Chapter 8: The Hemlock Estate

Chapter 8: The Hemlock Estate

The house still smelled of bleach. Leo had scrubbed the hallway floor until the wood was pale and stripped, but the chemical scent couldn't fully mask the phantom, cloying sweetness of decay that had soaked into the very air. He had wrapped Elara's severed forearm in a black trash bag, his hands shaking so violently he could barely tie the knot. He’d buried the grotesque bundle deep in the woods behind his property, a second, secret burial for a woman who had already been discarded once. The act felt both sacrilegious and necessary, a desperate attempt to impose order on a world that had gone insane.

He was no longer just an observer. He was an accomplice, a custodian of her desecrated remains. The horror of it had forged a bond between them stronger than fear. He had her file, her name, and a piece of her body. He was her only living witness.

His investigation shifted from the dead to the living. Hemlock, Alistair (Husband). The name on the asylum intake form was his new North Star. He needed to know what had become of the man who had signed his wife's death warrant.

His first stop was the Blackwood Creek Public Library, a stuffy, sun-bleached building where the loudest sound was the slow turning of pages. He feigned an interest in local genealogy, a tactic that earned him a benevolent smile from the elderly librarian. He spent an hour scrolling through microfiche of old newspapers, the grainy black-and-white images swimming before his eyes. He found the Hemlock name everywhere. It was carved into the cornerstone of the library itself, attached to charity galas, and printed in the society pages. They weren't just a family; they were the town's bedrock.

He found Alistair Hemlock’s obituary, dated 1978. He had died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-five, celebrated as a town benefactor, a pillar of the community, a loving patriarch. There was no mention of his first wife, Elara. His official history had been scrubbed clean, leaving only the sanitized legacy of a man who had gotten away with murder. But the obituary mentioned his surviving family: a son from a later marriage, who had since passed, and his grandson, a Mr. Julian Hemlock, current proprietor of the Hemlock family interests.

They were still here. They still held the town in their grip.

His next step was to gauge the town's temperature. He went to The Rusty Mug, the town’s only real pub, a dark-wood-and-stale-beer-scented establishment where old men nursed their drinks and their grievances. He took a seat at the bar, ordered a beer he didn’t want, and tried to strike up a conversation with the bartender, a gruff man with a face like a roadmap of poor decisions.

“Just moved here,” Leo said, forcing a casual tone. “Trying to get the lay of the land. I keep seeing the Hemlock name on everything. They must be quite the family.”

The bartender, who had been wiping down the counter, stopped. His movements became deliberate, his expression shuttered. “They’re the founding family,” he said, his voice flat, offering nothing more.

An old man nursing a whiskey two stools down grunted. “Best to keep their name out of your mouth if you don’t have business with them.”

The air in the pub had changed. The low murmur of conversation seemed to have dropped a few decibels. Glances were being exchanged. Leo felt a familiar prickle of warning on his neck, the same feeling he used to get when he was pushing too hard on a sensitive story. He had stepped on a landmine.

“Just curious about the town’s history,” Leo said, trying to backtrack.

“Some history is best left buried,” the old man said, turning to stare pointedly into his glass. The conversation was over.

Leo finished his beer in silence, the message received loud and clear. The Hemlock family wasn’t just powerful; they were feared. The entire town was complicit in a conspiracy of silence that had lasted for more than half a century.

He paid for his drink and stepped out into the crisp afternoon air, feeling the weight of unseen eyes on his back. He was halfway to his car when a voice, smooth as polished stone, cut through the quiet.

“Mr. Vance. A moment of your time.”

Leo turned. A man had emerged from the shadows of an alleyway beside the pub. He was tall and impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit that seemed out of place in the rustic town. His hair was dark and perfectly coiffed, his face handsome in a severe, angular way. But it was his eyes that held Leo captive. They were a pale, cold grey, like a winter sky, and they held an unnerving stillness, an absolute lack of warmth. He looked to be in his early forties, radiating an aura of inherited power and casual menace.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Leo said, his hand instinctively tightening on his car keys.

“Julian Hemlock,” the man said, offering no handshake. “My family has a long history in this town. We tend to notice when new faces start asking questions about our past.”

So, they had been watching him. The old man in the pub wasn’t just a random drunk; he was a sentry. The entire town was their surveillance network.

“I’m a writer,” Leo lied, the old cover story feeling flimsy and thin. “I’m researching a historical piece on the town's founding families.”

Julian Hemlock took a slow step closer, invading Leo's personal space. He smelled faintly of expensive cologne and cold money. A small, humourless smile played on his lips. “Is that so? We’ve looked into you, Mr. Vance. You were quite the journalist in your day. A real talent for digging up things that people wanted to stay buried. That business in the city… it almost cost you everything. You came to Blackwood Creek for peace and quiet, I believe.”

The blood drained from Leo’s face. They hadn’t just noticed him; they’d researched him. They knew about his breakdown, his burnout, his retreat. They knew his weaknesses. This wasn’t a casual warning; it was a targeted threat.

“My grand-uncle, Alistair, was a great man,” Julian continued, his voice dropping to a low, confidential murmur. “He, and this town, gave his first wife every chance at peace. She was a troubled woman. Unstable. Her sad, unfortunate end was a tragedy, but it was a private one. We prefer it to remain that way.”

He looked Leo up and down, his cold eyes missing nothing. The assessment was dismissive, as if he were looking at an insect he was contemplating crushing.

“You came here to run from your ghosts, Mr. Vance. I would strongly advise against adopting ours. Some holes, once dug, are impossible to climb out of. Blackwood Creek has a way of swallowing people who make trouble. It would be a terrible shame for a man seeking quiet to find only a permanent silence.”

The threat hung between them, as real and as solid as the brick wall at his back. There was no ambiguity, no room for misinterpretation. Julian Hemlock was Elara's grand-nephew. He was the current guardian of the family secret, and he would do anything to keep it buried with her.

Julian’s cold smile widened slightly. He gave a small, almost courtly nod, then turned and walked away, disappearing as silently as he had arrived.

Leo stood frozen on the sidewalk, his heart hammering against his ribs. The spectral chill of Elara’s presence was a familiar terror. But this was new. This was different. This was a living, breathing monster with a tailored suit and a lawyer on retainer. The forces that had murdered Elara Hemlock were not a distant memory. They were right here, in the present, and they knew his name. He was trapped between the vengeful dead and the ruthless living, and the path to the truth was now guarded by both.