The song played on as they approached. Then came a long, distinctly human sigh, and it faded away.
Armed with the poker, Sonya rushed the doorway. She saw nothing but shapes and shadows in the dark. Cursing, she groped for the light switch.
Under the glitter of the chandelier, no one sat at the piano. But for the instruments, the furniture, the room was empty.
“This is bullshit. I saw light in here, and I can still smell candles. They heard us coming and took off.”
“Sonya, we were almost at the door when it went dark and the music stopped. Nobody could’ve gotten by us without us seeing them.”
“There could be a passageway. Another passageway, like for the servants.” Determined, she put the poker down to search along the walls. “The wainscoting, the—what do you call it?—chair rail. There could be a button or pull worked in.”
“I’m going to do reverse X-Files. You don’t want to believe.”
“Of course I don’t want to believe.” Her voice pitched up two full registers. “Especially at three in the morning I don’t want to believe some ghost got the urge to play the damn piano. Help me look.”
Obliging, Cleo took the next wall. “You’d rather believe someone’s sneaking around the house, opening doors, moving things, and so on, and playing the piano in the middle of the night? This person can also blow out the candles and zip into a secret passage in about two seconds?”
“At least I could give them a good smack with the poker and tell them to get the hell out of my house. So yeah, I’d rather believe that.”
She stopped, scrubbed her hands over her face. “And no, I don’t actually believe that. Before you got here today, I was torn between accepting there’s something in the house or accepting I was going crazy. Hallucinating. Maybe that brain tumor.”
“Well, I am here, and I can tell you you’re not crazy or hallucinating.” Cleo walked over, wrapped an arm around Sonya’s shoulders. “There’s more than one something in this house. And the one playing the piano’s a female.”
“The sigh. I heard it, too.”
“She’s sad.”
“I don’t think many people are happy to be dead.”
“Maybe it’s Astrid. Getting murdered on your wedding day’s bound to make you sad. The song…” Wandering to the piano, Cleo tried to pick it out. “Sort of like that, right? The basic notes. I really think I’ve heard it before, but I can’t place it.”
“And that’s the most important element in this scenario?”
“Could be a clue.” Cleo brightened. “It’s like we’re Nancy Drew and this is The Case of the Haunted Piano.”
“I’m going back to bed.”
“Good idea. The candle wax is still a little soft in these tapers,” she said as she poked a finger in one.
“You’re not the least bit freaked out.”
“Not yet. Right now I’m freaking fascinated. Hey, don’t forget your poker.”
“Ha ha. You’d’ve been glad I had it if we walked in here to an axe murderer.”
“That would be the axe murderer who takes time out to play the piano? The axe murderer who sweetly turns down the beds at night? That one?”
Sonya let out a sigh of her own and took Cleo’s hand as they walked upstairs. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m gladder of it every second. Oh, when I was falling asleep, I had this thought.”
“Don’t tell me if it involves calling in Paranormal R Us.”
“Not that. When the lawyer and the cousin come tomorrow to move those things you wanted, can I ask them to move anything else if I see something?”
“I don’t see why not. Did you see something?”
“We went through before we talked about me staying, and working in that fabulous turret space. I could look, pay more attention, with that in mind. Anyway, tomorrow.”
They paused at Cleo’s door.
“There’s a desk, a great desk. The one you use now, it’s serviceable, but you could have better. And you need some seating.”
“Got a mental list going on it, and a couple other things. Tomorrow,” Cleo repeated. “We’ve got men coming, so I need sleep so I don’t look like a hag.”
“And that happens never.”
“If you hear something and I don’t, come get me.”
“Count on it. Good—I hope—night.”