Fixing To Die

“Good idea. I’ll meet you downstairs, then, in the hall.” Dickce got up from the bed and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

An’gel attended to her hair and spent several minutes fussing with it until she was happy with the result. She checked her lipstick and decided it needed to be refreshed. Finally satisfied with her appearance, she started for the door. Her glance fell on her luggage, and she stopped for a moment. She really should unpack, but right now she wanted to explore the house. Unpacking could wait, she decided. She headed for the door. She could deal with wrinkles later. Curiosity over fashion, she thought with a smile and shut the door behind her.

The upstairs hall was lit only by the afternoon sun that found its way through the half-closed blinds over the west-facing windows near her room. The floor creaked in spots as she walked down the hall toward the stairs. The creaks were not loud enough to be heard in her room, she reckoned, unless she left her door open. She didn’t like her bedroom door open at night, even at home, and she didn’t think it would be a good idea to leave it open here.

As she neared the head of the stairs, she felt in her pocket for her phone. No luck. It was probably still in her purse. She turned back to retrieve it. She didn’t expect any calls, but she might want to take pictures as they looked through the house.

She swung her door open into the room and paused. What was that sound? A click perhaps? She swung the door back and forth.

No repetition of the sound, yet she would have sworn she heard something when she opened her door. Maybe you’re starting to imagine things. This house is getting on your nerves.

“No, it’s not,” she said aloud to reassure herself. She found her purse and retrieved the cell phone. She checked the battery to be sure she had enough of a charge to last for a couple of hours, and she did.

She glanced at the bed before she turned back toward the door. She stopped and turned slowly back to the bed. Her mind focused on what she saw; she laid her purse down again and moved closer to the bed.

Her nightgown—the nightgown she had folded and placed under her pillow—lay unfolded across the foot of the bed.

CHAPTER 7

An’gel stared at her nightgown for a moment. She felt strangely calm. The attempts to frighten her were having the opposite effect. The person behind this—she still refused to believe that a supernatural hand had moved her dress and nightgown—had miscalculated. Badly. An’gel wasn’t going to throw her hands up in the air and scream bloody murder. No, An’gel was going to get to the bottom of this and take great satisfaction in telling the miscreant exactly what she thought of his—or her—juvenile behavior.

She remembered the odd click she had heard just as she opened the bedroom door. The sound hadn’t emanated from the door, she was sure of that. It had come from somewhere inside the bedroom.

But where?

She glanced around the room. There was no closet in the room, only the wardrobe and the clothes press for storage of clothing. The room had a large window on each outside wall, one facing west and the other north. One could open the window and step out onto the gallery that ran around three sides of the second floor. Had someone come in through the window from the gallery to move her clothes?

An’gel checked each window in turn, and both were locked on the inside. The click she had heard wasn’t the sound of a window latch, then. She would have to examine the room further, but now she had better meet Dickce downstairs and look over the first floor of the house. She wanted to question Mary Turner about the possibilities of a hidden passage or secret rooms in the house. She had never heard of the existence of either at Cliffwood, but that didn’t mean the house had none.

Downstairs she found Dickce looking a bit irritated.

“What took you so long?” Dickce asked. “I was about to come back up and get you.”

“I was on my way but realized I hadn’t brought my phone,” An’gel said. “I wanted it in case we needed to take pictures.” She paused to glance around. They appeared to be alone. She stepped close to her sister and lowered her voice. “There was another incident.”

Dickce’s eyes grew wide. “What happened?”

An’gel told her about the click she’d heard and the moving of the nightgown.

“This is getting creepier by the minute,” Dickce said. “Why on earth is someone doing this? Are they trying to drive Mary Turner and Henry Howard out of the house?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” An’gel said. “But I can’t see Mary Turner ever selling this house and leaving her family heritage behind, can you?”

Dickce shook her head. “No, this house is her legacy from her father, and I don’t believe she would ever willingly leave it.”