“What’s the rush?” the sheriff asked.
“Are we really going to sit here in the drive and wait for Miriam?” I asked, incredulous. “Why can’t I go upstairs and get ready for bed?”
“You’re right,” the sheriff finally said. “I’ll walk you inside.”
The sheriff unlocked the doors, and I climbed out of the cruiser. She marched ahead of me all the way to the front door. Then she stepped aside to let me open all the locks. When I turned to say goodbye, she motioned for me to go inside. “I’ll see you up to your room,” she said. My discomfort grew, but I said nothing.
She took off her hat and hung it on a coat hook by the door. Without it she was a couple of inches shorter than me, and I noticed she wore her black hair in a large bun at the nape of her neck. She moved like she knew every muscle in her body. She unzipped her coat, but she didn’t remove it. I wondered if she wanted access to the gun that sat holstered on her hip.
I took the lead and headed for the stairs. Every time I glanced back at the sheriff, her eyes were somewhere else. She was either taking it all in—or scanning the surroundings for intruders.
“I guess you’ve been here before?” I asked her.
“Many times,” she replied.
When I stopped outside the rose room, I detected a flicker of surprise on the sheriff’s face. “This is where you’ve been sleeping?” she asked. “Do you realize this was Lark Bellinger’s bedroom?”
It felt strange living in a house everyone knew. The sheriff brushed past me and inspected the chamber. She opened the closet, stuck her head into the bathroom, and checked the balcony outside. Her search was thorough. There was no way there could have been another human being in that room with the two of us.
“How long will you be staying here with your uncle?” she asked when she’d finished.
“A few months at least,” I told her.
“I know what happened to you in New York.” She said it as though she were simply stating a fact. To my surprise, I didn’t get the sense that she was judging me. “Why did you choose to come here, of all places?”
There were two answers to that question, both of them true. I went with the easiest option. “There was nowhere else for me to go. My mother doesn’t want me, and James is my only relative. My father—” I saw the pity on her face, and I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I know about your father, too,” she said. “It was a terrible tragedy.”
I nodded.
“Lock your bedroom door tonight. If anyone knocks, don’t let them in.”
“Are you talking about Nolan?” I asked.
“Mr. Turner will be spending the evening with me going through security footage,” said the sheriff.
“Then who do you mean?”
She cocked her head as if to say, Stop playing around. “I think I’ve been perfectly clear. No one comes into this room tonight. No one. You have a phone with you?”
I pulled out my cell phone and held it up for her to see. “You’re really scaring me,” I told her.
“Good,” the sheriff said. “I want you that way. You’ll be safer if you’re scared.”
The door opened downstairs before I could reply.
“Hello?” Miriam called up. “Bram?”
“Remember what I said,” Sheriff Lee told me. “No one comes in here.”
I nodded. The sheriff unbuttoned one of her breast pockets, pulled out a card, and wrote down ten digits on the back. “This is my personal mobile number,” she told me. “Don’t share it with anyone. I don’t usually give it out. Call me if you need anything. Don’t bother going through 911.”
“What am I supposed to be afraid of?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet,” she admitted.
Those were the four words that finally got to me. And when I looked into her eyes, I saw that she was scared, too—and that terrified me. “What do you mean?” I asked. “You’re the sheriff. Why don’t you know?”
“Something is going on in this town. In this house,” she said. “I keep hearing that people who’ve stayed in this room have heard noises—and I don’t believe in ghosts. I’d send you back to Manhattan if that were an option. Since it’s not, I’ll do my best to protect you. But you’re going to have to work with me, Bram. Be careful. Don’t take any more risks.”
She left me standing there in my doorway with her card in my hand. Downstairs, I heard her greet Miriam. Then the two moved to another room, speaking softly so I couldn’t eavesdrop. I quickly closed my door and turned the lock. After that, I pulled the chair out from the vanity and wedged it under the door handle.
I lay in bed with my legs tucked to my chest and my arms wrapped around them. That was what I’d done in rehab when the drugs had worn off and I couldn’t make the memories go away. The pictures and audio were as clear as they had been when I was twelve—but I processed them with a seventeen-year-old brain. I saw things and heard things I hadn’t noticed before. Every bit of it scared me, and I didn’t understand what it meant. It was like watching a movie in which key scenes had been deleted. The only thing I knew for a fact was that the heroine of the film was completely screwed.
Sometimes, if I fell asleep with my own arms around me, I’d have the dream. If it went the way it was supposed to, nothing really happened. I didn’t know where I was, or what we were doing, but I was with my father, and I felt safe. He seemed larger than life. There was nothing on earth that could ever get past him. While I was with him, no harm would come my way. In the morning, I’d keep my eyes closed, and the feeling would last a few precious minutes until the truth hit me and I knew that none of it had been real.
* * *
—
I woke the next morning to the sound of my phone ringing. I hadn’t had the dream. My father hadn’t come to me, but I hadn’t been alone, either. Someone else had been there with me during the night.
I sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. I was starting to reach for my phone on the nightstand, when I realized the nightstand was no longer beside me. I lifted my eyes, and my gaze fell on the door to the hall. The chair I’d wedged under the handle was still there. So was a bureau that had been on the other side of the room. I hadn’t touched it. Someone else had pushed it in front of the door and stacked my nightstand on top. My phone was ringing from inside the drawer.
I should have been terrified. That would have been the normal reaction. While I’d been sound asleep in my bed, someone had moved all my furniture. But the sheriff herself had checked the whole room the previous night. There had been no one in there but me when she’d left. I knew that the girl in the white satin dress was responsible. She wasn’t a hallucination. She was real, but now I knew I had nothing to fear from her. I could see she’d done her best to protect me.