The Gems of Vice and Greed (Contemporary Gothic Romance Book 3)

by Colleen Gleason

  He just hoped he’d have the chance to see Leslie as soon as he could escape from the clutches of teenager fatherhood.

  ________________

  Leslie clawed herself out of a deep sleep and looked groggily at the clock. Six.

  She blinked, combing through the heavy shroud of sleep with effort. It took her more than a moment to assimilate that it was six p.m., not six a.m.

  No, she’d already seen six a.m. today, unfortunately. She’d been more wide awake then than now.

  Leslie sagged back onto her pillow, trying to work the sleep from her eyes and clear her thoughts. That was what happened when you took a three-hour nap late in the day—it didn’t want to let you go because it thought you wanted to sleep for a full seven or eight.

  Nevertheless, five minutes later, she was in the shower and fully awake. And her mind was filled with thoughts of the events of yesterday and today.

  She’d sent Orbra and Cherry home last night after one o’clock. “There’s no need for you to stay here. Officer Morton said he didn’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

  “But the broken window!”

  “You can help me tape it up and then go on home. I’m going to lock everything up, set the exterior lights to stay on, put in earplugs, and have a good shot of whiskey. I’ll sleep like a baby.”

  The two older ladies grumbled and argued, and didn’t agree to leave until Leslie faked them out by looking at her cell phone and pretending to have a text from Declan on it. She let them draw their own conclusions, but noticed it was a lot easier to get them to leave after that.

  Then she did as she told them she would: fixed the lights to stay on, locked up tightly, installed earplugs, a sleep mask—and even turned on some white noise on her computer monitor. This was going to be her first night in the house since the ghost’s appearance Wednesday, and Leslie was completely fine if she slept through any supernatural activity.

  She really did agree with Morton that it had been a couple of teenagers who’d broken in, and was certain no one would be coming back. It was already after one thirty.

  But the best laid plans…

  Leslie had fallen asleep. She was certain she had, for all at once she was awake.

  Damn, she thought, her heart pounding as she felt…something. She’d closed the door to her office/bedroom suite. But when she got out of bed, she saw a faint light glowing beneath it. Her heart lurched up into her throat, but Leslie pulled out her earplugs and opened the door.

  The chill filling the kitchen felt sharp and abrupt as she stepped out of her suite, and the soft sounds of music drew her toward the greenish-yellow light down the hall to the foyer.

  Heart thudding, hands cold and damp, cell phone in hand (she had no idea why), Leslie padded silently and slowly toward the illumination. This time, when she came around the corner, the thing was not at the top of the steps, hovering on the balcony. Instead, it shimmered halfway up the staircase.

  It stood there, silent and still. Through the terror she couldn’t quite control, Leslie discerned a shape. Tall, slender, willowy…it was a woman, in a long, slender gown that brushed her at mid-calf.

  “What do you want?” Leslie asked, ruthlessly keeping her voice from shaking.

  The image shimmered, shifted, and one hand lifted and pointed down the stairs…toward her. The face had eyes that glowed with anger, and the woman’s ghostly mouth opened in a large, dark rictus as she suddenly swirled into a ball of light and glitter and roared down the stairs toward Leslie. The sound of a scream—high and shrill, and yet dark and deep—filled her ears, echoing in the high-ceilinged foyer, reverberating throughout the house as the ball of light and spirit came toward her.

  Leslie gasped and stumbled backward, bumping her head against the wall behind her as an unimaginable cold embraced her, filling her with ice and paralyzing her as if she’d been encased in an iceberg.

  She couldn’t move, and all at once felt a rage and a fear rushing through her, squeezing and filling and heavy—

  And then it was gone. Silent. The air was still. The world was no longer frigid. The room was dark.

  And she could move.

  Leslie staggered to her feet, panting, sweating, eyes wide, her phone forgotten on the floor.

  “But you damn well didn’t answer me!” she shouted. “I can’t help you if you won’t—tell—me—what you need!” Her voice was unsteady as violent tremors suddenly overtook her. Her knees gave way and she sank back to the floor. Holy crap. Hohhhly crap.

  Her phone was there, and she picked it up, ready to dial…

  Who?

  No. She wasn’t going to call anyone. She didn’t need anyone to help her. It was only a ghost. It had done nothing but terrorize the hell out of her, but she’d met executive board members who did that.

  Leslie grinned weakly in the darkness. Once more, she pulled herself to her feet. This time, she walked out into the foyer and stood in the center of the room, looking around. Her hands were still shaking. It was still dark, for she hadn’t turned on the lights. The debris from the break-in had been cleared away, so she wouldn’t step or trip on anything.

  “Why the hell didn’t you come out like that when they were breaking in tonight?” she demanded. “Maybe they wouldn’t have made such a mess!”

  Silence.

  Stillness.

  Not even a shift in the air.

  Leslie heaved a great sigh. “I guess you’re only a once-a-night trick, aren’t you, whoever you are?” she said, still to the room at large. “And thanks to you, I don’t think I’m going to be going back to sleep anytime soon.”

  She turned, making her way to the kitchen, still holding her phone. As she came into the room, warmly lit by one soft light under the counter, her attention flitted automatically over the windows and stopped short at the sight of a black shadow right there.

  Leslie gathered up to shriek, then immediately deflated. “It’s just the cat,” she told herself out loud.

  The cat?

  The one that had run away every time she came outside? It was sitting on the flower box right outside the window, looking in at her as if it had every right to be there. She couldn’t tell the color of its eyes, but they glinted as it looked arrogantly at her.

  Leslie stared back at it for a moment, the trembling of her hands finally beginning to subside. “Well…all right, then. Fine. I could use some company.”

  And that was how she’d ended up with a cat in the house that night. Surprisingly enough, once she opened the door and set down an open can of tuna mixed with cat food, the feline deigned to enter the kitchen and sample the gourmet offering.

  Leslie sat at the kitchen table and watched it eat, her bare toes cold and her body still wanting to shiver violently beneath the boxers and t-shirt she wore. She snagged a hoodie and pulled it on and made herself another cup of tea.

  “I guess it’s time for me to do some research,” she said to the cat—who indicated its disinterest by remaining bluntly tail-side toward her and finishing its meal.

  The poor thing’s tail was half hacked off, with the top third hanging on by a thread. But the creature didn’t let that imperfection, nor the matting of its long hair, affect its arrogance.

  “I sure hope you don’t have fleas,” she said, realizing belatedly that maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to let the thing inside. But there was something comforting about having another living thing here with her—as opposed to whatever unliving thing had been screaming at her in the foyer a few minutes ago. Her palms went damp again at the thought.

  And so she allowed the cat to stay while she pored over her laptop at the kitchen table—searching for information about anything that might explain a ghostly presence at Shenstone House—till the wee hours of the morning. When she finally stood, stretching her aching muscles and yawning, the cat padded softly to the door in an unmistakable command. Its flag-like tail twitched impatiently.

  “Very well then,” she said, and let him—she’d de
termined its gender when the beast had plopped onto the floor and yanked up a leg to wash itself with a complete lack of modesty—out. “See you…whenever. Thanks for keeping me company.”

  Dawn had broken and Leslie looked longingly at her bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep—her mind was too keyed up, too awake. So she decided to clean up the speakeasy.

  “Maybe I’ll find something that gives me a clue down there.” And now that it was daylight, she didn’t expect any ghostly presences.

  She worked down there all day, pausing only to check her phone a few times for texts or calls. There were several from Cherry and Orbra, to which she replied that, yes, she was still alive, and no, no one had broken in. There were no calls or texts from Declan, but she hadn’t really expected any. Really. As far as he knew, her aunt had planned to spend the night and Leslie wouldn’t be alone.

  Stephanie wasn’t coming over to work today either because it was the Homecoming Dance, and she needed all day to get ready—an opinion Leslie readily shared and supported. So she worked without interruption: cleaning, clearing out, organizing the place.

  To her delight, she discovered more vintage clothing: a pair of shoes, two scarves, and something that looked like a woman’s dinner jacket from the Roaring Twenties—a long, loose coat that a flapper might wear over one of the beaded shift dresses that were popular. The one she discovered was made of silk with incredible beading and embroidery. It looked like it could have belonged to the fictional detective Phryne Fisher.

  There were other vintage objects, many of them recoverable: pillows, knickknacks, glassware, and even a jeweled hair comb. There were four unopened bottles of whiskey, and countless broken ones. She eyed the untapped bottles and wondered if any of them were any good. Maybe Trib would know.

  What she didn’t find was a safe or cache where Red Eye Sal might have hidden his jewels. And though she’d learned quite a bit about his history during her searches on the Internet, there was still a question as to what had happened to all of the jewels.

  All the while she worked, Leslie blasted music. It helped to keep away stray thoughts of supernatural occurrences, and it kept her motivated and awake. But by two o’clock, her energy was lagging. She’d eaten a snack midmorning, but now she stopped and had a full meal, answered some email, put a new can of tuna outside for the cat, and then…took a blissful nap.

  Now that she was showered and fully awake, Leslie decided to take the vintage clothing to Gilda’s Goodies and see if the proprietor was interested in them—and whether they could even be salvaged enough to sell. She called Gilda Herring, using Aunt Cherry as a reference, and the proprietor was ecstatic at the thought of seeing some vintage twenties clothing.

  “The shop closes at six on Saturdays during off-season,” Gilda told her, “but I’ll be here till at least eight. Come on over.”

  The cat—at some point, she’d begun to think of him as Rufus—eyed her speculatively as she climbed into her car, but made no move to gain entrance to either the house or vehicle, despite the fact that he should have been groveling in thanks for the tuna. The can had been licked clean.

  “See you later,” she said, then drove down the curving, tree-shrouded drive. It wasn’t quite seven, but it was already nearly dark. Leslie had left the exterior lights on, and several more inside the house than she normally would have done. She knew she didn’t want to return to a black-windowed building.

  Gilda didn’t look anything like Leslie had imagined. She was probably mid-forties, had sleek blond hair cut in a short, trendy style, and wore a dress that looked like it was from the forties. Showing off Gilda’s goodies, of course.

  “Let’s see what you’ve got here,” Gilda said, her eyes gleaming from behind lipstick-red cat’s-eye glasses…and she moaned with pleasure when she saw the dinner jacket. “Where did you find this?”

  Leslie explained, and all the while Gilda was humming and sighing over the detail stitching and beading and sequins. “This is just gorgeous. Needs a little recovery work,” she muttered to herself, “but I can do that. I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else.”

  She looked up suddenly. “I have to be honest, Leslie. Something like this probably belongs in a museum. Though I’d love to have it in my shop.” She grinned and bit her lip as she looked back down at the jacket. “We could sell a piece like this for probably about a thousand dollars.”

  Leslie’s eyes widened. “I figured it might be worth a couple hundred…but wow. Let me think about that. In the meantime, can I pay you to restore it and get it back to shape?”

  “It would be a pleasure— Oh, Regina!” Gilda looked up as the mayor’s wife poked her head into the office. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.” She smiled.

  “I know,” said Regina. “But I was in the area and wanted to check up on that piece you’re fixing for me. Hello, Leslie. Oooh, where did you get that?” She’d seen the dinner jacket spread out on the table. “That’s incredible.”

  “I know.” Gilda was gleeful as she explained where Leslie had found it. “I’m thinking late twenties. Maybe 1927. It could possibly be a Worth, you know. They weren’t putting tags on everything at that time.”

  “If it’s a Worth, it would definitely belong in a museum,” Regina said. Her slender hand hovered over the silk, then dropped slightly—just enough to brush it with the tips of her fingers. “But I’d buy it in a heartbeat if it was available.” She looked up at Leslie. “It would have gone perfectly with that vintage dress Kristen van Gerste wore to prom. But she didn’t have anything like this.” Sadness lingered in her eyes.

  “Speaking of Kristen van Gerste,” Gilda said, pulling out some tissue paper. “I heard Marcus Levin was back in town for the game last night. He did an interview with some of the alumni who played football.”

  “He is, and he did,” Regina said, watching with interest as Gilda wrapped the dinner jacket in tissue paper. “We had dinner with him, Aaron and I—after the game, of course. It’s always nice to see former residents—especially ones who are now celebrities.” She laughed. “Aaron is very good about reminding them about where they came from, and how much we depend on tourism here in town.”

  “Marcus Levin? Why is that name familiar to me?” asked Leslie.

  “He was the boy Kristen van Gerste had the big shouting match with at the prom,” Gilda replied, smoothing the tissue paper over the jacket. “Is he still as much of an ass as he was back then?”

  “If he is, he hid it quite well beneath a very polished exterior,” Regina said.

  Gilda burst out laughing. “Well, there’s my politically correct mayor’s wife!” She slid her hands beneath the tissue-wrapped jacket and folded the whole thing into thirds. Then she carried it with great reverence to a shelving unit and placed it there. “I should be able to get to it next week. Is that soon enough, Leslie?”

  “Oh, sure. That’s fine. I’m not in any hurry.”

  “So you didn’t find any sign of Red Eye Sal’s gems down in that speakeasy?” Regina said. She leaned against Gilda’s desk, crossing her arms over her tailored suit.

  “Nothing,” Leslie said. “Not even a safe or cache where they could have been hidden. But I did find a pink velvet wrap. I wanted to bring it in for you to look at, Gilda, but it’s gone missing.”

  “Gone missing?” Gilda frowned.

  “Don’t tell me it was stolen! Leslie had a break-in last night,” Regina said to Gilda, then turned back to Leslie. “I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it, but I heard about it. Small town, you know. I’m very glad you’re all right, and that nothing else seems to have been taken.”

  “Thank you.” Leslie smiled, but was a little put off by the fact that her business seemed to be so well known. “Well, the velvet wrap and a glove are missing, and I’m not sure whether they were taken then or not. But I was hoping you could date it for me. Not that it matters now anyway.”

  “Well, a couple rules of thumb, just in case you find something else,” Gilda said
. “First, look for machine serge stitching—see, like this. Although it can be found as early as the 1920s, it wasn’t all that common until the latter part of last century. And the tag, of course—any care instructions would be after 1971, so that’s an easy one. Any tags that are black and white would be before, say, 1930. That’s a place to start. Rayon—that’s popular from 1920s through World War II; nylon became popular after that. If there are undergarments, you aren’t going to see plastic boning or hardware until much later. It’ll be metal.” She paused and looked up as if startled. “Maybe a little more than you wanted to know. But maybe that helped? Do you remember anything about the velvet wrap?”

  Leslie and Regina exchanged amused glances. “I didn’t see any tags on it, but I didn’t look that closely. It had a large crystal button for a fastener on it—just one in the front, I remember that.” Leslie shrugged. “I had put it aside to examine later, and then never got to it. I’ll keep that information in mind if I find something else.”

  “Let me know if I can be of any help. But in the meantime—I’m starving,” Gilda said. “Want to come grab a burger at The Owl’s Roost with me, Leslie? It should be cleared out of Homecoming Dance students by now. I’d ask Regina, but burgers aren’t quite her style.”

  “I’d love to. I haven’t eaten much all day,” Leslie replied. “You sure you don’t want to come, Regina?”

  “Reggie won’t. She refuses to step foot in the Roost,” Gilda said with a grin. “Says the wine isn’t even a step up from Boone’s. What a snob.”

  “I’ve got to meet Aaron anyway,” Regina said. “I just wanted to check in to see if you needed me for a fitting on that dress.”

  “Probably not till Monday,” replied Gilda.

  “No problem. I’ll see you then.”

  Leslie waited while the shopkeeper locked up, checking her cell phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any calls. She had to admit she was a teeny bit disappointed Declan hadn’t reached out even by text all day…but then she remembered it was Homecoming. He’d probably been busy schlepping Stephanie around and hadn’t had a chance to even think of Leslie.