Page 21 of A Heart So Haunted
Then I noticed it. Through the open office door, a warm, almost burnt color light clicked on. Two seconds passed, then it turned off.
Then it turned back on.
My breaths turned to shallow, reedy strands. I took a single step forward. The motion light had turned on, sure, but I was too far from the doorway for it to catch me. Even my reflection couldn’t be seen in any of the windows—the curtain in the office was pulled tight.
Tick.On.
Tick.Off again.
My heart thundered, the foyer tightening, my nerves firing to run, to leave, to back away. Because something was triggering the light.
And it wasn’t me.
Chapter Four
“You’re lying.”
“I am not,” I hissed.
Emma fisted two paper shopping bags. “Where was it?”
I’d been standing on the front porch for fifteen minutes. I didn’t care if someone drove by and questioned my intentions. Because why would someone who owned a home stand on a front porch, in the dark? But I was not about to stand in that house without Emma home. The idea made my skin prickle.
I could hear the chaotic laughter from Sayer already.I told you! I told you it was haunted!
There could be a logical explanation for the light to turn on and off by itself. Maybe the bulbs were finally biting the dust. Maybe it caught headlights as they swept by, but that wouldn’t make much sense with the curtains closed. Or the distance from the road to the house.
I pointed in the direction of the room. “In Aunt Cadence’s office.”
The two of us stared at each other on the porch, nothing but the crinkling of paper bags and the call of tree frogs to break the monotony.
“And it was just—” She shimmied her shoulders. “You know.”
“Turning on and off,” I finished. “It’s probably the batteries.”
A delicate excitement flickered in Emma’s eyes. “Did you check them yet?”
“No.”
“Then let’s,” she said with a grin, and immediately bounced passed me. She dumped the groceries onto the foyer table, right next to my purse, which I eyed suspiciously.
IknewI’d turned my phone off.
Maybe I hadn’t. I wasn’t sure. At the moment, I wasn’t sure I cared.
Emma backpedaled to the office, flipped the light on, and I trailed after her.
Aunt Denny never married. Instead, she’d made a spouse out of collecting—for a season it might have been artwork, then knitting, then first edition copies of her favorite childhood stories. There was a brief love affair with golf, but she’d tried smoking a cigarette while swinging a club in the backyard and ended up with a broken window and a patch of burned grass. Golfing hadn’t been as appealing after that.
Before the heart attack, it had been books. Specifically on travel.
Now, the irony was weighted. She’d never left Harthwait—I never asked why, though if I’d been a good niece, a thoughtful niece, I might have asked. She’d been a human with a life, and maybe she’d had plans to leave. But that thought was even more disheartening than if she hadn’t.
Emma zeroed in on the book nook. She waved her hand in front of it. The miniature alleyway remained dark.
“Hm. Maybe it is the batteries.” Disappointment.
My chest lightened. “I’m sure there are some AAs around here.”
