#AtoZChallenge - Blackwood Manor #Cozy Mystery - Part E #BlogBoost

“There’s just something about that place.” Claire paused. “An unsettling uneasiness, if that makes any sense.” Claire shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the hook by the door. She loved this time of year. The crisp breezes with the light wind that pushed the leaves that had taken on the colors of fall to be removed from the trees and flutter to the ground.

Ryan chuckled. “Claire, you are a forensic psychologist. Rational and logical to the core. Yet, you seem to believe the gossips of the mysteries surrounding the old asylum I can see that a shiver runs down your spine, and you can't shake the feeling that beneath the peeling paint and crumbling walls, there lie chilling secrets waiting to be unearthed."

Ryan couldn’t help himself as he burst into laughter.

“Who’s being dramatic?” Claire asked as she rolled her eyes and flipped him off.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You’re just always being the rational one and now you’re…”

“I’m...?” She inquired.

“You’re just…” Ryan hesitated at the sight of the stern look his wife was giving him. As a detective, he was smart enough to not cross his wife. She watched too many crime shows and could probably get away with murder.

“Just…?” Claire pushed.

‘Well, not.” He shrugged.

Claire arched an eyebrow, her eyes glinting. "I know, Ryan, but there's an eerie aura about that place. Shadows dance where there should be none, whispers echo through empty corridors. It's as if the very walls are trying to tell us something." 

Ryan's expression softened as he gazed at her intently, "You really believe in ghosts?"

“No. I don’t. I never have.” Claire confirmed, causing Ryan to look even more confused as they headed to the kitchen. “Coffee?” she offered.

“Sure. But we aren’t changing the topic. I’ve never seen you behave like this.”

“I wonder if Oliver will speak to me about the place. Or if he knew Adelaide. Maybe she was a family member?”

“Don’t medal.” Ryan stated.

“It’s not meddling. I think there’s much more to Adelaide than anyone knows. Or maybe they just don’t care to remember.” Claire, deep in thought, poured them both a cup of coffee, slowly adding cream and sugar to hers.

Claire sat Ryan’s cup on the kitchen table in front of where he had been sitting and continued. “There’s rumor that the one ground’s keeper is still alive. Find him for me?”

“So you can go all shrink on him?’ Ryan asked.

“No.” Claire crossed her arms across her chest. “I just want to ask him a few questions. That’s all. Maybe he knew Adelaide. Maybe he knew who continued landscaping the outside long after the asylum had been abandoned. Maybe he knew why it was abandoned in the first place.”

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