The Gray Hunter's Revenge Read online

  Had I been imagining things? Joe and his ridiculous stories are getting into my head! I went to the window and pulled aside the thin curtains. Out on the balcony there was a decorative stone statue of a man—could that have been what I’d seen? Was it just a trick of the light?

  That didn’t matter now. Forcing myself to focus, I ran out of the room to try and find the source of the scream. Everyone in the front room was pointing upstairs, looking spooked, so I took two stairs at a time until I reached the landing.

  “Joe!” I called out. “Where are you?”

  “In here!” came his reply, from a room at the end of the hall.

  I entered the murky sitting room to find Joe kneeling down next to a woman who held one shaky hand to her head, her face ashen. She looked to be in her forties, with dark, wavy hair streaked with silver, and blue eyes that fixed on me as I came in. “I heard a scream,” I said, breathless. “Is everything all right?”

  “Frank,” Joe began, “this is Heather Foxwood.” I could tell that he was trying to remain calm and serious, but there was a weird kind of excitement in his voice. And no wonder—this was his favorite author’s wife! “She’d passed out when I came into the room, but she seems fine now.”

  “Should I call an ambulance?” I asked her.

  “N-no,” she managed. “I’m not ill. It’s just that . . . well, I saw something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Mrs. Foxwood looked down at the floor, shaking her head. “It’s impossible,” she muttered to herself. “It can’t be.”

  “Please,” I urged, shooting daggers at Joe, who looked even more excited than before at this development. “Just tell us what you saw.”

  Mrs. Foxwood took a deep, shuddering breath before saying, “It was him. The man from the stories. The Gray Hunter.”

  There was a moment of silence as Joe and I let this sink in. What was she saying? That she’d seen a ghost? There had to be another explanation. Was someone playing a cruel prank on a mourning widow?

  “Tell us exactly what happened,” Joe encouraged her.

  “I was just in here putting tickets on a few final items,” she said, “when the room suddenly got colder. And then I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye—and there he was. He appeared out of nowhere, just there”—she pointed at the stone fireplace in front of us—“with an ax in his hands. He was coming toward me, soundless, when I screamed. I must have blacked out then. When I came to, though, no one was here but this young man.” She gestured at Joe, who was clearly enthralled by her story.

  And so I felt it was my duty to be the voice of reason in all of this.

  “Mrs. Foxwood,” I said, “my name is Frank Hardy, and you’ve already met my brother, Joe. Solving mysteries is kind of a hobby of ours, so we’ve seen a lot of strange stuff—but most things turn out to have a logical explanation. Can you think of anyone who’d want to scare you like this? You are a local celebrity, and with what’s happened, your name has been in the papers a lot over the past few days.”

  Mrs. Foxwood sighed. “I know what you’re thinking—the grieving widow of a horror writer seeing ghosts in her house. It’s almost cliché. But I am a scientist, Mr. Hardy. I don’t have my head in the clouds like my husband did. I believe in facts. I believe in what I can see right in front of my eyes.” She wrapped her arms around her shoulders as a shiver shook her. “And what I saw was something I cannot explain.”

  At that moment, a bunch of people—including Adam Parker—came into the room, swarming around Heather Foxwood like buzzing bees. I pulled Joe out into the hallway, trying to get away from the chaos, but even out there people were hanging around, gossiping.

  “Did you hear?” one woman was saying. “Heather Foxwood saw the Hunter!”

  “Really!” said an older man with her. “I just overheard a couple other folks saying they’d seen some kind of shadowy figure lurking around as they were shopping. Looks like this place is haunted after all!”

  Joe was overjoyed. “It’s like being in a real Nathan Foxwood novel!” he crowed.

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t really think she saw a ghost, do you? It was probably just a misunderstanding. Or someone just trying to scare her—though I can’t imagine why.” But then I suddenly remembered what I’d seen back in the study, and I felt the blood drain from my face.

  Joe noticed the change in my mood immediately. “What? What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, nothing,” I said.

  But my brother’s like a bloodhound—once he’s picked up a scent, he’ll follow it to the ends of the earth. He squinted at me and exclaimed, “You saw something too, didn’t you! Don’t lie to me, bro—you know I can see right through you.”

  I crossed my arms, annoyed. “Fine! Yes, I saw something. But I’m sure there’s an explanation for that, too!” So I told him what I’d seen back in the study.

  As I described the figure, Joe’s eyes widened in amazement. “It was the Gray Hunter!”

  “Or someone dressed up like the Gray Hunter, more like!” I retorted.

  “Oh, really? You said that you saw the figure only seconds before you heard Mrs. Foxwood scream. But that would have been the exact same time that she saw him. So tell me how this person managed to be in two places at once?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but I couldn’t think of a good answer. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “  Yet.”

  “Excuse me,” a voice broke in. Joe and I turned to see Adam Parker standing in front of us, his bow tie askew, and his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Mrs. Foxwood tells me that you’re Frank and Joe Hardy, the amateur detectives. Thank you for coming to her aid back there.”

  “Sure thing,” I replied.

  “I wonder if you would be willing to do me a favor,” he continued. “I’m in a bit of a predicament here, and I’m not sure where else to turn.”

  Joe grinned, not even making an attempt to disguise his excitement. “Of course,” he answered. “What can we do to help?”

  Adam straightened his bow tie and launched into his story. “So, being an aspiring writer myself, getting to be Nathan Foxwood’s assistant seemed like a dream come true. I could learn from the best, right? And for a while, it was like that. Mr. Foxwood was a great guy—he was always full of ideas. Until recently. That’s when things started to fall apart. It was almost like Mr. Foxwood was losing touch with reality. I’d find him talking to himself, claiming to see things that weren’t there. He heard voices. Eventually it got bad enough that on the night of the accident, Mrs. Foxwood was so upset about his behavior that she left to go stay with a friend for the night. I tried to talk some sense into him, but Mr. Foxwood was out of his mind. He threw me out.” Adam looked at the floor. “I didn’t find out about the accident until late the next day. I was in shock. Anyway, I figured that was the end of it, but then all these strange things started happening. Weird noises. Whispers. Things going missing from the house. I started to think I was losing my mind too! And now all this mess at the estate sale—the reporters are already having a field day!” Adam covered his face and sighed. “Look, guys, I don’t believe in ghosts any more than the next person. But something is going on here. Mrs. Foxwood doesn’t want the police involved—she’s been through enough as it is—but I need to get to the bottom of this. For Mr. Foxwood’s sake. I owe him that. Would you be willing to look into it for me? I don’t know where else to turn.”

  I had to admit, the whole situation had really piqued my interest. Even if Adam hadn’t asked us to take the case, not knowing the truth about what was really going on would have nagged at me for ages. When I glanced over at Joe, the dopey grin on his face told me that he was already in the game. “We’d love to help,” he replied. “Do you have any idea who might want to do something like this—and why? I mean, other than a ghost. Their motives are always pretty cut-and-dried—you know, haunting, scaring. That kind of thing.”

  Adam gave me a searching look, and I shrugged, as if to say, I
accept no responsibility for my brother’s ravings.

  “Well,” Adam began, “despite being famous, Nathan was a pretty private guy. Heather, too. There weren’t a lot of social calls around here—no lavish parties, at least none that I knew of. So his social circle wasn’t very big. And with his decline in popularity, he wasn’t getting as much press as he used to. That being said, Nathan still enjoyed a certain level of notoriety among horror lovers—particularly other horror writers. Back in his heyday, he always said exactly what was on his mind in interviews. Honest—to a fault. That made him heroic to some people, but not so much to others. So Nathan definitely had enemies—although I can’t imagine their reasons for stealing his things and scaring his wife now that he’s dead.”

  I rubbed my chin. Adam was right. What would be the point of doing this now? There had to be a reason. “Let us worry about the motive,” I replied. “So, we’ve got the disgruntled writer option—who else was a part of Nathan’s life at the end?”

  “Well, there was his longtime publisher; he lives in New York. Steven Lane. Then there’s his editor, Michael Hammer, and his literary agent, Peter Huang. Peter’s local. They put up with Nathan’s radical honesty for decades, but then again, Nathan put them on the map.” Adam paused, and then let out a sigh. “And of course there’s the band of Foxwood superfans who roam the Internet, still arguing about plot inconsistencies from books Nathan wrote fifteen years ago. God knows what strange urges lurk in the minds of those people. I wouldn’t put a stunt like this past one of them.”

  I nodded. The number of suspects was quickly adding up. “We need to meet some of these people,” I said, “and begin ruling things out. When can we start?”

  “Tonight,” Adam answered. “At midnight. Mrs. Foxwood is holding a memorial for Nathan outside on the grounds. She’s going to read an excerpt from the book he finished right before he died, and then spread the ashes. Most of their friends and colleagues will be there, and I’m sure it’s been leaked online, so some of the superfans are bound to show up too. It’s the perfect opportunity for you guys to sniff around and talk to people.”

  Joe looked startled. “Wait a minute. The book is finished?” he said. “We heard rumors that Mr. Foxwood was working on a novel about Cliffside Manor, but not that it was completed.”

  “Yes, well, it’s something only a few people know at the moment,” Adam explained. “Mrs. Foxwood hasn’t spoken to the media since the accident.”

  Joe gave a sharp nod. “We’ll be at the memorial,” he said.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Adam pulled out a photograph from his pocket and handed it to us. It showed a young Mr. and Mrs. Foxwood smiling at the camera. It was a close-up with Nathan’s arms wrapped around her shoulders. “The watch he’s wearing, it’s one of the things that went missing. Not only is it valuable but I know Mrs. Foxwood would love to have it back. Nathan really loved it.”

  Joe and I looked closer. The watch had a regular black wristband but it was the face that was interesting. The hands looked like silver bones and a silver outline of a skull was in the center.

  As we walked out of the house and back into the windy, gray day, I couldn’t help but wonder who—or what—else would be joining us that night.

  3

  MIDNIGHT MAYHEM

  JOE

  DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S SCARIER than a haunted house?

  A haunted house at midnight!

  The woods that huddled around Cliffside Manor were pitch black and full of the sounds of crickets and night birds. Frank and I walked toward the cluster of torches set up along the cliff that gave the house its name, where I could see the faces of a few dozen people lit up by the flickering light, waiting for Nathan Foxwood’s memorial service to begin.

  The chilly afternoon had turned into a frigid evening, but I was too excited to be cold. This case had my heart racing and my blood pumping like a roller-coaster ride, and things had barely gotten started. Who had stolen those items? Who was frightening people in the manor, and why? As appealing as a vengeful ghost was to me, my instinct was still to agree with Frank. There had to be some kind of ordinary explanation for what was happening.

  Still, looking up at that house, the way it loomed in the shadows like a beast waiting to devour anyone who came near . . . It almost made me want to believe in something more supernatural than that.

  “Hey,” Frank said, interrupting my thoughts. “Isn’t that the same reporter from the estate sale?”

  I squinted into the darkness and was able to make out the familiar face of Aisha Best, craning her neck to scan the faces in the crowd. “Miss Best,” I said, strolling up next to her while Frank grumbled into his collar. “Fancy seeing you twice in one day.”

  Aisha took one look at me and smiled the smile of a cat who’s caught a mouse. “Fancy indeed, Mr. Hardy,” she replied. When she saw the surprise on my face at being identified, she continued, “Don’t worry, Joe. I’ll only blow your cover here if you refuse to tell me what you know. I need my story, after all.”

  I stumbled back a few paces, my hand to my heart as if I’d been wounded. “And here I thought you looked me up because of my boyish charm,” I said.

  Aisha chuckled. “I thought you looked familiar when I first laid eyes on you, but I couldn’t place you. When I got back to my office, it was a cinch to figure out you and tall-dark-and-silent over there were none other than the infamous Hardy brothers.”

  I glanced over at Frank and raised my eyebrows. “Infamous, even!”

  “Anyway, I want to know what you know,” Aisha said. “This story is blowing up by the hour!”

  A moment later a murmur filtered through the crowd as Adam Parker arrived with Heather Foxwood at his side. Aisha took off the instant she saw Mrs. Foxwood, followed by two other reporters, all of them asking the widow for an interview. “People! People!” Adam said, placing himself between the reporters and Mrs. Foxwood. “This is not the time or the place for questions. This is a solemn event—please have some respect!” I noticed that this time, Adam was wearing a black bow tie with little skulls on it. Does this guy have a bow tie for every occasion? I wondered.

  After Adam’s warning, the reporters backed off quietly and let them through the crowd and up to a podium that had been set up right on the cliff side. Mrs. Foxwood, dressed in black, her face like a melancholy moon in the darkness, set a sheaf of papers down on the podium and gazed out to the crowd. “People used to say that my husband was fearless,” she began in a strong, resonant voice. “That only a man with an heart of stone could write the things that he did. But no one knew Nathan the way I did. No one could see that he was afraid—just as afraid as you and me. Maybe even more so. The difference was that he didn’t run from his monsters. I loved him for that.”

  Mrs. Foxwood sniffed and shuffled some pages in front of her. “I’d like to read an excerpt from the novel Nathan finished just before his death: The Haunting of Cliffside Manor.”

  An excited whispering went through the audience. Frank leaned over to me and said, “I thought you said that Nathan Foxwood’s books haven’t been popular in years.”

  I nodded. “They haven’t!”

  “Well,” Frank said, “I have a feeling that’s about to change.”

  Mrs. Foxwood cleared her throat and started to read. “ ‘With the unholy creature in pursuit,’ ” she began, “ ‘I dashed through the house, the candlelight piercing the darkness in the hall but not in my heart—where the blackest dread had taken up residence. No one else could see him there, no one understood. But I could see him. And I knew that he would not stop hunting me until I had taken my last breath on this earth.’ ” As she recited the words, I could swear that the air got a little colder, the wind biting a little more deeply into my collar. All the people around me seemed to notice it too and huddled closer together, hanging on her every word. “ ‘I turned a corner,’ ” she was saying, “ ‘thinking I had managed to escape the beast—but after throwing the bolt on the door, I
spun around to see my death, staring at me with eyes full of fire.’ ” She stopped then and looked back out to the crowd. A small smile crept onto her face. “Sorry about the cliff-hanger,” she said, and the crowd murmured with excitement. “My husband did always have a flair for the dramatic. Peter? I think it’s time.” A dapper-looking older man in a three-piece suit came up and handed Mrs. Foxwood a simple silver urn. That must be Peter Huang, Mr. Foxwood’s agent, I thought. Mrs. Foxwood brought the urn up to her face and seemed to whisper something to it. Then she opened the lid, turned toward the cliff side, and in one graceful sweep, threw the ashes within into the wind.

  “Oh my God—look! ” someone suddenly shouted.

  The crowd whirled as one toward the manor. It had been dark during the memorial, but now the central bay window was flooded with light. A shadowy figure was framed there, filling the window with its bulk. A few people in the crowd shrieked in terror. “Adam,” I heard Mrs. Foxwood say, her voice hollow. “Who is that?”

  Adam was shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t know! The house was empty when I locked up. . . . I don’t know!” He and Peter made a move toward the manor, but before they had even taken a few steps, the light went out, and the house was dark once more. “Come on, Peter,” Adam said. “They won’t get away that easily.” Adam jogged up to us. “Joe, Frank—keep an eye on things out here for me while Peter and I search the house. Okay?”

  Frank and I nodded, and Adam and Peter ran off.

  “What was that, do you think?” I asked Frank.

  Frank shook his head. “Another prank, I suspect. But why? What’s the point of all these stunts, anyway?”

  On the other side of the crowd, Aisha Best caught my eye and waved me over. “She probably wants the scoop right about now,” I said. I was about to make my way over there when Frank put a hand on my chest to stop me.