by Linda Welch
“I’ll get started then, shall I?” I got to my feet, pulling my hand free of Royal’s. “Can someone show me the way to the attics?”
“The attics?” Brienne echoed.
“I like to start at the top and work my way down,” I lied. I actually wanted to be as far as possible from other people.
Brienne slowly got to her feet. “Michael dear, will you find someone to show her the attics?”
Brienne’s stroke left her with impaired peripheral vision and weakness in one side of her body. Getting around must be a slow, careful process for her and tromping through the house with me would be exhausting. I hoped Michael didn’t volunteer. I didn’t want him in earshot.
Michael humphed as he left the room.
Brienne smiled at me. “Don’t mind Michael. He’s a cynic at the best of times. I understand from Royal you helped the police department with a number of investigations before you two became partners. Is it some kind of … psychic ability?”
“Something like that.”
Michael returned with a brown-skinned woman in black slacks and green dress shirt. Glossy blue-black hair wound around her crown in a braid. After a swift peek at me from wide brown eyes, she directed her gaze to the floor.
“Anarosa is our housekeeper,” Brienne said.
I got to my feet. “This may take some time.”
Brienne nodded. “As long as you require.”
Anarosa ducked her head and about-turned. I followed her from the library, trusting Royal to keep Michael and Brienne occupied while I worked.
Anarosa led me to the far end of the hall, to an elevator just past the stairs. She kept her gaze averted as we rode up.
“Every inch of this place was searched?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Several times.”
“How long have you worked here, Anarosa?”
She met my eyes and smiled. “Thirty-one years, Ma’am. I came here as a maid when I was sixteen.”
The elevator stopped with barely a shudder. We stepped out in a wide landing with paneled walls and ceiling and a plush forest-green carpet. Old paintings lined the walls, heavy frames all but touching. I followed Anarosa to a wood door, then up a twisting staircase which brought us to another passage, this one narrow and uncarpeted. The passage spanned the breadth of the house and others ran off from it. The attics must be a warren.
Anarosa faced me with her head down. “Is there anywhere particular you want to start, Ma’am?”
“This is good, Anarosa.” I stared at her bowed head. “Is anyone else up here?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“Okay. I’d like you to go downstairs now.”
She left quickly. I waited for the sound of her footsteps to fade, then went in the nearest room.
It was empty, dust on the bare board floor smeared by adult-size footsteps, and light came through a small dormer window beneath the eaves. I went to the window and enjoyed the sunlight on my face. A balustrade like a stone banister surrounded the roof and blocked the view of the estate, but the valley stretched beyond.
I went to the middle of the room. “Nicholas Jordan. Come here.”
I gave him a minute, then spoke again. “I know you can hear me, Jordan. Come talk to me. It might be to your advantage.”
Jordan walked in the room a minute later.
His eyebrows still rose over dark-brown eyes. Grease slicked short brown hair parted in the middle. His ears were on the large side and stuck out from his head like handles. His mouth drooped sourly below a long, thin nose with pinched nostrils.
“What do you think you’re playing at, you foolish woman. Go back to your séance. Perhaps someone will knock on the table and frighten the living daylights out of you.”
I clasped my hands behind my back and crossed the space between us. I looked directly into his eyes. “Thank you for joining me, Nicholas. Or can I call you Nick?”
“You most certainly cannot - ” He drew himself up from a slouch. “You see me. You actually see me.”
“Yep.”
“You’re the real thing.”
“Depends what you mean by that. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is where Gordon Eccleston Junior is, and I think you probably know.”
His head went up so I looked up his nostrils. “I may. But why should I tell you?”
I smiled. “I think we can come to an arrangement.”
Royal rose to his impressive height and was at the wall in two strides. “Here?”
I looked at Jordan’s head where it stuck through the paneling. “Positively.”
Royal spread his big palms flat on the wall. It reminded me of another case, when he sensed something odd about an office and found a secret panel and steps leading down to where a mini army bivouacked.
He reached to one side and pressed something too small for me to see. The panel swung inward with a soft clunk.
Everyone gathered around the opening. Darkness crept up old stone steps and a dry, musty smell greeted us.
“Flashlights,” Royal said.
Michael proved he could move fast. He returned in a couple of minutes carrying two large flashlights. “I’m going with you.”
“Michael - ” Brienne began.
“Wait here, darling. No telling what condition the place is in.”
Or what we’ll find down there.
Royal went first, then Michael. I brought up the rear, shining my flashlight down. The steps had crumbled on the edges but were remarkably clean, as if regularly swept.
My voice sounded muffled. “This is old.”
Michael spoke over his shoulder. “I didn’t know it was here.”
How many secret hidey holes did this house have? Michael’s grandfather’s business ventures were thought to have a shady side, particularly during the Depression. I would not mind betting this hidey-hole, and maybe others like it, were excavated after the house was built.
The steps didn’t descend far. Royal and Michael stood at the bottom, checking out a heavy wood door. They waited until I joined them. Royal passed his palms over the door, then the frame. He pushed what looked like a natural knot in the wood, a click, and the door swung inward.
Michael’s flashlight found Gordon Junior curled like a kitten in a corner of the small concrete-lined room. He squeaked awake when Michael took him up in his arms, but settled into a sob when he heard Michael’s croon.
I directed my flashlight around until I found what I was looking for.
A heavy brocade curtain tied with nylon rope wrapped the body. The corner was set up like a primitive chapel. Bunches of dried flowers and tiny glass jars of melted wax surrounded a small table draped in a crimson satin cloth. An old bible sat on the table, and a blackened, wide-bladed knife.
My beam found the boy’s flashlight on the floor as Michael carried young Gordon from the room. I picked it up and clicked, but the battery had died. Poor kid. I hated to think what he went through when the light died, trapped alone in this tomb, knowing no one heard his cries.
Trapped. I turned to Royal. “How could we get out if the door was shut?”
He went to the door, closed it and in seconds found a button high up on the vertical frame. The door came open.
Gordon watched someone come down the stairs and open the door. But he never came inside to see how it could be opened from in here. He returned here on his own, came into the room and then could not get out.
The anger I’d felt since the butler told me where Gordon Junior was boiled up my throat.
Light from Michael’s study window shone on Anarosa’s hair as she sat facing me, hands clenched around a balled up handkerchief. Her face was the color of unbleached linen and she still had not looked me in the eyes.
I spoke gently, keeping my tone reasonable, soft and even. “You were sixteen. You let a man into the house so he could pocket some valuables. Mr. Jordan caught you. There was - ”
“It wasn’t like that.” Tears dribbled down Anarosa’s cheeks. She wiped them with one palm, t
he other still clutching the soggy handkerchief. “Jordan … did something to me and there … there were consequences. I had to tell my brother. He came here to confront Jordan. They struggled, Jordan pulled a gun and shot Mario. I stabbed Jordan in the back with a kitchen knife.”
The old bastard lied to me. Not surprising.
“So you hid Mario’s body down below.”
A huge sob burst out as she violently nodded her head. “We only had each other. I had to think of my future without him.”
Foolish woman. She didn’t even wipe the knife. It had Jordan’s blood and her fingerprints on it. Modern forensic science would link her to Jordan’s murder.
I could guess what Jordan did to a maid little more than a child, and the consequences. I’d feel sorry for Anarosa, if not for what happened to Gordon Junior. Still, I hoped she lived to a ripe old age because Jordan was stuck here until she died. I hoped there was a Hell and Jordan went there when Anarosa finally passed on.
“Gordon saw you go to that room, so he took a look yesterday. Didn’t it occur to you he could be down there?”
“I … I didn’t… .”
“You didn’t look because you were afraid you’d find him there, and what would you do then? How would you explain what he saw?”
“I’m so sorry.” Anarosa wept into her hands, entire body shuddering.
I rose up. “I really don’t give a damn about what you did to Jordan, or hiding Mario’s body. You left Gordon to die alone in the dark.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. I passed Royal as he came in the room, and left Anarosa with him towering behind her. I went to meet Captain Mike Warren of Clarion PD in the mansion’s porch.
Nicholas Jordan stood in the hall. He saluted me as I passed him, then faded through the wall. He told me what happened the night of his death and where to find Gordon, and I fingered his killer. Deal done.
Chapter Two
Sunlight from the west window bathed the side of Royal’s head, dazzling on his metallic-looking copper and gold-streaked hair, adding a subtle sheen to his pale-copper skin, picking out the mica speckles in his shining new-penny eyes.
Gelpha are beautiful, and human beings - if they knew of the Otherworldy - would call them supermen. They possess heightened senses and can move like the wind. With effort, they can even slightly alter their appearance. But the killer ability is how they can make a person feel and there are those who use it as a weapon, making their victims compliant to their wishes. They have a scent particular to them; one whiff and you are weak in the knees. A certain look from their eyes and you are breathless, swimming in a delicious soupcon of sensation. And when they actually, physically touch you… . Oh, mama.
Royal does not need to use that particular ability to make me weak in the knees.
Meeting him opened up a whole new world for me. Literally. The Gelpha world, Bel-Athaer, occupies another dimension, or space, or whatever, which links to Earth. Don’t look for a better explanation, I don’t have one. Our relationship and business partnership involved me in some deep, dark Gelpha investigations, not to mention their politics. I went to Bel-Athaer a number of times, not always willingly, and managed to put the rightful ruler on the throne - or as they call it, Seat - take down a vicious, demented ancient Dark Cousin, find the lost heir and expose Gelpha Seers for what they really are.
And I discovered I am one of them.
It was still hard to come to terms with after spending my entire life until recently living and believing a lie.
Funny, I used to dream of finding my family. But I couldn’t have an ordinary mom and dad. Not Tiff Banks. I have a maniacal, murdering uncle who is an Otherworldy being to boot. We don’t have gleaming eyes and hair, slightly pointed teeth, or superhuman abilities. But we have something other Gelpha don’t: we see and communicate with the dead.
Royal brought me back to the present. “I have not been to England in years. We could do with a vacation.”
“Yeah, the last one didn’t go down so well.”
Our only vacation so far was to Boston, where the FBI kidnapped us and whisked us all over the country in search of a serial killer.
I rolled onto my stomach and adjusted my neck on Royal’s thigh. “You’ve been there?”
“A few times on business, years ago. And I vacationed in London for three weeks.”
“When was that?”
“Five years ago.”
“But this would be an investigation.”
“Yes, but uncomplicated, I think. We could take some time to see the sites. Do you want this case?”
I twisted my mouth up. “I don’t know.”
He caught the end of my braid and fingered the loose strands. “Pros and cons?”
We often played this game when offered a new case. I put forward the cons, and Royal destroyed them with a few well aimed pros.
“Cons: England is an awful long way away, and doesn’t it rain all the time over there? Janie isn’t too fond of Mac right now after he bit that Pomeranian. I don’t trust anyone else to care for him. Jack and Mel will go ballistic.”
He jiggled his foot, which made my head jog up and down. “England. Not always raining. Filled shore to shore with history and mystery and magic. Does Janie make a lot from her kennel? I could bribe her.”
“I don’t know if you can come up with enough cash to make her take Mac if she doesn’t want to.”
“From what you tell me, Jack and Mel always go ballistic when you leave. They get over it.” He arched a dark-copper eyebrow.
My roommates didn’t have a choice. I left, they remained, nothing they could do about it but sulk.
I scowled. “Okay, pros: It’d look good, wouldn’t it, to say we did an investigation in Europe?”
“Hm. I see your cons outweigh your pros. Could that be deliberate?”
I tried for an innocent expression. “There is another pro. One-hundred-fifty dollars an hour.”
My head hit the cushion as Royal sat up and swung his legs over the side of the couch, dislodging me. “You asked for one hundred and fifty an hour, triple our regular fee?”
“Something wrong with your hearing all of a sudden?” I grinned. “Patricia Norton is loaded. She didn’t bat an eyelash.”
He lounged back on one elbow. “I suppose by the time we deduct travel, meals, accommodation, etcetera.”
“One-hundred-fifty plus expenses.”
He whistled. “Well, I’m in.”
“Bloody hell, mate. You can’t take off to Old Blighty just like that!”
“Good accent, Jack, but that’s Aussie, not Brit.”
Mel repeated an oft-used phrase. “You’ll be gone ages.”
I looked in my closet with no notion of what to wear in England. They still had summer in August, didn’t they? “I just may be at that.”
Déjà vu. Almost a year ago, I stood here trying to decide what to wear during a vacation in Boston. And Jack said… .
“At least leave the TV on,” Jack said.
Now that was eerie. But then Jack snorted a laugh.
“You rat!”
But his joke made me realize he remembered what happened a year ago, an indication he pretty much retained his memory. Many shades lose their memory by degrees, sometime going fast, some slow but inevitable. Did Jack and Mel keep it because they lived with me, which equated with a social life, which most shades don’t have?
I pulled out a white tank top and shook it at him. “Thought I forgot, didn’t you?”
“Forgot what?” With an air of innocence, Jack became absorbed with the papers littering my desk.
“Out, Mister. You too, Mel.”
They left with accompanying heavy sighs. They knew my bedroom was out of bounds, but kept coming in there anyway.
I flopped on the bed on my belly and opened up my cell. Janie picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hi, Janie. Look, I know Mac was a bad boy last time, but - ”
“Tiff, it was my fault. Mac needs one on one
playtime. I should have made it clear to Susan. The Pom was fine. Mac didn’t draw blood.”
But she was miffed when I collected Mac. “Oh, okay. I’m looking at next week for a two-week stay.”
“Sorry, we’re booked solid.”
My heart sank. Who would watch Mac if not Janie? As I told Royal, I didn’t trust anyone else with him.
“But I may have a solution,” Janie continued. “Maryanne lives four blocks from you and can do with extra cash. She could come in three times a day, get in your mail and water your plants while she’s there.”
I perked up. Janie’s daughter Maryanne lived on campus not far from my house. She got along as well as anyone could with Mac, meaning he had not bitten her yet. She worked in the kennels weekends, she knew how to handle dogs and give them the attention they need. Mac would probably let her in the house.
“Wow, Janie, that’s great. She won’t have to bother with the mail and I don’t have plants, it’ll just be Mac. But how will she manage three times a day?”
“She has a free period two to three. She can come around before her first class to feed him and let him out for half an hour, and do the same during her free period, then later in the evening to get him tucked in for the night. If you’re generous, maybe she’ll take him for walkies.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. Janie’s plan was ideal. “Janie, I’ll be forever in her debt if she can, and I mean that.”
“I’ll talk to her. When do you need her?”
“Here’s the thing … Royal and I are going to England on business and haven’t booked the flight yet, but we’re aiming for next week. Is that a problem?”
“With her schedule, no. I’ll talk to her and get back to you. Okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.” Definitely okay.
I closed my phone, rolled off the bed and scooted downstairs. “Jack! Mel! Remember last year when you wanted me to get a house and pet sitter?”
I called Patty to tell her we would take the case. “We need a contract or letter of intent.”
“I’ll call our attorneys and ask them to fax a contract to you.”
“Thank you, but we need an original signature, not a facsimile. Sorry about that.”
“You’re cautious, Miss Banks. I like that. Very well, I’ll have it sent Express Mail, guaranteed delivery by three PM the next day. We’ll have to meet no later than four tomorrow as my flight leaves Salt Lake City at nine and I have to turn in the rental car.”
