by Leslie Nagel
And what would be the harm, really? The house was empty. No one would know. It wasn’t as if she planned to steal anything.
“I’ll tell him everything,” Charley promised herself aloud. “Just as soon as I find Gussie’s will.”
Feeling marginally better, she headed due west, then turned right onto Runnymede Road, heading roughly north. All these properties were heavily wooded, the houses completely hidden from view. As Runnymede began a slow curve to the right, she heard the sound of rushing water and pictured Bobby’s map. Houk Stream flowed along the road on her left, invisible in the dark. Beyond it lay Gallagher’s Island. The stream eventually headed west and then north again, cutting through Hills and Dales Park on its way to the Great Miami River.
She pulled out her flashlight and clicked it on. She had yet to encounter a single car or pedestrian. Slowing to a fast walk, she scanned the tree line to her left. A pair of eyes glowed briefly near the ground, then winked out as the…possum? raccoon? scurried into the bracken. Unease tightened her stomach as she searched for the opening she knew had to be there. Everything looked so different in the daytime, she thought anxiously. Had she missed it in the dark?
A moment later her beam glanced over something metallic. She swung the light around and illuminated a column of hand-cut bluestone. A brass plaque, pitted and stained by the elements, had been mounted to the column about five feet above the ground. Charley could just make out the engraved legend: MULBRIDGE HOUSE.
She murmured a prayer of thanks and plunged without hesitation into the black tunnel of the driveway. Crushed white stone crunched beneath her feet. Away from the meager street lighting, the darkness took on form and substance. Charley moved through an intimate, alien, velvet world as limitless as the universe, as sharply defined as the slender beam of her flashlight. The smell was different as well, earthier, with the sharp note of decaying pine needles. No air moved, no dripping moisture penetrated. The silence was complete, broken only by her footfalls and the sound of her own breathing.
She remembered the layout from her previous visits. The driveway ran straight for about fifty yards before sweeping right and ending in a broad circle before the south-facing front entrance.
Charley checked her watch: 5:43 a.m. She had just over an hour before the salvage team arrived. Breaking into a trot, she followed the lane until it emerged from the trees and became an atoll, a pale white doughnut enclosing a dried-up koi pond filled with dead leaves. To the left and right, the doughnut was flanked by rectangular areas of bluestone pavers that would easily accommodate half a dozen vehicles each. Directly ahead of her lay the main house, vast and silent, a blacker shape against the darkness. To her left, the bluestones led to the various estate outbuildings, including the infamous garage. No time to check it out, Charley thought regretfully. She headed instead toward the massive wooden doors, noting the holes and discolored patches that indicated where the laurel-wreath knockers had once hung.
She ran lightly up the stone steps to the enclosed entryway. Casting a quick look over her shoulder—although, who on earth could see her here?—Charley grasped an ornate door handle and pulled. Locked. Well, of course it was locked. What had she expected? She rolled her shoulders. She’d just have to find a…less traditional way inside.
The north and west sides of the house were solidly screened with a thick yew hedge, an ancient, overgrown barricade that grew right up against the windows. Since she’d left her chain saw at home, Charley retraced her steps. The east side was more promising. The land fell away gently, and the shrubs here were small, low, and widely spaced. She checked the first three windows she encountered; each was tightly locked. She began to wonder if she’d have to break in. Then she wondered if she’d have the nerve to actually smash a window. She fervently hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Between the lying and sneaking, the spooky woods, and the abandoned old mansion, her supply of nerve was running short.
About forty feet farther along Charley encountered a raised stone terrace surrounded by a low wall. Hopes soaring, she mounted a shallow flight of steps and crossed to a pair of narrow French doors. They appeared fragile and decorative in the dim light. Surely she could get one of these open?
As she reached for the whimsical dolphin-shaped door handle, her flashlight beam detected a dead patch among the glittering glass panes. She froze. The square next to the handle was empty. That single pane of glass had been removed. Had someone already broken in?
Charley quickly checked the ground. No broken glass. A small mound of dead leaves indicated it had been at least a few days since these doors had been opened. She let out a long sigh of relief, realizing only then that she’d been holding her breath.
“It’s been missing for ages,” she spoke bravely into the dark. “Or maybe it broke during the sale. I bet a hundred people walked across this terrace last weekend and tried to open these doors.” She inhaled deeply once again, letting it out slowly as she gathered her courage for the final plunge. “No point in looking a gift horse in the mouth. Let’s do this, Carpenter.”
She reached through the opening with gloved fingers and felt for a latch. It turned easily, with a muted click. She twisted the wrought-iron dolphin, and the terrace door swung inward on oiled hinges. Gripping her flashlight more tightly, she stepped inside.
Charley found herself in an elegantly proportioned room about twenty-five feet long by fifteen feet wide. Two tarnished brass chandeliers lay on plastic sheeting in the center of the floor. A closed wooden door painted dark green to match the wallpaper exited through the wall opposite her, about ten feet to her right. In the center of that wall was a fireplace, its hearth made of green and gold Rookwood tiles, tiles that were highly collectible and worth a small fortune. Packing boxes and Bubble Wrap lay stacked against the wall. Looks like the Crohn Brothers have already gotten started.
This was the dining room, she reasoned. The single door to the right would lead to the kitchen, convenient for a staff that had served countless meals to several generations of Mulbridges.
Fascinating, but that wasn’t where Charley’s mission led today.
A pair of double pocket doors stood open to the left on a slight diagonal from her position. There lay the formal living room, where the auction had taken place. Beyond that room through more double doors was the main entry, where Holland had knocked Millie onto her tush. And beyond the entry and the curving staircase lay the other half of the first floor. Somewhere over there, Charley hoped, she would find the library.
Running shoes making barely a whisper on the polished wooden floor, she passed into the empty living room, taking care to keep her flashlight trained downward. There was always the chance someone might glance toward the house and see the light through one of the many windows.
As her gaze passed over more cardboard crates and rolls of packing material, she recalled the last time she’d traveled the length of this room. Calvin Prescott had been walking her out, chiding her gently about buying a truck. Charley blinked back sudden tears, the memory of that day vivid in this place. She wondered what her little friend would have said about her current mission. He’d have been delighted, she decided, smiling at the thought and drying her eyes with the back of her hand.
With a renewed sense of purpose, she passed through the second set of pocket doors and stopped, getting her bearings, picturing herself at the top of the stairs looking down at Pamela, Holland, and Millie in their unhappy tableau. She played her light over the heavy front doors to her left, the vaulted ceiling with its chandelier far above, the sweep of stairs curving into echoing darkness, the black-and-white floor disappearing into distant shadowy corners.
It struck her afresh how massive Mulbridge House truly was. Despite the need for haste, Charley paused, listening, feeling the immeasurable weight of this once magnificent structure around and above her, room after ornately furnished room filled with beautifully carved wood and plaster and stone. She breathed in the smell of dust and decay, that whiff of mold. A b
oard creaked beneath her right foot. There was no other sound. The house waited, utterly silent, empty, a once beloved vessel at the end of its usefulness, the verdict delivered, the time now short before the swing of the executioner’s axe.
“I’m sorry,” Charley whispered, not knowing exactly what she was sorry for, but needing to break the silence, to acknowledge the significance of the moment. It was probable that she would be the very last person to stand here and admire this place. In less than two days, Mulbridge House would cease to exist.
With a start, she checked her watch and gasped in dismay: 6:12 a.m. She needed to get moving.
Charley crossed the wide entry and stuck her head through the first open door. Her light revealed a sizeable room with a black-painted fireplace and hideous red-and black flocked wallpaper. Double windows to her left overlooked the front drive. Receiving room or small parlor, Charley guessed. A door led to the right. She crossed the room and opened the door. Another room, this one papered in torn and water-stained pink and white stripes, stood empty except for the requisite fireplace. Neither of these rooms had any bookshelves. She needed to find that library.
She retraced her steps through the parlor. A doorway under the main stairs led to a windowless corridor that disappeared into inky blackness. Charley started down the hallway, trying a door on her right. Coat closet. She kept moving. A second door on her right opened onto a flight of steps leading down. The stench of mold hit her in a sickening wave, and she thought of Millie’s house. She shut that door and hurried on. A third door on the right revealed a blue-tiled powder room.
Only two doors remained, a broad-paneled one on her left, and a narrow, painted swinging door straight ahead. Charley did a quick calculation and surmised that this must be another access door to the kitchen, or possibly a pantry or laundry area. That left only one possibility.
Charley turned to the paneled door to her left and grasped the knob. It swung open on a squeal of rusty hinges that made her cringe. She shone her light inside and sighed with relief. Dark wooden shelving stretched from floor to ceiling around the four walls of what had to be the Mulbridge House library.
As she prepared to step inside, she froze. A faint noise from beyond the entry echoed down the corridor. Charley held herself perfectly still and listened. Was it the wind, banging a shutter or knocking a tree limb against a window? But she had stood listening to Mulbridge House just a few moments ago. There was no wind. Besides, this sound had been more like that of a distant door closing. She tried to recall if she’d closed the terrace door. She didn’t think she had. Could someone have seen the open door, seen her light perhaps, and followed her inside?
As she contemplated calling out, she heard another sound, the sound of wood slithering on smooth rollers, followed by a quiet thump.
Someone had just closed the first set of pocket doors.
Someone had followed her inside, closing first the terrace door, then the pocket doors leading from the dining room.
Cutting off her exit. Closing her in.
Charley willed herself not to panic even as adrenaline flooded her system. She struggled against the impulse to run and forced herself to think logically. Who would be inside Mulbridge House? It was getting pretty close to seven o’clock. Maybe the salvage team had arrived early. Would she have heard a vehicle? With trembling fingers, she clicked off her flashlight, and was immediately plunged into darkness. Robbed of sight, she held her breath and strained to hear, every fiber of her being concentrated on that single act. Seconds ticked by, during which she heard nothing but her own blood pounding in her ears. Her other senses, heightened by sight deprivation, reached out into the velvet dark, her survival instincts driving her to taste her enemy on the wind, to try and catch his scent, to feel the footfalls of her unseen stalker.
The sound of wooden doors rolling, then thumping closed, echoed from across the entry. A faint glow revealed the rectangular opening at the end of the hall in which Charley stood. Someone carrying a flashlight had just closed the second set of pocket doors. Very carefully and deliberately, but not trying to be absolutely silent either. What did that mean? Who was inside Mulbridge House with her? Friend or foe?
And then Charley heard a sound that removed all doubt. The sound of soft, menacing laughter.
In his self-defense classes, John Bright repeatedly emphasized the power of mind over matter. The Vietnamese art of Vo Binh Dinh is based on the assumption that the opponent is not Vietnamese, so they are going to be taller and heavier than you. Only five foot nine, John routinely defeated opponents much larger than he was.
“If you let fear shut you down,” he counseled, “you are dead before you begin.”
The dark was disorienting, and Charley fought both panic and vertigo as she strove to recall the library she’d glimpsed before she’d switched off her light. All the shelving was open and empty. She could climb up, but she’d just be trapped eight feet off the ground instead of on her own two feet. The high, double-glazed windows, with their leaded mullions, looked impenetrable. She’d never be able to break one in time to escape.
Not the library then. Charley stepped back into the shadowy corridor. She could just make out the sound of someone closing the door between the front parlor and the pink-striped room. Whoever it was, they were checking every room before closing it off. Searching for her.
She realized she had mere seconds before her stalker entered this passageway and saw her standing here. She quickly assessed her options. Closet? Powder room? Basement? It might be possible to find a corner to hide in down there, but whoever it was would hear her clattering down those rickety steps. She had no idea if there was an exit door from the basement. But even if there was, it would surely be locked. Another dead end.
One option remained. Charley shouldered open the door at the end of the hallway and slipped silently through, stopping its well-oiled swing with her hand. Switching on her light, she found herself standing in a long, narrow space lined with glass-fronted cabinets. Broad, deep counters ran around the perimeter, broken only by a triple industrial sink. Butler’s pantry. Nowhere to hide. Another white door stood directly in front of her. Without hesitation she pushed through, blessed again with the gift of a noiseless swing mechanism.
As she’d surmised, this door led into a huge kitchen. She played her flashlight beam over butcher-block countertops littered with trash. White wooden cabinets with their doors removed lined the perimeter. Large gaps indicated where major appliances had already been taken away. A large work island covered with take-out bags and paper coffee cups occupied the center of the room. Charley scrambled around the island, swinging her light left and right, looking for a weapon, a hiding place, a means of escape. There was nothing, not even a stick of wood.
Her light picked out yet another narrow swinging door. With a rush of relief, she ran to it and pushed. It wouldn’t budge. This had to be the green-painted door into the dining room that Charley had seen upon first entering. Beyond it lay the terrace doors and freedom. She reared back and kicked the door as hard as she could. No point in silence now. It shivered in its frame, but held fast.
She ran her light around the frame. Down near the floor she could see the edges of several Rookwood tiles shoved underneath the door, holding it closed.
Someone had wedged it shut.
She felt panic tightening her throat, making it difficult to breathe. From beyond the two closed doors she’d just come through came the earsplitting screech of the library door swinging on its unoiled hinges. She was almost out of time.
She snapped off her flashlight, shoved it into her coat pocket, and dropped to her hands and knees with the vague idea of hiding behind the island. The sound of the first swinging door swishing open was accompanied by a thin rim of light outlining the second one. Her pursuer now stood in the butler’s pantry, barely twenty feet away.
Charley scrambled on all fours toward the island. Her head connected painfully with the corner, and for a moment she saw stars. As
she struggled to regain her balance, her fingers encountered a smooth, cylindrical object lying against the base of the island. She picked it up, turning it over in both hands, trying to identify it by feel like a blind person, exploring the smooth edges, the weight, the familiar metal tab. It was an unopened can of soda, no doubt dropped by a workman and overlooked when it rolled out of sight beneath the overhanging edge of the cabinet.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” A deep voice called softly from just beyond the swinging door, a masculine voice that seemed familiar. Then that laughter again, a low chuckle that made Charley’s skin crawl. This was no workman, but a man intent on doing her harm. And she had no way to escape, nothing to defend herself with except a single can of soda. She pictured herself popping up from behind the island and heaving it at her stalker. What then? Unless she miraculously nailed a forehead shot that brought him down like a Goliath to her David, she would have revealed herself for nothing, her missile bouncing harmlessly off, hitting the floor, bouncing and rolling…
And with that mental image came a sudden thought, a possibility, a crazy course of action that might give her a brief advantage, create a tiny window of opportunity for her to get away. Charley gripped the soda can in her left hand and crab-walked to the end of the island.
The pantry door swung slowly inward, the opening angled away from Charley’s pathetic hiding place. The beam from a large flashlight probed the darkness, sweeping over the countertop above her head and continuing around the kitchen like a searchlight from a prison escape movie. Charley felt rather than heard its owner paused in the doorway. He, too, held his breath, listening for her. She wondered if he could hear the hammering of her heart. She watched his light play over the upper cabinets, down across the floor. It stopped momentarily on the door he’d wedged shut. Would he cross over to it? Confirm that she hadn’t left that way?