Chapter 16 - The Ghost of Westerville
Forty-eight hours later, my rental SUV rolled to a stop outside the brick ranch-style house on Maple Tree Lane in Westerville.
The neighborhood looked smaller than I remembered—shabby, tired, and choked with damp autumn leaves that nobody had bothered to rake.
The lawn was overgrown, the flower beds choked with weeds, and the front porch light flickered with a dull, dying orange glow.
I stepped out of the vehicle, the cold Ohio wind biting sharply through my cashmere scarf.
I walked up the cracked concrete path, each step echoing the ghosts of summers spent weeding those very flower beds under a blazing sun.
I didn't knock.
I simply turned the handle and pushed the front door open.
The smell inside was suffocating—old dust, damp laundry, and the unmistakable metallic tang of unheated radiator pipes.
David was sitting in his old plaid armchair in the living room, bundled in three thick woolen sweaters and a moth-eaten quilt.
He looked like a shadow of the man who had once driven away in a packed minivan without looking back.
Marilyn was standing by the cold kitchen counter, trying unsuccessfully to light a small portable propane heater with a plastic lighter.
When the front door clicked shut, both of them froze.
Marilyn dropped the lighter, spinning around with a sharp gasp that sounded like a dry rattle in her chest.
David slowly turned his gray, hollow head toward the entryway, his watery eyes squinting through the dim twilight.
"Emma?" David rasped, his voice sounding like dry paper rubbing together.
"Is that you?"
I walked into the living room, my boots leaving small muddy prints across their faded floral carpet.
"It's me, David," I said, standing before them like an executioner who had arrived to inspect the scaffolding.
Marilyn rushed forward, her hands outstretched, but she stopped dead in her tracks when she met the absolute ice in my eyes.
"Emma, please... we're freezing," Marilyn wept, her hands trembling uncontrollably at her sides.
"The propane tank ran out yesterday, and we don't have enough for another refill."
"We've been wearing our winter coats indoors for three days."
"I know," I said calmly, pulling a small silver digital thermometer from my coat pocket and placing it on the coffee table.
"The indoor temperature is forty-two degrees."
"That's hypothermia territory for people your age."
"Then why did you let them turn off the heat?!" David cried out, a sudden spark of pathetic anger flaring in his chest before collapsing back into exhaustion.
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"You own this house! You have millions of dollars sitting in Montana banks!"
"Why are you torturing us like this?"
