Page 126 of Home Before Dark

That’s not enough time. Not with the way he’s storming up behind me.

I change tactics. A split-second decision that, at the bottom of the stairs, jerks me away from the vestibule and into the parlor.

Dane doesn’t break stride as he veers in the same direction, panting my name so hard and so close I feel his breath on the back of my neck.

I ignore him as I propel myself through the parlor and into the Indigo Room.

It’s dark inside.

Good.

I need it that way.

There’s just enough light for me to see the hole where a length of floorboards used to be. Even then, a person would need to know it’s there to avoid missing it entirely.

Dane doesn’t.

I skip over the gap in the floor and jerk to a stop before whipping around to face him.

Dane slows but keeps on coming.

One step.

Two.

Then he drops, plunging through the hole and vanishing so thoroughly that the only sign he was ever there at all is the sound of his body hitting the kitchen floor far below.

JULY 15

Day 20—After Dark

“We need to leave,” I told Jess. “Right now.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Maggie’s not safe here.”

I snatched the camera off the desk, along with two boxes of film. Then I hustled Jess out of the study and down the steps.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said.

We reached the second floor, and I turned around, snapping a picture of the stairs behind us.

Click.

Hum.

Slide.

“There is a ghost in our house,” I said while waiting for the picture to develop. “Indigo Garson. She’s been making fathers kill their daughters. Curtis Carver didn’t murder Katie. Indigo forced him to do it.”

I thrust the Polaroid at Jess, making sure she saw the figure of Indigo caught hobbling down the steps, the coins over her eyesreflecting the camera’s flash. Jess clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to suppress a scream. It leaked out anyway, squeaking between her fingers.

“Where’s Maggie?” I said.

Jess, her hand still covering her mouth, cast her wide, shocked eyes in the direction of Maggie’s bedroom. Behind us, a volatile heat drifted from the third-floor stairs. Indigo announcing her presence.

“We need to get her out of there,” I whispered. “Fast.”

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