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

by S. W. Hubbard

  I try to summon the same calm, soothing voice that Jill uses with Harold. “Right, you do what you need to do, and I’ll do what I need to do. I’m going into the master bath here to get the Civil War papers that Harold has hidden there.” I start to explain further, but I can see the two of them couldn’t care less about Harold and his needs. Edging backward toward the bathroom, I use my flashlight beam to point to the little tunnel Ethel burrowed into when she found the bone. “If you want my advice, I’d look under there for–”

  Your daughter’s bones doesn’t seem like the best way to end that sentence.

  George focuses on the phone in my hand, then raises his gaze to meet mine. “You stay right here and keep your light shining on us. Once we find her, we’ll all go look for the papers.”

  Okay, he may be panicked but he’s not irrational. So much for Plan B: texting for help once I’m out of their sight. I train my light on the little hollow space in what was once Nora’s bedroom and is now the Island of Lost Toys.

  George begins to systematically move the toys. Vehicles first: Dump trucks, Matchbox cars, model trains, backhoes. Although I can’t see them, I know the dolls are watching from above, glassy-eyed and judgmental.

  Dazed and trembling, Phoebe tries to help, but only manages to push a few items out into the hall. She’s mesmerized by the slowly enlarging opening. So am I. I really, really don’t want to be here for the final reveal, yet I can’t look away.

  As I train my cellphone flashlight beam on the excavation, it dawns on me that I could text Natalie for help now. In the dim light, I scroll to her number without George noticing. Phoebe is beyond noticing anything. I start to type, but just at that moment George looks straight up at me and I still my fingers. When returns to work, I squint to read what I’ve managed to type.

  XSKL 812

  Brilliant. Even if Natalie figures out that means CALL 911, I still have to warn her to not call me back. And to tell the police not to use sirens. I’ll never be able to type all that.

  George curses as he lifts a stack of jigsaw puzzles and the bottom drops out, scattering millions of tiny pieces everywhere. He kicks them away in a fury. Phoebe lunges at his foot. “Stop! Be careful. You’re getting close.”

  I fight my instinctive impulse to be helpful and pitch in. The thought of what lies beneath the final layer of toys keeps me pinned to the wall outside the bedroom door.

  Finally, George shifts a pile of board games, and the edge of a tattered pink and yellow blanket appears. Phoebe’s left hand goes up to her mouth. I draw back, but there’s no place further for me to retreat.

  Gagging, George pulls it forward out from under the remaining boxes. If there’s still a stench of death after twenty years, my respirator is screening it. The blanket is wrapped into an unraveling bundle, the center stained black. George backs away, staring at what remains of his daughter.

  Phoebe springs forward and rips the decaying blanket open.

  Inside is a skull—so tiny!—and a collection of disjointed bones, some broken and gnawed. Only the head looks human.

  “Gabriella.” The hysteria is gone from Phoebe’s voice. She croons tenderly, soothing her poor lost child.

  George staggers away from the grotesque reunion and retches in a corner.

  This is my chance. I lower my flashlight beam and neither one notices, so caught up are they in their own pain. Slowly, I edge sideways toward the master bath, keeping one eye on Phoebe and George, and one eye on the narrow path I have to navigate.

  I’m fully out of their sight now. I can send the text to Natalie. As I shift the phone in my hands, the flashlight beams into the bathroom.

  There is the large manila envelope right where I expected it to be–on the vanity in the memorabilia pile, sandwiched between Civil War books and Civil War art. God bless Harold’s compulsion.

  I start to text.

  “Audrey? Audrey!” George’s voice holds a panicky edge.

  My fingers fumble across the touchscreen.

  “Audrey, ple-e-e-ease.” That’s Phoebe wailing.

  I dart into the bathroom and grab the envelope just as George enters the room. “What are you doing?”

  “Finding what I came for.” I hold the envelope up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He grabs my wrist. His face is pale and his hand damp with sweat, but his grasp is powerful enough to drain the strength from my fingers. Even in the darkness, I can see the fear flaming in his eyes. My phone clatters to the floor.

  George snatches it up. I watch him check the sent messages. The sent calls.

  The three of us consider one another, each trying to determine how far the others will go.

  “Why didn’t you call for help?” George asks.

  Because I knew you’d check. Because I’m getting pretty good at dealing with crazy people.

  “I don’t need help. I just want to get out of this dreadful house. After everything that’s happened here, it really does deserve to be torn down.” I raise the envelope. “I’m going to use the money from this to help your uncle as best I can. I’m not going to say a word about tonight. There’s no one to hold responsible for what happened to the baby. You take her bones.”

  I have no idea what they intend to do with them, and frankly I don’t want to know.

  “See, I told you Audrey was a good person,” Phoebe says. She tugs on his arm. George doesn’t move.

  Would he kill me? Surely not. I’ve done nothing wrong. And he’s a philosophy professor, so squeamish he threw up at the sight of the skeleton. Then I think of Ty’s prison friend, who killed a man over a coat. What did Ty say? People get ugly when something they worked for is taken away.

  “I have a lot to lose too, George.” I spread my hands pleading for understanding. “All the negative publicity surrounding this house has been bad for my business. I don’t want to be caught up in more controversy. Let’s go our separate ways.”

  A long moment ticks by. Then George nods. I guess he found the appeal to my own self- interest convincing.

  George gives me back my phone and leads the way out to the hallway. Phoebe picks up the bundle of bones without hesitation, while George averts his head and holds open a wide canvas tote bag that they had left outside the bedroom door. I put the envelope and my respirator in my backpack. Silently, we walk downstairs.

  At the back door, Phoebe touches my arm. “Good-bye, Audrey. Thank you.”

  I watch through the big bush as Phoebe and George slip back into her dark yard carrying their burden between them.

  My phone chirps an alert. It’s five minutes to midnight.

  I dial Natalie, who answers on the first ring.

  “I’ve got the papers. Everything is fine.”

  “I’ve been so worried! You’re sure you’re all right? You sound shaky.”

  “I’m just a little…drained. Thanks so much for your help.”

  “Are you out of that house.”

  I squeeze from behind the bush covering the utility room door so I can answer truthfully. “I’m on my way home. You can go to bed.”

  “Good-night, Audrey.”

  I put the phone in my pocket and step out into the yard.

  Searing pain slashes across my shoulders.

  Chapter 42

  I’m not sure if I’m awake or asleep.

  Or maybe dead.

  I touch my eyes. They’re open, yet I’m engulfed in blackness.

  Something sharp is digging into my back. I move, and bright lightening bolts of pain ricochet through my head.

  Good news: I’m alive.

  Where am I? Gingerly, I extend my arms and feel around with my fingertips. Underneath me, a smooth floor. Behind me: stacks of boxes. To my right: cans. A familiar, pissy scent fills my nose. Oh, God, I’m back in the house.

  How did I get here? And what room is this?

  My mind turns and chews like a rusty meat grinder as I try to process fragments of memory into some coherent whole. I drove here…cut through the y
ard. Why? Oh, right—the envelope. I remember finding it, having it in my hand. Wait, something else happened… The baby! I jolt upright, setting off a Milky Way of stars in my head. But George and Phoebe left. The last memory I have is of them walking away from me into Phoebe’s back yard.

  Then what?

  Pain. Someone hit me from behind. But it couldn’t have been George. Who?

  That question is entirely too abstract for my current mental processing ability. I put it aside for more tangible concerns. Where am I in the house?

  I slide my hands along the floor. Not wood, linoleum. Linoleum plus cans equals pantry. I’m in the walk-in pantry off the kitchen, a room we haven’t cleared. That explains why there’s barely room for me to stand up.

  But stand I do, pulling myself upright. It’s the respirator in my backpack that’s been jabbing me. I take off the pack—the envelope is still inside. So I wasn’t robbed. Encouraged, I feel for my phone.

  Gone.

  As my brain clears, my anxiety rises. The pitch black brings back memories of the fire in my father’s house months ago, of having my eyes wide open but not being able to see. My throat tightens, my heart races. I take a steadying inhalation. I can breathe. Yes. Unlike in the fire, I can breathe here.

  But I mustn’t breathe here. Every breath is poison. I fumble to put the respirator on in the dark.

  If I’m going to get out, I need to orient myself. I reach my hands out and work my way around the small space until I find the doorknob. I rattle it.

  Locked.

  I hear every breath that I take, every beat of my heart. I'm trapped in here in the dark house in the middle the night. And something else pops into my mind: Natalie. I remember calling her. Calling her to tell her I was okay. Now no one is looking for me.

  Choking back a sob, I shake the doorknob harder. Then I grab a can from the shelf and pound the knob with all the force I can muster.

  Nothing.

  This whole damn house is ready to fall down. Why is the door so solid, so firmly locked?

  My panic builds as I picture the giant claw poised above the house. At dawn it will take its first bite, crushing the house on top of me, scooping me up and hauling me off to the dump with the rest of the debris. Phoebe saved Gabriella from that fate. No one will save me.

  I cry out loud in frustration and rage. And I hear my father’s disapproving voice, “Crying will get you nowhere,” he would say as my tears plopped on the chess board or on a page of equations. “Think.”

  Right. Think. Things could be worse. I’m not in a bare concrete cell. I’m in Harold’s house, and God knows finding something utterly unexpected is always a possibility here.

  Like what? A hack saw? A small explosive device?

  Whatever, I’ll know it when I find it.

  By touch.

  I grope in the dark for the nearest box and run my fingers over its contents: spoons and whisks and melon-ballers and egg beaters. A greasy-feeling pastry brush. A sieve with a hole in it. A garlic press.

  Nothing useful in that box, but kitchen gadgets are a good category. Hope flutters in my chest. A thin knife would probably do the trick. The next box contains cookbooks. Hope dive bombs. If all the rest of the boxes in here contain books, I’m screwed. I struggle to shift the topmost heavy box to get to the next one in the pile. More books.

  I kick the bottom box in the pile. It’s solid, no rattling from within. I feel tears welling again.

  I will die alone, forgotten. No one will miss me. Days will go by before they even notice I'm gone. This is what prisoners of war must feel like knowing that even the most loyal lover will eventually give up and move on. A sob shakes me. I don’t even have that hope. My lover has already moved on.

  You shoved him out.

  Well, he recovered pretty quickly, didn’t he? I tell that nagging voice. I think of that tall brunette in Whole Foods. And the clammy hands of the many jerks I’ve dated on my arm. I think of the flawed family I’ve got—just Dad and me staying afloat by clinging to the same little hunk of driftwood. And I think of the family I walked away from—the Coughlins—to preserve my own sanity. And Ty, and Jill—I tried to protect them and only brought them harm.

  Oh, God, how did it all go so wrong? I sink to my knees and cry for everything I’ve found and everything I’ve lost.

  My head throbs.

  Snot is smeared across my face.

  My eyelids scrape open. No tears remain.

  Now that the fit of hysteria has passed, I actually feel a little better. Dad may think crying solves nothing, but Maura always says crying releases endorphins, and I think those natural high chemicals are stimulating my brain. I can pop this lock. After all, it’s simply an old interior door with a push-in lock. I could jimmy it with a credit card. Except my purse is locked in my car. And I was traveling light with my backpack—respirator, keys and the envelope. There’s got to be something in this pantry that would work as well. It’s just a matter of finding it.

  I think of the many kitchen items I’ve sold Harold over the years. There have to be more boxes of knives and tools in here somewhere. I grope on the shelves looking for a break in the cans. My hand sinks into something soft and powdery: flour or cornstarch. Something moves beneath my fingertips: pantry moth larvae. I sneeze and keep searching.

  Finally I find another box that rattles with promise. Eagerly, I sink my hands in and immediately scream.

  It’s full of knives all right—sharp ones.

  Gingerly, I select one and test its thickness. Too big. I set it aside and find another. This feels like a boning knife. It might work. I go to work sliding the knife up to the lock mechanism and trying to press it back. On TV, this works like a charm. In real life, not so much. The knife is too stiff.

  Despite the fact that the heat has been turned off, I’m sweating. This has to work! I give the knife a sharp thrust.

  The tip breaks off. I fling the knife down with a scream of frustration.

  I return to the box, trying to touch handles, not blades. I feel plastic connected to metal. The item feels light. I touch it carefully. Not sharp. I run my fingers over it. A long, thin, flexible spatula. My grandma used one of these to frost my birthday cake every year.

  I hear something, and hold my breath to listen.

  A rumble. They’re warming up the heavy equipment. Morning–I must have been passed out for hours.

  I run the cake spatula up to the lock and bend it. It slips up higher than the knife did. I wiggle it further, turn the knob as I press the tongue back. A little further…

  The knob turns. I’ve unlocked it.

  I’m free! Not.

  Something heavy blocks the door.

  For the first time in my math-nerd life, I understand the term “adrenaline rush.” I rear back and hurl my body at the door. It opens another inch.

  A few more body slams and I’m out.

  The roar of heavy equipment is much louder now. The back hall is still pitch black, but I know which way the kitchen is. I trip forward, stumbling over the mini-fridge my captor pushed in front of the pantry door. Once I round the corner, the dim glimmer of dawn seeps in through the grimy window over the kitchen sink. All the other windows are blocked. I need to let them know I’m in here. I run to the open window, and hear shouting, but my frantic brain can only pick out a few words. “Back it up.” “No.” “Stand aside.” The window faces Bernadette’s house, not the backyard. I can only detect shadowy movements through the grime.

  I scream. “Help! I’m in here!”

  The men continue directing the roaring heavy equipment. Pointless.

  An ancient Osterizer sits on the counter. I pick it up and throw it through the window. Glass shatters everywhere.

  For a long moment, the voices outside stop.

  “What the hell…?” I hear from the back yard.

  Now the backhoe won’t start digging. I turn and run to the utility room door. I slip out from behind the bush.

  Before me in the gra
y light of the January morning I see a huge crowd of people: the neighbors lined up outside the orange security fence, waiting for the show to begin; the cops, enforcing order; ten or twelve guys in hardhats, ready to run the machines.

  And a thin man with gray hair sitting in the mud in front of the backhoe.

  Chapter 43

  “Dad!”

  I run to him, heart exploding.

  He catches me in his arms and we cling to each other.

  “I was so scared,” I whisper. “I thought I would die all alone.”

  “I knew something was wrong when you didn’t answer your phone. Natalie told me you came here last night. I was determined not to let them start the demo until I figured out where you were.”

  The cop in charge and the hardhat in charge are striding toward us. I look over my father’s shoulder and see Phoebe’s stricken face framed by the fluttery curtains of her family-room French door.

  A possible concussion earns me a brief reprieve on interrogation. Dad refuses to leave my side at the hospital as the doctors come in and out, checking my head, my eyes, my lungs. The interminable nature of health care offers us plenty of time to review the facts. In the privacy of my exam room, I confide George and Phoebe’s secret to my father.

  “But you’re sure it couldn’t have been either of them who hit you?”

  “Definitely. I was watching them walk away from me when I got whacked from behind.”

  “So the attacker came from the direction of Bernadette’s house?”

  “Yes, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine why she’d want to hurt me now. After all, she’s finally getting her dream: Harold’s house was coming down. She’d be able to sell her place for a good price and finally move. All of the neighbors should be thrilled, even Walter Marchand, who hired the busboy to threaten me.”