“How could you leave me in there alone with that…that woman?!” Addison said to her father.
“You needed to learn about your history, Addison. I only wish I’d done it sooner. Where is she?”
Addison shrugged. “She took off once we got outside. Didn’t you see her? She said someone was watching.”
“What do you mean, watching?”
Addison’s shoulders rose, then fell. “I have no idea.”
“She didn’t say who?”
“We never got that far. Whoever it was spooked her. Up until that moment, she’d been smug, cold almost. Then her whole demeanor changed.”
“Your mother always said Marjorie wasn’t big on sweet sentiments.”
As they crossed the street, Addison looked around. A man in a funny black hat glared at her as he walked by. A woman smacked into her shoulder. People were everywhere. It was New York City for heaven’s sake. There was no way she’d be able to decipher the difference between an average person and a stalker, if that’s who they were dealing with.
“I need to tell you something,” Addison said when she started the car, “and you’re not going to like it. Marjorie told me to leave the manor again just now. She said it wasn’t safe.”
He had a confused look on his face. “Did you find out why she keeps saying that? Seems like a nice place to me.”
She looked at her father and frowned. “I think Mom saw something she wasn’t meant to when she was a child. I tried asking Marjorie, but she wouldn’t budge.”
Her father tapped a finger on the dashboard of the car. “Like what?”
“You let me meet her today because you know, don’t you? You know about my gift.”
He bowed his head and nodded.
“I haven’t had a vision in a very long time, but when I moved to Grayson Manor, it started again.” Over the next several minutes she did her best to explain what had occurred since she moved to the manor, giving him minor details, hoping this time he would understand.
“I never should have let you feel I didn’t believe you. I see that now and I’m sorry.”
Addison reached out and patted him on the arm, “No one is perfect, Dad. And it’s okay. You don’t have to keep apologizing over and over. I know why you did it. I just can’t believe after everything, you’d want me anywhere around Marjorie. She seems like such an ice cold person to me.”
He sighed.
Here it comes.
“There’s something you don’t know. After your mother told me what you could do…well…see, and I’d seen proof of it, I called Marjorie. Your mother never knew about this call. Marjorie may not be the kindest woman I’ve ever met, but she helped me make sense of something your mother refused to discuss in detail with me. At the end of our conversation she only asked for one thing.”
“What was it?”
“That one day when the time was right, I’d let her see you again.”