“The one and only.” Ted closed his door. “And you are?”
“Sarah Flynn.” She thrust her hand toward him and he took it, giving it a shake.
She watched his mind work, and when he placed her name, he looked puzzled.
“You’re related to-”
“Yes. Sammy was my twin.”
“My condolences, Miss Flynn, or Mrs.…?”
“Ms. Flynn. And I appreciate it. I came across something strange at Kerry Manor, and wondered if you could help me.”
He leaned back against his truck.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I found an attic above the master bedroom. It was hidden behind a paneled wall. When I looked at the house plans, it didn’t show up. Why wasn’t it renovated?” Sarah asked. She had pulled up the house’s master plans on Dane Lucas’s website, but the attic was nowhere on them.
“I don’t know anything about an attic in Kerry Manor,” Ted said.
Sarah opened her bag and drew out the set of folded house plans.
He squinted at the house plan, shrugging. “It’s been a busy year. I must have missed it. I didn’t exactly go around tapping on every wall and searching for the hollow one. How did you find it?”
Sarah thought of Corrie and shuddered.
“I was exploring the master bedroom.”
“Hmph. Well, best if you tell Corrie and her little one to steer clear of it. I can’t say if the floor is sound. Probably lead paint all over the place. The usual culprits. I’ll get to it in the spring. To be honest, I figured Corrie’d move out after…” He didn’t say ‘Sammy died,’ but Sarah nodded.
“Me too. Hoped, actually. Maybe you could give her a little nudge, say there’s more work to do.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“Is there a reason you’d like me to do that?”
Sarah had a dozen reasons. Unfortunately, they all stemmed from the paranormal, and Sarah didn’t much feel like seeing his expression if she told him her concerns.
“I think it’s traumatic for her to be there. Someone murdered Sammy in the back yard. If not for Corrie, at least for Isis. It’s not a healthy place for either of them to be.”
“Have you told Corrie that?”
“Of course,” Sarah snapped. “But she’s not exactly in her right mind.”
“To be honest, Ms. Flynn, it’s not my place to ask Corrie to vacate. Your brother’s agreement was with Dane Lucas. He’s the owner of Kerry Manor. Overseeing the renovations is where my business with the house ends.”
Sarah stared at him, weighing her next words.
“Did anything strange happen during your renovations?” she asked.
The builder gazed at her appraisingly.
“Explain strange.”
Sarah faced him.
“I can’t explain it, because I don’t know what it might have been. Sounds, things moving, stuff like that.”
“I had thirty guys working out there on any given day. It was nothin’ but sounds and movement.”
“Did any of them describe anything bizarre?”
He sighed and rested his large hand on the hood of his truck, as if that small connection might keep the haunted things away.
“I know what you’re getting at - the Kerry Manor urban myths. I’ve heard a few stories, but I didn’t experience nothing like that.”
“Okay, but did anyone else?”
“I don’t want to read about this in this newspaper.”
“You won’t.”
“Maybe a handful of comments. I had a guy email me, he thought one of the other workers was bringing their kid to the site.”
“Their kid?”
“Yeah, a little girl. He kept hearing her singing. I talked to the other guys, and they swore up and down they weren’t bringing no kids. Then later, two more of ‘em admitted they heard a little girl singing too.”
Sarah nodded for him to go on.
“One guy, Ralph, real quiet type, walked off the job and said he wasn’t comin’ back.”
“Why?”
“He said he felt weird givin’ me a reason because he didn’t have one he could put his finger on, just a feelin’ what we were doin’ was wrong, renovating the old Kerry mansion. But Ralph’s been livin’ in these parts a long time, his dad’s an old codger, and I’ve no doubt those superstitions passed on to his son.”
“Will you give me Ralph’s phone number?”
“Sure, but he moved on down to Florida ‘bout three months ago. His dad lives in town. The big old rambler across from the library.”
“I know it,” Sarah said, picturing the old farmhouse with its peeling paint and shingles half-falling off the roof.
“Anything else?” she asked.
The man sighed, and Sarah knew he’d had an experience, something he didn’t want to divulge. But sharing the other men’s complaints had warmed him up.
“I stopped out at the property one night, eleven or so. I forgot my power drill out back. I smelled smoke. I was sure that little shit who’s tried to torch the place a couple times must’a come back to finish the job. I went runnin’ into the house, mad as a wet hen, wavin’ a crowbar with a mind to scare him off. There was fire in the back of the house, I saw it. It burned my eyes. I ran down the hall, and then” He wrinkled his forehead and held out his empty palms. “Poof, gone. I’d been workin’ with some varnish that day, staining the stairs, and I figured the fumes…” He waved his hand in the air, but Sarah knew neither of them believed fumes caused him to hallucinate the fire.
“I pretty well wrote it off until my wife told me the history of Kerry Manor, the little girl burnin’ up her family. I’ll tell you, I was happy to be rid of the job. Paid mighty fine, but money ain’t everything.”
“Do you regret assisting with the renovations?”
The man shrugged.
“Somebody was gonna do it. Might as well have been me.”
“Thanks for your time,” Sarah said, turning away.
“One more thing,” the man said.
Sarah turned back.
“Your brother, he called me a few days before it all went down and asked me some of the same questions you’re askin’ me now.”
“Sammy called you wondering about strange experiences in the house?”
The man nodded, pulling a pouch from his back pocket and tucking a wad of tobacco beneath his lower lip.
“Yep.”
Sarah drove home mulling over the man’s words. Somehow, the most disturbing piece of all was that her brother had called the man only days before his death.
CHAPTER 16
Now
Corrie
“J uicy, juicy,” Isis bellowed, leaning from the cart and grabbing at a stacked display of juice boxes. I handed her a box and steered the cart down another aisle. I tried to think about what we needed, knowing I should have made a list. I had not gone to the grocery store since Sammy’s death. The freezer full of frozen casseroles ensured I didn’t have to, but that morning I realized I had no coffee creamer and Isis was out of baby vitamins. I hated to go, and almost called Helen, but couldn’t bring myself to ask for the favor.
“Cookies,” Isis squealed, waving at a shelf. I plucked a box of chocolate chip and dropped them in the cart.
“Cream and vitamins, cream and vitamins,” I whispered. I could do this. I had to do this.
“What was that, ma’am?” a voice startled me, and I glanced up a moment before I crashed my cart into the young store clerk stocking cans of soup.
“Oh, nothing. I’m sorry.” I turned the cart and went to the checkout lane, the cream and vitamins forgotten in my haste to leave the store.