Guinevere Jones Series 003 - The Sinister Touch by Jayne Castle

Author:Jayne Castle [Castle, Jayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440179962
Publisher: Dell Publishing
Published: 1986-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Six

The house had once been a stately, if rather overwrought, home for a successful businessman during the first part of the century. Now it was what real estate people liked to call a fixer-upper. The streetlight directly in front of the sagging porch was out, but with the fretful moonlight Zac could see that the plump wooden columns that flanked the steps were badly chipped, as if someone had idly carved on them with a pocketknife. The place had once been painted gray, if one could judge by what remained of the old paint. The porch wrapped most of the way around the aging two-story structure, and the weeds in the uncared-for garden were as high as the railing in some places. The screen door appeared to have given up the ghost long ago. It hung lethargically on its hinges. Someone or something had kicked a hole in the bottom part of the screen. No one had bothered to repair it. There was no light in any of the windows.

Zac quietly walked through the backyard of a vacant house next door to what had once been the Sandwick place. He assumed the house was vacant because of the FOR SALE sign in the front yard, but he didn't take any chances. About half the houses in the neighborhood had FOR SALE signs in the front yards. So far he had been lucky enough not to arouse any dogs in the area, and he was hoping to keep it that way.

The neighborhood was one of the streets near Capitol Hill that had not yet been rehabilitated by the upwardly mobile types who had been moving into the district in droves during the past few years. The Sandwick house was slightly more run-down-looking than its neighbors but not significantly so. Whoever had paid cash for it several months ago had obviously not had a lot left over to effect even minor repairs.

Moving quietly and without the aid of a flashlight, Zac made his way around to the rear of the house Adair and his friends had once used for their occult games. When he reached the back steps, he paused and glanced up at the unlit windows with a certain morose resignation.

This wasn't, Zac decided, the kind of investigation he thought appropriate to the newly emerging image of Free Enterprise Security, Inc. It was his firm's mission to cater to the security needs of sophisticated businesses. He was supposed to be a consultant, for God's sake. One who charged very large fees in return for reports bound in genuine, simulated leather binders. This business of sneaking through decaying neighborhoods to spy on an old house that once might or might not have been used for witchcraft definitely came under the heading of tacky. Very low-class. And it was all Guinevere's fault.

He thought of Guinevere as he had left her over half an hour ago. She had been lying in the tousled bed, her dark hair tumbling around her bare shoulders, eyes wide and a little worried in the shadows.

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