Page 52 of Eldritch

She propped her hands and her hips and looked around, wondering why they didn’t build it on the ground floor and why they surrounded it with bedrooms. Beyond this curiosity, she couldn’t deny the immense room held all the beauty one would expect when money met Victorian indulgence.

Three chandeliers centered down the middle of the high ceiling. They blazed with light, as did electric wall scones on all sides. An intricately designed skylight allowed in considerable daylight. Six dramatic windows covered the west wall, three stacked over three. The same configuration adorned the east wall. When they’d first arrived at the mansion, she’d noted that these windows gave a view of the third-floor corridor on both sides. The bottom three windows on both sides were clear, while the top three windows gleamed with a paisley design of red, green, and blue. The skylight and the windows on the west and east side gave enough light without the chandeliers or scones being used. Vacuuming, mopping, and polishing the floor would require a significant amount of time. The parquet design might be original, but she couldn’t say for certain. Despite the challenge the room presented, she couldn’t deny her enjoyment of the space.

She glanced at her watch. Eight thirty in the morning. Pauline had promised at breakfast that she’d be here by now. While everyone else on the crew showed up on time under most circumstances, Pauline either cut it as close as she could to the promised time or arrived just a few minutes later.

Sybil gave up on waiting. She started the heavy-duty vacuum cleaner and became lost in the rhythm of cleaning. Someone appeared in the corner of her vision, and she jolted.

Pauline entered the north doorway, all smiles.

Perturbed, Sybil turned off the vacuum but didn’t speak, afraid she’d say something heated.

“Wow. What is wrong with you?” Pauline asked.

“You’re fifteen minutes late.”

Pauline frowned and stuffed one hand through her short hair. It stuck up as if she’d styled it that way. “Sorry, but I got a shitty call.”

“Shitty?”

“Yeah.” Pauline walked closer. “My dad called. Lina had a tantrum.”

Pauline called her mother Lina, and Sybil always thought about asking why but never did. She’d guessed from other things Pauline said that she didn’t get along with her parents. Sybil genuinely could empathize.

“A tantrum?” Sybil asked when Pauline didn’t elaborate.

“Yeah. The woman is batshit crazy.”

Sybil also knew Lina was in a wheelchair, but that wouldn’t be a reason for Pauline to have a contentious relationship with Lina. It had to be more. “As in mental illness?”

Pauline rubbed her forehead, a gesture Sybil noted the woman had done often since they’d arrived at this house.

Pauline shrugged. “More like manipulative and bitchy.”

“Aha.”

Pauline looked sad, her typically cocky expression absent.

Sybil felt compelled to ask, “Do you think her being in a wheelchair made her that way?”

“Yeah. And no. She was kinda that way to start with, from what dad said. I mean, dad is no charmer, but the stuff Lina has put us through…”

Sybil hesitated, but then said, “You never explained why she’s in the chair.”

“You remember that big smashup on I-25 on Monument Hill twenty years ago? That thirty-car pile-up in the blizzard?”

“Yes. That was awful.”

“Lina was on her way back from a trial she was on in Colorado Springs. It had already started snowing heavily by that time. She’d lost her case that day. A murder case. She was working for the accused.” Pauline’s thin shoulders lifted again. “The man had killed his ex-wife, and the evidence was all there that he did it. She knew he did it.”

Sybil’s curiosity heightened. “She took a case that was in Colorado Springs? I thought she was with a big Denver law firm?”

“She was a bottom of the rung junior partner. She knew that winning that case would promote her up the ladder. The guy she was defending was a rich asshole. Lina said he sexually harassed her the entire time she was his lawyer.”

“Oh, my God. That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, she should’ve kicked him in the nuts.”

Sybil smiled. “Yeah, but that might have gotten her fired, right?”

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