The House on Serpent Lake (Ghost, Romance, Fantasy) Read Free Page A

and a green ceramic lamp. Each bed was neatly made, its own little world at a distance from the other.
    “Twin beds?” She dropped her handbag and overnight case on the bed closest to the wall.
    Eric was already digging through his suitcase. He said nothing, just kept busy until he found his pajama bottoms and disappeared into the bathroom. Lindsay grabbed her toothbrush and was about to follow him when the bathroom door closed—nearly in her face.
    Taken aback, she sat on the bed.
    The bathroom door opened a short while later and Eric, clad in pajama bottoms over his briefs, exited. Lindsay was astonished. He had never worn pajamas in the entire year they’d been married.
    Avoiding her eyes, he climbed into bed.
    “Honey, I’m beat,” he said, busily arranging the top sheet over him, “and we have a lot to do tomorrow. Our appointment with the attorney is at nine, and we have to stop at the mortuary. I need to get some sleep.”
    “Of course.” Lindsay rose to give him a quick kiss, but he clicked off his light and rolled over to face the wall.
    At a total loss, Lindsay stared at his back.
    Tension crackled in the air.
    “Eric—” she began.
    “Don’t make a big deal out of nothing. I’m tired, that’s all.”
    After an hour of lying in bed staring at the ceiling, Lindsay ran water for a bath. Instead of showering in the morning, perhaps a warm soak would relax her.
    She lay back in the tub, her head resting against the blue-tiled wall. She breathed deeply, trying to ease the pressure in her chest, that old tightening she’d felt growing up with a vagabond mother, the creeping fear that snaked through every nerve in her body, taking over, crushing her so she couldn’t eat or sleep. Something was threatening her marriage, and it was worse than her childhood, because this time, she had no idea what the threat was. Only that it was there, growing, just beyond her vision.
    She had to get some answers, had to convince Eric to talk about the problem so they could fix it.
    But was now the right time?
    He must be exhausted from adjusting to the expanded territory at work, and, his aunt had just died. Though he hadn’t seen her in years, he obviously thought a great deal of her. Coming back to his childhood home must be emotional for him, a time of memories, some good, some not so good. Growing up with two maiden aunts after his father died and his mother went to work couldn’t have been easy for a young boy, and now she needed to support him in every way she could.
    She’d wait until he settled his aunt’s estate, then she’d insist on some answers.

    When Lindsay woke the next morning, Eric was already dressed. He kept glancing at her as if bracing himself.
    But today was going to be a long day for him, full of legalities and memories, so she wanted to make it easier for him. When she smiled, he brightened, and she caught a glimpse of the old Eric, a man of positive energy and charm.
    After a quick breakfast at the bakery, they climbed narrow stairs in an old frame building to the attorney's office. From behind a cluttered oak desk, a stocky man with thick white hair rose and shook their hands.
    “So sorry for your loss,” Mr. Mathews said once they were seated. “Miss Frida was a fine woman. I was her attorney for years. Miss Berina’s as well, before she passed on about forty years ago.”
    “I just have a vague memory of Aunt Berina,” Eric told him. “She died when I was seven. That was about the second year I stayed with them.”
    “Your Aunt Frida was a wonderful woman,” Mathews said. “She devoted her life to taking care of Miss Berina until the day of her death.”
    “What was wrong with Berina?” Lindsay asked. “Was she the oldest?”
    “The youngest,” Mathews said. “By a couple of years. And she was a beautiful woman, although she lived a secluded life. Some say she just wasted away.”
    “I never knew much about her,” Eric said, “other than rumors about some kind of nervous