

## TO SLEEP NO MORE

## A Dalton & Dalton Mystery

## Kathleen Marks

Kathleen Marks (http://www.kathleenmarks.com)

***
Copyright 2014 Kathleen Marks

Published by RKH Press

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any print or electronic form without permission.

_To Sleep No More_ is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events in this book are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

### Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved.

Cover art by Sheri McGathy.

***
For Katrina

***
Chapter 1

ALEX TOOK one more step up the gravelly surface of the extinct volcano, stopped in front of the mound of fallen trees, and took a deep breath. She held the fresh pine scent inside her as long as her lungs could keep from releasing it then breathed in again. Despite the barren emptiness that shrouded this spot of earth in the middle of the Teton Valley, the sap and oils of the green foliage that had once lived there still lingered. Like it lived of its own accord despite the hot July sun. That fit the circumstances, she supposed, since the truly extraordinary—the preternatural—elements she needed dwelt beneath its surface. And yet, why was it so? It wasn't like preternatural life was dead.

_Dead_. Alex shuddered. She shook her head against the images that flashed through her mind, but still the word crumbled inside her like an earthquake shattering a mountain into pebbles. She must not let her emotions get away from her.

Alex set her jaw, rubbed the sweat from her right eyebrow with the back of her hand, and hoisted her metal specimen collection pack farther up on her back. Mary, her only daughter, might be dead, but that didn't mean Alex's determination would die with her. No matter what it cost her in time or strength or—or heart, she would find those lavatricite mushrooms in that cavern and make the one who'd kidnapped and killed her Mary pay for what he'd done.

Ivy, Alex's black, yellow, and orange mottled cat, wrapped herself around Alex's booted right ankle.

"You can walk a few more yards." Alex didn't expect Ivy to actually understand her; she'd observed Ivy long enough to know the cat's preternatural capabilities did not extend to recognizing human language. And even if Ivy could understand her, she'd pretend she hadn't. Would likely turn away from her the way she did when Rick, Alex's estranged husband, had been around. Rick had given Ivy to Alex for her twenty-first birthday back in 1881. He'd had a pet cat just like her when he was a boy and still missed it. So when he saw Ivy, he'd hoped she could replace that emptiness in his heart as well as be a friend to Alex. Instead, Ivy ignored Rick and clung to Alex.

_And comforted me._ The unexpected thought trembled through Alex's heart the way Rick's voice had the last time she'd seen him, and she pressed her lips into a tight frown. No matter how many times people criticized her for coddling that cat she would not let it out of her sight. Ivy would not disappear as Mary had.

Footsteps plodded through the grass behind her. Alex turned and smiled. Vera, her boarder and a fellow preternatural scientist, crested the hill. Why Vera insisted on wearing her blue and white bloomer suit and a wide-brimmed hat rather than buckskin trousers and a bush jacket as Alex did, Alex didn't know.

"Just because a woman has an adventurous heart doesn't mean she isn't a lady," Vera said whenever Alex questioned her on it, to which Alex would think, "Must ladylike equal impractical?"

Vera, breathing harder than Alex was but not as hard as most fifty-year-old women would be, stopped beside Alex. "I hope I haven't held you up."

"Not at all." Alex motioned to a circle of large boulders beyond the hodgepodge of logs. Rick would have said they reminded him of Stonehenge, which he claimed had a supernatural history. Alex would have shrugged off his assumption as another one of his treasure-hunting fantasies. _Why couldn't Rick ever keep his mind on the job at hand? If he had, Mary would still be alive._

"It's truly a natural wonder," Alex said.

"It is indeed, my friend." Vera held out the book-sized crate she'd carried with her. It had slits in the top lid. "Alistair made such a ruckus when we stepped out from under the cover of the last grove of trees that I took a few moments to check on him."

"I thought tarantulas liked the heat when molting," Alex said.

"Alistair isn't most tarantulas."

Alex almost smiled. Every preternatural scientist claimed some form of sensitivity toward extraordinary plants and animals, and Vera was no exception. According to her, she could look into the eyes of a small creature and both understand its needs and recognize its inherent powers. When Vera had first found Alistair on top of a rock in the canyon close to her Southeastern Idaho home, she'd said she'd recognized he had healing abilities. Unfortunately, Vera had not yet proven Alistair's powers, and until she did, Alex and the other scientists could not accept her claims as truth. Hence, Vera took Alistair with her everywhere she went.

Too bad that ability hadn't worked on Ivy. But then, Vera's eccentricity did take the attention off Alex's own attachment to her cat.

Vera and Alex climbed over the logs, maneuvered through the boulders, and plodded down the rocky incline to the narrow tunnel in the center of the shallow, circular depression. Years ago, in 1861 as Alex recalled, an explorer named David Webber had announced the opening was the entrance to what he'd termed the Cold Voice Caverns. He'd written in one of his many journals that he'd given the caverns that name because they were haunted.

Which was ridiculous, of course. All anyone had to do was climb inside the caverns and they'd know the real reason. The inside temperature felt like winter, despite the fact that the hill above it once spewed lava. Hence, _cold._ And the few narrow openings into the system whirled the air like a voice. So the real question should have been, what else would he call it?

Vera set her crate in the shade of a boulder. "Hand me one end of your rope. I'll find somewhere to tie it."

Alex removed the coiled rope from her belt buckle. "Use the same log we did last time. It held quite well."

While Vera secured her end of the rope, Alex knelt next to the two-foot wide opening and dropped her end inside. _Please let me find mushrooms today._

"Ready?" Vera called.

Alex loosened the top of her jacket from beneath her belt, forming a pouch, and cradled Ivy inside it. "Now I am. Make sure it holds."

She lowered her legs into the opening, wrapped them around the thick rope, and slid gloved hand over gloved hand down the shaft until she reached the first marker knot. One foot. Continuing on, she reached the second knot—two feet—and the third. Alex had only about twenty more feet to go until she reached the cavern floor, but already sweat pooled across her forehead and beneath her leather cap.

Ivy squirmed.

Five feet . . .

"Meow!" Ivy stood against Alex's chest and dug her claws into her collar bone.

"Ow!" Alex lost her grip. She slid another three—no, five—feet more down the shaft before she finally latched onto the tenth knot. She inhaled between her teeth. "You wouldn't be so scared if you'd use that ability of yours to glow," she said to Ivy.

Alex couldn't see Ivy's face, but she imagined Ivy staring at her as only a cat could and blinking as if she knew what Alex was talking about. Alex exhaled. If only Ivy could understand her. Maybe then she would have told her what caused her fur to light up.

Alex wrapped her arms and legs tighter around the rope and climbed down a few more feet. She was almost there. Fortunately, when she'd last entered the cavern, she'd set Vera's live animal trap well away from the bottom of the shaft so she wouldn't accidentally step on it when she reached the ground.

Thump!

What was that? Furrowing her brow, Alex peered into the blackness below. She listened closer. The sound had come from the direction of the trap, but it wasn't a snap, as though the trap had caught something. Had an animal moved it? Or maybe the noise wasn't the trap at all. Maybe the sound had come from some other part of the cave and had echoed off the cold rock walls before it had reached her. In any case, Alex would have to tread carefully until she could see where she was walking.

At last, Alex's feet brushed the hard-packed earth. She pulled her miner's candlestick from her belt and shoved its spiked end into the earthen wall. Next she pulled her candle from her jacket pocket, lit it with a lucifer, and slid it into the candlestick. Flickering light spread a few feet in every direction.

Alex stepped toward where she had set the trap. It was in front of the tunnel she'd most recently explored. Though sharp rocks and stalactites hung from the ceiling just as she remembered them, the jagged earth felt grittier beneath her knee-high, low-healed gaiter boots. Had the ground changed since her last exploration? Or had she simply not noticed it because, one, so little sunlight filtered into the cavern that even with her candlelight, Alex could see very little of her environment, or two, because she'd heard scuttling noises throughout the tunnel system? The noises were likely only rodents or bats, but even so, while her natural senses had screamed for her to get out of there, her preternatural ones had heightened. The sounds had belonged to something _else_ , and she really wanted to find out what that _else_ was.

Alex, hearing nothing more, set Ivy on the ground next to her feet. "Stay there," she said. But she needn't have bothered. Ivy immediately wrapped herself around Alex's ankle.

Alex shifted the cross-body strap holding her specimen case to a more comfortable position and again peered about the cavern. She could make out some shadows and crevices along the rock walls, but she saw no new growth. Where were those mushrooms?

She sighed. In the _Western Preternaturalists' Journal_ , 1884 spring edition, Dr. Evanston had named the fungi _Amonita lavatricite_ because he'd discovered that when scientists dried the mushrooms, ground them into a powder, and mixed them with salt, they illuminated long-laden energies and unseen substances hidden in natural elements. This allowed the viewing of handprints on bodies, "cleaned" bodily fluids, like blood splatters, on walls, and any other clues that might still exist on the clothing Mary had last worn. Dr. Evanston had surmised, though he hadn't yet proven, that the lavatricites' power came from the magma that flowed close to the earth's surface as it made its way toward Yellowstone National Park.

Alex tilted her head sideways. Was that the reason the mushrooms had to grow underground? _Hmm_. Perhaps that would be a good topic for her to discuss in her next article for the _Journal_. It might not be as important a subject as the one she would write on the lavatracites' physical and preternatural properties, but such work would both strengthen her credentials as a scientist and add to her limited funds.

Alex sneezed, stepped toward the second tunnel, and sneezed again. When a third sneeze didn't come, she tapped her forefinger against her chin. The air was stale and musty, but did it also contain pollen? Pollen always made her— _sneeze_!

She sniffed, brushed the back of her finger across the lower ridge of her nose, and leaned a bit farther into the darkness. If, indeed, there was pollen in this cavern, there must also be plant life. And plant life meant there must be a water source nearby. Perhaps the mushrooms were near that water. _Or did the mushrooms create the pollen?_

Like a prayer for good luck, Alex touched the pink hair ribbon she'd tied and knotted around her left wrist—it had been Mary's favorite—and tugged her thin scarf out from where she'd tucked it beneath her cotton blouse. She lifted it over her nose and mouth.

Ivy stood on her hind legs against Alex's shin. "Meow."

"Yes, we're going in there." Alex now stood about ten feet away from the tunnel's opening. It wasn't much more than four feet tall at the entrance. She hadn't looked far inside, but a quick glance at the narrow passage between the stalactites and stalagmites indicated she might eventually have to crawl through them. There was no way she could carry a cat. Would Ivy follow her?

Ivy sat on Alex's feet.

Apparently, yes. "You do realize the dark would disappear if you'd light up. You have the power. Use it."

Ivy's green eyes reflected the candle's light, but just like before, her fur remained dark.

Alex pursed her lips. _Mental note: Ivy's fear of the dark is not connected to her preternatural power—or to my insistence that she use it._ "Suit yourself," she said.

A screeching, metallic slide.

Alex whirled to where she'd set the trap. In his article, Dr. Evanston had mentioned he'd seen odd-shaped excretions in these caverns but hadn't been able to catch or locate the unfamiliar animal. Was that what she'd heard? "Looks like I should have checked the trap when we first got down here, Ivy."

She squinted again into the second tunnel then moved toward the trap. Shadows from the candlelight danced between the crevices of the rocks. While she was quite certain something was over there, no preternatural tingles pulsed through her sinuses, which meant the thing wasn't a plant. But then, why would it be a plant? Plants didn't move of their own volition _—usually_.

Something—not Ivy—hissed. Another metallic sound scraped across the gravelly floor. Definitely the trap. Hopefully whatever she'd caught wasn't hurt. If it was, no matter how dirty or disagreeable the animal might be, she'd have to take care of it. None of God's creatures deserved to stay in a trap until they'd died of starvation or dehydration. Alex had no stomach for senseless killing. Except, perhaps, for the one who'd murdered her daughter. But that killing wouldn't be senseless. It would be justice.

The edge of Alex's light hit the metal trap. Beady mouse eyes lifted to Alex's. At least half of it was a mouse. The back half had the curled, sharp tail of a scorpion.

Hiss!

Alex gasped, gaped at it a second longer, and raced back to the rope. "Vera! I can hardly believe—we've caught something that might interest you."

"Plant, animal, or insect?"

Alex sneezed. "It's hard to say, but it's definitely not a plant."

Alex couldn't see Vera's shadowed expression, but she heard a smile in her tone.

"Those are the best kind," Vera said.

Words—a human voice?—whispered from the direction of the trap, and goose bumps trickled down Alex's spine. The creature couldn't talk, could it?

She stepped closer to the trap. Ivy, glowing softly, batted at the cage, and the creature hissed again.

Alex lunged forward. "Get away from there, Ivy!"

Ivy batted again, but this time, when her paw hit the wire, the creature's tail arched and shot forward. It stung Ivy.

"Meow!" Ivy shrank back from the cage. She licked her paw. She also stopped glowing.

Alex scooped her into her arms. "Ivy! Are you all right?"

Ivy's breathing turned ragged.

Alex's pulse pounded against her ears. She ran to the rope. "Vera! Are you sure that tarantula of yours can heal?"

"That's what his eyes say."

Ivy's muscles relaxed against Alex's body. Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away. "I hope you're right! That creature stung Ivy, and Ivy—she's struggling to breathe!" She set Ivy inside her jacket, but she was too limp to hold herself there, so Alex wrapped one arm around her and grabbed hold of the rope. She pulled herself upward, but her grip slipped before her toes left the ground. "I can't carry Ivy and climb at the same time," she called up the shaft.

"Stay there, my friend."

Suddenly, Vera's floppy hat dropped down the shaft and plunked to the ground. "Tie the rope around it, and set Ivy inside. I'll pull her up."

"Bless you." Alex blinked hard. She absolutely would not cry.

"Something down there is upset," Vera said. "The vibrations coming out of that cavern feel like thunder."

"If it's that creature that poisoned Ivy, it'll have to stay upset." Alex set Ivy in the hat and wound the rope around it. "Pull!"

The rope tightened, and the hat with Ivy nestled inside moved upward.

Alex folded her arms against her chest. _Please be all right. I can't bear another loss._

"I've got her!" Vera said. "And now—Alistair's on top of her. Incredible! You should see this, Alex. He ran right to Ivy's paw and bit it."

Alex cringed. She glared into the darkness toward the mouse-scorpion. A big, hairy spider biting her pet was not the most comforting image. "Ivy better live," she spat.

The trap briefly scraped across the ground.

Alex inhaled. Her breath tasted like damp dirt. Had that creature understood her? "How is Ivy?" Alex called.

"She's still breathing."

Alex moved toward the trap until she could see it again. The creature had already eaten the grain Alex had left as bait when she'd set the trap, but Alex didn't care. Every inch of her wanted to leave that creature right where it was. Leave it to die. But even as she thought those words, something inside her recoiled. She must not feel, only think. That creature, if it had characteristics similar to natural mice or scorpions, was a living being that had acted only out of instinct. She had to do what she could to help it. But how could she do so without getting stung?

"Is Ivy still all right?" Alex called.

"She's still breathing," Vera dropped the rope back into the shaft. "What about that animal?"

"The same. Actually, Vera, when Ivy stabilizes, I need you to find me a long, sturdy stick."

"The creature is not too big for your specimen case, I take it."

"No." Alex jumped up, grabbed the rope, and tucked her knees toward her chest. Hopefully she was high enough off the ground. Letting that creature loose to run free and perhaps sting her the next time she entered the cavern seemed foolhardy, but if her attempt to catch it failed and it escaped into the cavern, she needed a quick way out.

_What if there are more of them around?_ Alex took a deep breath. She couldn't think about that now. Nor could she think about the mushrooms she would have to wait to look for.

"Ivy's breathing normally!" Vera said.

Alex gazed longingly at the unexplored second tunnel and exhaled. "Thank the stars above."

***
Chapter 2

THE ENCLOSED hansom cab Alex had hired at the Westfield, Massachusetts, railway station was much more comfortable than the buckboard wagon she traveled in back in Idaho, but, like her current surroundings, it was also more austere. And constricting. And oh-so-boringly refined.

The driver pulled the cab to a stop in front of Uncle Henry's white two-story mansion at the end of the tree-bordered lane. So little had changed in the five years since Alex had left she could almost smell the aroma of the Joe Pye weeds that grew throughout the surrounding unoccupied properties and taste the bitterness of the tea she'd made with them to soothe her cousin Fay's high fever. She and Fay had been what—sixteen years old at that time?

"Would you like help with your luggage, Miss?" the driver said through the small trap door behind her. He sat on a sprung seat behind and above her compartment.

Alex dabbed her handkerchief to her eyes and forced a smile. It simply wouldn't do for him, or anyone for that matter, to believe she'd lost control of her emotions. "No. Thank you." She gathered Ivy from where she slept on the seat beside her and set her inside the red and orange carpetbag.

Ivy looked up at Alex. She yawned.

"Stay quiet for just a little longer," Alex whispered. She clutched the closed carpetbag with one hand and the handle of her hard suitcase with the other and climbed out of the cab.

When the driver turned the horse back toward the main road, Alex straightened her spine and stepped through the gray stone fence's black wrought iron gate.

"Metal and rock," Alex muttered. _Dissimilar objects forced to stand side by side._ The first time she'd seen them, she'd been a newly-orphaned child moving to this manor from the West—the farm—where she'd grown up. She'd hardly noticed the gate then, but now she suspected Uncle Henry had put the metal and rock together on purpose. As a symbol for what life was really about. He did—had done—things like that over the years.

Alex frowned. But no more.

She drew back her shoulders, walked to the manor's double front doors, and set her luggage on the ground next to her. She pulled a telegram from the curved welt pocket of her dark green linen traveling dress. The message had come from her uncle's lawyer a week and a half ago, the day after she and Vera had returned home from their expedition, and she'd held it, read it, refolded it so many times the paper now felt more like a rag than a document.

Alexandra Dalton Stop Henry Watson dead Stop Specified you must attend reading of will July twenty third of this year Stop Four in afternoon Stop M Talbot

Alex slid the telegram back into her pocket and closed her eyes until her lips stopped quivering. Showing emotion wouldn't restore her uncle back to life, nor would it keep Edna Shaw, her and Fay's previous governess who'd later become her uncle's housekeeper, from fussing over her. She rang the bell.

Ivy squirmed inside the carpetbag. Alex, smiling sadly, opened it. "I suppose it's safe enough for you to come out now."

Instead of crawling out, Ivy stood on her hind paws and wrapped her front legs around Alex's shin.

Alex shook her head. The poor thing had been even more clingy since that creature had stung her. She was probably afraid she'd run into another one. But then, maybe that wasn't the reason at all. Maybe, as Vera had suggested, Ivy still carried a trace of the creature's poison in her blood. That was bound to make her feel out of sorts.

The front door swung open. Edna, a short, spindly woman with silver hair and astute blue eyes gazed up and down the length of Alex. Her gray, tiny-flower-patterned day dress looked just as it had when she'd taught Alex in the upstairs schoolroom, but her apron looked as white as a new bolt of cloth. "My dearest girl! Come in."

"Hello, Edna." Alex leaned into Edna's easy embrace and followed her through the front door into the large entry hall. Other than the fact that electric light now lit the room rather than candles, very little had changed. The same black walnut floors led to the drawing room on their left, the formal dining room on their right, and the wide staircase with the same pale yellow crest-patterned wall bench straight in front of them. For a tiny moment, Alex wished she'd had the courage to face her Aunt's disapproval all those years ago and had slid down the staircase's carved wood banister all the way from the top floor where the family's bedrooms were to the kitchen and servant's quarters in the basement. Surely such a memory would have lifted her spirits.

"I could hardly believe it when Henry told me you were coming," Edna said.

Ivy sat on Alex's feet.

"You mean Uncle Henry's lawyer, Mr. Talbot, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, of course. Mr. Talbot." Edna pursed her lips and straightened her apron. "I hope I haven't upset you, dear?"

"Not at all." Alex looked away from Edna—it was easier not to cry that way—and scanned the hallway. "Is Fay already here?" Uncle Henry's daughter would of course inherit the Watson fortune. That was as it should be, but since her uncle had specifically asked Alex to be at the reading of his will too, Alex hoped he'd left something to her. A small memento, even a final message would comfort her heart. But even if neither were the case, Alex would have answered her uncle's bidding anyway. Uncle Henry had taken her into his home and family when she was twelve after her parents had died of influenza. Alex owed much of the woman she'd become to Uncle Henry. More than that, she'd loved him like her own father.

"I'm afraid you're the first to arrive, my girl." Edna motioned to the drawing room. "If you'll come this way."

Alex furrowed her brows. "Wouldn't this meeting be more appropriate in Uncle Henry's office?"

"His orders were for you to wait in the drawing room."

Alex sighed. Perhaps Mr. Talbot had developed eccentricities in his old age. The stars knew her uncle had.

"I'll take your bags to your old room for you while you wait." Once again, Edna eyed the length of Alex. "Or would you prefer to freshen up?"

"That's very thoughtful, Edna, but I'll wait until after I've spoken with Mr. Talbot." _Then I'll have time enough to take both a bath and a nap._ Alex scooped Ivy into her arms. "I must ask you to please not open any of my bags, though."

Edna stared at Alex as if she expected her to explain her request, but Alex held her tongue. Not many people, especially a genteel woman, would appreciate finding a jar with a tarantula living inside it. Vera had insisted Alex take the spider with her in case she needed him to bite Ivy a second time. Alex had suggested they have him bite Ivy right then and be done with it, but Vera had contended that Alistair's powers were untested. It would be better to watch over Ivy and have him bite a second time only if Ivy seemed in danger. In the end, Alex had conceded, promising to keep tabs on Alistair and record any changes in his behavior.

"Very well, Alexandra." Edna gathered Alex's luggage and headed to the staircase. "You can find your way, I'm sure."

"Yes." Alex took a deep breath, nudged Ivy from her feet, and moved into the drawing room. She gaped. Everything except the tall windows with white shutters and the long, rectangular mirror beside the doorway at the back of the room had changed from predominately red coloring to white. The table cloths, the chairs, the sofas. Even a delicate off-white carpet had replaced the red-and-gold-patterned one.

Alex shook her head. What had possessed her uncle to make so many alterations? Had he truly not known how important this room had been to Fay and her? Or had it no longer mattered, since both of them had moved away?

She took two slow steps, scanning from one end of the room to the other. Some nights, when she and Fay had been so caught up with their comings and goings that they couldn't sleep, Edna had gathered them there. She'd offered them something warm to drink, tea or hot cocoa, and they'd told her of their hopes and especially of their fears. Edna, in turn, had spoken of days she'd wished she'd known: happy days filled with love and family and children. At those times, Edna had seemed like the mother Alex and Fay wished they still had.

" _Hang on to the goodness of your lives,"_ Edna would say before Alex and Fay had finally kissed her good night. _"Happiness can be fleeting."_

Alex fingered the pink ribbon on her wrist. That statement was true enough. Even the comfort she'd once found in that room hadn't lasted. "Come now, Ivy. If I have to sit, you might as well fill my lap."

Ivy mewed, and the two sat on the white velvet wing chair close to the door. Who would arrive next? Fay or Mr. Talbot?

***
Chapter 3

ABOUT FIFTEEN minutes later, the front doorbell rang. Neither Edna nor any of the other servants came to answer it, so Alex set Ivy on the floor and headed toward it. She froze. When she'd first arrived, she hadn't noticed the small, round wall mirror next to the entrance. Alex normally didn't take much concern for her reflection, but what she saw shocked her so sharply she couldn't bring herself to look away: her crumpled dress, her wind-strewn hair that looked more like an auburn mop than a fashionable topknot, and especially the dark circles under her green eyes. Was this what happened to a woman who'd spent most of the last week on a train? Or—her stomach hardened—was this what happened to someone who'd lost both her daughter and her husband in one blow? No wonder Edna had suggested she freshen up.

Alex tugged the ribbon around her wrist.

The doorbell rang again.

Alex pinched her cheeks to give them a hint of color—it wouldn't do for Fay to see her in such a forlorn state— gathered Ivy from the floor—at least she would cover some of the wrinkles in her dress—and opened the door.

Her smile disappeared. Her breath—her heart?—stopped. She stared up into the man's hazel eyes, the color of a stormy Atlantic sea surrounded by long, thick lashes lightly tipped with the lightness of his wavy blonde hair. He was tall, straight, and wore the white tailcoat that had always accentuated the strength and breadth of his arms and shoulders. A man to be reckoned with. Richard Edward Dalton, her estranged husband.

"Hello, luv," he said.

Alex clenched and unclenched the door handle. _What is he doing here?_ "Rick."

He quirked a tentative smile. "Can I come in?"

"Why?"

"I've been invited."

_Huh?_ Alex furrowed her brows. Who would invite Rick to the reading of her uncle's will? Mr. Talbot? Certainly not her uncle. She'd told him about how it was Rick's fault that the murderer had taken Mary, that she'd sent Rick out of her life. Besides, Richard Dalton was already a man of great wealth and prestige, even more so than Fay's bank-owning husband would likely ever be. "I don't see how that can be the case."

"I wondered if you'd require proof." Rick reached inside his gray vest pocket and pulled out a telegram.

Alex blinked hard. She stiffened her spine and hugged Ivy tighter against her chest. If Alex looked away from Rick, would he believe she felt absolutely nothing at his being there?

Edna bustled down the stairs. "Come in, Mr. Dalton," she called. "He's waiting."

Rick stepped forward. Alex moved far enough to the side of the entrance that there was no way he could accidentally touch her when he walked through the front door. _The front door._ The last time Alex had seen Rick had been in the front doorway of their Southeastern Idaho home. She'd said things. He'd said things. But it wasn't until she'd told him to leave that the color had drained from his face.

" _Don't do this, Alex," he'd said. "If I leave, we'll—you'll never see me again."_

Alex pressed her hand against her chest and, clenching her blouse, willed her lips not to tremble. If he didn't leave, how could she look at him without picturing their daughter in his arms? "Please go, Rick."

His pained stare pierced Alex's heart, but rather than reaching for him to comfort him as she once would have done, she dropped her gaze to the floor. He had to leave—for a while—otherwise she'd never learn to live with the grief.

She heard him catch his breath. She watched his feet storm past her and across their front yard to their carriage outside the front gate. But it wasn't until she lifted her head and saw the carriage disappear from her sight that the foolishness of what she'd just done—said—sunk through her. Rick Dalton did not look back, and Rick Dalton was a man of his word; he would not return.

"Who's waiting?" Alex said to Vera.

Rick stared at Alex for a long moment, his right eyebrow slightly cocked and his jaw set, before walking into the foyer. His hand wisped so quickly and so close to hers that they almost touched. Almost.

Alex stepped even farther away. "You aren't surprised to see me," she said.

The corners of his lips nudged upward, but his gaze, his incessant gaze, held hers. What could it mean? He'd never even looked at her like that when they were together. It was as if he—wanted something from her?

"I knew you'd be here," he said simply.

Edna took Rick's top hat and cane, set them in the corner next to the entry, and headed for the staircase. "The two of you will please follow me."

Alex shifted Ivy to her other arm and hurried past Rick. She grabbed Edna's elbow. "Shouldn't we wait for Fay?"

"It's good of you to concern yourself, my girl, but I have my instructions. This way, please."

Alex's chest tightened, but she obediently followed Edna up the staircase to the second floor. Rick stayed a few stairs behind her. What was going on?

Edna stopped in front of Fay's old room, the one next to Alex's. "This will be your room, Mr. Dalton. I can have one of the servants bring up your luggage if you'd like."

Alex jolted. Her mouth tasted like sawdust. "He's staying here! Whatever for?"

Ivy bristled against Alex's too-tight embrace, and Alex relaxed her grip.

"For as long as he's needed," Edna said.

"Needed for what?"

Rick stepped in beside her and leaned close enough their elbows touched. "Patience, my—Alex. I believe we'll find out soon enough."

"You don't know why you're here, either?" Alex asked.

"I received a message, same as you." He looked to Edna. "I left my suitcase outside on the front stairs."

"Very good, sir." Edna motioned for them to follow her down the hall. "This way, please."

Alex clenched and unclenched her hands. She stepped quicker, hoping the heated feel of Rick's presence—he'd moved behind her again—would dissipate, but instead, it grew stronger. Any minute now, Rick would be the self-assured man she'd always known him to be. The man who hated to be beholden to anyone. The man who wouldn't want to be near her any more than she wanted to be near him and would therefore decline staying in her uncle's house.

Alex stumbled—not enough to fall, but even so, Rick briefly clasped her upper arm, steadying her, and just as quickly released her.

She said nothing. He said nothing.

Edna knocked on Uncle Henry's bedchamber door.

"We're reading the will in here?" Alex said.

"It is Mr. Watson's wish," Edna replied.

***
Chapter 4

ALEX AND RICK stepped into Uncle Henry's bedchamber. Alex shaded her eyes from the sunlight's glare that shone through the window directly across the room from them and looked right to Uncle Henry's wide, canopied bed. It was positioned in the middle of the fifteen-foot wall between two Thomas Birch paintings of ships tumbling through a frantic sea. Alex shivered. Had Uncle Henry died in that bed?

"It's good to see you, Alex."

Alex dragged her gaze to the bed, to the voice. Her mouth dropped open. A white-haired man, his face creased with more wrinkles than she remembered, lay upright in the bed with his head propped against a stack of pillows. "Uncle Henry! You're alive."

"Obviously."

"But I thought—Mr. Talbot's telegram said you were dead!"

"As you see, I am not. I told Talbot to send that message."

Alex's muscles quivered—in anger or relief, she didn't know—but she balled her hands into fists and folded her arms in front of her chest. "I don't understand."

"Isn't it obvious? I needed to get you here, and this seemed the simplest solution."

Alex, forcing herself to breathe, shook her head and stepped backward until she bumped into the bureau behind her. "How could you manipulate me like that? I've been grieving ever since I received the telegram. I thought I'd never see you again."

Uncle Henry pressed his lips into a slight frown. "Perhaps this isn't one of my prouder moments, but I'm satisfied with the result. I knew you'd be too focused on your work in the West to come for a less imperative reason."

"You were wrong! I'd do anything I could for you."

"Would you?" He smiled placidly, as though nothing had happened, and nodded to Rick. Rick, in turn, glanced at Alex and walked toward the window.

"Wait a minute!" Alex's gripped the gold handle of one of the bureau drawers with her free hand. "You knew he was alive?"

Rick turned back to her. "Yes."

"Now, now," Edna said, "let's not quibble."

Alex lifted her chin. "I can't afford the time to just up and leave my work back in Idaho for no reason the way some people can."

Rick's gaze wavered, and a sudden emptiness filled her heart. Why hadn't she shot the barb at Uncle Henry, the real culprit, instead of Rick? Especially that one. She'd promised herself she would never throw it if she ever saw Rick again. It was mean, and she didn't want to be mean. Yet there she was, throwing it at him anyway. Because he had known about her uncle and she hadn't. Because she'd mourned for no reason. Because she felt foolish. Because—because there was none of the hurt in Rick's expression that she felt roiling inside of her, and he should feel hurt. Their daughter had been murdered because of his irresponsible, reckless, ever-distracted ways, and he had left Alex to deal with her broken heart alone. He knew her well enough to know she hadn't really wanted him to leave, that she'd said those things only because she needed to get them out of her system. But he'd left anyway, which meant he'd wanted to leave—to run away from her and their life together.

Uncle Henry lifted his hand toward Alex. "Hold on there, girl. I deserve your ire, but Rick and Edna were only following my instructions."

Alex glared from Edna to Rick to her uncle. Even if she did feel a bit lighter inside because her uncle was alive, she didn't have to let him know that. Not yet. "Why am I here?"

Uncle Henry ran his hand over his mouth, but said nothing.

All at once, worry niggled at the back of her mind. She strode to the bed, stopped next to his side, and glared down at him. "And why are you in bed so late in the afternoon? Surely your scheme didn't require this."

Uncle Henry shifted taller. He held her gaze. "I'm not dead, but I am dying."

Alex gaped at him for a long moment. His loose wrinkles were paler than she'd first noticed, blue rimmed his eye sockets, and though his lips turned upward in a slight smile, she saw no joy, only resignation. "Please don't, Uncle. If it's not the truth—please don't."

"It is the truth."

Alex felt the blood drain from her face. From dead to alive to dying? She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

A firm though gentle hand settled on Alex's right shoulder, and calm flashed through her. _Rick._

She stiffened, stepped away from him, and set Ivy on the floor. How dare he use his touch to settle her nerves now? He'd backed away from her when the sheriff had told them they'd found Mary's body. He should have held her then. Cried with her. Not left.

"He only has a few weeks," Rick said. "I checked with his doctor soon after I arrived yesterday, and he confirmed it."

Uncle Henry frowned. "That will be all, Edna."

"Very good, sir. Ring if you need anything."

Alex watched Edna leave. Watched the door click softly closed behind her.

"Time to get down to business," Uncle Henry said. "Sit next to me, both of you."

Alex sat on the edge of the bed near her uncle's knees, but Rick stood beside her. His gaze—his long eyelashes framing his eyes—looked only at her uncle.

"No, I don't know why I'm here," Rick said lowly.

Ivy skirted round Alex's ankles.

"How did you know that's what I was going to ask you?" Alex said.

"I lived with you for five years." Finally, he turned to her. "I know your expressions."

And still you left.

Uncle Henry's eyes brightened. "Just as I thought the moment I introduced the two of you: you're quite suited for each other."

Alex clenched her teeth even though her cheeks burned. _Look at Uncle Henry. Only at Uncle Henry._

Rick cleared his throat. "Tell us why you've brought us here."

"Very well." Uncle Henry looked straight into Alex's eyes. "Before I die, I want the two of you to find out who killed my Pauline."

Cold settled in the base of Alex's stomach. She blinked. "You still believe she was murdered? I thought you gave up on that notion years ago."

Ivy jumped into Alex's lap and stared at Rick.

"Then you don't know me as well as I thought you did," Uncle Henry said. "The Night Hag is a legend, not a murderer."

Alex set her hand over top of his where it rested on the brown comforter covering him. "You could have asked me for my help years ago, as you did with some of your other cases."

Uncle Henry lifted an eyebrow.

She frowned. "I mean puzzles." Uncle Henry was a businessman, not a detective, but he loved analyzing facts and rearranging them into something that made sense. His policeman friend, Captain Sutter, knew that about him and had allowed him to look into their unsolved cases. It wasn't legal, but since the police caught several criminals because of Uncle Henry's "puzzling," the judicial system turned a blind eye. "You said I was good at solving cases," Alex added.

"You are. And we did unravel several perplexing puzzles. But your aunt's death was too upsetting for you—for all of us. I felt it best to keep you and your cousin from it. I still would if things were different."

_If you weren't dying._ Alex bit the inside of her cheeks. She would not lose control of her emotions. Not in front of her Uncle, and especially not in front of Rick.

"Until a few weeks ago, I thought I knew how and by whom Pauline had been killed," Uncle Henry continued, "but I couldn't prove it to the police's satisfaction. Without proof, as you well know, the police could do nothing to the man. I kept track of him, though, so I'd know where to send the police once I found the necessary evidence."

"Apparently something changed your mind about him," Rick said.

Uncle Henry took the half-filled water glass from the end table next to his bed and drank two small sips. "The man died last year of natural causes. I thought he'd gotten away with murder. But a few weeks ago, one of my bank clerks, Jeremiah Godfrey, died under circumstances similar to Pauline's death, and once again, the authorities officially listed his death as unexplained."

"But unofficially?" Rick said.

Uncle Henry narrowed his eyes. "The Night Hag."

Alex drew her eyebrows together and slowly ran her hand across the length of Ivy's back. When it had first been noised about the community that the Night Hag had killed her aunt, Uncle Henry had explained the legend to her and Fay. The Night Hag was the ghost of a dead witch who came upon her victims while they were in the middle of a nightmare. She sat on their chests until they either smothered to death or died of fright. Alex hadn't heard anything of the Night Hag since then. "More superstitious neighbors?"

"Yes. But also Godfrey's young son."

"What other similarities were there? I assume you pointed them out to Captain Sutter?"

Uncle Henry grinned.

"What?" she said.

"You haven't changed much, Alexandra Blake."

Alex smiled at his use of her full name. It was paramount to a compliment. "What were the similarities?" she pressed. "The deaths were what—eleven years apart?"

"Both felt sick earlier in the day and both cried out in the night before they died."

Alex frowned. She glanced up at Rick. Was Uncle Henry serious? "That's not much. No wonder the police think a connection between them is a stretch."

"Yes."

Ivy jumped from Alex's lap and walked across the room to the fireplace.

Rick cleared his throat. "You're not asking us to hunt a demon, are you, sir?"

"I have never believed and never will believe a supernatural being intruded on my wife's sleep in the middle of the night and squeezed the life out of her."

"I don't believe that either," Alex said. "But I did think she was sick, and I don't recall illness being related to the Night Hag legend."

"It isn't. Which, as I said, is one of the similarities between the two cases."

Alex stood. She clenched and unclenched her fingers and paced to the heavy, decorative wood door. Though very few sounds slipped through it, there had been a few nights she and Fay had locked themselves in one of their rooms so they wouldn't hear Uncle Henry and Aunt Pauline arguing. "You'd be better off hiring professional investigators."

"I already have, several times, but each found nothing more than what I already knew."

Alex returned to his bedside, and Uncle Henry took hold of their hands. "This is the last request I'll ever make of either of you. Please find my wife's murderer."

Alex and Rick looked at each other.

"You still can't see what a force the two of you are together, can you?"

Alex groaned, kept her face fully averted from Rick's, and pulled back from her uncle, but he held her fast.

"Is that what this is really about?" she said. "Getting us back together?"

"In part," Uncle Henry said, "because, whether or not you realize it, you're still in love with each other."

"We never were in love," Alex said. "We were only friends. Tell him, Rick."

Rick said nothing. Couldn't he even support her in that?

Uncle Henry released them and briefly lifted his right hand. "I meant what I said. You have adventurous hearts, are internally driven, and see facts in nonstandard ways. Rick also has the means, intelligence, and"—He looked at Rick, who shook his head slightly—"and physical prowess to accomplish whatever has to be done. You, Alex, have an uncanny intuition and an ultra-sensitivity to preternatural elements that I've come to rely on. Apart, you're magnificent. Together, you're unstoppable."

Alex crossed her right arm in front of her waist and pressed her left fingertips to her temple. It had been ages since she'd eaten a fresh lemon, but right then, the memory of its sour, stinging taste puckered the inside of her mouth. "You want me to work with Rick?"

"I do."

"You've studied this case for years and come up empty. What if we do too?"

"I wouldn't ask you if I thought that could happen."

She pursed her lips and walked to the window. Though its square glass panes divided the yard into sections of full-leafed trees, red bushes, and multi-shaped flowers, they also revealed a unified picture. Would her life always be like that? Broken until someone else told her how the pieces fit together?

_Not if I connect them my way first._ She rubbed the back of her neck and once again faced her uncle. "I will look into it for a few days, but after that, I've got to get back home." _And figure out who killed Mary. And why._

Rick glanced at Alex's fingers, the ribbon on her wrist, her eyes. His gaze softened. "Don't you want to stay until—the end?"

The emotion she'd held back welled in her eyes. Why did he say that? Couldn't he see how hard she was trying to keep her feelings in check? But then, maybe he was too obsessed with who knew what to notice anything except what was going on inside his own head.

Alex looked back to her uncle. "You said Aunt Pauline and this Jeremiah Godfrey were sick the days they died. Did anyone discover from what?"

"No one knew. I didn't even know Pauline was anything more than out of sorts until Edna mentioned it."

Alex held her uncle's gaze. All the days she'd known him, his blue eyes had appeared clear, composed, and more determined than she'd sometimes liked, but now they held vulnerability, too.

"You'll find a file labeled 'Pauline' in the top right drawer of my office desk," he added.

Rick sauntered to Alex's side. To his credit, when his elbow bumped her upper arm, he sidestepped another foot away. It was a much more respectable distance for a not-quite husband to stand. Of course it was.

"Do you have a file for Mr. Godfrey as well?" Rick said.

"A small one," Uncle Henry replied. "I'll contact Captain Sutter. He may have more information."

"It's too late in the day to reach him now," Alex said.

"Tomorrow then." Uncle Henry sighed, leaned his head against his pillow, and closed his eyes. "The one thing we have that the police don't is Mr. Godfrey's ten-year-old son. I'd already noted the similarities in Jeremiah's and Pauline's cases and wanted to speak with the boy anyway, so I made the necessary arrangements for him to stay here until the authorities could find his relatives. His name is Louis. Edna's set him up in the children's room. I have questioned him, and he's most affable, but all I've ascertained, as I said before, is he believes the Night Hag killed his father. Perhaps the two of you will have better luck."

Alex ran her hand over her hair above her ear. Her uncle had behaved most generously when he and Pauline had taken her into their home, but after Aunt Pauline had died, leaving him alone with two girls to care for, Alex had assumed he would come to regret his decision. Not that he'd ever shown any such remorse—he was too much of a gentleman for that—but she'd seen enough of her own father's outbursts to know that for a grown man to be saddled with two dependent girls was more than most could bear, even with the help of a very capable and kind nanny. Yet he hadn't sent Alex away. He'd raised her as his own daughter—loved her even. She had no other choice but to help him with his last request.

Alex kissed her uncle on the forehead. "Thank you for everything."

"You'll help me?"

"I will."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rick smile. Maybe he thought they were heading into some grand adventure. If so, he'd likely be disappointed. Investigating crimes was often quite sedentary.

But then, she'd never investigated a Night Hag murder before.

***
Chapter 5

ALEX STEPPED into the hallway, and Rick, moving in next to her, closed Uncle Henry's bedroom door behind them.

"That was a surprise," he said.

Alex scooped Ivy into her arms. How long would it be before she could return home and put this life—Rick—behind her? "I'm surprised you showed up at all. Don't you have a treasure to find?"

"I'm hurt." He pressed his hand over his chest in mock sorrow, but his smile wavered. He was teasing her, yet something about the downward creases around his eyes and the hollowness in his expression told her he meant exactly what he'd said. She had hurt him. She hadn't thought it was possible.

"It's not like I can't get away if I need to," he added. "My partners can continue the research while I'm gone."

"You didn't find it so easy to get away in the past." Alex stepped in the middle of the long beige carpet than ran the length of the hallway. As a girl, its green mosaics of domes entwined with circles had represented the home she'd found at Watson manor even though it was so different from the farming world she'd grown up in. Today the green meant nausea. And shock. And a coil of emotions she didn't know how to unravel. "Just say it, Rick. What you mean is your treasure is somewhere close."

"No, luv." He grabbed her arm, stopping her.

"Don't call me that."

His expression drooped, and he released her. "The treasure's in New York. I'm here because I want to be here. Can you not see that?"

Familiar warmth flowed through her arm from where he touched her and across the length and breadth of her body. Rick's touch. His comfort. She had missed it. But she hadn't missed the sudden, distant look in his eyes. She knew that expression well. She slid from his grasp and pulled Ivy closer. Her purr thrummed against Alex's chest like a hypnotic pulse. Would Ivy's calming touch someday replace Rick's?

Rick shifted taller. He straightened his lapel, cleared his throat, and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "How are you, Alex? You're doing well, I hope?"

Polite conversation. It might be a poor substitute for the life she and Rick had shared together, but what more could there be? _Nothing!_ She pressed her lips together and started toward the children's room at the end of the hall. "Quite well. I have a tenant. A fellow preternaturalist, actually. We work together."

"Vera," he muttered.

Alex froze. She slowly turned, glared at him. "What did you say?"

He paled. "Nothing."

"How do you know her name?"

"I don't. I mean, I didn't say anything."

She narrowed her eyes. "Have you been spying on me?"

"Of course not." He strode ahead of her. "Come on. We don't want to keep Louis past dinnertime. When I was a kid, dinner was the best part of the day, and—" He took a deep breath. "—I smell roast beef."

Alex grabbed his forearm, pulled him around so he faced her, and stared at him. "What do you know about Vera?"

Rick's irises wavered. "We may not be living together, Alex, but you're still my wife. I want you to be all right."

Coldness poured like ice through Alex's chest. Rick's parents were from England's upper class and had raised him with America's elite. He knew whom to contact, and he could charm a mouse out of a snake's mouth. It would be nothing for him to have found Alex such a perfect companion. Why hadn't she recognized that Vera showing up on her doorstep was too good to be true?

She bit her lip. Because she'd been desperate and had needed a miracle. "You sent Vera to live with me, didn't you?" She spoke loudly so her voice wouldn't shake.

"Define _sent_."

"How could you, Rick?" She glared at him, lifted her hand, palm forward, in front of her, and stormed down the hall. _Of all the condescending . . ._ She'd thought she'd finally taken a step toward financial independence, but all along she'd been a pawn in another one of his schemes.

Rick rushed after her. He grabbed her arm. "All right. I did hire her. But it's not what you think."

"Oh no? I think you paid Vera a lot of money so she could pay me and I would think I was supporting myself."

"All right. It is what you think. But what else could I do? You were struggling to make ends meet, and you wouldn't accept the money I sent you. Vera was the perfect alternative. Not just for me. For you too. She'd been recently widowed, and she has the same interests."

Alex's throat constricted, and though she glared at him, all she saw was the bread she'd rationed, the hot water she'd drunk instead of tea, the blankets she'd piled on her bed because she had too little wood for her stove. "I'd have made it somehow."

Rick moved so close she could hear his breath swelling in and out in rhythm with his chest. Energy pulsed between them. "I know you would have," he said softly. "You're strong and smart. But why suffer when you don't have to?"

She stepped back, not as far away as he'd moved toward her, but enough she could breathe without feeling that at any moment he might take her into his arms and force away her loneliness. Which she absolutely didn't want.

"I'm sorry about Mary. About everything," he continued. "If I could take back that day, I would. You must know that, must know how much I, like you, loved—love—our Mary."

He took her hand again, and this time when the comforting warmth spread through her, she didn't have the strength to pull away. Her body craved peace.

"Please, Alex," he said. "There must be some way we can get past what's happened to us. Please forgive me."

Alex closed her eyes. She pictured how Rick and she used to be: their easy familiarity with each other, their laughter, their joint preternatural and treasure-hunting escapades. Her ribs clenched around her lungs. _You were supposed to be watching Mary, not studying a stupid treasure map!_

"Please forgive me," he said again.

Hateful words she'd repeated so many times they felt like a broken part of her leapt to the tip of her tongue, but when she opened her mouth to say them, they died on her lips. Rick was not only Mary's father but he had also been Alex's best friend. She knew his expressions as well as she knew the freckle on the back of her hand, and right then his eyes looked as empty as her heart felt. Was it right for her to continue to punish him? What if she had been the one that had looked away—at a preternatural plant, perhaps—when Mary had been taken? How long could she have borne the guilt?

But then, she wouldn't have looked away.

"I'm sorry too, Rick."

"Thank you." He pulled her toward him, but she backed away, shook her head.

"I can't," she said. "You know as well as I do that our marriage was based more on trust than anything else, and now we don't have even that."

His eyes glazed. "That's not true for me, Alex."

"It is for me." She set Ivy on the floor, waited while the cat licked her paw, and again headed down the hall. Their footsteps—hers, Rick's, Ivy's—plodded softly over the carpet.

Rick moved beside Alex. His arm muscles momentarily tensed against hers before he stepped away. The veins on his hands protruded as he clenched and unclenched his hands. "When I last spoke with Vera, she said you were looking for a plant you hoped might help you learn more about Mary's killer. Have you found it?"

"Not yet."

They reached the children's room. Alex took hold of the gold doorknob, and Rick's warm, comforting hand clasped hers. "Let's figure these deaths out for your uncle, but after that, I want to help you find the one who murdered our Mary."

Alex turned to him. Again, his face was so close to hers that if she bowed her head, even just an inch, her forehead would bump his lips. "You want to help me?"

"Always."

Alex took a deep breath and turned away from him. She stared so hard at the frame and panel door that for a moment the mahogany knots and grains represented worlds and stars joined by crooked roads. What did Rick mean by _always_? Leaving her to bear the burdens of all that had happened in the wake of Mary's death was not the same as helping her _always_ —even if she had told him to leave.

She stood taller. Whatever it meant, wherever it led, she understood him enough to know he believed what he said, at least for now. She must tread carefully. "When we question Louis, I think we should concentrate on finding more details about his father or the night he died. Maybe there's something more that connects him and Aunt Pauline."

"All right, yes, but I also want to know why he believes the Night Hag killed his father."

She rolled her eyes. "This is serious, Rick."

He grinned and released her hand, but he didn't step back from her. "I am serious. We need to compare it to the testimonies of those who thought the same thing about your aunt. I won't let you down, luv."

She closed her eyes, braced her emotions, and turned the doorknob. "I told you not to call me that."

He exhaled, but said nothing until they'd stepped into the children's room. He closed the door before Ivy could follow them inside. "You're coddling that cat too much."

"This from the man who hired Vera."

"That's different. I'm not holding onto you, just helping."

She pursed her lips and pressed her tongue over her top teeth. "You don't know what Ivy's been through."

"What has she—" Rick's stance stiffened. He stared at Alex. "Maybe what I should ask is, what have _you_ been through?"

Ivy scratched the other side of the door. Alex opened it and picked her up. "I said I'm fine."

***
Chapter 6

LOUIS GODFREY jumped up from the desk chair and backed into the far right corner of the room. He shook his long, brown bangs out of his face and quick-glanced between Rick, Alex, and the door.

"Hello, Louis," Alex said.

He swallowed. The tendons in his neck strained the way Ivy's muscles had when she'd faced the mouse creature, and emotion scorched the back of Alex's sinuses. _Fear._ Had Mary felt that way before she'd died? Had she believed her parents had forsaken her? Alex turned to Rick, giving her a moment to slow her heartbeat. "Wait here. We don't want to scare him."

"I think it's too late for that, but all right."

Alex looked back to the boy. She smiled gently and inched across the red rug patterned with gold geometric designs: diamonds, circles, and pyramids _._

" _See how important mathematics is?" Aunt Pauline had asked that question whenever she'd entered the children's room to check on their education._

"I'm Alexandra Dalton," Alex said. "Mr. Watson is my uncle. I used to live here when I was a young girl." She pointed to the bureau in the far left corner. "My cousin and I kept our dolls in those drawers. We pretended they were their secret hideaways."

Louis stared at her but said nothing.

"Let me try." Rick sauntered toward the desk, glanced at the paper on top of it, and moved on to the bed. He sat. "Looks like Miss Edna's already given you school assignments."

"Mathematics," Louis whispered.

Alex winced. Did he hate that subject as much as she had? "I know these last weeks have been difficult for you, and we don't want to make them even more difficult, but is it all right if we ask you a few questions about your father's death? My uncle thinks you might know something that can help us solve another person's death."

Louis's pupils wavered. "The Night Hag killed him."

Rick stepped next to Alex. "How do you know?"

"He—he yelled out. In the night. That's what happens."

Alex lifted her eyebrows. "Did you check on him?"

The boy flinched and pressed himself tighter into the corner. He lifted his chin. "No."

"Why not?"

"He didn't call for me."

Alex took another forward step, but before she'd taken a second, Rick stopped her and gave her a small shake of his head. Alex held his gaze. Rick had always been good at reading people. She would follow his instincts. "What else can you tell us about the day your father died?" she said to Louis.

"He wasn't my father. He only told people he was. My mother left me at a convent when I was a baby. Jeremiah and his missus got me from the orphanage a few years after that."

"Did they adopt you?" Alex said.

"It wasn't like that with them."

Louis's glare seemed more a challenge than an admission of truth. Was he lying?

Rick touched Alex's arm and inched closer to Louis. He stopped about four feet from him.

Louis hunched his shoulders.

"Can you tell us what you remember about the day he died?" Rick said.

He shrugged.

"Once at breakfast, maybe?"

Louis nodded.

"What time was that?" Alex asked.

"He has to leave for work by eight o'clock, so before then."

"What did you do after he went to work? Go to school?"

"School's out for the summer."

"Of course." Alex frowned. "Who else was with you?"

"I'm not a baby. I can take care of myself."

"With Jeremiah's wife gone, what else was the man supposed to do?" Rick cut in. "He had to make a living. And Louis is old enough he may have had his own job."

"I had chores," Louis said.

Alex quickly scanned Louis's thin frame, red and calloused hands, and the dark circles under his eyes. Had Jeremiah provided him with more work than nourishment?

"So the next time you saw Mr. Godfrey was when?" Rick said. "At dinner?"

"At the baseball game. He was an outfielder."

Alex half smiled. She'd attended a few community baseball games with Fay and Uncle Henry. Businessmen and charity workers had set up so many activity and refreshment booths near the event it was paramount to a fair. "Did his team win?"

"I don't know. I went for the food. But I expect so. He was happy when he got home."

"So you saw him after the game," Rick said.

"From my bedroom window. I stayed in my room."

Rick glanced at Alex.

"But you saw him well enough to know he was happy?" Alex said.

Louis flipped his hair out of his eyes again. "No. I mean—I heard him, all right? He was whistling when he came in the house. He always whistled when he got what he wanted."

"Do you know what time that was?" Alex said.

"About five. I got home from the game at four."

"We heard Mr. Godfrey was sick that day. Do you know if that's true?"

Louis shrugged.

"What about at breakfast?" Rick said. "How did he seem then?"

"Cross—same as always."

"Not sick?"

Another shrug. "Can I get back to my studies now? Miss Edna said I had to finish before dinner."

"I have only one more question," Rick said. "Is there any reason, other than that you heard Mr. Godfrey scream, that makes you believe the Night Hag killed him?"

Louis clenched the upper rim of the straight-backed desk chair so tightly his knuckles turned white. His lower lip quivered. "I didn't see a ghost or witch, if that's what you mean."

Alex narrowed her eyes. Though Louis's face had paled, he didn't cower. If anything, he stood taller. Defiant, even. Louis might not have seen a ghost, but something had upset him. Something he obviously did not want to reveal to Rick and her.

Rick set his hand on Alex's shoulder but looked at Louis. "Do you mind if the two of us take a look around your house?"

"It's none of my care."

"Would you like to go with us?" Alex said. "I doubt anyone knows the way around it better than you do."

"I'll never go there again."

Alex clamped her left hand over Mary's pink ribbon. When the sheriff had told her and Rick the police had found Mary's body in the grass by the river, she'd vowed never to go there either. Some places, like people, were too hard to face again.

Someone tapped lightly on the door.

Louis flinched. Rick strode to the door and quickly opened it.

Edna stood in the doorway. She carried a pair of black pressed pants and a white shirt over her bent arm. She smiled apologetically at Alex and looked to Louis. "Cook says it's almost time for dinner. Have you finished your studies?"

"Not yet," Louis said.

"It's our fault," Rick said.

Edna handed Louis the clothes. "I expected these two would mess up your schedule. All right, we won't worry about mathematics tonight. Come down to dinner as soon as you've dressed." She looked to Alex and Rick. "The two of you will be joining Louis, of course?"

"We'll be there," Alex said, "but if we're late, have him start without us."

"Very well."

Alex and Rick followed Edna from the room, but while Edna continued down the hall to the stairway, Alex paused.

Rick cupped Alex's elbow. "What do you have in mind? It's too late to inspect the Godfrey home this evening."

"We'll go in the morning. But I think we should record what we've just learned from Louis. We don't want to forget anything."

"There isn't much to forget."

"So it shouldn't take us very long."

"Still meticulous." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's one of the things I love about you. And miss."

Alex's muscles relaxed, but she looked decidedly away from him. If he saw the emotion swelling behind her eyes, he might misinterpret her feelings as meaning something more for him than they did. And the fact was, she didn't know what it meant, what she felt, what she wanted to feel. She knew only that deep inside her heart, she still hurt.

***
Chapter 7

JUST LIKE the entry hall, Uncle Henry's office looked exactly as Alex remembered it: dark mahogany floors, wood paneled walls, and the large desk that spanned the center of the far side of the room. Alex and her uncle had spent hours together at that desk, studying reference books, going over lists of facts they'd written on the chalkboard between it and the narrow, curtained windows directly behind it, and throwing theories back and forth as quickly as the firelight flickered from the candelabra hanging from the high ceiling above it. She'd loved those days, and though she hadn't ultimately embraced criminal detective work the way her uncle had encouraged her to do—she craved the outdoors too much for that—she had developed keen analytical instincts that well served her preternaturalist disposition.

Alex sat in her uncle's mahogany and leather throne chair, wrote the short list of facts she and Rick had learned from Louis, and finally slid the paper to the middle of the desk. Ivy, sitting in her lap, meowed.

"If this doesn't suit you," Alex said, "jump down. Prove to me you're well again."

Ivy gaped at her until Rick set his tailcoat on the back of the chair next to Alex and sat in it. Then she yowled.

Rick rolled his white shirt sleeves up to his elbows in a much too familiar manner. Alex dragged her gaze from his forearm.

"What is she so upset about?" Rick said.

Alex licked her lips, inhaled. "I'm assuming it's because a, er, scorpion poisoned her."

"Hmm." Rick reached to the top of Ivy's head, but Ivy crouched back from him. "She still doesn't like me, does she?"

"I think you offended her when you kicked her out of your bed."

"I liked someone else there better."

Heat rose in Alex's cheeks. She turned away from him and stared at the corner fireplace. _Their bed. Rick's arms around her . . . her face nuzzled against his chest . . . his lips against the top of her head . . ._ She cleared her throat. How could she keep a clear head—make correct decisions—if she let her mind wander like that?

"Besides," he added, "I'm not particularly fond of waking up with a cat tail mustache."

"It doesn't really matter. She didn't like you before then, either." Alex retrieved the files on Aunt Pauline's and Jeremiah Godfrey's deaths from Uncle Henry's desk drawer and handed Jeremiah's thin file, along with her notes from her and Rick's conversation with Louis, to Rick. "Spread these pages across that side of the desk. I'll lay Pauline's pages out over here."

Rick set the first page in front of them. "It's a timeline. Is there one for Pauline too?"

"Right here." Alex placed Pauline's timeline next to Jeremiah's and scanned both pages. Jeremiah's contained only a few more facts than those she and Rick had learned from Louis. First, people at the ball game said Jeremiah appeared overexerted during the game but looked better after the picnic. Second, when the police found Jeremiah the next morning, he was wearing his bed clothes, his mouth was frozen in an open grimace, he had swollen, dark blue lips and blue fingers, and there was a half-empty cup of chamomile tea next to his bed.

Bits of Pauline's day, however, brought a lump to Alex's throat. She'd lived that day too.

PAULINE WATSON'S LAST DAY

December 1, 1873

8:00 a.m. Pauline, Fay, Alex, and I (Henry) eat breakfast together in the dining room.

9:00–11:00 a.m. I go to my office at the bank. Pauline organizes the servants' work assignments, checks on the girls' educational progress, and prepares the cook's weekly menu.

11:00 a.m. Theodore Clemens visits Pauline. He is an old beau but has not been in the area for five years. (Pauline insisted she only ever thought of him as a friend.)

12:00 p.m. Theodore stays for lunch. I arrive home for lunch early. I see Pauline and Theodore together without the children and become angry and jealous. Pauline and I argue. Pauline insists she only ever thought of Theodore as a friend. Theodore leaves. (Note: Theodore Clemens dies in 1883.)

1:00 p.m. Pauline feels sick. I leave without eating.

2:00 p.m. A neighbor, Mrs. Katherine York, visits Pauline. Pauline agrees to help with the town's Christmas bazaar. (Note: Mrs. York dies in 1881.)

3:00 p.m. Pauline feels quite sick. She complains to Fay, Alex, and the servants about the sloppy performances of their duties. She goes to a guest room to rest.

6:00–6:20 p.m. Fay and Alex visit Pauline before dinner. Pauline is in bed.

7:00–7:25 p.m. Edna takes Pauline tea to help settle her stomach. Pauline's symptoms settle. Edna visits with her.

8:30 p.m. I return for the evening. I retire to my bedchamber.

8:40 p.m. Fay knocks on Pauline's door and says good night. Pauline says, "Get out." Fay goes to bed upset.

9:30 p.m. The household retires for the night.

December 2, 1873

7:00 a.m. I find Pauline dead in the guest room bed. Items found at the scene that were later removed:

Pauline's night robe, bedding, dead plant on the nightstand, dinner tray with uneaten food and dishes

Ivy jumped to the floor.

"You're either getting better," Alex said to her, "or feeling braver."

Ivy stood on her hind legs against the chair but didn't jump into Alex's lap. It was definitely progress. A good thing. So why did Alex's arms feel empty?

"One similarity between the timelines," Rick said, "though it's common with most people, is Jeremiah and Pauline had breakfast with their families the day they died. Pauline's timeline mentions you were there. Do you remember anything about that day?"

"Only that I cried for several hours because Aunt Pauline said my penmanship was sloppy and illegible, and if not immediately corrected, could lead me to a fate worse than death: spinsterhood."

Rick smiled. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back in his chair, watching her. "I never considered penmanship an important trait in a suitable wife."

Alex looked away from his incessant gaze.

"You won't ask me what I think is important, will you?"

Ivy crept toward the fireplace. Halfway there, her fur lit up like one of Mr. Thomas Edison's incandescent lamps. Alex furrowed her brows.

"Confidence, determination, intelligence . . . and it doesn't hurt that you're beautiful. Alex? Are you listening?"

Alex waved his comment off as if she hadn't heard him, hadn't noticed the exasperation—disappointment?—in his voice. Indifference was an easy response.

Rick scooted his chair closer to hers. "Have you figured out why Ivy lights up like that?"

"I wish I had, or at least found a way to trigger it. I could have used it in the ca—when it was dark."

"I thought I was giving you a pet, not a lamp."

Alex touched the back of her hair—her topknot was still pinned in place—and turned back to the files. She flipped through what appeared to be Pauline's small housekeeping account book and set it on the desk below the fact sheets. She, of course, did not notice his knee bumped hers. She bit the inside of her cheeks. Time to get their conversation back to business. "Pauline seemed out of sorts that day."

"But Jeremiah wasn't. At least not according to Louis."

"Maybe he didn't notice it because Jeremiah was always cross with him."

"Maybe."

Alex glanced between the timelines. "But they did both feel ill sometime that day."

Rick, staring at Alex out of the corner of his eye, pushed up from his chair and walked to the window. "Not for the same length of time, though, or even after similar events. Your aunt spent the day with an old beau, and Jeremiah spent the day at work and at the ballpark."

Alex set the remaining papers from Pauline's file next to her timeline, and Rick returned to Alex's side. He briefly touched her shoulder.

An airy giggle trickled over the air.

Completely unnecessary heat rose to Alex's cheeks. "That wasn't me."

"It sounded like you—your voice."

She looked over her shoulder to the red floor length window curtains but saw no unnatural bulges behind the fabric. She'd once hid behind them when Aunt Pauline had been upset with her for adding two humps to her cursive _m_ rather than three.

"I know it did, but it wasn't. Do you see me smiling? Even a little bit? I can't imagine I'd laugh without smiling."

Rick's eyes lit up. "No, but you are beautiful."

"Please be serious."

Another gentle, ghostly laugh—a masculine one this time. Rick's? But when she looked up at him, he shook his head.

The hair on the back of Alex's neck stiffened to attention. She stood and carefully peered about the room. "Is someone there?"

Ivy, her fur glowing like white fire, leapt into Alex's arms. Rick grasped her elbow. His fingers felt warm and firm against her skin. "There's no place in here for anyone to hide. Confess. You laughed just now, didn't you?"

She pulled away from him. "No, I did not."

"Don't think I mind. I love it, actually. I haven't heard you laugh like that, like you haven't a care in your entire body, for more than a year."

"I did not laugh, and I'm quite certain you didn't laugh a moment ago, either."

He pursed his lips. "You got me there, but give me a minute. I'm sure I can come up with something that'll make us both laugh." He furrowed his brow, and tapping his forefinger to his lips, paced toward the fireplace. "I know. Who is the greatest chicken killer in Shakespeare?"

"This isn't a joke." Alex, scanning the room, backed against the chalkboard. If someone was hiding in the office, he or she couldn't grab her from behind.

"Macbeth," Rick said, "because he did murder most foul."

She groaned.

He peeked behind the medallion-back settee and returned to her side. "Perhaps there's a ghost in the room who doesn't want us to find out the truth about your aunt's or Mr. Godfrey's deaths. The Night Hag, maybe."

"Don't be ridiculous. The Night Hag is merely a mythological explanation for what must be a natural or preternatural phenomenon." Alex closed her eyes, watched her thoughts shuffle through her memory like a box of unconnected puzzle pieces: Ivy lighting up now and in the dark cavern, the laughs she and Rick had just heard, the voice that had whispered from somewhere within the cave. Were there, in fact, such things as ghosts?

She took a deep breath, held it, and focused all her senses on the desk, the walls, the ceiling, lights, fireplace, furniture—all crisply familiar like those matter-of-fact files, and yet nothing stirred or tingled within her. The sounds had not come from plants.

"I figured you'd say that," Rick said.

"You believe it's a myth, don't you?"

"Let's just say I've explored enough grave sites and found enough odd treasures not to believe there aren't things out there I can't explain."

" _Rick."_

Rick stared at her. Alex gaped and despite herself, her fingers trembled against Ivy's fur. That was her voice, but—

"Your lips didn't move," he said.

She gaped at him, shook her head.

He narrowed his eyes, stepped away from the desk, scanned the room. "Who's in here?"

Alex pressed her body tighter against the blackboard, but this time it wasn't because she worried someone might grab her from behind. This time, she knew when and where she'd said Rick's name in just that way. It was the day she and Rick had ducked into this office for a few moments of privacy after the picnic where Uncle Henry and Rick's parents had announced to their guests her and Rick's engagement. They, laughing at their elders' naiveté, had stood close to the fireplace. Yes, Rick was wealthy, and she was well connected. And yes, they enjoyed each other's company and interests as friends generally did, but their insistence that she and Rick would eventually learn to love, not just like, each other was an illusion. Both she and Rick knew their own minds and would always know them. Partners, of course. Lovers, too, since all would expect an heir. But twisted, messy, romantic feelings for one another? Ridiculous!

Rick inhaled sharply.

Alex clenched her fists. Had he heard—remembered—that moment too? If he had, what then? "Read aloud what your papers say. Then I'll read mine," Alex said. "If we ignore the voices, maybe they'll go away."

"Ignore them? Not investigate? That doesn't sound like you."

She swallowed. Some memories had to stay in the past. "What would be the point? As you said, there's no one here."

Rick arched an eyebrow. "This might be your chance to see a ghost."

"I'd rather not."

"All right. It's your call." He scanned the room yet again then slid a list of notes in front of them on the desk. "This one says, 'The Night Hag is a legendary demon who comes upon her victims just before they fall asleep or just before they wake. She paralyzes them and sits on their chests until they suffocate to death. Those who've survived the phenomenon report feelings of panic, drowning, or pain, and they claim they saw a witch in their room."

" _Come here, Alex."_ Once more, the voice—Rick's voice—came from the direction of the fireplace.

Alex hugged Ivy tighter. _Ignore it_ , she thought, but the memory came anyway. After Rick had said those words, he'd pulled her into his arms, kissed her softly on the lips, and with their noses touching said, "I know this feels strange between us now, but it won't always. I promise."

Alex shoved her thoughts back to the present and stared at Ivy, who'd stopped glowing. The voices had stopped too. _Hmm._

Rick turned over the paper he was examining—there was nothing on the back—and flipped again to the front. His hands trembled slightly. "At the top, your uncle wrote: 'Theodore Clemens already dead. It's not him.'"

Alex shuffled through a few more sheets of notes about her aunt. "I can see why Uncle Henry thought Mr. Clemens was responsible for Pauline's death. Listen to this. 'Theodore Clemens has a history of thievery. When the police questioned him, they found a skeleton key that would fit in our front door lock. We, however, found nothing missing, and Clemens did not possess any of our belongings. He claimed he had planned to rob us but hadn't yet done so, and since the police found nothing to connect Mr. Clemens to Pauline's death, and since a man cannot be convicted of a crime he hasn't yet committed, they did not arrest him for theft, either.'"

"Anything else?" Rick said.

Ivy jumped from her arms, sat, and licked her shoulder. Alex peered back at the now silent space around the fireplace. Had whatever it was that had been in the room left?

"'Police questioned Pauline's family, servants, and Mrs. York,'' she read aloud, ''but learned nothing of consequence. Full reports are kept at the police station.' This is interesting. Uncle Henry included a complete description of the guest room and its contents at the time of her death. I wonder why he wrote all this when he could have just looked at the real thing. He hasn't allowed anyone to touch that room for any purpose other than an occasional light cleaning. Is there a list like this in Mr. Godfrey's file?"

"No." Rick pursed his lips. Why was his jaw set so tightly? "Let's make one after our visit there tomorrow."

Alex returned the paper she was holding to the desk and headed toward the door that led into the formal dining room. Rick had closed it after they'd first entered. She hadn't thought anything of it until, in the next moment, he stepped in beside her, clasped her hand, and slowly wrapped her fingers around his bent elbow. "Whatever happened just now brought back a lot of old feelings."

Alex nodded. She, looked at a dent in the wood floor, wished her hands weren't sweating.

"Only they're not so old to me anymore," he added. "They're current."

"Please don't say such things."

"Why not? We're married."

"Somewhat."

He stepped in front of her, facing her, and placed his fingertips beneath her chin. He lifted her gaze to his. "We should be together, Alex."

_Not again._ Alex folded her arms in front of her. "Let's just try to get through this investigation, all right?"

"And then what?"

A shiver trembled through her as dishes from the dining room clanged like soft, accusing death tolls. "Then we'll see."

***
Chapter 8

THE GODFREY'S white timber home on the edge of town looked just like the saltbox structured dollhouse Alex and Fay had shared. It even had a steep-pitched roof that ran from the top of the two-story front section and down over the single-story back portion. There were two differences, though: a white picket fence surrounded a yard of long brown grass, and tan curtains covered every window. Had someone closed them after Jeremiah had died? Or had Jeremiah kept them like that? Maybe because he'd been gone so much of the time?

"If you'd please follow me," Captain Sutter, Uncle Henry's policeman friend, had hair as thin and white as Uncle Henry's, and the narrowness of his physique was also similar, but the pinkness of his cheeks on either side of his long white mustache was such a healthy contrast to her uncle's almost-gray countenance that she had to blink five times to stop tears from clouding her eyes.

"Mrs. Dalton?" Captain Sutter adjusted the black belt around the middle of his dark blue, button up uniform jacket.

"Oh—I'm sorry. Yes." She shifted Ivy between her arms and straightened the sleeves of her white Georgiana blouse before stepping through the gate Captain Sutter held open for her.

"Are you all right?" Rick, behind her, dabbed his white handkerchief to the sweat on his forehead.

"Let's just finish this."

Rick inhaled sharply, but ignoring him, Alex strode quickly over the grass growing through the cracks in the stone path to the front door. She stepped over the threshold into the narrow entry hall lit only by the sunlight shining through the open doorway and involuntarily shivered.

"You can't possibly be cold?" Rick unbuttoned the coat of his matching suit. "I don't remember July mornings here ever being this hot."

She touched her blue touring hat, making sure it still lay securely on her head, and crossed her arms tighter around Ivy. _Why'd Rick choose that suit today?_ It was a bit darker blue than her twill bustle skirt, but everyone—Edna, Uncle Henry's other servants, even Captain Sutter—had given them appraising glances indicating they'd thought they'd coordinated their clothing. On purpose. "I don't know why I shivered. It's probably nothing."

"I doubt that."

Alex's scowl wavered. After all she and Rick had been through and all she'd said to him, he still trusted her shivers? Not even the other members of the Preternatural Science Society had accepted her sensitivities until she'd found a preternatural žaltys snake slithering around a _dentium_ thorn bush near Venturer Pond, but Rick had believed her the moment she'd spoken of them.

Captain Sutter motioned past the hall's Currier and Ives wallpaper toward the parlor on their right. Someone had torn out —uncaringly?—a six inch rectangle of the paper between a large pale green leaf and a faded yellow flower, exposing the rough plaster beneath it.

"Where would you like to begin?" Captain Sutter said.

Ivy jabbed her claws through Alex's blouse.

"Ouch! What's that about, kitty?" Alex pulled her cat away from her shoulder.

"Maybe she needs a break from that position," Rick said. "Let me carry her." But when he reached for Ivy, Ivy hissed at him and clung sharper.

Rick yanked back his hand. "Maybe we should have left her at the manor."

"And let her out of my sight? Not until I'm certain she's well, and I figure out what causes her—" _to glow._

Captain Sutter quirked an eyebrow.

"—to behave as she does."

Rick's eyes glinted, but he didn't smile.

Alex drew back her shoulders. "I think it would be best if we inspected Mr. Godfrey's bedroom first, Captain. Our most logical first step is to learn all we can about the scene of the crime." Besides, she and Rick had just come from Aunt Pauline's room and would more likely notice similarities between them. If they did, indeed, exist.

"Of course. Your uncle would have suggested the same thing had he been here." Captain Sutter opened the flaking white-painted door at the end of the hall and stepped inside a narrow, enclosed stairway. The steps led like a tunnel to the top floor.

Rick touched Alex's elbow. "Is that the reason you kept Mary's clothes?" His whisper sounded more like a sigh of realization than a question. Had he really not understood why she'd gathered everything that had been with Mary when the sheriff had found her body?

"Of course."

Rick swallowed. "I thought you kept them to—" He shook his head.

"To what?"

"Never mind."

She didn't ask him about it again, but the sudden tightness in his lips and the pallor of his skin hinted at what he wouldn't say. He either believed she hadn't been able to part with what remained of their daughter, which was true, or he'd thought she'd saved them as a reminder meant to punish him. Yet, if he thought her capable of such cruelty, why would he still want to be with her?

Because he loves you.

She shoved that thought away, faced fully away from Rick, and stepped up the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor.

On the landing, a small table covered with a dusty white tablecloth stood against the wall directly in front of them. Splinters flaked from its legs as if someone had chipped at it with a small knife, as did the frame of the open, empty wardrobe next to it. Two doors took up most of the other two walls.

Captain Sutter smoothed his mustache and opened the door at their left. "Mr. Godfrey's room is here. We've taken the bedding to the station for further scrutiny, but everything else is as it was when we found his body."

Alex curled her toes. If only she could have examined the scene before the police had touched, destroyed, or otherwise altered the evidence. Captain Sutter had graciously supplied her with a list of what the police had found, but experience had taught her their clue-gathering techniques often overlooked critical points.

Rick caught her eye. "Too bad Alex wasn't here then. She'd have likely doubled your list."

Captain Sutter frowned. "I assure you, my men are among the best detectives in the state."

Alex glanced between them, but when her gaze locked on Rick's, inexplicable heat rose to her cheeks. That intense look again. _My knees will not buckle!_ "We have more to worry about than who is capable of what, and I, for one, would like to get on with the investigation."

Captain Sutter gave her a hard smile. "This way, if you please."

Mr. Godfrey's spacious square bedchamber had a slanted A-frame wall at the back end, a black walnut floor, and stained pale yellow wallpaper. But the furniture—the feather bed, the storage chest, the wide bureau of drawers, and the spindle-backed rocking chair—were badly neglected or damaged just as the rest of the house she'd so far seen. Even the plain tan curtains hanging in front of the room's three windows were torn and frayed. Did men really care so little about what they saw around them every day once the women in their lives were gone?

She glanced at Rick. He still stood in the doorway, watching her with those stormy sea-hazel eyes that made her fingers ache and her mouth water as if she'd just eaten a newly-picked golden apple, and she quickly turned away from him. She swallowed. That assumption—what she'd just wondered about men—was wrong. The men she knew on a personal basis did care—or at least notice.

Alex stepped into the room and took a deep breath. "Nothing so far."

Captain Sutter lifted a gray eyebrow over his even grayer eyes. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

Rick strolled toward the bed, and Alex set Ivy on the floor. The cat stayed close to her feet. "I won't know what I'm looking for until I sense it." She again scanned the room, but the only thing similar to Aunt Pauline's bedchamber was the rocking chair. If the Night Hag had indeed killed Mr. Godfrey, wouldn't the chair be closer to the bed as it was in Aunt Pauline's room rather than by the bureau? Local lore indicated that those who'd survived a Night Hag attack had first seen the demon sitting in a rocking chair close to the bed. But then, perhaps the demon, if she truly existed, brought her own ghostly rocking chair with her? "Has any of the furniture been moved?"

Captain Sutter pressed his lips into a tight line. "Everything here is as it was when we arrived."

"Oh, yes. You said that." Alex moved closer to the bed and sniffed. A hint of spice trickled at the edge of the air. Ginger or—? "Did anyone find dishes or a container of any sort in this room, Captain?"

"I don't believe so."

Rick sidled closer to her. "What is it?" he said softly.

Alex stared in front of her, pretending she didn't notice the feel of his arm pressed against hers, and sniffed again. "What about a wine glass?"

"No glass," Captain Sutter said. "However, we did find wine spilled on Mr. Godfrey's nightshirt—along with what he'd swallowed at dinner."

"Uncle Henry's notes said Jeremiah hadn't felt well."

"That is correct."

Rick stepped away from Alex and crossed to the back wall. He pushed aside the curtain. Hazy light flashed over his hair the way it had the first day she'd seen him standing in the Watson's front doorway, all strong and handsome and cheery-eyed, and for a moment she couldn't breathe. Why did good memories so often prompt heartache?

"This window doesn't look like it's been cleaned in ages," Rick said. "The sill's covered with spider webs. I expect Mr. Godfrey and the boy lived alone?"

"They did, Mr. Dalton."

Alex paced from the bed to the bureau. On the way, something tickled at the edge of her breath. She tapped her forefinger against her lips, quickly running the sparse facts through her mind. Sickness, wine, his cry of, perhaps, pain? "Is it certain Mr. Godfrey wasn't poisoned?"

Captain Sutter's stare narrowed so tightly she couldn't tell if it was with admiration or surprise. "We did take that possibility into consideration, Mrs. Dalton, but the only poison we found was arsenic in rattraps in the kitchen and cellar. The medical examiner also found no poison in Mr. Godfrey's body."

"No poison he knew about, you mean."

"He's quite thorough."

Rick, his chest moving in and out with his slow, deep, still-fit breaths, stepped between Alex and Captain Sutter. "I'm sure the examiner was thorough, as far as the modern sciences are concerned, but Mrs. Dalton is quite well versed in, shall we say, unconventional substances."

Captain Sutter's stance relaxed, but his expression remained taut. Why hadn't Uncle Henry ever told her his policeman friend was a skeptic?

"Your interest in the preternatural," he said.

Alex turned away from him and stared, unseeing at the window. _It's not just an interest. It's who I am._ "There's a scent in this room that reminds me of Monk's Bane. It's a highly toxic flower found only in mountainous meadows."

"It kills some and heals others, I suspect. Many so-called preternatural products proclaim similar hype."

Alex licked her lips and faced him again. "It is not hype, Captain. It's science. And Monk's Bane only kills."

"Nevertheless, if it is a real substance, I'm sure our examiner would have found it."

A _real_ substance? It was a good thing Alex hadn't brought Alistair with her. She had a good mind to set him on top of the captain's head just to see if he'd recognize Alistair was _real_.

"I do not wish to offend you," Captain Sutter continued. "Your uncle has always spoken highly of your deductive skills, and I have always trusted his judgment. But I have also seen and arrested enough preternatural snake oil salesmen to know their claims are rarely true. And when I say rarely, I am being generous."

Alex opened her mouth. How dare he be so—so rudely narrow-minded? But before she could confront him about his prejudice, Rick took hold of her elbow.

"Shall we move on?" His voice whispered through her like a warm pulsing shiver, and she scowled. _I don't want to feel comfort now!_

Captain Sutter stared between the two of them. "Yes, of course. This way." He led them from Mr. Godfrey's room and to Louis's bedroom across the hall. On the way, Rick removed his suit coat and draped it over his arm. The twill fabric bumped the back of Alex's hand. Sturdy but soft. And comfort again. Had his ability expanded to his clothing? She hurried through the doorway ahead of him.

Louis's bedroom contained even fewer furnishings than Mr. Godfrey's did and was in need of much greater repair. The blankets heaped at the foot of the small trundle bed were torn in several places, and the wardrobe had more nicks and scrapes than any finish work she'd ever seen. A large wooden crate sat against the wall beneath the window, and a pencil lay beside it on the floor. His writing desk?

Rick stepped next to her again. The floor creaked beneath his weight. "Notice anything?"

"The scent's not in here, but—" She walked to the window and pulled back the tan curtain. While there weren't any spider webs on these ledges, a single dead plant draped over the edge of a cracked brown flowerpot.

"Monk's Bane?" Rick said.

"Monk's Bane has purple flowers." She leaned over the wilted orange flower and took a deep breath. Nothing stirred or tingled within her. It was possible that might be because the plant had lost its life force, but more likely, it was—"A simple geranium."

She looked over her shoulder at Captain Sutter. She expected to see an emotionless stare, but instead he looked down at his boots. Ivy had planted herself on top of them.

"Come here, kitty," Alex said.

Ivy slowly stood, as if she were the only being in the world with anywhere to go, and walked to Alex. Alex crouched down to her, and Ivy leapt into her arms.

"You don't think it's the Night Hag, do you?" Rick said.

Alex hugged her cat. "I never did, but now I'm even more of that opinion. Let's move on."

"What makes you say so?" Rick whispered.

Captain Sutter nodded, straightened his uniform jacket, and headed for the door. His footsteps clomped smartly across the wood floor.

"Because of the Monk's Bane?" Rick added.

"Somewhat, but really, Rick. Demons? It sounds like a fabricated ghost story."

"You're forgetting I've seen ghosts. Fought them too." Rick motioned for her to leave with him out of the room.

Alex pursed her lips. That's right. She had forgotten. "Very well, I'll concede on your say-so there are disembodied spirits in this world. But I still don't believe they can kill. You're still alive, aren't you?"

"I was the last time I checked." He caught hold of her hand, stopping her at the top of the staircase. Warmth, strength, skin. "Do you agree?"

She lowered her gaze from his and removed her hand before the foolish thing sweated even more. "Be serious, Rick."

"I am serious." His breath touched her forehead.

"Mr. and Mrs. Dalton?" Captain Sutter called from the bottom of the stairs.

"Yes," Rick said. "Coming." He stared at Alex. "Shall we?"

She cleared her throat and started down the stairs. "However, while we've both seen things we can't fully explain, I have never seen abilities with the power to act for themselves. Have you?"

He trailed close behind her. "No."

"It follows, then, that abilities, powers, energies—whatever you want to call them—are controlled by a physical entity, and since ghosts don't have physical bodies, one couldn't have killed Mr. Godfrey. The murderer has to be a person."

"Disembodied spirits aren't _abilities_ , Alex. Nor, I suspect, are demons. And they do have the power to act for themselves. I've fought a few ghosts over the years. But I will agree with you on this point. While many people have dealt with ghosts, I have never heard of a ghost that had killed a human being. Only stopped them. Or perhaps lead them to destroy themselves."

"Neither Mr. Godfrey nor my aunt destroyed themselves."

Rick exhaled. "Poison, then."

"That's my strongest theory."

"So we're looking for a plant with a purple flower."

"Yes. Or anything that smells odd but not unpleasant."

***
Chapter 9

ALEX DIDN'T even have to enter the parlor, similar in size and structure to Mr. Godfrey's bedroom, to sense there was nothing of interest inside, but she perused it anyway so no one could question her findings later. Two wood chairs with spool-turned legs—one of them broken—a faded red circular sofa, and a small lackluster end table. A plain gray rock fireplace filled the far right corner of the outside walls.

"Why don't you let me carry Ivy for a while?" Rick said. "I'm sure your arms could use a break."

Alex petted Ivy's head. "You're brave to want to try that again."

"Nonsense! I've faced much more frightening foes than her. Several times, in fact."

"None with claws."

"I'll take my chances."

"Very well. But if she scratches you, don't set her down. I don't know where that rat poison is."

"Or the Monk's Bane."

Alex quickly scanned the room and handed Ivy to Rick, but the moment she released her, Ivy stiffened her spine and stared at Alex as if she'd betrayed her.

"Be good." Alex said the words, but rather than believing Ivy would obey her, she watched to see if Ivy would scratch Rick. But she didn't. In truth, Ivy had never scratched Rick, despite her obvious dislike of him. _I wonder why._

Captain Sutter motioned across the hall. "This way to the dining room."

The dining room consisted of an oblong mahogany table and three mismatched chairs. At least they weren't broken.

Captain Sutter opened the closed door at the back of the room. "The kitchen."

Alex touched the top of the table and brushed the powdery dust from her fingertips onto her skirt. She inhaled. The same gingery-sweet scent she'd smelled in Mr. Godfrey's bedchamber wafted over her.

"Monk's Bane?" Rick said.

Alex pressed her lips together. She furrowed her brows. It certainly smelled like Monk's Bane, but she still felt nothing of its life force. Could another substance have replicated it? "Maybe."

She followed Captain Sutter into the kitchen. A window framed by shelves of dishes filled the wall across from them, and there was another door on the wall at their right, but Alex's attention latched onto the mounds of dead black ants lying on top of the food-preparation table directly in front of them.

"I'm sorry to offend you, Mrs. Dalton," Captain Sutter said. "I can assure you nothing of this sort was here when my colleagues and I went through the house."

"Don't concern yourself, sir. I'm not offended in the least." Alex scanned over the piles of ants on the table and down to the floor. Shouldn't there be ants there too?

"Look here, Alex." Rick, still holding Ivy against his chest in an embrace that seemed both strong yet gentle, crouched in the corner next to the other door. He motioned at the floor beneath the lowest shelf. "This must be one of those traps Captain Sutter spoke of."

She peered into the corner beneath the cupboard. A partially-eaten round ball of what appeared to be hardened cornmeal lay a few inches away from the wall, and a dead rat lay a few feet from it. It didn't stink of death, so the body had likely been there for some time.

She looked up at Captain Sutter. "Do you have gloves with you, sir?"

"Yes." Captain Sutter pulled a set of slender black gloves from his suit coat pockets, put them on, and lowered onto his hands and knees. After he retrieved the ball, he held it out to Alex and Rick in his cupped hand.

Alex peered at the solid lump. She sniffed. "Cornmeal, to be sure, and some type of hardening agent."

"I'd bet my hat it also contains arsenic," Captain Sutter said. "We found, removed, and tested a container of it on the shelf there, along with several dough balls like this one."

"I expect you're right. Like this ball, arsenic is odorless and has no preternatural properties." She turned her attention back to the ants. "This, on the other hand, is quite extraordinary."

Rick followed her back to the table. "A preternatural substance?"

"I'm not sure yet." She lowered her face closer to the tabletop. "Every couple of breaths or so, I get a tiny whiff of something. I don't know what it is, but look here. What could have caused these insects to behave so unnaturally? Hundreds of ants swarmed to this exact spot and died. We can deduce something lured them there, but since I can see no other ants, dead or alive, in this room, I must assume they all went there and died immediately."

"Unlike that rat over there," Rick said. "It moved half a dozen feet before it succumbed to its fate."

"Exactly. Poisons, especially preternatural ones, generally affect all creatures in the same way."

"So it's something other than preternatural."

"I didn't say that."

Rick handed Ivy back to Alex, looked under the table, and then knocked on its side. "Perhaps there wasn't anything on it when the police went through the house because it's a poison table. No—a cursed one like the treasure my partners are looking for right now. Maybe Mr. Godfrey discovered this table in a basement or an attic and had only recently brought it into this house—only he didn't know it was cursed. Until he died."

Alex held back a smile. Rick was brilliant, but sometimes his imagination took over his thoughts. It was often best to go along with him for a time before reeling him back to reality. "Louis didn't say anything about Jeremiah having brought a new table into the house."

"We didn't ask him, either. Think about it, Alex. There is nothing on this table, and yet those ants died on top of it. It has to be the table. It—I know! It housed the soul of an evil demon who finally found a way out." His eyes widened. "That's it! This table belonged to the Night Hag."

Alex stared hard at him so she wouldn't roll her eyes. "That's your conclusion? I thought we agreed that a person, not a demon, killed Jeremiah Godfrey and Aunt Pauline."

"We could have been wrong about that."

Alex pursed her lips. While she had joined Rick on a few of his treasure-hunting expeditions, she hadn't gone with him and his partners to South Africa where they'd fought ghosts, discovered Ivy, and retrieved the White Lions of God's Lost Thunder Drum. Most people considered his adventures as outlandish tales, but when Rick had described them to her, both his voice and his expressions had burned through her with the sound of truth. She'd believed him just as much as he'd believed her about her preternatural sensitivities. Didn't he then deserve the benefit of a doubt? "We could have," she agreed.

Captain Sutter lifted his eyebrows. "You two aren't serious?"

"Can you think of a better explanation?" Rick said.

The captain gaped at him, but said nothing more.

"What's through that other door?" Alex said.

"The cellar."

"May we?"

"Certainly." Captain Sutter took an oil lamp from the shelf next to the cellar door, lit it, and headed down the staircase. At the bottom, he hunched beneath the low ceiling. Rick did too, but Alex, cradling Ivy, stood upright. Ivy's claws dug through her blouse. Ivy might be feeling better, but she was still afraid of the dark.

Captain Sutter moved to the center of the shadowy, square room. Dust particles floated through the air around the lamp's flame, spider webs straddled the corners of the room, and dead bug bodies spotted the floor.

Alex sneezed. "I don't think this place has been used in a while."

"I believe your right, Mrs. Dalton."

Rick handed her a clean handkerchief. She pressed it over her mouth and nose. _Much better._ "Thank you."

"Have you noticed anything in here?" Rick muttered close to her ear.

"I'm afraid to sniff. If that dust irritates my allergies, I'll be awake all night."

"I'll stay up with you, if you'd like."

She smiled beneath the handkerchief. "That's nice of you, but I'll manage." She stepped to the stone wall at her right, removed the handkerchief, and breathed inward. No tingles. "So far the room feels even deader of preternatural plant life than the rest of the house."

But just as Alex said the word _house_ , Ivy's fur lit up like a lightning ball.

Alex, raising her eyebrows, scooped Ivy into her hands and lifted her upright. She stared hard into her face. "What causes you to do that?"

"What is it?" Captain Sutter's voice wasn't much more than a whisper. He backed away from Alex and Rick. "Witchcraft!"

"Not in the least," Alex said. "Ivy is simply a preternatural animal."

"She has the astonishing ability to glow," Rick said. "But she doesn't conjure it. In fact, we haven't yet figured out why she even does it."

Ivy squirmed out of Alex's hands, jumped to the floor, and raced to the back wall. She crouched in front of it with her muscles tensed and her fur, still glowing, standing on end.

"Come back here, Ivy!" Alex said.

A child whimpered behind her.

Alex, Rick, and Captain Sutter whirled to the sound.

"What was that?" Captain Sutter said.

" _No. Please!"_

The hair on the back of Alex's neck stood straight up. She scanned the walls, the ceiling, the floor. That was Louis's voice. Where was it coming from?

" _Stop your whining!"_ a man's voice said. _"You'll stay down there 'til you've learned to obey your master."_

Alex inched closer to the sound. She scanned the wall, the floor, the ceiling, but saw nothing but stone and dirt.

" _I'll obey. I promise! Please don't shut me up here in the dark!"_

Alex's stomach clenched. Were the voices coming from the walls? It seemed ridiculous, and yet, where else could they be coming from?

Smack!

Scuffing sounds skidded down the stairs. A door slammed. Louis's wails became soft sobs.

"Dear God in heaven, please don't let this be real." Alex prayed the words inside her mind, not as a plea for help but to comfort her heart, because everything inside her knew the sounds were real. Just as real as those she and Rick had heard in her uncle's office _when Ivy had glowed!_

Rick grabbed Alex's arm. "Let's get out of here!"

Ivy charged up the stairs ahead of them. Alex, Rick, and Captain Sutter raced after her. No one stopped until the four of them stood near the front gate outside the house. Ivy, no longer glowing, jumped into Alex's arms, and Alex, suddenly overpowered by pent-up emotions, moved into Rick's open arms. She pressed her head against his chest. Had Mary known a terror similar to what Alex had heard in Louis's voice before she'd been murdered?

Rick held Alex tighter. She clung to his waist, his strength, his comfort flowing over her like morning sunlight. Several minutes passed. Finally, she pulled herself together, wiped her eyes, and stepped away from him.

The three stared at one another.

"What was that?" Captain Sutter said.

The paleness in both men's faces and the brightness in their eyes told Alex they, like she, knew exactly what they'd heard.

"Jeremiah Godfrey was a monster," Rick said at last.

"No wonder Louis prayed the Night Hag would kill him," Captain Sutter said.

"What?" Alex said.

Captain Sutter frowned. "I'm not surprised he didn't tell you. He wouldn't admit it afterward, only said it when my colleagues and I first found Jeremiah's body. But after what we heard—if anyone had done that to my son, I'd have killed him."

"No one would blame you," Rick said.

Alex swallowed. Louis had been the only one in the house when Jeremiah had died— _opportunity_. The scent of Monk's Bane in the house along with Jeremiah's earlier illness indicated poisoning— _means_. Wanting to escape abuse, praying for Jeremiah's death— _motive_. "Except the law," Alex said. "The law would blame anyone for killing Jeremiah Godfrey, even under those circumstances."

Both men stared hard at each other and turned to Alex.

"We don't know anything," Rick said.

"More importantly, we can't prove anything," Captain Sutter said. "The coroner listed Jeremiah Godfrey's cause of death as unexplained, and as far as I'm concerned, that description still stands."

Alex faced the road. They had no tangible proof of who'd killed Jeremiah Godfrey, but she knew, and Rick and Captain Sutter knew, that the facts pointed to Louis. Would it be right to force a young boy—a child who'd faced such abuse—to face the penal system for murder?

"I do think we better tell Uncle Henry," she said.

***
Chapter 10

ALMOST AS soon as Alex and Rick stepped inside Watson Manor, a servant standing as stiff and straight as his pressed suit handed Rick a telegram.

Rick glanced at Alex, read the note, and pursed his lips. "I need you to send a reply," he said to the servant.

"Yes, sir."

Alex clenched her teeth and turned away from Rick. She headed to the stairway. She knew that expression. Rick's telegram had to be news from one of his partners about that treasure they were hunting. Which meant Rick would be leaving soon. _Of course._

"Alex, wait," Rick said.

She hurried up the stairs. "I'll meet you in Uncle Henry's bedchamber," she called over her shoulder.

But she didn't go straight to Uncle Henry's room. She stopped at hers and carefully folded, refolded, and finally laid a blanket in the corner rocking chair. "Take a nice nap," she said to Ivy as she set her on top of it. "The windows are locked, and I'll close the door behind me when I leave. No one will bother you."

Ivy sunk into the blanket's softness as if she knew Alex now knew she was well. _And what makes her fur glow._

Alex set her hat on top of the bureau. She folded her arms across her chest and paced between the wardrobe where Alistair stood in the middle of his jar on top of it and the bed. Someone—the maid?—had tucked the blankets so tightly beneath the mattress, Alex could have played marbles on it. The way she and Rick had done on their first bed soon after they'd married. They'd laughed, bargained, captured each other's favorite marbles, but in the end, he'd won the game, and gloating over his prowess, had gone off with his business partners to explore the canyon a few miles from their home. He and his partners had heard a bank robber had hidden his loot there.

She'd laughed about it then—called him a 'little boy' when he hadn't returned until the next morning—because they were friends, and friends let friends live their own lives. But friends also did not leave when tough times came. Like Mary's death. And now he was about to leave her again even though he'd said he'd help her find Mary's killer.

She ran her hands up and down the lengths of her arms. At least she hadn't let herself fully trust what he'd said. She would not be hurt this time. _Please, God._

She sniffed, stood taller, smoothed her hair back from her face, and stepped into the hall. She closed the door firmly behind her.

"I'm glad to see I didn't miss you," Rick said.

He leaned against the wall directly across the hall from her room. Had he waited for her?

Alex glanced at her uncle's bedchamber door at the end of the hall.

Rick looked down at her empty arms then back into her face. His eyes narrowed. "Where's Ivy? Everything all right?"

"It will be." Alex, clenching her jaw, marched toward her uncle's door and knocked.

Rick followed her.

"Come in," Uncle Henry called from inside.

Alex clasped the doorknob, but despite still telling herself that nothing was wrong, that it didn't matter that Rick would soon leave her to handle things alone _again_ , her fingers trembled.

Rick wrapped his right hand around hers. The trembling stopped. "Don't worry about Louis," he said. "He'll be fine."

Alex bit her lower lip. Did Rick know how close he was to her? That if she edged a mere few inches to the right, she'd be within the crook of his arm? "That's easy enough for you to say, I suppose, since you won't have to worry about any of this for much longer."

"What makes you say that?"

She bit her tongue, shook her head. "Nothing." She turned the knob, but his grip stopped her.

"Tell me, Alex."

She looked up at him over her shoulder. Their bodies were so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. "The telegram the servant gave you when we arrived."

He didn't ask her what she meant, and she didn't offer an explanation, but at last he said, "You're wrong."

"It was from one of your partners, wasn't it?"

Rick didn't move—not his gaze, not his hand, not his body. Nor did he deny her accusation. "I didn't know I was so obvious."

"Come in, Alexandra," her uncle called again.

She moistened her lips. "Uncle Henry's waiting for us."

Rick's eyes wavered, but at last he released her hand, and she stiffened her spine. _My arms do not ache. I do not miss—Ivy._

They entered the room.

"The two of you look as if you've seen a ghost," Uncle Henry said.

"Almost," Rick said.

Alex walked toward her uncle's bed. On the way back from the Godfrey's house, she'd silently rehearsed what she should say, but still the information felt uncomfortable on her lips. She, Rick, and Captain Sutter had chosen the right course, hadn't they? "Just as you believed, we found what might be preternatural evidence that Mr. Godfrey was murdered—poisoned. But there is nothing in it that connects his death to Aunt Pauline's death."

"Further scrutiny—"

"No, Uncle. In fact, circumstances are such that Captain Sutter, Rick, and I believe we should stop our investigation immediately and keep what we've learned to ourselves."

His eyes widened. He glanced from one to the other of them. "Explain."

Alex tugged the lacy hem of her sleeve's cuff. Rick stepped in behind her and briefly squeezed her shoulder. It was a simple touch, not at all filled with his overpowering comfort, but it gave her the determination she needed to recount the vile tale.

When she reached the end of it, she inhaled as if she'd dropped a great weight. "I'm sorry, Uncle. I know it's not the answer you'd wanted, but it does provide some closure."

Uncle Henry steepled his fingertips. "It does not."

She pulled her gaze away from him and paced to the window. "In any case, Rick and I have fulfilled the purpose for which you brought us here, and we respectfully request your blessing to leave Watson Manor after—" She focused on the tall, black wrought iron fence that divided the Watson's property from its neighbor. Its individual spires pointed to the heavens.

"You can say it, Alex," Uncle Henry said. " _After I die._ "

Alex's skin tightened around her eyes. She turned back to him, watched him, pressed her lips into a straight line. She would not let emotion overpower her. Not here in front of these men.

"At any rate," he said, "I'm not certain Rick agrees with you about fulfilling your purpose here and leaving Watson Manor."

Alex looked at Rick. He gazed steadily back at her, his hazel eyes unblinking beneath his thick eyelashes. Instant heat rushed through her skin, and she folded her arms in front of her. She looked back to her uncle. It was a good thing she and Rick would soon part ways. She hadn't known it, but she apparently had feelings for him _._ Specifically him. Not just friendly feelings, and not just because he was a man and she was a woman, nor even because he was her wedded husband. She had feelings for _him._ And he would leave.

"This is a terrible business for the boy," Uncle Henry continued, "and if Sutter's fine with keeping Louis out of it, so am I. But just because Louis, if he is guilty, is too young to have killed Pauline, that doesn't mean your investigation is complete. The similarities between Mr. Godfrey's death and Pauline's may not prove that the same person killed them, but they do strengthen my conviction that my wife was indeed murdered. I still need you to find out who did it."

"You've always believed she was murdered, Uncle, and you had the evidence when it was fresh. There's nothing more for us to investigate."

"I won't believe that."

"You must. Rick and I have been through your files. We've examined Pauline's room. Maybe, if you had asked me to help you when the murder had happened, I might have sensed something, but all preternatural evidence, if there was any, dissipated years ago. It's over. Please let it rest."

Uncle Henry's facial muscles tightened. "Have you let Mary's death rest?"

"Mary's death is not like Pauline's. I don't have to prove my daughter was murdered. I only have to find the one who did it."

"And I still need to find the one who killed my wife."

"Maybe you already did," Rick said. "Maybe it was that Mr. Clemens, the man who died."

"Then prove it!" Uncle Henry said. "Prove it wasn't me!"

"You?" Alex and Rick said at the same time.

"What do you mean?" Alex added.

Uncle Henry's gaze fixed on something at the foot of his bed before lifting back to them. He motioned to a black box on top of the fireplace mantle. "There's another file in there. Sutter copied it out for me. Apparently, I was once their strongest suspect. The police could never prove someone murdered Pauline, much less that I had committed the crime, but still some believed—still do believe—I killed her."

Rick retrieved the file from the box and handed it to Alex.

Alex opened it. She scanned the words, forced herself not to gape. How could anyone have written, much less believed, such terrible things about her uncle?

"Please clear my name before I die," Uncle Henry said.

Alex ran her hand through the side of her hair. The file contained little more than snippets of police interviews with Uncle Henry full of terrible accusations. "Nothing in this file proves you had anything to do with Aunt Pauline's death, and no one who knows you will believe otherwise."

He stared at her, and though he said nothing, images of Mary's and Aunt Pauline's faces filled the air between them. Both victims deserved justice. So did she and her uncle. And Rick.

"Why don't we think about it for a while?" Rick said to Alex. "I'm sure your uncle needs to rest."

"Yes," Uncle Henry said. "Leave me for now. But please don't wait too long."

Alex sighed.

"It's been a difficult day for all of us." Rick moved in behind her and clasped her upper arms. He turned her so she faced the door. "Come, Alex. I daresay you need food. You didn't come down for breakfast this morning, and it's now nearly dinnertime."

"I haven't felt hungry," she said.

His grasp tightened briefly before he released her. "That may be, but your body needs sustenance."

He moved ahead of her and opened the door.

"I'll be waiting for your answer," Uncle Henry said.

Alex frowned. There was no point in it, but how could she refuse him? "I'll do what I can, Uncle."

Rick did a slow double take. He pressed his free hand against his pocket where he'd put his telegram.

Alex's stomach knotted. Rick's movement was simple, small, inconsequential. There was absolutely no reason it should bother her, no reason she should care that he would soon leave again. _I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and Uncle Henry's final request on my own._

"Would you please bring Pauline's file to me?" Uncle Henry asked.

"Yes," Alex said.

"Let me do it," Rick said. "I'm on my way out anyway, and you look like you'll faint if you don't get some food in you."

Alex turned away from him. Lack of food was not her problem. But then, perhaps it was better to let him think that was the problem. To let him step out of her life now, while she still had family she could trust around her. It would make his final departure easier to accept. Wouldn't it?

"Very well," she said.

***
Chapter 11

"SIT YOURSELF down," Edna said when Alex stepped into the kitchen.

The late afternoon sunlight from the small basement window streamed behind Edna's graying brown hair in an almost-angelic halo. If only Louis had been blessed with someone as kind to him after his mother had died as Edna had been to Alex when she'd moved to Watson Manor.

"I was just preparing trays of food for you and Mr. Dalton to eat in your rooms," she added. "I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds, but seeing how pale you both were when you returned from the Godfrey's, I expected neither of you would feel up to coming down to dinner. And even if you did, it wouldn't hurt to get a little extra nourishment in you."

Alex sat at the worktable in the same chair she'd often sat in when she was girl. "Where's Cook?"

Edna ladled potato and clam chowder into a bowl she'd taken from atop one of two dinner trays. She set the bowl in front of Alex. "It's her day off. You wouldn't expect her to call a bowl of chowder an entire meal, would you?"

Alex smiled slightly and stared at her spoon. The steam from the chowder warmed her cheeks almost as deliciously as the clammy scent triggered its remembered taste. "No, I suppose not."

"You're upset," Edna said.

"I'm fine."

Edna sat in the chair across from her. "I've known you for a lot of years, my girl, and I know that look. You've gotten yourself into a mess that you don't know how to get out of, haven't you?"

Alex forced a laugh. "It's nothing that serious."

Edna's gaze narrowed.

Alex dipped her spoon inside the thick chowder and slowly stirred it, cooling it. "How's Louis doing?"

"Better than one might expect. He's a strong lad. That's all I can say."

Alex froze at the tightness in Edna's voice. She scrutinized the woman's protruding eyes, her clenched jaw, her flattened lips. Had she guessed at Louis's guilt? "What makes you say that?"

Red colored Edna's face. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, I believe you do."

Edna hastily rearranged the empty dishes on the tray Alex could only assume she'd meant for Rick. "Children do not have the kinds of nightmares he has for no reason."

Alex touched her arm. "I don't mean to upset you," she said softly. "I'm sorry. I only thought, as his caretaker, you might have recognized—something like that. But we'll keep it to ourselves, won't we?"

"Of course, my girl." Edna again rearranged the empty dishes then turned back to Alex. She looked her straight in the eyes. "But changing the subject from you to the boy isn't going to work. What is it? Are you missing your outdoor adventures? Your preternatural work? Or—is it Mary?"

Alex lifted the creamy, steaming chowder to her lips and lowered it again. It was still too hot. "I wish I'd known what Uncle Henry wanted before I'd arrived."

"So it's Mr. Dalton."

The tears she'd held back all day—no, since she'd first received the telegram—filled Alex's eyes. She'd forgotten how easily Edna could read her expressions, forgotten how it felt to be so well known and loved, forgotten how quickly Edna could pull the truth from her heart. "How did you know?"

Edna's expression pinched. "When Mr. Dalton arrived the first time, the day before you did, and when he said you'd require separate bedrooms, it was easy enough to see something wasn't right."

"You didn't know about our separation until then?"

"Mr. Watson never spoke to me about it. Perhaps he didn't believe it was my place to know."

"I doubt that, Edna. He knows you love me. Heavenly stars, he let you raise me. Perhaps he expected Rick and I would mend things before there was any need to speak of it." Alex brushed a large tear from the corner of her eye.

Edna handed her a damp dish towel.

"Rick and I were only friends when we married," Alex said after she'd regained some of her composure. "I don't know why I, or anyone, should be surprised things didn't work out between us."

"You have every right to be surprised, my girl. When two people marry, no matter the reason, they contract to love and care for each other as husband and wife for the rest of their lives."

Alex stirred the soup again, but though the mild aroma warmed through her, her stomach clenched. She slid the soup bowl away from her.

Edna watched the movement. "Did he hurt you?"

"Yes."

Edna inhaled. "He has a demon inside him. I did not know."

"That's not what I meant, Edna. Rick didn't hurt me physically. He's not a violent man. He—he did only what I told him to do." Her lips trembled into a frown. "But it still hurts."

Edna placed her hand over Alex's. "Forgive an old woman for overreacting. What did he do?"

"There's nothing to forgive. I should have thought before I spoke." Alex quickly recapped the events of what she'd said to Rick and what he'd said to her that day he'd left her. "Edna?"

"Yes?"

"Is it possible to get over the pain?"

The corners of Edna's eyes crinkled downward. "It might take a long time—years even. But eventually, when the hurt scabs over the pain will ease."

"Do you forget?"

Edna shrugged and looked away. "I haven't."

_But you've learned to live with it._ Alex didn't know where that thought came from, but when it came, she saw Edna with new eyes. Edna slipping her and Fay more cake than the cook believed was good for them. Edna standing between them and Aunt Pauline when their school assignments weren't completed as perfectly as they should be. Edna sleeping on the floor in their room when lightning storms frightened them. Alex had always believed Edna was like Athena, the Greek goddess of war, but now she saw her more as an immovable shield. She had been, and judging by the determined kindness that now shone from her gray eyes, would always be Alex's and Fay's protector. No wonder Alex's aunt and uncle had put her in charge of the girls' upbringings. And yet, seeing her now through a woman's eyes, she realized Edna must have faced her own hardships.

"Did you ever marry?" Alex said.

"Yes. A long time ago."

"What happened?" Alex clamped her hand over her mouth. It wasn't polite to ask a woman why she wasn't married any longer. The stars knew she hated such questions after Rick had left, and they, technically, were still married. But even so, how could she not have heard of Edna having been married? "I'm sorry. I misspoke."

"My husband died. And it's no great secret, so you needn't worry."

"Did you have children?"

Edna's eyes glazed. "They died as babies. A flu epidemic. It's also what took their father."

"I'm sorry."

Edna stood. "I expect your chowder's cold by now. Let me warm it for you."

Alex frowned. Edna had held so much hurt inside her. Could Alex learn to be that strong as well? To still do good in spite of her pain? Alex sat taller in her chair. "I don't feel up to eating right now. I'll find something later if I get hungry."

"Has that man upset you that much?"

_That_ man? Alex swallowed. Edna's bitterness was natural for someone who loved Alex as much as she did. After all, Alex had had an entire year to come to terms with her feelings and to learn to control her responses. Edna would do the same in time.

Edna patted Alex's shoulder. "Try not to fret, my girl. Things have a way of working out."

"I hope so."

The woman pursed her lips, clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and gave Alex an appraising glance. "I dare say you've not only stopped eating more than is good for you but you haven't been sleeping much either. Your eyes are redder than I've seen them since you first came to live in Watson Manor as a young girl. Tell you what—as I said, Louis has been having nightmares the way he used to in his old home, and I promised him I'd teach him how to lock himself in the nursery. He didn't want me to sleep on his floor the way you and Fay did."

The sound of Louis's sobs in the Godfrey's cellar cringed through Alex. "That's understandable. Locking the door, I mean."

"Yes. But what I'm getting at is why don't you go up to your room and relax for a while? After I've helped Louis, I'll bring you a tray of food. Perhaps you'll be hungry by then. And after you've finished eating, you can crawl into bed—make an early night of it."

Alex nodded. It had been a long while since she'd felt so mothered. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt for her to relish it for an evening. "I suppose my problems will still be here in the morning." Would Rick?

"Or maybe they won't seem so bad."

"Like lightning storms?"

"Yes."

Alex stood and hugged Edna. "Thank you," she whispered in her ear.

"You're welcome, my girl."

***
Chapter 12

ALEX'S MIND wakened to the familiar lemony scent of the household laundry soap. She was in her old room, lying on her stomach in her old bed. When she'd closed her eyes, her stomach had felt comfortably full of warm clam chowder and freshly made tea, and the patchwork quilt her mother had made for her before she'd died had been tucked around her shoulders. That much Alex knew. What she didn't know was why she couldn't open her eyes. Was she still asleep?

Something pressed down on top of her, straddling her feet. _Edna? Is that you?_ Alex's lips wouldn't open. She gasped through her nose.

The weight moved—stepped—up to her calves. _Ivy!_ Of course. It had to be Ivy.

Alex told her arms to move, but they didn't respond, and her legs felt clenched in place. Was she paralyzed? What was happening?

The weight stepped up to her knees. It wasn't Ivy. The leg span was now too wide for a cat. _Who's there? Get off me!_

The weight moved to her thighs, her hips.

Help!

The pressure stayed astride her hips, but something else pushed against the center of her back near her lungs. Goose bumps flashed across her body. Was it a human intruder or— _the_ _Night Hag?_

Anger—or was it terror?—surged through Alex's veins. It couldn't be the Night Hag. Demons, if they were real, didn't have bodies. A mouse with a scorpion tale . . . a glowing cat . . . preternatural mushrooms . . . they had physical forms. Not demons. _Ivy, jump on it!_ _Alistair, break out of your bottle! Scratch! Bite!_

Heavier.

_Breathe!_ Demons were not made of flesh and bones. They could not kill. Humans were stronger than demons. _Leave!_

Alex's senses clenched. She must make whatever held her fast listen to her. She focused her thoughts, her breath, every ounce of her energy on her lips. _Open!_ They didn't, but her fingers trembled with the exertion.

Finally, some part of her moved! Hope surged through her. _Get off!_

The pressure steadily lifted from her back.

Go away!

The weight stepped back to her thighs. To her knees. Her feet. The pressure lifted.

Alex didn't dare breathe.

Footsteps creaked one after the other across the floorboards to the door.

_Lift your head. See who's there._ Still she couldn't move.

One more creak. She waited. Silence.

Alex, gasping, pushed up from the bed, slowly shifted into a sitting position, and placed her feet on the floor. Her gaze flew to the bureau, to her night robe draped over the foot of her bed as she'd left it, to the closed door. Ivy still lay curled atop the blanket on the chair. Who or what had been in her room?

Alex clenched her hands to keep them from trembling. Had she only had a nightmare? Or—or perhaps she hadn't been fully awake as she'd thought she was, and her mind had played tricks on her. That had to be it. All the day's talk of murder and the Night Hag must have crept into her dreams. Rick might even be proud of her when he found out she wasn't as lacking in imagination as she'd always claimed to be. _Rick. Was leaving._

Her teeth chattered, and she wrapped her bed quilt around her body. But if what had just happened had been a dream, why had she heard, felt, sensed everything around her as if she were awake? Why hadn't she been able to move?

She had no answers, but the one thing she did know was sleep would not return anytime soon. She had to find something to settle her nerves. Warm milk had been Edna's tonic of choice in her teen years, but it no longer seemed suitable.

Ivy snored.

Alex shook her head. How could that cat have slept so peacefully while she'd experienced such terror? On the other hand, if Ivy had wakened to find an intruder in her room, Alex would now have to comfort her, and right then she didn't want to comfort a scared cat. She wanted someone to hold and comfort her. Or at least offer her a cup of tea—a hot, strong, unsweetened pot of tea. Rick had taught her that remedy for sleeplessness, and it had always worked. That, not milk, was her tonic now.

Glancing about the room, she slipped on her night robe and slippers. Her lantern sat on the end table close to Ivy, but getting it would likely wake her. Besides, Alex could collect the lantern from the table at the top of the stairs. She could make it that far without light. She'd done so many times in her life.

Alex tiptoed to the door, inched it open, and peeked into the hall. No movement. No sound. Perfect.

Staring into the blackness, she ran her hand along the wall until she reached the staircase. She found the table, ran her hand across the top of it. No lantern. Had someone—something—taken it?

Shivers shot down her back. _Don't be an idiot! There is no such thing as a Night Hag._ Someone—a person—must have needed the lantern. Perhaps Louis? Maybe he'd also had a nightmare and wanted the comfort of an extra light.

She glanced toward his room and frowned. No light seeped beneath his or any other door. Perhaps a servant had needed it. Nightmares weren't catching, were they?

Alex ran her hands along the wall until she found the banister. She sighed. This would lead her down to the kitchen. It was all she needed.

At last, she reached the basement floor. A stream of light flowed out from beneath the bottom of the kitchen door. A pot clanged. Alex hadn't checked the time before she'd left her room. Was it already time for Cook to start breakfast?

She turned the doorknob and stepped inside. A single lantern rested in the center of the worktable, but Cook did not stand behind it. Rick did. Rather, he leaned against the table with his hands pressed flat against the tabletop. His hair hung limply in front of his face. He wasn't wearing a jacket or a vest, and his white shirt was open at the neck down to his sternum. He didn't usually sleep in his daytime clothes. Hadn't he changed? Was something wrong?

He looked up. "Alex?"

She quickened toward him. Even in the lamplight, his face looked pale. "Are you all right?"

"I've got a bug, I think. I thought a cup of tea might settle my stomach." A bowl of tea leaves, an infuser, and an empty water kettle sat on the table in front of him. "I hope I didn't wake you when I passed your room on my way down."

Alex studied Rick's gaunt features, his drooping posture. "How long ago were you there?"

"Five, maybe ten, minutes ago. I didn't wake you, did I? I'm sorry, Alex."

She arched an eyebrow. What she'd heard and felt had been directly in her room, not in the hall. And anyway, what reason would Rick have to try to frighten her like that? "I had a nightmare. Like you, I came down for some tea."

He held her gaze. Sweat glistened along the top of his forehead. "What was your nightmare? Not the Night Hag, I hope?"

"I—don't know what it was. But sit. You look like you're going to collapse at any moment." She stepped next to him, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and helped him into the chair she'd sat in earlier that evening. "I'll make the tea. You rest. You have a big day tomorrow."

"I do?"

"Whether you travel by horse, train, or coach, you're bound to be tired by the end of it. Being sick will only make it worse."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your treasure. Your partners sent for you, as I recall."

Rick slouched back in his chair and set his forearm on the table. "That. I sent a telegram telling them I'm not ready to go just yet." He looked up at her and held her gaze again. "I have a situation here that still needs—adjusting."

"Oh?" She took the kettle from the table and held it under the water spigot above the sink. "You're not talking about Aunt Pauline's death? Uncle Henry's persistent, but he's also thorough. I really doubt there's anything left for me to find, much less anything to take up your time too."

She set the kettle on the stove, stoked the fire, and headed back to the worktable.

"Alex?" Rick's voice was almost a whisper.

She looked to him. His eyes shone up at her despite the low light. She cleared her throat. "Why don't I tell you about my nightmare while we wait for the tea?"

"Very well. What was it?"

She sat in the chair across from him. With Rick in the room, her recounting of the events sounded to her like a made up tale, but when she got to the part about hearing the footsteps creak across the floorboards toward the door, Rick sat taller.

"A week ago, I'd have sworn what you'd experienced was a dream," he said, "but after what we underwent today at the Godfrey home, I'm not sure of anything right now. Do you believe it was a nightmare?"

"I don't know. It seemed so real, and yet when I was finally able to sit up and look around, I found my night robe still lying where I'd put it before retiring. Whatever it was that had climbed on and off my bed would have had to disturb my robe if it had been human, but it didn't look like my robe had been moved at all. You didn't see or hear anyone in the hall when you left your room?"

"No. What about Ivy? Could it have been her? Was she glowing or anything?"

"Sleeping. No glowing."

Rick placed his hand over hers where it rested on the table. "The details have a lot in common with the Night Hag death."

"The Night Hag's not real, if that's what you're thinking."

"Perhaps not, but—" He drew his brows together. "Pauline didn't die of natural causes, as far as the medical examiner could determine, and yet no one found signs of an intruder in her room, either."

The kettle whistled. Alex moved to stand, but Rick's grip tightened around her hand. His gaze deepened.

Sudden heat rose to her cheeks. "What is it?"

"You're so beautiful."

She caught her breath, blinked, forced a laugh. "You're kidding, right? I'm in my nightgown, and my hair's a mess."

"You're never a mess."

Alex's muscles stiffened, but she forced another laugh. Compliments often helped Rick work his charm on other people, but they had never worked on her. Had he forgotten that was one of the reasons he liked—used to like—her? "That's not what you were going to say. You're up to something, aren't you?"

"You're right." The edges of his lips tipped upward. "That wasn't what I was going to say. Not then, anyway."

She glanced toward the stove. Why did he keep looking at her like that? Did he have a fever? "I should get the tea. I think you might be sicker than you think."

He released her hand. "Yes. Go."

She got up from her chair, took a white teapot from the shelves on the wall at their left, and set the teapot on the work table.

"You're also right about me being up to something." Rick's laugh sounded strained.

"I knew it." She grabbed a hot pad and went to the stove for the water kettle. "All right, what is it?"

"You needn't worry. It's only what I said before. I don't want to give up on us, Alex. I want to come home. To you."

Alex's heartbeat leapt into her throat. She stared at the kettle, but she couldn't think, couldn't make her lips move. "What if that's not what I want?"

"I hoped—what do you want?"

She returned to the worktable. Hot tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she stared hard until they dried there. What she wanted was for Uncle Henry not to die, for Mary not to have died, and for Rick not to have abandoned her, but none of those things were true.

Rick pushed himself to his feet and, after leaning against the chair back another moment, walked toward her until he stood less than a foot away from her. "I love you, Alex. I didn't know it until I climbed into the carriage the day I left, but that's the truth of it."

Alex scooped two spoons full of tea leaves into the tea infuser and set it in the teapot. She poured steaming water over the infuser and closed the teapot lid. Rick had never lied to her before. His expressions were much too open for him to be good at lying. But even with all those things still true, how could this statement be anything but a lie? "You left," she said.

"I wish I hadn't. I wish—" His gaze wavered. "You needn't worry, Alex. I won't bother you with this, and I won't push, but I believe you should know I'm not willing to give up on us. I have every intention of wooing you the way I should have done in the first place. I want you to be my wife."

Alex's breath stopped. Never had a man said anything even remotely that blunt to her before. Rick hadn't even proposed. His parents and her uncle had simply asked them if they would consider marrying, and they'd agreed. What should she say? How should she feel? "I am your wife."

"Not in your heart. I've missed you, Alex. Everything about you. The way your voice cracks when you wake up in the morning. The—" He swallowed.

She bit the inside of her lower lip. She hated hurting him, and, truth be told, she loved and missed things about him too. She'd even come to realize she couldn't blame him for Mary's death. The past day they'd spent together had taught her he had loved their daughter as much as any father ever loved a daughter. _But_ when things got hard, he'd left her, and he hadn't come back until her uncle forced the issue. How could she trust him the way a wife needed to trust her husband after such betrayal? Certainly, sending Vera to her had been a kind gesture, but when looked at in a more prudent light, it had still been a way for him to ease his conscience from a distance. Fay had been right when she'd warned Alex that men like Rick, adventurers, would never be the settling-down kind.

"Friendship is all I want," she said.

"Well, then." Rick inhaled, placed both his hands on her upper arms, and turned her toward him. He kissed her softly on the forehead. "Friends it is—for now."

Her insides rolled over with that physical need for him she'd only recently realized, but she looked up at him with an expression as empty as any she'd used when she'd gone out in public during those first months after Mary had died. Passivity had become her shield. "The tea's ready."

He smiled, but his eyes drooped. "We best drink it then. And afterward . . ."

"Afterward?"

"I won't be sleeping for a while, and I doubt you will either. Why don't we take another look at Pauline's room? And bring that cat."

Alex tilted her head. Had he noticed the connection between Ivy and Louis's sobs in the Godfrey's cellar as she had? "I thought you didn't like her."

"Feelings have a way of changing over time. I hope."

***
Chapter 13

IVY JUMPED into Alex's arms the moment Alex opened her bedroom door. She shifted her to her left arm and took her silk handbag out of the bureau with her right. After all that had happened at the Godfrey's that day, Alex had forgotten to give the key to Pauline's room back to Edna.

Alex handed her handbag to Rick. "The key's in the bottom, but be careful not to stick your finger on my embroidery needle."

"Since when did you take up stitching?" Rick set the lantern he'd brought from the kitchen on the bureau, separated the handbag's drawstrings, and peered inside. He pulled out a small container and held it up to the light. "Crickets?"

Alex pointed to the jar on top of her wardrobe. "They're for Alistair. He's sort of Vera's good luck charm. She made me take him with me."

"And the stitching?" Rick set the jar of crickets on Alex's food tray.

"Vera showed me the basics and told me it might help me keep my mind busy while I was on the train. She was right. The train ride was long enough that I almost finished an entire pillow cover." Alex glanced away from him. "Thank you for her, by the way."

"Sure." He fumbled through her handbag again. "Ouch!"

"I told you to watch out for the—"

He smiled weakly— _was he feeling badly again?_ —and pulled out his hand. It wasn't hurt at all. "I believe this is the key?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "You know this is serious, don't you?"

"Serious doesn't mean dead. Sorry. Poor choice of words."

Alex shook her head, followed Rick, who was once more carrying the lantern, into the hall, and closed the door behind them. Rick's expression pinched just before he doubled over.

Her mouth turned dry. "Please stop kidding around."

Rick's shoulders drooped. "I thought the tea had fixed whatever had upset my stomach earlier, but I guess I was wrong."

Alex petted Ivy, hoping it would soothe her cat enough that she wouldn't meow and wake everyone in the house. "Maybe you should go to bed. This can wait until morning."

"It's all right. It'll pass in a minute."

Alex studied his face. "I'm not so sure."

Rick pressed his lips into a straight line, eyed Alex out of the corner of his eye, and slowly straightened his stance. The pinched look softened, but only slightly. Had the sickness subsided, or was he only pretending it had? Alex suspected it was the latter, but if she was right, why would he push himself now? Pauline had died years ago. Surely investigating her room could wait until the morning.

Rick slipped the key into the lock and turned the knob. "It's been a while since we've been alone together in the dark."

Alex jolted. Was that what this was about? His sickness, the inability to sleep—just a ruse to be alone with her in the dark?

He pushed the door open and stepped into the center of the room. She, sighing in relief, followed him.

Pauline's room had originally been a guest room, but the day she'd died, after her quarrel with Uncle Henry, she'd angrily retired to that room for the night. It contained only a few of her personal belongings.

Ivy leapt from Alex's arms to the floor.

"That's odd," Alex said. "Ivy usually won't let go of me, especially in the dark."

"I can't say I blame her for that." Rick set the key next to an empty food tray on the small table next to the door and walked to the middle of the room. He held the lantern at arm's length in front of him. His hand shook slightly. "Where do you want to start?"

Alex scanned the room. Pauline's bedchamber looked much like her own room, with a large plush chair, a bureau, a rocking chair, an unmade bed, an end table beneath the window, and a wardrobe closet. "How can one know if an intruder's been in the room if everything is just as it was when you last saw it?"

"You're thinking of your nightmare."

"Or whatever it was."

Rick moved back to her and straightened the collar of her night robe. When his thumb brushed the side of her neck, shivers shot through her body.

He held her gaze. "My only suggestion is we look for something unusual. When my partners and I finally found the burial place for Bavo the Great's lost treasure, we found the blade of a seventeenth-century knife among the surrounding rocks. It's what led us to the treasure."

"What's so unusual about a knife?"

"Bavo the Great hid his treasure in the fifteenth century."

"You mean someone got to the treasure before you did."

"It looked like it."

"But you collected it, didn't you?"

"We did."

"But if someone had already been there, why didn't he take it?"

"We don't know." He grinned. "Maybe a ghost fed him Monk's Bane, and it killed him."

Alex moved to the window so Rick wouldn't see her smile. Their bantering was one of the things she had missed. "That's not likely."

"Or—maybe someone was still guarding the treasure after all that time and killed the earlier robber. I've heard stories of such things."

"A two-hundred-year-old guard?"

"You never know. Maybe he drank an elixir of life." Rick moved the lamp beneath his face, casting distorted shadows across his features.

She turned away from him and opened the wardrobe.

_Groan_.

Alex whirled. Rick still stood in the center of the rug.

"Is your stomach bothering you again?" she said.

"That wasn't me."

"Please don't tease me about this."

"I'm not."

_Groan._ It was a woman's voice. It came from the bed.

Goose bumps flashed over Alex's body. She whirled. "Ivy!" Ivy's fur glowed like white light. She jumped off the bed and scampered beneath it. "She's doing it again."

"Doing what?" Rick said.

"Making sounds come out of nothing."

"You think the cat's doing that?"

"It makes sense, doesn't it? Whenever she glows, l—we—hear something—a ghostly something."

"Whenever she's glowed here in Massachusetts, you mean."

And in the cave. "More than here, Rick."

Groan.

Despite Alex's determination to keep her faculties about her, her hands turned clammy. She shoved them beneath her folded arms and hunched her shoulders.

Rick placed his hand on her upper arm. "Should we leave? We can come back tomorrow—when it's daylight."

Warmth from his touch spread through her, but she shook it off. "Of course not! We've got to investigate that noise _now_."

"That's my girl." He stepped toward the foot of the bed and looked under it. "Ivy? Where'd you go?" Rick's knees gave way. He clenched the bedpost and pulled himself face-first up onto the mattress.

"Rick!" Alex grabbed his shoulders and pulled him around onto his back. She pressed her hand against his forehead, checking for a fever. His skin felt cold. "We've got to get you back to your room." She sat beside him.

A noise sounded outside the door. She looked to it. Was someone out there?

"I'm fine," Rick said. "Whatever it is will pass in a minute."

Light burst from beneath the small table by the door. So that's where Ivy had gone.

The tinkling of metal on glass. A clatter.

" _Dash it all!"_

Ivy shot across the room and leapt into Alex's lap. More whispery sounds filled the room.

" _You coddle the children too much,"_ Aunt Pauline's voice said.

" _I'll do better, ma'am."_

" _See that you do, or I'll have to let you go." Clinking. "There's something wrong with this tea."_

" _I made it the same as always."_

Pouring liquid. Another Clink. "Then make it again. No-no! Leave the plant and get me a new cup!"

Ivy turned round and round atop Alex's lap before jumping onto the end table and then to the windowsill. She pressed her body against the glass. The glow disappeared.

Rick took Alex's hand. "Did you recognize those voices?"

"Aunt Pauline and Edna." Alex placed her hand against Rick's cheek. "How are you feeling now?"

He didn't answer, but his gaze intensified.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Did you hear what the voices said?"

For a moment, Alex thought Ivy might jump back into her lap, but when Ivy instead scampered to the corner chair, Alex recalled each of the sounds and voices that had filled the air moments ago. Groans, dishes, Aunt Pauline and Edna, and . . . Alex's breathing paused . . . and Aunt Pauline threatening to let Edna go.

Alex jumped to her feet. "It was a one time, off-the-cuff threat."

"Are you certain?"

Alex's thoughts flashed over memories from her past. Aunt Pauline had been angry with Alex during so much of her first years at Watson Manor, but Edna had always smoothed things between them. Later, Alex had figured her view of Aunt Pauline had come through child-colored eyes, but now . . . Had Aunt Pauline threatened Edna more than once? Did Edna have— _motive_?

"Don't be ridiculous," Alex said. "We don't even know if what we heard is what really happened. Maybe it's a trick of some kind." She rubbed the back of her neck. The cave, the office, the cellar, this room. Could a cat be a magician?

"You know as well as I do it wasn't a trick. Ivy is a cat, not a witch. What we heard in the office and then again in the Godfrey's cellar came from real events, real emotions. I know it's hard, but you've got to accept it, Alex. The dinner dishes, the voices, even the dead plant your uncle listed in his file—all of it makes sense when connected with Edna."

"What do the dead plants have to do with anything?"

"It sounded as if your aunt poured the tea on the plant."

Alex's breath came too fast. Her thoughts flashed from one point to the other. Monk's Bane tea could kill plants. "A dead plant isn't physical proof of—of anything."

"Maybe not." Rick smiled sadly. "But I think you'll soon have more than enough proof."

"What do you mean?"

"Edna brought me a dinner tray this evening."

"What of it? She brought me one too."

"I can't move my legs, Alex."

"What?" Alex grabbed Rick's calves. Even through his pants, his legs felt more like stiff clay than warm flesh. "I'll go for the doctor."

"Don't," Rick said. "The cold is quickly crawling up my body. I'm afraid I won't be here when you return, and I'd rather you were here when—"

Alex held her breath.

"I'd rather not die alone."

"You're not going to die!"

The door opened, and Edna walked into the room. She softly closed the door behind her, locked it with the key Rick had left on the end table, and slid that key into her apron pocket. She took a deep, satisfied breath. "Yes, he is."

***
Chapter 14

"THERE'S NO need for you to worry, my girl," Edna added. "Mr. Dalton will die, and you will find happiness again."

"What are you talking about? I don't want Rick to die. And I certainly won't be happy if he does." Alex rushed to Edna and grabbed both her shoulders. Rick's talk about poison was nonsense. This was Edna—her Edna—the woman who'd cared for her after her own mother had died. "We've got to stop whatever's happening to him. Help me, Edna. Please?"

Edna's blue eyes sparked in the lamplight. "I'm sorry, my girl. We can't stop the poison. But you needn't worry. This is the right course. He won't be able to hurt you anymore."

Ivy jumped onto the bed next to where Rick lay. Her fur lit up like a ball of lightning.

" _What is this?"_ Aunt Pauline's voice whispered over the air.

" _Something to help you sleep,"_ Edna said.

" _I don't want to sleep!"_

Glass crashed.

" _Pouring the rest out won't stop the Monk's Bane_. _You already feel it, don't you?"_

Cold plummeted through Alex's core. She clenched Edna's arms. "You killed Aunt Pauline?"

"Yes, dear."

"How could you?"

Edna smiled gently. "I loved you. Loved Fay. I couldn't let her keep hurting the two of you."

Rick groaned. It was a rough, guttural sound that rumbled from deep inside him, pulling, it seemed, at a similar place inside Alex. She hurried back to him and placed her hand on top of where his hand rested on his stomach. His fingers felt like dry icicles. "Please, Edna. Tell me how to help him!"

Edna clasped Alex's shoulder. "It's best to just let it be, my girl. See how it is with Louis? He struggles some, but he is better off without that man, and he knows it. You will know it too."

"What are you saying?"

"She's saying she killed Mr. Godfrey as well as your aunt," Rick whispered. He struggled to sit upright but finally flopped back against the bed.

Alex clasped Rick's cold hand in both of hers and gaped up at her beloved nanny. Edna, not Louis, must have been responsible for the dead plant she and Rick had found at the Godfrey's house. And the ants. "You couldn't have done that, could you? You didn't even know Jeremiah Godfrey."

"I'd seen enough of him at community events and such, how he treated Louis, and how the boy feared him. He was just like Pauline. Like my mother too. They all had the same evil in their eyes. You understand me, don't you, my girl? I couldn't bear to see that evil any longer. Their eyes had to close forever, and I knew how to make that happen."

Alex's fingers trembled. She couldn't blink, could hardly breathe, but at the same time anger, hot and protective, built up inside her like a keg of pressurized explosives. Something was wrong with Edna. Maybe she needed a doctor's care. But Alex could not—would not—let whatever that wrongness was kill Rick. She scanned the room. She had to find a way to get them out of there before he— _No! Rick will not die!_

Rick must have read her expression, because he slipped his hand out from under hers and placed it on top of her forearm. His touch was cooler than usual, but it was still steady and calm. He was dying, and yet he was still trying to comfort her.

"Did you mix the poison in their food like you did mine?" Rick asked Edna.

"It was easy enough to slip the Monk's Bane into Mr. Godfrey's refreshment after the ball game," Edna said. "It doesn't mix as well in lemonade as it does in tea, but as you shall soon see, both liquids can do the job."

Alex stood, whirled, placed herself like a shield between them. "Edna! Richard Dalton is my husband."

Edna slowly shook her head. "Your marriage is only a temporary inconvenience, dearest. I learned two things when my mother cultivated Monk's Bane and poisoned my brothers and sister with it. I think, as a scientist, you will understand such learning."

Alex's insides cringed backward, but she stiffened her stance. She glanced at the locked door. "Tell me how to save him."

"The first thing I learned," Edna said, "is if I could overcome my fear enough to take daily sips of Monk's Bane tea, I could develop an immunity to it. I sometimes wonder if my mother died proud of what I'd learned or angry because I had rid myself of her before she'd rid herself of me." Edna sighed. "And two, one needn't be bound to misery all of one's life. A person can make changes. I'm helping you make those changes."

Alex lunged toward the door, but Edna stopped her mid stride. Her grip viced around her arm. Had the woman always been that strong?

"Did you poison my food too?"

"Just enough to calm you so you could sleep through the night."

The hair on the back of Alex's neck stood. "I won't let you kill Rick." She yanked her arm from Edna's grasp and raced to the door. She pounded on it, turned the knob back and forth. "Help! We need a doctor! Someone get the police!"

Edna squeezed Alex's shoulder and pulled her away from the door. "There's no need to make such a fuss, my girl. Mr. Dalton will be gone in a few minutes, and everything will be put right. Why don't you let me make you some tea to calm your nerves until he is gone?" She chuckled. "I don't mean Monk's Bane tea, of course."

"I don't want more tea" Alex spat. She rushed back to Rick and again placed the back of her hand against his forehead. Though sweat pooled along his hairline, his skin felt even cooler than before. She pulled a folded blanket out from under his feet and draped it over him.

"Thank you, luv." His whisper faded into a groan.

"Please let me out of here, Edna. I've got to get help." She yelled the last word. "Can't you see how wrong this is?"

Edna took the chair above where Ivy hid—Ivy scrambled under the bureau—and slid it next to the door. She sat and clasped her hands in her lap. "Destroying evil isn't wrong."

Rick coughed. Alex slid her arm under his shoulders, lifted him slightly upright, and pulled the blanket to his mouth. Perhaps the warm air would soothe his cough.

"I love you." Rick's mouth barely moved, but his eyes clung to Alex's gaze. She touched the artery at his throat and pressed her hand against his chest. His heart still pulsed, but not strongly the way she remembered it. She had to do something to help him _now_ or it would be too late, but what?

Her mind raced over every plant she knew, both natural and preternatural. Crimsonica? It could pull heat out of the earth, but could it pull poison from a body? Syllitac? What about Aloe vera? Nothing. _No, there has to be something!_ Her thoughts paused. _In my room._

Alex laid Rick against the pillow and charged at Edna. She grabbed her arms. "You know that poison. You must know its antidote."

Edna broke free from Alex's grasp and slapped her across the face. "There is no antidote! Now sit down. I taught you how to behave better than that."

Alex fell backward. Her head hit the table next to the bed. Her ears rang.

"Oh, my dearest girl!" Edna bent over her and clasped her hand between hers. "You startled me, and—please forgive me."

Alex gaped. Were those real tears in Edna's eyes? After all Edna had done, did she truly care for her? If so, maybe Alex could manipulate that affection. "Edna, please don't let Rick die. We've had troubles, it's true, but he's my friend—the best friend I've ever had. If you kill him, _you_ will hurt me more than anyone ever has."

Edna's pupils wavered. Her cheeks blanched. "Don't lie to me."

Alex pulled herself to her feet. "I'm not lying."

Edna edged backward. She shook her head. "It's not true."

No longer thinking, only feeling, Alex gathered all her pent-up emotions, sat next to Rick, and kissed him squarely on the mouth. Rick's hands moved to her waist, but she didn't flinch. Instead, she slid her arms tightly around his neck and pressed her body against his. His hands moved weakly to her back. Their lips clung together. They clung so long that loneliness Alex hadn't known she felt surged from within her. Tears filled her eyes.

At last, she pulled away from him. His gaze bore into hers but she looked away, looked at Edna. Edna's chin quivered.

"Please, Edna. I love him."

Edna shook her head. "It's too late."

Crashes. Thuds. Pounding on the door.

"Help!" Alex yelled. "Please, help!"

The door broke open off its hinges. Four policemen ran into the room. Two grabbed Edna. The other two ran to Rick.

Louis charged into the room after them. He gaped from Edna to Alex and then to Rick. "Is Mr. Dalton dead?"

Alex didn't wait to hear the officers who were working over him answer. She raced to her bedroom and grabbed the jar from the top of the wardrobe. She didn't like it. Rick wouldn't like it. But Vera believed in it _._ And, well, he had saved Ivy. "Alistair! You're our only hope."

***
Chapter 15

sHORTLY BEFORE sunrise, Rick convinced Alex to put Alistair back in his jar. Rick was better, thank you very much, and he didn't need a big, hairy spider to bite him yet a third time.

"I'm not sure the doctor will agree with you." Alex sat at the foot of the bed. Ivy, snoring softly, lay curled in her lap. "When I said good-bye to him at the door a few minutes ago, he seemed quite impressed with Alistair. He asked if he could have one of his offspring if Vera ever finds him an appropriate mate."

"How romantic." Rick shifted his shoulders against the pillow. "Would you mind helping me sit up?"

"Just a minute." Alex carried Ivy to the chair and gently laid her on the cushion.

Snore.

Alex went to Rick's side. She reached over him, slid her right arm beneath his shoulders, and lifted him toward her. She plumped the pillow behind him. "How's that?"

His eyes, his face, his lips were so close to hers that all she could think about was their kiss. The one she'd deceived Edna with. The one that hadn't meant anything. Had it? She stood.

"So you love me?" he said.

Alex bit her lip. "I had to do—say—something to convince Edna to save you, didn't I?"

"You convinced me."

Alex looked at him. In the hours after Louis had brought the police—Louis had heard her screams and overheard some of her and Edna's confrontation from outside the door—and after Alistair had saved Rick's life, Alex had thought back on all Rick had said to her and done in the last day-and-a-half. A tiny place inside her hoped he really did want to come back to her, but the greatest part of her feared it wasn't true—that Rick would, in the end, leave her again. "I'll admit to the part about you being my best friend, but I also know you might not have been in your right mind when we talked in the kitchen. I suppose what I'm saying is, I know how important your work is to you, and I'm not holding you to—to the idea that we could start again, that we could be friends the way we used to be."

Rick shifted taller against his pillow. "I meant what I said, Alex. Yes, my work is important to me, but so are you. And so is Mary. I'm determined you and I will work this out."

She swallowed. Five years of marriage had taught her people did not change easily. "It might be too late for us."

"I don't believe it." He motioned to the jar with Alistair inside. "At any rate, I'm willing to take the risk."

Alex looked at Rick. Rick looked at her.

"You do realize Ivy might be the key," he said.

"To what?"

"Finding Mary's murderer. Maybe whoever it was left traces when he took her. That's what you are hoping to find with those mushrooms, isn't it? Physical traces? Perhaps Ivy can bring out emotional ones."

Alex licked her lips. "I wish that was possible, but Ivy's already been at every site. The yard where you last saw Mary and down by the river where the police found her body. Ivy didn't glow."

"Somewhere else then."

"Perhaps." Alex looked away from him and headed for the door. She'd reflect on that idea later, but for now she needed to collect Joe Pye weeds. Warmth and movement had returned to Rick's legs, but his chill had turned to a fever; he needed Joe Pye tea.

"You'll be back?" Rick's voice tilted upward in the way he knew both provoked and challenged her.

Alex clenched the doorknob. Friendly wickedness rushed through her. The best way to confront one of Rick's taunts had always been to tease him back with something strong enough to stop his thoughts. "Soon," she said. "But with something else that bites."

"Not another spider?"

She slowly faced him. Then, holding his gaze with the same unwavering look he'd given her several times over the last couple of days, she walked back to his side and gently kissed him on the forehead. "You'll have to wait and see," she whispered.

His mouth dropped open, and she, smiling, turned and left the room.

End

If you enjoyed _To Sleep No More_ , please write a review. Thank you.

For more Dalton & Dalton Mysteries, visit http://www.kathleenmarks.com

***

## About Kathleen Marks

Kathleen Marks is a pen name for Ronda Hinrichsen (http://rondahinrichsen.com/home.html), author of romantic suspense and speculative novels as well as the Heroes of the Highest Order (http://rondahinrichsen.com/heroes-of-the-highest-order.html) chapter book series. She loves history and frequently travels throughout the world with her husband in search of intriguing settings, characters, and stories. To learn more about Kathleen Marks, visit her website at http://www.kathleenmarks.com.

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## Speculative Novels by this Author

Trapped

When Emi Warrin wakes one night to find a thief in her mother's home, she has no idea the intruder has planted a trap—a mysterious letter that will change her life forever. Lured to the Austrian Alps with Daniel, the man she loves, Emi is thrown into a perilous, mafia-like world of feuding families and a devastating curse that spans generations. As the Firstborn She—the only firstborn female in hundreds of years—only Emi can free her family from the curse that will soon afflict her as well. But for Emi to break the curse, she must delve into her family's dark past, and she must gain the trust of those who would use her for their own evil designs.

As Emi struggles to understand her destiny as the Firstborn She, she learns everything isn't as it seems and all choices have consequences. Can Emi break the curse before it's too late?

***
