Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
T he cold metal of the staircase railing pressed into Laurel’s palm as she ascended the steps two at a time, her breath steady, her mind racing. The dim light from the few remaining candles downstairs cast long shadows that danced across the walls, but up here—the second and third floors of The Starlight Manor—darkness reigned.
She hadn’t been scared of the dark since she was a little girl. Not when she had the kind of training that came with years on the police force. But now, with the power out and the house seemingly conspiring against them, a strange tension hummed in her bones. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the air itself had thickened.
She reached the second-floor landing and paused briefly outside her suite, her portable charger plugged in near the bed, waiting for her. She reached for the doorknob, but her eyes drifted up the stairwell that led to the third floor, where the darkness deepened into an impenetrable void.
Then she saw a flicker of light.
Laurel’s muscles froze, but her heartbeat raced forward, spiked now with adrenaline. It wasn’t like the candlelight below, or even the faint orange glow of the fire from the living room. This light was different. Sharper. More deliberate.
She blinked, waiting to see if it would happen again, the way she did when the smoke alarm battery was going out and it would beep every minute. The seconds stretched out, long and quiet, until once more the flicker appeared, casting strange shadows down the stairwell.
“Almost like there’s a fire upstairs,” she said, panic gripping her now. Could the manor be on fire?
Laurel’s fingers tightened into fists, her instincts kicking in. No one was supposed to be up there. As far as she knew, everyone had gathered in the kitchen or in the living room, trying to keep the children calm and the adults from panicking.
She hadn’t worn a badge in over a year, but some things she didn’t forget. Like how to keep her breathing steady, how to move quietly, and how to assess a situation without jumping to conclusions.
Laurel had no intentions of jumping to conclusions, but she wasn’t about to ignore flickering firelight in a house that had been full of peculiarities since the moment they’d arrived. Oh, and that had been engulfed in flames before.
She took the first step toward the third floor.
The wooden stairs creaked beneath her weight, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence. She crouched slightly, her hand trailing along the bannister as she continued upward, her eyes fixed on the darkened hallway above.
When she reached the top, she paused again, listening. From her vantage point, she could just make out the faint outline of the library door, left slightly ajar. The flickering light shone bluely through the narrow gap, casting thin slivers of barely-there light across the floor.
Laurel’s heartbeat quickened as she moved forward, her steps careful and measured. She reached for the door, nudging it open just enough to peer inside.
The library sat still and quiet, the familiar scent of old books and polished wood filling the room. The kits she’d been working on with her friends waited, assembled, on the tables, and Laurel would take them to the A Very Veteran Christma s office.
But something wasn’t right. The large, floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the far wall had always provided a stunning view of the estate’s gardens below, but now?—
“The pool lights,” Laurel breathed out. She hurried toward the far wall, where sure enough, one look below showed her the dazzling, blue pool lights rippling across the grass, the deck, and up to the library’s floor-to-ceiling windows. For a moment, it looked like the water itself was alive, shimmering under some kind of otherworldly influence.
As she stood there and watched the lights below, she realized the gauzy curtains to her left were drifting. Lazily moving an inch forward, then back, as if caught by a light breeze.
Kristen had seen this exact thing, over a week ago.
She’d seen these very curtains moving when there was no wind. Laurel had brushed it off at the time—drafts existed in old, large houses, after all. But now, standing here, watching the way the curtains seemed to sway ever so slightly, she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling crawling up her spine.
Laurel scanned the room, her eyes narrowing as she surveyed the space. Something didn’t feel right. Something more than just the pool lights and the curtains. She moved closer to the wall of bookshelves, tapped on the flashlight on her phone, and trailed her fingers along the spines of the books at eye-level. The flickering lights from outside cast long, wavering shadows across the volumes, leaving parts of the room in near darkness.
Her fingers bumped from one panel of shelves to another, and she sucked in a breath. “That wasn’t even.” She immediately retraced the touch, noting that the wood felt different here, almost as if it had been worn down by years of use.
Without thinking, she pressed against the abnormality, and to her great surprise, the shelf moved without much pressure at all.
Lauren then used two fingers to slide it easily to the side, revealing a humming, hot, control room.
Her pulse quickened as she stepped back, her eyes widening in disbelief. She hadn’t expected to find another hidden room. They’d searched this house top to bottom, inside and out, and while they’d found that hidden office, no one had mentioned anything about a secret doorway in the most obvious room.
But she stared right at it.
The bookcase had slid to the side, as if it were on tracks, the way the ladder was. Hot air flowed out of the gap now that it had been widened, setting the curtains aflutter—just like Lauren’s pulse. She shined her flashlight into the space, noting the dozens and dozens of cables and wires.
“No wonder the electricity here flickers.” She wasn’t an electrician by any means, but this did not look up to any sort of code. Extension cords lay wadded up on the floor, with other cords actually plugged into them.
“Paul,” she called, though she didn’t think her husband would hear her up here on the third floor. She moved into the opening and snapped a picture, still stunned by the tall wall with cables running through it. This room seriously looked like the technical hub for an office building, which would have dozens of computers, modems, routers, and users attached to it.
She quickly sent the photo to the whole group, with the words, Come to the library and see what I found.
An electrical hum buzzed in the air, and Laurel cautiously entered the room, wondering how long it would take for someone to see her text. She turned to shine her light on the wall to her left, sucking in a breath when the beam landed on a metal box mounted against the wall—an ancient electrical panel, its switches and dials worn with age.
“What a mess,” she murmured just as she heard a shout from somewhere below her.
So someone had seen her text. Laurel backed out of the control room and stood with her flashlight aimed toward the newly found control room.
Arthur entered the library first, Charlie right on his heels. “What…?” He trailed off as he came to stand next to Laurel. “Just…wow.”
Duke, and Aaron, and thankfully, Paul arrived next, followed by Alice, Matt, and AJ. She’d left Asher downstairs, and Laurel’s stomach swooped when she thought of her son. “Is James okay?” she asked Paul.
“Kristen has him,” Paul said, and then he exchanged a glance with Aaron. “Let’s go see what we’ve got.”
“We’re going to get electrocuted,” Duke said, going with them. “Look at this. It’s a disaster.”
Old wiring tangled like a nest of snakes, some of the connections frayed and exposed. Laurel followed them, and with the wall of wiring, and the old desk with various small appliances on it, including an old rotary phone. With her in the room, it was full, and she added her flashlight beam to those of the men.
“Look at this one,” she said, toeing one of the cords that had frayed. A spark shot out of it, and she yelped and stepped back.
“I’m going to call Kevin,” Aaron said, turning his phone to dial. “I’m honestly not sure it’s safe to stay here like this. The whole place could go up in flames.”
“Again,” Laurel said.
Paul swung his attention to her. “Don’t say that.”
“Aaron said it,” she said. She also didn’t want to pack up everything she’d been living with here for the past couple of weeks and go home. They only had another week here, and she’d so enjoyed the getaway, even with the mystery and history and strange occurrences.
Eloise arrived, and she sucked in a breath. “Oh, this is not okay,” she said. “I’m calling the host.” She too stepped out of the room, her phone hard at work.
Laurel met her husband’s eyes. “Could this make the lights in the chandelier flicker?”
“Absolutely.” He nodded at the clunky electrical box. “Look. This is labeled foyer.” He touched the switch, and it wobbled. “It shouldn’t move like that. It’s either on or off, not both at the same time.”
“And the air from the fans on the electrical equipment in here was seeping out and causing the curtains to move.”
“Strange that the pool lights are on,” Duke said, peering into the box too. “I mean, the breaker is right, but why isn’t the rest of the house on too?”
“Great question,” Paul said.
“Kevin’s on his way,” Aaron said, joining them at the box. “If he says we can’t stay, you guys…”
“My wife is going to lose her mind,” Duke muttered.
Laurel found her lips tipping up into a smile, though she didn’t want to leave the manor either.
“The ferries are still running,” Paul said. “We might-should get out while we can.”
“Paul,” Laurel said quietly. “We’ve been working hard on dinner for hours.” She didn’t want all of the plans that Robin and Eloise had spent so long making and executing to be for nothing. She also wasn’t sure how she could put her son to bed on the floor below with full confidence that they were all safe.
As she stood there while the men talked about how upset their wives and children would be, one of the breakers snapped off. Laurel jumped. “What was that?”
“The pool,” Duke said, pointing to the now-off switch. “Oh, except it’s kind of still on.”
“This could be why the heaters in the overhang flared,” Laurel said.
“I think all of the things happening here are because of this room, yes,” Aaron said. “I’m going to go talk to El. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, brother,” Duke said, and Paul echoed it while Aaron pressed past Laurel and went back into the library.
A sense of pure, unadulterated relief flowed through Laurel. For now she knew the reason for the flickering lights. The reason the pool lights were flashing outside. The reason for Kristen’s mysterious moving curtains.
It wasn’t ghosts. It wasn’t some supernatural occurrence.
It was faulty wiring.
Some mega faulty wiring, but wiring nonetheless.
“Fran says she’s sending an electrician.” Eloise joined Laurel, Paul, and Duke in the control room, sans Aaron. “I just can’t believe this.” She picked up the receiver on the yellowed phone. “Like, what is this?”
“Where did Aaron go?” Duke asked. “He said he was going to find you.”
“He got a call.” El looked at everything with the widest eyes Laurel had ever seen.
She met her gaze, feeling nothing but sympathy for El. “Can an electrician even fix this?” Even she knew the wiring went through all the walls, and that this wasn’t a job that could be done in a few minutes on a Friday evening.
She linked her arm through El’s and said, “Come on. We have gas still, and that means dinner can be cooked and served as normal.” Laurel started to lead El out of the room.
“Will we be able to stay in the manor, though?” El asked.
“I don’t know,” Laurel said. “But we’re not leaving right now, so let’s go see if Robin needs any help.”