Phillip shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t like being in the place alone, but I kept telling myself it was nothing—that the place has so many bad associations for me that I couldn’t feel any other way. But the longer I stayed, the worse it got. And I couldn’t go into the basement at all. I tried, but I just couldn’t do it. Every time I looked down those stairs, I had the feeling that if I went down them, I’d die.” He fell silent, then drained his glass and set it aside.
“What did you do?” Carolyn finally pressed when it seemed as if Phillip wasn’t going to go on.
“Went to see my accountant.” He chuckled hollowly. “When I told him I was thinking about giving the project up, he told me what I told you—we can’t. Only he had the numbers to back himself up with.”
Carolyn frowned now. “The numbers? What numbers?”
“All the figures on the amount of money we’ve committed to the project. The loans, the contracts, the cash layouts—the whole ball of wax. And the bottom line is that we literally cannot afford to abandon it. There’s just too much money invested.” He smiled bitterly. “The best thing that could happen,” he added, “would be if the place burned to the ground.”
For the rest of the evening, Phillip’s last words echoed in Carolyn’s mind, and when she at last went to bed, she found it difficult to sleep.
The mill, for her, had become a trap, and she felt its jaws inexorably closing on all of them.
Tracy Sturgess awoke at midnight, just before the alarm on her night table went off. It wasn’t a slow wakening, the slight stirring that grows into a stretch and is then followed by reluctantly opening eyes. It was the other kind, when sleep is suddenly snatched away, and the mind is fully alert. At the first sound of the alarm, she reached out and silenced it.
Tracy lay still in the bed, listening to the faint sounds of the night. She had not intended to fall asleep at all—indeed, she had not even bothered to undress that night, and when her father had come in to say good night to her, she had merely clutched the covers tight around her neck. But when he was gone, she’d set her alarm, just in case.
She slid out of her bed and went to the window. The moon, nearly full, hung high in the night sky, bathing the village below in its silvery light. Even from here, each of the houses of Westover was clearly visible, and when Tracy looked at the mill, the moonlight seemed to shimmer on its windows, making it look as if it were lit from within.
Tracy turned away from the window, put on her sneakers, then crossed to the door. Opening it a crack, she listened for several long seconds. From below, the slow regular ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer seemed amplified by the silence of the house, and Tracy instinctively knew that everyone else was asleep.
She opened the door wider, and stepped out into the corridor, then moved silently toward Beth’s room. When she came to the closed door, she paused, listening again before she tried the knob. It turned easily, and when she pushed the door open, there was no betraying squeak from its hinges. Then she was inside, and a moment later she stood by Beth’s bed, gently shaking her stepsister.
“Wake up,” she whispered as loudly as she dared.
Beth stirred, then woke up, blinking in the dim moonlight. She looked up at Tracy. “Is it time?”
Tracy nodded, then pulled the covers away from Beth. To her disgust, Beth was wearing pajamas. “I told you not to undress,” she hissed. “Hurry up, will you?” Beth reached out to the light on her nightstand, but Tracy brushed her hand away. “Don’t turn on the lights. What if someone sees? Will you just get dressed?”
Beth scrambled out of the bed, and scurried into her closet. In less than a minute she was back, wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt. On her sockless feet she had a pair of sneakers almost identical to Tracy’s. She sat down at her desk, and quickly tied the laces, then followed Tracy out into the hall. But at the top of the stairs, Tracy suddenly stopped.
“What’s wrong?” Beth whispered.
“The bed. We forgot to fix it so it looks like you’re