The Scent of Heather Read online

  “Yes, it’s her, pretty boy.” He suddenly produced a gun, and gestured threateningly with it. “Back up, and don’t try any tricks.”

  “What is this?” David demanded, but he moved backward as George had ordered, allowing George and Maggie to scramble from the wrecked car.

  “Shut up,” George said, walking around to look at the two cars. He saw that the car he was in had suffered a broken axle, and would be inoperable. But David’s car had nothing worse than a few dents.

  “I’ll have to take your car, pretty boy,” he sneered at David. “Let me think how I can work this.”

  “Work what?” David wanted to know.

  “You’ve just been elected as the man who’s going to kill Maggie here.”

  “Kill Maggie, you must be crazy!” David cried.

  “Yes, David, he is crazy,” Maggie said. “It’s no use trying to argue with him.”

  “Right you are,” George said. “And I’m tired of hearing you talk, Maggie. I think the time has come to say good-bye.”

  Instinctively, Maggie and David moved together, and he put an arm around her. George lifted the gun.

  “Wait,” David said.

  “For what?” George asked with a laugh.

  “For them,” David said. At that moment they were bathed in bright lights as a car screeched to a stop just beyond David’s. They had been so engrossed in the tense scene that none of them had been aware of the approaching police car.

  George turned, staring for a second into the blinding lights. He must have realized how obvious the scene was to the men getting out of the car, because he suddenly panicked. Turning, he ran wildly into the trees alongside the road.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” the policeman cried, but there was no response from George, only a distant crashing in the underbrush as he fled.

  * * * *

  It was a nightmarish night—the trip back to the house with the police, the confrontation with Rebecca who, caught unprepared, blurted out the truth. Then it was necessary for Maggie to go back into town with David, to make a statement at police headquarters.

  It was nearly morning by the time it was over and the policeman in charge told Maggie she could go. George still had not been found.

  “Don’t worry,” he assured Maggie, “we’ll find your brother-in-law. It’s hard to hide around here.”

  David had stayed with Maggie throughout the ordeal. Now he guided her gently back to his car.

  “Come on, I’ll take you Mrs. Johnston’s,” he said, opening the door for her. “You can have my apartment and I’ll sleep in one of the spare rooms.”

  “I can go back to Heather House,” she said.

  “Not tonight. It wouldn’t be safe with George still on the loose.”

  “Yes, probably you’re right. But I’ll go back, tomorrow.”

  “Do you really want to—after everything that happened there?”

  “It was the house to blame,” she said. “It was Rebecca and George. If anything, I think Heather may have saved my life.”

  She was remembering Rebecca as the policemen had taken her away.

  “It was this damned house,” she said viciously. “This house ruined everything.”

  “Maggie, the house will be gone, in a few months’ time. And, it is haunted, isn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t—but I think now that Heather will finally know peace. And there are things from the house I’d like to keep. Heather’s portrait, for one.”

  “I had in mind that the two of us could start a life together,” he said, looking deeply into her eyes. “Without the burdens of the past.”

  She smiled back at him. “We needn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Rebecca is gone. Much of my past is gone. But I’d like to have Heather with me, I think. I understand her, and I think she understood me. If I’d listened to her warnings....”

  She let her voice trail off. For just a brief instant, she’d thought she once again caught a scent of heather.

  Yes, Heather was at peace now. And so would she be, with David.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  V. J. BANIS is the critically acclaimed author (“the master’s touch in storytelling....”—Publishers Weekly) of more than 200 published books and numerous short stories in a career spanning nearly a half century. A native of Ohio and a longtime Californian, he lives and writes now in West Virginia’s beautiful Blue Ridge.

  You can visit him at http://www.vjbanis.com

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY VICTOR J. BANIS

  The Astral; or, Till the Day I Die: A Novel of Psychic Projection

  Avalon

  Charms, Spells, and Curses for the Millions

  Color Him Gay: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

  The Curse of Bloodstone: A Gothic Novel of Terror

  Darkwater: A Gothic Novel of Terror

  The Devil’s Dance

  Drag Thing; or, The Strange Tale of Jackle and Hyde: A Novel of Horror

  The Earth and All It Holds

  The Gay Dogs: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

  The Gay Haunt

  The Glass House

  The Glass Painting: A Gothic Tale of Horror

  Goodbye, My Lover

  The Greek Boy

  The Green Rolling Hills: Writings from West Virginia (editor)

  Kenny’s Back

  Life and Other Passing Moments: A Collection of Short Writings

  The Lion’s Gate

  Moon Garden

  The Pot Thickens: Recipes from the Kitchens of Writers and Editors (editor)

  San Antone

  The Scent of Heather: A Gothic Novel of Terror

  The Second Tijuana Bible Reader (editor)

  Spine Intact, Some Creases: Remembrances of a Paperback Writer

  Stranger at the Door

  The Sword and the Rose: An Historical Novel

  This Splendid Earth

  The Tijuana Bible Reader (editor)

  The WATERCRESS File: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

  A Westward Love: An Historical Romance

  The Why Not

  The Wolves of Craywood: A Novel of Terror

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  DEDICATION

  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 SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY VICTOR J. BANIS