Free Ashes to Ashes by Lillian Stewart Carl

gargantuan muzzle. “Nice dog.” It regarded her with liquid brown eyes scummed by suspicion, and sniffed.
    “Hey, Slash!” yelped a voice. Steve emerged from the forest. For a moment Rebecca thought she glimpsed another human shape among the tree trunks. “Get away, Slash,” Steve ordered. “Can’t you see she’s scared of you?”
    “I think he can,” Rebecca said. “Good boy, Slash.”
    Slash licked her hand with a hot, wet tongue the size of a dish towel. She jerked away and suppressed an automatic “Yech”. When Steve reached around her to grab the dog’s collar, she saw he was wearing a gold stud in his ear. His black T-shirt reeked of sweat and something else, an elusive scent of sweet smoke that reminded her of a certain passage in the student center at Dover. Marijuana. That was why he’d been weeding the marigolds with pruning shears.
    He dragged the dog into the trees. It whimpered— gee, boss, I was minding my own business and this crazy woman jumped out at me!
    “Thanks,” said Rebecca, and made tracks to the castle. She stood on the threshold catching her breath. A breath of fresh air would steady her nerves. Sure.
    The front door, the only door, stood open before her. A coat of arms carved in the stone above, three ships, was the arms of Danzig Willie of Craigievar. Somehow she was surprised John Forbes hadn’t had his own arms carved there, three locomotives, maybe, on a field of stock certificates. Above the coat of arms, at the base of the turrets, the small gargoyles concealing the shot holes leered down at her. The holes themselves had been filled with glass, so that each bizarre creature seemed to be holding in its mouth a diamond chip like that in her late, unlamented engagement ring.
    Odd how she wasn’t cold anymore. Nothing like fear to get the circulation going. Even if the fear was only partly based in reality. For years she’d tried to deny her imagination— perception hurt. But all it took was a spooky old house and her fancies returned to haunt her. No pun intended, she assured herself.
    Her thoughts cycled into their usual rhythm. All right then. Time to start earning her keep. With a wry smile Rebecca walked back into Dun Iain.

Chapter Five
    Rebecca paused inside the door to inhale the already familiar must and dust scent of the castle. Compared with the reek of mold behind the tomb the odor was not unpleasant at all. The enclosing walls seemed snug and almost peaceful. Dun Iain, she decided, had its moments of Alice in Wonderland , but a version that had been annotated by Edgar Allan Poe.
    Dorothy came out of the kitchen door, coat buttoned, head swathed in a scarf, handbag securely under her arm. “Are you all right?”
    What do I look like? Rebecca wondered, and smoothed her hair. “That humongous dog of Steve’s startled me. I’m not a dog person, I’m afraid.”
    “That dog was the cutest little pup you’ve ever seen. Skippy, Steve called it then. That’s before he dropped out of school and started hanging out with those punkies and their loud music— if you can call it music. The company you keep tells a lot about you, you know.”
    Ray, Rebecca thought. Dover’s all-star couch potato. “I know.”
    “I keep telling Steve that animal will end up in the pound,” Dorothy persisted. “He lets it run loose and it tears open garbage sacks waiting on the curb. But kids! You try to help them and their ears fold up on you.”
    “Steve’s mother,” said Rebecca, leaping into Dorothy’s inhalation, “must be very patient to put up with the dog.”
    “Oh, she ran off with an auto parts salesman from Cleveland six or seven years ago. Right after Chuck died— my husband, that is. Went into the hospital for gallbladder surgery and the next thing you know, pffft!”
    Rebecca’s head swam. “Steve’s mother’s gallbladder… ?”
    “No, no, my husband. Would’ve done better to have lived with the gallstones.” The lines in Dorothy’s face deepened, her