a stranger passing by.
TJ shook her head, determined not to think about it. She was safe now. At least for a while.
“So we’re talking wedding bells,” Chloe was saying.
“Wait, I must have missed something,” TJ said, sitting forward to hear. “You and Dawson? When?”
“We haven’t set a date yet. I know it’s quick, but I would love a Christmas wedding, something small and intimate,” Annabelle said, sounding dreamy. Both Chloe and TJ groaned and then laughed.
“Love,” Chloe said with a shake of her head.
“Actually,” TJ said, settling back into her seat, “I always thought you and Dawson were a good match.”
They talked about weddings, growing up in Whitehorse, people they knew who’d left—and those who had stayed. The time passed quickly on the drive to their hometown.
As they pulled up in front of the house they’d grown up in after their parents had died, Annabelle cut the engine. Conversation died. They all looked in the direction of Grandmother Frannie’s house. Even though Frannie had left the house to Annabelle, TJ would always think of it as their grandmother’s. None of them spoke. The only sound was the tick, tick, tick as the motor cooled.
“Are you two all right?” Annabelle asked.
TJ hadn’t realized it when they’d met her at the airport, but Chloe had flown in only thirty minutes before she had. Which meant that like her, she hadn’t been to the house where they were raised since the funeral.
“It’s like it was when we were kids,” Annabelle said, as if trying to reassure them.
From the back seat, TJ glanced at her sister in the rearview mirror. All three of them knew the house would never be like that again. Not after their grandmother’s secrets had been unearthed, so to speak.
“If you don’t want to stay here, we can go out to Dawson’s ranch,” Annabelle said. “We have a standing invitation.”
TJ smiled at that, seeing how happy her sister was to be back together with her high school sweetheart. “I’m good with staying in the house.”
“Of course you are,” Chloe said. “You write murder mysteries.” She sighed. “I am good with staying here too. I think it’s what Grandmother would have wanted. But it’s still weird. I can’t believe the secrets our grandmother kept from us.”
TJ chuckled. Frannie had been a tiny, sweet little woman who everyone said wouldn’t hurt a fly. “Seems all those wild stories we thought she made up to entertain us had some truth in them.”
“Imagine if she hadn’t toned them down to PG,” Annabelle said.
They all laughed and opened their car doors, the earlier tension gone. Getting the luggage out, they made their way up the shoveled path through the deep snow. Christmas in Whitehorse, TJ thought. The last time she’d left here, she’d been pretty sure she’d never be back. But as she breathed in the icy evening air, she knew she was exactly where she wanted to be right now.
Annabelle scooped up a handful of snow in her mitten and tossed it into the air over them before running toward the door, fearing payback. Both TJ and Chloe let out cries as ice crystals glittered in the silver evening before covering them from head to toe.
TJ shook the light snow from her long blond hair and laughed. It was good to see Annabelle like this. It had been a long time. Now, she was again that adventurous young girl who’d gotten stuck in the neighbor boy’s tree house.
“I thought you’d want your old rooms,” Annabelle was saying as they crossed the porch and she unlocked the door.
TJ hadn’t known what to expect as the door swung open. Her grandmother had been a hoarder in her old age. The last time she’d seen this place—when she and Chloe had come up for the funeral—it had been so full of newspapers, magazines, knickknacks, old furniture and so much junk there were only paths through the house. Little had they known what was buried in there.
She stopped in the doorway, dumbstruck. The junk was gone. The walls were painted a nice pale gray, and the place looked warm and welcoming, complete with new furniture.
“Annabelle, you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble. We aren’t staying that long,” TJ said, shocked.
“It wasn’t all me. Willie insisted on helping and I wasn’t about to say no,” Annabelle said. “You remember Dawson’s mom. When she takes on a project... You have to see the kitchen. Dawson completely remodeled it.”
TJ could only nod and follow her sister into the kitchen where their grandmother used to attempt to cook. She stopped in the doorway. This was the room where Annabelle had discovered her grandmother’s biggest secret. It looked like any other kitchen in an older remodeled house.
“Remember the cookie jar where Frannie kept her grocery money?” her sister was saying. “I saved it.”
Chloe had stepped in and was looking around, wide-eyed. “It’s amazing.” She met TJ’s gaze. “Ghosts?”
“Gone,” Annabelle said, and crossed her heart with her index finger. “No ghosts.”
TJ thought ghosts were the least of her problems. “Did Willie help you with our rooms as well?”
“She did. Come on, I’ll show you.” Annabelle ran up the stairs. TJ and Chloe followed, whispering among themselves.
“She did a great job,” Chloe was saying. “Remember what it was like?”
“Unfortunately, I do,” TJ said. “Like a horror story.”
“Or a thriller,” Chloe whispered back. “Like the kind you write.”
TJ didn’t need the reminder.
Annabelle had stopped at Chloe’s old room. They joined her. The room had been painted her favorite color, pale purple, and decorated to fit their investigative reporter sister’s style.
“You do realize that this visit is temporary, right?” TJ asked. Annabelle didn’t seem to hear her. Stepping down the hall, TJ stopped at a room she knew at once was hers. It was painted a pale yellow. A quilt of yellow-and-blue fabric lay on the antique white iron bed. There was a small white desk and chair to one side of the bed with a lamp and spot for her laptop. On the wall above it was a framed collage of her book covers.
“Do you like it?” Annabelle said behind her, sounding anxious.
“Oh, Annabelle.” She turned to hug her sister, hoping to hide her discomfort. The last thing she wanted to see were her book covers right now. They reminded her of the threats from her True Fan, who had found fault with all of her latest plots—and even her covers.
“It’s perfect.”
Her sister seemed to relax. “Is this going to be all right?” she asked.
“It is, Belle,” she said using a nickname for her littlest sister that she hadn’t used in years. “I’m glad you kept Frannie’s house.”
“It
