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“She was standing up there.” Gracie pointed upward, to the third story and the room at the northwest corner of the house, just under the cupola. “In the window.”
Theresa’s room. The bedroom that had been off-limits to Sarah as a child. The knot in Sarah’s gut tightened. Jade again caught her mother’s eyes in a look that silently invoked Sarah to bring Gracie back to reality.
“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Jade mocked, “I hear there are lots of them around here.” She leaned closer to her sister, “And not just from Becky. You told me you’d been doing some ‘research’ and you found out the first woman who lived here was killed, her body never found, her spirit roaming the hallways of Blue Peacock Manor forever.”
Gracie shot her mom a look. “Well . . . yeah . . .”
“Oh, please,” Jade snorted. “The second you step foot here, you see a ghost.”
“Angelique Le Duc did die here!” Gracie flared.
“You mean, Angelique Stewart,” Jade corrected. “She was married to our crazy homicidal, great-great-great-not-so-great-grandfather or something. That’s what you said.”
“I read it on the Internet,” Gracie responded, her mouth tight at being corrected.
“So then it must be true,” Jade said. She turned her attention to her mother. “The minute you told us we were moving, she started in on all this ghost stuff. Checking out books from the library, surfing the Net, chatting with other people who think they see ghosts. And she didn’t find out about just Angelique Le Duc—oh, no. There were others too. This place”—she gestured to the house and grounds—“is just littered with the spirits who’ve come to a bad end at Blue Peacock Manor!” Jade’s hair caught in the wind as the rain picked up. “Do you see how ridiculous this all is, Mom? Now she’s believing all this paranormal shi . . . stuff and thinking we’re going to be living with a bunch of the undead!”
“Jade—” Sarah started.
“Shut up!” Gracie warned.
“You sound like a lunatic,” Jade went right on, then turned heatedly to Sarah. “You have to put an end to this, Mom. It’s for her own good. If she goes spouting off about ghosts and spirits and demons—”
“Demons!” Gracie snapped in disgust. “Who said anything—”
“It’s all a load of crap,” Jade declared. “She’s going to be laughed out of school!”
“Enough!” Sarah yelled, though for once Jade seemed to be concerned for her sister. But Sarah had enough of their constant bickering. Forcing a calm she didn’t feel, she said, “We’re going inside now.”
“You don’t believe me,” Gracie said, hurt. She looked up at the window again.
Sarah had already glanced at the window of the room where she knew, deep in her soul, dark deeds had occurred. But no image appeared behind the dirty, cracked glass. No apparition flitted past the panes. No otherworldly figure was evident. There was no “girl” hiding behind the grime, just some tattered curtains that seemed to shift in the dreary afternoon.
“I saw her,” Gracie insisted. A line of consternation had formed between her brows.
“It could have been a reflection or a shadow,” Sarah said as the crow cawed loudly. Deep inside she knew she was lying.
Gracie turned on Jade. “You scared her away!”
“Oh, right. Of course it’s my fault. Give me an effing break.”
“She’ll punish you, you know.” Gracie’s eyes narrowed. “The woman in the window, she’ll get even.”
“Gracie!” Sarah’s mouth dropped open.
“Then you’ll see,” Gracie declared, turning to the front entrance and effectively ending the conversation.
“Here’s the latest,” Rhea announced as she stepped through the door of Clint’s cramped office in the small quarters that made up Stewart’s Crossing’s City Hall. As city building inspector, he checked on all the jobs currently being constructed or renovated within the city limits and beyond, and contracted with the county for the outlying areas. “You might find one particularly interesting.” She raised her thinly plucked eyebrows high enough that they arched over the frames of her glasses. “A neighbor.”
“Don’t tell me. The Stewart place.”
“The Jewel of the Columbia?” she said drily, shaking her head, her short, red hair unmoving.
His insides c
lenched a bit. “Maybe Doug wants to take this one.”
“I thought you hated Doug.”
