The girl had never written in it again.
She stood up, stretching. Every muscle in her body hurt; without even noticing, she had huddled into a tight, defensive ball while reading. She didn’t feel the chill anymore, though. Instead she felt angry that a father could be so cruel to his daughter and allow his housekeeper to be even worse. And yet, if perhaps that father had been a serial killer, as the historical record seemed to imply, perhaps she had been lucky simply to have survived.
And yet, had she survived? Those blank pages might be telling.
Vicky came into the room. “Well?”
“Fascinating—and awful. I think you have to read this yourself. It looks like there was a serial killer in the city during the Civil War.”
“So the local hero was a killer?” Vicky asked. “Cato MacTavish was a war hero, but his fiancée did disappear mysteriously, and he was the last person known to have seen her. And there were other girls who went missing, too. In fact, there were rumors about Cato at the time, so it’s no wonder he left town when he did.”
“I don’t think Cato MacTavish was the killer,” Sarah told Vicky. “The timeline doesn’t make sense, because girls kept disappearing while he was away fighting, and after he abandoned the house and disappeared. Oh, people said he was still around. But what—living in trees? You have to read the journal. Brennan’s daughter says some pretty wild stuff about her father and a Sergeant Lee who was sheriff here during the war.”
“Maybe you could do an article on it, Sarah. You have a master’s in history, and you own the house the Brennans owned back then.”
“Good idea. The whole thing is terrifying but fascinating.”
“Cool,” Vicky said, reaching for the journal. “Sorry, but I have to lock up now.”
“No problem. Thanks, Vicky.”
She had intended to head straight for Hunky Harry’s when she finished at the library, but for some reason she found herself walking home first and staring up at her house.
So little had changed. The bushes where Nellie Brennan had hidden were still there. The driveway was much as it would have been all those years ago.
And that driveway was empty now, which meant no one was inside. It was just after five, though, so that didn’t mean everyone was done and she could get started on her renovations again. She hesitated, then let herself into the carriage house and called Tim Jamison, as she’d promised Gary she would.
When he picked up, Tim sounded distracted. The police and M.E. were finished, he said, and there was no evidence of any more bodies, but she needed to call the professor from the university to make sure he was done, too. He gave her a number.
She called Dr. Manning, who was friendly and appreciative, expressing his gratitude that she had let the university handle the find. He assured her that they were currently looking into all the documents in the university collection, trying to solve the riddle of who had been responsible for walling up the bodies. As far as he was concerned, her house was her own again, though he hoped to stay in touch as more information came to light.
She agreed to meet him the following week for lunch, and assured him that the university was more than welcome to come back.
After she got off the phone, she went and stood staring up at the front of her house again.
Houses weren’t evil.
Determinedly, she walked up to the porch, then let herself in. It was her house.
Her dream house.
Inside, she started turning on lights; it wasn’t dark yet, but it was late enough in the afternoon that heavy shadows were starting to fill the place. She decided that she would call Gary Morton in the morning and get him to come back in and resume working. She could get her plans back on track.
She walked through the house and saw that, once again, everything had been left ship-shape. Except, of course, for the gaping hole in the wall. But that was all right. Dry wall was easy. Okay, not for her, maybe, but for Gary, dry wall was a piece of cake.
She went to the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator for a cold can of soda. She looked around the room, curious to see whether she would feel anything. Fear. Discomfort. Anything. She smiled after a minute. It was a house, made up of building materials and the imagination of an architect.
With her soda in hand, she walked up the stairs to her bedroom.
She was moving back in tonight. Taking possession again. This was her house. And everything would be okay, because…
Caleb would be staying there with her. At least, she was pretty sure he would be.
She jumped when she heard something, a bang from downstairs. She tensed, her heart thundering. What the hell?
Had the sound come from inside the house—or outside?
Another question: had she remembered to lock the door?