Specter~Chapter 6
Quinn's first afternoon of research went fairly smoothly aside from the weird cool feeling she experienced. Most of the day was spent setting up the database. They chose one small box of a person's belongings to use as the guinea pig for setting up what columns they wanted on the document to chart their information. With that first box of things, Quinn felt like she was being nosy, picking around at the leftovers of some stranger's life. She finally told herself she was doing a service for this person's ancestors and treated each item as if it were a treasure. They took pictures of each item documented and listed each thing under that person's name, giving a short description of what was stored in the box and the date they recorded the data. Quinn said that on the weekends she would research the people they had found through the week, trying to find some sort of ancestor. That way, she could utilize the genealogy records in Battenfield's library.
The first box of stuff was relatively easy to sort through: some old letters the person had saved, old receipts, a couple old small framed pictures, and an old bottle of perfume, half full. Emma and Quinn tweaked the spreadsheet in their database until they had it the way they liked it. By the time they finished setting up the database, going through the stuff in the box and documenting and photographing it, recording it, and figuring out how to link the pictures to the database, it was time for supper. Will had come upstairs to see what time they'd be coming down for the meal. They decided then was a good stopping point, so Quinn offered to take the cart back down to the basement along with the first box they went through.
In the basement, Quinn looked around and found a relatively clear space to start stacking boxes that had been cataloged. A small trunk sitting nearby caught her eye. She moved a bit closer and looked at the name in scrawly handwriting: Lucinda Q Fabbrae. It intrigued her and she made a mental note to get to it sooner rather than later.
Will served supper in the kitchen; he had made stuffed pork chops with a salad and fresh veggies from town and freshly baked bread. Emma and Will told Quinn about the security system and gave her a card with the codes listed on it and phone numbers for the local police and fire station, just in case.
"How do you feel about staying here by yourself?" Emma asked her.
"Um, I'm sure it'll be an adjustment but I feel safe in the suite," Quinn replied. Emma had shown her special locks on the oak door that were separate from the estate security. They could only be set from within the suite and unlocked from within the suite. "I'll definitely be in the house before sunset!" She really didn't want to run the prospect of meeting a wild raccoon face to face.
"If you have any uneasiness, I'll be happy to stay," Emma said. "There are other guestrooms on the second floor."
"I think I'll be fine. I'd like to take some pictures of the estate and just relax a little...it's been such a full exciting day," Quinn said, smiling. "And dinner is wonderful!"
Will smiled. "Thank you...usually I'm only cooking for me and Emma." Emma smiled a tiny smile at Will.
There was that glance again...something is up between those two, Quinn thought.
After supper, Quinn helped with cleanup…she felt odd just standing around. Then, they practiced setting the alarm system so after Will and Emma left Quinn would know how to arm and disarm it. They did tell her that if the alarm was tripped for any reason, it sent a call to the police station and a police officer would be out within minutes.
"With this alarm system, it's a fortress," Will told her.
Emma went outside to pull the Phantom into the garage. She returned to the kitchen and handed Quinn a business card.
"My cell phone number is on it…if you need to call me…for any reason at all," Emma said to her.
"Okay, thanks. I promise you I'll be fine," Quinn said, laughing a bit. Emma looked at her for a moment…was it concern in her eyes?...then smiled.
"Of course you will be," she said finally. "We'll be here at 8 a.m. sharp!"
"Great…have a lovely evening and I'll see you both in the morning," Quinn said, seeing them out. She watched them walk to their cars, then pull back down the driveway.
She armed the security system and planned to stay in the house for the rest of the night. The sun was beginning to set so she decided she'd take pictures outside another day but took her camera around the inside of the estate.
With Will and Emma gone, the house was exceedingly quiet. Almost too quiet. She wandered around the ground floor again, spending time in both salons and the grand foyer, this time noticing the gas-light chandelier hanging high above her head. In the dining room, she wandered up to the breakfast nook and took in the scene of the ocean. She took many pictures, some to send to her mother and Santana to better describe where she was staying.
She went back to the kitchen and pulled a couple bottles of water from the refrigerator and some crackers to take up to the suite as a snack. She checked the basement door; it was closed and locked.
She returned to the double staircase and walked upstairs to the suite. Once inside the suite, she shut and locked the thick door.
"Well, here I am!" she said to no one in particular.
xxxxx
"First things first…" Quinn mumbled to herself. "I'm definitely going to be talking to myself a lot here." She laughed out loud.
She walked through the suite to the bedroom. She took a moment to look out her windows at the ocean, now dark with the sun set, and then pulled the heavy navy blue drapes closed. She turned on the TV…thank god for background noise…then plugged in her cell phone and laptop to charge. Next, she began unpacking her stuff.
She put a few items of clothing in the chest of drawers in the bedroom and hung up a few dresses in the wardrobe.
She took her toiletries to the bathroom and was astounded by how luxurious it was. Earlier in the day, she had not taken the time to appreciate the bathroom, being overwhelmed by the entire estate in general. Just like the other rooms of the home she had seen, this one was large. The same blue, green, and white tiles covered the floor in there just as they did in the grand foyer (he must've really liked blue and green, she thought of Arthur Abrams). There was a porcelain claw-foot tub plus a very modern steam shower. The basin on the sink was a blue vessel with a waterfall faucet, the countertop marble. She arranged her few beauty items on the countertop and put her shampoo and conditioner in the shower. She looked in the mirror at herself and smiled.
Her blonde hair was a bit mussed from the busy-ness of the day, but her makeup still looked nice. She hoped she had made a good impression with Will and Emma. So far, she was very happy with the work she was doing at the estate, applying everything she had learned to do in school to an actual real-life situation. And she loved it.
She changed out of her slacks and top into a pair of shorts and a tank top and settled onto the huge bed with her laptop to contact her mother and Santana. She sat on the bed and had to take a few moments to enjoy it; she had never had the fortune of lying on something so incredibly comfortable.
"It's like a cloud!" she said out loud to the room.
She rolled around a bit, acting a little less than her age of 22, then sat up to take care of her emails. She wrote her mother a quick note, telling her that she was set up at the estate for the summer, and described it a bit and the work she was doing. She knew her mother really wasn't interested in Quinn's course of study but she would be interested in the real estate.
Next, she wrote to Santana. She wondered how her first day in the big city had gone. She described to Santana her day and the estate and Will and Emma and their obvious affair.
Quinn had no emails yet. She had kind of half expected one from Noah but there was nothing.
She watched a bit of mindless TV after putting her laptop aside and around 10 o'clock decided to call it a night. She set her alarm for 7 a.m. and turned off all the lights.
The suite was pitch-black; she couldn't believe how dark and how quiet it was. With the TV off, she could hear all the nighttime noises outside in the forest and of course the house sounds. Since it was a stone fortress basically it didn't do a lot of "settling" but there were still sounds, mostly she thought related to the appliances turning off and on.
She lay in the massive bed that felt like a cloud and willed herself to close her eyes, hoping for sleep to come quick. Finally, it did take over and she was snoozing peacefully, not knowing that Sam Evans had been watching her the entire night.
xxxxx
"It can't be her…there is just no way," Sam said to Finn. Finn had finally caught up with him hovering over Italy after he had disappeared from the Abrams estate.
"Well, it sure looks like her and sounds like her…Emma called her 'Quinn' though," Finn said.
"I know…it just doesn't make any sense…even her eye…her eye was the same!" Sam said, holding his head in his hands. "I need to see her again."
He began pacing and then stopped. "What if it is her? What am I gonna do?"
Finn shrugged. "Maybe ask Figgins?"
Figgins was the supervisor of spirits. He was usually found lurking around Pakistan. If a spirit had a question or concern, he or she was to report to Figgins.
Sam snapped his fingers. "Yeah, yeah, maybe he'll know what to do!" He thought for a moment though. "First, I'm going to see her again…" And he disappeared.
xxxxx
He materialized in the Abrams suite in the sitting room. Silently, he floated toward the bedroom, watching her as she went about unpacking and typing and giggling on the massive bed. He watched her try to fall asleep in the dark, finally her figure sleeping peacefully in the huge bed. He stood over her, looking down at her as she slept. Her blonde hair was fanned out over the pillow, the comforter only pulled up to her belly, one bare leg sticking out from under the blankets. Even as she slept, he felt a connection to her though he didn't know why or what.
He floated about the room, looking at her cell phone and laptop, then moved into the bathroom. He saw the few things scattered on the countertop of the sink. He picked up her brush that she had placed on the right side of the basin. He set it down to the left of the basin when his eye caught her panties lying on the floor. He disappeared from her suite and landed in the kitchen. He unlocked and opened the basement door and floated down there. Once in the basement, he noted the small trunk of Lucinda's that had not been disturbed. It had not been moved since 1916 when Arthur Abrams himself carried it down there. From the estate, he transported himself to Pakistan to find Figgins.