Page 66 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Harper was lucid now. An EMT was pumping the blood pressure cuff. “Daddy?” Harper’s weak voice filled the room, and Sebastian hurried to her side.
“Lass, what—?”
“Sir, we’re going to take her to the hospital. We need to have her examined more thoroughly. When was her last prenatal appointment?”
“I don’t know!” Sebastian’s face darkened. “I didn’t know she was pregnant!”
The EMTs exchanged looks.
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” Harper’s watery voice was weak.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.” His words of understanding conflicted with the storm in his eyes as he looked at Norah. “I’ll have Norah fill me in.”
The EMTs prepared to transport Harper to the hospital. Sebastian bent over her. “What were you seein’?”
Harper’s brow furrowed. “There was someone in my room. Then I got all dizzy and felt like I was going to throw up.”
“No one was there,” Sebastian countered.
“But there was!” Harper protested. “A woman. She was at the window. And then when I stood up, I started to black out. That’s when I shouted.”
“Where did she go?” Norah inserted, then bit her tongue at Sebastian’s dark look.
“I don’t know.” Harper’s face was wet with tears. Her lips were pale, and all the color was gone from her cheeks. “The music box. She was playing the music box.”
“Music box?” Norah straightened, ignoring Sebastian. “What music box?” There had never been a music box in that guest room. The only one she was aware of was downstairs in her bedroom. The one her own female intruder, or vision, or whatever she’d been, had replayed with the bird chortling its song.
“Sir, I’m sorry,” an EMT interrupted, “but we need to get your daughter to the hospital now.”
“I’m comin’ with,” Sebastian stated.
“Of course.”
The next several minutes was a flurry of activity. Norah stood as close to the wall as possible to be out of the way and out of Sebastian’s glower. She noticed a police car outside in the driveway, and when she followed the EMTs out, an officer was positioned at the bottom of the stairs.
“Would you mind giving a report of what happened?” he asked Norah.
“Yeah. She knows more’n I do, it seems.” Sebastian’s look sent a wave of hurt through Norah. He brushed past her and the officer, refusing to look in her direction again.
It wasn’t her fault that Harper had told her about the pregnancy and not him. And Sebastian’s reaction right now was evidence as to why his daughter probably hadn’t told her father. His pained expression was mixed with resentment.
“You’ve made me mad, Norah Richman. You knew an’ yet you said nothin’. Did nothin’. Now look at Harper. It weren’t no ghost neither.” He turned to the officer. “You’d be smart to dust for prints. This isn’t the first time a lass has been seen in the house when she’s not welcome. An’ Norah here, she ain’t doin’ nothin’ about it.”
It was a dig, and it hurt. Sebastian had no idea what it was like to live in the ongoing shadow of her sister’s murder. To cohabit in a house with a century-old ghost. To be afraid of the slightest movement. To know that no one would believe her if she tried to tell them what happened. If the police couldn’t catch Naomi’s murderer, they sure couldn’t catch a ghost.
23
NORAHTOLDTHEOFFICERall she knew as the ambulance pulled away from the house. He followed her into Harper’s room to see what, if anything, had been disturbed. Norah scanned the room. It all looked normal to her. The bed was unmade, the covers tossed to the side. Harper’s sweatshirt hung over the back of a chair. The shelf on the wall with antique knickknacks was in place, along with the painting of a girl and her cat. Norah observed the window. She frowned, pointing. “There. The window is open a few inches.”
The officer hiked over to the window. He eyed it, then looked over his shoulder at her. “Is there a chance Harper opened it?”
“Maybe.”
The officer peered outside. “Second floor. There isn’t a trellis or any easy way to climb up, is there?”
“No.” Norah crossed her arms over her chest. She wanted the officer to leave. At the same time, she was afraid for him to go. She glanced at an antique table in the corner of the room. On the middle of the table sat a music box identical to the one in Norah’s room. After she explained quickly to the officer, he approached the music box and, with a glove on, flicked the buttonon the front of it. The lid popped open, and the same feathery bird began to sing.
“Is your music box in your room downstairs?” he asked Norah.
