I ignored Nola’s eye roll as I hurried past her. But as I headed up the stairs, I paused, seeing in my mind’s eye the hideous face of the coffin doll and Suzy Dorf’s article, one line seeming to flash in my brain with neon lights: an unnamed source has told me that there are more secrets hidden there. Who could that be? And how could they know what secrets might still be waiting to be unearthed? I clenched the handrail, then gritted my teeth with determination as I continued to climb the stairs. I didn’t care. The Ark of the Covenant could have been hiding in my back garden and I simply wouldn’t have cared.
I’d promised to help my friend Veronica find out who had killed her sister, Adrienne, more than twenty years ago. But then I was done. Besides the emotional well-being of our children during our separation, there was only one thing I cared about. Getting Jack back. The restless dead and their footsteps in the snow would have to find someone else to haunt.
CHAPTER 2
Lindsey’s parents, Veronica and Michael, picked us up in their SUV. It wasn’t a long walk to the College of Charleston campus—a positive or negative, depending on who was asked—but the streets were still slushy.
Alston sat in the rear third row with Lindsey, so Nola and I slid into the middle row. After greeting everyone, I asked, “Where are Cecily and Cal?”
“Daddy’s sick, so my mom’s staying home with him.” Alston grinned. “We figured with you and your spreadsheet, they won’t miss anything.”
I barely heard her, as I was too busy trying to think of a casual way to ask about Jack, something that made me seem interested without sounding pathetic. I focused on buckling my seat belt while Veronica turned around from the front seat. As if reading my mind, she said, “Jack’s meeting us there.” She smiled reassuringly and patted my knee before facing forward again.
“It’s good to see you, Melanie,” Michael said, glancing at me from the driver’s seat. “I wasn’t aware this was a dress-up event, or I would have worn my Sunday best, too.”
I looked down as if to remind myself what I’d put on fifteen minutes before. “Oh, this?” I said, referring to the slim-fitting red cashmere dress with a low scoop neckline and matching jacket. “It’s just an old thing I pulled from the back of my closet. Nothing fancy.”
Nola snorted, no doubt recalling the piles of discarded outfits strewn around my bedroom with sleeves akimbo like plague victims.
“How are you?” I asked, trying to redirect the conversation. I was also trying to be pleasant. I was friends with his wife, Veronica, but I’d never felt the warm and fuzzies with Michael. Probably due to the fact that he was adamantly opposed to his wife’s so-called obsession with her sister’s murder. He claimed it had reached an unhealthy level, and he was now leading the process of putting their old Victorian house on Queen Street up for sale so they could all move on. The house had been Veronica and Adrienne’s childhood home, and it remained full of memories and relics of the two sisters. And the spirit of one of them who wasn’t ready to head into the light.
Michael pulled out onto Tradd Street. “Doing well. Just tired of all the workmen your friend Sophie keeps sending to fix things in the house that I wasn’t even aware were broken. If she weren’t a respected professional and your friend, I’d say she was purposely trying to delay us putting the house on the market.”
I saw Veronica’s shoulders stiffen, because we both knew that was exactly what Sophie was trying to do—delay the sale until I’d figured out why Adrienne was still there and what she needed to tell us about what had happened to her.
“Sophie’s very methodical. I mean, look at me. I’ve been renovating my house on Tradd Street since I inherited it. Doing it right takes time.” I almost bit my tongue, having many times during the restoration process admitted that the house would make a spectacular bonfire.
“That’s not helping, Melanie,” he said, offering a conciliatory grin in the rearview mirror.
I smiled back, but I knew it lacked sincerity.
We found parking after circling for a solid ten minutes, and I found myself wishing Jack were with us if only because he had the magic touch with downtown Charleston parking. He had only to drive down a street and a parking spot would magically appear exactly where he needed it.
Just the thought of Jack made me teary-eyed and I turned my face toward the window so nobody would see. It was ridiculous, really. I was a mother of three and a successful professional woman. I’d even faced some very scary ghosts and lived to tell about it. I had no reason to believe that I couldn’t get through Jack’s departure with grace, dignity, and the courage to believe that our separation was temporary. And with the sure knowledge that I could figure out how to get him back. Yet I still woke up each day with the urge to stay in bed, curl into a ball, and cry until Jack took pity on me and returned to me.
We left the car, then walked down George Street toward Porter’s Lodge. The small Classical Revival building resembled a Roman triumphal arch and served as the actual entrance to the campus, according to the thorough research I’d done online the night before. It sat at the bottom of the bucolic Cistern Yard and in front of the stately and columned Randolph Hall, site of the spring graduation ceremony that involved white dresses, long-stemmed red roses, and white dinner jackets with red rose boutonnieres instead of caps and gowns. Alston had been talking nonstop about it during the entire car ride, making me wonder if she’d thought about what she’d have to actually study and achieve at the college before she got to that point.
I strolled casually, trying not to think about seeing Jack for the first time in almost four weeks. Or that I hadn’t a clue as to what I was supposed to say to him. If I could have traded in my ability to talk to the dead for knowing how to talk to Jack instead, I would have. Although I still couldn’t convince myself that I could have done things any differently. And maybe, as a niggling thought kept reminding me, that was the crux of the problem.