Connecting (Lily Dale #3)(74)

Mom wrote back that she happened to have a business trip planned to Boston the following week.

How’s that for fate? she wrote. Do you want to meet me there?

He did.

Of course he did.

Calla feels sick inside, reading the exchange between her mother and another man, arranging a clandestine meeting to discuss God only knows what. To do God only knows what.

There were no other e-mails for several days, over a week, and then the exchange began again. This time, Mom was the one who initiated the connection.

Darrin (like I told you, I can never call you Tom, no matter what you want me to do, sorry!)—seeing you yesterday was incredible, despite everything.You said you wanted me to think about what you told me, about what happened back then, and I’ve done nothing but that since you left me at the airport. A part of me can’t believe it really even happened, but I know you wouldn’t lie.Yes, you made some mistakes—terrible mistakes— but I understand why you did what you did.You were a kid, and afraid, and you thought you were doing what was best for me, and for you, and for

Calla looks up, startled, as a faint sound reaches her ears.

It’s coming from somewhere downstairs—just the slightest rustling.

Is someone else in the house with her?

She sits absolutely still, sensing the stealthy movement below even before she hears the unmistakable tapping of footsteps on the tile.

It isn’t a spirit. She’s had enough experience to realize that they tend not to sneak about furtively, and they don’t necessarily make human sounds, like footsteps.

It’s not Lisa or Kevin, either. They wouldn’t creep into the house; they’d holler from downstairs, just like old times. And anyway, they wouldn’t have a key because Calla herself has the spare one Dad gave the Wilsons.

And she locked the door behind her.

Meaning, no one should be able to get in.

But someone did, once before. Whoever pushed Mom down the stairs snuck into the house, crept up behind her, and . . .

Instinctively, Calla closes the laptop, pulls the plug, and gingerly gets to her feet, careful not to squeak the chair. She moves as silently as possible to the storage closet across the room. It’s jammed with office supplies, file boxes, and hangers draped with her mother’s overflow wardrobe.

Slipping inside, the laptop clutched against her stomach, Calla pulls the door quietly closed and flattens herself against the back wall, behind the clothes.

Even if someone thought to look in the closet, she wouldn’t be visible.

Someone . . . who can it possibly be?

Huddled in the closet, enveloped in terror and the scent of her mother’s perfume, Calla wants to sob. Her heart aches in her clenched chest, racing so frantically that she’s certain it must be audible.

Just don’t panic. Stay absolutely still.

She can hear movement now through the thin panels of wood separating her and the intruder: footsteps in the hall, the creak of the den door being pushed open.

Don’t move. Don’t you dare.

She sucks in oxygen, eyes squeezed tightly closed, paralyzed with fear.

Someone is moving around in the den.

The closet door opens.

There’s a pause.

Then it closes again.

Only when Calla hears the footsteps moving away, down the hall, does she dare to release her breath in a silent sigh of relief. But she stays right where she is, stays absolutely still.

Then a shrill sound pierces the air.

It’s her cell phone, ringing in her pocket.

Panicked, she snatches it and flips it open to silence it.

“Hello?” she hears on the other end of the line.

Dear God. “Jacy, shh—”

“Calla, you’ll never believe this.”

She can hear the intruder coming for her now, no longer moving stealthily, but with deliberate footsteps headed right for the closet.

Oh, no . . . oh, please . . .

In her ear, Jacy says in a rush, “I found the coat of arms with the heart and daggers. I couldn’t believe it, but I checked it a couple of times, and—”

The door jerks open, and the closet is flooded with light.

A bony hand reaches out and roughly jerks the hanging garments aside.

Calla gasps in recognition at the woman standing there, and she knows before she hears the name spilling from Jacy’s mouth what he’s going to say.

“Logan. The name is Logan, Calla!”

The woman who lives in the purple house in Geneseo— the woman who greeted them so hostilely the night they showed her the photo of Darrin—reaches for Calla with a menacing snarl.

She squirms out of reach, screaming into the phone, “Call the police! Jacy! She’s here! Help me!”

She blurts her address so hysterically that she’s certain there’s no way he understood it. Then Sharon Logan is upon her, snatching the phone away with a hand bearing a gold signet ring.

She hurtles the phone and it hits the wall and falls to the rug in pieces, silenced.

Fury boils through Calla. “You killed my mother!”

The woman’s thin lips curve a little, baring uneven teeth.

“What makes you think that? Wait—don’t tell me—you’re a psychic. Like she was.”

“My mother wasn’t a psychic.”

“Really.” The smirk deepens. “Are you sure you knew everything about her?”