Free The Bloodwater Mysteries: Skullduggery by Mary Pete/Logue Hautman Page A

a good excuse for her visit. “I’m writing an article on Bloodwater House. You know, about how the Bloodwater family is taking over the old homestead?”
    â€œOh. Cool. You should probably talk to my dad. He’s all interested in history and stuff. But he’s not home.”
    â€œActually I was hoping I could talk to you. Get the youth perspective.”
    â€œOh.” Eric shrugged. “It’s like living in an airplane hangar. I mean, these ceilings are thirty feet high. We have birds in the house.”
    Right on cue, a chittering sparrow flew over their heads and landed on one of the plants.
    â€œHave you ever been in here before?” Eric asked.
    â€œJust once,” Roni said. “I got lost.”
    â€œYeah, that can happen here. You want a tour?”
    â€œSure.”
    As Eric walked her through the house, Roni asked him questions about the architecture and about Bloodwater family history. He didn’t seem to know much, so she decided to enlighten him.
    â€œHasn’t anybody told you about the Bloodwater Curse?” she asked.
    Eric gave her a confused look.
    â€œWhat curse?”
    â€œThe Bloodwaters who lived here before had some pretty bad luck. Like the guy who built the house, James J. Bloodwater. He was trimming his rosebushes one day and got struck by lightning. And back in the 1960s Farley Bloodwater—Crazy Farley—went insane and tried to kill his brother right there in Bloodwater House.”
    Eric’s jaw dropped.
    â€œWhy did he do that?”
    â€œThe story is that a chandelier fell on Farley. Right here in the dining room. It cracked his skull wide open. The doctors were able to repair his skull, but as soon as he got out of the hospital, Farley came back here and tried to kill his brother, who he accused of loosening the chandelier. Farley was charged with attempted murder. Then, during the trial, he grabbed a gun from the bailiff, shot his own lawyer and ran out of the courthouse and into the woods. They never caught him.”
    â€œMaybe he’s still out there,” said Eric.
    â€œHe’d be pretty old by now. But that’s not all. A few years later his brother built a set of wings out of balsa wood and silk and launched himself off Barn Bluff. He didn’t survive. And a woman who lived here hanged herself from the fence.”
    Eric shrugged. “Well, I’m not gonna be doing any flying or hanging. And we don’t have any chandeliers. Come on—I want to show you my dad’s office.”
    On the way upstairs, Roni could hear the twins laughing, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
    â€œOwen and Sam are playing hide-and-seek,” Eric explained. “They do that all the time.”
    Eric was showing her his father’s oversize oak-paneled office when Roni brought the conversation around to the development.
    â€œSo is your dad going ahead with the development?” she asked.
    â€œOf course. That’s what we came here for.”
    â€œWhere did you live before?”
    â€œWe’ve lived all over—Texas, Colorado, California. My dad does all kinds of real estate deals.”
    â€œSo why did he have to come all the way back here to tear up Indian Bluff?”
    Eric laughed. “My dad doesn’t care about that Indian stuff. Besides—” He hesitated. “How come you care about it so much?”
    â€œI just don’t think you should destroy artifacts that have been preserved for thousands of years.”
    â€œWhat artifacts? That archaeologist just has it in for us. My dad says that if archaeologists had their way, we’d never build anything at all.”
    â€œI thought you liked it when I brought it up at the meeting yesterday.”
    â€œI thought it was cool that you tweaked the old man in public, but that doesn’t mean I want his big project to fail. He’s spent months on this deal.”
    â€œSo the bulldozers are going