“You’d have to stay the entire night,” he finally said.

Ha! She had him. “Done.”

“Alone.”

“Done.”

“This Friday. The thirteenth.”

“D-Done.”

Chapter Two

Halfway back to her car, her phone buzzed from the pocket of her jeans. She knew who it was without looking. Sure enough, a text message from Mr. Wonderful read, there yet fraidy cat?

Ignore him, a mature, self-reliant voice asserted.

After debating for two seconds, she keyed in the word jerkwad and sent the text.

She’d never been good at listening to reason. Obviously. She angled her head up to the second story, where filthy windows clouded with dust and decay seemed to transform into yawning faces with soulless eyes. The human brain often put together random shapes into an order it could understand, she knew. There were no faces gaping back at her from the upstairs window, just her overactive imagination seeing things where it shouldn’t.

She closed her eyes and then reopened them. Nothing but dirty glass and yellowed lace curtains. A shudder snaked up her spine anyway.

She spun on the heel of one sneaker, went to her trunk again, and dragged out a giant tote filled with bedding, a shiny new Coleman lantern, and a few hundred dollars’ worth of supplies from the local sporting goods store. Then she hauled her booty up the short staircase to the door and kicked it open.

Marcus would laugh his tight butt off if he saw her lugging all this crap in to stay one night. But “roughing it” wasn’t part of the bet.

They had finished their beers and game shortly after the dare was made. Marcus had won, further fueling her flair for competition.

“When you succumb to white hot terror and run screaming into the hills”—he’d tugged his brown bomber jacket over impossibly wide shoulders, and she’d tried really, really hard not to admire the way the chest muscles rippled with the movement—“what do I get?”

“What, my terror and abject humiliation aren’t enough?”

“Satisfying, but no.”

She’d pressed her lips together to keep from smiling and asked, “What did you have in mind?”

He hadn’t hesitated. “The annual RSD dinner.”

“That’s it? I go to that every year.”

“As my date,” he’d clarified.

She doubted she’d successfully hidden her shock. The man had shown up to the last three Retail Space Design dinners with a different blonde du jour. It wasn’t as if he was hard up for a woman to accompany him. His dates’ duties seemed to include: laughing at his jokes, holding champagne flutes between perfectly manicured fingers, and worshipping his every footstep.

She pictured herself in that role and snorted.

He sent a long, slow gaze up and down her body and she swore she felt it like a sizzling brand. “Do you own any outfits that don’t make you look like you never miss a Wall Street Journal?”

Self-consciously, she fingered the two buttons holding her Calvin Klein blazer closed. “I like this suit.”

He took a deliberate step closer, making her face grow warm. “I didn’t say I didn’t like the suit.” His suggestive murmur, and the way he brushed her fingers aside to touch a button on her jacket drew her in. She found herself staring at his mouth, evaluating the shape of his lips, and calculating how far she’d have to rise on her toes to press her lips to his. Not far.

She came to her senses, albeit a bit late, but managed to jerk away from him. He backed off instantly, his eyes shuttering, his smug grin locking back into place. Did she imagine the moment of mutual lust?

“When I win,” he said, “You have to wear a cocktail dress.”

“I do own a cocktail dress, you know.”

“A short one.”

“It’s short. I have great legs.” She noticed his eyes slide down her body again and she resisted the urge to squirm.

“And no panties.”

“Marcus!” She crossed her arms defiantly, but felt her face go hot at the suggestion. Felt all of her go hot at the suggestion.

“It’s Hawaii,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “If you expect me to toss it into this bet, you need to up the ante on your side.” She tried to laugh him off, but he stared her down while she waited for her cab. Finally, when the yellow-checkered vehicle pulled up, he prompted her with, “We agree, then?”

On the way home, she would try and figure out why he would ask her to be his date to the dinner he likely already had a date for. He had to be messing with her. She’d shot down his advances before. Maybe this was him taunting her, trying to put the one thing on the line that would make her balk. If he thought she would let Hawaii go on the prospect of her going sans-underpants, he had another thing coming.

“No panties,” she shot back, noting the helpful cabbie had stepped out of the car and craned an interested eyebrow. “But you can’t touch me below the shoulders.”

The slow spread of his smile made her tingle everywhere. “Oh, honey. You have no idea what I’m capable of above the shoulders.”

It was the thought that had followed her all the way home. And into bed.

Of course, the next morning she plodded into work with the mother of all hangovers. Not to miss a chance to tip the scales, Marcus made sure to try and psyche her out as often as possible.

He swung into her office, holding onto the doorframe with one hand and gripping a crowbar in the other. “Hope the cops don’t catch you. B and Es include fines and jail time.” If she’d been a hundred percent, she would have Googled his claim to see if it were true. Instead, she’d held out a hand and accepted the length of iron.

This morning, she was sipping her second cup of coffee when the email icon at the bottom of her computer screen flickered.

Lil, thought you might like to know who you’re up against tonight. Happy Friday the 13 th ! M.

She opened the attachment, and then wished she hadn’t. A scanned newspaper article, so old the edges of the periodical were torn and faded, boasted the header: WOMAN FALLS TO HER DEATH, POLICE SAY SUICIDE. Lily read through the article about Essie Mae Epson and her leap from the second story window. The article was tame compared to the rich urban legend that surrounded the place. The rumors of Essie’s suicide being a murder at her husband’s hands, the phantom voices on the property, a woman in white, and the general feeling of unease…

But that’s all they are. Rumors.

Now, standing outside of Willow Mansion, the world seemed utterly normal.

The birds chirped, the leaves rustled in the breeze, and cars and semis rumbled down the highway in the distance. Friday the thirteenth or not, she was standing in warm sunlight, breathing air infused with the fragrances of fall, and the big, scary mansion appeared more neglected than eerie.

Yes, the “Legend of Essie Mae” still looped her brain like a stock car in a race, but she found herself wondering if a woman named Essie had ever actually lived there. She had no proof the article about Essie’s suicide wasn’t Photoshopped. Marcus was a designer, and she wouldn’t put it past him to stack the deck in his favor. He was a practical joker at his core.

Besides, she had this. She may have balked at age fourteen, but now an adult, she could look at the house as just a structure. A structure that was an eyesore, not the site of a demonic possession. But the thought supposed to make her feel better somewhat stalled her mental rounds of “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Keeping her toes lined up with the threshold, she poked just her chin into the house. Boarded-up windows lined the other side of the murky living room, dust motes kicking up in the streams of sunlight eking their way through the gaps of the boards. To the right stood what appeared to be a treacherous staircase. The steps were warped, the railing missing every other spindle. With one final steadying breath, she hoisted her supplies in her arms, steeled her spine, and stepped inside.