Addie drove to the end of the street, slipped into a space, and made her way back on foot to number 555 Hill Road. She fleetingly glowered at the Lexus as she walked past and then paused at the imposing front wrought-iron gate. When she forced the rusted gate to open, the air around her seemed to crackle and moan in defiance. She halted briefly at the bottom of the path and scanned the house, which was very much in the style of her own Queen Anne Victorian. She shivered at the faded paint peeling in swaths, the shutters hanging by one hinge, and the overgrown shrubbery clutching at the rotting porch. Dark storm clouds were beginning to move in and the dilapidated three-story, set against the backdrop of the turbulent sky, caused quivers to race up and down her bare arms. She hugged herself tightly as an unexpected icy windblast sucked at her lungs—the wind’s cold hands twisted at her chest, ensnaring her. This certainly hadn’t turned into a day when no jacket was required. Blowing out a sharp breath, she trotted toward the porch steps.
She tried to clear her mind of the tale Serena had shared with her last night of the infamous house. After all, Serena’s creative imagination made for embellished tall tales. Even so, with every step Addie took to the front door, her heart thudded harder and the tale replayed over and over in her mind. Three people had suffered untimely deaths behind the very walls of this house. The same house she was about to enter. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so flippant in dismissing Serena’s concerns.
Addie bit her quivering bottom lip . . . her right foot alighted on the first porch stair . . . then her left. With each groan of the wooden boards under her feet, another shiver surged through her. The crows cawing at her from the treetops did nothing to ease her mounting fears. Every ghost story she’d read and every horror movie she’d seen flashed like lightning strikes through her mind. She wondered if this was how Lila Crane felt when she was about to enter the Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho. Perhaps she was letting her imagination get the best of her. She swallowed. But what if the rumors are actually true?
Chapter 2
Addie faced the neglected mahogany door, grasped the weathered handle, heaved out a pent-up breath, and stepped into the foyer. She blinked in the gloominess. The major light sources came from a flickering overhead chandelier and the intermittent beams of sunlight streaming through the open front door. Dust particles shimmered around her, floating in the sporadic sunrays of the growing storm clouds outside. The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled as the musty air closed in around her.
“Good morning,” a gravelly voice whispered from the shadows. “Have you registered?”
Goose bumps erupted on Addie’s arms. She jerked and squinted at the robust woman sitting behind a long, French Provincial table. “Umm, no. I guess I’d better do that.” Addie forced a smile, handing the woman her business card, and wrote her name on the registration sheet. She noted the sign on the desk and stopped. “This sale is being conducted by the Edwards Auction House?” Addie looked up at the dimple-pitted, pudgy-cheeked woman from under her creased brow.
“Yes, it is.” The woman tapped her pen on the registration line. “Have you attended one of the company auctions in the past?” She smiled with satisfaction as Addie took her cue and completed the registration procedure.
“Yes, I have. Blake and I are actually old friends.” Addie’s mood lifted at the prospect of seeing a friendly face from her past in Boston.
She took her nametag and registration number from the woman’s outstretched hand and headed toward the double French doors into the front living room. Not a living room in the sense of her own comfy retreat but a foreboding, formal parlor. There was nothing warm and inviting about this mausoleum of a room currently set up with a hodgepodge of antique tables to display the auction items on.
She eyed some of the other eager bidders as they made their way around the small room, ticking off inventory they found to be acceptable to bid on tomorrow, and smiled to herself. She recognized some from when she had worked at the Boston Library; a few she knew through her late father’s and fiancé’s antiquities retrieval work. She’d had no idea that a small-town auction would attract dealers from as far away as New York. This might prove to be an interesting crowd to bid against.
Addie crossed the foyer, zigzagging around a group of brokers she knew. She made small talk before moving back through the crowd to snag a variety of pamphlets and the auction catalogue she’d missed on her arrival. Even though she’d viewed the catalogue online, she gave the print ones a quick once-over. They appeared to contain the same information as her flyer. Wednesday, today, was the preview for the Private Bidders Auction, which was scheduled to be held the following day. Friday was the Public Silent Auction, and Saturday and Sunday were the Public Outdoor Yard Sale—leftover inventory permitted.
She tossed the material into her oversized straw satchel and headed for the study, across the foyer and opposite the parlor. Inside the small room two keen brokers were discussing the merits of a pedestal-based antique globe that they slowly spun in their hands while examining the etched surface with a magnifying glass. She glanced around the room, noting nothing of interest to her as most of the books on the shelves appeared to be reference journals and encyclopedias. Then her gaze landed on a green-shaded, antique banker’s lamp displayed on a side table alongside a rare Georgian Irish decanter marked WATERLOO CO. CORK, circa 1815.
She blinked. Twice. This was tempting. Even though she knew they would be pricey, she hesitated, but then . . . Nope, she was on a quest and couldn’t allow herself to be sidetracked by all the bright, shiny objects around her. She had another goal on her mind. Addie excused her way through a logjam of people to the library. For her that was where the real treasures would be found.
She stood openmouthed in the double-wide doorway. Now this was a bibliophile’s paradise. Her eyes widened as they took in the splendor of the room. It was everything her own library wasn’t, and she could see now why the front study was half the size of hers. The missing square footage in the other room had been added to this one. This was exactly what she’d always dreamed a home library should be, starting with the large, ornately carved desk set in front of an inglenook fireplace that was flanked on either side by built-in bookshelves that extended floor to ceiling around the perimeter of the massive room. In front of each of the three, lead-pained windows were six leather armchairs placed in groups of twos, each pair snuggled up into cozy reading nooks created by their placement on Oriental throw rugs laid over the polished wooden-planked floor. This was her Disneyland, and her heart danced like that of a ten-year-old girl who had just entered the library in Beauty and the Beast.
She inhaled the stale, dusty, aged-leather scents hovering in the air and stepped inside. An icy chill wrapped around her. Glancing at the large closed windows, she rubbed her hands over her arms and took stock of the bookshelves. In the light of the room—growing muted by the increasing storm clouds outside—she spied a woman crouched down in front of a barrister’s bookcase. The woman shook the unyielding door latch and stood up, her long, wavy, auburn hair swinging across her back. She straightened her embroidered suede bomber jacket and adjusted the sunglasses propped on top of her head, then tapped her bloodred manicured fingernails on the glass door.