacon used his foot to push the spare chair out toward Cleo. “It’s refreshing. Not that you’re practically trembling like a scared kitten, but at least you don’t talk my ear off or try to impress me.”
“I don’t have anything to impress you with,” Cleo admitted against her better judgment.
“Hmm” was all Deacon said. He then sipped his coffee and stared at her over the rim of the mug.
“I’m not a scared kitten,” Cleo protested, though she wasn’t so sure she believed it.
“No?” Deacon tilted his head to study her. “A bunny then?”
“I’m not a rabbit.”
“Fish?”
“I don’t swim.”
“Ah!” He snapped his fingers. “You’re a leopard gecko!”
“A what?” Cleo frowned. She’d not expected that at all.
“You know, one of those lizards people have as pets. They prefer to stay hidden but can be very loyal and friendly companions once you earn their trust.”
It was too apt to argue with. Still, she didn’t care for the comparison. She chose not to comment.
Deacon leaned forward with his elbows on the table, his thumb tapping the mug. “You know, Dave’s wanting to find out what happened to his cousin is noble.”
Cleo nodded in silent agreement.
“But it could cause one heck of an issue.” Deacon seemed to want to confide in her, which was something Cleo had a hard time relating to. She was used to internalizing her thoughts, chewing on them, arriving at conclusions—right or wrong—within herself. But Deacon didn’t appear to be the same. “You’re familiar with all the lore around this place?”
“Yes,” Cleo said.
Deacon scrunched his face, and it only made him cuter. “So, my great-great-grandfather—however many grandfathers back in time—built this castle in the early 1800s. His daughter was Ora Moreau Tremblay, the great American Gothic novelist—in the style of Mary Shelley.”
“Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein?” Cleo was vaguely familiar with the author and her association with the legendary monster.
“Yeah. Only Ora Moreau Tremblay was more real-life. No monsters unless they were human Jack the Ripper types.”
“And that’s how the Moreau-Tremblay name became all-American?” Cleo ventured. She sipped her coffee as a way of coping with her nerves.
Deacon nodded, a dark curl flopping over his forehead. “I guess Ora’s father was a wealthy Frenchman. Yet it wasn’t until Ora that the name became synonymous with American literature. From there we became American royalty—sort of.” He gave her an apologetic wince. “I’m not trying to sound arrogant.”
“You can’t help what you were born into,” Cleo offered. She knew that better than anyone.
“So true.” Deacon nodded slowly. “Anyway, it’s been generation after generation since Ora.”
So, Ora Moreau Tremblay the woman had been strong, of her own mind, and willing to take risks. The nineteenth century could not have been friendly to a woman who wrote Gothic novels surrounding murder.
“You want to protect your family.” Cleo voiced her thoughts quietly. It was an observation, yes, but one she related to more than she would ever let on.
A look of gratitude crossed Deacon’s face. He nodded again. “Yeah. See? You get it. It’s not that I don’t want to help someone find closure like with Anne Joplin’s case. I just . . . Grand-mère doesn’t need the press in her life.” He had the grace to look guilty when he added, “I gave her enough of that when I was younger and clueless.”
Cleo remembered the tabloids. The photos of parties, of the wild boy Deacon Tremblay.
“What changed you?” she asked, then regretted it. Too deep, too intimate, too uninvited. Cleo hurried to say, “You don’t have to answer that.”
“It’s a good question.” Deacon took another sip of coffee. “Hard lessons, that was what changed me. I’m sure you’re familiar with the media’s version of most of them. The fact is, though they’re an exaggeration, there’s still some truth in all of it. I wasn’t . . .” He paused and scrunched his face again. He needed to stop doing that. It was too adorably attractive. “I wasn’t taught much by my parents. Morals, I mean. Ethics, sure, but morals? Meh. They were gone most of the time. I spent most of my summers here with Grand-mère. Some school years overseas. It’s hard to stay grounded, you know?”
Cleo nodded. She knew, but for entirely different reasons.
Deacon continued. “I had a buddy who talked about faith a lot. Not the in-your-face, Bible-beating type. Just—well, he lived it. What he believed.”
“You’re a Christian?” Cleo found it hard to believe that Deacon Tremblay would have had a conversion experience.
He smiled a little. “Not one on fire exactly—I still get uncomfortable in church. I don’t get the whole raise-your-hands thing during worship. I mean, I get it, I just don’t feel cool with it. But the idea of God. Of faith? Of grace? Yeah. I can get behind that.”
Cleo didn’t reply but instead focused on her coffee cup, hoping Deacon took her lack of response as closure to the topic. She shouldn’t have ever brought it up.
Deacon didn’t get the hint. He leaned back in his chair, taking his mug with him. “What about you, Cleo, whom I pay in cash and know nothing about? I’ve entrusted a perfect stranger with my most valued relative and our family name. Kinda laughable, yes?”
