“Why are you so certain Clem didn’t kill Beatrice?” Douglas asked. “Clearly he’s involved in all of this. People have seen his ghost. He’s the man with the pitchfork.”

Carolyn shrugged. “I’m not certain he didn’t kill her. He may well have. He certainly seems the most likely suspect. Beatrice was murdered with one of the tools of Clem’s trade. He was there moments before she died, and they were arguing. She had just turned him down, so he definitely had a motive.” She smiled. “I’m just considering all options. It’s what investigators do.”

Douglas sighed. “And do they also visit sad old ladies confined to mental institutions?”

Carolyn sighed as well. The task ahead of them this day was not going to be pleasant. “When necessary, we do.” She glanced over at the rising sun, now seeming to set the trees afire. “You don’t have to go with me to see Jeanette. I can go alone.”

“No, I want to go.” Douglas looked sad. “I remember my father taking me to see her once when I was quite little. He always felt real bad about what happened to her. I remember that he told me that when they were kids, he used to think Jeanette was the most beautiful girl in the world. She was a little bit older than he was, and Dad would just sit there and watch her at family gatherings, transfixed by her. She was like his first crush. And smart, too. He always said Jeanette was so smart. That it was all so tragic because Jeanette had been going to Yale and was going to have this great life. When we went to see her, I remember how sad Dad was afterward. He kept repeating how beautiful Jeanette had been, and how smart.”

Carolyn nodded. She’d been reading about Jeanette Young. She had been a master’s student at Yale at the time she went into that room. Kip had found several of her student papers, and they were preserved in the files he’d drawn up on every member of the family who had been chosen in the lottery. Jeanette was involved in the women’s liberation movement, and had written extremely literate papers on the prevalence of sexism in academia and religious life and the marketplace. This was no timid little woman who could be scared into submission. Indeed, Carolyn found it fascinating that the one person who had made it out of that room alive was a woman. Was it Jeanette’s gender or the sheer strength of her willpower that had allowed her to survive? Or possibly was it a combination of both?

Of course, she could hear Howard Young saying to her that it would be hard to say that Jeanette survived, given what she had become.

They heard movement in the kitchen then. The servants had arrived. The smell of cinnamon bread baking was wafting across the yard. Carolyn and Douglas smiled at each other and headed inside.

Howard Young was apparently sleeping late, so they ate breakfast by themselves. Carolyn thought it peculiar that he wasn’t up to give her any last-minute advice about her visit to Jeanette. But perhaps the prospect of her visit to his unfortunate niece distressed him so much that he preferred not to talk any more about it until it was all over. Douglas had confirmed that the subject of Jeanette had always made his uncle quite sad. The whole family had always been upset about poor Jeanette.

But she was alive. And that was more than could be said about many members of the family.

Carolyn had been warned that she wouldn’t get much out of Jeanette. Kip had been to see her. All he had gotten was a blank stare. He had learned nothing. Even when Georgeanne had touched her hand, she had been unable to pick up anything concrete. “Peaceful,” Georgeanne said. “All I can tell you is that she feels peaceful.”

At least they could be grateful for that. Jeanette may have been lost to the world, but at least she didn’t spend her days in any kind of tortured misery.

After breakfast, they headed outside. Carolyn expected that one of Mr. Young’s cars would be brought around for them to use. The home where Jeanette was living was only about an hour away up the coast. But instead of a car, waiting outside in the front driveway was Douglas’s motorcycle.

“We’re taking that?” she asked, wide-eyed.

Douglas grinned at her, flashing those dimples. “Sure. It’s a gorgeous day.”

Carolyn gulped. “I’ve never been on a motorcycle before,” she admitted.

Douglas’s smile only broadened. “Then maybe it’s time you were.” He handed her a helmet. “Strap it on, baby.”

Carolyn gave a little nervous laugh, then exchanged her bag, containing her notebooks and tape recorder, for the helmet. Douglas secured her bag into one of the side compartments of the bike as she awkwardly slipped the helmet onto her head. He smiled.

“Here, let me help you,” he said.

Tenderly he adjusted the strap under her chin, tightening it so it was snug but not uncomfortable. It was the closest they had yet been to each other. Their eyes locked.

“Feel okay?” he asked her.

Carolyn nodded.

He patted the black leather pillion on the motorcycle. “You hop up here and just hold onto my waist,” he instructed.

Carolyn hesitated. “I won’t pull you too much to one side? I mean, my weight won’t cause you to lose balance?”

Douglas laughed. “A slim little girl like you? I hardly think so.”

Carolyn swallowed, then lifted her leg over the bike. Good thing she was wearing jeans today and low shoes. Douglas followed, settling himself in front of her. She gingerly placed her hands on his waist.

“Hang on!” he called, then started the bike with a roar.

In moments they were zooming down the long driveway and onto the road that led down the side of the hill into the village. Carolyn gripped Douglas tighter around the waist, her face pressed against his back. She was filled with both terror and excitement-terror that she might fall off or cause the bike to topple over, and excitement from the wind in her face and the intimacy of Douglas’s body. She realized halfway down the hill that her eyes were squeezed shut. She forced herself to open them and looked around and was rewarded by the sight of the shimmering Atlantic off to her right. Soon they were zipping through the center road of Youngsport, past the little shops and white clapboard village church.

“You okay back there?” Douglas shouted through the wind.

“I’m wonderful,” Carolyn replied.

She was grinning widely. She relaxed her grip around Douglas’s waist a bit and settled into her seat to enjoy the ride. Douglas was steering the bike onto the highway now. A tractor trailer rumbled by, and Carolyn flinched a bit. But then the road opened up, and it seemed as if they were the only ones traveling that day. The sun was at ten o’clock overhead. The towering pines on either side of the highway were a deep blue-green. A hawk soared above her through the clear sky. Carolyn smiled again.

She enjoyed being so close to Douglas. For the first time since David, she was feeling drawn to a man. She watched as Douglas’s blond hair blew in the breeze. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, which worried her a bit. But she had a sense of safety being with him. Nothing bad would happen to them with Douglas at the wheel.

It was almost enough to make her forget what had brought them together. As they sped down the highway, she could pretend that they were just a couple of people enjoying the morning. She was on a date with a guy she liked. That was all. They weren’t going to meet a woman whose life had been shattered by a malevolent, murderous force that had lived in the basement of an old house for eighty years.

Carolyn leaned to her right as Douglas gradually slowed the bike down and steered them off an exit ramp. At the end of the ramp, he went left, rattling across a bumpy country lane. They couldn’t have been going more than twenty or thirty miles an hour. The fragrance of pine was thick here, and in some places the trees were so tall and so thick that they blocked out the morning sun completely. After about fifteen minutes, Douglas turned right onto an even bumpier road, slowing down to about ten miles an hour. “Hang on,” he shouted to Carolyn over his shoulder. She obeyed.