Wishbones

“Sure.” She was moving paintings.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah.” She was so absorbed that she didn’t notice when I left.

Sweetie and Chablis were fine in the kitchen, both snoozing. Now was my moment.

“Jitty! I need you.”

I turned slowly, hoping for a shimmer or fade-in.

Nothing.

“Jitty, damn it! I’m the only person who can bear the Delaney heir. If you don’t help me, I’ll have myself sterilized.”

“If you do that, people will talk.”

Her voice was cultured, mature, and I spun around to find her standing in the door in a tight black dress, her hair suddenly blond and in a French twist. She made a beautiful Lana Turner, though I hadn’t realized she was so buxom.

“We’re leaving tomorrow. I have to find out what’s going on here. There’s no guarantee this won’t start again in Hollywood.”

She paced the kitchen, her voice coming New England cultured. “You’re not the only person with troubles, I have my own. Why don’t you dust somewhere else?”

She wasn’t going to help me until I figured out what role she was playing. I flipped through the movie images in my mind. “Give me another clue.”

“There’s an illegitimate daughter, a scandal, and fear of gossip in a small town.” She did a turn worthy of any runway model. “Hollywood is just a small town, Sarah Booth.” The Lana Turner voice was giving way to plain ole Jitty.

“This isn’t helping me,” I said. “Is Carlita in this house, and is she here because she was murdered?”

Jitty sighed. “She’s here, but it isn’t because she was murdered.”

“Then why?”

“Perhaps you should ask Daniel Martinez. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Isn’t that what makes movies so exciting?”

I realized who she was. “Peyton Place,” I yelled at her fading image. “Peyton Place.”

The last I heard was her chuckle.

I thought Sweetie would rouse at the sound of my cursing, but she slept on, her body curled around Chablis. I ran down the driveway to the guard post. The two security men were there, but not Daniel.

“Where is Mr. Martinez?” I asked.

“He went into town. He’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” one of them answered.

“Tell him when he gets back to come to the house as fast as he can,” I said. Reversing, I ran back to Tinkie, suddenly afraid that she’d been left alone.

Tinkie didn’t even look up when I burst into the room, breathless and sweating. “It has to be the fireplace,” she said.

“You’ve watched too many B movies,” I told her. “Be careful or Vincent Price will be standing behind the secret panel. What do Lana Turner and Peyton Place have to do with this situation?”

She took time to roll her eyes at me. “I can’t say for sure, but in Peyton Place there’s a scandal involving the daughter’s legitimacy, and there are the layers of lies and deceit and also a fear of what others will think. There’s also a murder of a father by a daughter…” She stopped and stared at me. “But Estelle is in Maine.”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“Shit.” She leaned against the fireplace and the stone mantel behind her gave. To my amazement, the entire stone structure shifted to the left. The opening in front of us was dark, and a cool odor came to me, reminding me of marsh grass and some of the river brakes beside the Mississippi.

Tinkie started in, and I grabbed her arm and held her.

“What?” She had her flashlight on probing the depths of the dark hallway that were revealed.

“I do believe in ghosts,” I said. “I do, I do, I do.”

“You’re the one who’s always telling me that ghosts can’t hurt us. They’re noncorporeal.”

“I think maybe I was misinformed,” I said, stepping into the darkness behind her. “Maybe we should wait for backup.”

A low wail echoed down the cool passage. It was followed by the sound of dull thudding.

“Help me.” The cry was weak, but we both heard it.

Together we stepped into the darkness and the smell of rot and decay.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The passageway was narrow, just large enough for us to go sideways. I would have taken the lead, but Tinkie was there and it was impossible to wedge past her.

When the corridor took a ninety-degree turn, I figured we were moving between rooms, but in the darkness, I’d lost all sense of proportion and direction. I was about to speak when muffled sobbing came to me.

Tinkie halted so abruptly I rear-ended her. I suppressed a moan as my sternum slammed into her bony head.

“Ouch, Sarah Booth. That hurt. When we find the ghost, what do we do?” she asked.

Run wasn’t an option because in the narrow confines we had to move like crabs. “Ask her how we can help?” I’d read somewhere long ago that a human could, sometimes, assist a ghost in moving on to the next plane. I’d never actually asked Jitty if this would work, and I’d certainly never tried this tactic on her because-I’d come to admit-I wanted her in Dahlia House. Even though she was an unmitigated pain in the ass, she was part of my heritage, part of Dahlia House, and part of my family. Somehow I had invited her to live with me, and that’s right where I wanted her.

Tinkie swung her light beam in front of us. “What if the ghost says that what she needs is to kill us? I mean, not all ghosts want to ‘go to the light,’ you know. It only stands to reason that some are going to the dark side. And then there are those who want to hang out here and screw with people.”

Tinkie’s logic was sometimes illogical but always intriguing. “We want to help her, why would she want to harm us?”

“Because she’s an evil entity that’s already lured you to a near death by drowning, and she pushed Jovan down the stairs and-”

“We don’t know any of those things involved the ghost.” I hung hard to fact. Ghosts were real, but not all of them were vengeful spirits. Besides, if Tinkie panicked, even as small as she was, she might stampede over me and finish me off before the ghost got a chance. “Maybe it’s not an entity at all. Perhaps it’s someone dressed as the ghost.” The idea was exciting. “Someone who wants to blame a supernatural being. Think of all the things you could get away with if you had a ghost to blame.”

“Like…?”

I didn’t have time to answer. I glanced over Tinkie’s head, and standing in the flashlight beam was a translucent figure dressed in a flowing red dressing gown. The woman was beautiful, though terribly sad. She was closer than I’d ever seen her, and in the unforgiving illumination of the flashlight, I could see the sharp bones of her face. Her eyes were large and burned with an inner fire.

“Tinkie,” I whispered. “Ghost.” The word seemed to tear my throat as it exited.

Tinkie stepped forward and turned her shoulders so she could look. I heard the sound of a loud whump, and she fell backward against me. I caught her as she slid to the floor.

“Tinkie!” She was out cold, and when I shone my light, I saw the support trestle she’d struck with her forehead. I eased her to the floor as best I could, all the while fighting the horrible sensation that the entity was on the move-toward me.

When I finally picked up a flashlight and shone it down the passage, the woman in red was only twenty feet