Page 73 of What Happens at Nightfall
“In the mausoleum,” said Ingrid impatiently.
“Yes, but where in the mausoleum? Maybe it was sewn into something and we just never noticed.”
“You’d have seen the fragments of cloth somewhere,” argued Ingrid.
Fragments. There had been fragments. Fragments of glass. That broken orb, that looked, inexplicably, as though it had exploded outward rather than being smashed in.
“Adam!” Jess grabbed his arm and then hastily took her hand back. “That glass orb. The one you thought Ben broke. What if—you know—what’s his name—was in there?”
Adam stared at her. “That orb. Cornelia was holding it. It was part of a picture of Cornelia. Why didn’t I think of that before?”
“No one expects demon containment,” said Jess giddily.
“Would you care to tell me what you’re talking about?” demanded Ingrid. “What orb?”
Jess looked at Adam. He shook his head. “It’s true. She wouldn’t know about it. The Vanderwilts never allowed anyone into their tomb and they didn’t allow the interior to be photographed or publicized.” To Ingrid, he said, “There was a blown glass orb that was part of the stained glass window. It broke the night Ben opened the mausoleum.”
“Outward,” Jess added. “It broke outward.”
“No one gives me access to anything!” burst out Ingrid. She seemed on the verge of tears. “How am I supposed to fight this thing without access to the right sources? I couldn’t even get into the mausoleum until your son left it open. I wanted to look at the Vanderwilt papers, but when I called Mrs. Vanderwilt and told her I was a historian, she just hung up on me.”
“She doesn’t like strangers,” said Adam, and for a moment Jess wondered why he’d know that, before remembering that this woman, this Mrs. Vanderwilt, was his mother-in-law.
She kept forgetting that, that Adam’s wife had been a Vanderwilt, that this was how it all kept coming back to Adam’s kids. Adam, in his fraying T-shirts with the ingrained dirt under his nails, just wasn’t anyone’s idea of Gilded Age opulence.
“I thought about flying out to Palm Beach, but do you know what a ticket to Florida costs these days?” demanded Ingrid. “Besides, I don’t know if there’s even anything in there. Sometimes you find a great collection of papers and all it is is laundry lists.”
Kimmy always said you could find out a lot from people’s laundry. Laundry and household accounts and the other undervalued miscellany of history. It was one of Kimmy’s standard stump speeches.
Jess drained the last of her coffee. “If there’s anything there, Kimmy will tell us.”
Ingrid looked from Jess to Adam. “Kimmy?”
Too late, Jess realized she’d let the cat out of the bag. Adam scrubbed a hand through his hair. “The papers aren’t in Palm Beach. They’re at Green-Wood. Right now we’ve got a historian looking through them—Kameka Olsen.”
Ingrid half rose from her seat. “You have those papers?”
She was looking at Adam like she wanted to devour him whole—or at least his archives.
“Hey.” Jess poked Adam. “Don’t you need to pick up your kid? It’s four ten.”
“Four forty-five. Lego league.” A look of blind panic crossed Adam’s face. He started to the door, and then realized he was still holding his mug. “Can I put this in your dishwasher?”
“I’ll deal with it. You go.” Jess reached out to take it from him, her fingers brushing against his.
Ingrid slammed down the lid of her laptop, shoving it into her backpack. “I’ll go with you.”
“So you can go back to your place?” said Jess pointedly.
“No. There’s no way I can go back there tonight. What if while I was sleeping, he came back? You live in that big house at the Fort Hamilton entrance, right? I could go back with you. Just for the night.”
“Um . . .” Jess could see the emotions playing out across Adam’s face, courtesy warring with alarm. “We do have plenty of space.”
Jess was pretty sure it was Adam’s archives Ingrid was after, not his person, but either way, she didn’t like it.
“You’ve got the kids to deal with.” Jess turned to Ingrid. “You can stay with me tonight. I have an air mattress I can blow up for you.”
“But—”
