Little Girls(38)
Next, Laurie took the woman into her father’s study. Ms. Canton paused, cocking an eyebrow at the crosses carved into the paneled walls, before zeroing in on the old rolltop desk. She ran a hand along its surface and commented, “Nice piece.” In the master bedroom, Ms. Canton committed more notes to her binder while she examined the four-poster bed and the matching nightstand. However, unlike with the Victrola and the rolltop desk, she made no verbal comments about the items. Once they were finished, Laurie offered the woman a cup of coffee. Ms. Canton seemed pleased and they went into the kitchen together. Ted and Susan had gone for a walk through the woods and down to the river, so the house was quiet.
Ms. Canton sat down at the kitchen table while Laurie poured the coffee into big mugs. The woman set her bulky purse and her sleek black binder on the tabletop, then gazed out the bay windows at the yard. It was a slightly overcast afternoon, and intermittent shadows webbed across the lawn.
“Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please. Both.”
Laurie added the cream and sugar to the mugs and then carried them over to the table and sat down.
“You said you grew up here?”
“I did, yes,” said Laurie, sliding the woman’s coffee over to her.
Ms. Canton nodded primly. “Thank you.”
“Do you think there’s any money in any of the stuff?”
“I should say there is.” Ms. Canton lifted her coffee and slurped noisily, though she kept her pinky finger out the entire time. “Typically, I would recommend an estate auction at this phase, but you’ve got so few items that it would be more hassle than benefit. For you and your family, a tag sale would be more convenient. You’ve been to yard sales before, I presume?”
“Of course.”
“In practicality, an estate sale is no different. Given your limited items, I would recommend you authorize me to contact a few acquaintances of mine who deal in antiquities. There may be interest right out of the gate, to use the expression, and you’ll find there’s no need for some drawn-out event, or to prolong the process any more than necessary.”
“You really think someone will be interested in all this stuff?”
“The rolltop desk and the furniture in the master bedroom in particular.”
“That would be fantastic. Yes, please contact whomever you need to. The sooner the better. We’re sort of here under some duress until we get all this squared away.”
One of Ms. Canton’s slender black eyebrows arched. “Duress?”
“Well, it’s keeping my husband away from work and my daughter away from her friends.” She smiled tiredly at the woman across from her. “And to be frank, Ms. Canton, I don’t like being here in this house.”
“Yes. David Cushing advised me of what happened to your father. I’m very sorry to hear it.”
It’s not just that, she wanted to add. I feel a cold suffocation slowly coming over me here, as if the walls were alive and slowly closing in on me. I can’t be sure, but I don’t think all is right in this place. I don’t think my family and I are one hundred percent completely alone here, either. Also, there is a troubling little girl who lives next door. She reminds me of another girl, a horrible girl who died....
But she couldn’t say those things. Instead, she smiled wanly at the woman, then covered up her fear behind her coffee mug.
“You mentioned some . . . business properties . . . that had belonged to your father—factories, warehouses?”
“What about them?”
“Since his death, does that mean you are now in possession of them?”
“Oh, no! He had his partners buy him out long ago, and I think Bethlehem Steel eventually came in and absorbed the whole company. From what I gathered from my father’s financial statements, he hadn’t been involved with the business in many years.”
“He sounds like he was an interesting man,” said Ms. Canton.
After Stephanie Canton left, Laurie placed the empty mugs in the kitchen sink and was bagging up the trash when she caught movement in her periphery vision. She turned toward the bay windows just as thunder rolled in the distance. At first, she thought the girl she saw streaming quickly across the yard was Susan. But then she saw the luxuriant bouncing hair. Today, the girl was dressed in the same faded blue dress she had worn the first time Laurie had glimpsed her, rushing across the yard and into the trees in a similar fashion. She recalled the strange dream where Abigail hovered above her in the darkness, watching her sleep. Or had it been Sadie in the dream? She found now that she couldn’t remember, and wondered if the difference truly mattered. She finished with the trash and quickly carried it out back, where a rank of trashcans soldiered up against the side of the house. She dumped the trash into the nearest receptacle, then cut across the yard.
There was no sign of the girl anywhere.
She had come from the corner of the fence and had crossed the property at the back of the house. It was possible that the girl had disappeared over the hill and continued on through the woods. Laurie climbed the hill. Sunlight broke through the black clouds over the treetops and knifed her eyes. At the cusp of the woods, she looked around but could find no sign of the girl. Had Abigail come down this way, she had truly vanished. Ghostlike.
Chapter 13