“Nothing like a bolt-from-the-blue coincidence—though I’ve learned chance meets often aren’t. Did you two ever figure out why they didn’t end up together?”
“No, but as for Jasmine and me, her mother seemed like a tyrant back then, raising her alone, and the scholarship boy didn’t fit in until later when I’d made good—then too late because Jasmine was married. It was hard to forgive Francine about that for a while, but I didn’t want to marry an heiress and move to north Florida anyway. All the Montgomery women from way back ran the roost and Shadowlawn. I mean from way back. They seemed to devour their men after they mated, like a male gator tried to if it got too near its hatchlings and, hopefully, was run off by the female. By the way, I have a small pamphlet Francine put together on the history of Shadowlawn in that packet with the other information—interesting reading for later.”
“Great, because that’s one thing I couldn’t research yesterday. I found info on a place called Kingsley Plantation but not Shadowlawn. And I can sympathize with Francine being overly protective of her only child and a daughter.”
Curious, she paged through the pamphlet. It included a family tree. The Montgomerys were a matriarchal family with the men dying young of disease or in wars, including the Civil War. Right after the Civil War, one man had met his death suddenly and violently, but it didn’t say how.
“Wow,” she said. “My actor friend Liz is always looking for a plot for a play. Couldn’t do much better than this. What interesting facts if Shadowlawn would become a state site.”
“Which Jasmine doesn’t want. Keep that in mind.”
She stretched and put the book aside. “The rain is letting up a little, isn’t it? Look at that large lake off to the right. I’ll bet this view is great on a sunny day.”
“That’s Lake Monroe on the Volusia-Seminole County line near Sanford, the little town that made national headlines in 2012. Remember the Trayvon Martin shooting by George Zimmerman, who called himself a neighborhood watch coordinator?”
“I do. And Zimmerman got off.”
“The seventeen-year-old was wearing a hoodie and looked suspicious. I always tell myself looks aren’t everything, but I know you read body language and that was a part of the case, too—witnesses were important. Anyway, we’ll soon pass over part of the lake on this elevated bridge, but I don’t know how much you’ll glimpse of the lake or Sanford in this weather.”
“So you’ve driven this stretch a lot.”
“Lately, yes. About two years ago, Francine hired me as a backup lawyer for the estate, so I’ve been back and forth. She still retains her longtime family lawyer who did her will, too, but he’s quite elderly and has been ill, so I’m slowly taking over. I can’t see hiring a plane when I can drive it in half a day. Look, Claire, I don’t want to alarm you, but I swear the white car behind us has been following us and he’s driving too damn close. No—don’t turn around. Just look in your side rearview mirror. Speaking of hoodies, it seems the driver’s wearing one, but it’s a warm day, and in a car...”
“I wish Heck had followed us. Want me to call him, see how far ahead he is, if you really think—”
“Wait. Maybe I’m wrong. The guy is going to pass us, I think. Must have been my imagination about some kind of nut or road rage. But—What the hell!”
They were on the outside lane on the elevated bridge over the water. The white car came abreast of them and swerved close. Nick jerked the wheel, moved them nearer to the edge. The barrier between them and a fall was barely door-handle high.
“Nick! Nick, look at him—the driver!” Claire cried and sucked in a ragged breath. “Am I—am I seeing that?”
Nick twisted his neck for an instant. Within a dark hoodie—no, a black shroud—was the pale, elongated and contorted face of a demon from an old horror movie. Claire screamed.
If that fiend face shoved them any farther, they were going off the edge.
Instead of trying to outrun the car or slam into it, Nick glanced behind and hit the brakes. Drop back! Get the idiot’s rear license plate...
But the other vehicle dropped back even slower, moved over, hid behind another vehicle—a big UPS truck, which blew the horn at the shifting confusion. Nick swore under his breath and accelerated. Claire craned around to try to see the white car in the spew of water from their car and the truck.
“I don’t see it now,” she said, her voice shaking. “Should I call 9-1-1 or the highway patrol number?”
“I can’t block a lane or go back. Maybe he’ll get off at the next exit. And what would we say? There’s some nut who thinks it’s Halloween over a month early, some damned kid, and, by the way, we don’t have his license plate, not even sure of the make of the white car. Or someone’s en route to an audition for a slasher movie like that old one, can’t think of its name.”
“It—it reminded me of that painting. I can’t think of its name, either. Actually, it brings back some of the cataplexic nightmares I used to have where I thought I saw dead people stalking me, leaning over me. Do you think it’s some sort of warning to us?”
“I think it’s some SOB jerk who just happened to choose us—and probably some others here where it’s elevated and scary. I’m not stopping, but I’ll contact the highway patrol later to report it and see if anyone else saw the same thing.”
He shook his head and flexed his hands on the wheel. “Maybe we’ve both fallen asleep together and had a bad dream,” he tried to joke, but it came out flat.
“You okay?” he asked. “I still can’t believe that happened.”
“More or less okay. You know, a lot of places are now giving ghost tours. I read St. Augustine is. Maybe he was loose from one of those—or driving home from some Disney haunted-house job and he thinks it’s funny to freak people out.”
He could tell she, too, was trying to make light of it. He appreciated the fact she was made of pretty stern stuff, so now or never.
“In the autopsy report,” he said, wishing his pounding heart would calm down, “you noticed Francine was found on her bedroom floor near the French doors that opened onto the balcony. Actually, it’s a wide gallery that goes around all four sides of the mansion on the second floor.”
“Yes. I thought that was an interesting, very specific detail.”
“I think the ME included it for a reason. I was going to tell you later, but considering what happened, I’d better mention that Shadowlawn is supposed to be haunted—but not by some moron in a car. One of Francine’s ancestors threw herself off the gallery to her death from those French doors.”
“Oh, that’s awful. Then there’s a history of suicide in the family! And that woman supposedly haunts the place? People have seen her ghost?”
“Both Francine and Jasmine say they have. There’s a second one—ghost—supposedly on the premises, one whose story is evidently unrelated. Some kind of overseer was hanged from one of the huge live oaks there on the front lawn, evidently lynched for murdering the owner after the Civil War, maybe late 1800s. When you interview some of the house staff—well, they’ll bring it up. It’s in that history book of the house, too.”
“I saw the mention of an early, violent death, but it didn’t say much else. I really don’t believe in psychic phenomena. As I told you, once I got over thinking I saw dead people and learned it was just my meds and my disease, I was so relieved. Is there a possibility that Francine or Jasmine are unstable or taking some other kind of meds that could make them delusional?”
“If so, their female ancestors and