Secrets

by Kristen Heitzmann

  Surprisingly, Sybil didn’t press him for anything past the concert. Maybe because of Rese and Star. Maybe she was simply changing strategy. As soon as Lance got home, he went to his room and read over the articles again.

  Nothing explained why Antonia’s father was shot down, or by whom, or how that affected the property afterward. Why had the Shepards—or the Michellis, through Marco’s marriage to Antonia—lost their land and this house where he now slept? Who was involved in the execution, and could they have driven the family away?

  If the story was hushed up, changed even as far as the police files, someone in power was behind it. And if so, what chance was there that anything of value remained? Yet Nonna’s urgency suggested that something remained to be done. It had been enough to send him there, and with God’s help he’d find her secret.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I am wise for my years, seeing beyond the surface.

  Angel sight, Nonna Carina calls it,

  the knowing of others’ pain, others’ joy.

  My heart pulses with a rhythm outside me

  that I cannot ignore.

  My spirit dances. My spirit grieves.

  My spirit knows what my mind does not.

  Even open to the air, the carriage house had a smell of age. Lance drew it in, wondering. It wouldn’t come from the stone walls, and the rafters and framing he had built over the last three days were new. The floor? Just stones on dirt. He sniffed. When he tried to smell it, he couldn’t. It only came when he first stepped inside the walls.

  He sighed. Probably his imagination. He looked down at the floor. He had trenched and laid the pipes up to the outer wall. Now he had to raise the floor to bring them in; wedge the stones up, dig under the wall, and plumb the bath. Why was he so reluctant?

  He took up the crowbar he had laid in readiness, fitted it under the first large stone and pried it loose. A pang twisted his insides. What on earth? It was only a floor, regardless of Rese’s reverence and his own admiration.

  He gripped the edge of the stone and raised it. He had numbered them with chalk to make sure he replaced them correctly when he was through. Now he set the stone aside, confident he could restore the floor when he was finished. The earth beneath it was packed hard as rock itself. He would have a time digging through that to bring in the pipes. He levered the next stone up and set it with the first.

  He had positioned the bathroom at the front of the bedroom side so he would disturb as little of the floor as possible. But he should grout it there. The previous artisan would understand that much. He levered the next stone and found rock, not dirt under that one, a rougher chalk-colored block. Huh. He wouldn’t be digging through that.

  But there it came again, the feeling of regret. He frowned. Part of him wanted to lay the stones back down and forget having a bathroom. But that was ridiculous. He could hardly ask Rese to share hers, and the others upstairs went to the guest rooms. Whoever ended up living in the carriage house needed facilities, and he was the one to build it. At least he could give the whole process the care it deserved.

  He ran a finger over the stone. It was as cool and rough as any stone not exposed to sunlight. He caught a whiff of age again and cocked his head, trying to place it and conjuring images of Italian chapels and grottos. He pictured Cousin Conchessa with her black veil and beads.

  Lance shook his head. He was going off the deep end. He put the crowbar under the next stone and raised it. Rock underneath again. They had built the carriage house over bedrock. He would not get pipes through that. But then he saw the seam. Throat tightening, Lance set the floor paver aside and studied the rocks underneath. They were mortared together. Definitely not natural.

  An older floor from a previous building? Maybe this wasn’t even the original carriage house, just a garage added later. He jammed the crowbar into the dirt beside the rock and worked it down. It ground up its side, but did not lift an edge. He thrust deeper into the same hole. Again it scraped the side without lifting it. The stones were obviously thicker than the pavers of his current floor.

  Lance got the shovel and with difficulty cleared a foot deep at the side of the rock. Another shovelful revealed another seam of mortar. They were blocks about a foot wide and eight inches deep. This was a manmade structure. A tomb? He shuddered. Was that what he’d sensed? Maybe they’d buried Vito Shepard right there. A mass for family only. He rested the shovel blade on the stone.

  He’d wanted to dig up the truth, but not literally. If this was the tomb of his great-grandfather, or anyone else for that matter …

  He could reframe the bathroom elsewhere, but then he’d have to trench again and who knew what else he’d find under the floor. Besides, there was no proof it was a tomb. What else then? He eyed the ground with no ready answers, but maybe it was a mistake to cover it before he knew. If something was hidden on the estate, it just might be underground. Then why didn’t his heart quicken as it had with the box? Why did he feel a dull sorrow as though … something had been lost?

  Lance scanned the floor. The part he’d unearthed was a solid block anyway. He’d need a jackhammer to get through there. If it continued in either direction there might be an opening, and he’d keep that option available. He could bring the pipes in at a slightly different spot beside the mortared blocks without changing the placement of the fixtures too much. He walked out and eyed the trench. It would work. For now, he would leave it undisturbed and bring the pipes in beside it.

  He dug out the section beside the rock, working hard to penetrate ground long undisturbed. He tunneled under the wall and connected his trench from the other side. Then he brought the pipe through, but the whole time he worked, he wondered about the blocks. How far under the floor did they go? How far toward the villa? Was there an opening? To what?

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm and saw Rese approaching. He stood up quickly and met her just outside.

  “The kitchen equipment came. I checked the shipping receipt and accepted delivery.”

  He rested on the shovel. “Great.” He should be more excited. He really did want to do a good job of it for as long as he was there. But his thoughts were so steeped in the past it was hard to consider the present. And what was the future?

  She said, “I’ll let you organize it all.”

  “Good.” He smiled. The less interference he had in the kitchen the better. If that even mattered.

  “How’s it coming?”

  He looked down at the trench. “I’m ready to plumb.” If she didn’t go inside he would say nothing about the rock whatever-it-was.

  But she walked through the opening. “I see you had to raise the pavers. I guessed you would.”

  He turned his eyes skyward, and a moment later she asked, “What’s this rock in here?”

  It was actually out there as well. He had found it with the shovel. It was certainly long enough so far to be a tomb. He walked inside. “I’m not sure. Maybe just bedrock.”

  She knelt and scrutinized it as he’d hoped she would not. “No. It has mortar.”

  “An old foundation maybe.”

  She glanced up. “The blocks are stacked. It’s a wall or something.”

  He should have filled that revealing hole. “It might be a tomb.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  He told her what he’d learned from Sybil, both the unpublished article and the conflicting obituary.

  She looked up from her squat. “You think it’s this Vito Shepard’s tomb?”

  He shrugged. “Could be.”

  She stood up. “And you just kept digging?”

  “Gotta get the pipe in somewhere.”

  She frowned. “Why bury someone here?”

  “If it was all hushed up or scandalous, the family might have buried him here and made a good job of it.”

  She looked into the hole again, clearly skeptical, but not a hundred percent sure he wasn’t right. “It could be something else, though. A root cellar, maybe.”r />
  His breath caught—or a wine cellar. It would do no good to get her thoughts going that direction. She’d want to excavate, and whatever element of secrecy he hoped for would be lost.

  He notched his brows together. “Under the carriage house? That doesn’t make sense. I had to raise the floor to find it. Quite a hassle if you need potatoes.” And a wine cellar would have been in the house, maybe that immense pantry. Sure, convince yourself. He couldn’t look at her. “You want me to dig it up?” There, he’d made an effort.

  She shot him a glance. “Right.”

  “Might be perfectly harmless.”

  “Might be a whole mausoleum.” She cocked her jaw and studied the hole. “Do you think people … go somewhere after death?”

  “One way or the other.”

  She looked unconvinced. “Could some get lost?”

  “You mean hang around as ghosts?”

  “Don’t answer that.” She held her hands up. “You better cover it up. I don’t want any more moaning in the attic.”

  He should tell her the open window had made the noise, but just now her superstition might gain him some privacy. In compromise, he offered a slim comfort. “I haven’t heard anything. And I’m right beneath it.”

  She nodded. “Too many ghost tales. Mom loved them.”

  “You didn’t?” He set the shovel against the wall.

  “Not exactly.” She enclosed herself in her arms and shivered.

  He cocked his head. “The way you scoured the house that night for spooks, I thought you were immune.”

  “Better than waiting for them to get me.”

  He studied her face. “You could have left.”

  “I don’t run away.” Maybe to prove her nerve, she squatted down and rubbed the dirt from the mortar between the two blocks. “Aren’t tombs marble or something?”

  “Not if you live in Sonoma with a quarry and stonecutters. And you have a body that needs burial.”

  “But wouldn’t it be deeper?”

  “Not if it had an entrance.”

  She jumped up, hand to her throat, then turned with a glare.

  He smiled. “I’ll get it closed up by tonight.”

  “Make sure it’s not … disturbed.”

  “Cross my heart.” He made the motion. He’d taken a chance with the tomb theory, and it seemed to have warded her off. He wanted to explore this possibility alone, but he would not be disturbing whatever was there. He was part of it.

  Rese had intended to ask him about the popping sound in the wall, but with all the talk of tombs and ghosts, she’d have sounded paranoid. It could have been air in a pipe or any number of structural shiftings. She only imagined it sounded like a gunshot because of Evvy’s story. In fact, she had no idea what a gunshot sounded like, not through a wall or any other way.

  Lance’s recounting of the newspaper article had recalled the noise to her, but she would have been ridiculous saying, “Hey, I heard that gunshot in the wall.” But had she? People said old walls had ears, old houses remembered. Had Vito been shot in the parlor? Had a bullet struck that wall and the sound waves gotten trapped and…

  She clenched her hands into fists. Don’t be stupid, her dad would say. Plaster and wood don’t have memories. So, air in a pipe, then. Not worth mentioning to Lance. The real question was why he had articles about the villa. And why he hadn’t told her before.

  She sighed. Maybe this whole thing was crazy. Tombs underground, noises overhead, a business she knew nothing about running. It was Dad’s dream to fix up a place of their own; her idea to make it an inn, make it profitable so she could walk away from construction. What had she been thinking? Dad would never have left the work they loved … the work that killed him.

  Rese’s stomach clenched. He had always said someday. And then he had no more somedays. That was why she had to make this work. That and her meltdown after his death. She pressed a hand to her temple. She could not go on with the crews as before. Even if they would cooperate, she couldn’t do it. The sounds, the work itself was forever connected to that night. She had to get through this one last renovation in his memory, and then she hoped to never wield a saw again.

  That talk of death and murder in the house had supercharged her memories. Or maybe they were there already, waiting for her resistance to break down. Star’s tears had left her drained and listless and sleeping through the day; Rese could not afford to let down.

  She sanded the bookshelves until there was no flaw her fingers could detect, then brushed on stain. She knew this work and if she could keep the thoughts and memories away, she could complete it in a way that would have made Dad proud. A final tribute to all he had taught her. And then what?

  In spite of the pain, renovating was the easy part; redefining herself was another thing. As Lance so kindly pointed out, she did not have the hospitality personality. Was it something she could learn? Or did it take someone like Lance whose natural charisma drew people in and made them do and think and feel things they never would have without him?

  She shut down that thought. This was her inn, and she would be and do whatever it took, regardless of Lance. He worked for her, and she couldn’t expect him to carry it, not when his track record showed she’d be replacing him sooner rather than later. She knew better than to depend on anyone but herself.

  Rese went into the office to work on the Web site. She still needed pictures of Lance’s room. She’d ask him when he came in. Her stomach growled. They had worked all through lunch and evening drew on. Better yet, she’d ask him now.

  She went back out and saw that he had connected the pipes for his bathroom fixtures, plumbed the sink and stool, and was installing the selfcontained shower halfway over the floor where the blocks lay. So that was settled.

  “Lance, I need to get some pictures of your room for the Web site.”

  He looked up from his knees. “Uh … the maid hasn’t been in yet.”

  “I can straighten it up.” She had cleaned up after Dad many times.

  He sat back on his heels. “Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  She shrugged. “I guess so.” She had plenty of other things to do. “By the way, Star’s offered to clean.”

  He wiped his hands on his jeans. “I thought you wouldn’t—”

  “She needs to stay awhile.” Rese didn’t want to tell him much, but added, “She’s having a hard time and … if she cleans the rooms, you could landscape.”

  He studied her a moment, then said, “That’s one less room to rent.”

  “If I need it, I’ll move her in with me.” They’d spent plenty of nights together. Some Dad didn’t even know about, when Star climbed in through her window, shaking and ravenous and half wild with pain.

  Lance bent back over his work. “Okay.”

  It was her decision, but his agreement felt good anyway. She should let him get back to work. She should do the same. But she said, “Can you think of something that might make a strange pop inside a wall?”

  He looked up. “Pop?”

  “Kind of a bang. Muffled.” She huffed. “I was working in the parlor, and I heard something like a muffled gunshot.”

  He gave her just the look she expected. “Gunshot.”

  She was in deep now; may as well complete the thought. “Maybe that’s where Vito was shot. What if people are playing games and reading there and … hear gunshots or see blood spots appear on the walls?”

  He crouched back and laughed. “Quite a wild imagination, Theresa.”

  She scowled. “Do not call me that.”

  His whole face entered into his smile, even when he was mocking her.

  She raised her chin. “So I should forget about it?”

  He looked through the opening toward the house. “If the place is haunted, we’ll know soon enough.”

  Why was that not comforting? Dad would tell her not to be silly. Death was the end of it. There were no spirits going to heaven or eternal flames below. Life ended. Bodies went back to the earth. W
as it true? She certainly sensed nothing of her father. He was gone. She had watched the life leave him, then held him lifeless.

  “Are you okay?”

  She looked at Lance. He was altogether too perceptive.

  She drew a long breath. “Yes.”

  “Sure?”

  She was not going to fall apart on him again. “Well, I am hungry.”

  His smile was way too soothing. It crept inside and made him matter. That bothered her. It bothered her that she wanted his opinion, sought his advice. It had bothered her that Sybil hung on his arm last evening. It shouldn’t matter, the attention Lance was bound to attract. But in the time he’d been there he had begun to matter.

  Maybe she’d photograph him for the Web site. Chef Michelli’s creations. Definitely a good idea. They’d reserve every room. And a poster for the entertainment, with Lance smiling over his guitar. That would bring them in droves. Her stomach twisted.

  “Rese?”

  “What?”

  “I asked what you wanted to eat.”

  She shook herself. “Oh. Anything.” She could accept the comfort of his food.

  So they were back to that, were they? Fine—anything then. He pulled open the refrigerator, took out the bread and … boiled ham. Perfect. He flung together two sandwiches, added a handful of potato chips to each plate and set hers on the table. “Dinner is served,” he called and sat down with his own. Thanks for the food, Lord. He’d had worse in his college starvation days.

  Rese came back, surprised. “That was quick. I was asking Star if…” She glanced down at the plates with a studied expression that showed no disappointment. She had the stone look down well. “… she wanted to eat, but she’s not hungry.”

  He hadn’t even thought of Star. She’d been holed up since the jazz fest, barely showing her face. How Rese thought she’d get any work out of her was beyond him. But hey, he’d give up the bathrooms.