She was about to flee when she realized the “man” was unmoving and she shined the penlight at him only to realize he wasn’t a man at all, but a suit of armor standing guard near the landing’s window.

Kristi set her jaw and counted to ten.

Stiffening her spine, she dashed up the remaining risers to the second floor, where she expected to see a long hallway with a row of closed doors that opened to bedrooms. Instead the head of the stairs widened to a library area complete with narrow, tall bookcases and a reading nook that housed chairs and a window seat. Across from the bookcases was a baby grand piano, sheet music open above the keys, a silent metronome sitting atop the gleaming wood.

Kristi moved past the piano and bookcases. Further ahead was a hallway that led into a suite of rooms: his and hers bedrooms separated by a lavish bath that had obviously been added long after the house was originally built. A canopied bed decorated in floral prints and pillows sat before a fireplace with hand-painted tile in one room, while the other was filled with heavier masculine furniture, a hunting rifle hung above the mantel of a massive stone fireplace.

Lots of antiques.

But no blonde.

For a second Kristi wondered if the girl had dashed in the front of the house, zipped through the main floor, and left through the kitchen.

Maybe she’d made a mistake.

There was a chance searching through this house was just a big waste of time.

And yet…

She reached the staircase again, shining her penlight up the risers to the third floor. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” she said, and began ascending. The steps were narrower as they wound to the upper floor. At the top was the expected hallway with doors on either side.

The hairs on the back of her neck raised as she remembered searching through the intricate, soulless corridors of the abandoned mental hospital, Our Lady of Virtues, outside New Orleans, and the psycho she’d met within. The memory gave her pause. Wagner House was far different from the old asylum, but poking around in the massive old structure reminded her all too well of the events leading up to her hospital stay and her resulting condition.

Holding on to her courage, Kristi placed a hand on the first doorknob and opened the door slowly. It squawked on ancient hinges.

Great. Announce to anyone hiding within that you’re here.

The room was decorated as a child’s bedroom. A small white bed was pushed into a corner and a rocking horse with fading paint and hemp mane and tail was placed near the window…and it was moving slightly.

Forward and back on its rockers.

As if a ghost child were riding it.

Kristi nearly dropped her penlight.

In this still house where the air was motionless and dead, the horse was rocking.