I stopped reluctantly at the dining room door. The supper candles were still burning, and several chairs had been pushed back from the table at odd angles. She and Trent sat nursing their coffee.
'Yes, ma'am?'
'Come in,' she said.
I took one step inside the door.
'When I give you an instruction to come in, young lady-' 'Let it go, Robyn,' Trent interrupted. 'Kate, have you been talking to Patrick about your time here as a child?'
'No, sir, I haven't said a word about it.'
'Don't lie,' Robyn hissed between her teeth.
'I don't,' I replied.
'After you left today,' Trent went on, 'Patrick climbed a tree growing close to a cottage, the one where your family lived.'
'Children climb trees, they have for centuries,' I pointed out. 'And, unless someone else told him, he has no idea where I used to live. He doesn't know my family stayed at Mason's Choice.'
'He was trying to climb in the bedroom window,' Trent pressed on, his eyes sharply observing me. Ashley had climbed that tree the day she threw my doll through the window-he remembered that as well as I.
'Were the windows and doors on the first floor locked?' I asked.
'Shuttered and locked,' said Robyn.
'So then, it makes sense that he tried to get in through the second floor.'
Trent took a sip of coffee. 'When questioned, he told us he was playing with Ashley.' Trent's voice was steady, but I heard the china cup clatter in its saucer. 'Ashley and the orange cat.'
'He has been talking a lot about Ashley,' I admitted.
'Since you arrived,' Robyn said quickly. 'Emily told us that this talk started when you arrived.'
'Did it?' I replied. 'Then I can't help but wonder why someone would choose that moment to start telling ghost stories, for that is what I'm hearing from Patrick. Does someone want to frighten him, or is this directed at me? Perhaps it's an effort to get rid of me by upsetting others. What do you think?'
Trent and Robyn exchanged glances.
'Who found Patrick doing this?' I asked.
'Roger, the groundskeeper,' Robyn replied.
'I thought he was off today.'
'He lives in the cottage next door. He heard Patrick cry out when he fell.'
'Fell! Why didn't you tell me? Is Patrick all right? Where is he?'
'This discussion isn't over,' Trent said as I turned to exit.
'Then you will have to finish it yourselves,' I replied, and rushed toward the steps.
I found Patrick in bed, wearing his sailboat pajamas, making action figures climb over the little mountains that were his knees under the quilt.
'Kate, you're back!' he said, his face lighting up. His right cheek was bruised, and there was a slight cut over his eye.
'Hel-lo, you're looking colorful! What happened to you?'
Patrick immediately pulled up his pajama sleeve to show me a bruised arm.
'Impressive. How did you do that?' I asked.
I fell out of a tree.'
'That doesn't sound like a fun thing to do.'
He cackled. 'I didn't try to, Kate.'
'Glad to hear it. So why were you climbing the tree?'
'Ashley dared me.'
The breath caught in my throat-dared him, the way she had dared me. But daring is something children like to do, I reminded myself, and it provided a good excuse.
'We were playing with November,' he said, 'and he climbed the tree.'
'November?'
'The orange cat. That's his secret name.'
My skin tingled. Ashley would never tell me the cat's name-she had enjoyed tormenting me with it, as she had tormented Brook with the names of her horses. November was an unusual name for Patrick to have chosen on his own-but not for Ashley, I thought suddenly. The cat had first appeared at Thanksgiving, which would have been November.
'From now on, Patrick, when someone dares you to do something-l don't care who it is-say no.'
'I told her I didn't want to go any higher, but she kept daring me.'
'Ashley can't tell you what to do,' I said, sounding eerily like my mother.
His legs moved restlessly under the quilt. 'Kate, are you sure she's like Casper?'
'You mean a friendly sort of ghost?'
He nodded.
I sat on the edge of his bed. 'Perhaps she is like children you've met before, sometimes a good friend and sometimes not. But I'm certain of one thing: Ashley can't tell you what to do. If she tries, you come tell me.'
'So,' said Emily, entering the room, 'you do talk to him about Ashley.'
I didn't start it,' I said.
'You know, Kate, I defended you in front of the others.
'We talk about Ashley when Patrick wants to,' I explained, 'when he feels uncomfortable about things.'
She looked more tired than angry, her usual pink lipstick worn off, her fair skin showing gray under her eyes.
'Patrick, this kind of talk has to stop,' she said. 'It makes Trent and Robyn very unhappy. Daddy doesn't like it either. And Mrs. Hopewell is angered by everything you do. There can be no more mention of Ashley.'
Patrick pressed his lips together, locking his thoughts inside.
Emily asked if I would help her put Patrick to bed. Ten minutes later, when we emerged into the main hall, with Patrick's door closed behind us, I turned to her. 'What does Adrian think about this Ashley talk?' I asked quietly.
'He says that it is nothing, that it's just a stage Patrick is going through'-Emily glanced toward their bedroom door-'but I know that it, along with some other things happening in this house, is upsetting him. This evening he looked as bad as the last time he went into the hospital.' Her whisper grew ragged with anger. 'His children are heartless. Heartless! You would think, after all he has given them, they'd try to make his last year a happy one. But all they can think of is themselves and what they would acquire if Adrian hadn't married me. If it were up to me, they'd find themselves out on Scarborough Road without a cent.'
Eyes burning with tears, she turned her face away from me, then slipped into a hall bathroom, the small one Patrick used. She probably wanted to cry without Adrian seeing her. Knowing better than to offer sympathy to an employer who was sensitive about authority and position, I took the main stairs up to my room.
I felt badly for Emily and worse for Adrian, but his serious illness made it all the more necessary that I talk to him as soon as possible. Someone was preying on Patrick's mind, and if he was the designated heir, the greedy, vicious members of this household had plenty of motivation to go after him. It occurred to me that Ashley had also been Adrian's favorite. What if Sam was right and she was murdered?
Impossible, I thought. And yet Adrian thought it possible enough to investigate my mother. Why? Things were being hidden from me. What didn't I know about Patrick's situation? What didn't I know about my own?
The phone call came early Monday morning while Patrick and I were eating breakfast. Mrs. Hopewell looked incredibly annoyed. 'These are your working hours,' she said to me. 'Socializing is to be done on your own time.'
I took the phone from her hands without asking who it was. I would have chatted with someone selling real estate at the North Pole. 'Hello?'
'Kate? Sam. I know this is a bad time, but it seemed too long to wait all day. I'll make it quick. I'm sorry
