sense of direction.”
He didn’t look convinced. “You need to go home. Lock your doors and forget you ever saw me out here. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.” The reply had barely left her lips before he rushed off toward the front of the house.
Ginny watched his retreating back for a second then spun around and ran through the brush toward town. She didn’t stop running until she was upstairs in her apartment, with the doors closed, locked and dead-bolted and every blind and curtain in the apartment closed tight.
PAUL STANTON GRIPPED his pistol in one hand and shone his flashlight around the cavernous entryway of the old house. He strained to make out a sound, any indication there was life in the dilapidated structure, but all he heard was the night air whistling through the broken stained-glass window at the top of the vaulted ceiling.
Unbelievable! What in the world was she doing roaming around the swamp without a weapon? The blond-haired waif didn’t appear skilled enough to take on a box of kittens, much less any of the creatures she might run into in the swamp. Clearly, she was nuts. Sane people didn’t stroll through a swamp at night with nothing but a hundred-dollar spotlight. Which left him wondering whether or not she’d really heard a scream.
With all the tales surrounding the house, he was surprised someone from town would even venture to this area of the swamp, especially after dark. In fact, he’d been counting on that fear to keep from being caught himself. Perhaps curiosity had gotten the better of her, because she didn’t seem overly confident about being there. What bothered him more than anything was that a single woman with no weapon felt compelled to wander around these woods at night. She must have a darned good reason, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was.
He took a cursory look at the areas of the home that were easily passable, but there weren’t many. The fire had destroyed a large section of the home, supposedly where the records on the girls had been held, but even the areas that hadn’t been touched by fire had obviously had visitors. All the cabinets in the kitchen were open, the drawers pulled completely out from the frames. Furniture had been upended so that not a single piece was left upright.
Shards of fabric hung from upholstered furniture, and piles of stuffing, covered with mold and dirt long ago, rested everywhere. Time alone would have destroyed the fabric, but it couldn’t have removed all the stuffing into neat piles. More likely, someone had slit the fabric and searched through the furniture after the fire. What were they looking for? Money? Jewels?
Or were they like him—looking for answers?
He couldn’t picture the spotlight waif tearing through furniture with a hunting knife, but maybe she was a good actress and had fooled him completely. Maybe she hadn’t been afraid or startled in the least and the story about the child had been designed to distract him from whatever she was doing at the house. The worst part was, it had worked.
He walked down a long hallway and shone his light into the rooms, looking for any sign of recent entry, but he found only the same mess as he’d seen in the front room. No little girl. No intruder. No bogeyman.
At the end of the hall, he looked out a huge picture window into the pitch-black swamp and blew out a breath. He had intended to make it to the house from the backside of the swamp during daylight. It would have been far easier to search, and no one lived anywhere near the back entrance into the swamp he’d planned to use. But work had delayed him and he’d arrived at sunset. Not willing to wait to get a first glance, he’d foolishly made the choice to approach the house entering the swamp in town, as the town was closer to the house than the back way he’d originally chosen. Now, he’d been caught by a local.
Tomorrow morning, he needed to find out what he could about the woman, Ginny Bergeron. Make sure she wasn’t going to be a problem. Because another problem was the last thing he needed.
GINNY PULLED HER LONG, straight hair through a ponytail holder and smoothed out the wrinkles in her café T-shirt. She’d overslept, which was rare, but then she usually didn’t spend part of her night scared out of her wits by a stranger in the swamp and then sit up for hours with every light in her apartment blazing. She’d even overcooked the roast and now had tough, leathery sandwiches to look forward to for days.
Her mind had raced last night, even after she’d finally drifted off to sleep, and plagued her with dreams so vivid that she felt she was there. The house and a child were in her dreams, but she couldn’t see the child’s face. Now, in the bright light of the bathroom mirror, she wondered if the child in her dreams had been her. In the bright light of the bathroom mirror, she almost wondered if she’d heard the scream.
She shook her head. No, she wasn’t crazy. The scream had been real, but many things had stopped her from picking up the phone last night and calling the police. No proof. Everyone in town looking at her strangely again. The list went on and on, and there was no time to cover it all now.
She locked the apartment door behind her and hurried down the stairs. Today was the first day of the town’s annual Fall Festival and the café would be crowded early so that everyone could get to the town square and set up their booths. If a little girl was missing, Ginny would be certain to hear about it during breakfast service. Then she’d go to the police. If no one was missing, she would have to admit that her imagination had played tricks on her and figure out how she felt about that.
In the meantime, she was almost late for work, and the last thing she needed was to give her mother any indication that her life was not calm and, if not perfect, at least boring. Madelaine looked up from her bowl of pancake mix as Ginny exited the stairwell into the kitchen. She gave her a critical once-over, then went back to mixing the batter.
“Thought maybe you were calling in sick,” Madelaine said.
“No, sorry. Just overslept. I stayed up too late working on jewelry,” Ginny lied.
The bit of worry in Madelaine’s face relaxed. Her mother knew better than anyone how time could escape Ginny when she was making jewelry. “I thought you had everything ready for the festival already?”
“I did…do…just a last-minute thought.” Ginny tied an apron around her waist and slipped an order pad into one of the front pockets. She glanced down at her watch. “Is the coffee on out front?”
Madelaine nodded. “Did it first thing. Turned on the two pots in here, as well. Gonna be busy this morning.”
“Praise God and bring the customers,” Ginny said, quoting one of Madelaine’s favorite sayings.
Madelaine grinned. “If business goes well this week, we might even close for a bit. Go up to New Orleans and have somebody paint our toenails pink.”
Ginny laughed, a feeling of normalcy returning to her in a rush. “That sounds wonderful.” She glanced at the front of the café, where a crowd was already gathering outside. “It’s a couple minutes till, but I think I’ll take pity and let them in.”
Madelaine nodded and Ginny opened the front door of the café at 5:49 a.m. to a happy roar of locals.
Two hours later, the last of the townspeople had completed the breakfast rush and Ginny slumped in a chair in the kitchen. Madelaine handed her a glass of iced tea and took a seat on a stool in front of the giant double sink teaming full of dishes.
“Busy one,” Madelaine said as Ginny took a huge drink of the cold tea.
“I think the
