Satisfied with the quiet flicker of light, she turned off the bedside lamp.
She’d pick up some night-lights, plug one in the bedroom, another near the landing. Maybe …
She drifted off.
Somewhere in the night she dreamed. Music drifting, voices murmuring. The woman in the portrait danced with a dark-haired man. He wore a high, starched-collared shirt and jacket, and like in a costume drama, close-fitting breeches.
They laughed into each other’s eyes; their smiling lips met in a sweet kiss.
Even in death, we will not part.
As they danced, red spread over the white dress. The music became a dirge, and shadows smothered the light. In those shadows she lay, the white dress soaked in blood. And he hung over her, a rope around his neck.
Throughout the house, a clock struck the hour. One. Two. Three. For a moment, the low fire boiled up, snapped, snarled, then quieted again.
In the foyer, the portrait wept.
* * *
When Sonya woke, sunlight streamed through the windows. Blinking against it, she sat up.
“Here I am. Day two.”
She rose, and after turning the fire up, walked to the window.
Winter sun sparkled on the fresh snow as if someone had tossed tiny diamonds over the ground. A bird swooped onto a white-flocked branch of the skeletal weeper and sang its heart out.
The sea held a strong blue under a sky where the wind had whisked the clouds away.
She decided to take it all as a good omen.
Ready to start her first full day, she grabbed her tablet and went down for coffee. It amazed her how still and quiet the house was, and how filled with light.
The dark had been dark.
No street noises, no dog barking in a neighbor’s yard. Just the roll and thrash of water against rock, depending on where she was in the house.
She stood now, looking out over another blanket of sparkling snow. The wall of green woods had snow draped on branches. And something moved in its shadows, she realized as her heart tripped up to her throat.
Then a deer stepped out, its coat dark and shaggy for the season, its steps slow and dainty. Delighted, Sonya watched it stand in the sunlight, scent the air, before it slipped back into shadows and vanished like a ghost.
Maybe she’d use some of Collin’s canvases, some of his paints and brushes. Inspiration lay everywhere. Why not amuse herself trying a few landscapes?
Not her passion, no. Her mother had been right about that. But it might be fun when she could make the time.
Work came before fun, and she had plenty of that ahead of her.
Setting up her office, number one. She might be living rent-free for the next three months, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need to work.
She had one job to complete—and she needed to generate more.
At some point she should go through the storage areas and see exactly what was what. And she’d need to go into town, become familiar, make some contacts.
She didn’t mind living alone, but she’d never been a hermit.
After she settled in, settled down, she’d have the Doyles over for dinner. That seemed the gracious thing to do—with the added benefit of finding out more about the house, its history, who’d lived there.
Who’d died there.
With a second cup of coffee, she scrambled up some eggs, and hearing her mother’s voice in her head, sat at the island rather than eating standing up.
She checked her email, as relieved as pleased to find her website had generated a new inquiry for a quote.
A caterer, just starting up. A web design to include menu, prices, service area, and so on.
“I love a start-up, so let’s hit it.”
She answered on the spot, posing a list of questions that would help her, and the potential client, make some decisions. Added a few careful suggestions to test the waters.
That done, she dealt with the dishes, then went up to take the shower she’d been too tired for the night before.
Hot water flowed generously from the rain showerhead in a shower double the size of hers in the duplex.
“I miss shower sex.” She lifted her face to the water. “I miss sex altogether. Oh well, priorities.”
And it wasn’t like she had a lot of candidates for shower sex anyway.
It made her smile to remember her conversation with Cleo when Cleo had demanded three words to describe Trey Doyle, then John Dee.
Patient, personable, and hot for Trey.
Cheerful, married, and gay for John Dee.
She started to imagine shower sex with Trey, then shoved that aside. That way, she decided, lay madness.
Plus, he probably already had someone （or someones） in his life. And though she missed sex, she didn’t miss relationships. Not yet. And she didn’t feel ready for sex without the relationship end.