Ghost Moon by Karen Robards Page A

there were only so many possibilities.
    ‘‘Say your prayers,’’ she instructed Sara, as she did every night. Lying close beside her daughter, with the tiny white lights that still twinkled outside penetrating the curtains so that, while the room was dark, it was not so dark that she could not see, Olivia listened to her daughter’s murmured prayer.
    ‘‘Now I lay me . . .’’
    She had said that same prayer, in that same room, as a child. In the gloom, it was easy to imagine that time had flown backward again, that her mother lay beside her listening to her prayer, and for a moment the illusion was so real that it sent a chill down her spine. Talk about déjà vu . . .
    ‘‘Are you sad about that old man, Mom?’’ Sara asked, having apparently finished her prayers while Olivia had not been attending. Again Olivia forced herself back to the present.
    ‘‘I’m worried about him,’’ Olivia said. ‘‘I’m hoping he’ll be all right.’’
    ‘‘Should I say a God-bless for him, too?’’
    ‘‘That would be nice.’’
    ‘‘God bless that old man,’’ Sara said, and Olivia had to smile.
    For a moment Sara was silent. Then she said, ‘‘That girl—Chloe—is really mean, isn’t she? And she doesn’t like us.’’
    ‘‘She doesn’t know us. Once she does, she’ll love us, especially you. I mean, what’s not to love?’’
    ‘‘Oh, Mom.’’ Sara giggled sleepily.
    ‘‘Hush, now.’’ Olivia kissed her daughter’s cheek as Sara snuggled close.
    ‘‘Tell me a story about when you were growing up,’’ Sara begged, as she did every night. Usually Olivia complied. But tonight, the memories were too close, too real. So real it was almost eerie . . . Anyway, she was tired and worried and knew that Sara had to be exhausted, too.
    ‘‘It’s too late, pumpkin. Go to sleep.’’
    ‘‘But, Mom . . .’’
    ‘‘Go to sleep.’’
    Olivia firmly quelled all of Sara’s additional attempts to chat with firm repetitions of ‘‘Go to sleep.’’
    Finally the sound of her daughter’s breathing told Olivia that Sara had done just that.
    Sliding carefully out of bed, she felt for the robe Martha had left her and pulled it on. Then, for no real reason except that it had always been her habit before she went to sleep in this room, she crossed to the long windows that were really more like French doors and made sure they were locked tight. Finally she turned on the small lamp by the bed so that if Sara awoke she wouldn’t be in the dark, and left the room, quietly closing the bedroom door behind her. Then she headed downstairs. The anxiety over Big John that she had suppressed for Sara’s sake surged into life, making her feel almost queasy.
    She was terribly afraid that Big John would die. And if he did, it would be all her fault.
    She should have stayed away.

CHAPTER 8
    THERE WERE TWO WOMEN IN THE KITCHEN when Olivia entered, both dressed in black uniforms with white aprons tied around their waists. Olivia knew neither of them, although one was the woman who had spoken to Martha in the hall earlier. Both had their backs to her, and both were busily engaged in wiping down the white laminate countertops with rectangular yellow sponges. Tupperware containers, some stacked atop each other, were lined up on one long counter. Their tightly closed lids could not quite contain the spicy smell of boudin and gumbo, and Olivia surmised that the help were taking leftovers home.
    The kitchen itself was unchanged from Olivia’s memory of it. Remodeled in the fifties with only an occasional change of appliances thereafter, it was huge, some forty feet long by twenty feet wide. At one time in the house’s history, it had been three smallish rooms. Now it boasted oak-paneled walls that had been painted a soft cream, custom-built cherry cabinets that lined three walls to the ceiling, a massive Sub-Zero refrigerator, and a commercial-looking stainless-steel stove that was an obviously recent addition. A