Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

She reached again for her teacup and took another steadying sip.

“Of course, I insisted on giving her some collateral. I had a very old book—well, technically, it was Brother’s, too, since it had come from our parents’ estate—which was of some value. And then, silly me, I discovered an old insurance policy that I’d forgotten about. I cashed it in, intending to repay Dee, but she refused to accept the money. She said that I should consider the loan a gift, from one friend to another.”

“But what’s wrong with that?” Darla asked, confused.

Mary Ann gave a helpless wave. “Oh, yes, it was kind of her, but what I really wanted was my book back. It was something of a family heirloom, and I knew that Brother would eventually ask what had happened to it. I tried to explain that to her, but you know how stubborn some old folks can be.”

“Stubborn as some young folks,” Jake said with a smile, earning a grateful nod from the old woman.

Mary Ann went on to tell how they finally had compromised. Dee would accept half the money she had loaned Mary Ann as payment in full, but she wanted to finish reading the volume before returning it to her friend. Seeing no other recourse—“Really, your great-aunt was quite strong headed about the whole situation”—Mary Ann finally had agreed to her terms. The only problem was that Dee had suffered a stroke and passed away before she’d gotten around to giving it back.

“And ever since then,” Mary Ann finished with a sigh, “I’ve been trying to find my book.”

“But how in the world did you get in without setting off the alarm?” Darla wanted to know. “You don’t have a key or the alarm code.”

Now, the old woman’s expression grew sheepish.

“I suppose, not being from here, you don’t know much about row houses, do you, Darla?” she asked. “Well, most of the homes on this block were erected around the turn of the last century. Your brownstone, mine, and the apartments on your other side were actually all built at the same time.”

Darla nodded. She’d known this much from some of the legal papers she had signed when she inherited the place. Her building (and presumably the others around it) dated to about the 1880s.

“Since the same workers were doing all the construction,” Mary Ann went on, “it didn’t make sense for them to be constantly running out of one house and into the next. So, they very cleverly put in several doors connecting all three houses from the inside. Of course, when they were finished building, the workers bricked up all the connecting doors again, and that was that.”

“Unless someone opened them back up again,” Reese countered with a slow nod. “Are you trying to say that there is still a door between your place and Darla’s?”

“I’m afraid so,” the old woman admitted, her cheeks turning pink. “I don’t know if Dee ever mentioned it, but my father used to own both of these buildings. My family lived in the side where Brother and I now live, and my grandparents lived here in Darla’s brownstone. So you can see that it made sense to keep them connected. After my grandparents died, Papa sold your place to someone else, but no one ever got around to bricking up the doorway again.”

“But I’ve never noticed any extra doors before,” Darla protested. “This hidden one, where is it?”

“It’s in that little alcove under the stairs on the second floor in your storeroom. The door looks like part of the paneling, and the knob is just a wooden latch, so you wouldn’t even see it unless you knew to look for it.” The old woman paused and gave a small chuckle. “You had stacked several boxes in front of it, so I had a doozie of a time getting through there the first time I tried.”

“Sorry,” Darla replied with a contrite smile. Then she narrowed her eyes as she recalled yet another incident, and Mary Ann’s reaction to it. “Wait. What about the night I found those books in neat piles in my living room? Was that you in my apartment, too? You’re the one who stacked the books?”

When Mary Ann gave an abashed nod, she went on, “But I thought you said there was just one door between us. How did you get in?”

“Why, through the dumbwaiter, of course.”

When Darla stared at her in astonishment, Mary Ann continued, “Dee and I were both old ladies who liked a visit, but we couldn’t be running up and down two flights of stairs all the time. It’s far too hard on old knees. So I showed her what Brother and I used to do when we were children—we’d ride up and down the dumbwaiter. How else do you think your aunt made her way down to the store and back every day at her age?

“Oh, perhaps it’s not perfectly safe,” the old woman admitted as Darla continued to gape. “Nothing fun these days is! But it is rather thrilling. And I did insist that she always carry a cell phone with her in case something went wrong and she got stuck. But I promise you, I will never do it again . . . at least, not on your side of the house.”

Jake was grinning outright by now. Reese was attempting a stern look but failing miserably at it. As for Darla, she took another swig of champagne. Really, this was all a bit much for one night!

“All right, Mary Ann,” she replied, raising her hands in surrender, “you’ve explained everything, except why in the heck you just didn’t tell me about the book! I would have been happy to let you search as much as you wanted until you found it.”

“Oh, I couldn’t have done that,” she protested, her pink cheeks now turning bright red.

Darla frowned. “Why not?”

“Well, my dear, I am mortified to admit it, but this is not just any book. It’s filled with etchings of, er, people in the altogether, doing terribly naughty things.”

“You mean, Victorian porn?” Jake broke in with a terribly naughty whoop of her own.

Darla burst into laughter and leaped off the sofa. “Wait right here, Mary Ann. I think I can solve this problem for you.”

So saying, she headed to her bedroom, returning a few moments later carrying a small cardboard box, which she handed to the old woman. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

Veined hands trembling, Mary Ann pulled off the lid and then gasped. “Oh, my dear, this is it,” she cried, pulling book from box and clutching it to her like a favored child. “Wherever did you find it?”

“In the most obvious place of all—Great-Aunt Dee’s bedside table. I must admit, I was a bit shocked when I found it. I knew she was eccentric, but this was bit too—”

“Kinky?” Jake cheerfully supplied, earning a disapproving look from Mary Ann.

“Really, Jake,” the old woman chastised her, “there is nothing wrong with enjoying something naughty so long as it is in the privacy of one’s own home.”

“I’m with you on that, Mary Ann,” Reese spoke up with a broad wink for Darla.

Feeling herself blush almost as bright as Mary Ann, Darla forged on, “—a bit too . . . spicy to sell in a store like Pettistone’s Fine Books. I thought about having James put out the word to his collectors, but I didn’t want us to get the reputation for selling, well, you know—”

“Victorian porn?” Jake once again filled in the uncomfortable blank, this time earning a disapproving look from Darla.

“Erotica,” she firmly finished. Then, turning to Mary Ann, she said, “Believe me, I’m thrilled to give the book back to its rightful owner. And if there’s anything else of yours that Dee had here . . .”

“Oh, no, that was it,” Mary Ann assured her with a prim nod.

Darla smiled and settled back onto the sofa. “You know, for a while I was afraid that Great-Aunt Dee actually was haunting the place,” she confessed with a rueful laugh. “Not that I wouldn’t be happy see her again, but I think I prefer my ghosts on stage and in books.”