Pete turned the dead bolt on the door as Sadie tried to find the words she needed to bridge this unexpected gap. She’d just opened her mouth to say something when all the lights in the house went out, plunging them into eerie darkness and causing Sadie’s heart to race all over again.
Chapter 13
Sadie startled at the feel of Pete’s hand on her elbow. “Go to the boys’ room,” he said in a low, controlled whisper.
“Where are—”
“I’m going to check the fuses,” he said, releasing her. “There’s a flashlight in the pantry; I’ll get it.” He headed toward the kitchen.
Sadie swallowed the fear billowing up in her chest and put out her hands, moving carefully in the direction of the boys’ room while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. The wind must have blown down a power line, though the timing was . . . scary. She found the corner of the living room and hallway just as a light flared up behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see Pete coming toward her with a flashlight he kept pointed at the floor. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. She’d reached the boys’ room and put her hand on the knob. Pete moved past her and though he didn’t say anything, she knew he was getting his gun. Sadie took a deep breath and carefully opened the door to the boys’ room. Normally they had a night-light plugged in, but with the power out, their room was as dark as the rest of the house. Through the partially open slats of the mini-blinds on their window, however, Sadie could see lights from the neighbors’ homes. Their power hadn’t gone out.
Pete returned to the hallway. “I’m going to check around outside again—just in case.”
“All right,” Sadie said. “Be careful.”
He didn’t answer, but she listened to his retreating footsteps for a few moments before turning her attention back to the boys. She almost hoped Pete would find a Peeping Tom hiding in the bushes so that they could explain all this.
Sadie didn’t dare step into the room very far for fear of running into something and waking up the boys, but she made sure to listen for three distinct sounds of breathing that assured her they’d slept through everything so far. She began feeling around for a place to sit down when she remembered the candle she had in her suitcase. She liked to bring a scented candle with her when she traveled in case wherever she stayed didn’t smell as nice as she’d like, but it was the option of light—constant, comforting light—that had her moving toward the doorway again.
Her room was across the hall from the bathroom, which was next to the boys’ room, and she carefully felt her way across the hallway and into the open doorway. The wind whistled around the window frame and the muted moonlight outlined the shapes of the furniture. Sadie moved toward her suitcase set on top of Heather’s cedar chest at the foot of the bed. She’d wrapped the votive in an extra pair of pajamas and tucked them into the left side of the suitcase. She found the suitcase and within a minute had found the candle as well. She always packed her bags in the same basic organization so that she had the placement of each item memorized.
But what about matches? She knew Heather had some in the pantry in the kitchen, but Sadie wasn’t sure she wanted to venture back into that part of the house. Then she remembered the book of matches she had picked up from Abe and Louie’s steakhouse. Pete had taken her to a special dinner their first night in Boston, and Sadie had picked up the book of matches to remember the evening.
She stepped to the dresser and put the candle down so she could feel for the matches.
As soon as her fingers touched the book of matches she heard something.
“Sadie.”
She snapped her head to the side as a chill rushed through her. She couldn’t tell where the throaty whisper had come from; she wasn’t sure she’d heard it at all. The shapes in the room were dark, silent, foreboding, and the far side nearest the door was completely black. She was hearing things. After pausing for only a second, she turned back to the candle and fumbled even quicker with the matches. Her hands were shaking. She lit the match and quickly put it to the wick of the candle, telling herself to calm down, take a deep breath. The wick caught and the warm glow of candlelight fanned out around her as she shook out the match and dropped it in the trash can.
Her cell phone was dark and silent on the dresser, and she quickly unplugged it and shoved it in her pocket, not ready to call the police without Pete but not wanting to be without means of communication either. The smell of cinnamon and mulberries tickled her nose, and she took another deep breath. Nothing bad could happen when scents like this were in the air, right? The throaty whisper had been her own imagination, or perhaps one of the boys had called for her. She needed to get back to them in case they woke up.
With the candle in one hand, she turned as her bedroom door suddenly slammed shut, rattling the walls and windows.
Sadie nearly dropped the candle and had only just recovered when she heard one of the boys call out. Without a moment’s hesitation, she crossed the room and grabbed the doorknob while attempting to push the door open before realizing it pulled into the room. She refused to look around as she hurried down the hall and through the still-open door of the boys’ bedroom, where Fig’s call for his mother had turned to crying. The candle cast an eerie yellow light for a few feet around her; Sadie tried not to think about what was hiding in the darkness outside the light’s glow.
“It’s okay,” she said as she hustled across the room. Kalan was sitting up in his makeshift bed in the corner and she hurried toward him. The other boys were awake too, but not as alert. “I’m right here. The power went out, everything’s okay.”
“What was that crash?” Kalan asked. His voice was scared and it tugged at Sadie’s heart.
“Um, the door slammed,” she said. “It’s . . . windy.” She put the candle on the dresser before sitting on Fig’s bed. He snuggled into her and soon Chance and Kalan had both joined them. She was making shushing noises and taking turns smoothing their hair when she saw a beam of light coming down the hallway.
She knew it was Pete, but she tensed anyway and pulled the boys a little closer.
“Sadie?”
Just hearing his voice relaxed her. “I’m right here,” she said.
He stepped into the room and pointed the flashlight at the floor while he moved toward her, kneeling in front of them and putting his hand on Chance’s back. “What was that?” Pete asked.
“The wind slammed the door,” Kalan said.
“I wan’ Mama,” Fig whined. Sadie pulled him closer and kissed the top of his head.
“The wind?” Pete asked. He looked at Sadie quickly, and she simply held his eyes to communicate that now wasn’t the time to discuss the probability of wind blowing an interior door closed.
Pete looked back at the doorway, flashing the beam of light into the hall.
“What?” Sadie asked. Had he heard something? She hadn’t, but she had the three boys right next to her.
“Nothing,” Pete said, but he kept the light trained on the hall for a few more seconds before turning back. “It’s not the fuses, and the neighbor’s lights are fine. I was looking for the power box on the outside of the house. It’s the only thing I can think of to explain—”
The lights came on.
All of them. Even the ones that had been off when the power went out.
The boys shielded their eyes from the sudden brightness, and Pete moved to the doorway to flip the switch off. The rest of the house was fully lit. He forced a smile as he faced them and shut off the flashlight. “There,” he said in what Sadie knew the boys would find a reassuring tone but which she did not. In his own way, he was as scared as she was, taking note of all the details that didn’t fit. “The power’s back on. Nothing to be worried about.”
But there was a lot to worry about. What was going on here? “Guess what?” Sadie said, making an instant decision and turning to Kalan.
He looked up at her expectantly.
“We’re going to have a
slumber party,” she said with a big smile.
“Swumber pawty?” Fig said, looking adorably confused with his red hair sticking up and his sleepy eyes.
“That’s right,” Pete said, picking up Sadie’s train of thought. “A slumber party, where we all get to sleep in the same room. It’ll be fun.”
“Where?” Kalan asked.
“In your mom and dad’s room,” Sadie said. Their bed was big enough for her and the two littler boys. “Grandpa’s going to sleep on the floor, and Kalan gets to sleep by him.”
“Yep,” Pete said. “A great big slumber party. How does that sound?”
It was hard to drum up much enthusiasm this time of night, but the boys went along with it, giving Sadie and Pete the benefit of the doubt that this slumber party thing was worthy of their interest.
Pete moved Heather’s cedar chest from the foot of the bed to the space between the bed and window. He then double- and triple-checked every door and window in the house while Sadie got the boys situated. Once assured everything was secure, Pete pulled the mattress off Kalan’s bed and dragged it into Jared and Heather’s bedroom. It barely fit between the foot of the bed and the dresser. Neither Pete nor Sadie talked about breaking the bedroom rule as Sadie settled in with her two wiggly bedfellows and Pete situated himself on the floor with Kalan. She wished she could talk to Pete about the door, or the voice she may or may not have heard, but there had hardly been an opportunity.
One by one, the boys drifted off to sleep. Sadie tried, but each time she closed her eyes, the face from the window would appear and her eyes would snap back open. After several minutes, and not having heard Pete’s soft snoring, Sadie whispered. “Pete?”
“Yeah,” he whispered back.
“Should we have called the police?” Years of believing the police were the answer to every bad thing was apparently stronger than the less-than-positive run-ins Sadie had had with police in the recent past.
He was quiet for several seconds. “I don’t think they’d take it seriously.”
Sadie could imagine what they would say about a ghostly face, unexplained electrical issues, and a hat showing up where it didn’t belong. Would she take it seriously if someone tried to convince her?
Pete’s voice came to her through the darkness. “I never heard back from Jared about the eyebolt,” he said. “I’ll make sure to get one put in tomorrow. I’ll pay the blasted deposit if the landlord takes issue with it.”
Sadie nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “That’s a good idea.”
Pete spoke again. “Let’s talk about things in the morning. I don’t want to wake the boys.”
“Okay,” she said out loud, but she still wondered about calling the police. Chance snuggled into her, and she wrapped her arms around him as tight as she dared, inhaling the scent of little boy mixed with the remnants of this morning’s shampoo, and said a little prayer of her own, asking that morning come quickly and with it, some answers and some peace.
Chapter 14
Pete had said they would talk about it in the morning, but they didn’t. The tension seemed brittle and the topic fragile in the morning light. Continued cloud cover threatened snow, revealing that the cold snap gripping New England was not letting go just yet. The events from last night seemed hard to believe now. If not for Pete having been there, Sadie might have wondered if she’d really seen anything at all. But he had been there, and by the lines between his eyebrows and the force of his smile, Sadie could tell the burden of it was sitting heavy on his shoulders.
Instead of discussing what had happened during the night, they were careful as they executed the morning routine: careful to appear normal, careful to stay on schedule, and careful not to give the boys anything to worry about. The boys, for their part, were whinier than usual, probably due to the late-night awakening, but they didn’t ask any questions—thank goodness, since Sadie and Pete had no answers.
Pete drove Kalan to school while Sadie combined ingredients in the slow cooker for dinner—Boston baked beans—and the boys got dressed, an activity that involved lots of laughing and yelling and a few half-naked chases through the house. The baked bean recipe was one of Heather’s Sadie had added to the week’s menu and grocery shopping list on Saturday. She’d been eager to see how it measured up against the bean recipe she made every Fourth of July—right away she was intrigued with the Worcestershire sauce and the variety of beans. She’d never cooked with butter beans before.
As she measured and stirred, she lined up the details of last night’s events—double-checking them in her mind to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. Once the ingredients were simmering, she found Pete’s notebook, flipped to a clean page and wrote down everything in a bulleted list. Pete came home and wrestled the other boys into coats, gloves, and hats before taking them outside to play in the backyard. It took Sadie three drafts of her list before she had the proper chronological order of events. She felt better about having it on paper, even if seeing the intricacies made it seem even harder to believe. Could one person do all of that with such expert execution? How could they not get caught with such intricate timing? What other explanations could there possibly be?
She was just finishing up when Pete came back in and asked if he could use her laptop—he’d keep an eye on the boys through the window—while Sadie showered and got ready for the day. Sadie didn’t like how it felt as though they were circling each other, and although she was eager to talk about last night, she handed him her laptop instead and took a long hot shower.
Once she was dressed, with her hair done and her makeup in place, Sadie felt ready to conquer the day. She returned to the kitchen to check on the beans and trailed her hand across Pete’s shoulder blades as he sat at the table. The boys were still outside; she was cold just thinking about it but assumed since they were running around they must be staying plenty warm.
“So,” she said, lifting the lid of the slow cooker and inhaling the sweet aroma.
“So,” Pete said, his back toward her.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said as she stirred the beans. “We both agree it’s nothing supernatural, which means someone is working really hard to make us think that it is.” She paused. “I thought I heard a voice. Last night. When you were outside.”
Pete turned in his chair and gave her his full attention. “A voice?” he said—perfectly even, perfectly calm. Strangely, she found herself feeling an unexpected rush of defensiveness.
“When I went into the bedroom to get the candle,” she explained. “I thought someone called my name just before the door slammed shut. That’s what woke the boys.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“I wish I were,” Sadie said, frustrated that she didn’t have a definite opinion. “But my adrenaline was rushing, and it had been an overwhelming night.”
Pete nodded thoughtfully. Sadie continued. “Anyway, I made a list of the order things happened last night,” she said, retrieving the notebook from the counter and handing it to him. She pointed at the fourth line. “I think whomever we saw in the window shut off the power to the house via the power box on the outside of the house. My parents’ house had one, so I’m assuming this one does too, since it’s an older home.”
“It’s on the west side,” Pete said. “It’s not secured. I found it this morning.”
Sadie nodded, emboldened by having supposed correctly, and continued her hypothesis. “So, if they turned off the power and then came inside after you went outside, they could have flipped all the light switches on. There are only six rooms; it wouldn’t be hard. They could have come into my bedroom. My back would have been to the doorway when I was lighting the candle. They said my name and then slammed the door before hiding in the bathroom, or maybe in your bedroom. When you came back inside, they would have known you’d check on me and the boys, which would give them the chance to get out of the house. You heard something in the hallway, didn’t you? That’s why you shined the flashlight out there
when we were in the boys’ room.”
Pete paused, but finally nodded. “I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A shadow maybe.”
“But you were more intent on making sure we were okay than following what you didn’t consider possible—that they could have come inside while you were doing the perimeter check.”
Pete looked at the timeline without commenting.
Sadie continued. “They got out of the house and turned the power back on.”
She could feel that Pete was trying to come up with an argument but when he looked up, there was the slightest look of resignation on his face. “There’s no way to tell if the power box had been tampered with. I checked it when I went outside. It’s not hard to turn off or on.”
Sadie felt the thrill of victory. He was agreeing with her, but she needed to hear him say it. “So you agree that what I’m suggesting is plausible?”
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