CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
She was freezing by the time she walked up the path to the front door. The door opened before she had a chance to put her hand on it and Trisha pulled her in. The house was blessedly warm.
‘Oh my God, I’m glad to see you. You’ve been gone for ages, I was getting really worried.’ Trisha herded her into the warmth. ‘You gotta get out of those wet clothes. Here, start stripping and I’ll get you a robe and a good hot cup of tea or coffee or something.’
Michaela pulled her boots off, ignoring the mud on the floorboards. Every limb was aching and she just wanted to sit down, warm and dry. And then perhaps sleep for a week. ‘I think I have hypothermia,’ she groaned. She pulled off the rest of her sodden clothes and took the robe and towel Trisha was holding out to her.
‘Go sit by the fire,’ Trisha said. ‘It took me ages to thaw out. What do you want – tea, coffee or something stronger?’
Michaela padded on bare feet over to the couch in front of the fire. She collapsed on it, tucked her feet up and pulled the throw over her. ‘Coffee,’ she said. ‘Coffee would be good, thanks, Trisha.’ She closed her eyes and concentrated on absorbing the heat from the fire.
‘Your face is bleeding.’ Trisha placed the mug of steaming coffee next to the couch. ‘Let me have a look at it.’
Michaela shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. I scraped it against a tree when Selena’s son came out of the house. Gave me a bit of a fright.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘He didn’t see me.’
Trisha sat down. ‘So was it worth running off like that? I was scared shitless waiting here for you. Anything could have happened and I wouldn’t have known.’ She looked closer at Michaela. ‘Your cheek is still actually bleeding. We’ll have to put something on it.’ She disappeared into the bathroom.
Michaela sat still while Trisha cleaned and dressed the scrape on her cheek. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Now I feel like a real dipshit with a huge freaking plaster on my face.’
‘Serves you right,’ Trisha told her. ‘You shouldn’t have a runoff. I hope it was bloody worth it. I read the crap on your computer. That article about the girl drowning? That’s creepy shit, especially when you think that it happened in that God awful building we found yesterday. I wouldn’t be fucking surprised if that was haunted.’ She shook her head.
Michaela rested hers on the arm of the couch. The warmth from the fire was making her drowsy now that there was no longer any adrenaline pumping through her body. She snaked out a hand from under the blanket and found Trisha’s.
‘It was worth it,’ she said. ‘There’s no ghost. It was a con.’ ‘A con?’
‘Yeah, a hoax or something. Someone had hung something from one of the trees, I’m sure of it. My guess is the something was a dummy dressed in child’s clothing.’
Trisha stroked her hand. ‘Not just a child’s clothing,’ she said. ‘Girls’ stuff. It might have been a long way away but even I could see that it was a little girl.’ She stole a sip of Michaela’s coffee. ‘So now we need to know who would do that. And why.’
Michaela prized her eyes open. ‘Someone’s trying to scare Selena. I’ll bet anything you like on it.’ She closed her eyes and burrowed down into the couch. ‘We need to find out more about the son,’ she said. ‘He gives me a really bad feeling.’