He was standing just outside the great room with that damned clipboard.
So they all must be inside.
He was right next to the front door, too close for her to get by him, even if he didn’t see her until she was right on top of him. And I can’t leave Tyler and Katrina in this house.
Do I go back? All the way up and around, down the servants’ stairs? Do I have time?
She eased her head back out and looked down at Anton, assessing the bulk of his body. She studied the mirror shard in her hand. Can I sneak up on him, go for the jugular? If I run at him, with downward momentum, can I possibly shove him against the wall, knock him out? She glanced around her for some other weapon, but all she saw within reach were a few small paintings hung on the walls. Useless.
But there was a recessed alcove in the wall next to the lower landing where she could stand and be hidden from Anton’s line of sight.
Laurel stuck her head out again. Anton still hovered below. She took a breath, then moved swiftly and silently around the wall, and slipped down the remaining stairs to the lower landing.
She ducked into the shallow alcove, pressed her back into the recessed wall, felt her heart pounding through her ribs against the plaster. From her new, closer hiding place she could make out the murmur of voices from the great room. She held very still, forcing her breath to slow, straining to hear.
“I still think we should wait for Dr. MacDonald.” Tyler’s voice sounded agitated.
“She’s not coming back, Tyler,” Brendan’s voice answered patiently. “It was her choice to leave. Please don’t interrupt. Katrina?”
“We’re here. We’re waiting. Are you there?” Katrina called out, her voice clear and energized.
A RAP shook the house. Laurel felt the wall she was leaning against shake to the foundation.
There was an excited murmur of voices, words indistinguishable, then Brendan’s voice called out from the great room: “Is there an imprint in this house?”
The air was suddenly suffused with a rotten smell, the stink of goat. A sound like harsh breathing began, coming from everywhere and nowhere … in and out.
Laurel saw Anton stiffen below her, electric with excitement. He started for the archway.
Then Laurel’s eyes widened as a small dark splotch began to grow on the wall in front of her. She watched it, riveted … and it burst into flame. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. The spot burned for a moment, then flickered out, leaving an oval scorch mark on the wall.
All around her she could hear whispering—many voices, from the walls, from the ceiling … from nowhere and everywhere, whispering and mocking, with no words …
Brendan’s voice suddenly called out from the room below, “I want whatever is in this house to show itself. I want to see.”
No! Laurel thought, her pulse spiking. No!
The house began to shake. Laurel had grown up with earthquakes and the feeling was the same—like an immense, invisible animal lashing in the foundation, convulsing the entire house. Something ripped through the entire building, like a wind that was not a wind. The mirror shard fell from Laurel’s grasp as she flung out her arms and pressed her hands against the sides of the recessed space in which she stood, bracing herself against the sickening roll of the house. It was coming from the great room, the convulsion, and she heard Katrina screaming, Tyler and Brendan shrieking …
There was a great rushing roar that was like a vacuum, a thundering absence of sound, a vortex of wind that was not wind.
Laurel heard herself screaming now, screaming her voice raw—but the sound was swallowed in the vacuum.
It went on forever, a rush of nothingness. She shut her eyes against the pressure, the violation of it. She felt her breath being sucked from her, her mind sliding toward madness, her whole being screaming, screaming—the house was screaming …
And then it stopped.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Laurel gasped for breath, for consciousness.
Am I alive?
Her mouth was dry, her ears ringing, her body shaking with adrenaline… .
The house was preternaturally still.
Laurel felt her arms shaking now; her hands were still braced so hard against the walls that her whole body ached. She opened her eyes … lowered her hands from the walls, and took a jerking step from her alcove.
Every framed painting on the wall in the entry was sideways or otherwise torqued. The entry