“Do you? Do you hear it?” she asked again.
I strained my ears to hear what she did.
Nothing.
“At night. I hear it at night when the lights are off but also now. In the middle of the day. He’s in the floorboards. The ticking. He whispers.”
The blood in my veins froze. “Donna Lee?”
“It’s William. He follows me everywhere. Talking. Talking. Always talking. He’s so mad.” She stared down at the stained hardwood floors. “I’m sorry!”
“For what?” Dane asked. I thought we probably already knew, but it was smart to get a full confession.
“For killing him.” Donna Lee’s hand swung out, and she knocked the highball glass from the table. “I gave him the meds. Set the story and told him to jump. To find the ghosts at the bottom of the water. But now he’s here, not there. He won’t stay there.”
Silence fell on us all.
Did she think William…
“Do you think William is haunting you?”
Her head jerked up to stare at me. Her eyes were glassy now, wild with something unmentionable. “He won’t leave. I killed him, and now he won’t leave.”
She’d clearly lost her mind. But did it happen before William’s death or because of it?
“Why, Donna Lee? Why William?” I asked, trying to load my question with sympathy.
At first, she didn’t answer. Her gaze flopped back to the floor as if she were tracking something under the floorboards. “William made Southern Hospitality Tours. Before him, we were almost bankrupt. He was the brains.”
“What about Lonny?” Dane cut in. Didn’t he know that you don’t interrupt someone while they are confessing?
She choked on a sob or a yell. “Lonny was the checkbook. He used his trust fund to set everything up.”
“That was years ago, why kill William now?”
“For leaving,” she shouted and slammed her foot against the floor as if she was killing a bug. “He was leaving us. His family! To what? Work at a stuffy old house. What more did they have to learn? He was mine! They couldn’t have him. How dare William think he could leave us?”
“Do you hear that, William?” Two more hard foot stomps on the wooden floor. “How dare you try to leave us?”
When William didn’t answer, Donna Lee turned, retreating further into the parlor area. She picked up a plant, set on a high-backed stand in front of the window, and threw it at the floor. The ceramic pot exploded, and dirt scattered everywhere. Next, she knocked over the entire stand. It fell to the floor with an echoing boom.
She turned toward a bookshelf, and I ducked as the first thick volume sailed in our way. Dane rushed forward. He slammed his body into her, sending her into the bookcase. Donna Lee screamed as she dropped to the ground.
Dane leaned over her as a menacing presence. “Did you get that all on camera?”
“Yes.” I kept it rolling to be safe. You didn’t know what she might say next.
A door back in the main part of the home slammed against a wall.
“In here!” Dane yelled.
I stepped to the side of the large opening into our space in case he’d just called another killer our way.
A man, who had to be over six feet tall with brown hair and the same shoulder density as Dane, ran into the room with a gun raised in front of him. He slid to a stop and took in the scene. “I missed all the fun.”
“Isn’t that always the case with you, Eli?” Dane said, shooting his friend a quick glance before returning his attention to Donna Lee.
She stayed on the floor, huddled in a tight ball. The sound of quiet sobs came from her.
