Her worksheet was, as they usually were, maddeningly enigmatic. No names. The guest due to check into the Orchid Room the following day preferred no fresh flowers or scented soaps due to allergies, and required both extra towels and pillows.
Which told her nothing. Ellie hadn't prepared his room before his last visit. But her friend Alison had.
It required only a few minutes for Ellie to push her cart into the service elevator and take it up to her floor — which was mostly deserted due to check-outs. Whether it was the fairly unobtrusive presence of the police or general unease about what the hell was going on, quite a few guests had decided to cut short their stays.
Not that Ellie minded that. She unlocked the door to the Orchid Room and pushed it open, forgetting in her haste the automatic knock-first-even-if-you-know-the-room-is-empty rule drummed into them all by Mrs. Kincaid.
At The Lodge, privacy and discretion were guaranteed.
She quickly stripped the bed and dragged the vacuum out into the room, just to make it look as if she had been working in here. And it was sheer chance that as she turned for the door, she noticed a flicker of lightning from outside the window catch something metallic that was otherwise hidden in the deep pile carpet.
Ellie hesitated, but she was too curious not to look, to search for what the flash of light had revealed.
A locket.
The locket.
The same damned one she had found before, in this very room.
"You're in the Lost and Found," she murmured, staring down at what lay in the palm of her hand. "I took you there. I put you in an envelope and left you in the Lost and Found. So... how did you get back here?"
It was a puzzle, and baffling, but Ellie had more important things on her mind at the moment and was easily able to shrug it off for now. She slid the locket into the pocket of her uniform, disobeying yet another of Mrs. Kincaid's iron rules because she didn't have time to stop and do the envelope thing.
Besides, it apparently hadn't worked the last time.
She checked the empty and very quiet hallway, then went in search of her friend.
Despite the earlier flash of lightning, Ellie was only vaguely aware that another storm was crackling and groaning outside. She'd been here long enough to be familiar with the way spring storms rolled down from the mountains, and since she didn't have to be out in this one, she didn't pay attention to the increasing violence in the sounds.
Where was Alison working today? Hadn't she said something about the North Wing? Yes, because she'd been unhappy about the assignment; she was one member of the staff who was easily spooked, and was convinced The Lodge was haunted. Particularly that wing.
Ellie had never shared that conviction, largely because she was singularly uninterested in ghosts. Even if they existed, they were dead, so why worry about them? It wasn't as if a ghost could hurt anybody, after all.
Still, as she slipped through corridors and crept up stairways, Ellie was conscious of a weird impulse to look back over her shoulder. She'd rarely seen The Lodge so seemingly deserted, maybe that was it. Or maybe it was just because she was unusually jumpy today, unusually anxious.
Those pregnancy hormones, probably.
She had searched two floors of the North Wing without success. Not that she knocked on every door, of course; she was just looking for Alison's cart. But it was nowhere to be seen, and by the time Ellie climbed yet another set of stairs, she was getting as weary as she was impatient.
She got tired so easily these days, dammit. And that hardly boded well for her ability to hide her condition from the eagle eyes of Mrs. Kincaid.
"He has to come," she murmured as she rounded another corner. "He has to."
"Who has to?"
Almost jumping out of her skin, Ellie stared at someone else who wasn't supposed to be here. "Just — talking to myself," she said hastily, and before that could be questioned, added, "What're you doing up here?"
"Waiting for you," he said.
Diana looked around the still, silent lounge, vaguely interested as always in the peculiarity of this. The strong Victorian colors were gone, the patterns of fabrics and wallpaper muted and blurred now. No lightning flashed outside the blank, silvery sheen of the windows. No thunder rumbled. Everything was gray and silent and cold.
Diana knew Quentin was still sitting beside her, but when she turned her head, he wasn't there. And for a moment, she felt a rush of terror as she wondered if she would be able, this time, to find her way out of the gray time.
"It'll be harder," a sweet voice said. "You're deeper in now. I'm sorry. It has to be this way."
Diana looked toward the door and felt only a little shock to see the sister she had never known. Every bit as thin, pale, and haunted as she had appeared on the veranda, this time she was speaking aloud in a voice much older and wiser than the years she had lived. Her oval face was solemn.
"Missy." As always, Diana's own voice sounded strange and hollow to her ears. She wished she could feel something other than sadness for this unknown sister, but that's what she felt. Sadness. Because Missy had been cheated of her life, and because Diana had been cheated of her sister.
Nodding, Missy said, "We don't have much time."
"There's no time here," Diana said. "I've figured out that much."
"Yes, but he's with you. On the other side of the door you opened. He won't wait very long before he... interferes. He's afraid for you."
"Afraid I'll get... stuck... here."
"Yes."
"Will I?"
"I don't know. I only know that you need to be here, and that now is the best time. While it's storming. There's a lot of energy while it's storming, energy that helps you. Please, Diana, come with me."
Determined to control some part of this rather than be pulled along like a puppet, Diana said, "Tell me one thing. Are you my sister?"
Missy didn't hesitate. "Yes."
"Then why don't I remember you?"
Missy took a step back, then turned toward the door. "Come with me, Diana."
Diana wasn't surprised her second question had gone unanswered; she was only surprised her first question hadn't as well. She got up and followed Missy from the room. "Am I really moving?" she wondered aloud. "Or am I still sitting back there with Quentin?"
Walking without a sound down the gray hallway toward the stairs, Missy said, "You're here only in spirit this time."
Which was the more common way she visited the gray time, Diana knew. She had "awakened" too often in her bed or sitting up in a chair after such a "journey" not to know that much. Still, she had a question.
"Why? This morning was different."
"This morning, I needed to speak through you. I needed him and the other policeman to hear me. Bringing you through the door physically was the first step. You were sort of... connected after that. You felt it, the difference."
"I was cold. I couldn't get warm."
"Yes. I'm sorry about that, but I needed the connection for later. For the cave. So I could speak through you. But it took a lot out of you. More than I expected. I really am sorry."
Diana accepted the apology, but the farther she moved from Quentin, the more uneasy she became. "Where are we going?"
"There's something I have to show you."
Recalling Quentin's wry comment about the curiously unhelpful role spirits often played when there were too many questions and too few answers, Diana said, "Why can't you just tell me who killed you?"
To her surprise, Missy offered an answer. Of sorts.
"Because knowing who killed me wouldn't help you. Or Quentin."
It was the first time she had said Quentin's name, something that caused Diana a curious pang she couldn't have explained. "It would help him. It's — haunted him all these years."