Cold Fire

As she crossed toward the arched opening to the antechamber, she was overcome by a creepy sense of being watched. She knew they were alone in the mill, and she chided herself for being such a ninny. But by the time she reached the archway, her apprehension had swelled until she could not resist the urge to turn and shine the flashlight into the chamber behind her.

Shadows were draped across the old machinery as copiously as black crepe in an amusement-park haunted house; they slid aside when the flashlight beam touched them, fell softly back into place as the beam moved on.

Each corner, undraped, revealed no spy. Someone could be sheltering behind one part of the millworks or another, and she considered prowling through the ruins in search of an intruder.

But abruptly she felt foolish, too easily spooked. Wondering what had happened to the intrepid reporter she had once been, Holly left the mill.

The sun was beyond the mountains. The sky was purple and that deep iridescent blue seen in old Maxfield Parrish paintings. A few toads were croaking from their shadowy niches along the banks of the pond.

All the way around the water, past the barn, to the back door of the house, Holly continued to feel watched. However, though it was possible that someone might be lurking in the mill, it was not too likely that a virtual platoon of spies had taken up positions in the barn, the surrounding fields, and the distant hills, intent on observing her every move.

"Idiot," she said self mockingly as she used one of Jim's keys to open the back door.

Though she had the flashlight, she tried the wall switch unthinkingly.

She was surprised to discover that the electrical service was still connected.

She was more surprised, however, by what the light revealed: a fully furnished kitchen. A breakfast table and four chairs stood by the window.

Copper pots and pans dangled from a ceiling fixture, and twin racks of knives and other utensils hung on the wall near the cooktop. A toaster, toaster oven, and blender stood on the counters. A shopping list of about fifteen items was affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet in the shape of a can of Budweiser.

Hadn't Jim gotten rid of his grandparents' belongings when they had died five years ago? Holly ran a finger along one of the counters, drawing a line through the thin coat of dust. But it was, at most, a three-month accumulation, not five years' worth of dirt.

After she used the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen, she wandered along the hallway, through the dining room and living room, where a full complement of furniture also stood under a light shroud of dust.

Some of the paintings hung aslant. Crocheted antimacassars protected the backs and arms of the chairs and sofas. Long unwound, the tall grandfather clock was not ticking. In the living room, the magazine rack beside the LaZ-Boy recliner was crammed full of publications, and inside a mahogany display case, bibelots gleamed dully beneath their own skin of dust.

Her first thought was that Jim had left the house furnished in order to be able to rent it out while searching for a buyer. But on one wall of the living room were framed 8 X 10 photographs that would not have been left to the mercy of a tenant: Jim's father as a young man of about twenty-one; Jim's father and mother in their wedding finery; Jim at the age of five or six, with both parents.

The fourth and final picture was a two-shot, head and shoulders, of a pleasant-looking couple in their early fifties. The man was on the burly side, with bold square features, yet recognizably an Ironheart; the woman was more handsome, in a female way, than pretty, and elements of her face could also be seen in Jim and his father.

Holly had no doubt that they were Jim's paternal grandparents, Lena and Henry Ironheart.

Lena Ironheart was the woman in whose body Holly had ridden like a spirit during last night's dream. Broad, clear face. Wide-set eyes.

Full mouth. Curly hair. A natural beauty spot, just a little round dot of skin discoloration, marked the high curve of her right cheek.

Though Holly had described this woman accurately to Jim, he had not recognized her. Maybe he didn't think of her eyes as being wide-set or her mouth as being full. Maybe her hair had been curly only during part of her life, due to the attentions of a beautician. But the beauty spot had to have clicked a switch in his memory, even five years after his grandmother's death.

The sense of being watched had not entirely left Holly even after she had entered the house. Now, as she stared at Lena Ironheart's face in the photograph, the feeling of being under observation grew so acute that she abruptly wheeled around and looked back across the living room.

She was alone.

She stepped quickly to the archway and through it into the front hall.

Deserted.

A dark mahogany staircase led up to the second floor. The dust on the newel post and bannister was undisturbed: no palm marks, no fingerprints.