She pushed the door open slowly.
“Hello? Anybody here?”
Harper…
The voice was disembodied, barely there. An echoey whisper. Isabel.
“Gabe?” she called again. She looked behind her, but saw no sign of him in the garden. She should probably go wait in the car for him. She started to turn back when she heard it again, this time sounding more urgent.
Harper…!
The telescoping sensations came over her once more as she slowly crept down the hallway and into the living room. Standing in front of the fireplace, Harper gazed up at the covered mirror.
She took a deep breath, blew it out slowly, then reached for the shroud. The cloth slipped off with a quietwhoosh. Gathering her courage, Harper stared into the shiny looking glass.
All she saw was her own pale visage, looking the worse for wear. Anxiety and a lack of sleep did a number on one’s face, especially after forty.
But after a moment, another image appeared. A woman in a white gown, with a colorful rebozo wrapped around her head and shoulders. Her eyes glowed.
Harper…
Harper heard the voice in her head, not in her ears. “Isabel?”
The next moment Isabel’s image was no longer behind her but overlaid Harper’s, as if she were facing Harper from inside the mirror. Isabel’s face and features were hidden by the rebozo, but Harper forced herself to look into those glowing eyes.
“Isabel?” Harper asked. “What do you want to tell me…?”
Suddenly, Isabel held her hands out in front of her, palms out, and shook them, as if trying to issue a warning.
Harper…!
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
Harper whipped around. It was Alastair Highbaugh.Were his eyes always so cold?
“Did it tell you?” he asked.
“Did what tell me what?” She tried to keep her panic in check. Her heart beat wildly and her mouth went dry. Where the hell was Gabe? Why hadn’t she waited outside for him?
“It sees, you know,” said Highbaugh, his voice bleak. “That damn mirror. It sees everything. That’s what Delilah was trying to say, in her paintings. The face in the mirror. The wrong face.”
“So you covered it with a shroud?”
“I had to.”
“You know, ever since that night of the ghost tour, I’ve been thinking about Delilah Mason,” Harper said in the calmest voice she could muster. The gallery owner was clearly unstable, but so far he seemed calm. If she could keep him talking long enough for Gabe to arrive, together they could deal with him. She hoped. “She was so talented. Hard to believe someone would want to do her harm.”
Highbaugh frowned. “You’re a historian, correct? Surely you know better than most that surface appearances can be deceptive.”
“Oh? I heard she could be difficult to deal with at times, but—”
“ ‘Difficult’ is an understatement,” Highbaugh said, contempt in his voice. “She was arrogant and condescending, constantly demanding special treatment.”
“Aren’t a lot of artists like that?”
“She hadn’t earned that right! I’m a big part of the reason she achieved the success she did, and she had the gall, thegall, to demand I reduce my commission!” Highbaugh’s face was turning red, and he spit a little as he spoke. “Threatened to show her work at another gallery!”
“That must have been hard,” Harper said, keeping her voice neutral.
