"The writers only knew one way of writing about vampires. Let him or her do maximum possible destruction, and kill him – or her- at the end." Danny sighed "That it had nothing to do with what Amos was doing or wanting to do… In the show he is supposed to know that the girl he kidnapped was not his true love, he just wanted to force her to be. But in real life Amos did believe it was Genevieve and wanted to have her remember. I know, I was there"
-0-
The little girl threw the ball up and down, reciting a rhyme as she caught it. It was not a rhyme Danny had ever heard.
"Are you lost, honey?" He asked her, gently.
"I am where I am supposed to be. My brother is making a mistake and I have to tell him that."
"What is your name?"
Becky Benchley… And you know my brother. Please help him understand the truth"
-0-
I remember Ernest Cole" Beverly said "and I think that they portrayed him well in the show. Of course, they do not show his coming in through Dr. Lawson, nor his talks with the Sheriff… Because they did not want to pay for two more actors. So, they found another way to introduce him..."
-0-
"You cannot get information out of the victims, of course?"
"No, and trying to might damage them " Lawson answered "and you know that it is against medical ethics"
"Of course, so I will have to investigate other things. Where were they found?"
"We did not find anything in none of the places"
"Because you did not know what to look for. Just show me the places on the map, and I'll go there"
The Sheriff gave him the information and Cole left. The Sheriff sighed. "Is he always this … this…"
"This know-it-all? Yes. But usually, it is because he knows it. He was like that in Medical School"
-0-
"And in the meantime, I had the nasty surprise of finding Wendy at the Old Mansion in a trance, brought there by Amos. I could not rouse her, and while I could get her out, I felt that if I did, I would be going against Amos' wishes, and he still had control of me…. All I could do was hope to make him see reason, and for that I had to wait until sundown…"
-0-
Ernest Cole looked at the picnic area where the young man had suffered burns. There was nothing remarkable about the other sites, but this one…
He looked at the grills. There was a figure incised in the stone. Crude figure, that could look like scratches… and yet he could see what they were…
"Kilroy was here… yes…or a rising sun?"
You could not have a temple nor any kind of temple looking ruins. But a picnic area, with the tables arranged in semicircle, with the grills where the altar would be…
He had to find out when the picnic area was built.
-0-
"That's when he talked to me…"Beverly said "After I had a run-in with Ann Benchley"
-0-
"I am taking Charlie for a walk" Anne said imperiously.
"Do you have his father's permission or Mrs. Grady's?"
"I am his mother! I can take him if I want to:"
"I cannot allow you to take him anywhere, not unless either Mr. Benchley or Mrs. Grady agrees"
"You forget your position here! You are only a servant:
"A servant whose wages are paid by the Benchleys. You have not hired me so you cannot demand that I obey you!"
"No, I have not hired you, and certainly will not hire you when I regain custody of Charlie"
For all her bluster, Ann could not take Charlie out, as Beverly stood her ground:
"You will regret this, Miss Hoover!" She said before she left slamming the door behind her.
Disturbed by the scene Beverly went down to the foyer, where Cole was studying the family history."
"It is amazing, isn't it?" Cole said "how the information can be here in plain sight and no one sees it? So many Annes?"
"Is that what you found?"
"A lot of interesting stuff… but I am getting ahead of myself. I will want some corroboration. And to talk to someone."
-0-
"That someone was me." Flynn said with a sigh. "But I was becoming besotted again"
-0-
Annipe Ranifer. "Cole told him." You know what that means, don't you?"
"You know that I never studied Ancient Egyptian"
"Daughter of the Nile, Beauty of Ra…"
"And so?"
"And Mrs. Benchley's name is Ann. And there is the picnic area that could double down as a temple"
"Or just be a picnic area… Really Cole, you are bright but sometimes you grasp at straws"
-0-
"I actually said that to him" Flynn muttered. The memory kept nagging at him. He could come up with explanations, excuses, but it all came down to the same. Going back to Collinsport was going back to those days when he had been a poor child that had been actually hired by the High and Mighty Mr. Benchley as playmate for his son Louis. And Louis actually treated him like a servant, no like the friend he was supposed to be. He rubbed his wealth in his face and made a show of pitying him.
Even without that accident, and the jail term, he had reasons to hate Louis….
He had never truly loved Ann... It was just that she was Louis' wife and this was his way of getting even…
Nowadays it was him that pitied Louis…. Not that it made any difference to Cole now.
He did not remember telling Ann of Cole's suspicions. Which only meant that he did not remember, nothing else. He barely could remember what he had said after he had given her the tape recorded confession he had extracted from Louis…
In any case, Cole was dead. His car had gone off the road and exploded in flames…. And there was someone who side that the flames started as the car was going off the road, or earlier…
Ernest Cole was dead, and he knew it had been his fault