“But...I was right there.”
“Get some sleep,” he ordered. “I’m going to.”
She nodded. “Use the guest room.”
“I’ll take the sofa in the parlor.”
“It’s an antique, horribly uncomfortable.”
Shaking his head, he smiled at her. “I’ll be fine down here.”
“Don’t leave, please, without waking me.”
“I won’t.”
She trudged up the stairs, Rollo trailing dutifully behind. The dog stopped to look at Aidan and whined.
“Hey, sleep down here with Aidan if you want. I’m way too tired to be offended,” Mo told him, patting his head.
But Rollo was loyal to his mistress and followed her up.
Aidan leaned back on the sofa. He believed that Richard had been betrayed by someone he considered a close confidant.
Somehow, it all had to do with the Woman in White, either Lizzie Hampton or her daughter, and the fact that Richard Highsmith could legitimately claim to be a descendant of Major John Andre.
Aidan wondered whether he was right about J. J. Appleby being Richard Highsmith’s son.
He felt a moment of doubt, afraid that his theories were nonsense, and that he was focusing on the wrong direction.
But it was more than possible that at some point in his life, Richard had indulged in an affair.
And it was possible that he’d fathered a child with Wendy Appleby. They could have met in New York. Maybe Richard had talked about his home in Sleepy Hollow and that might’ve made Wendy think of this area when she left New York City. By all accounts, her life in recent years had been wrapped up in her son, and she’d shown little interest in dating. Of course, working at Mystic Magic had given her a reason to dislike men in general, since she’d usually seen them only when they had one thing on their minds.
But now...
Another murder. And while Sondra was being killed and Wendy Appleby’s house ransacked, all five of their major suspects had been under surveillance.
He was just too tired. He let his eyes close and drifted off to sleep.
*
It felt good to lie down. Mo hadn’t realized how physically exhausted she was until then. And when she lay there, listening to Rollo settle on the floor by her side, she reveled in the comfort of her bed. And the security of having an agent sleeping downstairs with a gun nearby. She could sleep in peace. Except that she couldn’t really feel a sense of peace. What had happened tonight was so horrible, she couldn’t even grasp it.
Sondra was dead. The thought struck like a dull thud in her temples.
How? Why?
Had she been killed just to divert suspicion from the woman who’d been arrested and arraigned and those who were with her? She didn’t know that much about the law, but she assumed they’d dismiss the charges against Jillian Durfey now.
Had Sondra been nothing but a token kill? No, killing her had been too complex for that. Just as someone had known the convention hall and the graveyards, he or she knew the Haunted Mausoleum.
Mo tossed and turned and finally punched her pillows and told herself she was all right. Aidan was down in her parlor; Rollo was at her side.
She finally fell asleep. And when she did, she was in the dark forest again, the forest where Ichabod Crane had traveled and feared the headless horseman. She could smell the damp earth, feel the breeze and listen while the leaves rustled in the trees. Night creatures scampered; the light of the moon made skeletons of tree limbs.
And there was someone behind her.
She remembered the story. All she had to do was cross the bridge.
There was some kind of light before her on that bridge. In that light, she could see Aidan. He wasn’t standing on the new bridge, not the modern structure that existed today. This one was wooden. It was old, and there was nothing else around it, nothing but the light and Aidan—waiting for her.
She could hear a rustling behind her...
Feel a pounding against the earth.
The horseman was coming, coming for her.
Aidan seemed to be trying to cross the bridge. But each time he tried, something seemed to throw him back.
Then she could feel hot breath on the back of her neck.
The hot breath of the horseman’s stallion. He was so close.
“Aidan!” She called his name. He could reach her, she knew he could reach her, if only he’d let himself. Yet his eyes touched hers with misery and desperation and...
“Mo!”
She woke. Not instantly, she felt groggy. She was no longer in the forest. She was in her own bed, safe in her own house.
She blinked into the darkness, which was relieved only by a glimmer of light from the hallway. The whisper that had awakened her was soft.
She saw Candy there, accompanied by Colonel Daniel Parker. Rollo had gotten to his feet, wagging his tail as if he recognized that they had trusted visitors.
“What is it?” Mo asked.