Page 73 of Fear Me Not

It’s clear he thinks we’re wasting our time and that nothing we can ever do will change the essence of Windridge Hall and what happens here. But I appreciate that he’s helping me anyway. He’s doing his best to make me feel I have some kind of control over this situation.

I think of something. “What about that photograph? The one of the family who built this place. Can I see that again?”

“Sure.” He goes to the chest where he’d found it. He rifles through a few others then pulls it out. “Here you go.”

The frame is heavy, and I take it to sit under the single bulb so I can get a better view. I hadn’t paid much attention to the individual faces of the people caught in the image last time. I’d only noted that they’d been creepy, their expressions flat. This time, I pay more attention, especially to the women. The portrait has been taken from a distance to capture the entire family, right from their shoes to the tops of their heads, which means I don’t have a close-up of any of them. Even so, I study each face intently.

My heart catches as my gaze locks on the eldest of the girls. I recognize her. It’s not the girl hanging from my ceiling, but the one who’d stepped out in front of me on the road. The one who’d caused the accident. It’s her; I’m sure of it.

I move on, studying the other faces, wishing I had a magnifying glass or was able to somehow enlarge them. But as I stare at the youngest of the girls, I see the face of the woman hanging from the ceiling in my room. She’s much younger in the photograph, by at least a decade, but it’s her.

I understand now why I might have thought them to be the same person. They look alike.

“The sisters,” I say, half to myself.

“What?”

“It’s not one girl I’ve seen. It’s been at least two of them.” I think of the hand wrapping around my fingers. “Maybe I’ve even come into contact with three of them.”

Blake frowns. “You think it’s the Buchanan sisters who are haunting this place? Why?”

“I wish I had the answer to that.”

I turn the frame over. It’s sealed at the back with some tape, but it’s old and loose. I quickly run my nail down it, peeling it away from the backing board and the frame, and ease the photograph out.

On the back of the photograph are the names of all the people on the front. “Will you read them to me?” I ask Blake.

He takes the photo. “Arthur and Dorothy Buchanan. Those must be the parents. The daughters are Evelyn, Marie, Rita and Annie. And finally, the son is Clyde.”

He hands it back to me, and I turn the photograph over and match the names he’s read out to the faces. Assuming they’re listed in order, which I think they might be, they also seem to be standing in the order of ages, with Evelyn being the eldest and Annie the youngest.

Finally, standing on the other side of the girls, is the brother. Clyde Buchanan. The one Blake had said inherited Windridge Hall. Again, he’s younger in the photograph, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize him.

Something in my chest tightens at the sight of him, and fear runs in a cold wave down the back of my neck.

“It’s the sisters,” I say in a hushed voice. “Something happened to them. Something bad. And I think the brother might have been involved.”

Above, the lightbulb stutters, sending us into momentary darkness, before flickering back on. I snatch a breath and hold on to Blake’s hand, squeezing his fingers tight.

A figure appears in the doorway, and a scream escapes me.

40

LEVI

I find Blake and Aspen in the basement, hunched over old boxes.

Aspen catches sight of me and screams.

“Well, that’s not quite how I’d expected to be welcomed this morning.” I step farther into the room.

She clutches her hand to her chest. “Jesus, Levi. You scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry. It is kind of creepy down here. What are you guys doing?”

“Looking for information,” she says.

“What kind of information?”