The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

it down his chin and the front of his jacket. He poured for five seconds before finally setting the bottle down.

Brent shut his eyes, letting the liquor burn and calm his nerves. Tequila had always been his drink of choice. He caught a lot of shit because of it when he was growing up because everyone in his neighborhood drank whiskey.

“Don’t be one of those wetbacks, Brent!”

He could still hear their voices now, twenty years later. But the torment of his heritage was at the bottom of his concerns. He knew that Dell had radioed the troopers, and he knew that he told them about what happened, but that didn’t mean they knew every detail. And if the woman who set him free was as good at helping him escape as she was covering up murders, then he had some wiggle room. But that meant finding Sarah and killing her.

Outside, a siren wailed in the distance, and Brent hurried out the door. The harsh din of the sirens preceded the flashing lights that bathed the town in blues and reds.

Before the cop were even in the town, Brent sprinted for the woods. He’d feel better with a few bullets in his empty chamber.

80

Iris wasn’t sure what she had expected when it was done. She had hoped that the weight of doubt and pain that she’d experienced over the past several decades would be lifted. She was tired of feeling so hollow and empty. She wanted it to be done, but when she saw Dell disappear into that orb and the witch claiming its last soul, there was no sweet moment of release, no light that guided her from the darkness. She only felt weaker.

A cold hand lightly grabbed her shoulder, and Iris turned to find the witch circling from behind. “My dear Iris, you don’t look well.”

The witch had chosen to remain unclothed in the house, though her long black hair covered her breasts, and Iris found it difficult to look the woman in the eye. She was so bold in her body. Iris had never had that confidence, even as a younger woman, at least not in the company of strangers.

“Where is my daughter?” Iris kept her head down, and she couldn’t stop shivering. “You promised me I could have Mary.”

The witch slowly peeled her fingers off Iris’s shoulder and then stepped toward the bed where Sarah had been confined. “She is still needed.” The witch gripped the nearest bed post and then looked back, half her face covered by her bangs. “But the dark lord will give you what you seek. He can provide everything.”

Iris finally looked up from her feet. She clenched her fists by her sides and then took an aggressive step forward. “You told me that if I gave you the souls you needed that I would get my daughter back!” She thrust a curved and swollen finger, crooked from arthritis, and aimed it at the witch.

The witch kept her back to Iris, the threat repelled off of her porcelain skin. “You know you’re very much like Allister Bell.” She turned, holding one of the picture frames that contained a photo of her daughter that had been scratched out as she walked back toward Iris. “When his family was in trouble, he did whatever was necessary to save them. No matter the cost.” She smiled, handing the picture over to Iris. “Love is dangerous, Iris. Love kills more people than any war or disease. It clings to people like a parasite and sucks them dry till there’s nothing left. Love leaves you hollow.” She placed her long red nail against Iris’s cheek and then traced her jawline with the gentlest of strokes. “You put all of your blame into the dark lord for how you feel. But you are the one in control of your emotions, Iris Bell. Not him. You.”

Tears welled up in Iris’s eyes and then fell along her wrinkled cheek, catching in the lines of her skin that distorted its path. She traced the scratched-out features of Mary’s face in the picture, trying to remember her daughter’s face. She had always been so beautiful, even as a baby. That fire-red hair was so striking it caught glances everywhere she went. There wasn’t a man in town that didn’t want to marry her, though none of them, not even the one she’d say yes to, was good enough for her.

“So pure,” Iris said, remembering her daughter. “Fresh as a brand-new morning.” But while she wanted to smile, and while she wanted the words leaving her lips to taste sweet on her tongue, Iris frowned, and the words tasted sour.

“Let go, Iris,” the witch said, grabbing hold of her arm. “That sadness, that uncertainty, it can all fade away. You can make it disappear in the blink of an eye.”

She wanted to let go, she wanted to feel that sweet release of apathy and drift into nothing. Her hands ached from holding on for so long, but she wasn’t even sure if she knew how to do that anymore.

“Allister didn’t have the opportunity that you have right now,” the witch whispered in her ear. “You could reshape your future. You could be young again, and strong, and desirable.”

The last word pricked at her soul. She wanted to feel that way. She wanted men to look at her the way she’d seen people look at the witch, the way Iris was looking at her right now.

“All you have to do is let go,” the witch said, continuing her seductive whispers.

And just when Iris was about to do it and feel her fingers slip from the ledge so she could fall, she lowered her gaze to the picture frame, and she kept hold.

“Fine,” the witch said, displeased. “Have it your way, hag.”

The witch stormed out of the room, leaving Iris alone with the picture held in her arthritic hands that curved around the silver frame. A tear splashed over the glass, and Iris leaned