Treasure of Darkness: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 2)

by S. W. Hubbard

  Eunice grabs my hand and tugs. “I’m going to my first tennis lesson. Wanna see my new racket?”

  There’s a clatter from somewhere deep in the house and a male voice shouts, “Jean? Where are you?”

  “Come in, dear. It’s too cold to chat with the door open. Be right there, Chip!”

  I step into a foyer filled with the detritus of childhood: snowboots, mittens, dozens of mismatched shoes, a one-eared stuffed bunny, a scattering of Legos.

  A tall lean man with silver hair and a deep tan appears from the back of the house. He surveys the chaos before him and massages his temples. “Eunice, aren’t you dressed yet? We have to leave in five minutes.”

  “I can’t find my tennis skirt.”

  The other two kids tear through the hall, little Tabby unsuccessfully pursuing her brother, who’s waving a doll by its hair just out of her reach.

  “Now, Zeus honey, give that doll to her. Grammy will be right back to finish the Legos with you.” She speaks with the same dreamy implacability as Phoebe, but she looks nothing like her pretty daughter. Physically Phoebe looks more like her dad—slender and fine-featured. This is the couple that Ed Brandt told me about. I try to picture these doting grandparents as a passionate younger couple fighting over infidelity. It’s easy to imagine that Chip was once a ladies’ man—he’s still quite handsome. Harder to see the sweet, pillowy Jean as the woman scorned, wielding a knife.

  Grandpa Chip taps his watch. “The tennis clothes, Jean.”

  “Oh, right. I’ll find them.” She runs her hand through her already disheveled hair, then remembers me. “I’m sorry…?”

  “I just wondered if I could borrow a few garbage bags. But, never mind, I’ve come at a bad time.”

  “She’s working on cleaning Harold’s house, Chip.”

  He arches his eyebrows. “A cause we’ve got to support. Come with me while Jean gets Eunice ready. Garbage bags I’m capable of finding. Tennis skirts—that’s beyond me.”

  I follow him down the hall. There’s something familiar about his walk. Is this the neighbor I spoke to on the day the tow truck came for Harold’s old cars? The guy walking the little white dog? But he doesn’t mention having met me.

  Despite the clutter, the house is full of striking details—two abstract water-colors that evoke the ocean on a cloudy day, some raku pottery, a large hand-woven rug. On the kitchen wall Phoebe has stenciled in the round: “Our family, a circle of strength and love forever unbroken.”

  “Your daughter has a lovely home,” I say as Chip rummages beneath the sink for the garbage bags.

  He emerges from the cabinet, kicking a bottle of Windex back in and slamming the door before anything else tumbles out. “Phoebe is long on creativity, short on organization.” He brushes some lint from his cashmere sweater. “A product of both her parents.”

  He hands me the bags. “How much progress have you made?”

  “We’ve made it to the upstairs hallway.”

  “You’ve cleared the entire first floor? My, you’re quick!”

  “We’re not emptying every room. We just need to make the house livable. And locate some of the more worthwhile things Harold has collected over the years. He needs the money.”

  “Surely, there’s nothing of value in that junk heap?”

  I’m not about to share the news on the Tiffany lamp, so I ramble vaguely. “Oh, here and there we find a few things.”

  “Are you looking for something in particular, or just hoping to stumble upon a prize?” He studies me with bemused interest. Probably he’s just making chit-chat, but I’m still reluctant to talk about the Civil War documents we hope to find in the master bath.

  “Nora’s given us some guidelines. So,” I turn the conversation, “do you and your wife still live in the neighborhood? I thought maybe I’ve seen you walking your dog.”

  “I don’t have a dog. But, yes, we live a few streets away. I’d love to get a condo downtown, but Jean won’t hear of it. Not while the grandkids are little and we’re on call as babysitters. Justin, our-son-in law, is in sales. Always on the road.”

  “Did you know, Sharon, Harold’s sister?” The question spurts out of me, an embarrassing belch at a dinner party.

  If Sharon was Chip’s long-ago lover, there’s certainly no trace of fondness or interest now. He purses his lips. “She was a nut. When Jean and I first met her, Sharon was nutty in a fun way—impulsive, up for anything, you know. But as time went on, she got crazy-nutty. The shopping, the hoarding—she and her brother brought out the worst in each other.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Chip shrugs. “No one seems to know. No one in Summit Oaks really cares.” Then he narrows his keen blue eyes. “Haven’t you asked Nora?”

  Before I can respond, Eunice’s voice pipes from the foyer. “Ready, Grandpa!” Chip pats his pockets and glances around the kitchen.

  I spot a cigar and a lighter on the counter amidst a clutter of crayons and paper. Surely not Phoebe’s husband’s. “This what you’re looking for?”

  He winks at me and tucks them in his shirt pocket, under the sweater. “My little indulgence.”

  I follow Chip to the front door.

  Eunice stands ready with her racket and pleated tennis skirt. Jean is plopped on the floor with Tabby and Zeus building a Lego creature with multiple appendages.

  “I want him to have a horn,” Zeus says.

  “And a tail,” squeals his sister.

  “Excellent ideas.” Jean scoops up Legos from the pile and offers them around like canapés.

  “Back in an hour, dear.” Chip steps around them and holds the front door open for me and Eunice. His sleeve hikes up and his tanned, long-fingered hand rests on the dark purple wood.

  From the wrist to the first knuckle stretches a jagged white scar.

  Chapter 26

  After a long day at Harold’s, Ty has accompanied me back to the office so I can pick up some papers, then he will drop me off at Maura’s and take my car to his house. Even though I chafe at my restraints, I’ve agreed to not drive anywhere alone. Jill is still at Harold’s house. The girl is unstoppable.

  As she works on the house, I notice a change in Jill. She seems calmer, more in control. It’s as if being needed by Harold and Nora has made her less needy. I thought I’d have to help her find outlets for all the stuff she’s disposing of, but instead, she’s turned up some great new resources that I never knew about. Every day her back gets a little straighter, her nails get a little less chewed. On the day that she finds a place that will accept 275 broken umbrellas and turn them into components for hydroponic gardening, I know we’ve turned a corner. Jill is not my goofy little assistant; she’s become my colleague.

  This is what I’ve always claimed to want, but I want it in the same way that Ethel wants the UPS truck. It’s safe to want things that you know are unattainable. What would Ethel do if she actually sunk her teeth into the bumper of that big brown behemoth? What will I do when Jill no longer needs my guidance?

  Ty slips up behind my desk chair.

  “What is that—all those colors. Some kinda game?”

  “No, I’m doing a cash-flow analysis. You know how we’re busiest in spring and fall, and really slow right before Christmas? And last year was worse than usual with me being in the hospital twice.”

  “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Ty’s eyebrows draw down. He may not know cash-flow analysis, but he knows “If we pay the rent, we can’t pay the electricity.” I’d love to share my troubles with someone, but I can’t burden Ty that way. He depends on me.

  “Oh, we’re okay, but I still have to be able to pay your salary and our other bills even in the slow times. So I need to figure out how to manage our money so we always have enough cash on hand.”

  Ty watches the colors pulse across the screen. “You learn to do that in college?”

  “Not really. I studied math, not accounting.”

  “So what was the point of going to col
lege if you didn’t learn nuthin’ you need to run this business?”

  I stop what I’m doing to look at him directly. “It’s true I don’t use differential calculus here in the office. But in college I learned skills I use every day. I learned how to solve problems, how to analyze and research. I learned how to think.”

  “I know how to think.”

  “Why did you have trouble in high school, Ty?” I ask softly. We’ve never treaded close to this topic. “You’re very smart.”

  “I liked school when I was real little. But high school was all about rules, and work sheets, and doing shit just to do it. I didn’t see the point. So I stopped going.”

  And dropped out. And got tangled up with some losers. And drove the car when they robbed a store. He passed the GED while he was in jail.

  “You’re right—high school can be pretty bad. But college is different. You ever think of going?”

  He blows air out through his lips. “You gotta take a three-hour test to go to college. I can’t sit still that long.”

  “Not every college requires the SAT. You could take a class or two at the community college, just to try it out.”

  “I got no money for that.”

  “You could afford it if the money from Harold’s lamp comes through.”

  Ty’s face brightens. I can see I’ve piqued his interest and I forge ahead. “You could still keep working here. Just take a class that interests you.”

  Ty points at my computer screen. “I wanna learn to do that. I like numbers if I can see the purpose for them.”

  “You could take Intro to Statistics. And maybe Art History.”

  He tilts his head. “You mean learn about the kinda stuff we find in the houses sometimes?”

  “I’ll warn you right now—you’ll learn more than you’ll ever need to know in this business. We’re unlikely to find any Michelangelos in New Jersey. But it’s interesting. I bet you’d like it.”

  Ty folds his pay stub into ever-smaller squares. “I dunno. I’m not so good at studying and stuff.”

  “I’d help you.” I’m too eager, pushing too hard. I can sense Ty pulling away.

  “Maybe.” He jumps up. “Whattya want me to do with this delivery from Staples? Unpack it or leave it for Jill?”

  “Go ahead and unpack it.” I turn back to my computer. No matter how I massage the numbers, I can’t produce enough cash to pay our next insurance bill and my quarterly income tax.

  That lamp has to be real.

  For Ty’s sake. And for mine.

  The next morning, 8:30 comes and goes with no sign of Ty. I text him and get no answer. He must be driving over to get me. At 9:00, Jill calls. “Where are you guys?”

  “I’m still waiting for Ty to pick me up. He hasn’t answered my texts.”

  Silence.

  “Jill?”

  Silence.

  “Jill! What do you know that I don’t? Tell me!”

  “I can’t,” she whines. “I promised.”

  “Does this have to do with Ramon? Dear God, please don’t tell me Ty went to meet with him alone!”

  “He went last night,” Jill says in a small voice.

  “You knew and you let him go? You didn’t try to stop him?”

  “How could I stop him? He never listens to me.”

  “You could have told me,” I yell into the phone.

  “Ty said not to. He said he’d have the money back this morning. We both know how worried you’ve been, Audrey. The cancelled jobs. The bad Yelp reviews. Ty blames himself. He said he lost the money, so it was on him to get it back. I told him you didn’t blame him, but that’s not how he sees it.”

  I pace up and down my living room as Jill talks. I should have known that Ty would never be able to ignore his sense of street honor. When I remember that terrible moment when I thought Ty had been shot, my head swims. He can’t come to harm because of me. He can’t.

  “Where did he go to meet Ramon? Do you have any idea?”

  “Ty wouldn’t say. But I know Ramon called him again from a different phone. He told Ty he wants to give back the money because it’s mal suerte. Bad luck. He thinks it’s cursed or something. So we figured if Ramon wanted to give it back, how dangerous could it be for Ty to go get it?”

  “My God, Jill—it could be a trap. These people that Ramon is mixed up with are dangerous criminals. Ty witnessed one of them committing murder. They want to—”

  Get rid of him. And me. Everyone’s been so concerned with protecting me. Just because Ty is young and tough and strong, doesn’t mean he’s not in danger too. How could I have let this happen?

  “Do you have any clue where he was meeting Ramon?”

  “No,” Jill says. “But I know he drove your car.”

  “I have to call Coughlin.”

  “No!” Jill’s screech makes my ear drums vibrate. “Ty specifically said that if anything happened and you found out, you were not supposed to call the cops. He made a promise to Ramon. He said it could be risky if Ramon and his friends thought Ty broke his word.”

  “But Jill—”

  “I’m coming to get you. Don’t call until I get there.”

  While I wait, I wrack my brains to figure out what to do. If Ty had been successful in his encounter with Ramon, then surely he would have answered our increasingly frantic calls by now. Silence means trouble. I know I have to tell Coughlin. He can put out an APB on the car. If they find the car, then at least they’ll have some idea where…

  The bitter taste of my morning coffee heaves up in the back of my throat. Do I honestly think the cops will find my car parked in front of a house full of Hispanic mean, and knock politely on the door, and find Ty unharmed, eating a plate of rice and beans with Ramon and his friends?

  Or what if Ty actually did get the money back and is driving home right now? What if the cops see that my car is wanted and pull him over? A young black man driving a car not registered to him. What if Ty asks them why they stopped him and they pull their guns?

  Every scenario ends with Ty on the ground, bleeding, his eyes blank and lifeless.

  Jill enters my condo talking.

  “Grandma Betty just called me,” she announces. “She heard Ty’s phone ringing in his bedroom. It’s full of unanswered texts and missed calls from his friends, starting at 10:00 last night.”

  I rub my temples. “Oh, that poor woman. She must be worried sick. What are we going to tell her?”

  “I took care of that. Told her Ty is out on a job and left his phone home because he’s avoiding some girl. Didn’t want to be tempted to answer.”

  “Jill! How could you tell such an outrageous lie?”

  “She fell for it, so now she won’t worry for a while. But don’t you see Audrey? This is good news.”

  “It is?”

  “Ty would never forget his phone. So he intentionally left it behind when he went to meet Ramon. That explains why he hasn’t called.”

  “Maybe. But why leave it?”

  “It must be part of the deal he made with Ramon. So no one could follow him.”

  “Yeah, no one can rescue him either.”

  Jill grabs my hand. “Don’t call the police yet, Audrey. I think Ty doesn’t need rescuing. I think he has a plan.”

  I jerk away from her. “A plan to get himself killed.”

  “Where’s Ethel?”

  Unable to sit still in my condo, Ethel and I have joined Jill at Harold’s house. We’re making a vague pretense of work, but not accomplishing much. Ethel has been underfoot all morning, but now I realize I haven’t seen her for at least half an hour. My stomach clenches. What else can go wrong today? “Jill, you didn’t leave the front door open, did you?”

  “No, it’s too cold.”

  “Ethel? Ethel?” My voice rises in panic. The memory of the night she got lost trying to protect me is too raw. Does everyone who wants to keep me safe get hurt in the process?

  Jill runs upstairs. “Ethel—where are you? Ethel?” On the way
through the foyer, she turns to ask Harold what he’s seen, but Harold is in a trance. I approach the still densely packed living room. Could she have wormed her way in there? The vision of flattened Petey the cat looms large. Jill stays upstairs.

  “I hear her,” Jill says and I run back up. Sure enough the sound of scrabbling dog nails, much louder than the usual scratch-scratch we hear–is audible through a solid wall of toys in one of the smaller bedrooms.

  “She’s inside that! She’s burrowed into it.” I hear my voice spiraling toward hysteria. I brought her here because she enjoyed having our company all day. Now this damn house is going to crush her.

  Jill falls to her knees. “We gotta get her out. How’re we going to get her out?”

  “Go get some turkey from yesterday’s lunch leftovers.”

  When Jill returns, she reaches one arm under the pile with the turkey between her fingers while I call to my dog. “Ethel. Come. Come get a treat.”

  “She’s sniffing my fingers.”

  “Grab her collar.”

  “I got it, but she’s digging in her claws. She doesn’t want to come.”

  Despite my coaxing, Ethel continues to resist Jill mightily. Some boxes of wooden train tracks shift.

  “She’s got something in her mouth and she won’t let it go.” Jill says.

  “Oh, god, it’s not a rat, is it?”

  “No, it’s hard.”

  I move some still unopened science sets—the kind every adult buys and no kid wants–from the top of the tunnel Ethel has disappeared into. The maneuver allows Jill to squirm a few inches closer and get a better grip. She pulls and now we can see Ethel clearly.

  In her mouth is a bone.

  We finally get her out into the hall. I stick my finger into her mouth. “Ethel, release!”

  True to her obedience school dropout temperament, she twists her head out of my grasp and her powerful jaws crunch down on the small bone.

  Jill peeps at Ethel through splayed fingers. “It’s not a cat bone is it? Please tell me it’s not a cat bone.”

  I’m not sure why Jill is objecting to a cat bone. Honestly, I can’t think of any alternatives that would be better. It’s not like Ethel could have found a fresh-grilled pork chop bone under all the trash in bedroom.