now that she had come back.
Lindsey leaned down and ruffled his ears. He licked her hand and she glanced up to see Nancy enter the foyer.
“He has been looking out the window for you for the past hour,” she said. “I swear it’s like he knew you’d be home early. I heard the town is shutting down.”
“Yeah, they’re saying it’s going to be a bad one.”
“Well, I went out to the grocery store this morning and stocked up. I had to throw a few elbows in the soup aisle to get the good stuff, but I should have enough supplies to get all three of us through this storm.”
“How is Carrie holding up?”
“Better today. Her son called. He and his sister have been really good about calling her every few hours since she telephoned them and told them the news yesterday. He was on his way down from New Hampshire, stopping in Rhode Island to get his sister, but I think they’re going to have to wait out the storm at her place. There’s no sense in them getting stranded in a whiteout somewhere.”
“Have the police been by today?”
“No,” Carrie said as she came out of Nancy’s apartment and joined them. “I think they may actually have run out of questions for me.”
She was dressed in a thick turtleneck sweater and jeans over fleece-lined slippers. She was pale and looked as if she hadn’t slept, but still, she looked better than she had two days ago when they’d found Markus dead.
“Well, come on in.” Nancy pulled Lindsey into her apartment. “We’ve got hot chocolate and fresh macaroons and the fire is crackling. If we’re in for a blizzard, we may as well settle in.”
“Heathcliff missed you,” Carrie said as they followed Nancy inside with the puppy dancing between them.
“I doubt if it’s me he missed,” she said.
“Oh, it’s definitely you,” Nancy said. “He gets the same moony look as Sully when he’s around you.”
“Sully does not look at me that way,” Lindsey said as she unwrapped her scarf and took off her coat and hung them on a hook in the hall.
“I hate to disagree, but, yes, he does,” Carrie said.
“Oh, don’t you start,” Lindsey said. She sat on the ottoman by the fire and Heathcliff-rather, the puppy-sat with her, resting his head on her feet. If there was an award to be given for cuteness, she was pretty sure he’d win it paws down.
Nancy brought in a tray laden with mugs of cocoa and a plate full of macaroons. If this was blizzard survival, Lindsey felt like she could manage this no problem.
Then the power went out. Lindsey was in her own apartment, reading in bed, when the lights blinked the first time. The wind had become a steady ferocious roar, and when she looked out the window into the darkness of the night, she felt the nor’easter pressing against the fragile window panes like a peeper trying to get a look-see.
The puppy had come upstairs with her and had sprawled himself next to her with his head on the neighboring pillow. Lindsey settled back in bed, turned the page of her book and her reading lamp went out.
Thinking it might be the bulb, Lindsey reluctantly left the cozy warmth of her bed and stumbled across the room to the light switch that controlled the overhead lamp. She flicked it on. Nothing. She tried the bathroom switch. Nothing.
A feeling of vulnerability swept over her much as she tried to ignore it. She took a deep breath. There was no need to panic. The power would be back shortly; all she had to do was wait it out.
She thought about lighting a candle but figured she may as well just go to sleep. It was early, but it had been an intense few days and probably she could use the shut-eye.
She took one step toward the bed when a high-pitched scream out-shrieked the howl of the wind, making Lindsey jump and Heathcliff bark. Snatching up her bathrobe, she pulled it on and rushed to the door. She knew it had to be either Carrie or Nancy who had screamed. She hoped no one had fallen in the dark.
She had no idea how she could get someone to the hospital in this weather. Then again, Carrie was a nurse, so they were in good hands, unless it was her and she was unconscious.
The hallway was black. With the power off, it was impossible to make out the stairs. Lindsey reached out with her hands, trying to find the banister. She inched forward slowly, not wanting to slam into it.
Finally, she felt the wood beneath her fingers. She could feel the dog pressing close to her side, and she was grateful for the contact. The relentless darkness spooked her more than she would have thought. Why hadn’t she grabbed her flashlight?
She inched her way toward the stairs, feeling the floor with her sock-clad feet. When she felt the edge of the first step, she eased her way down the steps.
A beam of light shot up from below, and she could just make out the rest of the steps. She moved more quickly now.
“Nancy, is that you?”
There was a beat of silence and Lindsey felt her heart hammer in her chest.
“Yes, it’s me.” Nancy’s voice echoed up the hallway. “Did you hear that scream?”
“Yes, have you seen Carrie?”
“I’m on my way there now,” Nancy said.
“I’ll meet you there,” Lindsey said.
Together they arrived on the second-floor landing. Nancy knocked on the door, but there was no response.
“Carrie, it’s us, open up,” Lindsey shouted.
There was no answer and Heathcliff started to whimper.
“Do you have a key?” Lindsey asked.
“I think so,” Nancy said. “Here, hold the flashlight.”
Lindsey trained the meager light onto Nancy’s hands. They shook with cold or agitation as she flipped through her key ring until she found what she was looking for.
“Are you sure this is all right?”
“We have to make sure she’s okay,” Lindsey said.
“You’re right.” Nancy turned and banged on the door again. “Carrie, we’re coming in.”
No answer.
She unlocked the door and they hurried into the room. Lindsey wasn’t sure where to shine the light so she swept it across the room like a searchlight. It bounced off pictures and furniture, and as they followed it farther into the room, Lindsey felt a bitterly cold draft sweep over her. She could hear Heathcliff sniffing the floor, and he left her to follow the cold air.
The beam of the flashlight picked out a figure framed in an open window. Gusts of wind and pelting snow swirled in around it, but the body didn’t move.
“She’s not going to jump, is she?” Nancy asked. Her voice was filled with horror.
Lindsey wasn’t about to wait to find out. She dashed forward and grabbed Carrie by the elbow, hauling her back into the room.
“Shut the window,” she ordered, and Nancy hurried forward, slamming the window shut with a bang.
Lindsey set the flashlight on its end so that its beam illuminated the part of the main room in which they stood. She snatched an afghan off the back of the couch and wrapped Carrie in it. Her flannel pajamas were icy cold and damp. The snow on her head was beginning to melt and her teeth were chattering.
“Carrie, are you all right?” Lindsey asked. She rubbed Carrie’s arms through the blanket, hoping to get some warmth coursing through her.
“It was him,” she said.
The flashlight illuminated Carrie’s eyes from below. The whites circled the irises like big saucers. Her brown hair was mussed from the wind and snow. She was shivering and looked as if she was going into shock.
“Him who?” Lindsey asked.
“Markus.”
“What? Where?” Nancy asked.
“I saw his ghost,” Carrie said. “Outside the window.”
“There are no such things as ghosts,” Lindsey said. “And even if there were, they don’t hang outside windows.”
“I’m sure it was him,” Carrie said. “He’s haunting me. I know it. He wants me to find his killer, or maybe,
