Page 7 of The House on Forgotten Hill

“Hello,” she said. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Not at all.”

“I’ve been meaning to stop by ever since you moved in,” she said. “Sorry it’s taken so long. I live a few houses down. I wanted to come over and say hello and see if there’s anything I can do for you.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Olivia.”

I thought about telling her my last name, my maiden name, and explaining who I was and why I’d bought the house. But for reasons even I couldn’t explain, I didn’t.

“My name is Estelle,” she said.

The name meant nothing to me, but her face was familiar. I couldn’t place it, but I was almost certain I’d seen her before, perhaps when I was little.

“Would you like to come in?” I asked.

“If you’re sure I’m not imposing.”

“I’m sure.”

She stepped inside and looked around. “You’ve already made a lot of changes.”

“I’ve been keeping busy.”

“I can see that.”

I led her into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee while she set the pie on the kitchen counter.

“This place looks wonderful,” she said, glancing toward the hallway. “The previous owners were nice people, but you … you have a decorator’s touch.”

I thanked her, and we carried our coffee into the dining room.

For the next half hour, we talked about ordinary things.

The neighborhood.

The mild summer we’d been having.

Which local restaurants were worth visiting and which weren’t.

After the basic pleasantries had been exchanged, her questions became more personal.

“Do you live here alone?” she asked.

“I do.”

“I suppose we have that in common. I’m divorced.”

“Do you have children?”

Her smile remained, but sadness settled behind it. “I had a daughter, Lara. She disappeared about twenty years ago.”

I stared at her. “Disappeared?”

She nodded. “She was home from college for the weekend. It was a Saturday evening, and she told me she was meeting a few friends.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. And the strange part is, my daughter’s friends insisted she was never with them that night.”