maybe he wants to kill me.”
CHAPTER 15
BRIAR CREEK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
“I think she’s in shock,” Lindsey said.
“Let’s get her down to my place,” Nancy said. “She can spend the night there. In fact, we’ll all sleep there. This storm is officially terrifying me.”
Lindsey understood. A nor’easter was one thing, but a storm like this without power was nothing to mess with, and the thought of staying up on the third floor during hurricane-force winds wasn’t really working for her.
“My fireplace has a standing pilot ignition system, so it can switch on without electricity. I had it installed for just this sort of situation,” Nancy said. “We’ll light a fire and camp out in the living room.”
“Sounds like an excellent plan,” Lindsey agreed.
They half carried, half dragged Carrie down the stairs to Nancy’s apartment. The old house ran on an oil furnace, but with the extreme cold, it was having a hard time combating the bitter wind that seemed determined to infiltrate the house through any crack or crevice. And now with the power out, the remaining warmth was going to disappear in a matter of hours.
Nancy lit several candles around the living room, and their fragile glow seemed to force back the creepy shadows to the corners of the room. Lindsey switched on the gas fireplace while Nancy went to make some food.
Still wrapped in her blanket, Carrie knelt beside the hearth.
“I know I must sound like I’m crazy,” she said.
“No, you sound like you had a very bad dream, and with all that you’ve been through and this vicious storm, it’s small wonder,” Lindsey said.
Carrie was silent and Lindsey had the feeling she hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
As she turned the knob higher to increase the gas flow, the fire in the fireplace leapt up, wrapping the faux ceramic logs in its hot hungry mouth.
Carrie turned her back to the fire, letting the heat dry out her clothes. Lindsey wished she had some words of comfort for her.
Nancy bustled in with a tray laden with crusty bread, Havarti cheese, sweet pickles and a pitcher of milk. Perfect. Lindsey was beginning to think of Nancy as always coming to the rescue with a tray of goodies.
Nancy silently handed them each a plate. Lindsey loaded a thick slice of bread with a couple of pieces of cheese and several pickle slices. Carrie and Nancy did the same.
After a few minutes of listening to the wind claw at the side of the house while they ate, Carrie said, “I’m sorry I woke you both.”
“No worries,” Nancy said. “Nightmares happen.”
“No, there was a man,” Carrie said. “I saw him standing on the ledge outside my window.”
Nancy and Lindsey exchanged a look but said nothing. Heathcliff began to pace the room, as if on patrol, and Lindsey found it sweetly comforting.
“It must have been a shadow,” Nancy said. She poured them each a glass of milk and took a sip of her own. In a most pragmatic voice, she added, “I mean, who would be fool enough to be out in this weather?”
“I don’t think it was a who,” Carrie said. “I think it was a what.”
“A ghost?” Lindsey clarified. “Really?”
Carrie looked at her with huge eyes, and maybe it was the shadows being cast by the fire, but she noticed that the dark circles beneath Carrie’s eyes stood out against the pallor of her skin, and Lindsey surmised she hadn’t really slept in days, which was not a big surprise but would explain why she had hallucinated a man looking into her window.
“He wants me to solve his murder,” Carrie said. Her voice was whisper soft and sent a shiver down Lindsey’s spine. “He won’t rest until I find out who shot him.”
There was a beat of silence and then Nancy said, “Well, that does sound like Markus.”
Her tone was wry and managed to reach out and tickle Lindsey’s funny bone. She had to muffle her chuckle in her glass of milk, but it fooled no one, and after a second, Carrie chuckled, too.
“It does sound like him, doesn’t it?”
Whether it was from nerves or lack of sleep, Lindsey couldn’t tell, but suddenly the three of them started to laugh.
Heathcliff jogged over from the door as if he wanted in on the joke and jumped into Lindsey’s lap, almost sending her glass crashing to the ground. She hugged him close and he licked her face as if delighted to be included.
The blows against the front door to the house were unmistakable. Someone was out there. Someone who wanted in. Heathcliff barked and raced to the apartment door. He scratched at the door, eager to be let out to investigate whoever was out there.
Nancy rose first, looking startled.
Carrie jumped up, too, and grabbed her arm. Her hands were trembling and she looked terrified.
“Don’t answer it,” she said. “It’s him. I know it.”
Nancy patted her arm, but even Lindsey could see that the older lady looked frightened, and she realized that this must bring back bad memories for her, memories of another bad storm where officers came to tell her that her husband had gone down with his ship.
“You two stay here,” she said. “Lock the door behind me. Heathcliff and I will check it out.”
“No!” Carrie argued.
“I don’t think…” Nancy began, but Lindsey interrupted.
“It could be someone in trouble. We have to answer it.”
Before they could argue, Lindsey picked up one of the candles and strode across the room. With a bracing breath, she stepped through the door with the dog at her side.
The candle had been a poor choice she realized as soon as she stepped into the foyer. It didn’t cast enough light and it just made all of the shadows in her peripheral vision dance, making her more skittish than she already was, which was saying something since she felt as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
A growl sounded from beside her, and she glanced down to see the fur on Heathcliff’s shoulder bristling. His already low brow seemed to lower, and the gleam of his puppy teeth showed that he had curled his lip back in a ferocious sneer. If she didn’t already know he was a complete goofball, she would have been afraid. His bravery in facing the unknown made her stiffen her spine and approach the front door.
The glass pane in the door was frosted, making it impossible to see outside. Lindsey had no choice but to open the door if she wanted to see who or what had made the banging noise.
She unlatched the shiny new dead bolt and pulled the door open. A gust of freezing cold air blasted her and snuffed her candle, but before the light went out she saw a gloved hand reaching out of the darkness for her, and despite her best intentions to be brave, she screamed like a little girl.
With a roar, Heathcliff launched himself at the figure in the darkness. The door to Nancy’s apartment banged open, and the body on the porch, unprepared for a flying dog, went down in a heap with a thump and a yelp.
Nancy came out of her apartment with her flashlight in one hand and a cast iron frying pan in the other.
“Who is it? What is it?” she demanded. She shone a beam of light on a puffy blue coat lying under a sitting dog that looked intent on licking every snowflake off the newcomer.
A young male voice said, “Call him off, Naners, before he licks me to death.”
“Charlie, is that you?” Nancy asked.
“Heck, yeah,” he said.
“You know this man?” Carrie asked.
