Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2)

by Alice Loweecey

  Frank yawned a second later. “If I was coherent, I’d suggest we make our own haunting like that couple upstairs.” He yawned again. “How about tomorrow night?” He pulled her against him. A few seconds later, he was snoring.

  The scream brought Giulia to her feet out of a restless sleep. She checked the clock: Three a.m. this time.

  At least it wasn’t her personal weeping ghost branching out into new scare tactics.

  She stood barefoot on the wooden floor for a moment, then dragged her shorts back on and opened her door.

  Marion opened her own door a second later. “Did you hear a scream?”

  “Yes.” Giulia wondered if her own bedhead was half as crazy as Marion’s clown hair.

  Roy and CeCe leaned over the banister. “Did anyone hear a scream?”

  Giulia said, “Yes. I’ll be right back. Just have to get shoes on.”

  She shoved her feet into sneakers and decided to let Frank sleep.

  When she came out, Marion had smashed down her hair and put on sandals with her pajamas. Roy and CeCe joined them, wearing matching bathrobes and flip-flops.

  “Where should we start?” CeCe said.

  A different voice, half as loud as the first one, called “Help!”

  “First floor,” Giulia said.

  Everyone clattered down, the squeaky step repeating like a car alarm. They stopped in a group in front of the antique doll carriage.

  “There’s a light at the foot of the lighthouse stairs,” Giulia said, moving again.

  Solana lay beneath Cedar at the base of the spiral staircase. His left leg was bent at an angle nature never intended the fibula to achieve. Her eyes were closed and her face was so white it looked like she’d applied stage makeup.

  Giulia said, “I have some training. Let me look.”

  “So do I,” Roy said.

  He crouched next to Cedar’s leg and Giulia knelt by Solana’s head.

  “I couldn’t keep her awake after we fell,” Cedar said. Roy touched Cedar’s leg and he cursed in a voice far from his businesslike tone of yesterday.

  Giulia patted her empty pocket. “Does anyone have their phone?”

  CeCe handed hers over and Giulia opened the flashlight app, then one of Solana’s eyes. The pupil stayed dilated. She checked the other eye: The same.

  “My guess is concussion. I don’t want to move her head.”

  “I’ll call 911,” Anthony said, moving out into the small foyer.

  Marion was already back into the souvenir room. “I’ll wake up Mac.”

  “Where did her head hit?” Giulia said to Cedar.

  Another string of curses as Roy probed the break. “I’m not sure. The railing, I think. We kept bouncing off those damn winding stairs. Couldn’t get a grip on anything. Dammit, you, stop touching my fucking leg!”

  “You’re moving it when you talk,” Roy said. “I’m trying to keep it steady.”

  “I tried to get my arm between her head and the cement floor. That’s how I got twisted up.” Cedar closed his eyes and took a couple of short, sharp breaths. “Sorry, dude. Hurts like a sonofabitch.”

  Anthony returned. “EMTs and police on their way.”

  Solana moaned. Giulia braced the unconscious woman’s head in a “boxing the ears” hold. “I’m not sure what to do with head and neck injuries, except to keep them steady.”

  CeCe ran into the dining room and returned with several linen napkins from the place settings. “If she vomits, I’ll clear her mouth.”

  The bizarre tableau didn’t move for a few moments.

  “Why were you in the lighthouse in the middle of the night?” Giulia said.

  Solana, eyes still closed, answered in a voice similar to the one she cajoled the ghost with during her séance.

  “We followed the Woman in White.”

  All of them turned to Cedar.

  “Sunday’s session in the parlor was so unusual Solana wanted to try contacting the spirit again after dark. We don’t live too far from here, so we drove over about two a.m. and set up the Ouija board.”

  Giulia wondered if CeCe and Roy’s enthusiastic activity had interfered with Solana’s concentration. She didn’t say that out loud or treat Cedar to a well-deserved lecture about the error of treating Mac’s property as though it were his own. “Mac locks the doors as soon as everyone’s inside for the night.”

  He inhaled sharply and a small whimper escaped his lips. Then he took a slower breath and said, “A five-year-old with internet access could break into here. Small-town life makes people careless. We set up the board here at the foot of the stairs. She offered herself to the ghost again. We got a whole hour of nothing. Right when I was ready to give up for the night, she stiffened up like she did on the couch. Then she got up and started climbing the stairs.”

  The sounds of two different sirens penetrated the walls.

  “Small town. Not far to drive,” Roy said.

  “Go on,” Giulia said.

  “Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear her voice. Then I swear to the gods I saw a white dress floating up the stairs.” He glared at their faces as though expecting them to laugh. When no one did, he went on. “Solana must have been following it all along and either her belief gave the spirit energy to manifest to me, or I tapped into Solana’s sight. It’s happened before. I heard a voice whisper about protecting the treasure, just like in the séance.”

  “But you didn’t see anyone?” Giulia said. “Only the floating dress?”

  He shook his head, grimaced, and said, “Only the dress, going up higher around those stairs until it disappeared. Then Solana reached up like she was trying to grab hold of something, or maybe someone’s hands, and she overbalanced.” His brow furrowed. “Yes, she did hit her head on the railing. I tried to catch her, but I was three steps below her. We rolled and bounced down those steps and I tried to twist to break her fall. Her eyes opened and that’s the scream you heard, I guess.” He took another short breath. “I picked the wrong day to quit heroin.”

  The house behind them filled with lights and noise and heavy footsteps. Mac ran in followed by two EMTs carrying emergency kits.

  Giulia said, “Solana fell and hit her head on the railing.” She gestured toward it with her own head. “We’re not sure if she also hit it on the floor, so we’ve been keeping it immobile.”

  Roy said, “Broken leg here, also trying to keep it immobile.”

  The EMTs, both male, each took one patient. Giulia and Roy eased out of the way when the EMTs gave them the signal. The noise had brought Frank, Joel, and Gino downstairs. Anthony explained the situation to them, the police, and the EMTs as the latter worked.

  Giulia stood against the wall closest to Cedar, waiting, callous as it was, for the pain of his broken leg to make him blurt out something useful.

  Sure enough, when the EMT inflated an air cast around it, Cedar cursed the ghost. “You dead bitch! You lied to us!”

  The EMTs glanced at each other, then at Mac.

  Solana moaned again in that not-quite-here voice, “Where is the gold? You promised the hidden gold if we helped…” Her head tried to thrash in the neck stabilizer.

  One of the EMTs put his hands on her shoulders. “Ma’am, please remain still.”

  “Ready?” the other EMT said.

  The police officers positioned themselves at either end of Cedar’s gurney. “We’ve got this one.”

  “Cool. Thanks. You want to head out first?”

  The officer in the lead said to Mac, “We’ll be back to take statements as soon as they’re in the ambulance.”

  Cedar cursed in a different tone than before. “We landed on her grandmother’s Ouija board. When Solana comes back she’s going to have a shit hemorrhage.”

  �
��Comes back?” Giulia said.

  She realized what he meant right as he gave her an “are you stupid” glare.

  “After she realizes Dorothea’s left her again, dummy. Ow! What the hell kind of techs are you? Stop banging me around.”

  Giulia gathered the three pieces of shattered wood and retrieved the planchette from under the staircase. Cedar accepted them with another grimace and folded his hands over the wreckage.

  At this moment Giulia realized she was wearing an orange t-shirt over blue shorts, and her bright red sneakers didn’t match either piece of clothing. Then again, the group of wide-awake guests in their ludicrous combination of bathrobes and beachwear resembled an explosion in a crayon factory.

  Frank came to her side now that the space was free. “Treasure hunters?”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “Nope.”

  The police returned and Giulia stepped forward with Marion to tell about the scream that woke them up. Roy and CeCe gave their version. The officers split them into two groups and wrote out four accounts of what they’d seen and heard at the foot of the lighthouse stairs.

  It was five thirty when the police left the lighthouse to Mac and the uninjured guests. The upper half of the foyer door began the change from black to gray. Giulia and CeCe shivered.

  Mac said, “I’ll make coffee.”

  Giulia said, “By any chance, do you have hot chocolate?”

  Joel and CeCe said, “Oh, yes.”

  Anthony said, “Screw that. I’ve got Jameson in my room, remember? I’ll bring it down for anyone else who could use a shot in their coffee.”

  “You win,” Joel said. “We’ve got a stash of homemade chocolate chip cookies in our room.”

  They headed upstairs. CeCe replaced the napkins on the dining room table. Marion took out paper napkins from the credenza and set the coffee table. Gino and Roy transferred the coffee cups from the dining room into the living room. Mac and Giulia went into the kitchen.

  When she and Mac were alone in the kitchen, Giulia said, “Did you lure those two into the lighthouse to shut them up?”

  Thirty-Seven

  Mac clutched the bag of coffee filters. “What?”

  Giulia returned the can of coffee to the pantry. “I found the hidden speaker in the bookcase yesterday, after the séance.”

  “I—I—”

  “Right about now, I’d say you’ve been playing me for publicity.” Giulia opened the refrigerator and brought out one of the new gallons of milk. “A private investigator who found evidence of an actual Stone’s Throw ghost would be great for business.”

  Mac dropped the coffee filters and clutched Giulia’s hands. “No, no, it’s not like that. I swear I had nothing to do with the possession or their accident.” She glanced out toward the antique kitchen and pulled Giulia around the corner of the L, out of sight of the doorway. “I use the speaker on Halloween night when the costume party is in full swing. That’s the only time, it really is. I promise.” Her eyes shifted to the counter and the wall, but didn’t meet Giulia’s.

  “And last night?”

  “What do you mean?” More eye acrobatics.

  “Mac, if you want to stick to that story, it’s your choice. Driscoll Investigations doesn’t work this way. We’ll pack up and be out of here before breakfast.”

  Mac’s hands clutched tighter. Giulia wished her nails weren’t quite so long.

  “No! Please don’t leave. I need your help.”

  Giulia inclined her head toward the doorway and Mac lowered her voice.

  “This is the truth, I promise. I did turn on the speaker last night. The opportunity dropped into my lap; how could I not use it? Solana with all her eerie atmospheric trappings was good, but I knew a little boost of weeping ghost would put it over the top.” Mac’s words tumbled over each other. “I had just turned the switch off when she pointed at me and spoke in that otherworldly voice.” She finally looked Giulia in the eyes. “All the other séances this summer got us a big fat nothing. The guests got itchy after half an hour. I was thinking about dropping Solana’s act, but I never told her. Never. Now all of a sudden, just when you’re here, she goes full-on Exorcist. Rowan was right about you. The Veiled Woman brought the other world into contact with Solana. I admit it; the whole thing scared the shit out of me.”

  The perking noises from the coffeepot slowed to an occasional blip.

  Giulia said, “And the white nightgown she said she followed?”

  Mac released Giulia, whose willpower kept herself from rubbing the fingernail-shaped dents in her skin.

  “That wasn’t my doing, I swear. I have a gauze dress on wires in the attic that I use on Halloween, but it’s up there now, all packed away. I’ll show you. I don’t know what Solana and Cedar expected to happen in my lighthouse in the middle of the night. Too many weed-laced brownies frying their essential brain cells would be my guess. But I swear on my great-great-great-grandfather’s unhallowed grave that I was asleep in my bed when all this happened. Ask Marion. It took her pounding on my door and ringing my doorbell for more than a minute to wake me.”

  The desperation in her hazel eyes clung to Giulia like steam from the coffeepot. Giulia would get nothing useful from Mac in this state. “All right. When this impromptu breakfast breaks up, you and I will take a trip to the attic.”

  Mac plunged forward as though to kiss Giulia, but Giulia’s body language must have conveyed “Don’t go there,” because Mac did a one-eighty and started a second pot of coffee. She picked up the first carafe. Giulia poured milk into a cow-shaped creamer and followed her out to the living room.

  Not one person spoke until the coffee was poured and whiskey added and the first drinks taken. Giulia and Marion shivered. Gino and Roy sighed.

  “That’s better,” Frank said.

  Joel handed the cookies around. “All the guys at work who think B&Bs are girly vacation spots will eat their hearts out when I tell them this story.”

  “Ghoul,” Gino said.

  “What? Nobody’s dead. Broken bones and crazy psychics do not a morbid story make.”

  “My grandfather used to add Black Velvet to his coffee,” Mac said. “I tried it once when I was a teenager. This is much better.”

  “At least there are enough clouds to give us a really good sunrise,” Marion said. “Look at those colors.”

  The men glanced out the bay window and returned to their coffee. CeCe snapped a picture with her phone. Giulia walked to the side of the couch and held the curtain aside to watch the brilliant oranges and reds unimpeded.

  “Would anyone like more coffee?” Mac said.

  “I would,” Anthony said.

  “Me too,” Roy said.

  “These are quite possibly the best cookies I’ve ever eaten,” CeCe said.

  “That’s the sleep deprivation talking,” Joel said, “but thank you.”

  Ten minutes later and without any further conversation, Giulia, Mac, and CeCe gathered cups and napkins. Joel swept up the cookie crumbs.

  “I’ll push breakfast back to eleven,” Mac said.

  “Works for us,” Gino said.

  Marion and Anthony returned to their room, followed up the stairs by the others in twos.

  Giulia said to Mac, “Would you like help with the dishes before we head to the attic?”

  “No, thanks,” Mac said. “I’ll load these into the dishwasher to give all of them time to get into their rooms.”

  A few minutes later, Giulia and Frank followed Mac upstairs, skipping the creaking and cracking steps. They all trod with care up the uncarpeted attic stairs at the end of the third floor so as not to alert CeCe and Roy. Mac unlocked the door.

  The sun still lurked behind the pine trees across the lake, but it had risen enough to brighten the end o
f the attic with the cracked window.

  Mac pulled a chain next to the stairs and a long fluorescent bulb lit the near side of the attic. Giulia went directly to the cracked window, kicking up dust that danced in the natural and artificial light.

  “Does that say ‘Mine’?” Frank said.

  Giulia nodded. She brought her face right up to the glass, but didn’t touch it. The sharp edges glittered in the morning sun. Her opinion remained the same: An artist had crafted this message. The lighthouse ghost was not real.

  “I keep the Halloween props in this corner, out of direct sunlight,” Mac said.

  Giulia turned back, blinking to adjust to the dimmer light. Mac stood at a metal shelving unit behind one of the eaves. She pulled a long box off the bottom shelf and removed the lid.

  “See? Everything’s right where it should be.”

  She lifted a thin metal framework looped from end to end with fishing line.

  An old-fashioned white nightgown hung from two ends of the fishing line. “The box is covered with dust because I don’t touch this shelf until the last week of September. You see? I didn’t have anything to do with Solana’s dead of night excursion.”

  Giulia rubbed the material between her fingers and inspected the mechanism. This could have been the white gown she’d followed on her first night here. “How does it work?”

  “See how one of the rods is painted to look like two bricks separated by mortar? I hook that one ten feet up on the lighthouse wall. The other end screws into the catwalk around the light itself.” She lifted a remote switch out from under the folds of material. “I set up a small black light and use this switch to make the nightgown fly up the lighthouse stairs about an hour before midnight on Halloween, depending on how the party’s going. Lucy dresses all in black and hides on the catwalk to roll the nightgown up right away. One or two guests always follow it partway up the stairs. Then I wait for a break between songs on the CD player and turn on the speaker.” She turned the remote over in her hands. “It’s harmless. Everyone always says how entertaining the week is. Then they recommend us to their friends.”