Sabine followed Adelaide into a room several doors down from Beau. He probably wasn’t going to like the distance between them, but there was really little she could do. “It looks fine, Adelaide. Thank you.”
“Would you like for me to get you some hot chocolate, Ms. Sabine? I figured we could all do with a little warm milk and chocolate.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
The housekeeper nodded and started to leave the room.
It’s now or never. “Adelaide, wait!” Sabine grabbed the woman’s arm and closed her eyes. “The spirits are talking. They said your name.”
Sabine felt the woman stiffen and opened her eyes to see if she was up for the game. Adelaide stared back at her, eyes wide as saucers. “The spirits said my name?” Adelaide asked. “Why would they do that? I’m nobody.”
Sabine shook her head. “You believe, Adelaide. The spirits are highly selective about who they speak to. It’s an honor.” Sabine waved one hand in the air, signaling Helena to get to work.
A dim glow began to form next to the bed and Adelaide grabbed Sabine’s hand in hers and squeezed so hard Sabine was certain she’d broken something. “Look at that,” Adelaide whispered. “You didn’t say they’d show themselves, too.”
Sabine shook her head. “They rarely materialize. I think it takes a lot of energy. This must be very important.”
Adelaide nodded but never took her eyes off the expanding light. In the center of the light, two people began to come into shape, and Sabine had to hold herself back from giving Helena a high five. The ghost had chosen William’s mother and father to create. Who better to get Adelaide to part with her secrets than the people she’d served the longest?
“Oh, my Lord,” Adelaide said as the figures sharpened.
Sabine leaned toward Adelaide and whispered. “I think they want to ask you something.”
“Anything,” Adelaide said, “they can ask me anything. Aren’t they beautiful? Just like in the picture over the fireplace.”
“No shit,” Helena grumbled and Sabine cut her eyes at the ghost. Helena huffed once and turned her concentration back to the apparition she was creating.
“I can hear her,” Sabine said. “She’s saying your name, Adelaide.” Sabine closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, then looked at Adelaide. “She wants to know why.”
“Why, what?” Adelaide asked.
Sabine shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s just saying ‘why, Adelaide, why?’ ”
Adelaide dropped Sabine’s hand and put her hand over her mouth. “Oh no! I’m so sorry, madam. I’m so sorry, but I swear I didn’t know. Not until a long time had passed.”
The possible scenarios raced through Sabine’s mind, but she couldn’t hit on one. She made the split-second decision to go vague again. “She wants to know why you didn’t tell anyone when you found out.”
“I wanted to,” Adelaide cried. “Oh, I wanted to so bad, but Catherine told me that no one would believe me, and if I said anything, she’d just say I did it. That I hated you and wanted you gone. But I swear I had nothing to do with the car wreck.” Adelaide let out an anguished cry. “Catherine said no one would take the word of a pagan housekeeper over the lady of the estate. And there was the babies. What would have happened to Frances and Adam? And my brother in that nursing home in New Orleans? Catherine was paying for it all. What would have happened to him? Oh, madam, please forgive me, I beg you.”
Sabine’s mind whirled with every statement Adelaide made. Surely she’d gotten it wrong. Adelaide couldn’t possibly be saying that Catherine had killed William’s parents. What was the point? William was going to inherit everything. She would never have wanted for anything. Sabine searched her mind for the next question to ask, but before she could formulate the words, the door to her room flew open and Beau hurried inside.
“Shit!” Helena griped as she lost concentration and the apparition vanished.
“No!” Adelaide cried. “Don’t go, madam. I’m sorry. I’ll make it right. I swear to you.”
Beau barely glanced at the housekeeper. “Thank God you’re all right,” he said to Sabine. “When I was coming back from the car, I saw Frances leave the house. She was carrying a shovel.”
“Oh, no,” Adelaide said, her face filled with fear. “I have to stop her. Her mind is so fragile. I can’t let her do it again.” Adelaide rushed out of the room, and they could hear her footsteps pounding down the hall. Sabine glanced at Beau and they ran out of the room in pursuit of the housekeeper.
“This way,” Beau yelled at Sabine when they reached the end of the hall. “This is where Frances went outside.”
The door to the sunroom stood wide open, rain pouring inside. Adelaide was nowhere in sight. Beau held the lantern out in front of them and they ran out the door and into the storm. “Which way?” Sabine yelled, straining to make herself heard over the wind.
“I don’t know,” Beau said, turning from one direction to another. “There!” He pointed to a spot in the far end of the garden. Sabine could barely make out something white before Beau grabbed her hand and pulled her with him.
The rain felt like needles on her skin and almost blinded her. Beau slowed and Sabine knew he was having as much trouble maneuvering in the storm as she was. She pulled her hand from Beau’s and held it over her eyes, hoping to get a better look ahead. Beau glanced back, then did the same, and they crept across the backyard until they were close enough to see what was happening.
Frances was digging like a madwoman around some old blackberry bushes, and Adelaide was frantically trying to get her to stop. So far, it looked like she’d gone at least two feet deep. No matter how hard Adelaide tugged, Frances kept lifting more mud from the hole she’d created. Frances’s eyes were fixed on the ground, never blinking, never wavering, despite the torrent of rain hitting her face. She didn’t seem to hear Adelaide or feel the housekeeper’s hands on her arm.
Beau handed Sabine the lantern and went to assist Adelaide. He tried to take the shovel from Frances, and Sabine saw the shift in her face. Her eyes went black as night and anger coursed through her. She screamed and tried to attack Beau with the shovel, but his hold on it was strong and she couldn’t break his grasp. She let go of the shovel and launched at his face with her hands.
Before Sabine could even take a step to help, Beau had grabbed one of Frances’s arms and twisted it behind her, then wrapped his arms around her entire body. He lifted her completely off the ground and turned toward the house. Sabine took a step toward them and stepped into the completely forgotten hole. She cried out as her ankle twisted on impact and Beau stopped short and turned around to look at her.
“I’m fine,” Sabine said as she moved her foot around, making sure she hadn’t broken anything. And then she hit something solid. She leaned over with the lantern and put her hand down in the water-filled hole, trying to locate what her foot had hit. Finally, she felt something long and hard and worked her fingers around it.
“Sabine, c’mon,” Beau yelled over the storm.
Sabine pulled her bounty from the water, and Frances screamed. Then Sabine took a good look at what she held: a human bone.
Sabine flung it to the ground and jumped out of the hole. Frances thrashed about, screaming like a banshee, and Beau struggled to maintain his grasp. Adelaide instantly dropped to her knees, praying to God Almighty to forgive her.
“Go!” Sabine yelled to Beau, and he started toward the house, struggling to maintain control of Frances. Sabine pulled Adelaide to her feet. “Pray later. You’ve got to help with Frances.” Adelaide nodded and hurried toward the house. Sabine grit her teeth and bent over to pick up the bone. The smooth, hard surface shouldn’t have caused so much emotion, but it was knowing what that surface was that made Sabine almost wretch.
She ran to the house and into the sunroom after Adelaide, then followed the housekeeper down the hall and into Frances’s room, where Beau was trying to keep the woman restrained on her bed. She was soaking wet, and the white gown clung to her scrawny body. Her hair stuck to her face, the silver almost translucent in the lantern light. She turned toward Sabine and Adelaide as they entered the room, but she looked right through them, her eyes wild with fright.
Sabine hid the bone behind her back, certain that Frances would launch off again if she saw it. Adelaide rushed over to the bed and rubbed Frances’s head as if petting a dog. “Now, now, child,” Adelaide said, “you’re going to be fine. It was just a scare is all. You don’t like storms, remember? It’s just the storm.”
Frances seemed to calm a bit at Adelaide’s words and slumped back on the bed. Adelaide picked up a cup of water that was sitting on the nightstand and lifted it to Frances’s mouth. “You just need to drink a little water and relax, okay, child? You’ll feel a lot better once you’ve had your water.”
Beau released his hold on Frances and stepped back from the bed. They watched as Frances took one sip and then another, then quietly drifted off in what appeared to be a restful sleep. “Drugs?” Beau asked.
Adelaide nodded. “She’d had some of the water before she went outside, which is why it kicked in so fast now. But she was so worked up earlier that her body was still moving even though her mind was shutting down. Poor thing. She’s always been afraid of storms.”
Sabine held the bone out to Adelaide. “Maybe this has something to do with it.”
Adelaide nodded. “I thought she’d forgotten, but many years ago it rained so hard and for so long that one of the bones washed up from the ground. Frances ran out in the storm in a fit and saw it. I dragged her away, but it was too late. Ever since then, she’s always been afraid when it rains. That’s why I drugged her as soon as I heard the storm moving in.”
“Who is…was this?” Sabine asked. “And why are they buried in the backyard? Don’t lie to me, Adelaide. I know this is human.”
Adelaide nodded and looked at the floor, her face full of shame.
Sabine waited a couple of seconds for a response, but when none was forthcoming, she pressed again. “You as much as admitted to me earlier that Catherine had killed William’s parents. There’s no way they were buried in the backyard, so this is someone else. Who, Adelaide? Who else did Catherine kill?”
“Lloyd,” Beau said. “It has to be. He came home, and the family couldn’t risk hiding him so they took the easy way out.”
Adelaide lifted her eyes to Beau’s. “It weren’t that simple. Catherine killing the elder Fortescues was all part of her plan.”
“Her plan to what?” Beau asked.
Sabine stared at Adelaide, and suddenly it hit her. “Her plan to marry Lloyd and still inherit everything.”