A Darker Shade of Grey Read online

A Darker Shade of Grey

  SueEllen Holmes

  Copyright 2011

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  Urban Fantasy and Sci-Fi titles available so far:

  The Crone's Stone

  Dominion

  Brink

  Trouble with Angels

  Kaleidoscopic

  Sleek Comes the Night

  My commitment to teen fiction is made possible by my enduringly supportive husband, skilled co-editor daughters and son's brave honesty. For once, words cannot express my love and gratitude.

  Chapter One

  The whole place was gothic. It might have been pretty, the sort of journey city Sunday-trippers made wishing for a tree-change, an avenue of firs and rolling greenery, cute little cottages dotting water-colour meadows -- except for the relic feel of it. The few farmers in their fields leaned on pitch-forks to stare when they drove passed, as if the combustion engine was a recent development.

  “They’re probably cannibals,” Jace’s brother, Reagan, declared. “Or zombies.”

  Reagan slowed the truck to a crawl and waved snidely. At twenty, he was two-and-a-half years older, but that didn’t translate to more mature. They parked in front of ‘Elwood’s Corner Store and Fishing Supply’, the primary wood-slat structure announcing main street. It was also the Post Office. Jace couldn’t believe it when an actual bell rang on crossing the threshold. He looked up, tracing string to the source of the tinkling cascade.

  “Christ! Have these people got a nineteenth century fetish or what?” Reagan said, a little too loud. He was always the wrong side of loud.

  “Any chance we can make it out of here minus the social embarrassment?”

  “Meh, meh, meh... Your mouth moves, but are you saying anything?” Reagan barged him.

  Jace almost toppled a pyramid of washing powder, wondering if the muscle-bound tosser dabbled in steroids. He righted himself and gnashed his teeth. A couple of his mates actually professed to like their brothers, but Jace found the claim suspect. Of course, most other people didn’t have crims for family, only recently released from the bar-and-cuff hospitality of the authorities. Just one week, one more lousy week! He’d counted down the days for over three of the longest months of his life. But he needed the money or he’d never afford to live on campus. At a far distant uni, he’d finally be liberated from the dregs of his family.

  “I’ll get directions from the old boy guarding the register. You’d think he was nervous we’re thieves or something.” Reagan grinned and winked suggestively, Jace’s belly contracting.

  “Don’t forget you’re on parole.”

  “I don’t need the reminder,” his stony expression warned. “Check if there’s anything worth purchasing in the way of supplies. I told Reece to shop before we came out here. But nooo. The dickhead! Lucky I brought beer to this anus-end of the world.”

  “Lucky,” Jace muttered. One. More. Week. “I’m asking nicely. Please don’t screw with him.”

  “Aww, Jace. Whatever do you mean? Such consideration for a stranger. I may shed a tear.”

  Reagan roughly scrubbed his head, before loping off to harass the unsuspecting elderly gent propped behind the glass counter. Jace was certain if the psycho-duo weren’t movie-star handsome, pouring on the charm at will to weasel coin from even the cheapest tight-arse, someone would have murdered them by now. He couldn’t help imagining the peace, before pushing such uncharitable thoughts deep where they belonged. In need of distraction, he collected a wire-basket and wandered aisles, shoving in articles without paying much attention. At the furthest reaches of the store, rifling refrigerated goods, the grocer’s voice pierced his abstraction.

  “Been locked-up tight since its owner went missing. Relatives fighting over the spoils in court, as it were. Want presumption of death declared.”

  “That’s interesting. I’m a History major, cataloguing the great stories you hear in lovely villages like this. I’m thinking of writing a book. So, big estate is it...?”

  Jace vehemently wished the old guy would shut his trap. Reagan hadn’t thumbed pages other than ‘Alice’s Adventures in Whoreland’ for an extended period. And the notion he’d ever find his way to an institute of higher learning was laughable. In fact, Jace gagged on the hysteria.

  He placed the basket on gleaming checkerboard linoleum to massage the back of his neck, an urgent tingle announcing the start of yet another migraine. He’d never had so many since temping for Bateman and Sons Landscape Gardening. Maybe if Bateman Senior hadn’t succumbed to bourbon-inspired cirrhosis, the sons in question might have evolved differently. Maybe, Jace reflected sourly, even worse. He never thought about the outcome if their mother stuck around. No point dwelling on that grief.

  “Don’t...”

  Jace wheeled in the direction of a strangled plea. Next to a doorway leading via colourful fly-strips to a gloomy parlour, television flickering within, stood a skinny girl in an old-fashioned flowing white dress, sleeveless and buttoned to her neck. He guessed she was about fourteen, but her face wrenched in a frozen grimace, a sheen of drool at the lopsided downward point of her lips, making it hard to tell. Her hands were fixed in crooked hooks and her bare feet made peculiar angles.

  She moved nearer, jerking toes in an awkward struggle for momentum. She would have been very pretty, shiny cherry-chocolate curls framing an elfin face, were it not for the distorted mask. He realised he’d been gawking and it triggered shame. Pity help the girl if his brother made an appearance. He had to encourage her back out of sight. Somehow.

  “Hi,” he said too brightly, trying to show he was cool and not one of those prejudiced types. Was it presumptuous to help? “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Don’t go --” Her body rocked on forming the words, and he could see her tongue curl, jaw wide when the gurgle escaped. “Inside.”

  The intensity of her ebony eyes as she worked to communicate hypnotised. He stepped closer.

  “Sorry.” And he truly was, for forcing her to repeat herself. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  “Gggrrrrey manor. Don’t g-go inside.” She slumped on achieving her aim. It was not a surprise she knew of their destination: strangers stood out and news travelled fast.

  “Here.” He took her gently by the arm, so lacking flesh it was skeletal, and assisted her back through flapped plastic, marvelling she’d exited so quietly. Hers was a brown-velvet squishy recliner devoted by a slight worn outline. This girl had been jailed in her body for a long while.

  “Is it okay?” he inquired, miming where he’d put his hands.

  She grimaced, although it could have been a smile. He lifted her in, positioning her legs, careful not to compromise modesty. Jace’s mother stressed, “decorum matters most when disease strips every other dignity.” The girl squirmed to get comfortable, surrounded by photos of exotic locales and knick-knacks, a posy of spring flowers wilting in a crystal-cut vase on the sideboard.

  The walls were covered in vibrant artworks and he nearly made the stupid mistake of inquiring if she painted them. A cello case fuzzy with dust lay abandoned in a nook, her aged Maltese terrier lifting its head from a cushion to growl half-heartedly, medicinal tang permeating. Jace wasn’t sure of the etiquette, but had to offer.

  “Would you like me to...?” He gestured, receiving a slight nod, the exhausted resignation of her lovely dark eyes infinitely clearer than speech. He found a box of tissues amongst a clutter of ventolin puffers and pills, and reached over to pat
spittle from her chin.

  “Thank,” she gasped, “oooh.”

  “You don’t have to worry. We’re only fixing the gardens for auction.” He searched for a bin and leaned across her to deposit the wad. “We’ve no cause to go inside the house.” Light-fingered twins aside.

  She grabbed his shirt in a steadfast claw, no mistaking the fear. “Don’t! No madder whaaa --”

  “Okay,” he nodded like a lunatic, before curiosity won. “Why?”

  “She’s still there.” Her words rang clearer than the shop bells.

  “Who?”

  “L-l-lady Grey.” Her hand fell away and she gave him a gap-toothed grin. “Handsmmm.”

  “Are you hitting on me?” he laughed. “Cheeky!”

  “Hey shit-head! Where the fuck are you? Must I do everything myself.”

  Fabulous! Whingy self-righteous Reagan topped the list of all his crappy alter-egos. Jace brought his finger to his lips. “I promise,” he mouthed, not sure why. Maybe he pitied her condition and wanted to appease her. Or maybe it went deeper, a faint disturbing premonition. Jace peeked out the polyvinyl rainbow until his brother heaved the half-packed basket. Steel-caps stomped on the way to unload.

  After a brief goodbye to the girl, whose ominous message etched his mind, Jace ransacked the fridges, gathering an armful of dairy, deli-meats and cheese, then pursued his brother to the check-out. Those compelling eyes bored his brain. She appeared certain this Lady Grey was alive, but how? It didn’t look like she got out much. If at all.

  “What?” He dumped his stash on the counter, feigning innocence in response to Reagan’s narrowed accusation.

  The fellow with silver hair, cropped so short his pink scalp was visible, stared curiously from one to the other while packing their boxes. “You boys are spit from the same gland.”

  Jace fought a furious objection, praying he was nothing at all like his deranged brothers. Reagan grabbed him in a choke hold, knuckling a noogie that aggravated his pounding head.

  “Yep, that’s us. Peas in a pod. Mirror images. We’re almost the identical person.”

  Digging his elbow into Reagan’s ribs, Jace broke free. “Pack the ute. I’ll pay,” he instructed through gritted teeth.

  “Careful you don’t get overwhelmed by moths when you crack that wallet.” Reagan’s guffaw cut-off in a jangle, when the door blissfully closed.

  “I met your daughter.”

  “Laini’s my granddaughter.” Face grizzled by years of hard toil and the worry of an ailing child, the man sported whiskers his shaver neglected. Obviously, self-maintenance trailed the list. But the apron he wore over a polo shirt was spotless, the entire shop antiseptic clean. In the ultimate act of optimism, his tag read ‘Noel’. Jace doubted the tourist buses would make it any time soon and surely the locals already knew his name.

  “Did you poke around in business that don’t concern you?”

  “No!” Jace raised his palms in supplication.

  “How then?”

  “She came out and beckoned to me.”

  “Are you on drugs, son?” Noel wheezed a mirthless chuckle. “Laini ain’t been out of that chair lest carried in over two years. She can’t walk.”

  “But --”

  “No! You foolin’ with me like that is cruel. Laini doesn’t walk. She can barely stand.”

  Noel squared up in angry challenge, not as feeble-looking as first impressions, the faded green of a military tattoo on his age-mottled forearm. Jace bet he’d give robbers an ordeal, probably concealing a sawn-off beneath the bench. He frowned and thought better of arguing in the face of such ingrained misery.

  Changing tack, he asked, “Who exactly is Lady Grey?”

  “The owner of the mansion you boys are gussying for sale.” The voice calmed, but anger radiated in pinched features. Jace’s trespass wasn’t soon forgiven. Still, many hours deprived of company made chitchat too tempting.

  “Ex-owner. Hasn’t been seen since the suicide of her third husband years ago. Caused a right scandal, did that marriage. So quick after the Major’s demise and all. The prim and proper Lady Grey taking up with a layabout artist forty years her junior. Poor bastard couldn’t stick it out though, no matter the money. Hung himself on wire from the attic window. Yardman at the time gaped while he yanked headless-chicken style. Didn’t break his neck. Nasty way to go.” Noel shook his head. “By the time they got him down, boy’s neck was almost sheared clean in two.”

  The story certainly made a change from the usual small town gossip. “Does anyone know what happened to Lady Grey?”

  “Vanished like a puff of smoke. Rumours circulated. Some hereabouts claimed she was involved in her husbands’ deaths and took off to sip G and Ts on a beach elsewhere. The official ruling stated the Major died of natural causes. And there’s been no activity on her accounts. The Coroner is poised to rule Death in Absentia. You ask me, there’s no way that aging slip of a woman could get a noose about a strapping lad’s neck and tip him from the sash.” Just like there was apparently no way his granddaughter was capable of self propulsion. “Vultures are hovering considering a lost diamond-encrusted cameo worth two million is in the mix. They say it’s hidden in the house somewhere.”

  Oh, God. If mister corner-store-gossip had shared that titbit with Reagan crook-of-the-century Bateman, two more vultures joined the throng. And these carrion birds made other bone-pickers amateurs by comparison.

  “You’ve a job ahead. Used to be a grand old pile. Now it’s crumbling, riddled by bidu and lantana. Has a bad reputation. The family have never been able to keep repair-staff up there. Sooner they raze it to the ground, the better...”

  Jace had stopped listening, so absorbed in the wretched possibilities he failed to note the choice of words and venom of their delivery. He threw down cash and turned to leave, worry boiling his gut.

  “Thanks.”

  “Son?” Jace swivelled, brows raised in query. “This is a quiet country town. Folks round here don’t welcome trouble.”

  Where did folks ever? “Who says we’re looking for trouble?”

  “If that brother of yours is a History major, I’ll eat this here apron. I recognise jailhouse stink when I smell it.” Jace breathed relief, hoping the guy was smart enough dealing with an ex-con to omit details of buried treasure. “And you keep away from Laini. She doesn’t need another thing she can’t have. And my guess, someone like you’d prove something she’d want pretty fast. She’s broken on the outside, sharp as a button inside.”

  “Yeah, someone like me,” Jace muttered, heading for the exit. What a stupid saying. How were buttons sharp? People always assumed because of the way he looked, he occupied a life of perfection. “I realise the cover doesn’t always reflect what’s in the book. Nor do the volumes either side. Sir.”

  He fantasised ripping the blasted bells from the wall, sick to the core of his brothers’ yoke dragging him under. Their truck rumbled at the curb in front. Reagan belted out a horrible Cold Chisel rendition of ‘Cheap Wine’. A couple scurried to the opposite side of the street with scowls of distaste. Jace hated Cold Chisel at the best of times. These times hardly qualified.

  “You could at least roll the window up. You’re deafening the residents.”

  “I got a top-notch feeling about this job,” Reagan smirked from across the cabin, revving the engine and dropping the clutch in blaze of rubberised smoke. They lurched off. With a sinking heart, Jace knew his promise to stay out of Grey Manor became a battle to stop his brothers’ insatiable greed and penchant for burglary.

  ***

  Chapter Two