“That sounds like Kristin.” Julia smiles faintly.
“But maybe there was more to her reasoning. And she didn’t want to fly back here to help Iris get settled in, either,” Paine muses. “She only came because Iris asked her to, and there was nobody else to do it.” He looks at Julia. “So you’re thinking that something happened to Kristin in that house when she was back here that summer? That maybe she saw something there again?”
“Maybe.” Julia nods slowly. “And if that’s true, then maybe whatever it was somehow led to her death.”
“How are we supposed to figure out what happened to her?”
Julia throws up her hands helplessly . . .
Just as Dulcie’s terrified shriek pierces the air.
“MIRANDA . . . LOOK!”
Startled by the sound of Kent’s hushed, but urgent voice, she snaps out of her reverie about Andy to see her partner pointing at the small screen on one of their video cameras. This one is on a tripod and aimed toward the lilac tree.
“What is it?” she whispers to Kent, stepping closer to peer over his shoulder at the screen. Just moments ago, she was comfortable in a short-sleeved T-shirt with only her sleeveless khaki work vest over it. Now she becomes aware of an icy chill in the air, as though the temperature has suddenly dropped a good twenty degrees.
“See that ecto?” Kent asks softly.
She does. She sees it vividly on the screen.
She looks up at the tree itself. As expected, the ectoplasm is invisible to her naked eye. There’s no sign of the spirit form captured by the camera’s infrared lens.
“It’s taking shape.” Kent’s voice is barely audible.
Miranda nods, watching the screen as a human form becomes visible. It’s barely defined by arms, legs, a head, yet what she can see is distinctly female.
“It’s all right,” Kent calls softly to the apparition. “You can show yourself. We won’t hurt you.”
Miranda shivers, hugging herself, suddenly uneasy.
“Come closer,” Kent coaxes. In a low voice, to Miranda, he asks, “Is your tape recorder on?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Maybe we’ll get that music again on tape.”
“Well, you should shut up so that it’ll be clear if we do,” she hisses.
He scowls but falls silent.
Miranda listens to the steady chirping of the cicadas. A slight breeze stirs the air, rustling the leafy branches.
Then another sound reaches her ears.
Car tires on gravel.
Turning around, she sees the arc of headlights swinging over the yard and house as a car slows and stops at the curb just in front.
“Looks like we have visitors,” Kent mutters.
Recognizing the car, Miranda tugs his sleeve. “Hurry—grab your stuff. Let’s get out of here!”
RUPERT IS ALMOST sound asleep when the harsh, abrupt ringing of the telephone pierces the air. He starts, sits up, rubs his eyes, disoriented until he sees Nan beside him. Oh. He’s in the back bedroom with her.
The phone rings again.
Nan doesn’t stir.
Rupert touches her cheek gently, in dread. It’s still warm. She’s just deeply asleep.
Rising, he hurries into the kitchen and lifts the receiver, glancing at the clock. It’s late. Who would be calling at this hour?
“Rupert?” a vaguely familiar voice crackles over the line, as though crossing a great distance.
“Yes?”
“It’s Pilar.”
His heart sinks. Now what? “Pilar. Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”
“I am. I’m on a cruise ship. This is a terrible connection, but I . . . can you hear me?”
“Barely.” He catches sight of a pile of mail on the otherwise uncluttered countertop. He left it there after retrieving it from the box earlier, forgetting to even look through it, much less open it.
“I’ll be quick,” Pilar promises. Static crackles on the line. “How is Nan?”
“The same. Asleep. As I was,” he adds irritably, fed up with her intrusions, well-meaning or not. He picks up the mail, flipping through it. “So if that’s why you called . . .”
“Rupert, that isn’t the only reason I called.”
Rupert puts two utility bills into one pile, and makes another of the junk: store circulars, catalogues, credit card applications. He hesitates when he sees a catalogue addressed to Nan, from Breck’s bulb company. She always places an order at this time of year for the bulbs she plants every fall: daffodils, tulips, crocuses.
“I’ve been feeling my husband’s energy around me all day,” Pilar says. “I feel as though he’s trying to tell me something. I feel like it has to do with you and Nan, and I’m getting a strong sense of danger, Rupert.”
“Danger?” Rupert echoes. His hand, clutching Nan’s gardening catalogue, is trembling. Does it belong with the junk mail? Or with the bills? “What do you mean? What kind of danger?”
“I don’t know, Rupert. Just . . . be careful. Please.”
“I’m always careful,” he snaps, the catalogue hovering over the pile destined for the trash can.
“I know you are. It’s just that earlier today . . .” Pilar pauses.
She wants to say something else. Whatever it is, she apparently doesn’t know how to phrase it—and he doesn’t want to hear it.
“I really should be going,” he says, placing the Breck’s catalogue neatly beneath the two utility bills. “I can hardly hear you. There’s too much static.”
“Yes, that’s fine. Good-bye, Rupert. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s all right,” he lies.
Hanging up the phone, he picks up the sales flyers and credit card offers and marches over to the trash can. He lifts the lid and deposits the junk mail inside . . .
Right on top of the doll Paine Landry brought over this afternoon.
“WHY ARE WE hiding?” Kent demands, as he and Miranda, lugging their equipment, steal through the trees at the perimeter of the yard at Ten Summer Street.
“Shhh!”
He drops his voice to a whisper. “But I don’t get it. Those were the owners getting out of that car. Why don’t we want them to see us?”
“Because . . .” She turns guiltily to Kent, cursing the luck that brought the residents home just when the ectoplasm was beginning to take shape. Now she has to come clean to Kent.
Miranda looks through the trees at the house. Lights are going on all over the first floor, and she can see silhouettes in the windows.
“Because why?” Kent slaps at a mosquito buzzing around his ear. “You said they signed the release form. So what’s the problem?”
“I lied about that. That’s the problem.”
“You lied?” He stares at her. His face is mostly cast in shadow, but what she can see is ominous enough to make her take a step backward. “You mean, they didn’t give their permission for us to be on their property?”
Miranda only nods. But her remorse is tinged with exasperation. Irrational exasperation, yes—but she can’t help feeling irked with Kent and his rules. He’s such a stickler for details. With him, everything always has to be by the book. What harm would it cause if just once, they collected data on private property without permission?
“How could you, Miranda?”
“Because something is going on there, Kent. By that tree. Probably in the house, too. You heard the music on that tape. You saw that ecto just now.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“I wanted to know more about it. I couldn’t help myself. And Andy said it wouldn’t hurt anything if I checked it out. In fact, he mentioned just yesterday that the guy who lives there doesn’t even own the house. His daughter inherited it and he’s about to sell it. So—”
“Who’s Andy?” Kent asks flatly.
Too late, Miranda remembers that she never told him about that, either.
WITH HER OVERNIGHT bag over her shoulder, Julia stands in the doorway of th
e smallest bedroom on the second floor of the house at Ten Summer Street.
This, she realizes, is where Dulcie climbed out the window this afternoon. Now she sees that it’s closed and locked, the screen propped against the baseboard beneath the sill.
“I’ll find some sheets for the bed,” Paine says, behind her.
Julia jumps, startled.
“Sorry.” Paine touches her arm. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s just . . . it’s been a hell of a day . . . and night.”
“I know. That bat didn’t help matters.”
She shudders at the thought of it. When they raced up the stairs to her room, they found Dulcie cowering, her head under the pillow, screaming about something furry landing on her face. Sure enough, a bat was swooping around the room.
It must have gotten in through a hole in the plastic tarp. As Julia wrapped Dulcie in the afghan and whisked her into the next room, Paine tried to hit the winged black creature with a rolled-up newspaper. He missed several times—and then the bat vanished into the hallway. Paine searched for it for almost half an hour before concluding that it could be anywhere—and that Julia should come home with him and Dulcie.
“Thanks for letting me stay here tonight,” Julia tells Paine. “I’ll call the exterminator first thing in the morning, before we leave for the memorial service. I couldn’t have slept in that house, knowing that thing was lurking somewhere.”
“It’s no problem, Julia. I just tucked Dulcie into bed. She’s thrilled, of course, that you’re here.”
I wish I could say the same thing, Julia thinks, looking around the room. It’s larger than Iris’s small study across the hall, but smaller than the other two second-floor bedrooms. There’s room for little more than a full-sized iron bed, painted white, a nightstand, and a bookshelf crammed with paperbacks and old magazines.
Julia doesn’t want to be here, in this house, after all that has happened.
Yet it’s the lesser of two evils. She’d rather spend the night under this roof than under her own tarp, with a wayward bat poised to dive-bomb her bed again.
Paine disappears into the master bedroom, and returns a few minutes later with sheets and a quilt. He starts to make up the bed.
Julia, standing on the opposite side of the mattress, stops him. “I can do that.” She pulls the edge of the fitted sheet and tucks it beneath the corner of the mattress.
“I’ll help you.” He slides an elasticized hem over his corner, too.
They work silently until the bed is ready.
Paine looks at her. “Guess you’re all set.”
“Guess I am.”
“We never finished our conversation.”
“No, we didn’t,” she agrees, reaching up to rub the aching, exhausted spot between her shoulders. She’s sore all over, completely weary. All she wants to do is crawl into bed and fall into a dreamless sleep.
“We can talk tomorrow,” Paine tells her. “After Iris’s memorial.”
“Can’t. I have to do a message service at Inspiration Stump right afterward, and then I want to get to the hospital again while it’s still visiting hours, to visit Lorraine.” She told him about her friend’s accident in the car on the short drive over to his place.
“Then tomorrow night,” he says. “After my meeting with Howard and Tom Ogden, Edward Shuttleworth’s lawyer. Which reminds me . . . would you mind watching Dulcie while I go to that? I was planning to bring her with me, but I’d rather not if I don’t have to.”
He trusts her with his daughter again. Julia smiles. “Sure, I’ll be glad to watch her.”
“Thanks. Well . . . good night.”
“Good night.”
She changes swiftly into her nightgown, then waits until she hears Paine come out of the bathroom. She hears his footsteps creaking down the hall, hesitating in front of Dulcie’s doorway, then retreating to the master bedroom. Only when Julia hears the click that means he’s closed his door does she slip out of her room.
In the bathroom, she turns on the light. She has avoided this room ever since she found Iris sprawled in front of the tub.
Now, as she busies herself getting ready for bed, she refuses to look in that direction.
It isn’t until she’s brushing her teeth at the sink that she feels the electricity in the air.
Someone is here with her.
She can hear the faint murmur of voices. Then a startled, high-pitched scream, abruptly cut off.
Julia turns off the tap and listens intently.
The faucet at the sink isn’t even dripping.
Yet she can still hear water splashing.
She turns slowly toward the tub.
It has to be dry. Empty.
The sound has grown louder.
Wild sloshing. Sputtering. Gasping. Choking. It’s as though somebody is struggling in the water.
Mesmerized, Julia takes a step closer to the tub. Leaning forward, peering over the edge, she glimpses a face looking up at her.
Iris’s terror-filled face, being held underwater by a pair of hands that are clasped tightly around her neck.
IN HER ROOM at the Summer Street Inn, Miranda puts the last pair of jeans into her canvas duffel bag and tugs the zipper closed.
There.
All packed.
First thing in the morning, she’ll check out and head back to Boston. Alone.
Maybe it’s not too late to get a summer waitressing job, she thinks hopefully, lugging the heavy bag across the floor. Or a share in a beach house.
She places the duffel by the door beside the one that holds her investigative equipment. It’s going to be a pain, carrying that bag on board the plane, but she doesn’t dare check it with the other one. Her brother Francis once worked for an airline and warned her never to place anything the least bit fragile in checked luggage. Meaning Miranda will probably have to explain the Trifield meter and night scope to a curious airline employee running the security scanner at the airport.
And what if the X-ray machine ruins the film and cassette tapes packed inside the bag?
With a sigh, Miranda realizes her only option is to turn the film and tapes over to Kent, who’s driving back.
Which would be a good idea . . . if they were on speaking terms.
But he’s so pissed at her that it’ll be a miracle if they remain roommates when he gets back in late August from the cross-country trip he’s continuing without her.
Walking restlessly back over to the bed, Miranda catches sight of a few things she forgot to pack. Her flashlight and her audio recorder. Terrific. How’s she going to fit this stuff into an already crammed bag?
As she looks at the recorder, she realizes that she might as well listen to the tape she made tonight in the yard at Ten Summer Street. She’ll never get to hear it if the airline ruins her tapes.
She rewinds the cassette and lets it run as she continues her nightly routine, removing her makeup with cold cream and changing into her pajamas.
As she’s flossing her teeth, she hears Kent’s excited whisper caught on tape.
“Miranda, look!”
“What is it?” comes her hushed reply.
“See that ecto?”
A long pause, marred by the sound of crickets . . . and something else.
Frowning, Miranda reaches for the recorder just as Kent’s voice announces, “It’s taking shape.”
After adjusting the volume, and balance, she presses REWIND, and then PLAY again.
“See that ecto?”
There it is again.
The music.
“Kathy’s Song.”
This time, she can hear more of it than before. The familiar guitar strains are audible on the tape for several seconds, in the background as Kent asks, “See that ecto?”
Miranda keeps listening, sitting absolutely still on the bed, her head tilted in concentration as the tape plays on.
“It’s all right,” Kent’s voice calls softly. “You can show yourself. We—”
<
br /> Stunned, Miranda abruptly presses STOP.
She rewinds the tape briefly.
PLAY.
“It’s all right . . . you can show yourself. We won’t hurt you.”
In the midst of Kent’s soothing words to the spirit, the music gives way to a sudden, repetitive, scraping sound.
It goes on as the dialogue continues.
Miranda listens intently. She hears Kent crooning to the spirit, “Come closer.”
Then, to her: “Is your tape recorder on?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Maybe we’ll get that music again on tape.”
Throughout their conversation, the rhythm continues steadily.
Miranda recognizes the distinct, rasping thud even before she rewinds the tape to listen to the passage again. And again. And again, in growing dread, wondering what it means.
It’s the dull sound of metal hitting rock and dirt. The sound that a shovel makes, digging into the ground.
Chapter Thirteen
IT SEEMS AS though all of Lily Dale has turned out for Iris Shuttleworth’s memorial service at Assembly Hall. Glancing around the packed meeting room, Julia sees plenty of familiar faces, but there are strangers, too.
Iris’s stepson, Edward Shuttleworth, is notably absent.
So are Rupert and Nan Biddle. Not a good sign. Julia makes a mental note to stop over there the first chance she gets, to see how Nan is and if there’s anything she can do. Paine said the situation is touch and go now.
Julia feels tears welling in her eyes, thinking of Rupert’s heartfelt effort to bring his wife home to die in the house where they spent the bulk of their lives together. She wonders whether anybody will ever love her that much.
Her thoughts drift to Paine, still pining away for Kristin. He’ll probably never know what really happened to her out on the lake that night.
Or will he?
Julia tries to allay the surge of fear that rises again within her at the thought of somebody killing Kristin . . . and Iris. She tries to persuade herself that what she saw last night in the bathroom was a figment of her imagination, but she knows better.
Most likely, she witnessed Iris’s last moments of life. She witnessed Iris dying at the hands of an invisible murderer.
In the Blink of an Eye Page 31