"Katie..." Softly, sadly. "Katie..."

Katie sat up in bed, grabbed her phone. Three a.m. She flipped on the light, looked around. The room was empty.

"Who is it? Who's there?" Katie opened the record app on her phone. If she could get proof that there was a ghost trying to communicate...

Well, she didn't know how that would help. But it would, at least, prove that she didn't imagine it. She held the phone up, panned around the room, trying to get the voice to speak again. "Hello? I want to help you. Where are you?"

Several minutes passed, but the voice didn't speak again. Katie shut off the recording and got up out of bed. She was ninety-nine percent sure she had heard the voice and wasn't just dreaming. It was a strange coincidence that she had been dreaming about Grandma trying to talk to her. Stranger still that she'd not had that dream in years, but she'd had it several times since coming to Willow Manor.

Of course, when it happened before, she wasn't asleep. She wasn't dreaming. Grandma was right there, trying unsuccessfully to talk to her. If she had been better at listening, if she could have somehow been more open to it, maybe, perhaps she would have heard Grandma's words. Perhaps she would have understood what Grandma wanted from her. Perhaps Grandma would still be talking to her.

Mom had tried to convince her for so long that Grandma had only been in her imagination, that her spirit never spoke to her. Even though Katie insisted, even though she knew in her heart it was real, she was only a child. Mom's threats of taking her to a doctor to "see what was wrong with her" or her punishments of hours of horror movies alone in the dark, weakened Katie's resolve to argue. Eventually, Mom won that argument, like she won all arguments. And Grandma stopped trying to talk to Katie.

Katie wrapped her bathrobe around herself and tried to push the guilt to the back of her mind. She knew that Grandma had come to her. She knew Grandma had spoken to her. But a small child was no match for her master manipulator mother. She would never know what information Grandma felt was important enough to try to communicate to her, even after death.

She tied the belt on the robe and stood a little straighter. Mom wasn't here now. And Katie wasn't a child. If this ghost had something to say, Katie was going to hear it. She quickly went to the door and stepped out into the hallway.

"Hello?" She whispered, so as not to wake everyone up. "Please tell me what you want."

"Katie..." She heard it softly, coming from the stairs.

Katie walked to the head of the stairs. She was strong. She would not back down from what was happening. "Please tell me how to help you."

The ghostly voice did not answer. She made her way downstairs and paused in the landing before continuing down the hall. Then she saw a light on in the study. Her dream about Adrian Chesterfield came rushing back to her, made her blush despite herself.

"Don't be silly, Katie." She silently chided herself and moved toward the study. "It was just a dream."

Still, the memory of Adrian's body against hers, dream or not, lingered. It made her heart beat fast. She peeked through the half open door. She could see Walter's desk, the lamp at its edge giving the room a soft glow. The smoke from a cigar resting in an ashtray circled the lamp. A man's hand held a crystal glass next to it.

Once again, memories of Adrian and the library played at the edges of her mind, warmed her blood. She stepped closer to the crack in the door, let her eyes trace the dark hair on the back of the hand. The fingers, strong and well-formed, gripped the glass so tightly Katie wondered that it didn't break from the tension its owner obviously felt.

"Hello?" Katie pushed the door open enough to walk through. Some wicked part of her mind still anticipated Adrian Chesterfield sitting at the desk.

Walter looked up as she entered. "Katie. What are you doing up at this hour?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr. Barrington." She breathed a sigh of both relief and disappointment. "I didn't realize anyone was in here."

"It's quite alright, Katie." He extinguished the cigar and waved the smoke away with his hand. "I just like the quiet here."

"It is very quiet here." She nodded. Her eyes traveled to the two fingers of scotch in his glass. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes, of course." He frowned bitterly. "It's all wrong."

"What do you mean?" She sat down in the chair in front of the desk. He looked almost spiritually beaten. "What's wrong?"

Walter slammed back the scotch and gazed into the glass as if he expected there to be more. He sighed. "Nothing. I'm just upset."

Katie tried to meet his eyes, but he didn't look up from the glass. "Can I help?"

Walter laughed bitterly. "What could you possibly do, my dear, that would help in the least?"

"I don't know. Listen?" Katie tried to shrug off the halfhearted dismissal. Of course, he didn't mean to hurt her feelings. She reached across the desk and touched his hand gently. "It seems like something is really bothering you. Talking might make you feel better."

"I'm sorry, Katie." He sighed and met her gaze. "I'm being very rude, and you are being very kind. Thank you."

"I just hate to see you like this." She said softly.

Walter sighed and nodded. He pulled his hand from under hers and rubbed his face tiredly. "I suppose you'll only see it on the news anyway."

"The news?" She leaned back, slightly alarmed. "What's happened?"

"I assume you know the Barringtons made their fortune in the hotel business?" He said.

"Yes." She nodded. "All those fancy hotels up and down the coast."

"Yes. And I assume you know that the hotel business is very fickle." Walter frowned and turned one palm up as if to say it was all out of his hands. "One bad review can be devastating."

"I see." She nodded. "And did you get a bad review for one of your hotels?"

Walter laughed so cynically she drew back a little. "I suppose the reviewer might have given us a bad review... if he hadn't been murdered in his room last night."

"Murdered?" Katie gasped.

"Yes. Gruesomely murdered." Walter's face twisted with disgust. "His throat was torn out."

"Oh my God!" Katie put a hand to her own throat self-consciously. "That's horrifying!"

"Yes. And that's not the half of it." Walter drew another glass and the bottle of scotch from the desk drawer and uncapped it. He poured a little in both glasses, then passed one to Katie. "There have been similar murders in the countryside between here and the town."

"I..." Katie took the glass and gazed down at the amber liquid. "I know about them."

"What?!" Walter seemed shocked. But he quickly resigned himself to the fact. "Well, of course. Why wouldn't you have heard all the stories? I suppose then my only question is, why are you still here?"

Katie frowned. "What do you mean?"

Walter took a sip and stared off into the room before answering. "The whole town thinks I'm responsible."

"That's crazy." Katie said. "It's not your fault. Any of it."

"You don't know that, Katie." Walter put the glass down on the desk, pushed it away from him. "If you had any sense, you'd just run. Far and fast, away from Willow Manor."

Katie held her glass with both hands, stared into the reflected lamplight on its surface. So many people had tried to warn her away from Willow Manor, just in the short time she had been here. It made her wonder if half the danger people were warning her against was real.

"That's no way to talk." She put her untouched glass on the desk next to Walter's. "What would your children think, if they heard you talking like that?"

Walter shook his head. He stood and crossed the room, stopping at a rustic wooden statue near the window. He ran his hands over the wood and spoke softly, dejectedly. "I feel like I've failed them, as well. I failed to keep Diedre safe... Failed my stockholders and employees... And failed my children."

"You haven't failed anyone, Mr. Barrington. You have three fantastic children, who love you and need you." Katie tried to be encouraging. "And you must be good for your stockholders and employees. Otherwise, why would they stay? You aren't responsible for anyone's death. Not your wife's. Not your employees'. Certainly not that reviewer's."

"I don't know about that. The killer is clearly targeting those around me." Walter turned and shook his head sadly. "It's very much personal. I just can't figure out why."

"Personal?" Katie didn't see how it could be. "Why would you say that?"

"Because of this." Walter walked over, picked his cell phone up from the desk, and opened the photo app. He showed it to her. It was a photo of a handwritten note laying on the floor next to a pool of blood. "It was addressed to me personally."

Katie read the note:

          Walter Gerard Barrington—

          Release my property or more will die!!!

"Release my property?" Katie knit her brow. "What property?"

"I don't know. It doesn't make any sense." Walter smiled derisively and sat back down at the desk. "But they used my full name and three exclamation points, so you have to assume they're serious about it."

She passed the phone back to him. "Have you told the police about it?"

"Yes. It's being investigated." Walter air quoted the word investigated. "But I know that Marcus Jones is not interested in anything that doesn't fit his narrative."

"That you are the killer?" Katie finished.

"Yes." Walter picked up the half-empty glass and drained it. "He seems to only want to consider evidence that supports that idea."

"That can't be true." Katie frowned. "Why would he be like that?"

"It probably has something to do with our personal history." Walter nodded. "Marcus Jones was engaged to my wife. She broke up with him when she met me."

Katie nodded. Now it made sense why the two men did not like each other. No wonder Walter did not want to involve Marcus Jones the other night with Clarissa. Still, Officer Jones was a law enforcement professional. Would he really jeopardize his career and ignore physical evidence, as Walter was suggesting?

"Surely he can't be holding that against you for so long?" She reasoned. "That had to have been nearly twenty years ago."

One side of Walter's mouth quirked up, as if he could not believe she was so naïve. "You should go to bed, Katie. Tomorrow is a school day."

"You should get some rest, too." She stood slowly, feeling very useless that she wasn't able to help Walter. She cast her eyes around the room helplessly. "I wish I could help."

"Yes. Well." Walter sighed deeply and sadly. He looked off into the night outside the window.

"Please, Mr. Barrington. You need to get some sleep." She crossed the room and drew the curtains closed. "Things will be okay. I promise."

Walter did not smile. "How could you possibly promise that?"

"I—I don't know. I just know they will. We have to trust in that." She looked down at her bare feet as she spoke and her eyes lighted on the base of the wooden statue. There were three symbols carved into the block. She nearly gasped. "Where did you get this?"

"What? The art?" Walter's expression softened. "Diedre. She loved wood sculptures. Filled up the house with them."

Katie nodded. She had seen them in the children's rooms, as well as the living room and here. She just hadn't looked at them closely. Now that she did, she saw the symbols—and she saw, with astonishment, that she could read them.

"I think they're a little primitive for my taste." Walter smiled. "But my wife loved them so much. I can't bear to get rid of them."

The first symbol was protection. The second was love. This was the secret code Katie had shared with Grandma. How would Diedre Barrington know Grandma's secret code?

"This one, especially." Walter stared at it, remembering happier times. "She gave this one to me as a wedding present. It's one of my most prized possessions."

It was the third symbol that Katie didn't recognize. When she and Grandma wrote this code phrase, that was the spot she would put the symbol for her name. So, whose name was this third symbol, she wondered?

"I can see why it would be." Katie smiled, surprised, pleased, and curious. She touched the top of the statue reverently and headed toward the door. "Good night, Mr. Barrington."