Page 33 of What Happens at Nightfall

“I think for emergencies.” Did obscure arcane rituals constitute an emergency? “Maybe try 311?”

“Right, like they’re really going to pay attention when you tell them I have a Gilded Age stalker. What’s she going to do? Smother me with her bustle?” Melinda snatched her father’s phone away and smacked it down on the kitchen table. “I don’t need this. I don’t want the police. I just want to go do my freaking science homework.”

“Melinda—” Adam cast a look of appeal at Jess.

“It was creepy.” Jess blurted out. “The whole thing was creepy. I’d feel better if we could figure out who this woman is and what she wants and how we keep her away from you. And if we need the police to do that. . . .”

Melinda’s lip curled, like a cat’s. “We?”

“Jess didn’t ask to be involved in this,” said Adam defensively. “It’s really nice of her to help.”

Jess pushed back her chair. “You’re right. It’s none of my business.”

Melinda locked eyes with her. “Fine. Say it was your business. What would you do?”

Call the police was what she should say.

But maybe they should wait until they had more evidence. Just because they weren’t calling the police immediately didn’t mean they couldn’t call the police later. The more they knew, the stronger a case they could present.

“The wall—there might be clues on the wall.” Jess scrabbled at the sheaf of printouts. “These pictures seem to fall into a few major groups. There are Renaissance pictures of hell and demons. There are late nineteenth-century photographs. There are pages of handwritten notes. There are photographs of the cemetery, particularly the mausoleum. And—”

“Me.” Melinda pushed the pictures of herself aside. “I’ll take the notes. Maybe there’s something in there.”

“I’ll take the cemetery pile,” Adam said quickly.

Jess found herself confronting a grinning demon. “Is there any hope of any coffee? I think I’m going to need it.”

You don’t know the half of it, whispered a voice behind her, and this time, Jess couldn’t pretend to herself she’d imagined it.

The voices had come back.

Chapter Ten

Jess twisted in her seat, peering behind her.

“Are you looking for the coffee maker?” Adam asked. “I stuck it in a cupboard so I wouldn’t be tempted.”

Jess blinked at him, coming back to herself with an effort. “That’s right, I forgot, you’re off coffee.”

Melinda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, for a whole week. I’ll get out the Nespresso for you.” Melinda pushed away from the table with a speed that felt like flight, burrowing into one of the cupboards under the counter.

“No, don’t.” Jess’s hands were white-knuckled on the edge of the table. “I don’t want to push you off the wagon.”

“Nerissimo or Ristretto?” Melinda called from inside the cupboard, her voice slightly muffled.

Adam smiled at Jess. “Go for it. I think I can withstand the temptation.”

“Ha,” said his daughter, emerging triumphant with his tiny old fire-engine-red Nespresso machine and two battered sleeves of pods.

“Enough from the peanut gallery,” retorted Adam. It was so much easier to fall back into the old patterns, the old tired jokes. He turned to Jess, clutching at normalcy. “I’m sorry, I’ve been a bad host. I should have offered you something when we came in.”

Jess made a helpless gesture. “It’s hardly a normal social call, is it?”

From behind them came the happy whirr of the coffee machine. Coffee-scented steam began to fill the air. Adam sniffed longingly. Maybe one cup wouldn’t do any harm. . . .

“Milk, sugar, or Dad’s repugnant flavored creamer?”

“It’s hardly repugnant.” Decaf. He could have decaf, right?