He doubled over and retched in the road. Brody wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and kept walking. The rain hadn’t let up. The wind twisted the few sparse trees overhead. Not until a flash of lightning lit the sky did he realize there was a gate up ahead.
Brody put his shoulder into it and pushed until the hinges groaned. The iron gate inched open just enough for him to fit through. Luck was on his side so far—he could’ve been killed in that wreck, or forced to die in the elements. But, where there was a gate, there was often a house. He prayed it was a doctor’s house, stockpiled with morphine to the rafters.
Brody walked the narrow gravel drive. It snaked between trees that had been carefully planted hundreds of years ago. Beeches, maybe. He didn’t know—or care. Whatever they were, they sheltered him from the rain, guiding him toward a house that rose up out of the hillside like a dark stain.
He could make out the slate roof and mullioned windows through the tree line. Finally, he reached a walled forecourt barred off by a final, threatening gate. A rusted chain held the damned thing locked tight, no matter how hard Brody shook it.
He tried to squeeze himself through the bars, but it was no use. The old place was secure, even though it looked downright abandoned. Common sense told him to turn back, to find a place where he could actually get some help, but his sick and tired mind whispered to push on. Keep trying. Break the gate down, if he had to.
Brody sank to his knees in the wet gravel. He flattened himself on his stomach, trying to wedge through the space at the bottom of the gate. Of course, that did not work. People who built gates were not fools. They’d perfected the art of keeping intruders out centuries ago. No matter how badly he wanted inside, Brody wasn’t going to crack some long-held secret of gate breaking.
He was thinking like a desperate addict, not an intelligent, capable man. Dragging himself to his feet, he walked a few paces alongside the stone wall. It was solid as far as he could see. Eight feet high. Ivy-covered. He couldn’t scale it, but there was a beech branch hanging just low enough that he might find a way in from above.
He hadn’t climbed trees since he was a boy. He was in no shape to do so now, but Brody was determined to get over that wall. A perfectly good manor house waited on the other side, and, if not a doctor’s residence, he could surely find something useful in there—a forgotten bottle of whiskey, perhaps. Anything to numb the pain.
Brody lifted himself onto the tree limb. It danced in the wind, making his stomach churn. He inched out, white-knuckled, toward the stone wall. When he thought he could clear the gap, he slid down foot-first until the toe of his boot touched the top of the wall.
From there, he straddled the stone wall, peering down into the forecourt. Mostly grass lay below, and some bushes to cushion his fall. Brody sank down into the wet shrubberies with hardly a groan. If he ever became hard-up for money, he might earn a living as a burglar. At any rate, he’d made it to the other side of the gate. Nothing stood between him and the house now.
He limped across the forecourt, stopping only once to be sick in the bushes. The stone manor was shuttered. Ivy clung desperately to the walls, as if it was the only thing holding the old pile together. There were lots of chimneys, but, regrettably, none of them smoked. The entire property looked abandoned, and well on its way to becoming derelict. A shame. With a little work, the place could be a real charmer.
Brody climbed the slick stone steps to the front entrance. Ivy had intruded there, also, spreading its bare, brown fingers across the doorway. He pulled some of it away. No one had been in the manor in a very long time. Brody’s heart pounded at he twisted the knob and heaved the heavy, wooden door open.
The hinges screamed, but swung wide. Wind from the storm outside blew dust and old papers across the filthy floor. Coughing, Brody slammed the door behind him. He squinted in the dark. The place was wired for electricity, judging by the lamps overhead, but he didn’t bother trying the switches. For once, darkness was welcome.
He fumbled his way through the hall, careful not to touch anything, lest it crumble to dust in his hand. He walked until he reached a long, oak-paneled corridor. Normally, he would have been curious to know what the rest of the house looked like. That night, he just wanted to find a place to be sick in peace.
Brody ducked into the first open doorway he saw. It led to a drawing room, though the space had seen better days. Faded wallpaper fell away in sheets, and the heavy draperies were moth-eaten and full of holes. He sliced his way through the cobwebs toward an upholstered sofa at the edge of the room.
It would do for a night. God knows, he’d slept in worse places. After testing his makeshift bed to see if it was sturdy, Brody sank down into the sagging cushions. Dust billowed around him.