Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JULIET 2018

After depositing the three boxes from White Rose Farm on the long table of the enormous dining room, Juliet went straight for the neatly bound pages of Information and Instructions that she'd so far ignored. She conceded that Nell Somersby-Sims was every bit as efficient as her image: the pages covered everything from how to restart the boiler to where to find candles and flashlights in case of a power outage. That gave Juliet pause—it was one thing to blithely anticipate that a winter storm might knock out the lights from the safety of home, but another thing entirely when inside the belly of the beast, as it were. Nevertheless, she went ahead and gathered two flashlights, ten candles, and three boxes of matches to take upstairs to her bedroom.

But what Juliet really wanted she found on the last page, under the Pertinent Telephone Numbers heading. Noah Bennett, Newcastle Surveyors, Ltd. Call in case of structural issues.

So he was on her list. Not that she'd thought he was making it up. But the pages didn't say anything about weekly checks. She thought of the way he'd leaned against her car, looking at her … No, not looking— seeing her. Duncan had appeared to look at her all the time. But he'd never really seen her.

Juliet shook her head as though trying to escape a circling fly. There was no point in her thoughts wandering down that path. Or any path that involved a man. Her divorce was barely final, and it's not like she had any intention of crossing paths with Duncan ever again. Any love between them had died a long time ago. It was Juliet's own fault that she hadn't seen it until forced by humiliation at the very moment she'd been drowning in grief. She was finished with Duncan Whittier. That didn't mean she had any intention of starting anything with someone else. Maybe ever.

In light of that virtuous resolution, she made a sandwich (then, considering, made a second) and piled them on a paper plate with some of the brownies Rachel had pressed on her before leaving the farm. She opened the box that contained the nurse's notebook and shoved it—along with the flashlights, candles, matches, and a cold can of Diet Coke—into her tote bag and made her way upstairs to eat and read in bed.

The notebook wasn't especially riveting if one were reading for personal interest, but it held a wealth of details about the infirmary at Havencross School, including what supplies and drugs were on hand. It was tempting to leaf through and skip to the interesting bits, but Juliet had enough academic discipline remaining in her to refrain. Best to take things in context, always. She made notes on her laptop with questions to be researched and lines of inquiry to be followed, as well as a few of the seemingly trivial kinds of details that made for the best narrative history. For example, that one of the schoolboys had already been in the infirmary at the time of the influenza outbreak, suffering from exposure and a broken leg. If she could learn the story behind that injury, it would make a good counterpoint.

She yawned at last and set the nurse's notebook on the bedside table with her laptop. Then she slid into a comfortable position against the pillows and used her cell phone to check social media.

It's all part of returning to the world , she told herself. I used to scroll Twitter at least twice a day.

Her curiosity tonight was repaid rather in the manner of the proverbial dead cat. She opened Twitter and saw someone had sent her a direct message with a photo. The account wasn't one she knew, but she didn't have to. She knew exactly what she was looking at. The photo showed a tiny infant swaddled and capped with a rose-bud mouth and a perfect button nose.

Welcome to the world, Marcus Dane Whittier. @duncanw and I are head over heels for you.

Duncan's son. Fathered not with his wife of eight years but with a twenty-two-year-old graduate student. The girl he'd been in bed with while Juliet labored alone to deliver a baby boy whose heart had inexplicably stopped beating when she was eight months' pregnant, a baby boy with perfect features and a secret smile on the mouth that never drew a breath. The baby boy she had named Liam months before.

Juliet fell asleep with wet cheeks and a sore throat and a heart that felt as though it would never be whole again. It was like the first weeks after Liam's death, so it was no surprise when she woke up in the dark, knowing she hadn't slept more than an hour or two. She lay there with that dull feeling that she hadn't realized she'd started to leave behind. Now it had returned full force. The kind of dullness that meant she didn't have the energy to do anything more than lie there and breathe.

The kind of dullness that meant she didn't realize for some time that a faint light was glowing through her open bedroom door.

She had shut that door when she came up. And locked it.

Nothing like adrenaline to jolt one fully awake. Juliet sat up so fast that her head swam, giving her a moment to consider what to do. Grab her phone? If someone was in the corridor, they would hear her talking. Her best bet was to get the door shut and locked before anything else. Maybe drag the desk in front of it for good measure.

She threw back the covers and stepped cautiously onto the floor. The door was no more than eight steps away.

She'd only made it three steps when the light flared up and died back almost instantly. Juliet froze while she blinked away the spots in her vision. Only it wasn't just spots—the light had coalesced into an outline. A small, fuzzy, but distinctly human outline.

As Juliet stared, unable to move, the outline took on details: a young boy, no more than nine or ten, a cloak over his pale shirt, and a sweep of fair hair over wide eyes.

And then the boy extended his right hand and, without opening his mouth, said straight into Juliet's head, Come hide with me.

The spell broke.

Juliet crossed the space in a violent movement and slammed the door shut. Even before she'd finished locking it and dragging the desk to block it, she knew that it—whatever it was—had gone.

That didn't keep her from staying awake the remainder of the night.