Jonathan flew up the stairs. Lindsey could barely keep up with him. He flicked a light switch and all the second floor corridors flooded with light. When they turned right and rounded a corner, they came upon an odd and unexpected scene. Standing before Mr. Laramore’s bedroom door were Brianna and Charlotte, both struggling, and standing between them, holding them apart, was a disheveled-looking Alan in a red bathrobe.

“She’s nearly killed me!” Brianna gasped, her hand over her heart.

“What happened?” Jonathan demanded.

“Well, look at her!” Brianna cried. “She nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Charlotte made a lunge for her and was restrained with considerable effort by her husband. She did look grotesque, clad in a brilliant yellow bathrobe, with mud-brown cream on her face and her hair in curlers. The cream made the skin around her eyes look ghoulishly white.

“Stop it, just stop it,” Alan grunted, glaring at his wife. “Now, Charlotte, what were you doing out here?”

“That’s nobody’s business,” she retorted, wrenching her arm away from him.

Lindsey saw Isabella standing nearby, then Mr. Caldwell appeared, putting on his glasses. Gerard rounded the corner, obviously in borrowed pajamas. Rachel came next, wearing the calf-length, blue satin robe she’d found in the bathroom, her hair tousled, her pretty face bare of makeup. Lindsey noticed that Brianna was, for some reason, dressed in slacks and a blouse.

“What is it?” Gerard asked. “Has the old man—as they say—kicked the bucket?”

Jonathan gave him a brief but scathing glance and turned his attention back to his sister-in-law.  “Charlotte, if you planned to enter my grandfather’s room, it is my business. He’s a very sick man.”

Charlotte glared at him, took a step backward, and started gabbling. “All I wanted to do was to make sure he’s all right! How do we know he isn’t dead, with no one allowed to see him? And I found Brianna trying to sneak in the door. Why don’t you ask her what she was doing?”

Brianna avoided looking at Jonathan. “I wasn’t sneaking in the door! I was just going to ask Hensley how Mr. Laramore was, and she gave me such a fright! I think she was trying to scare him to death so he couldn’t change his will.”

Charlotte arched her neck like a snake about to strike. Alan tightened his hold. The door to Mr. Laramore’s bedroom opened a crack, and the moon face of Hensley peered out.

“I strongly protest,” he said. “Isn’t there somewhere else you can have your family quarrels?”

Jonathan was angry about something and making an effort to conceal it. “Our apologies, Hensley. How is my grandfather?”

“His condition is stable, as long as he continues to rest. He is sleeping comfortably.”

“I want the door kept locked, Hensley, and no one is to be permitted inside. When he wakes you may call me.”

Hensley looked surprised but said, “Whatever you say,” and closed the door. Everyone heard the click of the lock.

“Well,” Brianna announced, “I’m going to bed. Goodnight, everyone.”

Isabella exchanged a look with Jonathan and followed Brianna, going further down the hall to her own room. Alan and Charlotte went in the other direction, Gerard trailing after them. Mr. Caldwell had taken the room next to Brianna’s.

“Rachel,” Jonathan said, and then didn’t seem to know what else he wanted to say.

She blushed. “I want to apologize for my outburst at dinner. I—I didn’t mean to include you in what I said.”

“There’s no need to apologize. And we deserved it.”       

“Please let me know when your grandfather wakes up. I simply must speak to him.”

“I will.”

Rachel put her hand on Lindsey’s shoulder. “We’d better go to bed. I think I’d already fallen asleep when I heard the—commotion.”

“Hopefully there won’t be any more disturbances tonight. Goodnight, Rachel. Goodnight, Lindsey.”

Lindsey waggled her fingers at him, grinning, and he smiled back at her. She thought the whole scene excruciatingly funny. When she got to their room she fell on the bed, laughing.

“Did you see her? She was scary-looking!”

Rachel yawned. “Oh, dear, I’m too tired to laugh. I’m going back to bed, Lindsey.”

“I’m not sleepy. Do you mind if I read a while?”

“It won’t bother me at all. Goodnight.”

“ ‘Night.”

You don’t fool me, Lindsey thought. You just want to lie there and think about Jonathan Laramore.

She switched on the bedside lamp, turned off the overhead light, and jumped into bed. After adjusting her pillows and bedcovers, she opened Wuthering Heights to the underlined section and began to read. It wasn’t easy to understand, and she kept having to re-read certain portions. Then her mind started to wander and she thought about Ellen Laramore and the man for whom she had risked everything. Had this really been her book? Had she underlined those words because they struck some inner chord, because they spoke so eloquently of love? But it was an obsessive love—even Lindsey could see that.

At some point she had fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew Honey was sniffing at the door and growling. The light still burned on the bedside table; everything seemed very still and quiet. At that moment a scream rang out—almost the same scream as before, only dreadfully different. This scream was full of panic and horror, and it went on and on, until it stopped with startling abruptness.

Not again! Lindsey thought, suddenly wide-awake. Rachel sat up in bed. Lindsey ran to the door and threw it open.

“Lindsey!” Rachel cried. “Wait—don’t go out there—”

But she was already in the hallway, surprised to find it almost completely dark. Hadn’t there been lamps on in the hall earlier? She ran—not sure why she was running, but knowing that someone was in trouble. She would find Jonathan; his room was somewhere on the other side of the staircase. But when she reached the stairs, she ran into an uncomfortably solid object, and Jonathan caught her and said, “Careful, Lindsey, don’t fall.”

Other doors were opening; bewildered voices surged out into the hall. Jonathan found the light switch, and the staircase sprang into light. At the bottom of it lay a crumpled and unmoving form.

 

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