Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set

by James M Matheson

  Come home.

  She laughed at herself in the rearview mirror. “Katie Pearson, you definitely have a weird imagination.”

  It was her habit to narrate her life. Sometimes, she thought it might be nice to have someone with her to talk to instead of just talking to herself. Someone who could listen to her rant without criticizing.

  “Katie, you’d have to get a boyfriend for that,” she reminded herself. “Now where are you going to find a man who wants to drive from state to state, flipping houses all over the northwestern U.S.?”

  Nobody answered her.

  That was definitely a problem for any potential girlfriend-slash-boyfriend relationship. Then, of course, there was the whole thing with the ghosts.

  Three times now she had bought a house to renovate and sell it again, only to find out the place was haunted by an honest-to-God ghost. Not the Casper variety either. More like those ones from Poltergeist.

  The first time it happened she’d nearly died in a fire. The second time...well, that was still an open emotional scar.

  The third time, the ghost in the house had kept smashing out a single window in the home, over and over. After spending money to have the glass replaced five times, Katie had finally torn out the whole frame and had the space bricked up, plastered over, and painted to match the wall. The ghost had been quiet ever since.

  “Just your luck, Katie,” she said to herself as she turned off the highway onto Main Street in her picturesque little hometown. “You’re brilliant at what you do, but you keep getting tangled up in ghost stories!”

  She was beginning to think it was something to do with her. Like she was a ghost magnet, or something. That thought brought a frown to her face. “Let’s hope not, Katie.” Her life was complicated enough as it was.

  Which brought her back around to the whole reason she was here again in Fount Azure. Her mother’s house.

  She had planned to go straight to her old house, and start checking it out. It wouldn’t be the same without her mother there. She wondered if maybe she should stop by the cemetery first. She hadn’t been there since the funeral and her mom’s grave probably needed some attention. There was no one else to tend to it. No one but her.

  Emotions welled up in her, just thinking about going there where her mother’s body lay in the cold, unforgiving earth.

  “House first,” she decided.

  Besides, it was already late. Lights were on inside the shops on Main Street even though she knew most of those same stores were going to close in less than an hour. Seven o’clock was going to come around early. This was one of those places where they rolled up the streets at night.

  Which meant if she was going to get something to eat before settling in for the night, something that didn’t come out of a can, then she was going to have to do it now.

  “Okay, so dinner first. Then the house.”

  She put on her signal light to pull over to the curb in front of a restaurant she sort of remembered from the last time she was in town. “Mom’s house has stood empty for two years. It can wait another two hours, right?”

  For a moment, Katie was sure she saw a pair of eyes watching her in the rearview mirror. A pair of blue eyes.

  Katie’s eyes were hazel.

  She jolted the car to a halt, one wheel jumping up over the curb, and whipped her head around behind her to see who was in the backseat.

  There was no one there. Just her luggage.

  Her heart settled back down into her chest. “Of course there’s no one there. You’ve been driving for four hours straight. How could there be anyone there?”

  Looking up into the mirror, she saw her own eyes looking back at her. Hazel, true, but in the low light from streetlamps and the setting sun they were more light green than anything else. They could have looked blue, she supposed.

  “Trick of the light,” she muttered to herself, fixing her horrible parking job between a Saab and a Toyota pickup. “That’s all it was. Just the light.”

  Probably it had a lot to do with how anxious she was to be home again, too. This was a big deal for her, and she wanted to make it go well.

  Taking her keys out of the ignition, she got out of the car.

  When Katie had last been here in town the restaurant had been called Nin’s, although she never did find out who Nin was. It had changed hands sometime in the last two years and it was now called The Over Easy. She had to admit she liked that name a lot better.

  It was still painted blue and white on the outside with huge plate glass windows to either side of the recessed door. That much hadn’t changed. She could smell burgers and fish cooking before she even walked inside.

  There was a moderate crowd seated at the tables around the room and not a one of them looked up to see who she was when she came in. They kept their attention on their meals and their conversations. She was pleasantly surprised. Maybe she could get through a meal without someone recognizing her and feeling the need to drop by her table and tell her how sorry they were about her mother dying. There had been too much of that the last time she was here.

  She found an empty table near the far corner and sat down, picking the menu out from between the salt and pepper shaker in the middle of the table. She had time to wonder how good the cheeseburgers were here before the waitress found her.

  “Welcome,” a friendly voice said. The waitress came right up beside her, holding a paper order pad in her one hand and a pen in the other. “What can I get you tonight...oh, hey! Katie Pearson. What are you doing here?”

  Katie smiled up at her old high school friend. Elizabeth Harris--Lizzy--was short and round just like she’d always been, but the cherry-red hair was new. It clashed hideously with the yellow waitress outfit she was wearing.

  So much for not seeing anyone she knew, Katie thought to herself. She had always liked Lizzy. They hadn’t stayed in touch after Katie moved away but whenever she had come back to town--before her mother’s death--Lizzy had always dropped by her mother’s house to visit with Katie.

  “Hi, Lizzy. When did you start working here?”

  “Oh, a few months back. Had to make ends meet, you know.” She rolled a shoulder. “I suppose everyone does. Are you still selling houses?”

  “Um. Renovating them and then selling them, yes. I pay someone to do all the repair work and that adds thousands of dollars to the selling price which I get to take as profit.”

  “Wow. Guess I should have done that for a living.” Lizzy laughed. “Think I would’ve been any good at it?”

  Katie smiled but kept her opinions to herself. Everyone thought what she did was so easy. It wasn’t. Finding the right properties, the right contractors, the right buyers--it took time and it took money, and patience besides.

  “It’s something you have to keep working at,” she decided to answer. “I do three or four houses a year. It pays the bills.”

  A couple at another table waved to get Lizzy’s attention and she held a hand up to let them know she saw them. “So exciting,” she said to Katie. “Is that why you’re here in town?”

  “Um, yes. Sort of.”

  “Ah, I knew it! I said to myself, Katie hasn’t been back in town since her mother passed. No way she’s just here to visit old friends.”

  Katie took that in stride, as best she could. Even before her mother’s death she hadn’t been around much and it was kind of a sore subject. “Well, you see, I’m going to be selling Mom’s old house. I just think it’s time. It needs some work but once I find a good contractor I don’t think it will take all that long to finish and put it on the market.”

  “Oh, I know just the guy!” The man at the table waved for Lizzy’s attention again, with a little less patience. “Hold on, Harold, I’ll be right there. Don’t go away Katie, okay? I know just the man to do any sort of repairs on your mom’s house that you might need. My brother is the best contractor in three counties. I’ll be right back with his phone number for you. And a dessert menu!”

  Kati
e chuckled softly at her old friend. Some things never changed.

  Well, it was good that she had stopped for dinner first after all. She might have a contractor lined up by tomorrow if what Lizzy said about her brother was true. Then it was just a matter of deciding what work the house needed and what she was willing to pay to have it done. Who knew? Maybe she’d be done with this whole business for good in less than a week or two.

  Looking out through the front windows of the restaurant, she wondered why she was always in such a rush to leave this place.

  For that matter, why had she been drawn back to sell her old family home now?

  As the sun began its descent toward the horizon in Fount Azure, casting everything in a gloomy orange glow, clouds massed on the horizon. There was bad weather coming. Katie could sense it.

  Chapter 2

  “Home again home again, jiggety-jog.”

  Standing in the driveway of her childhood home on Brighton Avenue, Katie tried to laugh at her joke, but couldn’t. The image of the three little pigs defeating the big bad wolf weren’t going to cheer her up tonight. There were just too many memories here, both bad and good.

  It was getting dark out quickly with the clouds rolling in, but there was enough light for her to see the place. Just like she remembered, the house was a modest suburban residence. A testament to the middle class. A peaked roof and gabled windows, a brick chimney for the fireplace in the living room on the one end, and a backyard that increased the size of the property to about half an acre. When she’d been younger it had seemed absolutely huge, and she’d loved running up and down the stairs all day until it drove her mother crazy.

  Somehow, it seemed smaller to her. Now, as a grownup who’d seen any number of different houses built in a hundred different styles, this one was just an ordinary house on an ordinary street in a town most of America had never heard of.

  Still, the memories came back to her one after the other. Katie remembered lying in bed up in her room and listening to music or doing homework or just hanging out for no reason. She remembered the first boy that she snuck up to that room, too, although she couldn’t remember his name anymore. She remembered the way he kissed, though, because she’d used that as the standard for every boyfriend she’d ever had since then.

  She remembered her mother here, so full of life and always there whenever Katie needed advice or wanted to scream at the world. Her mom and her had been the best of friends for years.

  Then Katie had met the man who introduced her to flipping houses, and she’d left home, and never looked back. Except for a few sporadic visits she hadn’t spent much time with her mother after that.

  Then, her mother had died two years ago. That had been one of the worst days of her life. She would never get to talk to her mother again, or ask her for advice, or tell her how much she was loved.

  Or say she was sorry for ever leaving here in the first place.

  With a sigh, Katie put aside the past, and set her mind to giving the house a critical examination. It was what she was good at, and hiding behind her professional detachment helped to settle her racing thoughts.

  The roof needed to be reshingled. The front was the windward side so the back would probably be okay but if she was going to do part of it then she might as well do the whole thing so it would match. That went on the list, check.

  It needed a new coat of paint because the once vibrant red had faded until it was nearly pink in color. Or...maybe vinyl siding would be the way to go. Sometimes Vinyl looked cheap and brought the final asking price down, but she wasn’t looking to make high six figures off this particular sale. It was a humble home in a humble town, after all. Not many people jumping at the chance to own a home in Fount Azure. She would clear maybe seventy or eighty thousand, if she was lucky.

  Really, she just wanted the sale to go through so she could be done with this part of her life. So. Vinyl siding it was. Check.

  Then, landscape the front and back yard, and have the driveway repaved. The cracks under the tires of her car were bad, and sealant wasn’t going to fix them.

  Check, and check.

  She sighed. Then there was the attached garage and God alone knew what her mother had been storing in there over the years. Certainly not a car. Her mother had gotten to a point, near the end, where she couldn’t drive. ‘Legally blind’ was the term the doctor had used to pull her license. Her mother had cried that day, and so had Katie.

  The past wasn’t going to let her forget it, apparently.

  Grabbing her two suitcases from the backseat, Katie went up to the front door and fished the keys out of her pocket. These were new locks as of two years ago and there were only two sets of keys. She kept the one on her personal key ring just in case she ever came back here--

  A little spark jumped from the tip of the key to the slot.

  Behind Katie, lightning flashed in the distance.

  Holding her breath, Katie waited for the boom of thunder, counting as she did.

  “One, one-thousand. Two, one-thousand. Three, one-thousand. Four...”

  The crack of it was loud when it came, like God’s own anger being released. Wow. That was close. Better hope the roof hadn’t developed any leaks. Katie paid for a housekeeper to come in twice a week, and she’d never heard anything about the roof leaking. Although if it did this would be the best time to find out about it. Then tomorrow the contractor could come and see the problem for themselves.

  That reminded her that she still had to hire a contractor. It was lucky that Lizzy’s brother did housework. He had a crew of people working for him, supposedly, who could do everything from basement work to roof repairs and everything in between. Katie had worked with a lot of wonderful contractors in several different states. She had also worked with a lot of fly-by-night handymen who thought more of their skills than they should.

  Which would Lizzy’s brother be?

  The front door opened on creaky hinges and Katie dropped her suitcases in the entryway. She breathed in deep, taking in the smell that she had always associated with her mother, and with home. Just past this little cubicle where they used to keep their wet boots and heavy winter coats and a knick-knack table, the entryway hall led to the kitchen on the left, and the living room on the right. Further back was the stairs to the second floor.

  Along the walls, photos showed her scenes from an earlier time. Her as a little girl. Her and her mother at her high school graduation. Relatives she could barely remember. A father she’d never known. Pieces of her life that she’d pretty much forgotten about, all captured and framed and hanging there on the wall as a testimony that there actually had been simpler and better times in her life.

  After switching on the lights she spent a few seconds staring at a picture of her mother taken not long before she died. Her hair had turned from brown to gray, but Alayna Pearson’s bright blue eyes had been as stunning as ever.

  In the living room there was still a few pieces of furniture set right where she remembered them. The couch was old and the flowered fabric was threadbare. The coffee table still had the chip on the edge from where Katie had dropped that crystal serving bowl. The bowl had shattered, the table had chipped, and her mother had told her it was fine. As long as she was okay.

  “Aw, Mom,” Katie breathed. “I wish you were still here.”

  There was no dust anywhere, thanks to the housekeeper. Marlena Strohm had been a family friend, well, forever. She’d been her mother’s housekeeper while she was alive. Katie had kept her on after her mother’s death. It had been a way to let someone else worry about the house for a while. Now she was back, and it was her problem again.

  There wasn’t any spots on the ceiling that would indicate rain was getting in. No mysterious stains on the carpets--or the walls. Good. There shouldn’t be that much work to do on the inside.

  In her one suitcase she had a clean set of sheets for the bed upstairs. The one in her old room. Everything should be like she left it two years ago. She made it
a habit to sleep in the houses she was fixing up to sell. This one wasn’t going to be any different just because it had been hers when she was younger. So. Make up the bed, get some sleep, and tomorrow she could make a more thorough list of repairs that needed to be done. Maybe even go to see her mother’s grave like she had avoided doing today.

  Before any of that, she had to call Lizzy’s brother.

  Riley Harris. Katie barely remembered him. They were in school together, just like her and Lizzy had been, but Riley had been a couple of years ahead of them. She remembered him being cute and funny and totally unaware of her. Which really didn’t matter now because she was looking for a contractor, not a date.

  The phone rang twice before it was picked up. “Hey. This is Riley.”

  Not exactly a professional greeting. “Uh, hello Riley. This is Katie Pearson. I’m not sure if you remember me?”

  “I do, actually. How’ve you been?” She could hear him doing something on his side of the line. “Lizzy told me you might be calling.”

  “Ok, good. Then you know what I’m calling about?”

  “Yes. You’re looking for a great contractor to fix up your mom’s house so you can sell it again. Well, not to blow my own horn, but that’s exactly what I am. So I’ll come over tomorrow?”

  “Wait.” Katie hadn’t exactly hired him yet, but then again she couldn’t hire anyone without them seeing the house first, so one way or another he was going to have to come over. Tomorrow was as good a time as any. “All right. You remember where Mom’s house is?”

  “Sure do. I knew the address back in high school. Haven’t forgotten it since. See you tomorrow.”

  He hung up before Katie could ask what he meant by that. He’d known where she lived...since high school? Oh. “Of course. His sister and I were friends. He probably had to pick her up from here sometimes.”

  No matter. She had a contractor coming tomorrow, so she could check that one off her list. Now to bed. She decided to leave her bathroom bag with her shampoo and other stuff in the upstairs bathroom. The other one had her clothes and pyjamas and clean sheets. That one got tossed on the bare mattress.