Stone and a Hard Place by R. L. King Read Free Book Online

whole room looked like it hadn’t been updated in at least seventy-five years, and practically screamed “rich old lady.”
    “Hello!” a quavery, cheery voice called from near the heavy drapes covering the front picture window. They’d almost missed her sitting there in the chair: a thin and birdlike old woman with fluffy white hair and a city map’s worth of lines and creases on her face. Her bright blue eyes lit up her narrow face as she waved to the newcomers. “Please, come in. I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up.”
    “Hello, Aunt Adelaide,” Langley said, moving to approach her and motioning for Stone and Ethan to follow. “How’ve you been?” He leaned down to plant a kiss on her wrinkled cheek.
    “I’m eighty-nine,” she said, chuckling. “I’m still alive, so about as well as can be expected, all things considered.” Her gaze settled on Stone and her smile widened. “Well. You’re quite a looker, aren’t you? You’re a friend of Tommy’s?”
    Stone was only taken aback for a second, then he returned her smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Bonham. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Alastair Stone. This is my—assistant, Ethan Penrose.”
    “Oh, yes!” She made a tiny little jerk, and Stone could almost see the light bulb go off over her head. “You’re the young man who’s going to figure out what’s going on with my house. He didn’t tell me you were English. I love Englishmen. I could listen to you talk all day.”
    Langley flashed him a triumphant See? I told you so! look.
    “Yes, well—suppose we get started. I don’t want to disturb your home for too long.”
    She waved him off. “You needn’t worry about that. I’m sort of a night owl. And I’m used to having people trooping through the house. We’ve always got little projects going on around here. Had the windows done last year, and the young men doing the earthquake inspection in the summer—”
    Stone nodded, remembering the moderate shaker that had hit the area earlier that year. Megan, a lifelong California native, had been amused at how much it had unnerved him. “You should see what a big one is like,” she’d teased when he’d had trouble getting back to sleep. “I don’t even notice them anymore unless they knock me out of bed.”
    “Old house,” Langley said. “They had to do the inspection to make sure there wasn’t any damage, but Aunt Adelaide’s right: this place is built like a fortress.”
    Stone perched on the edge of a floral-print couch covered in doilies. “All right, then: before I set off to look around, suppose I start by asking you exactly what’s been going on?”
    Adelaide shivered and drew her jacket tighter around herself. “I know Iona and the others think I’m getting balmy in my old age, but I know better. I might be old, but there’s nothing wrong with my mind. And I felt it. I heard it.”
    “Felt and heard what, Mrs. Bonham?”
    She took a deep breath and shivered again. “I hear—voices, sometimes, when I’m in bed. Late at night. They—they whisper .”
    “Can you understand what they’re saying?”
    “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not even sure they’re speaking English, honestly.”
    “All right,” Stone said. “And what did you feel?”
    “Cold. Like there’s a draft in the house, only it feels like it’s going right through my clothes and into my soul. ” Her round, frightened eyes came up. “Is any of this making any sense to you, Dr. Stone? Have you ever encountered anything like it before? I keep thinking that I’ve somehow angered a spirit or something, though I can’t imagine how I might have done that.”
    When Stone answered after a pause, his tone was careful. “Mrs. Bonham—you say you felt a draft. Please, I don’t intend any offense, but I have to explore all the angles: are you sure you didn’t just feel a draft? This is an old house, after all—”
    “No, no,” she insisted. Again she shook her