Warmth lingered without the furnace, but it would get chilly by nightfall. We’d have to try turning the furnace back on at some point, but right now everyone just wanted lights and something to drink for their frayed nerves.
We huddled in the study again. I poured myself a whiskey. Rachel jabbed my arm. “Don’t get too used to that stuff. Just give me one too.”
Dudley slumped in a chair, gulping tequila straight. “I don’t know,” he told me when Montague and I asked what had happened. “I don’t—I remember a voice, a woman’s voice, and I was going downstairs, and then the door wouldn’t open. I kept dreaming my phone was buzzing—”
“I called you 30 times.” Montague was staring at him. “You called me once.”
“Really?” He shook his head and drank. “Can I get something to eat?”
Montague started for the kitchen, but Craig cut her off. “Just a minute—since we’re all stuck here, do either of you two experts have any idea what the hell is going on?”
Montague shook her head. “I’m here to document, not to investigate. I’m just glad Emil’s okay.”
Craig tuned to me. “Jurgen?”
I hesitated. “Maybe.”
That got everyone’s attention. Now I felt nervous. I sipped my whiskey.
“Well?” That came from Brandy.
I set my glass down and pointed at the wall. “Does anyone know who the woman there is?”
People turned to look, except for Dudley. The photo that Mrs. Heller had sat in front of yesterday showed an old woman in a white dress with a high-necked collar.
She was the woman in the cellar, and in the front hall last night.
“It’s been there forever,” Charley said, a can of beer in his hand.
“Mom never said anything about it.” Kathryn had red wine. “But—isn’t that the woman downstairs?”
Montague pulled out her phone. After a moment she handed it to me. “It looks like her.”
Craig elbowed his way in for a look. Montague passed it around the room. Charley looked at the photo, back at the phone, and nodded. Everyone else seemed to agree.
“So what?” Craig crossed his arms. “Who is she? Why is she—haunting the house?”
I picked up my glass. “That’s the question. We can’t ask your mother, but if she shows up again, maybe we can ask her.”
Charley snorted. “She doesn’t seem like the talking kind of ghost.”
I sipped. “You never know.”
Despite all the weird disturbances and the stress of being trapped by the snowstorm, Mrs. Chambers managed to cook dinner for the lot of us. Pasta and salad, with pie for dessert. The weather apps on everyone’s phones agreed that the snow was likely to stop around midnight, so we had a chance of getting out of the house sometime tomorrow.
The house grew slowly but steadily more chilly, but no one wanted to risk the furnace again. All the bedrooms had electric blankets and space heaters in the closets, so nobody would freeze to death in the night. Rachel and I put on extra sweaters, and the maids brought out quilts for Craig and Brandy to wrap themselves in while they watched TV. Charley went up to his room.
Kathryn was in Montague’s command center again. I joined them. Dudley sat in a corner, a wool blanket over his shoulders, shivering, a cup of hot chocolate steaming in front of him.
“Do you remember anything else?” I crossed my arms, Rachel next to me.
He shook his head. “Like I said—a woman’s voice telling me to come downstairs. I remember, uh, looking at the furnace and feeling cold, even though the fire was pretty hot. Then the door shut and I couldn’t get out. I was so cold.” He gulped some of his chocolate.
Maybe he’d remember more soon. In the meantime—“I have to ask. You have a little shady activity in your background.”
Montague turned to watch him as he set the paper cup down and crossed his arms. “Yeah. I, uh, screwed up. It was—I got into some stuff. Then I got into rehab. Nobody would hire me after that. Except you.”
Montague sighed. “I wish you’d just told me. I still would have taken you, but just—it makes me look bad.”
“Sorry.” Dudley nodded. “You can fire me.”
“I’m not doing anything right now except checking the data.” She tapped a key on her laptop. “I’ve got the stuff from my phone. And I found something from that fireball in the front hall last night. It’s just a few seconds, but it looks like the same person.”
Rachel and I leaned over her shoulder, Kathryn behind us. Montague had both frozen images on her screen.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s her. I wonder—” I straightened up. “Okay, I’m an idiot.”
“We all knew that.” Rachel punched my arm. “What’s the new evidence?”
“The picture.” I headed out to the hall.
Back in the study, no one was sitting in Mrs. Heller’s chair underneath the picture of the old woman. Craig looked up as I pulled it down from the wall. “What?”
I popped the back open and slipped the photo out. Words on the rear were written in precise black pen: Eleanor Hopewell, 1946-2003.
“Does that sound familiar?”
Craig shook his head. “No idea. Who is she?”
“Let me get my laptop—”
But before I could move, the lights went out. Again.
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