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“You need to try it on,” Kristen said, handing it to her. “I want to make sure it’s perfect.”
“I’m not the bride. You’re the one who has to look perfect.” And Kristen would look perfect, Heather thought, having seen the elegant cream-colored wedding dress at Kristen’s last fitting.
“But you’re my matron of honor and my sister. We have to look perfect together.”
“Okay, I’ll try on the dress.”
Heather and Kristen started for the bedroom with Kirby next to Heather, bumping against her legs as they passed the bathroom. The bathtub water was running and the girls were in their room, giggling.
“Teeth!” she reminded them before closing her bedroom door. She was already removing her sweatshirt. “I haven’t had a dress that fancy in...well, never.”
Kristen laughed. “Then it’s about time.”
Amazingly, the dress fit Heather perfectly, though the fancy style felt a bit foreign to her.
“It looks great on you,” Kristen said.
Heather checked herself out in the full-length mirror on the back of a door. Kirby parked himself next to her, and she thought the color of his fur was almost the same color as the dress.
“It is nice,” she had to admit, “even if it isn’t me.”
“How did I ever get a sister so uninterested in clothes?”
“How did I ever get one so interested in labels?” Heather came back.
Luckily, Kristen had insisted on buying the garment for Heather. Or rather, Kristen and Alex. Between the two of them, they could afford it. Not that Heather still didn’t feel a little guilty. She promised herself she’d make it up to both of them someday.
Kristen asked, “You don’t hate the dress, do you?”
“No. It’s very pretty.” Heather smoothed the fabric of the skirt with her hands. “I just don’t look like me wearing it. I’m more comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt or sweater. And I’m going to have to do something with my hair. The color is so mousy against the bright apricot.”
“Your hair is shiny and thick,” Kristen said, “but I do wonder how a shade lighter would look on you.”
“I actually thought about putting in some blond highlights.”
Kristen grinned. “Now that’s the spirit! You haven’t exactly been enthusiastic about this wedding—”
“No! You know I like Alex.” And she was thrilled to see her older sister so happy. “I’ve just been too busy to enjoy things as much as I would like.”
Heather took off the dress and carefully hung it up. She listened for the girls. The water was still running, but she didn’t hear their voices. She opened the door. “What are you two up to?” she called.
“Brushing teeth,” one of the twins answered, sounding as if the toothbrush were in her mouth.
“Okay, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” Closing the door again, she said, “You and Alex make the perfect couple, and I’m so happy for you.” She pulled her old clothes back on. “I just don’t want the relatives who’ll come in for the wedding pitying me or something.”
“Pitying you? Why would they?”
“You know, because I’m a widow and all.”
Heather opened the nightstand drawer where she still kept a small photo of her late husband. She ran a fingertip around his face. Her memories of Scott were getting a little hazy, so every night before she went to bed, she looked at the photo and called up a nice memory of the two of them together.
Heather went on. “I know they’re going to ask me about Scott—how he died, how I’m doing without him, how my poor girls are doing growing up without a father.”
And what could she say? She still missed him. The girls missed him, Taylor especially. She’d watched that DVD so many times that Heather was beginning to worry it wasn’t healthy for her daughter. Still she couldn’t take the little girl’s Daddy away from her.
“Wow,” Kristen mused, “you’ve imagined a whole scenario with the relatives.”
“Do you have a better one for me?”
“Yeah, bring a date. With you on another man’s arm, they won’t be able to ask you about Scott.”
“Except that I’m not dating anyone.”
And hadn’t ever dated any other man in her whole life other than Scott. Part of her didn’t want to. His death had left her so brokenhearted that she couldn’t ever see herself taking another chance on love.
“So start dating,” Kristen insisted. “Aunt Margaret invited John to be her date.”
“I’m glad they connected. It’s nice to know it’s never too late for love.”
Aunt Margaret was nearing seventy and John was five years older. They’d only met the summer before, but they made a perfect couple. Heather had to admit she envied that. She just didn’t know if she was ready for another relationship.
“It’s not too late for you, either,” Kristen was saying. “You could start slow. If you’re uncomfortable calling it a date, ask a male friend to accompany you.”
“I can’t think of anyone to ask.”
The only single man of an appropriate age she’d met lately was The Terminator, and he certainly wasn’t her type. She was glad when the girls yelled, “Mo-o-om!” and knocked the image of him right out of her head.
“Bath time,” she told Kristen.
“And time for me to leave.”
Heather opened the bedroom door and saw the twins wedged in the bathroom doorway.
“C’mon, Mommy,” Addison said. “Bath time!”
Taylor echoed her twin. “Bath time!”
“Give me just a minute to see your aunt to the front door.”
Kristen was already halfway there, the dog shadowing her. She stopped and gave Heather a quick hug. “Just remember what I said about asking someone to accompany you to the wedding.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to forget.”
An image of Rick Slater was in her mind again, tempting Heather as Kristen left, and she closed and locked the front door behind her sister.
She hesitated just a moment to think about Rick...to wonder what he might look like without those sunglasses...
What sounded like a tidal wave accompanied by little girl squeals brought her around.
“What’s going on?” she yelled before realizing the dog had disappeared.
It seemed everyone was getting a bath tonight.
* * *
WAKING IN THE middle of the night had become an unwelcome habit for Cora. And it didn’t take an unusual sound to rouse her from sleep. It was simply the expectation of some sort of noise occurring. Tonight she didn’t remember anything unusual. She awakened, lay there for a while, then rose to fix some chamomile tea in the little electric teapot she’d set up in her bathroom. The teapot made things easier in that she didn’t have to leave her suite. A small nightlight made the bedside lamp unnecessary.
Sitting in the comfortable chair beside the bank of windows, she sipped her tea and watched flashes of lightning illuminate the sky over the lake, followed by a rumble of thunder. A storm was brewing. Perhaps it had simply been thunder that had invaded her dreams.
She hated having to be on guard all the time.
At least a private investigator was now in residence.
Not that he could be everywhere at once.
A cool breeze that smelled of fresh rain lifted the curtains. Thinking that perhaps she ought to lower the windows, Cora put down her cup, rose and leaned on the sill.
Storms over the lake had always fascinated her, so she didn’t immediately adjust the windows. Instead, she looked out from her attic-level quarters, which gave her a perfect view of the show. For a moment she was mesmerized by the electric light dancing in the sky.
Until another movement closer by captured her attention.
She dropped her gaze to search for the source.
Lightning flashed again and she could see the second-floor balcony and the small wiry man with red hair standing on end who perched there, back stiff, body wired with tension.
With a start, she thought she recognized him. Red Flanagan?
Could it be? He certainly reminded her of the man in the portrait hung in the rotunda.
Shocked, Cora gripped the windowsill and held her breath.
The sky went dark and she blinked several times, then took another look that made her stomach whirl.
The balcony stood empty.
Lightning flashed again, confirming that no one was there now...if anyone had ever been there at all. She’d thought the intruder was a flesh-and-blood man. But now she wondered. Surely no one these days could look exactly like an eighty-year-old portrait.
Trembling from the inside out, she closed the windows, and with shaking hands, locked them.
Not that locked windows could stop a ghost...
CHAPTER FOUR
STANDING ON THE balcony off the second-floor family drawing room with the housekeeper, Rick kept his voice low. “This should be a perfect place for one of my cameras.” He didn’t want to alert any other employees on the property as to what he was doing. It was possible someone working here knew the intruder and was sharing information, whether on purpose or not.
It was early morning—too early for Heather and her EPI workers to be on site. Truth be told, he was looking forward to Heather’s arrival, but he wanted to make certain that, before she and her workers swarmed the property, he had time to install at least a couple of the security cameras he’d picked up from his company in Milwaukee the night before.
“So this camera will show you if anyone...or anything...is on the property at night?” Cora asked.
“Well, not just this camera,” Rick said, wondering what she meant by or anything. “I brought enough of them to cover the area in each direction around the building, plus the coach house and the boathouse.”
The housekeeper nodded. She seemed tense and nervous, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept well.
He tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch whoever has been messing around on the estate grounds. These wireless cameras are the best. They have spectacular night vision as far as three hundred feet. And they’re set on motion detectors that will start the camera and make digital recordings on a computer that can signal me on my phone.”
He would have to hook up each camera to a 110 AC source, a consideration in choosing locations. He also needed places that would provide camouflage for the cameras. If the intruder became aware of them, he could simply cover up the lenses. If he didn’t destroy the equipment. So Rick had to hide each camera very carefully. He would position this first one between the balcony’s balusters, near a planter with greenery that hung in long strands through the opening. A perfect nest for the lens.
“So the cameras would be able to see anything out of place?” Cora asked.
“As long as it’s moving.”
“Does it have to be...”
“What?” he asked.
Cora cleared her throat. “Um, alive?”
What exactly was she getting at? Rick wondered. “Well, uh, if someone threw something into the area covered by—”
“Not an object. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then...what?”
“I saw something last night.” Cora wrapped her arms around her middle as if trying to protect herself. “At least I think I did.”
Rick was getting a weird feeling about this. “Go on.”
“It was a figure. Male. It looked like a small wiry man with red hair standing on end—”
“Looked like? What is it you’re trying to say, Cora?”
“I thought I saw Red Flanagan.”
Silence. Part of Rick wanted to laugh at her imagination. But he didn’t want to insult Cora. She’d been stressed about whatever was going on around the mansion at night for weeks now. Perhaps it had become too much for her.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, her words almost whispered.
“Red Flanagan has been dead for what? Half a century?”
“I know that! I just said it looked like him. Like the portrait in the rotunda.”
“Hey, easy. I’m on your side. I just don’t know what to think.”
“What if Flanagan Manor is haunted?” Cora asked.
Rick could see that she was serious. “I can’t say that I believe in ghosts.”
“I didn’t think I did, either. But after all that’s happened in the past several weeks...”
