She had a decision to make. And so she made it.

No one reads the fine print in the escrow paperwork, she thought. There are so many pages to sign at a closing that no one reads them. The buyers just initial and sign.

She figured that since there were no such things as ghosts, there would be no problems, and therefore, no consequences if she kept her mouth shut. The wife loved the house, and she needed the sale. It would be a win/win situation.

Amber opened one of the many boxes that littered the kitchen floor of her new house.

It was taking her all day to unpack. Her husband wasn't any help since he was away on a business trip. It seemed that just as soon as they closed escrow and moved in, Kevin had to leave again on business.

In fact, that was one of the reasons they bought a home. Kevin felt that Amber needed something to take her mind off the fact that she was alone a lot of the time while he traveled. He told her that if they bought a house, she could decorate it any way she wanted.

Amber had been thrilled. There was only one thing she wanted more than a house, and that was a baby. Kevin had told her they weren't ready for that kind of responsibility, but Amber figured that since they had bought a new house, it would make sense to fill it with a baby. She felt that with time, she could talk Kevin into it.

Certainly they had the s.p.a.ce now, and she loved this house; for some reason, when she had looked at it with the realtor, it had spoken to her...whispering promises.

The new house wasn't exactly new, having been built in 1960. Still, it was a three bedroom, two bath, ranch-style tract home that had over 1,500 square feet. That was a lot of s.p.a.ce for only two people. A baby could fill the s.p.a.ce.

And so Amber unpacked by herself in her new home. She hadn't had time to look for a job in this new town, and reveled in the idea that at least for a while, she could live a life of luxury by not having to go to work. Of course, once they started paying the mortgage, she would need to find a part time job.

But on this day, she wasn't going to worry about it. She was going to unpack a few things and begin nesting; preparing for the baby that she knew would arrive. She wanted a boy, how she hoped she and Kevin would have a son.

She glanced at a window, and couldn't believe it when she saw it was raining. How could it be raining? The weather had been so beautiful just the day before.

It rarely rained during May in Sacramento, but on that Friday it rained all day. The dark sky seemed to dampen Amber's mood, and her high spirits changed to anxiety.

Because of the rain, night came faster, throwing its ebony blanket over the town to change it from a place of friendly openness into a place of menacing shadows. Amber found herself wishing that Kevin were home. Earlier, Amber had been enjoying her new house, but now that it was night, she found herself nervous to be there alone.

She had nothing to do. She didn't have cable hooked up yet, and there was no antenna, so she couldn't watch television. She tried to read a book, but all she had was a murder mystery and reading that would make her even more nervous. She didn't want to unpack any more, because she had been doing that most of the day and now she was sick of it.

Amber found herself walking around, wandering from room to room. She held her cell phone in her hand, trying to resist the urge to call Kevin. Outside, the storm was at full force now, raging in its fury. Lightning flashed and thunder soon followed; the sound rumbled and growled throughout the house.

It made her feel better to turn on every single light. The kitchen, bathrooms, and dining room all had ceiling lights, but the living room and the bedrooms did not. Amber was glad she had thought to unpack lamps earlier in the day; now she plugged them in and turned them all on.

In one of the empty guest bedrooms, the lamp was shining its light at an angle upon the wall. Something about the wall didn't seem quite right. She put her cell phone on the floor to free her hands for the lamp. Amber picked up the lamp and moved it a bit, trying different angles to shine upon the wall. It looked like some sort of bulge was pushing out about halfway up the wall.

She wondered why she had not seen it when the realtor had shown her the house. Maybe the room had looked different in the daylight.

Great, Amber thought, do we have structural problems already?

She put down the lamp and walked over to the wall, running her hands over it. There was definitely a bulge in the wall. It was all b.u.mpy and uneven. And now that she was close to it, she could see that it looked as though someone had done a makeshift repair job; probably there had been a hole in the wall and someone had haphazardly patched it and painted over it.

It was a very bad patch job.

Amber had heard of people stuffing newspapers into holes in the wall so that they could have something to spread the s.p.a.ckle upon. She didn't like the idea of it; she didn't want paper inside her wall because it could be a fire hazard.

Would it hurt if Amber punched out the plaster in that spot to look inside the wall? After all, wouldn't Kevin want to do the same thing, since the patch job had been done so poorly? Either way, the hole in the wall would have to be done over and patched correctly, so there would be no harm in opening it up now. Hadn't Kevin given her free rein with the house? Besides, she had nothing else to do.

She went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. Returning to the guest bedroom, Amber punched the wall with the knife. She was not surprised when the knife went through the patch job very easily and that she could hear rustling on the other side.

So she had been right: newspaper.

She fumbled at the wall, but managed to begin tearing away at the plaster. She used the knife to create openings and then pulled the makeshift s.p.a.ckle patch job out. The s.p.a.ckle crumbled, falling into little pieces upon the floor.

The hole opened up. Amber reached inside and started pulling pages of rumpled newspapers out. Finally when she had them all removed from the wall, she decided to sit down and take a look at them. The date on the newspapers would tell her how long ago the wall had been patched.

She picked up one of the newspaper pages and un-wadded it. It was yellowed, so she figured it must have been in the wall for a while. She placed the page on the floor and tried to smooth out the wrinkles with her hands.

When it was free of most of its wrinkles, she picked it up again and looked to the top of the page for the date. It said: The Sacramento Bee, Sunday, May 8, 1988.

How ironic that that paper was dated the same month in which she found it. She skimmed the page and saw advertis.e.m.e.nts that proclaimed it was not too late to buy a Mother's Day gift.

So May eighth must have been Mother's Day in 1988, she thought. Maybe it's an omen.

She started reading the paper, glad that it wasn't the Sunday funny pages. Her eyes stopped on an article. She read: A 23-year-old woman was arrested last night on murder charges in connection with the death of her son, according to a police report.

Sacramento paramedics responded about 7:30 PM to a 911 call about an unresponsive five-year-old child in a home on the 1900 block of Rats! Amber thought. The page was torn, so the rest of the article was missing.

Then she remembered how she had believed that finding a newspaper dated on Mother's Day had been an omen. She shuddered, and instinctively reached for her belly, even though there was no child inside.

She connected the article to her own address, which was 1924 Henley Way. Too bad the article had been torn before the name of the street could be given.

There are lots of streets in Sacramento that have 1900 blocks, she thought. It could be any house on any street between the addresses of 1900 and 1999.

Still, it made it even creepier to be reading about a murder at night while she was in an unfamiliar house with a thunderstorm raging outside. The effect of the bad weather was apocalyptic to her mood, and she had feelings of melancholy and paranoia. She decided to start a fire in the fireplace, using the old newspaper pages as fuel. It would add more light in the house. Plus, she was feeling cold.

Grabbing the old newspaper pages, she wadded them all up in her hand, wrinkling them again. She took them into the family room, placed them into the fireplace, and picked up the book of matches that she had placed on the mantle earlier.

Amber crouched to touch the flaming match to the newspapers when suddenly the back door blew inwards, blowing out the match. She screamed in frightened surprise.

The rain gushed into the room, and the wind howled with a furious aggression. Running toward the door, Amber pushed to try to slam it shut, and was astonished at the resistance of the door. Was the wind really that strong? She shoved even more forcefully, using all of her strength, and finally she managed to close the back door.

After locking it tightly, she stared at it, trembling and fearful. Hadn't she locked it earlier? Of course she had, hadn't she? Why couldn't she remember?

Then came the thought: If I didn't lock the back door, then maybe I didn't lock the front door or any of the windows, either.

She would have to make the rounds all through the house to double check all of the locks.

She took a step forward to start making sure everything was safe when suddenly the front doorbell rang. She glanced at her watch. It was 10:15 PM. Who in the world would be ringing the doorbell at this late hour? And who would venture out on such a stormy night?

The doorbell rang again. Startled again by the sound, she felt frozen. She waited a few minutes, then took a deep breath.

Slowly Amber walked to the front door, listening to her own footsteps thudding dully upon the hardwood floor of the entranceway. She tried to peer through the peephole, but she couldn't see out to the porch very well. She was not about to open the door unless she was sure whoever was there posed no danger.

Amber next turned to the window by the door. Slowly and carefully she pulled a corner of the curtain aside, and peeked out. Rain was running in rivulets down the windowpane, blurring the gla.s.s, and making visibility close to impossible.

She waited a few minutes, immobile with indecisiveness. Finally turning back to the door once more, Amber called, "Who is it?"

No answer.

"I'm not going to open the door unless you tell me who you are first."

Again, no answer.

Suddenly Amber cried, "To h.e.l.l with you! Go away!"

She backed away from the door. Maybe whoever had been there had left. After all, no one knew yet that she and Kevin were moving in, so perhaps whoever had rang the doorbell had been looking for the previous owners. If so, they kept odd hours.

"Calm down," Amber told herself, not even realizing she was speaking aloud.

She held her hands up, looking at them to gage the amount that they trembled. Then she wiped her forehead, surprised at the sweat, considering how cold it was in the house.

And then she heard something, and stood stock-still, her mouth slightly open so that her ears would work better. It sounded like the groaning of a door opening down the hallway. One of the bedroom doors. It must be the house settling, she told herself. I'm not familiar with the sounds of this house yet.

Despite the logic, she was afraid. d.a.m.n that Kevin, leaving her all alone in a foreign place! She didn't know any neighbors, and had no family to call in Sacramento. If she called the cops, what could she tell them? That she was afraid of the thunderstorm? Or of a boogeyman that went around the neighborhood ringing doorbells at night?

The only thing she could do was to check all of the doors and windows to make sure everything was locked.

She started with the front door, since she had already been there. She reached for the handle and jiggled it. Locked. She touched the dead bolt and a.s.sured herself that it was also locked solidly.

On to the windows. She checked the living room windows. All locked.

But then she heard that groaning sound again down the hallway. Pausing, she could feel her heart thudding in her chest. Maybe she should call Kevin after all. Oh no, where was her cell phone? d.a.m.n it; hadn't she left it in the empty guest bedroom when she had picked up the lamp?

That meant she had to go down the hall.

Silently, she crept to the start of the hallway. All of the lights in the house were still brightly lit. She could hear the thunder booming outside, and the rain pounding on the roof. The sound of a tree branch creaked against the house somewhere, and she thought, That's what that particular noise was, a tree branch, right? Still, a tree branch couldn't explain why the sound came from down the hallway. And she was sure she had heard a bedroom door opening.

Slowly she entered the hallway. Hardwood ran all the way down it, and she was glad she had taken her shoes off and was wearing only socks on her feet. She approached the guest bedroom, and saw that the door was open into the room, an invitation she could not decline.

Had she left the bedroom door open earlier or had she shut it? She couldn't remember; why couldn't she remember?

And then Amber heard a sound from within the room, and she suddenly knew, she just knew, that she was no longer alone in the house.

Trembling, her heart pounding against her ribs, Amber stepped into the bedroom.

She gasped, and clutched her chest.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor was a child. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt that was maroon with blood. He looked up at her with blackened eyes and Amber could see the blood that trickled from the child's broken nose.

"Where's my mother?" the child spoke through cracked and swollen lips. One of his front teeth was missing. "I keep looking, but I can't find my mother."

Amber screamed in fright, whirled around and ran from the bedroom. She fled down the hall, slipping on the hardwood. Catching herself before she fell, her arms flailing, she regained her balance and continued to run. At the front door, she fumbled with the locks. She didn't dare to look behind her to see if she was being chased. She needed to unlock the door to escape out into the night.

She flung the front door open, and bolted, running away from the ghost-child. She ran from the walkway into the front yard, sliding when she hit the slick mud on the ground. She was instantly drenched by the raging storm, freezing and soaked in her wet clothes, her hair in dripping ribbons around her face. She ran as fast as she could, splashing in the mud, running for her life.

Then suddenly rough hands grabbed Amber's shoulders.

"Amber!" came a man's voice, as his hands closed tighter on her shoulders, preventing her escape.

It was Kevin! Kevin was there!

Amber collapsed in his arms. "Oh, Kevin!" she sobbed into his shoulder.

"What are you doing outside in this storm?" he asked her, sounding baffled. "Come on, let me get you back inside so I can warm you up."

"No!" she shrieked. "Don't make me go back into that house!"

He stood there in the downpour, holding his wife, the water running in rivulets down his rain slicker. "All right," he soothed her. "Get into the car."

He led her to his car, and held open the pa.s.senger side door. Then after he made sure she was belted in, he went around the car to the driver side. Starting the engine, he turned the heater up to high.

"You don't even have shoes on," he said. "Listen, I was worried about you. I tried to call you all night but your cell phone was turned off. I asked Roland to check on you. You remember Roland, don't you? You know, my business a.s.sociate? I asked him to drop by to see if you were okay. When he called me to say you didn't answer the door, I decided to come home."

"Someone rang the doorbell," Amber said. "I didn't see anyone on the porch."

Kevin sighed. "Why were you in the yard?"

"I saw a ghost in that house," she told him. "A dead child. A five-year-old boy; oh, Kevin, he was dead!"

"Amber..."

She grabbed his arm. "Oh! You do believe me, don't you? Tell me you believe me!"

He glanced sideways at her as he drove. "Sure, honey, you know I always believe you."

"Always? What do you mean, always? This has never happened to me before."

"Don't you remember?" he asked gently.

She looked out the window, as though suddenly realizing she was in a car. "Where are we going?"

He sighed again. "Amber, I'm taking you to a hospital. Then tomorrow we can go on a trip to see Doctor Robinson. Remember Doctor Robinson?"

"No," she said.

"Remember how much help he was to you after our son was. .h.i.t by that car two years ago?"

She was flabbergasted. "What son? d.a.m.n it, Kevin, you know I've never even been pregnant. What are you talking about?"

"That's okay, Amber," Kevin told her. "Doctor Robinson will explain it all to you. He'll tell you all about how you keep seeing our son."

She buried her face into her hands and sobbed. "Yes, our son. Did I see a ghost in that house? Maybe I was just seeing our son again. Now I feel so confused that I'm not sure."

He told her softly, "You did not see a ghost. There are no such things as ghosts."

It was a magnificent July morning when Mandy walked into the office that she shared with Nick.

"Hey," he greeted her. "You'll never guess what house is already back on the market."