“You need to see this page, Grant. Gabriella names Maggie in it. We were right about Joy’s grandmother. She did know who Gabriella was.” Kaine landed at the bottom of the stairs and lifted her eyes. That was weird. Her gaze swept the entryway. She was certain she’d heard Grant enter, but the door was left open. She’d disarmed the alarm system when they arrived, so that didn’t help calm the nagging sense of wariness that drifted over her.
Kaine went to the open front door and looked around on the porch and the yard. Grant’s pickup truck was there, the front seat empty. Fear pinged in Kaine’s mind. She scanned the tree line. Stepping out onto the porch, she caught a flash along the side of the house. The sight of the white Suburban sent panic through her. The sun’s reflection off the windshield blinded Kaine.
“Grant?” Kaine’s voice wobbled as she yelled for him. She spun on her heel, sprinting for the door as she fumbled in her jeans pocket for her phone. Swiping the screen, she tapped Phone and then Grant’s name. She stopped just inside the front door when he answered.
“Grant. Where are you?” she hissed into the phone.
“I’m in the woods. Somehow Sophie got out after I left her in her kennel this morning when I had that session at the house with my client. I saw her running in the field just down Foster Hill.”
“Someone’s here, Grant.” Kaine held her hand around the mouthpiece of her phone. She canvassed the entryway. Empty. “The Suburban. It’s outside.” She rushed to the bottom of the stairs and looked up toward the second floor.
“Kaine, get outside and into my truck. Lock the doors. I’ll be right there. I have a feeling Sophie escaping my place wasn’t an accident.”
Kaine slipped on the wood floor as she spun to leave. She righted herself by grabbing hold of the banister.
“I’m going to hang up and call the cops,” Grant said.
She nodded, even though Grant couldn’t see her. The line went dead. Kaine took a step toward the front door and the safety of Grant’s truck, but movement caught her eye. She froze.
He stood in the doorway of the parlor. His overalls stretched over his shoulders and hung baggily on his thin frame.
Perplexed, Kaine had a momentary wave of relief, followed by a disturbing surge of alarm.
“Mr. Mason?”
The museum curator stepped into the foyer, his hands nonchalantly tucked in the pockets of his overalls. Oddly, the old man didn’t seem quite so fragile now or clueless.
Kaine backed up a step, putting the banister between her and the curator.
Mr. Mason sniffed and looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “This place always feels so ghostly.”
Kaine watched him warily. “Can I help you with something?” It couldn’t be coincidence that Mr. Mason drove a white Suburban, could it?
“It’s not good being alone. Is it, Miss Prescott?”
His words. She hadn’t tied the muffled, disguised voice from the phone calls to the elderly man, but the words were too coincidental to be happenstance.
“I’m not alone,” Kaine ventured.
“Oh, that’s right.” He snapped his fingers and pointed. “You have Grant. Chasing after a silly dog that somehow got loose.”
Kaine stared at him. Was this really the cute old museum curator? Even his faded blue eyes had sharpened and taken on a more savvy expression.
“Why are you here?” Kaine eyed the doorway, but she’d have to get past Mr. Mason first. While he didn’t seem remarkably threatening, she hesitated when he answered.
“You were supposed to get scared off. Silly girl. But you just kept digging.”
Kaine blinked. It was like watching a really bad television crime show.
“You called me, didn’t you? You’re the one.”
Mr. Mason crossed the room and looked out the window. He spoke into the glass. “I did. But you don’t take hints very well. So, now I’m here, with everything blown wide open. I can’t hide any of it anymore, thanks to you.”
Hide what? Kaine swallowed hard. Foster Hill’s secrets? Its history? Or something more?
Mr. Mason scratched the spot on his head that was covered by wisps of gray hair. He furrowed his brows as if genuinely confused—or totally insane. “I’m just so disappointed in you. In everything. All these years, and it comes to this. Me. You. Foster Hill House. The tail end of a long line of family.”
Now he was downright chilling. Kaine took a step, but he stiffened, his eyes boring into her. She tried a different approach. “How’d you get my phone numbers?” Kaine peered over his shoulder and out the window. Where was Grant? Where were the police?
Mr. Mason smiled as he hooked his thumbs on his overall straps. “The first time you left your phone on the table at the museum, and it wasn’t hard to get the number off it when you weren’t paying attention. You really should set a passcode on your phone.”
“And the second phone number?” Kaine was stalling.
“My daughter-in-law. She likes to help me sometimes. It’s a nice feeling, I suppose, helping out a pathetic old man.”
Kaine scowled. He was a stellar actor. “You manipulated her. She faked a dead car battery and got in my good graces just to use my cellphone and steal the number? She’s okay with that?”
Mr. Mason shrugged. “She knows what it means to protect family.”
Kaine shifted, hoping she could edge her way to the front door. “And Ivy’s quilt? You painted Danny’s name on the house and left the quilt piece here and on my windshield. How did you get in my motel room?”
“Easy,” he laughed. “You left your motel key with your phone on the table at the museum. It was simple enough to distract you from noticing as I slipped it from you.”
Kaine chided herself for being so sloppy. There was something in Mr. Mason’s eyes that cautioned her not to respond.
“Your husband was murdered. Funny how much you can find about another person on the internet.”
Kaine was taken aback. With the archaic system at the museum, she hadn’t pictured Mr. Mason searching the internet, knowing how to find his way around on a computer. Or maybe it had all been part of his act, part of his plan. Unassuming old Mr. Mason with his manila folders and haphazard methods of historical preservation. It was the perfect way to rid a town of its history.
“You researched me?” A slow anger boiled inside her.
Mr. Mason nodded, his hands still in his pockets. “I look out for Foster Hill House. They’ve tried to dump this place many times. And then all of a sudden they sell it to some girl from California? Sight unseen? Leave it to Patti to spill the beans on you. She always wanted this place, and a little background check on its buyer and she had your name. ’Course then I had to research you, and it was a pretty quick connection—if you know where to look and why.”
Kaine took a few steps to the right. She eyed the front door again, calculating the distance between Mr. Mason and escape. “Did you leave the picture of Danny upstairs to frighten me away?”
Mr. Mason pushed his wire-framed glasses up his nose again. “It seemed fitting to, seeing as you forgot what was most important to you by coming here.”