“Terrence Griffin the Third is what’s wrong,” she said, then saw Caleb and nearly spilled the beer as she set it down. She stared at him.
“I saw Caleb sitting all by himself at the bar and asked him to join us,” Caroline said.
As if jolted into remembering her manners, Sarah quickly said, “How nice. Nice to see you again, Caleb.”
He could tell from her body language that she didn’t think it was nice at all, but that was okay. He was making points with Caroline, and maybe even the wary Renee. Will had accepted him when they’d first met, but maybe that was only professional courtesy.
“Who is Terrence Griffin the Third?” Caleb asked when no one else said anything.
She shrugged.
“Sarah, seriously, what happened? Who is this guy?” Caroline asked.
“A very, very old man,” Will answered for Sarah.
She turned to stare at him, frowning.
“You know him?” she asked.
“Yes, and you do, too—in a way,” Will answered. “Twenty years ago, we ran through his yard and got in trouble for it. That wall in front of his place isn’t historic—he built it to keep kids out. The guy was ancient, must’ve been eighty, at least. A cranky old hermit. What brought him up now? Were his bones in your walls?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t even remember whatever incident you’re talking about.”
“So you guys were the evil hellions torturing your poor old neighbors?” Renee said.
“Oh, yeah, whoopee. We trespassed,” Sarah said, shaking her head. “It couldn’t have been that bad. I don’t remember it—or him.”
“So what about Mr. Griffin?” Caleb prompted.
“He can’t still be living,” Will said.
“He is. He wandered into my house,” Sarah said.
“What? Impossible—he has to be dead. He was older than time twenty years ago,” Will told her.
“He’s one hundred and two,” Sarah said.
“And off his rocker, I’ll bet,” Will said. “You might not remember what happened, but I do. I was grounded for a week when he called my mother. Just for running through his yard!” He snorted indignantly.
“Why are you so bothered by seeing him tonight?” Caroline asked.
“I’d like to know how the hell he got into your house,” Caleb added.
Sarah looked at him, the silver in her eyes shimmering like mercury. “I just stopped by the house to see if anyone was still working, and they weren’t. I was on my way back out when he walked in.”
“You didn’t lock the door?” Will demanded.
“Sarah!” Caroline said.
“Please, you should know better,” Barry told her.
“Oh, come on. Don’t start on me!” Sarah protested, turning to stare at Caleb. It was obvious in the way she looked at him that she thought this was all his fault for asking how the man had gotten into the house.
Well, she might be pissed, but too bad. He was glad that he had spoken. With this much pressure from her friends, she wasn’t likely to make the mistake again.
But it sure as hell wasn’t going to help him any in his quest to get to know her better.
“What did the man say?” he asked quickly. Maybe if he shifted the conversation’s focus, it would improve his position with her.
She hesitated briefly, then shrugged. “He said that my house is evil, that it’s haunted. He’s convinced that it…did something to his daughter back in the nineteen twenties.”
“He thinks the house did something to her?” Will asked, confused.
“What? Does he think your house eats people or something?” Renee asked, bewildered.
“No, no. I feel sorry for the man, actually. His daughter was on her way to my house to meet a friend—a mutual friend of one of the Brennan girls, the people who were living there then—and she disappeared,” Sarah explained.
She had finished off Caroline’s beer. Caroline picked up her empty glass and studied it sadly.
Caleb turned around and motioned to the waitress, making a circle in the air to indicate a round of drinks for the table. She nodded.
“Poor man,” Caroline said. “Imagine, living all those years—and never knowing what happened to your kid.”
“What if her bones were in the walls?” Sarah said.
“What?” Will demanded, grimacing.
“We don’t know anything yet, really,” Sarah told him. “Maybe his daughter was killed and put into the walls eighty years ago.”
Caleb leaned forward. “Floby thought the bodies were all from around the same time period, back around the Civil War,” he told her.
“I hope he’s right,” Sarah murmured.
The drinks came. When the waitress set a beer in front of Sarah, she frowned, as if wondering how it had gotten there. Then she shrugged and drank.
“Here’s the thing,” Renee said. “You really shouldn’t go back to that place.”
“That place has my life savings invested in it,” Sarah said.