Ghost House Revenge Read Online Free Page A

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    When they arrived home, they found Gary and Derek in one of the upstairs hallways,
     supervising a group of carpenters at work on Gary’s therapy room. The banging of hammers
     and buzzing of saws was deafening.
    In the studio Melanie, in a blue smock, was busy at work on a new painting. A photograph
     of Belle Bay’s town square was pinned to a bulletin board beside her easel.
    “Hi, mom!” Gina cried. “What’re you painting?”
    “A picture of the town square,” Melanie said. “I hope to sell it to the mayor or some
     other local politician. Oh, guess what? I’m going to have another one-woman show.
     I’ll have to paint a lot of pictures of Long Island since it’s my home now.”
    She promised the girls they could go with her to visit Montauk Point and Jones Beach
     and other local sights. Gina started enthusiastically to plan her summer vacation,
     talking of nothing else for the rest of the day. But all Alicen could think about
     was school and how much she dreaded going back.
    When she went to bed that night, she whispered out loud, as if her mother were there
     to hear her, “You’d make it okay, wouldn’t you? I wish you’d come back to me, mommy!
     I need you!”
    Tears filled her eyes, and she turned and stared out the window. The moon was bright
     and full Alicen gazed at it and tried to remember her mother. The memory of her mother’s
     beautiful, smiling face was still with her; Alicen had made it a point never to forget
     that face. She had heard adults at the funeral whispering that her mother had been
     horribly disfigured in the car accident, but she refused to believe they were talking
     about her. She stamped a picture of her mother in her mind that showed her always
     smiling, always willing to play with her little daughter. Not like her father.
    Alicen’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a strange, high-pitched laughter. Terrified,
     she pulled her quilt over her head and held her breath. Was someone in the room, listening
     to the thumping of her heart? The laughter came again, and she realized it wasn’t
     in her room at all. It had come from the kitchen below, filtering through the grating
     in the floor.
    Alicen was about to get up and tell her father, but she was afraid. This was his first
     private job in three years, and he’d warned her she had better not do anything to
     jeopardize it.
Anything
.
    “And that means acting like a baby, the way you did at the Laines’ house,” her father
     had said.
    Alicen had awakened in the middle of the night, crying out for her mother. Her screams
     had so frightened the Laine children that their parents decided she couldn’t stay
     with them any longer. Derek couldn’t afford to send her to a boarding school, so the
     two packed their bags together. Alicen knew it was her fault that her father had lost
     his job. So tonight, she pretended she didn’t hear the laughter. This time, she swore,
     she wouldn’t have nightmares.
    Trembling, she put her fingers in her ears and blocked out the sound. She didn’t hear
     the click of Derek’s door across the hall. He had also heard the strange cries and
     was on his way downstairs to investigate. The long hallway that led to the stairs
     was pitch black, lit only by dim moonlight filtering through an amber stained-glass
     window at its end. Obviously the VanBurens were fast asleep, too far at the front
     of the house to have heard the noise. Derek, deciding he could handle the situation
     himself, groped his way down the dark staircase.
    He stopped short when he heard the laughter again. Then he took a deep breath and
     burst into the dining room, switching on the overhead light. He scanned the room,
     taking in the table, chairs, and bay windows. The windows were locked tight. Everything
     seemed to be in order. Even the fireplace, black and yawning, gave no hint of hiding
     an intruder. Everything was so silent that Derek could hear a ringing in his ears.
    “I must have been