Stoneview Estate

When they pulled into the garage at Stoneview, there wasn’t any light on in the cottage.

“Wait. I’ll walk you to the house,” Brian told Robyn.

“No need. I know the way. I’d rather say goodbye here.” She surprised him by giving him a lingering kiss on the lips. Then she turned away quickly and disappeared into the shadows of the overhanging trees planted along the walk.

Brian headed in the opposite direction toward the cottage. He was only halfway there when Robyn’s scream cut through the air like a knife.

Calling her name, he streaked toward the back of the house. When the porch light came into view, he saw her. She was standing at the bottom of the back stairs, shivering and staring at the screen door.

A huge funeral wreath hung there.

The flowers and leaves were dead.

Death at Stoneview was printed on a tattered black banner.

Stoneview Estate

Leona Karr

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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With thanks to Joan Biederman, a gracious

and generous lady who inspired this novel.

With affection to Scott McClane,

a very special and talented friend.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A native of Colorado, Leona (Lee) Karr is the author of nearly forty books. Her favorite genres are romantic suspense and inspirational romance. After graduating from the University of Colorado with a B.A. and the University of Northern Colorado with an M.A. degree, she taught as a reading specialist until her first book was published in 1980. She has been on the Waldenbooks bestseller list and nominated by Romantic Times for Best Romantic Saga and Best Gothic Author. She has been honored as the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer of the Year, and received Colorado’s Romance Writer of the Year Award. Her books have been reprinted in more than a dozen foreign countries. She is a presenter at numerous writing conferences and has taught college courses in creative writing.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Robyn Valcourt—Living in a house of secrets became a terrifying nightmare. She trusted only one man to rescue her.

Brian Donovan—Would his investigation bring justice to a kidnapper and murderer? And when he revealed his identity to Robyn, could she forgive his lies?

Lynette Valcourt—The party for her one-hundred-year-old house sets the scene for disaster.

Heather Fox—The murdered nursemaid whose spirit seems unable to let go of Stoneview Estate.

Nick Bellows—Was he more than a caretaker and friend to the murdered nursemaid, Heather Fox?

Todd Parker—He wanted a deeper romantic relationship with Lynette’s beautiful granddaughter, Robyn.

John Parker—Was the influential lawyer responsible for a carefully guarded secret?

Becky Sheldon—A determined young girl with her own agenda.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

“Isn’t that a grand idea, Robyn? A birthday party for a one-hundred-year-old house?”

Robyn Valcourt searched her sixty-five-year-old grandmother’s expression. She had to be kidding! “A birthday party, for a house?”

“Why not?” Lynette answered readily. “Houses take on the spirit of the people who live in them. I think it would be fascinating to honor lives that were lived under the same roof.”

Robyn wasn’t so sure, maybe because she didn’t share her grandmother’s feelings about Stoneview. Robin hadn’t found anything warm and appealing about the old mansion when she’d come to live with her widowed grandmother as a teenager. As a child of parents in the foreign service, Robyn had bounced all over the world, living in one embassy after another. After her parents were killed in a plane crash in southern France, she’d gratefully accepted her grandmother’s invitation to come and live with her at Stoneview for her last two years of high school.

The estate encompassed thickly wooded areas and a wide expanse of shoreline along Lake Chataqua, Maine. Historians speculated that an ancient glacier was responsible for digging out the lake bed and scattering enormous boulders near the estate, giving Stoneview its name. In the shadow of tall red oak trees, the mansion stood rather aloof in the center of landscaped grounds sloping down to the water.

From the moment Robyn had stepped through the front door of the house she’d fought a foreboding sense of uneasiness. Large rooms on the main floor were somber and dark, with heavy stone fireplaces and thick-beamed ceilings. A warren of shadowy halls and stairways connected the main floor with the basement, the second floor bedrooms and the attic.

When she was a girl, unseen presences had seemed to lurk in the shadows as Robyn passed through echoing rooms and halls. She imagined muffled, threatening whispers following her as she hurried down the stairs from her bedroom to the warmth of the kitchen and adjoining breakfast room at the back of the house.

Her grandmother’s excitement about bringing back the people who had lived there off and on for the last hundred years failed to strike a positive note with Robyn. She pretended an interest in the weird idea that she didn’t feel.

Robyn was on spring break from her teaching duties at a private women’s college in Portland, Maine. They were sitting on the terrace of her grandmother’s winter home in Florida, and Robyn was enjoying the brush of warm, tanning sun upon her winter-pale skin. Hot-pink shorts were a delightful change from her professional wardrobe of tailored suits in subdued shades of green and beige, which toned down the fiery shades of her chestnut hair. They’d been talking about the family mansion, Stoneview, when her grandmother excitedly revealed her latest brainstorm.

“We’ll invite members of the families who have lived in the mansion since it was built in 1905. I’ve already begun the process of tracking down addresses.”

Robyn silently sighed. Lynette Valcourt’s years as the wife of a foreign diplomat had trained her well. When Robyn’s grandfather died shortly after they had retired to Stoneview, Lynette’s social life had been sharply curtailed. The vibrant, vivacious woman had been put out to pasture much too early, and it was clear to Robyn that her grandmother had already eagerly begun organizing the whole affair. Her silver-white hair, professionally styled, enhanced her strong features and highlighted dark blue eyes. Lynette’s energy level was that of a much younger person, and her tendency to dominate everyone and everything had not faltered during the years.

“We’ll try to contact a living descendent of each family, and send out invitations for a centennial birthday celebration,” she told Robyn.

“Do you think there will be enough guests to make it all worthwhile?” Robyn asked, playing devil’s advocate.

Lynette gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “We’ll include special people in the area who have been connected with the estate through the years. Stoneview has been the setting for a good many community projects, you know. People can wander around the place and see what changes have been made to the house and grounds. We can have the affair catered, and arrange for something special like a fireworks display on the lake for the evening.

“We’ll ask everyone to bring memorabilia, photos and stories to share,” she continued. “Maybe we could even think about writing a history of Stoneview Estate.”

The use of the pronoun “we” made it clear Lynette expected her granddaughter to devote time and energy in carrying out the preparations for the affair.

Robyn felt as if she’d been thrust on a runaway train with no way to stop it—or get off! A chill touched her body despite the warm Florida sunshine. Maybe stirring up the past wasn’t such a great idea. She remembered how the malicious murmuring of high school classmates had ruined the newly decorated bedroom her grandmother had prepared for her arrival.

Her first day, she’d been sitting in the cafeteria with three other girls.

“Really, Robyn, I don’t know how you can live in that place after what happened,” one of them said with a grimace.

“Doesn’t it give you the shivers?” asked another.

“You couldn’t pay me enough to have a sleepover there,” one girl agreed.

Robyn had looked blankly at the three of them. “What are you talking about?”

Instead of answering, they’d just groaned and rolled their eyes.

When Robyn repeated what they had said to her grandmother, Lynette dismissed the matter in her usual dogmatic manner.

“This lovely house had four families living in it before your grandfather and I bought it. I’m sure lots of happenings have taken place under this roof, good and bad. The past is past,” she had said firmly. “I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about it.”

Lynette didn’t know her granddaughter if she thought that put an end to the matter. As soon as Robyn had the chance, she went to the Chataqua town library. As she scanned the computers of the local Chataqua Sentinel, her search paid off. She found what she was looking for.

“Kidnapping and Murder at Stoneview Mansion.”

Robyn’s breath caught as the headline leaped out at her from the front page. Her heartbeat quickened as she read the account. An adopted infant girl of Darrel and Sybil Sheldon had been snatched from the nursery on the second floor of the Stoneview mansion. After a large ransom had been paid, the baby was left on the doorstep of a local doctor, James Donovan, but that same night, Heather Fox, the nursemaid of the baby, was found murdered on the lawn of the estate. She’d been strangled.

Robyn stared at the photo of a fair-haired young woman, Heather Fox, smiling as she held up a baby for the camera. Robyn could tell from the background that the nursemaid had been standing in front of the garden gazebo, not far from where her body had been discovered. Robyn had shivered as if a cold draft had touched her skin, and wondered if she’d ever be able to pass by that spot again without being reminded of a strangled woman lying there.

“The tragedy has nothing to do with you,” Lynette had lectured when Robyn confronted her with the newspaper account. “It’s over and done with!”

Robyn had wanted to believe her grandmother, but when they’d stripped the old wallpaper from her bedroom and discovered her room had once been the nursery, the nightmares began. She’d jerk awake in the middle of the night, hearing sounds of a baby crying. Robyn would stare into the shadows, every nerve ending vibrating with an awareness that danger still lurked there. Once, she’d run from the room, trembling, but her grandmother had dismissed her behavior as childish. As a result, Robyn suffered her torment in silence. More than anything she wanted to please her grandmother.

Robyn knew her grandmother’s habitual strong Scotch “nightcap” insured her an uneventful, peaceful night’s sleep. Although Robin wasn’t into drinking as a teenager, one time she’d secretly fixed herself a similar bedtime drink. Her hopes that the liquor would knock her out were foiled even before she consumed half of the glassful. Terribly sick, she’d spent the night in the bathroom, and the next morning had to lie to Lynette about her bedraggled appearance.

Later, when Robyn went away to college and eventually became a professor of romance languages, she was too embarrassed to tell her grandmother that she’d like to change bedrooms when she came back for visits.

Even now, a twenty-six-year-old adult, she hesitated to express any disapproval of her grandmother’s ideas. Appearing to be anything but a confident woman in charge of her own life was out of the question for Robyn. Her parents had expected it—her grandmother demanded it!

“We need to get the invitations sent as soon as possible,” Lynette declared, either unaware or totally ignoring her granddaughter’s lack of enthusiasm. “By the time I return to Stoneview in June, we should know which families will be staying in the mansion. We can arrange for lodging in Chataqua for the remainder of the guests.” She paused. “I think the first week in July would be a perfect time for the celebration, don’t you?”

Robyn knew the question was purely rhetorical. As far as her grandmother was concerned the matter was settled. The possibility that she might not be ready and willing to drop all her summer plans and help carry out the festivities wasn’t worthy of consideration.

Robyn silently sighed. No wonder I don’t have a life of my own, she thought. During the school year, the responsibilities of her teaching position demanded total dedication. Every romantic relationship she’d hoped to nurture had died in the bud, smothered by too many other obligations. Several eligible men had shown some interest in dating her, but about the third time she broke a date, it was bye-bye.

“We’ll need to mail the invitations as soon as possible,” Lynette said as she laid out a timetable for all the preparations.

“Getting current addresses may not be all that easy,”

Robyn protested once again. “What about the descendants of Hugo Koleski, who built the house?”

“Well, several branches of the family lived on the estate until the lumber mill closed in about 1955. I believe that when the property was sold, all the Koleski family moved away.”

“Maybe they went back to Poland?”

“We’ll have to find out.”

“What about the other three owners of Stoneview, before you and Grandpa bought it? How will you track them down?”

“Don’t worry. I have friends in high places who have access to public records. I’ll make some calls,” Lynette assured her, as if that took care of the matter. “After I locate someone in each family, I’ll send you the addresses. In the meantime you arrange to have the invitations printed, and be ready to send them out.”

“Are you sure about this, Grandmother?” Robyn could not stifle a growing apprehension that such a reunion might dredge up dangerous and conflicting emotions. She didn’t know how to explain to her grandmother that on some deep level she sensed there were remaining energies in the house that should be left untouched. Even if she tried to verbalize such intuitive feelings, Robyn knew her grandmother would dismiss them with open disgust.

Sitting there in the warmth of the Florida sun, Robyn sought to deny an insidious warning rippling through her consciousness like the far-off rumble of a deadly storm.

AS SHE FINISHED OUT the school year, swamped by the closing demands of her classes and preparations to be away from her town house for the summer, Robyn had little time to think about Stoneview. She was department head of the romance languages department, and the high percentage of foreign students in the small college in Portland, Maine, put extra demands upon her time and energy. Although she found teaching gratifying and was pleased she could put her mastery of languages to good use, she realized she had let her life settle into a tedious routine. But her summer plans to explore some new and untried avenues for her personal development had to be shelved.

The hope that her grandmother would either lose interest in the project or come up short with addresses of the former occupants had been in vain. When the names and addresses arrived, Robyn had indulged herself in a brief period of childish rebellion, and ended up mailing them nearly three weeks later.

As she dropped them into the mailbox, she clung to the hope that her grandmother’s brainstorm might somehow be derailed.

Maybe nobody would come.

DETECTIVE BRIAN J. Donovan hated hospitals, especially when the innocent victim of a robbery and assault was an elderly man who had cashed his social security check, then stopped at a sleazy pool hall and bar to have a drink. A couple of druggies had waited for him, beaten him up and left him unconscious in the alley.

Police files were filled with such cases. Brian knew the chances of getting any solid leads from the victim were slight. At the age of twenty-eight, he’d seen enough selfish brutality to last a lifetime. There was an angry stiffness about him as he strode up to the hospital admittance desk.

“Evening, Detective.” The pretty nurse smiled as her appreciative glance passed over his tawny hair, brown eyes and athletic build. “You’re out late. The sun will be up in a few hours.” Her voice took on a flirtatious tone. “If you’re still around, I might offer to fix you some breakfast.”

Brian smiled, recognizing the intimacy in her invitation, but he’d learned to maneuver around such overtures, especially on the job. “I’ll take a rain check,” he answered lightly.

“Promises, promises,” she said, sighing. “What can I do for you tonight?”

Brian glanced at his notebook. “An elderly man, Joseph Keller, was brought in about eleven o’clock. Assault and battery.”

After checking her computer, she nodded. “Room 209. Condition stable.”

“That’s good. Thanks.” Brian knew the first few hours after an incident were the most productive in getting a line on criminal perpetrators. After that, imagination often took over and filled in the gaps. He reached the room just as a male nurse was coming out.

Brian flashed his badge. “Detective Donovan. Any chance I can spend a couple of minutes with Mr. Keller?”

“I just gave him a sedative, so you’d better make it fast,” the young man warned. “He’s beat up pretty bad. A tough old guy. Fought the thugs off pretty good, but they got his wallet.”

“Any other personal effects?” Brian asked. “Forensics might be able to get some fingerprints if the muggers went through his pockets.”

“He didn’t have much. There are a few things in the bedside drawer.”

“Thanks.” Brian eased inside the room and approached the bed quietly. “Mr. Keller?”

Even though the man’s prone body clearly showed his advanced age, there was a sharpness in his glare. Dark eyes in a bruised and scratched face narrowed as he stared at Brian. His voice was raspy and breathless as he croaked, “What the hell do you want?”

“We want to find the thugs who did this to you. I’m Detective Donovan.”

“You get my money back?”

“We’re going to try our best, Mr. Keller. Can you tell me what happened?”

He closed his eyes for a long moment and then looked at Brian as the words came painfully slow. “The bastards came up from behind. Dragged me into the alley. Went through my pockets. Knocked me out.”

“Can you tell me what they looked like?”

The Adam’s apple in his skinny throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Hoodlums. Young and white. Too dark to see much.”

Brian closed his notebook. Unfortunately, the old man’s description was too generic to be of value. “If you remember anything else, Mr. Keller, just call me.” He laid his card on the bedside table. “You take care of yourself.”

“If I’d been younger I’d have shown them a thing or two,” he rasped, and his slack jaw tightened a little. “Was a heavyweight boxer in my prime.”

“Really?” Brian smiled at the old man. “How about that?”

“Plenty of money and women, too.” He gave Brian a grin. “Owned the biggest estate on Lake Chataqua.”

“Lake Chataqua, Maine?” Brian’s eyes narrowed.

“Yep. Owned the Stoneview Estate, I did. You know it?”

“Yes, my father had a medical practice in Chataqua until I was almost seventeen, and we moved to Boston.”

Just the name Stoneview instantly brought a hot anger surging through Brian. His father’s professional reputation had been ruined by a kidnapping and murder that had taken place at the estate during Brian’s senior year in high school. As the family doctor for Darrel and Sybil Sheldon, his dad had attended their newly adopted baby and the ill-fated nursemaid, Heather Fox. When the missing baby showed up on Dr. Donovan’s doorstep, and the nursemaid he’d befriended was found strangled, ugly speculations had targeted Brian’s father as a likely accomplice. The police failed to turn up any leads to the ransom money or the parties responsible for the nanny’s death.

When insidious suspicions destroyed his father’s reputation and the town turned against him, Brian had felt the backlash in his own life. His father decided to uproot the family, and in the move, Brian had lost touch with all his high school friends. His boyhood had been a happy one, living in the house where he’d been born, hanging out with his buddies and growing up with a sense of belonging. He’d never recovered from the isolation of the move, and had tried to protect himself from that kind of loss ever again by becoming pretty much a loner.

“You must have heard of me,” the injured man insisted. “Heavyweight boxer? Made big money, I did.”

Joe Keller. Suddenly, the name snagged a memory. Brian remembered that a lawyer friend of his father, John Parker, had bought the Stoneview Estate cheap from a prizefighter whose career had hit the skids. Before Joe Keller had sold it, he’d rented the place out as a questionable resort until the authorities closed it down for suspected gambling. Obviously, the fighter’s good fortune had gone downhill since then. Brian found it hard to believe this wasted old man had once been a force in the boxing ring.

“What about your family, Joe?” Brian asked. “Have the authorities notified anyone about what happened to you tonight?”

“No one to notify,” he answered in a tight voice.

Brian checked the bedside drawer, which the nurse had said contained Joe’s personal effects: a pitiful pile of change, a lighter, half pack of cigarettes and a white envelope. Not much to go on.

“If anyone handled any of these things besides you, we may be able to match some fingerprints,” Brian told him hopefully.

“Just mail that envelope for me,” Joe said tiredly. “Tell ’em I’m not up to that kind of shindig. It’s an invitation. A hundred-year-old birthday party for a house. Doesn’t that beat all?”

Brian didn’t answer. He removed the invitation and bagged the envelope with everything else. After leaving the hospital, he drove to his small apartment in a modest Boston neighborhood. Since most of his time was spent on the job, or working out at a nearby gym, the apartment was hardly more than a place to sleep and eat. Occasionally he enjoyed feminine company, but never for very long.

His telephone was blinking with a couple of messages. The only personal one was from his mother, asking him to call. His parents had moved to sunny New Mexico several years earlier after his father had retired from medical practice. The dark cloud that had forced Dr. Donovan to give up his practice in Chataqua had never dissipated. The unsolved kidnapping and murder seemed to lodge in the doctor’s mind like a curse, and even moving across the country had not seemed to help.

Brian returned his mother’s call, and she told him that she was really worried about his dad. “Nothing seems to be physically wrong, but he’s slipping into a deep despondency and brooding about the past. He’s dredging up everything that happened in Chataqua.” Her voice wavered. “It breaks my heart.”

“I know, Mom. He probably has too much time on his hands.”

“He’s not interested in making new friends or taking up a new hobby. You know how stubborn he can be.”

Brian tried to console her as much as he could, but there was very little comfort he could give her. It was a damn shame that what had happened eleven years ago could still destroy the last few years of his father’s life.

Too keyed up to sleep, Brian slumped down in his chair, sipping a beer and staring out the window. His thoughts centered on the unexpected encounter with Joseph Keller, and the invitation the boxer had received. What kind of nonsense was that? A birthday party for a damn house!

Even as Brian dismissed the idea, a startling possibility presented itself. The urge to investigate the crimes that had cast suspicion on his father had always been at the back of Brian’s mind during his career as a detective. As long as the matter remained in Cold Case files, Brian knew no one was going to spend any time or energy on it. As he thought about the invitation that had come into his possession, he began to realize he’d been handed a viable undercover identity.

Joseph Keller wouldn’t be attending the celebration at the Stoneview estate, and no one would be going to represent him. Brian could accept the invitation as a distant relative of Joe Keller.

For a welcomed guest at the Stoneview mansion, Brian knew, on-the-spot investigation would be possible. Attending the event would be invaluable, not only because of access to the crime scene, but because of contact with people who might have pertinent information that had gone unnoticed when the crimes occurred.

He knew he’d never get official approval. The department was stretched just covering day-to-day investigations. This undercover job would have to be done in secret and on his own. He had vacation time coming, and the opportunity to spend it at Stoneview was worth the gamble. He checked the calendar. The celebration was less than three weeks away, and he ought to be able to get free from his duties about ten days before that.

As Brian weighed the deception from all perspectives, the advantages made his decision an easy one. His mother had pleaded with him to do something to help, and what better thing could he do than try and clear his father’s name once and for all?

He decided to wait until the next morning before making a decision, but the idea was only more firmly planted in his mind the next day.

He read the invitation again carefully, filled in the requested information and boldly identified himself as a distant relative of Joseph Keller. In a place for comments, he expressed his pleasure in representing the Keller family at the “one-hundred-year-old birthday celebration.”

With deliberate deception, he signed his name “Brian Keller.” In most undercover situations it was better to use a familiar first name than to suddenly try to relate to a brand-new one, he knew. Besides, most people in Chataqua had known him as Buddy Donovan during his school days.

Brian sealed the envelope, affixed the proper postage, and early the next morning mailed the RSVP to a Ms. Robyn Valcourt at the designated return address.

Finally, he’d get the answers he sought—no matter what.