Close to Home

by Lisa Jackson

  He knew the place, had frequented it himself on occasion.

  “So she left work around midnight, clocked out at eleven fifty-three, but never made it home.”

  “Runaway?” he asked.

  “Possibly.” Lucy’s eyebrows drew together the way they always did when she was tasked with a problem she couldn’t figure out. “She’s had some trouble at school, but Sharon called around and the people who worked with her saw her leave, walking. One of the other waitresses, Gloria Netterling, offered to give her a lift, but the girl declined. Decided to walk.”

  “Last night,” he said, thoughtfully and tapped his fingers on his desk. “Bad weather.”

  “Yeah.” Bellisario was nodding, her hair catching fire in the light from the overhead fixtures. “It’s about a twenty- to twenty-five-minute walk, so she should have been home by twelve-thirty at the latest. Her mom and stepdad, Mel Updike, were already at home, in bed, with the TV on. They figured she’d come in, and only the next morning did they realize she hadn’t come home. Sharon didn’t push the panic button because it had happened before, but by afternoon, she was worried and started calling around to Rosalie’s usual haunts. Drove to the diner and back, talked to everyone there, then called all her friends. No one had seen her since she walked out the door of the diner.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “None currently, though Sharon said Rosalie had mentioned a boy she’d met online. Sharon doesn’t even know his name, only that he claims he’s from around Denver, where her ex, Rosalie’s dad, lives.”

  “Online? How the hell does that work when you’re a teenager?”

  “I don’t know, but probably the way it does for adults.”

  “What about a car?” he asked.

  “She didn’t own one. Used her mom’s Chevy when she needed one, or walked, sometimes hitched.”

  Cooke locked gazes with Bellisario. The hitchhiking thing was a flag.

  “There are other vehicles in the house. Updike has a truck and motorcycle, and they’re all accounted for.”

  “Siblings?”

  “None who live with her. And only half siblings at that, a couple of ’em. Live with their dad. Updike’s got a handful, also. None of whom are in state.”

  “What about her dad?” He held up a hand and clarified, “I mean the biological father? The guy in Denver. She call him?”

  “Mick Jamison. Yeah, she called him. Woke him up. He lives with wife number two, a woman Sharon doesn’t like or trust.”

  “Does the first wife ever trust the second?” he asked rhetorically, the wheels in his head turning. “The dad and online boyfriend, both in Colorado. What’re the chances of that?”

  “Maybe they know each other.”

  “Check ’em out. Both of ’em.”

  “Already started.”

  Cooke rapped his fingers on the desktop. He didn’t like the sound of this one little bit. “You got pictures?”

  “Sharon supplied me and Missing Persons with a couple of recent shots, along with the pic and info on her driver’s license. We’ve already put a BOLO out on her and, considering her age, an AMBER Alert.”

  “So much for the twenty-four-hour waiting period.”

  “She’s a kid, Sheriff. And I’m going with my gut on this one.”

  “Okay.” He too had a bad feeling. “Start checking with friends, work with Missing Persons, look into the stepdad and old boyfriends, as well as the kid who’s supposed to be in Denver. If she met him online he could be anywhere. Maybe even just down the road. Someone who knows she’s got a dad in Colorado and is using it as bait to get close to her. You know, an opening. For that matter, the online guy might not be a teenager at all. Could be an adult. A poser.” He let out a long breath and thought of his own teenaged kids, who lived in Portland with their mom. He knew how it felt when one didn’t show up when they were supposed to, though he’d lucked out and Hallie and Ben had always been okay. “Let’s just hope she has a rebellious streak, took off, and has a change of heart. That way she’ll come home on her own.”

  Lucy Bellisario’s gray eyes met his. “That would be best,” she agreed, but she didn’t look as if she had much hope of that particular scenario happening.

  Neither did he.

  CHAPTER 6

  The ghost had been trying to communicate with her—Gracie was sure of it as she stood just on the other side of the wall to the dining room, eavesdropping on the conversation between her mother and uncles. She’d been terrified on the staircase, never expecting such a close encounter, but the woman in white had been trying to tell her something. And Gracie had been too scared to realize it until now.

  It hadn’t been a dream.

  She hadn’t imagined the ghost.

  But in the light of day, having had time to think about it, she realized that the spirit of Angelique Le Duc was reaching out to her.

  She’d blown it and now had to do something about it. She’d read enough history about Blue Peacock Manor to know that Angelique might not be the only ghost haunting the place; lots of people had lived and died here, and many of them were interred in the family plot somewhere on the property. Gracie had already been researching the people who had lived in the house and around the area.

  But she had to keep what she was doing to herself. If she was to communicate with the ghost, maybe help her spirit cross over—which was what all ghosts seemed to want to do—then she would have to keep her mouth shut. Otherwise, her mother would haul her back to see the psychologist again, just as she had after the divorce. No thanks. Gracie wasn’t nuts, she knew that much; she just sensed more things than most people, which freaked out her mother but made Gracie feel somehow complete.

  She just had to figure out how to use this gift she’d been given.

  “Just so we’re on the same page,” Jacob said, always one to clarify a situation. He was the more nervous of her twin brothers, and that’s how a lot of people told the two men apart. Their faces were nearly identical, their hair a dusty blond, their eyes sky blue, their builds athletic and broad-shouldered. But Joseph usually presented an easy smile, while Jacob’s forehead was already lined from years of pulling his eyebrows together. Today, there were more obvious distinctions, as Jacob’s hair was clipped and short, while Joseph’s was longer and disheveled, his jeans worn, his shirt with a few wrinkles, the sleeves rolled up. Jacob, on the other hand, was wearing a polo shirt and crisply pressed khakis and appeared ready to step onto the first tee of a country club. “Once the renovations are complete, we sell this thing.”

  “Or you lease it to me, until I can buy it.” She eyed both her brothers. “That was the deal, remember? That we wouldn’t sell as long as Mom’s alive.”

  Jacob’s eyes darkened. “That could be decades!”

  “We can only hope,” Joseph said, “Geez, Jake.”

  “It’s not that I want her dead. Come on, you both know that. Even though, face it, Mom’s always been a pain in the butt.” He looked from his twin to his sister. “Oh, what? You don’t think so?”

  Rolling her eyes, Sarah said, “Fine,” and caught a bemused glance from Joseph.

  “I mean it, Sarah,” Jake said, “I’m not the one with a problem with Mom.”

  Joseph held up both hands. “We all have a problem with Mom.”

  “Enough! You guys didn’t come out here to badmouth Mother, so let’s get back on track, to the renovations,” Sarah said. “So here’s what we’ve got.” Sarah flattened the rolled plans across the table and secured the corners with dusty books she’d found in the library area of the parlor. A worn edition of The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty held one corner fast, while a gnawed copy of Louise May Alcott’s Little Women anchored another.

  “Here are the original plans,” she said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Look at the date. Nineteen twenty-one.” The brittle pages were yellowed, grimy, and covered in pencil notes. Smudged fingerprints and stains of undeterminable origin discolored the drawings.
With great care, Sara stretched the fragile, often unintelligible pages. “The original house was pretty amazing, especially for the time. It had running water and electricity, which was huge. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal in a large city like San Francisco or even Portland, but out here that was a real accomplishment. Remember, the highway, I mean the old historic highway, wasn’t completely finished until nineteen twenty-two.” The faded architect’s plans showed the house as it had been built by Maxim Stewart, Sarah’s great-great-grandfather. “Maxim was an autocrat, by all accounts, and always got his way.”

  Jacob caught the mention of their ancestor. “Maxim? Isn’t that the old coot who killed his second wife? Angeline or something.”

  “Angelique,” Sarah corrected. “That’s the story.”

  “You see her ghost running around yet? Isn’t she the one who’s supposed to haunt the place?”

  Sarah felt a chill that started at the base of her spine and crawled upward, but she thought she’d keep Gracie’s ghost sightings to herself. “Rumors,” she said. “People in a small town like to talk, live vicariously, or, better yet, exaggerate and make up stories.”

  Jacob said, “Yeah, but even you said you saw her.”

  “I was a kid,” Sarah snapped, a little too quickly. Her daughter’s panic attack from the night before was still too fresh. “Now, come on, we’ve got work to do.” While Jacob shrugged, dismissing the ghost, Joseph’s gaze lingered thoughtfully on her. She ignored them both and rolled out the second set of plans, dated 1950, and pointed out the addition of a bathroom and expansion of the kitchen. Finally, she spread architect’s drawings from 1978, which included yet another kitchen remodel, more electrical panels, the addition of a patio off the back porch, and a master bathroom that cut into an existing walk-in linen closet.

  Joseph studied each set. “Just about as many reincarnations as there have been generations.”

  “Not quite,” Sarah said.

  “And now we have to do it all over again.” He grimaced, then gave a cursory look at the place. “Isn’t this just cosmetic?”

  “I wish. I’ve only looked over the first two floors, still have the third, attic, and widow’s walk to check over and the basement.”

  Joseph’s brows lifted. “You’re going down there? Seems to me you were deathly afraid of it.”

  “Maybe because you two jerks locked me down there.”

  Jacob pulled a face. “Sorry.”

  “If I remember right, we paid,” Joseph said, and Sarah inwardly cringed as she recalled the lashing the boys had gotten from Arlene when she’d discovered Sarah, age six, trapped and crying on the top step of the long staircase leading to the basement.

  “Yes, I’m going down there and take inventory,” Sarah said.

  “And the widow’s walk?” Jacob said. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”

  She actually smiled. “I’m not the same little girl you teased and bullied.”

  “So it seems.” Jacob actually smiled. The twins too had grown up, and she saw no reason to go into the trauma she’d endured at their hands, though the incident on the roof had not had anything to do with them, or so they’d sworn over and over again. Rather than dredge it all up now, she said, “As for everything just being cosmetic, Jacob, look at the size of this house. Cosmetic costs. And, unfortunately, it runs a little deeper than just a tiny face-lift.”

  Jacob’s smile fell away.

  “I think I hear the sound of a bulldozer’s engine revving up in his head,” Joseph said. He leaned in and added, “I’m a little clairvoyant, you know, with him. It’s a twin thing.”

  “Oh, shut up.” Jacob stared out the window to the grounds outside. Rolling pastures butted up to forested hills on one side; on the other lay the wild Columbia. “But, you know, the value of the property is the land. The house is a mess, falling down. Maybe Joe’s right.”

  Joseph threw up his hands and took a step backward. “I didn’t suggest tearing down the house. I just mentioned I figured that’s the route you’d want to go.”

  “It’s the most practical,” Jacob encouraged.

  “This is history, Jake,” Sarah cut in, jabbing a finger at the original drawings before the two could start teasing and arguing and going into what she considered their “twin schtick,” an act they’d perfected since birth. “And this is our home, a beautiful home where we were raised. It just needs a little TLC.” Jacob’s eyebrows raised. “Okay, a lot of TLC. But I’ve got the time, the skills, and the connections in the business.” She looked up. “You know that, Jake, or you wouldn’t have agreed to it.” She didn’t go into the fact that after college she’d first worked as an architect’s assistant or that she’d spent the last five years of her life as a project manager for Tolliver Construction in Vancouver. Remodeling had been her specialty. “Besides, who’s going to tell Mom we bulldozed down the house?”

  Neither twin volunteered.

  “I thought so. So I’ll give all the floors a cursory look again and come up with some more fabulous ideas. I’ve already sent the plans and some ideas to the architect, and he’s come out with an engineer for preliminary measurements and to look the place over. I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with the firm for months. Thankfully, I hired a local guy to oversee the guesthouse renovation, and it’s almost ready for us to move in. Once it is, we can really get started on this house.”

  Jacob stated the obvious. “Sounds expensive.”

  “Of course it is; we already talked budget,” she pointed out to both of them, “and signed our lives away at the bank.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Jacob said, in a tone that suggested he wished he could take it back.

  “Hey, you’ve got to be with me on this. Both of you. This,” she tapped the open plans with two fingers, “is a big project, a major renovation, but it’ll be so worth it.”

  “Okay,” Joseph said, shrugging. He’d never been the serious opposition Jacob was. “Go for it.”

  “I am. I’ve already moved my family here, and, trust me, there are heel marks all the way from Vancouver to this hill because Jade didn’t want to come. But there’s no backing out now.” She turned her attention to her other brother. “Right, Jake?”

  Jacob hesitated, then caught a glance from his brother and nodded. “Okay.” A lift of one shoulder. “Sure.”

  “Good,” Sarah said, relieved.

  “We better roll,” Joseph said to his brother just as his cell phone rang. “Gotta get this.” He started for the front door. “Don’t forget about Dee Linn’s party.”

  Sarah cringed inside. “That’s still happening?”

  “Didn’t she call you?”

  “Eons ago. I haven’t talked to her in, I don’t know, maybe three weeks. I’ve been busy with moving, and now that we’re here, cell phone reception is spotty at best. Jade seems to think I dragged her here, away from her friends as part of my long-term, devious plan to make her life miserable.”

  Joseph grinned. “Didn’t you?”

  “You’re not helping,” Sarah charged, but returned his knowing smile. “So Dee Linn’s party is on?”

  “You think she’d change her mind?” Joseph asked, lifting an eyebrow that told her she needn’t have posed the question.

  “Her mantra is ‘Never miss an opportunity to show off what you’ve got,’” Jacob reminded. “The whole fam-damily is invited.”

  “Mom?” Sarah asked and hated the way her back muscles tensed at the thought of seeing Arlene.

  “I’m sure if she can, she will,” Jacob said. “Guess you haven’t seen her in a while, or you’d know.”

  “What?” Sarah felt a little pinprick of guilt, her conscience jabbing her again. She had visited her mother twice. Both times Arlene had slept and never woken up, so the visits had been wasted. She’d hung around for several hours each time and wondered if her cantankerous mother had been feigning sleep, then had felt awful on the drive home for thinking Arlene would be so devious.

&nbs
p; “Anyway, she’s not up for that kind of gig, or maybe any kind of to-do. Probably never will be again, not that they were ever her thing,” Jacob said. “But the rest of them are supposed to be there. Aunt Marge is coming, along with her kids.” Marge was Arlene’s younger sister; her daughter, Caroline, was Sarah’s cousin. “At least, I think that’s what Danica said,” he added, mentioning his wife, “but don’t quote me.”

  “I’ll call Dee tonight,” Sarah promised as her brothers left and the house closed in on her again.

  “Hey, girls,” she said, walking into the kitchen and finding it empty, then locating her daughters in the living area. “Get ready, we’re going to visit your grandmother.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding, right?” Jade, looking up from the cell phone where she was either texting or playing a game, turned horror-filled eyes in her mother’s direction.

  “That’s right. It’s the last chance we’ll have before you’re both in school next week and I’m all wrapped up in the renovations, so come on, get it together. “Head on out to the car.”

  “I’m not even dressed yet!” Jade protested.

  “Not my problem. It’s afternoon and we’re leaving in five, so get it together.”

  As her mother drove through the open gates of Pleasant Pines Retirement Center, Jade eyed the facility with a jaundiced eye. So far she’d been in Stewart’s Crossing not quite twenty-four hours, and each and every minute had been torture. From the ridiculous lack of Internet and TV reception to Gracie’s claims of seeing a ghost, the place had been awful. And now they were visiting Grandma Arlene in this place, a modern building with a huge portico that stretched over a circular drive. A leaf-strewn lawn and a few shrubs completed the landscape around the main building of three stories, each with banks of windows punctuated with air-conditioning units.