and I think it should be torn down and forgotten. But let’s not start inventing ghost stories. All right?”
Abigail hesitated, then shook her head. “And what if you’re wrong?” she asked. “What if my husband was right? What if there is something about the mill, and the only way we can keep it safe is by keeping people out of it?”
“For heaven’s sake, Abigail, don’t start filling the children’s heads with a lot of nonsense.”
“But I want to hear,” Tracy protested.
“And I don’t want to hear,” Carolyn said firmly. “And neither does Beth. The mill is nothing but an old building that’s been an eyesore in this town for nearly a hundred years. Frankly, I can’t understand why it wasn’t torn down years ago.” Her eyes fixed on Abigail. “In fact, Abigail, I’d like to know why your husband didn’t tear it down years ago when your son died there.”
Abigail’s strength seemed to flow back into her, and she gazed imperiously at Carolyn. “He didn’t tear it down because he always said that it mustn’t be torn down. He always said that it must stand as a reminder to us.”
“A reminder?” Carolyn replied. Suddenly she had had enough, and did nothing to conceal the fury that welled in her as she stared at the old woman. “A reminder of how big a fortune your family once made in that building? A reminder of all the children who spent their lives in that building, working twelve hours a day for next to no money at all so that your family could build this monstrosity of a house and staff it with the few people in town who weren’t working in your mill? Was that it, Abigail? Did he want the mill to stand there forever to remind us all of the good old days? Well, for my family, those days weren’t so good, though I’m sure you’re not aware of that!”
Abigail remained silent for several long seconds, then finally said, “I don’t know what Conrad thought at the end, Carolyn,” she began quietly. “But I do know that he was terrified of the mill. Until tonight, I paid no attention to it. But now I think perhaps we all ought to rethink the matter.” She walked from the dining room, her back straight, her proud old head held high.
A moment later Tracy followed her grandmother, leaving Carolyn and Beth alone in the dining room. There was a long silence, and finally, for the first time, Beth spoke.
“Mom? What … what if she’s right? What if there is something in the mill? What would it mean?”
Carolyn sighed, and shook her head. “It wouldn’t mean anything, sweetheart,” she said. “It wouldn’t mean anything, because it’s not possible. It doesn’t matter what old Mr. Sturgess thought, or what Abigail thinks now. There’s nothing in the mill.” But even as she said the words, a memory flashed through Carolyn’s mind—a memory of that morning the day after the funeral, when she’d been out hiking with Beth.
For a moment, just before she’d fainted, the mill had looked as if it were burning.
But that was silly. The mill hadn’t been on fire, and she hadn’t actually seen anything. It had simply been a delusion, caused by the fainting spell.
She put the memory out of her mind, and began helping Beth and a silent Hannah clear the table. Surely there was a reasonable explanation for what had happened in the mill that day. When Phillip came home, they would know what it was.
Phillip Sturgess sat in Norm Adcock’s office, facing the chief of the Westover Police Department over a desk that looked even more worn than Phillip felt. In the chair next to him, Alan Rogers sat, his eyes grim as he waited for Phillip to finish reading the report Cosgrove and Jeffers had filed. They’d already listened to Brett Kilpatrick’s story.
For Phillip, there was a dreamlike quality to the whole thing, as if something out of the past were being replayed. And, of course, it was—the events of that afternoon were an eerie replay of what he’d heard about the day his brother had died.
The police, he was beginning to understand, were much more interested in the minutiae of what had happened than in the death of Jeff Bailey. Of course, he knew why that was. Jeff Bailey, like Phillip himself, was one of “them” to Norm Adcock. One of the rich ones—the ones who lived in Westover but were seldom seen in the town. Not, to