The Hunted

Book 2: Bane Island Novel

by Lisa Childs

Genres: Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

You're going to pay!
The pressures of fame and an obsessive stalker have driven pop star Olivia Smith to take shelter at Halcyon Hall, an exclusive spa on a remote island off the coast of Maine. Yet from the moment she arrives, there are rumors about women
disappearing, and stories about the resort’s grisly past. Then a note arrives from her stalker, proving that nowhere is truly safe …
It’s been twenty-five years since Sheriff Deacon Howell discovered his first dead body on these grounds. Back then, Halcyon Hall was an asylum known as Bainesworth Manor. Others have perished here since, including Deacon’s wife.
Many locals share his belief that her death wasn’t suicide. The difference is, they think Deacon killed her. But he has bigger problems than gossip, because another body has been found …
As Deacon investigates the increasing threats to the singer’s life, the danger becomes undeniable. Something evil lurks here—not just in the asylum’s grim history, but in the present. And there will be no rest at Halcyon Hall until every sin has been avenged …

Release date: November 30, 2021

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Present Day

The drive wound between the pine trees, the boughs heavy with snow. A thin sheen of black ice covered the asphalt. That was why he didn’t press harder on the accelerator: caution and dread. But despite his slow speed, he reached the parking lot and pulled the SUV into one of the many empty spaces.

More than twenty-five years had passed since the day Deacon Howell had discovered his first dead body at Bainesworth Manor. Even though he wasn’t that scared twelve-year-old boy any longer, the same sense of dread and doom tied his guts in knots every time he set foot on the property. He opened the driver’s door and stepped onto the slick asphalt. Staring up at the massive stone structure with its snow-covered, clay-tiled roof, Deacon wasn’t impressed with the renovations that had been completed a couple of years ago. The gleaming windows looked as soulless to him as the broken ones had so many years ago. Though it had been renamed Halcyon Hall and converted from a psychiatric hospital into some kind of fancy treatment-center spa, it would always be Bainesworth Manor to him.

The curse of his existence . . .

If only he could blame this damn place for everything that had gone wrong in his life.

Just as he had all those years ago, he drew in a deep, shaky breath before walking through the double doors that opened automatically to admit him. Now the foyer was all shiny marble and polished wood, and the air was fresh with the faint traces of leather and sage. He still smelled death though—just as he had all those years ago.

Death hung over the manor just like the dark clouds hung over Bane Island, Maine. The manor dominated nearly half of the big island, leaving the village, its outskirts, and some of the rocky shoreline for the locals. The shore was so rocky that few boats dared to dock there, so no ferry ran. It was a four-mile-long bridge that connected Bane Island to the mainland. Since that rickety, old bridge was rarely passable in the winter, the island was self-contained with a small hospital and a grocery store and other small shops.

Deacon was a local—born and raised here. When he’d left, he’d never wanted to come back, but the curse—and his father’s failing health—had called him home.

And his job kept calling him out to the hall.

Elijah Cooke stepped out of the shadows, where he always seemed to be lurking—like one of the ghosts that were rumored to haunt the manor. As the director of Halcyon Hall, Elijah was actually running it, though. “What is it this time, Sheriff?”

Deacon had made quite a few trips to the hall during the past month—to help a woman find her missing daughter. He’d found a dead body instead. Fortunately, it hadn’t been hers. But not knowing who he’d discovered had made his job even harder.

“You know why I’m here,” Deacon said.

Elijah’s pale eyes gleamed eerily from the shadows in which he stood. “You know who she is?”

He shook his head.

“What’s taking so long?”

“The body was damaged too badly for fingerprinting.” The first corpse he’d found here had haunted him since he was twelve. This one would haunt him until he died. And the one he’d found between those two . . .

He would never be free of her either—especially not of her.

“What about DNA?” Elijah asked.

Deacon knew what he was asking but chose to be as off-putting as the shrink was. “It doesn’t match Genevieve Walcott’s.”

“Of course not,” Elijah said. “She’s alive. Thank God for that.” He arched a dark brow. “Or are you going to take credit?”

Deacon shook his head. “Genevieve’s a smart girl. She saved herself.” With some help from her future stepfather, she had escaped the Halcyon Hall groundskeeper who’d abducted her. The woman whose body Deacon had discovered had not been so lucky; she hadn’t escaped her gruesome fate. Deacon had found her much too late to save her. All he could do now was make sure she got justice.

Elijah stepped closer to Deacon, lowered his voice to a whisper and asked, “What about the other DNA?”

“Which of the other DNA?” Deacon asked. “There’s so damn much of it now that it’s going to take the lab some time to run it all.”

Elijah sighed. “You didn’t need to get warrants, you know. I do want to know whose body you found.”

“How come you didn’t report her missing?” he asked.

His mind was still blown over what Elijah had finally admitted to him. That he was an uncle; his younger brother, Jamie—or as he wanted to be called now, Bode—was a single father. The Bainesworth bloodline continued—maybe even more than anyone had guessed if the other rumors were true. But Deacon, more than anyone, knew not to put too much credence in rumors. He only wanted the facts, like how the mother of Elijah’s niece, a personal trainer who’d worked at the spa, had disappeared shortly after the birth of her daughter four months ago.

“She left Bode a good-bye note and resigned,” Elijah said.

From her job and from being a mother, according to the note that he had shown to Deacon a few weeks ago.

“Bode thinks it was all just too much for her, and she took off,” Elijah continued, in defense of his younger brother. “He doesn’t think that body is hers. She’d left months before that woman was murdered.”

Elijah was clearly not as convinced. Dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his weird silver eyes. He wasn’t getting any more sleep than Deacon was.

“You didn’t report Genevieve Walcott as missing either,” he reminded him. “Why are you still trying to act as if nothing’s going on around here?”

“Whatever was going on—it’s over,” Elijah said. “The groundskeeper that kidnapped Genevieve is dead. If the woman whose body you found was murdered, then Teddy Bowers must have killed her.”

“That’s what you want to believe,” Deacon said.

“Don’t you want to believe that, too?” Elijah asked.

“Doesn’t matter what I want,” he said. “I have to learn the truth.” About everything . . . even that other body he’d found over a year ago. “That’s why I asked the state police to reopen their investigation into Shannon’s death.” Just like the body he’d found a few weeks ago, Shannon had been blond. Genevieve Walcott was also blond. Maybe Bane Island had a serial killer.

“They already ruled it suicide,” Elijah said. “Since that made everything easier for you, wasn’t that what you wanted?”

“I just told you—I want the truth,” he said.

Elijah snorted. “Your truth. You want to blame me and my family for everything that happens on the island—even Shannon’s suicide.”

“If Genevieve Walcott’s kidnapper was telling the truth, your family is to blame,” Deacon said. “Remember that Teddy Bowers claimed he was a Bainesworth heir. That you and your brother cheated him out of his birthright.”

Elijah shook his head. “Teddy Bowers was delusional. If you’re just here to antagonize me, you can leave now, Sheriff.”

“You call it antagonizing. I call it interrogating,” Deacon said.

“I’ve done nothing to warrant an interrogation,” Elijah replied.

Deacon tilted his head and stared skeptically at his old nemesis. “Once again, that’s just what you want to believe.”

“And once again, you don’t want it to be the truth,” Elijah replied. “So this conversation is over, Sheriff. The next time you want to come here, you better have a warrant.”

Deacon drew a paper out of his pocket. “Look what I happen to have right here . . .”

Elijah cursed. “I don’t know how the hell you made friends with the judge.”

Deacon wasn’t sure either since he had initially treated Whittaker Lawrence, who was Genevieve Walcott’s soon-to-be stepfather, with the same suspicion he did the Cookes. Maybe the difference was that Whit hadn’t had anything to hide, so he hadn’t gotten defensive. He’d realized Deacon was just doing his job.

“What the hell is this warrant for?” Elijah asked as he took the paper. He read it and shook his head. “No. No. No way in hell!”

Deacon chuckled. Elijah wasn’t going to win this time—like he had, with the help of his older cousin, pretty much every skirmish of their childhood rivalry. Deacon wasn’t the dumb kid he’d once been—not anymore, not after everything he’d lived through . . . and lost.

How long would she be safe here? How long until the press found her—or worse yet—he found her?

She glanced around the conservatory. Although sunshine warmed the room, Olivia Smith shivered as a chill chased down her spine. For once, she was the only one using the room, but she didn’t feel alone. She felt creeped out, as if someone was watching her. Anyone could have been standing on the other side of the glass walls, hiding among the snow-enshrouded pine trees. Shadows darkened the snow around all those trees. Maybe one of the shadows was of a person instead of a pine. As Olivia peered outside, she caught a reflection in the glass—of herself, with her clothes hanging on her petite frame, of her dark blond hair tangled around her thin face, of her wide eyes staring back at her.

She wasn’t dressing to impress anyone. Because of the winter weather and the holiday season, there were few other guests. That was part of why Olivia had chosen now to attend the exclusive spa. Despite the horrifying history of Bainesworth Manor, she had felt safe here at Halcyon Hall. Until the body had been found . . .

It wasn’t even so much the body that had scared her but the arrival of the reporter. Edie Stone was legendary for uncovering scandals and secrets. Olivia had both, and she intended to keep them.

That was another reason why, three months ago, she’d checked herself into the exclusive spa. Halcyon Hall promised their guests absolute privacy. The director, Dr. Elijah Cooke, insisted that would not change despite the discovery of a body on the property. Dr. Cooke swore that a reporter would never be allowed access to the hall and especially not to the spa guests. Olivia was still safe.

Wasn’t she?

As she stared out the window, she spied another reflection, of a shadow that moved behind her. She jumped and whirled toward the intruder. “What the hell—”

“I’m sorry,” the dark-haired teenager said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Olivia ducked her head down, so her hair slid over to hide her face, and started toward the French doors that stood open to the hallway.

“I won’t bother you,” the girl said, her voice cracking with emotion. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

That was what Olivia had been hoping the teenager would do—ignore her. But every weekend the girl worked, she found some excuse to seek her out, to stare at her. To stalk her . . .

Olivia had enough damn stalkers. She didn’t need one here. Not that she was afraid of the girl . . .

In fact, something pulled at her heart as she looked at the kid. Tears streaked down the teenager’s full face, and her body shook with the sobs cracking her voice.

“What’s wrong?” Olivia asked even though she really didn’t want to get involved . . . with anyone . . . with anything. She just wanted to be left alone, but something tugged at her heart when she looked at the teenager.

The girl raised her hand to her face and wiped at her tears. “Do . . . do you really care?” she asked, her deep-set, dark eyes widening with shock.

Olivia had done her best to avoid the girl whenever she worked at the spa. That tug on her heart turned into a twinge of regret that she’d been so obvious about her avoidance. She’d been so intent on protecting herself that she hadn’t realized she might have been hurting somebody else. “You’re upset,” Olivia said. “I want to know why.”

The girl sniffled. “For the same reason I’m always upset,” she said. “Because of him . . .”

Olivia sighed. “Because of a boy?” She shouldn’t have been surprised. Teenage angst was usually about hormones unless that teenager had grown up like she had. Then hormones had been the least of her problems.

The girl laughed, but the sound was sharp with bitterness. “Like I could ever have a boyfriend with him as my dad. I’m probably going to lose this job because of him—because he’s out there fighting with Dr. Cooke right now, like he’s always fighting with someone.”

“Fighting?” Olivia asked, and her body tensed with dread. “Is your dad violent?”

The teenager nodded.

And Olivia gasped. She reached out now for the girl, closing her hands over the teenager’s shoulders. “Does he get violent with you?” She studied the girl’s face, looking for bruises. But she knew, from her own experience, that a smart abuser made sure there was no easily visible evidence.

The girl shook her head, sending her long dark hair across her face. Olivia reached up and pushed it back, and the girl flinched as if anticipating a blow. “I’m sorry,” Olivia said as she pulled her hand back. She hated people touching her—for the very same reason the girl had flinched. She shouldn’t have reached out like she had.

The girl shook her head again. “It’s okay.”

“What’s your name?” Olivia asked. She’d been told it before; the female shrink, Rosemary Tulle, had mentioned it. But she couldn’t remember it now—not with so many other thoughts rushing through her head. So many other memories . . .

“Holly,” the girl replied, her voice soft as if she was suddenly shy.

“Holly,” Olivia said. “You need to report him. You need to tell someone what he’s doing to you.”

“Report him?” Holly repeated with another bitter chuckle. “To who?”

“The police.”

“He is the police,” Holly replied. “He’s the sheriff.”

Olivia held in the curse burning her throat. She didn’t want to add to the girl’s fear and frustration. “That doesn’t make him above the law. We can report him to the state police. Or to that judge, the one dating Rosemary Tulle.” Olivia had met him a couple of times; he’d seemed like someone a person could trust.

“That judge is friends with him,” Holly informed her. “And he’s already been reported to the state police. They didn’t have enough evidence to do anything to him.”

“They didn’t believe you?” Olivia asked, and anger coursed through her. She’d been that girl—the one nobody had believed.

Holly shrugged. “It’s not like that . . .” Tears pooled in her dark eyes again. “He hasn’t . . .”

“What?” Olivia prodded her when she trailed off. “What hasn’t he done?”

The girl, who was much taller than Olivia’s five feet, stared over her shoulder, and those dark eyes widened again as she murmured, “Dad . . .”

Olivia whirled around to the doorway and to the man who nearly filled it. He was tall and broad shouldered and so very dark that it felt as if his shadow swallowed all the sunshine in the conservatory. Her pulse quickened with fear racing over her, as that chill had earlier. She locked her legs that were threatening to tremble, and, summoning all her strength, stepped between father and daughter. Between the abuser and child?

“I won’t let him hurt you,” she promised the girl.

Beneath the brim of his navy-blue uniform cap, the sheriff’s brow furrowed. “Holly, what the hell have you been telling people?”

“I . . . I haven’t . . .” Her voice trailed off.

A wave of fierce protectiveness swept over Olivia, and she turned back toward the girl. “You don’t have to talk to him. Go,” she urged her. “I’ll deal with your father.”

Like she wished someone would have dealt with hers.

She led Holly toward the doorway where the sheriff stood; Olivia stayed between them, so the girl could slip out without her father touching her. He didn’t try, though, not with Olivia there. He didn’t even look at his daughter, just shook his head as if disgusted.

Shaking with fury now, she barely held onto her temper until the girl was gone. Then she released her anger. “How dare you!” she said to him. “How dare you act as if she’s disappointed you.”

She knew how that felt, to be belittled and demeaned—to be treated as less than nothing, as nobody. “How dare you!” she repeated, and she reached out again, stabbing his chest with her finger.

The man was like the hall, built out of rock. His chest was a wall of muscle. He didn’t budge except for his mouth, which curved slightly upward in a smirk.

She wanted to slap it off his face, but as if he’d read her mind, he cautioned her, “You should think twice before assaulting an officer, Ms. Smith.”

Shocked that he knew her name and that she was touching him, she pulled her finger from his chest and stepped back. “I am not the one assaulting anyone,” she said.

He narrowed his dark eyes and studied her face. “Neither am I. I don’t know what the hell my daughter has been telling you, but I’ve never laid a finger on her.”

Olivia stared back at him, trying to determine if the sincerity in his voice and on his face was genuine or just a thin, handsome veneer he showed the world. “Why are you here then?” she asked. “Harassing her at work?”

“I am not harassing her,” he said. “I didn’t come here to talk to her.”

“Then why are you here?” she asked.

“To talk to you.”

Olivia’s head snapped back as if he’d slapped her. “Me?”

Why the hell did he want to talk to her? What did he know about her—besides her name? What had he learned?

For the first time Elijah understood the satisfaction of balling his hand into a fist and swinging it. Hard. The force of the blow had his knuckles stinging and a vibration traveling from those knuckles up to his shoulder. He could even feel it in his abdomen.

He probably would have gotten hit in return—if not for his brother grabbing the bag before it swung back and struck him. Bode shook his head and cautioned him, “You’re going to break your hand if you’re not careful.”

That was Elijah’s problem. He was always so damn careful—always working so hard to control himself and everything around him. But despite his best efforts, his control was slipping.

“If you want to keep punching the bag, at least let me lace the gloves on you,” Bode offered. “Or we can spar, if you want.”

Since they’d become business partners in Halcyon Hall, they’d been sparring. Weary of the fight, Elijah shook his head.

Bode grinned. “Don’t want to take me on?”

Given that his brother was a world-renowned personal trainer, Elijah would have been a fool to try. Bode was the “body” part of Halcyon Hall. A psychiatrist, Elijah was the “mind” part of the treatment center motto of “total well-being for body and mind.”

“I don’t want to fight with you,” Elijah admitted. “Not anymore.”

Bode sighed. “Guess we have taken more than our share of jabs at each other.”

Elijah couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t fight with his brother again; they were business partners after all, who each believed his part of the business was more important. But they weren’t enemies. Not anymore . . .

“Instead of fighting each other, we need to fight to save the hall,” Elijah said.

Bode tensed. “What’s happened?”

“The sheriff is here.”

Bode cursed. “He better have a damn warrant.”

“He does,” Elijah said. “He has a court order that allows him to question our guests.”

Bode struck the bag now with such force that, despite the heavy weight of it, it swung up toward the rafters of the open ceiling in the cavernous gym. “Damn it! Now the guests, those that haven’t already checked out, damn sure will once he starts harassing them like he’s been harassing us!”

That was Elijah’s fear, too. “And there’s no way they know anything about that body. The sheriff found her a few weeks ago, so she was dead before most of them arrived.”

But not all of them. Morgana Drake had been here the longest, coming for a few months at a time since the hall had first opened two years ago. She’d been here for six months this last time, so she was more a resident than a guest at this point.

Olivia Smith had checked in three months ago, and she had yet to inform them of her departure date. Given how she valued her privacy, Elijah suspected that would be soon.

“That’s not all he’s done,” Elijah said. “He’s having the state reopen the investigation into his wife’s death.”

“Why?” Bode asked. “Seems like that’s going to come back to bite him on the ass more than it will us.”

Elijah shrugged. “I don’t know why . . .” Except that Deacon probably didn’t want to feel responsible or guilty anymore over the loss of his wife. “But if the state police call that murder too . . .”

“We have to make sure none of this hits the news,” Bode said, “or all those bookings we have for upcoming stays will get canceled.”

That was Elijah’s greatest fear. “I know. I’m meeting with Amanda next.” Amanda Plasky was the hall’s publicist.

Bode sucked in a breath. “You told me first?”

Elijah nodded. “Of course.”

Bode raised his arm again, but instead of swinging, he grabbed Elijah’s shoulder and squeezed. “Thanks.”

A twinge of regret struck Elijah that their partnership had started out so acrimoniously. “We’re in this together,” he reminded his younger brother.

Never more so than now.

Unfortunately, they were not the only two partners in the hall. They had a silent one—if only he would stay that way . . .

“Do you want to meet with Amanda with me?” Elijah offered, which was something else he wouldn’t have done before, just as coming to Bode first wouldn’t have been something he’d have done either.

Bode glanced around at the other people in the gym. “Heather should be finishing up soon,” he said of the young female trainer. “I’ll have her take my next appointment and join you.”

Instead of resenting his involvement, as he would have in the past, Elijah appreciated it until Bode added, “Then we should tell him.”

Dread clenched the muscles in Elijah’s stomach, tightening them more than any of Bode’s workouts would have. He groaned.

Bode reminded him, “He’s the third one in this partnership.”

They wouldn’t have been able to renovate and reimagine Bainesworth Manor if their grandfather hadn’t given them early access to their inheritance with the stipulation that he had a lifetime lease on the property. If they hadn’t agreed to his terms, they would have had to wait until he died to start the treatment center, which Elijah was beginning to believe might never happen.

Had the old man made a pact with the devil? Or was he, as so many of the locals believed, the devil himself? If he was ever proven guilty of all the crimes people suspected him of committing, then Elijah and Bode were the ones who’d made the pact with Satan.

Gone was the fierce woman who, just moments before, had protected his daughter from him, who’d jabbed her finger in his chest and admonished him. The minute Deacon had handed the warrant to her, she’d seemed to shrink even more than her already petite size. Her slender shoulders sagged and her head tilted forward, her hair sweeping around her face to hide it from him.

As if she was hiding.

Was that why she was here?

Why she’d been here so many months? Only one other person had been here longer than she had. Everybody else had come and gone, staying no more than a month—most of them for just a week or two.

Deacon couldn’t understand why anyone would choos. . .