Secrets

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “Care to join me?”

  She rested one hand on the small of her back and looked him over. “Sure.”

  Well, what do you know. He hadn’t contracted leprosy. Lance made Baxter stay outside the door, then motioned Sybil ahead of him as they passed under the balcony into the front lobby. The historical placard outside said it had been General Vallejo’s home in 1850. A glassed-in display cabinet behind the desk showed the original adobe bricks that made up what would have been the back wall.

  The dining room behind the lobby was of newer construction, but Sybil informed him the same family had run the place for four generations. It was nice to converse with a woman who understood normal interaction. No big come-on, but she was obviously interested in what he might have to say. Not only that, she waxed rhapsodic when she learned he could cook.

  “I fantasize about men in the kitchen.”

  Okay, so it was a big come-on. But after Rese, was that so bad?

  She took a bite of steak between her teeth. If Rese was all back off, Sybil was the opposite. She closed her eyes and softly moaned. “Gourmet breakfasts?”

  “I might be cooking dinner specials as well.”

  Her lids rose to half mast. “Dinner before and breakfast after. Perfect.”

  What had they put in her drink?

  She said, “Tell me how you learned to cook.”

  Good safe family lore. “My grandmother taught me.”

  “Your grandmother?” Sybil obviously hadn’t expected that.

  He described the hours spent in the restaurant with Nonna, the herbs and spices that had developed his nose, the aromas wafting from the kitchen out to the street. His heart swelled and squeezed with the memories.

  Knowing how frustrated and alone she must feel, he prayed Nonna would be home soon from the rehab facility. Visits from the family were not the same as being the heart of it, as she’d always been. But he didn’t want to go into that with Sybil.

  “I started helping in her kitchen when I was seven, was pulling down a wage by thirteen. I learned to do it all by taste and touch.”

  Sybil’s lips parted as she made more of that than he’d meant. Given the shape and scent of her, it could easily go to his head. He knew the signals, and they were all green lights. But that was not his intention.

  He paid for their meal and picked up the scraps he had bagged for Baxter. Then he walked Sybil out and squelched any further thoughts she might have. “I better get Baxter home. Thanks for joining me.”

  With Baxter between his arms, he drove to the hotel that cost him a hundred eighty-five bucks a night plus a fee for Baxter. Rese’s offer was looking better and better. He sprawled across the bed and dialed his parents’ number on his cell. There was no answer, so he called his own apartment and got Chaz.

  “No change, mon. All things in God’s time.”

  “You only say that because you’re not from New York. We natives have a custom. It’s called storming the gates.”

  “I saw something like that last night. Not pretty.”

  “Did Rico survive?”

  Chaz laughed. “He wasn’t in it, mon.”

  “Well, don’t tell him what he missed. I’m not there to get him out.”

  “He wants to talk about that.”

  “I’m sure.” Lance squeezed his forehead. “Don’t tell him I called.”

  “The Lord detests lying lips.”

  “I’m not asking you to lie, Chaz. Just don’t offer him the bait. Is he playing tonight?”

  “Somewhere. He’ll come home whining.”

  “No doubt.” Lance stretched and yawned, then signed off and lay there, tired enough to sleep just like that, his body feeling the physical labor more than it should. Maybe he was a wimp. Scrawny, weak, and stylish, as Rese said. She was probably solid rebar.

  But as he dozed, he wondered if she was afraid in the big, old, creaky house. He shouldn’t have said haunted. But then, she deserved it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Rese sat on the edge of her bed, elbows to her knees, chin in her palms. It was ridiculous to imagine ghostly specters traversing the halls upstairs, congregating in the attic. She didn’t believe in ghosts or Mom’s banshees, even if it had sounded like it.

  “What’s a banshee, Mommy?”

  “A wailing spirit that cries almost as loudly as you.”

  “Why does it cry?”

  “Because someone’s going to die.”

  Mom and her banshees. But Rese glanced around the room, got up and closed her door, then made sure the window was locked. Stupid. Mom’s fanciful notions only superseded Dad’s practicality at night—when she was vulnerable. Rese jerked a glance over her shoulder, then scolded herself.

  Dad would say she was being ridiculous, and he should know. It had been Dad and her since she was nine years old. He had come to the school every day to pick her up in his big truck. She’d done her homework at whatever million-dollar renovation he was on. And once her lessons were done she’d started her real learning. Dad said she noticed things no one else would. And she had pointed them out to his crew—anything cut wrong or nailed carelessly, especially the finish carpentry. She was a stickler for perfection. If something didn’t match up, do it over.

  By the time she was fourteen she was handling the tools herself. At twenty-one, she took charge of Dad’s second crew. She made sure nothing they did was substandard to his. And she didn’t care at all what they thought about that, or the snide remarks they made. She pretended not to mind the pranks either, but they were harder to ignore, especially when they got cruel.

  Rese curled up on the bed. Her stomach growled. She should have eaten. She could go out now to the kitchen just on the other side of the hall. But then she’d be out in the big, dark space. There were no noises like the night before, no howling in the attic, but the silence was almost worse. It had a gobbling intensity she could almost put fangs to. Good grief. She should make herself do it. But she lifted the covers and hunkered in.

  Every time she started to doze, she thought she heard something. Had Lance been serious? Did he see something in the attic he hadn’t wanted her to know about? Mom had told her tales that would never have been admitted into children’s literature. But that wasn’t what she really feared. It was him. The “friend.” She hadn’t thought about him in a long time. Why was he surfacing now?

  Because Dad was no longer snoring in their home? He had always provided a barrier. Mom’s “friend” left when Dad came home—or at least she and Mom didn’t talk to him when Dad was there. The pain of missing her father clenched her insides. She had never been alone until now; at twentyfour, had never lived without him. They were partners. She had skipped college to work with him, developing the knowledge of wood and stain and paint and pipes. They had a thriving business, until…

  Now the other images pressed in. Rese gave up. She turned on the lamp and clicked the remote on her bedside table, getting something brainless on the small TV across the room. Some people read books to help them sleep. She wasn’t big on that. Dad either. She could not remember him ever once reading a book. The newspaper every day, but never once a story for enjoyment. “Life has enough lies; why should I read someone else’s?”

  It had been Mom who loved stories. And Dad had a point. Rese sighed. Those were mixed memories. She leaned her head back and flipped through the channels, not interested in the reruns or late-night shows that flashed across the screen. With how hard she worked during the day, she should be able to sleep at night. Fighting with Lance hadn’t helped. Why did he take everything so personally?

  Rese punched the pillow and shoved it back behind her, trying to focus on the Subaru commercial and forget that she was alone in a house that fairly breathed on its own. Last night’s moans had become a brooding silence.

  She should walk through the place, every room, even the attic, and prove to herself there was nothing there. Of course, nothing was there. She didn’t have to prove it. She knew all about old houses. Sh
e’d torn them apart and viewed them from the guts out.

  Guts. She closed her eyes and shuddered. This was ridiculous. Take control! She tossed the remote down and threw off the covers. Just to the kitchen for food. No. She couldn’t stand in the cavernous kitchen without knowing the rest of the place was empty. She pressed a hand to her breastbone and opened her bedroom door.

  The narrow hall was silent. She opened the door to the kitchen. Darkness engulfed her, and she fumbled for the wall switch. Her palm rubbed the wall until she found it, but no light came on. Right. That light had yet to be rewired. Only the gas stove and refrigerator were operational. But the stove’s overhead light would work.

  She crossed the hard tile floor. A warm glow burst around her when her finger found the switch. With several breaths to calm herself, she made her way from the kitchen to the dining room. She turned the dimmer only enough to illumine the space. No ghosts. She passed into the front parlor. It had originally been two small parlors that she had opened into one because of the damage to the dividing wall. Empty now, it seemed overly large, but furnished with conversational sitting groups, it would be a nice place to serve the afternoon hors d’oeuvres.

  The staircase rose up from the far side. Maybe she’d convinced herself already. She didn’t have to go up. “Chicken. You’re nothing but a chicken girl.” Bobby Frank was a jerk. She didn’t have to prove anything to him. But she had. She’d climbed all the way up the tree to the wasps’ nest and earned the stings to prove it.

  Rese swallowed. “All right, Bobby. Watch this.” She started up the staircase. The wood stayed quiet beneath her feet. She reached the wide, ovalshaped landing and walked into the first bedroom. Empty. She moved from room to room, leaving the lights on and the doors open.

  Now for the attic. She was not giving up without finishing the job. Besides, she hadn’t seen how much Lance had cleared out since he notified her of the mice. The thought of something warm and living—even a rodent—seemed almost comforting at the moment. Too bad they’d gotten traps. Well, at least she could see whether the traps had done any good.

  Rese took a deep breath, pulled open the attic door, and started up the creaking stairs, groping as the light from the hall diminished the higher she went. A light over the stairs would be a good idea. Maybe Lance could wire it. But then, after this she would have no need to go into the attic after dark. Her toe caught on the edge of a step and she stumbled, gripping the single wooden rail and listening for murmurs overhead.

  Had the spirits huddled together in some dark corner, waiting for her head to appear over the edge of the floor? She swallowed hard, then climbed into the attic, breathing the smell of dust and mice and old vinyl. Lance had cleared the whole front area. The empty floor lay pale under the moonlight.

  Okay, she’d gotten a look. No, she had to walk in and turn on the light, let the banshees know that no one was dying tonight. No leprechauns, no fairies, no howling ghosts. She reached for the chain and stopped. What if she pulled it and mice scurried across her feet?

  Rese let her hand drop. She’d proved enough. No bogeymen, nothing to go bump in the night. She left the light off, backed down the stairs and closed the door behind her, then turned off the hall and bedroom lights. She was alone, not a spook in sight. And especially no “friend.”

  She went down the main stairs and turned off the entry light, the parlor lights, dining room, then kitchen. She opened the door to her hall and shrieked, then punched the shadowy figure as hard as she could.

  “Ow.” He caught her hands.

  Lance? She couldn’t see him well in the dark hall, but she knew his voice. Breath burst from her lungs, and she dropped her head to the wrists confined at his chest, feeling so weak she wanted to punch him again.

  “Calm down before you hurt someone.”

  “You deserved it.” Her chest heaved. If he thought this was funny …

  “You’re shaking like a wet dog.”

  “What do you expect?” She tried to break loose. “Let me go.”

  “Not until you’re through throwing punches.”

  She jerked one hand free. “I’m through.” But he’d better have a good reason for haunting her hall when she’d told him not to pass the door. “What are you doing in here?”

  “I came to tell you I was moving in my stuff. I didn’t want to worry you.” Still gripping her other wrist, he walked her into the kitchen and turned on the stove light. “I called to you through the door.”

  “I was in the attic.”

  He half turned, and the light reflected in his obsidian eyes. “What were you doing up there?”

  “Checking the traps.”

  He rubbed a thumb along the edge of his mouth, clearly skeptical.

  “I was inspecting your work.”

  “With the light off?”

  She tugged her wrist free. “How do you know it was off?”

  “I looked up the stairs first. The attic was dark, but everything else was lit up like Christmas.”

  She could well imagine what he was thinking. She ran both hands through her hair. “Well, stay out of my suite from now on. It’s private.”

  He nudged her into a kitchen chair. “You’re still shaking.”

  “I was fine until you jumped me.”

  “I was only coming out.”

  She pressed her palms to the table. “From where you weren’t supposed to be.”

  He sat down across from her. “What were you doing in the attic?”

  She clenched her fists. “I was checking out the house.”

  He raised his brows. “For spooks?”

  She glared.

  “You are tough. I’m not sure I’d go into that attic in the dark. But then I know what’s up there.”

  “Don’t start.”

  He laughed. “I meant of a natural kind.”

  She rubbed her eyes.

  “Tired?”

  She nodded. It was after midnight. Not that it meant anything to her brain. She had this duel all too often. But what was he doing moving in at that hour?

  “I’d make you a steamer if we had our latté machine.”

  She peeked through her fingers. “Steamer?”

  “Steamed milk with, hmm, amaretto syrup.”

  “Sounds good.” She dropped her hands to the table.

  He leaned on his forearms. “Order our machine.”

  She could feel the heat from his hands inches from hers, like static leaping from one source to another. Our machine. She was too tired to argue semantics. He’d be the one using it anyway. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Raspberry truffle latté. Peppermint mocha.”

  She swallowed. “Why did you come back?”

  “So you could pummel me in the dark.” He sat back and studied her.

  She sighed. “I need to go to bed.”

  “I’ll be quiet.”

  She pushed up from the table and went into her room, comforted in spite of the scare he’d given her. It hadn’t been an intruder she had feared when the figure moved in the dark. Or even a ghost. She had thought she was seeing Walter at last.

  Though he hadn’t meant to scare her, there resided near his solar plexus a wicked satisfaction. That was twice she’d attacked him in fear—no doubt about her place on the fight or flight spectrum, which begged the question why he had worried about her being alone in the big house. But it had nagged him until he acted on it, even though he’d already paid for the hotel. Some excessive urge to protect, or an overblown attempt to feel necessary.

  Lance went out and brought his backpack and guitar in. She’d said he could pick any room, so he headed up the stairs with his gear. He chose the room nearest the stairs and the entrance to the attic. A nautical theme of the ancient mariner sort. It was done simply in navy and beige with a walnut highboy, a black iron bed and a strapped trunk at its foot. A ship in a bottle, naturally, on the mantle over the small brazier. An old watercolor of a boat in tempestuous waters over the bed, a net and harpoon on t
he side wall, and a captain’s chair in the corner.

  He sat on the bed and bounced lightly. She’d bought quality. He glanced through the bookshelf that held a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Melville’s Moby Dick—as though anyone would stay long enough to read that—a collection of seafaring poems and a history of whaling.

  Was Rese sleeping yet? He had worried about her being scared, then done the very thing he was trying to avoid. It wasn’t his fault, though. He had called out to her, then headed down the hall when he got no answer. A tool-wielding woman was not the sort to surprise in the dark, though she’d seemed anything but formidable.

  He sat down on the bed. The way Rese had shaken in his grip, her fear must have built longer than the jolt he’d given her. Checking out the house? How many people would face the place alone at night when her mind must have already been churning?

  This house didn’t scare him. If there were ghosts, they would know him. Maybe help him. But Rese was a stranger, there by happenstance. She had no history, no blood to connect her. Strange how that sent a sense of responsibility coursing through him. Rese Barrett was not his responsibility, but he would tread carefully for her sake. Not that she would return the favor, were the roles reversed. But that didn’t matter.

  Lord, help me do this without hurting her in the process. He dropped to his knees and rested his forehead on his clasped knuckles, seeking direction and wisdom, two things that always seemed just out of reach. He knew it was there for those who sought. “Seek and you will find.” But sometimes he felt like the last kid in a game of sardines, searching and searching for the others all crammed together in the hiding space while he kept walking by in the dark. He climbed into the bed and opened the small, gilt-paged Bible. The ribbon was in Matthew where he’d left off.

  Red ink caught his eye, setting off the Lord’s words. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ ”

  Lance pondered that. It wasn’t new, or even difficult. He was ready and willing. He’d taken up many crosses, some not even his own, standing as a kid with the weak, the rejected, the picked-on. Momma had treated his bruises, saying, “Your heart gets you in trouble, Lance, but never stop hearing it.” Dad usually added, “You might listen to your brain sometimes.”