The Dead Room
The Dead Room
Heather Graham
A year ago, archaeologist Leslie MacIntyre barely survived an explosion that took the life of her fiancé, Matt Connolly. Since then she's slowly come to terms with both her loss and an unsettling ability to communicate with ghosts, a "gift" received in the wake of her brush with death. Now she's returned to lower Manhattan, site of the explosion, to investigate a newly discovered burial ground. In this place restless spirits hold the secrets not only of past injustice but of a deadly conspiracy against the city's women–including Leslie herself.By night Matt visits her in dreams, warning her and offering clues to the truth. By day she finds herself helped by–and attracted to–his flesh-and-blood cousin Joe. Torn by her feelings for both men, caught between the worlds of the living and the dead, Leslie struggles against the encroaching danger.As she is drawn closer to the darkness, she must ultimately face the power of an evil mind, alone in a place where not even the men she loves can save her.
Heather Graham
The Dead Room
For ITW,
CJ Lyons, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell
and M. Diane Vogt, who worked so very hard—
and pulled off the incredible. And for our fearless
leader Bob Levinson and the Killer Thriller Band—
F. Paul Wilson, John Lescroart, Michael Palmer
(the lyrics man!), Daniel Palmer, Nathan Walpow,
Blake Crouch, Dave Simms, Scott Nicholson,
David Morrell (again) and Gayle Lynds (amazing
triangle!). And for my truly beautiful fellow
Killerettes—Harley Jane Kozak and Alex Sokoloff.
Deepest thanks to all.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
The light was blinding.
For a moment it seemed as if nothing had existed before it, as if nothing could be greater than rising to meet it. It seemed to reach out with a sweet, alluring warmth. At the source there seemed to be beckoning shadows, but though Leslie MacIntyre could see nothing clearly, they seemed to offer comfort, as well, as if they were waiting to welcome her, to enfold her into their loving arms.
“Hey, you!”
The voice was husky, affectionate, yet strangely jarring. She looked up. It was Matt. She didn’t know where they were, but so long as she and Matt Connolly were together, everything was all right.
They’d met when she’d been the new kid on the block. Though he was a few years older, he’d pulled her along in his wake and made her one of his crowd. He’d called her Rebel, but he’d done it in such a teasing tone that no one had ever been able to use it against her. He’d mocked her Southern accent, then announced that it was the most charming thing he’d ever heard. She’d practically worshipped him over the years, then—yes, she could admit it—lusted after him as they’d grown older. Strangely, it was a tragedy that had made her hopes and dreams come true, that had suddenly made him realize the girl he had befriended had grown up. And since then…
The years hadn’t all been perfect. They’d been quite a thing once she’d graduated from high school, but their pride had sometimes gotten the best of them. One tempestuous blowup had led to a breakup, sending him to college in another state far to the south to play football, while she, still his Rebel, had stayed behind in Yankee territory, opting for NYU. Despite a year in the pros post-college, he’d gone on to journalism, while she had chosen urban archaeology, specializing in her own adopted home of New York. He had started in sports but gone on to world affairs, then come home to write a column about life and issues in New York City.
Back in New York, he had found her again—digging in the dirt, he joked. For months, they had both been cautious, dying to see each other, afraid of the intensity of the emotion that still roiled between them. One night he had simply shown up at her door at 3:00 a.m. and sanity flew to the wind. They’d immediately gotten engaged, and now they were planning a wedding.
Oddly enough, their lives together had added to both their careers. He’d done some of his very best pieces for the paper—a man’s take on the modern wedding. Through Matt, Leslie had been drawn into conversation with a detective about an elderly man who had gone missing. She knew the area in Brooklyn where he had disappeared, which was filled with old subway tunnels. Asking the detective to humor her, she had led him to the place where the man had ended his days.
She’d felt almost as if she’d been beckoned to the site, though she argued with herself that knowledge and logic had brought her to the place. But now many detectives found her very interesting, and Matt had warned her that they were thinking about asking her to use her extraordinary knowledge of the city and its infrastructure to help with a new spate of disappearances. Matt himself was taking the matter very seriously and writing about it for the paper. People constantly disappeared in New York, of course. But these disappearances seemed to be linked. The missing were all women who lived on the streets. And they were all prostitutes.
Matt had pointed out that, throughout history, neither the police nor the populace had seemed to care about the fate of those who lived in the underbelly of society.
The moral majority never worried too much until it was threatened itself.
She could tell that Matt wanted her to get involved, though she seriously doubted she could be of any help. She wished she could, but she couldn’t suddenly claim to be some kind of clairvoyant.
And she had her real work, which she believed was important, and which she loved.
And which had brought them here. Here? Where exactly were they now?
They’d started the evening in the newly renovated Hastings House, at a fund-raiser so the historical foundation that employed her could continue excavating the neighboring site. There was a field of architectural gold to be explored there, and her employer was thrilled to have such an eloquent columnist as Matt Connolly on their side while they battled a major construction company for the right to do research before everything was destroyed for the sake of a new high-rise.
But as for actually being with Matt tonight…They’d barely had a chance to say hello.
A number of representatives were there from the development company that had bought the surrounding property—trying to pretend that they were delighted to plan around the historical significance of the place—along with Greta Peterson, socialite and ambassador for the Historical Society, a few Broadway personalities, some local celebrities and more. Hank Smith, of megadeveloper Tyson, Smith and Tryon, had swooped down on Matt the minute they’d entered the place, hoping to sway Matt’s opinion to the firm’s side. There were police representatives, including Captain Ken Dryer, the charismatic department spokesman, Sergeant Robert Adair—who was in charge of the investigation into the missing prostitutes and was actually watching her with brooding contemplation most of the night—and politicians from the five boroughs.
She’d been across the room from Matt, exchanging pleasantries with a colleague.
She’d just excused herself to go to Matt and then…
What?
He was hunkered down beside her now just as he had been when a football struck her in the head when they were playing in the streets so many years ago. He offered the same smile he’d given her then, full of interest and amusement toward most situations, a dry smile. Even a bit rueful, as if, in the end, there was little to do but mock himself.
“Matt,” she murmured, frowning, wondering why she couldn’t remember crossing the room to his side. And what was she doing on the floor? “You’re here.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he murmured. “For just this moment.”
“Just this moment?” she queried. She wanted to reach out and touch his face. Damn, but he’d always been gorgeous. In a manly, rugged way, of course. Steady blue eyes, generous mouth, broad forehead, high cheekbones. Tall and in shape, he was the guy everyone would have hated if he hadn’t been so damned decent. So men liked him, and women loved him.
Despite her confusion, she felt herself rise and turn toward the light. It had the most incredible power. She couldn’t resist it. She felt that it offered release from pain, from doubt.
“No,” Matt said softly as he caught her arm. Or was that just her imagination? She turned her attention back to him, confused. She could no longer hear the string quartet that had been playing that evening. From a far distant place, she thought she heard screams and chaos.
“Silly Rebel,” he said softly, as he had so many times when she was growing up. “You have to stay here. You can’t go yet.”
“Who’s going to stop me, Matt Connolly?” she demanded. “You?”
“It’s not your time,” he said. “Leslie, there are things you need to do. You are not to follow the light,” he said firmly.
“Hey, are you holding out on me?” she demanded lightly, looking around and seeing people getting up and moving single-file toward the light. “Matt, I’m with you. We’re together. I have to get in line.”
“We’re all in line, in a way, from day one,” he said very softly. “But not you, not now. You have to stay here. Some things are meant to be.”
“Some things are meant to be?” she whispered.
“Some things are meant to be,” he said firmly.
He squeezed her hand, and heat shot through her.
Then it felt as if she were jolted. As if they were interrupted.
“Hey!” a deep voice called. “This one is alive!”
It was as if she were watching a movie, but she was in it. There was a horrible scent in the air, as if something were burning. People were everywhere, running, shouting.
There had been an explosion, she thought. Someone had screamed something about gas, and then a blast had seemed to rock the world. Yes! She could remember it now, the feeling of being lifted, of flying…slamming hard against a wall. But…she wasn’t lying against a wall.
She was looking down on a scene of absolute chaos. And she was in it. She was lying in a row of sleeping people. She couldn’t recognize any of them. Matt…where was Matt? Emergency personnel were moving purposefully through the chaos, imposing order. The newly painted walls of the room were blackened and scorched. There had been a blast and a fire. Everything pointed to it.
And she hurt! Oh, God, she ached everywhere, she thought, back in her body, no longer looking down on the carnage. The scent of charred wood…worse, the scent of charred flesh, filled her nostrils.
Because the people she was aligned with were not sleeping.
They were dead.
She could see the open, glazed eyes of the woman beside her. Suddenly she realized that a man was hunkered down by her side. And it wasn’t Matt.
“This one is alive!” the man yelled.
Of course I’m alive, she thought.
There was sudden confusion. People rushing over to her. More shouting.
“Quick, or we’ll lose her! Her pulse is fading.”
More people started rushing around her.
“Clear!”
There was a fire in her chest.
Every bone in her body seemed to be in raw agony. She knew she needed to open her eyes, to take a breath.
She blinked. The lights blazing all around her were the false and neon glitter of night.
“We’ve got her! She’s back.”
Then she was being lifted onto something soft and flat. She was dimly aware that someone was talking to the man at her side. Her vision of the scene around her suddenly seemed acute and agonizing.
There were four bodies against the wall. And one of them was Matt.
Then there was no light, no confusion. Just the horrible knowledge.
Matt was dead.
She started to scream….
“Calm down,” a medic said. “Please…You’re alive, and we want to keep you that way.”
Alive? Then Matt…
“Please, you’ve got to help Matt. He’s alive. I was just talking to him. You’ve got to help him!”
She saw the distress in the medic’s eyes.
“I’m so sorry…”
She was in the midst of hell on earth, she realized.
Matt…
She was vaguely aware of a needle in her arm.
Then there was only darkness.
1
One year later
Leslie paused for a minute, looking skyward. What a beautiful evening it was. The sky couldn’t have been a lovelier shade of violet. But then, the countryside in northern Virginia was some of the most beautiful in the world.
More so than ever before, at least to her.
In the past year, she had come to appreciate such simple thing as the colors of life. It had been such a strange year, filled with vividly conflicting emotions. The touch of the sun, the color of a dawn, seemed more intense than ever. The anguish of learning to live alone still interrupted the newfound beauty. Life had become doubly precious, except that she felt it was such an incredible gift that it should be shared…yet she was alive and Matt was dead.
The setting sun was beautiful, and the night breeze sweet and soft. With that thought in mind, she closed her eyes and felt the waning brush of day against her cheeks. The warmth was wonderful.
She sighed, then returned to work. She needed to hurry. The light would be gone soon.
Painstakingly, bit by bit, she brushed away the dust covering the recently revealed area. She removed the last few specks, and then…
Yes!
She continued to brush away the dirt from the skull fragment in the crevice, feeling a sense of jubilation. She couldn’t be certain, of course, not absolutely, but it looked like they had discovered the old St. Mathias graveyard that Professor David Laymon had been certain was here. She eyed the skull for size and shape. Bones weren’t her specialty. She knew objects, fabrics, even architecture, all the things that made up life, backward and forward. She knew bones only because she had come across them in her work so often.
The fragments of calico by the skull hinted at a type of hair decoration that fit perfectly with Laymon’s belief that this section of the graveyard had been reserved for indentured servants, slaves and those who were simply too poor to pay for anything better.
“Brad!”
“Yeah?”
Brad Verdun, her good friend and colleague, was busy working a few yards away. As she waited for his attention, she took her tweezers and carefully collected the bits of fabric she had discovered; a lab analysis would verify her thoughts, she was certain, but every little shred needed to be preserved.
“Brad!”
“Yeah, yeah.” At last he dusted his hands and rose, then walked to where she was working. He swore softly, shaking his head. “You were right. Again.” He stared at her a little skeptically. “If I didn’t know you so well, I just might agree with everyone else that you’re psychic.”
She smiled a little uneasily. “You would have chosen the same spot yourself,” she assured him.
“Yeah, eventually.” He looked across the work site, staring at the professor, who was down on his hands and knees about fifty yards away. “Well, princess of the past, announce your discovery. Give the old boy his thrill for the night.”
“You tell him.”
“You found the bones.”
“We work together,” she said modestly. “You were just a few feet away.”
“You made the discovery.”
“We came as a team, a package deal,” she reminded him stubbornly.
“I won’t take your credit.”
“I want you to take the credit! Please?”
He sighed deeply. “All right, all right. I’ll bring him over. But I won’t lie.”
“You’re not lying if you say we found it as a team,” she insisted.
He stared at her for a moment, then touched the top of her head with gentle affection. “Okay. You want to stay out of the limelight, kiddo, I’ll do my best to help you. For a while, anyway.” Like a brother, he stroked her cheek, giving her an encouraging smile.
“Thanks,” she murmured softly.
“You’re going to be okay. You’re coming along just great,” he said.
She nodded, looking down.
Was she? A year had gone by. She functioned, yes, but she continued to hurt every day. Work was good. Friends were good.
Nights were torture.
And life itself…
Was definitely different. That difference had become clear while she’d still been in the hospital after the explosion. If she hadn’t happened to pick up a magazine and seen the article on Adam Harrison and Harrison Investigations…
Well, she would probably either be dead now—having scared herself into an early grave—or in a mental hospital. Adam Harrison and his team, especially Nikki Blackhawk, had undoubtedly saved both her life and her sanity. But that was information she shared with no one. Not Brad, and certainly not Professor Laymon.
She watched as Brad walked over to talk to Laymon. Brad was definitely a good guy, the best. If she’d had a brother, he couldn’t have been better to her. Years ago, when they had first started working together, she’d known that he wanted more of a relationship, but no one was ever going to stand a chance against Matt. And in fact, he’d liked Matt so much himself that they’d all fallen into a great friendship. She hesitated, watching Brad, glad that nothing had changed, that he had kept a brotherly distance from her and given his full support without any indication that his affections could turn sexual. She knew she would never feel any differently about him; there came a point in life where someone was a friend and that would never change. Brad was tall, well muscled, patient, intelligent and fun. The perfect guy—for someone else. The great thing about their friendship was that they shared their love of what they did. Some of the first enjoyment she had felt since the explosion that had killed Matt had been because of Brad, because of the excitement in his dark and arresting eyes when they made a discovery.
In large part thanks to him, sometimes, she could even have fun these days, going for drinks or dinner after work. His presence kept other guys away, but if he wanted to start something up with someone else, she didn’t get in the way.
They had worked well together before the accident.
Now she relied on him more than ever—even if she was the one who usually “saw” the past more clearly and homed in on a location with eerily perfect accuracy. Sometimes he eyed her almost warily, but when she shrugged, he let it alone.
She watched as Laymon listened to Brad. His face lit up as if the sun had risen again purely to shine down on him. He was up in a flash, hurrying to Leslie’s side, shouting excitedly and bringing the rest of the team—teachers, students and volunteers—in his wake. “Watch where you walk,” he cautioned. “We don’t want all this work trampled.” Hopping over one of the plastic lines set out to protect the dig and provide the grid that allowed them to map their finds, he seemed like a little kid, he was so happy.
He stared at Leslie, eyebrows raised questioningly, then looked down at the skull she’d uncovered before turning back to her again. A broad smile lit his worn features. He pushed his Ben Franklin bifocals up the bridge of his nose and scratched his white-bearded chin. If anyone had ever looked the part of a professor, it was David Laymon. “You’ve done it,” he said.
“We’ve done it,” she murmured.
“We’ll uncover the rest of the skeleton in the morning, then get it to the folks at the Smithsonian…right away, right away. It’s too late to work anymore tonight, but we need to secure this area before we go, then get back to work first thing in the morning. From now on we’ll need speed—and real care. Leslie, I could hug you. I will hug you!” He drew her to her feet, hugged her, then kissed her on the cheek. She was suffused with color, a blush staining her cheeks, as a burst of applause sounded from all around them.
“Hey, please,” she protested. “We’re all in on this, and Brad was the one to cordon off this particular area.”
“Still, what a find,” Professor Laymon murmured. “You’ll need to speak to the press. This is big excitement for this area…for historians everywhere.”
“Please,” she said softly, firmly, “let Brad speak to the press. Better yet, the two of you can speak as a team.”
Laymon frowned, looking mildly annoyed.
“Please,” Leslie repeated firmly.
Laymon sighed deeply, looking at her with sorrow in his gray eyes. “You never used to be so shy,” he said. “Okay, sorry, I understand. It’s just that…” He shook his head. “I understand. Whatever you want. All right, I’ll get the ball rolling for the press conference, and you stay here—grab some students to give you a hand—and make sure that the site is protected until we get back to it in the morning. I’m going to see to it that we get some police out here to keep an eye on things, too.”
Leslie wasn’t sure why anyone would want to disturb a paupers’ cemetery, but she knew that plenty of digs had been compromised, even ruined, by intruders in the past. She assured Laymon that she would stand guard until they were battened down for the night.
He stared at her, letting out a sigh and shaking his head again as he walked away. Brad walked behind him. One of the grad students, a shapely redhead, hurried up alongside Brad, slipping an arm through his. Leslie decided that she would have to tease him about her later.
For a moment, she wondered what Brad said about her when he decided to get close to a woman. Oh, my friend Leslie? Completely platonic. She was engaged, but there was a terrible accident. She almost died, and her fiancé was killed. Since then she’s been having kind of a hard time, so I try to be there for her. But it wasn’t that long ago, just a year….
Just a year.
She wondered if she would ever again feel that there was a perfect guy out there for. Right now, all she felt was…
Cold.
Just a year. A year since she had buried Matt. Buried her life…
With a shake, she forced her attention back to her work.
Despite her determination to call it an early night, she found herself dragged to a celebration dinner. They didn’t opt for anything fancy—budget would always be important in field work—just a chain pancake house on the main highway. But when the group decided to go on to a local tavern for a few drinks, she at last managed to bow out.
She returned to the residence provided for those higher up in the echelon. She, Laymon, Brad and a few others were housed in a Colonial plantation that was now a charming bed-and-breakfast. Their hostess, a cheerful septuagenarian, rose with the rooster’s crow, so she went to bed early. She happily saw them off each morning, and since she was a bit hard of hearing, she was also happy when they came in late at night, because she never heard a thing.
Very tired herself, but feeling a comforting sense of satisfaction, Leslie helped herself to a cup of hot tea from the well-stocked kitchen left open for the help-yourself pleasure of the guests. She took a seat before the large open hearth that dominated the room and sipped her tea from the comfort of the rocker to the left of the gently burning fire. Within a few minutes, she knew she was not alone.
She glanced slowly to her side, a smile curving her lips as she looked at the man who had joined her. He had a rounded stomach, emphasized by his plain black waistcoat and the bit of bleached cotton that protruded from his waistband right where it shouldn’t. His wig was a bit messy, but in the style of his time, and the tricornered hat he wore sat perfectly atop it. His hose were thick, white and somewhat worn; his shoes bore handsome buckles. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes a bit dark and small beneath bushy brows. He looked at her and returned her smile with a sigh of satisfaction. “Well, now, it’s good and done, eh?” he asked her.
She nodded. “And you mustn’t worry, Reverend Donegal. It’s true that some of the bones will be boxed and sent for analysis, but the people at the Smithsonian are very careful and reverent. They’ll be returned, and we’ll see to it that all the dead are reinterred with prayers and all the respect that’s due them. And I believe that once the significance of what we’ve found here has been verified, the Park Service will have its way. A lovely memorial and a facsimile of the church will be built, and generations of visitors will be able to enjoy the beautiful countryside and learn about everything that happened here during both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.” Her smile turned slightly rueful. “I know you did a great deal to help refugees during the Revolutionary War, but this very house was a stop for escaping slaves during the days of the Underground Railroad. There was also a Civil War skirmish in the front yard here. It’s amazing the place is still standing.”
“Solid construction,” Reverend Donegal said sternly. “Folks to care for her. Why, I remember, years and years ago, of course, when I came many a Sunday to this house for my tea following services…ah, lovely then, it was. So much excitement and fear. A new country.” His eyes darkened, and he seemed troubled for a minute. “Pity…one war always leads to the next. It hurt me to be here…to see so many fine men die, North and South, believing in the same God…. Ah, well, never mind. There’s always hope that man will learn from his mistakes.” He paused, his old eyes clouding, and she knew he was looking back to his own time, firmly fixed in his mind.
Of course, she knew his story. He had worshipped the hostess of his very house from afar, always entirely circumspect, but enjoying every opportunity to be in her company. He had faithfully served his flock of parishioners; a good man. His one pleasure had been his Sunday tea. And so, one day, he had come here, had his tea…and then died of a heart attack in the arms of the woman he had secretly adored for so many years. Leslie had thought at first that he must have been a very sad ghost, seeking the love he hadn’t allowed himself in life. But that hadn’t been the case at all. She had discovered that he had been at peace with himself; that his distant and unrequited love for Mrs. Adella Baxter had in actuality been a pleasant fantasy but not one he had truly hoped to fulfill. He had enjoyed his life as a bachelor, administering to his flock. He had stayed all these years because he felt so many of his flock needed to be remembered. In short, he had wanted the graveyard found.
At first, he hadn’t trusted her. He’d tried a dozen tricks, moving her brush around, locking her suitcase, hiding her keys. He hadn’t expected her to see him, and he certainly hadn’t expected her to get angry, yell at him and demand that they talk. Once they had, he’d become an absolute charmer. Through his eyes, she’d seen the house as it had been in his day. She’d experienced his passion as he’d spoken of what he and so many others had gone through to establish a new country; his fear that he might be hanged as a traitor—something that had been a distinct possibility many times during the brutal years of the Revolution. He was deeply disturbed that so few of the people who passed through the old house were aware of just how precarious the struggle for freedom had been. “You can’t understand,” he had told her. “We almost lost the war. In fact, it’s a miracle that we won. And all those men who signed the Declaration of Independence? They would have been hanged! So many risked so much. Ah, well, God does show his will, against all odds.”
Right now he seemed lost in thought.
“Thank you for your help,” she said very softly to him.
He nodded, then wagged a finger at her. “I expect you to play fair, young lady. You see that the right thing is done by my people. Especially little Peg. You did find her grave, didn’t you, right where I sent you?”
Leslie nodded, then stared at the fire for a moment, as lost in the past as he had been. It was strange. Before the blast, she’d had intuitions, like the one that had helped her find the homeless man. As if she could close her eyes and imagine something of a life now gone, then home in on it. Logic? Instinct? Something more? She couldn’t have said. But now…
Now ghosts came into her life.
“I will see that Peg’s story is told,” she assured Reverend Donegal. She repeated what he had told her before about the girl. “Peg, aged ten, walked the ten miles from town through a pouring, freezing rain to bring the men from the county together when she knew an attack was coming. She rallied the local troops, and they successfully defended the river and the plantation here, all because of her bravery. She died of the fever that came on her that night, after her journey through the rain and cold and enemy lines. And after the war…well, people were poor. She was given the best burial they could manage.”
He nodded in satisfaction. “A statue would be very nice. You will get someone to pay for a statue?”
“I’ll pay for a statue of her myself, if need be,” she assured him.
He looked at her indignantly. “A statue of me!” he declared. “Oh, well, of course, Peg must be honored, too, I suppose.”
“You’ll have a place when they rebuild the church, and Peg will be honored in the graveyard. How’s that?” she said, glad she could smile.
He nodded, staring at the fire. “There’s a chill in here,” he said. “Ah, these old bones…”
“It is chilly tonight, but I don’t think you’re really feeling your old bones,” she teased. She set her cup down and rose, walked to the fire and let it warm her hands. When she turned to speak to the reverend again, he was gone.
She sat back in her chair. In a little while she heard the others returning. It had grown late; she assumed they would head right up to their beds, but she sensed someone behind her, and this time she heard breathing.
She turned. Brad was there, just inside the doorway, staring at her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he echoed, still staring at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“Laymon really didn’t say anything to you yet?” he asked, looking surprised. “I thought he called you.”
“About what?” she asked.
“They’re researching another site in Lower Manhattan,” he said.
She felt a streak of cold sweep along her spine, as if she’d been stroked by an icy sword. She looked at the fire, trying to speak perfectly calmly. “I’m sure that at any given time, someone is always digging somewhere in Lower Manhattan.”
“This is going to be a major project.” He was quiet for a minute. “Near Hastings House.”
“Great,” she murmured, still staring at the flames.
He hunkered down by her chair. “You know, only the one room was severely damaged. They’ve pretty much got the place back up and running now.”
Her fingers tensed on the arms of her chair. “Glad to hear it.”
“What happened there was a tragic accident, Leslie.”
She stared at him—hard. “Yes, I do know that, Brad.”
“The point is, you don’t seem to get it, to understand what that means. I’m not trying to be brutal here, Leslie, but Matt died. You didn’t.”
She stared blankly back at him for several moments.
“I almost died there.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I know. And I’m grateful to be alive. I truly appreciate every day.”
“It’s time to go back.”
“Time to go back?” she repeated.
“You need to accept the past, and move into the present and then into the future. No, you’ll never forget Matt. But you have to accept that he’s dead. You’ve been…well, kind of weird since it happened. Maybe you need to confront your memories.”
Again, she stared at him.
Oh, Brad. You don’t get it, do you? And I will never, ever explain, I can assure you of that.
“We still have work to do here,” she said flatly.
He waved a hand in the air. “We’re the pros—there are lots of worker bees. Thanks to you and your amazing instincts, all that’s left is the grunt work. We can move on.”
She shook her head.
“Listen, this new site is really important…. I know Laymon wants to talk to you about it. He’s going back to lead the team, with or without you. With or without us,” Brad amended quickly.
Her nails dug into the arms of the chair. She stared at the flames. “I’ve made some promises here,” she said.
He looked puzzled. “You made promises? To whom?”
“To myself. To see that people are honored, that bones are buried with the proper rites,” she said.
“We’ll tell Laymon, and he’ll make sure it happens,” Brad said. “It’s not like we’re leaving the country. With the way your reputation has grown, you can drop a word and people will hustle, you know that.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
“Laymon got the call when we were on the way to the tavern, and he talked about nothing else once we got there,” Brad said softly. “New York City, Leslie! You know you love it.”
“I can’t go back.”
“You need to go back.”
“Brad…”
“Leslie, please.”
She stared at him and saw the earnest plea in his eyes. She lowered her head quickly, not wanting him to read her thoughts.
Hastings House. It was fixed, repaired, reopened. Brought back to life again. But the dead…the dead couldn’t be brought back to life…?
And some of the dead had never left.
She lowered her head, biting her lower lip. It had started immediately. In the hospital, she’d thought she’d gone mad. There had been the horrible pain, the ache like the loss of a limb or half of her soul, knowing Matt was gone. The concussion, the bruising, the cuts, scrapes, burns…
Those had been nothing compared to the pain of losing Matt.
At first she had lived in a stage somewhere between consciousness and dreams. One night she’d awakened in the hospital morgue, drawn there by a man who had lost his wedding ring when they’d rolled him down. All he had wanted was to have his ring put back on his finger. But she hadn’t known that, and she’d freaked. She was lucky she hadn’t wound up in the psychiatric ward that night. Luckily for her, the next day she’d discovered an article in a news magazine about a man named Adam Harrison and the group of paranormal investigators who worked for him. No matter how the reporter had tried to trip him up, the man had come off as intelligent and well spoken, and not at all like a kook. She had started to shake, reading the article. She had called Harrison Investigations immediately, and, to her amazement, Adam Harrison himself had shown up in the hospital. They had talked then, and again when she had been released. It was as if she had instantly acquired not only a new best friend, one she felt she had known forever, but as if she’d gotten her father back, though her real father had been gone since she was a little girl.
She’d called Adam right away when she’d started talking to the ghostly Colonial churchman, and soon after, she’d noticed a couple in the crowd of visitors hanging around the site. They’d stood out, and eventually they’d introduced themselves as two of Harrison’s employees. Brent and Nikki Blackhawk—he dark and strikingly handsome, his wife blond and beautiful—had gone back to the house with her and taught her how to become friends with the ghost, even chatted with him casually themselves. There really were others like her, she’d realized, and that meant she was sane.
“Leslie,” Brad said softly, recalling her to the present. “I told Laymon I’d work the new dig, so I’ll be there with you. You need to go back, to put the past to rest, to put the pain behind you.”
She stared at him. Smiled slowly.
Brad didn’t know about Adam Harrison, the Black-hawks, or that there were others like them to help her. Brad didn’t know that it was thanks to Adam and his associates that she had been able to sit calmly in a Colonial kitchen, talking to a long-dead reverend, and that she could feel entirely sane as she did so.
But as to going back, facing her own ghosts…That was something else again, something she dreaded but something she needed to do.
Brad let out a soft sigh. “Okay, I’m sorry. Too soon,” he said.
She stared back at him. “I didn’t say that,” she murmured quickly. “Maybe I should go back. I think…I think maybe I want to go back to Hastings House.”
He hesitated. “I know you have an apartment in Brooklyn, but…” He stared, paused, then said quickly, on a single fast breath, “There are a few rooms available for the workers at Hastings House.”
“What?”
Brad shook his head quickly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even have mentioned that.”
“Who is this work for?” she demanded.
“The Historical Society, of course. Greta will be the official liaison between the society, the contractors and the workers. And once again, it’s Tyson, Smith and Tryon who bought and are developing the property. They’ve been legally blocked from building until the significance of the site is established and any necessary excavation is done. Laymon says they’re taking it well, though, basking in their national publicity as good guys. But the lost time must be costing them a bundle. Anyway, the site is really close to Hastings House. It’s in the next block, actually.”
“And that’s why they’re offering the rooms at Hastings House?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why I even mentioned that, honestly. Hell, I have an apartment in the city, and you have your place in Brooklyn.” He took a deep breath. “Of course, you lived there with Matt, so maybe you don’t want to go back there. But I’m glad you’re holding on to it. Real estate in your neighborhood is rising sky-high. Oh, God, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I’m stumbling all over here.”
“It’s all right, Brad.”
“Yeah. Right.” He tried to smile.
“I didn’t even get to go to his funeral. I was in the hospital,” she murmured, staring at the flames.
Suddenly a massive ache seemed to tear through her heart.
Ghosts came to her, sought her out sometimes, asked for her help.
But not Matt.
The ghost she wanted to see, desperately longed to tell—one last time—how much she had loved him, how he had been her life, how he had filled the world with wonder with his simple presence…that ghost she never saw.
“I want to stay at Hastings House,” she said.
He lowered his head. He was smiling, she realized. He was convinced that he had handled things just right, and that by talking about lodging, he had tricked her into deciding to go back.
Maybe he deserved his self-congratulations.
Or maybe it was just time for her to go back.
“You really want to stay there? You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
She stood, patting him on the shoulder as she started out. She paused in the hallway, looking back at him. “No pun intended,” she said lightly, and offered him a dry grin. “You’re right. I’m ready to go back. Excited to go back. Good night.”
She left him, still down on his knees by the chair.
Excited? Dear God, she was a liar.
And yet…
It was true. She never would have thought of it herself. Never would have woken up one morning thinking, Wow, I’d really love to head back to Hastings House.
But now that she was going…
The past beckoned to her. She needed to come to terms with it.
She had to go back.
2
It was late. A strange time, Joe Connolly thought, to be having this meeting. The woman sitting nervously across from him was stunning, but she reminded him of a high-strung, inbred greyhound. She was excessively thin, and her long fingers were elegantly manicured and glittering with diamonds and other fine jewels. She had called that morning and set up this meeting. They were at the venue of her choice—a small Irish tavern off Wall Street. He would have expected her to suggest a private corner at an exclusive club, but perhaps she didn’t want to be seen with a private investigator. For whatever reason, she had chosen O’Malley’s, which was warm, small and inviting, a pub she had probably visited many a time in her youth.
She had originally come from humble stock, he knew. On her mother’s side, she was second-generation Irish; her father, an O’Brien, came from a line of hard-working laborers who had arrived in the United States during the 1840s. Blood, sweat and muscle had taken him far in the trades, and thus their modest family fortune had begun and then risen to riches. Then Eileen O’Brien had married well, and she was now Mrs. Thomas Brideswell, widow of the late senator and construction magnate.
She thrust an eight-by-ten picture of a young woman across the table at him. He stared down at the likeness. Genevieve O’Brien looked back at him. Her eyes were huge and blue, and she was as slender as her aunt Eileen, with beautifully defined features. Her hair was dark, with an auburn sheen. The photographer had captured laughter, eagerness and the optimism of youth.
“How old is this picture?” Joe asked.
“It was taken about two and half years ago,” Eileen said, and hesitated. With a weary sadness and a hunch of her shoulders, she looked down. “Just before her falling out with my brother and me.”
Joe shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to press the issue, but I need to understand. If she left home voluntarily, and there was already an estrangement between you, what makes you so sure that something’s happened to her?”
Eileen sighed deeply. “Donald died soon after she walked out of his house. She came back for his funeral. She wanted to keep her distance from me and what she called my ridiculous family devotion to a ridiculously dysfunctional family. I think she was upset that my brother died without the two of them ever having made their peace, but…” She lifted one of her bejeweled hands. “I suppose it was nasty growing up in my brother’s household. There was a lot to be said for everything my father and grandfather accomplished, but it came at a price. Impossible expectations for their children. So much fault-finding when something was wrong.” She shook her head, and Joe felt moved by her obvious distress. There was such a deep and underlying sadness in the woman, despite her reserve and elegance. She looked him in the face then. “Ever since my brother died, she’s called me every two weeks. At least once, every two weeks. I haven’t heard from her in over a month.”
He leaned back, watching her. He had learned a lot in his years with the police force, and a lot more in the years since he had gone out on his own. Watching someone’s face as they spoke was often as important as listening to the words that were said.
“Was there something said between you the last time you spoke that might have caused a greater rift?” he asked.
There was a very slight hesitation.
“No,” she said.
She was lying.
“I need to know everything,” he said firmly.
Again an elegant hand fluttered. “Well, there had been this awful article in one of those tabloids about the family,” she said.
“And?” he prompted.
“She was convinced that her father wasn’t her father.”
“She bears a remarkable resemblance to you. I’m assuming you and your brother must have looked quite a bit alike,” he said.
“Exactly,” Eileen said.
He waited. “What was the paper? When was the article printed?”
“You don’t want to read that dreadful piece of garbage,” she assured him.
“I need to read it. Mrs. Brideswell, I’m working in the dark here. Your niece is twenty-six. She’s an adult. Adults who choose to disappear are allowed to do so. I have almost nothing to go on. You’ve given me first names and street names for a few acquaintances, and I have her work contacts—though she resigned from her job a month ago. That in itself could indicate that she planned to leave the city. I have addresses for a few of the places where you believe she hung out. You can’t hold back on me. And when I find her—if I find her—I can’t guarantee I can convince her to call you.”
“No! You don’t understand. I believe with my whole heart that if she could call me, she would.”
Joe answered carefully. “Do you believe that your niece is dead, Mrs. Brideswell?”
Pain flashed across her features. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just…I know that she loved…loves me. No matter what came between us…Genevieve would call me. And if she’s out there somewhere…crying for help, she’s crying to me. Oh, my God, Mr. Connolly, I’ll admit there were awful times in the family, times when she was sent away…we were so embarrassed by her activities! My brother was…very strict. With reason, I suppose. My father taught us that we had to behave with propriety, or at least the appearance of it. But still…she loves me. And I know she needs me. I’ve had to admit to myself that she may be dead, but don’t you understand? I have to know. And if she has become a victim of…of some misfortune, I have to see justice done for her before I die.”
Joe wondered why she spoke so passionately about her own death; she couldn’t be more than forty-something, and she could easily be mistaken for thirty-five.
“A victim of misfortune,” Joe repeated, and asked flatly, “Do you suspect that she was murdered?”
Eileen inhaled deeply, and when she spoke, her words were bitter. “I’ve spoken to the police, Mr. Connolly, which of course you would imagine I had done. And I don’t know if he warned you or not, but it was your old friend Sergeant Adair who suggested I call you, but not until after he gave me a speech about all the other disappearances that are perplexing him. I gather the police are trying to keep what’s been going on with those prostitutes under wraps, though of course it’s not working. People talk. And those disappearances have been going on for more than a year.”
“But your niece wasn’t a prostitute plying her trade downtown,” he reminded her.
She waved a hand in the air. “I know. And we all know that plenty of people not involved in…in the trade disappear, as well. But I got the impression that Sergeant Adair sees some relationship between those disappearances and the fact that I haven’t heard from Genevieve.”
Joe was confused. He knew that Robert Adair was tearing his hair out over the continued disappearances of prostitutes in the downtown area. There were no clues, no trails of blood. The girls just disappeared, but the police knew they hadn’t just moved on—unless they’d moved on without saying a word and leaving all their belongings behind. But what would the daughter of a millionaire have in common with a bunch of missing prostitutes?
“I think this remains a very sensitive area for the police. The women who’ve disappeared are adults. Adults have a right to move on in their lives.”
Eileen stared at him, her eyes scorning his words. “We both know the truth.”
She was right. It had begun over a year ago. A few months apart, two prostitutes had vanished, but since there had been no clues and no signs of foul play, little had been done when their friends reported them missing. Then a homeless transvestite known as the Mimic had disappeared. Then two more young women.
She leaned closer to him, her eyes still flashing. She might be rich, but she could be tough when she needed to. “The thing is, prostitutes murdered by their johns usually turn up somewhere. A homeless man who freezes to death is found on the pavement. But these girls disappeared off the streets without a trace—just like Genevieve. Do you think aliens are beaming these people up, Mr. Connolly? I don’t. I think there is a serial killer at large in New York who knows how to dispose of bodies so they’ll never be found. I thought it was disgraceful when I first heard about the disappearances and the apparent lack of concern on the part of our government on the local and even the state level. Now? I’m incensed. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not angry with the poor cop just trying to work his beat. I’m furious that someone doesn’t step in and say, ‘These people count!’ And now I haven’t heard a word from Gen in so long, and every day I’m more and more worried, and though it doesn’t seem that I have any power, I do have money.”
“All right, let’s look at this from the beginning. Your niece was a social worker, yes?”
“Yes, here in the city,” Eileen murmured. “Up until a little more than a month ago. She found it terribly frustrating….” She inhaled deeply. “And not just the job itself. In my family, we were supposed to make—or marry—money. Both my brother and I were terribly hard on Gen, and all she wanted to do was make life easier on those who didn’t have the same advantages we did. The frustration and red tape got to her, as well, but…none of that’s what matters now. This is the point, this is why I think there’s a connection. She’d been working to help prostitutes in the same area where prostitutes have been disappearing into thin air. Don’t you see? I’m sure she knew some of those missing girls!” Eileen herself seemed ready to explode at that moment.
“Do you know any particulars on why she quit her job?”
Eileen waved a slender, elegant hand in the air. “Irritation with the system. She wanted to get workfare programs going…she wanted to help some of the girls keep their children. She is really an extraordinary human being, Mr. Connolly. Oh, I am so frustrated. No one seems to believe that I know that something’s really wrong. The police can’t—or won’t—do anything.”
“I do understand your frustration,” Joe told her, “but you have to understand that the police are seriously frustrated themselves. The point is, these are disappearances. There’s nothing for them to go on. And the people who have disappeared—in this particular situation—have lived transient lifestyles, which makes it very hard, as well. They can question those closest to the victims—if that’s what they are. They can question people up and down the streets where the victims were last seen. They’ve harassed known pimps to the point that their behavior borders on the illegal. But absolutely no one so far has seen anything to indicate foul play. Meanwhile, the police still have murders, rapes and robberies to deal with, crimes with sadly obvious victims. There’s only so much they can do when they have no victims, no murder weapons, no blood trails, no evidence of any kind.”
“Blood trails?” Eileen said, her eyes snapping. “They have to find out what’s going on and stop it before we discover that we’re in a river of blood! And before my niece is discovered lying dead somewhere. But they’re not going to find out what’s going on because, as you say, they have to deal with the blood they do see on the streets. I’m not calling our police incompetent. They try. Sergeant Adair has, I believe, been ordered to find the explanation for these disappearances, no matter what. They’ve searched Gen’s apartment—if she disappeared by choice, she did so with only her purse and the clothes on her back, not even a good coat. They’ve been to her former office. They’ve tried to question people on the streets. Sadly, I know nothing about her real friends. Or if she was dating. The basics have been done. They’ve proved nothing. Except that she’s gone, which I already knew. So I’ve hired you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“And you will find Genevieve,” she said passionately. “Because you will make finding her your priority every single morning from the moment you open your eyes. I’ll reward you highly.”
He pocketed the picture. “You know my fee. I don’t work to be rewarded highly. If I take a case on, it’s part of my every waking moment until I have an answer. But I’ll need your help at all times. Be ready to answer my calls,” he warned her. “I need to assimilate all that I’ve learned from you tonight, then get busy on my own and see what else I can discover. But I’ll need more help from you. I’ll need everything. Everything you know, anything that occurs to you. And don’t hold back on me. I’m in your employ. I’ll never repeat anything you tell me. Don’t let any family embarrassment hold you back from being entirely truthful with me, do you understand, Mrs. Brideswell? I can’t help you if you aren’t completely honest with me. No amount of money will change that.”
She nodded. Reaching down, she found her purse and produced a small notepad. “I’ve written down everything I know, what names and places I’ve heard…anything I can think of that might be some help.” She produced a pen, scribbling down another notation. “I’ve added the publication I was talking about,” she murmured. “That’s it.”
He accepted the notepad from her. “I’ll do everything I can,” he told her.
She picked up the teacup before her on the table, her eyes distant. She drank what must have been very cold tea by then.
“I’m very sorry about your cousin,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” The words took him by surprise, though he knew instantly what she meant.
“His death was a tremendous loss to the city, but for you, of course, it was very personal, and I extend my sincere condolences.” Her eyes began to water. “I was there that night, you know,” she murmured.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I learned later that Gen would have been interested in going. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t know in time to invite her. She’d met a lot of people involved through the years. She had a lot of close contact with the police—being a social worker and all. And she knew Greta through me, of course.”
Joe couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward. “What do you remember about that night?”
“The lights, the music, the beautiful clothing, the glamour…I was in the entryway when the explosion occurred. They rounded us up and got us out immediately. I remember standing on the street and just being incredulous. I remember the sound of the sirens, the ambulances, the paramedics…and the body bags,” she said. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Thank you. Eileen, do you remember anything strange at all?” he pressed.
She gave him a pained smile. “You lost someone you loved, so you want there to be a reason, a better explanation than a gas explosion. No, I’m sorry. It’s all a blur. I was chatting, there was a noise like thunder. Someone was screaming ‘fire,’ people were panicking…the cops came and we were all ushered out.”
Joe nodded. Just what had he been hoping for?
“Thank you,” he repeated.
Her eyes met his, and her words were desperate. “I have to find Genevieve, Mr. Connolly. Please help me.”
Although her posture still seemed so regal and aloof, he reached across the table and laid his hand on hers. “I will do everything I can,” he told her solemnly.
She almost smiled. And then she turned her palm up and gripped his hand in return. Her touch was strong, and as desperate as the sound of her voice.
They talked for a few minutes longer about Genevieve, and as the girl in the picture began to come to life for him, Joe began to make mental notes as to exactly where he would begin his investigation. First he would go over the basic police work. Then he would move on to where the police, by virtue of their sworn duty, could not go.
There were others in the house.
He knew that from the beginning.
At first it was only a vague sense of awareness. They paid him no mind, seemed not to see or recognize him, but even so, he was aware that he was not alone.
There was the woman in the kitchen, for one. She was always by the hearth, stirring something in what he imagined had been a pot over an open fire. She was pretty and young, and wore Colonial garb, including a little mobcap on her head. He wasn’t sure if she had been an illicit mistress or a servant, but she hummed in a pretty voice as she stirred. Every so often she would suddenly straighten, her face pinching into a mask of pain. She would turn around, and her eyes would widen, and then she would fall…and fade away.
There was the soldier in the entry. He staggered into the house, mingled with the misty form of another individual. He would whisper something about a betrayal, and then he, too, would fall and fade away.
He didn’t want to be one of them. He didn’t want to spend eternity standing by the hearth in the servants’ pantry, laughing pleasantly, looking across the room…and then disappearing in the memory of an explosion.
After a while he realized that in addition to playing out their final moments over and over again, they did more. They recognized one another, though they might not have come from the same time. They mingled now and then.
While he…
He didn’t need to worry about eternally haunting the servants’ pantry. He couldn’t even manage that much. He could only be…aware.
So why was he there? Just to ache? Just to yearn and fear constantly for the woman he had loved? Damn it. Not fair. He’d lived his life as a decent man.
Others had died with him, so where were they? He didn’t have any sense of them whatsoever.
He saw the workmen. Heard them talk. Perhaps it should have been gratifying to have even that much contact with what had once been his world. To hear their anger that he should have died in such a stupid freak accident. They had respected and admired him. Nice to know, except that he was still dead.
Then came the day when the woman at the hearth turned to look at him at last. She even gave him a little smile. Maybe he was somehow real then. She walked over, and it felt as if she touched his cheek, like a sweet sister. “It takes time,” she told him, and smiled again.
All he could whisper was “Why?”
She shrugged sadly. “Justice? Something that must be known? The man who murdered me walked free. Perhaps it’s too late and the world will never know. So much time has passed. But it’s not so horrible, really. Maybe we’re here because we’ve more to learn?”
There was a comfort in her contact. Soon after, the soldier acknowledged him, too.
Then the burning question began in his mind. Why? There had to be a reason why he was here and the others who’d died that night weren’t.
The question dominated his thoughts, filled him with the resolve to know the answer, to solve the mystery of what had happened.
Sometimes, though, he thought of Leslie. Good God, how he had loved her….
It was late when the phone ring, but Leslie wasn’t asleep. And, oddly enough, she knew immediately who it was.
“Hi, Nikki.”
“You’re getting good.”
“Nothing to do with intuition or special gifts,” Leslie said with a laugh. “It’s late, but we’ve been on the news, and I knew that you’re the one person who might be calling.”
“How do you feel?”
“Great. I got to help find closure for people, in a weird sort of way.”
“Exactly,” Nikki said.
Leslie could picture Nikki. Slim and vivacious, with brilliant blue-green eyes. She led tours in New Orleans and loved history. She loved her city, too, and was working hard to bring tourism back to New Orleans. But she and Brent had taken time out to help Leslie adjust to life with the dead popping up now and then. What had seemed like a curse had almost become a gift with Nikki and Brent so serenely at her side.
“How’s everything going in your neck of the woods?” Leslie asked.
“Step by step, but we’re coming back. So many neighborhoods are still in need of total rebuilding, but we’ll get there. And you? Everything all right?”
“Great. I think…I think we may have seen the last of the reverend.”
“Ah. Well, bless his heart. So…I guess you’re going to see to the details now? My history is a lot easier—I just talk about it. You spend hours brushing dust off yours.”
Leslie wondered why she’d thought that Nikki already knew what she was about to do.
“Actually,” she replied, “I’m going home.”
“Home…?”
“New York. I was born in the South, but New York’s been home for a long time now. There’s a new project there, a site near…near Hastings House, and I’m going to work on it.”
“Are you ready?” Nikki asked flatly.
“Yes…No…Maybe.”
“Then…?”
“I’m not sure I’ll never actually be ready. I think I just have to do it.”
The phone line was silent for several seconds, and she knew that Nikki was carefully weighing her next words. “Leslie, you do know that although we’ve come to accept certain things and learned to use our abilities to a degree, we don’t have all the answers. You’re still fragile, whether you want to believe that or not. So be careful. And don’t…don’t let yourself get trapped in the past, in what was. You’re here. You’re alive.”
“Nikki, thanks to you guys, I’m still sane and I appreciate living. It’s just that…you know how you feel when you lose someone, like there were so many things you didn’t get to say, and you want so desperately to know that everything is all right, and of course it isn’t, because the person is dead…okay, now I do sound a little on the loopy side. But…I just wish I could say goodbye, you know?”
“You can’t know that you’ll get that chance, Leslie, even if you do go back. Matt Connolly was an exceptional man. He did a lot of good in his days on earth. He might, well…he might never be seen.”
“I know that. I promise you, I’m not going home because I’m sure I’ll see him if I do. I just know I have to go on. And this is a great opportunity.”
“Want me to hop a plane on up?”
Leslie smiled. Some things were so strange. She’d had many friends when Matt had died. Nice people. But she’d found that she had to push them away a bit. Politely, she hoped. It was just that she didn’t really want to make their lives painful, and she didn’t like people tiptoeing around her feelings. She hadn’t been able to talk, really talk, to many people. But then Nikki had stepped into her life, and it had been as if she’d known her forever.
Of course, they both saw ghosts, as did Nikki’s husband, Brent. Nikki always found it amusing that most people accepted his ability to communicate with the dead more easily than hers, simply because he had Dakota Sioux in his background. Apparently that made him a more spiritual soul in the eyes of the world.
“Leslie?”
“I’m okay. And I…I think I need to be alone a bit. But later, I’d love for you to visit. I’ll show you New York as you’ve never seen it.”
“Deal,” Nikki said.
After a few more minutes of chat, they hung up.
Leslie lay in bed, awake. She was going home for all the right reasons, she assured herself. The work. The opportunity. And she just plain loved New York. She needed to be back.
Hell.
She was going home to try to find a way to reach Matt….
Joe watched as Eileen settled into her chauffeur-driven sedan, refusing the offer of a ride with a thank-you, though he wasn’t really sure why. It was late, but this was New York. People were out at all hours, even though some areas, like this one, became much quieter.
When the car had disappeared into the easy flow of the late-night traffic, he found himself just walking down the street. He had always loved downtown. He was a New Yorker, born and bred in Brooklyn Heights, an area he loved. But downtown New York offered a history few people took the time to appreciate, since the city offered such a bustle of business, shopping and entertainment.
His walk took him down Broadway. He found himself feeling a strange sense of comfort as he walked by St. Paul’s; even the old burial ground, a sign of the times gone by, gave him a sense of permanence and belonging. He loved St. Paul’s, though it wasn’t as grand as Trinity Church just down the road. St. Paul’s was the only remaining church built before the Revolutionary War, a true Georgian masterpiece. Washington’s pew was still there, along with displays honoring those who had worked tirelessly on the rescue efforts after 9/11, since the church lay in the shadows of the monumental tragedy. Drenched in history, yet still a place for modern man to find solace.
He kept walking, wondering at the age of some of the buildings, trying to discern what might really be old beneath a newer facade, his wanderings taking him by Fraunces Tavern and then down to the once-again newly restored Hastings House.
He had come here before, since that fateful night. Several times. And he never knew exactly why. Every time he felt the same searing and poignant ripple of pain. Four dead. Jerry Osbourne, police officer. Sally Rydell, socialite. Tom Burton, architect. And Matthew Connolly, brilliant journalist, a man whose words had the ability to create genuine change.
He’d been working out in Las Vegas when it had happened, on a cold case involving kidnapping, fraud and money laundering. The job had taken nearly a year, but it had paid extremely well. He’d managed to tie it all up shortly after he’d flown home for his cousin’s funeral.
He had never felt so numb in his life. When he’d gone to the hospital afterward, where Matt’s fiancée, Leslie, had still been in intensive care, he had been grateful to discover that she spent most of her time unconscious. He hadn’t known what to say to her. Because of the amount of time he spent out of the city, he’d never actually met her, except maybe once, when they’d been kids. He’d felt awkward, glad that he could leave a message saying he’d been there, equally glad to disappear.
Strange, growing up, he and Matt had seen each other only on family occasions. Matt had lived by Central Park; he had lived in Brooklyn Heights. Once it had seemed as if they were far apart. Maybe it was just the size of New York. Each neighborhood was complete unto itself. They’d always gotten along; as adults, even though real distance often came between them. They had actually become the best of friends. Maybe it had been their shared passion for many of the same rights and ideals.
Matt had been a man of impeccable integrity. Many people would miss him. But for Joe, the loss was personal, and he still felt a helpless rage every time he thought about the stupidity of the way he’d died.
He had planned to return to the city after wrapping up of the Vegas thing and get to know Leslie and make plans with Matt. He would have been the best man at the wedding. Strange. He didn’t know Leslie because of happenstance. They had simply never been in the same place at the same time, yet she was the closest living link to Matt.
It was amazing that she had survived the blast.
The force of the explosion had thrown her across the room, saving her from the flames. Then again, the dead had died on impact, according to the coroner; they hadn’t had to face the agony of burning to death.
The blast had been investigated. Backward and forward and inside out. But in the end, there had been no explanation other than that there had been a gas buildup in the line. The innocent flicking of a furnace switch had caused a spark, which had triggered the explosion and the tragedy.
Hastings House was back now. It was open to the public, other than the private rooms in back, some of which were maintained as offices and others as accommodations for archaeologists working on historical sites around downtown. It seemed that these days, every construction project uncovered some remnant of the past, a clear illustration of the contrast between those dedicated to preservation and those dedicated to moving on. Hastings House had been a worthy project, he was sure. But he could never forget what had happened there, and he found himself turning quickly away for a moment to compose himself before looking back at the building. He couldn’t help the bitterness that seemed to assail him every time he saw the house. He understood Eileen Brideswell, because it seemed to him, too, that pain was only endurable with knowledge or a conclusion; he realized that the rage that filled him each time he came here had more to do with his feelings of helplessness and failure than the natural pain of loss. He couldn’t help but believe, no matter what conclusion the extensive investigations had led to, that something more had gone on here. That they had missed something.
That someone had gotten away with murder.
Had Matt been the target?
He’d done some investigating himself, hitting dead end after dead end. He was sure it was frustration that kept him coming back to stand here, impotently staring at the house.
People walked past him. Tourists, with their guidebooks out. He wondered if he should warn them that wandering around on their own wasn’t such a great thing to be doing at that hour of the night.
A few teenagers walked by the house, and then a couple with two children somewhere around the age of ten. More tourists.
“Is it haunted?” the boy asked eagerly.
“Could be,” the father said. “Patriots met here during the Revolutionary War, and others met here during the War of 1812. It was even a stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Lots of people could be haunting the place.” The father winked.
His wife nudged him. “Don’t go telling him that, Herbert,” she said firmly, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “People died here just last year.”
The father sighed. “Marina, we’re seeing New York. Can’t we just let the kids have some fun along with their education?”
“Fun?” the wife repeated icily.
“I’m sorry,” the father said with a sigh.
Joe couldn’t help himself. “Good evening,” he said, approaching the group. “It’s a little late. Not much open around here at this hour. Actually…nothing open. But bars.”
The father puffed up. But the wife agreed.
“Yes,” she murmured, staring at Joe a little suspiciously, then tugged at her husband’s arm. “We should get back to the hotel.”
“We only have two days here with the kids,” the husband said.
“You might notice that the street is pretty deserted,” Joe said politely.
“Are you a cop?” the wife asked.
“I was.”
“I read in the newspaper that there have been unexplained disappearances in this area,” the wife said.
“Are we prostitutes?” the husband hissed.
“I want to go,” the wife insisted.
They moved on, looking back now and then to see that they weren’t being followed.
“Catch a taxi down the block—they’ll be going north,” Joe called.
Then he put the house and its memories behind him and started down the street in the opposite direction, shrugging his shoulders, as if he could shrug away the feelings that seized him every time he came to Hastings House.
Strange. He felt as if the house itself were beckoning to him.
As if something—someone?—inside was calling him back, unwilling to let him go.
He gritted his teeth and moved on. He wasn’t given to fantasy. The real world was tough enough.
Still, he stopped halfway down the block and stared back at the house. Then, almost angrily, he moved on.
A house simply could not call out to him, as if asking for some kind of help….
3
It was evening when they arrived at Hastings House. To the left there was a large pit, along with the partially demolished miniskyscraper that was being torn down to be replaced by a megabuilding. Downtown was coming back in a big way.
To the right—beyond a narrow expanse of grass, the only evidence that there had once been many residences in the area—stood an office building/apartment complex built in the 1940s. The sun was falling, and, if Leslie narrowed her vision, she could almost imagine what this very small spot in the world might have looked like in the past.
But then she began to hear the angry beeping of horns, the sudden blare of rap music, a shout, the click of heels on pavement…this was, after all, New York. Even on a lazy Sunday afternoon, this was the piece of granite where so many people had decided they had to live. The center of the universe, in the minds of so many. She smiled. With all its sins and dirt and mixture of good and evil, she loved the city. Rebel she might be, but she loved New York.
And it was good to be back.
“Hey!” the cabbie interjected, breaking her thoughts. With an accent only on the single syllable, she wasn’t sure just what part of the world his speech denoted. “Somebody gonna pay me?”
“Oh, yes, right,” Professor Laymon said. Leslie didn’t even turn around. She felt Brad at her shoulder as she stared at Hastings House. What would it offer up to her now? Now that she was who she was—now that she was changed?
She felt Brad’s hand on her shoulder. “It’s a house,” he said softly. “But if you’re the least bit uneasy, there’s no reason on earth for you to stay here.”
She turned, smiling at him. “I want to stay here.”
“It won’t bring Matt back to life.”
“I know,” she said, looking back toward Hastings House.
The house was beautiful. Two stories high, and all the outer over-the-centuries additions had been ripped away and its facade had been restored to the Colonial-era style in which it had been originally built. Even downtown, there were few buildings to compare with it, other than St. Paul’s Cathedral and Fraunces Tavern. It had been given a white-picket fence—higher than it would have been when the house was built, and even as the sun set, the alarm wires around it were visible. A sign on the gate advertised the house’s historical importance, and announced visiting times and admission prices.
It looked just as it had the last time she had come here.
The damage from the blast and fire had been repaired.
And since it was Sunday, after five, there were no lingering tourists. The horn blasts and other street sounds seemed to come from far away. The house was quiet, as if it were resting.
As if it were expecting something.
Then the front door burst open, and Greta Peterson came hurrying down the walk to the gate. “Come in, come in. We’ve been waiting for you. Watching.”
We?
Who the heck else was here? Leslie had hoped for a quiet night. No one would have understood, so she hadn’t said anything, but she really wanted the house to herself.
Before she knew it, Greta, with all her warmth and enthusiasm, had reached her, hugged her, rested an arm around her shoulders and called out a greeting to Professor Laymon and Brad. Then Greta dragged her up the walk, saying, “Oh, Leslie, I’m so happy to see you. You look wonderful, dear. A bit too thin, but wonderful. I know that thin is in…but don’t go losing your shape, young lady.”
That from a rail-thin, hyper matron, Leslie thought dryly.
But Greta’s warmth and enthusiasm were endearing. Then, as they neared the house, Leslie’s heart sank.
Greta had apparently planned a welcome party. Thankfully, it appeared to be a small one. Sergeant Robert Adair—okay, she liked Robert and was delighted to see him—peeked out the doorway as they approached. Behind him, Hank Smith, from the development company, stepped into view, and then Ken Dryer, the attractive and articulate police spokesman, made an appearance.
“Leslie!” Robert called, smiling affectionately.
“Robert,” she said with a smile, accepting a hug as the other men stood back.
“Hey, Les,” Hank said, offering her a handshake.
Ken Dryer gave her a very proper hug before moving on to shake Brad’s hand and ask about the weather in D.C. Then he started down the path to welcome the professor and collect Leslie’s rolling suitcase from the sidewalk.
“Gorgeous as ever,” Robert Adair whispered softly. “You okay?” he asked, taking her hands and looking at her with concern in his eyes.
“Fine,” she assured him.
He kissed her cheek quickly. Robert was around fifty, she thought, a twenty-year veteran of the force. He worked out of One Police Plaza and wasn’t assigned to a particular precinct. He was called a liaison officer and became involved with crimes that crossed precinct boundaries to affect multiple areas of the city—like the missing prostitutes—or that started garnering more than a mention in the newspapers.
Greta bustled past him to stand face-to-face with Leslie.
“We are delighted to see you, my dear. If you’d refused to come, everyone would have understood,” she said. There was real concern in her soft gray eyes, the kind that made Leslie feel the ache inside again, but she needed to get past all that. And really, it had been sweet of Greta to find a special way to welcome her, Brad and Professor Layman on their arrival. Greta had been blessed to be born with not just the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, but with a whole array of cutlery. Her ancestors had been fur traders on a par with the Astors. She was a born-and-bred New Yorker who truly loved her city and its history, and because of that ardent love, she was acknowledged as a major—if not the major—power in the field of restoration and archaeology.
“I love this city, and I’m privileged to be invited to work this new find,” Leslie told her cheerfully.
“We all are,” Brad said quickly, then flushed. “Well, the professor is history, but Leslie and I are both very pleased to be respected enough to be asked back.”
“Well, you’re both not just talented,” Ken Dryer said, “you love the city. You know the city.”
“And it’s so kind of you all to be here,” Leslie said, smiling. “I thought the professor and Brad would be helping me settle in quietly, but it looks like we have a dinner party to attend.” She tried to sound enthusiastic.
“Oh, just us and the caterers,” Greta said. “I had to do something.” Then she cut to the chase. “Oh, Leslie…do you really want to stay in the house? Sleep in it?”
Leslie smiled dryly. “I’m dying to stay here,” she assured Greta.
“But you won’t stay?” Greta asked Brad, sounding disapproving.
Brad shrugged, opting to answer lightly. “Sadly, Leslie has made it clear that she would prefer not to sleep with me.”
Greta wasn’t amused. She frowned.
“Sorry, just teasing,” Brad said quickly. “I have an apartment in Manhattan. Leslie’s place is out in Brooklyn, so it’s more convenient for her to stay here,” Brad said.
“I can walk right over to the dig,” Leslie explained. She smiled, trying to put Greta at ease. “Honestly, Greta, I love this place. I don’t blame what happened on a house. I want to be here.”
Greta stared at Professor Laymon. “And you’re not staying, either?” she demanded tartly.
Layman looked acutely uncomfortable. “Greta, we’ve talked, and this is Leslie’s choice. I have a home here, too,” he explained. He lifted his hands, the very image of brilliant but helpless.
Greta shook her head, her soft, short silver hair bobbing around her attractive face. “Oh, dear,” she murmured, still unhappy. “There’s no guard on duty, you know, except for when the house is open to the public. There’s an alarm system, of course. State-of-the-art. But the Historical Society can’t afford full-time security.”
“A state-of-the-art alarm system is much better than what I have in Brooklyn,” Leslie assured her. As Greta looked back at her, trying to smile, Leslie realized that the woman had set up the whole party just to keep her from being alone for as long as possible. She had to lower her head and smile. Then she lifted her eyes. “This place is fantastic. I loved it from the beginning. And I understand that the damage has been completely repaired, that you can’t even tell that…that anything happened. So…how is the tourism thing going? Do a lot of people come see the place?”
“We actually had to have crowd control when it first reopened,” Ken Dryer said. He smiled as he spoke. He always smiled. Wheaten-haired and handsome, like the boy next door all grown-up, with an ability to spin any situation, he was perfectly suited to his position, but Leslie always felt, despite how nice he had always been to her, that he was just a bit oily, as well. What his real thoughts were, she seldom knew. She had heard that he had political ambitions, and she was sure that on the political trail, he would charm an audience without ever really saying anything substantive about the issues.
“Crowd control?” Brad marveled.
Robert cleared his throat uneasily. “There’s nothing like an…event to draw crowds.”
Hank Smith groaned, taking Leslie by the arm. “What our good sergeant is trying to explain without words is that not only is this house a historical masterpiece, it has a modern-day tragedy to go with it. Unfortunately, tragedy brings people in droves. In the beginning, we had cops every day. The lines were around the block. That’s slacked off some, but even so, eventually this place is going to pay for itself. Look, you’ve chosen to stay here, and I, for one, am not going to tiptoe around. You know that we were all affected by what happened, that we all felt a terrible loss—not as great as yours, but a terrible loss all the same—and if you want to be here, I say good for you. And that’s not sucking up, that’s God’s honest truth. So, hey, can we eat now, Greta?”
“Of course, of course,” Greta stuttered. “Come along to the dining room. Leslie, I’ve put you in the best bedroom. We’ll get your bag up in a bit. One of these brawny fellows will be willing to serve as a…well, as a brawny fellow and take it up there for you.”
“Hey, I can handle a suitcase,” Leslie said.
“Yeah, and one of us can be a gentleman and take care of it, too,” Brad told her. “Let’s eat.” He looked at his watch. She had a feeling that Brad had other plans for the evening and that a welcome-back dinner party hadn’t been on his agenda.
Leslie…
She was thinner. She looked almost ethereal. He had never known such pain, such longing, as he felt seeing her there that night. He wanted to touch her so badly. He wanted to tell her that it was all right.
He wanted to tell her that Hank Smith was a dickhead. He laughed at himself. He hadn’t known he disliked the developer so much. On the surface, the guy was a decent sort. Maybe he was too perfect. Tall, dark and slimy. His Armani suits were pressed to a T. Even his shoes were designer. He was a big man in town. Went to the right clubs. Ate at all the right places. Shook hands with the mayor. Hell, the guy even kissed babies’ cheeks. He was a partner in Tyson, Smith, and Tryon, and he was the perfect representative whenever the firm had to deal with permits, public opinion and the laws of the state. But he just wasn’t the kind of man other men liked. His lines were too smooth. He didn’t kick back at a local bar to enjoy a good football game. Did that make him bad? No, just…a dickhead.
And there was Robert Adair, good old Robert, still looking like a bloodhound. Working tirelessly, always concerned, always in the middle of something tragic, criminal, sad…
Ken Dryer. He didn’t like him any better than he liked Hank Smith. He never wore Armani. Instead, he was spotless in his police dress best. But then, Dryer had a tough job, speaking to the media, trying to assure New Yorkers that even under the worst circumstances, they were going to be all right. He supposed he should have more sympathy for the man, but he didn’t. Dryer liked his job too much. Liked finding a way to put a spin on things that always made himself look good.
Greta…well, she loved history more than life itself. She was a good old broad, caring, genuine, which was hard, when you came from that much money.
Professor Laymon…he should get to know Greta better. They would make one hell of a couple.
Brad Verdun. He almost smiled. Would have smiled, if he’d had substance and could have. Once upon a time, he’d been jealous of Brad. Like Ken Dryer and Hank Smith, Brad loved the limelight. He was a good-looking dude, too. But he’d never had any cause to be jealous. To Leslie, Brad was a friend and colleague, someone with whom she worked well. They’d laughed about a few of his romantic fiascos together. But now…
His heart ached. Funny, he had no heart, but he could feel the pain. That was then, and this was now. He himself was gone.
He loved Leslie. Wanted her to have a life. Wanted her to find something as great as what they had shared. Really…
He just didn’t want her falling for some asshole.
All right, so he’d gotten bitter. How the hell not?
Don’t touch her, don’t you dare touch her, he thought.
Then he amended that.
Don’t hurt her, don’t you dare hurt her. If you do, I’ll…
He’d what? He couldn’t even appear at will, could barely communicate with the others haunting the same space.
Don’t hurt her, he prayed.
Hastings House wasn’t huge. The entry was handsome, with the staircase off to the side to allow for a breeze to make its way all the way through the house. Leslie imagined that once those breezes had been plentiful; now, with the house surrounded by skyscrapers, the possibility was highly unlikely. There were two rooms to the right, two rooms to the left, and six bedrooms upstairs. The dining room was the second door on the left, and behind it was the one accommodation to the twenty-first century; the kitchen and huge back pantry were attached to the house by an arched passageway.
“Are you really all right?” Robert asked, coming alongside Leslie as they headed toward the dining room.
She squeezed his arm. “Really,” she assured him.
Really, she repeated in her mind. I just want you all to get out of my house.
Her house?
It wasn’t her house at all.
It was simply the house where Matt had died.
“So, Hank,” Brad said as they filed into the dining room. “Your company made another historical discovery, huh? Must be hard. All that time and money invested—and now you have to stop work and wait for us to prowl around.”
“Thankfully,” Professor Laymon said, before Hank could reply, “the company doesn’t try to hide what it comes across, Brad.”
But Hank was grinning. “Do I mind losing money, Brad? Sure. But we get more promotional bucks out of this than you could begin to imagine.”
As she took a chair at the period reproduction dining table, Leslie ignored the men and flashed a smile at Greta. They were eating on reproduction Dutch porcelain dishes, and fresh flowers graced the table. The minute she’d entered the house, she’d smelled the aroma of beef cooking, so she assumed they would be having a traditional old English pub roast.
“So, Hank, tell us more about the find,” Brad said.
Hank looked a little surprised. “Professor Laymon has been given all the specifics.”
“He’s told us what he knows, but I’m curious. Why do you think you’ve discovered a working-class burial?”
Hank shrugged, taking his seat just as the caterers made their appearance, bringing the meal from the kitchen. A roast, whipped potatoes, greens, a tomato salad. Red wine. A very nice and very traditional meal.
“No one has turned vegetarian on me lately, have they?” Greta asked worriedly.
They all shook their heads as Hank started to answer Brad’s question.
“Well, we haven’t come across any coffins or bones—we’re leaving that to you,” he said, helping himself to the potatoes. “Gravy?” he asked. Ken Dryer passed over the gravy boat.
“What our first worker came across was a set of wooden teeth,” Hank explained.
“Wooden teeth?” Leslie echoed.
“Just like the pair of George Washington’s in the Smithsonian,” Hank said.
“Poor people didn’t generally have false teeth,” Leslie said.
“They’re very rough, and only preserved because they happened to have been wrapped in a scrap of tarp, like something a soldier might have had,” Hank said. “I don’t really know anything about this stuff, but that’s what the first guy on the site, someone from the museum, said. Anyway, there was more. A few pieces of jewelry, costume stuff, and poor costume stuff at that. And a couple of tiny crosses—those were actually real silver. We stopped work right away, of course.”
“Of course,” Brad agreed. Leslie thought he sounded skeptical, but Brad de facto disliked anyone who worked for a development company.
“Then,” Greta reminded Hank, “there were the records we found at the Morgan Library. Records that indicated a church had stood on the spot before it burned to the ground. At the time, this area was heavily populated with immigrant families, struggling to get by. Up the street, there was once a Catholic church. Down this way, there was another Episcopal church, not to mention Trinity and St. Paul’s. Remember, everyone went to church in those days.”
“Right, Greta. Anyway,” Hank said, flashing a grin at Professor Laymon, “the decision was made that our good friend here should head the project, and all work has been stopped, the areas where the finds were made have been cordoned off, and you’re all set to go. And—” he offered another of his broad smiles to Leslie “—we have two of the city’s most esteemed archaeologists on the case, along with whatever hordes the professor cares to hire.” He turned to Brad. “So do speak highly of us to the press, please.”
Greta laughed softly; Leslie smiled. It seemed to her that Hank was honest enough, even if she didn’t always trust developers herself.
“You know, construction workers need to make a living, too,” Robert piped in.
“Right. Some of us poor slobs are just worker bees,” Ken said.
“Yeah, poor Ken. You’re just the average worker bee, right?” Leslie teased.
He laughed. “Okay, so, I’m a lucky, well-educated worker bee. Talk to Robert, here, though, if you’re looking for a guy who has worked his ass off—sorry, Greta—to get somewhere, and despite all he’s done, he’s got a tough job, nowhere near enough respect and a lousy paycheck.”
“Hey!” Robert protested.
“Oh, we cops are suddenly well paid?” Ken said.
“Could be worse,” Robert told him.
Ken groaned.
“Besides, I doubt you intend to be a cop forever,” Robert said.
“Do you have political aspirations?” Leslie asked, sipping her wine.
“Not this year, I assure you,” Ken said. “Greta, this is absolutely delicious. Thank you so much for inviting me.”
“Well,” Greta said, waving a hand in the air, “we want Leslie to feel that the police are with her if she ever needs them, right?”
“Greta is really worried about you staying at the house alone,” Robert told Leslie. He didn’t add and so am I. He didn’t need to. She could see it in his eyes.
“Hey, I know New York City. I’m street smart,” Leslie assured them both.
“Anyone can need help,” Robert said.
“Should I be afraid for some reason?” Leslie asked. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“No,” Robert said.
“Well, we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of those local disappearances,” Ken said.
“Leslie doesn’t need to worry. She doesn’t exactly fit the profile,” Robert said.
“There’s still been no break in the prostitute case?” Leslie asked. “Is that what you’re talking about?”
“No, no break,” Ken said. He hesitated. “Matt had people concerned, but no one has picked up where he left off.”
“Since Leslie is hardly likely to start walking the streets soliciting, I don’t think she needs to worry too much about that,” Greta announced. “I mean, personally. Of course we all need to worry in the larger sense.”
“Maybe there’s a modern-day Jack the Ripper out there,” Brad offered.
“Jack the Ripper got his kicks by letting others discover the butchered bodies of his victims,” Robert said sharply, then flushed, hearing his own tone. “Sorry, this is a real sore spot with me. We’re just not getting anywhere. And whenever we think it might have stopped, we get another distant relative, hooker friend or embarrassed john down at the station, talking about a girl who’s just vanished.”
“Maybe they’re just moving on,” Brad suggested.
“I wish that were the case,” Robert said. “I just don’t believe it.”
“Why aren’t we finding any bodies, then?” Ken asked him.
“I don’t know,” Robert said. “I didn’t mean to make you uneasy, Leslie,” he added, turning to her.
“You didn’t. I have a state-of-the-art alarm here, remember?” she asked, smiling.
But Robert still seemed disturbed as he stared at her.
Shortly afterward, their dishes were removed and coffee was served, along with a delicious apple cobbler. As dessert was set down, Leslie decided that she was going to lighten the mood. “So…anything new and exciting going on in anyone’s social life?” she asked.
Apparently it wasn’t the right light question.
“What social life?” Ken asked. “Do you have one of those, Robert?”
“Sure, I’m here for dinner tonight,” Robert said. “Thanks to this gracious lady,” he added, reaching across the table and squeezing Greta’s hand.
“Greta’s whole life is social, but since she works so hard at it, she doesn’t have an actual social life, either,” Hank teased.
“Nonsense,” Greta said. “I’m a happy woman. I love working for my causes, especially history. And you, Ken. You’re at every social event.”
“Ah, but is that a social life?” Ken asked.
“Sorry I asked,” Leslie said.
Finally the coffee was cleared, the dining room and kitchen were immaculately cleaned, and all that was left was the aroma of the dinner that had been. Since everyone seemed reluctant to leave, Leslie decided that it was time to ask them to go.
She feigned a yawn. “Oh, sorry. Hey, we do start tomorrow morning, right, Professor?”
“Are you trying to kick us out?” Brad asked.
“I can’t really kick you out. It isn’t my house. But, yes, please leave. I need to go to bed,” she told him, grinning.
Robert Adair looked at Brad. “I guess she’s serious.”
“Looks like,” Brad agreed with a shrug.
There were a lot of goodbyes, with everyone making sure she had their numbers programmed into her cell phone and forcing her to promise that she would call right away if she needed anything.
Greta insisted on walking through the downstairs and making sure the caterers had cleaned up to her satisfaction and turned off all the appliances, and that the doors and windows were all locked. She explained the alarm and gave the code to Leslie, while the others hovered in the entryway. At last, even Greta was willing to admit that all was well.
“Now, tomorrow is Monday. The house opens at ten, so Melissa Turner arrives at around eight-thirty—she’s in charge of ticket sales—and Tandy Goren and Jeff Green—the historical guides—usually get here a bit after. Melissa comes in and makes her coffee early. She’s one of those people who likes to get to work ahead of schedule so she can take her time. She’s a sweetheart—you’ll love her. Just don’t be startled when you hear voices early.”
“I may already be gone,” Leslie said. She looked at Laymon. “What time are we meeting at the site, Professor?”
“Take your time tomorrow. Ten will be fine,” Professor Laymon said. “You know where it is?”
“Down the street. I don’t think I can miss it.” She smiled.
“Yes, well, just dial my cell if you don’t see where we are. I want to make my general assessment, then I’ll get you and Brad going while I take care of hiring some grad students and start with the other what-have-yous.”
She nodded, waiting anxiously for them to leave.
Ken Dryer brushed sandy hair from his forehead and took her hand. “I’m still a cop,” he said huskily. “You know you can count on me if you need anything.”
Let go of her hand, dickhead!
Ken frowned suddenly, then shrugged. “Call me.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Hank stepped forward. “Okay, I’m not a cop, but I’m always around if you need me, anyway.” He kissed her cheek.
You are the dickhead of all dickheads!
Hank suddenly seemed to stumble. “Just let me know if you need me,” he said.
Robert hugged her easily; Brad bussed her cheek. “See you tomorrow, kid.”
Greta hugged her fiercely. Leslie felt as if she were about to leave on a safari into the deepest jungle. They were all so worried. And she couldn’t possibly explain why she so badly wanted to stay in the house.
Alone.
At last the good-nights were ending. Robert Adair continued to look troubled. She kissed his cheek. “We’ll have dinner soon, how’s that?” she whispered to him.
That seemed to brighten him. He nodded.
“It’s really good to see you back, Leslie,” he said gravely.
“Back in New York. Back with us all,” Ken Dryer added.
She smiled. “This is home,” she murmured.
Finally they left and she was alone in the house.
She stood in the entry. She could still hear the street noises, muffled by the fence and the thick walls of the house. The sound of a horn, a shout, a car alarm. The usual.
She forced those noises into the background and tried to hear the house itself.
Nothing. Everything was quiet. Not even an old board creaked.
Hastings House had stood for more than two centuries. It had seen war, peace, life, love…and death. It had to be filled with a few spirits. It had been witness to a revolution, to a civil war that had torn a country apart. It had been there in 1812 when a fledgling nation had faced its first major confrontation following its independence. It had witnessed riots, the teeming disturbance of a world gone crazy in the caste war pitting old immigrants against new. World wars had come and gone, and the Cold War after them. It had survived the tragedy and trials of the twenty-first century.
There had to be spirits here….
But she heard, sensed, nothing. The house was silent.
“Matt?” she whispered hopefully.
But there was no reply.
She closed her eyes, prayed, hoped, waited.
Nothing.
At last she went up to bed.
There are no rules, Nikki had told her once. No one really knew what lay beyond this world.
She lay awake as long as she could, still and expectant.
But nothing happened, and without even noticing the transition from wakefulness, she finally fell asleep.
4
At three in the morning, Joe was trolling the streets, driving slowly, looking for his one hooker in a veritable sea of them.
He’d started doing the basics immediately. Checking and double-checking the information Eileen had given him, making appointments, sending e-mails…
He’d read the magazine article several times over but had found nothing but an allusion to a long-ago rumor of an extramarital affair—not enough to make an intelligent grown woman go berserk, surely. The reporter was currently on assignment overseas, so there was no way to get hold of him to see how much he really knew.
Joe didn’t think he was going to get much help from that quarter, anyway.
The secret to Genevieve’s whereabouts was out here somewhere on the streets.
One of the notes Eileen had given him referred to a hooker Genevieve had tried to help in the course of her job and had actually spoken about to her aunt. Didi Dancer. Probably not the girl’s real name, but…
Five foot four, huge breasts, tiny waist, liked to wear a skin-tight red skirt and leather jacket when she worked. Spiked heels. Her vanity was her hair, long and a rich, vibrant brown; she wouldn’t be hard to spot.
He saw the woman and pulled over to the curb. She noticed that he was driving a Lexus, and he noted the hard smile that curved her lips as she walked over to the car. She leaned against it, arching her body suggestively as she did so.
“Hey,” she said. Then her hard smile eased a bit. “So, good-looking, what are you up to tonight?”
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.
She had pretty features. Her skin was dry and taut, though. Too many cigarettes. Maybe—probably—too many less legal substances, as well. “Talk? Sure, honey, everyone wants to talk.”
He smiled; her own grin deepened. “Hey,” she said again, her voice growing husky. “You really are good-looking, sugar. Maybe we can work out a good deal—for talking.”
“Honestly, I really do just want to talk, but I’ll make it worth your while.”
She tensed suddenly, started to straighten. “You’re fucking vice, aren’t you? I haven’t said a thing. You can’t run me in.”
She started to walk away, heels clicking sharply on the pavement.
He hopped quickly out of the car. “I swear to God, I’m not vice. And I will make it worth your while. You’re, uh, Didi Dancer, right?” Man, what a ridiculous name.
She paused, then turned back, staring at him across the sidewalk.
“Who are you? What are you?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’m a private investigator. And I just need some help. I’m looking for a missing girl. Genevieve O’Brien.”
A strange look washed over her face. Something containing caring and humanity.
Her voice still husky, she asked, “That pretty social worker?”
“Yes.”
“I talked to the cops, you know.”
“Will you talk to me?”
She hesitated. “All right,” she said at last. “If you’ll take me for a ride. That’s a cool car.”
“Thanks.”
She crawled into the passenger seat, ran her hands over the soft leather, then looked at him.
“Where did you want to go?” he asked her.
“Just drive. Hey, let’s take the FDR.”
“All right.”
He drove for several minutes, navigating the city streets to reach the highway, before she started to talk. “The police quizzed a lot of us about the missing hookers, you know. Strange. Well, not so strange. It was like it was all by rote. Questions they had to ask. They think we chose this life, that we deserve whatever happens to us.” She shook her head, staring out the window. Then she looked back at him. “Can I smoke in here?” she asked him.
“If you can help me, you can light up a cigar,” he told her.
She smiled, staring at him. “You are one handsome dude, you know? I should have known right off you weren’t looking for a fuck. No, that’s not true. You’d be amazed at the really good-looking young guys who just want sex without any emotional bullshit. Or kinky things, or sometimes not even all that kinky. Just things their wives won’t do.” She frowned. “You really aren’t vice, right?”
“I swear, I’m not vice. I’ll show you my ID.”
“Oh, honey, anyone can fake ID,” she said with a laugh. Then she sobered. “I wish I could help you.”
“Try.”
“Okay.” She opened her window and lit a cigarette. Exhaling, she began. “Genevieve. The cops asked about her, too. Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl.” She inhaled deeply, just air. At that moment she didn’t even seem to realize she had a lit cigarette. “I have a daughter. They took her away. She’s in foster care. Genevieve came to see me. I gave her a hard time at first. The girl looks like she ought to be posing for Vogue or something like that. And I heard from some of the other girls that she’s really rich, too…but she was the real deal. She really wanted to help me. Us. I even got her together with some of the other girls one time. She was so sweet. She wanted to know about our dreams, can you imagine that? Like, did we plan on doing what we’re doing forever? Was it just to pull in some money? She wanted to help us get real jobs that paid enough to survive here. Enough to get legit. To get our kids back,” she said softly.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Joe asked.
“About a month ago.”
Right around when she disappeared?
“Did she visit you? Were you at a restaurant…on the street, what and where?” Joe pursued quietly.
“We were right where you picked me up tonight,” she told him. “She knew where to find me.”
“Why was she looking for you?”
“She thought she might have a job for me.” Didi inhaled on her cigarette, exhaled the smoke, then flicked the butt out the window and looked at him. “She wanted to know if I was seriously—really seriously—ready to change my lifestyle. If I wanted my daughter back bad enough to stay clean. Squeaky clean.”
“And what did you tell her?”
She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “I said yes.”
He nodded. “But she never came back?”
“No.”
“When and how did she leave you?”
“A car pulled up, and I could tell she knew the driver. She walked over to it, and it looked like she and the guy—I think it was a guy—it looked like they were kinda arguing. I couldn’t hear what they said, but she looked pissed, you know? Then she waved at me and said she’d get back with me about the job.”
“And then she got in the car?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell me about the car?”
“It was a dark sedan. Black, blue, something like that.”
“By any wild chance, did you get the plate number?”
Didi shook her head. “I wasn’t looking. I…I didn’t notice anything more.”
“You didn’t watch her go, maybe wave as she drove off?”
“No,” Didi said softly, then looked at him. “Another car showed up. A regular of mine. I knew the guy; knew he was worth money. I forgot all about Genevieve then. I had to. I mean, I seriously would have taken her offer, and I would have stayed clean. But…well, I needed to eat in the meantime.”
“Right,” he murmured.
He drove her back to the curb where he had found her. After he slid the car into neutral, he pulled out a wad of bills.
“You don’t owe me,” she said.
“I told you I’d pay you to talk.”
“It was about Genevieve. You don’t owe me. I really hope that you find her. I pray sometimes that she’s okay.”
“Take the money, have some dinner. Give yourself a break.”
She paused, looked into eyes, then took the money. “What makes you think I’m not just gonna buy some coke with it?”
“You might. I hope you don’t.”
She started to get out of the car. “You know, you’re the only one who asked me that.”
“Asked you what?”
“What I said to Genevieve. No one else cared if I meant to clean up or not. That was really nice of you.”
“You could probably get yourself a real job, with or without Genevieve,” he said.
“Yeah? I have great references. ‘John Q. says I’m a great lay,’” she said dryly. She flushed, then dug into her small handbag. She produced a scrap of paper, a receipt from a coffee house, and scratched down a number. “If you think I can help you again, call me.”
He accepted the paper. “Thank you. Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about the car? Can you take a guess on the color?”
“Black. I think it was black,” she said. Then she sighed. “I’m just not sure.”
“Okay. Thank you. Really.”
She touched his face, her eyes soft. “No, thank you, sweetie. You treated me nice. Real nice. And I’m serious. You call me.” She gave him her dry smile once again. “And that wasn’t a come-on. Good night.”
She hopped out of the car.
He drove on down the street, past the site of the new dig. At night, it seemed huge, protected behind quickly rigged barbed wire. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he slid into a spot along the curb, stepped out of the car and started walking, making mental notes as he went.
Eileen Brideswell might just be right. Her niece had been working with prostitutes in the same area where a number of hookers had gone missing. She had been picked up by a dark, probably black, sedan off the street—in that same area. He needed Robert Adair’s notes; he needed to know if any friends of the other missing girls had seen them getting into a dark sedan.
He kept walking, using the time as he often did to make sense of what he had learned.
He found himself standing in front of Hastings House once again, as if brought there by instinct.
Well, that was crazy as hell. What could Hastings House have to do with the disappearance of Genevieve O’Brien?
The place just bugged him, that was all. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the blast had been intentional and Matt had been the intended target.
And that someone was getting away with murder.
He stood beneath the streetlight, staring at the house. It seemed to live and breathe; the old colonial windows were like eyes, the door like a mouth.
Unease filled him. Eileen Brideswell was right, he thought. Her niece had been the victim of foul play. Just as the prostitutes had been.
Someone was getting away with murder.
Just like at Hastings House.
At first Leslie slept deeply. Then, suddenly, she discovered that she was wide awake.
She glanced at her travel alarm on the Duncan Fife reproduction by her bed. Four in the morning. Much too early to get out of bed.
She plumped her pillow, but sleep wouldn’t come. After half an hour she sighed and gave up. She slipped on a robe and went quietly downstairs.
So far, she hadn’t gone into the room where the explosion had taken place. Was she ready for that?
Did she want to reach Matt?
In the entryway, she hesitated, then went into the first room off the entryway, now set up as a Colonial parlor. There was a love seat beneath the window, a table in the center of the room, a pianoforte to one side, and various chairs, along with a tea table. She stood there in the shadows and the diffuse glow cast by the the security lights. “Hello?” she said softly.
But the room was just a room, an image of a past that might or might not have been exactly as it was represented now.
She walked through the connecting door to the dining room, thinking that last night was now just a moment in history, like everything else.
Then she walked through the kitchen and back to the servants’ pantry.
The hearth had been rebuilt. She could almost imagine Matt standing by it the way he had that night. She could almost see herself nearby, held captive in a different conversation. In her mind’s eye, she could almost see…
But the room was silent. Just a room.
“Not even a Colonial gentleman here, huh? The lady of the house?” she said aloud.
Just an empty room.
She walked back into the kitchen, found the coffeepot and the coffee, and thought that if the supplies belonged to Melissa, the ticket-seller, she would make a point of replacing them. She set a pot of coffee on to brew. Upstairs, in her room, which wasn’t part of any tour, she had a television. She could sip coffee and watch an early-morning news show soon.
That settled, she hummed while she made coffee, thinking that she might turn and see a ghost at any time. But the coffee brewed, and she saw nothing. She found a large cup, filled it, added cream that she found in the artfully disguised refrigerator and headed back up the stairs.
She set her coffee down and turned on the television, then walked to the window and looked idly down at the street. Her heart stopped.
There was a man on the sidewalk, standing under the streetlight.
Matt.
She blinked. He was still there. As tall as Matt, standing the exact way that Matt stood. It had to be Matt.
The man looked up.
Good God, it was Matt!
She forgot that she was wearing nothing but a robe over a short nightgown. She almost forgot about the alarm as she raced downstairs toward the front door, but at the last minute she suddenly realized that a siren would go off and the police would be alerted if she didn’t punch in the code. She hit the numbers hastily, then threw open the door and ran down the walk.
At the picket fence, she slowed and swore softly. The man was gone.
She wrapped her robe more tightly around her body. The street was so quiet now.
Dead, actually.
She opened the gate and looked anxiously down the street. Nothing in either direction. The man under the streetlight must have been a trick of her imagination.
But if it had been Matt…. A ghost didn’t have to run off down the street, so foolishly running around barefoot wouldn’t do any good. But it probably hadn’t been Matt; she had just wanted so badly to see him….
She let out a soft sigh. “Hello? Is anybody there?”
She felt a soft breeze touch her face, heard the sound of a distant horn and someone shouting “Taxi!”
The city never really slept. Not even down here, in the financial district.
“Hello?” she murmured again.
“Hi, yourself, lady.”
She spun around. A filthy, toothless, long-haired bum was grinning as he stood behind her. “I mean, hello, honey,” he added.
She looked him up and down, trying not to wrinkle her nose in distaste or scream in shock.
“Uh, hi,” she said. “Bye.”
With a wave, she fled back through the gate, taking a minute to latch it behind herself, and up the steps. Inside the house, she locked the door and keyed in the alarm, making a mental note to herself to start being really careful or people really would start thinking she was crazy.
At nine o’clock on the nose, Joe Connolly was in the office of social services, speaking with the man who had been Genevieve’s boss, a harried, irritable curmudgeon named Manny Yarborough who didn’t seem inclined to be helpful.
“I’ve already had an officer in here, and I can’t tell you anything else. The girl quit. Cleared out her desk and quit. That’s it.”
“No, that’s not it. Did she say where she was going? Did she leave an address for her last check? Did she say that she’d be in to get it? May I see her desk, her work area, please?”
“You know what, mister? I’m a really busy man. We’re always shorthanded around here, and Genevieve left us shorter. She didn’t say anything. When I asked her not to leave that way, told her she had to work with the system and give notice, that she couldn’t just quit, she just said, ‘Watch me.’ Then she grabbed her stuff and she walked. And you’re crazy if you think I didn’t put that desk right back to work the second she was out of this place. We need space, and we need help. This is New York!”
“I’ll need whatever address you have on file, and I’d like to look at the desk anyway,” Joe said firmly.
“You got a search warrant?”
“Why—do you think this is going to turn into a homicide investigation? I told you. I’m not a cop, I’m working for the family, a family that helps support the city charities, and I’m sure you know that. How about you give me a hand, please?”
The man looked at him in exasperation. “I’ll get you what I had for a phone and an address, and you can ask Alice over there if she minds if you look at her desk.”
Alice was young and looked uneasy. She seemed exceptionally kind, though, the type of person who was meant for her line of work. She was still idealistic. Her eyes were big and blue, and she must have heard the conversation, because she jumped out of her chair when Joe approached, eager to be of assistance. “I can go get some coffee or something if you want. I mean, I can get out of your way.” She was thin, and a little like a nervous terrier.
“I’d really appreciate it if you could stay and tell me what I’m looking at,” he told her, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“Sure.”
Manny walked away, as if disgusted with the whole thing.
Joe sat at the desk.
“The bottom drawer is files,” Alice offered. “I’ll go through them with you.”
He quickly discovered that Genevieve’s work with the prostitutes seemed to have consumed her caseload, though, interestingly, she hadn’t labeled them as prostitutes. She had listed the women as “Working temporary jobs” or “Seeking better opportunities.” She had notes on all the children—babies, mostly—court documents listing when they had been taken by Children’s Services and where they’d been placed, and little notes everywhere. He found the file for Didi Dancer. Her baby girl had been taken six months ago. Maybe Dancer was her real name after all, because the child was listed as Dianna Dancer. There was one note in Didi’s file that wasn’t clipped to the others. It read, She has a chance. Go for the big guns.
A second later, he heard a cough. He and Alice both looked up. Manny was back, scowling fiercely. “Mr. Connolly, here is the information I promised you. Now, I believe I’ve offered you every courtesy. We are an under-paid service here, and time is valuable.”
“I haven’t minded helping Mr. Connolly at all,” Alice assured him, her eyes still innocently wide.
“Yes, but you are due in court on the Blalock case in thirty minutes.”
“In thirty minutes?” Alice said with dismay. She jumped up again. Joe decided she was more like a nervous hamster than a terrier. He stood, as well. As he rose, he palmed the scrap of paper with Genevieve’s note. Later, he could always say he hadn’t taken it on purpose.
He managed to whisper to Alice, “Can you copy the files for me?” he asked.
She looked delighted to be involved in a secret conspiracy against her boss. She nodded, eyes shining, a smile playing at her lips.
“Alice, time is passing here,” Manny said.
“Thank you both,” Joe said politely, adding, “I may be back.”
Manny scowled.
Joe decided to retreat and fight another day. He extended a hand to Manny. “Thanks. I’m praying I’ll find Miss O’Brien alive, and if I do, it will be in large part thanks to your help.” What a load of bullshit. Still, he’d learned over the years. He was never obsequious—that would be too much; he would have to vomit on the spot. But being cordial to guys like this one usually made them feel awkward and sometimes even more willing to help in the future.
He extended a hand to Alice, as well, thanking her sincerely. She flushed and stuttered. “Y-you’re very welcome. I loved Genevieve. We all did. Do, I mean.”
“Yes, and now we all need to get back to work,” Manny said.
Joe gave Alice a wink, and she smiled broadly. He left.
He had his cell phone out and was calling Robert Adair before he even left the building. Luck was with him. He didn’t lose his signal in the elevator, and Robert answered immediately.
“I need to talk to you about Genevieve O’Brien and the missing prostitutes,” he said.
“What?” Robert said.
“I said—”
“No, I heard you. But…Genevieve wasn’t a prostitute.”
“I know. Humor me,” Joe said, quite sure that Robert had made the same connection he had but wasn’t about to give anything away.
“All right. I’m at the site. Can you meet me here?”
“What site?”
“What do you mean, what site? The new dig site. The Big New York Dig, they’re calling it.” Robert was silent for a second, then added, “Down by Hastings House.”
“I’ll be there in a few,” Joe said, and hung up.
Leslie was filthy, but she barely noticed and certainly didn’t care. She was alive with the thrill of discovery that had been part of her chosen vocation from the very beginning. This place was an archaeological gold mine.
In a matter of hours they had laid out their grid, and Laymon had taken on a number of professionals, using all the people from the museum who were already involved and twenty grad students from local universities. People were down on their knees with small trowels and delicate brushes, while heavy machinery stood silently by. Thus far, they had found shoe buckles, belt buckles and fragments of jewelry.
Leslie was sure there would be lots more.
At first she hadn’t known why she was drawn to a particular section of the grid. But then, as she dug and then dusted, she had looked up…
And seen the child.
She must have been about seven. She was hugging a handmade, unbleached muslin doll. Her hair was in a single braid. She was very thin, and her legs were slightly bowed. Rickets, Leslie thought. She had stared at the child for several seconds before she realized she was seeing someone none of the others could.
A ghost child.
She smiled, hoping no one noticed as she whispered, “Hello.”
The little girl had huge brown eyes. She was dressed in a calico print dress and a spotless apron. She hugged the doll more tightly and mouthed back, “Hello. You can see me?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say, Leslie?” Brad, just a few feet away but luckily with his back to her, asked.
“Uh, nothing. How are you doing?”
“Fine,” he replied, then turned back to his work.
Leslie smiled at the child again. “What’s your name?”
“Mary.”
“Beautiful name,” Leslie said.
“What did you say?” Brad demanded again.
“Nothing.”
“You’re talking to yourself again,” Brad said with a sigh, staring at her.
“I’m just singing. It passes the time.”
“Oh. Well…you can’t carry a tune, you know.”
“Thanks. I’ll avoid karaoke clubs, then.”
He made a grunting sound of irritation, rolled his eyes and went back to work.
She was afraid that Mary would be gone, but the ghostly child had remained. She was grinning. “I’m sure you sing just fine, miss.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated. “Are you lost?”
“I don’t know where my mother is.”
“Was she…sick?”
The little girl nodded gravely.
“And were you sick, too?”
She nodded and looked troubled. “I think my mother died. I think I came here with my father when she died. But I can’t find her now.”
“Do you think that her grave was here…right here, where I am now?”
The girl pointed a few feet away.
“I’ll find her. When I do, Mary, they’ll take her away for a bit. But…I’ll find you, too. And I’ll make sure, in the end, that they keep you together.” She took a deep breath. “Mary…you know that you’re…”
“I’m dead. Yes, I know. I just want my mother.”
Despite herself and everything she knew, Leslie felt a terrible chill. The sun was bright. It was a beautiful day. She was glad she was surrounded by people. Real live people.
Brad was standing, dusting his hands on his khakis.
She made a face at him. “I think I’m going to move right over there. Want to give me a hand? We’ll need to dig a bit.”
“How do you know?”
“A hunch. Instinct. I don’t know. But I want to try over there.”
He looked both skeptical and annoyed, but he joined her nonetheless.
They began to work in silence. Leslie looked up, intending to smile and reassure the child again, but the little girl was gone.
She didn’t know how long she worked, she was so absorbed in what she was doing. And then, at last, she hit a fragment of wood.
“Brad.”
“What?”
“Look.” She dusted the piece and handed it to him. “Coffin?” she asked softly.
“Let’s keep going.”
A minute later he let out a hoarse cry. He’d come across a piece so big it could actually be termed a board.
“We’re on it,” Leslie murmured.
“Delicately, delicately now…just the brushes, no matter how long it takes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. How long have we worked together?”
He didn’t even look up.
She found the first bone. A breastbone. They both stopped and looked at each other.
“Let’s go a little farther,” he whispered.
She nodded. They went back to work, meticulously, slowly. Her back ached, but she scarcely noticed the discomfort. Minutes passed. Eventually they revealed the skeletal remains of a woman. Bits and pieces of fabric had also survived the ravages of time and the worms of the grave. And a cross. A simple gold cross. Very tiny, a poor woman’s treasure.
About to get up and summon the others, Leslie realized that they were already surrounded. Silently, and one by one, about twenty people, including Professor Laymon, Robert Adair and Hank Smith, had circled carefully around their position.
“Um, well, it’s definitely a graveyard,” Leslie said.
“We knew there was a church here. It’s a churchyard. There will be lots of graves, and, with luck, they’ll reveal volumes of new understanding about the area,” Professor Laymon said, pleased.
Leslie wondered if Hank Smith felt happy. He shouldn’t. This would put his project on hold for some time.
But Hank Smith was smooth, a man who had apparently learned never to give his true emotions away. His face revealed absolutely nothing of whatever he was feeling.
Laymon, however, looked as if he were about to have an orgasm.
“Oh. My. God,” he breathed. He sounded like a Valley girl, Leslie thought with a smile. “All right, we’ll need to get the photographers over here…and the news crews.” He frowned. He didn’t want anyone trampling on what he now considered to be his territory, but they could always use the publicity, and, anyway, there was no way not to allow the press at least some access, especially since it was the good PR that kept the developers happy. “Sergeant Adair, will you post a guard, please? And when we bring her up, I want her in situ…the dirt around her and beneath her.”
Laymon definitely looked as if he belonged in a laboratory somewhere—or filming a mad scientist movie—Leslie thought. He was in a smudged white lab coat, his glasses were sitting halfway down his nose, and his hair was dusty and sticking out at odd angles. She smiled. The man certainly got into his work.
Hank Smith reached down to help her up the little incline from where she’d been digging. She hesitated, worrying about leaving Mary’s mother alone.
“Leslie, come on up. I promise, you’ll get to oversee as soon as the photographers are done,” Laymon said.
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Heather Graham
A year ago, archaeologist Leslie MacIntyre barely survived an explosion that took the life of her fiancé, Matt Connolly. Since then she's slowly come to terms with both her loss and an unsettling ability to communicate with ghosts, a "gift" received in the wake of her brush with death. Now she's returned to lower Manhattan, site of the explosion, to investigate a newly discovered burial ground. In this place restless spirits hold the secrets not only of past injustice but of a deadly conspiracy against the city's women–including Leslie herself.By night Matt visits her in dreams, warning her and offering clues to the truth. By day she finds herself helped by–and attracted to–his flesh-and-blood cousin Joe. Torn by her feelings for both men, caught between the worlds of the living and the dead, Leslie struggles against the encroaching danger.As she is drawn closer to the darkness, she must ultimately face the power of an evil mind, alone in a place where not even the men she loves can save her.
Heather Graham
The Dead Room
For ITW,
CJ Lyons, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell
and M. Diane Vogt, who worked so very hard—
and pulled off the incredible. And for our fearless
leader Bob Levinson and the Killer Thriller Band—
F. Paul Wilson, John Lescroart, Michael Palmer
(the lyrics man!), Daniel Palmer, Nathan Walpow,
Blake Crouch, Dave Simms, Scott Nicholson,
David Morrell (again) and Gayle Lynds (amazing
triangle!). And for my truly beautiful fellow
Killerettes—Harley Jane Kozak and Alex Sokoloff.
Deepest thanks to all.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
The light was blinding.
For a moment it seemed as if nothing had existed before it, as if nothing could be greater than rising to meet it. It seemed to reach out with a sweet, alluring warmth. At the source there seemed to be beckoning shadows, but though Leslie MacIntyre could see nothing clearly, they seemed to offer comfort, as well, as if they were waiting to welcome her, to enfold her into their loving arms.
“Hey, you!”
The voice was husky, affectionate, yet strangely jarring. She looked up. It was Matt. She didn’t know where they were, but so long as she and Matt Connolly were together, everything was all right.
They’d met when she’d been the new kid on the block. Though he was a few years older, he’d pulled her along in his wake and made her one of his crowd. He’d called her Rebel, but he’d done it in such a teasing tone that no one had ever been able to use it against her. He’d mocked her Southern accent, then announced that it was the most charming thing he’d ever heard. She’d practically worshipped him over the years, then—yes, she could admit it—lusted after him as they’d grown older. Strangely, it was a tragedy that had made her hopes and dreams come true, that had suddenly made him realize the girl he had befriended had grown up. And since then…
The years hadn’t all been perfect. They’d been quite a thing once she’d graduated from high school, but their pride had sometimes gotten the best of them. One tempestuous blowup had led to a breakup, sending him to college in another state far to the south to play football, while she, still his Rebel, had stayed behind in Yankee territory, opting for NYU. Despite a year in the pros post-college, he’d gone on to journalism, while she had chosen urban archaeology, specializing in her own adopted home of New York. He had started in sports but gone on to world affairs, then come home to write a column about life and issues in New York City.
Back in New York, he had found her again—digging in the dirt, he joked. For months, they had both been cautious, dying to see each other, afraid of the intensity of the emotion that still roiled between them. One night he had simply shown up at her door at 3:00 a.m. and sanity flew to the wind. They’d immediately gotten engaged, and now they were planning a wedding.
Oddly enough, their lives together had added to both their careers. He’d done some of his very best pieces for the paper—a man’s take on the modern wedding. Through Matt, Leslie had been drawn into conversation with a detective about an elderly man who had gone missing. She knew the area in Brooklyn where he had disappeared, which was filled with old subway tunnels. Asking the detective to humor her, she had led him to the place where the man had ended his days.
She’d felt almost as if she’d been beckoned to the site, though she argued with herself that knowledge and logic had brought her to the place. But now many detectives found her very interesting, and Matt had warned her that they were thinking about asking her to use her extraordinary knowledge of the city and its infrastructure to help with a new spate of disappearances. Matt himself was taking the matter very seriously and writing about it for the paper. People constantly disappeared in New York, of course. But these disappearances seemed to be linked. The missing were all women who lived on the streets. And they were all prostitutes.
Matt had pointed out that, throughout history, neither the police nor the populace had seemed to care about the fate of those who lived in the underbelly of society.
The moral majority never worried too much until it was threatened itself.
She could tell that Matt wanted her to get involved, though she seriously doubted she could be of any help. She wished she could, but she couldn’t suddenly claim to be some kind of clairvoyant.
And she had her real work, which she believed was important, and which she loved.
And which had brought them here. Here? Where exactly were they now?
They’d started the evening in the newly renovated Hastings House, at a fund-raiser so the historical foundation that employed her could continue excavating the neighboring site. There was a field of architectural gold to be explored there, and her employer was thrilled to have such an eloquent columnist as Matt Connolly on their side while they battled a major construction company for the right to do research before everything was destroyed for the sake of a new high-rise.
But as for actually being with Matt tonight…They’d barely had a chance to say hello.
A number of representatives were there from the development company that had bought the surrounding property—trying to pretend that they were delighted to plan around the historical significance of the place—along with Greta Peterson, socialite and ambassador for the Historical Society, a few Broadway personalities, some local celebrities and more. Hank Smith, of megadeveloper Tyson, Smith and Tryon, had swooped down on Matt the minute they’d entered the place, hoping to sway Matt’s opinion to the firm’s side. There were police representatives, including Captain Ken Dryer, the charismatic department spokesman, Sergeant Robert Adair—who was in charge of the investigation into the missing prostitutes and was actually watching her with brooding contemplation most of the night—and politicians from the five boroughs.
She’d been across the room from Matt, exchanging pleasantries with a colleague.
She’d just excused herself to go to Matt and then…
What?
He was hunkered down beside her now just as he had been when a football struck her in the head when they were playing in the streets so many years ago. He offered the same smile he’d given her then, full of interest and amusement toward most situations, a dry smile. Even a bit rueful, as if, in the end, there was little to do but mock himself.
“Matt,” she murmured, frowning, wondering why she couldn’t remember crossing the room to his side. And what was she doing on the floor? “You’re here.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” he murmured. “For just this moment.”
“Just this moment?” she queried. She wanted to reach out and touch his face. Damn, but he’d always been gorgeous. In a manly, rugged way, of course. Steady blue eyes, generous mouth, broad forehead, high cheekbones. Tall and in shape, he was the guy everyone would have hated if he hadn’t been so damned decent. So men liked him, and women loved him.
Despite her confusion, she felt herself rise and turn toward the light. It had the most incredible power. She couldn’t resist it. She felt that it offered release from pain, from doubt.
“No,” Matt said softly as he caught her arm. Or was that just her imagination? She turned her attention back to him, confused. She could no longer hear the string quartet that had been playing that evening. From a far distant place, she thought she heard screams and chaos.
“Silly Rebel,” he said softly, as he had so many times when she was growing up. “You have to stay here. You can’t go yet.”
“Who’s going to stop me, Matt Connolly?” she demanded. “You?”
“It’s not your time,” he said. “Leslie, there are things you need to do. You are not to follow the light,” he said firmly.
“Hey, are you holding out on me?” she demanded lightly, looking around and seeing people getting up and moving single-file toward the light. “Matt, I’m with you. We’re together. I have to get in line.”
“We’re all in line, in a way, from day one,” he said very softly. “But not you, not now. You have to stay here. Some things are meant to be.”
“Some things are meant to be?” she whispered.
“Some things are meant to be,” he said firmly.
He squeezed her hand, and heat shot through her.
Then it felt as if she were jolted. As if they were interrupted.
“Hey!” a deep voice called. “This one is alive!”
It was as if she were watching a movie, but she was in it. There was a horrible scent in the air, as if something were burning. People were everywhere, running, shouting.
There had been an explosion, she thought. Someone had screamed something about gas, and then a blast had seemed to rock the world. Yes! She could remember it now, the feeling of being lifted, of flying…slamming hard against a wall. But…she wasn’t lying against a wall.
She was looking down on a scene of absolute chaos. And she was in it. She was lying in a row of sleeping people. She couldn’t recognize any of them. Matt…where was Matt? Emergency personnel were moving purposefully through the chaos, imposing order. The newly painted walls of the room were blackened and scorched. There had been a blast and a fire. Everything pointed to it.
And she hurt! Oh, God, she ached everywhere, she thought, back in her body, no longer looking down on the carnage. The scent of charred wood…worse, the scent of charred flesh, filled her nostrils.
Because the people she was aligned with were not sleeping.
They were dead.
She could see the open, glazed eyes of the woman beside her. Suddenly she realized that a man was hunkered down by her side. And it wasn’t Matt.
“This one is alive!” the man yelled.
Of course I’m alive, she thought.
There was sudden confusion. People rushing over to her. More shouting.
“Quick, or we’ll lose her! Her pulse is fading.”
More people started rushing around her.
“Clear!”
There was a fire in her chest.
Every bone in her body seemed to be in raw agony. She knew she needed to open her eyes, to take a breath.
She blinked. The lights blazing all around her were the false and neon glitter of night.
“We’ve got her! She’s back.”
Then she was being lifted onto something soft and flat. She was dimly aware that someone was talking to the man at her side. Her vision of the scene around her suddenly seemed acute and agonizing.
There were four bodies against the wall. And one of them was Matt.
Then there was no light, no confusion. Just the horrible knowledge.
Matt was dead.
She started to scream….
“Calm down,” a medic said. “Please…You’re alive, and we want to keep you that way.”
Alive? Then Matt…
“Please, you’ve got to help Matt. He’s alive. I was just talking to him. You’ve got to help him!”
She saw the distress in the medic’s eyes.
“I’m so sorry…”
She was in the midst of hell on earth, she realized.
Matt…
She was vaguely aware of a needle in her arm.
Then there was only darkness.
1
One year later
Leslie paused for a minute, looking skyward. What a beautiful evening it was. The sky couldn’t have been a lovelier shade of violet. But then, the countryside in northern Virginia was some of the most beautiful in the world.
More so than ever before, at least to her.
In the past year, she had come to appreciate such simple thing as the colors of life. It had been such a strange year, filled with vividly conflicting emotions. The touch of the sun, the color of a dawn, seemed more intense than ever. The anguish of learning to live alone still interrupted the newfound beauty. Life had become doubly precious, except that she felt it was such an incredible gift that it should be shared…yet she was alive and Matt was dead.
The setting sun was beautiful, and the night breeze sweet and soft. With that thought in mind, she closed her eyes and felt the waning brush of day against her cheeks. The warmth was wonderful.
She sighed, then returned to work. She needed to hurry. The light would be gone soon.
Painstakingly, bit by bit, she brushed away the dust covering the recently revealed area. She removed the last few specks, and then…
Yes!
She continued to brush away the dirt from the skull fragment in the crevice, feeling a sense of jubilation. She couldn’t be certain, of course, not absolutely, but it looked like they had discovered the old St. Mathias graveyard that Professor David Laymon had been certain was here. She eyed the skull for size and shape. Bones weren’t her specialty. She knew objects, fabrics, even architecture, all the things that made up life, backward and forward. She knew bones only because she had come across them in her work so often.
The fragments of calico by the skull hinted at a type of hair decoration that fit perfectly with Laymon’s belief that this section of the graveyard had been reserved for indentured servants, slaves and those who were simply too poor to pay for anything better.
“Brad!”
“Yeah?”
Brad Verdun, her good friend and colleague, was busy working a few yards away. As she waited for his attention, she took her tweezers and carefully collected the bits of fabric she had discovered; a lab analysis would verify her thoughts, she was certain, but every little shred needed to be preserved.
“Brad!”
“Yeah, yeah.” At last he dusted his hands and rose, then walked to where she was working. He swore softly, shaking his head. “You were right. Again.” He stared at her a little skeptically. “If I didn’t know you so well, I just might agree with everyone else that you’re psychic.”
She smiled a little uneasily. “You would have chosen the same spot yourself,” she assured him.
“Yeah, eventually.” He looked across the work site, staring at the professor, who was down on his hands and knees about fifty yards away. “Well, princess of the past, announce your discovery. Give the old boy his thrill for the night.”
“You tell him.”
“You found the bones.”
“We work together,” she said modestly. “You were just a few feet away.”
“You made the discovery.”
“We came as a team, a package deal,” she reminded him stubbornly.
“I won’t take your credit.”
“I want you to take the credit! Please?”
He sighed deeply. “All right, all right. I’ll bring him over. But I won’t lie.”
“You’re not lying if you say we found it as a team,” she insisted.
He stared at her for a moment, then touched the top of her head with gentle affection. “Okay. You want to stay out of the limelight, kiddo, I’ll do my best to help you. For a while, anyway.” Like a brother, he stroked her cheek, giving her an encouraging smile.
“Thanks,” she murmured softly.
“You’re going to be okay. You’re coming along just great,” he said.
She nodded, looking down.
Was she? A year had gone by. She functioned, yes, but she continued to hurt every day. Work was good. Friends were good.
Nights were torture.
And life itself…
Was definitely different. That difference had become clear while she’d still been in the hospital after the explosion. If she hadn’t happened to pick up a magazine and seen the article on Adam Harrison and Harrison Investigations…
Well, she would probably either be dead now—having scared herself into an early grave—or in a mental hospital. Adam Harrison and his team, especially Nikki Blackhawk, had undoubtedly saved both her life and her sanity. But that was information she shared with no one. Not Brad, and certainly not Professor Laymon.
She watched as Brad walked over to talk to Laymon. Brad was definitely a good guy, the best. If she’d had a brother, he couldn’t have been better to her. Years ago, when they had first started working together, she’d known that he wanted more of a relationship, but no one was ever going to stand a chance against Matt. And in fact, he’d liked Matt so much himself that they’d all fallen into a great friendship. She hesitated, watching Brad, glad that nothing had changed, that he had kept a brotherly distance from her and given his full support without any indication that his affections could turn sexual. She knew she would never feel any differently about him; there came a point in life where someone was a friend and that would never change. Brad was tall, well muscled, patient, intelligent and fun. The perfect guy—for someone else. The great thing about their friendship was that they shared their love of what they did. Some of the first enjoyment she had felt since the explosion that had killed Matt had been because of Brad, because of the excitement in his dark and arresting eyes when they made a discovery.
In large part thanks to him, sometimes, she could even have fun these days, going for drinks or dinner after work. His presence kept other guys away, but if he wanted to start something up with someone else, she didn’t get in the way.
They had worked well together before the accident.
Now she relied on him more than ever—even if she was the one who usually “saw” the past more clearly and homed in on a location with eerily perfect accuracy. Sometimes he eyed her almost warily, but when she shrugged, he let it alone.
She watched as Laymon listened to Brad. His face lit up as if the sun had risen again purely to shine down on him. He was up in a flash, hurrying to Leslie’s side, shouting excitedly and bringing the rest of the team—teachers, students and volunteers—in his wake. “Watch where you walk,” he cautioned. “We don’t want all this work trampled.” Hopping over one of the plastic lines set out to protect the dig and provide the grid that allowed them to map their finds, he seemed like a little kid, he was so happy.
He stared at Leslie, eyebrows raised questioningly, then looked down at the skull she’d uncovered before turning back to her again. A broad smile lit his worn features. He pushed his Ben Franklin bifocals up the bridge of his nose and scratched his white-bearded chin. If anyone had ever looked the part of a professor, it was David Laymon. “You’ve done it,” he said.
“We’ve done it,” she murmured.
“We’ll uncover the rest of the skeleton in the morning, then get it to the folks at the Smithsonian…right away, right away. It’s too late to work anymore tonight, but we need to secure this area before we go, then get back to work first thing in the morning. From now on we’ll need speed—and real care. Leslie, I could hug you. I will hug you!” He drew her to her feet, hugged her, then kissed her on the cheek. She was suffused with color, a blush staining her cheeks, as a burst of applause sounded from all around them.
“Hey, please,” she protested. “We’re all in on this, and Brad was the one to cordon off this particular area.”
“Still, what a find,” Professor Laymon murmured. “You’ll need to speak to the press. This is big excitement for this area…for historians everywhere.”
“Please,” she said softly, firmly, “let Brad speak to the press. Better yet, the two of you can speak as a team.”
Laymon frowned, looking mildly annoyed.
“Please,” Leslie repeated firmly.
Laymon sighed deeply, looking at her with sorrow in his gray eyes. “You never used to be so shy,” he said. “Okay, sorry, I understand. It’s just that…” He shook his head. “I understand. Whatever you want. All right, I’ll get the ball rolling for the press conference, and you stay here—grab some students to give you a hand—and make sure that the site is protected until we get back to it in the morning. I’m going to see to it that we get some police out here to keep an eye on things, too.”
Leslie wasn’t sure why anyone would want to disturb a paupers’ cemetery, but she knew that plenty of digs had been compromised, even ruined, by intruders in the past. She assured Laymon that she would stand guard until they were battened down for the night.
He stared at her, letting out a sigh and shaking his head again as he walked away. Brad walked behind him. One of the grad students, a shapely redhead, hurried up alongside Brad, slipping an arm through his. Leslie decided that she would have to tease him about her later.
For a moment, she wondered what Brad said about her when he decided to get close to a woman. Oh, my friend Leslie? Completely platonic. She was engaged, but there was a terrible accident. She almost died, and her fiancé was killed. Since then she’s been having kind of a hard time, so I try to be there for her. But it wasn’t that long ago, just a year….
Just a year.
She wondered if she would ever again feel that there was a perfect guy out there for. Right now, all she felt was…
Cold.
Just a year. A year since she had buried Matt. Buried her life…
With a shake, she forced her attention back to her work.
Despite her determination to call it an early night, she found herself dragged to a celebration dinner. They didn’t opt for anything fancy—budget would always be important in field work—just a chain pancake house on the main highway. But when the group decided to go on to a local tavern for a few drinks, she at last managed to bow out.
She returned to the residence provided for those higher up in the echelon. She, Laymon, Brad and a few others were housed in a Colonial plantation that was now a charming bed-and-breakfast. Their hostess, a cheerful septuagenarian, rose with the rooster’s crow, so she went to bed early. She happily saw them off each morning, and since she was a bit hard of hearing, she was also happy when they came in late at night, because she never heard a thing.
Very tired herself, but feeling a comforting sense of satisfaction, Leslie helped herself to a cup of hot tea from the well-stocked kitchen left open for the help-yourself pleasure of the guests. She took a seat before the large open hearth that dominated the room and sipped her tea from the comfort of the rocker to the left of the gently burning fire. Within a few minutes, she knew she was not alone.
She glanced slowly to her side, a smile curving her lips as she looked at the man who had joined her. He had a rounded stomach, emphasized by his plain black waistcoat and the bit of bleached cotton that protruded from his waistband right where it shouldn’t. His wig was a bit messy, but in the style of his time, and the tricornered hat he wore sat perfectly atop it. His hose were thick, white and somewhat worn; his shoes bore handsome buckles. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes a bit dark and small beneath bushy brows. He looked at her and returned her smile with a sigh of satisfaction. “Well, now, it’s good and done, eh?” he asked her.
She nodded. “And you mustn’t worry, Reverend Donegal. It’s true that some of the bones will be boxed and sent for analysis, but the people at the Smithsonian are very careful and reverent. They’ll be returned, and we’ll see to it that all the dead are reinterred with prayers and all the respect that’s due them. And I believe that once the significance of what we’ve found here has been verified, the Park Service will have its way. A lovely memorial and a facsimile of the church will be built, and generations of visitors will be able to enjoy the beautiful countryside and learn about everything that happened here during both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.” Her smile turned slightly rueful. “I know you did a great deal to help refugees during the Revolutionary War, but this very house was a stop for escaping slaves during the days of the Underground Railroad. There was also a Civil War skirmish in the front yard here. It’s amazing the place is still standing.”
“Solid construction,” Reverend Donegal said sternly. “Folks to care for her. Why, I remember, years and years ago, of course, when I came many a Sunday to this house for my tea following services…ah, lovely then, it was. So much excitement and fear. A new country.” His eyes darkened, and he seemed troubled for a minute. “Pity…one war always leads to the next. It hurt me to be here…to see so many fine men die, North and South, believing in the same God…. Ah, well, never mind. There’s always hope that man will learn from his mistakes.” He paused, his old eyes clouding, and she knew he was looking back to his own time, firmly fixed in his mind.
Of course, she knew his story. He had worshipped the hostess of his very house from afar, always entirely circumspect, but enjoying every opportunity to be in her company. He had faithfully served his flock of parishioners; a good man. His one pleasure had been his Sunday tea. And so, one day, he had come here, had his tea…and then died of a heart attack in the arms of the woman he had secretly adored for so many years. Leslie had thought at first that he must have been a very sad ghost, seeking the love he hadn’t allowed himself in life. But that hadn’t been the case at all. She had discovered that he had been at peace with himself; that his distant and unrequited love for Mrs. Adella Baxter had in actuality been a pleasant fantasy but not one he had truly hoped to fulfill. He had enjoyed his life as a bachelor, administering to his flock. He had stayed all these years because he felt so many of his flock needed to be remembered. In short, he had wanted the graveyard found.
At first, he hadn’t trusted her. He’d tried a dozen tricks, moving her brush around, locking her suitcase, hiding her keys. He hadn’t expected her to see him, and he certainly hadn’t expected her to get angry, yell at him and demand that they talk. Once they had, he’d become an absolute charmer. Through his eyes, she’d seen the house as it had been in his day. She’d experienced his passion as he’d spoken of what he and so many others had gone through to establish a new country; his fear that he might be hanged as a traitor—something that had been a distinct possibility many times during the brutal years of the Revolution. He was deeply disturbed that so few of the people who passed through the old house were aware of just how precarious the struggle for freedom had been. “You can’t understand,” he had told her. “We almost lost the war. In fact, it’s a miracle that we won. And all those men who signed the Declaration of Independence? They would have been hanged! So many risked so much. Ah, well, God does show his will, against all odds.”
Right now he seemed lost in thought.
“Thank you for your help,” she said very softly to him.
He nodded, then wagged a finger at her. “I expect you to play fair, young lady. You see that the right thing is done by my people. Especially little Peg. You did find her grave, didn’t you, right where I sent you?”
Leslie nodded, then stared at the fire for a moment, as lost in the past as he had been. It was strange. Before the blast, she’d had intuitions, like the one that had helped her find the homeless man. As if she could close her eyes and imagine something of a life now gone, then home in on it. Logic? Instinct? Something more? She couldn’t have said. But now…
Now ghosts came into her life.
“I will see that Peg’s story is told,” she assured Reverend Donegal. She repeated what he had told her before about the girl. “Peg, aged ten, walked the ten miles from town through a pouring, freezing rain to bring the men from the county together when she knew an attack was coming. She rallied the local troops, and they successfully defended the river and the plantation here, all because of her bravery. She died of the fever that came on her that night, after her journey through the rain and cold and enemy lines. And after the war…well, people were poor. She was given the best burial they could manage.”
He nodded in satisfaction. “A statue would be very nice. You will get someone to pay for a statue?”
“I’ll pay for a statue of her myself, if need be,” she assured him.
He looked at her indignantly. “A statue of me!” he declared. “Oh, well, of course, Peg must be honored, too, I suppose.”
“You’ll have a place when they rebuild the church, and Peg will be honored in the graveyard. How’s that?” she said, glad she could smile.
He nodded, staring at the fire. “There’s a chill in here,” he said. “Ah, these old bones…”
“It is chilly tonight, but I don’t think you’re really feeling your old bones,” she teased. She set her cup down and rose, walked to the fire and let it warm her hands. When she turned to speak to the reverend again, he was gone.
She sat back in her chair. In a little while she heard the others returning. It had grown late; she assumed they would head right up to their beds, but she sensed someone behind her, and this time she heard breathing.
She turned. Brad was there, just inside the doorway, staring at her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he echoed, still staring at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“Laymon really didn’t say anything to you yet?” he asked, looking surprised. “I thought he called you.”
“About what?” she asked.
“They’re researching another site in Lower Manhattan,” he said.
She felt a streak of cold sweep along her spine, as if she’d been stroked by an icy sword. She looked at the fire, trying to speak perfectly calmly. “I’m sure that at any given time, someone is always digging somewhere in Lower Manhattan.”
“This is going to be a major project.” He was quiet for a minute. “Near Hastings House.”
“Great,” she murmured, still staring at the flames.
He hunkered down by her chair. “You know, only the one room was severely damaged. They’ve pretty much got the place back up and running now.”
Her fingers tensed on the arms of her chair. “Glad to hear it.”
“What happened there was a tragic accident, Leslie.”
She stared at him—hard. “Yes, I do know that, Brad.”
“The point is, you don’t seem to get it, to understand what that means. I’m not trying to be brutal here, Leslie, but Matt died. You didn’t.”
She stared blankly back at him for several moments.
“I almost died there.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I know. And I’m grateful to be alive. I truly appreciate every day.”
“It’s time to go back.”
“Time to go back?” she repeated.
“You need to accept the past, and move into the present and then into the future. No, you’ll never forget Matt. But you have to accept that he’s dead. You’ve been…well, kind of weird since it happened. Maybe you need to confront your memories.”
Again, she stared at him.
Oh, Brad. You don’t get it, do you? And I will never, ever explain, I can assure you of that.
“We still have work to do here,” she said flatly.
He waved a hand in the air. “We’re the pros—there are lots of worker bees. Thanks to you and your amazing instincts, all that’s left is the grunt work. We can move on.”
She shook her head.
“Listen, this new site is really important…. I know Laymon wants to talk to you about it. He’s going back to lead the team, with or without you. With or without us,” Brad amended quickly.
Her nails dug into the arms of the chair. She stared at the flames. “I’ve made some promises here,” she said.
He looked puzzled. “You made promises? To whom?”
“To myself. To see that people are honored, that bones are buried with the proper rites,” she said.
“We’ll tell Laymon, and he’ll make sure it happens,” Brad said. “It’s not like we’re leaving the country. With the way your reputation has grown, you can drop a word and people will hustle, you know that.”
“Okay,” she murmured.
“Laymon got the call when we were on the way to the tavern, and he talked about nothing else once we got there,” Brad said softly. “New York City, Leslie! You know you love it.”
“I can’t go back.”
“You need to go back.”
“Brad…”
“Leslie, please.”
She stared at him and saw the earnest plea in his eyes. She lowered her head quickly, not wanting him to read her thoughts.
Hastings House. It was fixed, repaired, reopened. Brought back to life again. But the dead…the dead couldn’t be brought back to life…?
And some of the dead had never left.
She lowered her head, biting her lower lip. It had started immediately. In the hospital, she’d thought she’d gone mad. There had been the horrible pain, the ache like the loss of a limb or half of her soul, knowing Matt was gone. The concussion, the bruising, the cuts, scrapes, burns…
Those had been nothing compared to the pain of losing Matt.
At first she had lived in a stage somewhere between consciousness and dreams. One night she’d awakened in the hospital morgue, drawn there by a man who had lost his wedding ring when they’d rolled him down. All he had wanted was to have his ring put back on his finger. But she hadn’t known that, and she’d freaked. She was lucky she hadn’t wound up in the psychiatric ward that night. Luckily for her, the next day she’d discovered an article in a news magazine about a man named Adam Harrison and the group of paranormal investigators who worked for him. No matter how the reporter had tried to trip him up, the man had come off as intelligent and well spoken, and not at all like a kook. She had started to shake, reading the article. She had called Harrison Investigations immediately, and, to her amazement, Adam Harrison himself had shown up in the hospital. They had talked then, and again when she had been released. It was as if she had instantly acquired not only a new best friend, one she felt she had known forever, but as if she’d gotten her father back, though her real father had been gone since she was a little girl.
She’d called Adam right away when she’d started talking to the ghostly Colonial churchman, and soon after, she’d noticed a couple in the crowd of visitors hanging around the site. They’d stood out, and eventually they’d introduced themselves as two of Harrison’s employees. Brent and Nikki Blackhawk—he dark and strikingly handsome, his wife blond and beautiful—had gone back to the house with her and taught her how to become friends with the ghost, even chatted with him casually themselves. There really were others like her, she’d realized, and that meant she was sane.
“Leslie,” Brad said softly, recalling her to the present. “I told Laymon I’d work the new dig, so I’ll be there with you. You need to go back, to put the past to rest, to put the pain behind you.”
She stared at him. Smiled slowly.
Brad didn’t know about Adam Harrison, the Black-hawks, or that there were others like them to help her. Brad didn’t know that it was thanks to Adam and his associates that she had been able to sit calmly in a Colonial kitchen, talking to a long-dead reverend, and that she could feel entirely sane as she did so.
But as to going back, facing her own ghosts…That was something else again, something she dreaded but something she needed to do.
Brad let out a soft sigh. “Okay, I’m sorry. Too soon,” he said.
She stared back at him. “I didn’t say that,” she murmured quickly. “Maybe I should go back. I think…I think maybe I want to go back to Hastings House.”
He hesitated. “I know you have an apartment in Brooklyn, but…” He stared, paused, then said quickly, on a single fast breath, “There are a few rooms available for the workers at Hastings House.”
“What?”
Brad shook his head quickly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even have mentioned that.”
“Who is this work for?” she demanded.
“The Historical Society, of course. Greta will be the official liaison between the society, the contractors and the workers. And once again, it’s Tyson, Smith and Tryon who bought and are developing the property. They’ve been legally blocked from building until the significance of the site is established and any necessary excavation is done. Laymon says they’re taking it well, though, basking in their national publicity as good guys. But the lost time must be costing them a bundle. Anyway, the site is really close to Hastings House. It’s in the next block, actually.”
“And that’s why they’re offering the rooms at Hastings House?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why I even mentioned that, honestly. Hell, I have an apartment in the city, and you have your place in Brooklyn.” He took a deep breath. “Of course, you lived there with Matt, so maybe you don’t want to go back there. But I’m glad you’re holding on to it. Real estate in your neighborhood is rising sky-high. Oh, God, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I’m stumbling all over here.”
“It’s all right, Brad.”
“Yeah. Right.” He tried to smile.
“I didn’t even get to go to his funeral. I was in the hospital,” she murmured, staring at the flames.
Suddenly a massive ache seemed to tear through her heart.
Ghosts came to her, sought her out sometimes, asked for her help.
But not Matt.
The ghost she wanted to see, desperately longed to tell—one last time—how much she had loved him, how he had been her life, how he had filled the world with wonder with his simple presence…that ghost she never saw.
“I want to stay at Hastings House,” she said.
He lowered his head. He was smiling, she realized. He was convinced that he had handled things just right, and that by talking about lodging, he had tricked her into deciding to go back.
Maybe he deserved his self-congratulations.
Or maybe it was just time for her to go back.
“You really want to stay there? You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
She stood, patting him on the shoulder as she started out. She paused in the hallway, looking back at him. “No pun intended,” she said lightly, and offered him a dry grin. “You’re right. I’m ready to go back. Excited to go back. Good night.”
She left him, still down on his knees by the chair.
Excited? Dear God, she was a liar.
And yet…
It was true. She never would have thought of it herself. Never would have woken up one morning thinking, Wow, I’d really love to head back to Hastings House.
But now that she was going…
The past beckoned to her. She needed to come to terms with it.
She had to go back.
2
It was late. A strange time, Joe Connolly thought, to be having this meeting. The woman sitting nervously across from him was stunning, but she reminded him of a high-strung, inbred greyhound. She was excessively thin, and her long fingers were elegantly manicured and glittering with diamonds and other fine jewels. She had called that morning and set up this meeting. They were at the venue of her choice—a small Irish tavern off Wall Street. He would have expected her to suggest a private corner at an exclusive club, but perhaps she didn’t want to be seen with a private investigator. For whatever reason, she had chosen O’Malley’s, which was warm, small and inviting, a pub she had probably visited many a time in her youth.
She had originally come from humble stock, he knew. On her mother’s side, she was second-generation Irish; her father, an O’Brien, came from a line of hard-working laborers who had arrived in the United States during the 1840s. Blood, sweat and muscle had taken him far in the trades, and thus their modest family fortune had begun and then risen to riches. Then Eileen O’Brien had married well, and she was now Mrs. Thomas Brideswell, widow of the late senator and construction magnate.
She thrust an eight-by-ten picture of a young woman across the table at him. He stared down at the likeness. Genevieve O’Brien looked back at him. Her eyes were huge and blue, and she was as slender as her aunt Eileen, with beautifully defined features. Her hair was dark, with an auburn sheen. The photographer had captured laughter, eagerness and the optimism of youth.
“How old is this picture?” Joe asked.
“It was taken about two and half years ago,” Eileen said, and hesitated. With a weary sadness and a hunch of her shoulders, she looked down. “Just before her falling out with my brother and me.”
Joe shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to press the issue, but I need to understand. If she left home voluntarily, and there was already an estrangement between you, what makes you so sure that something’s happened to her?”
Eileen sighed deeply. “Donald died soon after she walked out of his house. She came back for his funeral. She wanted to keep her distance from me and what she called my ridiculous family devotion to a ridiculously dysfunctional family. I think she was upset that my brother died without the two of them ever having made their peace, but…” She lifted one of her bejeweled hands. “I suppose it was nasty growing up in my brother’s household. There was a lot to be said for everything my father and grandfather accomplished, but it came at a price. Impossible expectations for their children. So much fault-finding when something was wrong.” She shook her head, and Joe felt moved by her obvious distress. There was such a deep and underlying sadness in the woman, despite her reserve and elegance. She looked him in the face then. “Ever since my brother died, she’s called me every two weeks. At least once, every two weeks. I haven’t heard from her in over a month.”
He leaned back, watching her. He had learned a lot in his years with the police force, and a lot more in the years since he had gone out on his own. Watching someone’s face as they spoke was often as important as listening to the words that were said.
“Was there something said between you the last time you spoke that might have caused a greater rift?” he asked.
There was a very slight hesitation.
“No,” she said.
She was lying.
“I need to know everything,” he said firmly.
Again an elegant hand fluttered. “Well, there had been this awful article in one of those tabloids about the family,” she said.
“And?” he prompted.
“She was convinced that her father wasn’t her father.”
“She bears a remarkable resemblance to you. I’m assuming you and your brother must have looked quite a bit alike,” he said.
“Exactly,” Eileen said.
He waited. “What was the paper? When was the article printed?”
“You don’t want to read that dreadful piece of garbage,” she assured him.
“I need to read it. Mrs. Brideswell, I’m working in the dark here. Your niece is twenty-six. She’s an adult. Adults who choose to disappear are allowed to do so. I have almost nothing to go on. You’ve given me first names and street names for a few acquaintances, and I have her work contacts—though she resigned from her job a month ago. That in itself could indicate that she planned to leave the city. I have addresses for a few of the places where you believe she hung out. You can’t hold back on me. And when I find her—if I find her—I can’t guarantee I can convince her to call you.”
“No! You don’t understand. I believe with my whole heart that if she could call me, she would.”
Joe answered carefully. “Do you believe that your niece is dead, Mrs. Brideswell?”
Pain flashed across her features. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I just…I know that she loved…loves me. No matter what came between us…Genevieve would call me. And if she’s out there somewhere…crying for help, she’s crying to me. Oh, my God, Mr. Connolly, I’ll admit there were awful times in the family, times when she was sent away…we were so embarrassed by her activities! My brother was…very strict. With reason, I suppose. My father taught us that we had to behave with propriety, or at least the appearance of it. But still…she loves me. And I know she needs me. I’ve had to admit to myself that she may be dead, but don’t you understand? I have to know. And if she has become a victim of…of some misfortune, I have to see justice done for her before I die.”
Joe wondered why she spoke so passionately about her own death; she couldn’t be more than forty-something, and she could easily be mistaken for thirty-five.
“A victim of misfortune,” Joe repeated, and asked flatly, “Do you suspect that she was murdered?”
Eileen inhaled deeply, and when she spoke, her words were bitter. “I’ve spoken to the police, Mr. Connolly, which of course you would imagine I had done. And I don’t know if he warned you or not, but it was your old friend Sergeant Adair who suggested I call you, but not until after he gave me a speech about all the other disappearances that are perplexing him. I gather the police are trying to keep what’s been going on with those prostitutes under wraps, though of course it’s not working. People talk. And those disappearances have been going on for more than a year.”
“But your niece wasn’t a prostitute plying her trade downtown,” he reminded her.
She waved a hand in the air. “I know. And we all know that plenty of people not involved in…in the trade disappear, as well. But I got the impression that Sergeant Adair sees some relationship between those disappearances and the fact that I haven’t heard from Genevieve.”
Joe was confused. He knew that Robert Adair was tearing his hair out over the continued disappearances of prostitutes in the downtown area. There were no clues, no trails of blood. The girls just disappeared, but the police knew they hadn’t just moved on—unless they’d moved on without saying a word and leaving all their belongings behind. But what would the daughter of a millionaire have in common with a bunch of missing prostitutes?
“I think this remains a very sensitive area for the police. The women who’ve disappeared are adults. Adults have a right to move on in their lives.”
Eileen stared at him, her eyes scorning his words. “We both know the truth.”
She was right. It had begun over a year ago. A few months apart, two prostitutes had vanished, but since there had been no clues and no signs of foul play, little had been done when their friends reported them missing. Then a homeless transvestite known as the Mimic had disappeared. Then two more young women.
She leaned closer to him, her eyes still flashing. She might be rich, but she could be tough when she needed to. “The thing is, prostitutes murdered by their johns usually turn up somewhere. A homeless man who freezes to death is found on the pavement. But these girls disappeared off the streets without a trace—just like Genevieve. Do you think aliens are beaming these people up, Mr. Connolly? I don’t. I think there is a serial killer at large in New York who knows how to dispose of bodies so they’ll never be found. I thought it was disgraceful when I first heard about the disappearances and the apparent lack of concern on the part of our government on the local and even the state level. Now? I’m incensed. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not angry with the poor cop just trying to work his beat. I’m furious that someone doesn’t step in and say, ‘These people count!’ And now I haven’t heard a word from Gen in so long, and every day I’m more and more worried, and though it doesn’t seem that I have any power, I do have money.”
“All right, let’s look at this from the beginning. Your niece was a social worker, yes?”
“Yes, here in the city,” Eileen murmured. “Up until a little more than a month ago. She found it terribly frustrating….” She inhaled deeply. “And not just the job itself. In my family, we were supposed to make—or marry—money. Both my brother and I were terribly hard on Gen, and all she wanted to do was make life easier on those who didn’t have the same advantages we did. The frustration and red tape got to her, as well, but…none of that’s what matters now. This is the point, this is why I think there’s a connection. She’d been working to help prostitutes in the same area where prostitutes have been disappearing into thin air. Don’t you see? I’m sure she knew some of those missing girls!” Eileen herself seemed ready to explode at that moment.
“Do you know any particulars on why she quit her job?”
Eileen waved a slender, elegant hand in the air. “Irritation with the system. She wanted to get workfare programs going…she wanted to help some of the girls keep their children. She is really an extraordinary human being, Mr. Connolly. Oh, I am so frustrated. No one seems to believe that I know that something’s really wrong. The police can’t—or won’t—do anything.”
“I do understand your frustration,” Joe told her, “but you have to understand that the police are seriously frustrated themselves. The point is, these are disappearances. There’s nothing for them to go on. And the people who have disappeared—in this particular situation—have lived transient lifestyles, which makes it very hard, as well. They can question those closest to the victims—if that’s what they are. They can question people up and down the streets where the victims were last seen. They’ve harassed known pimps to the point that their behavior borders on the illegal. But absolutely no one so far has seen anything to indicate foul play. Meanwhile, the police still have murders, rapes and robberies to deal with, crimes with sadly obvious victims. There’s only so much they can do when they have no victims, no murder weapons, no blood trails, no evidence of any kind.”
“Blood trails?” Eileen said, her eyes snapping. “They have to find out what’s going on and stop it before we discover that we’re in a river of blood! And before my niece is discovered lying dead somewhere. But they’re not going to find out what’s going on because, as you say, they have to deal with the blood they do see on the streets. I’m not calling our police incompetent. They try. Sergeant Adair has, I believe, been ordered to find the explanation for these disappearances, no matter what. They’ve searched Gen’s apartment—if she disappeared by choice, she did so with only her purse and the clothes on her back, not even a good coat. They’ve been to her former office. They’ve tried to question people on the streets. Sadly, I know nothing about her real friends. Or if she was dating. The basics have been done. They’ve proved nothing. Except that she’s gone, which I already knew. So I’ve hired you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“And you will find Genevieve,” she said passionately. “Because you will make finding her your priority every single morning from the moment you open your eyes. I’ll reward you highly.”
He pocketed the picture. “You know my fee. I don’t work to be rewarded highly. If I take a case on, it’s part of my every waking moment until I have an answer. But I’ll need your help at all times. Be ready to answer my calls,” he warned her. “I need to assimilate all that I’ve learned from you tonight, then get busy on my own and see what else I can discover. But I’ll need more help from you. I’ll need everything. Everything you know, anything that occurs to you. And don’t hold back on me. I’m in your employ. I’ll never repeat anything you tell me. Don’t let any family embarrassment hold you back from being entirely truthful with me, do you understand, Mrs. Brideswell? I can’t help you if you aren’t completely honest with me. No amount of money will change that.”
She nodded. Reaching down, she found her purse and produced a small notepad. “I’ve written down everything I know, what names and places I’ve heard…anything I can think of that might be some help.” She produced a pen, scribbling down another notation. “I’ve added the publication I was talking about,” she murmured. “That’s it.”
He accepted the notepad from her. “I’ll do everything I can,” he told her.
She picked up the teacup before her on the table, her eyes distant. She drank what must have been very cold tea by then.
“I’m very sorry about your cousin,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” The words took him by surprise, though he knew instantly what she meant.
“His death was a tremendous loss to the city, but for you, of course, it was very personal, and I extend my sincere condolences.” Her eyes began to water. “I was there that night, you know,” she murmured.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I learned later that Gen would have been interested in going. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t know in time to invite her. She’d met a lot of people involved through the years. She had a lot of close contact with the police—being a social worker and all. And she knew Greta through me, of course.”
Joe couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward. “What do you remember about that night?”
“The lights, the music, the beautiful clothing, the glamour…I was in the entryway when the explosion occurred. They rounded us up and got us out immediately. I remember standing on the street and just being incredulous. I remember the sound of the sirens, the ambulances, the paramedics…and the body bags,” she said. “I am so, so sorry.”
“Thank you. Eileen, do you remember anything strange at all?” he pressed.
She gave him a pained smile. “You lost someone you loved, so you want there to be a reason, a better explanation than a gas explosion. No, I’m sorry. It’s all a blur. I was chatting, there was a noise like thunder. Someone was screaming ‘fire,’ people were panicking…the cops came and we were all ushered out.”
Joe nodded. Just what had he been hoping for?
“Thank you,” he repeated.
Her eyes met his, and her words were desperate. “I have to find Genevieve, Mr. Connolly. Please help me.”
Although her posture still seemed so regal and aloof, he reached across the table and laid his hand on hers. “I will do everything I can,” he told her solemnly.
She almost smiled. And then she turned her palm up and gripped his hand in return. Her touch was strong, and as desperate as the sound of her voice.
They talked for a few minutes longer about Genevieve, and as the girl in the picture began to come to life for him, Joe began to make mental notes as to exactly where he would begin his investigation. First he would go over the basic police work. Then he would move on to where the police, by virtue of their sworn duty, could not go.
There were others in the house.
He knew that from the beginning.
At first it was only a vague sense of awareness. They paid him no mind, seemed not to see or recognize him, but even so, he was aware that he was not alone.
There was the woman in the kitchen, for one. She was always by the hearth, stirring something in what he imagined had been a pot over an open fire. She was pretty and young, and wore Colonial garb, including a little mobcap on her head. He wasn’t sure if she had been an illicit mistress or a servant, but she hummed in a pretty voice as she stirred. Every so often she would suddenly straighten, her face pinching into a mask of pain. She would turn around, and her eyes would widen, and then she would fall…and fade away.
There was the soldier in the entry. He staggered into the house, mingled with the misty form of another individual. He would whisper something about a betrayal, and then he, too, would fall and fade away.
He didn’t want to be one of them. He didn’t want to spend eternity standing by the hearth in the servants’ pantry, laughing pleasantly, looking across the room…and then disappearing in the memory of an explosion.
After a while he realized that in addition to playing out their final moments over and over again, they did more. They recognized one another, though they might not have come from the same time. They mingled now and then.
While he…
He didn’t need to worry about eternally haunting the servants’ pantry. He couldn’t even manage that much. He could only be…aware.
So why was he there? Just to ache? Just to yearn and fear constantly for the woman he had loved? Damn it. Not fair. He’d lived his life as a decent man.
Others had died with him, so where were they? He didn’t have any sense of them whatsoever.
He saw the workmen. Heard them talk. Perhaps it should have been gratifying to have even that much contact with what had once been his world. To hear their anger that he should have died in such a stupid freak accident. They had respected and admired him. Nice to know, except that he was still dead.
Then came the day when the woman at the hearth turned to look at him at last. She even gave him a little smile. Maybe he was somehow real then. She walked over, and it felt as if she touched his cheek, like a sweet sister. “It takes time,” she told him, and smiled again.
All he could whisper was “Why?”
She shrugged sadly. “Justice? Something that must be known? The man who murdered me walked free. Perhaps it’s too late and the world will never know. So much time has passed. But it’s not so horrible, really. Maybe we’re here because we’ve more to learn?”
There was a comfort in her contact. Soon after, the soldier acknowledged him, too.
Then the burning question began in his mind. Why? There had to be a reason why he was here and the others who’d died that night weren’t.
The question dominated his thoughts, filled him with the resolve to know the answer, to solve the mystery of what had happened.
Sometimes, though, he thought of Leslie. Good God, how he had loved her….
It was late when the phone ring, but Leslie wasn’t asleep. And, oddly enough, she knew immediately who it was.
“Hi, Nikki.”
“You’re getting good.”
“Nothing to do with intuition or special gifts,” Leslie said with a laugh. “It’s late, but we’ve been on the news, and I knew that you’re the one person who might be calling.”
“How do you feel?”
“Great. I got to help find closure for people, in a weird sort of way.”
“Exactly,” Nikki said.
Leslie could picture Nikki. Slim and vivacious, with brilliant blue-green eyes. She led tours in New Orleans and loved history. She loved her city, too, and was working hard to bring tourism back to New Orleans. But she and Brent had taken time out to help Leslie adjust to life with the dead popping up now and then. What had seemed like a curse had almost become a gift with Nikki and Brent so serenely at her side.
“How’s everything going in your neck of the woods?” Leslie asked.
“Step by step, but we’re coming back. So many neighborhoods are still in need of total rebuilding, but we’ll get there. And you? Everything all right?”
“Great. I think…I think we may have seen the last of the reverend.”
“Ah. Well, bless his heart. So…I guess you’re going to see to the details now? My history is a lot easier—I just talk about it. You spend hours brushing dust off yours.”
Leslie wondered why she’d thought that Nikki already knew what she was about to do.
“Actually,” she replied, “I’m going home.”
“Home…?”
“New York. I was born in the South, but New York’s been home for a long time now. There’s a new project there, a site near…near Hastings House, and I’m going to work on it.”
“Are you ready?” Nikki asked flatly.
“Yes…No…Maybe.”
“Then…?”
“I’m not sure I’ll never actually be ready. I think I just have to do it.”
The phone line was silent for several seconds, and she knew that Nikki was carefully weighing her next words. “Leslie, you do know that although we’ve come to accept certain things and learned to use our abilities to a degree, we don’t have all the answers. You’re still fragile, whether you want to believe that or not. So be careful. And don’t…don’t let yourself get trapped in the past, in what was. You’re here. You’re alive.”
“Nikki, thanks to you guys, I’m still sane and I appreciate living. It’s just that…you know how you feel when you lose someone, like there were so many things you didn’t get to say, and you want so desperately to know that everything is all right, and of course it isn’t, because the person is dead…okay, now I do sound a little on the loopy side. But…I just wish I could say goodbye, you know?”
“You can’t know that you’ll get that chance, Leslie, even if you do go back. Matt Connolly was an exceptional man. He did a lot of good in his days on earth. He might, well…he might never be seen.”
“I know that. I promise you, I’m not going home because I’m sure I’ll see him if I do. I just know I have to go on. And this is a great opportunity.”
“Want me to hop a plane on up?”
Leslie smiled. Some things were so strange. She’d had many friends when Matt had died. Nice people. But she’d found that she had to push them away a bit. Politely, she hoped. It was just that she didn’t really want to make their lives painful, and she didn’t like people tiptoeing around her feelings. She hadn’t been able to talk, really talk, to many people. But then Nikki had stepped into her life, and it had been as if she’d known her forever.
Of course, they both saw ghosts, as did Nikki’s husband, Brent. Nikki always found it amusing that most people accepted his ability to communicate with the dead more easily than hers, simply because he had Dakota Sioux in his background. Apparently that made him a more spiritual soul in the eyes of the world.
“Leslie?”
“I’m okay. And I…I think I need to be alone a bit. But later, I’d love for you to visit. I’ll show you New York as you’ve never seen it.”
“Deal,” Nikki said.
After a few more minutes of chat, they hung up.
Leslie lay in bed, awake. She was going home for all the right reasons, she assured herself. The work. The opportunity. And she just plain loved New York. She needed to be back.
Hell.
She was going home to try to find a way to reach Matt….
Joe watched as Eileen settled into her chauffeur-driven sedan, refusing the offer of a ride with a thank-you, though he wasn’t really sure why. It was late, but this was New York. People were out at all hours, even though some areas, like this one, became much quieter.
When the car had disappeared into the easy flow of the late-night traffic, he found himself just walking down the street. He had always loved downtown. He was a New Yorker, born and bred in Brooklyn Heights, an area he loved. But downtown New York offered a history few people took the time to appreciate, since the city offered such a bustle of business, shopping and entertainment.
His walk took him down Broadway. He found himself feeling a strange sense of comfort as he walked by St. Paul’s; even the old burial ground, a sign of the times gone by, gave him a sense of permanence and belonging. He loved St. Paul’s, though it wasn’t as grand as Trinity Church just down the road. St. Paul’s was the only remaining church built before the Revolutionary War, a true Georgian masterpiece. Washington’s pew was still there, along with displays honoring those who had worked tirelessly on the rescue efforts after 9/11, since the church lay in the shadows of the monumental tragedy. Drenched in history, yet still a place for modern man to find solace.
He kept walking, wondering at the age of some of the buildings, trying to discern what might really be old beneath a newer facade, his wanderings taking him by Fraunces Tavern and then down to the once-again newly restored Hastings House.
He had come here before, since that fateful night. Several times. And he never knew exactly why. Every time he felt the same searing and poignant ripple of pain. Four dead. Jerry Osbourne, police officer. Sally Rydell, socialite. Tom Burton, architect. And Matthew Connolly, brilliant journalist, a man whose words had the ability to create genuine change.
He’d been working out in Las Vegas when it had happened, on a cold case involving kidnapping, fraud and money laundering. The job had taken nearly a year, but it had paid extremely well. He’d managed to tie it all up shortly after he’d flown home for his cousin’s funeral.
He had never felt so numb in his life. When he’d gone to the hospital afterward, where Matt’s fiancée, Leslie, had still been in intensive care, he had been grateful to discover that she spent most of her time unconscious. He hadn’t known what to say to her. Because of the amount of time he spent out of the city, he’d never actually met her, except maybe once, when they’d been kids. He’d felt awkward, glad that he could leave a message saying he’d been there, equally glad to disappear.
Strange, growing up, he and Matt had seen each other only on family occasions. Matt had lived by Central Park; he had lived in Brooklyn Heights. Once it had seemed as if they were far apart. Maybe it was just the size of New York. Each neighborhood was complete unto itself. They’d always gotten along; as adults, even though real distance often came between them. They had actually become the best of friends. Maybe it had been their shared passion for many of the same rights and ideals.
Matt had been a man of impeccable integrity. Many people would miss him. But for Joe, the loss was personal, and he still felt a helpless rage every time he thought about the stupidity of the way he’d died.
He had planned to return to the city after wrapping up of the Vegas thing and get to know Leslie and make plans with Matt. He would have been the best man at the wedding. Strange. He didn’t know Leslie because of happenstance. They had simply never been in the same place at the same time, yet she was the closest living link to Matt.
It was amazing that she had survived the blast.
The force of the explosion had thrown her across the room, saving her from the flames. Then again, the dead had died on impact, according to the coroner; they hadn’t had to face the agony of burning to death.
The blast had been investigated. Backward and forward and inside out. But in the end, there had been no explanation other than that there had been a gas buildup in the line. The innocent flicking of a furnace switch had caused a spark, which had triggered the explosion and the tragedy.
Hastings House was back now. It was open to the public, other than the private rooms in back, some of which were maintained as offices and others as accommodations for archaeologists working on historical sites around downtown. It seemed that these days, every construction project uncovered some remnant of the past, a clear illustration of the contrast between those dedicated to preservation and those dedicated to moving on. Hastings House had been a worthy project, he was sure. But he could never forget what had happened there, and he found himself turning quickly away for a moment to compose himself before looking back at the building. He couldn’t help the bitterness that seemed to assail him every time he saw the house. He understood Eileen Brideswell, because it seemed to him, too, that pain was only endurable with knowledge or a conclusion; he realized that the rage that filled him each time he came here had more to do with his feelings of helplessness and failure than the natural pain of loss. He couldn’t help but believe, no matter what conclusion the extensive investigations had led to, that something more had gone on here. That they had missed something.
That someone had gotten away with murder.
Had Matt been the target?
He’d done some investigating himself, hitting dead end after dead end. He was sure it was frustration that kept him coming back to stand here, impotently staring at the house.
People walked past him. Tourists, with their guidebooks out. He wondered if he should warn them that wandering around on their own wasn’t such a great thing to be doing at that hour of the night.
A few teenagers walked by the house, and then a couple with two children somewhere around the age of ten. More tourists.
“Is it haunted?” the boy asked eagerly.
“Could be,” the father said. “Patriots met here during the Revolutionary War, and others met here during the War of 1812. It was even a stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. Lots of people could be haunting the place.” The father winked.
His wife nudged him. “Don’t go telling him that, Herbert,” she said firmly, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “People died here just last year.”
The father sighed. “Marina, we’re seeing New York. Can’t we just let the kids have some fun along with their education?”
“Fun?” the wife repeated icily.
“I’m sorry,” the father said with a sigh.
Joe couldn’t help himself. “Good evening,” he said, approaching the group. “It’s a little late. Not much open around here at this hour. Actually…nothing open. But bars.”
The father puffed up. But the wife agreed.
“Yes,” she murmured, staring at Joe a little suspiciously, then tugged at her husband’s arm. “We should get back to the hotel.”
“We only have two days here with the kids,” the husband said.
“You might notice that the street is pretty deserted,” Joe said politely.
“Are you a cop?” the wife asked.
“I was.”
“I read in the newspaper that there have been unexplained disappearances in this area,” the wife said.
“Are we prostitutes?” the husband hissed.
“I want to go,” the wife insisted.
They moved on, looking back now and then to see that they weren’t being followed.
“Catch a taxi down the block—they’ll be going north,” Joe called.
Then he put the house and its memories behind him and started down the street in the opposite direction, shrugging his shoulders, as if he could shrug away the feelings that seized him every time he came to Hastings House.
Strange. He felt as if the house itself were beckoning to him.
As if something—someone?—inside was calling him back, unwilling to let him go.
He gritted his teeth and moved on. He wasn’t given to fantasy. The real world was tough enough.
Still, he stopped halfway down the block and stared back at the house. Then, almost angrily, he moved on.
A house simply could not call out to him, as if asking for some kind of help….
3
It was evening when they arrived at Hastings House. To the left there was a large pit, along with the partially demolished miniskyscraper that was being torn down to be replaced by a megabuilding. Downtown was coming back in a big way.
To the right—beyond a narrow expanse of grass, the only evidence that there had once been many residences in the area—stood an office building/apartment complex built in the 1940s. The sun was falling, and, if Leslie narrowed her vision, she could almost imagine what this very small spot in the world might have looked like in the past.
But then she began to hear the angry beeping of horns, the sudden blare of rap music, a shout, the click of heels on pavement…this was, after all, New York. Even on a lazy Sunday afternoon, this was the piece of granite where so many people had decided they had to live. The center of the universe, in the minds of so many. She smiled. With all its sins and dirt and mixture of good and evil, she loved the city. Rebel she might be, but she loved New York.
And it was good to be back.
“Hey!” the cabbie interjected, breaking her thoughts. With an accent only on the single syllable, she wasn’t sure just what part of the world his speech denoted. “Somebody gonna pay me?”
“Oh, yes, right,” Professor Laymon said. Leslie didn’t even turn around. She felt Brad at her shoulder as she stared at Hastings House. What would it offer up to her now? Now that she was who she was—now that she was changed?
She felt Brad’s hand on her shoulder. “It’s a house,” he said softly. “But if you’re the least bit uneasy, there’s no reason on earth for you to stay here.”
She turned, smiling at him. “I want to stay here.”
“It won’t bring Matt back to life.”
“I know,” she said, looking back toward Hastings House.
The house was beautiful. Two stories high, and all the outer over-the-centuries additions had been ripped away and its facade had been restored to the Colonial-era style in which it had been originally built. Even downtown, there were few buildings to compare with it, other than St. Paul’s Cathedral and Fraunces Tavern. It had been given a white-picket fence—higher than it would have been when the house was built, and even as the sun set, the alarm wires around it were visible. A sign on the gate advertised the house’s historical importance, and announced visiting times and admission prices.
It looked just as it had the last time she had come here.
The damage from the blast and fire had been repaired.
And since it was Sunday, after five, there were no lingering tourists. The horn blasts and other street sounds seemed to come from far away. The house was quiet, as if it were resting.
As if it were expecting something.
Then the front door burst open, and Greta Peterson came hurrying down the walk to the gate. “Come in, come in. We’ve been waiting for you. Watching.”
We?
Who the heck else was here? Leslie had hoped for a quiet night. No one would have understood, so she hadn’t said anything, but she really wanted the house to herself.
Before she knew it, Greta, with all her warmth and enthusiasm, had reached her, hugged her, rested an arm around her shoulders and called out a greeting to Professor Laymon and Brad. Then Greta dragged her up the walk, saying, “Oh, Leslie, I’m so happy to see you. You look wonderful, dear. A bit too thin, but wonderful. I know that thin is in…but don’t go losing your shape, young lady.”
That from a rail-thin, hyper matron, Leslie thought dryly.
But Greta’s warmth and enthusiasm were endearing. Then, as they neared the house, Leslie’s heart sank.
Greta had apparently planned a welcome party. Thankfully, it appeared to be a small one. Sergeant Robert Adair—okay, she liked Robert and was delighted to see him—peeked out the doorway as they approached. Behind him, Hank Smith, from the development company, stepped into view, and then Ken Dryer, the attractive and articulate police spokesman, made an appearance.
“Leslie!” Robert called, smiling affectionately.
“Robert,” she said with a smile, accepting a hug as the other men stood back.
“Hey, Les,” Hank said, offering her a handshake.
Ken Dryer gave her a very proper hug before moving on to shake Brad’s hand and ask about the weather in D.C. Then he started down the path to welcome the professor and collect Leslie’s rolling suitcase from the sidewalk.
“Gorgeous as ever,” Robert Adair whispered softly. “You okay?” he asked, taking her hands and looking at her with concern in his eyes.
“Fine,” she assured him.
He kissed her cheek quickly. Robert was around fifty, she thought, a twenty-year veteran of the force. He worked out of One Police Plaza and wasn’t assigned to a particular precinct. He was called a liaison officer and became involved with crimes that crossed precinct boundaries to affect multiple areas of the city—like the missing prostitutes—or that started garnering more than a mention in the newspapers.
Greta bustled past him to stand face-to-face with Leslie.
“We are delighted to see you, my dear. If you’d refused to come, everyone would have understood,” she said. There was real concern in her soft gray eyes, the kind that made Leslie feel the ache inside again, but she needed to get past all that. And really, it had been sweet of Greta to find a special way to welcome her, Brad and Professor Layman on their arrival. Greta had been blessed to be born with not just the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, but with a whole array of cutlery. Her ancestors had been fur traders on a par with the Astors. She was a born-and-bred New Yorker who truly loved her city and its history, and because of that ardent love, she was acknowledged as a major—if not the major—power in the field of restoration and archaeology.
“I love this city, and I’m privileged to be invited to work this new find,” Leslie told her cheerfully.
“We all are,” Brad said quickly, then flushed. “Well, the professor is history, but Leslie and I are both very pleased to be respected enough to be asked back.”
“Well, you’re both not just talented,” Ken Dryer said, “you love the city. You know the city.”
“And it’s so kind of you all to be here,” Leslie said, smiling. “I thought the professor and Brad would be helping me settle in quietly, but it looks like we have a dinner party to attend.” She tried to sound enthusiastic.
“Oh, just us and the caterers,” Greta said. “I had to do something.” Then she cut to the chase. “Oh, Leslie…do you really want to stay in the house? Sleep in it?”
Leslie smiled dryly. “I’m dying to stay here,” she assured Greta.
“But you won’t stay?” Greta asked Brad, sounding disapproving.
Brad shrugged, opting to answer lightly. “Sadly, Leslie has made it clear that she would prefer not to sleep with me.”
Greta wasn’t amused. She frowned.
“Sorry, just teasing,” Brad said quickly. “I have an apartment in Manhattan. Leslie’s place is out in Brooklyn, so it’s more convenient for her to stay here,” Brad said.
“I can walk right over to the dig,” Leslie explained. She smiled, trying to put Greta at ease. “Honestly, Greta, I love this place. I don’t blame what happened on a house. I want to be here.”
Greta stared at Professor Laymon. “And you’re not staying, either?” she demanded tartly.
Layman looked acutely uncomfortable. “Greta, we’ve talked, and this is Leslie’s choice. I have a home here, too,” he explained. He lifted his hands, the very image of brilliant but helpless.
Greta shook her head, her soft, short silver hair bobbing around her attractive face. “Oh, dear,” she murmured, still unhappy. “There’s no guard on duty, you know, except for when the house is open to the public. There’s an alarm system, of course. State-of-the-art. But the Historical Society can’t afford full-time security.”
“A state-of-the-art alarm system is much better than what I have in Brooklyn,” Leslie assured her. As Greta looked back at her, trying to smile, Leslie realized that the woman had set up the whole party just to keep her from being alone for as long as possible. She had to lower her head and smile. Then she lifted her eyes. “This place is fantastic. I loved it from the beginning. And I understand that the damage has been completely repaired, that you can’t even tell that…that anything happened. So…how is the tourism thing going? Do a lot of people come see the place?”
“We actually had to have crowd control when it first reopened,” Ken Dryer said. He smiled as he spoke. He always smiled. Wheaten-haired and handsome, like the boy next door all grown-up, with an ability to spin any situation, he was perfectly suited to his position, but Leslie always felt, despite how nice he had always been to her, that he was just a bit oily, as well. What his real thoughts were, she seldom knew. She had heard that he had political ambitions, and she was sure that on the political trail, he would charm an audience without ever really saying anything substantive about the issues.
“Crowd control?” Brad marveled.
Robert cleared his throat uneasily. “There’s nothing like an…event to draw crowds.”
Hank Smith groaned, taking Leslie by the arm. “What our good sergeant is trying to explain without words is that not only is this house a historical masterpiece, it has a modern-day tragedy to go with it. Unfortunately, tragedy brings people in droves. In the beginning, we had cops every day. The lines were around the block. That’s slacked off some, but even so, eventually this place is going to pay for itself. Look, you’ve chosen to stay here, and I, for one, am not going to tiptoe around. You know that we were all affected by what happened, that we all felt a terrible loss—not as great as yours, but a terrible loss all the same—and if you want to be here, I say good for you. And that’s not sucking up, that’s God’s honest truth. So, hey, can we eat now, Greta?”
“Of course, of course,” Greta stuttered. “Come along to the dining room. Leslie, I’ve put you in the best bedroom. We’ll get your bag up in a bit. One of these brawny fellows will be willing to serve as a…well, as a brawny fellow and take it up there for you.”
“Hey, I can handle a suitcase,” Leslie said.
“Yeah, and one of us can be a gentleman and take care of it, too,” Brad told her. “Let’s eat.” He looked at his watch. She had a feeling that Brad had other plans for the evening and that a welcome-back dinner party hadn’t been on his agenda.
Leslie…
She was thinner. She looked almost ethereal. He had never known such pain, such longing, as he felt seeing her there that night. He wanted to touch her so badly. He wanted to tell her that it was all right.
He wanted to tell her that Hank Smith was a dickhead. He laughed at himself. He hadn’t known he disliked the developer so much. On the surface, the guy was a decent sort. Maybe he was too perfect. Tall, dark and slimy. His Armani suits were pressed to a T. Even his shoes were designer. He was a big man in town. Went to the right clubs. Ate at all the right places. Shook hands with the mayor. Hell, the guy even kissed babies’ cheeks. He was a partner in Tyson, Smith, and Tryon, and he was the perfect representative whenever the firm had to deal with permits, public opinion and the laws of the state. But he just wasn’t the kind of man other men liked. His lines were too smooth. He didn’t kick back at a local bar to enjoy a good football game. Did that make him bad? No, just…a dickhead.
And there was Robert Adair, good old Robert, still looking like a bloodhound. Working tirelessly, always concerned, always in the middle of something tragic, criminal, sad…
Ken Dryer. He didn’t like him any better than he liked Hank Smith. He never wore Armani. Instead, he was spotless in his police dress best. But then, Dryer had a tough job, speaking to the media, trying to assure New Yorkers that even under the worst circumstances, they were going to be all right. He supposed he should have more sympathy for the man, but he didn’t. Dryer liked his job too much. Liked finding a way to put a spin on things that always made himself look good.
Greta…well, she loved history more than life itself. She was a good old broad, caring, genuine, which was hard, when you came from that much money.
Professor Laymon…he should get to know Greta better. They would make one hell of a couple.
Brad Verdun. He almost smiled. Would have smiled, if he’d had substance and could have. Once upon a time, he’d been jealous of Brad. Like Ken Dryer and Hank Smith, Brad loved the limelight. He was a good-looking dude, too. But he’d never had any cause to be jealous. To Leslie, Brad was a friend and colleague, someone with whom she worked well. They’d laughed about a few of his romantic fiascos together. But now…
His heart ached. Funny, he had no heart, but he could feel the pain. That was then, and this was now. He himself was gone.
He loved Leslie. Wanted her to have a life. Wanted her to find something as great as what they had shared. Really…
He just didn’t want her falling for some asshole.
All right, so he’d gotten bitter. How the hell not?
Don’t touch her, don’t you dare touch her, he thought.
Then he amended that.
Don’t hurt her, don’t you dare hurt her. If you do, I’ll…
He’d what? He couldn’t even appear at will, could barely communicate with the others haunting the same space.
Don’t hurt her, he prayed.
Hastings House wasn’t huge. The entry was handsome, with the staircase off to the side to allow for a breeze to make its way all the way through the house. Leslie imagined that once those breezes had been plentiful; now, with the house surrounded by skyscrapers, the possibility was highly unlikely. There were two rooms to the right, two rooms to the left, and six bedrooms upstairs. The dining room was the second door on the left, and behind it was the one accommodation to the twenty-first century; the kitchen and huge back pantry were attached to the house by an arched passageway.
“Are you really all right?” Robert asked, coming alongside Leslie as they headed toward the dining room.
She squeezed his arm. “Really,” she assured him.
Really, she repeated in her mind. I just want you all to get out of my house.
Her house?
It wasn’t her house at all.
It was simply the house where Matt had died.
“So, Hank,” Brad said as they filed into the dining room. “Your company made another historical discovery, huh? Must be hard. All that time and money invested—and now you have to stop work and wait for us to prowl around.”
“Thankfully,” Professor Laymon said, before Hank could reply, “the company doesn’t try to hide what it comes across, Brad.”
But Hank was grinning. “Do I mind losing money, Brad? Sure. But we get more promotional bucks out of this than you could begin to imagine.”
As she took a chair at the period reproduction dining table, Leslie ignored the men and flashed a smile at Greta. They were eating on reproduction Dutch porcelain dishes, and fresh flowers graced the table. The minute she’d entered the house, she’d smelled the aroma of beef cooking, so she assumed they would be having a traditional old English pub roast.
“So, Hank, tell us more about the find,” Brad said.
Hank looked a little surprised. “Professor Laymon has been given all the specifics.”
“He’s told us what he knows, but I’m curious. Why do you think you’ve discovered a working-class burial?”
Hank shrugged, taking his seat just as the caterers made their appearance, bringing the meal from the kitchen. A roast, whipped potatoes, greens, a tomato salad. Red wine. A very nice and very traditional meal.
“No one has turned vegetarian on me lately, have they?” Greta asked worriedly.
They all shook their heads as Hank started to answer Brad’s question.
“Well, we haven’t come across any coffins or bones—we’re leaving that to you,” he said, helping himself to the potatoes. “Gravy?” he asked. Ken Dryer passed over the gravy boat.
“What our first worker came across was a set of wooden teeth,” Hank explained.
“Wooden teeth?” Leslie echoed.
“Just like the pair of George Washington’s in the Smithsonian,” Hank said.
“Poor people didn’t generally have false teeth,” Leslie said.
“They’re very rough, and only preserved because they happened to have been wrapped in a scrap of tarp, like something a soldier might have had,” Hank said. “I don’t really know anything about this stuff, but that’s what the first guy on the site, someone from the museum, said. Anyway, there was more. A few pieces of jewelry, costume stuff, and poor costume stuff at that. And a couple of tiny crosses—those were actually real silver. We stopped work right away, of course.”
“Of course,” Brad agreed. Leslie thought he sounded skeptical, but Brad de facto disliked anyone who worked for a development company.
“Then,” Greta reminded Hank, “there were the records we found at the Morgan Library. Records that indicated a church had stood on the spot before it burned to the ground. At the time, this area was heavily populated with immigrant families, struggling to get by. Up the street, there was once a Catholic church. Down this way, there was another Episcopal church, not to mention Trinity and St. Paul’s. Remember, everyone went to church in those days.”
“Right, Greta. Anyway,” Hank said, flashing a grin at Professor Laymon, “the decision was made that our good friend here should head the project, and all work has been stopped, the areas where the finds were made have been cordoned off, and you’re all set to go. And—” he offered another of his broad smiles to Leslie “—we have two of the city’s most esteemed archaeologists on the case, along with whatever hordes the professor cares to hire.” He turned to Brad. “So do speak highly of us to the press, please.”
Greta laughed softly; Leslie smiled. It seemed to her that Hank was honest enough, even if she didn’t always trust developers herself.
“You know, construction workers need to make a living, too,” Robert piped in.
“Right. Some of us poor slobs are just worker bees,” Ken said.
“Yeah, poor Ken. You’re just the average worker bee, right?” Leslie teased.
He laughed. “Okay, so, I’m a lucky, well-educated worker bee. Talk to Robert, here, though, if you’re looking for a guy who has worked his ass off—sorry, Greta—to get somewhere, and despite all he’s done, he’s got a tough job, nowhere near enough respect and a lousy paycheck.”
“Hey!” Robert protested.
“Oh, we cops are suddenly well paid?” Ken said.
“Could be worse,” Robert told him.
Ken groaned.
“Besides, I doubt you intend to be a cop forever,” Robert said.
“Do you have political aspirations?” Leslie asked, sipping her wine.
“Not this year, I assure you,” Ken said. “Greta, this is absolutely delicious. Thank you so much for inviting me.”
“Well,” Greta said, waving a hand in the air, “we want Leslie to feel that the police are with her if she ever needs them, right?”
“Greta is really worried about you staying at the house alone,” Robert told Leslie. He didn’t add and so am I. He didn’t need to. She could see it in his eyes.
“Hey, I know New York City. I’m street smart,” Leslie assured them both.
“Anyone can need help,” Robert said.
“Should I be afraid for some reason?” Leslie asked. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“No,” Robert said.
“Well, we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of those local disappearances,” Ken said.
“Leslie doesn’t need to worry. She doesn’t exactly fit the profile,” Robert said.
“There’s still been no break in the prostitute case?” Leslie asked. “Is that what you’re talking about?”
“No, no break,” Ken said. He hesitated. “Matt had people concerned, but no one has picked up where he left off.”
“Since Leslie is hardly likely to start walking the streets soliciting, I don’t think she needs to worry too much about that,” Greta announced. “I mean, personally. Of course we all need to worry in the larger sense.”
“Maybe there’s a modern-day Jack the Ripper out there,” Brad offered.
“Jack the Ripper got his kicks by letting others discover the butchered bodies of his victims,” Robert said sharply, then flushed, hearing his own tone. “Sorry, this is a real sore spot with me. We’re just not getting anywhere. And whenever we think it might have stopped, we get another distant relative, hooker friend or embarrassed john down at the station, talking about a girl who’s just vanished.”
“Maybe they’re just moving on,” Brad suggested.
“I wish that were the case,” Robert said. “I just don’t believe it.”
“Why aren’t we finding any bodies, then?” Ken asked him.
“I don’t know,” Robert said. “I didn’t mean to make you uneasy, Leslie,” he added, turning to her.
“You didn’t. I have a state-of-the-art alarm here, remember?” she asked, smiling.
But Robert still seemed disturbed as he stared at her.
Shortly afterward, their dishes were removed and coffee was served, along with a delicious apple cobbler. As dessert was set down, Leslie decided that she was going to lighten the mood. “So…anything new and exciting going on in anyone’s social life?” she asked.
Apparently it wasn’t the right light question.
“What social life?” Ken asked. “Do you have one of those, Robert?”
“Sure, I’m here for dinner tonight,” Robert said. “Thanks to this gracious lady,” he added, reaching across the table and squeezing Greta’s hand.
“Greta’s whole life is social, but since she works so hard at it, she doesn’t have an actual social life, either,” Hank teased.
“Nonsense,” Greta said. “I’m a happy woman. I love working for my causes, especially history. And you, Ken. You’re at every social event.”
“Ah, but is that a social life?” Ken asked.
“Sorry I asked,” Leslie said.
Finally the coffee was cleared, the dining room and kitchen were immaculately cleaned, and all that was left was the aroma of the dinner that had been. Since everyone seemed reluctant to leave, Leslie decided that it was time to ask them to go.
She feigned a yawn. “Oh, sorry. Hey, we do start tomorrow morning, right, Professor?”
“Are you trying to kick us out?” Brad asked.
“I can’t really kick you out. It isn’t my house. But, yes, please leave. I need to go to bed,” she told him, grinning.
Robert Adair looked at Brad. “I guess she’s serious.”
“Looks like,” Brad agreed with a shrug.
There were a lot of goodbyes, with everyone making sure she had their numbers programmed into her cell phone and forcing her to promise that she would call right away if she needed anything.
Greta insisted on walking through the downstairs and making sure the caterers had cleaned up to her satisfaction and turned off all the appliances, and that the doors and windows were all locked. She explained the alarm and gave the code to Leslie, while the others hovered in the entryway. At last, even Greta was willing to admit that all was well.
“Now, tomorrow is Monday. The house opens at ten, so Melissa Turner arrives at around eight-thirty—she’s in charge of ticket sales—and Tandy Goren and Jeff Green—the historical guides—usually get here a bit after. Melissa comes in and makes her coffee early. She’s one of those people who likes to get to work ahead of schedule so she can take her time. She’s a sweetheart—you’ll love her. Just don’t be startled when you hear voices early.”
“I may already be gone,” Leslie said. She looked at Laymon. “What time are we meeting at the site, Professor?”
“Take your time tomorrow. Ten will be fine,” Professor Laymon said. “You know where it is?”
“Down the street. I don’t think I can miss it.” She smiled.
“Yes, well, just dial my cell if you don’t see where we are. I want to make my general assessment, then I’ll get you and Brad going while I take care of hiring some grad students and start with the other what-have-yous.”
She nodded, waiting anxiously for them to leave.
Ken Dryer brushed sandy hair from his forehead and took her hand. “I’m still a cop,” he said huskily. “You know you can count on me if you need anything.”
Let go of her hand, dickhead!
Ken frowned suddenly, then shrugged. “Call me.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Hank stepped forward. “Okay, I’m not a cop, but I’m always around if you need me, anyway.” He kissed her cheek.
You are the dickhead of all dickheads!
Hank suddenly seemed to stumble. “Just let me know if you need me,” he said.
Robert hugged her easily; Brad bussed her cheek. “See you tomorrow, kid.”
Greta hugged her fiercely. Leslie felt as if she were about to leave on a safari into the deepest jungle. They were all so worried. And she couldn’t possibly explain why she so badly wanted to stay in the house.
Alone.
At last the good-nights were ending. Robert Adair continued to look troubled. She kissed his cheek. “We’ll have dinner soon, how’s that?” she whispered to him.
That seemed to brighten him. He nodded.
“It’s really good to see you back, Leslie,” he said gravely.
“Back in New York. Back with us all,” Ken Dryer added.
She smiled. “This is home,” she murmured.
Finally they left and she was alone in the house.
She stood in the entry. She could still hear the street noises, muffled by the fence and the thick walls of the house. The sound of a horn, a shout, a car alarm. The usual.
She forced those noises into the background and tried to hear the house itself.
Nothing. Everything was quiet. Not even an old board creaked.
Hastings House had stood for more than two centuries. It had seen war, peace, life, love…and death. It had to be filled with a few spirits. It had been witness to a revolution, to a civil war that had torn a country apart. It had been there in 1812 when a fledgling nation had faced its first major confrontation following its independence. It had witnessed riots, the teeming disturbance of a world gone crazy in the caste war pitting old immigrants against new. World wars had come and gone, and the Cold War after them. It had survived the tragedy and trials of the twenty-first century.
There had to be spirits here….
But she heard, sensed, nothing. The house was silent.
“Matt?” she whispered hopefully.
But there was no reply.
She closed her eyes, prayed, hoped, waited.
Nothing.
At last she went up to bed.
There are no rules, Nikki had told her once. No one really knew what lay beyond this world.
She lay awake as long as she could, still and expectant.
But nothing happened, and without even noticing the transition from wakefulness, she finally fell asleep.
4
At three in the morning, Joe was trolling the streets, driving slowly, looking for his one hooker in a veritable sea of them.
He’d started doing the basics immediately. Checking and double-checking the information Eileen had given him, making appointments, sending e-mails…
He’d read the magazine article several times over but had found nothing but an allusion to a long-ago rumor of an extramarital affair—not enough to make an intelligent grown woman go berserk, surely. The reporter was currently on assignment overseas, so there was no way to get hold of him to see how much he really knew.
Joe didn’t think he was going to get much help from that quarter, anyway.
The secret to Genevieve’s whereabouts was out here somewhere on the streets.
One of the notes Eileen had given him referred to a hooker Genevieve had tried to help in the course of her job and had actually spoken about to her aunt. Didi Dancer. Probably not the girl’s real name, but…
Five foot four, huge breasts, tiny waist, liked to wear a skin-tight red skirt and leather jacket when she worked. Spiked heels. Her vanity was her hair, long and a rich, vibrant brown; she wouldn’t be hard to spot.
He saw the woman and pulled over to the curb. She noticed that he was driving a Lexus, and he noted the hard smile that curved her lips as she walked over to the car. She leaned against it, arching her body suggestively as she did so.
“Hey,” she said. Then her hard smile eased a bit. “So, good-looking, what are you up to tonight?”
“I’d like to talk to you,” he said.
She had pretty features. Her skin was dry and taut, though. Too many cigarettes. Maybe—probably—too many less legal substances, as well. “Talk? Sure, honey, everyone wants to talk.”
He smiled; her own grin deepened. “Hey,” she said again, her voice growing husky. “You really are good-looking, sugar. Maybe we can work out a good deal—for talking.”
“Honestly, I really do just want to talk, but I’ll make it worth your while.”
She tensed suddenly, started to straighten. “You’re fucking vice, aren’t you? I haven’t said a thing. You can’t run me in.”
She started to walk away, heels clicking sharply on the pavement.
He hopped quickly out of the car. “I swear to God, I’m not vice. And I will make it worth your while. You’re, uh, Didi Dancer, right?” Man, what a ridiculous name.
She paused, then turned back, staring at him across the sidewalk.
“Who are you? What are you?” she asked suspiciously.
“I’m a private investigator. And I just need some help. I’m looking for a missing girl. Genevieve O’Brien.”
A strange look washed over her face. Something containing caring and humanity.
Her voice still husky, she asked, “That pretty social worker?”
“Yes.”
“I talked to the cops, you know.”
“Will you talk to me?”
She hesitated. “All right,” she said at last. “If you’ll take me for a ride. That’s a cool car.”
“Thanks.”
She crawled into the passenger seat, ran her hands over the soft leather, then looked at him.
“Where did you want to go?” he asked her.
“Just drive. Hey, let’s take the FDR.”
“All right.”
He drove for several minutes, navigating the city streets to reach the highway, before she started to talk. “The police quizzed a lot of us about the missing hookers, you know. Strange. Well, not so strange. It was like it was all by rote. Questions they had to ask. They think we chose this life, that we deserve whatever happens to us.” She shook her head, staring out the window. Then she looked back at him. “Can I smoke in here?” she asked him.
“If you can help me, you can light up a cigar,” he told her.
She smiled, staring at him. “You are one handsome dude, you know? I should have known right off you weren’t looking for a fuck. No, that’s not true. You’d be amazed at the really good-looking young guys who just want sex without any emotional bullshit. Or kinky things, or sometimes not even all that kinky. Just things their wives won’t do.” She frowned. “You really aren’t vice, right?”
“I swear, I’m not vice. I’ll show you my ID.”
“Oh, honey, anyone can fake ID,” she said with a laugh. Then she sobered. “I wish I could help you.”
“Try.”
“Okay.” She opened her window and lit a cigarette. Exhaling, she began. “Genevieve. The cops asked about her, too. Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl.” She inhaled deeply, just air. At that moment she didn’t even seem to realize she had a lit cigarette. “I have a daughter. They took her away. She’s in foster care. Genevieve came to see me. I gave her a hard time at first. The girl looks like she ought to be posing for Vogue or something like that. And I heard from some of the other girls that she’s really rich, too…but she was the real deal. She really wanted to help me. Us. I even got her together with some of the other girls one time. She was so sweet. She wanted to know about our dreams, can you imagine that? Like, did we plan on doing what we’re doing forever? Was it just to pull in some money? She wanted to help us get real jobs that paid enough to survive here. Enough to get legit. To get our kids back,” she said softly.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Joe asked.
“About a month ago.”
Right around when she disappeared?
“Did she visit you? Were you at a restaurant…on the street, what and where?” Joe pursued quietly.
“We were right where you picked me up tonight,” she told him. “She knew where to find me.”
“Why was she looking for you?”
“She thought she might have a job for me.” Didi inhaled on her cigarette, exhaled the smoke, then flicked the butt out the window and looked at him. “She wanted to know if I was seriously—really seriously—ready to change my lifestyle. If I wanted my daughter back bad enough to stay clean. Squeaky clean.”
“And what did you tell her?”
She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “I said yes.”
He nodded. “But she never came back?”
“No.”
“When and how did she leave you?”
“A car pulled up, and I could tell she knew the driver. She walked over to it, and it looked like she and the guy—I think it was a guy—it looked like they were kinda arguing. I couldn’t hear what they said, but she looked pissed, you know? Then she waved at me and said she’d get back with me about the job.”
“And then she got in the car?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell me about the car?”
“It was a dark sedan. Black, blue, something like that.”
“By any wild chance, did you get the plate number?”
Didi shook her head. “I wasn’t looking. I…I didn’t notice anything more.”
“You didn’t watch her go, maybe wave as she drove off?”
“No,” Didi said softly, then looked at him. “Another car showed up. A regular of mine. I knew the guy; knew he was worth money. I forgot all about Genevieve then. I had to. I mean, I seriously would have taken her offer, and I would have stayed clean. But…well, I needed to eat in the meantime.”
“Right,” he murmured.
He drove her back to the curb where he had found her. After he slid the car into neutral, he pulled out a wad of bills.
“You don’t owe me,” she said.
“I told you I’d pay you to talk.”
“It was about Genevieve. You don’t owe me. I really hope that you find her. I pray sometimes that she’s okay.”
“Take the money, have some dinner. Give yourself a break.”
She paused, looked into eyes, then took the money. “What makes you think I’m not just gonna buy some coke with it?”
“You might. I hope you don’t.”
She started to get out of the car. “You know, you’re the only one who asked me that.”
“Asked you what?”
“What I said to Genevieve. No one else cared if I meant to clean up or not. That was really nice of you.”
“You could probably get yourself a real job, with or without Genevieve,” he said.
“Yeah? I have great references. ‘John Q. says I’m a great lay,’” she said dryly. She flushed, then dug into her small handbag. She produced a scrap of paper, a receipt from a coffee house, and scratched down a number. “If you think I can help you again, call me.”
He accepted the paper. “Thank you. Are you sure you don’t remember anything else about the car? Can you take a guess on the color?”
“Black. I think it was black,” she said. Then she sighed. “I’m just not sure.”
“Okay. Thank you. Really.”
She touched his face, her eyes soft. “No, thank you, sweetie. You treated me nice. Real nice. And I’m serious. You call me.” She gave him her dry smile once again. “And that wasn’t a come-on. Good night.”
She hopped out of the car.
He drove on down the street, past the site of the new dig. At night, it seemed huge, protected behind quickly rigged barbed wire. Hardly aware of what he was doing, he slid into a spot along the curb, stepped out of the car and started walking, making mental notes as he went.
Eileen Brideswell might just be right. Her niece had been working with prostitutes in the same area where a number of hookers had gone missing. She had been picked up by a dark, probably black, sedan off the street—in that same area. He needed Robert Adair’s notes; he needed to know if any friends of the other missing girls had seen them getting into a dark sedan.
He kept walking, using the time as he often did to make sense of what he had learned.
He found himself standing in front of Hastings House once again, as if brought there by instinct.
Well, that was crazy as hell. What could Hastings House have to do with the disappearance of Genevieve O’Brien?
The place just bugged him, that was all. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the blast had been intentional and Matt had been the intended target.
And that someone was getting away with murder.
He stood beneath the streetlight, staring at the house. It seemed to live and breathe; the old colonial windows were like eyes, the door like a mouth.
Unease filled him. Eileen Brideswell was right, he thought. Her niece had been the victim of foul play. Just as the prostitutes had been.
Someone was getting away with murder.
Just like at Hastings House.
At first Leslie slept deeply. Then, suddenly, she discovered that she was wide awake.
She glanced at her travel alarm on the Duncan Fife reproduction by her bed. Four in the morning. Much too early to get out of bed.
She plumped her pillow, but sleep wouldn’t come. After half an hour she sighed and gave up. She slipped on a robe and went quietly downstairs.
So far, she hadn’t gone into the room where the explosion had taken place. Was she ready for that?
Did she want to reach Matt?
In the entryway, she hesitated, then went into the first room off the entryway, now set up as a Colonial parlor. There was a love seat beneath the window, a table in the center of the room, a pianoforte to one side, and various chairs, along with a tea table. She stood there in the shadows and the diffuse glow cast by the the security lights. “Hello?” she said softly.
But the room was just a room, an image of a past that might or might not have been exactly as it was represented now.
She walked through the connecting door to the dining room, thinking that last night was now just a moment in history, like everything else.
Then she walked through the kitchen and back to the servants’ pantry.
The hearth had been rebuilt. She could almost imagine Matt standing by it the way he had that night. She could almost see herself nearby, held captive in a different conversation. In her mind’s eye, she could almost see…
But the room was silent. Just a room.
“Not even a Colonial gentleman here, huh? The lady of the house?” she said aloud.
Just an empty room.
She walked back into the kitchen, found the coffeepot and the coffee, and thought that if the supplies belonged to Melissa, the ticket-seller, she would make a point of replacing them. She set a pot of coffee on to brew. Upstairs, in her room, which wasn’t part of any tour, she had a television. She could sip coffee and watch an early-morning news show soon.
That settled, she hummed while she made coffee, thinking that she might turn and see a ghost at any time. But the coffee brewed, and she saw nothing. She found a large cup, filled it, added cream that she found in the artfully disguised refrigerator and headed back up the stairs.
She set her coffee down and turned on the television, then walked to the window and looked idly down at the street. Her heart stopped.
There was a man on the sidewalk, standing under the streetlight.
Matt.
She blinked. He was still there. As tall as Matt, standing the exact way that Matt stood. It had to be Matt.
The man looked up.
Good God, it was Matt!
She forgot that she was wearing nothing but a robe over a short nightgown. She almost forgot about the alarm as she raced downstairs toward the front door, but at the last minute she suddenly realized that a siren would go off and the police would be alerted if she didn’t punch in the code. She hit the numbers hastily, then threw open the door and ran down the walk.
At the picket fence, she slowed and swore softly. The man was gone.
She wrapped her robe more tightly around her body. The street was so quiet now.
Dead, actually.
She opened the gate and looked anxiously down the street. Nothing in either direction. The man under the streetlight must have been a trick of her imagination.
But if it had been Matt…. A ghost didn’t have to run off down the street, so foolishly running around barefoot wouldn’t do any good. But it probably hadn’t been Matt; she had just wanted so badly to see him….
She let out a soft sigh. “Hello? Is anybody there?”
She felt a soft breeze touch her face, heard the sound of a distant horn and someone shouting “Taxi!”
The city never really slept. Not even down here, in the financial district.
“Hello?” she murmured again.
“Hi, yourself, lady.”
She spun around. A filthy, toothless, long-haired bum was grinning as he stood behind her. “I mean, hello, honey,” he added.
She looked him up and down, trying not to wrinkle her nose in distaste or scream in shock.
“Uh, hi,” she said. “Bye.”
With a wave, she fled back through the gate, taking a minute to latch it behind herself, and up the steps. Inside the house, she locked the door and keyed in the alarm, making a mental note to herself to start being really careful or people really would start thinking she was crazy.
At nine o’clock on the nose, Joe Connolly was in the office of social services, speaking with the man who had been Genevieve’s boss, a harried, irritable curmudgeon named Manny Yarborough who didn’t seem inclined to be helpful.
“I’ve already had an officer in here, and I can’t tell you anything else. The girl quit. Cleared out her desk and quit. That’s it.”
“No, that’s not it. Did she say where she was going? Did she leave an address for her last check? Did she say that she’d be in to get it? May I see her desk, her work area, please?”
“You know what, mister? I’m a really busy man. We’re always shorthanded around here, and Genevieve left us shorter. She didn’t say anything. When I asked her not to leave that way, told her she had to work with the system and give notice, that she couldn’t just quit, she just said, ‘Watch me.’ Then she grabbed her stuff and she walked. And you’re crazy if you think I didn’t put that desk right back to work the second she was out of this place. We need space, and we need help. This is New York!”
“I’ll need whatever address you have on file, and I’d like to look at the desk anyway,” Joe said firmly.
“You got a search warrant?”
“Why—do you think this is going to turn into a homicide investigation? I told you. I’m not a cop, I’m working for the family, a family that helps support the city charities, and I’m sure you know that. How about you give me a hand, please?”
The man looked at him in exasperation. “I’ll get you what I had for a phone and an address, and you can ask Alice over there if she minds if you look at her desk.”
Alice was young and looked uneasy. She seemed exceptionally kind, though, the type of person who was meant for her line of work. She was still idealistic. Her eyes were big and blue, and she must have heard the conversation, because she jumped out of her chair when Joe approached, eager to be of assistance. “I can go get some coffee or something if you want. I mean, I can get out of your way.” She was thin, and a little like a nervous terrier.
“I’d really appreciate it if you could stay and tell me what I’m looking at,” he told her, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
“Sure.”
Manny walked away, as if disgusted with the whole thing.
Joe sat at the desk.
“The bottom drawer is files,” Alice offered. “I’ll go through them with you.”
He quickly discovered that Genevieve’s work with the prostitutes seemed to have consumed her caseload, though, interestingly, she hadn’t labeled them as prostitutes. She had listed the women as “Working temporary jobs” or “Seeking better opportunities.” She had notes on all the children—babies, mostly—court documents listing when they had been taken by Children’s Services and where they’d been placed, and little notes everywhere. He found the file for Didi Dancer. Her baby girl had been taken six months ago. Maybe Dancer was her real name after all, because the child was listed as Dianna Dancer. There was one note in Didi’s file that wasn’t clipped to the others. It read, She has a chance. Go for the big guns.
A second later, he heard a cough. He and Alice both looked up. Manny was back, scowling fiercely. “Mr. Connolly, here is the information I promised you. Now, I believe I’ve offered you every courtesy. We are an under-paid service here, and time is valuable.”
“I haven’t minded helping Mr. Connolly at all,” Alice assured him, her eyes still innocently wide.
“Yes, but you are due in court on the Blalock case in thirty minutes.”
“In thirty minutes?” Alice said with dismay. She jumped up again. Joe decided she was more like a nervous hamster than a terrier. He stood, as well. As he rose, he palmed the scrap of paper with Genevieve’s note. Later, he could always say he hadn’t taken it on purpose.
He managed to whisper to Alice, “Can you copy the files for me?” he asked.
She looked delighted to be involved in a secret conspiracy against her boss. She nodded, eyes shining, a smile playing at her lips.
“Alice, time is passing here,” Manny said.
“Thank you both,” Joe said politely, adding, “I may be back.”
Manny scowled.
Joe decided to retreat and fight another day. He extended a hand to Manny. “Thanks. I’m praying I’ll find Miss O’Brien alive, and if I do, it will be in large part thanks to your help.” What a load of bullshit. Still, he’d learned over the years. He was never obsequious—that would be too much; he would have to vomit on the spot. But being cordial to guys like this one usually made them feel awkward and sometimes even more willing to help in the future.
He extended a hand to Alice, as well, thanking her sincerely. She flushed and stuttered. “Y-you’re very welcome. I loved Genevieve. We all did. Do, I mean.”
“Yes, and now we all need to get back to work,” Manny said.
Joe gave Alice a wink, and she smiled broadly. He left.
He had his cell phone out and was calling Robert Adair before he even left the building. Luck was with him. He didn’t lose his signal in the elevator, and Robert answered immediately.
“I need to talk to you about Genevieve O’Brien and the missing prostitutes,” he said.
“What?” Robert said.
“I said—”
“No, I heard you. But…Genevieve wasn’t a prostitute.”
“I know. Humor me,” Joe said, quite sure that Robert had made the same connection he had but wasn’t about to give anything away.
“All right. I’m at the site. Can you meet me here?”
“What site?”
“What do you mean, what site? The new dig site. The Big New York Dig, they’re calling it.” Robert was silent for a second, then added, “Down by Hastings House.”
“I’ll be there in a few,” Joe said, and hung up.
Leslie was filthy, but she barely noticed and certainly didn’t care. She was alive with the thrill of discovery that had been part of her chosen vocation from the very beginning. This place was an archaeological gold mine.
In a matter of hours they had laid out their grid, and Laymon had taken on a number of professionals, using all the people from the museum who were already involved and twenty grad students from local universities. People were down on their knees with small trowels and delicate brushes, while heavy machinery stood silently by. Thus far, they had found shoe buckles, belt buckles and fragments of jewelry.
Leslie was sure there would be lots more.
At first she hadn’t known why she was drawn to a particular section of the grid. But then, as she dug and then dusted, she had looked up…
And seen the child.
She must have been about seven. She was hugging a handmade, unbleached muslin doll. Her hair was in a single braid. She was very thin, and her legs were slightly bowed. Rickets, Leslie thought. She had stared at the child for several seconds before she realized she was seeing someone none of the others could.
A ghost child.
She smiled, hoping no one noticed as she whispered, “Hello.”
The little girl had huge brown eyes. She was dressed in a calico print dress and a spotless apron. She hugged the doll more tightly and mouthed back, “Hello. You can see me?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say, Leslie?” Brad, just a few feet away but luckily with his back to her, asked.
“Uh, nothing. How are you doing?”
“Fine,” he replied, then turned back to his work.
Leslie smiled at the child again. “What’s your name?”
“Mary.”
“Beautiful name,” Leslie said.
“What did you say?” Brad demanded again.
“Nothing.”
“You’re talking to yourself again,” Brad said with a sigh, staring at her.
“I’m just singing. It passes the time.”
“Oh. Well…you can’t carry a tune, you know.”
“Thanks. I’ll avoid karaoke clubs, then.”
He made a grunting sound of irritation, rolled his eyes and went back to work.
She was afraid that Mary would be gone, but the ghostly child had remained. She was grinning. “I’m sure you sing just fine, miss.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated. “Are you lost?”
“I don’t know where my mother is.”
“Was she…sick?”
The little girl nodded gravely.
“And were you sick, too?”
She nodded and looked troubled. “I think my mother died. I think I came here with my father when she died. But I can’t find her now.”
“Do you think that her grave was here…right here, where I am now?”
The girl pointed a few feet away.
“I’ll find her. When I do, Mary, they’ll take her away for a bit. But…I’ll find you, too. And I’ll make sure, in the end, that they keep you together.” She took a deep breath. “Mary…you know that you’re…”
“I’m dead. Yes, I know. I just want my mother.”
Despite herself and everything she knew, Leslie felt a terrible chill. The sun was bright. It was a beautiful day. She was glad she was surrounded by people. Real live people.
Brad was standing, dusting his hands on his khakis.
She made a face at him. “I think I’m going to move right over there. Want to give me a hand? We’ll need to dig a bit.”
“How do you know?”
“A hunch. Instinct. I don’t know. But I want to try over there.”
He looked both skeptical and annoyed, but he joined her nonetheless.
They began to work in silence. Leslie looked up, intending to smile and reassure the child again, but the little girl was gone.
She didn’t know how long she worked, she was so absorbed in what she was doing. And then, at last, she hit a fragment of wood.
“Brad.”
“What?”
“Look.” She dusted the piece and handed it to him. “Coffin?” she asked softly.
“Let’s keep going.”
A minute later he let out a hoarse cry. He’d come across a piece so big it could actually be termed a board.
“We’re on it,” Leslie murmured.
“Delicately, delicately now…just the brushes, no matter how long it takes.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. How long have we worked together?”
He didn’t even look up.
She found the first bone. A breastbone. They both stopped and looked at each other.
“Let’s go a little farther,” he whispered.
She nodded. They went back to work, meticulously, slowly. Her back ached, but she scarcely noticed the discomfort. Minutes passed. Eventually they revealed the skeletal remains of a woman. Bits and pieces of fabric had also survived the ravages of time and the worms of the grave. And a cross. A simple gold cross. Very tiny, a poor woman’s treasure.
About to get up and summon the others, Leslie realized that they were already surrounded. Silently, and one by one, about twenty people, including Professor Laymon, Robert Adair and Hank Smith, had circled carefully around their position.
“Um, well, it’s definitely a graveyard,” Leslie said.
“We knew there was a church here. It’s a churchyard. There will be lots of graves, and, with luck, they’ll reveal volumes of new understanding about the area,” Professor Laymon said, pleased.
Leslie wondered if Hank Smith felt happy. He shouldn’t. This would put his project on hold for some time.
But Hank Smith was smooth, a man who had apparently learned never to give his true emotions away. His face revealed absolutely nothing of whatever he was feeling.
Laymon, however, looked as if he were about to have an orgasm.
“Oh. My. God,” he breathed. He sounded like a Valley girl, Leslie thought with a smile. “All right, we’ll need to get the photographers over here…and the news crews.” He frowned. He didn’t want anyone trampling on what he now considered to be his territory, but they could always use the publicity, and, anyway, there was no way not to allow the press at least some access, especially since it was the good PR that kept the developers happy. “Sergeant Adair, will you post a guard, please? And when we bring her up, I want her in situ…the dirt around her and beneath her.”
Laymon definitely looked as if he belonged in a laboratory somewhere—or filming a mad scientist movie—Leslie thought. He was in a smudged white lab coat, his glasses were sitting halfway down his nose, and his hair was dusty and sticking out at odd angles. She smiled. The man certainly got into his work.
Hank Smith reached down to help her up the little incline from where she’d been digging. She hesitated, worrying about leaving Mary’s mother alone.
“Leslie, come on up. I promise, you’ll get to oversee as soon as the photographers are done,” Laymon said.
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Heather Graham
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A year ago, archaeologist Leslie MacIntyre barely survived an explosion that took the life of her fiancé, Matt Connolly. Since then she′s slowly come to terms with both her loss and an unsettling ability to communicate with ghosts, a «gift» received in the wake of her brush with death. Now she′s returned to lower Manhattan, site of the explosion, to investigate a newly discovered burial ground. In this place restless spirits hold the secrets not only of past injustice but of a deadly conspiracy against the city′s women–including Leslie herself.By night Matt visits her in dreams, warning her and offering clues to the truth. By day she finds herself helped by–and attracted to–his flesh-and-blood cousin Joe. Torn by her feelings for both men, caught between the worlds of the living and the dead, Leslie struggles against the encroaching danger.As she is drawn closer to the darkness, she must ultimately face the power of an evil mind, alone in a place where not even the men she loves can save her.