"When you first moved in with me, you did mention some strange things happening."
'True."
"But then you settled in and that all went away. Now, I'm sure if you actually saw a ghost in our bookshop, or continually heard strange noises, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"
"Urn—"
"Of course you would! And I'm sure Timothea would have told me if she was afraid of a ghost in her home. No, I'm sorry to say I think the noises she heard were a form of dementia."
"But I still don't understand, Aunt Sadie. If you don't think the mansion is haunted, then why should Seymour sell?"
"Because he's a bachelor. What's he going to do all alone in that huge house? His father passed away years ago and his mother's happy as a clam since she moved to the Florida coast."
"You don't think she'll come up to live with him?"
"Judy Tarnish never did get used to our New England winters. She was raised in the South, and after her husband died, she couldn't get out of Rhode Island fast enough. In fact, I remember her telling Seymour that the only way she'd come back up here is to attend his wedding."
"Seymour a groom?" I smiled at that idea. "Can you imagine?"
"You know what they say, Pen. There's someone for everyone." Sadie paused and leaned back in her seat. "Now that you mention it, didn't you get the feeling Seymour was kind of sweet on that strange Miss Tuttle?"
"I'm glad there's no traffic tonight," I said, attempting to change the subject while still trying to get used to the acre of distance between me and the road. My compact car was a lot smaller than Seymour's VW bus. Between the mass of lime-green metal around me and the height of the front seat, I felt like I was steering an army tank down Buckeye Lane.
"Traffic's never a problem around here anymore." Sadie peered out the side window. "It's sad what's happened to Millstone." She shook her head at the empty storefronts, the GOING OUT OF BUSINESS signs. "When I was a little girl, this town was such a pleasure to visit, so alive."
I slowed to a stop at an intersection, although there was no need. The crossroads were empty. I forged ahead, the tarred road getting blacker by the yard. Not only were storefronts dark; corner streetlamps weren't always working. Every few blocks, one was either flickering or entirely burned out, which certainly didn't help the sense of bleak gloom. The uncertain fight didn't make driving Seymour's VW bus any easier, either.
"This thing is so much harder to handle than my little Saturn."
"Just go slow, dear. There's no one behind us." Sadie glanced into her sideview mirror. "Oh, I'm sorry. I spoke too soon. Someone's coming up on you now."
I glanced in the rearview and saw a sedan with a single person visible in the car. I barely glimpsed the driver's shadowy silhouette before a brilliant light blinded me.
"That driver's turned on the car's high beams!"
We were just entering the two-mile stretch that led from the town to the highway's onramp. Averting my eyes from the mirror, I stuck my hand out the window and waved the car forward. But the stubborn driver just kept rolling along behind me, blasting those high beams.
"What's that idiot doing?"
Sadie glanced in her side mirror. "I can't see a thing. Those high beams are too bright!"
I waved again and even hit the horn, but the sedan refused to pass.
"Maybe the driver's afraid of passing here," Sadie said. "Fine then."
I pressed harder on the gas pedal, increasing my speed to put more distance between Seymour's vintage van and the tailgater with the high-beam issue.
Sadie leaned over to check the speedometer. "I thought you said you weren't comfortable driving this thing?"
"I'm not! But Speed Racer here is breathing down my tailpipe!"
Sadie glanced in the mirror again. "Be careful, Penelope. Never let someone else drive your car for you."
Listen to your auntie, baby. Slow it down.
"Jack! Where've you been?" I asked the ghost.
Right here, doll, listening to your auntie's theories on the haunting racket. Did you hear me? Slow down—
"Okay, okay."
For the last two miles, we'd been on a long, slowly descending grade, and I'd picked up a lot of speed. Ahead was the onramp to the highway, a steep, hilly decline, so it made sense to slow down anyway. I pulled my sandal off the gas, shifted my foot to the brake, and pushed down on the pedal—
"Why is it so spongy?" I muttered.
"Spongy?" Aunt Sadie echoed. "What do you mean?"
I pushed the brake pedal again, but there was too much give to feel right, and the bus was failing to slow.
"Penelope, we're going awfully fast." I could hear the tension in my aunt's voice. "I think you better slow us down."
"I'm trying!" I slammed the pedal as hard as I could, but it was no use.
Pump the pedal, baby!
I did, but that didn't work, either. "The brakes are out!" "Out?!"
"Gone, Aunt Sadie! They're not working!"
My fingers tightened on the VW's wide steering wheel. We were well beyond the town's buildings now and there were no street lamps out here. I flipped on my high beams.
The brilliant light illuminated the black tar. In the twin moving spotlights I saw the angle of our descent was quickly getting steeper. Ahead of us the road was beginning to bend.
I had two choices: turn with the road or plow straight into the back end of Prescott Woods. There were no airbags in this vintage bus, and a head-on collision with a three-hundred-year-old tree trunk probably wasn't survivable. If we wanted to live, there was only one way to go—
Turn, doll! Turn now!
The trees came up faster than I anticipated. I cut the wheel, felt the VW shudder. Tires squealed and Sadie and I screamed as the bus tipped slighdy. Sadie's palms flew up to the roof for balance. I gripped the wheel, certain we were going to roll over, but then the heavy vehicle righted itself. With a loud thud, we dropped back to four wheels again.
"Oh, my goodness!" cried my aunt.
I tried the brakes again—and again and again and again.
"I can't slow us down!"
"Oh, my goodness!"
"You said that already!"
Don't panic, honey.
"I'm not panicking!"
"I didn't say you were panicking!" my aunt shouted. You can handle this, Penelope. Calm down, use your head.
I felt my aunt's hand on my shoulder. "Keep the wheel steady, Pen." Her voice was much calmer all of a sudden. "Keep your eyes on the road."
"Okay."
My fingers were wrapped so tightly around the steering wheel, my knuckles looked white in the VW's dim interior. My face was probably just as blanched. But this trip wasn't over. We were speeding along at close to fifty, and that last turn put us down the steep hill that served as the highway's onramp.
I could see the heavy traffic just ahead. "There's no shoulder! I'm going to have to get on!"
"Activate your emergency flashers," said Sadie, her voice still amazingly steady.
I glanced down for a moment, pushed the hazard button. "Okay! They're on!"
"Good," Sadie said. "Just do your best to merge into the highway traffic. The van will slow down on its own as soon as we hit level ground."
That sounded all well and good, but there was no place to merge. We blew right by the YIELD sign and were now speeding toward the highway's crowded right lane.
Honk the horn, baby! Warn these people away from you!
Good idea! I pumped the horn, sent out a succession of nasal VW beeps.
For a second, the lane showed me an opening, and I thought we were in the clear. Then I saw it: a giant Mac tractor, pulling a dozen cars on its ten-ton trailer. There was no way this massive truck could slow down fast enough. A foghorn bellow blasted my eardrums.
"Oh, my goodness!" Sadie shouted again. "Look out!"
The onramp ended and the truck's stack of new cars filled the windshield of the VW. We're dead, I thought, bracing for the crash—
But it didn't come.
The wheel in my hand cut sharply to the right. Beneath my fingers, it kept on turning. The stacked cars disappeared as the van's high beams illuminated high weeds and brush. We bounced so violently, my head bumped the van roof. The turn had slowed us, but we were still moving fast. My hands were still on the wheel but some other force was handling it now, steering the van up a bumpy hillock. The wheel turned again to prevent us from plummeting over the other side.
For a few yards more, we rolled along the high, narrow strip of brush-covered earth, parallel to the highway. Then like the end of a roller-coaster ride from hell, we finally came to a full stop.
I closed my eyes. "Thank you, Jack," I silently whispered.
My pleasure, baby.
I turned to my aunt. "Are you okay?"
Aunt Sadie's hand was on her chest; her eyes open wide. "What a ride!"
A few seconds later—after we both assured each other that nothing on either of us was bruised or broken—I unlocked my shoulder harness and tried to pop the door.
"It won't open! My door's wedged against some high brush. Try your door."
"Oh, dear. Mine will only open about five inches."
Just then, I noticed someone had stopped to help. There was no shoulder on this stretch of road, just a narrow strip of weeds below the steep embankment on which we were now stranded. The driver of a car or van couldn't fit on the thin strip of land below us, but a motorcyclist could—and that was exactly who'd pulled over.
"That's Leo Rollins's motorcycle," Sadie said, pointing.
I recognized the big bronze Harley. Then Leo lifted off his shiny gold helmet and I knew it was him for sure—no one else in the area had Leo's shaggy yellow hair and dark blond beard. Leo's mountain-man build was a giveaway, too; and for a big man, he climbed the steep, uneven embankment with surprising agility.
I rolled down the window. "We need help!"
"I can see that," he said. "You hurt?"
Leo was a man of few words and when he did speak his voice was so low and deep, I expected the floor to tremble, like it did for those sub-woofers he sold in his electronics store.
I didn't know the man very well; Sadie didn't, either. Ever since he moved to our town a few years ago, he pretty much kept his own counsel. The man's beard was more famous around town than anything he'd ever done or said. It grew in inverse proportion with the length of the New England days—the shorter the days, the longer his beard. By the time Christmas came around, and his whiskers were about down to his pectorals, he always put in a book order with us. Last year's included Lee Child's and Michael Connelly's entire backlists. We fulfilled it the last week of January and by the first week of February he was holed up alone in his Vermont cabin till March. For the past few years, he'd gone every year like clockwork.
"We're okay," I assured Leo. "Just a little shaken up."
"Thank you for stopping," Sadie called from the passenger seat.
"I saw the whole thing," Leo told us, pointing to the end of the onramp. "Seymour almost T-boned that Mac truck's trailer. Where is he?" Leo glanced inside the vehicle.
"Seymour wasn't driving," I said.
Leo frowned. "But this is his breadloaf bus."
"He lent it to us to get home."
"I'm phoning Bud," Sadie called to us, pulling out her cell phone. "He can pick us up and take us home. And he'll know who to call to tow this thing."
"Good idea." While Sadie placed her call, I turned back to Leo. "Can you help me get out of here? The door's wedged shut."
Mutely, Leo nodded his shaggy lion head. He bent over and lifted up his right pants leg. Strapped around the upper part of his black boot was a leather sheath. He pulled free a fancy-looking dagger and used it to slash at the brush wedged against my door. I pushed the door harder, forced it half open, and squeezed through.
"You said you saw the whole thing, right?" I asked, stumbling out onto the rocky hill.
Leo caught me. "Yep."
"Then you must have gotten a good look at the car right behind us?"
Leo's brows knitted. "A car? Behind you?"
"Yes, a dark sedan started tailgating us as soon as we left Millstone. There was just one driver, but the car's high beams were on, so I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. I was hoping you could help me out there. Did you get a look at the car and the driver?"
Leo scratched his temple. "A car? Behind you?"
"Yes! The sedan was right behind us when we turned onto the onramp, so it must have been right behind us as we merged onto the highway. Did you see the driver?"
"I didn't see any driver, Mrs. McClure, 'cause I didn't see any other vehicle. The only thing that came hurtling down that onramp was Seymour's ride here."
I frowned at that, unable to comprehend how that could possibly be true.
"Pen!"
I wheeled. "What is it, Aunt Sadie? Are you okay?"
Sadie had finished her phone call to Bud and now seemed to be struggling inside the VW. "I can't unlock my seatbelt. It's jammed!"
"Here," Leo said, holding out his knife for me. "Cut the strap and get her out."
I nodded, took the dagger, and squeezed back into the front seat.
"Oh, thank you!" Sadie said as I easily sliced the thick seatbelt strap.
"Don't thank me. Thank Leo for keeping this blade of his razor-sharp " I smiled at Sadie and she glanced at the weapon. The steel blade felt heavy in my hand; the hilt slightly bumpy, as if it had been embossed with a design.
Take a closer look, baby.
I heard the ghost's cool whisper in my head, but I didn't know what he meant. "A closer look at what?"
That fancy gut-ripper, what do you think?
It was too dark in the front seat of the VW to see it clearly, so I leaned forward, opened the glove compartment, grabbed the flashlight inside, and turned it on.
"Penelope?" Aunt Sadie said. "What are you doing?"
"Just taking a look at Leo's knife," I whispered, flipping on the light. I directed the bright beam onto the blade and my brows drew together.
Strange coincidence, don't you think?
"Yes," I told the ghost.
If it is a coincidence.
Under the white beam of the flashlight, the hilt of the steel dagger appeared distressed, like a decades-old antique. Embossed on the metal surface was a five-pointed star with
a fleur-de-lis at its center. Fd only seen the design once before—on the gate of Miss Todd's mansion.
‘I saw that design before, too, baby, a long time ago.
"Where?" I asked the ghost. "And when exactly? Who had it? And what does it mean?"
But the ghost didn't have time to answer any of my questions. An approaching siren on the highway interrupted our little supernatural chat.
"Staties here!" Leo called from the hillside.
The patrol car arrived a few moments later, carrying two well-pressed officers beneath matching Smokey the Bear hats. It was time to explain this "accident" to the Rhode Island State Police.
CHAPTER 9
Who's Got Her Covered?
She had the look around the eyes and a set of the mouth that spelled just one thing: She was for sale cheap.
—My Gun Is Quick, Mickey Spillane, 1950
BY THE TIME Bud Napp turned his van onto Cranberry Street, it was close to ten thirty in the evening. Compared to the dead village of Millstone, the hustle and hum of Quindicott's shopping district, even at this late hour, felt like another world—and I was extremely relieved to be back in it.
A screening had just let out of the Movie Town Theater and small, laughing clusters of people were heading for Franzetti's Pizza, the Seafood Shack, and Donovan's Pub. Young couples were cuddled up on benches along the commons, where the Chamber of Commerce had just installed new faux Victorian street lamps. Older pairs were meandering down sidewalks, gazing into store windows, many of which were still glowing brightly as shopkeepers completed their final transactions on this lovely summe
r night.
I glanced at my aunt, who was sitting snugly between me and Bud in his van's front seat. Relief was evident in her face. Sadie was glad to be home, too.
As we rolled up to 122, I checked my watch. We'd closed our bookstore early, but the Community Events room in the adjoining storefront was often occupied at this hour.
"Do you think the Yarn Spinners are still meeting?" I asked my aunt.
"Doubt it," she said. "I know most of those ladies from church. They're early risers."
We'd already phoned Seymour to give him the bad news about his vintage VW bus. He was relieved that we were okay but furious about the brakes failing. Cursing a blue streak, he vowed to us he'd just had the thing inspected at Scotch Brothers Motors.
"Wait till I get my hands on Patrick Scotch!"
"Don't be too sure it's Patrick's fault," I told him.
"Why?" Seymour asked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I think it's awfully coincidental that your brakes failed right after you inherited Miss Todd's mansion. That's what I mean."
Seymour told me to chill out. "Don't go all conspiracy theory on me, Pen. The bus is pretty old."
"But you just had it inspected, didn't you?"
"Yeah, supposedly? Seymour said. "But Patrick Scotch is turning into a real rip-off artist. He charged me an arm and a leg for dubious repairs to my ice cream truck, and I wouldn't be surprised if his inspection on my breadloaf was slipshod. It's time for me to find a new mechanic."
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