She sipped her coffee and thought for a while. “You don’t understand, Mrs. Caine. It’s not a question of what I did or what Duff did. It was out of my hands, and his too.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand.”

She spread her hands. “It’s this house,” she said.

“What’s wrong with this house?”

“There are bad things in it.”

“Oh come on, Stephanie,” I said irritably. “You can’t get off that easily, and neither can Duff. This place isn’t haunted.”

She shook her head hopelessly. “This house can cause people to do strange things.”

“Did strange things happen when your grandmother was living here?”

She shook her head again and stared at the table.

“There is one thing I should ask you.” I hesitated.

“I take the Pill,” she said. “I have a boyfriend, although I don’t see him very often. He’s married.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No need to be. I don’t want him as a husband.” She paused. “I would like a home of my own though.”

“Why don’t you rent an apartment in Cainesville or Ashland?”

“My folks wouldn’t like it. Gran and Ma like me to be at home in between jobs, not that I get that many patients lately. Mr. Caine is the first one in a long time.”

“Why? There seemed to be plenty of people in that hospital who would need home care.”

“Some folks don’t like my family. They think my grandmother is odd. My mother too, though not as much as Gran.”

“Odd in what way?”

“They’re sort of . . . spiritualists, I guess you could call them.”

“And people disapprove of that?”

“Around here, some people. Anyway I don’t go in for it—talking to the dead and all that—but I guess Gran and Ma get a kick out of it.”

“What about your father?”

“He always goes along with whatever they say.”

Suddenly I remembered something. “Has your grandmother been back to this place recently, Stephanie?”

“I don’t think so. Why?” It seemed to me she grew paler.

“I saw two people out by the barn one night before you came. I thought one of them was your grandmother and the other one was Duff, but it turned out I was wrong about him.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked upstairs and he was in bed.”

“That doesn’t mean—” She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “You’d better go away from here, Mrs. Caine. What happened with me could happen with someone else.”

“He’s not an animal,” I said angrily. “He never did anything like this before we came here.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. It’s this place.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“All right, Mrs. Caine.” She went to the sink and rinsed her cup and saucer. “I’ll get Mr. Caine ready for bed.”