Deserves to Die Part 36

"It's spotty," Sarah said.

"G.o.d, Mom, what is this? The Dark Ages? This place is . . . it's horrible. Blue Peac.o.c.k Manor, my a.s.s."

"Hey!" Sarah reprimanded sharply. "No swearing. Remember? Zero."

"But, Jesus, Mom-"

"Again?" Sarah snapped. "I just said no."

"Okay!" Jade flung back, then added, a little more calmly, "Come on, Mom. Admit it. Blue Peac.o.c.k is a dumb name. It even sounds kind of dirty."

"Where is this coming from?" Sarah demanded.

"Just sayin'." Jade dropped her phone into her bag. "And Becky told me the house is haunted."

"So now you're listening to Becky?" Sarah set the parking brake and reached for the handle of the door. The day was quickly going from bad to worse. "I didn't think you liked her."

"I don't." Jade sighed theatrically. "I'm just telling you what she said." Becky was Jade's cousin, the daughter of Sarah's older sister, Dee Linn. "But it's not like I have a zillion friends here, is it?"

"Okay. Got it." In Sarah's opinion, Becky wasn't to be trusted; she was one of those teenaged girls who loved to gossip and stir things up a bit, gleeful to cause a little trouble, especially for someone else. Becky cut a wide swath through everyone else's social life. Just like her mother. No doubt Becky'd heard from Dee Linn the tales that Blue Peac.o.c.k Manor harbored its own special ghosts. That kind of gossip, swirling so close to home, just barely touching her life but not ruining it, was right up Dee Linn's alley.

Gracie said, "I think the house looks kinda cool. Creepy cool."

Jade snorted. "What would you know about cool?"

"Hey . . . ," Sarah warned her oldest.

Used to her older sister's barbs, Gracie pulled the pa.s.sive-aggressive card and acted as if she hadn't heard the nasty ring to her sister's question. As her seat belt clicked open, she changed the conversation back to her favorite topic. "Can we get a dog, Mom?" Before Sarah could respond, she added quickly, "You said we could. Remember? Once we moved here, you said we'd look for a dog."

"I believe I said 'I'll think about it.' "

"Jade got a car," Gracie pointed out.

From the front seat, Jade said, "That's different."

"No, it's not." To her mother, Gracie threw back Sarah's own words, " 'A promise is a promise.' That's what you always say." Gracie regarded her mother coolly as she clambered out of the backseat.

"I know." How could Sarah possibly forget the argument that had existed since her youngest had turned five? Gracie was nuts about all animals, and she'd been lobbying for a pet forever.

Once her younger daughter was out of earshot, Sarah said to Jade, "It wouldn't kill you to be nice to your sister."

Jade threw her mother a disbelieving look and declared, "This is so gonna suck!"

"Only if you let it." Sarah was tired of the ongoing argument that had started the second she'd announced the move two weeks ago. She'd waited until the real estate deal with her siblings was completed and she had hired a crew to start working before breaking the news to her kids. "This is a chance for all of us to have a new start."

"I don't care. The 'new start' thing? That's on you. For you. And maybe her," she added, hitching her chin toward the windshield.

Sarah followed her gaze and watched Gracie hike up the broken flagstone path, where dandelions and moss had replaced the mortar years before. A tangle of leggy, gone-to-seed rosebushes were a reminder of how long the house had been neglected. Once upon a time, Sarah's mother had tended the gardens and orchard to the point of obsession, but that had been years ago. Now a solitary crow flapped to a perch in a skeletal cherry tree near the guesthouse, then pulled its head in tight, against the rain.

"Come on, Jade. Give me a break," Sarah said.

"You give me one." Jade rolled her eyes and unbuckled her seat belt, digging out her cell phone and attempting to text. "Smartphone, my a.s.s-er, b.u.t.t."

"Again, watch the language." Sarah pocketed her keys and tried not to let her temper get control of her tongue. "Grab your stuff, Jade. Like it or not, we're home."

"I can not believe this is my life."

"Believe it." Sarah shoved open the driver's side door, then walked to the rear of the vehicle to pull her computer and suitcase from the cargo area.

Of course, she too had doubts about moving here. The project she planned to tackle-renovating the place to its former grandeur before selling it-was daunting, perhaps impossible. Even when she'd been living here with all her siblings, the huge house had been sinking into disrepair. Since her father had died, things had really gone downhill. Paint was peeling from the siding, and many of the shiplap boards were warped. The wide porch that ran along the front of the house seemed to be listing, rails missing, and there were holes in the roof where there had once been shingles.

"It looks evil, you know," Jade threw over her shoulder before hauling her rolling bag out of the cargo s.p.a.ce and reluctantly trudging after her sister. "I've always hated it."

Sarah managed to hold back a hot retort. The last time she'd brought her children here, she and her own mother, Arlene, had gotten into a fight, a blistering battle of words that precipitated their final, painful rift. Though Gracie was probably too small to remember, Jade certainly did.

Gracie was nearly at the steps when she stopped suddenly to stare upward at the house. "What the . . . ?"

"Come on," Jade said to her younger sister, but Gracie didn't move, even when Sarah joined her daughters and a big black crow landed on one of the rusted gutters.

"Something wrong?" Sarah asked.

Jade was quick to say, "Oh, no, Mom, everything's just perfect. You get into a fight with that per v at your job and decide we all have to move." She snapped her fingers. "And bam! It's done. Just like that. You rent out the condo in Vancouver and tell us we have to move here to a falling-down old farm with a grotesque house that looks like Stephen King dreamed it up. Yeah, everything's just cool." Jade reached for her phone again. "And there's got to be some cell phone service here or I'm out, Mom. Really. No service is like . . . archaic and . . . and . . . inhumane!"

"You'll sur vive."

Gracie whispered, "Someone's in there."

"What?" Sarah said. "No. The house has been empty for years."

Gracie blinked. "But . . . but, I saw her."

"You saw who?" Sarah asked and tried to ignore a tiny flare of fear knotting her stomach.

With one hand still on the handle of her rolling bag, she shrugged. "A girl."

Sarah caught an I-told-you-so look from her older daughter.

"A girl? Where?" Jade demanded.

"She was standing up there." Gracie pointed upward, to the third story and the room at the northwest corner of the house, just under the cupola. "In the window."

Theresa's room. The bedroom that had been off-limits to Sarah as a child. The knot in Sarah's gut tightened. Jade again caught her mother's eyes in a look that silently invoked Sarah to bring Gracie back to reality.

"Maybe it's a ghost," Jade mocked. "I hear there are lots of them around here." She leaned closer to her sister. "And not just from Becky. You told me you'd been doing some 'research' and you found out the first woman who lived here was killed, her body never found, her spirit roaming the hallways of Blue Peac.o.c.k Manor forever."

Gracie shot her mom a look. "Well . . . yeah . . ."

"Oh, please," Jade snorted. "The second you step foot here, you see a ghost."

"Angelique Le Duc did die here!" Gracie flared.

"You mean, Angelique Stewart," Jade corrected. "She was married to our crazy, homicidal, great-great-great-not-so-great-grandfather or something. That's what you said."

"I read it on the Internet," Gracie responded, her mouth tight at being corrected.

"So then it must be true," Jade said. She turned her attention to her mother. "The minute you told us we were moving, she started in on all this ghost stuff. Checking out books from the library, surfing the Net, chatting with other people who think they see ghosts. And she didn't find out about just Angelique Le Duc-oh, no. There were others too. This place"-she gestured to the house and grounds-"is just littered with the spirits who've come to a bad end at Blue Peac.o.c.k Manor!" Jade's hair caught in the wind as the rain picked up. "Do you see how ridiculous this all is, Mom? Now she's believing all this paranormal shi . . . stuff and thinking we're going to be living with a bunch of the undead!"

"Jade-" Sarah started.

"Shut up!" Gracie warned.

"You sound like a lunatic," Jade went right on, then turned heatedly to Sarah. "You have to put an end to this, Mom. It's for her own good. If she goes spouting off about ghosts and spirits and demons-"

"Demons!" Gracie snapped in disgust. "Who said anything-"

"It's all a load of c.r.a.p," Jade declared. "She's going to be laughed out of school!"

"Enough!" Sarah yelled, though for once Jade seemed to be concerned for her sister. But Sarah had enough of their constant bickering. Forcing a calm she didn't feel, she said, "We're going inside now."

"You don't believe me," Gracie said, hurt. She looked up at the window again.

Sarah had already glanced at the window of the room where she knew, deep in her soul, dark deeds had occurred. But no image appeared behind the dirty, cracked gla.s.s. No apparition flitted past the panes. No otherworldly figure was evident. There was no "girl" hiding behind the grime, just some tattered curtains that seemed to shift in the dreary afternoon.

"I saw her," Gracie insisted. A line of consternation had formed between her brows.

"It could have been a reflection or a shadow," Sarah said as the crow cawed loudly. Deep inside she knew she was lying.

Gracie turned on Jade. "You scared her away!"

"Oh, right. Of course it's my fault. Give me an effing break."

"She'll punish you, you know." Gracie's eyes narrowed. "The woman in the window, she'll get even."

"Gracie!" Sarah's mouth dropped open.

"Then you'll see," Gracie declared, turning to the front entrance and effectively ending the conversation.

"Here's the latest," Rhea announced as she stepped through the door of Clint's cramped office in the small quarters that made up Stewart's Crossing's City Hall. As city building inspector, he checked on all the jobs currently being constructed or renovated within the city limits and beyond, and contracted with the county for the outlying areas. "You might find one particularly interesting." She raised her thinly plucked eyebrows high enough that they arched over the frames of her gla.s.ses. "A neighbor."

"Don't tell me. The Stewart place."

"The Jewel of the Columbia?" she said dryly, shaking her head, her short, red hair unmoving.

His insides clenched a bit. "Maybe Doug wants to take this one."

"I thought you hated Doug."

"Hate's a strong word," Clint said. "He just wouldn't be my first choice to become my replacement." He wasn't sure why he didn't trust Doug Knowles, but the guy he was training to take over his job seemed too green, too eager, too d.a.m.ned hungry, to give each job its proper attention. There was something a little secretive about him as well, and Clint had a suspicion that Doug would take the easy way out, maybe let some of the little details slide on a job. "On second thought, I'll handle the Stewart project."

"Figured," she said, her red lips twisting a bit. "Oh, and wait!" She hurried out of the room and returned a few seconds later with a candy dish that she set on the corner of his desk. "Halloween candy for your clients with sweet tooths, er, teeth."

"I don't need these."

"Of course you do. It's that time of year. Don't be such a Grinch."

"I believe he's a.s.sociated with Christmas."

"Or whatever holiday you want. In this case, Halloween." She unwrapped a tiny Three Musketeers bar and plopped it onto her tongue.

"Okay, so I'm a Grinch. Don't hate me."

Laughing, she gave him a wink as she turned and headed through the door to the reception area of the building that housed all the city offices. Built in the middle of the last century, the structure was constructed of gla.s.s and narrow, blond bricks; it had a flat roof and half a dozen offices opening into the central reception area. The ceilings were low, of "soundproof" tile, the lights fluorescent, the floors covered in a linoleum that had been popular during the 1960s. Now, it was showing decades of wear. "Just take a look." Rhea clipped away on high heels as a phone started jangling. She leaned over her desk and snagged the receiver before the second ring. She did it on purpose, he suspected, knowing he was still watching her as she gave him a quick glimpse of the skirt tightening over her hips.

"Stewart's Crossing City Hall," she answered sweetly. "This is Rhea Hernandez."

She had a nice b.u.t.t, he'd give her that, but he wasn't interested.

Attractive and smart, Rhea had been married and divorced three times, and was looking for husband number four at the ripe old age of forty-two.

It wasn't going to be Clint, and he suspected she knew it. Rhea's flirting was more out of habit than sincerity.

". . . I'm sorry, the mayor isn't in. Can I take a message, or, if you'd like, you can e-mail her directly," Rhea was saying as she stretched the cord around the desk and took her seat, disappearing from view. He heard her start rattling off Mayor Leslie Imholt's e-mail address.

Clint picked up the stack of papers she'd dropped into his inbox. Plans for the complete renovation of Blue Peac.o.c.k Manor, the historic home set on property that backed up to his own ranch, was the first request. No surprise there, as he'd heard Sarah was returning to do a complete renovation of the Stewart family home. The preliminary drawings were already with the city engineer for approval; these had to be renovations to the original plans. A h.e.l.luva job, that, he knew, and to think that Sarah was taking it on and returning to a place she'd wanted so desperately to leave. He eyed the specs and noted that he needed to see what work had already been accomplished on the smaller residence on the property-the guesthouse, as the Stewart family had called it.

Until the mayor had hired Doug Knowles, Clint had been the only inspector in this part of the county and had checked all the work himself. Now he could hand jobs off to Doug if he wanted. Clint had already decided that was generally a bad idea. It certainly would be in this case, he thought.

But if he took on Blue Peac.o.c.k Manor, no doubt he would see Sarah again.

Frowning, he grabbed one of the d.a.m.ned bits of candy, and unwrapping a tiny Kit Kat bar, leaned back in his chair. He and Sarah hadn't seen each other for years, and if he were honest with himself, he knew that their split hadn't been on the best of terms. He tossed the candy into his mouth, then wadded up the wrapper and threw it at the waste can.

High school romance, he thought. So intense, but in the larger scheme of things, so meaningless, really.

Why, then, did the memory of it seem as fresh now as it had half a lifetime ago?

His desk phone jangled, and he reached for it willingly, pushing thoughts of Sarah Stewart and their ill-fated romance to the far, far corners of his mind.

Chapter 2.

"That's it. I'm outta here," Rosalie Jamison said as she stripped off her ap.r.o.n and tossed it into a bin with the other soiled towels, ap.r.o.ns, jackets, and rags that would be cleaned overnight, ready for the morning shift at the three-star diner. She slipped her work shoes onto a shelf and laced up her Nikes, new and reflective, for the walk home. "I'll see you all later."