Read Prelude of Lies for Free Online Page A

did.
    “We weren’t. Until we were getting our beds ready and the window opened and closed by itself. Twice. So we turned on a camera and a recorder. The video shows the window opening one more time, we think. We haven’t had much time to analyze it. Dave thinks there’s a shadow. Usually it takes us days to go over all the information.”
    “Why days?” She had to admit the process intrigued her.
    “We check and double-check. Sometimes triple-check. Listening, a second at a time, to eight hours of usually nothing is a bit draining.” He marked the CDR they’d just made with the date and put it in a plastic case.
    “I can imagine. Can we listen to that?” She pointed at the disc.
    “Do you want to?”
    “Why not? What made the room so cold?” She waited as he inserted the disc.
    “You want me to say a spirit, but the truth is I don’t know for sure. The temperature changed. There might be a cave underneath and a draft came through the floor. Say there is a cave, ice chunks are breaking loose, and getting caught somewhere a few feet down? Hard to say. Okay, it’s ready.” He pressed ‘play’ and she leaned forward.
    He asked the same question he had when they were in the bunkroom, the silent space in between felt like hours. No wonder it took them a few days to go over the evidence. Just when she thought she’d die of boredom, Marshal got an answer to his question.
    “Margaret? I’m here. Where are you?” the same voice from the recording they’d just made whispered.
    Sydney figured her shock showed by the smile on Marshal’s face. The recorder had stayed on the table between them the whole time. There was no way he could have altered the evidence.
    “Did I say creepy already?”
    “I know. Are you still willing to sit with me tonight?”
    Why did his simple question sound like an invitation for sex? Was that just her, or was he flirting?
    “I’ll do it as long as you don’t scare me on purpose.” And she was flirting right back. She was pathetic.
    “I would never do that. Now tell me what you know about this ground.” He flipped his notebook open.
    “My grandfather’s. He passed it to Daisy and me when he died, with the stipulation that we give the campground business at least five years before selling. His evil second wife somehow managed to get the lawyer to add that we have until this season to open for business and then she kept the rights tied up until last week.”
    “Ah. Something tells me there’s bad blood,” he said.
    “Not just bad, poison.”
    “We’ll go there in a minute. Why did your grandfather insist you re-open the campground?”
    “I’m not sure. He wanted Daisy and I to continue with the family legacy, I think. As much as he bent to Violet’s demands on everything else, he stayed firm about this place for the most part. Daisy and I spent every summer here, and a lot of the off season, too. He taught us everything from how to run the campground to how to dredge the pond. He wanted us to carry on the tradition. He said that constantly. The property has belonged to a Brook’s son for about three hundred years.”
    “Why didn’t your dad take over? That seems to be the pattern.”
    “Dad is some kind of weird throwback. As much as he loved coming here, he’s deathly allergic to bee stings, mosquito bites, and poison ivy. Gramps used to just shake his head and say something messed with the DNA. Dad’s the only one in the family with those allergies. Daisy and I can roll around naked in any kind of poison and never get a bump. So could Gramps.”
    His eyebrow rose. “Do you and Daisy often roll around naked in poison? I’d like to see that.”
    “Shut up. That’s not what I meant.” Her face felt hot.
    There were those sexy eye crinkles again. Damn.
    “Anyway. We were the only Brooks’s left. Gramps knew we loved the place. He made sure we did. Two months after the wedding, Vile Violet proclaimed that we weren’t welcome here again. She wanted Gramps to