The Dead Room

by Heather Graham

  Joe folded his arms over his chest. “Then it’s imperative that we find her. Quickly.”

  11

  Iam with you. All is well….

  Leslie didn’t fall asleep easily that night, despite her desire to dream. She lay awake for hours, certain that the answer was there, but seeing it was like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, the haystack being New York with its millions of denizens, and the needle being a single woman who was there somewhere.

  So she had lain awake with the television on, keeping her company. Joe had somehow been loathe to leave her, despite the alarm system, and though she had absolutely insisted that he go home, she had the feeling he was sleeping in his car again. She should have suggested that he at least sleep in one of the other bedrooms, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to make the offer.

  She wasn’t afraid of her dreams. Quite the opposite: she welcomed them. She argued with herself that she had to be alone, that Matt was trying to reach her, and the presence of any other human being might keep him away.

  That was true.

  But equally true was the fact that she couldn’t let go. Not yet…

  And then, when she finally slept, he was there.

  First, the tenderness.

  The sensation that she wasn’t alone, that the past hadn’t been lost to tragedy, that what should have been forever hadn’t been ripped away from her. The sweetness of lying down on a soft mattress after a long day, of being held, the comfort of another human being, loved and cherished, at her side. Then…

  Flesh against flesh. The feathery brush of his lips on hers, the weight of him on top of her. Light, teasing kisses that quickly filled with passion. Blankets tossed and discarded. The slide of cotton against her body as the nightgown was tossed aside. The whisper of his breath against her skin, moving from the valley between her breasts, over her abdomen and down to her thighs.

  I knew you would come, she said.

  And his very simple answer.

  I love you so much…

  In her dreams she stroked his flesh, was seduced and aroused by the fire of his lips and tongue moving intimately and along the length of her. She looked into his eyes, blue like the sky. She saw his smile, the single dimple in his cheek. Caressed his jaw, hard and squared, almost as if it had been formed by the determination and sense of justice with which he had lived his life, rather than the lottery of genetics. She reached out and, with both hands, she cupped his face and drew his mouth to hers again. She initiated the ferocity of the kiss, so rapt herself that she needed to return each stroke and caress, needed to seduce as she was seduced, needed to tease and arouse.

  She stroked the muscles of his shoulders and then, with the whisper-light touch of her fingertips, caressed the length of his chest to the quickening muscles of his belly. In a fever she followed that touch with taunting kisses, pushing him back, straddling him, looking down at him until, smiling, she bent, her hair wickedly teasing his flesh as she played and stroked, lower and lower. At last his hoarse cry sounded, and she herself writhed and twisted and arced, desperate and hungry, almost wild, savagely in need of him, body and soul. Sensation coursed through her, and despite the volatile thunder and erotic friction of their lovemaking, beneath it flowed a subtle tenderness, a swell of emotion that elevated what was so simply human and physical and made of it something so much more.

  She found herself beneath him, her breath frenzied, her heart in an uproar, and she lost the sense of being in her own body as he moved within her. All the while, his kisses fell on her breasts, her shoulders and then her lips. At last, locked to him by the joining of their flesh, she was rocked by the explosion of climax. Her limbs locked around him as she reveled in the cocoon of his embrace. Wonder filled her as she drifted back to earth, trembling in the aftermath of passion, her hot skin cooling, bathed in a fine sheen of sweat. He was damp at her side, their hair slick and tangled together on the pillow, and she marveled at how incredible it was to be so loved, so happy.

  In dreams.

  Because she knew she was dreaming, but she would not let the dream go. She entwined her fingers with his as she lay spooned against him, his hand resting on her belly. She felt the muscles of his chest where she rested her head.

  This closeness was so familiar; they lay together just as they had so often when he’d come home late and slipped into bed. First had come lovemaking, then a few lazy words about the day, or their plans for the future.

  I’m afraid for you, he whispered now.

  Afraid for me? Matt, you were a reporter. You know what it feels like to see something wrong and feel obligated to set it right, and you know I have to discover the truth about what happened here.

  He listened, considered her words, carefully formed his own answer before whispering it into the lush silk of the hair against her ear.

  Yes, I know that, but I can’t help it—I’m afraid for you. He was silent for a minute, almost as if it were painful to continue. I can’t be with you. Trust Joe.

  She started to tell him that she was constantly surrounded by people—including cops—so how could she be in danger, but then she stopped as she remembered the dig. As the day had passed, she’d convinced herself that the roof had caved in on her, but was that true? She had been focused on the niche in the wall where the record book had been, but she’d been sure she’d heard…something. Sensed…something. But she was certain no one else had entered after her, and she was sure no one had already been there when she came in. So…

  I felt it this morning, a sense of fear for you, but there was nothing I could do. But Joe was here, and it was all right. Don’t trust anyone else, do you hear me? Only Joe.

  All right, she said slowly. But why?

  “The basement.”

  Leslie woke with a start, certain someone had spoken the words aloud. She bolted up to a sitting position, the covers clutched to her chest. Her hair was a tangled, damp mess. Sometime in the night she had torn off her nightgown, and the sheets were hopelessly rumpled.

  She groaned, feeling almost as if she had a hangover. She touched the top of her head, but the lump was almost gone.

  “The basement?” she said aloud.

  If she’d expected a reply, she didn’t get one.

  She rose and showered, then dressed in a T-shirt and khakis with a half-dozen pockets, three on each leg, and hurried downstairs. She was still early enough to have the place to herself. She put the coffee on, then went through to the servants’ pantry.

  She pulled back the braided rug and found the trapdoor leading to the basement beneath. She’d been in the basement before, of course, long before the night of the gala. They’d hoped to find all kinds of treasures down there, especially because the simple cellar had changed very little since the house’s early days, but in the end it wasn’t a treasure trove as some basements and attics could be. Over the years, the owners of the house had cleaned out their own belongings, along with anything that had come before.

  Now the hole in the floor gaped wide and dark, like the entrance to an abyss.

  She left the trapdoor open and went back to the kitchen. The coffee was ready, so she poured herself a cup and sipped while rifling through the drawers, certain she would find a flashlight in one of them. Then she paused.

  The spectral woman was back at the hearth, stirring her spectral pot. Finally she paused, turned and looked straight at Leslie.

  “He wants you to help me,” she said, a note of such poignant gratitude in her voice that empathy swept through Leslie with so much force that she nearly dropped her coffee cup.

  “I would love to help you. Who are you?”

  “Elizabeth Martin. Please. I never left my child.”

  Leslie stared back at her, noting that she could see right through the woman’s spectral body.

  “They’re…all gone now, you know.”

  The woman looked agitated. “They have to know the truth. I never left my baby.”

  “Elizabeth Martin,” L
eslie said. “I’ll do my very best.”

  The woman smiled. “The basement,” she said.

  Leslie did drop the cup then. It shattered on the floor just as Elizabeth Martin faded from view.

  “She’s gone crazy, but am I going to stop her? Not in this lifetime,” Melissa said.

  Joe stared at her blankly. She’d thrown open the door when he’d rung the bell, and those were the first words out of her mouth at the sight of him.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Leslie. She’s down in the basement with a pickax!”

  “Did you ask her why?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “She says that there’s a body in the wall.”

  Joe frowned and hurried inside, along the hallway and straight to the back. When he entered the servants’ pantry, he immediately shivered and realized he’d entered the dead room, then wondered where that thought had come from.

  The braided rug that usually covered the floor had been pulled away, and the trapdoor to the basement was open. He could see light from a work lantern rising up the stairs going down to the basement, strong wooden steps added recently to cover the dangerous brick stairway that had been there originally.

  He hurried down.

  The vertical line of fireplaces throughout the house was in evidence here, as well. A brick fireplace and hearth were set into one wall, and Leslie was standing to the left. She had apparently finished with the pickax and was digging away at the brick with her hands. She scared him a little. Her beautiful face was intent, her movements almost frantic.

  “Leslie?”

  “Joe. Hey. Come help me.”

  “Leslie, what are you doing?”

  “I…uh…found some old records. I think there’s a body back here. Well, a skeleton, anyway. Come on.”

  He went to her side. One of the bricks was stuck. He had a Swiss Army knife in his pocket, so he pulled it out and chipped at the mortar to free the brick. She stepped back and took a deep breath.

  “Are you sure you should be doing this?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Leslie, this property is owned by the Historical Society.”

  “If anyone is angry, I’ll pay for repairs,” she said. “Please, Joe?”

  The brick fell away in his hand. He stepped back, stunned. Even in the weak light and through the grime and dust of the ages, he could see bone.

  Shit!

  He almost swore aloud.

  Leslie didn’t look surprised in any way.

  “Well, there…all right. We can stop now. They’re still shoring up the crypt at the site, I imagine. Laymon will be there, but Brad can come over and help me. Except,” she said thoughtfully, “I’ll have to get into the crypt…no, St. Paul’s has been there since 1766, and the crypt we just discovered wouldn’t have been completed then. Hmm. I need to find more records. Maybe the library…Hey.” She stared at him with a sudden smile. “Did you check your basement wall yet?”

  “Am I going to find bones, too?” he asked.

  “I told you, you’ll find music.”

  “And I guess I will,” he murmured.

  “I’d better start looking for those records,” she said, suddenly decisive. She walked over to him and gave him a fierce hug and big kiss on the cheek. “Drop me off at the main library. I’m going to start there.”

  “Sure,” he said, and then he couldn’t help himself: He yawned.

  She frowned. “You didn’t go home last night, did you? I bet you just made sure you had a clean shirt in the car.” She smiled. “You can’t keep worrying about me, you know.”

  “Apparently, it’s not a matter of can or can’t. I simply do.”

  She started toward the stairs, then turned around, her eyes carefully assessing the basement. It correlated in size exactly to the servants’ pantry—the dead room, he thought again—above it.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  “Everything is uneven down here, have you noticed?”

  “It’s hundreds of years old. What would you expect?”

  She was still studying the walls. Then she shivered suddenly, hugging her arms around herself. “The subway runs near here, right?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. Probably much deeper, though.”

  “Right. But still, there are all kinds of shafts and tunnels.”

  “Want me to find an old subway map?” he teased.

  “That would be great,” she told him, completely serious. “Okay, I really have to get to work. What’s your plan for the day?”

  “I’m going to go back over the last-known movements of every prostitute who disappeared and see if I can find any connection to Genevieve O’Brien,” he told her.

  “That’s a busy agenda. You’ll still be able to find me some old maps?”

  “You want maps? I’ll get you maps,” he assured her.

  “Will you drop me at the library?”

  “Sure. But you might want to shower and change again first. You’re wearing a little too much brick dust to be fashionable.”

  She looked down at herself and laughed. “Okay. I’ll hurry.”

  She was humming as she ran up the stairs.

  Melissa and Tandy—who was leading the tours that day—were told about the discovery but sworn to secrecy. While Joe waited for Leslie, he found himself drawn to the main dining room, where Tandy was giving her speech to a group of college students from Columbia University.

  “Imagine a very different place,” she began. “When the story of New York first began, the action was here, downtown. Times Square was a distant and savage land where the Algonquin-speaking natives still reigned. New York was first taken by the Dutch. The Dutch West India Company established a fur-trading post here in 1625. Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch colonial governor, was a tyrant. He closed the taverns at nine, for God’s sake. When the English came in 1664, they easily ousted the Dutch without a fight and renamed the city—which had been called New Amsterdam—New York, after James, Duke of York, and brother of Charles II. We stand near the Five Points area of the Sixth Ward—the area roughly bounded now by Broadway, Canal Street, the Bowery and Park Row. Disease and death were a hallmark of the poorer, more densely populated areas. People used ponds and waterways to dump refuse and sewage. And with poverty came violence and finally rebellion.

  “This city is one of the places where liberty began, where battles were fought and riots surged. When you walk out the door, you’ll see the vital, high-stakes city of today. But I hope that by the time you leave Hastings House, you’ll also have a better understanding of the city beneath and all the sins buried by time.”

  The city beneath.

  Buried sins.

  The words haunted Joe. How many people disappeared, simply vanished, as if they’d never been? The rivers were too iffy—sometimes bodies escaped whatever weights held them down and bobbed to the surface, and New York City wasn’t an easy place to dig holes where they wouldn’t be seen.

  The city beneath.

  But where to begin looking?

  Leslie was grateful that her job allowed access to areas of the library where most people couldn’t go, and that the records regarding Hastings House were in good order.

  She waded through a lot of information on the many roles the house had played during the years, having been a school and an office building, among other things. So many facades and changes had been added over the years that the building’s true contours had almost been forgotten. Only the threat of demolition ten years earlier had brought the true persona of the place to light. Additions, later ornamentation and other changes had been painstakingly researched and removed and the historic gem been brought back.

  At last she reached the early history of the house. Built by a sea captain in the late 1700s, it had been left to his niece, Elizabeth, at his death.

  Her heart quickened; she had never expected it to be this easy.

  Elizabeth had married a merchant, Jacob Martin.
Martin had remarried in 1803. The parish register commented that Elizabeth Martin, age twenty-one, was presumed dead. But there was also a notation left in the register by a priest who had not wanted to assume the task of remarrying Mr. Martin. “Jacob claimed earlier that his wife deserted him and their babe for Gordon Black, a sailor who often came to port but has not appeared since. In his haste to remarry, he has convinced the elders that Elizabeth must have perished on the journey, else she would have returned to take their babe, young Sarah. I fear that for a man to be so certain of his wife’s death, he may have been witness to it. He appears, however, to be a pillar of our dear parish, and it is she, Elizabeth, who is scorned, dead or alive, by the men of character around us.”

  “Poor Elizabeth,” she whispered, shaking her head sadly. She paused a minute, feeling as if her heart had suddenly become very heavy. Matt, were you with me? Did you try to tell me first? I can see Elizabeth, talk to her. Why can’t I see you, talk to you?

  “All right,” she murmured aloud. “You wanted me to help Elizabeth, and I swear I’ll do my best. Please, though…let me help you. And myself.”

  She shut up. She was alone and talking to herself. Time to get back to work.

  She’d had access to all these records earlier. But at the time she’d been looking for old delft plates, silver…other treasures left behind.

  She went still suddenly. She was in a private section of the library; she was alone. But she’d had the feeling of being watched. A creeping sensation teased the back of her neck. She looked up. It was the way she had felt in the crypt the other night. Not at all as if she were being stalked by a ghostly presence.

  Ghosts were usually pale essences. They didn’t want to hurt anyone; they wanted to be helped. Occasionally, they were bitter or liked to play pranks. Both Adam Harrison and Nikki Blackhawk had told her that they’d never encountered a ghost that was actually vicious—except against whoever had caused them to become a ghost.

  She groaned softly, laying her head on her arms on the table. She could just see the conversation with a therapist. Am I paranoid? I don’t think so. I’m not afraid of the dark, and I’m certainly not afraid of ghosts. Hell, some of my favorite people are ghosts. In fact, I may never date again. I have this spectacular ghost who comes to me at night…But the thing is, I feel like I’m being stalked, but not by a ghost, by…evil.