The Girl On Legare Street (6 page)

“I’ll stay here,” I said.

Sophie appeared in the back hallway that led to the kitchen, rubbing her arms. “Not to ruin a sale or anything, but I think something’s wrong with the heat back here. It’s like twenty degrees colder than the rest of the house.”

I met my mother’s eyes, then reluctantly followed her back to the kitchen.

The space had been recently updated and, despite poor color palette and wallpaper choices, the design was solid as were the cherry cabinets and stainless steel appliances.

“My guess would be that she used a decorator in here,” said my mother.

Sophie nodded. “I know that for a fact because I remember being consulted on this job by the designer.” She pointed to the far corner of the room where a beautiful fireplace with an Adams mantel had once been and where a wall now stood with the mural of a longhorn cow painted on it.

“Oh my gosh,” I said. “Even I think that’s sacrilege.”

Sophie tucked a braid behind her ear. “I told Debbie, the designer, to leave the fireplace and just cover it up without damaging the woodwork. The mantel was kept intact and stored in the attic. But to remove the whole thing really would have been sacrilege. Hiding it was gross stupidity, but happily
reversible
gross stupidity.”

My mother walked over to an open door across from the mural. “Let’s take these back stairs to see the upper levels.”

“No.” The word came out before I could stop it. Both Sophie and my mother looked at me, but only Sophie’s expression held a question.

“Her grandmother died falling down these stairs,” my mother explained. “But look, Mellie. They have hand railings on both sides now, so it’s safer.”

I knew Sophie should hear the truth and I would tell her; I just couldn’t seem to get my jaw to work properly. I had never been on that stairwell without my protector, and I’d known either from him telling me or from sensing it myself that I should never attempt it otherwise. There was something up there at the top of the stairs. Something not of this world. Something evil.

“I’ll stay here.” I started to back away and felt something gritty on the floor under my shoe. I lifted my heel and saw what appeared to be large grains of salt. Like sea salt.

My mother walked toward me, her eyes searching my face. “You feel it too, don’t you? It’s always been here.” She stopped in front of me. “But it’s about to get stronger.”

Sophie joined us, but we didn’t break eye contact. “What’s going on?”

My cell phone rang, making me jump. Thankful for the distraction, I dug into my purse to retrieve it and saw it was Jack’s cell number. “I’ve got to take this. You two go on up and check out the other two floors.”

Reluctantly, Sophie followed my mother up the stairs and I shuddered as I watched them go.

“Hello?” I said into the phone.

“Hi, Mellie. It’s me, Jack.”

“I know. I saw your name on my screen.”

I heard the smile in his voice. “So that means you never deleted my numbers from your cell phone.”

“My bad,” I said, wishing he could see me roll my eyes. “And just because we’re speaking again, doesn’t mean we have to.”

His tone changed. “I know. But I needed to tell you something important before you read it in the newspaper.”

I stared at the kitchen floor, seeing what looked like a trail of salt crossing the ceramic tiles. With shortened breaths, I said, “What is it?”

“Are you all right? You sound out of breath.”

“I’m fine,” I managed. “Just tell me.”

“Well, you remember the news reports about the sailboat that was found off of Sullivan’s Island and how they discovered it was your great-great-grandfather’s boat? And that it had been missing since 1886?”

“Yes.” The word was more breath than speech.

“Before attempting to raise it, the salvage company sent divers down to bring anything interesting out of the boat up to the surface.” He stopped. “Maybe I should come see you to tell you all this.”

“No,” I said. “Go ahead and finish.”

He paused for a moment. “Well, they found a steamer trunk and brought it up yesterday. Today, they opened it.”

I felt nauseous all of a sudden, and had to sit down on the floor. “And?” I prompted.

“They found human remains inside.”

I didn’t respond. I was on my knees following the trail of salt, realizing too late that the grainy spills resembled footprints. I held my breath as if preparing to dive into water, and stopped when I saw that the trail of salt led to the back stairway.

“Jack?” I whispered. “I think we have a problem.” And then I dropped my phone and started to scream.

I wasn’t really sure how I ended up in Jack’s Queen Street condo. I just remembered sitting on the kitchen floor in my grandmother’s house, my screaming stopped by the feeling of not being able to breathe—as if my head were being held underwater. I must have passed out because the next thing I remember was Sophie and my mother helping Jack put me in the passenger side of his car. I seemed to recall flashbulbs going off and two news vans from local stations parked in front of the house, hulking like vultures.

I lay on Jack’s leather couch with an ice pack on my forehead, vaguely aware of my surroundings. The elegant and tasteful furnishings of Jack’s condo never ceased to amaze me. It was incongruous how a guy like Jack, who had no compunction about putting his feet up on my coffee table or leaving his dirty dishes on top of the television set, would live in a place that looked like it belonged on the cover of
Architectural Digest
. True, there was the genetic component—his parents owned an exclusive antique shop on King Street—but still.

Quiet voices drifted from the kitchen, Jack’s and a soft woman’s voice. I knew it wasn’t Sophie or my mother. I’d heard them tell Jack they would head in the opposite direction from us in case the newspeople were going to follow. I took the ice pack off and lifted my head.

Amelia Trenholm, Jack’s mother and one of my mother’s oldest and closest friends, walked toward me, her graceful manner and petite figure at home in the elegant surroundings. She sat down on the sofa next to me and placed a warm hand on my temple.

“You’re still a little flushed. Are you feeling better?”

I nodded and tried to sit up, but she put a hand on my shoulder and made me lie down again.

“I want you to eat something before you try standing again, all right?”

Jack appeared behind her holding a tray filled with chocolate-covered cream-filled donuts. My stomach grumbled as Mrs. Trenholm wrapped one in a napkin and handed it to me. “Jack went out and got these. He said they were your favorites.” Her voice was dubious.

I took a bite and nodded, realizing how famished I was.

She smiled and shook her head. “You’re just like your mother. You inherited her metabolism and both of your parents’ addiction to sugar. That’s really not fair, you know.”

I took another bite, too hungry to take exception to her comparing my mother and me.

Mrs. Trenholm pushed my hair back. “Reporters are staked out at your house and your office, too. We finally turned off your cell phone because there were so many calls from the paper and television stations. And David Henderson called three times. The first was to congratulate you on the publicity. The second was to make sure that you had the Henderson Realty SOLD sign in the front garden of the Legare Street house.”

“What was the third one?”

Amelia pursed her lips. “I didn’t answer it. That’s when I turned off the phone.”

“Good move,” I said, taking another bite of my donut and already feeling better. “But why does anybody care about human remains that have apparently been in a trunk since 1886?”

Jack sat on the rolled arm of the couch behind my head. “Because the Prioleau name is a prominent one. It’s not common for it to be mentioned in the same sentence as the word ‘murder.’ Let’s face it: Whoever is in that trunk didn’t get there on their own.”

I sat up, my head feeling clearer. “But I didn’t put them in there.”

“No,” countered his mother. “But you’re one of only two living descendants of someone who might have. They’ll want to know if you know anything, and once you tell them that you don’t and no new leads are found, they’ll go away.”

“Do you really think so?” Despite having spent many of my growing-up years elsewhere, I was still a Charlestonian and held to the belief that a lady should only appear in the paper three times in her life: when she is born, when she is married, and when she dies.

“Are you quite sure . . .” Amelia said as she and Jack and exchanged a glance before they both looked back at me.

“What?”

Jack placed a hand on my shoulder. “Mellie, are you sure you don’t know anything? We can’t discount your mother’s premonition and your recent contact with your grandmother. And then what happened today at your grandmother’s house? There was something spread all over the floor that your mother said looked a lot like salt but she didn’t know how it got there. And there was a puddle of water by the back stairs.”

My eyes met Jack’s and a shudder of fear raced up my spine. “I swear I don’t know anything. I think my mother does, more than she’s letting on, but you’ll have to ask her.” I swallowed thickly, the last bit of donut stuck somewhere in my throat. “I do think it’s related to whatever it was in my house that night you and my mother were there. It’s the smell—like seawater. My mother smelled it, too.”

The doorbell rang, and when Jack opened the door, my mother stood in the threshold, as if summoned.

“How is she?” she asked as Jack helped her out of her coat. She kept her gloves on as she approached me on the couch. Amelia stood and greeted my mother with a kiss on the cheek before Ginnette took her spot next to me. “I was worried about you.”

I didn’t have the energy to dispute the facts. Instead I said, “I’m fine. I just . . .”

Her gloved hand brushed my arm. “I know. I saw.”

I looked into her eyes, seeing for the first time not the mother I resented, but a person who actually understood that the shadows I saw and the voices I’d been hearing all of my life were real. My father’s aversion to all things unexplainable had started me on the road to denial and for once I could be allowed to step off that path. Without looking away, I said, “I have a feeling that whatever was there before, the presence at the top of the stairs I remember, was the same—thing—that came yesterday. But if the boat’s been underwater for over one hundred years, how was it here before, when I was a little girl?”

My mother looked down at her gloves, then carefully took them off before picking up my hand and holding it. I didn’t jerk away and I think that surprised us both. “Yes. You’re right. It’s been around since I was a girl. But it was only a shadow then, just like it was when you lived there. I think it needed someone with a psychic ability to project itself into our lives, and I think that’s why there weren’t any more reports of hauntings in the house after we moved out. But now . . .” She shrugged. “I’m afraid that disturbing the remains has brought it back, but in a form that doesn’t need someone like us for energy. I think that’s what she—or it—was showing us today in the kitchen. And that’s why she followed you to your house. I don’t think she’s going to leave us alone until she gets what she wants. Or we destroy her.”

Our eyes met again. “So you believe they’re connected. Your dreams, and the ship being raised, and whatever we’ve always known to be lurking in Grandmother’s house—they’re connected in some way. To us.”

My mother nodded and looked away, but not before I saw her eyes darken.

“What is it?” I asked. “What aren’t you telling me?” I squeezed her hand and we both realized at the same time that it was the first time I had touched her since I was seven years old. I withdrew my hand and laid it on the cool leather of the sofa.

“That’s all I know about the spirit. I avoided it when I lived in the house. As I know you did.” She smiled a little. “Your grandmother probably knew more, and I have a strong suspicion that if we listen closely, we’ll hear what she’s trying to tell us.”

We.
I didn’t want that one small word to affect me so much. And maybe I didn’t have to let it. My mother and I shared a connection through our psychic abilities if nothing else. I was accustomed to working with people in a professional relationship without necessarily liking them. Surely I could do this one small thing—working with my mother to exorcise a spirit. And then, like after signing a contract with a client at a closing, we could go our separate ways.

I sat up straighter and Jack took my napkin. “So you want me to help you get rid of this spirit.”

My mother raised her eyebrow, something I was getting used to seeing. “Actually, I would be helping
you
get rid of it. It seems to be focused on you.” She gave an elegant shrug. “And maybe in return you could help me restore the Legare Street house after I buy it. As Sophie said, it’s mostly cosmetic so it shouldn’t be as exhausting as your own house. But I would appreciate your knowledge and expertise since you already have so much experience.”

I felt as if my head were being squeezed in a vise. For a woman who prided herself on her independence, I was somehow finding myself for the second time within a year without many choices.

I thought for a moment, my gaze focused on my mother’s hands and aware of Jack and his mother in the background trying to pretend as if they weren’t listening to every word. I hadn’t known my mother long, but it was long enough to learn that she was a great manipulator—apparently a trait that seemed to run in the blood along with the ability to see dead people.

Trying to keep myself from smiling, I said, “I think I can do that. But I can’t take on the restoration of another house all by myself. I’ll need some help.”

My mother nodded. “Of course. I assumed you’d solicit your friend Sophie and whoever else has been helping with your house. And I can pay for their time, of course. I’ll also ask Amelia to help me with the furniture. I’m fairly certain that I won’t want to stick with the fraternity house décor that’s there now.”

This time I did smile as an idea crept its way into my brain—an idea that seemed like perfect retribution for allowing my mother to have gotten her way. “Actually, I wasn’t thinking of Sophie but yes, now that you mention it, I will need her help. I was thinking of my father. He restored the garden on Tradd Street. I’m sure he’d love to take this one over, too.”

Her own smile faded. “I don’t think . . .”

“It’s a deal breaker, Mother. Either he gets involved in this or it’s a no-go.Your choice. Remember that Jack and I have gotten rid of a nasty ghost before and I’m sure we could do it again. But I don’t think you’ve ever restored a house on your own.”

My mother looked over at Amelia Trenholm, whose face remained impassive. Jack excused himself to go get a nonalcoholic beer from the fridge. But I stopped short of giving myself a mental pat on the back for a blow well delivered. Because some part of me desperately wanted her to say yes.

Ginnette turned back to me. “I have a feeling I will live to regret this but I see no other choice. Besides, if he’s working in the garden I won’t really have to deal with him all that much.”

In response, I mimicked her by raising my eyebrow.

“Fine,” she said, standing and pulling her gloves on. “If that’s the way it needs to be. And now I think we should prepare a little statement for the press to make them go away. Something to the effect that we know nothing, which is true. We can say that whatever happened over one hundred years ago bears no weight whatsoever on today.”

Jack held a hand out to me to help me stand and I took it. “Right. And we know how true that is.” He put his arm around me and I leaned into him, remembering the ghost of a little boy who’d compelled us to solve a mystery from the past to clear his mother’s name.

My mother took note of Jack’s arm before looking back at me. “I didn’t say it was the truth, only that’s what I’d be telling the press.” She picked up her purse. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t shake hands on this deal.” After Ginnette kissed Amelia good-bye, Jack opened the door for her. “You’ll be hearing from me,” she said. “I’m staying at the Charleston Place Hotel on Meeting for now. I’m eager to be back in my house again.”

Apprehension skittered through my blood like sand in an hourglass, slowly at first and then more quickly, hurtling me toward some unknown deadline. “I’ll call you in the morning to go over the details of your offer.”

“Fine. Good night, Mellie.”

I looked at Jack for help, unable to respond with the same words I had last uttered to my mother on the night she left all those years ago.

Jack reached for the door, holding it open. “Good night, Ms. Prioleau.”

She sent him a warm smile as I groaned inwardly, and then Jack let the door shut softly behind her.

Although it was a Saturday, I was already up, showered, and dressed by six thirty and busy organizing my underwear drawer by color and style when the doorbell rang. It wasn’t that I didn’t have other things I should have been doing. The paperwork on my mother’s offer needed to be completed, there were proposals for two prospective clients, my car needed washing, and General Lee—currently curled up on top of my pillow—needed to be taken to the groomer. But years of therapy had shown me that organizing was my method of regaining control of my life, and my life had flown so far off the rails in the last week that I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to pull it back.

I peered out of my window, looking for another media van but saw only a red Audi convertible. Despite my mother’s predictions, her statement to the press had been like a swat at a nestful of angry hornets. Reporters had been buzzing around me, my office, my house, and my mother, giving me a brief moment of sympathy for Britney Spears.