by Leslie Caine
“Yes, Erin just arrived,” her mother replied breezily. “Which you would have realized if you weren’t always pumping rock music into your ears.”
Despite Francine’s pleasant tone of voice, Lisa rolled her eyes.
Francine smiled at me and, while Lisa grabbed a backpack out of the closet and slung a strap over one shoulder, explained, “Lisa here is off on a sleep-over before her best friend leaves town for three weeks.”
Lisa shrugged off her mother’s attempt to hug her, muttering, “You don’t need to tell the whole world my private business, Mom.”
“I’m only mentioning it because, at some point soon, the three of us need to sit down together and discuss what we want done with your bedroom.”
“Jeez! I already told you! I want the tower room as my bedroom! If I can’t have that, you might as well do whatever you want to my room!”
It was now Francine’s turn to roll her eyes in response to her daughter’s words. In a huff, Lisa proceeded to step into a pair of black flip-flops on the closet floor.
“We noticed your Halloween costume, by the way, dear.”
“What costume?”
“This skeleton.” Francine removed the costume on its hanger to show Lisa.
Lisa clicked her tongue and replied in a voice rancid with disdain, “That’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t mine. It’s six sizes too small, for one thing.”
Francine examined the tag inside the costume neckline as she stashed it back in the closet and added, “It must be one of your friend’s costumes, then.”
“Nope. Not possible. I’d’ve remembered. Bet it’s Abby’s.”
“Lisa!” her mother admonished.
“Abby’s a ghost,” Lisa explained, one hand on her hip, which was jutted out in my general direction. “Our house has been haunted ever since a teenage girl jumped off the roof fifty years ago. Abby lives in the room that you’re remodeling. And, I can tell you right now, she is not going to approve of the way you plan to destroy her bedroom.”
“Lisa! That’s enough!”
Whether Lisa felt the same way about me or not, I liked her immensely and understood her frustration at losing out on her favorite space. I smiled at her and said, “Then we’ll just have to put all our heads together to come up with a fabulous room that we all approve of.”
“Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen.” She made a derisive noise and returned her headphones to her ears. “I gotta go, Mom. We’re riding our bikes and meeting halfway.”
“But . . . it’s pouring outside.”
“I know,” Lisa said. “That’s why we’re riding our bikes.” Lisa headed out the door, letting the screen door slam in her wake.
“Wait!” Francine followed her out to the stoop. Lisa was rolling a bike across the lawn that must have been leaning upright against the west side of the house. “You shouldn’t be wearing sandals while you’re riding your bike. And take your headphones off!”
The flip-flops stayed put, but Francine managed to pantomime the removal of her headphones and, although Lisa grumbled something to herself in the process, she pushed the headphones down to her neck. Francine sighed and watched her daughter, holding up a hand and calling, “See you tomorrow,” as Lisa rode off.
Francine shut the door. “Sorry about that, Erin. Lisa’s social skills have been taking a nosedive, ever since her father’s and my divorce.”
“Oh, hey, it’s truly not a problem. Lisa’s a total sweetheart most of the time. My half sister’s roughly Lisa’s age, and she’s equally moody.” The fact that I rarely got the chance to see my sister, who lived in California with my semi-estranged father, brought a lump to my throat.
Again Francine rolled her eyes. “I’m just hoping she grows out of this soon.”
I decided to give the matter of last night’s nocturnal visit one last mention. If Willow was climbing up the tower on a lark to fool people into thinking she was a ghost, Francine might want to reconsider hiring her as Lisa’s baby-sitter. “It’s funny that Lisa happened to mention Abby. Last night when I saw someone on—”
Francine guffawed, interrupting me. “Oh, heavens! Is this about the ‘prowler’ you think you saw? Erin, you don’t actually believe that ghost nonsense, do you?”
“No, of course not. I was going to suggest that Willow McAndrews might be doing this as a practical joke, making people think that they’d seen Abby.”
Her jaw dropped. “What possible reason would Willow have to pull something like that? Honestly, Erin! You must have been dreaming last night. That’s all.” She spread her arms for dramatic effect. “That’s the only rational explanation.”
Truth be told, I’d rather believe that I saw a ghost than worry that I was losing my mind. Which is what it would take for me to be unable to distinguish my dreams from reality. I forced a smile as I searched her green eyes, curious as to why she was so resolute; from her second-floor bedroom she wouldn’t necessarily have heard someone on the tower roof.
The doorbell rang. Francine shook her head and chuckled. “Watch. This’ll be Lisa’s friend. They’ll have taken different routes and missed each other.”
She swung the door open, but it was Hillary Durst who’d rung the bell. Hillary, a real estate agent who ran the historic homes tour, was in her late thirties, plump but attractive, with dark brown hair and eyes. She wore one of her customary pastel skirt-suits and her ever-present broad smile.
“Come in, Hillary.”
“Brrr,” she exclaimed to Francine. “Goodness! It’s raining cats and dogs out there!” She craned her neck a little to smile at me. “Hello, Erin. I spotted you on the sidewalk a minute ago and hoped you’d be here.”
“Hi, Hillary.” I couldn’t help but return her smile. The woman was always so upbeat that anything else would feel like scowling at a puppy. Which reminded me: should I admit that I caused her dog to bark at one in the morning?
She touched Francine’s arm. “Did you hear any strange noises last night, Francine? Coming from the tower room, maybe?”
“Oh, no!” Putting her hands on her hips to emulate her daughter, she clicked her tongue. “You, too?”
“Pardon?”
“Erin told me on the phone this morning that she thought she saw someone on my roof.”
“Oh! Oh!” Hillary was actually bouncing up and down as she turned away from Francine to look at me. She’d once told me she was a former cheer-leader, and right now it was easy to envision her with pom-poms. “This is so exciting! I knew you and Audrey would have had a good view. Did you see her?”
“The girl on the roof, you mean?”
Hillary giggled and put a hand to her chest. “Oh, thank goodness! Someone other than just me saw her! Did you show Audrey, too, by any chance?”
“No, I didn’t want to wake her, but—”
“This is amazing!” In her excitement, Hillary grabbed Francine’s wrist. “We’ll be able to sell twice as many tickets now, once the word gets out.”
“What word?” Francine asked, in no way sharing Hillary’s perky attitude.
FALSE PREMISES
A Dell Book / July 2005
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Leslie Caine
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN : 978-0-307-42291-0
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