“How serendipitous! Wonderful to meet you, Levi.” She never stopped moving or talking as she headed toward the front door. “I just love that sweater, Aubrey. So bright and cheery.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And I’m glad you’ve brought a friend, because I should mention, I can’t stay.”
“Oh?” Aubrey said.
Marian stopped short; the three of them huddled on a marble slab entry. “It completely slipped my mind.” Her fingers flitted through a fine layer of bangs. “I have an anxious buyer who wants to see a property clear on the other side of Surrey. Naturally, I didn’t want to lose the home portrait spot, so it’s wonderful that you’ll have company!” She fumbled with the lockbox as Levi checked his watch. “I’ve been meaning to bring a different one. This box gives me such a time.” She smiled eagerly, punching the code in again.
“Odd architecture for around here, isn’t it?” Levi said, touching a huge fluted column. His glance crossed paths with Aubrey’s, who squeezed her freshly blistered fingers into a fist.
“You’re a sharp one,” Marian said. “It’s a Southern colonial reproduction.”
“So, not old?” Levi retrieved a cloth handkerchief from his pocket and absently held it out to Aubrey.
“Correct. Just meant to look vintage. It was built in the late nineties.”
On Marian’s third attempt to open the lockbox, Aubrey intervened. “How about I give it try?”
“Uh, sure. But I doubt you’ll have better luck.” She stepped aside. “The code is 12-25-65 . . . my birthday. Christmas Day baby.” The woman nudged Levi. “But the box is defective. I should really replace—”
“There we go.” The box popped open and Aubrey retrieved the key, handing it to Marian.
She slid the key into the lock and pushed open double doors. Marian motioned toward the entry and her tone hit perfect realtor pitch. “Please, go right in.” Marble floor continued into a grand two-story foyer. It met with a turned staircase that was a fine match to Levi’s Tara remark. “It’s, um, it’s been empty for a while. The owners built a new house up past Boston, on the North Shore.”
“Without selling this one first?” he said.
“They, um . . . they just wanted to move on. No one imagined it would still be on the market, not at this price.”
“I can see why.” Levi’s gaze moved between the grand square footage and listing sheet. “Even a price in the low seven digits seems like a bargain.”
“You’ve got an eye all right!” Marian squeezed Levi’s arm. “The real estate market can be so finicky! It’s such a bucolic piece of land . . . picturesque. There’s even a barn out back, running water, electric. Just perfect for a pony!”
“If you need a pony.” Levi paused, peering out a window and looking for his cab. A faint pinging noise emerged and his attention was drawn from the view to the curved staircase.
Marian stayed on point. “While it’s obviously gorgeous, it’s just not what people in this part of the country are used to. I’m certain that’s the reason it’s still on the market.”
“Is that right?” Aubrey spoke as the two women moved clockwise around the foyer. She ended up at the bottom of the staircase with Marian at the door. As Aubrey neared the stairs, the pace of the ping increased.
“Absolutely,” Marian said, her hand on the knob. “Uh, let’s see, you won’t want to miss the reproduction elements throughout, though there’s new granite in the kitchen, updated appliances, executive home features that can be hard to come by in Surrey—”
“Serino.” Levi looked up from the listing sheet. “The homeowner is Bruno Serino.”
“That’s right,” Marian said. “Also, there’s a custom cherry library, five-hundred-bottle wine cellar on the lower level, along with a maid’s suite, and—”
“Who’s Bruno Serino?” Aubrey asked, fanning the small flame of curiosity she heard from Levi.
“Just the owner,” Marian said. “A well-to-do businessman.”
“Family,” Levi said. “The Serino family is more of an American dynasty. You’ve never heard of them?” Aubrey shook her head. “Bruno Serino is the head of the East Coast faction of Serinos. They own a pro sports team and racecars, a successful brewery in St. Louis, a chain of ski resorts in Europe—true American jetsetters.” He looked at Marian. “But that’s not why the name is sticking out for me. There’s something else.”
The realtor shrugged. “My only interaction with the Serinos is the listing of the home.”
Turning in a tight circle, as if the answer might be behind him, Levi glanced up again. The pinging continued to sound from the stairwell—tinny and rhythmic. Aubrey was quiet, her attention on the rising noise. It was Levi who asked, “Is there somebody else here?”
“Here now? No, of course not, just us chickens!” But Marian finally did look toward the staircase. “It’s probably the heating system.”
“Did they go as far as to fit their reproduction home with steam heat? Otherwise that doesn’t sound—”
“My heavens!” she said, holding the key out to Aubrey. “Just look at the time! I’ll have to fly to make it to the other side of Surrey. You know how to lock up properly, don’t you, dear? We did experience a little vandalism recently.”
“Not a problem.” But as Aubrey spoke an odor tickled her nose. She swiped at it with Levi’s handkerchief. “We’ll be fine.”
“Beautiful! Take your time, take the grand tour. Be sure,” she said, halfway out the door, “not to miss the his and her bathrooms in the master suite. You’re a love for doing this, Aubrey!”
Aubrey crossed back to the front door and pushed it shut behind Marian as Levi noted, “Isn’t that unprofessional, just leaving you here?”
Aubrey turned and leaned her weight against the door, tucking the key in her sweater pocket. “In some situations realtors don’t like to hang around. And I’d be willing to bet,” she said, her head tipping toward the steady sound, “Marian Sloane hates showing this house more than she does splitting her commission.”
“Why?” He held up a hand. “Right. She thinks it’s haunted too.” Aubrey didn’t reply as he glanced out the window for his cab once more. “So what is it we do now, Ellis? Draw the drapes, light a candle, hold hands around a card table? Shame you didn’t bring a Ouija board.”
She made a face. “Foul, grossly exploited conduit. I wouldn’t touch one if you begged me.” Aubrey coughed, the tickle in her nose traveling to her throat. She kept going, pointing toward the second story. “You hear the ping, right? That’s fairly . . . typical. Sounds are one—” Aubrey stopped again. An odor seeped in, redolent—more remarkable than the ping. Aubrey covered her mouth with the handkerchief. It tamped down the smell as Levi offered a rational theory.
“Like Marian said, it’s a reproduction. The Serinos probably did install steam heat. It explains that sound. Eccentric for sure, but something you get, right, Ellis?” Aubrey remained tight against the door and Levi looked toward the adjoining living room. “What is it about that name, the Serinos? I can’t put my finger on it.” Aubrey cleared her throat hard, trying to dislodge the insistent tickle. He turned back. “Allergies?”
“Um, no, not allergies. Just something odd in the air.” She took a harder look around the empty foyer. “It happens.”
“Like when you thought you smelled salt air in the Chinese restaurant.”
Beneath her feet, through her shoes, Aubrey sensed a disturbing wave of heat rise from the marble floor. “Yes, like . . .” Aubrey looked at Levi’s perplexed face; he was squinting at her neck.
“Are you sure you’re not having an allergic reaction? That rash around your neck looks . . . itchy.”
The odor dissipated and Aubrey took a deep breath. She ran her hand over skin that had begun to prickle. She told herself it was nothing more than the intense rush of having ignored her job. She pushed forward. “Why don�
�t we just take the tour?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You have at least another ten minutes until your cab arrives.” He lingered behind and Aubrey glanced over her shoulder. “You won’t find it.”
“What’s that?”
“A note on the listing sheet about this house having steam heat.” Double doors opened to an elegant library. It was surrounded by custom built-ins, a coffered ceiling, and sleek Brazilian cherry flooring. Levi moved forward; she could see where the aesthetics would appeal to him. Aubrey stayed near the library entrance. The odor faded, but things weren’t following their usual pattern. A spirit was evident, but it wasn’t reaching out. It was hovering, and this made her uneasy. The obvious explanation was Levi. Negativity was influencing an otherwise fluid process. Her quest for proof was losing traction. Aubrey wondered if the house on Acorn Circle would produce nothing but a rash and barren square footage. Levi moved to the far end of the room where the reporter in him lent a hand.
“What happened in here?” He stood in front of French doors that opened to a patio. One side of the door was covered in plywood, its glass gone. “Looks like somebody tried to break in.”
“Marian mentioned minor vandalism. When a house is empty this long it happens.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t call this minor.”
“Welcome to the rose-colored world of real estate,” Aubrey said, glancing around.
From the intact side, Levi examined the damaged frame, his gaze moving on to the view. “Might as well look at this while we’re here. I assume, in addition to your extracurricular activity, you are doing a story on the house.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, Aubrey’s glance flicked about the room, the way it might if a bee were buzzing through.
“Marian was right about one thing. It is the perfect spot for a pon—Wait . . . this doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?”
Levi’s sightline moved from the outdoor space to the glossy hardwoods beneath their feet. He pointed to the exterior. “If somebody tried to break in, shouldn’t the glass be on the inside?”
Aubrey moved fast to where Levi stood. Scattered across the patio was an angry splash of glass. She looked from the shards to Levi. “Unless something was trying to break out.”
He stepped away. “You can’t be serious.”
“Something harboring an awful lot of angry energy,” Aubrey said, more to herself than him.
“That’s ridiculous, Ellis.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. More like someone swept the glass outside and just didn’t bother to pick it up. Marian didn’t strike me as the most industrious realtor.”
She looked at the floor. “Maybe. But there’s not a mark on these hardwoods. There’s also not a stick of furniture in this house. That’s thick glass, Levi. It would take a lot of force to shatter it.”
“Or the vandals brought a crowbar.”
Instead of rebutting, Aubrey drew the handkerchief to her mouth. Her eyes pinched as tainted smells and an unwelcome aura bled into the physical space. Her heart fluttered; then it began to pound. “You know what, Levi? Let’s just go.” A miserable cold sweat burst through her body and Aubrey headed for the library door. “This was a bad idea.”
“Which part? Wait . . . what are you talking about?”
“I changed my mind. Coming here was a mistake.” She hurried down the hall, her senses piqued in the marble-clad entry. She felt Levi and someone else follow. Both were on her heels. A hand closed around Aubrey’s arm, and she could not swear it was Levi. Near the staircase, a terrific force spun her around. She felt a shred of relief as she stared into Levi’s unyielding face. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. Forget what I said. I . . . I’ll drive you back to town.”
“Not so fast. I want to know what the hell is going on. You drag me to the middle of nowhere with some cockamamie story about ghosts . . . or seeing ghosts . . . or speaking to ghosts—doesn’t matter; each is more unbelievable than the other. And while I’d like to say you’re a total fruitcake or off your meds, I—that’s not been my perception since we started working together, Ellis. So,” he said, letting go, “I want an explanation.”
“No!” she said, moving fast to the door.
“No?”
“No!” she repeated, pirouetting in a shaky three-sixty turn that got her nowhere. “Levi, understand that you’re not the fiercest force in this house, and I need to get out of here.” She was racing now, the taste of blood rushing through her mouth. There was no approachable spirit, only the feel of death—a horrid death. Smell. Smell was the most aberrant sense. The stench returned, saturating real air. Aubrey knew that stink. She’d smelled it before. The night she’d ended up with scars on her chin and arm. Aubrey gagged, pressing Levi’s handkerchief to her mouth. She reached for the doorknob. It wouldn’t open and she began to yank on it, pulling at it like the madwoman Levi described. Large hands came from behind, covering hers. She calmed a sliver and together they tried the door.
“Where’s the key?” he asked when it didn’t budge.
All forms of communication malfunctioned and Aubrey jerked her hands out from Levi’s, banging her fists against the door’s solid wood center. “Just . . . I need to get out of here! Please!” With Levi’s hands alone on the brass knob it moved. He opened the door a crack. Aubrey revolved in his arms, cloaked by his frame, and stared at him. Since he’d come to Surrey, she’d made an incidental study of Levi. The way he looked at the world and what was in front of him. This face she had not seen. But she could also imagine her own expression, her breathing staggered and fearful. Her neck felt like fire—rope burn. She shuddered under the cover of his body, sweat mixing with tears. On her palate were stifling tastes, her ears were filled with the hollow screech of a lost soul. It was inbound, reaching, with Levi as the only entity standing between her and it.
“The Serinos,” he said. “I know who they are . . . why I remember them.”
“Let me go . . .” Aubrey’s trembling hands clutched his jacket lapels. She peered over Levi’s shoulder and into the foyer. A mewl rose from her throat as the pinging resonated. He heard that much; she was positive. But dangling before her, in the elegant marble foyer, was a vision he’d never see. “Please,” she said, eyes going wide. “Just let me the hell out of this house.”
Levi opened the door and stepped back. Aubrey spilled like a bucket of red paint onto the white marble entry. She clung to a pillar, the regal column serving its most basic purpose by holding her up. Relief, the kind you might feel if the airplane suddenly pulled up from a nosedive, rushed her. Levi followed. The massive doors remained open, framing the foyer. “Tell . . . tell me what you remember.”
“A few years ago the Serinos were in the news. A story made the Hartford papers—not Connecticut news but sensational enough for us to follow. The Serino’s teenage son . . . he hung himself here.”
Her head tipped upward, a gaze sweeping across the vast space. “From the balcony rail.”
“The parents were away, at one of their European resorts. There were a lot of questions about their absence, their negligence. They found their son when they finally did come back. According to the medical examiner, he’d been dead for days. We . . . the Hartford Standard Speaker picked up the wire stories.”
Aubrey held tight to the pillar, its mass grounding her fears. “Do . . . do you want to hear the rest?” she asked.
“A story you remember from the papers?” She shook her head. His Adam’s apple bobbed deep. “Then how . . . What else do you know?”
Aubrey squinted into the foyer. The distance granted her an advantage. The spirit inside the house couldn’t get out. “Eli was the son’s name. He wanted to scare his parents more than anything else—he, he was a very troubled kid . . . teenager. His parents. They weren’t very good ones.” They both quieted, hearing
the ping. Levi perceived cryptic noise, but to Aubrey it translated into an angry rash of words. “Eli was expecting them home. He didn’t mean to go through with it. It was an accident. He slipped. The garrote . . .”
“Your neck,” he said, pointing.
She reached up, touching indentations at the base of her throat. “Eli was testing his theory. He never thought it would hold. He dangled there—” She motioned toward a foyer that told no such story. “The phone rang twice while he twisted. He could hear his mother’s voice. She said they’d changed their plans. They weren’t coming home. It was a miserable, slow death—incredibly alone.” Her eyes moved from the house to Levi. Tight breaths pulsed in and out of him. “The mother, Suzanne . . .” Aubrey tipped her head, straining to hear. “She erased the phone messages. She just wanted to erase everything. And Eli, and he’s still so . . . so very angry.”
“This is impossible. A few minutes ago you said you didn’t know who the Serinos were. How . . . how do you know all that?” The burning sensation eased and Aubrey patted the handkerchief to her neck. It came away showing flecks of blood. Levi looked away, then back, as if this might change what he saw. “What do you mean, ‘He’s still angry?’”
“I can feel it.” Aubrey closed her eyes, still dangling too close to a place she truly feared. “Eli Serino’s wrath . . . his anger. It’s everywhere inside that house. I can taste it, the blood. He, um, Eli, bit his tongue, severed part of it.” Aubrey’s hand brushed over her mouth and she was grateful not to see more blood. “The force of the drop, the pull.”
“There’s no way you could know that. No media outlet would report anything so specific. The ME wouldn’t release that information.”
Aubrey’s stare ticked past the foyer of the house on Acorn Circle. She stopped on Levi’s stunned face. “Eli told me. It’s what I said to you earlier in the car. I know you don’t believe it. But they can hear me, Levi. I can hear them. Eli, he’s, um . . . he’s in there . . .” she said, pointing. “His neck is broken. Everything about him is . . . broken. I see him.” Aubrey shrugged, a shiver moving through her. “He’s beside the staircase, where he killed himself. He wanted me to come here.” Levi spun on his heels. The angry spirit offered a token validation, the foyer’s crystal chandelier swaying slightly in an absent breeze.
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