Emotions washed over Lucy like a tidal wave, and she immediately hit “Pause.” Tears choked her throat and sprang to her eyes. It was her mother’s voice. Months had passed since she’d heard her mother speak without battling pain. This was the voice she remembered from her childhood. Light, easygoing with traces of a devilish humor. This was the voice that had given her comfort and joy when she was a little girl.
“Mommy,” she whispered as she touched the screen.
Dolly came to sit beside her and licked the tears streaming down her face. She rubbed the dog on the head. “Remember this, Dolly? We have a piece of her back.”
Clearing her throat, she hit “Play.” “This is my final exam project for Mrs. Reynolds’s history class. I live on Chesapeake Bay’s Eastern Shore in Virginia, and today I’m interviewing Mrs. Catherine Buchanan, who was born in Cape Hudson in 1888. Mrs. Buchanan, can you tell me about your family?”
The woman looked at the microphone clipped to her collar and began to answer. Lucy sat back, losing track of time as she listened to Mrs. B and Beth talk.
When Lucy reached the end of the first tape, she was eager to play the next tape and find out more about the woman who’d given her this home.
Outside, the wind kicked up. The storm announced its arrival with a loud crack of thunder, and the windowpanes rattled. Seconds later, lightning streaked across the sky.
The electricity blinked, and with that, the television and lights went dark.
“Shit!”
CHAPTER NINE
Lucy
January 15, 2018
Lucy scrounged for her flashlight and clicked it on. She stared at the television and VCR, willing them to turn on, but the electricity wouldn’t cooperate.
As the minutes ticked by, the storm only worsened, and Lucy was forced to give up on the next videotape for now. In the kitchen, she gathered candles and matches, lit several, and then made herself a cheese sandwich with extra mustard. She dished out dog food to Dolly, who was still holding out for something better.
“It’s a long time until breakfast, Dolly,” Lucy said.
Dolly lay beside the bowl and whimpered softly.
“You’re good. Very good. But I’ll not be emotionally manipulated.”
Dolly whimpered louder and touched Lucy’s foot with her paw.
“Damn it.” She tore off a piece of her sandwich and gave it to the dog. “That really is all you get. We’re in a real home now, and we have no excuse not to eat right.”
The sandwich gone, she rinsed the plate and returned to the VCR, hoping that the electricity would come back on.
The rain was coming down in sheets, and there was no sign of the storm letting up. The sun was setting, and soon they’d be in total darkness. “I’m going old-school, Dolly. Might just read a book.”
Twenty minutes later, Lucy decided that reading by candlelight and flashlight sounded romantic, but it strained her eyes. She laid her head back on the pillow of her bed as Dolly curled at the end. The electricity had been out for three hours.
Lucy slid under the covers and draped a blanket over the dog. They’d been living in the Jeep the last couple of days, and it felt so good to stretch out on a real bed.
The wind outside continued to rattle the windows. The cottage creaked and moaned, but she’d bet this house had seen worse over the years.
The floorboards in the attic shifted and moved. If she believed in ghosts, she’d have sworn whatever entity still lurked in this house was fully awake and moving around. But she didn’t believe in ghosts.
The dog peered out from under the blanket.
More boards creaked, and then a loud crack reverberated from the attic. She sat up in bed, blankets clutched to her chest as she listened. The wind and rain were relentless.
She didn’t believe in ghosts. She didn’t. And yet she was scared shitless. “How the hell did we get here, Dolly?”
She forced herself to settle back against the pillows. She closed her eyes, pretending she was in a yoga class and the instructor was playing one of her nature tapes with soothing sounds of a waterfall.
“Om,” she breathed. “Om.”
Slowly, the stress and strain of the last month pushed her over the edge, and she fell into a restless sleep. Lucy dreamed of a redheaded girl piloting a sailboat. Her gaze was toward the horizon. And she was searching.
When Lucy awoke, the room was dark, but the lights she’d left on downstairs had turned back on. She had electricity! Rising, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her stocking feet curling when they touched the cold floor. She checked the time on her phone—1:02 a.m.
Dolly lifted her head and, seeing Lucy rise, followed.
She grabbed her flashlight from the nightstand just in case, clicked on the hall light, and padded down the front stairs. The wind still gusted outside, but the rain had slowed.
As she reached the bottom step, she heard the creak of floorboards in the kitchen. Stopping, she grabbed Dolly’s collar and stood perfectly still. She’d locked the front door, but she still had no idea how many doors there were in this damn cottage.
She gripped the flashlight and listened. The floorboards groaned again, and the refrigerator opened and closed. Dolly’s ears flattened, and the hair on the back of her neck rose.
If she had a ghost, it had the midnight munchies.
Drawing in a breath, she moved down the hallway with Dolly. A glass rattled. Dolly barked and lunged forward, pulling out of Lucy’s grasp and racing toward the kitchen.
Metal clanged on the floor. A girl screamed.
Lucy raised her flashlight like a club, not sure what she’d find. Dolly barked. And then, silence.
She rounded the corner in time to see a young girl picking up a utility knife and feeding Dolly a slice of the cheese Lucy had bought earlier today. The girl had a trim, lean frame, and she couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. She wore jeans, a worn Carolina sweatshirt, and scuffed tennis shoes. A red headband held back a wild spray of damp black curls that framed the girl’s light-mocha skin.
“Who are you?” Lucy said.
The girl fed more cheese to Dolly. “I’m Natasha. You must be Lucy.”
Dolly nudged the girl’s hand, giving her a forlorn look that only more cheese might fix. So much for being a guard dog.
“Don’t feed her any more cheese, or you’re going to clean up after her when she has an accident.”
“Ew,” Natasha said.
“Yeah, ‘ew’ is right. I made that mistake once.” She set her flashlight down on the counter. “Natasha, how did you get into my home?”
“It’s not your cottage. It belongs to Mr. Jessup.”
“Mr. Jessup passed last summer. I’m next in line for it.”
The girl looked up with doe eyes full of a sorrow that had Lucy’s breath hitching in her throat. “I miss Mr. Jessup. He was my friend, and he always said I was welcome here.”
“Natasha, do your parents know you’re here?”
“My dad’s sleeping in a drunk tank, and my mother is dead.” Dolly nudged her hand, but Natasha kept the cheese for herself. “You know, everyone is talking about you in town.”
“Is there not any other news in this town other than me?”
“Ah, no. You’re the news of the century.”
Lucy took the knife from Natasha and opened the refrigerator. She pulled out bread, mustard, and luncheon meat. “Do you want a sandwich?”
“Yes. I’m starving.”
The kid looked scrawny, and she had a scrappiness that kids living alone developed. “Can you get me a couple of plates?”
The kid went to the right cabinet as Lucy rinsed off the knife.
“You know this kitchen pretty well. Do you come here often?” Lucy asked.
“When I need to get away from home.”
She unwrapped the bread and set two slices on each plate. “Are you sure your father isn’t worried about you?”
“I wish. He won’t come lookin
g for me for a couple of days.”
“Who’s your dad?” She’d just met this kid, it was the middle of the night in a raging storm, and she was asking the questions like their meeting was all routine.
“Brian Willard.”
“That makes you Natasha Willard. The family that lives a couple of miles from here.”
The girl settled on a stool by the counter. “Yes.”
“Lucy Kincaid.” She shook the girl’s hand.
“I know.”
“I know you know, but I thought a formal introduction might be nice before we eat.” She doled out two slices of luncheon meat, slathered mustard on the slices, and set the second slice of bread on top of each. She cut both sandwiches, and then, grabbing a fresh bag of chips, sprinkled a liberal amount on both plates.
“You want a soda out of the refrigerator?” Natasha asked.
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
The girl scooted off the seat and moved toward the refrigerator like she owned the place.
When the kid settled on her seat, Lucy pushed a plate toward her. She opened her own soda and took a long pull, wishing right now it was a cold beer. “So how long have you been staying at the house?”
“On and off for a couple of years.”
“How old are you, Natasha?”
“You ask that like I’m some kind of kid. I’m eighteen.”
“Don’t con me, kid.”
“Okay, maybe twelve and a half.”
“I’m not judging. Just curious. It’s not often I drive over a thousand miles to move into a haunted house and find a kid in my kitchen in the middle of the night, eating cheese.”
Natasha popped open her soda can. “My mom used to clean for Mr. Jessup, and she was also his caregiver as he got older. He was nice, and a couple of times a year, he sent Mom up here to the cottage to check on it and clean it. I always liked it here because it was quiet and peaceful.” She ate a couple of chips. “So was Mr. Jessup your grandfather?”
“That’s what they tell me. I only learned about him yesterday.”
“I heard your mom never told you about this place. You must be pretty angry at her.” Natasha picked up the remaining half of her sandwich and took a big bite.
Lucy studied the chip in her hand. “Mad would be the easiest thing to feel right now, but I keep feeling sad for her. I miss her.”
Natasha chewed quickly and swallowed. “I miss my mom too.”
“I’m sorry about your mom.”
“It sucks.” She shrugged in the way teens did when they shielded their pain with indifference.
“Yes, it does.” The two ate in silence until their sandwiches were finished. “Do you want more? I have plenty in the refrigerator.”
“I might make a sandwich for lunch.”
“You go to school, right?”
“Yeah. I’m in the fifth grade. It should be sixth, but I missed time after Mom died.”
As independent as the kid appeared, a twelve-year-old had no business living on her own in an abandoned house. “What are your favorite subjects?”
“Math.”
“Really? Good for you. I’m terrible at math, though I can do percentages very well.”
“Why?”
“I’m a bartender. I can calculate tips off the top of my head. I suppose you do much higher math than that.”
“Trigonometry and geometry are pretty fun.”
Lucy sipped her soda. “Fun? I’m impressed. So do you want to be a scientist or professor one day?”
“Dad said if I stay out of jail, don’t get pregnant, and get a waitress job, it’s a win.”
She didn’t know Brian Willard, but she already didn’t like him. “You can shoot higher than that, can’t you?”
Natasha shrugged and sipped her soda. “Why’s there an old-time television in the other room?”
“It’s a television that plays videotapes. Kinda like a DVD.”
“Those boxy things are the tapes?”
“Exactly. I was getting ready to watch a second videotape, and then the electricity went out. Do you want to watch some of the tapes?”
“What kind of tapes?”
“It’s my mom when she was a little older than you, talking to Mrs. B.”
“Mr. Jessup liked Mrs. B. He said he started working for her when he was twelve. He said she once paid him to move a pile of rocks from one side of the house to the other. And then the next day she paid him to move them back.”
That would have been around the Depression. This farming community would have been suffering like most in the country.
“So Mrs. B just gave you this place?” Natasha asked.
“Basically.” How had she fallen so easily into this conversation with a kid who should be home with her family or at least with someone who cared about her?
Natasha grimaced. “If I were you, I’d take the money Hank is offering and run as far away from here as I could.”
“You know about the money?” Stupid question. There were no secrets in this town.
“Yeah. I heard him talking to Arlene earlier.”
“So why should I leave?”
“There’s nothing to do here. The kids at school, if you can call it that, are morons. If you’re gonna do anything big in this world, it isn’t going to happen here. My advice, take the money and run.”
“Seems like a pretty nice place.”
“You haven’t been here that long, have you?”
“Barely a day.”
“Give it five or six more hours. You’ll go stir-crazy.”
She pressed her index finger against the crumbs on her plate, trying to pretend this was all normal. “How did you get into this cottage?”
Natasha didn’t have a rapid-fire answer this time. “Why do you want to know?”
“Maybe, if there are serial killers out there, it would be nice to lock up all the entrances.”
“A serial killer couldn’t get in the way I did.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s a little space.”
“Out with it, Natasha.”
She huffed out a breath. “There’s access into the basement through a window. After Mom died a couple of years ago, and then Mr. Jessup passed, I had to find another place to disappear.”
“Disappear?”
“A place where I can read or think or just not worry.”
“Does your father hurt you?”
“Look, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. The last thing I need is social services breathing down my neck again. I’ve got enough on my plate.”
“Plate?”
“That’s right.”
“You shouldn’t have anything on your plate other than a hot meal with a loving guardian.”
She scrunched her face into a prune shape. “I thought you’d be cool when I heard you had blue hair, but you sound like Hank.”
“What’s he say?”
“‘Stay in school.’ Duh. ‘Look both ways when you cross the street.’ Double duh. ‘You can be whatever you want to be’ or some crap like that.”
“I know he can be bossy. But he’s looking out for you.”
“I can look out for myself.”
But you shouldn’t have to. As flaky as Beth had been, Lucy had known deep down her mother had her back. “What if I don’t last here? What’re you going to do?”
“Keep sneaking in.”
“How about I just give you a key?”
The girl cocked her head. “Aren’t you worried I’ll rip you off?”
“Have you stolen anything from the house?”
“Just the food from your refrigerator tonight.” She cocked a brow. “I heard you ran up a tab at the grocery store.”
“What else did you hear?”
“I heard Hank talking to Arlene about you. Sometimes I help Arlene out in the kitchen. I wash dishes now, but she’s going to teach me how to cook.”
“And what did Hank say about me?”
She shrugg
ed. “Mostly talked about this place and wondered what you were going to do.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?” She dropped her voice as if doing an imitation of Hank. “‘Lucy is hot and I want to date her’?”
Heat warmed Lucy’s cheeks. “He didn’t say that.”
Natasha grinned, shaking her head. “No, but you blushed when I told you.”
“I did not.”
“Did too.”
Lucy grinned. “Where do you sleep when you’re here?”
“I have blankets in the basement.”
“There are ten beds in this house. Pick one. Though I have dibs on the pink room.”
“You can have that room. I never liked that one. It’s the haunted room. If anything spooky is going to happen in this house, that room is ground zero.”
A chill passed up her spine, but she managed a smile. “Who’s the ghost?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s Mrs. B. Or maybe it’s some guy who got murdered.”
CHAPTER TEN
Lucy
January 16, 2018
“Some guy who got murdered.”
The phrase churned in Lucy’s head for the remainder of the night. Every creak in the house, every snort Dolly made, every turn Natasha made in her bed in the adjoining room startled Lucy awake. As first nights in a free house went, this one sucked.
When the sun peeked up over the waters and cut through the lead glass, Lucy was startled awake by Dolly’s barking and the sound of heavy machines rumbling nearby. Bolting up in bed, she blinked and searched her surroundings, which she didn’t recognize immediately.
“Don’t let the sun burn a hole in you,” Natasha said from the door.
“What?”
The kid entered and handed Lucy a cup of coffee. “Hank’s crew is outside fixing the road. It’ll be nice to park by the house rather than a quarter mile away.” Natasha studied Lucy, who must have looked as disoriented as she felt. “No, this is not a dream, Lucy Kincaid. This is your life.”
Lucy sipped her coffee, hoping for some sense of normal. “I know that.”
“You’re looking a little dazed to me.”
She took another gulp and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “How long have you been up?”
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