1 The Ghost in the Basement

by SUE FINEMAN

  As he nuzzled into Hannah’s soft hair, he made a mental note to pick up some lottery tickets tomorrow. And condoms. He hadn’t needed them lately, but if something developed with Hannah, he wanted to be prepared.

  <>

  Pop was on his first cup of coffee when Billy came downstairs the next morning, ready for school. “Dad and Hannah are still in bed. She had a bad dream last night and Dad stayed with her.”

  “In the same bed?”

  “Yeah.”

  So they’d patched things up between them. The tension in the house these past few days had weighed them all down.

  “I hope they get married,” said Billy.

  “So do I,” said Pop, “but let’s keep that thought to ourselves for now, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Whatever gave Donovan the feeling that this house belonged to him? There were times when Pop felt like shaking some sense into that boy. If he thought Hannah was like her mother, he was wrong. Monique was a man chaser, a woman who couldn’t stay faithful to anyone and who wasn’t satisfied staying in one place. One reason Monique and Charlie split up was because she hated River Valley and wanted to move away. Charlie refused to go. His said his home was here in River Valley, Ohio, and he didn’t want to live anywhere else.

  When Charlie and Monique were married, Monique moved into this house with him, but that didn’t last long. Virginia expected her to help with the household chores, but Monique wouldn’t help with anything. From what Sonny said, the fighting got so bad, Charlie bought them a house of their own. Even then, Monique wasn’t satisfied.

  After Hannah was born, Charlie made an effort to keep his family together for his daughter’s sake, but Monique didn’t make it easy. He finally left Monique and moved back in with Sonny and Virginia. They took care of the baby for days at a time while Monique went off with her friends. By then, Charlie knew their marriage was doomed, but he wouldn’t give her a divorce. He was afraid she’d take Hannah and he’d never see his little girl again.

  When Hannah was six, he couldn’t take it any more, and they divorced. Monique sold her house in River Valley and moved to Seattle, but Hannah spent every summer and every Christmas vacation here in River Valley with her daddy and grandparents. Charlie was supposed to get custody when she was in high school, but he didn’t make it that long. He died when Hannah was twelve. Sonny and Virginia would have taken her in a heartbeat, but Monique wouldn’t let her come back to visit, and forget moving here for high school.

  The pretty little girl with the black pigtails had grown into a fine woman and come home to stay. She’d made this old house into a home, with warmth and humor and love. She was a beauty like her mother, but she loved this house as much as Sonny had. No matter what Donovan thought, Hannah wasn’t going anywhere.

  Pop glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. “Go brush your teeth and comb your hair. We have to leave for school in five minutes. And don’t wake your father and Hannah.”

  <>

  Hannah woke in Donovan’s arms, and as the sleep cleared her muddled brain, she remembered the vision she’d had last night. The victim’s name was Andrew, and she assumed the woman calling to him was Charity, her great-grandmother. Her great-grandfather’s name was Cal, so who was Andrew? And who killed him?

  Donovan stirred and pulled her closer. She remembered falling asleep in his arms, and it felt nice, but why was he still here? Why hadn’t he gone back to his own bed?

  She knew the instant he woke, when his hand fell to her breast and his erection pushed at her hip. She cleared her throat. “I know you’re not asleep, and cut that out.”

  His eyes were still closed, but his lips curled in a smile. She escaped to the bathroom, glancing in Billy’s room on the way. He was already up, probably on his way to school.

  When Hannah came back to her room, Donovan was gone.

  After breakfast, Donovan drove Hannah to a big coin shop to get a value on the gold coins. Some were worth several hundred dollars and others were so rare they were worth thousands. The man who owned the store offered to buy several.

  “I’m not ready to sell them yet,” Hannah told him, “but I’ll be back when I am.”

  As she strapped herself into the front seat of Donovan’s car, she said, “Those coins are worth more than I made last year, and I have some money from those stocks, so I won’t have to look for a job right away.”

  Donovan glanced at her and back at the road. “What kind of work did you do?”

  “I applied for a job at a radio station doing promos and commercials, but the job I applied for went to the owner’s nephew, and I ended up working as his assistant. I hated it, but Trevor wasn’t working and I couldn’t quit. Someone had to pay the bills. I don’t want another job like that one.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  They rode in silence for several minutes before she asked, “What’s next with the house?”

  “We’ll get that trash out of the basement and tear those hidden stairs out as soon as Perkins is finished with them.”

  “Aren’t they finished?”

  “No, they’re still investigating, and we don’t want to mess with evidence. There’s plenty of other work to do. We’ll put a new bathroom in when they’re finished. After we get that one in, we’ll rip out the old one and start over.”

  On the way home, Donovan stopped at the bank, so Hannah could rent a safe deposit box for the coins and other valuables they’d found. She filled out the form with the information and pushed it over to him to sign. “You put my name on here?”

  “Is that okay with you?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  He drove her home, but didn’t open his car door. “There’s something I want to do before we go inside.” Before she could ask, he turned her face to his and gave her a slow, sweet kiss that warmed her from the inside out. “That should last me a minute or two.”

  Twisting to face him, Hannah said, “This isn’t a good idea, Donovan. I’m not looking for another husband.”

  “That’s good, because I’m not looking for another wife.”

  “I know. You still have issues with the first one.”

  A gust of wind sent leaves flying into the car, but they sat as if glued to their seats.

  “It isn’t that I’m not attracted, Donovan. You know I am, but we have to live together for a year, and it hasn’t even been a month. If we… I don’t want to complicate things.”

  He didn’t touch her again, but his presence had expanded to fill the car, creeping around her and pulling her into an invisible embrace. But it was his eyes that held her there, that blue gaze that peered into her soul and saw her deepest desires.

  “If I didn’t have issues?”

  Another gust of wind rocked the car and the sky grew dark with roiling black clouds.

  Hannah couldn’t answer him. If not for his wife, would she be willing to get involved? Could she put her heart out there to be stomped on again? Losing Trevor had been an enormous relief, but one reason she’d married Trevor was because he didn’t demand an emotional commitment. They’d been casual friends for years, but it wasn’t enough to make their marriage work.

  In the beginning, Trevor represented security and someone to belong with. Their marriage had been a huge disappointment, a mistake that cost her five years of her life. Donovan had made a mistake with his marriage, too, and he wasn’t likely to settle for less than love if he married again. Neither would she, but no matter how drawn she was to him or how her heart raced when he touched her or kissed her, she didn’t want to get involved with a man who was still obsessed with his dead wife. She couldn’t let her guard down with a man who could try to force her out of the only home she’d ever known.

  “Answer me, Hannah. If I didn’t have issues with Maggie, would you—”

  “Ask me when the year is over and you no longer have issues.” If you still want me then.

  The first big drops of rain hit the car, and he said, “We’d better g
et inside.”

  They ran through the raindrops to the kitchen porch and the sky opened. Donovan licked a raindrop from her cheek and she laughed. She shoved him back into the pouring rain and he grabbed her and pulled her out with him, dancing her around in the rain. And then he kissed her again, a lusty kiss that was so hot it chased away the chill of the rain and left them clinging to each other, lips sliding together in a passionate expression that left no doubt how they felt about each other. House or no house, issues or no issues, their attraction was too strong to deny.

  Pop stood in the kitchen window and watched Donovan and Hannah kissing in the rain. He hadn’t met any woman who was more suited for his son than Hannah Taylor. She was an intelligent, loving woman who didn’t let any man walk all over her. She’d be a perfect wife for his hard-headed son.

  He just hoped Donovan didn’t ruin it.

  <>

  The next day, Donovan filled Hannah’s pickup with trash from the basement and drove to the dump. It was the fourth trip he’d made that week. There were several lifetimes of worthless junk stored in that house. There were also some things worth saving, like a pair of antique chairs and matching ottomans. Pop said to put those aside and he’d refinish them and have them reupholstered for Hannah for Christmas.

  Over the next few days, Donovan helped Pop reframe the outside doors, and they installed new deadbolts. Pop replaced all the windowsills on the main floor and caulked around the windows, and they re-hinged the door on that little room in the attic, so the door opened in, instead of out. But the steps in the hidden staircase remained in place.

  Until the people in the lab were finished with the victim’s remains, they wouldn’t know for sure when he was killed, but the evidence they’d dug up so far indicated the victim was probably killed before the house was finished. Those extra bricks were meant for something else, like trim or a planter or patio, or something.

  He hoped to find the name of the builder in that diary, but Hannah was the only one who could read it. If they had the right diary.

  Chapter Seven

  Hannah drifted off to sleep with the diary that night, but a child’s anguished sobs woke her in the night. The sound tore at her heart. Still holding the diary, she walked down the hall and stopped in front of the room on the left side of the hidden staircase. She put her hand on the doorknob, but it felt different. And the door wouldn’t open. She looked down at the runner on the floor, one she’d never seen before. The wallpaper looked different, too. This was an old fashioned rose pattern.

  The crying stopped, but the door still wouldn’t open. Hannah walked down the stairs and wandered through the house, looking at the furnishings, the wallpaper, and the floor. The house was beautifully decorated, although the furniture in the living room looked stiff and formal and uncomfortable. She ran her hand over the back of the settee in the living room. Velvet. So soft.

  Drifting through the old house as if in a trance, Hannah was awake enough to know this was no dream.

  As she started back toward her bedroom, she heard a sound in the library. She froze and everything suddenly looked as it had when she’d gone to bed. The floors were carpeted, Grandpa’s recliner sat in the living room, and the green velvet settee was gone. And there was definitely someone in the library. She picked up the poker from the fireplace and crept toward the library, but the light switched on, Pop cleared his throat, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was just Pop.

  Someone put their hand on her shoulder, and she wasn’t sure if the hand was alive or dead. A scream of panic rose into her throat. Before the scream could get out, Donovan said, “It’s just me, Hannah.”

  She whipped around and smacked his arm. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Donovan Kane.” Her heartbeat was still in overdrive from the child’s cries and the dark house. Her skin prickled with goose bumps. Whatever possessed her to walk around in the dark?

  Pop stood in the study door. “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake anyone.”

  “You didn’t,” said Hannah. “I wasn’t really here, if that makes any sense.”

  Donovan took the poker from her hand. “You looked like you were in another world.”

  “I was in the past. There was a runner on the stairs, and the wallpaper in the upstairs hallway was different. I heard a little child crying behind the door upstairs, but it was locked, and I couldn’t get in.”

  “Did you lock any of the doors up there?” asked Pop.

  Hannah shook her head. “No. That door was open when I went to bed. There aren’t any locks on the doors upstairs. Grandpa replaced all the doorknobs when I was a little girl. When I was three, I locked myself in the bedroom and couldn’t figure out how to open the door. Grandpa had to call the fire department to climb in the window and get me out.”

  Pop scratched his head. “I heard crying. Thought I was dreaming.”

  “I was wide awake, and I heard it too. It was coming from the room on the left side of the hidden staircase.” Donovan sounded more curious than disbelieving. “Hannah, are you sleepy?”

  “Now? Are you kidding?” She was wide awake.

  They walked upstairs together. This time she saw the runner that was in the hallway when she went to sleep, and the bedroom door that was closed and locked just minutes ago now stood wide open.

  “Hannah, do you remember the floor in this room before it was carpeted?”

  “This room has always been carpeted.”

  They looked at each other for a long minute, and she knew what he was thinking. He wanted to know what was under the carpet, and so did she. “Go ahead, pull it up.”

  Donovan started in the back corner by the hidden stairs. He pulled the carpet off the tack strip and rolled it back while Hannah pulled up the pad underneath. A huge dark stain marred the wood floor.

  “Oh, my God.” The floor felt icy cold on her bare feet, and she knew. “Andrew was killed in this room.” And he was still here. Was he the one who threw the baseball at Cordelli? “Who would do such an awful thing to such a nice man?”

  “Hannah, it happened a long time ago.”

  “Then how can I step into it as if it were happening right now? Donovan, the wallpaper in the hallway had big roses in it, in different shades of pink and red.” She held up her hands to show him the size of the roses. “The doorknob was the old fashioned kind with the keyhole, but it was locked, and there was a little child inside, screaming and sobbing in terror.”

  “That had to be your grandfather. Sonny said he was a little boy when it happened. Were you holding the diary?”

  “Yes. I don’t understand it, but I know what I saw and heard. Someone, probably Charity, is trying to tell me what happened.”

  She leaned against the doorframe and rubbed her hand over her forehead. “They’ll really tear up the house now, won’t they?”

  “I don’t have any control over this, Hannah. It’s not my case. Don’t worry about the house. We’ll fix whatever they tear up.”

  She gazed into his eyes. “Was Grandpa right about you? In his letter to me, he said you were a decent, honorable man, someone I could trust.”

  “If you’re asking if I’ll try to push you out before the year is up, the answer is no. As much as I want the house, I won’t force you out.” From the beginning, he thought Hannah would find a man and move on, leaving the house to him, and he still wasn’t sure that wouldn’t happen. He was so damn tired of being broke, of having the hospital nag him to pay more on his bill than he could afford to pay. He wanted to have something left over at the end of the month for a change, so he could take Billy to ball games and the skating rink. Owning this house would help him dig out of his hole and start living again.

  Pop walked upstairs and down the hall, his robe flapping around his baggy pajama pants. “What’s going on?”

  Donovan pointed to the stain on the floor. “Looks like we found the murder scene. We’ll have to tear out what the lab doesn’t want.”

  “Not tonight. I’m going back to be
d,” said Pop. “And I wouldn’t try to put all this stuff in a police report or the captain will think you’ve lost your mind.”

  Maybe he had, maybe they all had. The cry he heard wasn’t a fussy or hungry kind of cry. It was the anguished cry of a terrified child. Had Sonny been locked in this room with a dead man and all that blood? No wonder he blocked it out. Most adults couldn’t deal with that kind of trauma.

  Sonny’s spirits were trying to show them what happened, and they weren’t doing it all through Hannah’s visions. He and Pop had heard the cry.

  Had the spirits hung around all these years to get justice for a brutal murder?

  <>

  Donovan called the station first thing in the morning to report what they’d found. Perkins was out on another case, so Jalinski and Joseph came to the house to check out the stain on the bedroom floor.

  Jalinski helped Donovan pull the carpet all the way out of the room and carry it up to the attic, while Joseph carried a piece of furniture up.

  “Might as well bring all the furniture up,” said Donovan. There was a heavy dresser and armoire left in that room, and he’d never get it up those steep attic steps by himself. These two men were body builders. They carried the heavy furniture around like it weighed nothing.

  “Word at the station is that the captain is taking early retirement,” said Jalinski. “From the look on Cordelli’s face, he thinks the job is his.”

  “He’s gloating,” said Joseph, “and if the rumor is true, you’ll see all the best people jumping ship.”

  “Somebody should shoot that bastard,” muttered Donovan.

  “Hey, I’ll do it,” said Jalinski. “He’s trying to force Perkins to quit, because Perkins shows him for what he is – an incompetent jerk.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” said Joseph. “Perkins knows things. We all do.”