P.J. Alderman - Ghost Ship

“He pushed you?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll get one of the techs to use UV light on you to see if they can raise the beginning of any bruises. You may have handprints on you.”

“That sounds slightly kinky.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Okay, what else? Clothes? Hair? Coloring?”

“Jeans and a hoodie—black, I think. I couldn’t see either hair or coloring, though I remember a pale glimpse of his face.”

“So we’ve got an assailant of unknown build and weight, average height, unknown coloring, and wearing a hoodie and jeans. Just great.” Darcy shook her head. “Real helpful.”

Jordan had a thought. “Check Malachi—I heard him barking right after I fell; he might have gotten in a bite. And if he did, there might be bits of fabric, or even DNA, caught between his teeth, right?”

Darcy yelled for a technician. It took him several minutes to convince Malachi to let a stranger look inside his mouth. Nothing.

Jordan fed him a treat for the indignity he had to suffer, then cocked her head in the direction of the house. She could see the other crime-scene techs inside, processing the living room. “So do you think my attacker was burglarizing the place?”

Darcy shrugged. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to tell. It was always a filthy mess; now, it’s just messier.”

“Actually, I was here fairly recently—I might remember a few items.”

“Are your prints in the system? Did Drake ever fingerprint you during the investigation down in California?” Darcy asked, referring to the LAPD detective who’d been convinced Jordan was guilty of her husband’s murder.

“No, why?”

“Because if I let you inside, I’ll need to take your prints for elimination purposes. I don’t necessarily have to put them in the system, but there’s always a chance they’d end up there. Are you okay with that?”

Jordan shrugged. “Sure. I touched the handle and the front panel of the door, so you probably should take my prints anyway.”

“Just be careful not to touch anything unnecessarily, okay?”

Together, they climbed the front steps and walked into the living room. Furniture had been tossed, tables overturned. But a flat-panel television still hung on the wall over the fireplace, which was filled with empty beer cans and looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades.

Jordan nodded in the direction of the television. “I’d say that’s a pretty good indication that the person’s motive wasn’t robbery. Aren’t those worth over a thousand?”

“Yeah,” Darcy replied, studying the room. “Look around—was it this messy the last time you were here?”

Jordan frowned. “No. There were a few pizza boxes piled up on the coffee table with some empty beer bottles, and of course there was dust everywhere, but this mess looks more … methodical . Like someone went through the room and flipped every cushion, moved every picture, opened every drawer. And it looks like he was in a real hurry, since nothing was properly replaced.”

“Yeah, I agree.” Darcy was silent while she looked the room over a second time. “Or else, he didn’t care if he straightened up behind himself.”

Jordan glanced around, hoping to spy the papers Holt had lifted from the hotel. She caught Darcy watching her with one eyebrow raised. Avoiding her gaze, Jordan headed for the bedroom and its adjacent bathroom.

The bed was unmade, the sheets half pulled off. The closet doors stood ajar, hanging clothes shoved to one end of the rack. No papers on the nightstand, either.

Toiletries sat haphazardly on the bathroom counter, along with substances Jordan didn’t want to examine too closely, and the medicine cabinet door hung open. The toilet seat was up and smelled of urine. Struck by a thought, she headed over to look inside the closet to confirm her suspicions. “It doesn’t look like a woman has been living here, right? No clothes in the closet except a man’s, no women’s shampoo, makeup, et cetera, in the bathroom.”

“Maybe he always went to her house,” Darcy suggested. “Women typically like to spend the night at their place, not at a guy’s.”

She was right. Jordan had gotten as far as thinking about the possibility of spending the night with Jase, but she’d always been stopped—at least, partially—by the lack of privacy at her home. And whenever she thought about going to his place instead, she hadn’t been ready to take a step that big. It seemed somehow like more of a commitment, and she was betting any woman who was picking up subliminally on Holt’s lack of respect would have instinctively felt the same way.

“Well, whoever came through here, he was looking for something,” she concluded.

“I wonder what?” Darcy mused, still studying the room.

Jordan had an idea or two, but she figured it would be better to mention them after she’d poured a couple of glasses of wine down Darcy’s throat at the pub. “So if it wasn’t a burglar and it wasn’t an ex-girlfriend picking up her belongings, …”

“It was probably the same person who murdered Holt,” Darcy confirmed bluntly, finishing Jordan’s thought.

How pleasant—she’d probably just been assaulted by a killer. It was a good thing Malachi had been with her to scare him off. From now on, the dog could have as much organic food as he wanted.

AFTER making a plan with Darcy to meet later at the pub, Jordan dropped by home to see if she could catch up with Charlotte. She needed to ask her some questions about her relationship with Jesse Canby. Now that Jordan had thought about it, she was fairly certain Charlotte had started to say something the night before about what Michael Seavey had been up to in 1893.

Parking at the curb in front of Longren House, she let Malachi out of the back of the Prius and crossed the front lawn to climb the porch steps. Inside the door, a tall vase crammed with a jumble of long-stemmed, red roses sat on a small side table. Roses? She searched her brain. Jase, perhaps? It certainly didn’t seem like something he’d do out of the blue, but what girl didn’t go all instantly mushy at the sight of red roses? Feeling a thrill of pleasure at the unexpected gift, Jordan crossed the entry and leaned over to sniff them while she looked for the florist’s card. Petals dropped onto the table in a shower; evidently the flowers had been bruised during transport by a careless delivery person.

“The roses are from Michael,” Hattie said from behind her. “Wasn’t it a nice gesture?”

Jordan stopped hunting for the card, noting Hattie’s blush. Okay, so not from Jase, but from a ghost. That explained the slight damage and messy arrangement. She straightened some of the stems, allowing herself a moment to swallow her disappointment.

“You don’t happen to know which florist he ripped off, do you?” she asked, trying not to sound cranky. “So that I can go by and pay them for the flowers?”

“Ripped off?”

Jordan rephrased. “Which florist he stole the roses from.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Hattie said loyally.

“For the shop owner trying to run a profitable business, not so much.” Jordan paused, making a connection from her reading earlier. “Do you have a middle name?”

“Why, yes,” Hattie replied, looking perplexed by the question. “Dale.”

“Flowers!” Charlotte floated down the hallway from the kitchen. “Oh, Hattie!”

Frank appeared in the library doorway. “The man has hidden motives.” His expression was grim.

“Oh, I don’t think this one is very hidden,” Jordan replied before Hattie could protest.

“Certainly not!” Charlotte agreed. “He really loves Hattie!”

Frank folded his arms. “I have no doubt Seavey wants more from Hattie than her affections. He must suspect she still has assets he can get hold of, or that perhaps she can provide him a certain social legitimacy with others in our community.” He shrugged. “Sending flowers is a brazen attempt to manipulate her affections.”