She had been in this room. The room where Laura Beaumont was murdered. Her parents wouldn’t have brought her up here. So how was it possible?

Feeling sick, she gripped the doorjamb for a moment until the light-headedness passed.

Dulcie had made a point of not focusing on the high double bed with its antique iron frame. But suddenly she couldn’t stop her gaze from going to the soiled mattress. Cringing, she looked away to see a large chest of drawers against the wall.

As if sleepwalking, she crossed the room and opened the top drawer to find it filled with women’s undergarments. The second drawer had more of the same. The third and fourth held shirts and blouses, jeans and slacks.

Someone had taken the child’s clothes, but left the mother’s?

She opened the closet. Dust-coated dresses hung limp from metal hangers. Shoes were scattered across the closet floor. A closet full of high heels and pretty dresses.

Yellow must have been her favorite color. Just as it was Dulcie’s. She closed the closet door, ready to flee as she wished on a ragged breath that she’d never come here.

With a start, she caught movement on the other side of the room. A scream rose in her throat but she quickly tamped it down as she realized what she’d seen. Her own reflection in a cloudy mirror over a vanity on the opposite wall.

The top of the vanity was cluttered with a brush, a mirror, an assortment of bottles and jars, all coated with thick dust.

Dulcie suddenly needed fresh air, even brutally hot air. She started to close the closet door, bumping into the dresser. Something slithered down the wall to the floor.

She stepped back, ready to scream, but stopped when she saw what had fallen. Squatting, she gingerly picked up what appeared to be a snapshot that had fallen from behind the dresser and landed facedown on the floor.

She turned it over and stared into the face of a little girl. A face so like her own, it could have been her twin. Or Dulcie herself.

Chapter 6

From the floor below came a thunk as if something had been knocked over. Startled, Dulcie stuffed the photo in her pocket and looked around for anything she could use to defend herself.

She was thinking about critters when she tiptoed down the hallway toward the top of the stairs. She grabbed the old broom from the small closet and positioned herself on one side of the stairs, ready for anything that came racing up.

A stair creaked under the weight of a heavy boot heel. It must be a pretty large critter, she thought. Russell Corbett? Had he come back to see if she needed protecting? Or maybe to give her more advice?