“No. Do you?”
“Sure do. That would be Mr. Terrence Griffin the Third.”
Caleb made it back in record time. Luckily—or possibly dangerously—most people on the highway were doing at least ninety, which made it less obvious that he was pushing the speedometer toward one hundred.
He was impatient at every red light he hit as he entered the city.
As he neared the streets of Old Town, he decided to pass on checking out Hunky Harry’s or even trying to call Will again.
He headed straight for Sarah’s house on St. George.
There were no cars in the drive, so he swung in off the street practically without braking. As he threw the car into Park, he saw a Bug coming around the corner. It jerked to a halt on the street just as he jumped out of his car.
“Hey!” Will called to him, walking up with Caroline just as Barry and Renee hopped out of their car.
“You haven’t found her?” Caleb asked.
“No, we keep calling and calling, but…nothing,” Caroline said, trying again as she spoke.
Caleb headed for the porch and raced up the steps. As he got to the door, he heard Sarah’s cell phone ringing—inside.
“Sarah!”
He tried the door. It was open, and he cursed under his breath as he rushed inside.
“Sarah!” he shouted again, anxiety rising in his tone as he followed the sound of the ringing.
Her purse was on the kitchen counter, her cell phone inside it.
The others were right behind him. “Sarah!” Will shouted. He turned and headed for the stairs, then ran up them two at a time. Caroline hurried into one parlor, Renee and Barry into the other.
Caleb saw the door to the basement standing ajar. Had Sarah gone down there, hoping to find a hidden clue? He threw it open and looked down into the darkness. “Sarah!”
“What?”
He was startled when he heard her voice behind him and spun around.
She was leaning against the door frame between the kitchen and the hall.
And she was covered in mud and spiderwebs.
12
C aleb was stunned at the sight of her, but he didn’t have a chance to speak, because just then Will came tearing back down the stairs and rushed into the room.
“Sarah! Where the hell have you—” He broke off and stopped dead, just two feet away from her. He’d been about to hug her in his relief, but suddenly he seemed to notice that she was covered in filth, and it gave him pause.
“Sarah?” Caroline said, crashing into Will.
Sarah offered them all a weak smile. “Hi, guys.”
Caleb had managed to tamp down his own sense of sheer panic by then and stepped back to lean against the refrigerator. “What happened to you?” he asked finally.
Renee and Barry appeared just then and stopped in silence, Renee’s mouth agape.
“I somehow managed to lock myself in the basement. I know, it’s idiotic,” Sarah said.
“And you just got out now?” Caleb asked. “People have been call—”
“How did you get out?” Renee asked, cutting across him.
“There’s a screen window, just at ground level,” Sarah said. “I never knew about it—there’s a big hibiscus growing right in front of it. There’s dirt all piled up in front of it, too—I don’t think anyone has noticed it for years.”
“Did you just get out?” Caleb asked again.
She turned her silver gaze to him and smiled, a bit embarrassed. “Yes.”
“Sarah,” he told her, “the door to the basement wasn’t locked. It was open when I got in here. And so was your front door.”
“Oh, Lord, I could have sworn I locked it,” she said.
He saw that she was trembling, even though she was trying to be cool and slough off the experience as if it had been nothing.
But he could tell that she was badly shaken.
“Oh, my God, we were so worried. We’ve been calling you and calling you,” Caroline said.“I’m sorry, but I’m also very grateful that you were so concerned,” Sarah said.
“Well, a lot of scary shit has been going down, and when you didn’t answer, we got worried,” Barry said.
“I know, and thanks again for worrying about me,” Sarah said again, then looked at herself and grimaced. “I think I need to take a shower.”
“I don’t think you should be staying in this house,” Renee said. “It’s creepy.”
“Oh, Renee,” Barry protested. “The house isn’t creepy.”
“She was locked in the basement, wasn’t she?” Renee said defensively.
“Apparently I only thought I was locked in the basement,” Sarah said. “You said that the door was open, right, Caleb?”
“Yes,” he said, still leaning against the refrigerator, watching her. He could see that she didn’t want anyone to see just how badly shaken she was. He wondered if she was going to tell him the truth about what happened.
“But…even if you only thought you were locked in, it’s the house that did it to you,” Renee said, shivering. “Oh, Sarah. You really have to sell this place. There are other houses you can buy. And you’ll be much happier. They won’t come with bones in the wall.”
“It’s not like I knew this one came with bones in the wall when I bought it. Anyway, I’m a historian, remember? I thrive on this stuff. And right now I’m going to take a shower, because I’m starving and I want to go to dinner, but I don’t want anyone waiting on me. You all go and get some appetizers or something. Please.”
“I don’t think we should leave you alone,” Will said.
“She won’t be alone. I’ll wait for her,” Caleb said. “Why don’t the rest of you go on? We’ll be right behind you.”
“Okay,” Caroline said slowly. “If you’re sure, Sarah? Because we can wait.”
“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…”