It was ungodly cold and the chill intensified the higher they climbed.
By the time they reached the second floor, it was freezing, their exhalations pluming white in the candlelight.
They rounded the corner and stopped.
The door to Paige’s room stood shut at the far end of the corridor.
Grant could hear the rain drumming on the roof.
The elevated boom-boom-boom of his heart.
Nothing else.
He was wide awake now, operating on sensory overdrive—everything heightened but his diminished sense of sight.
Sophie headed down the hall and he followed.
They passed the small table at the midpoint and continued on until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, the door looming three feet ahead.
Grant kept swallowing, trying to make his ears pop, but they wouldn’t.
Sophie whispered, “Go ahead.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know. What are you waiting for?”
“This is weird.”
“Aren’t you used to weird by now?”
“Should I knock?”
She shot him a look. “Take it seriously.”
Grant cleared his throat and took a step forward.
“Is anyone in there?” he said.
They barely breathed.
Thirty seconds passed in silence.
“Guess we have our answer,” Grant said, turning to leave.
“Try it louder.”
“I feel like I’m just talking to a door.”
“Don’t you ever pray?”
“Not anymore.”
“Pretend there’s something on the other side that can hear you. Show it respect.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Get closer.”
He turned to her. “You want to do this?”
Grant stepped up to the door again, so close he could feel the icy draft issuing from the crack at the bottom. He braced himself on either side of the frame.
“This is Grant Moreton. I’m Paige’s brother. She’s the woman who lives here.”
He looked back at Sophie.
She nodded him on.
“Can you tell me what it is you want?”
He put his ear to the door.
Silence again.
No sound on the second floor but the rain striking the roof.
“This is Ouija board shit,” he said.
“Keep going.”
“What do you want?” Grant said, louder.
No answer.
“What. Do. You. Want.”
Grant felt Sophie’s hand touch his shoulder. He was beginning to churn with the first bubblings of rage, a mad impulse creeping in to kick the door in, Glock drawn. Shoot the room to pieces.
“Why won’t you let us leave?”
Nothing.
Yelling now—”Why are you here?”
Sophie grabbed his arm but he ripped free and beat his fist against the door.
She said, “Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Are you asleep? Are we disturbing you? ‘Cause you’re sure as hell disturbing us.” He punched the door. “Wake up and talk to me.”
He turned away and started back down the hallway.
When he reached the table, he glanced over his shoulder and stopped.
Sophie still stood facing the door which was bathed in the light of her candles.
“Hey,” Grant said. “You’re my light source. Come on. We’re done here.”
She didn’t move.
“Sophie?”
She looked at him, and then back at the door.
When she shouted, it startled him so much he flinched.
“What are you?”
Her voice raged through the second-floor corridors, and its echo had not quite faded into silence when every light in the hallway blazed on with a retina-burning intensity.
The building rumbled as the central heating kicked.
A ceiling fan above Grant’s head began to whir.
The phone in his pocket vibrated to life.
Sophie faced him, shielding her eyes and squinting against the sudden onslaught of light.
She had just opened her mouth to speak when a noise from below rushed up the staircase and drove a spear of terror through Grant’s heart.
A scream.
Paige.
The Glock was in his hand and he was running before he’d even thought to react, socks sliding across the carpet as he turned the corner, his shoulder crashing into the wall.
He righted himself and bolted for the stairs.
Took them two at a time, his footfalls pounding down the steps.
Five from the bottom, he jumped.
His sock-feet hit the hardwood floor of the foyer and he skidded to a stop under the archway that opened into the living room.
Paige stood beside the recliner holding Sophie’s purse.
She looked bleary-eyed and horror-stricken.
Grant said, “What happened?”
Sophie came tearing off the stairs into the foyer.
She stopped beside Grant, said, “What are you doing with my purse, Paige?”
“What is this, Sophie?”
Paige shook a scrap of paper in her right hand.
Grant walked over. “What is it?”
She handed him a badly-wrinkled receipt from The Whisky, brittle from water damage.
Paige said, “Other side.”
Grant flipped it.
“It was in her purse.”
Grant stared at Sophie.
“Why do you have this?”
“That’s the receipt I found in Seymour’s hand. I told you about it on the phone, remember?”
“Benjamin Seymour was holding this?”
“Yes, at the Japanese garden in the arboretum. What am I missing? Why is your sister going through my purse?”
“This is our father.”
“What does this mean, Grant?” Paige asked.
Grant stared at the portrait. “I don’t know.”
Sophie said, “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I had no idea.”
The cell in Grant’s pocket vibrated.
He jammed the Glock into the back of his waistband, grabbed the phone, swiped the screen.
A series of texts from Art Dobbs had just uploaded.
10:06 p.m.
diner closing, they’re leaving
10:13 p.m.
they went across street to bar
12:01 a.m.
still here, you so owe me
2:02 a.m.
last call, they’re leaving
Grant glanced at the current time—2:37 a.m.
Paige said, “Sophie, I can’t explain why I even opened your purse. When the power came on, I woke up and I was just standing here. The receipt was already in my hand. I wasn’t snooping, I swear. What were you guys doing upstairs?”
Grant said, “I heard something. We went up to check.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know. The power came on, you screamed, I ran back down.”
Sophie’s phone buzzed again.
Grant glanced down—Dobbs calling.
“Here.” He tossed Sophie her phone.
“He’s gonna be pissed,” she said. “Probably thinks I just bailed on him.”
“Blame me.”
Sophie answered on speakerphone: “Hey, superstar, what’s up?”
“Oh, not too much. Just doing your job at two thirty-seven in the morning when I should be home in bed with my wife. Hope I didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m at Grant’s. He’s having a real hard time. Major bender.”
The sarcasm vanished. “Sorry to hear that. I don’t mean to be an asshole. I’m just exhausted.”
“What’s the news?”
“You see my texts?”
“No.”
“Our boys are on the move. They left a bar in North Bend about thirty minutes ago after sitting at a table for four hours, drinking nothing but water and barely even speaking to each other. Grazer and the new guy arrived separately, but they all left together in a black GMC Savana. New model. In all my free time, I ran the plates. Car was rented yesterday morning in Bellevue on Talbert’s Visa.”
“Where are you right now?” Sophie asked.
“They just turned north onto the four-oh-five.”