Each corner, undraped, revealed no spy. Someone could be sheltering
behind one part of the millworks or another, and she considered prowling
through the ruins in search of an intruder.
But abruptly she felt foolish, too easily spooked. Wondering what had
happened to the intrepid reporter she had once been, Holly left the
mill.
The sun was beyond the mountains. The sky was purple and that deep
iridescent blue seen in old Maxfield Parrish paintings. A few toads
were croaking from their shadowy niches along the banks of the pond.
All the way around the water, past the barn, to the back door of the
house, Holly continued to feel watched. However, though it was possible
that someone might be lurking in the mill, it was not too likely that a
virtual platoon of spies had taken up positions in the barn, the
surrounding fields, and the distant hills, intent on observing her every
move.
“Idiot,” she said self mockingly as she used one of Jim’s keys to open
the back door.
Though she had the flashlight, she tried the wall switch unthinkingly.
She was surprised to discover that the electrical service was still
connected.
She was more surprised, however, by what the light revealed: a fully
furnished kitchen. A breakfast table and four chairs stood by the
window.
Copper pots and pans dangled from a ceiling fixture, and twin racks of
knives and other utensils hung on the wall near the cooktop. A toaster,
toaster oven, and blender stood on the counters. A shopping list of
about fifteen items was affixed to the refrigerator with a magnet in the
shape of a can of Budweiser.
Hadn’t Jim gotten rid of his grandparents’ belongings when they had died
five years ago?
Holly ran a finger along one of the counters, drawing a line through the
thin coat of dust. But it was, at most, a three-month accumulation, not
five years’ worth of dirt.
After she used the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen, she wandered along
the hallway, through the dining room and living room, where a full
complement of furniture also stood under a light shroud of dust.
Some of the paintings hung aslant. Crocheted antimacassars protected
the backs and arms of the chairs and sofas. Long unwound, the tall
grandfather clock was not ticking. In the living room, the magazine
rack beside the LaZ-Boy recliner was crammed full of publications, and
inside a mahogany display case, bibelots gleamed dully beneath their own
skin of dust.
Her first thought was that Jim had left the house furnished in order to
be able to rent it out while searching for a buyer. But on one wall of
the living room were framed 8 X 10 photographs that would not have been
left to the mercy of a tenant: Jim’s father as a young man of about
twenty-one; Jim’s father and mother in their wedding finery; Jim at the
age of five or six, with both parents.
The fourth and final picture was a two-shot, head and shoulders, of a
pleasant-looking couple in their early fifties. The man was on the
burly side, with bold square features, yet recognizably an Ironheart;
the woman was more handsome, in a female way, than pretty, and elements
of her face could also be seen in Jim and his father.
Holly had no doubt that they were Jim’s paternal grandparents, Lena and
Henry Ironheart.
Lena Ironheart was the woman in whose body Holly had ridden like a
spirit during last night’s dream. Broad, clear face. Wide-set eyes.
Full mouth. Curly hair. A natural beauty spot, just a little round dot
of skin discoloration, marked the high curve of her right cheek.
Though Holly had described this woman accurately to Jim, he had not
recognized her. Maybe he didn’t think of her eyes as being wide-set or
her mouth as being full. Maybe her hair had been curly only during part
of her life, due to the attentions of a beautician. But the beauty spot
had to have clicked a switch in his memory, even five years after his
grandmother’s death.
The sense of being watched had not entirely left Holly even after she
had entered the house. Now, as she stared at Lena Ironheart’s face in