to walk around the house and the gardens, and read or write, but no going off the grounds. We want you to immerse yourselves in the house, and simply—see what happens. Understood?” He looked around at all of them. “Just observe the house.”
“And let it observe us?” Tyler quipped.
Brendan smiled, and Laurel didn’t like the smile. “Exactly, Mr. Mountford.”
“Let the games begin,” Tyler said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
It was too wet to tour the gardens, and the sky was going black behind the rain, so they split up, then—Brendan and Tyler to set up the cameras and monitors and infrared equipment and magnetic readers, Laurel and Katrina to make dinner.
Look at us, already time-warping back into the sixties, patented sex-role division of labor, Laurel thought—but she didn’t really mind. Let’s face it, I can barely program my own cell phone. Hooking up a poltergeist monitoring system? Forget it.
As it turned out, Laurel made dinner by herself while Katrina disappeared into the house, clearly used to having her meals magically appear for her.
And I’m fine with that, too, thank you very much.
It was vastly more comfortable not having Katrina around and the food they’d brought was mostly heat and eat—thankfully Trader Joe’s had recently opened several stores in the Research Triangle area. Laurel put a couple of spinach-and-feta pizzas into the huge stove and opened a carton of tomato basil soup.
They’d bought paper plates to keep the kitchen work to a minimum, but it just seemed wrong to use paper in such opulent surroundings, and the kitchen was well stocked with dishes, so Laurel decided to indulge. She found a large crystal bowl that was perfect for the salad, and turned on the water to wash it and some gilt-edged china plates for dinner.
It was odd how comfortable she felt, since she had never been in a kitchen this size. Big, yes, but the ceiling was surprisingly low, compared to the rest of the house. I guess because no one but the servants were ever in it—why bother with high ceilings? she thought wryly, as she swirled dishes in the sudsy water to wash the dust off. It was weird beyond words to be in a house that actually had full separate living quarters for the household staff, to walk through the small rooms in the back part of the house and realize just how many live-in servants there had been at Folger.
Not my world. None of this.
She turned to a cabinet to look for glasses—and froze—at the sound of loud thumping from the wall.
She knew there was a rational explanation, knew it, but inside her mind she panicked. A wave of primal fear washed over her and she literally could not move. The thumping continued, shuddering through the wall.
Then logic kicked in and she lunged to turn off the running water. The thumping stopped.
She took a moment to draw a breath, then reached slowly forward again and turned on the water.
Nothing but the sound of water rushing into the sink.
Then the thumping started again, slowly, then building to a frenzied pounding, coming from the same high spot in the wall above the sink.
Laurel turned off the water, laughed shakily at herself. And remember, that’s all a haunting probably is, ever: just the mind playing tricks on itself. Expectations creating an atmosphere in—
A THUMP came from the wall behind her. She gasped, whirled toward the doorway.
Brendan was in the archway of the stairs, looking in through the kitchen door at her. “Sorry—missed a stair …”
She stared at him, pale and speechless.
“What? What?” He crossed to her with concern.
She leaned back against the prep table and laughed shakily. “Shit!”
“Mickey, what?” He took her arms, steadying her.
She stopped laughing. “Nothing. I’m just managing to freak myself out completely and it’s barely past nightfall.”
He smiled, relaxing. “Well, fasten your seat belt.”
She became aware of the warmth of his hands on her arms, the touch of his fingers like a caress on her wrists. He must have realized it at the same time, that he was still holding her, because he released her slowly, with a reluctance that she found thrilling.
“Guess it’s time to feed the children.”
“But where?” she said suddenly, realizing that the logical place—the dining room—was the last place she wanted to spend time in.
He looked at her innocently. “The dining room, of course. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
The dining room was a mass of shadows, the gardens an eerie unexplored country outside the French doors with the arched windows above them.