The Vanishing by Wendy Webb Read Free Book Online

of her drink. “It’s nothing nefarious, I assure you. Don’t worry, my dear. I probably shouldn’t have brought it up at this time. It’s just that something in your background made it especially attractive for me to welcome you here.”
    She gazed at me, her eyes wide with expectation. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, until a thought entered my mind then, chilling me from the inside out. “You’re not—you weren’t one of my husband’s investors…?”
    I thought I detected a look of sadness wash over her face that dissolved into a sigh. “Oh, goodness, no,” she said, breaking off a piece of bread and dipping it into her soup. “It’s nothing to do with that.”
    So she did know about it. I squirmed in my chair. “I want you to know, Mrs. Sinclair—” I began, but she waved her hand in the air to stop me.
    “You owe me no explanation, Julia. Adrian told me all about the particulars of your husband’s less-than-savory business affairs, and how public opinion is against you. Unfairly, he thinks. And so do I. He explained to me that this house would be living up to its name with you here. It will indeed be a haven in the woods for you just as it has been for me, and so many others, I have no doubt.”
    I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. “My life for the past year has truly been a nightmare.”
    “Nightmares.” She smiled at me, rather sadly I thought. “Now, I know all about those. Many of my books were inspired by nightmares I had in this very home. It is good to awaken, isn’t it?”
    I thought about the dark nature of Amaris Sinclair’s novels and shuddered, but at the same time a tingle sizzled through me.
    “So you wrote here, in the house?”
    “At this very table, my dear,” she said, running her hands across its wooden surface. “Just me, my typewriter, and the various monsters and mishaps that were swirling around me begging to be put onto the page. Those were the days!”
    “I’ve read all of your books. And the short stories.”
    Her face lit up. “Do you have a particular favorite among them?”
    “
Seraphina
,” I said, referring to her book about a psychic medium who got more than she bargained for when she contacted the spirit world during a séance in a house, I just then realized, that was a great deal like Havenwood. “I read it so many times when I was growing up, I think I knew every word by heart.”
    She stared at me then, her spoon suspended midway from her bowl to her mouth. It was as though her eyes were grasping at mine, trying to see into my brain. My skin began to prickle, and I felt like a mongoose in the thrall of a cobra.
    “Of course you did, my dear,” she said finally.
    Her gaze was directed at me, but her eyes seemed to be looking at something else, not beyond me, but through me. As though I weren’t there. Was this one of the “episodes” Adrian had warned me about?
    “Mrs. Sinclair?” I reached across the table and grasped her hand, which still held her spoon aloft. This seemed to startle her, bringing her back from wherever she had gone. She shook her head and blinked several times.
    “I’m sorry, my dear,” she said. “The mere mention of my books seems to have sent my thoughts hurtling back into the past. It wassuch a wonderful time, you see. I loved it all, the writing, the book tours, meeting my readers.” She sighed audibly. “Glorious, so glorious.”
    “Mrs. Sinclair, forgive me for asking, but why did you give it all up?” I asked her. “The world thinks you died.”
    “Oh, I know what the world thinks,” she said, finishing the last of her soup. “But the real reason I gave it up? That’s a conversation for another time, my dear.” She turned her gaze to the window and seemed to be looking at something I couldn’t see. “No, today the sky is too blue and bright for a tale as dark as that one.”

SEVEN
    I stood stock-still as three giant dogs bounded toward me. Mrs. Sinclair had suggested