The lady at the bank told me the electricity had been turned on. I turn around, looking for a switch. The house was built over a hundred years ago but hasn’t sat empty for long. Crazy Mary rented the place out to someone even crazier than her, who kept the house in decent enough condition until leaving a few years ago.
The light above me flickers a few times before turning on, bringing a soft yellow glow around me. I look around, taking in the vastness of the house, before turning to shut the front door.
The birds aren’t chirping anymore.
I am going to get in and get out as fast as I can, but only because I have work in the morning and it’s a forty-five-minute drive from my house, not because it feels like the house has a heartbeat.
The house isn’t in terrible condition, cosmetically at least. Who knows what the plumbing and the wiring situations are like behind the walls. I move through the foyer, going under the stairs and into a two-story living room. A great stone fireplace stretches to the ceiling, flanked by windows on each side. Furniture has been left, and while it is beautiful, the dark colors and Victorian-era style aren’t to my taste. It’s fitting to the house, though, and I can probably bump the price of the house up to include the furnishings.
The daylight is fading fast, and the lights inside are fitted with low-wattage bulbs. The living room connects to a library, and when I pull open the double French doors, the romantic smell of paper and ink hits me hard. I should have known better than to expect the surprises to be over.
The room is huge, with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books. I’m a bookworm at heart, even though work doesn’t often permit me to spend hours reading like I wish I could, seeking what I long for on the pages of books. I’m the kind of girl who flips to the last page before diving in, needing to know if the book ends happily or not.
Real life sucks ass enough. I need a little happily-ever-after in my fiction.
There’s no hanging light in the library, only the original candelabra, fitted with six of the ten candles it could hold. I go to a side table next to one of the large windows and turn on a lamp. It offers just enough light to look around. I walk down the aisle of bookshelves, running my finger along the spines of tomes long forgotten. Most are educational, and probably dated by now.
Only one book is out of place, lying on the stone hearth in front of the fireplace. It was left open, creating a permanent kink in the spine. I go to it, bending down to see what was left behind, and am hit with a rare wave of emotion when I read the title.
I’m not an emotional person. I don’t see the point in crying or moping around feeling sorry for yourself. Tears never solve problems, and pity gets you nowhere. Holding it together even though I’m dying inside was more my style.
But staring down at Jane Austen’s Emma causes feelings I’ve worked hard to repress to come to the surface. It was my mother’s favorite book, and her face flashes through my mind. I’m almost the age she was when she died, and I look more and more like her every day.
My grip tightens on the book, and I go to stuff it on the first shelf I can reach. Then I stop and bring the book to my chest. I never met Aunt Mary, and the stories I was told were starting to fade from my memory. But she was related to Mom, and Mom had come to this house in her youth. Is it crazy to think maybe she held this exact copy of Emma?
“Yes, Ace, it’s fucking nuts,” I say out loud to myself. I put the book on a shelf and leave the library, needing to check out the rest of the house so I can be on my way.
I check out the rest of the downstairs, then head to the second floor, going up the servant staircase located off the kitchen. The light is fading fast, so I pull my phone from my bag to use as a flashlight. There are five bedrooms upstairs, and all are furnished. I stop in the threshold of the largest, guessing this room to be the remodeled master bedroom.
A large canopy bed with a multicolored quilt is centered against the wall, opposite large windows that open above the covered front porch. I take pictures as I move through the house, with the intention of sending them to a realtor in the near future. I have no need for this house, and my salary as a detective would make living in this place tight, if not impossible. Utilities alone have to cost an arm and a leg.
By the time I get back downstairs, it’s pouring outside. I look out the living room window at my car and decide to wait. Downpours like this don’t typically last long, and I’d rather not get soaking wet right now. It’s cold in here, so I try turning on the heat. The furnace makes a terrible noise. I shut it off, go down into the basement, realize I have no idea how to even begin getting it back into working order, and go back up.
I yank a cover off a velvet settee and drag it to the center of the living room, putting it under a light. I sit back, propping my legs up on the coffee table, and pull a file folder from my bag. The moment I joined the force, I was faced with the struggle of proving I was more than a glorified meter maid. Doing so meant taking on some of the city’s more obscure cases, and I’ve made it my specialty to investigate—and debunk—crimes reminiscent of the occult. Driven by logic, I don’t believe in magic, or even luck for that matter. If you want to be lucky, then you get your ass out there and work hard.
Though right now, I’m coming up empty-handed as I look down at the photos taken at this morning’s crime scene. Not only were the bones removed from the victim’s forearms, but the marrow had also been sucked out of seven of his finger bones. Along with the puncture wounds on his neck, he had several on his inner thighs. The medical examiner couldn’t make sense of it. The state police couldn’t make sense of it.
Yet I was sure there was a logical explanation for it.
I read through the file again, then check the timeline I’d previously made. Leaning back on the settee, I feel a wave of tiredness come over me. I move the files from my lap to the coffee table and close my eyes.
I didn’t realize I’d dozed off until something crashes above me. I shoot up, hand on my gun and heart in my throat. It was thunder, that was all. Thunder paired with sleep deprivation and a creepy house.
I gather up the papers, neatly putting them back in the file folder on the coffee table, and grab my phone to check the time. I’d been asleep for nearly twenty minutes. Clearly, it’s time for me to go home and get some decent sleep before going into work and doing it all over again tomorrow.
I take one last look around the house, feeling almost sad that I decided to put the place up for sale.
“I have no use for you,” I whisper. “Someone else could move in and fix you up like you deserve.” I shake my head. “Shit, I need sleep. I’m talking to the house. I still am.”
I stretch my arms over my head to wake myself up, and something boomed overhead again.
It wasn’t thunder.
I freeze, waiting. Listening. Ready.
And…nothing. I swallow hard, blink a few times, and turn off the living room light. I’m so tired it’s not out of the question to be hearing things. Thank God there’s a Starbucks on the way home.
I turn to leave and I hear it again. This time there is no mistaking it. There is someone on the roof. Gun drawn, I silently move up the back staircase, holding my breath as I listen.
Whoever is on the roof is dragging something heavy. I pull my phone from my pocket, thinking it might be a good idea to call for backup.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I grumble, seeing I have no service. I shove the phone back in my pocket and follow the noise to the master bedroom. A dark shape moves across the window.
The fucker is on the roof of the covered porch. I push down my nerves and rush forward, going to the window. Finger hovering over the trigger, I pull back the latch and open the window.
“Police!” I shout. “Put your hands up!”
Rain falls in sheets, and thunder rumbles in the distance, low and steady like a freight train.
No one responds. No one moves. Taking a breath, I lean out the window. No one is out there.