back to life rather than the living come to steal and to kill.
“Mrs. Krause?” Her voice was thick and deep, though nothing like the strangled, abrasive sound that had called my name from beyond the door.
“I know who you are.” I choose not to use her name in this book, as I have little more than speculation. Though, on our next Valentine’s Day, I offered it to Bert and thus confirmed a suspicion he’d held all along. When I asked why he’d never told me, he said, “Answers are only true if you find them for yourself.”
She didn’t speak another word. She didn’t budge either, and I might have remained standing in my hallway to this day if I hadn’t stepped toward the door. I moved as if I could walk right through her, imagining her to be the shadow of the photograph, the mist of that night when she flew. I stopped before I touched her, studying every feature, matching it to memory and fear. Then I felt her hand—cold and dry—her fingers curled around mine, opening them. Something hard and small dropped into the middle of my palm, and my fingers closed again. She moved her face even closer, until I could no longer see her features but could feel her breath—living, warm breath—in my ear.
“I’ve been ruined since that night, Hedda Krause.” Here was the tortured vocal of my nightmare, though when I drew away, I saw her smile. No warmth there, though. It was broad and menacing—the kind of smile that one assumes after playing a trick. And, oh, the trick she’d played on me.
I knew Bert was downstairs, and the night clerk, for all the help he’d be. I could scream loud enough to wake the dead and bring them running to my side. Instead, I watched her walk away, feeling the heaviness in her step, knowing the coat she wore would do nothing to protect her from the cold of the night waiting outside. I held my breath as she walked right past the stairs and went to the little sofa on the landing where she nudged at a bundle that unfolded itself to become a little boy. She picked him up, his arms wrapped firmly around her neck, and disappeared down the stairs.
Not until that moment did I open my door and turn on a lamp to bathe my little room in amber. I stepped over and held my hand beneath it, knowing what I’d find. My earring. Amethyst rimmed in tiny diamonds. Come back to me at last. Carmichael held the other. I went to my bed and—fully dressed—curled up beneath the covers. I had no feelings for Sallie White—no anger or remorse or pity. For her, I was as cold as I believed her blood to be. My only thoughts, as I brought the jewel so close to my eyes that I could see only it and my palm surrounding, was a longing for a reunion with its partner. To see him again. To take him if he’d have me.
Thus, my answer. When the curious, the romantic, the thrill seekers and amateur detectives ask me: “Why do you live here? Why do you stay?” I tell them—I am simply waiting for that which I have lost to be found and to make its way home where its partner is buried beneath a new foundation. My soul is at peace in this world and will pass on in peace to the next, where I will seek the true Sallie White and take her in my arms to give her the strength and comfort she was never afforded here. Until that day, however, I continue to wish her good night as I usher each day into darkness. And when the sun comes up, I watch. I wait. I reside.
Chapter 21
Hold that thought,” Dini said. “Remember, the idea is uninterruption for the important stuff.”
“What could possibly interrupt us?” Quin looked around as if anticipating a secret waitress to come from around the corner.
“You have obviously never been given the care of a cast iron skillet. Five minutes to clean it out, or everything will stick and—you don’t want to know.” She charged him with pouring each of them a fresh cup of coffee, ignoring his startled look when she instructed him about how much of the generic nondairy creamer to add to her cup. Then she sent him to wait in the living room while she ran water into the cooled iron skillet and