P.J. Alderman - Ghost Ship

“Gotta make use of all that legal background.”

She closed her eyes momentarily. “How about I fix us a couple of espressos?” she asked brightly. She gestured in the direction of the other side of the house. “I’ll just, er, use the back door …”

She retreated to the sound of his soft laugh.

So much for her plans for a peaceful, solitary breakfast at her favorite French restaurant.

JASE came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with his feet still bare, as she was grinding the coffee beans. Leaning against the counter, he folded his arms and watched her work. It was starting to feel natural—and comfortable—to have him there.

“Who sent you red roses?” he asked casually.

She gave him a sideways glance as she tamped coffee grounds into the Gruppo. “They weren’t for me.”

He waited, his expression expectant.

“They were for Hattie,” she explained reluctantly. “The ghost of Michael Seavey stole them from the shop a few blocks away. He’s courting her.”

“Really?” Jase grinned. “I like it. The man may have been a shanghaier, but from everything you’ve told me about him, he had class.”

Jordan rolled her eyes, then poured water into the reservoir.

The racket outside started up again, causing her to wince. “That’s worse than a chainsaw, in my opinion. I hope I don’t get complaints from the neighbors.”

“He won’t be at it long. You can tear down an entire house with a sawsall in less than a day. The only reason it’s taking him this long is that they’re probably stopping to remove any salvageable siding. Reproducing historically accurate siding can cost an arm and a leg. It’s worth the labor to remove and refurbish the original shingles.”

She was still stuck back on his remark about destroying an entire house, shuddering at the thought.

“So what’s this about a safe and some money?” Jase asked.

“What? Oh.” She told him the story Hattie had related to her. “So we’ll see. I doubt the money is still there.”

“Hmm.” Jase reached over her for espresso cups. “I wonder why Hattie didn’t make certain Charlotte knew of it. Didn’t Charlotte end up working in a brothel after her sister died? That kind of money would have been enough to support Charlotte well into adulthood, as well as provide a dowry for a husband.”

“I wondered about that myself,” Jordan admitted. “The answer Hattie gave me has more to do with how one ‘comes back’ as a ghost than anything else. If I understood the convoluted explanation I was trying hard not to examine too closely”—Jase grinned again, and she ignored him—“it takes a while to learn the skills you need to return in spectral form. By the time Hattie, er, reappeared, Charlotte was already dead. As was Michael Seavey.”

Jase nodded as if that made sense. “So you have the combination to the safe?”

She finished making a shot of espresso and stared at him in consternation. “Well, shit.”

He chuckled. “You’d better conjure up Hattie between now and when Tom removes that bookcase, unless you don’t mind destroying the safe. And they can be pretty hard to break into without an acetylene torch.”

“Good point.” She handed Jase his cup of espresso, then turned back to make one for herself. Malachi wandered in, yawning, and while more water heated, she fed the dog breakfast. “I wonder if Hattie even remembers the safe combination. After all, she hasn’t had an occasion to use it in well over a hundred years.” She frowned. “And where the hell are they this morning, anyway?”

“Who, and how many, are you talking about?”

“Just the ones who live here—Hattie, Frank, and Charlotte. Michael Seavey lives at the Cosmopolitan and has only visited once.” She paused. “That is, that I know of.”

Tom came through the back door, and she realized that it was blessedly silent once more. He walked around to sit in a chair at the table, a small cloud of sawdust puffing off his clothes. Gratefully accepting the espresso she’d made for herself, he reported, “Turns out the dry rot isn’t quite as bad as I’d feared.” He paused to take an appreciative sip. “It stops just above the French doors in the library, and it didn’t spread too far on either side.”

“How can rot be dry?” she wondered out loud, tamping more coffee grounds.

“It’s a fungal disease that invades lumber, among other things,” Tom explained. “The wood remains relatively dry as the fungi invade the fibers, causing the wood to become brittle and crumbly. But moisture has to be present for it to occur.”

“Yuck.” She decided to avoid that side of the house for the next few weeks. Months, maybe. “Can you get the wall rebuilt today?”

He nodded. “I’ve got a call in to Bill; he’s a whiz at framing, and he doesn’t mind the odd job on top of his bartending. Everyone else is already booked for the summer. But it’s much easier to frame when you’ve got two people,” he explained. “We’ll put up construction plastic for tonight, which will keep everything in the upper parlor from being exposed to the night air. I’ll come back tomorrow and reinstall the siding.”

“If you need help, I can give you a half day tomorrow,” Jase offered.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Tom replied. “The more, the merrier.”

Jordan cocked her head. “I’m confused—I thought you were a painter. Explain to me why I’m not calling a carpenter?”

“I am a painter,” he replied, “but I’ve done a lot of this type of work. When you work on old houses, you pretty much become a jack of all trades. Most of the really skilled carpenters I know are all working jobs right now; you don’t ever want to use one who doesn’t know what he’s doing. And that dry rot really can’t wait.”

“Don’t worry,” Jase assured her. “We know what we’re doing.”

“Do you think we need to put off trying to get into the wall safe?” she asked. “It’s not as high a priority.”

“Not a good plan,” Jase replied, “in case the money is what the burglar is after. The sooner we figure out whether it exists—and if it does, put the rumor out that you’ve removed it from the house—the better I’ll sleep at night.”

“Did something happen last night?” Tom asked.

“Break-in,” Jordan replied. “Someone ransacked the library.”

“That’s solves the alphabetizing issue,” Jase told Tom.

Jordan slanted them a look.

“We were concerned,” Tom allowed, grinning.

“Keep it up,” she warned.

“Did the burglar get anything?”

“No.” She thought more about the framing project. “I’m a bit uneasy about how you all are always volunteering to help on the house. I don’t know how I’ll ever pay you back.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Tom said with a shrug. “Around here, everyone pitches in when needed. And the time will come when you can return the favor. Until then,” he added with a grin, “the entertainment value for us is real high. You have no idea how much we appreciate that.”

“If you’re feeling indebted, I need another bartender tonight,” Jase added.

“Sure.” Since their cups were empty, she went back to pulling espresso shots.

“I asked a couple of workers last night at the pub about the hotel job Holt was working on.” Tom settled back in his chair.

“You’re referring to those guys I saw you seated with?”

“Yeah. They said Holt definitely was losing money. According to the rumors on the street, Clive Walters was complaining that Holt’s work was substandard and asking him to redo a lot of it.”

Jase shifted, frowning. “That doesn’t sound like Holt.”