“He’ll be all right,” I said. “I think we took a chomp out of something bigger than we’re used to. This house is enormous, and we usually renovate much smaller properties. The stress is getting to him, but once we have a few more things in hand, it should all go back to normal. Besides, it’s hot up here. Sometimes, the heat makes you see things.”
Ethan picked my paper plate out of the dirt and crumpled it in one meaty hand. “I’m glad to hear that—”
A sudden clang drew our attention upward where a stack of tiles dominoed off the roof and shattered on the ground below. Bodhi had slipped, kicking the tiles out of place. He windmilled his arms, trying to regain his balance, but his feet slid out from under him and he landed hard on his back, skating toward the edge of the roof at a breakneck pace.
“No!” I gasped, upending the deck chair as I leapt to my feet. My ankle threatened to buckle beneath me, and Ethan grabbed me around my waist to steady me.
Bodhi veered toward the side of the angled roof, flipping over on his stomach in an attempt to seize anything that might halt his rapid descent. No luck. Tiles ripped off in his hands, as did the gutter. I watched, my mouth stretched open in a yell of panic, as he plummeted off the edge of the roof.
But instead of hitting the ground with a brutal smack, Bodhi halted in midair, suspended ten feet above the dirt. He swung his legs down, getting his feet underneath him, before the unknown force released him. Then he landed on the ground in a catlike crouch, unharmed.
I limped over to Bodhi as fast as my plaster-covered ankle would allow, but Ethan got there first. His eyes were wide and anxious as he hauled Bodhi to his feet, dusting dirt off of Bodhi’s white T-shirt.
“Did you see that?” Ethan exclaimed when I reached them. I took Bodhi by the hand, checking him over for injuries, but other than his pulse racing through the veins in his neck, he seemed completely fine.
“See what?” Bodhi asked. He glanced up at the roof, where the rest of the construction crew peered over the edge to determine if Bodhi was okay. He waved up at them. “That was lucky, wasn’t it?”
“Lucky?” Ethan repeated incredulously. “Bodhi, something caught you before you hit the ground! Didn’t you feel it?”
Bodhi caught my eye. There was something else going on in his mind. I could see that, but Ethan couldn’t. I gave a nearly imperceptible shake of my head. We had to keep Ethan in the dark.
“It happened so fast,” Bodhi answered, shaking his sweaty curls out of his eyes. “I didn’t feel anything.”
Ethan turned to me, his usually calm demeanor gone with the wind. “Bailey, you had to have noticed that. He slowed down before he hit the ground!”
I laid a reassuring hand on Ethan’s forearm. “Ethan, are you feeling all right? I didn’t see anything like that at all.”
“But— he—!” Ethan spluttered, gesturing from the roof to the ground.
Bodhi called up to one of the crewmen on the roof. “John!”
A burly black man, sporting a Seattle Mariners hat and wearing a T-shirt with a logo that matched the one on Ethan’s polo, poked his head over the busted gutter. “Need something, Bode?”
“Can you take Mr. Powell inside to cool down?” Bodhi requested, patting Ethan on his broad back. “And get him a glass of water. I think he’s dehydrated.”
“Sure thing.”
As John clambered down the ladder propped against the house, Ethan insisted, “I’m not dehydrated. I’m telling you. I know what I saw.”
Bodhi clapped him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to convince us, Ethan.”
John hopped off the ladder. I played along with Bodhi’s act, leading Ethan to where John stood. “Seriously, Ethan. This is what I was just talking about. The sun gets to you up here on the bluff.”
“But—”
I handed Ethan off to John, who guided him through the front doors of the house. “Put some sunscreen on while you’re at it,” I called after them. As soon as they disappeared into the cool shadows of the living room, I turned back to Bodhi. “Okay, what the hell was that?”
“I lied,” he said, glancing up to the roof to make sure none of the other construction workers were listening in on our conversation. “I felt something catch me. It gave me enough time to swing my feet down like that.”
“Yeah, I saw it too.”
“You did?”
“Technically, I didn’t see anything,” I clarified. “Nothing magically appeared to catch you. As soon as you slipped, I thought for sure we would have to make another trip to the hospital. And then you stopped. Stopped! Midair, Bodhi, as if you were flying. You said you felt something catch you?”
“Like two freezing cold hands took me by the arms.”
Bodhi rubbed his shoulders as though the frigid touch still lingered on his skin. I longed to reach out for him, but he seemed distant, distracted by the thought of being held by something inhuman.
“Do you think it was our ghost?” I asked quietly.
“What else could have saved me like that?”
I sighed, chewing on the inside of my cheek in thought. “What do we do about Ethan?”
“Nothing,” Bodhi replied. “We do nothing. Keep pretending the sun was getting to him. It was a trick of the light. One thing is for sure though.”
“What’s that?”
He looked down at me, the sun reflecting off of his golden irises. “The ghost is holding up her end of the deal to protect us no matter what.”
“A shocking fact considering that she’s spent the last two months trying to drive me insane,” I said sardonically.
“My point is that she’s trying,” said Bodhi. “And if we don’t want any trouble, we had better put some effort into holding up our end of the bargain. The last thing we need is for her to decide we aren’t working hard enough. Is there anything we can do to jumpstart this investigation?”
I walked to the deck chair to collect Caroline’s journal. “I imagine the first thing to do is figure out who our spirit actually belongs to.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
I turned to Bodhi, reaching up to rest my hands on his toned shoulders. “You keep working on the house. Kindly try to avoid any potentially catastrophic scenarios. I’m going to dig into the history of the Winchester house.”
He massaged my forearms with his warm, calloused hands. “How?”
“It’s time to track down Milo.”
13
Research Trip
“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”
With an annoyed huff, I hung up the phone. The same automated message had been aggravating me since the previous morning, despite the fact that I was sure I had the number memorized.
Milo Holmes was the man who had sold us the Winchester house. He was young—far too young to own such a grandiose home—but he had a decent head on his shoulders and was easy to talk to. While Bodhi had immersed himself in tearing apart the Winchester house, I’d updated my blog and spent time with Milo. He had inherited the house from his father, who had bought it at an auction some time before. Other than those scant details, I wasn’t familiar with the Winchester house’s history. It seemed odd that it had remained vacant for so long. Sure, the fact that the original family had met an untimely ending wasn’t exactly a selling point, but successful real estate sales were all about spinning the facts. Or hiding them entirely. Was I supposed to believe that not one person other than Milo’s father had taken an interest in buying the Winchester house?
Milo’s continued absence was starting to worry me. Usually if I called, he answered his phone on the first ring. I thought about the last time I had seen him. It had been at the house a few days ago. We were eating bagels and cream cheese together in the kitchen.
My stomach tightened as the rest of the memory came back to me. Bodhi arrived home, and I’d practically shoved Milo out the back door to prevent a bloodbath. For some ungodly reason, Bodhi had misc
onstrued the comfortable camaraderie between me and Milo as something entirely unforgivable. Maybe that was why Milo had distanced himself from me. A pang of resentment echoed through me. Milo’s absence meant two things. First, I no longer had a comforting presence to confide in. Second, no one was available to fill in the blanks of the Winchester house’s history except me.
It should have been an easy task. Property records were public and generally available online by county. Black Bay, I should not have been shocked to discover, didn’t have a website dedicated solely to its local government. Instead, one measly subheading squished between “Visit Black Bay!” and “Things to do!” served as the only point of access to the town’s online records, but when I clicked on it, I was immediately disappointed.
Online records are not available for this area. Please visit your local clerk’s office to access public records.
“Oh, come on.”
There was no other choice but to hobble into town to the library, since Black Bay didn’t have a clerk’s office, and ask for the hard copies of the property records. I sighed, resigning myself to what was sure to be a slow and tedious trip, and got to my feet.
After assuring Bodhi that there was no need for him to abandon his work in order to drive me into town, I embarked down the footpath at the southeast corner of the house. I kept a leisurely pace, pausing every now and then to give my ankle a break. Though the walking boot helped me get around, I soon second-guessed my decision to refuse Bodhi’s ride. By the time I made it into town, my foot was already swollen and throbbing. Thankfully, the library was nearby. With a wince, I made a beeline for it.
There was a line of children waiting to check out books from the sole desk in the library’s lobby. I waited patiently behind them, favoring my good foot. One of them, a small brunette girl with black glasses that were far too big for her face, experimentally stepped on the firm toe of my walking boot.
“Does that hurt?” she squeaked, peering up at me from the stack of Beverly Cleary novels in her arms.
“I can’t even feel it,” I said, smiling down at her. I nodded toward the checkout desk. “It’s your turn.”
“Oh!”
The little girl’s cuteness level faded when she realized she’d forgotten her library card. It took another ten minutes to track down her mother and get her squared away before I was able to approach the librarian myself.
Mrs. Poe was a compact woman in her late sixties. In all honesty, she reminded me quite a bit of an English bulldog, with her squat bowlegs, flat nose, and severe underbite. From my previous encounters with her, I knew that she defended the library books with the same savagery as a guard dog might. She sniffed from desk to desk, scolded children for giggling, and reprimanded adults for using the ancient PCs rather than reading. With any luck, her dedication extended to Black Bay’s public records, and I could be in and out of the library within a few minutes.
“Hi,” I said brightly to her over the desktop. “May I—?”
She held up her index finger to stop me from talking but said nothing, clicking through a file on her computer screen at a rapid pace. I waited, trying to keep my eyes from rolling toward the ceiling. My ankle was becoming more and more agitated, and if Mrs. Poe didn’t address me soon, I was seriously considering taking a seat right there on her desk.
Thankfully, before I could throw a two-year-old-style tantrum, she looked up. “How may I help you, Mrs. Taylor?”
“I need to find the records for the Winchester house,” I said hurriedly. “They aren’t available online. Does the library have them?”
“Do you have the parcel number?”
“No…”
“It would be much easier with the parcel number.”
“I don’t have the parcel number,” I declared. The boot around my foot felt uncomfortably tight. “Can’t you look it up?”
Mrs. Poe glared at me over the frames of her horn-rimmed glasses. “One moment, please.”
And then with a deliberate sluggishness, she returned to clicking through her computer. I rolled my eyes and bent down to adjust the Velcro straps around my boot. Behind me, the line to check out books grew longer. Parents spoke in hushed tones to one another, but in the quiet library, there was no mishearing the subject of their conversation. I tapped my fingers impatiently against my thigh, wishing Mrs. Poe would take her eternal dissatisfaction with the world out on someone else.
“The Winchester house, you said?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The one on the bluff?”
There was only one Winchester house. “Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Poe squinted at the screen. “According to this, Bailey and Bodhi Taylor currently own the Winchester house.”
It took all of my willpower not to upend Mrs. Poe’s desk. “Yes, Mrs. Poe. I’m Bailey Taylor. You already know this. I’m trying to figure out who owned the house before Milo Holmes.”
“Who?”
“Milo Holmes, Mrs. Poe. H-O-L—”
“I can spell, thank you very much, Mrs. Taylor. There is no record of a Milo Holmes ever owning the Winchester house.”
I sagged against the desk. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Does the library have hard copies of public records available?” I pressed, unwilling to let Mrs. Poe off the hook so quickly.
Mrs. Poe removed her glasses, folded her hands together, and regarded me over the top of the monitor. “If my computer says that there is no record of Milo Holmes, then I’m afraid there is no record of Milo Holmes. Now if you don’t mind, Mrs. Taylor, there’s a line behind you.”
A hook-nosed mother tried to shove past me, setting her child’s picture books on Mrs. Poe’s desk to check out, but I threw myself in front of her.
“Wait,” I said, much to the chagrin of those waiting in line. “You wouldn’t happen to have old copies of the Black Bay Banner somewhere, would you?”
Mrs. Poe fixed me with a withering stare. I stood my ground.
“Back left corner,” called someone from the rear of the line. “Near the history section.”
“Thank you!” I cried to whatever savior had come to my rescue. I flashed Mrs. Poe my biggest smile, and her eye twitched as I limped away.
Past the biographies of previous presidents, I found an entire shelf dedicated to Black Bay’s one and only newspaper. Each issue of the Banner had been laminated and carefully preserved, stacked one on top of the other in a neat bundle. I shuffled through the most recent ones, ignoring the headings. New couple in town! Meet Bailey and Bodhi Taylor, house flipping extraordinaires! Whoever had written the articles had even printed a photo of me and Bodhi from my blog in black and white to incorporate within the article. Apparently, news in Black Bay was so scarce that Bodhi and I warranted the front page.
The articles from the 1990s were less superficial. Back then, before the Winchesters had arrived, the residents of Black Bay were in over their heads. More employees let go from Powell’s Lumber Mill. Numbers in town dwindle as families move elsewhere. Local businesses continue to go belly up.
Finally, I found what I was looking for. It was an issue from August of 1996. A photo of the Winchester family dominated the entire front page. In fact, the whole issue was dedicated to the Winchesters. One feature detailed Christopher’s beneficial effect on the business community in Black Bay. Another praised his wife Elizabeth for all of her volunteer work, including raising funds to build a local animal shelter and creating an annual body-positive beauty pageant to inspire the young women in town. The third page boasted a picture of the Golden Eagles football team with Patrick at the center. I had seen the photo before in Lido’s, the restaurant across town that Patrick and his fellow team members were known to frequent after games. Below, the accompanying article lauded Patrick as a hometown hero. I skipped over the quotes from his teammates, afraid to cry over a twenty-year-old event in a place so public as the library.
Caroline’s article was short and sweet. The Banne
r had used a picture of her during one of her equestrian competitions. She bent low over her horse’s mane as the pair leapt over a log fence, her porcelain features barely visible beneath the lip of her riding helmet. Of all the Winchesters, Caroline had been the most reserved. According to the article, she was a shy yet sharp young woman, but I knew from her journals that she tended to stockpile her scathing remarks, waiting for the opportune moment to unleash them. Those she did not use, she recorded in her daily diary entry. The vague air of the article almost offended me. I felt as though I knew Caroline better than whoever had written her piece for the Banner. Just as I made to flip back to the first page, a paragraph near the bottom of Caroline’s article caught my eye.
Everyone knew Caroline to be a persistent young woman. Previously, the Winchesters spent time on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where Caroline fell in love with plumerias, the flowers used to make the traditional Hawaiian leis. Despite the fact that plumerias are not native to the Pacific Northwest, Caroline planted a plumeria tree in her own backyard. It is a tribute to her tenacity and brilliance that the plumeria tree still blooms. If you wish to honor Caroline at this weekend’s memorial, please order plumeria flowers. The pink ones were her favorites.
Two months ago, I discovered Caroline’s plumeria tree on my own. The garden behind the Winchesters’ house was still a wreck—Bodhi and I hadn’t found the time to hack through the weeds or mow the jungly grass—but for some curious reason, the plumeria tree and its surrounding area remained immaculately pruned. On more than one occasion, I had found a vase of freshly trimmed plumeria flowers on my bedside table in the master bedroom. Another detail arrived at the front of my mind. Caroline often described her piano lessons in her journal, commiserating that her private instructor would not deign to teach her acid jazz. Once, on a rather bizarre night in the Winchester house, I heard the untuned piano in the office play itself. And like I’d told Bodhi before, the reason I’d found Caroline’s journals at all was because her childhood bedroom had come alive, directing me toward the place she had hidden them.
The Haunting of Winchester Mansion Omnibus Page 13
