She hoped the event would draw enough attendees to put a dent in the nonprofit’s efforts to move from their unceremonious digs in the library basement. It exceeded her wildest dreams: before the decade was over, the Society purchased the elegant Conroy-Fitch mansion on Prospect Street.
These days, the nonprofit organization turns a hefty profit, even offering an as-yet unclaimed reward to anyone who can unmask the killer. The dollar amount has substantially increased with every passing year, along with the size of the crowd and media attention.
With next summer marking the twenty-fifth annual Historical Society fundraiser and the hundredth anniversary of the murders, there’s bound to be more hype than ever. People and press will be poking around the Murder Houses, invading their residents’ privacy.
“Let’s just walk through the house before you rule anything out,” Lynda tells them. “A comparable house at any other address in this neighborhood would sell for at least six figures more. I’d hate to have someone snatch this out from under you.”
The odds of that happening are slim to none. Lester, who insists on pre-approving every showing, requests that prospective buyers already live locally. Not many people fit the bill, or are willing to sign the required restrictive covenant to the sales contract stating that they’ll use the house solely as their private residence.
Annabelle and Trib passed muster and they’re here, so they might as well look.
As she steps through the massive double doors into the dim, chilly entrance hall, Annabelle realizes she’s not going to be able to get past what happened here during the summer of 1916.
Then Lynda presses an antique mother-of-pearl button on the wall. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?” she asks as they find themselves bathed in the glow of an elegant fixture suspended from a plaster medallion high overhead.
Surprisingly, it is better.
“Just look at that mosaic tile floor!” Lynda exclaims. “And the moldings on those archways! And the woodwork on the grand staircase! We haven’t seen anything like this in any of the houses we’ve looked at, have we?”
Annabelle and Trib agree that they haven’t.
As she runs her fingertips over the smooth cherry wood of the carved newel post, she envisions twelve-year-old Oliver sliding down the banister that curves above.
She can see him walking through those big doors after school, dropping his backpack on the built-in seat above the cast-iron radiator with a “Mom? I’m home.”
One by one, doors creak open. Spaces beyond brighten courtesy of wall switches that aren’t dime-a-dozen rectangular plastic levers. No, these are period contraptions with buttons or brass toggles or pull-pendants dangling from thirteen-foot ceilings. Lynda presses, turns, pulls them all, chasing shadows from the rooms even as Annabelle’s imagination strips away layers of faded velvet and brocade shrouding the tall windows. Her mind’s eye replaces Augusta’s dark, dusty furnishings with comfortable upholstery and modern electronics.
Instead of mustiness and cat pee, she smells furniture polish, clean linens, savory supper on the stove. Instead of the ticking grandfather clock, dripping faucets and Lynda’s tapping footsteps, she hears the voices she loves best, echoing through the rooms in ordinary conversation: Mom, I’m home! What’s for dinner? I’m home! How was your day? I’m home . . .
Yes, Annabelle realizes. This is it.
This, at last, is home.
About the Author
USA Today and New York Times bestseller WENDY CORSI STAUB is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels and has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband and their two children.
Learn more about Wendy at www.wendycorsistaub.com
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