Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

“I’m sorry, Miss Alderan, but no one can come out and look at your van or the tracker today,” the law enforcement officer said over the phone.

She’d asked for the female sheriff’s deputy that had helped her before, but the person who answered the phone had told her Deputy Alyssa Annapolis wouldn’t be available.

“We have the tracker in a baggy here at the house. Maybe we shouldn’t have touched it, but...” She drifted off.

“It’s all right.” The man cleared his throat. “So, you’re buddies with Douglas MacKenzie?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, okay. He knows what he’s doing. We’ll get someone out there when we aren’t up to our ears with this storm. It’s letting up, but we’ve got a lot of traffic accidents. We’re stretched thin. My advice is to watch your back. I’ve got your information here, and I’ll check into this Taggert guy when I can.”

She smiled, pleased with the fact that this sheriff’s deputy hadn’t blown her off.

Later that day, she worked in the cellar with the other ladies, but she discovered no other evidence that last night had been more than a dream. The tracks she had seen in her dream were absent from the basement. Telling the other women any of it seemed risky. They’d already settled into this routine of cleaning the cellar, and she didn’t want to spook anyone. They’d finished up in the cellar for that evening when the doorbell rang.

“Sybil and Doug, sittin’ in a tree,” Pauline said as they all climbed the cellar stairs.

“K-i-s-s-i-n-g,” Letisha finished as they entered the Great Hall.

“Shut up,” Sybil said with a smile. “There is no kissing.”

Maria beamed. “Too bad.”

Sybil headed for the front door. She checked the peephole. Doug, bundled up for the wintery weather, waited at the entrance.

“Hey,” she said as she let him inside. “Can you come in for a few moments? I let time run away from me, and I’m not ready.”

He smiled. “Sure. I’ll hang out in Great Hall if that’s okay.”

They entered the Great Hall and Letisha sat near the fireplace, staring into the cold grate.

Letisha waved him over as Sybil ran upstairs. Sybil was down in record time, dressed in her winter outwear. She found Letisha and Doug having a conversation about the weather.

Sybil breathed in the frosty night air as she walked to Doug’s truck, barely hearing her footsteps through the powdery snow.

As she climbed into the passenger side of the truck, she said, “That air is so fresh. So much better than the air in that house.”

“It is kinda heavy in there, isn’t it?” He started the truck. “Is Letisha okay?”

She looked over at him, catching his calm but inquisitive expression before he drove the truck away from the house.

“Fine, I think. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it’s my imagination, but every time I talk to one of your co-workers they seem more morose. I’m getting a complex.”

“Complex?”

“Yeah. I wonder if it is me they don’t like.”

“They’ve been very complimentary about you. And...” Her face heated. “If you tell them this, I’ll deny it...but they think you’re hot. The name Thor was tossed around when they first met you.”

A booming laugh escaped him. “Wow. I don’t know if I should be flattered or not. Thor as in cartoon god?”

She waggled her eyebrows. “As in, better than Chris Hemsworth Thor.”

He laughed again, saying, “Okay, well, I’ll be flattered then.”

She smiled, enjoying the banter.

Five miles passed quickly even though he took the snowy road with caution and respect. They turned south down another road. They traveled about a mile, and he made a left turn down a narrower road.

“This is my driveway,” he said.

She took in the trees alongside the driveway. “Is it my imagination or are the trees here closer to normal size? They’re still large, but not as insane as the mansion.”

“I noticed that, too. I think I like it better. Those immense trees east of here are just weird.”

The truck headlights illuminated the cabin a moment later.

She leaned forward a little as he parked the truck in the driveway. Warm light illuminated the tall windows at the front of the cabin. She took in what she could see of the two-story structure.

“This is more than a cabin. It is bigger and more modern-looking than I expected,” she said.

He shut off the truck. “My uncle bought the original cabin back in the nineteen seventies when it was new. He added square feet and modernized it about fifteen years ago.”

They piled out and entered the house from a side door that led into a sizeable, tidy mudroom.

“I thought I’d build a garage for this place at one point, but that seems like too much effort right now,” he said as she followed him into the large, well-appointed kitchen.

“I love it.” She was gaga over the kitchen. “It’s rustic without really being rustic, if you know what I mean.”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

The living room wasn’t entirely open to the kitchen, and a big, dark wood dining table sat to one side of the extensive area. A two-story ceiling hung over the living room. A stone fireplace took up part of the south wall. Two loveseats and a large couch grouped in front of the fireplace and around an equally impressive square wood coffee table. The color palette consisted of earthy dark brown shades, with hints of rich red and green. Curtains lay open over the tall windows.

She did a three sixty turn in the middle of the living room. “I’m impressed.”

“I think my uncle had great taste. Want something to drink? I’ve got merlot to go with the spaghetti.”

“I’d love some.”

He poured a glass for each of them, and they took it to the living room. She sat on the loveseat facing the tall windows at the front of the house, and he took the couch facing the fireplace.

“Clinton should be here soon. When I told him about Taggert, he was all in to help.”

“By the way, I talked to a Sergeant Curtis Holberger at the Sheriff’s department.” She explained what the law enforcement officer had said.

“Curtis is a good guy. He didn’t say where Annapolis was?”

“No. He just said she wasn’t available.”

Clinton arrived less than five minutes later. Clinton and Sybil sat in the cozy breakfast nook while Doug insisted on doing all the cooking.

“Did you find anything out?” Doug asked Clinton.

Clinton took a swig of his non-alcoholic beer, his expression serious and maybe a little worried. “Yeah. Some of it is strange.”

Her stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

“I researched this Taggert clown, and the house you’re cleaning. I didn’t bring the paperwork with me. Figured I’d email it to you. The guy is a real piece of work. Since the time you broke it off with him, he’s been acting out. Including getting a restraining order put on him by another woman.”

She stuffed her hands in her hair for a moment and let out a sound of disgust. “Oh, my God.”

Clinton nodded. “Get this. She’s nineteen years old. Barely legal. Huge age gap between him and this girl. She’s the daughter of a rich dude in Texas...I forgot to mention Taggert moved back to Texas after you broke it off with him six months ago. He’s been working as a construction manager. Anyway, he started stalking this rich dude’s daughter right away. Fortunately, she was smart and realized what was happening right away, and so did her family. They got a restraining order.”

“They didn’t do a background check on him?” Doug asked as he moved about the kitchen.

“Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. Clinton sipped his drink. “Or they didn’t care. The long arm of the good ole boy network works well for Taggert back in his hometown.”

“But then he comes all the way up to Colorado again. I wish he would’ve stayed in Texas,” she said.

Clinton sat up straighter, as if his Marine instincts had kicked into gear. “You got any plans on how to handle him?”

She considered her options, uncertain. “I was always a cautious person, but my life with my father…and after my short time with Taggert…”

Doug leaned on the kitchen counter. “He made you more cautious. Because you knew what could happen to a woman who isn’t.”

She nodded, a lump growing in her thought. “Yes. At home in Denver, I keep the doors and windows completely locked and take every reasonable precaution. I’ve always been that way. Now is no different. I’ll file a restraining order tomorrow at the sheriff’s department if the weather lets up and I make it there.”

Doug nodded. “Sounds like an excellent plan.”

“Damn straight,” Clinton said. “You put up that security system on the house, Doug. That should be a deterrent.”

“That’s the plan,” Doug said.

Sitting in the nook looking out the window at the coldness outside made winter seep into her bones. Despite her warm attire, she couldn’t seem to stay warm. She took another sip of wine and welcomed the alcoholic warmth.

“You okay, Sybil?” Doug asked.

She took him in, appreciating the concern in his eyes and appreciating how vastly different he was from Taggert.

She forced a smile. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’ll be even better when I try your world-famous spaghetti.”

Clinton grinned. “You won’t regret it. I tried to buy the recipe from him for the diner, but he said no way.”

When dinner was on the table and talk of Taggert had faded, she couldn’t deny the relief. Clinton told them about business. His two other business partners were keeping watch over the diner.

Clinton pushed back his empty bowl and sighed. “That was the best spaghetti I’ve eaten in a long time. I hate to eat and run, but I better get home and catch some sleep. Tomorrow waits for no man.”

After Clinton left fifteen minutes later, Doug said, “I didn’t even think about desert.”

She groaned and put her hand on her stomach. “I’m stuffed. Let me help with the dishes, and then I’d better head back to the house.”

He filled the dishwasher, but that left some pots and pans needing hand washing. She dried while he washed.

“I should’ve invited your whole crew over. Oversight on my part,” he said. “But I’ll admit I had something of an ulterior motive.”

Warmth flooded her as she threw a glance at him. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. I like you and want to know you better.”

She smiled. “The other night at the diner wasn’t enough to scare you off?”

Their gazes tangled, and attraction bolted through her. His answering smile and the interest in his eyes made her think he might feel the same pull toward her.

“Nope,” he said. “I’m not scared off. I also wanted to say if you need to leave the mansion and one of your crew isn’t available, call me and I’ll go if I can. Just so you’re not alone.”

“That’s too much of an imposition.”

“Not for me. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Her mouth popped open. She’d never had a man say that to her before. Not even possessive Taggert. A twinge of panic went through her. Was Doug hiding Taggert-like tendencies?

No. I’d feel it in my gut if he was.

How do you know, idiot? You didn’t get it through your head right away with Taggert, did you?

Something must have shown on her face. He winced. “Damn, that was...I take it that sounded over-the-top, right?”

“It took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Look, no pressure whatsoever. It’s just an offer. It’s practical for safety.”

She took a few moments, while drying a pan, before she said, “In case you haven’t guessed, I’ve got trust issues where men are concerned.”

She stopped drying the pan and looked at him, half expecting to see something in his eyes that would clue her in that she’d screwed up.

“Want to sit down and talk about it?” he asked.

“Sure.”

They left the kitchen and took up the same seats in the living room as before.

She hesitated. “There’s a lot to unpack.”

“Wherever you want to start.”

She gave him a deeper dive into what her father had done all those years ago. “He was always super critical of me. I couldn’t do anything right. He didn’t beat me, but he lacked compassion. He didn’t give a shit whether I was happy or sad. I had to look and sound like the perfect kid every day. There were times we’d have friends over...my parents adult friends...and after they left, he’d give me a full list of everything I’d done wrong and how I should’ve acted. I’d ask him how I was supposed to act and take notes. I’d write it all down. He’d examine my notes and approve it and tell me to memorize it. I would, and the next time he’d have the friends over I’d do just as he’d told me to do. Hours before the friends came over, I’d study the notes. Over and over. At the end of the evening, my father would come to my room and tell me how I’d screwed everything up again, and that people were thinking I was an idiot. He’d call me a simpleton. That was a fragment of the things he did from the time I was a little kid.”

Raw sadness and anger filled his face. “God, that’s horrible. Where was your mother in all of this?”

“She was under his thumb, too. When he took the long-haul trucker job, we were ecstatic. I resented that she didn’t stand up for me most of the time. She learned it from her parents…I saw her mother berated by her father for ridiculous things, too.”

She explained what had happened the day the police had shown up at their door and asking to speak with Sybil’s mother. The cops had informed her, with kindness and obvious discomfort, that Sybil's father had murdered at least fifteen women during the time he’d been a trucker. They suspected he could’ve murdered another five, but they couldn’t prove it. They’d been building a case for a year and a half.

Doug’s military barring sagged a little as a cloud came over his eyes. “I can only imagine how horrible it was for you. And for the families of the victims.” He shook his head. “I remember reading that they proved the fifteen through DNA.”

A weight lifted off her shoulders. She’d known that Doug had heard about most of this from what he’d said before, but his understanding and sympathy eased something that had stayed dormant all these years.

She sat forward on the couch and clasped her hands between her knees. “So you can understand why I don’t talk about this in depth very much.”

“But it didn’t stop there, did it?”

The burn of all the memories ached to the core. “So many people in high school and college thought I would turn out like my father. They didn’t bother to get acquainted with me. They assumed.”

He scrubbed one hand over his chin. “Jesus.”

Remembering what she’d experienced made her eyes tear up, but she pushed it to the back of her mind. “It’s been a lot of years since then. When I changed my last name to my mother’s maiden name, that helped. People forgot about what happened.”

Sympathy flooded his expression. “It’s awful that you needed to.”

“I have a handle on it now. Most people don’t know about it unless they do something like a background check.”

He grimaced. “Now I’m feeling like shit for doing that.”

“No, please don’t. You were helping Clarice. You were looking out for her.”

“Do your coworkers know?”

“Yep.” She gave him a sardonic smile. “I told them when I interviewed them. I figured if I liked them and wanted to hire them, and if they still wanted the job, then they were all right.” She smiled. “My mother thought it was a crazy idea to tell them everything.”

“How is your mother?”

She winced. “Well, something happened the other night. She called me about my father.”

His eyebrows went up. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

After she gave him the full story of her father being stabbed, he said, “Oh, my God. And then she wanted you to go visit him?”

Sybil heard the recrimination in her mother’s voice start in her head, but she shoved it back. “Yep. And I refuse. I hope you can understand why.”

She held her breath a moment, fearing his reply.

“Yes,” he said. “With everything he put you through, I can totally understand why you feel that way. I wouldn’t visit him either, even if he was my father.”

She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a puff. “It’s good to hear that. So many people don’t understand. It doesn’t serve me at all to put myself through visiting him. He’d only verbally abuse me.”

“It sounds like you’ve reached a new phase with your mother, too.”

Sybil liked this man more and more. “Standing up to her has been hard to do. I’ve been working on it, but she’s still here.” She tapped her temple with her index finger. “I’m trying to flush her brand of narcissism out of my head, too.”

His gentle smile made her want to sit next to him, to bask a little closer in the warmth he could share emotionally and physically. Yet she didn’t. Rushing into a physical intimacy…well, she didn’t trust that quite yet.

They talked awhile longer until she looked at her watch. “I’m feeling guilty that I’m out and socializing and the ladies aren’t.”

He stood and stretched. “They could take the van, couldn’t they?”

“True. Although none of them were eager to drive in the snow all the way to Estes Park.”

He gestured around him. “When you guys are finished cleaning the mansion, you could come out here for a going away party if you like.”

She stood and walked toward him. “Really? That sounds great. Thank you.”

They headed back to the mansion, and as they drove, her heartbeat picked up. An overwhelming sense of dread, of not wanting to sleep tonight, crawled up her spine. What if she had a weird dream about the cellar again?

“Something wrong?” he asked as he pulled up to the gloomy mansion.

“Until just now, I forgot about this bad dream I had last night about the cellar. I’ll tell you about it sometime. It creeped me out.”

“Okay. This house cleanup has probably been more stressful than you expected, right?”

“Yep.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and patted his big hand, that lay on the console between them. She squeezed his fingers gently. “Thanks for the delicious dinner. Best spaghetti I’ve had in ages. I need the recipe.”

“You got it.” He turned his hand over and clasped hers, drew her hand up and kissed it in an old-fashioned gesture. “Sleep well. No nightmares allowed.”

She let the heat of that kiss warm her from the inside out. “Will do.”

He released her hand. “I’ll wait here until you’re inside the house.”

Once she had entered the house and locked the door, she realized she didn’t feel safe in this place. Maybe she should’ve told him about her weird dream from the other night. Her awful, so real dream.

Who are you kidding? You didn’t tell him because you’re afraid he’d think you are nuts.

The Great Hall was lit up, and Letisha, Pauline and Maria sat on the couch talking. Their expressions spoke of uncertainty, or maybe unease.

“Hey ladies,” Sybil said as she moved toward them. “Everything okay?”

“We’re not sure,” Letisha said. “Maria doesn’t feel great and neither do I. My pills have stopped working.”

Pauline held up her hand. “I must be the only one that has a little energy. Go figure.”

Sybil sighed. She stripped off her outside gear and plopped down on the couch opposite Letisha. “Do we need to make a trip into town to see the doctor again?”

Letisha waved one hand in dismissal. “Not for me. But there’s something worse than us feeling like shit.”

Sybil’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“Maria, tell her.” Letisha’s gaze held a resignation that discomfited Sybil.

Maria returned Letisha’s gaze with a stubborn one of her own. “She’s going to think I’m insane.”

Letisha rolled her eyes upward for a moment. “No, she won’t.”

Sybil locked eyes with Letisha, afraid of what she might hear in the next few moments. A weight seemed to settle on her shoulders.

Maria sank back against the cushions, her gaze haunted. “I’ve been dreaming....well, okay, I’ve had the dream twice since we got here. I’ve been dreaming that I’m in the cellar and it’s dark. I need my cell phone flashlight. I go in there, and I’m scared. There’s this weird noise down there. Sort of like a humming or a hissing. Like a snake. I go to that weird box in the very back and I try to open it, but I can’t.”

Maria rubbed her arms, stark fear within them. She glanced over at Pauline, and Sybil noted that even Pauline didn’t appear skeptical of the younger woman’s story.

“I hear this chanting in my head,” Maria said. “A summons. Like I’m trying to pray in this weird language I’ve never heard before. I...” She broke from her trance-like stare. “I reach for that box. The one in the corner?”

Of course, Sybil knew. How could she not? Hearing this woman’s tale, made a creeping dread rise inside Sybil.

“Yes. The one with the octopus on it? Or whatever it’s supposed to be?” Sybil asked.

Maria rubbed her arms again. “That one. I try to open the box, and I’m so scared. It...I pulled myself away from the box. I hurry out of the place. I...” She looked over at Letisha, her eyes wide and maybe pleading.

Sybil’s concern rose as she looked back and forth between the two of them. “And?”

Letisha said. “Pauline and I realized the front door was standing wide open with snow blowing inside. I freaked because I thought maybe Taggert had broken in here.”

“I grabbed a fireplace poker,” Pauline said. “And we stepped outside with Letisha’s flashlight. We found Maria standing outside, almost to the east corner of the house. She wasn’t wearing a coat, boots, you name it.”

Maria put her hands out, almost a pleading gesture. “Letisha grabbed my shoulder and shook me awake.” Tears filled her eyes. “I’ve never walked in my sleep.”

Pauline crossed her arms and threw a look of exasperation at Maria. “She could have gone deeper into the forest and frozen to death. We wouldn’t have known she was in trouble until too late.”

Before Sybil could react Leticia said, “There’s more.”

Maria stood and paced. “The doorbell rang an hour ago, and Taggert was there again.”

A chill ran over Sybil’s entire body, and anger chased not far behind. “Shit.”

“I didn’t answer the door. I used the peephole.” Maria’s fearful gaze locked with Sybil’s. “We tried to call you, but our cells weren’t working. It makes little sense. We don’t all have the same providers and there is that one tower that is less than five miles away from here. Someone’s cell phone should’ve worked. It’s like this place…like this place has us hostage and doesn’t want us to communicate.”

Sybil opened her shoulder bag and grabbed her phone. She checked it. “No phone calls or texts.”

“Try sending me a text now,” Letisha said as she snagged her phone out of her jeans pocket.

Sybil’s heart picked up the pace as she tried to send the text. “It says won’t deliver.”

“Shut up.” Letisha groaned. “This is creeping me out.”

“I’ll text Doug.” Sybil gave that a try. “It still won’t go through.”

Letisha said, “We checked the security system right after Taggert showed up. It shows him driving up and then getting out of the car and coming to the front door. We didn’t answer, and he drove away.”

“Let’s check again.” Sybil pulled up the system on her phone. “No sign of him anywhere now.”

“That’s a relief. But not much.” Letisha rubbed her temples.

Maria put her hands to her cheeks for a moment, strong worry etched on her expression. “I think we should just leave here. Go anywhere. Get out until...” She stopped., staring at Sybil and Letisha with an open mouth.

“And go where?” Pauline asked. “I mean, are we going to throw away a cleaning contract because of some nightmares?”

Sybil stared Pauline down. “You have to admit it’s not only strange we’ve all had nightmares, but that they have similar themes. It isn’t normal.”

“She’s right,” Maria said defensively as she turned her attention to Pauline.” Maria turned an apologetic expression on Sybil. “Letisha explained that you found her in the cellar, too.”

Letisha sighed as she scrubbed a hand through her hair. “God, what do we do? I want to finish doing this job but…”

Sybil knew she couldn’t hesitate any longer to tell the other women about her dream.

Sybil stood and went to the fireplace, wishing that right now it had a cheerful fire in it that could warm away the iciness in her heart. “I had a dream about the cellar as well. In this case, I wasn’t sleepwalking. But still…it seems everyone, but Pauline has had a weird dream or sleeping walking incident dealing with that cellar.”

Pauline’s mouth popped open. “You, too? You guys are jerking me around, right?”

Letisha snapped, “No. We aren’t.”

Sybil described her dream, and they looked dumbfounded. Silence grew.

“Holy crap.” Pauline let out a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Letisha’s normally calm demeanor slipped. She rubbed her hands together as if they were freezing. “Whatever is going on, it isn’t normal.”

“Do you think it’s the ghosts we’ve seen?” Maria asked. “Could they be doing all this?”

Sybil shook her head. “In my experience most ghosts are harmless.” As soon as the words exited her mouth, Sybil said, “Maybe it’s the box in the basement.”

No one asked her which box. They had to know which one she meant.

Maria settled back on the couch. “Then I’m not insane.”

Letisha sighed, her gaze finding Sybil’s. “Apparently not. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t want to give up on this place, but with everything that’s happening, mainly Taggert stalking us, we can’t sit around waiting for something bad to happen.” Sybil looked at Letisha. “I say we get out of here as soon as the weather clears a bit. We can try contacting Clarice again and tell her what’s happening. Once things are handled with Taggert then maybe we can return and still finish work at the house. It won’t be a deal breaker.”

Pauline shifted on the couch, her mouth a straight line of defiance. “I think this is going overboard.”

“I realize that you don’t understand,” Sybil said. “You haven’t had the dream or been sleepwalking. I don’t know why that is. But this has all gotten too weird. And Taggert is a real and present danger, even if the dreams weren’t happening.”

“We can’t ignore it,” Letisha said. “It’s not every day I wake up in almost pitch black in the cellar and I don’t know how I got there.”

“What do we do, then? Leave now?” Maria asked.

Letisha wandered toward the terrace windows. “The wind has picked up a lot just in the time since Sybil got back. Looks like there’s almost two feet of snow out there. We’ve got snow tires on. We could make a run for it now, but last thing I want to do is get stuck in a snowbank and freeze to death.”

Sybil supplied the only reasonable solution she could think of. “We could buddy up in our rooms so that none of us are alone for tonight.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Letisha said with a sigh. “I say we keep our clothes on in case we have to…I dunno. Make a run for the van and escape storm or no storm.”

The reality of that scenario sent a chill through Sybil. To throw away any caution with the weather. Instead she said, “Good idea. Let’s do a first-floor window and door check and then try to sleep.”

After they checked the windows and doors and found them secure, Maria and Pauline headed off to Maria’s room, and Letisha decided to bunk in Sybil’s room. Sybil offered Letisha the bed because of her fibromyalgia but Letisha insisted on flopping on the settee across the room with an extra pillow and blankets from the closet.

“This is the craziest shit ever,” Letisha said, her tone annoyed.

Sybil tried a smile as she sat on the bed and started to take off her shoes. “You mean the settee? I told you that you could have the bed.”

“No. This situation. The dreams. The weather keeping us from leaving.”

“I think we’ll be okay. The security system is online, and the windows and doors secure. It’s making me nervous, too, but it should be fine.”

“You really don’t want to leave here, do you?” Letisha asked.

“No. But what can we do? Maybe after this is all cleared up with Taggert we can come back.”

“You don’t believe that, either. If there is something bizarre going on with that box downstairs…would we want to chance it?”

“Maybe. We could still use the money.”

Letisha let her head fall back on the settee. “Let’s see what the weather brings tomorrow. We can also call the cops on Taggert again and maybe they can give him a come-to-Jesus wake up call.”

Sybil sighed. “Let’s hope.”

Letisha sat up straight. “You’re not telling us everything, are you?”

The question took Sybil aback. “What are you talking about?”

“You can’t fool me. I’ve known you for decades. Something else has happened.”

Sybil clued in. “Well, I got a call from my mother the other night that I haven’t mention yet.”

Letisha smacked her hands together. “Aha! Who is psychic now? I just had a feeling.”

Sybil explained about her father’s stabbing, and how she’d refused the request to help her mother get into the prison to see her father.

“Excellent. I’m proud of you. Does it feel like a weight off your chest?”

A huge smile broke over Sybil’s face. “Actually, yes.” Then Sybil remembered. “There’s something else.”

Letisha’s lighthearted expression faded. “What?”

“I’m almost afraid to bring this up.”

“Spill it.”

“When I was talking to my mother on the phone and got angry, the chandelier started creaking.”

Letisha winced. “Shit.” She heaved a sigh. “Do you think it’s happening again?”

“Maybe. I’m afraid so. Maybe getting out of this house with everything happening is a good idea for that reason, too.”

“I agree. That way you don’t have to explain what happened all those years ago…not to Pauline and Maria or Doug. No one needs to find out.” Letisha winced. “I mean, who knows what else could happen.”

Sybil sighed. “What would Pauline, Maria, and Doug think if they knew about that particular incident?”

“Yep.”

Sadness swept over Sybil, but for the moment she couldn’t think what to say. Because how could she have a solid relationship with a man…any man if they didn’t know about what had happened all those years ago when she was in high school? She hadn’t told Taggert, and it was just as well. He would’ve thought she was insane or of the devil. Wouldn’t any man think that?

Wanting a great relationship with a man like Doug…well, she did want that despite everything. Despite having a serial killer for a father and for what had happened when she was in high school.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Letisha said into the silence.

After that they turned the lights off and tried to sleep. Sybil ruminated about what had occurred this evening. She’d loved her dinner with Doug and didn’t want to leave that good vibe. She didn’t wish to forego the healthy paycheck. At this point, though, the risk seemed insurmountable.