Magic

by Tami Hoag

  “It’s Porky and the Rat!” she shouted, loading a bra cup and letting another stone fly. “Get away from my house!”

  “Please excuse my mother, gentlemen,” Rachel said as they all took cover on the porch. “She’s been hallucinating a lot lately.”

  “We’ve come to retrieve our books, Miss Lindquist,” Porchind said without preamble, tugging at his brown vest in a vain attempt to get the garment to cover his protruding girth.

  “Books,” Rasmussen echoed. He cast a glance at Bryan, his sunken eyes gleaming with restrained temper. Bryan merely smiled at him inanely.

  “Oh, yes,” Rachel said, giving Bryan her own fierce look. “I’m so sorry about the mixup. Bryan will get them for you.”

  “They’re in the study,” he said, pleasantly unrepentant. Opening the door, he motioned everyone inside. Rachel stomped past him. Porchind and Rasmussen sidled by, reluctant to turn their backs on him. “Wasn’t that funny-those two stacks of books getting switched around that way?”

  His only reply came in the form of three furious stares, which rolled harmlessly off his shield of innocuous enthusiasm.

  “My, that old journal was certainly interesting reading,” he said brightly as they went into the study.

  The two visitors turned abruptly to each other, their complexions paling from white to ashen.

  “I couldn’t make head or tail out of it myself,” Bryan said with a grin. He fought the urge to chuckle as Porchind and Rasmussen relaxed visibly, letting out a collective breath.

  They sank down on the leather love seat, apparently weak with relief as Bryan handed the little stack of books over to them. Porchind’s fingers, as stubby and round as breakfast sausages, curled greedily over the bindings as he pressed the books to his ample belly.

  “I’ve spoken to a realtor about the house,” Rachel said abruptly, drawing startled glances all around. She leaned back against the desk, crossed her arms over her chest, and gave Bryan a mutinous look.

  “We were hoping to save you the trouble, Miss Lindquist,” Porchind said with a nervous twitter.

  “I had to get a fair idea of the market value,” Rachel explained.

  “You’re certain you’re going to sell, then?”

  “Yes,” she said, avoiding Bryan’s intense look.

  “There’s still the little matter of Mrs. Lindquist,” he said pointedly. “It is, in fact, her house.”

  Rachel reined in her temper and her own feelings of guilt. She hated to have it come down to a competency hearing. She had the ominous feeling that all hope of a reconciliation with Addie would be utterly destroyed by that. But the situation was getting desperate. Their funds were dwindling, and the IRS was breathing down their necks. She could see no way out other than her original plan of selling the house and going on to her new job in San Francisco. Her emotions were only complicated by Bryan’s unreasonable opposition. She felt as if he were betraying her.

  “And there is the little matter of my contract with Mrs. Lindquist,” he continued. With a tremendous effort of will he ignored the fury rolling off Rachel in waves and resurrected his foolish grin. He turned to the gentlemen and began juggling a trio of red foam balls he had produced from thin air. “I’ve been hired to find the ghost.”

  “There are no such things as ghosts, Mr. Hennessy,” Porchind said as if he were admonishing a ten-year-old.

  Immediately both he and Rasmussen gave a little squeal of surprise and leapt forward a bit on the love seat. Their heads swiveled simultaneously, looking behind them as if they expected to see daggers protruding from the back of the chair. Everyone then glared accusingly at Bryan, who went on happily juggling, ignoring their unspoken accusation that he was somehow to blame.

  “Sure there is,” he said enthusiastically. “This one’s name is Archibald Wimsey. He was staying here in 1931 as a guest of Arthur Drake. Mysteriously disappeared. I’m quite convinced that his spirit inhabits Drake House to this day.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Porchind said severely.

  “Absurd,” Rasmussen reiterated.

  Together they popped up from the love seat, their eyes and mouths round O’s of surprise, their hands going to their backsides.

  Rachel sent Bryan a withering glare, then stepped forward to console her guests. “The springs must be going in that old thing. No wonder no one wanted to buy it yesterday.”

  She walked the men to the front door, promising them she and her mother would come to a definite decision about the house very soon. When she returned to the study, she gave free rein to the fury that had been building inside her all day.

  “Of all the childish, infantile tricks!” she shouted, standing toe to toe with Bryan. “Booby-trapping that chair with your magic gizmos. Isn’t that just like you!”

  “Well, yes,” Bryan admitted grudgingly. “But I didn’t do it.”

  “Oh, sure,” Rachel said with a sneer. She turned and began pacing back and forth in front of him in an effort to burn off some of her anger before she exploded. “What do I have to do to get through to you, Bryan? I have got to sell this house.”

  “No, you don’t,” he said. Suddenly he was grinning again with almost boyish excitement. “I think I’ve found out why Porky and the Rat want it.”

  “I don’t care why they want it. I don’t care if they want to set up a nudist colony for the terminally strange.”

  Bryan grimaced. “There’s an ugly thought.”

  Rachel’s eyes flashed. “It’s nothing compared to what I’m thinking about you at the moment.”

  That was true. The signals he was intercepting were more than a little hostile. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and took the plunge.

  “I think they’re after gold.”

  Rachel halted her pacing and stared at him in disbelief. “What?”

  “Porchind’s late relative, Pig Porchind, was a bigtime bootlegger back in the days of Prohibition,” he explained, visibly warming to his topic. “According to the gossip of the time, he had a fortune in gold stashed somewhere around Anastasia.”

  “What has that got to do with Drake House?” she asked impatiently.

  “At that same time in history there was a notorious cat burglar on the loose around here. His targets were the homes of wealthy lumber barons and shipping magnates. There were rumors about the theft of an enormous amount of gold from old Pig. It was apparently never found. Neither was Archibald Wimsey, an old British chum of Arthur Drake’s who was visiting during the summer of 1931. By coincidence, all concerned in this story were either dead or gone missing shortly after it all happened, and most everyone forgot about it.”

  “That’s a very entertaining story, Bryan,” Rachel said. “Does it have a point?”

  “Of course it has a point,” he said irritably. “Wimsey is your mother’s invisible friend, and Porky and the Rat think the stolen gold is stashed somewhere in Drake House.”

  “That’s absurd,” Rachel said. “If there were a fortune in gold in this house, don’t you think someone would have found it by now? It’s been more than sixty years since Prohibition.”

  “And almost that long since these rumors were in circulation. Why would anyone look for something they didn’t know was there?” he asked reasonably.

  “Why would anyone look for something that doesn’t exist?” Rachel countered. “Did you find any mention of this legend in that journal?”

  “Uh-no,” he admitted, “not precisely.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “This whole tale is so farfetched, I can’t believe you’re telling it to me. Who gave you all this golden information anyway?”

  “Lorraine Clement Carthage, who was a debutante at the time and is mentioned-er, fondly in the diary.”

  “And who is now, no doubt, as senile as my mother.”

  He couldn’t quite meet her eyes after that state ment. Lorraine hadn’t exactly been in step with the world around her, he had to admit, but to his way of thinking the evidence was all adding up very nicety.
Lorraine had thought the dashing Wimsey was the thief. Apparently Pig Porchind had thought the same thing and had probably had Wimsey done away with, which explained the restless spirit. The fact that the gold had never been recovered meant it still had to be around someplace, and Drake House appeared the likely spot since attention was being focused on it by the late Pig’s relative.

  “Bryan, don’t you see this is all a wild goose chase?” Rachel asked wearily. “All you’ve got are some moldy old rumors and half-baked speculation. It would be wonderful to find a fortune in lost gold. It would be the answer to my prayers. But life doesn’t work that way.”

  “Not if you don’t let it,” he muttered.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you have to believe a little.”

  Rachel closed her eyes and counted to ten, but the anger was still there afterward, the anger and all the old bitterness. “You think problems can be solved by magic?” she asked. “You think all we have to do is believe in fairy tales and everything will end happily ever after? Magic is for fools and children.”

  Bryan’s head snapped back as if she had slapped him. His jaw tightened ominously. “Well, it certainly isn’t for martyrs, is it?” he asked darkly.

  Rachel stared at him, her eyes round with hurt.

  In a saner moment he would have called himself a bastard, but he had some pent-up pain of his own to vent, and he was only human.

  “I think you don’t want to believe there could be a painless solution to your problems because you’re so damned determined to sacrifice yourself to Addie,” he said, leaning over the desk toward her, unconsciously trying to intimidate her with his size. “You’ve got it all mapped out in that pragmatic head of yours how you’re going to make it up to her for wanting a life of your own. You’ve probably got it figured out to the nth degree the exact amount of suffering you’ve got to do to redeem yourself.”

  Silence hung between them like the blade of an ax. Bryan stood on one side of the walnut desk, his chest heaving in the aftermath of his outburst. Rachel stood on the other side, her shoulders stiff with pride, her eyes shining with tears she refused to shed.

  After a long moment she said quietly, “I’m not a masochist, Bryan. I’m a realist. In the real world people have to learn to deal with problems in a realistic way. Now, If you’ll excuse me, I have to go see to mine.”

  She turned and went to the door, praying she could make her getaway before the dam burst, but the study door wouldn’t open. She grasped the knob with both hands, twisted it, rattled it, yanked on it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Dammit,” she swore, sniffling as she yanked on the knob and kicked the door with the toe of her sneaker simultaneously. “Damn this stupid old house.”

  Bryan watched her, his whole being aching with a ferocious attack of remorse. He’d meant every word he’d said, but he had certainly never meant to say them out loud. He would have done anything to spare Rachel hurt, yet he had just inflicted her with a verbal forty lashes because he was feeling frustrated. It would serve him right if she never spoke to him again, he thought morosely. It would serve him right if she threw him out. Or maybe he should just go…

  Apologize, stupid.

  He hesitated, but suddenly his feet were moving forward. He felt almost as if some outside force were propelling him toward Rachel, who was still struggling with the door. He stopped behind her and reached out to carefully cup her shoulders in his big hands. She jumped and stiffened as if she expected him to become violent. Bryan winced. It wasn’t enough that he had to deal with his own pain for what he’d done; now he had to feel Rachel’s as well. It was apt punishment, he supposed, but he couldn’t help but curse his sixth sense just the same.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, bending his head down so the fresh scent of her hair teased his nostrils. “I’m sorry, angel. I shouldn’t have said any of that. I know you’re doing what you think is best. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

  Rachel tried to hold herself rigid, but she wasn’t able to sustain it against the strangely physical pressure to lean back against him. The sting of his words was still bringing tears to her eyes, but she had to admit to feelings of regret herself. She’d been the first one to draw blood, bursting Bryan’s bubble of enthusiasm with the pin of practicality. Maybe he wasn’t realistic or responsible, but he was trying to help her in his own misguided way. And she couldn’t deny the fact that she loved him, or that it hurt her to hurt him.

  She sighed as the fight drained out of her and Bryan wrapped his arms around her. “I’m sorry too.”

  She was sorry for a lot of things, not the least of which was the inherent differences in their philosophies. She was sorry fate had thrown them together at such an inopportune time. She was sorry she couldn’t believe in magic the way he did.

  “I don’t want us to fight,” she whispered, twisting around in his embrace and throwing her arms around his neck. Their time together was going to be too short as it was, she thought, her heart aching. There was no sense wasting it on senseless battles about ideology.

  Bryan hugged her tight, closing his eyes against another wave of pain. He had to find some way to show her that her life didn’t have to be all sacrifice. He especially had to find a way to show her they didn’t need to sacrifice their love, that it would be strong enough to withstand anything if only she would believe.

  He gave her a tentative, heart-stealing smile, his blue eyes brimming with vulnerability. “Friends again?”

  Rachel nodded. She sniffed, blinked back the last of her tears, and lifted a hand to brush at the errant lock of tawny hair that fell across Bryan’s forehead and into his eyes. A gentle smile curved her mouth.

  “I thought you were going to get a haircut.”

  His expression went comically blank, then guilty. A warm blush colored his high cheekbones. He ducked his head sheepishly. “Um… I guess I forgot.”

  “Come on,” Rachel said, chuckling softly. “Maybe we can get Mother to do it for you. She’s a whiz with a scissors, you know.”

  They shared a smile, letting the moment heal the wounds they had inflicted, then Bryan turned the doorknob with suspicious ease and they walked out of the study together.

  TWELVE

  The term fool’s gold had taken on a whole new, personal dimension for Bryan. In the three days since he’d discovered the possibility of there being a treasure hidden somewhere in or around Drake House, he had spent nearly every waking moment searching for it. He had inspected the house from its musty, cobweb-filled attic to its dank, dark cellar. He had painstakingly examined every wall and floor in search of hidden compartments. He had experienced considerable excitement upon discovering a secret vault in the basement, only to be visited by crushing disappointment hours later when he finally managed to get the thing open and found nothing inside but some old National Geographics and a ship in a bottle.

  His search of the grounds had been no less futile. If Arthur “Ducky” Drake had buried his booty, he had certainly left behind no clues in the lawn as to where it was. Of course, nearly sixty years had gone by. Whatever Ducky might have left behind could have been long gone by now.

  Bryan heaved a sigh as he went over it all in his mind yet again. He’d spent the entire morning in the study, mostly sitting and staring. This had presumably been Arthur Drake’s favorite room. It was where the man had hung his portrait. It was probably where he had written the journal Porky and Rat so coveted-the journal Bryan had photocopied in its entirety before handing it over to them.

  He went over the last of the entries again, then pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his weary eyes. The nearest thing to a clue he had found in Drake’s writings was mention of his pleasure boat, the Treasure. It was on that craft Ducky Drake had met his end on Armistice Day, 1931, when the ship had gone down with all aboard her. The last few notes Drake had made in his journal after the mention of “sticking the pig” were about his concerns over the whereabouts of his vanishe
d friend A.W. and a couple of vague references to having some workmen come to do minor repairs around the house-plumbing and brickwork and the like.

  Maybe Arthur Drake and his gold were both now lying at the bottom of the Pacific. Maybe Lorraine Clement had been correct in her hunch that Wimsey had been the elusive gentleman bandit, in which case poring over the Drake journal was a waste of time. But if Wimsey were the thief, why wouldn’t he tell Addie where the gold was? Because it wasn’t there?

  Maybe Rachel was right, he conceded. Maybe it was all a big wild goose chase.

  “That’s no way to think,” Bryan muttered to himself in disgust. Pessimism had never gotten anybody anywhere.

  Pushing himself up out of the desk chair, he stretched and cast a cursory glance over his shoulder at the image of Arthur Drake that hung on the wall. He would unravel this mystery as he had unraveled dozens of others over the years. But he needed a clear head to do it.

  He had run himself into the ground, spending his days searching for the gold and his nights watching out for signs of Wimsey, not to mention their other nocturnal visitor. What little time he’d spent in bed he’d spent making love to Rachel, trying his best to bind her to him in the most elemental way he could, trying to show her with his body how much he loved her. He couldn’t escape the sinking feeling that his message wasn’t getting through. Or maybe she was simply ignoring it.

  Even though they hadn’t argued again, neither had things been the same as before their fight. There was a tension straining their relationship. Bryan could sense the invisible barrier Rachel was erecting layer by thin layer between them. She might have forgiven him for his harsh words, but she couldn’t forgive him for believing in things that couldn’t be seen or touched. And the harder he tried to convince her that his outlook was a better one, the farther she drifted away from him.

  She had been working as hard as he, slaving over the state of Addie’s finances and struggling with Addie herself, fighting a futile battle to repair her relationship with her mother before it was too late.