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NORAH RICHMAN

Present Day
Shepherd, Iowa

A SCREAM THAT RIVALED every horror movie’s soundtrack sliced through the night, piercing every crack and uninsulated crevice of 322 Predicament Avenue.

Norah bolted upright in bed, the sheets damp from her restless dream-filled sleep. Her T-shirt stuck to her chest and strands of hair to her cheek.

She’d dreamed the horrible scream. Those screams visited her many nights, riddled with the echoes of her sister’s voice.

Another scream shattered the now very real stillness, dispelling the idea that she was dreaming.

Norah scrambled from her bed, ignoring the way the slanted wood floor beneath her feet groaned and creaked. Those were the familiar sounds. The omens of an old house with many memories lost to time that tried to escape every day.

She snatched a hoodie from a nearby chair and tugged it on over her sweaty T-shirt. Flinging her door open, Norah looked both ways down the hall. She boasted occupancy in the back bedroom, which had always been Aunt Eleanor’s bedroom when Norah was a kid. Now it was hers. Hers and this godforsaken house that meant her past would never stop nipping at her heels, and that people—humanity—would always be mere steps away.

That was what she got for inheriting Aunt Eleanor’s old farmhouse on Predicament Avenue and for not being able to shake off everything she owed to her dead sister. A bed-and-breakfast had been Naomi’s dream, not hers.

The recurring screams were shape-shifting into a mix of hysterical sobs and wails. Norah ignored the anxiety crawling up her throat, creating an instant quiver in her hands. She recognized the screams. She understood them all too well.

They were the screams of death.

Her bare feet took the wooden stairs to the second floor that consisted of four bedrooms in the perfectly square house. She flicked a light switch, and the futile comfort of LED bulbs flooded the darkness.

The doors of the third and fourth bedrooms stood open. Norah heard the rumble of a male voice coming from room three. She hurried toward the doorway, skidding to a halt when she reached it.

Mrs. Miller huddled against the far wall, her rounded heavyset frame shuddering with her uncontrolled wailing. Her pink velvet pajamas were a brilliant backdrop to the man lying in the bed. He lay still, his balding head on the pillow, his eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, his mouth agape.

Norah knew with one glance that Mr. Miller was dead.

The occupant of the neighboring room had rounded the Millers’ four-poster bed and was reaching for Mrs. Miller. He was shirtless, wore flannel pajama bottoms, had a mass of tousled dark hair, and his thick black glasses were jammed crooked on his face.

Sebastian Blaine’s accented voice filled the room as he crooned calmly toward Mrs. Miller. The English-born guest was also an enigmatic and increasingly popular true-crime podcaster. That he was staying at her bed-and-breakfast already had her nerves taut and ready to snap. Norah distrusted the man, and not even the sight of Sebastian’s shirtless, muscular form could change that.

True crime was not meant for entertainment. Not in a podcast, not in a documentary, not ever. So it was sheer irony that he was here at the deathbed of her most recent guest.

“Water?”

Norah snapped out of her intentional effort to find the negative about the man in front of her—and not the dead one.

Fingers snapped with urgency. “Miss Richman! Norah! Can you get Mrs. Miller a glass of water?” Sebastian’s insistence, along with the pooling brown of his eyes, jolted Norah back to the grave moment.

She pushed hair from her face, her fingers trembling against her cheek as she did so. She wasn’t good with emergencies. They immobilized her. They triggered every barely healed wound and sent her spiraling.

“Norah!”

Sebastian’s command caused her to rush to the en suite. She twisted the knob for the cold water, and it gushed out of the spout. Snatching a paper cup from the too-modern paper cup dispenser she’d had installed on the wall, Norah held it under the water. The cup’s thin sides buckled as it filled with water. Glasses were so much better, but people were careful about germs these days, and most weren’t keen on the old-fashioned glasses Aunt Eleanor had supplied for her guests in their bathrooms.

With the cup full, Norah hurried back into the bedroom, averting her eyes from the dead man on the bed. She handed the cup to Sebastian, whose fingertips brushed hers as he gripped it.

He offered the cup to Mrs. Miller. “There, there,” he crooned in that sultry, deep accent of his. “Steady now. We must settle down, Mrs. Miller. Deep breaths an’ all that.”

“My husband . . .” the older woman whimpered in reply, her hand shaking so violently that water from the paper cup spilled onto the wood floor.

Sebastian ignored Norah’s attempt to find something with which to wipe up the water. Instead, he ran his sock-covered foot over the floor to soak up the drips. “Can you find Mrs. Miller a chair?” His question was directed at Norah, who stared at him for a moment before Sebastian cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “Aye?”

She was helpless. Hopeless. Helpless and hopeless. Norah spun and made quick work of pulling an antique wing-back chair from beneath the window. Its clawed feet scraped on the floor, pushing up one corner of a faded antique rug.

“Aye, that’s right,” Sebastian said as he assisted Mrs. Miller onto the chair. Her well-rounded backside made a spring in the seat groan. He patted her shoulder. “I’ve already called 911, even though we know they’ll be of little help to your husband now.” He crouched in front of Mrs. Miller.

Norah had to give the man props for being so calm and gentle. She held on to the bedpost for dear life, her body on the verge of uncontrollable shaking. This was going to be a setback. It was everything she’d tried her entire life to avoid. But death was inevitable. And Norah detested it.

“Norah?” Sebastian was looking up at her from his crouch in front of the pale and eerily silent widow. “The medics will be arriving any minute now. Will you go an’ let them in?”

She nodded and took the opportunity he’d just handed her to get out of the death room, away from the bald man with his unblinking stare into the otherworld. She might be the owner of 322 Predicament Avenue’s bed-and-breakfast, but no one in her family, and definitely not Norah herself, believed she’d be any good at running such a business.

She was here only for Naomi’s sake.

The only thing worse than death itself was the way a soul passed. At least Mr. Miller had died in his sleep. Unlike Naomi whose decomposing body had been discovered weeks after she’d gone missing. Unlike Naomi whose murder had rocked the community of Shepherd, Iowa. The town’s first murder in over a century. This safe, quaint, historic place.

It was a macabre fact that the murder of 1901 had also been committed on the grounds of 322 Predicament Avenue. It too had been violent, with repercussions that reached well into the future.

Death had been a guest here at Predicament Avenue for decades, and it was clear that Death wasn’t ready to check out quite yet.

Dawn was breaking on the horizon. The pink streaks of sunlight matched the pink blossoms on the crabapple trees in the front yard. Norah had given Mr. Nielson the side-eye as he’d entered the house with his assistant. Nielson Funeral Home, with himself as the mortician, had been the same ones to care for Naomi’s remains—after the county coroner was finished with them, and after they’d been mutilated further by an autopsy.

“Norah.” Mr. Nielson hiked back up the porch steps once the body had been loaded to be transported to the funeral home. The expression on Mr. Nielson’s face was one of sympathy.

Though this recent death wasn’t Norah’s personal loss, Mr. Nielson knew she was returning to the scene twelve years ago when she was nineteen. Naomi had frozen there in time and had left Norah behind to age alone. And she hadn’t aged well. At least Norah didn’t think so. She’d become a shell of what she’d intended to be. Worst of all, she was half terrified of people. Even ones she knew well. Who knew what secrets they were hiding? Who could she trust really? Shepherd was a small town, its population the kind where everyone knew everyone else, and it had been the same way when Naomi was alive. For the last twelve years, Norah had looked into every face of every person she met and asked the internal question: Did you murder my sister?

It was the not knowing that made trusting others almost an impossibility.

“Norah?” Mr. Nielson’s raised voice encouraged Norah to lift her eyes and meet the mortician’s. He had wrinkles. He was balding, not unlike dead Mr. Miller. He was wiry. Why were morticians always skinny? “We’ll need to consult with your guest, Mrs. Miller, on the specifics of what she wants done with her husband’s remains.”

“What do you mean?” Norah frowned. She knew she should understand what he was talking about and yet she was unable to put her thoughts in order.

“Well, I understand the Millers are from Washington State. She will need to determine if she wants the body returned to their home, or perhaps cremation would be a possibility. It would make for easier transport, and I—”

Norah held up her hand. “You’ll have to take that up with her.”

“I realize that, but someone will need to be her go-between for the time being.” Mr. Nielson’s expression had a look of expectation.

Her go-between? Norah bit back a whimper. Her nerves were frayed to the point she wanted to retreat to her room and scream into her pillow. “I-I’ll see if I can help her contact their children,” Norah offered reluctantly.

“They have children?” Mr. Nielson’s brows rose.

“I don’t know. I assumed that . . .” Norah drew in a shuddering breath to collect herself. “I’ll look into it.”

“Good.” Mr. Nielson eyed her. “Will you be all right, Norah?”

She offered him a pitiful sniff and a nod. That he didn’t believe her was obvious.

“If you called your parents, you would—”

“No.” Norah pinched her lips together and shook her head. Her parents had taken their first vacation since Naomi’s murder. They were somewhere in Sweden, and she wasn’t going to interrupt their time in Europe with news of a death unrelated to them. They had gone reluctantly as it was. She might be thirty-one, but her parents knew Norah’s anxieties in the not-so-distant past had kept her locked away in their house, terrified of life and of people. Therapy and counseling and medical assistance had finally helped her back onto her feet and onto a good path, and Norah wasn’t about to give them a reason to think she might be backsliding.

Even if she was.

A shrill cry from the newly widowed Mrs. Miller echoed through the thin walls of the house. “It was there! The apparition! At the end of the bed . . . just staring at us with those gaping holes for eyes!” Her wail clipped off. There were murmurs as someone apparently tried to calm her.

Norah and Mr. Nielson exchanged a look.

“Is she talking about . . . ?” Mr. Nielson let his sentence hang.

Norah shuddered. Apparitions. Spirits. Ghosts. Call them what you will, but it was no secret that 322 Predicament Avenue had long been rumored to be haunted.

Norah bit her lip and shook her head at the mortician, refusing to engage in further conversation about the ghost of Shepherd, Iowa’s first murder victim back in 1901: Isabelle Addington.

It was why Sebastian Blaine was here. And God help him if he tried to link Isabelle’s vintage murder to Naomi’s current unsolved case. Others had tried to build a narrative and a mystery around 322 Predicament Avenue’s bad luck with violent death.

Norah refused to entertain such an idea. The fascination with cold cases, both historical and recent past, was something she would never understand. Every murder left behind silent victims. Families that would never be what they had once been.

A police detective made his way down the flight of stairs behind where Norah and Mr. Nielson stood in the front entryway of the house. Mr. Nielson gave Norah a reassuring grimace and took his leave.

She mustered the willpower to pivot where she stood and face the detective.

“Detective Dover.” He flashed his identification out of habit, even though Norah had known him since high school. Back then they’d just called him Dover. “Sorry,” he added sheepishly, “Habit.”

Norah gave a silent nod.

“It was nice of you to step in for Mrs. Miller and assist Mr. Nielson.”

She hadn’t been assisting the mortician. His assistant had assisted. Norah had hidden in the corner, cowering. But she wasn’t about to admit that to Dover. Nor was she going to admit it in front of Sebastian Blaine, who approached them from the side drawing room as if he owned the place. He gripped a mug of steaming coffee in his hand—had he helped himself to brewing it in the kitchen? His glasses were now straight on his face, unlike earlier during the havoc. His jaw was covered in a midnight shadow. He was remarkably, annoyingly calm.

“You discovered Mr. Miller?” Dover questioned Sebastian, who took a sip of coffee and nodded.

“Actually,” he corrected, “Mrs. Miller discovered her husband. I came to help since my room is directly across the hall.”

“Right.” Dover nodded, then directed his attention to Norah. “And you were in the room as well?”

“Yes,” Norah replied, wrapping her arms tightly around herself and praying for this all to be over soon.

Dover glanced up the stairs as Mrs. Miller wailed again. He winced and cleared his throat uncomfortably before continuing. “Well, the good news is Mr. Miller’s death seems to be from natural causes. There should be no reason for an autopsy. He had a history of heart issues.”

Norah blanched at the word autopsy. She noticed Sebastian had caught her expression. His eyes narrowed. She looked away.

“Unfortunately,” the detective went on, “Mrs. Miller insists there was a woman in the bedroom right before her husband’s heart attack.” He gave Norah a meaningful grimace. “We know what that means.”

“A woman?” Sebastian took a loud slurp of his coffee.

Dover turned to Sebastian. “You’ve heard the stories . . .” His words trailed off.

Sebastian nodded, ignoring Norah’s shifting of her feet. “The ghost of Isabelle Addington? Aye. That’s why I’m here. Investigatin’ the historical cold case for my podcast Cold, Dead, But Never Buried.”

“Oh, that’s you!” Dover broke into a grin, and the two men exchanged handshakes. “I’ve heard your podcast. You do a thorough and unbiased investigation. I appreciate that you don’t cater to conspiracy theories and the like.”

Norah wondered if she slipped away whether she would go unnoticed.

“Conspiracy theories can sometimes contain elements of truth,” Sebastian was claiming. “You need to know how to tell the difference between fact and fiction.”

“No kidding.” Dover hefted a deep breath. “Even with eyewitness testimony! Mrs. Miller insists Isabelle Addington’s apparition was what instigated her husband’s heart attack. I’ve no evidence of that—there’s certainly no way to prove death by paranormal.”

“She’s not claimin’ the spirit killed him, is she?” Sebastian raised an eyebrow, slurping his coffee again.

“No. Just that the appearance of the ghost made him go into cardiac arrest. Actually frightened him to death.”

“I’ve heard worse.” Sebastian’s words and Dover’s nod of agreement did nothing to make Norah feel better. “I interviewed a man once who said he would wake up in bed to find razor blades in the sheets and cuts on his flesh.”

“How is that worse than cardiac arrest?” Norah inserted out of curiosity and then bit her tongue as her voice drew the attention of both men. She hugged herself tighter, regretting her question.

“Maybe it isn’t,” Sebastian acquiesced. “I believe the idea of razors an’ blood simply sounds more violent.”

“Yeah,” Dover agreed. “So, Norah?” He studied her for a second and then continued, “You don’t have to worry about our investigating Mr. Miller’s death any further. I’m not concerned about chasing a ghost—literally. Mr. Nielson said that all signs support there was no foul play, paranormal or otherwise. But . . .”

Norah didn’t like the way Dover dragged out his words.

“. . . I would advise you to seek counsel,” he concluded.

“Counsel?” Norah’s voice squeaked. Her mouth was dry. She needed a drink of water.

Detective Dover gave a cynical roll of his eyes toward the upstairs. “Mrs. Miller doesn’t impress me as the kind to let something go. She is adamant her husband was murdered by a ghost.”

“That’s . . . no.” Norah shook her head. “Why would I need counsel for that? Legal counsel?”

Detective Dover shrugged. “These days you can be sued for just about anything. And you own this place, which means that technically, you’re responsible for the actions of its permanent residents.”

“A ghost is hardly a permanent resident.” Sebastian stated what Norah was thinking.

Dover laughed. “It probably won’t go anywhere, and I might be exaggerating my concern. But remember several years ago, that kid and his family sued the sandwich shop for advertising a half-foot thick steak sandwich, which he’d measured to be five inches? They settled with the restaurant, but I mean—”

“At least the kid had math in his favor.” Sebastian raised his mug, and a drip of coffee sloshed out onto the wood floor.

Norah eyed it.

Sebastian ignored it.

Dover chuckled. “Math, hauntings, sandwiches—point is, people find ways to try to get justice, founded or not. Again, to be on the safe side, I’d get a lawyer’s counsel on this one. If Mrs. Miller even suggests a lawsuit, you might have to revisit the place’s history to prove her ghost claims have no validity. And let’s be honest, such a lawsuit has a slim chance of going anywhere, but the bad publicity it might bring about this place? You can’t run a successful B and B if you don’t have any guests.”

Or if you go bankrupt paying a lawyer in defense of a woman claiming death by ghost! The idiocy of the situation swept away any empathy that was gnawing at her on behalf of Mrs. Miller.

The last thing she wanted to do was revisit the history of 322 Predicament Avenue. From the turn of the century or from twelve years ago! But now a third death had marked its place in the house.

Norah felt the skeletal claws of history snatching at her ankles, stealing her breath away. No, she couldn’t revisit history here, not at Predicament Avenue. She had buried it, and it needed to stay buried. Along with tales of Isabelle Addington, Shepherd’s first murder victim, and Naomi Richman, Shepherd’s last.