“I'm sorry,” I stammer, turning to the waitress, “who gave this to you?”
“A girl who went inside just now,” she replies. “She said you dropped it.”
Hurrying past her, I head over to the cafe and look inside, but there's no sign of anybody.
“That's odd,” the waitress says as she comes over to join me. “I didn't hear her leave.”
“Where else could she have gone?” I ask.
She looks around, clearly confused.
“Come to think of it,” she says after a moment, “I didn't hear any other cars nearby. She can't have been walking, though. I mean, we're out in the middle of nowhere.”
I open my mouth to tell her she must be missing some part of the story, but somehow the words catch in my throat. Truth be told, I'm starting to feel a little flustered, and the sudden reappearance of my father's ring – after all these years – seems to make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
After muttering something about getting on my way, I turn and head back toward my car. By the time I reach the driver's seat, I feel rather faint, and I sit in silence for several minutes as I try to regather my composure. Finally, looking down at the ring, I think back to the moment fifty years ago when Becky took this small silver band from me in the house. I thought, I assumed, it must be lost forever.
For a moment, just one moment, I consider the possibility that somehow Becky finally returned the ring to me after I kept my promise and burned down the house. As a reward for my work, perhaps.
Taking a deep breath, however, I realize that there is a much more obvious and more likely explanation.
Evidently the ring has been on something of an adventure over the past fifty years. It must have somehow been taken from the house at some point, and then eventually it was passed between several people, none of whom would have had any idea about how to contact its rightful owner. I'm sure millions upon millions of items are lost every year, and mostly they never get back to where they belong. By some massive coincidence, however, this ring ended up right here at this cafe, on the exact same day that I came here. And then some woman believed I had dropped it, and evidently she somehow slipped away without being seen, for reasons that I am certainly in no position to imagine.
A series of coincidences, then, but certainly not impossible.
With that, I start the car and back out of my parking place, and then I start the drive back home so that I can hand myself in at the police station. I'm sure they'll be very interested when I explain to them exactly what has been going on. After all, I'm the only person who knows the truth about the ghost of Molly Holt, and about how this whole thing was merely the product of feeble, impressionable young minds.
“That's all it is,” I mutter under my breath, still feeling rather shaken as I drive away. “Lots of coincidences, and a dash of luck. The most rational explanation.”
Fortunately, I can explain everything that has happened. How anybody could ever believe in ghosts, I cannot begin to imagine.
Also by Amy Cross
THE ASH HOUSE
Why would anyone ever return to a haunted house?
For Diane Mercer the answer is simple. She's dying of cancer, and she wants to know once and for all whether ghosts are real.
Heading home with her young son, Diane is determined to find out whether the stories are real. After all, everyone else claimed to see and hear strange things in the house over the years. Everyone except Diane had some kind of experience in the house, or in the little ash house in the yard.
As Diane explores the house where she grew up, however, her son is exploring the yard and the forest. And while his mother might be struggling to come to terms with her own impending death, Daniel Mercer is puzzled by fleeting appearances of a strange little girl who seems drawn to the ash house, and by strange, rasping coughs that he keeps hearing at night.
The Ash House is a horror novel about a woman who desperately wants to know what will happen to her when she dies, and about a boy who uncovers the shocking truth about a young girl's murder.
Also by Amy Cross
AMERICAN COVEN
He kidnapped three women and held them in his basement. He thought they couldn't fight back. He was wrong...
Snatched from the street near her home, Holly Carter is taken to a rural house and thrown down into a stone basement. She meets two other women who have also been kidnapped, and soon Holly learns about the horrific rituals that take place in the house. Eventually, she's called upstairs to take her place in the ice bath.
As her nightmare continues, however, Holly learns about a mysterious power that exists in the basement, and which the three women might be able to harness. When they finally manage to get through the metal door, however, the women have no idea that their fight for freedom is going to stretch out for more than a decade, or that it will culminate in a final, devastating demonstration of their new-found powers.
Also by Amy Cross
HAUNTED
Twenty years ago, the ghost of a dead little girl drove Sheriff Michael Blaine to his death.
Now, that same ghost is coming for his daughter.
Returning to the small town where she grew up, Alex Roberts is determined to live a normal, quiet life. For the residents of Railham, however, she's an unwelcome reminder of the town's darkest hour.
Twenty years ago, nine-year-old Mo Garvey was found brutally murdered in a nearby forest. Everyone thinks that Alex's father was responsible, but if the killer was brought to justice, why is the ghost of Mo Garvey still after revenge?
And how far will the real killer go to protect his secret, when Alex starts getting closer to the truth?
Haunted is a horror novel about a woman who has to face her past, about a town that would rather forget, and about a little girl who refuses to let death stand in her way.
Also by Amy Cross
THE BRIDE OF ASHBYRN HOUSE
“I have waited so long for your return.”
In the English countryside, miles from the nearest town, there stands an old stone house. Nobody has set foot in the house for years. Nobody has dared. For it is said that even though the lady of the house is long dead, a face can sometimes be seen at one of the windows. A pale, dead face that waits patiently behind a silk wedding veil.
Seeking an escape from his life in London, Owen Stone purchases Ashbyrn House without waiting to find out about its history. As far as Owen is concerned, ghosts aren't real and his only company in the house will be the thin-legged spiders that lurk on the walls. Even after he moves in, and after he starts hearing strange noises in the night, Owen insists that Ashbyrn House can't possibly be haunted.
But Owen knows nothing about the ghostly figure that is said to haunt the house. Or about the mysterious church bells that ring out across the lawn at night. Or about the terrible fate that befell the house's previous inhabitants when they dared defy the bride. Even as Owen starts to understand the horrific truth about Ashbyrn House's past, he might be too late to escape the clutches of the presence that watches his every move.
The Bride of Ashbyrn House is a ghost story about a man who believes the past can't hurt him, and about a woman whose search for a husband has survived even her own tragic death.
Also by Amy Cross
THE BODY AT AUERCLIFF
“We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!”
When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms.
A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from
.
The truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die.
Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms? Why have successive generations of the family been plagued by a persistent scratching sound? And what really happened to Rebecca many years ago, when she found herself locked inside the Auercliff mausoleum?
The Body at Auercliff is a horror story about a family and a house, and about the refusal of the past to stay buried.
OTHER BOOKS
BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE
Horror
The Bride of Ashbyrn House
The Body at Auercliff
Haunted
B&B
Laura
Asylum
Meds (Asylum 2)
Annie's Room
The Farm
The Curse of Wetherley House
The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel
The Haunting of Blackwych Grange
The Ghosts of Hexley Airport
The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal book 1)
Darper Danver: The Complete First Series
The Disappearance of Katie Wren
The Horror of Devil's Root Lake
The Printer From Hell
The Nurse
American Coven
Eli's Town
The Night Girl
Devil's Briar
The Cabin
After the Cabin
Last Wrong Turn
At the Edge of the Forest
The Devil's Hand
The Ghost of Shapley Hall
The Death of Addie Gray
A House in London
The Blood House
The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1)
Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)
The Border
The Lighthouse
Short Story Collections
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories
Twisted Little Things and Other Stories
The Ghost of Longthorn Manor and Other Stories
The Vampire of Downing Street and Other Stories
Thrillers
The Murder at Skellin Cottage (Jo Mason book 1)
The Return of Rachel Stone (Jo Mason book 2)
The Girl Who Never Came Back
Other People's Bodies
Dystopian / Science Fiction
The Dog
The Island (The Island book 1)
Persona (The Island book 2)