“Hey there, Peyton.” Jim—cheery and gruff as always—emerged from the house with a heavy blanket from the foyer. “Couldn’t help but notice your toes turning blue out here.”
I thanked him as he draped the blanket across my legs. “How’s the work looking, Jim? What kind of progress are you making?”
He lowered himself to the chair next to mine with a groan. “What specifics would you like to know? I figured Ben was keeping you updated.”
“We initially agreed that he was going to be the head of this project,” I told him. “But after a few months of living here, I’m more invested in the house. You’re almost done with the front wing, correct?”
“With the bare basics,” Jim reminded me. “We tore out whatever carpet we could find and put hardwood floor instead. Pulled out rotting drywall, sanded peeled paint, fixed the leaky pipes. It’s not as much renovation as you might think, Peyton. I hate to disappoint you, but when you’re on a deadline of six months and the place is this big—”
“Don’t worry, Jim.” I patted his enormous hand. “I didn’t expect you to turn the Abram Mansion into Versailles. I’m just curious as to what you’re thinking about tackling next.”
“Well, I thought we’d do a general sweep to make sure everything is safe.” He began to draw imaginary blueprints in the air as he explained his process. “We’ve got the front of this place all fixed up, but these other three wings need a lot of work. We’re going to get our inspector out here to see what needs to be done, but if I had to guess, we’ll have to get going on the east wing next. Lot of damage on that side of the house. Very unsafe. If something happens—an electrical fire or a burst pipe—it could ruin the entire house.”
“Wait, the east wing?”
“Yup. It’s a wreck.”
I gestured to the right side of the house. “This part, right?”
“That would be the east. Yes, ma’am.”
I remembered what Sammy had told me—that Alyssa was scared of me and Ben because we were changing her house around. If we started renovating the east wing before I figured out why Alyssa was haunting the mansion, it would be a recipe for disaster. That east wing was Alyssa’s safe place, and I wasn’t about to send a bunch of strange men into her space to tear apart her childhood bedroom.
“I would prefer if you started on the west wing,” I said to Jim. “Every time I set foot near that part of the house, it feels like the ceiling is going to fall in.”
Jim’s mustache bristled with curiosity. “Where, exactly? I haven’t noticed quite as much damage in the west wing.”
I took a sip of cold coffee and feigned a coughing fit to buy myself time. Eyes streaming, I replied, “Just off the mezzanine. Uh, near the library.”
“Huh.” Jim settled his back against the chair, brows furrowed in thought. “The last time I checked, the library was in decent condition. I did see some water damage up on the fourth floor though.”
“That’s what I meant,” I revised hurriedly. “West wing, fourth floor. That’s my main concern. I’d like to leave the east wing for last if at all possible.”
One of Jim’s crew members—an older woman named Maureen whose biceps were bigger than Ben’s—popped her head out of a window on the third floor and called down, “Jim, we need your opinion up here!”
Jim glanced up, shielding his eyes against the pale sun. “I’ll be right up, Maureen.”
“Can’t wait,” Maureen replied. “Hey, Peyton. Hanging in there?”
“Oh, I’m doing swell, Maureen.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
As Maureen withdrew, Jim cleared his throat and readied himself to stand up. The porch chair was a low bucket seat, and Jim was so large that he had to propel himself upward with an exaggerated push of his hands. “We’ll talk about the east wing with Ben later,” he said, pulling his workman’s gloves back on again. “Just to make sure everyone’s on the same page.”
Though his tone was polite, I heard the implications behind it. Ben was the one who had spearheaded the construction so far, which meant Jim considered him the first point of contact. If Ben decided the east wing should be renovated first, that was what would happen.
“You should head inside too,” Jim advised. “You’re looking a little pale.”
I hadn’t realized how cold I was. A layer of clouds had appeared in the sky, veiling most of the sun’s warmth. Shivering, I picked up the blanket wrapped around me, gathered my coffee cup, and reluctantly followed Jim inside. He gave me a polite nod as he headed up the steps to the mezzanine to meet Maureen on the third floor. Once he was gone, I stood in the foyer with the heavy blanket wrapped around me like a cape. I had to admit it to myself: I was afraid to go anywhere in the house. No matter how much I wanted to help Alyssa, I feared seeing her again. I much preferred dealing with her when she was too shy to stand in my direct eyeline.
Of course, the things I feared had a way of creeping up on me. Maybe Alyssa had felt it in the air as I’d re-entered the house. Maybe she’d sensed that I’d considered backing out of all this. The mystery around Alyssa’s death felt unsolvable. There was no information to track, no leads to follow. I’d spent more of my time trying to convince Sammy that I was playing detective than actually doing any detective work. If I had to guess, Alyssa was even more perceptive than Sammy, because when she showed up on the mezzanine, where Jim had just passed through, she made sure to only show enough of herself to let me know she was there. She was a pair of eyes peering down into the foyer from behind one of the banisters, something I’d imagined she’d made a habit of when her parents held parties at the mansion that she wasn’t invited to. My teeth clacked together as I felt her presence wash over me. I kept my eyes on the carpet.
“You scared me last night,” I whispered, knowing she could hear my voice no matter what volume I used. “That was you, right? Not a nightmare.”
“I didn’t mean to show you like that.”
Startled to hear an actual voice respond, I glanced up at the mezzanine. Alyssa kept herself out of sight, but she didn’t back off. “Did you just… talk?”
As if the question was too stupid to merit a reply, she remained silent, peering at me from her lookout spot on the mezzanine. Tiny fingers wrapped around the railing. With a single one, she beckoned me toward her.
“You want to show me something?”
With Alyssa, I got more of an answer out of the feelings she gave me than her actual voice. I felt her nod more than I saw it, and though every part of me wanted to run away and forget about everything I’d seen in the mansion so far, I couldn’t do it. Instead, I dropped the blanket on the couch and headed up the stairs. As soon as my feet reached the mezzanine, Alyssa vanished from behind the banister and reappeared up ahead. I caught sight of her pink scarf, tied firmly around her neck once again. Hopefully, she kept it there this time.
“Are you going to throw another tantrum?” I asked her, tip-toeing along the corridor as she led me into the east wing. “Because to be honest, I’m not quite over the chess piece debacle.”
“That wasn’t me,” Alyssa’s voice floated back to me.
“Sure. Who was it then?”
No reply. I rolled my eyes as we walked on. Alyssa kept up her sporadic transparency. Sometimes, I caught sight of her staring at me from behind a curtain, but she would vanish as soon as our eyes met. Whether she did this for my benefit or hers was beyond me. Eventually, we reached the door to a room I had not yet explored. Alyssa pushed it open but kept herself invisible, so it looked like it floated open on its own. I stepped inside.
Long ago, the room had been someone’s recreational outlet. A craft desk stood in one corner, stacked high with scrapbook materials, blank photo album pages, and brightly-colored pipe cleaners. An old sewing machine sat on the windowsill. The bookshelf was stacked with romance novels, cookbooks, and do it yourself manuals, though one of the shelves was reserved for Alyssa’s art projects.
“You have to be quiet,” A
lyssa whispered. She hadn’t shown herself in the room, but the white linen curtains by the window flickered, and a floorboard nearby creaked as if someone had stepped on it.
“What am I doing in here?” I whispered back. I didn’t dare touch anything. Every time I’d snooped around in the Abrams’ old things, something random had attacked me of its own accord. All this time, I thought it was Alyssa’s doing, but now I wasn’t so sure.
The floorboard creaked again. This time, one end of it popped up. I cautiously crept toward it and used my heel to press down on the opposite end. The floorboard flipped up to reveal a hidden pocket beneath it. With a deep, steadying breath, I reached in and pulled out a red steel box.
“Am I supposed to look inside?” I asked Alyssa.
The curtains fluttered again as Alyssa retreated behind them and nodded. I pried open the rusty box. Inside, there was a stack of letters in different colored envelopes. The steel box had kept them clean and dry, and whoever had stored them here had been delicate with the pages. I carefully pulled the letter from the first envelope and read it aloud:
“My dearest Penelope,” I whispered, tracing my fingers across the elegant handwriting, “I write to you in tears. I can no longer bear the thought of you in that cold, ghastly manor or in the presence of such a beast. Once more, I must implore you to make better choices for yourself and your daughter. Come to me—bring Alyssa with you—and I promise to care for you for all of my days. I care little about the judgements and opinions of other people. I have no shame in our relationship. On the contrary, I am proud of our love. Please have the courage to find your pride in it. Yours forever, Charles Rainer.”
I looked up from the letter. One warm tear ran down my cheek. Alyssa had finally taken a corporeal form, though she did not step out from behind the curtain.
“Charles Rainer,” I repeated, holding up the letter. “I heard your mom was in love with someone other than your dad. Is this him?”
Alyssa nodded. I put the first letter—the most recent one—back in the steel box and shuffled through the other ones. They were all from Charles, and from what I could tell, he declared his undying love for Penelope in every one of them. Though Charles never spoke of Percy directly, he mentioned him every so often, and never in a positive light. I took a picture of Charles’ home address.
My alarm chimed on my phone. It was time to pick up Sammy from school. I wiped my eyes and put the letters back where I’d found them, making sure to place them gently in their home.
“I have to go,” I whispered to Alyssa. “But thank you for showing me this.”
Alyssa peeked out from behind the curtain. Her cheeks were pink and round as she gave me a small smile and waved goodbye. As I left the room, I realized my anxiety from this morning had faded.
Sammy, once again, was nowhere to be seen in the first rush of kids fleeing the elementary school. This time, I waited him out in the parking lot instead of subjecting myself to the chaos of the pickup loop. Gradually, the schoolyard emptied itself out and the minivan moms went on their way. Still no Sammy. When the secretary left the office—lunch box and school bags in hand—I rolled down my window and called out to her.
“Excuse me, miss?” I said. “I’m here to pick up Sammy Baker. Did he stay late in his last class again?”
“The teachers are gone already,” the secretary said. “Everyone’s on their way home.”
My pulse quickened. “That’s impossible. Sammy hasn’t come out yet.”
“One second.” She balanced her bags in one hand to look at the office’s paperwork in the other. “It says here that Sammy was picked up by his father.”
“His father?” I repeated, jaw dropping. “His father doesn’t have custody over him! And he definitely doesn’t have Theo’s permission to pick him up.”
“According to this, he does.” She showed me the permission slip and pointed to Theo’s name scribbled at the bottom.
“That’s not Theo’s handwriting,” I growled. “He forged it.”
The secretary examined the signature. “Oh. Oh! Oh my God, should we call the police?”
I swiped the falsified permission slip from her. “I’ll handle it. Next time, try to do your job a little better.”
Her bottom lip quivered as I rolled up the window and reached for my phone. It wasn’t entirely her fault—Dylan had been crafty—but I didn’t have time to console her. I dialed Hillary Spaughton’s number and got her voicemail. I called the Falconwood police station next.
“Hello?” answered an unfamiliar voice.
“My friend’s son has been kidnapped,” I reported, feeling my chest tighten as I said it. “Sammy Baker. His father picked him up from school.”
“If his father picked him up from school, then he hasn’t been kidnapped, ma’am.”
“No, you don’t understand.” I gritted my teeth. “His father isn’t in the picture anymore. He hasn’t known Sammy since he was born. I’m supposed to be the one who picks him up from school, but he’s missing—”
“Ma’am, if the child is with his father—”
“Are you listening to me?” I shouted into the phone. “Are you some kind of idiot whose ears don’t work? Where is Hillary Spaughton? I need to talk to someone competent.”
In a smaller voice, the man replied, “Officer Spaughton called in sick today. She’s not coming in. Word is she has a massive case of food poisoning.”
“Then you have one job today,” I hissed. “Find Sammy Baker. You should already have a file on him. Call this number if you track him down.”
I hung up. Despite my ferocity, I wasn’t entirely sure the police would start looking for Sammy unless I came in and filed an actual report. Even then, the only officer I could count on was Hillary, and she was mysteriously ill. With a heavy heart, I called Theo next, dreading the moment she answered, but her phone went to voicemail too. I wasn’t brave enough to leave a message. It was better to do this in person. I put the car in drive and almost backed out of the space before something shiny caught my eye on the sidewalk. I got out of the car to examine it. It was a glittery dinosaur sticker. Fifty feet down the sidewalk, heading toward the edge of town, was another sticker. Sammy had left me a trail of breadcrumbs.
I left the car at the school, grabbed my scarf, and set off down the sidewalk. The stickers were placed erratically, as if Sammy had only stuck one down when Dylan was distracted enough not to notice. A couple of times, I lost the trail, once at an intersection where I had to search all three pathways before finding the next sticker and again when the trail led me through a nature hike trail where the path was all dirt. Here, Sammy had dragged his heels instead of dropping stickers. Every so often, I found gouges in the path that were roughly the size of his tiny shoes. The farther I walked along the trail, the darker it became. The trees overhead were so thick that they blocked out what little of the sun could be seen. After an hour of searching, the trail went cold. No stickers, no footprints, and no other clues to let me know where Sammy might be. But the path only led one way.
I emerged from the hiking trail and into a small cemetery. It was unmarked and had no border, and I wouldn’t have known it was a cemetery at all were it not for the short headstone that I almost tripped over. I had no idea where I was in relation to the rest of Falconwood, but I didn’t care. A tiny figure was huddled next to a gravestone in the middle of the cemetery, wearing Sammy’s trademark red sweater but no coat. Heart racing, I hurried over.
“Sammy?” My voice cracked as I knelt down. “Sammy, it’s me. It’s Peyton.”
Sammy’s lips trembled as his eyes fluttered open. “P—Peyton?”
“Hey, buddy. I’ve been looking for you.” I took off my coat and wrapped it around Sammy instead. His skin was pale and freezing, and he barely had enough strength to hug me as I brought him closer to my body to warm him up. “Let’s get you warmed up, huh?”
“He took me,” Sammy whimpered, his nose pressed against my neck. “Dylan. I don’t like him.”
>
“I know, buddy, but you did such a good job of helping me to find you,” I said. “Thanks for the stickers. Where’s Dylan anyway?”
“I don’t know,” Sammy said. “I ran away from him near the road. He couldn’t find me in the woods. That’s why I came this way.”
“You’re such a smart boy.”
He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Alyssa’s here too.”
“What?”
Sammy pointed to the gravestone he’d been leaning against. I shuffled forward to get a look at the faded name carved into the rock: Percy Abrams, Beloved Husband and Father, 1949-1979.
19
“I can’t believe this.”
Theo paced back and forth in her tiny kitchen while I sat exhausted at the counter. After bringing Sammy to the clinic to make sure he hadn’t crossed over into hypothermia, I’d returned him to his mother’s apartment and filled Theo in on the drama from that afternoon. Needless to say, she was furious.
“I can’t believe this!” she said again, slamming her fist on the countertop. “Dylan waltzed into that school like he owned the place? He forged my signature! That bastard! And the cops? They were absolutely useless. I swear, Hillary’s the only officer with half a brain in Falconwood—”
“Theo, try to calm down,” I said. “Everything turned out okay. Sammy’s safe at home, and you can give the cops more information on Dylan tomorrow. They’ll keep an eye out for him, though from what I got out of Sammy, it’s doubtful he’s going to try this again.”
The Haunting of Abram Mansion Page 25