Olivia shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s getting late, and I need to get up to the lake house. I don’t even know if the electric’s still on or what state the house is in.”
“The lake house?” Louisa repeated.
Olivia nodded.
“I was sorry to hear about Evelyn.”
Olivia shrugged, not really wanting to talk about her great-aunt. Besides, there was really nothing to say. Even as close as she’d been to Louisa when they were kids, she wasn’t about to admit that after her mother’s murder and her father’s arrest, the authorities had contacted Evelyn as Olivia’s only living relative and asked if she’d take custody of her, but Evelyn had said no. She hadn’t wanted Olivia. The hurt had stung hot and bright at the time—after all she’d only been eight years old—but even after all these years Olivia wasn’t sure she’d ever really gotten over the rejection. Shaking off her bleak mood, she turned back to Louisa.
“I should get going,” she muttered. “It was good to see you though.” She turned back toward her beat-up old Camaro.
“Olivia, wait!”
Olivia glanced back at her old friend standing drenched in the rain, clearly torn.
“Look,” Olivia relented. “Why don’t you give me a couple of days and then come up to the house and we’ll talk?”
“You mean it?”
Olivia nodded. “Sure.”
“Give me your phone.” Olivia stared at Louisa’s outstretched hand. Relenting, she handed over her cell and watched as Louisa put her number in and sent herself a message, so she’d have Olivia’s number. “Call me if you need any help settling in.”
Olivia nodded in acknowledgment before once again heading back to her car. Sliding back into the driver’s seat, she started the engine and cranked up the heat, then blew out a long breath.
She was going back to the lake house.
As a child, it had been another of her favorite places, but after the last twenty years of pain and resentment, she had no idea how she was going to feel when she walked through the door.
She drove down the road, one last glance in her rearview mirror showed Louisa still watching her with a slightly shell-shocked expression. An uncomfortable awareness churned in Olivia’s belly, and part of her still couldn’t quite believe she was back in Mercy after all this time. She’d spent the last two decades moving from town to town—from Lawrence to Georgetown, Philadelphia to Boston, New Hampshire to Rhode Island—until she’d ended up in Providence, where she’d stayed the longest.
She’d spent most of her childhood bouncing from group home to foster family and back again. After all, no one wanted to adopt the kid of a murderer, not even her great aunt, but she couldn’t blame her, she supposed.
When she’d gotten word that Evelyn had passed away, she’d grieved. Despite everything left unsaid between them, Olivia had hurt regardless. She wasn’t expecting her great-aunt’s lawyer to go to all the trouble of tracking her down in Providence to tell her she’d inherited the lake house, but then again, she shouldn’t have been surprised. That house, or rather the land it stood upon, had been in her family for over three hundred years, ever since the town’s founding.
She headed to the outskirts of town and, at the edge of the woods, turned down a narrow dirt road that wound between the towering titans of red maple, hemlock, and northern red oak. Despite the number of years that had passed, she knew exactly where she was heading. Every trunk and leaf was heartbreakingly familiar, and her heart clenched with the knowledge that the last time she’d traveled this road had been with her mother.
Swallowing hard against the deep ache in her throat, she blinked back hot tears and focused on her drive. The light was fading, and although the rain had stopped, the wind had picked up. She could hear the roar of it through the trees, vast and ponderous like a freight train. With every gust, a myriad of brightly colored leaves would break across the windshield like a wave.
Suddenly, the canopy of trees parted. The house was cradled lovingly by the surrounding red maples, it’s familiar steeply gabled roof and overhanging eaves dusted with brightly colored, fallen leaves.
It was a Victorian stick-style Queen Anne built on the site of its predecessor, a wooden-framed house inhabited by her ancestor, Hester West, when she and her sister Bridget co-founded the town back in 1704. Local lore said that a West had lived on this land for over three hundred years. The original West house had been little more than a cabin nestled amidst the woods and overlooking the lake until it had been destroyed by fire in the 1800s and the grand old Queen Anne had been built in its place.
Olivia stepped out of the car and gazed up at the house. The wind tugged at her damp clothes and danced up her spine with sly, spindly fingers.
Slowly, she climbed the sagging old steps to the wraparound porch. The hiss of churned-up leaves filled the quiet air, making it sound as if the house itself were sighing, like it had been waiting for her. She leaned forward and pressed her hand to the door, drawing in a breath.
This is my house now…
The old porch swing to her left suddenly shifted in the wind, creaking loudly. A wave of leaves rolled over her boots in a mad tumble of gold, orange, and red. Feeling a prickling awareness at the back of her neck and a strange heaviness settle somewhere between her shoulders, she turned. Her narrowed gaze scanned the tree line, but nothing seemed out of place.
Her brow creased at the sudden sense of unease. She’d never been afraid of the woods nor the seclusion of the lake house. It had always been a place of wonder and magic, but now, standing all alone on the creaking old porch and staring out into the dying light, it felt like she was being watched.
Rolling her neck to shake off the unpleasant sensation, she turned back to the door and reached into her purse for the keys the lawyer had given her.
The air inside the house was silent and stagnant as she opened the door and stepped inside. She could hear the shriek of the wind and the rustle of leaves behind her, but the house itself was as still and silent as the grave.
The dust sheets hung across the furniture like shrouds, twitching slightly in the errant breeze that followed in her wake.
