Hung Out to Dry: The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag, #4

by Jennifer L. Hart

  He didn’t need further encouragement. Neil grabbed my arm and yanked me down the hall to our bedroom, towel be damned.

  “You look happy today,” Marty said as we moved yet another empty bookcase out to the front porch. “You’re kind of, glowing.”

  The donation truck was due in an hour and we had to haul all the crap we’d found in the house outside for them. I’d enlisted Sarah’s grooms as well as Josh and Kenny to help with the job.

  “It’s just the furniture polish.” I told him, though I knew I’d been grinning like an idiot for most of the morning. “Careful with that, Kenny.”

  My son staggered under the weight of an antique Victrola.

  “It’s heavy,” he groused, setting the thing down with a thunk.

  “Then have your brother help you.” I grunted as Marty and I set the bookcase on the front porch.

  “Are you sure she doesn’t want to keep any of it?” Marty asked.

  I shook my head. Sarah had once again claimed she didn’t want anything from her grandfather’s study. At this rate, the house was going to be completely empty by the time we left. There was sparse and then there was echoing silence.

  Marty set his end down and took a few gulps of oxygen. “Tell me again why it all has to be outside?”

  “The people from the charity won’t enter the house.”

  “So why didn’t she hire packers and movers?”

  “She could have,” I said easily. “But we need the money.”

  There was no way he could argue with that. Instead he did a three count and lifted the bookshelf again.

  We hefted the oak bookshelf out the door and then stood it upright. The yard was littered with mirrors, rugs, lamps, chairs, end tables and even a globe. Josh sat in one chair, smartphone in hand.

  Suppressing a growl, I marched down the stairs and snatched it from him. “You’re supposed to be packing up the rest of the library. Didn’t I say no phones until you were done?”

  “I am done.” He reached for the device but I held on.

  “The entire library?” The room was huge and packed to the rafters.

  “Yes.” He made another grab for the phone.

  “If I go in there right now I won’t find a single book?”

  “You will in the cartons.”

  “Don’t sass me, Joshua. Go help your brother.”

  Seeing that I was in no mood to deal with a smart-aleck, he sighed and then skulked off. I blew out a breath. God save me from preteen surliness.

  “We’re never going to get this finished,” Speaking of surly, my brother had pretty much cornered the market on it as he looked back into the rows and rows and rows of boxes.

  “Chin up, sprout,” I said. “Just think of the big, fat juicy paycheck waiting for us at the end of this task.”

  He rolled his eyes but went back inside.

  Sarah came down the stairs, dogs trailing behind her. “Oh wow, I can’t believe this.” She said looking around at the barely controlled chaos.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to keep anything?” I asked her. “Maybe put some stuff in storage?”

  Though I had no eye for appraisal, I could tell quality when I saw it. There was a small fortune in paintings and antiques, never mind the knickknacks.

  But once again she shook her head. “No, I just want it all gone. After years of living with clutter, it’ll be nice to have everything open. Will you come help me with his bedroom?”

  Her grandfather’s bedroom was on the second floor. “Sarah we don’t have time, to do the upstairs. Not if we’re hosting a party here on Saturday.”

  “Just his clothes and personal things. I can’t bear to touch them.” Her eyes filled.

  A tingle was zipping through me, an instinctive silent warning. There was something going on here, something I didn’t understand. Leo had said Sarah didn’t have any friends and what had started as a practical cleaning of the house had become more like a purge. Though I was sure to catch flak from Marty and the boys for abandoning them, I followed her up to her grandfather’s bedroom.

  Sarah’s dogs veered off to the left at the top of the stairs. She went straight through and I followed. The walls in this part of the house were cluttered with portraits, both painted and photographs. I looked them over, looking for any resemblance of Sarah or the pictures I’d seen of her aunts and uncles. I wondered if she knew anything personal about her relatives, her own flesh and blood. She said her psychic ability had kept them away but I wondered if that was really it. Had they ever been close to her or had her controlling grandfather kept her apart from them as well?

  Chester Dale’s room had its own fireplace on the far wall. It was cold and so was the room. The heavy draperies had been pulled back, but the day was overcast and the muslin sheaths diffused the natural light to a watery dimness. There was a large oak dresser with a mounted mirror on the wall facing the door and a queen-sized four-poster bed, stripped of linens. It smelled faintly medicinal, like a sickroom. I gave an involuntary shudder.

  Sarah went to a stack of folded boxes and a roll of tape. “I’ll put the boxes together while you clean out the drawers, okay?”

  “If that’s what you want.” I wanted to ask her about her grandfather but wasn’t quite sure how to do it. Instead, I went to the dresser and pulled open the first drawer. It was filled with photographs, mostly black and white, though there was one of Sarah in color. She looked to be about thirteen in the picture, though her features were recognizable. Same delicate chin, same pixie-like ears. She wore an angelic white dress that was somewhat old-fashioned but suited her slight build. Her smile was brittle and she looked fragile, almost breakable.

  “Here’s the first box.” Sarah came forward, freshly constructed box in one hand. She looked over my shoulder at the picture I held and frowned. “I was sick when that picture was done. The flu, I think. I remember being hot under the lights and feeling as if I was going to throw up. I couldn’t wait to get done so I could go back to my room and lie down, but grandfather insisted I not cancel. Dale’s always had to meet their obligations, he said. Didn’t matter how I felt.” There was no accusation or condemnation in her voice, just a flat retelling of events the way she remembered.

  “Sarah, it was just a picture,” I told her.

  She offered me the same breakable smile that she wore in the photo. “Not to him, it wasn’t.”

  I put my hand on her arm, trying to offer comfort.

  “I don’t know what to do without him.” She whispered, eyes losing focus. “He had my life mapped out for me. I’ve been keeping his routine, doing the things I think he’d want me to do, but then there’s all this other time I don’t know how to fill.”

  “What is it you want to do?” I asked her. “If you could do anything, be anything, what would you do?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess I’m kind of afraid to believe that he’s gone, you know?”

  I didn’t, though I was starting to get the picture. Chester Dale had emotionally abused his granddaughter, keeping her forcibly isolated from her peers and molding her into his idea of who she should be, ignoring who she actually was so completely that she didn’t even know herself.

  Maybe I should stop asking her about keeping Chester’s things. Maybe letting go of the trappings in this house was her first step to recovering her identity. I moved on to the next drawer down which contained men’s pajamas. Chester Dale had been a big man, probably about Neil’s height, judging from the pants.

  “Did he know about your… gift?” I asked, uncertain as to whether or not I should even ask.

  She nodded, smiled faintly. “Of course. We didn’t have any secrets between us.”

  “Really?” I refolded the pants and put them in the box. “Not a single secret?”

  She shook her head and then frowned. “Well, I didn’t anyway. I guess he must have had some. Like Mr. Finn and the others from Shady Elm. And the war, too. But that was all before I was born, so it makes sense I di
dn’t know about that.”

  I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat. There was a leather-bound book beneath the pajamas. I pulled it out, smoothing a hand along the cover. I opened my mouth to say something to Sarah about it, then shut it again. I didn’t want to distract her from our conversation and I could just as easily bring the book down and add it to the others as she could.

  “Did you ever consider selling the house?” I asked Sarah as I emptied the rest of the drawer into the box.

  She looked up at me, blue eyes wide with horror. “Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Her reaction seemed over the top. “You’re the owner now, right?”

  She nodded and then swallowed. “If I left the house, he’d kill me.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I called Neil on my way home. Kenny and Josh had ridden with Marty so I could stop at the store to pick up a few essentials for dinner. I wanted to have plenty on hand, in case the McKenzies stopped by again. Man alive, but those girls could eat. “Hey, sexy man. What do you have going on tomorrow?”

  “That depends on why you’re asking.” Neil’s tone was soft and smooth and conjured images of our lovemaking the night before. I shivered at the memory, then again at Sarah Dale’s words.

  “Well, I want to go back to Shady Elm to talk to the boys.”

  A soft laugh filled my ear, warming me. “Uncle Scrooge, only you would classify a group of decrepit geezers as “the boys.”

  “Considering you will one day be a decrepit geezer, I’d show a little more respect slick.”

  “No offense meant. Why do you want to talk to them though?”

  “Actually what I want is for you to talk to them. I think they’d say things to you that they wouldn’t to me, that whole warrior mentality and all. I want to find out more about why they think Chester might have been murdered.”

  “I could meet you there on my lunch break. If….” He trailed off and I could picture him grinning like a fiend.

  “Why don’t I like the sound of this?”

  His laugh was low and deep. “Relax, Uncle Scrooge it isn’t anything depraved. I just wondered if you would consider sending the boys to soccer camp in Connecticut for a few weeks.”

  “What?” That caught me completely off guard. “When did this come up?”

  “Josh asked me about it yesterday when I dropped them off. Seems that some of their friends are going and there are a few last-minute slots available.”

  “Well, sure.” That would actually make my life easier for the next few weeks, not worrying about their schedules for a spell. With the boys safely away, I could devote more time to Penny, Marty, and Mae, as well as Sarah Dale. “Although how much is it?”

  “That’s where the favor comes in.” Neil named a staggering amount.

  “We can’t,” I said, hating to admit that. “We have to get a new car still, there’s no way—”

  “There is,” Neil said and I stiffened.

  “Oh no.” I had to pull over before I flipped the Mini, my head was shaking so hard.

  “It’s not for us, it’s for the boys.” Neil’s tone was reasonable.

  “We can’t ask your parents for money,” I insisted. “They’ll suck out our souls like money-grubbing dementors.”

  His voice dropped and a seductive note crept in as he purred, “Think of having the entire house to ourselves. Every. Single. Night.”

  I’d started to sweat and it had nothing to do with the heat index. “Oh, is Atlas going to camp, too?”

  “Smartass.” he laughed.

  I bit my lip, considering. “For the boys then. They need to do something other than play video games and mess around with their cell phones in their every spare moment. But you better make it worth my while, slick.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Yeah, he did. “Okay, I need to check in with Sylvia. See how her doctor’s appointment went.”

  A groan. “Please don’t promise her anything I will regret later.”

  I frowned as I pulled into the grocery store lot. “I told you last night, I agree with you. Have a little faith.”

  “I have all the faith in the world that you’ll do what you think is best. And that’s what scares the hell out of me. Be careful and text me when you get home,” Neil murmured and disconnected.

  A shiver ran up my spine as I looked around the lot. There were plenty of people out at the supermarket and not a creepy van in sight. Still, attempted kidnapping was one of those things a girl didn’t just bounce back from in a few days. I’d handled Walmart, okay, but I’d still been in mild shock and hadn’t been so aware of my surroundings. On second thought, probably the best Walmart visit ever.

  I took a deep breath, slung my handbag over my shoulder, and hurried into the store. Once the automatic doors closed behind me I let out a sigh of relief before digging out my coupons and my list.

  A text chimed just as I left the produce section and headed for the meat counter. I opened my phone and stared down.

  Picking Penny up. Mac here with the kids.

  I smiled and then typed. Good luck. Let her know she is loved.

  After all, that’s all any woman really wants. That and maybe a little carb indulgence now and again.

  Considering I had no clue how many people might show up around my dinner table, I’d decided to make a giant vat of spaghetti sauce. I’d read this awesome book a few months ago about an Italian chef who also solves crimes while running her family’s pasta shop in North Carolina and it had included recipes. The casserole the McKenzies had gobbled up had been one of those finds and now I was going to make the no baked ziti I’d found on the author’s website.

  That was a woman after my own heart. I wonder who cleaned her house?

  Marty, Penny, Mae—though she doesn’t eat anything yet. The four of us, Mac for sure and maybe McKenzie too. I was hoping she found out that the mysterious second aunt with the seemingly unlimited income was actually the head of a team of assassins or something so we could pin my attempted abduction on her. Not knowing who’d tried to grab me or why was stressful. If this case didn’t crack soon I’d end up like poor Sarah who thought her grandfather’s ghost would punish her if she ever left the Dale estate.

  I wish I knew a good therapist, but all I had was the quackery of Dr. Robert Ludlum, marriage facilitator. Between Sarah’s psychic abilities, her lack of social skills and the control she’d lived under and both resented but couldn’t do without, she needed more than bridges of communication and a sexual to-do list.

  I continued down the aisle, filling my cart automatically as I thought of the way Detective Finn had looked at Sarah. I’d just been thinking that all a woman really needed was to know that she was loved. Should I try my hand at a little matchmaking, find someone who had the interest and the resources to help Sarah?

  Neil would kill me for messing with other people’s love lives. He’d hated it when I’d played cupid to his SEAL buddies. But this was different, it was an emergency. Sarah didn’t just need a guy, she needed a good guy, someone who wouldn’t let her stay in her self-imposed box, someone who made her want to live out in the world, would be patient and encourage her to stretch herself. And from what I recalled of the way he’d looked at her, Detective Finn was already halfway there….

  “Paper or plastic?”

  I blinked, then turned and smiled at the checkout girl. “Brought my own bags, thanks.”

  She snapped her gum and took the reusable cloth bags from me. I watched to make sure they didn’t put the eggs under the canned tomatoes, and that the bread was all bagged together so it wouldn’t be squished. Dickered over the expiration date of a coupon—they will often ring through up to five days after and the manufacturer will honor the value. Spoke to the manager, and left with a smile on my face having once again gotten my way.

  Life was good.

  “Life sucks,” Josh grumbled as he set down the bag of groceries on the counter with a thump.

  “
What’s wrong, Scamp?”

  “Mac’s got a boyfriend,” he groused.

  “Really?” I bit my lip to keep from smiling. No need to point out that his babysitter was way too old for him, the kid’s pride was already singed, no need to dump a cold bucket of reality over his head. “What’s his name, and don’t say cheese. Get it, Mac and Cheese?”

  “Mo-oomm,” Josh rolled his eyes. “Don’t be lame.”

  “Sorry,” I said, though I really wasn’t. “What’s his name?”

  “Everett.” Josh picked at the peeling sole of one sneaker. “He’s a hacker or something. Mac says he’s got a criminal record and he’s only nineteen.”

  “I’m sure his mother is proud.” My tone was dry. “Whatever happened to that girl you were chatting with online, the one who was over here for Thanksgiving?” One who was much more age-appropriate than his nineteen-year-old babysitter and her penchant for geeky bad boys.

  Josh shrugged. “She lives all the way in Boston.” He made it sound like the other side of the planet. To a twelve-year-old who was dependent on his busy parents for transportation, it might as well be.

  In fact, Mac was the sort of girl I would love to see Josh and Kenny bring home one day, smart and capable, hardworking with a stellar sense of humor. Someday, like a few decades down the line, not at the tender age of twelve. His disappointment was real though, no matter how unrealistic his expectations. I wanted to say all those goofy things moms said, the buck up speeches filled with clichés like plenty of fish in the sea, and you’ll find someone even better. The trouble with those sorts of platitudes was that they never made the person on the receiving end feel any better. Besides, he’d already accused me of being lame.

  Instead, I changed the subject. “So I hear you’re going to soccer camp.”

  He brightened instantly. “We can go? Really? You mean it?”

  “I expect you both to be on your best behavior.”

  “I’ve got to go tell Kenny!” Josh charged down the hall, skidded to a stop then raced back and gave me a huge hug. “Thanks, Mom.”