Charlaine Harris - The Julius House

We pulled into the driveway, Shelby trying to tell me about the security systems he’d been investigating while we were gone, me not giving a damn.

“Are you afraid of going in?” Angel asked. The rain was coming down in earnest as we got the bags out of the trunk. We crossed the garage to open the side door and take the covered walkway to the kitchen door. Madeleine sat regally, tail wrapped around her, by her food dish.

“No,” I said, and realized it was true, “I’m not afraid of this house. There aren’t any ghosts here. The people who would have become ghosts are the ones who are still alive, down in Louisiana. The people who died were too nice to be ghosts.”

Now, this babble gives you some idea of my exhaustion, and the look Shelby and Angel gave me simultaneously told me I was becoming weird. But the house didn’t scare me; I felt happy to be in it again. I breathed a sigh of relief when the Youngbloods left to go up to their apartment for their own reunion, after I’d refused Shelby’s offer to carry my bags up to my bedroom.

The light on the answering machine was blinking. I pressed the “Play” button to hear my messages.

My mother: “We’re back, and we had a wonderful time! The message you left saying you were going to New Orleans was kind of confusing, Aurora. Is Martin with you or not? Is this thing about the bodies upsetting you? Call me when you’re home.”

Emily Kaye: “Roe, I’m sorry to be such a pest, but we really do need help on the Altar Guild. Please call me at home when you get back from wherever you are. Oh, by the way! Aubrey and I are engaged!”

Aubrey: “Roe, if you’re upset about the discovery at your house, please call me. I want to help if I can. And I wanted you to know, first: Emily says she’ll marry me.”

I made a face into the reflective glass of the clock.

My mother: “You know, Aurora, I really wish you had left the name of your hotel with Patty at my office. It’s very aggravating not being able to get in touch with you, to make sure you’re all right. My understanding from calling Martin’s office is that he is not with you. So what are you doing in New Orleans?”

I hoped the antique earrings would soothe her.

The other messages, in order: Sally Allison, Sally Allison, and Sally Allison.

I headed up the stairs, looking at my beautiful house with pleasure, glad to be home. Later my husband would be home; we would talk; everything would be all right.

But when I entered our bedroom I had a sudden picture of a dark-haired girl seizing an elderly woman and forcibly shoving the gray head through the window so it could be stove in with a hammer.

I banished that vision firmly.

This was my house.

Charlaine Harris is the author of three previous Aurora Teagarden mysteries, Three Bedrooms, One Corpse; A Bone to Pick; and Real Murders. She is also the author of two earlier novels, Sweet and Deadly and Secret Rage. She lives with her husband and family in Magnolia, Arkansas.