Page 31 of Murder Will Out
“Joel, please,tell me!” This time, she would not back off, she would not relent. “Someone pushed her, didn’t they? Who pushed her?”
“I don’t know, Miss Stone,” he said tightly.
“And Effie,” Willow went on, heedless of Joel’s growing tension, “how did Effie die? Did someone kill her too?”
“I don’t know!” he cried in frustrated fury.
“But… why?” Willow asked, bewildered. “Why don’t you know?”
He whirled on her and snapped, “Because I was not there! I wanted to be, I tried, but I could not see, I could not reach them, and then they were… gone.” He sank dejectedly into one of the wingback chairs.
Dellie said gently, “My dear Willow, you need to understand—when Effie died, everything started to unravel. Without bodies to tether us to time and space, the daily rhythms of sleep, offood, of age, our existences have always been a bit… disjointed. Fragmented. And now?” She raised her hands helplessly and let them fall. “With Effie gone and Geralt Talbot slipping away, we are slipping too. Not only the present but also the past; it is all beginning to fade.”
Dot reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand; their faces were filled with unease. “Most worrisome of all,” Dot said, “Effie is not here. She should be here, with the historical society; she took care of this house, and us, longer than any other Cameron. She died. But she is not here.”
“Perhaps,” said Dellie hopefully, “she is simply taking a little longer to arrive?”
“It’s been months,” Dot said acerbically. “If she were coming, she would be here by now.” Then she looked quizzically at Willow. “It has been months, hasn’t it?”
Willow nodded.
Dot sighed. “I thought so,” she said with a hint of tears in her voice. “I just… I can’t remember…”
Willow turned back to Joel… but he was no longer there. When she turned back to the sisters on the divan, it was empty too. The fire was out, dry wood stacked and ready as though it had never burned; Willow was alone.
Then why did she feel as though the house was still watching her?
She exited the library, pulling the door shut, jumping as the lock slid into place behind her. Glancing into the sitting room, Willow noticed a decorative pillow lying on the floor next to Effie’s rocking chair. She was sure it had not been there earlier; maybe Finn had knocked it down this morning. She picked it up and glanced at it idly; it was brightly embroidered all over, in the pattern of a tree whose cascade of trailing branches sheltered a flock of birds—bluebirds mostly, with a single brown one perched off to the side, as though the pillow’s creator had run out of blue thread before finishing. There was an indentation in one side, the size ofa foot, or perhaps a face; Willow fluffed the depression out and put the pillow back on the couch, unsure why this innocuous object suddenly made her feel so uneasy.
She needed to get out, to get back to the cabin, to normalcy and sunlight and the world of the living.
But the front door would not open. She twisted the knob, tried to turn the bolt, but it was fixed shut. Willow felt panic rise in her throat; now the whispering was back, the soft crescendo of voices, invisible eyes fixed on her. Willow whirled around to greet whatever new strangeness awaited…
Silence fell; there was no one there. The room was deserted, as it had been moments ago. Just the rocking chair, and the embroidered pillow, back on the floor again exactly where it had been before Willow picked it up. Like the afghan after Geralt’s collapse, like the broken fragments of his cane that had sliced into her hand and yet were gone minutes later, the house had… reset.
This time when she turned back to the door and flipped the bolt, it opened. Cameron House let her go.
It knew she would return.
CHAPTER TWENTY
All Willow wanted to do was go back to the cabin and sleep and pray that she would wake in the morning to a world that made sense.
Instead, she found herself meeting Naomi Talbot in a little pub across the bay on Great North. She almost ignored the text when it dinged its alert on her phone, but then she relented, guessing Naomi could use a friendly face. It didn’t sound like she had many to call on.
Willow pulled her car into the well-lit parking lot next to a vintage maroon sports coupe and entered the wide shingle-style building whose large wooden sign proclaimed it to be the Raven. It was crowded; the buzz of voices and clattering plates and silverware was partially masked by a small jazz combo in the corner; keyboard, bass, and drums backed up a smooth saxophone riffing on an old Cole Porter tune Willow could not quite place.
Willow watched the little band while she waited for the hostess, blinking in surprise as she recognized the keyboard player. The woman in the casual, white button-down blouse and jeans bore little resemblance to the hostile lavender-clad organist whohad frozen Willow out of the organ loft yesterday morning—but it was, without a doubt, Mrs. Patricia MacFarlane Ramsey. Even more surprising, Willow realized the little jazz group was good—really good. Patricia might be heavy-handed on a church organ, but she played effortlessly through the chord changes of the old standard. Most shocking of all, the woman looked relaxed and was almost smiling.
The patrons applauded as the band finished the tune; Willow, hardly aware she was smiling as well, applauded too. As the band looked up briefly to acknowledge the accolades, Patricia’s eyes somehow shot straight to Willow, and for a moment, the older woman’s smile froze into the cold rictus Willow remembered. Then, unexpectedly, it relaxed. The other woman gave her a regal half nod; Willow, remembering to keep her smile on, nodded back.
This felt like progress.
The hostess ledWillow to the corner booth Naomi had secured in a smaller side room off the main space, out of sight of the musicians; given how much Patricia and Naomi detested each other, this was probably a good call, Willow reflected.
Deciding it was best to not even mention the combo or its keyboardist, Willow asked, “How’s Mr. Talbot doing? Any improvement?”
Naomi shook her head; faint lines of exhaustion threaded her flawless face, and her eyes were bleak. “Nothing. He hasn’t regained consciousness at all. They don’t—I suspect they don’t think he’s going to make it, and no one has the nerve to tell me.” She looked up and brushed her hair out of her face. “I needed to get out of there for a few hours, sleep in my own bed. Audra’s sitting with him; she and the nurses both said I needed to eat something and get some rest.”
