Page 50 of Smokescreen

The thought wasn’t comforting.

But who knew these dolls were up here? She glanced at the floor. There were scuffs in the dust here also. Someone had been up here recently and grabbed one of these.

Was it the same person who’d been looking through the boxes with legal documents? Maybe the same person who’d left the other will?

Another thought hit her. What if Reid had found that will but had decided to pretend as if he hadn’t?

But if that was the case, it seemed as if he would have destroyed it. Maybe even burned it.

She needed to think that through some more.

Thunder rumbled overhead again, and Olive shivered.

Maybe she should get out of this attic. She’d found one answer she’d come looking for and another answer she hadn’t been expecting at all. There was nothing else for her to do up here.

She stood, wiping the dust from the knees of her jeans. Then she walked to the stairway.

But it had been closed.

Maybe that was the bang she’d heard.

The stairway was hinged. Had the mechanism retracted and closed on its own?

Using her foot, Olive nudged it, trying to push the door down without sending herself tumbling to the hallway below.

But the ladder didn’t budge.

She got on her hands and knees and pushed on it again.

Just like before, the hatch remained in place.

In a last-ditch effort, Olive sat on her bottom and lowered both her feet onto the stairway. She pushed, hoping her weight would propel the door downward.

Nothing happened.

This stairway hadn’t gone back into the attic on accident, she realized. Someone had closed and locked this entry on purpose.

They must have used the sliding lock to ensure it wouldn’t open from the inside.

She leaned back and sighed.

That meant Olive was stuck up here for the foreseeable future.

CHAPTER 21

Olive drew in a long, deep breath as she tried to get her thoughts under control.

Thunder still clapped overhead, seeming to shake the whole house. Lightning continued to flash, cracking the sky as rain pounded on the roof overhead.

Had Daphne done this? Had she been the one who locked Olive up here?

Or . . . what if the person who’d done this had climbed inside the attic first? What if this person hid in the shadows now, waiting for the opportunity to strike?

She repressed a shudder.

She had to stop thinking like this. Thoughts like this would only handicap her. Plus, someone couldn’t have climbed in the attic and then locked the door.

Think, Olive. Think. You’re not helpless right now.

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