Audra’s gaze burned with resentment, and Laurel could see her calculating, coming to some decision. When she spoke it was with no inflection. “James and Julia’s son, Paul Folger, suffered from what they called dementia praecox.”
Brendan and Laurel knew instantly what she meant. “Schizophrenia,” Laurel said aloud.
“Paul Folger showed early signs of having a talent like his father’s, in painting rather than writing, but the story was that he became ill in the military—delusional and violent. There were no antipsychotics at the time, of course, only frontal lobotomies, electroshock, or permanent institutionalization. He was discharged from the service and returned home.”
“After James Folger’s death in Iwo Jima, Julia and her daughter Caroline kept Paul at home. After Julia’s death, Paul’s sister oversaw his care for fifteen years. Caroline rarely left the house; Paul Folger never did.”
Audra paused for a second, then continued tonelessly.
“Caroline killed herself in the house in 1960. At the same time that her body was discovered, her brother was found dead in his bed.”
“She killed him and then herself?” Brendan asked.
Audra didn’t answer. “No one has lived in the house since,” she said.
They were all silent in the library: there was a pall in the air. Laurel just had time enough to wonder what could have taken place between a spinster sister and a mad brother in fifteen years of living alone together, when Brendan spoke.
“Of course, people die in houses, all the time. As family histories go, that’s not too gruesome of one. Are you certain there weren’t more—occurrences?” Brendan suggested.
“I don’t know of any occurrences,” Audra said stiffly. “I’ve done some reading about the Folger family. The house has changed hands many times since then. That’s the extent of my knowledge of the house.”
“We’d like to rent it,” Brendan said beside Laurel.
Both Laurel and Audra turned to him, startled.
Brendan looked at Audra guilelessly. “The house is just sitting here. Why not get some money for it?” He took Laurel’s hand again, including her. “We can move in here and look for another place at our leisure. You can arrange that for us, can’t you?”
Audra looked from one to the other. “Who are you?” she said softly.
The room was completely silent, waiting.
No. Hovering.
“We’d like to rent this house, Ms. Lennox,” Brendan said again. “Who do we need to contact to do that? You’ll be paid a commission, of course.”
His certainty was chilling. Laurel felt she was standing beside a whole different person. Even his voice was different.
“I sincerely doubt that will be possible. But I will phone the Historical Society,” Audra said flatly.
“You are an angel. We really appreciate it, don’t we, hon?” Brendan said, back to his usual ebullient—and false, Laurel thought grimly—charm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Audra’s cell phone chimed as they stepped through the front doorway. She excused herself and moved off, pacing the gravel drive while speaking into the phone. Brendan drew Laurel toward a statue and bench under a magnolia tree, out of earshot. Laurel was momentarily arrested by the statue, the ambivalent look on the naked nymph’s face. She forced her eyes away and turned to Brendan, speaking in low disbelief.
“You want to rent it?”
“We’re going to replicate the experiment.” As Laurel’s eyes widened, he pushed on. “It’s a perfect house. A weird history, a weird vibe, schizophrenia, suicide, reported paranormal events. There are established protocols for a previous experiment. We do the whole damned thing exactly the same way. Test for ESP and PK, bring the highest scorers into a house with a documented history of events, and see what expectation plus ability does in those circumstances.”
Laurel could not at first speak through the surge of disbelief, and then Brendan was motioning her silent, as Audra made her way delicately across the overgrown lawn.
Audra dropped them back at Brendan’s car on Main Street as evening shadows fell, and they drove the forty miles back to Durham on a dark road with the looming dark shapes of trees around them. Laurel kept feeling odd little flip-flops in her stomach. Brendan was positively manic, blasting the radio, singing along to Nirvana. Laurel tried to think over the music.
“I think we can safely say that the house has a history,” Brendan interrupted his Kurt Cobain imitation to beam over at her.
Laurel suddenly realized something that had been nagging at her. “But how did Audra know all that? Where’s she getting her information?”
Brendan considered. “The Historical Society, most likely. Also, we’re thinking the clip files were stolen by the same