Page 31 of What Happens at Nightfall

Jess and everyone else on the tour. Jess found herself, illogically, wanting to say yes. She remembered that cheerful kitchen, the smell of food cooking, the brightly colored plates on the table. She wanted one of those plates to be for her.

Which was ridiculous. They were just strangers, brought together by a desecrated crypt.

“I don’t know that I’d recognize her again. She was all done up in that costume over there on the bed. It didn’t leave much showing.”

Adam made a valiant effort to hide his chagrin. “Of course, I understand, no worries. We’ve taken up so much of your life already—”

What life? Back home, Jess’s LinkedIn was waiting for her. She needed to buy creamer. Petunia’s birthday was two days away and her present was somewhere in Indiana.

“Don’t be silly. I’m happy to come with you.” Honesty compelled Jess to add, “I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“I won’t be—I mean, I’m sure anything you can remember will be helpful. Also . . .” He struggled with the words. “I just don’t want to have to tell her alone.”

It’s different when you’re on your own, Jess’s mom had said once, when Jess had nagged her about why they couldn’t be more like Kimmy’s family. There are two of them. I’m just me.

At the time, Jess had thought that was a pretty weak excuse. Now—she wondered if she had done her mother an injustice.

Adam mistook her pause. “Unless you’d rather not. It’s just—you’re the only other person who’s seen all this. When I tell Melinda—she’s going to think I’m hallucinating.”

“If you are,” said Jess briskly, “we’re both hallucinating. What time does she get out of school?”

And that was how Jess found herself once again in the kitchen of the Edward Gorey house by the Fort Hamilton gate of Green-Wood, being eyed by a highly skeptical teenager.

“Pictures of me. On this woman’s wall.”

“I know it’s a lot to wrap your head around . . .” said her father.

Before leaving, they had taken pictures of each picture on their respective phones and then emailed them to Adam’s email account so he could print them out.

Adam handed Melinda a picture of the wall in its entirety, red string and all. The grainy quality of his color picture made the red bleed like a wound.

“This is what it looked like. Hell’s on that end and you’re on that end.”

“I guess I should be grateful I’m not on the hell side?” Melinda reached for the stack of papers and began sifting through. Jess saw her go very still as she got to the picture of herself, taken through the window of her room.

Adam cast Jess an agonized look.

“They were arranged in a sort of timeline,” Jess said crisply. “It was roughly chronological. There might be some other logic to it, but, if so, we haven’t worked it out yet.”

“Right.” The only sign of the girl’s distress was the way she shifted in her seat, shoulders back, spine straight. “And we have no idea who this person is?”

“All we know is that she’s a guide for a company called Domiciles of the Damned.” They’d also printed out the home page of the website. For a man who loved trees, Adam had chewed through a bunch today. Given the number of recycling bins in his kitchen, Jess suspected this was a measure of his distress. “The address on the company website led to this apartment.”

“We think the company might be a front,” Adam broke in. Melinda’s eyes shifted sharply from Adam to Jess at the use of that we. “For—um—”

“Stalking me? That seems pretty extreme.” The words were casual, but Melinda’s hand shook as she reached for one of the printouts. “This guide. What did she look like?”

Jess frowned. “It’s hard to say. She was all done up in a costume—bustle, parasol, hat. There was a veil over her face, one of those short ones.”

“Did you remember anything else about her? Hair color, eye color, voice?”

“Her hair was up under her hat.” Jess’s hands went to her own head, automatically straightening her ponytail. “I have a vague impression that it was very blond, white blond, but that might have been a wig. Hang on. Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

Melinda flipped the paper she was holding over to the blank side and pushed it across to her.

Adam reached in his pocket and pulled out a Bic. “Pen?”

“Good teamwork.” Jess started with the hat, sketching the high crown, adorned with a curling feather. At first, the sun had been shining in her eyes, haloing the guide and blurring her. And then it had been dusk and everything had been blurry anyway. Jess could vaguely recall the set of the chin, the curve of the cheek, how long her neck had seemed to be in that net collar.