“But it’s not. I don’t know how you figured it out, but it’s balanced. The tag under it—it’s a tag, I think. Game On. That’s a challenge. You got game? Come to Ryder Sports.”
Every professional inch of her relaxed and warmed.
“That’s just what I was aiming for, so if that’s what you see, it’s a good start.”
“What else have you got in mind?”
“I don’t want to change the infrastructure of the website. It’s user-friendly, but I’d like to add a gallery. Photos of regular people using Ryder gear—clothes, equipment. Like a woman on a bike, a guy swinging a golf club, kids playing basketball, that sort of thing. I have to think it through, but it could add a bang, and double as ads, since they want a full campaign. Digital, TV, in-store posters. Like whatever your game—if I stick with that tag—Ryder Sports gives you the edge.”
“You sold me.”
The dogs followed them up the curve of stairs, then settled down to munch their dog biscuits. With popcorn, Sonya and Trey sat on the leather sofa, feet on the coffee table.
After the movie, the sofa seemed the perfect place to tangle together while the dogs snoozed.
Later, in bed, they tangled again.
As she drifted off to sleep, Sonya thought if this was the wide-open sexual energy of beginnings, it really, really worked.
* * *
In the second parlor, just before three, the old grandfather clock’s pendulum began to tick.
Back and forth, back and forth as the hands on the moon-faced dial revolved.
And the clock struck three.
The first gong woke them both; the dogs leaped up and snarled.
“It’s louder.” Sonya gripped Trey’s arm. “Is it louder?”
“Than it was last night, yeah.” He rolled out of bed, then grabbed his sweatpants. “I’ll go check it out. The dogs’ll stay with you.”
“Please.” She found her clothes in the dim light of the fire. “All of us.”
“All of us then.”
When they reached the door of her sitting room, piano music drifted up.
“Just another three a.m. in the manor,” she murmured.
“It has to mean something. The time. It’s too consistent not to.” As they came down the stairs, he looked toward the portrait. “And the song. She always plays the same one.”
But when they reached the music room, it stopped.
“You saw Clover, but whoever’s playing—and I still think Astrid—either isn’t ready or can’t … I guess it’s materialize.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
They continued down the hall. The dogs stopped at the door to the second parlor and snarled again.
Sonya’s breath backed up in her lungs until she had to push it out. “The hands moved to three.” She stepped in because he did. “And it’s cold, Trey.”
Even as she spoke, the keys on the piano in the music room crashed with crazed chords. The pendulum on the clock began to sway again, and each second ticked off like a fired bullet. With the hair standing up on the back of their necks, the dogs barked frenzied warnings.
Doors flew open; doors slammed shut. The light Trey had flipped on flickered and went out.
In the dark, something brushed by her. Something so cold it burned.
“Something’s in here.” Breathless, she groped for his hand. “I felt it. It touched me.”
“Next time we bring a flashlight.”
Something hit the front door like a battering ram.
On those wild barks, the dogs flew out of the room and toward the sound.
“Come on.” Trey pulled her from the room.
“You’re going to open the door. Jesus. Listen to that wind, the waves. Look, look, it’s ice hitting the windows.”
“So, she can pull out a nor’easter.” When he reached the door, he pulled it open to a still night and a swimming moon. “But it’s an illusion. Damn good one.”
“Oh, the dogs.”
“They’re fine. She’s not out there. I think she’s done for the night. I think that’s all she’s got.”
“That was plenty.”
Because she shivered, he stepped back to put an arm around her.
“We can go to my place if you want to get out of here.”
“No. Absolutely not. She’s not going to win this, not going to chase me out of my own home. But something was in that room, Trey. I swear it touched me. Brushed by my arm.”
She shoved her sleeve up. “Look, there’s a mark.”
The pale pink mark, smaller than her palm, marked her skin just above her left elbow.
“It’s an ice burn—a mild one.”
“An ice burn?”
“Let me get the dogs in. We’ll put a warm compress on it, see how that does. It’s barely pink, and the skin’s not cracked or broken. Hold on a second.”
While he called the dogs, locked back up, she stared at the brush mark on her arm.
“It touched me.” Something … someone who’d lived and died had touched her. “It did feel like a burn, but cold.”
“Let’s do this in the kitchen. Does it hurt?”
“No. Well, a little sore, I guess. But, Trey, the lede is, it—she—touched me, and I felt it. I felt her. Just for a second. But … look. It’s already fading.”
He stopped to take a closer look. “Okay, yeah, it is. We’ll make the compress in case. But it looks like she doesn’t have as much punch as she’d like.”
“That was punch enough.” In the kitchen, Sonya dropped down on a stool. “I mean, holy shit!”
“The house is quiet now. All that didn’t last more than five minutes.” He put a shallow bowl of water in the microwave to heat it. Then poured her a glass.
She took it, drank. “Serious question. Do you ever get rattled?”
“I was a little rattled. But it’s interesting, isn’t it, that she pulled out so many of the stops to scare us.”
“Interesting.” She drank again. “There’s a word.”
“The thing is, it didn’t work.”
She shot him a look. “I was scared. Really scared.”
“But you’re still sitting here.”
After testing the water, he soaked a clean cloth, wrung it out. “You can barely see it now, but safer’s better than sorry. We’ll just hold it on there.”
“I don’t like being scared.” She muttered it. “It pissed me off.”
“Says the woman who likes horror flicks.”
“And novels. That’s a different kind of scared. I want her out of my house. If it takes finding the rings to get her the hell out of my house, I’ll find the damn rings. Somehow. The rest? I’ll give the rest interesting.”
Holding the compress against her arm with one hand, he brushed her hair back with the other. “Finding something just means looking in the right place.”
“Oh, is that all?”
Now he pressed his lips to her forehead. “We’re not going to let her win.”
When the cloth cooled, he took another look.
“It’s like it was never there. And it’s not sore, at all,” she added.
“Not much punch.” Lifting her arm, he brushed his lips where the mark had been. “Are you going to be able to sleep?”
“I hope so. And I hope she’s done for a while. I don’t want my mother going through that, then trying to haul me back to Boston.”
“I’m betting you got some of that stand-your-ground from your mother.”
When they reached the second parlor, where the light glowed again, he went in, opened the clock face.