The Unmistakable Scent of Gardenias (Haunted Hearts Series Book 6)

by Denise Moncrief

“Inside the house?”

  Bobby held her gaze a long moment. “No, like I told you before. He was here on the porch, and she went around the side there…” He indicated the spot where the orb had passed and then retreated.

  “So you haven’t actually been in the house?”

  “No, not lately…” That was an admission of previous trespasses. “What are you getting at, Char?”

  “Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe you didn’t see what you thought you saw. Maybe no one is living here. Maybe what you saw was…” No, the conclusion to that sentence was ludicrous.

  Bobby’s laughter boomed in her ears, circling her much like surround sound. “Are you suggesting the place is haunted?”

  “I don’t believe in that paranormal nonsense.” Her sharp reply ripped through his loud cackling.

  He wiped his mouth as if removing the last vestiges of his mirth. “Neither do I. But I know someone who does. Maybe tomorrow I can ask my cousin Sephronia if she senses anything about this place.”

  It was Charlotte’s turn to laugh. “Your cousin makes most of that stuff up. She can’t sense anything except the feel of those hundred dollar bills she takes off her victims.”

  “I don’t take kindly to you putting that kind of talk on my kin, Charlotte.”

  She headed back toward her vehicle parked around the curve in the oak-covered drive. “I don’t take kindly to her cheating out-of-town folk that come down here looking for an authentic experience.” She air quoted the word authentic and then regretted the action. She hated it when people did that.

  “Now, Sheriff, you know she only tells her customers what they want to hear. For them, her encouragement is worth the money they spend.”

  She rolled her eyes. “If you say so. But if I ever catch her out and out cheating someone—”

  “You won’t. She’s careful like that.”

  Charlotte nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

  Bobby had followed her all the way to her SUV. “Thanks for coming out here.”

  “No problem. If you want any kind of help, just call me.”

  Oh Lord, she knew what he meant. She chose to ignore his thinly veiled suggestion. How many times did she have to tell him she wasn’t interested in friends with benefits?

  He leaned into the open door. “What are you gonna do about this?”

  She shrugged as she turned the key in the ignition. “What can I do? I can’t very well investigate a strange glowing white ball. I might come back in the daylight. Maybe tomorrow.”

  A memory clicked in her brain. She needed proof that she’d seen the woman in town. Proof that the sighting wasn’t just her imagination.

  “She drives an old Ford Galaxie. You know, like the kind your Paw Paw used to drive. She would have passed you on the road when she left the store the other day.”

  “I didn’t pass anyone coming out of the store. Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

  “Yeah, I’m positive. I don’t know who is playing what kind of game over here, but that woman I saw in town looked real.”

  Bobby’s eyes blazed with excitement. “Things are going to get messy.”

  Of course, he was right. He knew what a mess looked like when he made one. He could probably spot someone else’s mess from a mile away.

  ****

  Sleep eluded Charlotte that night. The next morning, she itched to get back out to the Wakefield place before the sun came up. Common sense counseled her to wait until later in the day. So she did, taking care of a few chores in town before driving back out to the abandoned plantation.

  She spotted the same Ford Galaxie she’d seen in town parked on the far side of the house. When she exited her car, she unsnapped the strap on her holster and patted her gun. Just to make sure she hadn’t left her service weapon in her desk drawer.

  As she approached the front door, her gaze riveted on the porch floorboards. Funny how the wood seemed a lot more warped in the dark. The place didn’t have the same rotted-down feel as the night before. Daylight had a way of making the house look less derelict. Strange. Didn’t the light of day better reveal blemishes?

  The door opened before she lifted her hand to knock. Celia Wakefield appeared in the same dress she had worn in town. Was that the only dress the poor woman owned? Or maybe it was her favorite outfit. Charlotte had one of those. Her go-to outfit was a pair of faded blue jeans and a blue-striped button down shirt, her preference when she wasn’t on duty. Although she wasn’t required to wear a uniform on the job, she always did. She’d learned in her first few days as sheriff that the locals took her more seriously as a law enforcement professional when she dressed the part.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Wakefield.”

  The woman blinked as if Charlotte had startled her.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I have some things I would like to discuss with your husband. Is he home?”

  “Would you like a glass of lemonade?” Celia’s lower eyelid twitched. “It’s such a hot day.”

  It really wasn’t. The day was unseasonably mild as opposed to the day before. “Sure. That would be nice.” If it gained her entrance, Charlotte wouldn’t argue about the weather or the need for cooling refreshment.

  Celia opened the door wider, and Charlotte passed into the main hall. She did her best to contain her surprise. “You’ve done a lot of work in here.” Would the woman take the bait and explain why the inside appeared to be renovated while the outside of the house looked like it might fall apart any minute? She corrected her thinking. In the light of day, the exterior hadn’t looked quite so bad as she remembered. Some repair work might fix the old place up. What she was seeing in the light of day didn’t compare at all to what she thought she’d seen the night before.

  “Les installed a modern kitchen. He’s rather proud of it.”

  Charlotte supposed that he was.

  Celia led them toward the back of the main hall where Charlotte assumed there was an entrance into the kitchen. Celia pushed a swinging door behind the stairs and disappeared through it, leaving the door to settle into place in Charlotte’s face. She sucked down her irritation and pushed through to the other side.

  She stalled in the doorway, and the door slammed into her back. Rotting boards hung from above, dangling from the ceiling and resting with one end on the floor below. Water spots marked the part of the ceiling that was still intact. The flooring had warped in the room as badly as it had on the front porch deck. A large hole in the center of the room opened up to the underside of the house. Charlotte spotted weeds growing up through the gaping hole. Several windows were missing, and a breeze pushed chilled air through the vacant panes. Nothing resembling modern existed in the room. In fact, the place appeared as if it had been abandoned to the elements for the past seventy-five years.

  Celia was nowhere to be found. A door to the outside of the house hung on one hinge on the far side of the room, but how could Celia have traversed the rotted floor so quickly without falling through the hole in the floor? If she had, Celia would have cried out from the fall. A step further into the room warned Charlotte of the floor’s instability. She peered into the large hole, but couldn’t see any sign of Celia.

  She backed out of the door and turned to leave, intending to go outside and circle the house searching for the woman. As she twisted to head across the main hall toward the front door, she pulled back before taking another step. In front of her stretched another hole in the floor larger than the one in the middle of the kitchen. She shook her head to disperse the fog in her brain. Until that moment, she had attributed the grogginess to sleep deprivation. Was something more sinister working on her mind?

  Spooked. That’s what she was.

  She studied her situation. How had she managed to cross the floor without falling to the ground beneath the house? And how was she going to get out of the jam she was in? There was no other option but to pick her way through the damage in the kitchen and try to exit the house through the door to the outside.

&n
bsp; Before she could settle on a plan, Dylan Hunter called to her from the front of the house. “Sheriff, are you in there?”

  She closed her eyes and counted to three to steady her nerves. “I’m behind the stairs.”

  “How did you get back there?”

  Nope. She wasn’t answering that question. Her story would seem farfetched at best. “I’m stuck here, so I’m going to try to go through the kitchen and get out the side door.”

  When he spoke again, wariness edged his question. “What side door?”

  “The one in the kitchen.”

  Another odd silence. “Sheriff, there’s no side door out of the kitchen.”

  She turned and pushed open the swinging door again. The far wall seemed solid. No breaks in it. Not even where a door might have been.

  She backed out of the kitchen door and turned toward the sound of Hunter’s voice. “I don’t understand. There was a door there a minute ago.”

  “When I first inspected the house, I got the idea there used to be a door there.”

  “How long has it been gone?”

  “I don’t know. Mr. Wakefield hasn’t been able to find any original house plans.”

  How had she seen something that didn’t exist? In fact, the whole scene wasn’t as it had appeared just a few minutes earlier. Her heart pounded, pushing her blood through her system at an alarming rate. Not since the day she’d been attacked had she experienced so much fear. Dylan had been talking, but she hadn’t been listening. Finally, something he said registered in her fear-soaked mind.

  “It’s a good thing I brought plywood with me today so I could make some temporary repairs to the floor. Give me a minute to get a couple of pieces from my truck, and I’ll make a path for you.”

  When he finally nailed the last board in place and offered her his hand, she glanced back at the kitchen door before making her escape. Dylan cleared his throat, and she turned to face him.

  “From the look on your face, I’m guessing you have a story to tell.”

  She locked eyes with him and gulped down the words that threatened to explode from her mouth. She still had strong suspicions about the man.

  “I’m glad you showed up when you did.” And she was, but that didn’t mean she trusted him any more than she had before.

  ****

  Charlotte studied the woman sitting in the passenger seat of Dylan’s truck. He nodded at her, and she climbed out.

  “Sheriff, this is Sophia Cannon. Les Wakefield hired her to do the interior of the house.”

  Her thought popped out of her mouth before she could stop it. “You’re not Celia Wakefield.”

  A puzzled expression crossed the woman’s face. “No, I’m not.”

  Dylan smirked and then let loose amused laughter. “You thought I was conning you and I had an accomplice pretending to be Celia Wakefield.”

  Charlotte thought it best to hold her opinion.

  Sophia held out her hand and Charlotte shook it. The woman had a firm handshake. She liked that about her. Some women did the limp wrist shake as if greeting each other with a strong hand was too masculine. There was nothing wrong with being a strong woman. Not in Charlotte’s humble opinion.

  “I can see why you’d think Dylan was up to something, Sheriff.” Sophia offered her a wide smile.

  Dylan and Sophia obviously had a past history. The tension between them couldn’t be cut with a sharp knife.

  Sophia finished her thought. “But I assure you I am not Celia Wakefield, and I’m not pretending to be her. Neither is Dylan pretending to be Les Wakefield.”

  “You don’t look like the woman I saw in town the other day.”

  Celia had dark hair and dark eyes while Sophia’s chestnut hair bordered on light auburn. Sophia’s hazel eyes flashed with unspoken communication. Charlotte was right to question Dylan Hunter about his motives. Sophia kept her distance from him, her shoulders tense and her eyes emanating wariness. Interesting. The woman didn’t trust Dylan. So why would she get into a vehicle with him?

  Dylan leaned on his truck door. “Something interesting must have happened to you when you were in the house…”

  Charlotte allowed herself a whole minute to settle her thoughts into something reasonable before she spoke. “I came out here to talk to Les and Celia Wakefield.”

  Dylan raised his eyebrows.

  How much to tell these people? She didn’t know them. Just because Sophia Cannon didn’t trust Dylan Hunter wasn’t a sufficient reason for Charlotte to trust Sophia. That might be an indicator of good taste rather than an indicator of innocence.

  “No one lives here.” An understatement. She wouldn’t elaborate. Let Dylan do the talking. Silence usually pushed interviewees to nervously spill their guts.

  “I told you that the other day.”

  Yes, an edge had entered his tone.

  “I like to verify my information.” There, that should warn him she wouldn’t take what he said at face value.

  The three of them stared at each other in uncomfortable silence.

  Sophia cleared her throat. “Dylan, this is ridiculous. You should tell her.”

  Charlotte crossed her arms over her chest. Her favorite authoritarian pose. “Tell me what?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” His eyes darted toward Sophia.

  Sophia’s mouth opened again, but Dylan interrupted her.

  “You sent Moreau to check me out.” He laughed. “Did he tell you what a coincidence that was? He’s been investigating me for years. Did you know that when you sicced him on me?”

  “Moreau was my partner when I was on the job in New Orleans.” Any other reasons she had for asking Moreau for his assistance were none of Dylan’s business.

  “Really? I don’t remember you.”

  Was the man really questioning her motives? “I’ve been gone from the job in New Orleans a few years.”

  Dylan’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Why’d you leave?”

  How had this interview morphed into probing into her background?

  She narrowed her eyes. “Maybe we should continue this discussion in my office.”

  He raised his hands in front of him. “That’s not necessary.”

  Charlotte had taken enough crap off this yahoo. “I’ll decide what’s necessary. Now…” She turned toward Sophia. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on here since Mr. Hunter clearly has something to hide?”

  Sophia glanced at Dylan from the corner of her eye. “We think Les Wakefield is an imposter.”

  “You mean he’s not really the Wakefield heir?”

  An agitated expression covered Dylan’s features. He burst forth with his opinion. “That’s exactly what we mean. Come on, Sheriff, don’t you think the timing is just a little hinky? An heir shows up to claim the Wakefield inheritance only days before the bank would take over the assets. Just a little suspicious.”

  She nodded. She’d had those thoughts herself. “This is a matter for law enforcement, you know.”

  Dylan pressed his lips together. “We…” He pointed toward Sophia and then at himself. “We can dig into things in a way you might not be able to legally.”

  She repressed a smile. “I don’t think you should do anything else illegal.”

  “You can’t get a search warrant. We can get into the house because we already have permission.” He paused. “Which brings me to my question. What were you doing in the house?”

  He had her there. “Doing my job. Just like you should be doing yours.”

  Her statement seemed to yank Dylan Hunter’s smart aleck tongue clean out of his head.

  ****

  As soon as Sheriff Soileau’s SUV disappeared around the bend in the drive, Dylan faced Sophia. He would not have been surprised to see steam coming out of her ears. Her red face indicated she was as angry as he expected her to be.

  “Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

  “I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell her everything. I’ve learned to keep my mouth shu
t around cops.”

  If looks could kill… “Maybe that’s your problem.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” He wasn’t going down that road, in no mood to discuss his travails with the New Orleans police over Audrey’s disappearance.

  “She had a weird experience out here, and she isn’t going to tell anyone what happened. You pushed her away when she could have helped us figure out what’s going on, Dylan. She might have given us more information if you hadn’t been such a jerk.”

  He shook his head. “She would have gotten in our way.”

  “That’s the difference between us, isn’t it?”

  He backed a step away from her, afraid that she’d clobber him. “I’m not going to get into that. Not now.”

  “No. We’ve never talked about it, have we? If not now, when?”

  Maybe never. Not until she seemed more forgiving. Nothing about what happened between him and Audrey or between him and Sophia was forgivable.

  “Do you really want to go there, Sophia? You made it clear that our relationship was irreconcilable. Unless you’ve changed your mind, then what’s the point of bringing it all up again? We have to work together.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  He gritted his teeth and then measured his response. “You do what you have to do. I need the job. If you decide to continue and we need to coordinate anything, you can send me an email.”

  Enough was enough. Being around her was sheer torture. He couldn’t stand the condemnation in her eyes any longer. He regretted what happened between them every day and every night. He never thought about Audrey without considering how his relationship with her had messed up his life with Sophia. His presence obviously caused Sophia a lot of pain as well or else she wouldn’t act hostile toward him. If she wanted out, he wasn’t going to beg her to continue working with him or Les Wakefield. If she stayed in, then they didn’t have to actually speak to one another.

  “When do you think we can search the house without killing ourselves?”

  Her question hit him like a brick in the back of the head. He turned on his heel. Her eyes sparked with a challenge.

  “I have to repair the flooring on both floors before it’s safe to do any interior work.”