Free Blackvine Manor Mystery by Wendy Meadows Page B

eyes for a moment and sees the stocky man in uniform, “Cordon.”
    “Hey, there’s the caretaker.” Maxwell spins away from the headstone and goes to meet the caretaker on the gravel lane.
    She is about to confirm what she sensed when Maxwell returns with a shrug. “No Tennons buried here. I asked him to look into the security files to see if there’s a report on her trespassing. He’ll get back to me.”
    Alexis comes around to the front of the white headstone. Underneath the engraving of an anchor is the name Robert Cordon.

Chapter Eighteen
    A LEXIS FLINCHES SHARPLY , ENTANGLING HERSELF further in her quilt. She struggles wildly for a moment before realizing it was just a dream. Relaxing back against her pillows, she tries to recapture the details of the dream before it disappears.
    The dream started off warm and sweet with Amelia tucking her into bed. They were in their small house, in her room with white clouds painted on blue walls. Alexis painted over those clouds when she was ten, after realizing Amelia was never coming home again.
    Alexis sits up and rubs both palms over her eyes. It’s not a dream; it’s a memory, one of her last of Amelia before she left. Her mother tucked her into bed, sang her favorite song about the blackbird, and turned off the light. In the glow from the hallway, Alexis saw her mother clap her hands over both ears. Amelia turned around, her mouth open in shock.
    “Delia?”
    Now Alexis can’t separate the memory from the dream. Did her mother really call out Delia that night? All Alexis can remember is how her mother whispered to someone she could not see. How she cried and apologized. How she promised she would be there soon. Amelia didn’t know her daughter was awake and watching. She didn’t know how the kiss she blew to her would be the last solid memory Alexis would have of her.
    Alexis wraps herself back up in her quilt as the memory replays in her mind. There’s something strange about it and she closes her eyes to see it all again: her mother’s silhouette against the glow from the hallway, Amelia crying and apologizing. Alexis remembers being scared as her mother talked to someone she couldn’t see.
    Her eyes fly open. The hallway in her old house had a hideous fluorescent light that everyone hated. Amelia never turned it on at night because it was too bright and made a faint buzzing sound. Alexis had been comfortable in the dark and didn’t object. So what was the glow?
    Despite her clock radio telling her it is only 2 a.m., Alexis jumps up and goes to sit at her built-in vanity. The white-painted drawers are just the right size for make-up, jewelry, or a well-used paperback book. She pulls out her mother’s book on extrasensory abilities and starts flipping through the pages. Her mother used it as a reference but also as a diary of sorts, recording her own experiences in the margins.
    Alexis skims through the clairvoyance chapter until she finds the tightly written note she is looking for.
    A. J. won’t confirm what I see. He slipped once and asked me about a glowing light. It was her ghost but I said nothing.
    Alexis puts her head in her hands, trying to fit the pieces together. A ghost visited Amelia and Alexis was there to see it. She remembers the promises her mother made, promises Alexis now knows she made to Delia.
    She is standing up but doesn’t remember pushing back her chair. Her hand holds up the paperback book and she realizes it’s open to a section on spirit possession. The reflection in the mirror is strange, a man’s suit coat, Alexis thinks, before turning around and leaving her apartment.
    Somehow she has tweezers and a bobby pin in her hands, approaching her neighbor’s apartment silently despite the creaking hardwood floors of the hallway. The lock slides open and she enters, moving straight towards her neighbor’s dresser and jewelry box. They are on vacation, she knows, and their little dog is at the kennel. She moves quickly through