It wouldn’t be the first time that she and Mel had shared intimate details of a boyfriend. They were just that close. This time, when Katie opened her mouth to answer, she realized she had nothing to say.
She couldn’t remember anything, except the feel of him in her arms, and the sensation of being taken care of and sheltered and...and...owned.
“Fine,” Mel finally said. “Don’t tell me. I’ll just find a man of my own. Someday. Maybe tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to, um.”
She laid down on top of the blanket and stretched out with her arm hanging over the edge of the bed. The nearly empty wine bottle dropped to the floor and rolled around on its side, the remaining liquid sloshing inside like waves in a mini ocean. She was snoring in another minute.
That left Katie to stress over who--or what--she had been living with for the last few days. It couldn’t be a ghost. It simply couldn’t be a ghost. She’d seen Bill. Mel had seen Bill. They both talked to him. To think he maybe wasn’t real, or maybe was only a specter of someone who used to be alive, was unthinkable.
Although...
He was always just appearing, just all of a sudden there. She never heard him coming. She never saw him driving a vehicle. The floor...she suddenly realized that the floor upstairs never creaked when he walked on it. Not ever. When he carried her to the bed today it had been in silence. No sound. Just the beating of her heart and the blood rushing in her ears.
Then there was the body of Emily Knox. It took Sam’s crew just a few minutes to uncover her behind that spot of decay on the walls. Bill had been working in the living room for days and all he did was make a bigger mess. He tore the edge molding off the walls and he piled debris on the floor, but he never got around to opening up the wall like he was supposed to. It was like he didn’t want anyone to find Emily. Like he wanted the location of her tomb to remain a secret.
He looked just like the portrait of William Frank Knox. His name was Bill, for the love of God.
Did that make him a ghost?
Could a ghost manipulate her mind and make her think she had done things she hadn’t? Blur her thoughts enough to make her think she was, um, in bed with him when really it was just herself and a mixture of emotions and endorphins coursing through her bloodstream?
There had to be another answer. Something she wasn’t thinking of. How could she be seeing a man who had been dead for half a century?
Unless it wasn’t him.
Katie crossed her legs and let her hands drop into her lap. “What if he only looks like the high and mighty W. Frank Knox?” she asked herself. “Sure. Everyone in the world has a double. Somewhere in Holland there’s a woman who looks just like me.”
Right now she wished that she was that woman.
So maybe that’s what was happening here. Only, Bill didn’t only sort of look like W. Frank Knox, he looked exactly like W. Frank Knox. How was that possible?
Usually, only people who were related looked that much alike.
“So does that mean he’s related to the Knox family?”
She gasped and swung her legs over the edge of the bed as that thought took hold. That might be why he never told her his last name. That would explain so much. Like how he seemed to know all about the Knox Family Estate. Or how he acted exactly how Justina Knox described her husband. Domineering. Needing to be in charge all the time. Those were the sort of things that were passed down as family traits.
“But who is he?” she wondered out loud. “How is he related to the Knox’s?”
Then another thought struck her. Emily had been pregnant. Rumor around town had told her so, and Miguel had confirmed it. Katie had been building this very elaborate theory about how Emily had been killed before the baby was born. What if...
What if!
Could Emily have run away from home long enough to have the baby, and then come home to meet her death? That would have been only a few months. It still would fit into the time frame the police had worked out for the murder. It would have still happened before Emily’s parents divorced and moved out.
If she had her baby, and gave it up for adoption, then came back home expecting her father to welcome her with loving arms only to have her father kill her instead...but that would mean the baby was still alive.
Bill could be Emily’s son. William Frank Knox’s grandson. That would explain why he looked and acted just like him. Wouldn’t it?
“Except he’d be, like, sixty years old or something.” She was really getting tired of carrying both sides of this conversation by herself. If Mel were awake--and sober--what would she say? “Ha. That’s easy. She’d tell me to stop being so uptight and have a drink!”
She picked up her plastic cup from the nightstand again and lifted it to Mel in a toast. Mel slept on, snoring louder than before.
Katie drank a double swallow of her wine. It warmed its way down her throat and into her chest. It felt good. Maybe Mel had the right idea. Drinking herself into oblivion had a certain appeal right now.
“Back to what you were thinking about, girl.” She sipped at her wine again. “Emily has her baby. Names the baby Bill after her father. Emily comes back to town and gets killed. By her father, insert irony here. Baby grows up, one thing leads to another and I end up falling into bed with a very young looking middle-aged man.”
This time she gulped the rest of what was left in her cup. Sucking a breath in, she savored the taste of it against her tongue, and laughed. “And none of this means a thing. I’m left with a house nobody is going to want to buy. Maybe I should just tear the whole thing down and put up a mini-mall.”
After all, sometimes you need to make a mess before you can make things better. She laughed out loud as she repeated Bill’s favorite little axiom. How ironic would it be for her to do exactly that to his family home?
She was still confused about how young Bill looked, but some men just aged better than others. A man who was sixty years old could look half that age. It wasn’t fair, but when was life ever fair for women?
Throwing her plastic cup into the corner, watching it flip end over end in a lazy fall to the carpet, Katie grumbled to herself. So she had figured out who Bill was despite him trying to hide it. Not that it did her any good. She was still out a major investment of money in that house.
Plus, the chief of police in Port Cable hated her.
She was sleeping with a guy who was full of secrets no matter how you cut it.
The wrong man was going to be charged with Emily Knox’s murder.
And, to top it all off, she still felt like she was going to throw up.
What she needed was a good night’s sleep. Things would look better in the morning. They had to.
They couldn’t look any worse.
Katie took the time to strip out of her blouse and her pants before slipping under the covers. The door was locked. The blinds were drawn. She didn’t know why she felt the need to remind herself that she was safe, but she did. It actually made her feel better.
The sheets slid against her skin as she nestled herself in and wrapped her arms under her pillow. Tomorrow was a new day.
Her eyes weren’t even closed when her cell phone rang from inside the pocket of her jeans.
Frustrated, angry at the whole entire world, Katie kicked off the blankets from around her bare legs and hopped on cold feet to where she’d dropped her jeans in a heap on the floor. Fishing her phone out she swiped the screen on and checked the caller ID.
Unknown Caller.
“Great. Now what?” She answered the call and put it to her ear. She glanced at Mel but her friend was still dead to the world. “Hello? Who is this?”
“Hello, Miss Pearson.” The line was full of static, but Katie could make out enough to tell it was Officer Debbie Clausen. “Could you meet me down at the Knox Estate?”
Just like that. No small talk, no working up to it. She’d just been invited to meet the police at the Knox Estate.
“What’s the trouble?” she asked. “I’m in my motel
room. I sort of planned on staying in all night.”
After a noticeable pause, Officer Clausen continued. “No trouble. Meet me down at the Knox Estate.”
“You could at least say please,” she muttered. However, Officer Clausen did not say please. Or anything else. She was waiting on Katie to say something. “Am I under arrest?”
“Of course not. Just meet me down here. I’ll explain everything.”
The call ended. Katie stared down at her screen as it went blank again. What was that all about? Debbie Clausen had seemed so friendly when Katie had first met her down at the police station. On the call just now she had seemed distant. Abrupt. Her voice had been pleasant, just...flat.
Which told Katie that something was definitely not right.
Well, if the police intended to arrest her for something, like interfering with a police investigation, then she wasn’t going to keep that from happening by hiding out in a rinky-dink motel like this one. The only thing she could do was meet whatever was coming head on and try to control the situation as much as possible.
Dressing again, she looked over at Mel. No sense waking her. Officer Clausen hadn’t asked for both of them. Only for Katie.
Finding a notepad in the room’s desk, Katie scratched out a note saying where she was going. There was no telling when Mel would wake up. She liked to sleep. Almost as much as she liked wine.
“Guess I’ll be back later,” she whispered on her way out, making sure to close the door up tight, just in case.
Chapter 16
A single cup of wine wasn’t going to make her too intoxicated to drive. Katie knew that. Besides, the nervousness was going to burn off anything that was still in her system.
What could Officer Clausen possibly want with her? After the way she left things with Chief Anson she envisioned all sorts of horrible outcomes, from an arrest warrant to an eviction notice for the Knox Estate. Well, that last one wouldn’t be quite so bad because if the legal authorities told her she couldn’t be there anymore then a whole bunch of hard decisions would be made for her.
She pulled her car up to a stop at the end of the driveway and put the transmission in park, taking her keys with her. She got out and made sure to lock the doors behind her because it had been that kind of week and a girl can’t be too careful. She went up the steps to the front door and put her key in the lock.
That’s when it occurred to her.
The door was still locked from when she and Mel had left earlier.
There were no other cars in the driveway besides her own.
So...where was Officer Clausen?
Was it possible that she’d arrived ahead of the only police officer in town who would give her the time of day? She thought back over the phone call she had received in the motel. At the time she had still been half asleep so remembering the exact words proved impossible, but she was sure Clausen had said she was already here.
Maybe her nerves were just on edge, and maybe all this talk of ghosts was making her lose her mind, but something didn’t feel right. Without unlocking the door she slid the key back out, and stepped backward off the porch steps.
Her cellphone rang in the back pocket of her khakis and she must have jumped three feet in the air until she realized the vibrating sensation was just her phone. Angrily she pulled it out and stared down at the display.
Unknown Caller.
Setting her jaw, she answered the call with an angry swipe of her finger. “Officer Clausen, I presume?”
“Yes.” Debbie’s voice was the same as it had been earlier. Friendly, but in a cold and emotionless way. “Come inside, please.”
Katie stared at the heavy front doors of the Knox Estate. “You’re in the house?”
“Yes. Come inside.”
“Officer Clausen...Debbie, are you all right?”
“Yes. Come inside.”
Then the call disconnected.
Katie went to push redial, only the call had come through as unknown and there was no way to call back. She stared at the doors again. In her mind she had that alien from the Star Wars movies mumbling, It’s a trap!
That ridiculous image allowed her to smile and shake her head at how foolish she was being. This was just a house. Bill was not a ghost. Bad things had happened here, certainly, but that was the past. She didn’t know what the future held for the Knox Estate--she only knew it didn’t include her.
In the present, there was nothing to worry about.
“Get a grip, Katie.” She chuckled as she put the key back in the lock on the door. “You’re going to end up being one of those old ladies who owns a hundred cats and mutters to herself all the time--”
She blinked at that image, and stopped talking.
The door swung open and hit the wall inside with a solid thud. That was one thing she had noticed about this house. It liked to make noise. The creaky floorboards, the screech of hinges that needed oil, and a thousand other little noises that you didn’t notice at first all went into making the house almost a living, breathing entity.
The light switch clicked as she turned it on and light blossomed everywhere.
Her footsteps echoed down the long entryway as she came in, leaving the door open behind her. “Hello? Officer Clausen?” She went past the dining room and the living room, and the others, looking into each room as she passed them. “Debbie? Where are you?”
“I’m up here,” her voice called down to Katie. “Upstairs. Come up here, please.”
Katie got to the foot of the stairs and looked up the entire height of the three stories. She held tight to the loose railing as she did, remembering how the last time this happened she had gotten dizzy and passed out and had some sort of vision. She was positive the things she had been seeing in this house were real. Only, that brought up the whole question of ghosts again...
No visions came to her this time. No ghostly messages from the beyond. She had to say, she liked it a lot better that way.
“Katie, come up here, please.”
With a sigh, Katie began to climb. At least she knew she wasn’t about to be arrested. If that were the case Officer Clausen would have met her down on the first floor.
At the first landing, where the stairs made their half turn heading up to the top floor, Katie stopped. The hallway here was deserted as well. “Officer Clausen? Where are you?”
“In here.”
This time, her voice came from the room on her right. The first bedroom off the stairs. Emily’s room.
The door was open but from this angle she couldn’t see very much of the room inside. She told herself--again--to stop being a baby. Still her feet wouldn’t move. She should just go inside the room and find out what this was all about so she could go back to the motel. It was late, and it was dark outside, and she just wanted to get some sleep.
Her tired mind caught on something she had just said. It was dark outside.
Then why did she have to turn the lights on when she first came in? Shouldn’t Officer Clausen have turned them on when she came inside?
“It’s okay,” she muttered to herself. “It’s all right. It’s just a house. It’s just a house.”
No amount of talking could make this okay. Her heart began to pound in her chest and her breath came in ragged puffs, and her feet finally started to move.
Down the stairs.
“Nope. Nope. Nope.” She repeated that word with every creaking step, running away from that room and this house. Whatever Officer Clausen wanted to show her could wait for the light of day. In a crowded, public place.
“Nope.”
Step.
“Nope.”
Step.
“Nope...!”
At the bottom of the stairs she raced through the great meeting room with its cold fireplace, and down the entry hall to the front door.
“Time to go, bye bye, buenos noches, and--”
The front door was closed. She’d left it open, and now it was closed.
Maybe the wind, she
thought. Sure. Must be the wind.
She grabbed the handle and immediately pulled her hand away. It was freezing cold to the touch. Her skin tingled as she flexed her fingers to work some warmth back into them.
“You can’t leave this house,” Officer Clausen’s voice hollered down to her. “I forbid it.”
This time it didn’t sound like Debbie Clausen. Not exactly. More like some weird autotuned mix of her voice and someone else’s. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound right.
Pulling her hand into the sleeve of her blouse and wrapping it around her fingers, Katie took a firm grip on the handle and pulled on the door. It wouldn’t open. The cold began to seep through the thin material of her shirt as she kept trying. It was no use. The door wouldn’t budge.
In a panic, Katie thought of every other exit in the house. “Windows. No, no. Most of them are painted shut and they’re small. Too small to make an easy exit. Back door. Yes. Back door.”
“I forbid you to leave this house!” Debbie Clausen’s distorted voice called to her again, closer this time. The top of the stairs, Katie thought. “If I have to lock you in your room until you see the light, then that’s what I will do!”
That stopped Katie in her tracks. “No way,” she muttered. “No way! “That’s the same thing that I heard Frank Knox tell Emily...in that vision...”
A dark shape stood at the top of the stairs.
The back door was past the stairs, at the other side of the house. Katie did not want to risk running by those stairs. She knew that if she tried Debbie Clausen would be on her in an instant with nowhere to run or hide.
Right now hiding seemed to be her only option.
“Katie. Come here.”
She turned on her heel with another squeaked little “nope” and ran the other way. Through the dining room, to the other side, where the stairs led down to the basement.
She had to turn the light on here as well, and wait for the old style bulbs to flicker to life. The wiring down here was worse than other parts of the house. It had been on her list of things to fix. A long list. A list she would never see to completion now.
If she got out of this house tonight, she was never coming back.
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 22