The Haunting of Wolfe Haven

By Debbie A. Heaton

Riley Russell is gorgeous, smart, and successful. She also has a broken heart shes managed to keep secret from everyoneincluding herself. Three years ago, she walked away from her marriage to entrepreneur Tristan Russell, believing there was no hope for the relationship. But when he reenters her life unexpectedly, Riley must fight to remain independent and in control of the life she has built.

Tristan, as handsome and accomplished as ever, is planning to get remarried, but first he must divorce Riley. To save her broken heart, Riley must confront her feelings for Tristan, his family, and his haunted ancestral house, Wolfe Haven. Along the way, she must navigate a minefield of secrets and mysteries, including arson, betrayal, and murder.

As Riley and Tristan try to find love with each other a second time around, they come to grips with things that go bump in the night. If Riley isnt careful, she may fall prey to enemies that are closer than she thinks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450238090

Debbie A. Heaton

DEBBIE A. HEATON has worked as a therapist for more than twenty-five years, specializing in mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, and families with children. Writing provides the balance in her life. Heaton lives in southeastern Arizona and is a member of the International Women’s Writing Guild.

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Contents

Prologue

A Journey Begins …

Old Acquaintances

Memories and Mysteries

Smoldering

Confrontations and Discoveries

Digging Up the Past

Strangers and Other Encounters

Edgewise and Things that Go Bump in the Night

Bombarded

The Enemy Strikes

Excursions

The Announcement

Face-to-Face with the Enemy

Hostage

Delivered from Evil

Epilogue

Prologue

I try to focus on the good in human nature: truth, good intentions, and a desire to help those in need. I don’t like to believe that predators, or things that go bump in the night, exist in this world, or that the dead speak to you. But they do.

To the skeptics in the world, I must sound foolish, but I do hold to good-over-evil any day. I know there will always be those ready and willing to take advantage of the misguided. Deep down, my training tells me this, but fate once decided I needed firsthand experience.

A Journey Begins …

My past is behind me, my future uncertain. All I really have is this moment.

Today, I looked out among the sculpted yews of a garden and saw my husband for the first time in three years. Today, I stood before the gates of Wolfe Haven, lost among other gaping visitors. I climbed the long walk to the high front terrace of the house where I had once lived … and found myself anonymous.

Ahead, the stones of Wolfe Haven glowed like warm honey in the sunshine, instead of frowning cold and gray as they once had. I was nothing to the house. I had been put aside, once and for all. I had loved Wolfe Haven and I’d hated it. But I hadn’t come here to see the house.

I wanted to approach quietly, to establish my presence well within the grounds before I could be caught and sent packing. Fortunately, I had found it simple enough to get here from Albuquerque and make my secret assault upon the gates. At the airport, I had gathered my luggage and made a beeline to the car rental counter.

My research had revealed that Wolfe Haven now offered tours twice weekly to the public. Renting a Chevy Cobalt, I stowed my suitcases and raincoat in the trunk, folding my short frame into the front seat, and then merged with the traffic. If I timed the drive carefully, I knew I would arrive at Wolfe Haven in time to melt into the afternoon tour.

Sunlight glimmered on the pavement, along with the heat of the season I remembered so well. The first hints of summer were hanging in the air, like a forgotten memory.

Whipping into an Arby’s drive-through, I ordered a sandwich, curly fries, and a Diet Dr. Pepper. I headed back into the traffic. Caffeine and food were the best weapons against stress, I’d found—as long as the food was spiked with plenty of cholesterol.

The landscape was amazing—mountains bleeding into desert, every color of nature bursting from the land, the trees, and the sky. It revealed in a heartbeat why so many artists and photographers gravitated here. There was something about the light in New Mexico that made everything seem etched by God’s loving hand.

The scenery whizzed by as the Cobalt ate up the miles. Holding tight to the wheel, I let my mind go on rewind. Memories surfaced and tears puddled in my eyes.

Damn my thoughts! I had to sever old ties, as I hadn’t been able to do back in New York. The only thing to do with a dead love is to bury it. The letter from Abby Collins had reached me a week ago, and I’d spent the hours since reading it over and over, assuring myself that Tristan Russell meant nothing to me anymore, and that my marriage was over. Words can arouse emotions, all right, but they don’t work so well at burying them. Only seeing him again would set me free—I hoped.

There was no longer a need to hate him furiously, as I had when I ran away from Wolfe Haven. Surely I had grown up enough in these three years to know that hating was never the way out of anything. But if I saw him again, if I felt again that cold, piercing gaze, I would understand how thoroughly love could die. I would be released from—what? Damned if I knew. Whatever it was, released I must be, so that I could get on with my own life without Tristan and Wolfe Haven tugging at my memory and weighing me down. I was still young, and there was a lot of life to live.

Shutting out the warning storms in my mind, I took leave from my social services job in New York and flew headlong across the continent. I had sent no word to Abby, Tristan’s cousin, who kept Wolfe Haven for him, or to anyone else. Five years ago at age twenty, I had married Tristan. Three years ago, I had run away. Had I grown up at all since then? Sometimes I wondered.

My journey ended when I rounded a sharp bend and caught sight of the tour bus I had so hoped to find. As I parked behind the idling vehicle, I saw the tourists waiting inside to step down. I could see the handsome wrought-iron gates that I remembered all too well, and I swallowed a lump in my throat. What would those strangers think if they knew that Riley Russell, just parking her car, was about to join their group?

Glancing down at my body, I smiled. With my slender, five-foot-one-inch frame tucked neatly into blue jeans and a yellow blouse, and my auburn hair brushed back and loose, I didn’t stand out. Anyway, who would recognize me?

It seemed strange to find Wolfe Haven’s gates closed and barred. It was necessary to summon the gatekeeper to open them. In days gone by, the gates stood hospitably ajar, and the security guard occupying the gatehouse had little to do. He wore no uniform, unlike the strapping young man who now came to let us in. The locked gates were my first hint that all was not well within, and I felt the first stirring of a new uneasiness.

Climbing out of the car and into the heat of a New Mexico monsoon season, I looked through the gates before me to the house beyond. I tried to breathe in some of the peace and calm of the surrounding countryside, but it was impossible. I’d come to settle issues from the past. Nothing calming there.

I retrieved my raincoat and camera from the Cobalt’s trunk. Fumbling with the camera, I stared at the fanciful Wolfe Haven crest, a wrought-iron German shepherd at the center of the gate. Pain stabbed me. Long before this house was built, the crest of a German shepherd belonged to the Wolfes, and the motif was repeated throughout the house and grounds, even on the family letterhead. It had been a Wolfe Haven tradition to breed German shepherds as well, though the litters produced had declined as the demand for them tapered off.

The first puppy born after Tristan had brought me home from our honeymoon became, without a doubt, my dog. Echo we had named her, in honor of one of her ancestors. Tristan and I had raised her together. But Echo had been mine. The only thing here that was ever mine.

I’m not the most affectionate person in the world—with people, that is. My passive side makes me good at my job, but I’m not much for getting close to people. But critters? I lavish attention on them as if I were a twenty-year-old gold digger going after a wealthy but ancient and ailing husband. I cringe to think what Dr. Phil would say about my behavior … probably something along the lines of my overcompensating with animals to make up for a lack of physical closeness with my father after he married my stepmother, all of which no doubt contributed to my failed marriage. Whatever.

During the past three years I have worked hard to find peace in my life. While the journey has been a productive one, I failed to find true joy. I carried my past with me, dragging it behind me on a thick chain that seemed unbreakable, no matter how hard and far I tried to look ahead. I could ignore it for good, long stretches of time, but I couldn’t escape it. I could drag that damn chain ten thousand miles, but Wolfe Haven, the people in it, and my goddamned pride would pull me back.

The bar was lifted off the gate, the latch raised, and the tour, plus one, streamed through. I let the others carry me along, feeling like I’d dodged a bullet. I had made it through the gates! We went ahead on foot, crossing the curved driveway to follow a walkway crossed by steps to several levels of lawn. If country charm rings your bell, this was the spot for it. The surrounding woods let in gleams of slanting sunlight, offering a picture of tranquility. The terraced slope in front of the house exploded with the colors of shrubs and carefully placed ornamental trees.

There had been rain in the morning, but now only puffs of white sailed the pale blue sky. The sun gave us Wolfe Haven at its finest. Forcing myself to look at the house as we walked toward it, I tried to recapture my first sight of it, when I was twenty and had wandered through the open gates unbidden and unannounced.

My cell phone, in my pocket, chimed airily—no longer the theme from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, thank goodness. I had figured out how to change it at last, despite being low-tech by nature, but I wasn’t sure the sound track from the X-Files was any better.

I reached into my pocket, closing my fingers around the cool plastic piece of technology I couldn’t ignore. I flinched. Work. Somehow this call seemed less urgent than usual. I punched the phone off and shoved the now-silent phone back into the accumulated flotsam of my pocket.

My grandmother had lived in Santa Fe as a child and grew up there to marry a successful clergyman. My childhood had held marvelous tales of Wolfe Haven and those who had lived there, compliments of Grandma who visited there often. So I had come to it openhearted and eager, wishing I could experience the same feelings. But all that young emotion seemed lost to me forever.

The sun-tinted stones rose ahead of us in their familiar H form, and I stopped, like any tourist, to take a picture of the house. Strange to think I had not a single photograph of the house I’d once called home. This time I wanted something graphic to recall its details when I left again. Even as I clicked away, I smiled wryly at my own action. Here was another of those contrary, diverging pathways. I wanted to forget Wolfe Haven, so I came with a camera in order to recreate its memory when I left it for the last time. How was that forgetting?

Willing away the contradictions, I gave my attention fully to the house. All the stone had been trucked in. The wide, open terrace, a frosted oval window set into the front door, and the stained glass panels framing the windows always caught the visitor’s eye. The house rose three stories, with wings on either side holding the main rooms. The long bar across the H housed the entrance and those great halls and galleries that had both impressed and depressed me. It looked like a medieval castle, a mausoleum or monstrosity—I couldn’t decide which. Wolfe Haven was not even one of the largest homes in New Mexico, but it was larger than any house I had ever set foot in, and there was a certain splendor and arrogance in stones that had stood in place for nearly two hundred years.

The original Wolfe Haven Hall, much older, had been built by one Hayden Wolfe. It had burned down twice and then was rebuilt in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Still, two hundred years can give anything a personality of its own. The great house sat in its place as if it had always been there, settled in the desert.

Taking the long view, I could understand why someone would choose this spot. There was an unquestionable aura of spookiness, but there was considerable charm as well, and a sense of solitude that was far from lonely although sometimes a shade too strong. I sat on that terrace one long-ago summer evening, downing a cold one and soaking in the silence.

The sense of déjà vu was vivid, almost dizzying.

At twenty-five, my confidence was still less than stable. Believe in yourself, Tristan used to drum into me impatiently, but I could find little in myself to justify such faith. My father had been a well-known author, and my mother, contented, had devoted herself to him. She had been devoted to me as well, surrounding me with love for the first six years of my life. Following her death, I had my father to myself for four more years before I lost him for good to the woman who became my stepmother.

That was when the loneliness and the uncertainty began, the loss of confidence, when nothing went right. My grandmother was too ill to take me herself, though her love and interest never failed. Eventually, I was sent away to boarding school, where I could grow up without making a nuisance of myself, as I always seemed to do at home. At school, I went right on feeling uncertain and unsure of myself until Tristan fell so unexpectedly in love with me. I thought everything had changed.

Tristan, Tristan, Tristan!

Forgive the Jan Brady moment, but it hadn’t worked out that way. I knew now that I’d never had anything real to offer him. What he had seen in me had never actually existed. Perhaps what I believed I had found in him had never existed either. And here I was back at Wolfe Haven, to make very sure of this.

Our tour went up the sloping walk, with its wide lawns spreading out toward circling driveways on either side and beyond, to tall stands of pine and oak. The terrace was just above us, its stone balustrade running to both sides, divided in the center where broad steps led upward. A big tan shepherd crossed the terrace as we approached, indifferent, with intelligent eyes.

My heart thumped unbearably, and my mouth went dry. How could I tell if someone was watching from one of the many windows? Those front rooms on the right had been Tristan’s—his and mine. But surely Tristan would be in Albuquerque now, working: cars—designing and improving cars to use alternative fuels. I grunted, not approving. While admirable, he could do anything! Yet he concerned himself with the purr of an engine and the creation of fuels that were environmentally friendly. Ironically, I remembered racing across the parklands of Wolfe Haven with him at the wheel. More than once, that had frightened me, because Tristan disliked high-speed driving. When he drove like that, it was to release pent-up tension, and it scared the shit out of me.

But even if Tristan was not here, others might look out and see me. I donned my rust-colored raincoat and pulled the hood up but then thought better of it. It wasn’t raining. Tossing back the hood, I pulled up the collar of the coat so that its color hid the auburn hair that brushed my shoulders. Then I shrugged deep into my camouflage.

If Abby saw me first it might not matter, since she had summoned me. If she looked out and recognized me, she would have the good sense to move quietly and raise no alarm. She had, however, wanted me to stay in Albuquerque until she could meet me there, so she might not be pleased to find I had come alone without letting her know.

It was really Abby I wanted to see, I told myself, even though I was unannounced and not in Albuquerque where she expected me. If Colin saw me, it would be different. The very thought of Tristan’s younger brother made me nauseous. I wanted to avoid him at all costs. He had always preferred the big city to country living, and Abby had mentioned in an earlier letter that he had taken a job in an Albuquerque art gallery. If luck was on my side, he would be absent.

The letter from Abby that had brought me here dealt only with Tristan. Quite naturally, she still felt that most of the fault for what had happened was mine. I wasn’t sure why she had written me at all, after more than a two-year silence and only occasional letters before that. I slipped into my why mode of thinking.

Why had she felt called upon to let me know that Tristan meant at last to initiate divorce proceedings and that he intended to marry again? Why had she begged me so urgently to come to New Mexico? She mentioned no names, but one in particular leaped immediately to my mind. What if it was Glenda Brant he meant to marry!? Suddenly, my fingernails were pressing crescents into my palms. Was I here mainly because of her and because old jealously wouldn’t die? Rubbing fingers across my palm, I admitted to myself that it was a hell of a lot more than that.

Ahead of us on the terrace, waiting as we climbed the steps, was a young woman, blonde, poised, and very elegant. Taking a quick run through my mental PDA, I decided it must be Abby’s latest secretary, Clare Wood. Abby had a good many interests and civic duties. With the Wolfe fortunes at an all-time low, her charities now were not great, but she had mentioned the help of a young woman from Santa Fe who came in for a few hours twice a week. To this assistant, Abby always assigned the task of showing visitors about and introducing them to the estate. I was grateful this one was a stranger.

Venturing up the wide steps, I stood self-conscious in the circle of tourists while the assistant introduced herself and welcomed us to Wolfe Haven. I huddled among the others, but my eyes strayed from where she pointed, following the line of the two square towers at the front corners of each wing. At the back of the house were two more towers, invisible from where I stood, flat-roofed, with tall chimneys between them. From the roofs and the H-bar with its parapets connecting the four towers, one could stand and look out over the entire estate. From the towers and rooftop, I had once looked downward to where the afternoon sun fired the windows of the great library and to the columned doorway a floor below, the one touch of grace in this mausoleum.

Recessed in stone to the right of the front door was a niche holding a bas-relief of the Wolfe Haven German shepherd. The dog stood, elegant and regal, depicted in flowing lines with a shining coat and an intelligent expression that commanded the viewer’s attention. I thought of Echo, who had loved me for whatever I was, and mourned her loss again.

Before we go into the house itself, ladies and gentlemen, Miss Wood was saying, you must see the old ruins of Wolfe Haven Hall. Some of the walls of the original building are still intact, including the famous arch of the chapel window. This way, please.

Like a teacher guiding her charges, Miss Wood crossed the terrace briskly to the right of the house, starting along a winding path that led across lawns toward the road. Everyone streamed after her, except me. The last place I wanted to visit in a crowd was the ruins. There, I had experienced my first joy over finding the house, and there I had suffered the pain of saying good-bye to it. I wanted to see the place again, but I needed to be alone when I did. What if I could get there first?

Obeying the impulse, I cut through Abby’s garden toward the woods, while the tour plodded along the main road. The way through the woods was quicker, and I could take my snapshots and be back at the house before Miss Wood was through with her lecturing. Beneath the trees it was quiet, save for the crackle of twigs under my feet and the scolding of the birds I disturbed along the way. I ran until broken stone walls lay across my path, outlining the boundaries of what had once been Wolfe Haven Hall.

The great arch of the chapel window still rose against the sky, and it was a sight to break my heart all over again. But the approaching tour prevented that. Pointing my camera in one direction and then another, I snapped away. Later I would have these mementos, and I could be as sentimental as I pleased in the privacy of my room. No matter what I told myself, I had come here to remember, not to forget!

I captured views of the arch from different angles, and then the broken stone doorway to what had once been the house. I would have just enough time to finish the roll in my camera. I heard the tour group approaching, but I felt sure I still had a few minutes.

I couldn’t take it in fast enough—the color, the light, the diamond sparkle of the sun. I let my gaze flit like a butterfly, landing here on a tangle of daisies, there on a bee buzzing on his way.

A voice came from beyond a broken stone wall: Miss Riley! Miss Riley!

Whirling, I came face-to-face with Sebastian Powell, Wolfe Haven’s longtime gardener and guardian dragon. He was watching me from the chapel corner, a light of such welcome on his ancient, wrinkled face that I was shocked silly. During my time with Tristan, the old man had made it clear he didn’t like me, that he considered me an intruder, an interloper, and certainly no proper mistress for Wolfe Haven. He had been far friendlier toward Glenda Brant, whom he considered a proper lady no matter what reckless escapades she might sometimes indulge in. I had learned from Sebastian just how much could be forgiven one born to wealth and name and how very little was forgiven an outsider like me. Yet here he was, hobbling toward me with an air of anxious greeting, as though seeing an old friend after a long absence.

Distraught over being discovered, I waited impatiently for him to join me. Reaching for my hand at once, he held it in bony, earth-stained fingers, almost as if in pleading. His faded eyes looked out from the creases of age with the air of someone conveying a gravely important message.

Yet all he muttered under his breath was, You’re back, Miss Riley, you’re back!

Withdrawing my hand from his dry clasp, I was more than a little uneasy. He disliked me, yet he welcomed me in almost sentimental fashion, as though he might not be in full possession of all his faculties. Stunned, I was suddenly aware of the isolation about me.

I’m only here to see Abby. Pushing a stray lock off my face, I stood my ground. I won’t be staying.

He seemed not to care whether I came or went—only that I stay and talk to him.

You remember the wolf pack? He was anxious, his manner as secretive as though he conveyed some matter of state. You remember the fine wolves in the topiary garden, Miss?

I could only nod, bewildered by his urgency. The topiary garden, with its giant wolf figures carved in ancient yew, was one of Wolfe Haven’s curiosities, and Sebastian was its guardian and preserver, carving the yew year after year to keep the traditional forms intact.

Of course, I remember. To myself, I thought, How could I forget?

Sebastian’s pale eyes stared at me without blinking and his lips moved tremulously as he tried to speak. It struck me suddenly that he was terrified.

It’s the beta’s move next, he whispered, in the tone of a conspirator who spoke of impending doom. The beta’s move! Don’t you forget that, Miss Riley. Don’t forget how Sebastian told you it’s the beta’s move and the alpha had better watch out.

I tried to reassure him with my promise. If you say so. I’ll remember. Wanting to escape his wild look and the way he reached for my hand, I stood frozen in place.

Miss Wood’s high voice penetrated the silence as the tour neared the ruins. I wouldn’t stay to watch strangers trampling over a place I had once thought of as mine. At least I had my pictures, and waving Sebastian a quick good-bye, I sprinted back through the woods the way I’d come. Miss Wood could deal with him now, find out what was troubling him. She would know how to manage, if indeed he had become senile in the last three years.

The day was muggy. In my haste to return to the house, I wished I could discard the raincoat I’d worn to face the unpredictable monsoon season. But fearing recognition, I hunched into its collar as best I could manage and walked idly around the side terrace. Because of Sebastian’s odd urgency, I