The House on Tradd Street by Karen White Read Free Book Online Page B

what appeared to be awe in her eyes. “Wow. You own that. You own all of this. You are like the luckiest girl in the world.”
    “Right. I now own a dog and apparently a buffalo and a house with Swiss cheese for a roof, and this translates to me being the luckiest girl in the world how . . . ?”
    I felt the oddest compulsion to cry, so I turned my back and began walking down the stairs, a frantically yelping General Lee in my arms and an attack pigeon close on my heels. Could this get any worse?
    Sophie called out to me. “Who’s the trustee, by the way? You didn’t mention it.”
    I stopped, and looked back in confusion. “I didn’t ask. I don’t know why, but I guess I was still in shock.”
    Mrs. Houlihan, panting from the exertion of climbing the stairs, said, “I almost forgot. My first phone message for you, and I almost forgot to tell you. My apologies, as this will never happen again, of course. But, well, a gentleman called about an hour ago. He said he was looking for you, seeing as how he was just informed that he was the trustee to the estate and he needed to speak with you. He’d tried calling your home number first but nobody answered.”
    “Did he give his name?”
    She pulled a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. “Yes. A Colonel James Middleton. He didn’t leave a number, although I did ask. He said you would know it.”
    My eyes met Sophie’s widened ones. Yes, things really could get worse. Much worse.
    Mrs. Houlihan tilted her head. “Middleton. Are you related to the colonel?”
    I forced my throat to work. “Yes. He’s my father. It would appear that Mr. Vanderhorst had a sense of humor.”
    “Oh, that he did. But he also had a strong belief in family. That’s probably why he made your father trustee. He was always saying how blood was thicker than water.”
    She was saying more but I couldn’t listen. I needed to get away from the house—and the swooping pigeon—as soon as possible. I put the dog down at the base of the stairs and let it pull me where it wanted to go until I found myself out on the sidewalk next to the gate looking into the garden.
    The woman was there again, pushing the boy on the swing. They both looked over at me, and the boy lifted his hand to wave. I was relieved to note that the other, more sinister presence I had detected the previous day was absent, and hoped that he had only been a figment of my overactive imagination. General Lee barked an excited greeting as if he recognized somebody, and I looked down at him in surprise. “You see them, too?”
    I turned my gaze back to the scene, but the woman, the boy, and the swing were gone now, and the crickets had resumed their chorus. I stared at the overgrown garden for a long minute, somehow seeing bright-colored flowers and vibrant greens where I knew only brown dirt and straggly weeds now grew. It was as if I were seeing what the house had once been. And what it could be again.
    Tugging on the dog’s leash, I headed down the street, afraid to look back. I didn’t want to see the house in all its columned glory, its alabaster paint shining in the Charleston sun, the shadows of the columns like arms reaching out to grab hold of me and hang on.
    I started to jog, heedless of my heels or the heat, racing General Lee around the corner until I could no longer see the house on Tradd Street.

CHAPTER 4
    I arrived at my office at seven o’clock on Monday morning, hoping I’d find the office empty, since I still needed more time to think. I had come no closer to a decision than I had the day I’d sat in the office of Drayton, Drayton and Drayton, and my little world had started spinning in the wrong direction. I was still stumbling, looking for sure footing and feeling instead as if I were walking up the down escalator.
    Sophie was proving to be no help at all. She hadn’t said anything as I’d said goodbye to her on Tradd Street except for one last parting shot as she’d jumped into her Volkswagen