She knew instantly what it was. “The Polaroid,” she said, almost in awe. “You found it…”
He nodded. “I had it blown up. We were right all those years. It was a face.”
Paula held the image in her hands. A short, startled breath escaped her lips.
“A baby,” she said. “It’s the baby I see in my dreams.”
Dean nodded. “I remember before Dad died, he saw a baby. Well, the apparition of a baby. I told him about the Polaroid then, and it seemed to disturb him.”
Paula couldn’t take it anymore. She stood, a bundle of energy that needed release. She missed Karen terribly. Respecting her wishes, she hadn’t tried to contact her. She spent her days and her nights in a constant state of turmoil, grief, fear, and anxiety. She had meant it when she said she hoped she was chosen in the lottery. What did she have to live for now? Dean had Linda and the kids. Her cousins Douglas and Chelsea and Ryan were still in their twenties and had their whole lives ahead of them. It should be her.
But then she thought of her students, the children struggling to adjust to life in this country. She thought of little Quynh-Anh, just six years old and refusing to speak because everything around her was so different from what she knew. Paula had worked with her tenderly and diligently, teaching her words for her favorite things: her doll, a daisy, a glazed donut, a sparkly tiara. Quynh-Anh was making progress, but her mother was still worried about her. Only Paula, the mother insisted, had managed to get through to the little girl.
“Oh, Dean,” she said. “What went on in that room so many years ago to cause such enduring tragedy?”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever really know.” Her brother sighed. “All we know for sure is a servant girl was murdered. That’s all Uncle Howard has ever admitted.”
“But what about the baby? Why is there a spirit of a baby as well?”
“When Kip Hobart was investigating the room, he learned that Beatrice had a baby. But what happened to the baby, none of us know.”
Paula shook her head. “Uncle Howard knows. He must. He was there!”
“But he can’t say,” Dean told her. “Somehow he’s prevented from telling all he knows.”
“Are you so sure? I love Uncle Howard. He’s always been very good to me. And to you and Zac and Callie. Dad adored him. But…”
“But what, Paula?” Dean asked. “Do you suspect him of something?”
“I remember the year that Dad died. There was a man investigating the room then, too. Remember? A Dr. Fifer?”
“Yes. I remember him. But he wasn’t able to find anything to end the curse. No one has.”
Paula pressed her point. “But Fifer accumulated a good amount of information. I remember him saying to Dad once that he thought he understood why the forces in that room were so restless, and that it was up to someone living to put them at rest. That’s when he went out to see Jeanette at Windcliffe. Do you remember?”
Dean was nodding. “Yes. He upset her. For the first time, he was able to produce a response from Jeanette.”
“Exactly.” Paula looked at her brother sternly. “The next day Uncle Howard fired him.”
“He said Dr. Fifer wasn’t getting anywhere,” Dean said.
Paula smiled cagily. “Or maybe he was getting too close to something.”
Dean frowned. “Do you think Uncle Howard would abandon the mission to end the curse? That’s insanity, Paula. He’s spent his whole life trying to end the cycle of death. You can see the pain in his eyes at every family reunion.”
“It’s true,” Paula agreed. “I know Uncle Howard is deeply pained by all of this. But the way he withholds information…Dad even commented on it. Dad-who paid the ultimate price in that room.”
Dean was silent. He was looking at the scan of the crying baby again.
“Why let Dr. Fifer go just as he was about to tell us something?”
“I admit it’s odd,” Dean said.
Paula lifted the scan to study it herself. “I think,” she said, “I’ll have a few questions for Uncle Howard when we see him.”
Chapter Seventeen
Philip steered his Bentley up the long driveway outside Uncle Howard’s mansion. If he’d had his way, he wouldn’t have come to this depressing old place a day earlier than he had to. But Ryan and Chelsea had called a few days ago, all in a state. Uncle Howard had told them about the room and the lottery. Philip cursed the old fool. He should have waited until he was there before revealing the family secret. But apparently something had happened-some sighting of that crazy woman ghost-and Uncle Howard had felt he needed to tell them everything. It had taken Philip a good hour to calm his kids down.
He stepped out of the car and tossed the keys to one of the old man’s valets. “Be careful with that car,” Philip barked. “Don’t think I won’t check for dings or scratches, and I’ve noted the mileage. No joyrides.”
He strode imperiously into the house. “Hello!” he called impatiently.
A maid appeared, a big stupid grin on her face. Philip told her to let Uncle Howard know he’d arrived. And where, he demanded, were Ryan and Chelsea? The maid said they were out on the back terrace. Philip made a beeline there.
They have got to be careful, he thought to himself. They can’t give anything away.
He found his son and daughter stretched out on lounges sunbathing. Chelsea wore a polka-dot string bikini, and Ryan wore flower-print board shorts. Both of them had music plugged into their ears and so they didn’t hear him approach. He walked up between them, and with one tug from each hand, he extracted the headphones from their ears.
“You idiots,” he spit.
“Daddy!” Chelsea was sitting up, Ryan doing the same.
“You both are complete idiots,” Philip said. “Look at you! Lying around acting as if you haven’t a care in the world!”
“But, we don’t, Daddy,” Chelsea said. “You told us not to worry about the lottery.”
He wanted to strike her. “You stupid girl,” Philip said. “The rest of the household will be overwrought with stress and worry, thinking they might be chosen. And here you two are acting as carefree as jaybirds. Do you want to let your uncle-or worse, your cousin Douglas-suspect that we have an ace up our sleeve?”
“I suppose we should be acting a bit more concerned,” Ryan conceded.
His father glared at him. “I expected more smarts from the appointed heir to the family business. Would you run the company this way? You’re far more shrewd on Wall Street, you jackass, than you are here!”
“Oh, Daddy,” Chelsea said, in that voice she knew always softened his angry moods, “we’ll do better. It was just that it was so nice and sunny, and who knows how many more days we’ll have before winter will be here.”
Philip looked at her. She truly had no idea of the irony of her words. The rest of the family had no idea how many more days they had to live. But all Chelsea was worried about was how many days she had to sunbathe.
“Listen to me,” he told them both. “I want you to go in the house and get dressed. I want you to appear subdued. Quiet. Contemplative.” His eyes burned holes as he turned to glare at Chelsea. “Is that something you can even do?”
“Oh, sure,” she assured him. “It will be kind of like that acting course I took, remember? It’ll be fun.”
She kissed her father on the forehead, then gathered her things and scampered into the house.
“You’re brilliant, Dad, you know that?” Ryan said, preparing to head back inside himself. “When Uncle Howard told us about that room and all that crazy supernatural bullshit, I was like, we are fucked. But I should have know you had it all under control. The old bait-and-switch with the names thing. Brilliant. Truly brilliant.”