In the Blink of an Eye (36 page)

“I had a memorial service to go to.”

“Last night?” She wonders who died. He doesn't look very broken up about it.

“This morning. And you said you were leaving first thing.”

“I was supposed to. I couldn't get a flight. I'm going in a little while.”

“You're flying? Weren't you supposed to be driving cross-country with your partner?”

“We had a falling-out last night”

Andy looks impatient. “Why?”

Irritated by the sense that he's not the least bit interested, Miranda gives him a detailed reply. She tells him about the investigation at Ten Summer Street last night and the owner coming home, and Kent being angry that she lied about the release form.

“The thing is, if he weren't so uptight about formalities, he would have been interested to hear what I got on the tape I made last night before we were interrupted.”

Andy asks, “What did you get?” She can't see his eyes behind the opaque black lenses but she's willing to bet that he's bored stiff with this conversation. After all, it isn't about him.

She decides to prolong it, telling him about the music she heard on the tape, and about the shoveling sounds at the end.

“What do you make of that?” she asks him.

He checks his watch. “I have no idea. But I'm going to be late for my lecture, Mandy. I'd better run.”

“Yeah, you'd better.”

He reaches out and gives her a quick squeeze that's utterly devoid of affection.

“Good luck,” Andy calls over his shoulder as he heads to the auditorium. “I hope I'll see you again sometime.”

“No, you don't,” she mutters when he's out of earshot. “Good riddance to you, Andy Doyle. You're nothing but a phony loser.”

D
ULCIE STANDS IN
the doorway of her room, listening for Daddy's footsteps below. He said he was carrying a few boxes out to the car and he'd be right back, but he hasn't yet.

“Daddy?” she calls, loudly enough to carry through the open second-floor windows.

“What's wrong, Dulc? Are you okay?” His voice, concerned, floats back up.

“I'm fine. I just have to go to the bathroom!”

“I'll be right there to help you down the hall. Don't move.”

Dulcie sighs, crossing her legs. She really has to go.

Putting a hand on the wall just outside her door, she takes a cautious step down the hall. And then another.

She can do this. The bathroom isn't far from her room. She's made the trip often enough with Daddy or Julia to know how many steps it takes.

She feels her way along the corridor, counting steps.

She's almost there when she hears it.

The music.

The scream.

“No,” Dulcie whispers, her eyes squeezed shut.

She doesn't want to hear it.

She doesn't want to see it

But it's there all around her, and then in front of her: the lady's face.

This time, it's much clearer than before.

And she isn't looking at Dulcie. She's looking past Dulcie, over her head, as if someone tall is standing behind her. Her blue eyes are full of tears, and she looks furious.

“You can't do this to me!” she screams, taking a step backward. “I'm leaving!”

At first, Dulcie, bewildered, thinks the lady is talking to her.

Then she hears a roar in response—an angry burst of sound that Dulcie doesn't recognize, at first, as words. But she quickly realizes that it's a man's voice, yelling. Yelling so loud the lady keeps flinching, and backing away. Her left hand is clasped in a fist against her neck, her right hand covering it.

“Be careful!” Dulcie calls, as the lady edges close to the top of the stairs. “What are you doing? You're going to fall!”

The lady takes another step backward.

The roar grows louder.

Another step . . .

“Look out!” Dulcie shrieks.

Too late.

The lady plunges backward, down the steps. There's an awful commotion—screams, and thuds. And then nothing. Just . . . an awful silence.

Dulcie realizes she's been holding her breath.

She lets it out slowly, trembling as she leans against the wall for support.

Suddenly a face pops up in front of her.

Dulcie cries out.

It's the lady's face. Now one side of her head is cracked open. Her hair is caked with blood.

“What do you want?” Dulcie whimpers, her eyes shut tightly in vain. There's no escaping the gory image there, in front of her.

Leave . . .

“What?” Her jaw is quivering so that she can barely speak.

Leave . . . Don't let him—

“Dulcie?” That's Daddy's voice calling up to her, Daddy's footsteps pounding up the stairs.

“Don't let him what?” Dulcie echoes desperately, but then Daddy is here, and the lady is gone.

Chapter Fourteen

L
UGGING HER CARRY-ON
bag toward the security checkpoint, Miranda wonders yet again about the cassette tapes and film she packed in her other bag, the one that she checked. Do airports X-ray all luggage, or just the carry-on? If they X-ray the bag holding the tapes and film, will the data be destroyed?

There's a long line at the security checkpoint. Miranda takes her place at the end, checking her watch. She was hoping to get here soon enough to grab something to eat, but there was an accident on the thruway and it delayed her arrival by more than half an hour.

Oh, well. Maybe they'll hand out peanuts on the plane. Do airlines still do that?

Miranda tries to remember the last time she flew and realizes that she hasn't been on a plane since she and Michael went to Cancun on their honeymoon.

You really have to start learning how to live a little,
she scolds herself,
inching her way forward as the line moves up.
You should make some new friends, plan a trip to Europe, maybe join some kind of club . . .

Especially if she's no longer going to have Kent in her life. The thought of losing his friendship stings more now that she's left Lily Dale—and Andy—behind for good.

Kent has his faults. Who doesn't? But he's the only other person who would have been fascinated by what she captured on that tape in the yard of the house at Ten Summer Street. Now she'll never know what's buried under the lilac tree.

The only thing that's certain is that something is there. What else could the recorded digging sounds have meant?

“Miranda!”

Startled, she turns to see Kent hurrying off the escalator, waving at her.

“Oh, my God . . . what are you doing here, Kent?”

“Don't go back to Boston. Please.”

She scowls. “Why shouldn't I?”

“We have the whole summer ahead of us, Miranda. It's going to be great. And I didn't mean to freak out on you. It's just that—”

“I screwed up, Kent. I know it was wrong to lie to you. And I'm really sorry.”

“I've been trying to understand why you did it.”

She only shrugs.

“I guess you got caught up in your—” He pauses meaningfully, and manages to avoid the word
obsession. “Curiosity
about that place, huh, Miranda?”

She offers a tight smile. “I got caught up in a lot of things while we were in Lily Dale.”

Kent gives her a questioning look.

“His name was Andy. I'll tell you about him later,” Miranda says. “The important thing is that—”

“Excuse me.” Somebody taps her on the shoulder. “The line is moving.”

She looks up to see a wide gap opening between her and the man in front of her. She automatically moves to close it, but Kent puts his hand on her arm, holding her back.

“Come on, Miranda. Don't get on the plane. Come back to Lily Dale with me. I can't make this trip and write this book without you.”

“Yes, you can.”

“You're right, I can.” Kent grins. “But it won't be as much fun alone.”

“You got that right.” Miranda hands him her bag. “This is heavy. You carry it.”

“Let's go.”

“Yeah, and let's hurry. I have to get my luggage back from the baggage check. You'll never believe what I picked up on tape last night.”

“
A
RE YOU ALL
right, Dulcie?” Julia asks, her hand clutching the little girl's arm as she leads her up the front steps. “You've been quiet all the way over here, and you didn't even get excited when I said we could have pizza. I thought you loved pizza.”

“I do. It's just . . .” She trails off.

Julia glances at her. Her vacant blue eyes are troubled.

“Just what?” Julia prods, fishing for her key in her pocket She opens the front door and leads Dulcie inside.

“Something happened this afternoon,” Dulcie tells her, toying with the end of one of the blond pigtails Julia braided for her before she left this morning.

“What happened, Dulcie?” Julia absently reaches out to tuck a wayward wisp of hair more securely into the elastic at the bottom of the braid. “You can sit down,” she adds, guiding Dulcie to the sofa.

Dulcie sits. “When I was alone upstairs . . .”

“Your father left you alone upstairs?” Julia finds that surprising. Paine said he wasn't going to let Dulcie out of his sight all day, and cautioned Julia to do the same tonight.

“He was just outside the front door, loading stuff in the car.. He was only gone for a minute, and he could hear me the whole time,” Dulcie says defensively. “And I was fine . . . except . . .”

“What happened?” Julia asks again, studying the little girl intently as she kneels beside her.

She listens intently as Dulcie tells her about the latest vision of the lady. How she was crying and arguing with somebody. How she fell down the stairs, presumably to her death. How she tried to warn Dulcie.

Don't let him . . .

Don't let who what?

What does it mean? Kristin wasn't killed in a fall down the stairs. She drowned.

Maybe the lady isn't Kristin.

But if not . . .

Who is she?

“
Did you tell your dad about this?” Julia asks Dulcie.

Paine didn't say anything about it, but he rushed off the moment she got there. She was late getting back from her message session, and he had to drive all the way down to Jamestown for the meeting.

“Yes, I told him. He said not to worry. He said we're leaving first thing in the morning, and that I don't have to go back to the house ever again.”

“You don't,” Julia says firmly. “You're staying here tonight. Your dad will be back later, and in the meantime we'll—”

She breaks off suddenly, hearing a knock on the front door.

“Oh, great,” she mutters.

“What was that?” Dulcie asks.

“Somebody's at the door. I'll be right back.”

Certain it's a passerby wanting a reading, Julia decides she should probably take down her medium shingle until she's able to get back to work.

But when she arrives in the hall, it isn't a potential customer on the other side of the screen door.

“Andy!” Belatedly, she realizes that she never told him to come later. She got caught up in the crowd of mourners after the service and by the time she had a moment to look for Andy, he was gone. She meant to call him after the Stump service, but was in such a rush to get to the hospital—and from the hospital back to Paine's—that she completely forgot.

“Weren't you expecting me?” As usual, Andy's eyes are obscured by his sunglasses, but she can hear the confusion in his voice. “I thought we said that on Thursday we would—”

“I'm baby-sitting for Paine's daughter right now. I meant to ask you earlier if we could go out on the lake some other time, but I completely forgot about it. I'm so sorry.”

“Oh.” He seems hesitant. “The thing is, Julia, I only have the boat for the rest of this week. I'm not getting as much use out of it as I expected, and I canceled the lease for July.”

“Don't worry. I can get somebody else to take me out—”

“Or I can take you now, like we planned. It's a beautiful night. The water is so calm it's like glass.”

“But Dulcie—”

“She can come, too. Iris was her grandmother. It would be fitting if she was there, too, don't you think?”

“I guess.” Julia considers that. It
would
be meaningful.

“What's holding you back, Julia?”

“It's just . . . I'm not sure Paine would want me to take her out on the lake without his permission.”

“But I want to go.”

Startled, Julia turns to see Dulcie standing in the doorway behind her, obviously eavesdropping.

“I want to scatter Gram's ashes,” Dulcie says firmly. “It's not fair that you were going to do it without me.”

Julia and Andy exchange a glance.

“I've got kid-sized life preservers on board,” he says in a low voice.

Still, Julia is reluctant to agree.

“Please, Julia,” Dulcie begs. “It's the last chance I'll have to do something for Gram. My mom would have wanted me to be there, no matter what my dad thinks.”

“We don't have to be out long,” Andy points out. “Like I said, the water is perfectly calm. Not a wave in sight And when we get back to shore, I'll take both of you out for pizza.”

“That would be great,” Dulcie pipes up. “I'm starving.”

Julia glances at the urn she earlier placed carefully on a small table just inside the door.

Dulcie is Iris's last living relative. She—and not Julia—should carry out Iris's last wishes. She should scatter her grandmother's ashes on the water where her mother died. Then the two of them, mother and daughter, will truly be together for eternity. And Dulcie will carry the memory of this last journey with her long after she leaves this place. It might even bring her peace, a sense of closure, in years to come.

“What do you say, Julia?” Andy asks, jingling his keys in his hand.

“Okay.”

“
F
ORGET?
N
O!
N
O,
Virginia, of course I didn't forget,” Rupert lies, holding the door wide open. “Come right in.”

As Rupert struggles to get hold of himself, Virginia Wainwright sweeps into the room, bringing with her a cloud of expensive perfume. She's dripping in diamonds and silk, and her hair is sprayed into a snowy mound of tendrils high above her unnaturally tight-skinned forehead.

Rupert happens to know that Mrs. Wainwright is no stranger to plastic surgery.

In fact, that was one of the first messages he ever gave her from her late husband.

“Forgive me if this sounds blunt, but . . . Harrison wants you to know that he loves your face-lift, Virginia,” Rupert recalls saying.

She was stunned, of course. Convinced that information could only have come from beyond the grave. After all, she hadn't told a soul about her surgery. Nobody knew—except, of course, for her doctors back in Houston, and her loyal maid who nursed her through the ordeal.

“Rupert? Are you all right?”

He looks up, blinking. Mrs. Wainwright is looking at him with an expression that comes as close to concern as he's ever seen on her self-involved face.

“Yes . . . I'm fine.”

Another lie.

He glances toward the back of the house. Nan is sleeping in the bedroom. He isn't sure whether her breathing is still as frighteningly shallow as it was earlier, or if he's merely become accustomed to the desolate sound after an entire day spent at her side.

You can send Mrs. Wainwright on her way,
he reminds himself.
You don't even have to explain why you can't do a reading for her right now. You don't owe her anything.

Except . . .

Except that he'd be giving up a small fortune if he sends her on her way.

But at this point, it goes beyond the money. The truth is, Rupert can't bear to return alone to that back bedroom to resume his vigil. Despite his earlier, heartfelt promise to Nan, he needs a moment away, to regroup—to prepare himself for the long night ahead.

Nan is so out of it that she certainly has no idea he's left. And he can carry the baby monitor into his study with him, so that he'll hear if anything changes.

Rupert escorts Mrs. Wainwright into his study off the living room. “I'll be right with you, Virginia. Please bear with me for a moment.”

“Don't be long. I'm so anxious to contact Harrison.”

“I won't be long.”

Rupert returns to the back bedroom, where he finds Nan just as he left her, deeply asleep, her eyes closed. Her breathing is still rapid and shallow, but there have been no changes.

“I'll be in the other room if you need me, darling,” Rupert whispers, planting a gentle kiss on her forehead.

He turns on the base monitor, still in its usual location on the nightstand, and picks up the receiver.

In his study, he finds Virginia Wainwright anxiously tapping the toe of her designer shoe on the carpet. She stops tapping when she sees him, her gaze going directly to the baby monitor. “What on earth is that? Don't tell me you're baby-sitting. Do you have grandchildren?”

He shrugs, loathing her. He turns on the monitor and sets it on a nearby table.

“That's going to interfere with the spirit energy,” Mrs. Wainwright informs him. “I read that—”

“It won't interfere,” he interrupts brusquely. “Now let's get started.”

She gives the monitor another wary glance, but settles into her seat.

Rupert closes his eyes.

Over the monitor, he can hear the faint sound of Nan's breathing.

Mrs. Wainwright swallows audibly, seeming to swish the saliva around in her mouth. Disgusted, he fights the urge to send her on her way.

But that will mean giving up the money.

And it will mean returning to the grim reality of the back bedroom.

Rupert takes several deep breaths, pretending to sink into a meditative state. In truth, he's forcing himself to move aside, for now, the tremendous weight of grief and stress. He has a job to do, a job that, after so many years, nearly comes naturally to him.

At last, Rupert plunges in, eyes closed, voice trancelike. “Harrison is here,” he announces.

“Yes!” Mrs. Wainwright's voice is hushed. “I can feel his energy.”

“He wants to know why it took you so long to get in touch with him. He says he's disappointed.”

“I'm so sorry, Harrison!” Mrs. Wainwright says.

“He tells me that he wants you to stop flirting so much, Virginia. He's showing me some kind of social event—I can see waiters in black tuxedos with trays of hors d'oeuvres, and out the window there are palm trees, and you're all dressed up . . .”