Page 42 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Sebastian nodded. “Like so many.” He moved down the row, eyeing each stone, reaching down to right one that was leaning badly to the side. “She’s not goin’ to move.”
“No. Aunt Eleanor once talked about having a grave restoration service come and work on preserving the graves, but that never happened.”
“Do most believe Isabelle Addington was buried here?” Sebastian shifted an expectant look on Norah.
She pointed to the back of the graveyard near the edge of the woods. “Some think she’s buried back there along the tree line. Others say no one ever found her body, that it’s all just a hoax.”
“So thereisa gravestone?” Sebastian asked.
Norah grimaced and stepped respectfully around the grave of a child who had passed away in 1863. “There’s a marker, yes. Whether it’s hers or not depends on which version of the tale you believe.”
“Are you saying some think her marker was put there just to make the story more intriguing?”
“Let me show you.” Norah approached Isabelle Addington’s grave marker, Sebastian coming to a halt near her. Too near her. His arm brushed hers, and while he didn’t seem to notice, Norah did. She stepped to the side a bit to put some distance between them. Pointing at the stone, she read it aloud: “I.A.—died May 3, 1901.”
“That’s different.” Sebastian studied the flat-topped stone that had lichen growing in the etchings and around the edges, with little pillows of soft green moss at its corners. “Only initials.”
“Right.” Norah bent down and chipped away at the lichen with her thumbnail. “That’s part of the debate as to whether it’s really Isabelle’s grave.”
“The date is correct.” Sebastian had pulled out his phone andwas thumbing its screen. “Your town has a decent online archive of citizen records. It lists an Isabelle Addington as having died here May 3, 1901.”
“No one contests she died here.” Norah was successful in removing a piece of lichen in theAon the stone marker. “Just whether or not this is her grave.”
“When did the sightin’s of Isabelle begin?”
Norah shook her head. “They’ve always been.” She shot Sebastian a pointed look. “Isn’t that how ghost stories work? But who’s to know who’s telling the truth? Otto claims he’s seen her, and I’ve never known him or Ralph to lie.”
“An’ your aunt? Did she ever see an apparition?”
Norah returned her attention to the lichen more for something to do to avoid Sebastian’s inquisitive stare. She wasn’t sure which side of him she preferred more. His easygoing side or this investigative side where he asked way too many questions.
“Aunt Eleanor didn’tbelievein ghosts. If she saw or heard anything she couldn’t explain, she always chalked it up to being a shadow or a reflection or just her imagination—something like that.”
“You said you an’ your sister stayed here as children?”
“As children and after we graduated high school.” Norah shifted uncomfortably, losing her balancing in her crouch by the grave and planting her knee in the damp grass to steady herself. “My dad traveled a lot. Mom liked to go with him. But we loved Aunt Eleanor, and we loved Otto and Ralph. They spoiled us.” Norah couldn’t help the fond smile those days evoked for her ... before violence and horror stained everything.
“Didyousee signs of Isabelle?” Sebastian asked.
They’d been through this round of questioning before. Norah countered his question with one of her own. “What does it matter if we did or didn’t? You’re trying to solve Isabelle’s cold case, aren’t you? Not sensationalize a ghost story.”
Sebastian was unfazed. “True. Call it curiosity then.”
Norah rolled her eyes. “No. I didn’t see any apparitions as a kid or I’d have never stayed here. Naomi didn’t either.”
“But you do now?”
Norah stilled. She looked at Isabelle’s supposed grave. The date stared up at her like a bad omen. She ran her fingers over Isabelle’s initials. “She comes now. Every so often.” Norah allowed herself to be vulnerable from her position beside the grave. She looked up at Sebastian. “I feel for her. It’s as if she can’t rest ... and neither can I.”
Harper’s phone chimed that she’d received the text. Norah avoided looking at her in the sun visor’s mirror so as not to call attention to Sebastian—who was behind the steering wheel—of her texting his daughter.
Did you tell your dad yet?
Norah waited, covertly checking her phone, which she’d silenced. Soon a text came through from the back seat of the car.
Heck no.
Norah waited a few seconds and then responded.
