coldly. “I have decided not to go ahead with the reconstruction. I want the mill sealed up again.”
Alan licked his lips uncertainly. The last thing he wanted to do right now was get into a fight with Abigail Sturgess. “Well, I’m afraid it isn’t quite that simple, Mrs. Sturgess,” he began, but Abigail cut him off.
“Of course it’s that simple,” she snapped. “It’s my mill. You will be paid, of course. But the work is to stop immediately.”
Alan said nothing, but shook his head.
Abigail’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Did you hear me, Mr. Rogers?”
Alan sighed, then nodded. “I did, Mrs. Sturgess. But I’m afraid I can’t stop the work on your authority. It was Phillip who signed the contract. If he’s changed his mind, he’ll have to tell me himself. He was here this morning,” he added with elaborate casualness, “and he didn’t say a word about stopping the project. In fact, just the opposite. We were figuring out ways to speed the job up.”
Abigail was silent for a moment, then nodded curtly. “I see.” She turned away, and started back into the cavernous interior of the building. Before she had taken two steps, though, she felt Alan’s hand on her arm.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t go in there.”
She brushed his hand away as if it were an annoying insect. “Of course I can go in,” she snapped. “If I wish to inspect my property, I have the right to do so.” Her eyes met his, as if challenging him to stop her. “The men are gone, Mr. Rogers,” she went on. “I’ll hardly be in the way.”
Alan nodded a reluctant agreement. “All right. But I’ll go with you.’ ”
“That’s not necessary,” Abigail replied.
“I’m afraid it is,” Alan told her. “You may own the mill, Mrs. Sturgess, but right now I’m responsible for it. I don’t leave in the afternoon until I know that it’s empty, and locked. And I’m not about to allow you to wander around by yourself.”
Abigail’s nod of assent was almost imperceptible. “Very well.”
Twenty minutes later they stood at the top of the stairs to the basement. Without looking at Alan, Abigail spoke. “Give me your flashlight, Mr. Rogers. I wish to go downstairs.”
“Mrs. Sturgess—” Alan began, but Abigail cut him off.
“Mr. Rogers, one of my sons died down there many years ago, and my dearest friend’s grandson died in the same place two days ago. I wish to visit the spot where the tragedies occurred, and I wish to visit it alone. You will give me your flashlight, and then you will wait for me at the door.”
Alan hesitated. “Let me at least turn on the lights down there.” He started toward the electrical panel, but Abigail stopped him.
“No,” she said. “I wish to see it the way my son and Jeff Bailey saw it.” When Alan still hesitated, she allowed the faintest note of pleading to enter her voice. “I have my reasons, Mr. Rogers. Please.”
Reluctantly, Alan turned his flashlight over to the old woman, then, as she started slowly down the stairs, headed back to the site shack. He would give her twenty minutes, no more.
Only when she reached the basement, and the darkness of it had closed around her, did Abigail turn on the flashlight and let its beam wander through the dusty expanse of the cellar.
There seemed to be nothing there.
Only piles of crates and stacks of plasterboard.
She stepped onto the floor of the basement, and turned right. She took five more steps, then turned right again, so that she was facing the area below the stairs.
Holding the flashlight firmly, she played its beam into the darkness there.
Abigail’s thoughts were fueled by the memory of her husband’s strange fixations about this place, and her eyes began to play tricks on her.
A face loomed out of the darkness, pale skin stretched over sharp cheekbones, the mouth drawn back in a grimace of terror.
Eyes glared at her, sparkling with hatred.
Another face, twisted in agony.
A mouth, hanging in the blackness—open—screaming silently.
Abigail’s heart began to pound as the faces surrounded her, all of them hanging in the darkness, all of them staring at her, accusing her, judging her.
Laughter began to ring in Abigail’s ears. Then the laughter turned to screams of agony and anguish.
A stabbing pain shot through Abigail’s left arm, up into her shoulder, and through her chest.
The flashlight dropped to the floor, its lens and bulb shattering on the hard concrete.
Her knees buckled beneath her, and she began to sink to the floor.