"Of course. Please."

She emerged from the bathroom. Her face was scrubbed, her hair pushed back and wet. Some color had returned to her cheeks. And her eyes, Andrew saw, seemed even a bit brighter.

"I imagine your fantasies of owning a nineteenth-century carriage house didn't include washing cobwebs off your face."

"I'm not sure I had any fantasies about this place. I guess Ike thought he was doing me a favor. Go ahead, call Harl."

But Andrew was staring at her. "Ike?"

She sighed. "I assumed you knew-because you live next door, I suppose. I did some work for the Beacon Historic Project early last year and the year before. Ike hired me. I'm a graphic designer in Boston. He transferred the carriage house to me as payment. Maybe it was a whim, I don't know. He took off right afterward, and I haven't heard from him." She leaned against a counter, as if to steady herself. "But go ahead and call Harl, if he'll be worried."

Andrew dialed his number. Harl didn't wait for him to speak. "All clear?"

"Yeah. She fell in the cellar chasing Tippy Tail."

"Damn cat," Harl said, and hung up.

"That was quick," Tess said.

"Harl hates phones."

The water came to a boil, and Andrew poured it into a mug, dangled in a strong-smelling chamomile tea bag and handed the tea to Tess. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yes." She smiled over the rim of the steaming mug, the heat adding color to her cheeks. "Thanks."

He glanced at the camp she'd set up. Even with her lilacs in a mason jar, it looked rough. "Look, I've got a couple of spare bedrooms at the house. If you're injured, you don't want to spend the night on the cold floor."

"Thanks, but I'll manage. To be honest, I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this place. That's why I'm up here for the weekend, seeing if being here will help me make up my mind."

"Sorry it's meant chasing after a cat. Tippy Tail's a stray we took in-she's temperamental. If she comes home tonight, I'll try to lock her inside."

Tess rallied, managing a quick smile. "It's okay. I live in a basement apartment in the city. You should see what walks past my windows."

She sipped her tea, looking calmer, but tired. Andrew decided the scrape on her jaw was superficial, and if the hit she took to her side wasn't, she hadn't asked him to do anything about it.

"I'll leave you to your tea." He went over to her sleeping bag, picked up a book she was reading and a pen next to it. He noticed the portable white-noise machine and smiled; maybe Tess Haviland was more worried about ghosts in the night than she was willing to admit. "If you need anything, give me a call."

He jotted down his phone number and placed the book and pen back on the floor.

Tess hadn't moved from her position against the counter. "Okay. Great." She sipped her tea, watching him as he headed for the kitchen door. He noticed she was no longer shaking. "I suppose if I do end up keeping this place, I'll have my hands full. Dirt cellars, spiders, mice. Who knows what else."

Andrew smiled. "I'd say spiders and mice are the least of your problems. The offer of a guest room stands."

"She's lying."

Harl had opened them each a beer. They were in the kitchen, at the table. Andrew had checked on Dolly, just to make sure she wasn't cowering under the covers the way she did in a thunderstorm, but she was fine, fast asleep. Harl had listened without interrupting as Andrew had related Tess's story about finding the cat in the cellar. He'd known what his cousin would say. Harl didn't believe anyone.

"How do you know she's lying?"

"That wasn't a falling-on-my-ass scream. That was a scared-shitless scream. I know the difference."

"She says she was worried about snakes."

Harl shook his head knowingly. "Nah. Doesn't wash."

Andrew agreed. "What would wash?"

His cousin took a long drink of his beer, an expensive local brew he'd never touch if it weren't in Andrew's refrigerator. He set the dark bottle on the kitchen table. "Ghosts."

"I suppose she could have imagined-"

"Nope. Not imagined. Saw."

"Oh, come on." Andrew wanted to laugh, but he could see Harl was serious. "I don't believe in ghosts. Neither do you."

"Doesn't mean she didn't see one."

"Then it was her imagination."

"No."

Andrew frowned at his cousin's logic. "You think she saw a real ghost in the cellar?"

Harl shrugged. "Why not?"

Andrew thought of her pale face, the way she shook, the faraway expression in her eyes. He'd have looked pretty much like that if he'd encountered a ghost. Then again, she could simply have had her first adventure in an old New England dirt cellar and let her imagination get away from her. But he knew there was no arguing with Harl.

"There's something else," Andrew said, and repeated what Tess had told him about her relationship with Ike Grantham.

"Shit," Harl said. "Doesn't that beat all?"

"Ike's eccentric and impulsive, but practically giving away the carriage house-" Andrew shook his head, not able to make sense of it. "I know Tess worked for him, but it must have been a good deal for him or he wouldn't have done it."

"She one of his women?"

"I didn't ask."

"Ike wouldn't have gone down in the cellar after Tippy Tail, that's for damn sure. I'd feel better about this if we knew where the hell that slippery bastard's got himself off to."

Harl was more inclined to blame Ike for Joanna's death than Andrew was, believing the man had slipped through a troubled woman's defenses, into her psyche, and used her for his own ego.

"It's getting late," Andrew said.

Harl didn't move. He took a sip of beer. "Don't you wonder why Haviland didn't just tell you the truth?"

"Harl, if I saw a ghost-whether I thought I saw one or actually knew I saw one-I don't know if I'd go out of my way to tell anyone."

"Ah." Harl settled back in his chair, in no apparent hurry to return to his quarters across the yard. "A sin of omission isn't the same as a sin of commission."

Andrew sighed. One beer, and Harl was in the mood to give him a headache. "It's none of our business."

"She lied. If we hadn't heard her scream, or if you ran into her over the lilacs tomorrow and she didn't mention falling, that'd be a sin of omission. Telling you it was the thought of snakes that made her scream is a sin of commission. A flat-out lie."

"Well, Harl, guess what? I don't care. If she saw a ghost, she saw a ghost. Doesn't have anything to do with me."

"What if it's Jedidiah?"

"Jedidiah has nothing to do with me. Or you." He rinsed out his beer bottle in the sink. "I just want to find Tippy Tail, for Dolly's sake. The rest I don't care about."

"Not me." Harl pushed back his chair and got to his feet, his white ponytail hanging down his back. "I want to know about the ghost."

He left without another word, taking his baseball bat with him. In the ensuing silence, Andrew refused to think about what Tess had actually seen in her cellar. Instead he thought about what he'd have done if she'd taken him up on his offer to spend the night. The guest-room beds weren't made up.

Dangerous thinking.

He thought of her tucked on her camp mat for the night with her lantern, her book, her white-noise machine. Would she sleep in her dusty, cobweb-cov-ered clothes? Would she sleep at all?

More dangerous thinking.

He jumped up, and when he walked down the hall, he could feel how big and empty his house was. He'd renovated a few of the rooms, had more to go.

He headed up to Dolly's room. She was curled up with her stuffed kittens and wore a glittery star crown half off her coppery hair. His sweet, stubborn, imaginative daughter. Whatever else he did wrong in his life, he needed to do right by her.