by Jana DeLeon
“Haunted houses? Do you believe in that sort of thing?”
Olivia pursed her lips. “I think a fair statement would be that I don’t limit the universe to what I understand. I’ve seen things I can’t explain, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an explanation.” She smiled. “The good news is I don’t spook easily, so you won’t have to worry about catering to a damsel in distress.”
John nodded, feeling his options lessening by the second. “I’ll go grab another box,” he said and left the library.
I don’t spook easily.
She said that like it was a good thing.
* * *
OLIVIA DROPPED THE filthy sponge in a bucket of dirty water. Three hours of scrubbing and the room was finally fit for habitation. She sank down on the floor and leaned back against one of the now-sparkling maple bookcases. It really was a beautiful room. In fact, everything she’d seen of the house so far was gorgeous. It was a shame that no one lived there enjoying it, although she guessed most people wouldn’t enjoy being sequestered out in the bayou with only a small town of strange people and a swamp of all kinds of creatures as company.
A crash above her caused her to jump and she slowly pulled herself up from the floor. John Landry had been making good on his noise-making promise. He’d been banging and knocking upstairs as long as she’d been cleaning downstairs. She sometimes wondered if he was creating more work.
She grabbed the bucket, headed to the kitchen and dumped the dirty water in the sink. She rinsed the bucket and placed it upside down in the sink to dry, then pulled a bottle of water from the refrigerator and rubbed it across her forehead before taking a huge swig of it. The humidity was something she’d expected to encounter but it was worse than what she’d imagined, especially with no air-conditioning.
She grabbed a bag of potato chips from the kitchen counter and headed back to the library. Unpacking and setting up her laptop and printer was next on her list, then she’d be ready to work. No more excuses. She smiled when she thought about all the ideas that were already flowing through her mind for the book, and then stopped short when she stepped into the library.
Something is wrong.
She scanned the empty room. Nothing seemed out of place, but yet, she knew it wasn’t like she’d left it. All five of her boxes were still stacked at one end of the long table and at the other end of the table was a lamp. She felt her breath catch in her throat. A lamp that used to sit on a tiny table on the far wall.
Taking a step closer to the table, she checked her boxes more closely. They were still sealed and didn’t appear to have been shuffled around at all. A loud thump upstairs caused her to jump. Her water bottle slipped out of her hands and onto the floor.
Get a grip. It’s just John, you know, the man you told you didn’t spook easily.
Could John have moved the lamp just to mess with her? She thought about her trip to the kitchen, trying to recall if she could still hear him banging around when she’d been cleaning the bucket but she’d grown so used to the noise that she simply didn’t know. Surely, that was it. He was playing a joke on her. Trying to prove she wasn’t as tough as she thought she was. She crossed her arms across her chest, suddenly chilly in the previously stifling room.
Well, it wasn’t a very funny joke, and she wasn’t going to stand for it.
She picked up her water and set it on the table with a thump, then strode down the hall and up the stairwell, ready for battle. She found John in a bedroom at the back of the house, probably positioned over the library downstairs, and he was covered all over with something white.
One glance at the gaping hole in the ceiling and the mess surrounding him on the floor gave her a clear idea of where the white substance came from. “What happened?” she asked.
He was standing on a stepladder with his head poked up in the hole in the ceiling. Leaning down a bit, he looked out at her. “Ceiling fell in is what happened. Didn’t you hear all that noise earlier?”
She remembered the loud crash she’d heard when she’d just finished cleaning. “That was the ceiling? Wow. I guess you were standing under it.”
“Unfortunately. I thought the light fixture was loose but it was the entire ceiling that was sagging. I barely touched it and the whole thing came crashing down on me.” He stepped down the ladder and retrieved a water bottle from the dresser, leaving white tracks everywhere he stepped.
Olivia stared at the white shoe prints then back into the hall. It was dusty and dirty, but not a single white ring in sight.
“Did you need something?” he asked.
“No. I just thought I ought to check and make sure everything was okay...you know, with the noise.”
John narrowed his eyes at her. “So you thought I might be injured but waited a good five minutes to come up and check?”
“Yeah,” Olivia said as she backed out of the room. “Sorry, you’re right. I should have checked sooner, but I was pouring out a bucket of dirty water.” She pointed down at his feet. “You might want to take your shoes off before you walk around much more. Not that the place is clean or anything.”
John glanced down at his feet and frowned. “You’re right. No sense making it worse.” He looked back up at the ceiling and sighed. “This is going to be a real mess to fix.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Olivia said and fled down the hall.
She checked the front door, but the dead bolt was still securely in place. A quick check of the back door in the kitchen revealed the same thing. He could have taken his boots off before coming downstairs. That would make perfectly good sense, especially if he didn’t want her to hear his footsteps on the marble flooring in the entry. But Olivia would swear by his expression that he hadn’t even noticed the state of his boots until she’d pointed it out.
Unless he was a very good actor.
Olivia hurried back to the library, determined to hook up her computer, contact Wheeler and make sure she had all the information she could get on John Landry. She stopped short in the doorway.
The lamp was back in place.
* * *
JOHN WATCHED OLIVIA flee the room and shook his head. For someone who claimed she didn’t spook easily, the woman looked like she’d seen a ghost. She’d obviously come upstairs for a reason, but whatever that reason was, she’d changed her mind about it. He didn’t believe for one minute it was the crash that had brought her scurrying up the stairs. If she had been that worried about it, a bucket of dirty water would have been the last thing to detain her.
He’d thought about pushing the issue but finally decided that if something was bothering Olivia, that would likely only work in his favor. Staring back up at the ceiling, he sighed. He’d had no intention of creating more work for whoever replaced him, but that’s exactly what he’d managed to do. He dug through the pile of Sheetrock and pulled out the light fixture that had attracted his attention in the first place.
It was coated with Sheetrock dust and any chance of gaining a fingerprint was probably long gone, but he wanted to make sure he hadn’t been imagining things. He wiped the dust off the light fixture’s ceiling plate with the bottom of his shirt. Just as he’d thought—scratches lined the bottom of the ceiling plate close to the screws that held the fixture in the ceiling.
There was no way to tell if the scratches were new, but John would bet everything they were. The ceiling plate had been wiped clean. That’s what had drawn his attention to the fixture in the first place—a shiny plate in a room of otherwise dusty items. He’d brought in the ladder hoping to get a closer look, but when he’d placed a hand on the ceiling to steady himself, the whole thing had come crashing down.
He looked at the light fixture. Maybe the old caretaker had been aware of the ceiling problem and started taking the fixture down to make the repair. He placed the light fixture on the floor and blew ou
t a breath. He was wasting time. It didn’t matter what the old caretaker had intended, or if every upstairs ceiling dropped down on him.
He had to find his sister.
Despite Olivia staying out of his way, this afternoon had been a total waste. He’d found nothing new. No indication that his sister had been on the second floor. And maybe she hadn’t been. If she’d even made it to laMalediction, maybe she’d run into trouble before she’d ever gotten the chance to do much poking around.
He ran one hand through his hair, scattering Sheetrock dust around him. What if he’d made a mistake about her destination? What if she’d scheduled her visit to laMalediction on her calendar and changed her mind? If his sister had never been to this house, he was losing valuable time here. If only he could find evidence, anything that told him for certain that she’d been here. The pink button was a sketchy clue, at best.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. No messages, but at least it had decent signal strength. He pressed the number for the New Orleans police department and asked for the captain.
“Landry?” Captain Reeves answered the phone. “Where the hell are you? Harrison’s been by your apartment twice and says your phone’s turned off.”
“I went to visit an aunt my mom used to check on. She lives out a ways in the bayou. Cell phone signal’s sketchy.”
“An aunt, huh? So your sister’s missing and your mom’s in the hospital, and you want me to buy that you took vacation time to visit some old lady?”
“Yes, sir,” John replied, keeping his voice steady. If the captain found out he was at laMalediction after Wheeler had forbidden the police to enter the property, he’d have John’s badge. “Is there any news?”
The captain was silent for a moment and John was afraid the man was going to call him on his lie. The captain was no one’s fool and knew John about as well as anyone did. Well enough to know that John wouldn’t bail on the investigation without a really good reason—like a lead that the police didn’t have the authority to pursue.
“Not much. Harrison was just here and said they found a store clerk about twenty miles outside of New Orleans on I-10 who remembers your sister filling up there five days ago.”
John felt his pulse quicken. He’d driven past that filling station on the way to laMalediction. Rachel could have been pursuing another house in the same direction, but there was no mention of another house on her calendar until weeks later. At least it was something. “Is the filling station guy certain it was Rachel?”
“Yeah. I got the impression he liked what he saw. Described her and her car pretty well and seemed certain when Harrison showed him the picture.”
“But no indication of where she was going?”
The captain hesitated. “He says she asked about Cypriere.”
“Damn! I knew it. Now are you going to get a warrant?”
“I hung up with the district attorney right before you called. It’s thin, probably not enough for a warrant, but he’s going to ask one of the judges for a favor given this is a cop’s family. The judge has a cousin who went missing twenty years ago and was never found. The D.A. thinks he’ll be sympathetic.”
“How soon can we get access?” If he didn’t have to hide, he could flood the house and grounds with men and equipment. No sneaking around and making excuses. No more hiding behind a stepladder or a chain saw.
“The judge he thinks will give the warrant is out of town for two days.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me! Tell him to get another judge.”
“There isn’t another judge who’s willing to put his neck out. The D.A.’s already asked around on this and been told no. There’s entirely too many things that could have happened to Rachel between that filling station and wherever she was headed. Unless someone can put her in Cypriere, then none of the other judges are willing to risk it.”
“I don’t have to tell you how much time has passed.”
“No, you don’t. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I have to tell you, John, that if you do anything to risk this investigation, it will not be good for your career. Do not go near that property until we have a warrant. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.”
“I mean it, Landry. Do not set foot in Cypriere.”
“No problem.” John closed the phone. He hadn’t really lied. He had no intention of setting foot in Cypriere, the town. If his sister was going to be found, he had a feeling it would be at laMalediction.
He tucked the phone into his pocket and headed downstairs. There had been no sign of Rachel on the second floor, so he’d save the attic until last. The basement was his next destination and he’d seen an access door in the kitchen. He hurried into the kitchen and almost collided with Olivia.
A camera slipped in her hands, and she clutched it to keep from dropping it. He grabbed her shoulders to steady both of them. “Sorry. I keep forgetting there’s someone else here.” He looked down at the camera and blinked. “Nice camera.”
Olivia frowned. “Yeah, it is. I found it in the cabinet when I was putting up my supplies. I thought maybe it was yours. I was coming to ask.”
John’s pulse began to race. He’d bought that exact model for his sister for Christmas. “No, but maybe the old caretaker kept it here to take pictures for Wheeler.”
Olivia shrugged and handed him the camera. “Maybe so. Guess you’ll need it then. I’d start with that ceiling upstairs if I were you. It didn’t come down by itself. If there’s a leak somewhere it can get way worse for you.”
John took the camera and turned it on, pleased that the batteries were good. “You’re absolutely right. I think I’ll do that now.” He left the kitchen, studying the display on the camera. Twenty-two pictures stored.
Maybe one of them would give him a clue to finding Rachel.
Chapter Five
Olivia trudged up the stairs, holding a printout on John Landry that she’d received from Wheeler. She planned to read it again while soaking in a hot bath, but her initial review had shown nothing even remotely questionable. It had taken her an hour to set up her equipment and another hour to finally acquire a decent enough satellite connection to download the documents, but at least that part of the necessary work was done. With any luck, the bath would revive her and she might get a second wind and do a little work that night.
She entered the bedroom and went to retrieve her change of clothes from her suitcase on the bed and that’s when she saw it—a small, framed, black-and-white photo lying on top of her luggage. She whirled around and looked into the bathroom, then checked in the hall but saw nothing. Maybe John had left it there when he was doing his repair inspection. Maybe he’d moved it so it wouldn’t be damaged and forgot to replace it.
Except for the fact that there had not been a single photo in the room the night before, it was a perfectly logical theory. She started to set the photo on the nightstand to deal with it later, but then took a good look at the picture. It was a woman in a fancy dress and had to have been taken a long, long time ago, sometime well before the turn of the century. But the preserved nature of the photo was not what made her gasp.
The woman looked just like her.
Olivia clutched the photo and sucked in a breath, both frightened and excited at the same time. She’d come here looking for answers. Maybe she was finally going to get them. She felt her stomach roll. Who was helping her? That picture hadn’t appeared out of nowhere, and it was no coincidence that it had been left in her room.
John was the logical choice. He’d been upstairs working all day. Maybe he’d seen the photo and thought she would find the resemblance interesting. That must be it. A completely logical explanation, for a change.
Maybe.
But then, if they were the only people in the house, who had moved the lamp or, for that matter, entered her bedroom the
night before while she was bathing?
She stepped into the hallway and called out. “John. Are you still working up here?” No answer was forthcoming, nor could she make out any noise at all. In fact, now that she thought about it she realized she hadn’t heard a peep since he’d accosted her in the kitchen and left with the camera.
She slipped the papers on John into a drawer in the nightstand, grabbed the photo and headed back down to the library. While dusting, she’d noticed several photo albums on the bookcases. If they were labeled, she might be able to identify the woman in the photo. She grabbed several of the heavy albums off the bookcases and laid them on the table.
The first one contained color photos and was clearly far too recent. The second book was close to the right era, but the woman was not in any of the photos. In the third book, she hit pay dirt. An eight-by-ten photo of a woman and a man standing in front of laMalediction. The woman was wearing a different dress, but there was no mistaking the facial features and the hair. This was the woman from the photo.
Franklin and Marilyn Borque, 1861.
Olivia felt a chill pass over her. No, it couldn’t possibly be.
“Must be interesting.” John’s voice sounded behind her and she jumped.
“Oh, my God,” Olivia said, her heart racing. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t exactly sneaking.”
“No, I’m not saying that. I guess it was interesting.” She looked up at the man standing in the doorway and bit her lip. Did she come out and ask him if he was messing with her or keep her cards hidden? What if he said it wasn’t him? Would she know if he was lying? So far, John Landry seemed a bit of an enigma.
“Look at this,” she said and lifted up the photo album before she could change her mind.
John looked at the photo, then her, then back at the photo. “Wow. No wonder you didn’t hear me. You look just like her.”
Olivia blew out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. “So you see it, too?”
