don’t want to see you in here until at least Wednesday.”
“What about the cruise ship?”
Is it really only nine thirty? In the morning? “What does the cruise ship have to do with you defying doctor’s orders—and, might I add, mine?”
“It docks tomorrow, and there’s going to be nearly a hundred people descending on the harbor all at once. You can’t possibly handle that amount of foot traffic by yourself.”
“Oh.” A weak smile touched Addie’s lips. “I see. Don’t worry about that. Catherine enjoyed working here so much last week, I’m pretty sure she’d be happy to help out in a pinch.”
“But what if the poltergeist strikes again?”
“Paige, a mischievous spirit didn’t cause your accident.” Addie hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt after her morning excursion.
“Then what made the books fly off the shelves, twice? And I don’t buy the police theory that it was a person, because there was no one here but me.” She pinned Addie with a piercing glance.
Addie struggled to come up with an answer, and by the defiant look on Paige’s face she knew she needed one, fast. “Then it was most likely a big truck passing by. These old buildings are famous for vibrating and shifting with any ground disturbances.”
Paige wrapped her arms across her chest. “You weren’t here. You didn’t see what I saw.”
“That’s true, but I know what I saw after I found you, and that was an unconscious, very pale young woman who suffered a severe blow to the head.” Addie put on her sternest manager’s—with a dab of big sisterly love to take a bit of the edge off—voice. “Now get your bag. I’m taking you home.”
Paige’s chin jutted out, but she didn’t say a word as Addie flipped the door sign to CLOSED and escorted her young charge to the car. As they pulled away, Addie noticed Martha’s pudgy face, complete with a grin, pressed up against the bakery window.
“What about the sandwich board?” Paige gestured to the sign by the door.
“It’ll be fine. This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes.” When Addie glanced in her rearview mirror, she spotted Martha, broom in hand, conducting her daily sweep of the sidewalk. “Something tells me your mother will make certain no one walks away with it.”
Paige’s mutinied silence evaporated in a laugh. “You know her well.”
Addie followed Paige’s directions and pulled up in front of Martha’s white-with-green-trim Dutch Colonial. She was impressed by her old nemesis’ home. The house itself and the pristine landscaping with cultivated flower beds and wide sweeping lawn didn’t reflect the owner’s sometimes prickly exterior. Until recently, she had envisioned Martha’s house looking more like . . . well, the exterior of Hill Road House—something more in fitting with the tetchy behavior she had previously exhibited toward Addie.
Addie clicked the child locks on and made Paige swear to adhere to Addie’s strict terms of returning to work, to not step foot in the store until Wednesday, to leave her daughter, Emma, at the daycare for the remainder of the day, and to send her again tomorrow. When Paige agreed to all, Addie, satisfied, unlocked the doors, releasing her captive.
When she pulled up to the corner stop sign, she was surprised to see that the cross street was none other than Hill Road. She had no idea that Martha lived this close to it. If she turned left, it would take her right past number 555.
She glanced at the clock on her dashboard. Her foot wavered between the brake and the gas pedal. For the sake of time, she should make a U-turn here and go back down the way they’d come up. The meandering route that Hill Road took would add at least five more minutes to her trip, and she still had a business to run. She recalled what she had discovered about Beatrice Gallagher’s death. Her thoughts jumped to her own sighting of an apparition at the top of the stairs. Addie shivered, and her skin prickled in memory of the uncanny cold.
Then, of course, there was the concealed chamber behind the library fireplace leading to not one but two hidden stairways. Her foot pressed down hard on the brake as images of the names on her blackboard clicked through her mind like the flashes on the microfilm she’d viewed. Blake, Philip, Robert, Kalea, Nolan, Garret. All followed by the one image Addie knew she’d never be able to un-see—the haunted look in Charlotte’s eyes. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.