The Devil Inside

4: The Empty Room

Time had not been kind to this place. The housekeepers had been dismissed. The furniture had been covered. Calla swallowed down a sneeze as she passed Richard Smith's study on the way to Rachel's bedroom—and then she paused.

An overwhelming collection of books lined the walls of the study. Calla stepped into the room, examining the nearby titles. Financial planning. Philosophy. She smirked as her eye caught on Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

The books in my dad's study are nothing compared to my aunt's private collection. Rachel had told her this on multiple occasions. Still, the study was quite impressive. Calla scanned the walls, trying to envision what the room might look like in the dead of night. It would be next to impossible to spot the books in the gloom...

Impossible. Unless you knew where to look.

She frowned, struck by a sudden revelation. As far as she knew, Cory had never been granted an extensive tour of Tracy Smith's mansion. He'd been to a party or two, certainly. He'd seen the gargoyles perched on the balconies, and he'd seen the kitchen. He might have even seen a lavish guest bedroom or two, if his good charm had gotten him lucky enough.

But he couldn't have been very familiar with the library. Not intimately. Which begged the question...

"What are the odds," Calla murmured, tapping the spine of The Art of War, "that Cory Michaels managed to pull a creepy fairytale book off the shelves, and not some boring bullshit on hedge funds?"

He'd either known where to look (unlikely), or he'd been incredibly lucky (also unlikely), given the timeframe he'd been working with. He'd admitted he witnessed the murder from his hiding spot in the guest bedroom—but even if he'd been snooping in the library beforehand, he couldn't have been there long. He'd been seen with many others at that party, social butterfly that he was. If he'd disappeared upstairs, it had been for a short time.

What are the odds, she mused once more.

Calla contemplated those odds as she escaped the study and retreated to the bedroom at the end of the hall. She'd spent hours in this room. Laughing. Gossiping. But time had warped her memory. She could no longer remember what had been real—and what had been an act.

Another layer to her mask.

Calla stared at the bed in the center of the room. The entire space had been left untouched. A film of dust covered everything, a testament to the passage of time.

This place is a tomb.

Calla had found more joy in the cemetery. Frowning, she moved to the closet. The power had long been shut off, so she made do with the light filtering in from the windows at her back and the flashlight on her phone.

The closet was just as she remembered it to be: impeccably organized. Calla ran her free hand along the garments hanging to her left. Her fingertips snagged on a sparkly number. It was the backup dress Rachel had purchased for the winter gala.

Calla stared at it, expressionless.

Why are you here, Calla?

She closed her eyes. She knew that if she turned around, she would see her there—Rachel, leaning against the open doorway, her eyes dark and sad.

"Why are you here?" Calla muttered, pressing the heel of her palm against the sudden ache at her temple. "You're dead."

You promised, Rachel whispered. And then she was silent.

Calla turned. There was no one there.

She was alone.

She swore. Her eyes swept the length of the closet, determined to pry loose its secrets. At the time, she'd assumed Cory had tidied up the closet as a tip-off. He'd wanted to get her attention, and he had. Once Calla had put the pieces together, she'd found Alicia Smith's dearly-departed fairytale book in the coat of Rachel's jacket—the very jacket she'd worn the night of her murder.