Sinister Secrets

by Colleen Gleason

  But Leslie Nakano was a grown woman, and he didn’t mind it at all that her eyes seemed to linger on his arms. Not that he only wanted to be appreciated for his muscles. But it wasn’t a bad way to start.

  He turned his thoughts from this unexpected path and focused them on the opening. Shining the flashlight down inside, he didn’t see much of anything but debris and shadows.

  “Maybe it would be easier to look behind the wallpaper, just to see if there’s an old door or cubbyhole,” Leslie said. “It’s going to be a big project—there’s no need for you to waste your time. I’m sure you have other things to do.”

  Declan paused. Here was the opportunity to excuse himself, escape, grab a bite to eat, meet up with Baxter for an IPA…think about—maybe even work on—the other project that awaited him back home. Instead of doing the logical thing, he heard himself saying, “I don’t really have much else going on. I don’t mind helping, and I’m a little curious too. But didn’t you say you had to meet your aunt for dinner?”

  Way to go. Now he was giving her the chance to escape. A good idea, that, to be fair.

  “Oh, right. Well, I could invite her up here—she’d probably bring pizza if I asked—and if she knew the guy who thinks she looks like Helen Mirren was in residence, I have a feeling she’d be here in a flash.”

  He’d turned to look at the wallpapered area just below the empty section of the balustrade. The triangular shape of the wall angled down to its lowest height of six inches, studded at the end by the now-missing post.

  “It’s all one piece of wallpaper,” Leslie said, standing very close and shining her flashlight over the area, following its path with her hand as if to feel for a seam beneath. With her nearly brushing his shoulder with hers, he could smell some essence emanating from her…something very pleasant that had his hormones springing to attention.

  “Lord, I can’t wait to get rid of these huge cabbage roses,” she added, clearly referring to the fussy hand-sized white and blue flowers splashed over a dark pink background. “I know it’s historically accurate, but yuck.”

  “This area is too small to be anything like a cubby. But maybe here…” he said, and rapped his knuckles against the wall at an area that was two feet tall.

  They both paused, because his knocking had sounded hollow. Neither spoke as he rapped in random spots along the wall, both toward the bottom of the stairs and toward the top.

  “It only sounds hollow here,” he said, pausing at the section that was barely hip-high on him.

  “Too small and short for a closet. And it’s a little higher up the stairs than the rusty discoloration. But…” She stepped back, and he saw that her eyes were sparkling. “I want to see what’s behind there.”

  Her enthusiasm was infectious—or maybe it was just her. “Well, let’s take a look. You said you wanted to get rid of the wallpaper…”

  “Yes. It’s got to go anyway. Might as well start it tonight.” She produced a utility knife. Crouching in front of the wall, she made a wide slice down the center of the area, then began to pick at the open edge of the wallpaper.

  She didn’t really need his help, it became clear, so Declan stood there and watched the Fortune magazine cover girl as she tore off a big swath of paper and tossed it behind her to rest, curling, on the tarp. Her glossy black hair shifted, slid, and glinted in the light, and the back of her snug t-shirt rode up a little in the back as she crouched there, exposing an elliptical section of skin the color of champagne.

  Declan found his attention fixated on that teasing glimpse of skin, wondering if it was as soft and sweet as it appeared. If it had notes of melon and peach, or cinnamon and ginger when one pressed one’s lips and tongue to it. He swallowed and tried to regroup, reining in the sudden fanciful path of his thoughts. But then he noticed how the yoga pants hugged her ass—a heart-shaped one that was nicely outlined due to the squatting position in which she crouched.

  “Whoa.” She almost fell backward onto said ass, barely catching herself with a well-placed palm behind her. “Look at this!”

  Jolted from his thoughts, Declan crouched smoothly, his shoulder bumping hers as he looked where she was pointing, down at the base of the wall. He felt a spike of interest that didn’t have anything to do with Leslie Nakano this time. “Whoa is right.”

  He reached out to trace a finger over the exposed section of wall, where there was a seam in the wood that had been camouflaged by the wallpaper and a thick layer of plaster beneath.

  It was a rectangular shape, near the floor, not big enough for anything but maybe a pair of boots—completely innocent looking until you gave a closer look at the hardwood floor beneath your feet.

  “There’s something strange here,” he muttered, shouldering his way closer. “The seam of the wood’s off—like it’s been replaced—and see the way this piece of wall doesn’t quite fit against the floor like the rest of it…”

  “I’ll get some tools.” Leslie scrambled to her feet, leaving more space for him to poke and pry.

  Declan rapped on the floor near the rectangular shape. Hollow. He rapped to the left and then to the right, near the base of the stairs. A duller noise, less hollow sounding. It could be anything. He’d seen hundreds of old houses, patched together, slapped into a semblance of shape, then their cosmetic changes hidden beneath superficial facades of wallpaper and paint…but this felt different.

  This seemed like something more than just a patched piece of drywall.

  Leslie was back, her grape-painted toenails appearing next to his cross-legged thigh. She had small feet, very pale, and they were pretty, as feet went. Nice arch. Her toes were straight and slender—

  “Do you want this?”

  She was dangling a small crowbar in front of him, and he took it without looking up. “It’s going to make a mess,” he warned, but didn’t hesitate—she clearly knew what the results would be.

  Leslie stood behind him, close enough that he could almost feel her shins brushing against the base of his back as he set the crowbar into place and pried.

  The rectangular piece of drywall pulled loose at the floor, and he felt a rush of air escaping at the opening. Declan put the tool aside and pulled up on the bottom of the patch, prizing it away to reveal a dark space.

  “Oh my God,” Leslie said from above him, her knees bumping the side of his arm. Her voice was high and excited. “It’s a hidden stairway!”

  Six

  Leslie could hardly contain her delight, and she was on her knees, practically pushing Declan out of the way before he could even look through the opening.

  “I can’t believe it,” she exclaimed. “You buy an old house, and you always dream about finding hidden stairways and tunnels and lost rooms, but when it actually happens…”

  “You do?” he asked, amusement in his voice.

  Leslie, crouched next to him and balancing on the balls of her feet, looked over and found his face very close to hers. For a moment, her thoughts hitched as she became aware of his warmth and the pleasant scent of him, then went on full steam ahead. “Yes, you do—if you grew up reading Nancy Drew and Lois Duncan and the Chronicles of Narnia! I mean, I always wanted to find a wardrobe that led to a secret world.”

  “Apparently I missed out on all the fun.” His voice was wry and tinged with humor, and he graciously moved out of the way so she could get a better look, steadying her by the arm when she nearly lost her balance in her eagerness. “I wasn’t much of a reader.”

  “No wonder the wall patch was so small and low to the ground—it’s just the top of a spiral staircase, right beneath the main stairway!” She shined her light down inside a hole the size of a trapdoor. The iron-railed steps curled down into the darkness like a strand of DNA. “Do you think it’s safe? I want to go down there.”

  “Not afraid of what you might find?” he asked in that same amused voice. “There might be spiders.”

  “I’m sure there’ll be spiders.” She hesitated, warring with herself. It was o
ne thing to encounter spiders in the light, where she could see and avoid them…but it would be a totally different ballgame to be climbing down a stairway in the dark and potentially walking into spider-laden cobwebs. Or having the arachnids lowering themselves onto her head or shoulders—

  “Want me to check the stairs first and make sure they’re sturdy enough?”

  Leslie fairly sang out with relief. “Yes, but don’t look at anything,” she told him, scooting back. “I want to see it for myself.”

  “Kinda hard to test out the steps all the way down without looking around,” he muttered, but she saw his mouth continuing to twitch in a barely restrained smile. “I’ll do my best to feel my way down, and hope I don’t miss a step.”

  “Well, of course you can look—but don’t tell me anything.” Leslie peered around his shoulder as he carefully stepped down into the opening, using the edge of the hole they’d revealed to help lever himself in. “And get rid of any spiders in the way.”

  “So mice and rats and snakes are okay?” he asked with a teasing challenge. “How about bats?”

  “It’s only spiders and Orbra that scare me,” she reminded him with a grin. “I can handle anything else.” Even ghosts.

  Leslie waited, watching impatiently as he took his time testing his weight on the steps and then slowly, very slowly, made his way down. Just before his head disappeared through the hole, he looked up and their eyes met.

  “I have to admit, this is pretty cool,” he said, then ducked below before she could react to the heat dancing in his eyes.

  So he was having fun too. Leslie smiled. If I’d stayed in Philly, this would never have happened to me.

  At that moment, she decided to add “Discover hidden treasures and secret rooms” to her life-improvement list.

  “Well?” she called down, shining her light after him. The top of his auburn head was just out of her reach, moving slowly down in a tight spiral. His broad shoulders fit—but just barely—within the width of the tight stairwell, which, from her angle, appeared to be closed on two sides.

  “I’m on the ground. Oh my God! You won’t believe this!”

  “What?” Leslie nearly threw herself down the stairs, then she realized he was looking up at her from the bottom, laughing. “You’re teasing me.” She was grinning now too, and began to ease her feet through the opening.

  “I’m trying not to look around too much, so hurry down. I got rid of all the spider webs, so it should be clear sailing.” He came back up a few steps. “Here, let me help you.” His hand closed around her ankle, then stopped. “Put some shoes on, Leslie. Who knows what’s down here.”

  “Ugh.” She pulled back. “You’re right. Hold on.”

  She moved away quickly and slipped on her clogs with the thick wooden soles, then was back at the hole and easing her feet through it, holding on to the edge just as he had. Once again, Declan’s hand gripped her ankle, this time helping her to blindly find the step below. His fingers were warm and strong on her skin, and Leslie felt that same physical awareness as yesterday when they shook hands for the first time.

  He had his cell phone out and its flashlight on, and she was holding the real flash as she made her way down the stairs.

  “I’m pretty sure it was a speakeasy,” he said as she reached the bottom.

  “A speakeasy!” As she descended, her eyes had grown progressively wider, and her excitement spread from a small flutter to a full-blown stomach of butterflies.

  “Wow. It’s like they were interrupted or something.” Leslie stepped onto the ground, Declan steadying her as she gawked at the space spread out before them. “And never came back.”

  “Maybe it was the announcement that the votes had passed, and Prohibition was ending.”

  “Or maybe it was a raid, and they all got carted off to jail.”

  “Nice and optimistic, aren’t we?” he muttered, but loudly enough for her to hear.

  Their lights didn’t illuminate the area all that well, but Leslie could see the makings of what looked like a lounge and bar. Sofas and club chairs, torn up and frayed by the rodents—which had been disturbed and were now scurrying around in the shadows—were arranged in a large U-shape. Two low tables sat in the center, covered with drinking glasses, bottles, and a large crystal decanter. Some of the vessels were broken or lying vertically, others still upright but filled only with dust and dirt. On one wall was a counter with cupboards below it and glasses on shelves above. Corks, bottles, a corkscrew, even small pieces of cloth that looked like napkins were strewn all over the counter.

  Leslie turned in a slow circle, shining the beam of light around to illuminate the walls. Two sides were paneled with heavy, solid wood—maple, she thought with delight—and the other two walls appeared to be drywall or plaster, and wallpapered. A huge painting with a gilt frame at least six inches thick hung on the largest expanse of wall, as if to be the focal point. It depicted a young woman of twenty or so, with boyishly short blond hair and large brown eyes. She wore feathers in her hair, jutting from a jewel-encrusted headband that cut across her forehead, a fur scarf the length of a boa, and a shift-like dress that appeared to be sewn with more gems: diamonds, sapphires, and pale blue gems that were probably topazes or aquamarines.

  Aside from the jewels on her clothing, the blond woman also wore a heavy necklace that covered her throat and the upper part of her chest with an array of sapphires, including an apricot-sized one that settled just above the beginning of her cleavage. It had been cut in the shape of a six-pointed star. The woman’s dangling earrings were also star-shaped gems—sapphires as well.

  “That’s amazing.” Declan was also staring at the painting. “It must weight two hundred pounds.”

  “I wonder if that’s Red Eye Sal’s wife or his mistress,” Leslie said, picking her way across the room carefully to avoid scuttling rodents, their droppings, or any other unsavory items. “Or someone else’s. She’s wearing clothes from the right era. I wonder if those are the jewels from the so-called hidden cache.”

  “A hidden jewel cache? Oh, here’s another one.” Declan aimed his phone light at a second portrait.

  This one was much smaller and of a different beautiful woman holding a small, fluffy brown dog on her similarly glittering lap. She was older than the other subject, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties. She too dripped with gemstones—these were rubies and garnets of all shades of crimson and rose. And like those in the other painting, star-shaped stones were featured on her necklace, bracelet, and a brooch pinned to her gown.

  “This is unbelievable,” Leslie murmured, staring at the paintings, then once again turning in a slow circle around the space. She couldn’t contain her grin. “I’ll need to get some more lights down here, clean it up a bit… What a great conversation piece this’ll be for the inn. I’ll have to create a more accessible way to get down here, of course…maybe there’s an escape route or exit that’ll be easier to use.”

  Declan had begun to ascend the stairs, and he paused halfway up. “There’s no connection to the section under the stair railing.” His voice was muffled, and she heard him rapping on the wall and ceiling. “It’s completely separate, as far as I can tell.”

  Leslie had almost forgotten about the reason they’d actually found this secret entrance. She peered up past him, unable to see much. “The implication being that whoever hid the wrap and glove in the base of the railing didn’t know about this place?”

  “Or weren’t trying to hide it down here, anyway, whether they knew of it or not. You coming up, or are you going to stay down and bask for a while?” His voice was teasing again.

  “I’m coming up for now.”

  Leslie followed him up the stairs, and once at the top watched as he set the piece of wall back in place. “So the mice don’t come up exploring.”

  The sound of Van Morrison’s tune “Brown-Eyed Girl” suddenly filled the air, and Declan clapped a hand to his pocket.

  “My daughter’s ringtone
,” he said with a layer of exasperation as he fished out the singing phone. “I thought it was fine with a normal ring, but— Hey, Steph, what’s up? Everything okay? I thought you had a ride home tonight—” He listened, then nodded and said, “Right. Sure, give me about fifteen minutes… Well, no, I’m not at home. I have to go back and pick up the car… I’m at Le— Ms. Nakano’s… Yes, we did talk about the job…no, I— Look, Steph, we can discuss this later.” His voice became firmer, and Leslie was almost certain his cheeks had gone a little red.

  “Do you want me to come pick you up or not? All right, great. Yes, tell Mrs. Delton I appreciate her driving you tomorrow. Yes—Stephanie,” he said from between clenched teeth. His cheeks flushed darker and he turned slightly away from Leslie. “Yes, I’m sure I’ll have the chance to thank her myself too. See you in a bit.”

  He shoved the phone back in his pocket. “Teenaged girls. I’ll never understand them.” His voice was easy, but that flush remained and Leslie fought to hide her smile.

  “Thanks again for your help, Declan.”

  “My pleasure. I’ll be interested in seeing the speakeasy once you have better lighting down there.” He paused for a moment, then offered her his hand in a sort of awkward farewell. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Thanks.”

  Leslie closed the door behind him just as her cell phone pinged. It was a text from Aunt Cherry, wondering where she was. Leslie gasped when she saw the time—she was twenty minutes late and she’d never texted to change plans—and quickly replied that she was on her way.

  Five minutes later (Leslie prided herself on being someone who could put herself together at a moment’s notice), she was driving down the dark, curving drive. Her headlights cut into the heavy growth on either side, and it occurred to her that it was going to be hell getting out of here in the winter when there were heavy snowfalls…which there always were, due to lake effect snow.