The cat snorted. “Have you seen the rest of those postcards? He kept plenty busy.”
“He kept one hand busy at best.” Claire put down her spoon and folded her arms. “He was a disgusting little voyeur. Is that how you suggest I fill my time?”
“Actually, I was about to suggest you share your soup with the cat.”
“I still don’t understand what we’re doing.” Dean twisted the key around in the attic lock and dragged the door open. “There’s nothing up here but junk.”
“The furniture in the dining room is junk,” Claire amended. “The furniture in the attic is antique.” Switching on the larger of the two flashlights, she ran carefully up the spiral stairs.
Dean watched her climb, telling himself it wasn’t safe to have both of them on the stairs at once and almost believing it. When she stepped off the top tread into the attic, he followed her up.
“Look at all this!” Although sunlight streamed in through the grime on the windows, the volume of stored furniture kept most of the attic in shadow. The flashlight beam picked out iron bedsteads, washstands, stacks of wooden chairs, lamp shades dripping with fringe, and rolls of patterned carpet. “Nothing’s been thrown away since the hotel opened.”
“And nothing’s been cleaned since it was put up here.”
Thankful that they’d found the accident site before they’d had to spend days shifting clutter, Claire turned the flashlight on her companion. “What is it with you and this obsessive cleaning thing?”
“It’s not obsessive.”
“It’s not normal.” She pointed the flashlight beam toward room six, one floor below. “You even wanted to dust her.”
“So?” Reaching down, Dean effortlessly shifted one end of a carpet roll out of his way. “My granddad always said that cleanliness was next to godliness.”
Cleanliness was living next to a hole to Hell, but Claire hadn’t changed her mind about letting him know it. Not even if he flexed that particular combination of muscles again. “See if you can find the old furniture from the dining room.”
“From the look of this place, we’d be as likely to find the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.”
She shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”
Squeezing past a steamer trunk plastered with stickers from a number of cruise ships, including both the Titanic and the Lusitania, Claire worked her way toward the back of the building. It was farther than it should have been; one of the earlier Keepers had obviously borrowed a little extra Space.
Well, I hope they kept the receipt.…Out of the corner of one eye, she saw a bit of red race along the top of a wardrobe and disappear behind a pink-and-gray-striped hatbox. “Oh, no.”
“Trouble, Boss?” She could hear furniture shoved aside as Dean struggled toward her.
“Not exactly, but I saw something; moving very fast. Unfortunately, it would take at least two hours of excavation or an Olympic gymnast to get to the spot.”
The sound of distant movement ceased. “It was just a mouse. There’s prints and turds all over up here.”
He sounded so positive, Claire didn’t bother pointing out that mice seldom came in a bright fire-engine red.
“Don’t worry about it, okay? I’ll bring some traps up later.”
So would she, and she rather thought hers would be more successful.
Ignoring the way her reflection moved slightly out of sync, Claire ducked around an elaborate, full-length mirror and finally ended up under the sloping edge of die roof. “This,” she said, turning off the flashlight, “is certainly strange.”
Displayed in relative isolation by one of the windows was a bed and mattress, a set of drawers, an old radio, a washstand with a full china set, and a pair of ladder-back chairs.
As Claire stepped forward, she caught sight of something that drove all thoughts of V.C. Andrews-style decorating out of her mind. Just at the edge of the “room” was the very table she’d been looking for. It could easily seat twelve, and all it needed was a bit of polish.
“Dean! I’ve found it!” She swept a pile of papers onto the floor and had barely emerged, sneezing and coughing from the cloud of dust, when Dean stepped out from between a stack of washstands and yet another steamer trunk, having discovered a slightly wider route to the spot.
“It looks solid enough,” he admitted, circling the table. Frowning thoughtfully, he heaved one end into the air. “It’s some heavy. How are you after carrying it downstairs?” Releasing the table edge, he bent under it for a closer inspection, highlighting the joints with his flashlight beam. “Those stairs are narrow, and it doesn’t come apart.”
“I’ll get it down the same way they got it up.” Dismissing the little voice in the back of her mind that suggested she was showing off, Claire carefully reached through the possibilities and pulled power. “First, I stack the chairs and tables currently in the dining room, out in the hall.”
Listening hard, Dean thought he heard the faint sound of stainless steel chiming against stainless steel and the slightly louder sound of an irritated cat.
“Then…” She traced a design in the dust on the table. “…I send this beauty down to replace them.”
The table disappeared.
“Rapporter cette table!”
Waving one hand vigorously in front of her face, Claire peered through the reestablished dust cloud at Dean. “What did you say?”
He sneezed. “Wasn’t me.”
In the silence that followed his denial, they could hear the dust settling.
“It’s quiet.”
“Too quiet,” Claire corrected.
With a sinister rustle, scattered papers rose into the air, riding an invisible whirlwind. They spun for a moment in place, faster, faster,
