Creed again would allow. Every muscle in her body responded to her inner turmoil with tension. She was coiled inside and out, prepared to spring into his arms or flee. His tense face watched her careful movements with predatory stillness.
He was no more relaxed than she.
When a child’s girlish laughter skittered its eerie tones up Trinity’s spine, she gasped and turned toward the door. Creed reacted, too, but to her sudden movement not to the sound. He put his hand out to her shoulder as if to steady her, but his touch wasn’t comforting. Not when the laughter sounded again in the air all around them.
None of the windows were open. There was no draft from the hallway, but suddenly an old photograph fluttered loose from one of the nearby piles of memorabilia. Maybe she’d dislodged it during her earlier snoop. Or maybe not.
Creed bent down to retrieve the sepia-toned photo before she could reach for it herself. She didn’t have to hold it in her hands to see the brown and black around the edges where the paper had curled and turned to ash after being damaged by some long ago flames.
The Girl in Blue.
Trinity could see the pretty pastel pinafore of robin’s egg blue in the photograph. She’d seen that dress so many times before, disappearing around a corner or lurking in the dark. She could see the corkscrew curls that framed a cherubic face and lips made red by the photo processes of yesteryear. The Girl in Blue had been about eight or nine when the picture was taken. With a start, Trinity looked from the photograph to the ragdoll she’d noticed earlier with its creepy button eyes and back again.
The girl in the photo held the doll to her chest.
“Why do you have all these mementos?” Trinity asked.
Creed glanced at the photo as if he was so familiar with it that he didn’t need to look closely before he placed it back in the pile it had come from.
“Since that day by the lake, Scarlet Falls whispers to me. Whiskey helps. Quiets the noise. But sometimes I look and listen and find and keep,” Creed said.
Whispers.
So Samuel Creed was plagued by whispers. No wonder he seemed to watch her while she braced for screams.
Chapter Four
She had waited for Creed to leave the house before slipping back to his rooms. They’d parted awkwardly, like two boxers retreating to neutral corners of the ring. She told herself discretion was the better part of valor, but in reality a little time in his presence went a long way…especially since she was determined not to eat him alive. He was indelibly entwined with Scarlet Falls. It was almost impossible to tell where Creed began and the town ended. He was fascinated by its darkness. She feared the lake hadn’t really let him go that day, no matter that she had saved him. Giving in to her attraction to him felt like tempting Scarlet Falls to reach out to claim her, as well.
She found the photograph where he had placed it back among the eclectic clutter of his collection which seemed to hold everything from the mundane to the macabre. The crow “watched” her when she picked up the old photo and turned it over in her palm. Worse, the button-eyed doll sat—its creepiness magnified by the evidence of its longevity Trinity held in her hands.
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