“I’m sure. Please. I’ll move faster if you aren’t all waiting for me, honestly.”
Will gave her a careful kiss on the forehead—despite the muck and spiderwebs, and then the others all headed for the door, but not before Renee looked back one last time and shook her head. “You need to get out of this house. I mean, think about all those horror movies and how everyone watching sits there and thinks, ‘You stupid idiot! Get out of the house.’”
And then they left, with Renee closing the front door in her wake.
Silence descended. A silence Caleb broke when he asked, “What really happened?”
“I told you what happened,” Sarah said. “Except that…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “I tried the door. I could swear it was locked.”
“What were you doing in the basement in the first place?” he demanded.
“I…I thought that someone was in the house, maybe Gary. The basement door was open, and I saw a light on down there, and thought—”
“Was Gary’s truck in the yard?” Caleb asked her.
“No.”
“But you decided he might be down there anyway?”
“I thought I’d heard something, but I guess the sound came from the street. Anyway, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. The lightbulb blew and I thought I was locked in, but then I saw light coming from a corner of the basement and realized that by climbing up on some old crates I could reach the screen. And it’s so old…I just pushed my way through. I didn’t realize the basement was so dirty. It’s probably a good thing the bulb burned out…. I didn’t see all the spiders.”
He didn’t believe her. Or rather, he was sure there was more. But he knew that pushing her at this moment wouldn’t get him anywhere.
Quickly changing the subject, she said suddenly, “You won’t believe how much I found out today. I was reading a journal written by Nellie Brennan. She thought her father was a monster, and there was a murderer killing women here during the Civil War. A lot of people believed it was your ancestor, Cato MacTavish, but I think that was because the Yankees had control of the town and he was a Reb, so they wanted to believe he’d done it. I found another memoir that mentioned Brennan and this place, and she thought Brennan was nasty, too—him and his housekeeper, Martha Tyler. She was supposedly some kind of a witch. Here’s the thing—life hasn’t changed much. We still believe rumors with no logic, when we want to.”
“Martha Tyler is a medium,” Caleb told her.
“What?”
“Before she disappeared, Winona Hart spoke to a woman at the beach who claimed to be a medium from Cassadaga named Martha Tyler. So I found a Martha Tyler in Cassadaga, and went out to see her,” Caleb said.
“And?”
“The real Martha Tyler is a charming old woman who probably weighs eighty pounds on a fat day,” he said. “But she knew about the housekeeper here, because people teased her about her name when she first moved to Cassadaga,” he said, then looked thoughtful for a moment. “You know, I don’t really believe a house can have a personality,” he said, “but maybe it’s not such a great idea for you to stay here.”
She shook her head adamantly. “No. I think it’s important for me to stay here. I think we’re closer to the past here, that we may find a clue here—or even more fully realize something we already know here.”
She stared at him determinedly. He stared back at her.
“I own the place, and I’m staying,” she said firmly.
He let out a sigh of exasperation.
“What?” she asked.
“Well, I’m sure as hell not letting you stay alone,” he told her.
She smiled, still looking somewhat tremulous. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that,” she told him.
“All you ever had to do was ask,” he said.
“Okay, then,” she said awkwardly. “I’m asking. And now I’m going to shower and change, so we can go to dinner and…”
“And what?” he asked.
“Come back, and talk,” she finished lamely.
He was tempted to tell her that he wanted to do a lot more than talk.
Except she hadn’t told him the truth yet—not the whole truth. There was more to her story, and he wanted to hear it—needed to hear it—before he got in any deeper with her.
“I’ll be back down in ten minutes,” she promised, and headed for the stairs.
He ached to follow her, but he managed to wait until she reached the top of the stairs before he followed.
People were waiting for them, he reminded himself.
Too bad. They would have to wait.
The bathroom door was ajar.
Maybe she had hoped that he would come.
He joined her in the shower just after she’d sluiced away the spiderwebs and the mud.
She had just poured shampoo on her hair, and he took over, massaging her scalp and working up a lather. She leaned back against him, and when he felt her trembling, he took her into his arms.
“Sarah…”