But desperation for answers propelled me forward. I sprinted down the hallway after David, reaching the laundry room just as the light came on.
He stood before the cracked section of the wall where I’d fallen against it during my terrifying encounter with the screaming woman. When he noticed me, he gestured at the hole, his eyes pleading with me to understand. This is what he wanted me to see. As soon as his intention was clear, the boy vanished.
Needing to understand why he’d brought me there, I approached the crack and squinted at the small opening the impact of my fall had created. But it was too dark to see what was inside, aside from a few broken pieces of wooden slats.
I grabbed a loose chunk of plaster and pulled it away. Then another. And another. I tore apart the wall bit by bit, determined to reveal what was hidden behind it. One stubborn section refused to budge. I adjusted my grip and pulled again, groaning with the effort. Suddenly it broke free, sending me stumbling back a few steps.
A flash of white tumbled through the hole I’d created.
“My God,” I breathed, my blood turning to ice in my veins.
The skeletal hand lay palm up, the index finger curled inward as if beckoning me closer.
Slowly, I stepped forward and reached out to pull away another piece of plaster. In a blur of motion, the skeletal hand shot out and grasped my wrist, yanking me toward the wall. I stumbled and slammed into it, the impact startling a screamfrom me. I struggled to get away, but the bony fingers dug into my skin, drawing blood. My throat burned as another scream ripped from me.
Strong hands grabbed my upper arms, startling another scream from me, this one ending in a terrified sob.
“Zellie!”
The sound of my name jolted me out of my nightmare. The skeletal hand vanished. Whit stood in front of me, concern etched into every line of his face. I blinked several times, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“Zellie?” he said, bending his knees a little to look me directly in the eyes. “Are you okay?”
I glanced at the wall and was shocked to see the plaster still intact. “No,” I whispered. “No, I tore it open.”
I grabbed a chunk of the plaster and pulled it off, then feverishly broke off one piece after another as I swore I had already. “Whit, help me!”
“Zellie,” he replied, his tone maddeningly reasonable, “let’s go back to bed, honey.”
I threw a pleading look over my shoulder. “Whit, please!”
Without another word, he joined me, pulling off pieces of plaster and wood, tossing them to the ground, slowly revealing the space behind the wall. Just when I was starting to doubt there was anything to find, something white caught my eye.
A bone.
“Holy shit,” Whit breathed.
“You see it, too?” I asked, my hair and pajama shirt soaked with sweat from my wild destruction of the wall.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
He caught my hand as I reached forward. “Don’t touch anything else. The police are already going to want to know how you found this.”
It felt like forever before the police came and longer still until the forensics team arrived to remove the body and document any other evidence. By then, I’d already gone back upstairs to get dressed and give Henry breakfast. When I dropped off Henry at June’s, the rest of the residents were hovering around the foyer, talking with each other in quiet voices, sending guarded glances my way.
I returned to the basement just as the forensics team was removing the body. Long, stringy hair clung to the skull.
“It’s not a child,” I murmured as they put the bones in a black zippered body bag.
“No,” Whit said, pulling me close. “At least, not a small child. I guess it could be a teen. But I think it’s an adult.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I told him, shaking my head, confused. If it wasn’t David, why had he brought me to the body? Had he known her? Was the woman hismother?
“How long has it been here?” Whit asked one of the forensic techs. “Are you able to tell?”
The woman shrugged. “Hard to say, but not recent.” She gestured to the remains. “Her clothes look like maybe mid-twentieth century. I’ll know more after we run some tests.”
“But itisa woman?” I asked. “You do know that for sure?”
