Their loud laughter drew Rose back to the group. Sophie handed over two water bottles to Trent and Veronica.
Trent twisted the top off his and quietly asked Veronica, “Pearls, did you ask about Leo?”
“I was about to.” She looked at Rose. “I run the public library. Since you’ve got an inside connection to Leo Drake, any chance you could see if he’d be interested in speaking for us?”
“I could try.” Rose debated, not sure if it pushed a boundary with Leo or not.
“That’s great. People love to hear about authors, their process, what it takes to complete a book, get published in today’s market.”
Rose chuckled. “It actually is interesting. I learned that Leo writes his first pass on a typewriter, not a computer.”
Veronica raised a perfectly plucked brow. “Really? See. This is the kind of stuff people like to know. You mean an electric one?”
“Are you kidding? It’s an ironclad relic from another era.”
Sophie laughed. “At least it’s not a feather pen.”
“Now, now ladies.” Jay frowned. “That’s my buddy you’re making jokes about.”
The phone on the wall rang. Jay stepped over to answer, shaking his head at them.
“I’ll ask him, Veronica,” Rose glanced between the two women. “And I’ll definitely join you guys this week. Got a theme yet?”
Before Sophie could answer, Jay hung up and said loudly, “Hope you guys enjoyed the short break. A tour bus is on the way.”
Rose grabbed a sponge to wipe up the counter and get ready for the next wave of guests. A new kind of happiness churned inside of her. Being here brought the kind of contentment she’d been seeking her entire life. In spite of pretending to be someone else, she was actually just being herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore those shoes.
Chapter 12
As Rose stepped from the shower into the steamy bathroom, Dan Montgomery’s early morning call weighed heavy on her mind. His investigative staff was only human. He couldn’t help it if the guy assigned to her case got a mild bout of the flu, and his already swamped staff couldn’t work on her case. Still, disappointment stole the hope that got her through each day.
She rubbed the soft cotton towel against her wet skin. This wasn’t the end of the world. Dan hoped the staffer might be out of bed in three to five days. Besides, it wasn’t as if the FBI or Department of Justice were knocking at the door a second time, demanding she explain those deposits. Not today anyway.
Rose wrapped the towel around her body and tucked the corner between her breasts. Over a week ago she’d arrived in Northbridge. In some ways, she already felt settled. A job. New friends. Scenic setting, in a lovely New England small town.
Scratch. Scratch.
She stuck her head out of the bathroom door and the scratch sounded again.
Bella’s persistence was both admirable and annoying. Rose picked her underwear up off the tiled floor and tossed them into a tall plastic garbage bag on the bedroom floor—her makeshift hamper. Today she’d search in town for a real one. This visit here might not be ending any time soon.
Bella whined.
“Jeesh, being a half-hour off schedule for a lousy bowl of morning kibbles doesn’t warrant this much drama.”
The dog scratched again.
Rose still had to dry her hair and get dressed. As of last night, though, Leo had left her a note with a lifted house rule; Bella could have the run of the place. Less need for doggy supervision gave Rose more options.
She went to the apartment door. Bella flipped her head around and grunted.
“Yeah, yeah. I heard you. You know, the vet said you were a teeny bit heavy, which I overlooked. But if you can’t wait a half hour for food, well, then, I worry for you, my friend.”
Bella lifted her paw, a threat she was fully prepared to scratch again if needed. “Okay, okay. Let’s go before you wear down a hole in the door.”
They entered the hallway. Rose paused, taking a minute to stand outside her door and listen to the home’s silence. Leo must still be sleeping. She double-checked to make sure the towel knot was secure and hurried to the kitchen.
After taking the dish off the floor, she stretched up to the cabinet, removed the container of kibbles, and filled the dish.
“Eat up, pups.” She bent at the knees, taking care not to lean over in the towel.
She started to put away the kibbles away. The container bumped a canister set as she lifted it, knocking out a thin paperback wedged between them. She shelved the dog food and picked up the book. Connecticut Hauntings. She opened the cover. The table of contents showed about twenty stories, but one in particular stopped her cold.
In the Quiet of the Night—A Tale of Northbridge.
Meg had said a man once shot his wife in this house, a story too much like the past Rose gladly kept hidden. She swallowed old fears, not about ghosts, but about how humans were capable of some horrible actions.
Yet curiosity drew her to the story about this house in particular. She skimmed the parts talking about how Reginald Cotswald met Anna Worthington, the early years of their marriage and building this house in an area known as the Upper East Side of the lake back in 1923. She reluctantly turned to the last page of the story, fear of what she’d find as daunting as the night she’d walked into her parents’ bedroom decades ago.
In the quiet of winter, the Cotswalds visited the lake house for the very last time. Neighbors heard gunfire late one night. When authorities checked, they found Mrs. Cotswald in the couple’s bed, a bullet through her head. Mr. Cotswald later told police his wife had been having an affair with one of her husband’s competitors.
Since that day, people harbor suspicions Mrs. Cotswald’s ghost haunts the property.
Rose closed the book and shut her eyes. Her hands trembled and a hard lump settled in her gut.
Crimes of passion. A phrase most fourteen-year-olds wouldn’t know. A scene no fourteen-year-old should have to face. Yet she had. Even though it happened close to twenty-five years ago, Rose could still hear the gunshot waking her on that humid July night, a sound she’d first believed was a July fourth firecracker.
She had sat up in her bed, the home’s quiet almost more terrifying than the angry tones of her parents’ earlier argument. An affair. A divorce. Megan Allen’s name, repeated over and over. The celebrity was starring in a film with her father at the time and tabloids screamed about their involvement.
A second bang sounded, this one definitely from inside the house. She’d slowly lifted the sheet, got out of her bed, and left her room.
She’d tapped on the outside of their bedroom door. “Mom? Dad?”
Silence.
Rose had slowly opened her parents’ bedroom door, just a crack. A splattered bloodstain on the ivory bedspread made her still. Terror wrapped her in a tight hold, cutting off her breath. She’d pushed the door further. Her father lay on his back, legs out. A dark red stain saturated the front of his shirt.
A chill rushed Rose’s body. Another body could be seen from the corner of her eye across the room. She’d dared to look. Her mother lay still, dropped like a heap on her side. A halo of blood formed above her scalp, a single bullet shot to her temple. A pistol rested on the floor, not far from her mother’s hand. Terror seized her muscles and a chill left her skin icy cold. She’d run from their bedroom, unable to feel her feet all the way to the first level, inhaling gulps of air, trying to breathe so she could speak to the 9-1-1 operator.
After that day, the press hounded her every single time she went out in public. Headlines screamed “Orphaned Emmaline Won’t Talk” or “Emmaline’s Horror;” then they’d write whatever they could scrape up from neighbors and friends of her parents about what had happened—both before and after they died.
A tear rolling down Rose’s cheek ended the horrible memory. She forced her eyes open, thankful to be in this dated kitchen and no longer that
desperate child. It had taken leaving California for her to escape the notoriety.
Goose bumps prickled her skin, reminding her she stood in only a towel. She returned the book where she found it just as footsteps stomped near the front door and someone put a key in the lock. She hurried back to her apartment.
* * * *
Leo sat in front of his typewriter unable to work, still stunned by what had just happened.
If he hadn’t gone to Sunny Side Up for coffee and an egg sandwich, he’d never have been on his back step and reaching for the door as Emma hurried toward the kitchen counter, wrapped in only a short towel.
If he’d only just walked away, he’d be happily working right now. Instead, he’d paused, debating what to do. All while he’d watched her for all of a few seconds, a small amount of time that threatened to railroad his entire day.
The terrycloth had covered just the essentials. The fabric edge brushed snuggly to the crescent curves of her bottom and exposed toned thighs. Sunlight streaking through the kitchen window landed between her shoulder blades, making her skin sparkle like it had been sprinkled with glitter. She rose on tiptoes to reach something in the cabinet. The motion had lifted the back of the towel enough for the moon curves of her cheeks to sneak out and give him a delectable peek. Slow heat had spread through his groin. The very sign he’d needed to remind him to stop. He quickly snuck away, waited a few minutes, and then entered through the front door, making a huge racket so she could disappear in case she was still in the kitchen.
He pushed himself away from the desk and moved to the attic window. Leo’s mind wandered from the shimmering lake view to the way the water sparkled on Emma’s backside. He imagined removing her towel, drying her damp skin, taking in the rest of those curves—
The loud slam of the downstairs door woke him from the fantasy. Emma came into view in the back yard with Bella. Gone was the sex kitten in the towel. Instead, she wore a short-sleeved shirt with denim bib overalls. All she needed was a cowboy hat and a piece of straw stuck between her lips and they’d hire her at the dairy farm down the road.
Leo turned to reach for his coffee, only to find the cup empty. He walked down the attic stairs and opened the door. About to step out, he paused at something on the floor.
What the hell? He leaned closer. Another pair of silk bikini panties? These weren’t here when he’d come up to his office twenty minutes ago.
Navy, with lace trim. He lifted them. Were they Susan’s from her brief visit? He suddenly remembered the white pair left on the stairs a few days ago, still in his cabinet. Panties he’d assumed were Emma’s. So if these were hers…
The thought dangled on its own with a new and uncomfortable notion settling in. One time he and Seth had gone to LA for Leo’s appearance on Conan. After the taping, they’d been hanging out at their hotel bar. Seth had made friends with a lovely brunette flight attendant and Leo sat nearby, nursing a drink. A pretty woman Leo had noticed alone at a nearby table wandered over to him and after some brief, enjoyable flirting, she disappeared to the ladies’ room. When she’d returned, she reached into her purse and pulled out a thong. Running a hand along his leg, she dropped the garment on his lap. “Maybe you’d like to join me upstairs.”
His body had said yes, but he’d said no, worried he’d end up as the feature story on her blog or read about it in some trashy tabloid. Could Emma purposely be leaving these here as a suggestion she’s interested in him? She hardly seemed the type, although women were so hard to read. But what if she was?
He considered her behavior. Emma had shown very little interest in his celebrity status. Not once had she gushed over his work. In fact, other than a mocking remark about his typewriter and trying to analyze why he had writer’s block, she hadn’t said much about him being an author.
But maybe she had been impressed. His ego inflated a little.
He touched the smooth panty fabric with the pads of his finger, pictured the navy color against the pale crescents of her bottom. A brief fantasy ensued, one where he removed the skimpy towel she wore earlier and found these silky delights underneath. God, he’d yank off those clunky glasses, stare into her gorgeous blue eyes, slip his hands…He stopped himself too late as needs for her took over and his unmet desires were stiff, wanting more.
God, he’d never get any writing done today. Hell, if he did, the book would be shelved under “erotica.”
An awareness of everything he’d avoided since losing Camille hit him, startling as a blast of frigid air on a hot day. His feelings for Emma went beyond this hard-on. She made him entertain emotions he’d been trying to avoid. A joyful swelling bloomed inside his chest. Happiness. Like waking each day for something besides work really did matter.
He balled the panties into a wad, the find suddenly more daunting than a minute ago. Returning them would be awkward, or worse, tempting. Leaving them near her door would prove he’d seen them and said nothing. An insult like that might make her pack up and leave. No. He wasn’t sure that was what he wanted. Not now. She served as his muse, but that wasn’t all. She also brought him a new kind of distraction. One he couldn’t decide what he should do about.
He walked up the attic stairs and tossed the panties into the filing cabinet near the first pair. Parts of his life had turned into fodder for fiction, only he wasn’t sure that was such a good thing.
* * * *
Bella walked through the shriveled yellow blooms of a forsythia bush that separated Leo’s property from the neighbors. Left off leash, she sniffed close to the edge of leggy branches, now filling in with leaves.
Incessant chirping nearby drew Rose’s attention to a tree where two nervous robins fluttered around a nest. She moved closer and the adult birds took off. Before she could peek inside, Bella seized the lack of supervision and disappeared into the neighbor’s yard.
Rose squeezed between the branches, shoulder first. “Bella! Here!”
As she emerged, an older man kneeling near a garden bed glanced their way. Bella hurled toward him.
The neighbor smiled and waved to Rose. “I’ll hold her,” he yelled.
Rose caught up and snapped on the dog’s leash. “Thanks.” Rose inhaled to catch her breath. “She usually stays by me. I’m Emma Morris. I’m renting next door.”
“Nice to meet you, Emma. Leo told me a renter had moved in. I’m Harry Gallagher.” Harry tipped the visor of a wool Gatsby cap. He had a crooked nose and sparkling gray-blue eyes. “And this must be Bella.” He leaned over and scratched the dog’s head then glanced up and squinted in the sun. “Leo told me about her, too. Have you had her long?” Harry straightened upright and pressed his hand to his lower back.
“No. I got her from a shelter a few years ago.”
“Around here?”
“No. In Massachusetts, where I just moved from. Are you originally from Northbridge?”
“No. This was our summer house for many years, like the Drakes. But I retired, oh, about twenty years ago and decided to spend the non-snowy seasons here. My grandparents built the house, so we’ve had the place in the family for a long, long time.”
“It’s beautiful.” Rose studied the exterior: white clapboard like most of New England, a flat roof, multiple brick chimneys, and a cupola in the roof’s center. “Different than the Drakes’.”
“New England Greek revival, or so I’m told.”
Bella bumped Harry’s knees with her nose, so he leaned over and patted her chest.
“You must have known the entire Drake family.”
“I did.” He stopped petting the dog. “Wonderful family. Shame the mother died at such a young age.”
“Oh?”
“Oh yes. Mrs. Drake died when the kids were almost done with high school. Heart problems. Then, a few years ago, Philip Drake died from a stroke. Sixty-eight. Had just retired, too.” He shook his head, squinted into the sun. “Damn shame. A good man. Very good man.”
“So you’ve k
nown Leo since he was a boy?”
“I remember the first year the family came with him.” He dropped his voice. “Leo’s adopted, but was a foster child for brief spell at first. Such a scared, quiet little boy. Sweet kid. Tough time at first.” Sadness spread across his face, yet he chose not to share. “The Drake kids played with mine in the summers when we all visited.”
Leo’s background filled in. She tried to imagine him as a scared little boy, because nothing other than his undone manuscript seemed to scare him now.
The dog tugged at the leash, but Rose drew her closer and told her to sit. “Everett actually rented the place to me. Nobody was expecting Leo to be at the house when I arrived.”
“Funny. He just kind of showed up the day the old tenant left.” Harry chuckled. “The tenant said the house was haunted. I’ve heard lots of rumors. Up until this last renter, nobody has ever gone running.”
Leo had appeared as soon as the tenant left? What a coincidence.
The shrill ring of the phone sounded from inside the house, traveling through the screened-in patio.
“Expecting a call from my daughter. Let’s talk again soon.” Harry hurried inside.
Rose returned to Leo’s back yard. Her picture of Leo and his life had filled in from the brief talk. Harry’s remarks had also shed some light on the last tenant’s leaving, and she wondered if Leo played a role.
Surely a Pulitzer Prize–winning author wasn’t capable of such antics. Or was he?
Chapter 13
Dear Dr. Rose, I recently signed up for online dating and struck up a conversation with a man who had no photograph on his profile. No biggie, I thought. Only a shallow person would care about appearance.
Rose lowered the letter and tapped her foot to the English pop singer Dusty Springfield, playing off the vinyl record on an old turntable in the corner of the room. Attraction. A perfect topic for this month’s column, and one many readers would relate to. She sure did.
Bella Luna Page 13
