“This is all very nice, not to mention delicious,” Roland said. He boardinghouse reached for a casserole dish further down the table. “You guys did a superb job with the food.”

  “Sage gets all the kitchen creds.” Jessica beamed at him proudly. “He knows it’s not a good idea to leave the cooking to me. I make a better sous-chef.”

  “You’re great at salad-making and baked potatoes,” Sage said, managing to sound supportive and not patronizing.

  “I chopped the mushrooms and grated the cheese for the casserole.” It sounded like a confession.

  From the other side of the expanse of table Jenna grinned at them. “You two are such a pair of lovebirds.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Jessica grinned back.

  “I think it’s adorable.” Jenna rescued Emily’s fork, which she was using to stab a mushroom. “That guy, the estate manager, really knows how to provision a pantry. I can’t believe how much great food is in there, presumably brought in for us.”

  “Darryl Andrews. He wasn’t very welcoming, but you’re right, he’s done an impeccable job of managing the place. He said he’s been here ten years. Sage and I were wondering whether his rotten attitude is because he expected to inherit, since there were no apparent heirs.”

  “Or heirs apparent,” Sage quipped. “We don’t know for sure that he didn’t inherit something, do we?”

  “No. Dianne didn’t tell us about any other bequests in the will.”

  “Have you come up with any interesting reasons for your bequest?” Roland asked.

  “Not so far. We’re going to the courthouse in Salinas to look at the will.” Catching her sister’s sharp glance, Jessica could have kicked herself. She knew as well as if Jenna had said it out loud that she was wondering, as Sage had, why not ask Dianne Maggio? There was no easy way for Jessica to explain her mistrust of the attorney, which had started with the unexplained caution to stay away from what she had discovered was simply a music room. Nor could she tell her and Roland about Elise and Rostya without sharing the supernatural happenings since their arrival. Jenna would lose it if she knew about that.

  “The will is the right place to start,” Roland said.

  “That’s what we thought.” The conversation was headed down a path Jessica would rather not travel. Her relief to have her brother-in-law run interference was short-lived.

  “A place like this, in this location, is worth mega millions.” Roland continued, “If it all had been left to the estate manager, I would consider that suspicious. Though you do sometimes hear of old ladies leaving their millions to the cat.”

  “That’s no more shocking than having him leave it to us,” Jenna said.

  “True. Either Evanov came from big family money or he was super-successful. Or both.”

  Or married his son off to an oligarch’s daughter.

  Another piece of information Jessica had to keep to herself, or explain she knew because a spirit had told her, which was not happening. “Being a world-famous pianist could explain it,” she said.

  “And if he bought the property at the right time, which he seems to have done—”

  “Amy Herron, the realtor, has a client who wants to make Herron Pond into a health spa for the wealthy,” Jessica blurted without thinking it through. “They’ve offered eighteen million.”

  Jenna’s jaw dropped. “Eighteen million—and this is the first I’m hearing about it?”

  “We haven’t had much time to talk,” Jessica said, shamefaced and regretting having spilled the beans that way. “You were down on the place from the get-go. I wanted you to have a chance to see it properly before we started talking about offers. I wanted you to fall in love with it. Who knows if her client is even serious? I think it’s a horrible idea.”

  Her twin’s accusing glare told Jessica that her argument had fallen flat.

  “It’s not horrible at all. You can’t make that kind of unilateral decision. There are two of—”

  “Mommy, why are you mad at Aunty Jess?” Emily tugged on her mother’s arm. Jenna pasted on a big fake grin, but her eyes burned with anger. “I’m not mad, sweetie. Finish your lunch and you can have some ice cream.”

  Roland, with six years of experience in heading off the twins’ quarrels, spoke calmly. “That’s a very interesting offer, and here we are, ready to see the whole enchilada. We can talk about what the realtor said later.” He reached across the table to spoon second helpings of casserole and salad onto his plate. Addressing Sage, he said, “Hey, are there fish in that lake behind the house? I can’t wait to get out there and have a look.”

  Sage picked up the conversation and for the next little while, the talk was of rods and reels and boats. Finally, with the ice cream consumed, the dishes in the dishwasher, everyone dressed in warm gear and went outside.

  The men exclaimed over the outdoor kitchen as though it was more fun than their favorite video game. And, just as Jessica had envisioned, the little twins played on the lakeshore.

  Once the girls had exhausted themselves, Jessica and Sage took Roland on the Victorian wing tour. Jenna, using the twins as an excuse, sat it out with them in the new wing.

  They showed him everything—the public rooms on the ground floor, the turret room, all of the bedrooms, and the practice room whose door now stood open. But they did not share with him what had happened there. Roland was aware of Jessica’s skills as a medium—had used them privately in his cases—but it would do no good to put him in the middle of Jenna’s objections.

  It was impossible not to be impressed with the mansion. It was plain on Roland’s usually impassive face. Jessica wondered whether he was quietly calculating a counteroffer to the eighteen million dollar offer.

  Back in the new wing, Jenna had selected a bedroom for her and Roland, settling Sophie and Emily in the king-size bed next door. Worn out from the long day, the little girls were soon asleep, leaving the grownups free.

  Darryl Andrews had stocked the wine fridge with some delicious reds, which the adults opened in front of the fireplace in the room Jessica thought of as the library-slash-den.

  Tacitly agreeing to leave the topic of a sale as the silent elephant in the corner of the room, they talked about the wine and the food and the Victorian décor in the other side of the mansion, until Roland yawned and set his glass down.

  He leaned over to kiss Jenna on the forehead and stood. “That’s enough wine for me. I can use some shut-eye. You can stay and talk some more if you want, hon, but we have to be up at o’dark-thirty and get out ahead of traffic. I’m gonna hit the sheets.”

  Droopy-eyed herself, Jenna stretched out a hand for him to pull her up, too. “I’ll come with you. I’m feeling a little tipsy.” On their way across the room, she stopped to give Jessica a hug. Her words were a little slurred. “Remember, twin, don’t go making any big decisions without me. We have to talk.”

  Jessica returned the hug, for once not having the desire to engage. “Love you, twin.”

  “Love you more.”

  Sage switched off the light. Jessica snuggled next to his warm body, drowsy with wine and content with his arm around her shoulders, her cheek on his chest. They lay together quietly for a while, not needing to talk, absorbing the sweetness of each other’s essence.

  “What’s on your mind, angel?” Sage murmured in the dark, his fingertips finding and gently caressing her cheek, her chin, the hollow of her neck. “I feel you wandering.

  As usual, he could read her. Why couldn’t she keep her mind quiet? “Do you think Jen will make me sell my share?”

  “She’s your twin, angel face. What do you think?”

  Jessica puffed out a sigh. “That I should think about more important things.” She brought his face down to meet her lips.

  ***

  Jessica jerked upright from a deep sleep, for a moment not sure where she was. “What was that?”

  “One of the kids.” Sage was out of bed and climbing into his clothes.

  A second shrill scream sounded through the walls.

  “Mommy, mommy, mommy!”

  They arrived outside the twins’ room at the same time as Jenna and Roland. Jessica found the light switch and followed them inside. Little Sophie leapt from the bed into her father’s arms, sobbing. Her little fists clung together around his neck. Emily, lying in bed, sleepily rubbed her eyes.

  “Did you have a bad dream, baby girl?” Roland rocked his daughter like a baby. “Tell daddy what scared you.”

  Sophie kept her face pressed into his shoulder. “Somebody was right there.” Without looking, she pointed behind her to the foot of the bed. “There was a lady sitting there.”

  “You don’t have to be scared,” Emily chirped, all at once wide awake. “She was a nice lady. She was singing a pretty song.”

  Jenna whirled on her twin with a jaw set like iron. “What is she talking about, Jess?”

  “How would I know? I was asleep, just like you were.” Jessica sat on the bed next to Emily. “Sweetie, can you tell me what the lady looked like?”

  The child sat up, nodding vigorously. “She had long yellow hair like you. She was pretty. She didn’t want to hurt us. Sophie’s just being a baby.”

  “I’m not a baby,” Sophie wailed. “I was scared.”

  Jenna made to take her from Roland, but Sophie wouldn’t budge. From where Jessica sat, she could see that her brother-in-law’s neck was wet with tears.

  “I want my Lexie,” Sophie sobbed. “Where’s my kitty cat?”

  “She had it with her when they went to bed,” Jenna said, seizing the bedcovers. She wrenched them to the end of the bed more forcefully than she needed to, exposing the bottom sheet. While she was doing that, Jessica got on her knees to look under the bed and Sage checked the rest of the room. The toy cat had not made its way to the foot of the bed, nor underneath it, nor was it anywhere else they looked.

  Gently, Jenna stroked her daughter’s hair. “Did you take it outside and leave it there, sweetie?”

  “No, mommy, she was right here. I want my Lexie. Where is she?” The questioned ended on a long wail that threatened to spin into a meltdown.

  Emily, who was eyeballing her sister with interest, made her an offer. “You can share Heidi.” She picked up her new baby doll, which was lying next to her on the pillow, and offered it to her twin.

  To Jessica’s relief, Sophie took the doll and hugged it close with a whispered, “Thank you” to her sister. Roland set her on the bed and Jenna rounded on her husband as if this was all his fault. “We need to leave, Ro. We need to leave this minute.”

  His eyebrow quirked up. “We’re not leaving at three o’clock in the morning, hon. She had a nightmare. What do—”

  “Are you sure that’s what it was?” Jenna pointed an accusing scowl on her twin. “Is that all it was, Jess?”

  “What are you suggesting, Jen?” Roland asked. “What else do you think it was?”

  “Never mind.” For a minute, Jenna sat there holding her child in the circle of her arms and glowering at Jessica. She told Sophie to lie down and slid under the covers between the two little girls. “If we have to stay, we’re sleeping in here with them. And the lights stay on.”

  She might as well have stomped her foot.

  Sage and Jessica drifted back to their own room and climbed into bed. Was her brother-in-law right and Sophie had experienced a scary dream? Or had one of the spirits crossed through to the new wing and made herself known? Unease held her in its grip and refused to let go. Scaring four-year-olds was outside the bounds of what was acceptable, especially when the four-year-olds in question were her nieces. Jessica had read plenty of autobiographies by mediums who had been terrified as young children when spirit people appeared to them. Even when there was nothing menacing about them, as Emily had indicated, what child would not find a gauzy-looking stranger appearing in their bedroom in the middle of the night terrifying?

  “Do you think it was Rostya?” Sage asked.

  The very thought left her momentarily speechless. “Rostya? She’d better not get near my nieces—”

  “That doesn’t make sense, though,” he interrupted. “Emily wasn’t scared. If there was a spirit, wouldn’t it more likely have been Elise?”

  “Rostya has black hair. Em said the ‘lady’ they saw was blonde, so…yeah.”

  Jessica scooted close to him. As he wrapped his arms around her, she asked the question that was bothering her. “Why would Elise go to the twins’ room?” Sage had no to time offer an answer. Her intuition—or perhaps her psychic sense—provided one. “Because she lost her own baby and she couldn’t resist visiting while there were kids here.” And even though she had no evidence to support it, Jessica knew in the peculiar way that another heartbroken mother knows that Elise had suffered that loss. “The way Em described her sounded like Elise as I’ve experienced her. That is, unless there’s a third spirit we haven’t met.”

  Sage’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you think there is?”

  “Not really.”

  “I thought they didn’t come to the new wing.”

  “Surprise,” Jessica said. “I think it’ll be quiet for the rest of the night.” She crossed her fingers, just to seal the wish.

  “Hey, you know that question you had about whether Jen will want to sell?” Sage said. “I have a feeling you just got your answer.”

  “I know,” she muttered. “I know.”

  In the morning, Sage was the first down in the kitchen making coffee. He came back to their room as Jessica was dressing, and beckoned her to follow him downstairs.

  “There’s something you need to see,” he said, leading her to the breakfast room.

  Sophie’s plush toy cat, Lexie, sat on the middle of the table. Jessica looked at him in amazement. “Where did you find it?”

  “I didn’t. It was sitting there just like that when I came down.”

  Her eyes welled up. “I asked her to help. I guess she heard me.”

  “You asked—”

  “Elise. I asked Elise to help us find the cat.”

  Sage raised a quizzical brow. “So, did Sophie leave it here and Elise led me to it? Or did Elise somehow put it there?”

  “I wish I—”

  “Where the hell did you find the damn thing?”

  Roland, speaking from the doorway, went straight to the toy cat and picked it up. “I was looking for it in the dining room—thought it might have been left there after lunch. I was going to look under the table to see if Sophie had dropped it there—I didn’t really think so because she never goes to bed without it. But when I got near to where she had been sitting it felt like I was walking into an ice cave—I mean, goddamn, it was as cold as a witch’s butt. Just in that one spot. When I moved away from that area, the temperature was normal. It was the eeriest thing.”

  Jessica and Sage exchanged a quick look. “That’s weird for sure,” Sage said. “But hey, we found the cat.”

  “Yeah, but where did you find it? I’m as close to positive as I can be that she took it to bed with her last night.”

  “Don’t let Jen spook you,” Jessica said, sidestepping the question. “Did she get any sleep?”

  “Not much. She flopped around for the rest of the night.” Roland made a droll face. “Trust me, I know. She made sure I didn’t get much sleep, either. And we have a five-hour drive ahead of us.” He leveled a serious look at Jessica. “My wife is convinced that the girls saw a ghost. Is that what this weird shit is? Disappearing toys and cold spots in the dining room? Is she right, Jessica? Have you been experiencing supernatural phenomena here? I need you to tell me the truth.”

  She was saved from having to fumble for an answer. Jenna swept into the room with the two little twins in tow, dressed for the outdoors in their warm coats and hats and gloves. The dark, puffy flesh under Jenna’s eyes bore mute testimony to her lack of sleep. “Ro, would you get our bags? I want to get out of here. This minute.”

  “It’s barely seven o’clock,” Sage protested. “How about some breakfast before you get on the road?”

  Jenna ignored him and swung a blame-filled glare on her sister. “I’m so done with this place. I knew from the start there was something wrong here. As soon as we get home, I’m calling Amy Herron about that offer.”

  twenty-six

  Jessica could understand her twin being upset about the spirit visitation to her children, but Jenna’s attitude angered her, too. It was not up to her to make a decision on selling the house by herself any more than it was up to Jessica. But if she aligned herself with Amy, Jessica would be outnumbered and that would make it all the harder to argue her side.

  After the Sparks family had left Herron Pond with terse goodbyes, Amy herself sent a text message to arrange a meeting that day on Carmela Durrell’s lunch break.

  The wintry weather had returned to match Jessica’s mood. Heavy steel-wool clouds scowled overhead, reflecting the way she felt. Observing Sage’s relaxed hands on the steering wheel, she was thankful that he was the one driving the treacherous winding roads that were a feature of Big Sur, not her. He moved with such confidence and grace; it was impossible not to trust that he would get them to their destination safely.

  Amy met them outside Java Jake’s, a rustic roadside coffeehouse down the mountain road from Herron Pond. They had decided in advance that Sage would not intrude on the meeting with Carmela, who, Amy had indicated, was decidedly skittish about it. Leaving Jessica with a kiss and a promise to keep his phone handy, he went to check out the shops and services of Big Sur Village.

  Seated at a table in a far corner of the café, Jessica thought that Carmela Durrell appeared nervous. Amy had said that she was currently working at a retirement home in the area. That explained the former Herron Pond employee’s royal blue uniform with its snowy shirt and apron. A small, squarish woman with grey-streaked hair and deep lines at the corners of her mouth, she looked to be in her early fifties. Her deep brown eyes skipped anxiously around the coffeehouse, finally settling on Jessica, who approached her with an outstretched hand. “Thank you so much for meeting with me, Carmela. May I buy you something to eat? I don’t want you to miss your lunch.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25