“You don’t believe me?” Hailey asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe you heard a noise, the furnace squawking or the boards creaking with the wind and you just—”
“Maybe he was in the attic.”
His eyebrows arched. “All right, I’ll check.” He reached for the door and Hailey froze, her sense of claustrophobia growing.
He yanked it open anyway, and suddenly a flurry of wings wrestled through the air, flapping in their faces. Hailey screamed and ducked. Rex grabbed her arm and pulled her to the floor while the bird flew in a circle, then soared down the steps and out the open screen door.
“A brown bat,” Rex said, standing. “That’s odd, bats are nocturnal. You rarely see one this time of day.”
“How did it get in?” Hailey asked, wondering if there were more upstairs.
“Probably a hole in the attic. Bats hibernate in the winter, so he might have been looking for a warm place to nest.”
Hailey wiped at her forehead. “Do you think he’ll be back?”
“I don’t know. Usually they nest in caves or the mines around here and return to the same place each winter. But the bat is probably the noise you heard.”
Hailey licked her dry lips. “Maybe, but that bat didn’t leave the gardenias, and put the note and picture on the door.”
His look turned skeptical. “Hailey, it’s understandable that you heard a noise and got spooked, maybe you—”
“Maybe I imagined the picture of those dead people?” Hailey backed away from him. “What do you think I am, some kind of lunatic that invented this story just to get your attention?”
He hesitated, and her chest squeezed. “Staying in this house would freak out anyone,” he finally said in a gruff voice. “The ghost stories especially.”
“I didn’t invent the note.” Anger replacing her fear, Hailey guided him down the steps. “Thanks for coming, though. I won’t bother you again, Rex.”
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