11

NORAH

Present Day

“TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW,” Sebastian said, his voice thick with the accent of an Englishman.

Startled, Norah stared at him from across the table in their corner booth at the small diner in downtown Shepherd. He couldn’t know that she knew that he didn’t know that Harper had told her she was pregnant! Could he?

Norah’s thoughts flew into a panic. It wasn’t her place to out Harper’s news. Why had she come here tonight anyway? She could barely leave Predicament Avenue, let alone be expected to dine in public. She understood Sebastian’s offer to take her to dinner wasn’t a date; it was to discuss all things Predicament Avenue and the crimes committed there. Yet that wasn’t why Norah had agreed to come. It was for Harper. Maybe she could somehow stand in the gap for Harper. Convince Sebastian to look at his daughter and see her desperate need for a father. For input. For a safe place to fall.

But she hadn’t expected him to ask her outright!

“Norah?” Sebastian prodded with that sexy deep voice and those chocolate eyes. “Well? What do you know?”

“I . . .” she stammered. It was Murphy’s Law that Norah had just gotten her feet under her after years of processing Naomi’s murder only to have a nineteen-year-old woman with Naomi’s personality show up at the door of 322 Predicament Avenue. It was as if Naomi had returned. Only she hadn’t. Instead, it was Harper Blaine. And it wasn’t fair—nor was it healthy—to transfer her feelings about Naomi onto Harper.

“What do you know about the history of Isabelle Addington’s murder?” Sebastian clarified.

He looked at her through his rectangular black glasses. Dark brown curls flopped over his forehead, his jawline needed a shave, and he had a Spanish look about him even though he was English.

Norah grounded her emotions by studying the way Sebastian’s eyes blinked as he watched her. One. Two. Three. Four. He wasn’t asking about Harper. He didn’t know. She didn’t have to tell him. She—

“Norah?” His tone was softer now. “Are you goin’ to be a’right talkin’ about this?”

Norah nodded and reached for her ice water. The glass was cold against her palm, damp from condensation. There had been condensation on the grass the night the police had come to the door to inform them that they’d found Naomi.

“Isabelle Addington?” Sebastian’s voice brought Norah’s eyes up to meet his again.

Oh. Isabelle Addington. They were here to talk about the age-old ghost story—not about Naomi, not about Harper. Norah took a gulp of water, then set the glass down on a napkin. “Um . . . as the story goes, a woman named Isabelle Addington was murdered at the house in 1901. Apparently, there was an investigation after some locals found a crime scene but not a body.”

“How did they know who the victim was?”

Norah picked up her fork and fiddled with its tongs, wishing the food would come so they could quickly eat and then leave. She dropped the fork back down on the table. “I don’t know many of the details except that she was murdered there. Some say she was buried in the graveyard behind the house, but that was never confirmed.”

“That’s suspicious.” Sebastian leaned back in the booth as the server arrived with his plate of deep-fried walleye with coleslaw on the side.

Norah smiled at the server as her plate of chicken carbonara was set in front of her. She should have opted for a salad or bowl of soup. No way would she get the chicken past the lump of anxiety in her throat.

Sebastian speared a piece of fish with his fork and waved it in the air. “I mean, think about it. I found an article online from the Shepherd Chronicle around the time of the alleged murder. In it is a request for anyone to come forward who had information about Isabelle Addington. There was an Englishman in town claimin’ she was his wife. So, from what I’ve found so far, there was evidence of a murder, no body, a stranger claimin’ his wife was missin’, and an assumption that the blood spilled at Predicament Avenue was from this Isabelle Addington—the supposed missin’ wife.”

Norah poked at a piece of pasta. He already knew more than she did. Or more than she wanted to try to remember. Naomi had always been the one fascinated by the story of Isabelle Addington from the moment they were old enough to be regaled with ghost stories. “Aunt Eleanor said that the way the story was handed down to her, Isabelle Addington was something of a mystery to everyone.”

“No one from Shepherd truly knew Isabelle?”

Norah shook her head. “Not that’s been preserved anyway.”

“You’re not curious to learn more?” Sebastian chewed and swallowed.

“I’ve never been fond of ghost stories or . . . those kinds of stories. That was Naomi’s thing.” Norah pushed her chicken to the far side of her plate.

Sebastian’s chest rose and fell. He leaned his elbows on the table and looked earnestly at her, attempting to make eye contact. Norah looked at her food instead.

“I know this isn’t goin’ to be easy, but I’m willin’ to walk through it with you if that’s what you want.”

Norah glanced up at him. “That’s kind of you.” It was a mumbled appreciation with no commitment. She got the feeling she needed to offer Sebastian something more or he’d nose his way deeper into her life, into her struggles. That wasn’t a place she was willing to share with anyone—except Naomi. And that wasn’t possible. “Part of the challenge with finding out more information about what happened back in 1901 at the house is that the records office was demolished when a tornado went through Shepherd in the late 1930s.”

“It’s not unusual for a natural disaster or other circumstances like fire to do that. It’s unfortunate, though. It leaves a lot to question.” Sebastian nodded, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I do find it interestin’ that an Englishman was in town claimin’ Isabelle Addington to be his wife.”

“Why?” Norah took a sip of her water.

“What would bring a Londoner to a small town like Shepherd? An’ if the answer is that he traced his missin’ wife here, then why would his English wife be in Shepherd?”

Norah frowned. “What’s wrong with Shepherd?”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. “Nothin’, but back in those days, people didn’t usually cross the ocean to go to a small farm town in the middle of the States. It’d require quite a bit of travel to come all the way to Shepherd, Iowa.”

Norah stabbed at some pasta as she considered his words. “I guess that makes sense.”

“So then,” Sebastian concluded, “I wonder what else was goin’ on that isn’t in the records we do have?”

“Such as?”

He shrugged. “What was it that motivated an Englishwoman to leave her husband and come all the way to Iowa from London? An’ then her husband followed her here, claiming she’d been missin’? If her body was never found, how do we know it was Isabelle Addington?”

“You sound like Naomi.” The words slipped from Norah’s mouth before she could stop them, then hung there between them. She poked at her pasta and chicken but didn’t lift any of it to her mouth.

Sebastian filled the awkward silence. “It sounds to me like your sister asked good questions. Questions that deserve answers.”

Norah lifted her eyes. “It’s all in the past, though. Isabelle Addington has nothing to do with Naomi’s death. They both just happened to be associated with my house. With my aunt Eleanor’s house.”

“Coincidence?” Sebastian prodded gently.

Norah gave him an affirmative nod. “Yes. That’s all.”

“An’ you don’t suppose Naomi was researchin’ and came upon somethin’ she shouldn’t have?”

Norah couldn’t help but scowl at the idea. “After a century, I doubt anyone would care if she had.”

At Sebastian’s skeptical look, Norah set her fork on her plate. “It’s happenstance. It sucks, but that’s the truth of it. Naomi was fascinated by the story of 322 Predicament Avenue, and when she and I moved in to help Aunt Eleanor after we graduated, Naomi always wanted to see Isabelle’s ghost—like Otto claims he has. But we never saw anything. Not even a shadow. Whatever happened to Naomi has nothing to do with that old story.”

“You’ve never seen anythin’?” Sebastian’s eyes were leveled on Norah in a way that made her shift in her seat. He was kind but nosy too. She sure wasn’t going to acknowledge that since Aunt Eleanor’s death, yes, she had seen something or someone.

The vision of the woman standing over Norah in the night, strands of hair falling over thin shoulders. But then Norah would blink, and the vision was gone. A nightmare? Sleep-induced? And why after Aunt Eleanor died and not before? All the years of sleeping in this supposed haunted house had garnered Norah nothing but a lackluster interest in Isabelle Addington’s nonexistent ghost.

Until now.

Until Sebastian Blaine.

Until Mr. Miller’s heart attack.

Until ghosts were rising unwanted from the dead like unfinished stories. Naomi’s. Isabelle’s. Two cold cases. One location. And one dead bed-and-breakfast guest.

“You’ve seen somethin’, haven’t you?” Sebastian’s recognition broke into Norah’s jittery thoughts.

“What?” She startled. “No. No.”

Sebastian stared at her, and Norah dropped her gaze. She frantically searched for a change of conversation, away from all these triggering questions and to a safer place. “Why did you come to Shepherd, Iowa?” Norah blurted out the question and then realized it was more than obvious. He’d come for his podcast. She knew that. And for the story of Isabelle Addington.

Sebastian was quick with his response. “I first came to the States about twenty years ago—not too long before I met Harper’s mum. An’ then when Harper was born, I felt like a cad returnin’ home to Lancashire.”

“I see. And you live in Nashville?”

Sebastian nodded. “I try an’ get home every so often to see my mum and dad. My family.”

“With Harper?” Norah asked, then bit her tongue. Harper wasn’t a particularly safe subject either.

Sebastian eyed her for a second as though unsure of her motivation for asking. Then he nodded. “Aye. I took her home with me a time or two. But Harper’s mum wasn’t keen on my takin’ her out of the country. Fact is”—it was Sebastian’s turn to drop his gaze—“Harper’s mum wasn’t keen on me. She’s controllin’. Wanted Harper to herself an’ nothin’ to do with me. So, Harper believes I’m just an uninvested father.”

Norah’s heart squeezed at the reflection of hurt in Sebastian’s admission. “Why do you let Harper believe that?”

Sebastian pondered for a moment before drawing in a deep breath. “She loves her grandparents, an’ I don’t want to cause tension for her. It’s not fair to a kid to be caught between parents who frankly don’t like each other. Even worse, if they find a place of security like Harper has with her grandparents an’ then they’re tossed about from place to place. So I’ve just let her be.”

Norah ran her fingertip around the rim of her water glass. “But if you don’t explain that to Harper, won’t she think you don’t care?”

“I don’t want to burden her.” Sebastian locked eyes with Norah. She saw honesty in them and felt perhaps he was giving her a part of himself in exchange for the pieces of Naomi she’d shared with him.

“Maybe she wants to be burdened with it,” Norah suggested hesitantly.

Sebastian’s brows drew together. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe now that she’s an adult, she needs you to be her father—not protecting her from the truth but trusting her with it instead.”

Sebastian chuckled. “Sometimes findin’ out the truth is too painful. It’s easier to figure out how to get by an’ pretend the past doesn’t haunt you.”

Norah didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She understood Sebastian’s point all too well.

Feeling chilled, Norah rolled over, tugging her blanket higher around her neck, unwilling to open her eyes to the night that enveloped her bedroom.

After a quiet drive back to Predicament Avenue, she had parted ways with Sebastian and retreated to her room on the first floor. For the next hour, she could hear him pacing the floor of his bedroom on the upper level. Murmurs through the vents told her he’d chatted with Harper for a bit.

By early evening the sky had grown dark, and the sounds from her upstairs guests stilled. The entryway clock chimed nine and then ten, at which time she must have drifted off to sleep. Now she’d been awakened by the cold pinpricks on her skin as though it were winter, and she’d failed to turn on the heat.

Norah’s head felt weighted down, and she allowed it to sink deeper into her pillow. She drew a shaky breath, pulling in her knees and curling into a ball beneath her down comforter. Her mind raced to unravel the confusion that swirled like a fog. She’d been dreaming. Hadn’t she? Of a dark opening in a forest. A dirt path that wound its way into the bowels of the woods. Clods of mud were kicked up along the trail, and there was a tree that had fallen during a storm and crashed across the pathway, leaving a trunk that had rotted with age, its leafless branches like scraggly arms reaching out to capture anyone who tried to cross over it. She had been hiking along the trail, squinting into the blue-black depths of the woods. Listening. Always listening.

Norah.

The whisper was a chilling reminder that she wasn’t alone. Was never alone. In her dream she had stopped, her shoes sinking into the earth, the trail turning mucky and wet. Like swampland rising to drown the earth, and yet it wasn’t sticky and humid, but cold. So cold. Like the winter when raindrops became icicles, and the air suffocated a person with the chill of its breath.

Norah squeezed her eyes shut against the memory of the nightmare. The dirt path. The woods. She’d seen them before. The muddy pools of slimy clay earth, the chilling sensations that hugged with a violence she wrestled against, even now as she was gaining awareness.

She could hear the song of a lone bird. A high-pitched musical string of chirps. It broke through the silence of her iridescent thoughts. Insistent. Pleasant and yet out of place. The woods pulled away from Norah, growing black, the opening in the forest narrowing.

The bird continued to chirp and then there was a clinking sound, like a lid snapping shut. The bird was silenced, as if someone had reached out and snapped its feathered neck.

Norah’s eyes fluttered open. Her bedroom was completely silent, shrouded in vampire black, the space a dark cave of isolating outlines. The walls, the wardrobe—she could barely make out its form. Norah lay in her bed, shivering, unable to move. Stiff like a corpse, her breathing was the only sound that drifted to her ears.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

And yet she wasn’t alone. Norah could sense it. Feel it.

A click.

And then . . . the bird began to chirrup once more. A lone shrill whistling breaking through the night.

Norah’s body tensed, her calves so tight that she felt the onslaught of a leg cramp.

Whistling. A bird flitting among the trees on a summer day. Only it had to be past midnight. She was in bed at 322 Predicament Avenue. The only bird in her room was the—

The birdsong was shuttered, once again by a metal clap.

“Shhh.” The whisper dissipated as the shadow of a woman drifted past Norah’s bed and disappeared through the open crack in her bedroom door. A door that had been firmly shut when Norah had gone to bed.

And then, in the gutting silence, a single chirp, like a bird gargling for its last note before death made sure the poor bird lost its song forever.