by Nicole Bross
“All right,” he says. “All right. Just stop for a moment.” His flashlight comes on, illuminating the beach in front of me so I can see where I’m going. I’m about to tell him I don’t need his help for that either, but suddenly I don’t have any fight left in me. When I don’t start walking again, he flicks the light off, and I see the shape of his silhouette move in front of me. His hands find my waist and pull me toward him, and a moment later I feel the weight of his chin rest on top of my head.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll stop if you want me to. You only have to say the word, and it never happens again.” I hesitate, the blood rushing in my ears, and shake my head. Wrapping his arms fully around me in a tight hug, he whispers, “Good.” His hand finds mine and we start making our way back down the beach toward the town together.
***
The first thing I do the next morning is leave a voicemail for Greta Pickler, my new lawyer. I haven’t heard a thing from her since we met in Eugene, which worries me. Today’s the day my birth certificate is supposed to show up, which means we can start making some progress on the transfer of ownership from Roz’s estate to my name.
Sheena’s antique shop is open when I walk up the main street, and I pop in for a moment. The dark circles under her eyes and the slow way she moves to greet me tell me what kind of night she had. Hopefully, I can offer her a bit of distraction.
“Got plans for lunch?” I ask her. “I want to pick your brain about something.”
“Well, this sounds curious,” she replies. “What about?” I tell her she’ll have to wait until then and promise to return a few hours later with food.
My birth certificate is indeed with the morning’s mail at the inn when I arrive, and when I tell Cora the good news she nods approvingly.
“That’s one obstacle down,” she says.
When lunchtime rolls around, I make my way over to Sheena, laden with two takeaway containers of fried clams, chips, and a six-pack of beer. Kellen is back behind the bar and pretends to grumble when I won’t tell him where I’m taking my food, or who I’m eating it with.
“I’m scheming,” is all I’ll tell him. I distinctly hear him mutter something about Eames women before I’m out the door.
“Tell me more about smuggling in Soberly,” I say without preamble as soon as Sheena flips the ‘Closed for Lunch, Back in 30 Minutes’ sign on the door.
“I already told you pretty much everything I know,” she replies around a mouthful of food. “There’s probably some old newspaper articles on microfiche somewhere that might talk about specific cases or incidents. Like I said, there are a few people in town who would have stories passed down from their parents or grandparents you should talk to, if you want some firsthand experiences.”
“Next question. Who has these hidden cellars and hiding spots in their homes or businesses?” I have a notepad and pen at hand to jot down the names Sheena gives me, amounting to more than half a dozen, including her own modest false cupboard.
“Did you find anything at the inn? Is that why you’re asking?” she asks when she’s finished her list.
“No, I haven’t checked there yet, but I’m going to. Depending on what I discover, I have an idea I want to pitch to Cora.”
“Oh my god you have to let me come with you,” Sheena says with a squeal, and I see her shiver at the prospect. It’s the first time she’s looked interested in our discussion. “I’d give almost anything to get to dig around in the inn’s basement looking for a secret room. It’s straight out of a Nancy Drew mystery.”
I laugh, but I agree and tell her she’s more than welcome to join me. We make a plan to meet tonight to explore after she closes up her shop. I’m glad to have the company—the idea of doing it alone frightens me a bit, although I don’t know why. I’ve done plenty of digging around in old buildings. Maybe it’s the pall of death hanging over the town that has me on edge.
“Hypothetically, if I wanted to get into the basement here, how would I go about doing that?” I ask Kellen when I return to the pub, sliding up onto my usual stool. Other than a couple at a corner table and the same family of five I’d seen in Sheena’s the other day the place is deserted. Kellen gives me a long side-eye as he slices lemons into wedges.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Reasons,” I say, knowing my non-answer will both drive him up the wall and guarantee he won’t tell me. When he raises his eyebrows and offers only silence in reply, I shrug noncommittally. “I can always ask your mom if you won’t tell me,” I add. “Or Jana. Or Drew.”
“But not Cora,” he says, noticing my omission. The side of his mouth twitches, and I pretend to frown a little.
“I’m sure she’d tell me too, I suppose,” I say evasively. “Haven’t seen her around today.” If I confronted her directly, I know it would be odd for her to deny me the information, but there’s a reason I don’t want to mention it to her yet, and Kellen’s picked up on it like I hoped.
“No? She tends to be in the same place every day.” He jerks his head to the left, indicating the wall that separates the pub from the lobby.
“Fair point. See you around then.” I start to slide off my stool.
“Fine,” he says with a long sigh. “Tell me why you want to know, and I’ll tell you how to get into the basement. I’ll take you to the door itself, in fact.”
I keep my voice mega-casual as I explain. “I want to see if there’s anything in the basement that might link the inn to the rum runners. This building’s been around long enough. I find it historically interesting,” I add before he can ask me why I’m curious.
“Is that so? Who’d you have lunch with?” he asks.
“Hmm? Just someone I’ve been talking to a bit about stuff here in town. The past, that sort of thing.”
“A friend?”
“I guess so, sort of.” Far from being annoyed, like I’d expected, he surprises me by breaking out into the trademark megawatt smile. I’m both captivated and perplexed.
“That’s awesome. I’m glad to hear it,” he says.
“Why?” The question is out of my mouth before I can bite it back, betraying the fact that I’m not as nonchalant as I’m playing.
“Isn’t it nice to have friends?” he says, still grinning. “You’re puttin’ down roots without even knowing it.”
“I am not,” I say, wrinkling my nose at him.
“It’s a little root. There are a few of them, here and there. I can see them taking hold. This new friend, your”—he makes air quotes—“historical interest in the town.”—he brings his face close to mine—“And me.” With my elbow on the bar, I rest my chin on the back of my hand and shake my head at him, smiling.“Whatever. Be ready right after the pub’s closed.” I get off my stool for real this time and leave without a backward glance. Damn him, he’s right. Roz’s plan is working.
12
Sheena meets me outside the pub a few minutes after eleven, and we walk in together. Drew’s on his way out at the same time, and he fist bumps me—a gesture I’ve come to recognize is his usual method of greeting.
“Boss lady,” he adds, lifting the headphones off his ears for a moment and shooting me a grin. I tell him I’m not his boss and wish him a good night in return before Sheena and I head inside.
“This is your new friend?” Kellen says when he sees us, a look of mock horror on his face. “Oh lord, are we in trouble.”
“Shut up, Kellen Greene,” Sheena says, but she’s laughing.
“You know, I thought she was the biggest troublemaker in town until I met you,” he says to me, pointing at Sheena. “If the two of you have joined forces, there’s no hope for any of us. What’s she got to do with any of this anyway?”
“I’m an expert on antiques,” Sheena says with a roll of her eyes. “I also did a high school project on this smuggling stuff,” she adds in a slightly lower voice. Kellen catches it anyway and bursts out laughing. “Which I got an A on.” He only laughs harder.
&
nbsp; “Half your life ago. You’re both dressed for sleuthing too, look at you.” I hadn’t noticed when she walked up, but Sheena’s in head-to-toe black, like I am. She even thought to bring a large flashlight. “There are electric lights down there, you know,” he adds, and Sheena purses her lips and flushes slightly.
“You never know when there’s going to be an outage,” she mutters.
“Well, I’m glad you brought it. I don’t want to be stuck down in a spooky basement in the dark,” I say in her defense.
“Through the kitchen and down the main hall,” Kellen says. “After you, I need to get the lights in here.”
Kellen catches up to us, and his hand grazes my ass through my leggings, making me shiver. He feels it and gives me a squeeze. I elbow him in the ribs in return.
At the end of the hallway, he pushes through a ‘Staff Only’ door into a utility room containing an industrial washer and dryer, a housekeeping cart, and various supplies. At the far end is another door, and it’s this one he indicates.
“I could have found this myself,” I mutter, but I’m glad he’s here. A set of wooden steps descend into darkness, and when I flick the switch on the wall to my left, a single bulb illuminates the way down.
When we reach the bottom, I’m underwhelmed, to say the least. A vast space is spread out in front of me, about the same size as the aboveground footprint of the hotel. It’s dimly lit by more hanging bulbs at regular intervals. They reveal a few stacks of chairs against a wall and some folding tables. That’s it. There are no interior walls or partitions; no ancient-looking crates marked with Xs; no earthenware, narrow-mouthed jugs. Sheena’s crestfallen appearance no doubt matches my own because Kellen puts an arm around each of us and gives us a reassuring squeeze.
“Don’t give up hope, ladies,” he says. “Maybe there’s a false wall, or a trapdoor or something. Let’s have a good look around.”
We split up. Sheena is tasked with examining the concrete floor, and Kellen and I take opposite sides of the perimeter to check for hidden doors, unusual cracks, or anything out of the ordinary in the walls. For a time, no one speaks, each of us concentrating on our respective job. I run my hands over the plaster in addition to examining it, paying special attention to the bottom three feet in case there’s a crawlspace. It’s slow work, and before I’m halfway down the east wall I’m coated in dust and an uncomfortable quantity of cobwebs.
Turning the corner onto the south wall, I immediately feel a difference in texture underneath my hands. All along the east side, there was brick under the plaster—a fact revealed by a few spots where it had fallen away—but this feels different, smoother. Still, maybe that’s how the south wall was constructed at the time. Until I move a few feet to the right, and the rougher texture of brick resumes.
“This might be something here,” I say. Sheena shines her flashlight over in my direction and immediately blinds me. I shade my eyes with one hand and wave her and Kellen over with the other. “Feel it,” I say. “Here,” I run my hand over the plastered brick, “and here. This spot is smoother. Maybe it’s wood? Like a door?”
“Why would you plaster over the door to your secret room?” Sheena asks. “That doesn’t make sense. You can’t open it.”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I didn’t say it was a door. I just said it felt different.”
“What are you going to do?” Kellen asks. I shrug in reply. I feel all over the smoother area, trying to discover its exact outline. It is, indeed, about the size of a door, but I hesitate. Kellen solves my dilemma by taking Sheena’s flashlight and hitting the plaster, hard, with the butt of it until a chunk of it falls away, revealing wooden slats.
“Looks like you were right,” he says, grinning. He makes to hit the wall again, but I shout at him to stop.
“You can’t just destroy the wall,” I tell him, horrified.
“Don’t you want to see what’s behind it?”
“Yes, but—”
“This is your hotel, Audrey. If you want to break down this wall, then do it.” His gaze challenges me, and Sheena is practically dancing she’s so excited.
“Fine,” I say, hoping I don’t regret it. “Be careful. Don’t damage anything more than you have to.” He chips carefully away at the plaster until an area about one by two feet is revealed.
“There’s a knothole,” Sheena says, pointing at a spot right at the edge of one slat. “Good thing we have a flashlight,” she emphasizes, plucking it back from Kellen and crouching to get the small hole at eye level. “There’s definitely a space behind here,” she says after a minute. “I can’t see how big, but it’s not nothing.”
“Let’s open it up,” I say in a hushed whisper, and take the flashlight from her hand. Gone are my concerns about being cautious. I want to see what’s behind this door.
I concentrate my plaster-busting efforts on the area close to the edge where the wooden slats meet brick, and soon the entire seam from floor to top is uncovered. Unfortunately, there is no door handle or any means of opening it that I can see. It seems like the opening was permanently boarded over. However, there are several more knotholes.
“Think if we each stuck a couple fingers through and pulled, we could swing it forward?” I ask. We each move into position and on the count of three pull at the boards. At first, it doesn’t give at all, but after Sheena tells us all to put our backs into it, we’re rewarded with the sound of plaster starting to crack.
“Harder,” she says and with one last great heave, the one slat closest to the brick pulls away enough that Kellen can get his hands into the gap. In a shower of plaster, he yanks the entire door out of the brick frame and sets it to the side.
Sheena’s flashlight reveals a small room, about ten by ten feet, lined on all sides by plank shelving. There is no electric wiring in here. The walls are earthen, rather than brick, and the floor is covered in thick wooden boards instead of the poured concrete of the rest of the basement, which must have been put in later. Large metal hooks hang from beams along the ceiling.
“This is a cold room,” I say, swatting at a cobweb as I step inside. Sheena and Kellen follow. “Perishable goods would have been stored in here before refrigeration was available. Every old house has one of these.” The shelves are empty now, and the room is bare of anything else of remark. I try to hide my disappointment at the thoroughly mundane discovery. I’d hoped to find more.
Sheena hasn’t stopped shining her flashlight around the room since we entered it, no doubt looking for even the smallest relic, but I can see there’s nothing noteworthy in here. I make to leave the cold room, intending to finish my examination of the rest of the wall, when she tells Kellen to move from where he’s standing, adding a shove when he doesn’t move quickly enough to satisfy her. She kneels, sets down the flashlight, and somehow a second later is holding an irregular-shaped section of the floor in her hands, revealing an opening below. There’s a ladder leading down into it.
“Holy shit,” I breathe. “How did you know that was there?”
“I saw the two holes.” I can see now she has a finger in each hand stuck into two holes that look drilled from their evenness. “They looked like they lined up, so I pulled on them. I honestly didn’t believe anything would happen.” She shines the light down the hole, which looks about seven feet deep. “So? Who’s going first?”
“You found it,” I tell her since she’s already got her head halfway in the opening, trying to cover everything with the flashlight beam at once. I can see she’s dying to go down. “Is the ladder safe?” I add, mindful that it probably hasn’t been used in seventy years or more.
“Looks sturdy enough to me,” she says and tests her weight on the first rung. “It’s a short drop anyway, only about eight feet. Oh my God, this is so exciting.” Tucking the flashlight into the waistband of her leggings, she disappears from view.
Kellen and I are momentarily left in near-pitch blackness, and he takes the opportunity to kiss me hungrily.
Miss Dean paused at the door of the small schoolhouse for a moment, her eyes darting eagerly from student to student, wondering which would be her favorite and which would give her a hard time. Her first day as a teacher was about to commence. The pupils, some twenty children from all over the parish, were playing in the yard outside. Their raucous shouts were full of glee as they enjoyed their last minutes of freedom on a sunny autumn day.
Checking the small gold watch she kept in her pocket for the twentieth time, she took a deep breath, seized the large brass bell, and pulled open the door.
“Come inside, children,” she said, with what she hoped was a friendly smile. “The day is about to begin.”
“Do secret rooms turn you on?” I whisper playfully.
“You turn me on,” he replies, grabbing a fistful of my hair to pull my mouth to his again.
“Oh my god, Audrey you have to see this. Are you coming?” Sheena shouts from below, and I jump out of Kellen’s arms. For a moment, he’d made me completely forget what we were doing here.
“Yep, I’m on my way. Wanted to give you enough time to get all the way down. I didn’t think it would be safe to have two people on the ladder at once,” I stammer, stepping onto the first rung.
“Holy shit,” is all I can say when I’m at the bottom. “Wait, don’t touch anything,” I caution Sheena, who is examining some papers tacked up to the wall. This room is smaller, about twelve by eight feet, but unlike the cold room above us, it is far from empty. A small table and chair are pushed against the earthen wall in one corner, and crates are stacked three or four high all along the opposite one. An unlit oil lamp is suspended from the ceiling. I hear Kellen’s feet land behind me, and although I’m expecting some sort of surprised expletive, he’s completely silent. His hand reaches out and squeezes my forearm for a moment, and I rock back on my heels a bit to return the pressure.