Someone who didn’t want to be known.

Someone who knew she was here and was hellbent on scaring the wits out of her. Well, it was working.

She swallowed hard, panic shooting through her as she stared at the closed doors of the elevator. If no one was in the elevator, then…She looked down the darkened staircase to the floor below.

A scream died on her lips.

In the open doorway, backlit by the barest of afternoon light, was the silhouette of a woman, a shadowy figure of a woman in a long coat with an upturned collar.

Cissy grabbed the handrail.

The woman’s features weren’t clear, but her hair was a deep red…. Oh dear Lord.

Cissy’s throat turned to sand.

The riding crop slid from her hands to tumble down the stairs.

“Mom?” she whispered, her heart in her throat, her brain screaming denials. “Mom? Is that you?”

Chapter 14

The door slammed shut.

Cutting off Cissy’s view of her mother.

It couldn’t be! Marla wouldn’t have risked coming here! No way.

So what then, Cissy? Are you imagining things? Pulling up her image when you know she can’t be anywhere near?

On rubbery legs she raced down the stairs and out the front door. Rain was pouring from the sky, gurgling in the downspouts, puddling on the ground. Cissy stepped off the porch. “Mom!” she yelled. “Damn it, Mom, where are you?”

But she was talking to the wind.

She saw no one, heard no running footsteps.

It was as if a ghost had appeared, only to fade again.

No!

She knew what she’d seen. Damn it, if she’d only had her cell phone. Following the path to the back of the house, she searched through the gardens and shrubbery, but in the ever-darkening gloom, she saw no one. Not near the trellis, nor the arbor, nor…She saw the swing, hanging from its rotting wooden frame, slowly shifting to and fro, the old chains barely rattling.

The wind?

Or a hand that had swiped it as Marla had fled?

“Mom!” she yelled again, but her only answer was the soft rush of traffic down the hill, the sweep of fir branches in the wind, the plop of raindrops.

She turned, eyeing the big house rising four stories above the ground, mullioned windows dark and ominous.

Determinedly, she trudged to the front of the house. No one was here. Lord, had it been her imagination? Had all the talk of her mother’s escape finally gotten to her? With the murder of Rory and Gran, had she, Cissy, snapped? She wasn’t afraid of her mother. Never would be.

Marla wasn’t the most loving mother on earth, that much was true, and Cissy had suffered from her share of neglect, but she didn’t fear her mother. Never would. Whoever had killed Gran and Rory was not Marla Amhurst Cahill. She wouldn’t believe it.

So what the hell had just happened?

With no answer, she locked the front door, pulled on the handle to make sure it latched, then walked along the brick path to her car. All the while she eyed the shadows and stygian umbras; the wet, shivering plants; the dark, sheltered nooks where the exterior corners of the house met.

But she caught no glimpse of a running woman, heard no frantic footsteps or rush of wild breathing.