Chapter Thirty-Six
Thirty-Six
Harper pulled up to the curb in front of Ellen’s house. Home at last.
She was bone weary, the cumulative effects of fear, drama, and lack of sleep settling over her.
She and Gabe had taken Jenny to the hospital, and she was expected to make a full recovery.
At least physically. Harper suspected the mental scars might last longer.
Detective Serrano had arrested a babbling and bloody Alastair Highbaugh, who kept insisting he had been assaulted by Isabel Perles and Delilah Mason and demanded the detective take their spirits into custody.
Highbaugh went on to confess all: not only poisoning, stabbing, and burying Delilah, but also stealing bones and other historical artifacts from the Perles Mansion, and “helping” Joel Aristide out the window to his death.
Harper was about to get out of her car when the back of her neck tingled. She was being watched.
The big black dog was standing in the middle of the street, just as it had the first time she saw it, what now seemed a lifetime ago.
Harper grabbed her phone and called Marta with animal rescue and asked her to come ASAP.
She reached for the bag of jerky treats in her glove compartment before opening her car door and approaching the dog slowly. Squatting down, she held out a piece of jerky. “Hi there, sweet boy,” she said in a low voice. “Hungry? Treat?”
The dog lowered its head. It gave her a tentative tail wag but did not move.
“Treat?” she repeated, holding up the jerky but avoiding eye contact. “It’s pretty yummy.”
Her patience was rewarded by the sound of his nails clicking on asphalt. She watched him in her peripheral vision as he approached slowly. Cautiously.
“You must be hungry, sweet boy,” she said. She broke off a piece and tossed it toward him. He gobbled it up off the ground.
She tossed the next piece a little closer to her, and the dog came nearer. They repeated this until he was close enough for her to slowly offer him her hand to sniff.
“What’s your story, big guy?” Now that he was close, she saw that a single pearl hung from his collar, like a repurposed earring.
She thought of the dog she had seen in the photograph, sitting beside Isabel.
It couldn’t be…could it? Surely it was simply a coincidence, and this was just a poor lost dog.
And yet…after all she had seen and experienced at the Perles Mansion, Harper decided she was going to keep an open mind.
Maybe not everything had a rational explanation. Maybe it was okay to live with the mystery.
The dog nudged her hand, looking for more treats. “One thing is certain,” Harper said to him. “You are not a hellhound.”
The dog was thin and dirty, with nails that were much too long. Clearly, he had not been cared for in some time.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough go of things, lately. Me, too. Want some water?”
She filled an old cardboard cup with water from the bottle she kept in the car. He drank thirstily and let her pet him.
“Yep, looks like you and I have had quite a day. Or a week. Or two.”
Water dripping from his jowls, he gazed up at her with huge puppy-dog eyes. She scratched him behind the ears. “It sure is nice to meet you, after all this time. What’s your name, then, big boy?”
The van from animal rescue arrived, and Marta and her two helpers were able to get a leash around the dog’s neck. Encouraged by more treats, he jumped into the van willingly enough.
“What happens now?” Harper asked.
“We’ll take him to the vet and scan him for a chip,” said Marta. “And of course we’ll check to see if anyone’s been looking for a big fellow like him, but somehow I doubt it. He’s pretty distinctive.”
“And then what?”
“He’ll be put up for adoption. We’re a no-kill shelter, but I have to be honest: Big black dogs aren’t in great demand. People are superstitious about black dogs and cats, even in this day and age.” She gave the dog one last pat. “But we’ll take good care of you, won’t we, fella?”
Marta climbed in behind the wheel of the van. Harper could see the dog’s big head looming over the back of the seat, big eyes looking confused, as if wavering between fear and hope.
“Marta,” Harper called out on impulse. “If he doesn’t belong to anybody, and no one wants him, let me know.”
Once the murder case was closed, it became public knowledge that Delilah Mason’s will explicitly disinherited her brother, Asher, “for reasons of which he is well aware.” A local arts education program for children received a sizable endowment, as did a society devoted to alternative medicine.
Sigrid was bequeathed the painting with the vines that Delilah had promised her, and there were a few other individual heirs named, such as Tariq, Mario, and a few other friends.
But the bulk of Delilah’s estate, including the Perles Mansion, went to the antiquarian society. Constance Bell was beside herself with joy when she called Harper with the news.
“I’m so happy for you,” Harper said. “There are a few things we should probably talk about, though, before you decide how you’re going to use the mansion. A few safety issues, so to speak. But I might know people who know people who can help.”
None of this was easy to explain, but Harper was as open as possible as she told Constance why she needed permission to look for the remains of a baby buried long ago, under or near the angel statue in the garden.
It wasn’t easy to explain, but when she showed Constance what Delilah had written in Soren’s lab journal, Constance looked up and met her eyes. “I won’t pretend to understand, but I know a forensic anthropologist I can call. If there’s anything to find, she’ll find it.”
“And then we can bury the bones with Isabel.”
Constance nodded, adding: “Like I said, what good’s an antiquarian society without a ghost or two? I mean, I didn’t really mean it literally, but…”
Constance also gave Sigrid permission to call in some paranormal mediums to make contact with the spirits in the home, and to help them settle.
Which was how Harper found herself once more back in the living room of the Perles Mansion, standing in front of the ornate gilt-framed mirror. It was no longer covered in a shroud.
Harper held up her hand and placed it on the cool glass. Then she waited.
Isabel gradually appeared before her. She held up her hand. Their palms met.
“We’ll find your baby’s bones,” said Harper. “We’ll lay them to rest beside yours.”
Isabel placed her hand over her heart.
The two women stood there for a long moment, connecting—against all reason—over the centuries, and across the veil.
“I will live here.” I said that as a child, the first time I stepped in the cursed Perles Mansion. It was not premonition as much as it was fate.
Here I lived, and died, as did Isabel.
And here we will go on living. And dying. Forever.