Cross Your Heart

by Michele Bardsley

  “And his brother stayed in Broken Heart.”

  I paused from digging through a desk drawer. “He was grandfather’s younger brother, not particularly likeable. He neither married nor had children. When he died, the mansion was essentially abandoned.”

  “You mean Pops might’ve found the room, or discovered the big secret, and decided it was just as awful as we think it is. How long was the mansion empty?”

  “Forty, fifty years.”

  “That long?” He whistled. He’d made his way to the fourth set of shelves, and I was on the last drawer of the desk. It was as empty as the rest. Why would my grandfather empty the drawers but leave everything else as it was? Or had my father cleaned them out?

  Maybe Grandfather kept his important papers in his study, although “study” wasn’t quite the word to describe the other room. It was the place my grandfather would go to relax. It had the same masculine feel as the library: big, dark furniture, paneled walls, dark green carpet, and an oversized stone fireplace. It also had a full bar and a billiard table. My grandfather had enjoyed old-fashioned comforts, and his study reflected the man. Simple. Solid. Unchangeable.

  “Anything, Ellie Bee?” asked Tez. He’d worked his way through the bookshelves all the way to the fireplace. He stood near the mantel and stared up at the large painting above it. “Is that a Van Gogh?”

  “I believe so.” I sat down in the large leather chair and sighed. “There’s nothing here.”

  “We’re only half finished with the room, Velma.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk, Fred.”

  He grinned at me. Then he walked to the next bookshelf and peered at the upper shelves. “I don’t know why I thought your gramps would be a secret-button kind of guy.” Experimentally, he pulled a book from the shelf. “Damn. No door.”

  “Did you expect the house to have hidden passageways?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah. This house was built in the twenties, wasn’t it? Prohibition was a real bitch. Lots of rich dudes built secret rooms for their hooch and their hooch parties.”

  “Now you think you’re in a History Channel special,” I said. Still, the idea had some merit. My grandfather enjoyed fine liquors. He certainly wouldn’t have let a mere law get in the way of his pleasures, especially not as a young man with his financial resources.

  “Check under the desk,” said Tez, obviously warming up to his secret-room theory. “Maybe there’s a button or switch.”

  “I think my parents would’ve discovered such a place.” I slipped underneath the desk and looked closely at the exterior. Nothing. Disappointed, I climbed to my feet. I have to admit Tez’s idea of a hidden room had a certain romanticism.

  “Martha said your parents stayed on their side of the house. And P.S.: This place is big enough to accommodate all the people in a Third World country.”

  “Why on earth keep something secret when there was no longer a need?”

  “Let’s say your grandfather’s protecting this Broken Heart problem—information passed along from his dad. Would he tell your father? Or take it to his grave?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  We finished examining all the bookshelves in the room, but it was quite obvious that all that lined the shelves were books. Nothing looked odd or out of place, and our random checking of the tomes didn’t reveal hidden papers or notes or a map with a big X indicating “Broken Heart Secret Here.”

  “Don’t give up,” said Tez. He kissed me lightly. “We still have another room to check out.”

  He took my hand, and we left the library.

  The study was just as I remembered it. Like the previous room, it smelled vaguely of lemon polish. I swore, I could detect a hint of cigar smoke, which reminded me of my grandfather. He died when I was twenty-two. He’d been a good man, solid through and through. At least that was what I had always believed.

  I hoped it was true.

  Tez prowled the room, scenting it, and I wandered over to the corner where the bar was located. Leather stools lined up in front of the elaborately carved cherry-wood counter. It was polished to a high shine, and even the bottles and glasses, which hadn’t been used in years, gleamed.

  “This place is the best man-cave I’ve ever been in.”

  I looked at him. “Man-cave?”

  “Yeah. You know, a dude space.” He waved his hands around. “This is all testosterone, princess.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t. Tez didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy fondling the billiard table. Even though I didn’t buy into Tez’s theory about a hooch room, secret or otherwise, I still checked underneath the bar for any buttons or switches.

  And I found one.

  “Tez!”

  He put down the cue ball and hurried over to me. “What?”

  I pushed the button, and a panel near the fireplace popped open.

  “Holy shit.” Tez leaned over the bar and kissed me. “Way to go, Ellie.”

  Giddy, from both the kiss and my unexpected find, I joined Tez by the narrow opening. We peered inside the dark passage, and then looked at each other.

  “If Martha knew about this place, there wouldn’t be cobwebs hanging from the ceiling or dirt on the concrete,” I said. A small shelf at eye level held a row of tapered candles, some half melted, and a stack of boxed matches. “I’m fairly sure flashlights were available at some point, yet he continued to use candles to light his way. Old-fashioned to the end.”

  Tez lit one of the unused candles and slid past me through the doorway. I followed him. It was a tight space, especially for Tez, who was much larger and taller. Even I was squished; my shoulders kept scraping against the walls.

  “There’s a set of stairs here,” said Tez. “They go up.”

  “The attic.”

  The staircase was just as narrow as the hallway, and spiraled up quite a distance. Finally, we reached the top, which revealed a trapdoor above us. Tez pushed it open and entered. After a moment, he reached down and offered his hand, which I grabbed, and he helped me up.

  The flickering yellow light of our inadequate candle revealed a small, tidy room, dusty with disuse. On the far wall, there was a closed rolltop desk with a leather chair parked in front of it. On the opposite side, wooden crates were stacked neatly: two rows of two with the fifth box centered on top of them.

  “Five,” said Tez.

  Foreboding sat heavily in my stomach. What had my grandfather known about our family’s past in Broken Heart? Had he always known about his father’s sins . . . or had he found out the truth and the knowledge had driven him out of town?

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Here was the evidence of my own family’s complicity in the murder of Elizabeth Silverstone.

  “I feel sick.” I walked to the chair and threw myself into it. “He knew. My grandfather knew.”

  “We don’t know anything yet. Those crates could be filled with the finest Scotch this side of Scotland. We either need more light, or to haul this crap downstairs.”

  “No electricity up here,” I said. I pointed to a shelf nearby that held supplies: boxes of pens and paper clips, sheaves of yellowed paper, and several kerosene lanterns.

  We lit them all and placed them around the room. It wasn’t the same as overhead fluorescent lighting, but I supposed it would do.

  Tez grabbed the first crate and pulled off the lid.

  We peered inside.

  “Newspapers,” I said. I gently picked up the first one. “The Broken Heart Banner. Look at the masthead—the managing editor was Jonathon LeRoy. And the publisher was Jeremiah Silverstone.”

  “Looks like your great-grandfather had his finger in all the pies.”

  “It appears so.”

  I carefully unfolded the newspaper. It was a single sheet printed double-sided and folded into quarters. “Not a big publication,” I said. “Then again, how much news was there to report?”

  “The Allens got another cow,” said Tez, pointing to a fro
nt-page tidbit. “And Jeremiah Silverstone donated copies of the new Edith Wharton novel, Madame de Treymes, to the library. Hey, look. ‘To be added to the Elizabeth Silverstone Memorial Collection.’ ”

  “What’s the date of the paper?”

  “March 28, 1906.”

  “This one is June 13, 1907.” I looked down at the other newspapers. “They don’t seem to be in any particular order.”

  “Well, let’s remedy that,” said Tez.

  It took us an hour to create a time line for the newspaper. It appeared that my grandfather had kept every issue of the weekly paper during a two-and-a-half-year period. Issue One of the Broken Heart Banner was published on June 14, 1905, as evidenced by the huge “FIRST ISSUE” that blared across the front page. Even though the five original families had settled the area in 1889, Broken Heart didn’t become a town until Jeremiah Silverstone built the general store in 1894. We knew this because the paper did a huge story about my great-grandfather—a propaganda piece if I’d ever seen one. Jeremiah Silverstone either owned the buildings, or financed them. Even the bank owed its structure and its coffers to my great-grandfather.

  The last issue we had was published on December 11, 1907.

  “Do you think there were more papers?”

  “Could be it only had a short run,” said Tez. “It’s obvious that Elizabeth died prior to the newspaper’s start.” He pointed to a November issue. “Hell, Oklahoma wasn’t even a state until nearly the end of 1906.”

  “Why keep these papers if they’re not important?” I said, frustrated. “And why hide them in here?”

  “Maybe your grandfather didn’t know their true significance. Maybe he took what he thought might be important.”

  “And never told anyone? He built a secret room so he could put these things in here. What he did just feels wrong to me.”

  “Don’t judge your grandfather just yet, Ellie. We don’t know his motivations. And we have yet to find any evidence linking your family to any crime.” He put his arm around me and tipped my chin. “Let’s go over everything again. We’re probably missing something. Sometimes the smallest detail can crack open a case.”

  I eyed the other crates. “Let’s open them,” I said, “and see if Jeremiah Silverstone’s sins are tucked inside.”

  Chapter 14

  Tez and I opened the other crates. While I went through the contents, he studied the newspapers. He could be incredibly patient; as a homicide detective, it was a necessary trait. That, and pure stubbornness. He was sure the old papers held information that could help us, and I didn’t doubt Tez’s instincts.

  I supposed that I just wanted a big blinking sign that said: Read This. It Explains Everything.

  “Let’s assume,” said Tez, “Elizabeth died before 1894. Let’s also assume the suicides of Mary McCree and Catherine Allen occurred before then, too.”

  “Why would we assume any of that?” I asked.

  “Because if the legend of how the town was named is true, and the town didn’t become official until 1894 . . .”

  I picked up the thread of his thoughts. “Then we know for sure that the death of Mary McCree happened before then. But why the others?”

  “I think Elizabeth was killed first.” He glanced at me. “I hate using your name and ‘killed’ in the same sentence.”

  “Why? I’m already dead.”

  He stared at me and then barked a laugh. “Good point.” He looked down at the papers. “Okay. So, Elizabeth died first. Then Mary and Catherine.”

  “Wait,” I said. I dug around in my memory. “My grandfather was born in the spring of 1890 . . . and he was two years older than his brother. So, that means Josiah was born in 1892.”

  “Good job, Ellie Bee. That means your great-grandmother died in either 1893 or 1894.”

  “Someone killed her,” I mused, “but the other two women died by their own hand. They committed suicide, and both claimed their husbands were unfaithful. Sound familiar?”

  “Just like your friends.”

  “And there’s no convincing them otherwise, either, even though it’s patently untrue. The shadow demon is messing with their minds somehow.”

  “We might be looking at some sort of hysteria,” said Tez. “Maybe along the lines of the Salem witch trials.”

  “He’s targeting the women of the first five families. He’s the curse of Broken Heart.”

  “Doesn’t explain Patsy,” said Tez. “She’s not part of a founding family.”

  “He needed access to the house, to his little treasure room. She was just . . . collateral.”

  Tez nodded. “Let’s see if we can find some proof.”

  He returned his attention to the newspapers, and I dug through the crates.

  The first one was filled with old-fashioned women’s clothing wrapped in parchment and tied with string. I assumed they all belonged to my great-grandmother. They were in remarkable condition, and none was stained or torn. Most likely, a servant had packed and stored her clothing after her death. Again, it wasn’t something I felt should’ve been hidden for nearly a hundred years. I saw nothing thus far that indicated anything other than sentimentality.

  Then I removed the last wrapped item, and opened it.

  It was a brown hat with copper roses along the brim. I must’ve made a sound of distress because Tez was at my side in an instant gently untangling my trembling fingers from the hat.

  “It’s hers,” I said. I knew Elizabeth was communicating with me. She wanted me to find out the truth. She wanted peace, for herself and for all the troubled souls of Broken Heart.

  I reached out for the hat, but Tez shook his head. “The man who killed her grabbed it right out of her hands and tossed it to the floor of that room. Right before she died she’d wondered what happened to it.” I stood up and started to pace. “She was thinking about her new dress, about her duties as a hostess and a mother.” I pressed my hand against my quivering mouth, and lamented my inability to cry. “She died so young. And she never got to raise her sons. It’s tragic.”

  “Death often is,” said Tez. He perched the hat on the corner edge of the crate and then took me into his arms.

  I laid my head against his chest and listened to the comforting sound of his heartbeat. “How did you do it, Tez? How do you face the gruesomeness of murder every day and still have any hope at all?”

  “Who says I do?” He rubbed my back. “Humans can do really vicious things to each other. They get greedy or jealous, or just go crazy. It’s been hard for me, Elizabeth, because I’ve wanted to separate the just crimes from the unjust. If an abused wife gets sick of being beaten and stabs her asshole husband in the heart, I secretly applaud her. I’d still arrest her and charge her, but I wouldn’t like it. I’ve always judged my cases that way. It isn’t looking at the messiness of death that bothers me; it’s the motivations for murder that sicken me.”

  I pulled back and studied Tez’s face. His voice held anguish and fury, and his eyes echoed that pain. “You didn’t just go on sabbatical to find Broken Heart, did you?”

  “I quit.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’ll tell you someday.”

  I tightened my arms around him. “Okay,” I said. Then I rose up and kissed him.

  My attempt to comfort him flared into passion. I could sense he needed the distraction . . . that he wanted to lose whatever memories had surfaced, to quiet whatever inner demons roared inside him.

  He had given me so much, and I wanted to give back to him, too.

  I lowered myself to my knees and grasped the waistband of his sweats.

  “Elizabeth.” His voice was hoarse, his gaze darkened by his pain and his need.

  “Let me.” I pulled down the sweats, and his already hardening cock sprang free. I kissed the length of it, and then sucked the tip of his shaft into my mouth, swirling my tongue around the ridged edge. He tasted earthy, and oh-so-male.

  Excitement pulsed through me.

  His fingers s
lid into my hair, and rested lightly on my scalp.

  I wasn’t experienced with giving fellatio, but I was certainly enthusiastic. Tez seemed to enjoy my efforts. I created a rhythm with my hand and my mouth, stroking the base of his shaft while I was also, as Jenna Jameson might say, going down on him.

  “Elizabeth. God, baby.” He sucked in a breath, and his hands tightened my hair. He moved his hips in conjunction with my stroking. “I’m gonna come!”

  Then he did.

  His cock jerked as his hot seed spurt into my mouth, and I swallowed the salty essence, holding on to him until he was finished.

  I was quite pleased with myself. I kissed his length, running my tongue up and down his cock until he scooped me under the armpits and lifted me. I squeaked at this sudden change in position. My feet dangled off the floor.

  “What are you doing?” I asked indignantly.

  “Marry me,” he said.

  “Humph. You just wanna have sex.”

  “God, yes.” His eyes got a calculating look. “You can’t be penetrated at all?”

  “Not by your . . . uh, you know.” I said, suddenly disturbed by the glint in his eye.

  “No penis. Got it. But we have other options.”

  “What are you thinking?” Then I narrowed my gaze. “Undead isn’t alive, and that counts, too. Penetration with another being means a hundred years together.”

  “Don’t worry, princess. I have no intention of bringing a donkey into our bedroom.”

  I gaped at him. “That thought never even crossed my mind. I was thinking you being undead wouldn’t help our situation. In case you’re thinking of . . . I don’t know, being Turned or whatever. I’m not even sure full-blood shifters can be Turned.”

  “I like having a heartbeat,” he said. “Besides, I’m your meal ticket.”

  “Are not.” I sounded petulant, which only made him grin. He gave me a smacking kiss and then put me down.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” said Tez, “but why is it that you can swallow come?”