Harley shut down the computer, picked up the drawing, and started out the door. He didn’t question for a minute that Trouble had come to get him. He couldn’t help the nagging worry that something had happened to Tommie in the manor. He simply had a creepy sensation that she wasn’t safe, and he’d learned to honor those gut instincts.
Chapter Seventeen
Tommie gripped the telephone tightly. “Odell, I do think we should talk about your claim.”
“I’m not interested in proving anything to you or that freeloader living in the groundskeeper’s lodge. You can tell him for me that as soon as I prove my relationship to Samuel, he’ll be gone.”
Tommie sighed. This was harder than she’d thought. In a way, she didn’t blame Odell for being angry and aggressive—if she was indeed Samuel’s legitimate daughter. She was like a piece of luggage that had been left at the airport terminal. Battered and unclaimed. But that still didn’t give her the right to try to run over a person. “Look, let’s just talk. Come over for a drink. If you want to explore the house, you can.”
There was a slight hesitation. “I can look around? Without a keeper?”
“Keeper?” Tommie asked.
“I can look around on my own without someone following me like I’m going to steal something.”
“Yes.” It might be a foolhardy ploy, but Tommie wanted to see Odell in the house, to see what she reacted to. Did she have any lingering love for Samuel as her father, or had she been raised to hate him and believe that he deliberately abandoned her—despite what the real truth might be? Or was the whole thing just a made-up attempt to get money?
“Come over at eight,” Tommie said. “We’ll talk for a while and then you can explore the manor. It’s best to do it tonight. I’m going to start some renovations tomorrow or the next day.”
“You can’t change the manor. It isn’t yours!” Odell was hostile.
“At this moment, it is completely mine. And if I want to open Loftus Manor to guests by Christmas, I have to start now. I’m sorry. This was all decided before you arrived on the scene. You should have pressed your case when Samuel died.”
“Maybe I didn’t know.” Odell spoke angrily. “Maybe no one told me that my deadbeat old man had croaked.”
“Maybe he didn’t know about you.”
Her statement was met with a cold silence. At last Odell spoke. “I’ll be there at eight. Don’t try to sandbag me or trick me.”
Tommie thought of the car speeding toward her and the way Harley had saved her from serious injuries. If anyone was capable of pulling a fast one, it was Odell. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said sweetly. “See you in a bit.”
She hung up and turned abruptly toward the door of the library. Someone was in the hall of the house. She heard footsteps. Her first instinct was to look around for Trouble, but the cat was nowhere to be seen. He’d vanished while she was on the telephone.
The sound of footsteps on the hardwood floors was distinctive. One person walking. She heard it clearly. She picked up her phone to text Harley but didn’t. By the time he could get there, the person would be gone or she’d be dead—if killing her was the intention. After the car incident with Odell, she couldn’t discount that someone would hurt her. Odell or one of Odell’s supporters. Heck, she was a stranger in Wetumpka. She had no idea where allegiances might lie or what ant bed she might have unknowingly stepped into.
She grabbed a poker from the fireplace set and tiptoed to the library door. Fear made her breathing shallow, but she wasn’t about to cower in the library and wait to be attacked. And whoever was sneaking around the manor—it was time to confront them. If it was someone trying to make her leave her inheritance, they were not going to be successful.
Her grip on the poker tightened as she held it up and slowly turned the doorknob. The heavy mahogany door opened without a sound and she stepped into the empty hallway. There was no evidence of anyone in either direction. The footsteps had stopped, and for a long minute she stood still and listened. Where was that cat? She could use his company right about now.
She was beginning to relax when she heard what sounded like furniture being dragged across the second floor. Her heartbeat tripled as she walked silently toward the stairs. A stab of terror went through her when she realized a stranger in the house could move about silently—if they chose to. Whoever was in the house didn’t care that she knew they were there. Perhaps they even wanted her to know. It was a chilling thought.
Carefully she went up the stairs, her ears straining for any sound out of the ordinary. The old house had a soft sighing, whispering music of its own, and she was growing accustomed to it. An intruder was another matter.
When she got to the second floor, she looked down the hallway. The doorway to the bedroom suite where Nina Ahearn had lived was open. She started down the hallway and caught the scent of a musky perfume. She’d smelled it before—in the lawyer’s office. When Nina had made her appearance to report her alleged marriage to Samuel.
If Nina was in the bedroom, Tommie vowed to physically throw her from the house. Without a court order, Nina had no business in the house for any reason and she certainly had no business sneaking around and scaring people.
Tommie advanced on the open doorway, listening, hardly breathing, poker lifted above her head. She stepped through the door and had a clear view across a small sitting room to the bed. She knew before she investigated further that the room was empty. The room was quiet, undisturbed except for the lingering perfume. Tommie knew that whoever had been there—and someone had been in the room—was gone.
She lowered the poker and caught a strong whiff of the cologne. She tried to follow it, but it seemed to emanate from the walls. And from one particular corner of the room. She pressed the beautiful wallpaper that covered the walls, running her finger along the places where sheets overlapped looking for a split or crack or something that would indicate there was a false panel behind the floral print of violets. It all seemed to be of one piece. There was no indication the wall concealed anything.
Moving across the room, she went to the fireplace. She’d read enough books and seen enough movies where something sinister was concealed behind a fireplace or bookcase. She pulled and tugged at the decorative design in the wooden mantle, hopping that she’d trigger a lever to open to a secret passage. There was no other possible excuse for what was happening in the house.
She heard something behind her and turned to watch a book on the bedside table move slowly to the edge. Mesmerized, she couldn’t look away. The book moved incrementally, a fraction at a time. But it was moving. And there was no one nearby to account for it. At last the book crashed to the floor and Tommie snapped out of the trance she’d fallen into. She rushed to the book and picked it up. “No Rest for the Wicked” was the title, a ghost story. Her heart was pounding and her hand shaking as she held the book.
The crash of the front door and footsteps in the foyer brought her completely back to herself.
“Tommie! Where are you?” Harley called out to her. And with his voice came the cry of the cat.
“I’m up here, in Nina’s old bedroom.” She quelled the tremble in her voice. She would not be afraid. She would not. Or at least she wouldn’t admit it. “Someone’s been in here. I heard them and followed them up here, but they’re gone.”
Harley and Trouble burst into the room. Harley looked positively wild-eyed, and Trouble wasn’t in a much better state. The cat leaped up, bumping into her chest, and she caught him. In a split second, they were both enveloped in Harley’s arms. Tommie felt such a sense of comfort that she never wanted to move, but she did. She eased back from Harley and released Trouble to the floor. The cat took off, prowling the room. Putting her hand on Harley’s chest, she felt the rapid beating of his heart.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, aware that Harley was equally as upset as she was.
“Have you been down to your room?” Harley asked.
“No. I’ve been her
e. Why?”
“There was someone standing in your window as I approached the house. I saw her as clear as day. She was a dark-haired woman and she was wearing a cloak with a hood. Her face was almost obscured, but she had on red lipstick. I caught a glimpse of that. Trouble saw her too.” He added the last sentence as if she wouldn’t believe him.
“What’s going on here, Harley. In Loftus Manor.” She held the book out to him. “This was on the bedside stand. I watched it creep across the bedtable and fall to the floor, as if it meant to get my attention.”
“A ghost story?” He held the book with distaste.
“It’s time we truly found out the truth about Samuel and the history of this house.” She took the book back. “Until we do, Harley, would you mind staying in the manor at night? Just to be on the safe side.” She was not afraid, she told herself. She was merely cautious.
Chapter Eighteen
I am at my wit’s end with this phantom figure that haunts the halls of Loftus Manor. If I were a superstitious kind of cat, which I am not, I would be believing in ghosts right about now. There’s nothing else to explain how the figure both Harley and I saw moves around the manor so freely. I’ve searched for passages and come up empty handed. My skills of deduction—and scent—are acute, and if there was a secret entrance, I believe I would detect it. My logical side tells me there is no such thing as a ghost, but my detective side tells me that the only thing that explains what is happening in Loftus Manor indicates a ghost at work.
While some may view my internal monologue as foolish, I would point out to them that one man is dead. Hanged by his own hand, or so the local authorities would have us believe. The longer I’m at Loftus House, the less I believe that Samuel Loftus took his own life. From all indications, there was no preparation for suicide. No cause for it, either.
Something happened in Loftus Manor the night Samuel Loftus died, and until we resolve this, no one is going to rest easy in this old pile. Now I’m going to saunter down to Tommie’s room and see what my becloaked phantom has wrought. I swear, if old E. A. Poe, one of my literary idols, could have spent a week in this house he could have added a dozen stories and poems to his backlist.
As logical as I am, walking down this hallway gives me a shiver. I catch the whiff of perfume, which was also in the bedroom the Ahearn woman used. A strong scent. Musky, expensive, and the type of perfume I associate with both Odell Rains and Nina Ahearn.
Luckily Tommie’s door isn’t locked, and while I’m waiting for Mr. Brawny and the Loftus Lass to get their act together, I can get inside the room without their help. I have to hand it to Tommie. She’s a neat-nik without being overbearing about it. She’s already put away her clothes, the bed is made, the room is orderly, which makes it so much easier to see if anything is disturbed.
A quick perusal and I find nothing out of order except one thing. A woman’s handkerchief soaked in perfume with the initials L.P. stitched in the corner. The hanky has been wadded up and left behind the dresser. I’m not an authority on the fabrics humans value, but this appears to be fine linen with the elegant stitching. And the perfume. Very old. And who would L.P. be but Leeanne Prestwood.
A definite clue. And perhaps one that is a little too convenient and easy. Someone is trying to lead us to a specific conclusion. Now I must decide if the wiser choice is to allow them to draw us down that certain path and pretend we’re unaware of the machinations, or to balk and put an end to this now.
To quote an old showman of high merit, “The show must go on.” Most think this phrase stems from theatrical endeavors, but a cat with a sophisticated education knows that it comes from the world of the circus. I have to admit that the humanoids have created a language rich in history and variation. Nothing to compare to what cats have contributed, but that’s a story for a different time.
* * *
Harley pulled and tugged at the mantel above the fireplace to no avail. Nothing moved or shifted. No creaking panels or sliding doorways. He turned to Tommie. “If there’s a passage here, I can’t find it.”
“Whoever was in this room…I guess she could have gotten past me and gone down to my bedroom. But why?” Tommie pushed her hair out of her left eye.
“Why the perfume? Why are they sneaking around and moving a book? None of this makes sense,” Harley said with some frustration. “What’s to be gained by playing this silly game.”
“Unless there really is a spirit here.” Tommie bit her bottom lip, as if she thought he would laugh at her.
“I don’t blame you for thinking that after watching the book creep across that table.” He’d examined the table to be sure there wasn’t some device that had moved the book, or even some principle of physics that could explain it. As far as he could tell there was no reason for the book to have moved. Unless a ghost had pushed it.
“I was willing to believe that whoever was sneaking in and out of the manor intended to frighten me out of my inheritance. That they’d found a secret way in and out of the house where they could shake me up, make me afraid. I’ve believed that all along, and therefore I haven’t taken the events seriously. That was until Odell tried to run me down in the street and I saw a book move on its own. Now, it’s serious.”
Harley didn’t blame her. This had gone on far too long. He should have been able to catch the intruder—because he sure didn’t believe it was a ghost. Someone, a very devious someone, was at work in Loftus Manor and he had no doubt their intention was to drive Tommie from the premises. That wasn’t going to happen.
Walking beside Tommie in the hallway, Harley had an impulse to put his arm around her shoulders, a gesture of support and comfort, as well as something more. That more was the emotion he didn’t want to evaluate. His time at Loftus Manor had allowed him to remain isolated from people, especially women. The one thing he didn’t need right now was a romantic complication. Life was hard enough. But he couldn’t deny that he felt something for Tommie. She was smart and beautiful, a deadly combination. On top of that, she seemed to operate on a code of values, much as he did. Were they the same values? Only time would tell. For the moment, he intended to make sure Tommie stayed in Loftus Manor at least long enough to show him who she truly was.
“Kitty, kitty, kitty!” Tommie called for Trouble as she entered her bedroom. “Where did that cat go?”
The black cat leaped to the bed and curled up, ignoring both humans. Harley couldn’t help chuckling. The cat was running circles around all of them. And he had something in his mouth. It took him a moment before he realized it was a lacy women’s handkerchief, the kind his grandmother had carried in her sweater sleeve when she attended church.
Tommie picked up the hanky and sniffed it. “It reeks of perfume. Like the scent in my room.” She examined the hanky, taking in the delicately embroidered flowers and the L.P. initials. “Leeanne Prestwood. It seems a little too convenient,” she said.
“It does,” he agreed, and promptly sneezed. “It’s a heavy scent.”
“Does it remind you of anyone?” Tommie asked.
“Both Odell and Nina. I’m not sure it’s the same scent. I can’t tell. All I know is that it’s a heavy perfume.”
“Expensive,” Tommie confirmed. “The handkerchief proves someone was in this room, though.”
“Tommie, I don’t mean to scare you, but maybe you and Trouble should come stay in the cottage. There’s a guest room.” He made the offer before he could talk himself out of it. “Or I’ll definitely take you up on the suggestion that I camp out in the manor with you.”
Before Tommie could answer, he heard a knock at the front door. Tommie checked her watch. “That must be Odell. It’s eight o’clock.”
Together they hurried down the stairs to open the front door.
Chapter Nineteen
Odell stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, as if she was ready for an argument.
“Come in,” Tommie said, stepping back. “Why don’t we go to the library for a drink?”
“You said I could tour the house.”
“Yes,” Tommie said evenly. The young woman was like a balky mule. “After we talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” Odell said. “Or let me rephrase. What I have to say will be said in a courtroom when I claim my inheritance.”
“You came very close to hitting me with your car,” Tommie said to the young woman. “Perhaps we’ll speak about that in a courtroom too.” She saw the surprise and approval on Harley’s face and the worry that appeared fleetingly on Odell’s face. The black cat stood up on his back legs and danced, as if he too approved of her.
“I didn’t see you,” Odell said, though Tommie noted she didn’t deny the accusation.
“If I hadn’t knocked Tommie out of the way, she would have been badly injured.” Harley stepped closer to Tommie. “It looked to me as if you meant to strike her.”
“I didn’t see her. The sun was in my eyes. But thank heavens for the cavalry,” Odell said smartly. “What would you do, Ms. Sykes, without a man to save you?”
Trouble hunkered down, poised for the kill. Tommie scooped him into her arms. “Let’s get settled. What would you like to drink, Odell?” She forced herself to keep it civil, but she turned her back and started to walk away. Odell could follow or not.
“You’re not going to trick me into saying something I’ll regret.”
Tommie turned back to her. “I’m sorry for whatever life you’ve led that makes you so unhappy. I really just want to talk with you. I don’t want to take anything that belongs to someone else, but I do want what’s mine.”
“And that’s exactly what I want,” Odell said, her words heated.
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