Paul plucked it from her hand. “That’s the third one I’ve seen around here. The last old man that owned the house was sick. I guess he didn’t take good care of the medical waste. I’ll throw it out.”

Jessica looked to Eddie for any insight. He could only shrug his shoulders. “Could have been some junkie that shot up on the island. This is a pretty good place to get high without anyone bothering you.”

They stepped onto the porch, the old wood groaning under their weight. A frog croaked once, the leapt off the porch into the brush. Paul turned the oversized, cut glass handle, swinging the door wide.

Nothing, it seemed, was to be as expected out here.

Chapter Eleven

Jessica stepped inside and paused, taking a moment to study the craftsmanship that had gone into the interior. “Wow, it’s beautiful.”

Paul’s eyebrows danced up and down. “I know, right? When I first came here, I thought there’d be holes in the roof and rats running everywhere. Looks like the exterior did a damn good job of protecting the interior.”

Eddie walked past her, running his hand along the polished banister of the spiral stairway that split the house into two even halves. “They must have some quality people as caretakers.”

“Until we viewed the house, no one had even been on the island for two decades,” a baritone voice called out. A tall, gaunt man emerged from the room to their left. He wore a light sports jacket and slacks with a crease so sharp, Jessica was sure it could dice an onion. “Hello Ms. Backman, Mr. Home. Thank you so much for coming. I’m Tobe Harper.”

He offered his hand. The flesh was cold, as if he’d been rooting around a freezer.

“You mean this place was abandoned for twenty years?” Jessica asked, flexing her fingers to shake off the chill from his handshake. “You must have done a lot of work to get it looking like this.”

Tobe Harper regarded her with a sly smile. That, along with his deep-set eyes, made him look like a leering skeleton. “On the contrary. All we’ve done is apply a little elbow grease to clean the place, clear out the dust, shake the cobwebs free. You’ll find this is just one of many peculiarities of not only Ormsby House, but the island as well. Come, I’ll introduce you to my wife.” He looked at Paul. “Would you mind keeping the children occupied while we discuss matters? I believe they’re both in their room.”

Paul nodded. “Sure thing, Tobe. Hey, it was nice meeting you both.” And with that, he bounded up the stairs. Jessica listened to his heavy footfalls overhead, followed by a knock and the sound of a door opening and closing.

“I hope my brother-in-law didn’t make you sea sick. He has a penchant for speed in that thing,” Tobe Harper said. Jessica was having a hard time not only placing his age—he could be anywhere from forty to sixty, the creeping gray in his hair clouding her judgment—but his accent as well. It was a mix of Louisiana Creole, the South Side of Boston and a touch of British aristocracy. Words flowed from his lips with a melody and cadence like Chopin filtered through a hard rock garage band. Strange.

“It actually felt good catching a nice breeze off the water,” Eddie said. For some reason, his eyes kept flicking to the rooms on their right. They were dark and presumably empty, but Jessica knew he saw other things that were not necessarily attracted to light and crowds.

“Good,” Tobe Harper said. “Daphne is in the library.”

He turned and they followed. Jessica felt like she had been thrust into some old time movie, the genteel butler leading the way to the parlor. Their footsteps sounded like small-arms gunshots, the aged hardwood floors a symphony of pops and sighs. She looked over at Eddie who had fixed his eyes on Harper’s back as if he could X-ray the man’s soul. For all she knew, he could.

There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, but what was there looked antique and expensive. There were no framed pictures on the walls or mantle. Gliding past the great room’s fireplace, she could smell the sweet char of last night’s fire.

Tobe Harper pulled a set of double doors open, sliding them into recesses in the walls. The library had four south-facing windows that went from the floor to the ceiling, filling the room with light. A large, round table sat in the center of the room, surrounded by four leather chairs on casters. The shelves that had been installed in all four walls were empty, save for some surface dust.

A very pretty redheaded woman stood beside a small wet bar, pouring drinks. She wore a high-necked dress and if Jessica’s eyes were accurate, she also had a tight corset on underneath. She wore no makeup on her cream colored skin, not that she needed it. She looked as if she had dressed for one of those gag period photos, the kind people took at county fairs.

“Our very special guests are here,” Tobe said.

“I was just getting drinks ready. I’m Daphne Harper. We spoke on the phone,” she said to Jessica.

“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said.

A warm smile lit Daphne’s face. “Do you like Tom Collins?” She tilted a crystal decanter over a glass filled with ice.

“I never had one before. I’m happy to try.”

She looked at Eddie and he said, “Same here.”

Tobe gently ushered them into chairs while Daphne delivered their drinks.

The vacant shelves diverted Jessica’s attention. It just felt odd, being in a library without a single book. It made the room seem barren and unfulfilled, like a dying wish arriving seconds after a final breath.

Daphne noted her interest. “It seems some historical society had all of the books removed when the last of the Ormsby family passed on. For all the trepidation the locals on the mainland had about the island, they found a way to look past it when it came time to pillage the place of its valuables. I guess it’s knowledge of that darkness of man’s soul that made a man like Maxwell Ormsby retreat to an island in the first place.”

“And of that, we have a very like mind,” Tobe added.

Despite the abundance of sunlight and the fact that it was an unbearably hot day, Jessica felt goose bumps break out along her arms and the back of her neck. A tiny, rippling chill made her shiver.

Daphne placed a motherly hand over Jessica’s. “The cold never leaves this house. Tobe, can you please start a fire?”

He took a restrained sip from his glass, placed it on the table and went over to the fireplace.

“I take it you don’t have a need for central air,” Eddie said. He swiveled the ice in his glass.

“Not in Ormsby House, no. We don’t have any official instruments, but you’ll find that the temperature on the island is slightly less than it is just off the island. And the house, that’s an entirely different animal. There are many times we can see our breath, even though it’s well over ninety outside. I’m just grateful the house has so many fireplaces.”

Jessica heard the crackle of kindling accepting the flame behind her. “Do you know if the house is directly over any kind of underground waterway?”

“If it was, the place would collapse into it like a great sinkhole, I suppose,” Tobe said. He threw a snuffed match into the miniscule flames. The fire was just begging to grow, gyrating orange triangles replicating along the logs. “Though it is an island.”

“I saw the heavy tree cover outside. I’m sure that keeps the sun and heat at bay,” Jessica said. “Open windows will circulate a nice cool breeze.”

Daphne tilted her glass back. “You can explore the house at your leisure in a bit. You’ll see that all of the windows and doors are closed tight.”

“EBs draining the ambient temperature, converting it to fuel?” Eddie suggested to Jessica.

“Uh, EBs?” Daphne said.

Jessica nodded. “I’m not a big fan of the word ghost. I believe that what people call ghosts or spirits or shadows are made up of pure energy. So, I call them Energy Beings, EB for short.”