easily into the room. Jeremy blinked.
The bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in. The bedspread was smooth, the pillows-fluffed up every evening by Beatrice before she was allowed to leave for the day-were propped against the ornate headboard of Adeline Parr’s bed. Her perfumes and brushes were lined up on her dressing table the way they always were.
More, though-there was a sense of dry airlessness in the room, as though the door had been left shut for much longer than just the night.
“Mother?” he called out again, in case she was in her bathroom. But no, the door was open. He saw that the bathtub was dry, as were the sinks and the floor.
Glancing guiltily around him, Jeremy crossed to Adeline’s dressing table and opened the bottom left-hand drawer. He lifted up the file folders he found there and saw that the money he’d found yesterday- almost a thousand dollars, as he’d told Christina-was still in place.
Joy rose in him. The money was still there, which meant that they could leave whenever they wanted to. Adeline’s absence would have been completely fortuitous in this regard, except that now this Miller kid had disappeared and he doubted very much that he would be able to pry either Christina or Morgan away from the Landing until he surfaced again.
Jeremy only prayed that his mother didn’t return anytime soon from whatever errand or assignation had taken her away from the house so early this morning. It would just make stealing her money and escaping from her house that much easier. He considered pocketing the money now, but realized that if Adeline came home abruptly and saw that the money was missing, the consequences of her fury would be unthinkable. No, better to take it at the last possible minute, before Adeline had time to even realize it was gone.
In the least emotionally involved and most tangential way, Jeremy wondered where his mother was. But Jeremy was a child of Parr House, and he realized that the times when he could enjoy Adeline’s absence had been few enough in his years here that he should appreciate them when they occurred. Better not to risk breaking the spell by asking questions.
The three of them ate breakfast in the kitchen, not the dining room. They mostly ate in silence, each deep in his or her own thoughts.
Jeremy tried to signal with his eyes to Christina, to remind her about their escape plan, but she stared at her plate of scrambled eggs and barely touched them.
Morgan was thinking about betrayal and how her thoughtless dismissal of Finn at his most vulnerable had sent him fleeing from the house at the moment he needed Morgan the most. And now he was somewhere outside, afraid to go home, terrified that the vampires in his comic books were real, and that they had laid siege to his family and his dog.
Then Christina said, “I’m going to call Billy Lightning. I’m going to call him at the motel and meet him in town and talk about this.”
Jeremy looked surprised. He laid down his coffee cup. “You are?
Why?”
“Because I trust him, Jeremy. Aside from you and Morgan-who frankly don’t know any more than I do about what’s happening here-he’s the only person in this town I trust. He knows a lot about this town and the things that have happened here over the years. And he has a truck. We may need it to look for Finn later, especially if he’s gone into the woods to look for his dog or something.”
“Mom, I told you, his dog is dead,” Morgan said. “Finn said the dog burned up.”
“Morgan,” Christina said patiently. “Finn’s dog didn’t ‘burn up.’ Dogs don’t ‘burn up.’ He’s probably so rattled by what he saw last night-and I can’t believe we’re not talking to the police about this because the Parr’s Landing police detachment forgot to come in to work today-that he’s imagining it. He’s probably had a spell of some sort. Anyway, Billy might know what to do, so I’m going to call him.”
“Christina,” Jeremy said, rolling his eyes surreptitiously. “Remember what we talked about…?” He mouthed
Morgan and Jeremy heard her dialling, then asking to be connected to Billy Lightning’s room. There was a brief, muffled conversation, then Christina returned to the dining room carrying her purse.
“I’ll be back soon,” she said. “Morgan, would you please stay here until we figure out what’s going on? Jeremy, would you keep an eye on her?”
“Mom! I’m not-”
“Yes, Morgan, I know you’re not a baby. So please, do as I ask and don’t leave the house until I get back. All right?”
Morgan sighed theatrically, then softened when she saw the fear on her mother’s face. “All right, Mom, don’t worry. I’ll stay here.”
“You can take advantage of your grandmother’s absence to do some exploring,” Jeremy said. “It’s a big house, and you haven’t seen much of it so far. With Adeline away, the mice can play.”
“Thanks, Jeremy,” Christina said gratefully. “I won’t be long.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Behind the wheel of the Chevelle, Christina noticed how empty the streets were for a Saturday morning-how she passed no other cars on the road and there was no one hurrying along the sidewalks. Even with weather this raw, there ought to be people living their lives. Parr’s Landing was a tough town-weather was what they lived with, not what dictated how they lived.
That damnable cold rain began to fall again, and she turned on the windshield wipers.
When she pulled up in front of the Pear Tree, she saw Billy Lightning huddled under the awning by the front entrance, waiting for her. When he saw her, he brightened visibly and hurried over to the car. She rolled down the window. “Why are you waiting out here in the rain? Climb in before you get soaked.”
Billy shrugged, opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat. “It’s closed, I guess. Locked up tight as a-” He blushed furiously. “Well, it’s closed.”
“Really?” Christina was surprised. “The Pear Tree is always open for breakfast.”
“Closed today,” Billy said. “Let’s go to the Nugget. I passed Mr. Marin sitting at the counter having coffee on the way here.” He grinned. “How about a lift? I walked over there before the rain started.”
“Sure thing.”
“Pretty dead today, isn’t it?” Billy said mildly, looking out the passenger-side window. “I haven’t seen many people out today, even with the rain. Is there some sort of town ordinance about people staying indoors on Saturday mornings in the Landing?”
Christina squinted through rain streaming across the windshield as the sign for the Golden Nugget came into view. “I noticed that myself on the way over here. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
Again, they were alone in the diner. Billy wondered idly how poor Darcy Marin, the owner of the Nugget, made enough money to live, between his nearly empty motel and this albatross of a diner than never seemed to have any customers in it. But the coffee was hot and it was warm inside, in sharp contrast to the rain that was now falling in earnest, and cold enough to become snow before sunset.
“Something very odd is happening in Parr’s Landing and I don’t know what, exactly. But I need to talk to you,” Christina said.
Billy raised his eyebrows. “I love a mystery. And it sure wouldn’t be the first mystery that ever occurred here.”
“It’s sort of serious,” she said. “Have you seen the police today?”
He smiled. “No, why? Am I in trouble-again? Is McKitrick going to arrest me for having dinner with you the other night?”
“Billy, please,” Christina pleaded. “I’m serious.”
Billy sighed. “OK, I’ll bite. No, Christina, I haven’t seen the police today. Why?”
“Early this morning, a friend of Morgan’s woke us up at the house,” she began. “Finn, his name is. He said his parents had been killed-to be precise, he said that his father had murdered his mother. Jeremy went over to check
