Page 55 of Fatal Thrill
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There wereno Gypsies at the abandoned castle outside of the two women Jon had in the backseat of Miles’ rental car. They’d decided not to use Kieran’s truck as it was possibly too well known in these parts and Colton and Jon had used it several times to go intotown.
Charlotte, even one-handed, was a force of nature, taking over Jon’s attempts to disguise Jaya. Between Jaya’s colorful leggings and a gauzy dress Charlotte had pulled from her magic carpet bag, along with a long, dark purple cape and crocheted scarf Kieran had loaned them, Jaya had morphed into a hippy witch. Shelby had returned in time to braid Jaya’s hair and wrap it up on top of her head where it was easy to cover with the hood of thecape.
They’d taken a back road from Kieran’s property through a tangle of overgrown bushes, vines, and low-hanging, mossy trees covered in frost. If anyone had been watching Kieran’s, they would never know the group had slippedout.
The drive to the abandoned O’Sullivan castle had lasted nearly an hour, the icy roads slowing them down. Snow had begun to fall, lightly at first and then harder, but they’d driven out of it. The thick, gray clouds overhead continued to look threatening, while the local forecast claimed no snow until evening. Jon hoped that wasaccurate.
From the moment they’d gotten in the car and Charlotte had asked Jaya about her relatives, it had been nonstop talk about Gypsies, the Irish, andancestors.
While Charlotte was a dark blond with a sprinkling of freckles and dark brown eyes, the two were kin of a different sort—soul sisters, Charlotte had claimed right off the bat. Not only did they share Gypsy blood, regardless of the fact Charlotte’s ancestors were Romanian and Jaya’s Irish, they both shared crappy families with questionable pasts. Seemed to be the norm with SFI guys and theirgirlfriends.
The rise and fall of voices floated to Jon where he stood on security point outside the vehicle. Colton and Shelby had met them at the castle, Colton and Miles now doing a perimeter check of the abandoned buildings while Shelby sat inside Miles’ rental with the other twowomen.
If they hadn’t had Beatrice’s directions, complete with longitude and latitude, they would have driven right past the place. From the road, it was impossible to see. They’d passed the ruins of a gatehouse and followed a long, narrow, winding road nearly to the cliffs before they discovered the castlegrounds.
The main castle itself was not as huge and sprawling as Blackrock, but it was still a mansion with a turret and courtyard surrounded by dilapidated stonewalls.
Between Jaya’s memories of her father’s stories and what Shelby had found out about the place while doing research, they knew the fortress had been built by a Gaelic chieftain back in the 1300s. Through the years of wars, deaths, and other conflicts, the castle had been shot at by cannons, burned out by enemies, restored multiple times, and finally the last O’Sullivan had fled after his wife and child had died from theplague.
The place had fallen into disrepair, bills were unpaid, and eventually, it had ended up being sold to a land development company. Because it was said the castle was cursed, no one was surprised when the company went bankrupt and all rehab stopped before it could ever become a touristhotspot.
Ghosts, curses, lost treasure…what wasnext?
The entire place encompassed nearly forty acres, much of it hidden to their eyes, thanks to Mother Nature taking back what was hers. The sketch Connor had done back at SFI for them, based on Shelby’s research accounts, placed a small church and graveyard to the southeast, another building believed to be housing for soldiers near it. An assortment of barns for horses and livestock dotted the outlying area. Erosion from the sea, the winds, and time had caused one section along the cliffs to crumble and fall into a ravine below. Part of a wooden footbridge to what had once been an inlet for ships had been washed away. Even now, Jon could hear the waves crashing against the rocky shoreline a good fifty meters below and imagine the battles that had been foughthere.
Jaya’s voice came through the half-open window. “One of the first gifts my father ever gave me was a book on castles. I would stare at them for hours, imagining I lived in one instead of the rundown place I grew up in on thereservation.”
“They are breathtaking,” Charlotte agreed. “But I think the thing that makes them most appealing to me is their histories. The families that lived and died in them always seem so mysterious andtragic.”
A gust of wind blew against Jon’s face. He remembered the first gift his father had given him—a pocket knife. It had been for his sixth birthday and his mother had vehemently argued againstit.
He still had it, although the blades were rusty now and the miniature scissors had busted off when he’d tried to use them for leverage on a pond stone he couldn’t quite dig out of theriverbed.
Colton emerged from an archway and hailed him with a wave. “Clear!” he shouted across the windyexpanse.
So no Finn or Sean here either. It was like they’d simply disappeared into thin air. Rory had been checking CCTV footage from around the town and found no matches to either man’s face since the day of the kidnapping. Sean’s phone had been disabled, Finn’s was in his kidnappers’ hands. No credit card charges, no ATM withdrawals. Jon was considering going door to door with their pictures when they got back totown.
With one final scan of the area, he opened the passenger door to help Jaya out. She emerged, studying the castle. Her hand reached inside the pocket of the cape and brought out her phone. “Sorry to be a tourist, but this has been on my ATTD list since I wasfive.”
“ATTD?” Charlotte asked, coming up behindher.
Shelby was there too. “Awesome Things To Do. Jaya doesn’t like the term Bucket List, since it’s a reference todying.”
“Shelby says to focus on the positive stuff,” Jaya explained, turning the camera to landscape mode and taking another picture. The wind picked up a strand of her hair and blew it across her face. “I agree. I respect the spirit world, and I’m sure it’s pretty rockin’ cool with all my ancestors there, but I don’t want to receive an invitation to it any sooner than absolutely necessary.” Her gaze turned to Jon. “I have a lot to livefor.”
She was so damn beautiful in her purple coat, wool scarf, and fingerless gloves, he wanted to grab her up and carry her into the castle like a bride on her wedding night. “You’re my bucket list,” he murmured softly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind herear.
She caught his hand and held it against her cheek. “No bucket lists. No one is dying anytimesoon.”
He felt a smile tug at his lips. He had no fear of the spirit world either and had come close to meeting his ancestors many times. A few of those times, he’d actually wanted to die, wanted the pain in his heart to end. But now… “Then spending the rest of my life with you is myATTD.”
Her smile was in complete contrast to the overcast day and the frosty monochrome landscape around them. “Now you’retalking.”
Colton walked up to them. “Are you guys gonna stand here allday?”
“Can you get up to that tower?” Jon pointed to the northeast turret. “Set upsurveillance?”
