Aubrey frowned, nodding.
“What?” Levi said.
“Seems Eli’s not impressed with your imagination.” Aubrey stepped into the middle of the foyer, her gaze scanning the extensive woodwork, ornate wainscoting, the wall supporting the wide, built-in curve of the staircase. In Levi’s defense, she did have to call upon old real estate lessons, the hundreds of houses she’d toured as the Surrey City Press home portrait reporter. “Look . . . here.” Built into the curve of the staircase was a door, designed to be a seamless part of the molding. “Huh,” she said, examining the frame. “No knob.”
“But a keyhole,” Levi said, spying the small lock. Upon closer examination, they could see it, the frame of a door camouflaged by woodwork. “If I go out and ask Dawn for a key . . .”
“Either she won’t have a clue where it is or she’ll want to come inside.” Aubrey concluded this as Levi pressed forcefully on the door, which didn’t budge.
Yet the steady ping persisted, indicating they were on the right track.
“Let me give it a try.”
Levi pasted a squirrelly look on Aubrey; the door was quite massive compared to her.
“A little cooperation if you’d like my assistance, Eli.” There was nothing to grab on to, the entry one unified piece of architecture. The door remained stationary, and then slowly it began to pivot on a hidden hinge.
Levi stepped back. “I’ll be damned.” He glanced at Aubrey. “That would have been genius in our master suite addition, separating the bathroom from the dressing area.”
She rolled her eyes, huffing at him.
“Right. Not germane to the task at hand. Even so . . .” He paused to run his hand over the clever artisanship.
Aubrey located a light switch, which illuminated a tight metal turned staircase; it mimicked the one that led to the grand house’s second story. She stepped forward, and Levi’s hand gripped her arm. She turned. His expression was warier than the possibilities of a simple ghost hunt. “Right,” she said. “The last time you and I ventured into an unknown basement . . .”
“At the Byrd house.” Levi stared into the dark chasm before them.
“That didn’t end so well, did it?” Aubrey knew their thoughts were the same, though surely Levi’s was more pointed. Desperate, caught, and somewhat crazed, Violet Byrd, Missy Flannigan’s killer, had shot him at point-blank range.
Levi swallowed hard. “Sorry. The similarities caught me off guard.”
“Six days in ICU, eighty-five percent blood loss.” Her gaze moved to his shirt-covered midriff. “Scars you can definitely talk about. It’d give me pause too. But I doubt Eli came equipped with a firearm.”
“You’re right.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I’m being ridiculous.” Levi stepped in front of Aubrey, his shoes heavy on the narrow, winding metal.
Following, Aubrey murmured, “Of course, I have no idea what other scare tactics Eli might have at his disposal.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A fast tour of the lower level showed off amenities they’d missed a dozen years before. Empty maid’s quarters and two full baths, an in-home theater stripped of everything but electrical wires, a rec room of some sort, a wine cellar, and a spacious laundry room. This was the last room Aubrey and Levi saw, having passed, without incident, through all the other square footage. Even the pinging had grown vague. She took in the expanse of endless cabinetry, fancier than what you’d find in most kitchens.
“Maybe you should have had our architect tour this space.” Aubrey took a turn around the room. “I doubt anybody would mind doing laundry in here.”
“I’d think the point of here is that you can afford for someone else to do your laundry. I doubt Eli’s mother—or father,” Levi corrected before Aubrey could label the remark sexist, “ventured this way too often.” He leaned against the folding table that housed a built-in ironing board. “I don’t know about you, but seems like our trail has gone—”
“Cold,” she said, sensing a drop in temperature. “Do you feel that?”
Levi shook his head, though his relaxed stance suddenly stood pole straight.
“I mean cold as in atmospheric, not ethereal.” In Aubrey’s mind, there was a distinct difference. “We missed something . . . something detached from everything else down here.” Like the tug to her hair, she felt a sharp poke in her back. “Don’t touch me!” Aubrey’s teeth gritted, annoyed by Eli’s continued physical contact. Yet he managed to make his point, directing them to a door at the far end of the laundry room. “The bonus space noted on the listing sheet. We didn’t see anything like that.”
“There?” Levi pointed to double doors that blended with the cabinetry.
“It’d be my guess.” Aubrey was on Levi’s heels as he approached the entry. It opened to a deep well of blackness, the light from the laundry room barely filtering in.
“Hang on.” Levi fumbled to his left, inside the door, following the trail of electrical fixtures on the laundry room side. “Why is it they never flip a switch when it’s basic necessity?”
“Because energy expended in that way is about communication, not your convenience.”
“It was rhetor—” Levi stopped dead as he found the switch, a sea of lights illuminating an arena-like space. “Holy . . .”
“Shit,” Aubrey said. “What is this?” In front of them was a circular cement floor, railing around the edge. They moved forward, onto a large pad of cement. Levi’s fingers gripped around hers.
“Your hand is like ice.” He looked around, then down at their feet. “And I’m pretty sure this whole place was once covered in exactly that—ice. An indoor ice rink, that’s the bonus space?”
“Looks like it.”
“And our chipper realtor didn’t mention that because . . .”
Aubrey smiled, recalling the lessons learned from savvy real estate agents. “Because an indoor ice rink is not a perk. Unless your buyer is an NHL player, this is nothing but maintenance and an eyesore.”
“So just accentuate the positives.”
“I think it’s page one in the realtor handbook.” Aubrey was drawn away from what motivated realtors to what was motivating Eli Serino. “But an ice rink. How is that part of Eli’s message?” She shivered; the space felt like a freezer. As she spoke, Levi inched back, staring at her. “What?”
“I can see your breath, like it’s twenty degrees in here.”
Aubrey only had to expel one to see it too. When Levi spoke, the same psychic-induced phenomenon was absent. “I’m guessing you’re not feeling anything but room temperature?”
He shook his head and removed his jacket; Aubrey gratefully tugged it on.
“I suppose an ice rink makes sense. Connie Beane said Eli’s parents bought him a spot at Velocity Skate Club in Sudbury. I assume Suzanne and Bruno’s parenting style included indulging Eli in whatever.”
“But an entire indoor ice rink?” Levi said. “That’s nuts.”
“Well, if you’re of average means, and you’re using possessions to appease, you buy the kid skates.”
“And if you’re filthy rich, you build him an ice rink.” Levi let go of Aubrey’s hand and took a larger turn around the space that had to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. “But how does any of this tie back to Trevor Beane or Liam Sheffield? You’re going to call Piper, and say what? ‘My eccentric ghost has led me to a giant puzzle piece. Unfortunately, I don’t have a clue how it fits’?” On Levi’s words, the sound of something falling—or being thrown—echoed through.
“I think you’re lucky that wasn’t aimed at your head.” Aubrey pointed toward what looked like a large cedar door, set rinkside. “That way. Levi, when are you going to learn, acerbic doesn’t fly with them.”
“I disagree.” They traded a glance. “Sometimes I think it’s why I was recruited for the job.”
Aubrey rolled her eyes, and the two of them crossed through the center of the defunct rink. She pulled Levi’s jacket tighter and squinted as t
hey approached the door. “Huh. It looks like . . .”
“A sauna?” Levi clamped a hand around the wooden handle and yanked. The door opened and a light lit automagically. “I think that one is mere mortal wiring.” He looked up at the fixture.
“But, oh my God,” she said, pointing, “that isn’t.” In the middle of the planked floor was a black ice skate, the sharp blade thrust with knifelike force into the floorboards. Surrounding it all was a sauna that had been repurposed into a storage room. Makeshift shelving was filled with a locker room’s worth of hockey equipment—a plethora of gear: skates, padding, goalie masks, enough hockey sticks for an entire team. And tape: shelves and shelves of green tape. Aside from the X-marks-the-spot skate impaled in the floor, Aubrey was keenly aware of temperature. It was odd to be freezing in a sauna. “Help me out, Eli. I’m still not getting it.” Aubrey’s teeth chattered, the cold penetrating like she was on an Arctic quest. “How does here get us to those missing boys?”
Levi crouched and pried the skate from its violent pose. “I think we should go.” He stood, skate in hand. “The shattered mirror, this skate. Maybe Eli’s not chasing you directly. But this is enough for me. It could be this has nothing to do with Trevor or Liam, and Eli’s still a ghost with an ax to grind.” As he grasped Aubrey’s hand, she pulled away. “Be reasonable. Your lips are turning blue! This isn’t safe.”
“Since when does reason figure into any of this? But that is Eli’s message. And the tape, rolls and rolls of it.” She pointed to the shelf. “And this!” She took a step forward and plucked a roll of Hubba Bubba Sour Green Apple gum from a display box, the kind you’d find in a convenience store. “Tell me all this is not a direct link, Levi, and something Eli wants us to find. Help me solve this . . .” She put back the gum and drew knotted hands to her mouth, blowing into them. “And we’ll get out of here.”
He huffed, dropping the skate onto a shelf and taking her hands in his, rubbing. “So this is what, other than a cryptic trail?”
Out of sheer survival instinct, Aubrey drew closer to Levi. He let go of her hands, putting his arms around all of her and rubbing furiously.
“My guess is that Eli’s definitely in the market for closure. Last time, I was a conduit for his escape from this house. He’s done that. He’s got no other reason to pursue a connection with me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
She inched back. “Sincerity has a way of making itself known, even with the prickliest of people. You just have to be open to it. Am I right?”
Levi reverted to holding her hands, red and icy cold. He rubbed harder. “Our team effort has always been stronger than our individual ones. No argument there.”
“That’s good to—” A voice cut into Aubrey’s head, dousing the most intimate moment she and Levi had shared in months.
“How sweet. If possible, I’d barf. Actually, it’ll be good news for the two of you. You’re gonna need those dynamic-duo antics. But right now, if you want your road map to those missing kids, pay attention. It’s not that complicated . . . consider the construction . . . all construction . . .”
Aubrey let go of Levi’s hands. “‘Consider the construction . . .’? That’s what Eli just said.”
“Consider the construction.” Levi absorbed the immediate sight lines, top to bottom. He even dropped onto his knees, running his fingertips along the edges of the floorboards.
“What are you looking for?”
Satisfied or just frustrated, he stood. “I don’t know. ‘Consider the construction . . .’ It’s like the case you solved for Piper. Lily North. Her captor held her hostage in a barn cellar, the trapdoor. It made me think of that old Edsel, how you drew it.”
“And how do think that relates to this?” Aubrey’s brow furrowed at Levi’s dead-stop pause.
“Edith Pope, the kidnapper’s mother. The reason you finally got the information that led Piper to Lily North was because of Errol Pope’s dead mother. She’s the one who conveyed Lily’s whereabouts.”
“Led me to . . . or compelled me to draw that car, underlining it like a madwoman until I put it together, until they found Lily.”
“So if a son’s mother was so willing to rat him out in the afterlife to save a little girl . . .”
“Maybe a mother’s son is doing the same thing now.”
“A mother who, according to Zeke, couldn’t deal with the loss of Eli.”
Aubrey and Levi traded a telling glance. “My God, Levi, if they built an entire casino to appease Eli’s mother . . .”
“Imagine how far Suzanne Serino, a woman with money and means, might go to appease herself.”
Aubrey’s bag slid from her shoulder, and Levi retrieved Peter Ellis’s ghost gifts.
“Okay, but what do a childlike sketch of Santa Claus, some mountains, and the commonly named town of Springfield have to do with this defunct ice rink and two missing boys?”
Aubrey took one piece of paper from Levi, its warmth hyper-obvious in the cold that surrounded her. “Oh, Levi . . .” She held up the paper. “Construction.”
“Construction, as in paper, but also like a property—housing developments!” He handed Aubrey the other paper and pulled his phone from his pocket. The reporter went to work, pursuing a fluid Google search. “Here. Look.” He turned the phone toward her. The screen showed off the image of an upscale desert housing location, hardly the stuff of jolly old elves and Christmas holidays. “Santa Claus, Arizona.”
“And that’s what, besides an oxymoron?” But as Aubrey spoke and Levi followed the trail, the cold she felt began to dissipate. Her breath was still visible, but the air temperature rose, her ears going from numb to burning. She pulled out her own phone and googled the same location. “According to this, Santa Claus, Arizona, is the textbook description—no pun intended—of a ghost town.”
Levi looked at a different screen, one that showed off a luxury gated entrance. “Wikipedia needs to catch up. The Serinos bought the surrounding acreage. I came across it doing general research on Jude Serino. They revitalized a chunk of Santa Claus and turned it into a slice of desert paradise . . . golf course, self-contained community amenities, and luxury properties. Getaways and vacation homes for the ultra-rich.”
Aubrey peered from her phone to his, which displayed a startlingly different point of view. “Levi, this house, the one we’re standing in. It’s also part of the Serino developments, right?”
“Right. I think Acorn Circle was their first foray into residential housing.”
“Where was the second?”
Levi pursued another Google search. “Holy shit. I almost can’t believe it took Eli Serino’s ghost to put this together. Would you believe Springfield, Pennsylvania?”
“You don’t think . . .”
He exited the repurposed sauna, his gaze gliding over the dilapidated ice rink. “I’d say once you’ve built one indoor custom ice rink, it’s probably not that hard to duplicate. I’d be very curious to know if this setup exists anywhere in Santa Claus, Arizona, or Springfield, Pennsylvania.”
The temperature continued to rise, as did the pinging noise—almost a bell of acknowledgment. They had the right answer. Aubrey walked back through the rink, feeling the heavy cloak of a sad life begin to lift. Midway, she shuffled a few steps in front of Levi and turned back, looking at him. “Thanks for staying. And thanks to Eli, I think we may have our road map to those boys.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hyannis, Massachusetts
Aubrey, Levi, and Piper stood in the living room of a grand seaside home, walls of glass showing off multimillion-dollar views of Lewis Bay. It was a rental property but upscale enough to suit the high-end tastes of Bruno and Suzanne Serino. “Just, um . . . still just the three of us?” Levi asked. Aubrey nodded.
Eli Serino’s presence had faded in the house on Acorn Circle and it had not returned. Not even after they’d arrived at Piper’s office, conveying the unusual details of their morning adventure. Naturally, Pip
er did not argue Aubrey’s conjecture about an irate ghost indicating the whereabouts of two missing boys. Nor did she question the part where Peter Ellis’s ghost gifts played a role in the mystery—old predictions providing timely clues. What took time was linking ethereal clues to earthbound ones involving Suzanne Serino. But Piper had succeeded in persuading a federal judge to issue a search warrant for several Serino properties, including their temporary Cape Cod residence.
Admittedly, Aubrey was as curious as Levi to see how it would all play out. She didn’t trust Eli, concerned that his silence simply meant he was lying in wait. Perhaps his Acorn Circle cooperation was Eli misdirecting energy. It could be she was no more than Eli’s pawn at this point, an efficient route to revenge. Looking at the glass surround of the room, Aubrey recalled a shattered French door from years ago, the mirror Eli smashed only yesterday, a skate plunged like a knife into floorboards. Clearly, he had a quick temper, ample energy, and a penchant for sharp objects. She remained leery of what a conversation with Eli’s parents might produce. As they waited, she inhaled deeply, not comforted by the scents of breezy salt air and thorough housekeeping.
Twenty minutes passed, and Aubrey assumed the delay might have something to do with the household staff that had answered the door. The woman’s first language was Portuguese, making it difficult for Piper to convey her purpose—that she wanted to speak with Suzanne Serino.
Finally, a well-dressed, flaxen-haired woman entered the great room. She appeared regal and poised, her presence striking Aubrey as staged in both wardrobe and demeanor. The woman stretched out a slender arm, decorated in several diamond bracelets; at the end of it, an elegantly boned hand curled into a shaky fist. It dropped as if the intended handshake now eluded her. “My apologies,” she said. “Marina’s English isn’t very American. We haven’t had guests since moving in—I do so enjoy fall in New England. I, um . . . I needed to dress.”
“That’s all right,” Piper said. “We didn’t mind waiting . . . Mrs. Serino?”
Foretold (A Ghost Gifts Novel Book 2) Page 29
