Chapter Two Raine
Chapter Two
Raine
Hale House
Crozet, Virginia
My brain didn’t register the buzzing phone right away.
Wine soaked and sleep heavy, I convinced myself it wasn’t real. I burrowed deeper under the covers.
But the shrill noise kept coming—relentless, echoing through the room until I slapped the nightstand and fumbled for my cell.
“Hello?” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “Hello.”
“Raine Hale?” Her tones were clipped.
“Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Webber at the University of Virginia Medical Center. You are the emergency contact for Maria Hale Cooper Durant, correct?”
I blinked and sat up. Years ago, I’d been Maria’s legal surrogate.
She’d signed a will, an advanced medical directive, and a custody agreement for her daughter.
But that was before the last argument. We hadn’t spoken in over a year.
And then months ago, she’d filed a lawsuit claiming she was owed a portion of the Hale House estate. “Why?”
“Maria Durant collapsed several hours ago. She was transported to our critical care unit,” Dr. Webber said. “She’s suffered a heart attack.”
“That doesn’t make sense. She’s thirty-four.” Last I saw her, she was a runner. Healthy. Active.
“She’s in grave condition.”
I didn’t recognize the lemons and green vines on the faded wallpaper around me.
All I could say was that I wasn’t in the Alexandria home I shared with my husband.
Several seconds passed before the fragments fell into place.
I’d taken leave from my public defender job, returned alone to Hale House—my family’s crumbling estate—and was on the brink of divorce.
Lemons. Green vines. I was in a spare bedroom in Hale House because the other rooms were too charged with memories. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Will you come to the hospital?” Dr. Webber’s impatience crackled.
“Where is her husband?”
“I don’t know.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Bare feet touched a cold floor. “But why isn’t he there?”
“I don’t know. He’s not answering his phone. And you’re her contact, so I’m notifying you.”
“Okay. I’ll come to the hospital.”
“When?”
“I’ll be there in an hour and a half.” I needed to shower, wash off the wine, and drink coffee. Then I’d be on the road. It was a thirty-minute drive from Crozet to Charlottesville. “How bad is ‘grave’?”
“Bad. I wouldn’t take longer than an hour.”
“I’m on my way.”
“When you arrive, ask the information desk to direct you to the ICU.”
“Okay.”
I hung up and stumbled across wood to a carpeted floor to the bathroom tile. I turned on the tap. As the old water heater struggled to send hot water to the second floor, I grabbed clean underwear, jeans, and a shirt.
The water hit my skin. Lukewarm. Not hot enough to be soothing. But cold enough to chase off the mental haze. I washed my hair and body and shut off the tap. Cold and dripping, I toweled off.
Hair combed and dressed in jeans and a bright green sweatshirt, I slipped on ankle boots. Across the second-floor landing, I descended the center staircase, avoiding the third step from the top, which creaked and groaned.
Portraits of long-dead relatives stared at me. Normally, their judgment weighed heavily, but tonight I didn’t meet their gazes.
In the kitchen, I flipped on a light, flinched at the avocado-green walls and matching appliances. My grandmother’s pride. Her “modern” addition from the 1970s. She’d sworn it was cutting edge and would always be in style.
I found coffee in the cabinet, said a small prayer of thanks to whomever had left it, and set up the old machine. It gurgled. I poured the coffee into my travel mug, gulped several hot swallows. Ugh. If I hated anything, it was cheap coffee.
The clock on the stove read 1:42 a.m.
The last time I’d been awake at this hour, I’d woken up in a hospital bed. Three weeks ago, one of my public defender clients had lost it and beaten me—to a pulp, as an officer had said.
I shoved the memory back, grabbed my purse and coat.
The central hallway stretched ahead—adorned with river landscapes and more scowling ancestors. Fading federalist-blue wallpaper balanced hand-hewn wainscoting. Centuries of patina enhanced wide oak floorboards. A bullnose banister trailed along a tall staircase.
Out the front door, cold air hit me. I wiggled an old key in the lock until the dead bolt struggled into place.
The tongue-and-groove porch boards were soft, rotted, waiting for someone careless. The gray paint was chipped and faded. Brown leaves curled in the corners.
Hale House was in the heart of Albemarle County in Virginia’s Piedmont region. Set among rolling fields and pastureland, the estate had a breathtaking view of the southwest mountains.
Beautiful. Isolating. And suffocating.
The original structure had been a log cabin designed as a hunting lodge in the mid-1700s.
As Eastern Virginia expanded west and this area grew more settled, the original owner, Rupert Hale, expanded the dwelling as his landholdings grew.
The bricks were cast from locally dug and cured clay, and a glassmaker in Richmond fashioned the handblown windows.
The main house was four thousand square feet, but the unattached dependencies brought the total livable footage to over ten thousand.
I hurried down the ten steps. My SUV waited at the top of the circular driveway.
The air was ripe with rain as I crossed damp gravel and got into my car.
I pressed the warm mug to my pounding temple, dug a bottle of aspirin from my purse, and chased three pills with the dregs from yesterday’s water bottle.
A few deep breaths. I fired the engine.
As the car swung around, headlights swiped over centuries-old American sycamore trees lining the half-mile-long driveway.
Maria and I had played in those trees when we were kids.
Once we’d taken the gardener’s ladder and rested it against a four-foot-thick trunk and climbed up to the first branch.
And then I’d lost my balance, fallen, and broken my arm.
When I reached the twin brick pillars at the road, I turned east. The roads were quiet, empty. I was glad. Adrenaline, a cool shower, and a little bad coffee had chased away most of the sleep. My reflexes fought to come back online.
Life always had a twist up its sleeve. The last had been my decision to return to Hale House. Not willingly, mind you. But how or why didn’t matter.
Back was back.