Medium Well (9781101599648)

by Benjamin, Meg

  “So when you hit the big time, you’ll quit?”

  She sighed. “I have obligations, like my promise to Araceli. To coin a phrase, it’s complicated.”

  He had the feeling that was the most he’d get on that particular subject. “You said something about pasta,” he muttered.

  “Oh, right!” She turned back to the stove.

  He took another sip of his red wine. His life would be so much simpler if Biddy really were the good-hearted incompetent she’d seemed to be before they’d both stumbled into the carriage house. Instead, he found himself in a small apartment with an uncommonly sharp cookie, who was currently leaning over the stove in a way that made his temperature rise. He closed his eyes. It could be a long evening.

  ***

  Dinner was linguini with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil and a handful of parmesan. Danny ate like it was the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted, and Biddy actually thought it had turned out pretty well.

  The bottle of wine hadn’t hurt, particularly considering the conversation they were getting ready to have. In fact, she had a second bottle on the counter on standby. She had a feeling they might need it.

  She took a final swallow, then squared her shoulders, drawing a deep breath. Go for it. “Okay, now we’ve had dinner and been polite. So tell me about that carriage house.”

  Danny grimaced. “Damn. I’d really hoped you wouldn’t ask.”

  “Hope away. I said I needed to know, and I do.”

  He nodded slowly. “Right. Okay, where should I start?”

  “You tell me.” She leaned back in her chair. “Where did all this get started in the first place?”

  He blew out a breath, leaning back further himself. “The stove. The goddamned cast-iron stove that can’t be uprooted out of the goddamned kitchen in the goddamned carriage house.” His eyes had darkened to deep green in the evening light, the color of an angry sea.

  She nodded. “I remember. You touched it, and then you acted like it was on fire.”

  “It was on fire.” He sighed. “Or damn near it. I expected my hand to be blistered when I took it away.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. But maybe it started something. Touching the stove, I mean.”

  “That’s right. It was the next time when everything began to happen to you, wasn’t it? With Mr. Zucker.”

  “Oh, yeah, ol’ Herm.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Who’s now absolutely certain I’m a loon. Anyway, that day when I walked into the kitchen with Zucker, it looked to me like someone had been slaughtering pigs in there. Blood everywhere—walls, floor, even the ceiling. And the smell! Jesus!”

  She blinked at him. “You could smell it? You can smell a ghost?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was smelling, exactly. I mean, maybe that part was in my head. But the kitchen was covered in blood. And I got some on my hands, and my suit. That’s why I freaked out. And that’s why I ended up with my head in the sink.”

  Biddy’s fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. “You could touch it? Ghost blood? You could get it on your clothes? Crap, Danny, I’ve never heard of anything like that before!”

  He rubbed a hand across his face. “Wait. It gets worse.”

  She leaned back, trying to get her shoulder muscles to relax. “Oh God, I remember. Clark Henderson. What was it that time?”

  “That time it was out in the apartment living room.” The muscles tightened around his mouth. “Bloody handprints moving up the doorframe to the kitchen. And a pool of blood in front of the door.”

  “And Mr. and Mrs. Graves? What happened when they were up there?”

  “Nothing new, but everything was still in place. The kitchen looked like a slaughterhouse. The handprints and blood pool were still in the outer room. Mrs. Graves felt something. Mr. Graves was a moron.”

  Danny looked pale in the lamplight, but she knew it wasn’t just the lamplight that made him look that way. “There’s something else, though, isn’t there? Something else happened.”

  She could see him wrestling with it, trying to decide whether to tell her or not. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, then sighed.

  “Dreams.”

  A finger of ice ran down her spine. “Dreams? Like nightmares?”

  “Sort of, but not exactly.”

  Biddy felt a headache beginning somewhere around the base of her skull. She rubbed her eyes. “Okay, is this twenty questions? Because if it is, I can already tell you I suck at it.”

  “It’s just hard to describe. I think I dreamed about the guy who lived in the carriage house. I mean, I was in the carriage house with him. Sort of. And he didn’t look to be in the greatest shape.”

  “Dead people usually aren’t,” she murmured and then wished she could get rid of the image that darted through her mind.

  “Yeah, well, this guy had a sliced throat. And . . . other stuff.” He took a quick swallow of wine. “That was the nightmare.”

  She sat very still. Part of her didn’t want to ask anything else. Part of her knew she needed to. “Did he say anything?”

  He shook his head. “I guess getting your throat cut sort of makes that difficult.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Dark. Beard, longish hair, by modern standards anyway. Boots. Dark suit. And, of course, the cut throat.”

  Biddy forced herself to breathe out. “Okay, here’s the good news. Or the bad news. Or something. I saw him, too.”

  ***

  Danny felt as if he’d just taken a solid punch in the gut. His hands jerked convulsively at his sides. “What? When?”

  “Last night. I dreamed I saw somebody like that. And I don’t usually remember my dreams, but I remembered that one because it was so . . . weird.”

  Weird. Right. “So were you at the carriage house in your dream?”

  She shook her head, her gaze locked on her hands folded in her lap. “I don’t know where I was exactly—nowhere in particular, I guess. It was misty, sort of, like I was looking at him through the fog.”

  “Look, Biddy, it may not have been the same guy. I mean, I saw him at the carriage house, and the description I gave you is pretty generic—dark hair, dark suit, beard. You could have seen someone who looked sort of like that some other time. Freud could probably make a great case for some kind of syndrome here.”

  He tried to smile at her. Come on, Biddy, look at me. Tell me this is bullshit.

  “His wrists stuck out,” she blurted.

  His stomach clenched. “What?”

  “His wrists stuck out beyond his cuffs. It was like the sleeves of his coat weren’t quite long enough. I remember because his wrists were so white against the dark coat.”

  Nothing. Trick of the light. Power of suggestion. Shit, shit, shit. He closed his eyes.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Her voice was soft. “Your guy had the same thing.”

  “He’s not ‘my guy,’” he snapped and saw her flinch. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Come on, Danny,” she murmured. “Please. Tell me the truth.”

  He rubbed a hand along the side of his face. “All right, yeah, that sounds like the same guy. I wish to God it didn’t, but it does.”

  She sighed. “I figured as much. Not that I have any idea what all this means.”

  “I’m sorry, Biddy. It’s my fault. If you hadn’t come with me to that place, you wouldn’t have gotten involved in all this.”

  “You can’t know that. Who knows how long he’s been waiting for somebody to come in there?”

  “And he chose us. Wow. Talk about luck.” He wondered what his mother would say about all this, but he had no intention of sharing that part of his family history with Biddy. At the moment
.

  She sighed again, resting her head against the back of the chair. Her hair was dull silver in the dim light of her kitchen. Danny wished he could see her eyes. “So now we come to today. The phantom kitty.”

  “Which probably has nothing to do with this.” He leaned forward to grab his wineglass. “It may sound weird to say it’s a coincidence, but that’s how I see it. The big house has a ghost cat, and the carriage house has a murder. Two different orders of magnitude.”

  She shook her head. “Not that I’m a conspiracy freak, but I hate coincidences. And that’s a big fat one.”

  “Right.” He started to take another swallow of wine, only to discover he had an empty glass. When did that happen? He poured himself another. “However, for the moment, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  “So what happens now? What’s our next move?”

  He started to object to the our and then decided the hell with it. At this point, like it or not, Biddy was in. “Like I said before, we need to find out more about the house. That’s got to be our next move. I’ve got a list of the owners. I was going to go to the Historical Society to see what they have on each of the names, if anything. Gracie said their records are computerized now.”

  Biddy shrugged. “I can do that easier than you can. You’ve got appointments, but I don’t. If Araceli asks, I can say I’m doing some research for you, which is the truth.”

  “Okay. We’ll split the list of names. Each of us can do half.” He started toward his jacket, draped over one of the living room chairs, and staggered slightly until he found his balance. He paused for a moment, staring at the table. The second bottle of wine was almost empty. Second bottle? He didn’t remember them finishing the first one. Okay, time to pull it together. He still had to drive home.

  He dug the list of owners out of his jacket pocket. “Here. You can keep this. I’ll make another copy for myself.”

  She ran her finger down the page, frowning. “Do you think it’s odd that there are so many? Looks like around fifteen by my count.”

  He shook his head. “Not necessarily. The house is over a hundred and twenty years old.”

  “But Mrs. Steadman had it for fifty of those hundred and twenty. That means the others probably had it for five years or so, tops.”

  “Ghostly manifestations?” He gave her a dry smile. “The Steadman house doesn’t show up in any of the district ghost-story collections I’ve seen.”

  She stared at the ceiling, thinking. “If I wanted to sell a house, I might not want to broadcast the fact it was haunted—not everybody thinks that’s a selling point. Plus, there’s no telling which of these people is connected to the ghost. The murder might have happened sometime after the original owners sold it.”

  “Which means we’re going to have to spend time with each of these people. You up for this?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. Why not? At least it’ll get me out of the office. Let me take the first ten or so. You can do the rest if we need to.”

  “If we need to?”

  Her slow smile started a flush of warmth low in his body. “Maybe I’ll get lucky early on.”

  Thoughts of getting lucky merged with the growing pool of heat in his groin. Okay, definitely time to head for home, before he did something really, really stupid. He made a great show of checking his watch. “We can get this set up tomorrow. I’d better take off.”

  For a moment, he thought he saw some emotion flash through her eyes, maybe regret. Wishful thinking, Danny!

  She dropped her gaze. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He paused for a moment. His brain was telling him to walk out the door, but all of a sudden his brain didn’t seem to be in total control anymore. He bent down to slide two fingers under her chin, tipping her face up so that her turquoise eyes met his, like two mountain pools. Water for a man dying of thirst. He lowered his mouth to hers.

  She tasted of wine and fruit, something rich and warm. He slid his tongue between her lips, tasting her more deeply, feeling the warmth spread to his toes. His arms went around her waist, pulling her up against him, feeling the softness of her breasts against his chest.

  Her hands rested lightly on his shoulders, then her fingers glided along his neck to tangle in his hair, feathering across the back of his head.

  He deepened the kiss, pulling her closer, one arm around her shoulders now, one around her waist so that she could feel him, know how much he wanted her. Know how good it would be between them.

  Between them. Between him and his assistant. Whose sister would have his balls for a bolo tie if she found out. And she’d be absolutely right. Bosses did not screw their assistants.

  Shit. Shit, fuck, goddamn!

  He pulled back slightly, raising his head and trying not to pant. “We really shouldn’t do this. I’m your supervisor. Jesus, Biddy, I’m sorry.”

  Those limpid glacial pools gazed up at him. “Sorry for what?”

  “This. I mean, I just lost it. Again.”

  Her lips curved slightly.

  His groin turned to granite.

  “I’m not sorry,” she murmured. “It’s cute that you’re being all noble and principled. About how long do you think this phase will last?”

  Danny sighed. His body screamed for release, no matter how hard his brain was leaning on the brakes. “I don’t know. My ethics are crumbling away as we speak, sort of like corn bread in milk.”

  She ran her fingers lightly across his cheek. “You will notify me when they break down completely, right?”

  He closed his eyes, trying not to feel the prickles of heat left behind by her fingers. Then he managed to push himself away gently, grabbing his coat as he stumbled toward the door.

  “Believe me, ma’am,” he muttered, “you’ll be among the first to know.”

  Chapter 13

  Gracie DeZavala was one of the most colorful characters Biddy had ever run into—which she considered a very good thing. During the months she’d been working at Vintage Realty, trying to keep herself from being flattened by sheer boredom, she’d begun to look forward to her occasional forays to the Historical Society, mainly because she’d get to dish with Gracie. In a place like the King William District, where most people wore either business suits or haute couture, it was always refreshing to see a woman who favored Hawaiian-patterned muumuus and flip-flops, to say nothing of hair the color of Orange Crush.

  Gracie glanced up at her as Biddy walked toward her desk, sticking her pencil in her bright orange topknot. “Well, well, the Vintage Realty songbird. How long are you going to let that barracuda of a sister keep you behind a desk instead of behind a microphone where you belong?”

  Biddy didn’t pause to wonder how Gracie had found out about the Chalk Creek Changelings. She figured Gracie knew just about everything about everybody in the district one way or another. She just hoped Gracie hadn’t found out about her and Danny.

  Not that there was much to find out. Yet.

  “Morning, Gracie. I need to do some research on people who owned the Steadman house and the carriage house out back. I’ve got a list.” Biddy pulled the sheet with the names out of her file folder, hoping her voice sounded bored rather than apprehensive.

  Gracie picked up her glasses, which were framed in bright green plastic, with rhinestones across the top, and suspended on a chain around her neck. “Let me see.”

  Reluctantly, Biddy handed her the list. For some reason, she felt like restricting the number of people who saw it. Maybe being haunted was catching.

  “Marcus Templeton.” Gracie made a face. “He’s a non-starter. Nineteenth-century developer. Built a lot of houses around town but didn’t bother to live in them. He had a mansion on Main that burned to the ground in the twenties.”

  “So he built the house. Would he have built the carri
age house, too?”

  Gracie nodded. “Probably. It would have enhanced the property. Let’s see if I recognize anybody else.” She glanced down the page, shaking her head. “Nobody famous. Or infamous. So far as I can tell.”

  Biddy figured as far as Gracie could tell was farther than just about anybody else. “Nobody related to Sam Houston or Davy Crockett?” She tried to sound like a hopeful innocent.

  Gracie snorted. “Not on this list, anyway. Of course, by the time that house was built, half the people in San Antonio claimed to be descendants of one or the other of them, preferably both, with Jim Bowie and Travis thrown in as bonuses and Sam Milam as a distant cousin.”

  It took another ten minutes of chat before Gracie was willing to set Biddy up at a computer terminal to access the records. After she’d demonstrated how to boot up the database that listed the society’s documents, she shook her head.

  “Some of this stuff has been scanned, but a lot of it’s still in paper. The entry for the name will tell you the format.”

  Biddy had a sinking feeling. “Where’s the paper?”

  Gracie’s smile turned slightly nasty. “Upstairs. Most of it in banker’s boxes. But at least the reading rooms are air-conditioned.”

  Biddy sighed, closing her eyes. She had a feeling she’d be digging through those boxes sooner rather than later.

  After half an hour, she decided Gracie was right about the builder, Marcus Templeton. She couldn’t find anything in the records that showed he’d ever lived in the Steadman house, but he’d certainly built it, along with the one across the street. They both had that same bland, gray look.

  She glanced at her list of names again, wondering how many of the other fourteen she could eliminate. Each name had the date of the deed next to it, the date when the person had taken ownership of the house. Beatrice Steadman had taken possession in the sixties.

  Biddy thought about the man in her dream, his dark suit with its too short sleeves. His heavy boots. She wished she knew more about the history of clothes and what people wore when, but she was fairly certain that suit wasn’t modern. Of course, the sixties weren’t exactly modern, either—Biddy hadn’t even been born then. Then again . . .