She held out her hand, accepted the key, and walked inside without looking back.

Her hands were still shaking as she closed the door, and she turned the lock and threw the dead bolt, leaning against the frame, not wanting him to see her pass in front of the window. She waited. A minute. Two minutes. Three. She hadn’t heard him leave, hadn’t heard any sound at all, but she figured he had to have left by now and she hazarded a look around the corner of the curtains.

He was gone.

She had to admit that part of her was gratified that he’d come crawling back, but she was not even remotely tempted to start up with him again. Whatever they’d had was dead and could not be rekindled. He’d killed it. As painful and awkward and horrible as it had been, though, she was glad he’d stopped by. She felt stronger now, more sure of herself, and for the first time, she was happy that the relationship had ended.

The phone rang during dinner, and Laurie let the machine pick up. It was Josh, but she still wasn’t in the mood to talk, and she listened to his message as she ate her asparagus.

She tried to arrange what little she remembered from her pre-adoptive years chronologically in her mind but was unable to do so. Her memories remained fragmented disjointed images, out of context, with only a vague dread linking everything together. She didn’t know what was happening to her, what was going on, but she had the feeling that there was something here under the surface, an overarching connection between the past and the present that she couldn’t see and wasn’t sure she wanted to know about.

She went to bed early, tired.

And she dreamed of the girl.

EIGHT

Norton

Carole’s ghost would not go away.

Norton had never believed in ghosts, had always considered those who did to be naive, gullible, and superstitious, the type of people who could be easily separated from their money, but he had had to change his tune.

Carole’s ghost would not go away.

He remembered, years ago, taking a group of graduating students on a senior class trip to California. They’d gone to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Sea World, and in San Diego they’d visited the Whaley House, the first two-story brick home in California. The house was supposed to be haunted, and there was corroboration by generations’ worth of witnesses who had claimed to see and hear ghosts, but he’d felt nothing. Some of the girls had gotten scared, one boy had refused to go upstairs, and all of the students later said they’d felt the “vibes” of the place, but he had put it all down to the power of suggestion and had dismissed it. There were no such things as ghosts, he told them.

But there were.