Page 44 of In Her Memory

She pushed herself up to sit properly, her back against the wall. The farmhouse was quiet around her. Taking a deep breath, Piper closed her eyes and did something she’d spent so much time trying to avoid—she deliberately opened herself to the voices.

“I’m listening,” she said aloud. “I need your help. Jenna needs your help.”

At first, nothing happened. The silence stretched on, broken only by the soft sounds of the old house settling and birds beginning their morning songs outside. Then, like water seeping through cracks in a dam, the whispers came—tentative at first, then growing in volume and clarity, the voices returned. They didn't overwhelm her this time. They swirled around her like leaves caught in a gentle eddy, bringing fragments of knowledge, insights, and warnings.

Piper listened.

Images began to flash behind her closed eyelids—a mansion standing stark against a twilight sky, someone with a candle moving through darkened halls, hidden passages, secrets buried in walls.

“Show me,” Piper whispered. “Show me what Jenna needs to know.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jenna’s office felt too small to her this morning, the walls too close, her desk too cluttered with unanswered questions. She took a long sip of coffee from her mug, the bitter warmth doing little to soothe a lingering unease that had followed her since waking this morning.

Across from her, Jake sat with his own mug of coffee, his eyes meeting hers with the quiet understanding that had become the foundation of their partnership.

“You look like you barely slept,” he commented.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Just to people who know you.”

Jenna didn’t feel at all ready for the morning’s agenda—a 10:00 a.m. meeting at Calloway House, to be attended by the nine people who still resided there, the mayor, and the six-member city council. Boyd Calloway planned it—apparently to reassure everyone about the safety of Calloway House.

Jenna set her mug down and straightened a stack of papers on her desk. Then, needing to move, she stood, crossed to the window, and adjusted the blinds, letting in more light.

“I had a dream,” she said, still facing the window. “Another lucid one. Dad was there. He said he’d found Piper.”

Jake stood too, coming around to her side of the desk. Not touching her, but close enough that she could feel the warmth of him.

“That’s good news, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I thought so. But he couldn’t explain how or where he’d found her. And then everything changed. The space went dark, and someone else was there.”

“Who?”

“Pete Shannon.”

“The coal baron? From the 1800s?”

“That’s the one. He actually built Calloway House—back when it was still Shannon House. He told me not to believe in ghosts.”

“Hm,” Jake said. “That’s odd advice, coming from a ghost.”

“That’s what I told him. He said he was talking about ‘ghosts’ that are solid enough to touch.”

Jake was quiet for a moment, processing. “What do you think that means?”

“I don’t know what it means. I didn’t understand what Dad was trying to tell me, and I didn’t understand what Pete Shannon was saying either.” She shook her head and added, “Sometimes my dreams are too frustrating to do much good.”

Jenna turned and put her hand on his arm, resisting the urge to drop her head onto his shoulder. Then she moved away and back to her desk chair. Jake took his usual seat on the other side of that desk.

“I just wish I understood what Shannon was trying to tell me,” Jenna said a bit bitterly. “Why show up at all, if only to talk in riddles??”

“Maybe he’s trying to help,” Jake suggested. “In his own, cryptic way.”

Jenna smiled despite herself. “Cryptic is typical of many of those who appear in my dreams, but I have to wonder if this one might have been intentionally devious.”