Page 3 of Cursed by Death

I drew in deep breaths as I tried to squeeze the life out of the poor steering wheel.

I needed to calm down or I was going to get myself killed. And maybe some other driver as well. Or a runner. Or one of those idiots on bicycles who thinks they own the road and have every right to be rolling down the road, hogging the lane.

I didn’t care so much about the bicyclist but I definitely didn’t want to mow down some innocent child because I was over emotional and driving like an asshole.

I sat by the side of the road and practiced deep breathing for a good fifteen minutes before I was able to pull myself together.

Once I had it under control I put my car back in drive and pulled away from the side of the road, headed towards home.

Chapter 2

My house was beautiful, there was no other way to put it, and so very different from the house I’d just run away from.

My grandmother had lived here. As had my mother before she’d met my father, got herself with child and then disowned.

When Thomas had read my grandmother’s will to me I’d been stunned by all she’d left me. Stunned and really,extremely, ungrateful. She’d left me money. So much money that I wouldn’t be able to spend it in ten lifetimes even if I tried. She’d further left me this house and a house in Aspen. Neither of which I had wanted. The old lady had so much money and if she hadn’t disowned my mother when she’d gotten pregnant with me my mother might still be alive today. And, I might not have had to live through the horrors I’d been forced to endure.

Needless to say, I had been angry, snotty and downright rude to poor Thomas Grine who’d been tasked with delivering my grandmother’s will and letter.

When he’d left, he’d left me with the papers, the unopened letter from a woman whom I had never met and a card with his personal phone numbers on it. He’d told me to call him any time.

I’d had no intention of ever calling him.

The day after my eighteenth birthday, the day after I’d been booted out of the girl’s home, I called him. I had slept on a bench outside of a bus station, my stomach wouldn’t stop rumbling at me and I was in desperate need of a shower.

So, I swallowed my anger and my pride down, found a payphone and I had called Mr. Grine. Collect, no less, because I hadn’t had any money of my own at the time.

If the old lady had left me as much money as he claimedand shewas dead so I would never actually have to deal with her, I would have been an absolute moron not to have picked up the phone and made that call. Being homeless and hungry, I would have ended up doing unspeakable things simply for food and shelter. I know myself, I know where my strengths and weaknesses lie. And I’m telling you, I would have done unspeakable things to not have to sleep in the gutter and put food in my belly.

Thomas had come to pick me up and that had been that. Me and my meager belongings (a whole backpack stuffed full of shit) had moved into my mother’s childhood home that day and I haven’t moved out since. I haven’t been able to get rid of Thomas either. Not even firing him seemed to work. For which I ended up being thankful for… Some days, that is.

Today wasn’t one of those days.

Thomas Grine was a man in his late eighty’s. He had shockingly white hair and an even more shocking hairline that had yet to recede. His eyes were not, nor could they ever be described as, warm or gentle. They were dark brown and cold as ice. He was a tall man, over six foot and as thin as a rail. He’d likely never been handsome and his body was too willowy for my tastes when it came to men. Or women.

His age had no effect whatsoever on his mind. He was incredibly smart, downright ruthless at times and I had neverseen him show kindness to another human being outside of myself.

He was the one who’d looked into Harmond House for me. He was the one to tell me about Catherine’s death. He’d been keeping tabs on her for years. And he had people looking for the twins for years. With no luck, mind you. He didn’t understand why it was so important for me to find them. He didn’t understand why Harmond House terrified me so much. He didn’t understand any of it because no one knew the vile things that had taken place there.

And I wasn’t about to explain it to him.

This did not make Thomas happy. He didn’t like being kept in the dark on anything, and it was worse if it had to deal with me.

He’d retired not long after my grandmother kicked the bucket and, for reasons unknown to me, decided I needed him to help run my life for me. I hadn’t needed his help then and I certainly didn’t need it now. I let him run my life anyways. I think it was because we were both alone in the world and life was a whole lot less lonely when you had someone in your life to call your own. We weren’t what I would call friends. We were closer to family, even though we certainly weren’t family. I didn’t have a label for our relationship. But he was mine. And I certainly was his.

After I moved into my grandmother’s house he had taken it upon himself to move into the guest house behind the garage. He had told me he owed it to my grandmother and my mother to take care of me. Really, I think in the beginning he stayed to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn’t blow through all of the money I had been left and burn the house down while I was at it.

I never complained. I simply let him do his own thing and went about my own business.

That had been over four years ago. He never moved back out, I refrained from blowing all of my grandmother’s money and burning the house down and sometimes we even sat down and shared a meal together.

Weeks ago, when he informed me of Catherine’s death, I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of hiding how much simply hearing her name spoken aloud had rattled me. He’d been watching me like a hawk since. Then when he told me about the open house I told him I had to go, and had to see it one last time. Only problem with this is I think I might have sounded like I thought attending the open house would be worse than torture at the hands of the devil for all of eternity.

He didn’t think it wise for me to go and told me so. Several times. When that didn’t change my mind, he offered to go with me. That didn’t work for me either. Which I told him, several times.

The last time we had a conversation about it had been two days ago. We hadn’t talked since. I felt bad about this. He was a good man who was understandably concerned about me. He might not have known the details of what went on in that house behind closed doors while I lived there but he was not a stupid man. He was a very smart man, and even if he wasn’t, it wouldn’t take a genius to know my time in that place had seriously fucked with my head.

We might not have talked in two days but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be at home waiting for me to get back safe, waiting to get a read on my emotions. Emotions that were all over the place. If he saw me now like this there was no telling what he’d say or do.

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