"Katie..." The woman's voice came from far away, and yet somehow it sounded as if it were in the room with her. Katie sat up in bed. She looked at the clock on her phone. Three am.

"Katie." There it was again, a little stronger. She concentrated on the voice as she lay quietly. She tried to determine exactly where it was coming from.

"Who's there?" Katie whispered into the dark. If she could just determine who the woman was—who the ghost was—or what she wanted, Katie could...

What? What could she do? She had never been able to do anything for Grandma. She'd never been able to find out what it was Grandma had wanted from her. What good was it to see ghosts and not be able to understand why they appeared to her?

"Katie." The voice seemed to try and gather strength. "Save..."

Katie switched on the lamp and glanced around the room. Everything was in place. She threw off the blanket and stood, looking around. "Hello? Arabella? Is that you?"

There was no answer, but the room grew suddenly colder. Katie walked to the door, opened it. Soft light from the hall night lights flooded in. Those lights were motion sensitive, so that meant someone had been in the hall. Were ghosts able to set off motion sensors? She stepped out onto the rug. "Hello?"

A sudden movement drew her eye to the end of the hall. As Katie walked that way, she began to make out Clarissa's form by the window. She was partially hidden behind the curtains and seemed to be just staring out the window.

"Clarissa, what are you doing up?" She said softly.

Clarissa came out from behind the curtain slowly. Strangely, she seemed a little confused, but she covered it by frowning. "None of your business."

"What are you doing?" Katie glanced over the girl's shoulder and out the window. The patio below was dark and the pale first quarter moonlight cast strange shadows from the ornamental shrubs and trees of the yard. She saw no one in the yard, but every instinct in her said that there was. "Who's out there?"

Clarissa rolled her eyes. Her face got paler, as if that were even possible. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Katie frowned. She put her hand on Clarissa's shoulder, led her away from the window. "What are you doing up? Are you sneaking out?"

"What do you care?" She shrugged Katie's hand off.

"I do care." Katie sighed. With just that brief contact with the girl's shoulder, she could feel Clarissa trembling slightly. Fear? Or just cold? "Where were you going at this time of night?"

"Ugh. Why are you even here?" Clarissa rolled her eyes again and tried to get by her.

Katie searched her face. Despite her tough, don't-care façade, Clarissa looked even more sickly than before. She was not sleeping because she was sneaking out. But why was she sneaking out? Who was she meeting? And how could Katie stop it? It was a dangerous activity, to be sure. Who was she meeting? Who knew what that person's motives were? Clarissa was only fifteen. She did not have the life experience to anticipate another's intentions.

Besides all that, the lack of sleep was clearly affecting Clarissa's health. Katie could tell just by looking at the girl's skin. But all of this—the surliness, the secretiveness, the anger—was most likely caused by the underlying depression she was suffering. If she could get Clarissa to open up to her, Katie was sure she could help. And she was sure that whatever was going on with Clarissa, the sneaking out at night would stop.

But now was not the time to have that conversation, in the hall at three a.m., in their pajamas. This was something Katie would have to do some reading on and prepare. It was something she would have to discuss with Walter.

Katie took Clarissa's arm gently. "Go back to bed before you wake your father."

Clarissa's jaded face belied the misery in her eyes. "Walter doesn't care about me."

"He most certainly does." Walter emerged from his own room, wrapping his robe tightly. "Now I suggest you do as Miss Gallagher says and get back to bed."

Clarissa seemed momentarily surprised. Then she scowled and stomped off. "Fine!"

Walter waited until Clarissa shut her bedroom door. Then he turned to Katie. "Thank you, Katie. I had suspected she was sneaking out. Now that we know she is, we need to put a stop to it."

"Agreed." Katie glanced out the window once more at the empty garden. There was no one there. She was sure of it. But she had an eerie feeling, almost subconsciously, that she was wrong. "I think she was meeting someone outside. She was looking out the window."

"Hm." Walter gazed out the window, searching the shrubbery with his eyes. "I'll have Bill go out and take a look around with me."

"I can go with you." Katie offered. "I'm already up."

"No, that won't do." Walter shook his head. "You need to get some sleep to care for Blake and Delia in the morning. I'll have Bill do it."

Katie grimaced, pained at the thought of being the cause of Bill having more to do. "That doesn't seem fair to Bill. Doesn't he also have work to do in the morning?"

"Nonsense. Bill will help me search." Walter started down the hall. "I'll go wake him and tell him now."

Katie sighed. Poor Bill. Walter really expected a lot from him. She was pretty sure most of what Bill did around here fell far outside of the handyman job description. Still, she told herself silently, Bill was a grown man and could make his own decisions. He didn't need Katie to butt into his business.

Katie stepped closer to the window and scanned the empty garden once again. There was no one there, but she couldn't shake the feeling that her eyes were deceiving her. Some unnamed sensation itched at her brain, twisted her stomach. She couldn't even describe the feeling to herself. It felt as if she, herself, were being watched, as if she had looked out the window a split second after that person had ducked behind a bush or a tree.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts, think more rationally. She turned and let her eyes drift down the hall toward Clarissa's room. There was no light under the door, no sound from within. She had gone back to sleep as if the encounter had never happened.

Clarissa's behavior was, perhaps, the most curious part of the incident. She was awake and about, but she seemed just as surprised by that as Katie was. And, though she tried to act defensive about it, when Katie asked her about who was in the garden, Clarissa had seemed startled, almost frightened. And, though she grumbled at being caught in the act, she certainly gave up and went to her room without much of a fight. Indeed, there was so little drama, she seemed almost relieved to be caught.

Katie frowned. Who was Clarissa meeting? Where was she going? Willow Manor was too far away from town for a person to be out walking. A person would have to have a car to get here. Was Clarissa planning to get into a car with someone?

She took another look out the window at the garden below, just in time to see someone looking up at the window. He was young, maybe just a little older than Clarissa. He saw Katie and smiled curiously before ducking back into the bushes. Katie gasped and ran toward the stairs. She had to tell Walter and Bill.

**

Bill and Walter beat back the bushes in the garden. They combed the lawn with their flashlights. They covered the area down to the pond and out to the road. They found no trace of the young man.

"I don't see anyone out there." Bill said as the three of them met back up on the patio. "Are you sure you saw someone?"

"Yes, positive." Katie insisted. She pointed at the ornamental boxwood spirals. "He was right there. Looking up at the window."

Bill cast his flashlight around once more. "We probably scared him off."

"If he comes around again, I'll do more than scare him off!" Walter fumed. "He has no right to trespass on my property and endanger my family!"

Katie wrapped her robe around herself more tightly. "Shouldn't we call the police? Make a report?"

"No." Walter said firmly. "No police."

"But, I got a pretty good look at him." She protested. "I could give the police a good description and they could—"

"No police." Walter turned and headed back toward the house. "I don't need one more reason for Marcus Jones to be in my business."

Katie looked at Bill questioningly. "Bill...?"

Bill furrowed his brow and spoke quietly, so that Walter didn't hear. "Wouldn't do any good."

"Of course it would." She insisted. "I can give a description and the police will make a report. Then, they will look for him."

"And do what?" Bill met her gaze tiredly.

She shrugged, unsure of what he was getting at. "Arrest him?"

"Arrest him for what?" He shone the flashlight once more around the lawn. He didn't seem so much resistant to her idea as he was cynical.

"I don't know. Trespassing?" She was starting to feel the energy drain out of her argument. "Harassment?"

Bill shook his head. "The cops have bigger worries, believe me."

"Clarissa is only fifteen." Katie argued. "Surely the police would be concerned about that."

"Yeah, they would take your statement." He paused, as if he were thinking hard about what he was about to say. He was locked in some sort of mental debate with himself. Then, his mouth twisted into an even deeper, even sadder frown. "Listen, when I told you Marcus Jones thinks Walter killed Diedre..."

She nodded for him to continue.

"That wasn't all." Bill was hesitant, troubled. "Let's just say, the less Walter sees of Marcus Jones, the better for everyone."

"But don't you think we should at least..." She trailed off at the sight of Bill's uneasiness.

"There have been a couple of murders." He said finally. "Just like Diedre."

Katie blinked, shocked. "And the police think Walter is responsible?"

"But he's not." Bill said quickly. "He's not."

Katie nodded slowly, trying to process the information without the confusion, fear, and sadness that was trying to hijack her thoughts.

"It's because the victims worked for Walter or stayed in his hotels. Really loose connections, Katie." Bill was adamant. "If it were anyone else, Marcus Jones would never make the link."

Katie chewed her lip. The police thought he was a killer. But everyone who really knew him, loved him. How could she rationalize two such disparate opinions? Could so many people be wrong about him? Surely there must be more than just circumstantial evidence for the police to be so interested. And what about Walter's family, his friends? Were they just blinded by love and loyalty?

"I know you don't know him very well. You don't know any of us very well." Bill's eyes pleaded. "But you know us well enough to know Walter's not a killer."

Katie searched her own heart, then nodded. She did know that.

"And you know I wouldn't lie to you." He nodded, as well. "So believe me when I say I know Walter is innocent."

"Okay." She nodded slightly. "I know it, too. But we should still file a police report."

Bill scanned her face, maybe trying to verify her allegiance. Finally, he shrugged. "Walter says no. So, what can we do?"

Then he took Katie's arm and led her back to the house.