When she’d come through here with Paula, she’d been focused on her mom’s friend. This time she was alone, and when she stood looking up the steps, an inexplicable feeling of terror swept over her, making her reach out and brace her hand against the wall as she struggled to catch her breath—and scrambled to make sense of what she was feeling.
Her mother had fallen here. The impact of Mom’s death was hitting her again, which was why her temples were suddenly pounding. However, she knew deep down that her attack of nerves wasn’t just from the accident.
Paula had said her mom had climbed the steps and fallen. But why had she gone up? To get something? Or to run away from someone? Or both?
Gabriella couldn’t shove away the notion that another person had been here and something evil had happened in this hallway.
Her speculations immediately went to the tenant—Luke Buckley. Mom had been afraid of him. What if he’d come over here and attacked her?
But why?
Maybe he didn’t have the rent money. They’d gotten into an argument, and he’d killed her …
“Stop it,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just letting your speculations run wild because this is the worst day of your life.”
She clenched her fists, sure that Mom’s sudden death and her own feelings of guilt were making her jump at shadows.
What did she really believe? Nothing she could prove. Not without some evidence. If she went upstairs, would she find anything suspicious? Or was there something incriminating in Cypress Cottage?
She gritted her teeth as she imagined herself spying on Luke Buckley. What if one of Mom’s friends caught her doing it? People in Lafayette already thought she was a little off. Which was one of the reasons she’d known she didn’t want to stay in town once she had graduated from high school.
She’d fled her childhood reputation for being weird by going across the country to culinary school then moving to New Orleans, and she didn’t want it back.
But nobody was here to observe her now. Could she start with some kind of psychic impression of what had really happened in the hall—then back it up with evidence? She focused her attention on the stairs, trying to bring the past few hours into focus. Mom had been here. She’d fallen to her death, but had she been alone?
Gabriella put everything she had into trying to bring back the scene. Even as she focused on her mother in the hall—with someone, she silently wondered if she was sending herself on a fool’s errand. No matter how much you wanted to, you couldn’t see the past. Could you?
She’d never tried anything like that before, but she sensed that the scene was hovering almost within her grasp. Shadowy figures flickered at the edge of her vision. Her mom and a man?
She closed her eyes, straining to bring the vision into focus. Yes, she saw her mom, a look of fear on her face as she rushed up the stairs, trying to get away from the stalker. Gabriella saw him only from the back. Or was she making it all up?
Probably.
Struggling with frustration, she tried to see his image from a different angle. Maybe she could have done it, but a massive bolt of lightning struck nearby, so bright that she saw it through her closed eyelids.
It was followed by a clap of thunder that shook the house.
As the thunder rumbled, the lights flickered out, plunging Gabriella into inky, disorienting blackness.
She pressed her back against the wall, suddenly alarmed by the darkness, just like when she’d been little and Mom had insisted on turning out the lights at bedtime. At night, she’d always imagined ghosts from the past coming back to claim this house. Even the toys on her shelves took on sinister shapes, and the closet door had to be closed before she could even think about sleep.
In adulthood, she’d talked herself out of those juvenile fears. But in her fragile emotional state, the sum of her childhood terrors came rushing back to her as she stood in the darkened hallway.
“Stop being ridiculous,” she ordered herself. “The lights are just out. There’s no bogeyman lurking around the corner.”
But she couldn’t deny why she’d come here in the first place. Mom had called her in a panic, talking about a stalker, and there was a man living right on the plantation property who could be up to no good.
With her heart pounding, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark. The moon was up, and a small amount of light came through the windows on either side of the door.
When she could see well enough, she crossed the hall and turned the lock on the door. Then she started for the kitchen to get the flashlight that Mom kept in the utility drawer.
Was there anything she could use for a weapon?
They’d never kept a gun in the house, but maybe she should have something with her, like a hammer.
SHE MADE IT TO THE KITCHEN as fast as she could in the dark and opened the utility drawer. The flashlight was there, but when she tried to click it on, the batteries were almost dead. Only a feeble light came from the bulb, and she clenched her fist on the shaft, then shut it off again. All it would do would tell someone where she was, not light her way.
Now what?
Go up to her old room? Or was it better to get out of this house, where she already felt spooked?
Luke Buckley was living in Cypress Cottage. But there were two others on the grounds. Water Iris was the closest. She’d feel more secure spending the night over there than here.
Wishing she could see what she was doing, she fumbled through another drawer and found the wad of spare keys that Mom kept. In the dark, she couldn’t even be sure they were the right ones, but that was the best she could do at the moment.
After slipping the set into her purse, she headed for the back door. On the porch, she looked toward the cottages, barely making out their shapes in the darkness. Water Iris was on the extreme right. Cypress was on the left. And Crepe Myrtle was between them. That would put some space between her and Buckley.
All were blacked out, and she couldn’t even discern the shape of a car parked in front of Cypress. Maybe Luke Buckley was away. Or sitting in the dark plotting murder? He’d taken care of the mother, and now he would finish off the daughter.
Acknowledging that her fears were making it difficult to think rationally, she descended the steps, then headed across the yard to the cottage. It hadn’t started raining yet, but the wind was blowing the trees, sending leaves flying across the lawn.
In Gabriella’s long ago memories, the grass had been well tended by a gardening company that did yard work in town. Mom had given up that service after Dad had died. For a few years, she’d tried to keep up the grounds around the house herself. But that had gone by the wayside, too, and now the grass was choked by weeds and needed mowing. She stumbled several times into what had formerly been flower beds, then finally made it to the cottages. But as she approached Water Iris, she had the sensation that someone was stalking her—like they’d been stalking Mom.
She started running, but before she’d gotten more than a few yards, a figure sprang out of the darkness at the side of Crepe Myrtle, grabbing her and pulling her to the ground.
A scream rose in her throat. Before it reached her lips, it choked off as large hands grabbed her throat. A man’s hands.
At his touch, a confusing welter of impressions and sensations assaulted her.
Chapter Three
In a blinding instant, Luke Buckley knew he had made a terrible mistake. In the darkness, he’d seen a shadowy figure sneaking across the lawn and been sure it was a Mafia hitman sent to murder him.