But this morning Mikaela was polishing brass on the Six-to-One Odds, Peter and Luke were outside scraping the trim on the house, Kee and the others were only God knew where, and this was her chance to get into that room.
And since she couldn’t find the secret door, she’d decided simply to cut through the damn wall.
Rachel slipped on her safety glasses, knelt on the floor in her parents’ walk-in closet, and set the small battery-powered skill saw to the plasterboard just above the bottom molding, not daring to cut any higher because she might cut into some zillion-dollar piece of art. She started the saw, wincing at the high-pitched sound of the motor echoing off the walls, and could only hope the men outside couldn’t hear it.
She quickly cut a six-inch square in the plaster, then took the claw of her hammer and pried it away to expose the four-inch space between the two walls.
She clicked on her flashlight, leaned down, and shined it in the hole, only to gasp. The beam of her light wasn’t hitting the plasterboard of the opposite wall as it should be, but bouncing off solid steel!
Rachel sat back on her heels and stared at the hole. Dammit. Had her father lined the room with plate steel? She picked up the skill saw and stood back up, moved to the left three feet, and cut another six-inch hole at shoulder height. She took the hammer and pried out that piece of plasterboard, and then tapped on the wall through the hole, only to hear the ping of metal hitting metal.
“Dammit, Dad. You built a vault!”
Rachel spun on her heel and walked out of the closet, through the bedroom, and into the guest bedroom Kee and Mikaela had been using. She went into that closet and pushed aside the winter clothes hanging there, and without even bothering with the saw this time, drove the hammer straight through the plasterboard with one violent thrust. It bounced off the interior steel wall with a resounding ping, vibrating so painfully that she dropped the hammer and shook her hand with a curse.
Rachel could only gape at the wall, mentally trying to picture the room on the other side of the plate steel. By her estimate, it was about eight feet by eight feet square and sat between Willow’s bedroom, this spare bedroom, and her parents’ closet.
She spun on her heel and headed to Willow’s bedroom, stopping in her parents’ room only long enough to pick up the drill she’d brought up from her workshop along with the other tools. She went into Willow’s room, climbed up on the bed, took down the picture, and started drilling.
Sure enough, the drill sped through the plaster, then the four-inch air space, and started screeching the moment it hit solid steel.
“What’s going on in here?” Luke hollered up the staircase. “Are you okay, Rachel? I heard a loud bang, like you fell or something,” he said, walking down the hall, his voice moving in and out of rooms.
Rachel quickly replaced the picture and stuffed her drill and safety glasses under Willow’s pillow, jumping down from the bed just as Luke stuck his head in the door.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, leaning over to smooth the blankets. “I was just changing Willow’s bed before she gets home tonight.
“What’s that white stuff all over you?”
Rachel looked down, saw that she was covered in plaster dust, and started brushing it off. “I…uh…I dropped the laundry detergent earlier, when I put Willow’s sheets in the wash.”
“What’s that fine dust floating in the air?” Luke asked, waving his hand.
“I was sawing boards so Mikaela and I can build birdhouses this afternoon. I must have left the cellar door open.” She smiled at him. “It creates a terrible dust that lingers forever,” she said, waving her own hand.
Luke eyed her suspiciously. “This isn’t one of your ‘I’m looking for my cat’ stories, is it?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her, stepping fully into the room, and looking around.
Rachel strode past him with a smile and headed downstairs, Luke following hot on her heels. And when they walked into the kitchen, and Rachel filled a glass of water from the sink and turned to lean on the counter to drink it, Luke was still eyeing her suspiciously.
“What kind of trouble can I possibly get into in my own house?” she asked. “Or are you just suspicious by nature?”
Luke smiled sheepishly. “I guess it’s just my nature,” he admitted, going to a cupboard and taking down two glasses. “It comes with the job.”
“What is your job, exactly?” Rachel asked, turning on the faucet for him and then moving out of his way. “I’m still not sure what it is you guys do.”
His smile turned crooked, and he shrugged. “I guess you’d call us men of opportunity.” He waved his hand negligently. “We do anything from sea salvage to kidnaping negotiations. We’re hired by both governments and individuals, and sometimes by corporations who want us to track down embezzlers living off their money on small islands somewhere.”
Rachel softly whistled. “Wow. How long have you all been together?”
Luke shrugged again. “We’ve evolved over the last eight years, with a few men coming and going. We started out with just Kee, Duncan, me, and Peter. Matt and Jason came in about six years ago. Kee bought the Six-to-One Odds when Mikaela was born, to give her some sort of stability.” His smile broadened. “We inherited Ahab with the boat.”
“Then how come you didn’t name it the Seven-to-One Odds?”
“Ahab said he didn’t want any part of raising a kid.” Luke snorted. “That lasted about six months. The crusty old salt is worse than the rest of us.”
“So you just roam the world doing odd jobs,” Rachel said in conclusion. “How do you find these jobs?”
“We don’t. They find us now. We’ve built a reputation for getting things done with the least amount of…notoriety.”
“Notoriety?”
Luke took a long drink of water and nodded. “Governments have to play by the rules, but we don’t. We can just go in and get someone out, quietly, and collect our fee upon delivery.”
“So you’re bounty hunters.”
Luke refilled his glass and turned to her. “Naw, not really. Bounty hunters catch first and ask questions later. We’re hired for specific jobs. Even the sea salvage. We’re hired by individuals mostly, wanting us to raise their sunken boat or at least dive for their personal belongings if it can’t be raised.”
Rachel shivered and rubbed her arm against a sudden chill. “It sounds very dangerous,” she whispered, pointing her glass at his chest. “You got shot.”
“That was a long time ago,” he told her, picking up the second glass and filling both with water before turning back to her. “We’re a lot smarter now.” He smiled. “Having Mikaela to come home to also made us more choosy about the jobs we take.”
He walked toward the door with both glasses in his hand. “Try not to get into trouble on my shift, will you?” he said as he disappeared off the porch.
Rachel just stared at the screen door. No wonder Kee was reluctant to call the police. These men thrived on intrigue, and weren’t used to local authorities interfering.
Wow. She’d fallen in love with an adventurer.
How…interesting.
Rachel set down her glass and headed back upstairs, wondering if Kee would let her go on some of his adventures. She pulled the drill and her safety glasses from under Willow’s pillow and carried them back to her parents’ bedroom. Yeah, it would be exciting to have the world for a playground, to sleep on the schooner, and to be one of the gang.
“I’m home!” Mikaela shouted from downstairs, the screen door slamming behind her.
Rachel heard little-girl feet and wolf paws running through the living room and up the stairs. She quickly covered her tools with blankets and boxes and stepped out of the closet and into the doorway of her parents’ bedroom.
“Did you miss me?” Mikaela yelled, screeching to a halt in the hall, Mickey barely stopping before he ran into the back of her. “Are we going to build birdhouses today?”
&
nbsp; “We sure are,” Rachel promised, opening a door next to the linen closet in the hall. “But first we have to go up in the attic and look for things to decorate the birdhouses with.”
Mickey immediately ran over to the door and disappeared into the attic. Mikaela adjusted her giraffe under her arm and walked over to her. “What sorts of things?” she asked softly, peering up the dark attic stairs.
Rachel reached in and flipped on the light. “Anything that you think would look good on a birdhouse,” she told her, moving up the stairs and then reaching back for Mikaela’s hand. “Who brought you home?”
“Ahab,” Mikaela said, taking her hand, her lovely blue eyes—the mirror image of her daddy’s—rounded in curiosity. “But he said he was walking to town to see someone about a dropped anchor.”
“Who braided your hair this morning?” Rachel asked, trying not to laugh as she led Mikaela into the attic.
“Punky,” Mikaela said, fingering her crooked braid. “He gets confused sometimes and messes up.”
“How about we find our decorations, then I’ll fix your hair? I’ll lend you one of my clips until you can get your own.”
“Okay,” Mikaela said, walking over to Mickey, who had his nose pressed up against the attic window, watching Peter scrape the trim on the nearby eave.
Rachel opened the window, and Mikaela leaned out. “Hi, Punky,” she said, waving at him. “You got paint chips on your hair. Rachel and I are going to build a birdhouse.”
“In the attic?” Peter asked in surprise.
“No, in the cellar,” Mikaela told him. “We’re just looking for stuff to decorate it with. If we want the birds to come live in it, the house has to be pretty.”
Peter nodded sagely. “That makes sense.” He looked at Rachel. “I found the kayak you said was in the garage at Sub Rosa and brought it down this morning, so Willow can have her kayak back if you both want to take a paddle.”
“Thanks,” Rachel said. “But do you really think it’s necessary for one of you to always come with us? Willow and I have been paddling this coast since we were kids.”
“It’s necessary,” was all he said, turning his attention back to the trim.
“How about this?” Mikaela asked.
Rachel turned from the window to find the little girl almost buried in a box of Christmas decorations.
Mikaela straightened and held up a red tinsel garland. “Birds will like it, won’t they?”
“Too shiny,” Rachel told her, shaking her head. “It might scare them off. Let’s try over here,” she suggested, leading Mikaela to a large trunk. “Here are some old postcards and gardening books to look through. We’ll paste the pictures on the house for decoration. You sit here,” Rachel told her, setting her down on another box, “and look through this whole pile.”
Rachel waited until the girl became absorbed in her work, then walked to the area over the secret room downstairs. “I’m going to look for stuff over here,” she said, pushing a few boxes and an old chair out of the way.
She studied the roof rafters and the floor, and visually measured the distance from the chimney to where the secret room was. She continued to move items until she had an eight-by-eight-foot spot cleared off, then got down on her knees and studied the floor more closely.
A perimeter of boards had been disturbed.
But two minutes later, after prying up several of the boards, Rachel only found more plate steel covering the room’s ceiling. “Damn,” she whispered under her breath, sitting back on her heels.
“Daddy makes anyone who cusses in front of me swim around the boat,” Mikaela said, coming over with her arms full of torn-out pages and postcards. She visibly shivered.
“What happens if your daddy catches you cussing?”
“I only gotta jump in, and they pull me out by a rope tied around my waist.” She shot Rachel a smug smile. “I only cuss when we’re in warm water. Did you find some pictures, Rachel?” Mikaela asked, looking around. “None of the boxes are open.”
“I was looking for a special box. But I think you have enough there. Let’s head downstairs.”
Rachel walked over and closed and locked the attic window, seeing that Peter had already moved his ladder to the other side of the eave. She picked up Mikaela’s pictures and giraffe, then led the little girl back down the stairs.
Dammit. If the floor of the room was plate steel, as the walls and ceiling seemed to be, she was going to need a bomb to get inside.
The birds would have to be either very desperate or drunk to move into the birdhouse Rachel and Mikaela made. The lumber was covered with postcards and colorful pictures in a hodgepodge of psychedelic patterns that made Ahab’s new shirt look tame. The house tilted to the left quite a bit, and several nails had been driven only halfway in, the top half of them pounded flat by the powerful determination of a five-year-old refusing help.
Willow arrived home two hours early, just in time to help cover the birdhouse with a coat of exterior polyurethane finish. And to speed up the process, since Mikaela insisted they set the house out this evening in case any birds might be shopping for a new home tonight, they turned a fan on to help it dry.
The three of them emerged from the cellar to find Kee and Duncan and Luke sitting at the table in front of a huge stuffed turkey, a large bowl of mashed potatoes, and an even larger tossed salad.
“Where’d all this come from?” Rachel asked, leading Mikaela to the sink to wash their hands.
“Franny said she was tired of having only half of us show up for supper,” Kee told her, filling a plate for Mikaela. “She’s feeding Matt and Jason and Peter and Ahab and his crew, and sent this down for us.”
“Oh, God. It’s been years since I’ve had Franny’s cooking,” Willow said, drying her wet hands on her pants, sitting down at the table, and reaching for the salad.
Duncan beat her to the spoon, and without skipping a beat, Willow changed direction and reached for the mashed potatoes.
“I’ll get a platter to set that turkey on,” Rachel said, determined to be more civilized, wiping her hands on a towel as she headed for the pantry.
She entered the small room just off the kitchen and stopped and looked around for the platter. It had been years since they’d had a feast requiring large serving dishes.
It was as she was scanning the floor-to-ceiling shelves full of pots and pans and cooking appliances that Rachel realized she was standing in a room that was exactly eight-by-eight feet square.
And she was standing directly under the secret room!
She snapped her gaze to the ceiling, letting her eyes run from corner to corner, along the molding and back to the center light fixture.
When had that light been changed from a brass fixture to a square fluorescent light? She was sure it had been a two-bulb brass receptacle when the house had been built. But then, who paid attention to lights in pantries?
An architect intent on hiding a secret entrance, that’s who.
Rachel nearly shouted with joy. She’d found it! She had finally found the way into the secret room!
She pulled the step stool into the center of the room and climbed up, grabbed the square fixture, and wiggled it.
It wiggled back.
“Never mind the platter, Rachel,” Duncan hollered. “We can eat right out of the roaster.”
Rachel snapped her gaze to the pantry door. Damn. “I’m coming,” she hollered back, jumping down from the stool. She pushed the stool into its nook, wiped the excitement off her face, and walked back to the table.
Dinner took forever.
And washing and drying the dishes took even longer.
And the three men, their bellies full, were in no hurry to leave. Dammit. She had to get them out of the house.
“Your birdhouse should be dry by now,” Rachel offered, smiling at Mikaela. “Maybe your daddy and Duncan and Luke can help you put it up outside.”
Mikaela immediately jumped down from her stool at the island, where she’
d been talking to her giraffe, and headed toward the cellar. “Come on, Daddy. We got to get it up before the birds come out.”
Kee gave her a quick kiss on the lips. “Remind me to thank you later,” he whispered.
“Come on, Daddy! The paint is dry,” Mikaela hollered from the cellar.
Duncan came up from the cellar with a tall stake in one hand and a hammer and nails in the other. “Where do you want us to put it?” he asked.
“Anywhere,” Rachel said, gently extricating herself from Kee’s embrace. “Let Mikaela decide where she thinks a bird would like to live.”
“I can promise it won’t be in that house,” Duncan whispered with a shake of his head, moving out of the way so Kee could go downstairs and get his daughter and the birdhouse. “Were ya both drunk when ya built it?”
Willow came into the kitchen dressed in several layers of clothes. “I’m going paddling,” she said, taking down two life vests from the pegs behind the door. “Rachel, why don’t you come with me?”
Luke, who’d been rubbing his overstuffed belly, sighed. “Give me five minutes to change, ladies.”
“Why do you have to change?” Willow asked.
“Because we can’t go kayaking without a babysitter,” Rachel explained before Luke could, making a face. “Boss’s orders.”
Kee, who was just stepping out of the cellar and had heard Rachel’s answer, lifted a brow at Willow’s glare. “You either play by the rules or don’t go,” he said softly.
“I could take ya into town for an ice cream instead,” Duncan offered.
Willow snorted and pulled down another life vest for Luke. “In your dreams,” she muttered. “Come on, Rachel, go change.”
Rachel eyed the pantry door, then took off her apron and headed upstairs to change.
Dammit. She was so anxious to get into that secret room, it was all she could do not to scream in frustration. She pulled a sweater over her blouse, then slipped into a fleece jacket and zipped it up. She changed into thick fleece socks and water sneakers, and dug her paddling gloves out of the bureau before heading back downstairs.
The Seductive Impostor Page 26