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“I'm not even dressed yet!” Jade protested.

“Not my problem. It's afternoon and we're leaving in five, so get it together.”

 

As her mother drove through the open gates of Pleasant Pines Retirement Center, Jade eyed the facility with a jaundiced eye. So far she'd been in Stewart's Crossing not quite twenty-four hours, and each and every minute had been torture. From the ridiculous lack of Internet and TV reception to Gracie's claims of seeing a ghost, the place had been awful. And now they were visiting Grandma Arlene in this place, a modern building with a huge portico that stretched over a circular drive. A leaf-strewn lawn and a few shrubs completed the landscape around the main building of three stories, each with banks of windows punctuated with air-conditioning units.

Jade hated it on sight, but then, she hated just about everything that was her life these days, and seeing Grandma Arlene wasn't going to improve her mood. The drive here had been tense; her mother had been silent, and that hadn't ended when she'd wheeled the Explorer into a vacant parking space.

As Gracie got out of the backseat, Jade climbed out of the front, only to feel the chill of raindrops upon her bare head.

Great. Just fabulous.

She wrapped her ankle-length coat more tightly around her and forced her hands deep in its pockets as she followed her mother and sister inside. For some unknown reason Gracie didn't seem to notice how lame this visit was.

For a second, Jade felt the sting of guilt for her thoughts, then quickly dismissed that emotion as totally undeserved because she really wanted to like her grandmother, but it was impossible. She had friends who thought their grandparents were the absolute coolest. Cody's grandpa was a kick, a man Cody loved and respected. His grandma, Violet, was a sweet thing who baked cookies, and knitted, and took in stray cats whom she adored. Violet had a collection of old vinyl records she loved to play for Cody as his grandpa showed him the arsenal of weapons he kept in a special locked room with the skins and heads of animals he'd “nailed”—everything from a stuffed alligator placed near the stone fireplace to a cougar crouching on one of the crossbeams of the vaulted ceiling. That part was kind of gross, she thought, as she walked through the glass door of the building to feel a blast of heat as hot as the very fires of hell. She really didn't like the fact that Cody's grandpa took great pride in killing the beasts, but Gramps's arsenal of old guns and knives was pretty cool. Cody loved it all, especially the old World War II German Luger, and a machine gun complete with ammo belt that Gramps kept in his “war room” in the basement.

Despite the old man's affinity for warfare and hunting, both he and his “bride” of fifty-plus years were fun and loving and had the laugh lines to prove it.

Jade hadn't been so lucky. She'd never met her father's parents, which was no surprise as she'd never met her biological father, a mythical male beast who had impregnated her mother and apparently had no name. As far as her adopted dad, Noel McAdams went, his parents were in Savannah, where he now resided after the divorce. She'd met them only a few times, so they hardly counted anymore. Sarah's father, Grandpa Frank, was long dead, so that left Jade stuck with Arlene, a crotchety, mean-spirited old woman who seemed to blame the world for her fate.

Today, Jade figured, would be no exception.

After signing a guest registry and receiving badges at a reception desk, they were escorted by Mrs. Adele Malone, a cheery-faced, plump woman who chatted incessantly. She led them past a room filled with floral couches and chairs, where some of the residents were reading the paper or watching TV, then past an empty dining area, to a wide corridor where she smiled and waved to several women pushing walkers.

“Here we go,” she announced at an elevator flanked by fake plants that looked suspiciously like marijuana. They probably weren't, but Jade preferred to believe that some twisted decorator had thrown them into the decorating mix as a joke.

On the third floor, Mrs. Malone, still chatting on and on about the great things that were happening at Pleasant Pines, guided them to a room and knocked softly on the door.

The whole place gave Jade a major case of the creeps. Oh, it was nice enough; most of the residents greeted them in the hallways, some with walkers or wheelchairs, others walking slowly, but happy enough. They were all so happy that Jade secretly wondered if they were all on some kind of antidepressant.

All that changed when Mrs. Malone rapped her knuckles against a closed door and said in a singsong voice, “Mrs. Stewart? You have guests.”

When there was no response from inside, Mrs. Malone knocked again, gently opened the door, and popped her head inside. “Your daughter and granddaughters are here to see you, Arlene.”

Again, nothing.

Undaunted, the caretaker swung the door open and stepped inside a compact suite. “Come on in,” she said, waving one hand quickly behind her to usher the small group inside.

Sarah stepped inside while Gracie and Jade hung back, huddled around the open door.

“Mrs. Stewart?” Mrs. Malone said again, more loudly. “You have company.”

“Go away,” was the sharp response.

“It's your daughter and granddaughters,” Mrs. Malone repeated as she approached an overstuffed couch where a frail woman sat surrounded by pillows and a stuffed rabbit. Not quite white, her hair was thinning and straight. Owlish glasses were propped on the bridge of her nose, a chain securing them around her neck, should they fall off.

“Wait here a second,” Jade's mother said quickly over her shoulder as she approached the couch. “Hi, Mom! How are you?” She bent to take her mother's hand and brush a kiss across her cheek, but Grandma Arlene visibly recoiled. Her bony face twisted in revulsion.

“You?” she accused in a low, raspy voice. “What're
you
doing here?”

Undaunted, Sarah straightened. “The girls and I moved back into the house, you know that, to renovate it. But we took a break to visit you.”

“What girls?” Arlene demanded, her angry eyes sliding in their sockets as she trained her gaze to the doorway, where Gracie and Jade stood, half in, half out of the room. “Why are they here?” Arlene's thin lips were bloodless, her cheeks creased deep with wrinkles, her eyes a blue so pale they appeared ghostly.

“We wanted to visit you,” Sarah explained.

Arlene's lips quivered. “I thought you were dead.”

Mrs. Malone's hand flew to her chest.

“What? Mom, no.” Sarah was shaking her head, her pasted-on smile wavering slightly. “I know it's been a while. I've been by, but you were sleeping.”

“Why in heaven's name would you let me think you were dead?” The old woman's fury exploded, her fingers, already bony, gripping the arm of the faded couch as if they were talons. “What kind of daughter does that to her mother?” Her voice was rising, her arms visibly shaking. “I should have known with you! The nuns told me that you had strayed. They warned me. Don't you know that the Madonna is the key to your salvation? The Holy Mother? She's the key. Are you a heathen?”

Mrs. Malone stepped in. “Arlene, Sarah just brought her girls by for a visit.”

“Sarah?” the old lady said, her breath coming out in a rush.

“Yes, your daughter.”

Arlene blinked rapidly and her mouth worked. “My daughter is Theresa!” The fire that had flashed so hot seemed suddenly doused, and her lips trembled as if she might break down. “You're not . . . ?” She looked down for a second, gathering herself, and Jade actually felt sorry for her, for her obvious confusion. Anxiously, Arlene rubbed the back of one age-spotted hand with the other. “I . . . I don't understand. Where's Theresa? Where's my baby?”

Sarah had crouched down beside the chair. “We don't know, Mom. We still don't know.”

“I think she's with John,” Arlene said suddenly.

“John? John who?” Sarah asked.

“Or was it Matthew?”

“Mom, who's Matthew?” Sarah didn't understand.

“Maybe they were friends of your sister's,” Mrs. Malone suggested softly. “Or family members.”

“They'll keep her safe,” Arlene said. “I know they will.” The angry woman was completely gone, leaving in her wake a dazed, broken old lady who started mumbling gibberish as she blinked behind the lenses of her oversized glasses.

“Maybe this isn't a good time,” Mrs. Malone said, her forehead lining with worry.

Well, duh!
In Jade's estimation, this might be the worst time in the world. Poor Grandma.

The caretaker added, “Perhaps you could come back another day?”

“Mom?” Sarah asked, but Jade knew it was over. Whoever or whatever had been possessing this shriveled shell of a body moments before had shrunk away and was now hidden. Jade just hoped it would be forever.

They stepped into the hallway again, and Mrs. Malone said, “Sometimes she retreats. If you'll just give me a sec—” She pulled out some kind of walkie-talkie from her pocket and called for help. “You can go if you'd like and I'll call you later,” she said as a tall woman with thick graying hair scraped into a bun at her nape and an expression that said she was all business hurried toward them.

Dressed in blue scrubs with a name tag indicating she was an RN, she drew Mrs. Malone aside for a quick, hushed word, then stepped through the door of Grandma's room.

“Is this normal?” Sarah asked.

“She has her good days and bad days.” Mrs. Malone glanced at the half-open door, where the nurse was already trying to communicate with Arlene. “Obviously this isn't one of her best.”

The woman was just full of understatements. God, how did she hold down her job?

“We'll come back,” Sarah said, and for that Jade was relieved. The sooner she was out of this place, the better.

Outside she finally felt as if she could breathe again and didn't care about the rain pummeling from the dark sky.

“That place is awful!” she declared as her mother hit the remote for the door locks and Jade dashed across the parking lot to flop into the Ford. Her sister and mother were quick to follow, and as Gracie clicked her seat belt, Jade slid a hard look at Sarah. “Just for the record, Mom. I'm
never
going back to that place.”

“Of course we are, to see Grandma—”

“Why? She's horrible. And she didn't even recognize you. She even thought you were dead. How weird was that?” Jade fiddled with her own seat belt, securing it before Sarah dived into the same old boring lecture about safety.

“She just confused me with my older sister, Theresa, that's all,” Sarah said.

“That's all?” Jade flung her head back against the headrest.

“She's sick, had a stroke, and there's some kind of dementia going on.”

“She's lost it. Okay. Fine. I get it. She's got Alzheimer's or whatever,” Jade said. “I feel sorry for her. It's sad, okay? But this is just too out there for me, Mom. I don't even know her, and she obviously doesn't want to know me, either. I'm
not
going back there.”

“Me, neither,” Gracie said from behind her sister. “Jade's right.” For once, she was actually in Jade's corner. Hard to believe. “She's all kinds of crazy and—”

“Enough!” their mother snapped in frustration as she started to back out of the parking space, only to slam on the brakes as the car across from them was backing out as well. “Come on, girls! She's
my
mother.
Your
grandmother. Show a little respect and some compassion for a sick woman.”

Jade said, “Why? She obviously doesn't want us here. Any of us. And I just don't get why you keep trying to make it seem like it's better than it is.”

Sarah closed her eyes a second as the rain drizzled upon the fogging windshield.

“Uh oh,” Gracie whispered, and Jade could almost hear their mother counting to ten in her head as she gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles blanched. Finally, calmer, she drew in a deep breath and shook her head before backing up again. “She's my mother,” Sarah said again, softly. “She raised me.”

“Explains a lot,” Jade said, then saw a flash of hurt cross her mother's face. Inwardly Jade squirmed, but she set her jaw.

Sarah said, “She wasn't always like this.”

Finally, they were headed down the long lane to the main road.

“Mom, Grandma's always been weird. You know it. Anyway, I'm sorry that she's your mother, but that's on you. I'm . . . I'm just saying she's like a witch or something.”

“Jade . . . ,” she murmured.

Jade wasn't about to back down. “Mom, face it, Grandma's evil.”

“For the love of God, she's ill. That's all. Try to dial back the drama.”

“That's not all. You keep lying to yourself about her, and other things too. When everything doesn't turn out perfect you're surprised.” She saw her mother flinch at that one, but it was just too bad.

“Let's just be nice to Grandma, okay?” Sarah slowed and let a huge truck rumble past, then turned onto the road that led into the heart of Stewart's Crossing. “Show some compassion and empathy. If we're lucky enough, we'll all get to be her age someday.”

Like in a million years!

“Okay,” was the grumbling assent from the backseat.

“Sure,” Jade finally agreed. She did feel a little bad about how harsh she was, but still . . . she remembered Grandma Arlene and what she'd been like as a younger woman. “I'll be as nice to her as she is to me.”

“Fine,” Sarah said, her eyes steadily forward. If Jade didn't know better, she'd think her mother might actually be agreeing with her.

I
t was cold. So damned cold.

And dark, the blackness complete.

“Let me out of here!” Rosalie yelled, but her voice was raw, her tone pleading, and though she pounded on the locked wooden door, no one responded. It was as if she was alone in the world, and she wanted to burst into tears again, though falling apart hadn't helped the situation so far. She was locked in a barn of sorts, her “room” a stall with sides so close she could nearly touch each wall if she stood in the middle. The only light that came in was through a window nearly eight or nine feet above the wooden floor. But now, it was dark again, sometime in the early evening, she thought, her stomach rumbling from lack of food.

More scared than she'd ever been in her life, she searched for a way out of this place, just as she had from the second she'd been dumped here. She'd fought and kicked and screamed, furious and terrified all at once. Her voice was raspy, her face felt puffy from crying, and her hands, bound together with tight cuffs in front of her, were bleeding and scraped from pounding on the door. Even her legs hurt; she'd kicked the solid wood panels so hard she'd sent a jarring pain up her right leg.

“Damn it all!” With her two hands clasped together, she rubbed her leg now, but it still ached.

She didn't know where she was, but not horribly far from Stewart's Crossing, she guessed. The entire ride in the truck, from the moment she'd been abducted and driven through the woods and hills, had taken about half an hour, and was less than twenty miles from the diner. She'd kept an eye on the clock and odometer during her abduction to this isolated building in the middle of the woods.

Gone were his sexy smile and cowboy demeanor. The friendly man who'd left great tips and always made pleasant conversation as he'd sipped his coffee had vanished completely, replaced by this stone-faced freak.

Probably the nice man hadn't existed at all; that good-guy façade that had helped trick her had slid off his face to reveal a monster she was certain was capable of murder.

Her mind traveled along dark roads of thought as she considered what he might do to her, and she was nearly physically sick. So far he hadn't touched her, except to bind her, but all that could change, and the thought of what might be her future caused her blood to turn to ice.

You have to stay strong, to be smart, to find a way to change your destiny,
Shivering, she swallowed back her fear.

She'd been a fool, she realized. Mentally berating herself, for what had to be the millionth time, for her stupidity in climbing into his truck, she slid down the door to sit on the floor.

Once she'd realized he was kidnapping her, she'd expected him to rape her or torture her or kill her, but so far he'd only hauled her kicking and screaming into this frigid, stark room. A small cot had been pushed into one corner, along with two bottles of water and a bucket to pee in.

“All the comforts of home,” he'd said cruelly as he'd dumped her onto the cot with its faded sleeping bag and musty pillow and left her there, still in the damned handcuffs.

She'd spent all night pacing and kicking at the door, alternately crying and screaming, but all the while trying to figure out how to escape and wishing fervently that she'd taken the ride Gloria had offered, that she'd walked straight home and hadn't gotten in the truck, that she'd done anything other than let herself be lured into this awful trap.

“I hate you!” she yelled, and her words almost echoed back at her. She was certain she was alone. All alone.

Would her mother ever find her?

Would that jackass Mel convince Sharon that she'd just pulled her same old trick of staying out all night? Would they start searching?

Please, please, please,
she prayed to a God she'd sworn she didn't believe in.
Let someone find me!

Surely even Mel would start to believe this was serious. Oh, God, she hoped they were searching for her, that someone had seen her get into the jerk-off's truck, that someone recognized the creep, or had taken down the numbers from his license plate or . . .

Oh, it was useless, she thought as she got to her feet and felt tears rain from her eyes again. She crumpled into a heap on the stupid cot and drew the sleeping bag up around her shoulders. It had been a long time already, long enough that she was really hungry as well as scared to death. The bastard wouldn't just leave her here, would he? To starve to death? He wouldn't have left two water bottles if he wanted her to die of thirst. Her mind spun with all kinds of horrid scenarios, and she wondered if something awful had happened to him, and though she hoped it would, who would know where to find her? Maybe she'd just die in this stinky, moldy sleeping bag.

Oh, dear Jesus, she
had
to find a way out of here. Had to! Tears rolled down her cheeks, and with the cuffs digging into her wrists, she brushed them aside.

Mom will find you, She will, You know that,

The trouble was, Rosalie
didn't
know it . . .

She didn't know it at all.

 

So far she wasn't exactly batting a thousand in the mother department, Sarah thought as she climbed the creaky stairs to the third floor. Her older daughter was brazen and uncaring enough to call her grandmother evil, and her younger daughter was convinced she'd seen a ghost in the premises. Twice. So much for family stability.

Guiltily, Sarah wondered if she'd unwittingly engendered both. She certainly hadn't been particularly kind about her mother, and she too had thought she'd seen an unhappy spirit in this very house. Had she unwittingly said as much to Gracie and exacerbated her younger daughter's fears? Whereas Jade had always been independent and outspoken to a fault, Gracie had been more introverted and experienced difficulty making friends. Sarah crossed her fingers that this move would be a positive change for not only herself but her girls as well.

At the landing she paused. She'd been through all the rooms on this floor and had decided that, once again, the bathroom would have to be taken down to the studs; the master bedroom needed total refurbishing too. The entire house could use new wiring and plumbing, insulation and an overhaul of the heating system.

It would cost a fortune.

“But it'll be so worth it,” she reminded herself as she passed the room where her sister had lived. Her footsteps slowed a bit. “Later,” she told herself when she had more time. Right now she had to face her own damned demons, so she made her way to the door at the end of the hallway that led to the narrow passage upward into the attic and beyond.

As she stepped through it, anxiety elevated her pulse. Since childhood she'd avoided these stairs, refused to step foot into the attic, but she could do so no longer.

Get a hold of yourself, There is nothing evil in the attic, Nothing,

She flipped on the light switch at the base of the stairs. It clicked loudly, but that was it. The steps and gaping area above remained dark. “Of course,” she muttered and clicked on the flashlight of her cell phone to illuminate the stairs. Feeling her neck muscles tighten, she forced herself to climb the steep flight and ignored the beating of her heart and the fear that slid through her veins.

The temperature dropped as she stepped into the attic, where gaps in the shingles caused the wind to whistle and wail and allowed rain to slip inside.

She remembered being up on the widow's walk that night she'd gone to the attic. Frigid rain pelted from an obsidian sky. Her nightgown was soaked, her skin was wet, and a bitter wind cut through her as she shivered. But it was more than winter weather that caused the icy fear in the pit of her stomach. There was something malevolent out there, horrifying enough to make her mind block the memories.

But sometimes bits came through.

She knew that Roger had been here with her.

Or was that later? Had she been delusional, as Arlene had repeatedly told her?

But even now she thought she could recall the calluses on her half brother's hands, fingers that were work-roughened as they closed over her arms. He'd been in his late teens, then, nearly a man, and he'd whispered into her ear. “Everything will be all right.” But it had been a lie.

Remembering his hot breath against the shell of her ear, she shuddered. Fear pulsed in her brain. She needed to remember, yet that same mind-numbing dread kept the memory at bay, or so the psychologist she'd seen years before had explained. “It's your subconscious, Sarah, your brain's way of keeping you safe,” Dr. Melbourne had said in her soft, dulcet tones. “It's protecting you.”

“But I need to know!” she'd insisted as she'd sat on a corner of the couch in Melbourne's office, two rooms in an old house made to look homey, as if in hopes of giving her patients the illusion of a safe haven. Subtle lighting, comfortable furniture, even a hand-knit afghan and a quietly ticking clock, created a feeling of home and hearth. Still she hadn't felt safe and had clenched her fists as she'd tried hard not to hyperventilate. “I have to know what happened to me before I get married.” She was desperate not to take her fears into her marriage to Noel McAdams.

“The block will erode. When you're ready. Trust me,” Dr. Melbourne had said.

“But I need it gone now,” Sarah had insisted.

The doctor had been unable to offer any further assurances, however, so she'd entered into her marriage with Noel, still unclear what her brain was trying to save her from. Since then she'd decided Dr. Melbourne's theory was just so much bullshit . . . until recently, when she'd decided to return to this old house, and a few tiny bits of recollection had begun to break through.

Now she wondered if she were ready for the truth. “Better than not knowing.” Or was she kidding herself? Steadying herself at the top of the staircase, she fought the urge to run back down, to close her mind to that dark night.

Why had she been up here? What had she been doing with Roger?

Murky images slithered through her mind, like picture frames that moved too quickly to catch.

“Sarah,” Roger had whispered, his voice tight, “don't be frightened . . .”

But she had been. Not just scared, but virtually paralyzed with fear. He'd been too close. She'd smelled him, the sweat, the maleness of him underlain with a hint of alcohol. He'd held her near, and his beard had scraped her cheek as his hand found their way under her legs to carry her . . .

Dear Mother Mary . . .

Now, she tried to grab hold of something, anything that would help her remember, but the images that had been blooming quickly withered into the void once more.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered. She couldn't let this cripple her. With an effort, she pulled herself together and tamped down the feeling that something evil had happened on the roof that night.

“Come on, Sarah. Get over it,” she said and shined her phone's tiny beam over decades worth of junk stored under the eaves, where she suspected bats roosted and who knew what else called home. This dark area with its peaked, dripping ceilings, rough rafters, and dusty floors was a perfect hiding spot for all kinds of rodents.

Her skin crawled a little, but she kept on, fanning the beam over old trunks, piles of forgotten books, broken furniture, crates, and stains on the floor that indicated where the roof had leaked.

Picking her way carefully, she made her way to the final stairs and upward, into the cupola. Two of its glass sides were cracked, which was no surprise, but she tried the door and found it swollen shut.

She almost turned back. The old fears had returned, and the excuse that it was a little nuts going out onto the widow's walk in the rain and the dark had a lot of appeal.

But she'd come this far.

“Just do it,” she told herself, her hands clammy, her nerves stretched tight. She intended to step outside, onto the widow's walk to stand in the very spot where Angelique Le Duc Stewart had stood nearly a hundred years earlier when, as legend had it, she'd faced her attacker and they'd both fallen to their deaths, their bodies never recovered.

It was the very same spot where Roger had sworn he'd found her, wandering and delirious in the storm. He'd carried her downstairs to the living room, where her father was seated before the fire. Sarah had been five at the time. A child. She'd vowed she didn't remember how she'd ended up there, and her father had been kind, holding her close in his big La-Z-Boy while the rapid click of Arlene's heels on the wooden floor announced her arrival.

“What were you doing up there?” Arlene had demanded as she'd furiously scooped Sarah away from her father. “You know better!” She'd given Sarah a quick little shake, then, catching herself, yanked her daughter close as she'd started to cry. “You scare me, Sarah Jane,” Arlene had choked out, her voice cracking, her eyes gray. “Don't you know, you scare me to death!”

She'd smelled of some kind of perfume tinged with the scent of smoke from a recent cigarette. She'd dropped onto the couch, still clutching Sarah as if she were afraid the girl would disappear. “What were you doing up there?”

“I don't know,” Sarah answered truthfully.

Arlene hadn't believed her, but Sarah had insisted she had no memory of how she'd ended up on the widow's walk.

Finally her mother gave up. “Well, thank the good Lord that Roger found you!” Arlene had said into her daughter's wet curls as Sarah shivered. “I hate to think what would have happened to you if he hadn't. Now, come on, let's get you in a hot bath to warm you up. Then we'll get you some dry pajamas.”

Had she seen a ghost that night? It seemed so. Or had it been something more terrifying, something more visceral? The experience had been terrifying, traumatic, and never resolved, so here she was, in the attic years later, feeling those same cryptic emotions claw at her, even though she'd told herself over and over that whatever had happened up here was long buried.