Someone to Love (14 page)

I
feel like a clown,” Nigh said, and even to herself she sounded petulant, like a pouting child. She pulled up the long sweatpants so she wouldn’t walk on them. The bottoms of the pant legs had cuffs on them, and the waist tied with a drawstring, but in between there were about ten yards of fabric that hung about her. The top was just as bad. When she bent over the neckline fell away so you could see all the way to the floor. It was not sexy. As for shoes, all she had were her new, but ruined, high heels. She had on a pair of Jace’s gym socks.

Jace glanced at her, nodded, then looked back at the screen of his laptop. “What do we have so far?”

Nigh was sitting on the window seat in the chintz bedroom. It had started to rain outside so Jace built a fire. The room was cozy and warm and altogether wonderful. If circumstances were different, she would be enjoying herself. Maybe it was a bit odd that she and Jace were in a bedroom, but it was the room that had been made to look like Ann’s room, so Nigh told herself it was part of the research. But there was something wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was a feeling. Several times her life had depended on her going with her gut feelings and this was one of those times.

“What is it that you want to prove?” Nigh asked, her tone a bit more aggressive than she meant it to be.

“I think we should start with proving that Ann didn’t kill herself,” Jace said.

“How can we find out what happened a hundred and twenty-eight years ago? If Ann left a note, it was destroyed by her father. If she wrote letters or kept a diary, they were destroyed too.”

“What about who she wrote letters to? Maybe they kept them,” Jace said.

“If we read all Ann’s letters, what would we find out? That she wanted to marry Danny Longstreet? Maybe we’d find out that Danny wanted to marry her. But we already know these things. How can we find out what happened in those last few minutes before she died?”

“Being in love doesn’t stop someone from committing suicide,” Jace said softly, then looked at her. “What would we have if we did prove that Ann was murdered? The right to move her bones into the churchyard? I’m not sure, but I’ll bet that if you talk to the vicar he’ll move them now.”

“Probably,” Nigh said, looking out the window.

Jace put his laptop on the bed and went to stand by her. “You want me to take you home?” he asked.

“And have people pounding on my door asking me for a job performing séances?”

“Are you really angry about that? It was either you or me and you started it,” Jace said. “I think—”

She looked up at him. “No, I can handle those people. It’s something else. It’s something about this room. I don’t think Ann wants me in here. Maybe she’s as much in love with you as you are with her.”

“I’m not—” Jace began, then reached out to touch her hair, but he drew back. “So where is this tower that used to hold the lady highwayman’s clothes?”

“Great idea!” she said, then got off the window—and promptly tripped on the sweatpants. Jace caught her before she hit the floor, but he quickly let her go.

It took them a minute before they could get the old door open. It was easier to open from inside the tunnel. Once they were out of Ann’s bedroom, Nigh felt better. She gave a sigh of relief and for a moment leaned against the stone wall. “You can see her but I think I can feel her. She’s frustrated about something and I can feel it. I don’t think we’re doing what she wants us to do.” She looked at Jace in the candlelight. “Or maybe Ann is angry that I’m taking up your time.”

“If there’s one thing in the world a person knows, it’s when another person loves you,” Jace said. “Not mouths the words, but really means it. I’m sure I’d know if Ann or any other woman was in love with me. She’s not.”

“So what’s this all about?” Nigh asked, looking at him. “Why has she been showing herself to you? In all my research, I’ve never heard of anyone else seeing Ann.”

“But everyone who has lived here has seen ghosts,” he said. “They assumed it was the criminal woman and got the heck out. I don’t think they were seeing the robber; I think it was Ann. But from all I’ve heard, the only people who were really able to communicate with her have been children.”

Nigh started up the stairs. The stones were cold through the thick socks, but it felt good to have Jace with her. She’d been up the steps a hundred times but always by herself and when she was a child. Had Ann Stuart looked after her when she was small?

“If you’re the first adult she’s been able to reach and you’re not doing what she wants, maybe that’s her frustration.” She looked back at him. “If you see her again, be sure and ask her what it is she wants you to do.”

“My guess is that she wants us to find Danny Longstreet’s ghost and get it to her so they can fly off to heaven together,” Jace said, smiling.

Nigh didn’t say anything for the rest of the way up the stairs and neither did Jace.

At the top was the round turret room, about ten feet in diameter. There was an old chair in the room and the windowsills were covered with small ornaments from outdoors: a bird’s nest, three seashells, a striped rock, lots of dried leaves.

Jace knew that these things had been put there by Nigh when she was a child. “The playhouse of a little girl,” he said, picking up the items and looking at them. “It’s amazing that no one found out you were here.”

“I think Hatch knew, but no one else. My parents didn’t know. And, of course, the house has been vacant most of my life.”

“When was the last time you were here?”

“The day my mother died. Everyone wanted to give me sympathy, but I just wanted to be alone. This was the only place that I could escape to where no one could find me. I stayed for most of a day, and when I went down, I could face them.”

When Jace said nothing, she turned to him. “Has anyone close to you died?”

“Yes,” he said, succinctly and curtly, obviously wanting to say no more.

“Does that death have anything to do with this house and why you want to find out about Ann?”

Jace looked down at her and seemed to be debating what to tell her. After a while, he looked back out the window and said, “Yes, it does.”

Nigh started to ask more questions, but he turned to her with a scowl on his face.

“That’s it. That’s all I’m telling you and if you want to keep this so-called job, you won’t ask me any more questions. I’m cold. I’m going down.” He turned and started down the stairs.

Behind him, Nigh smiled. She felt as though she’d just won an award. She had pierced his armor! It was a tiny hole she’d made in it, but she’d widen it.

If she knew how to whistle, she would have whistled as she skipped down the old stairs, and when she got back into the chintz room, she was smiling.

“I was right. We
must
find Danny Longstreet,” Jace said.

“You mean his grave?”

“His last place of residence, or the place he loved. Something about him. But we
need
to find him.”

“Good idea,” Nigh said. “But what’s made you so fierce about it?”

“This.” He turned his laptop around so she could see the screen. In big red letters, it said,
Find Danny Longstreet.

Nigh rubbed her forearms because the hairs had stood up on them. “I guess that’s clear enough.”

“What do you know about him, other than his death and illegitimate child?”

“That’s about it. What I know comes from the vicar’s diary. He didn’t write anything about Danny until he told of his death, then he backtracked and told about the baby that was being raised in Margate by its mother. It’s been years since I read it, so I don’t remember if he told where Danny was living at the time. I know that after Ann died, Danny’s father didn’t buy Priory House.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Where’s the diary?

“Guess.”

“In your house, the one that’s surrounded by paranormals with machines.”

Nigh’s head came up. “Did you ever think of—”

“So help me, if you suggest that I allow those charlatans into Ann’s room to muck about, I’m going to toss you out in the rain, from
that
window.”

Nigh blinked at him. “Good thing you’re not in love with her.”

“Would you cut that out? You cannot be in love with someone you’ve ‘met’ three times.”

For a moment they looked at each other, then Jace looked down at the computer.

“I’ll call Jerry,” Nigh said. “Maybe he’ll know something about his ancestor. What?” she asked when Jace started shaking his head in wonder.

“Only in England,” he said, “would someone know that far back on his family tree.”

“If he knows, it’s my guess it’s because Danny’s father had bags of money, but his descendants have none. Wonder what happened to it? Gambling? Racehorses?”

“My guess is women,” Jace said, then saw one of the glass bottles fall off the dressing table and hit the floor.

“Don’t do that!” Nigh said to the room at large. “Maybe he can take seeing ghosts, but I have a weak heart.”

Jace picked up the telephone on the bedside table and held it out to Nigh. “If Longstreet’s not home, you’ll probably reach him at your house.”

“Funny,” Nigh said. “You’re a real scream.”

She called information, got the number for Longstreet’s Garage, then pushed the buttons. Jerry answered on the fourth ring.

“Jerry? This is Nigh. Remember me?”

“Nightingale, baby, honey, of course I remember you.”

Even though she put the receiver close to her ear, Jerry spoke as loudly as if he were standing in the room, and she knew that Jace could hear every word. She turned her back to him.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“Oh, sweetheart, I have some questions for you too. And some ideas about this new business you started. I was thinking of a ghost car. One of those big American things with the fins. I could fix it up for you so it would scream when you sat down in it. Like the idea?”

“Love it,” Nigh said. “We’ll have to discuss it in detail. What I wanted to ask you about was an ancestor of yours, Danny Longstreet.”

“Randy Danny?”

At the derogatory term, she looked back at Jace just in time to see one of the ceramic figures start to slide off the mantel. Jace caught it before it hit the floor.

“Listen, Jerry,” she continued, “do you know where Danny was living when he died?”

“Oh yeah. A house named Tolben Hall. It’s in Hampshire. It’s a B and B now. My mother used to tell us kids that that house should have been ours. Danny’s father bought it after he had to get his son out of Margate. Danny left too many bastards behind. It was too hot for them to stay here.”

Jace caught another figure before it hit the floor, but he couldn’t catch one of the perfume bottles that went flying off the dressing table.

“What was that?” Jerry asked.

“Nothing. Rain hitting the window.”

“So, Nigh, honey, when am I gonna see you again? I’ve missed you. Seen you on TV some, but that ain’t the same as a little snog in the backseat, now is it? You still got that heart-shaped mole on—”

“Jerry!” Nigh said loudly. “You’ve been a really big help, and I can’t thank you enough. I’ll see you, uh, sometime, I’m sure. Say hello to, uh, whoever your girlfriend is now.”

“Ain’t got one.”

“I know,” Nigh said tiredly. “You don’t have one, you have a hundred.”

“You do remember me, honey bear. Give me a call about that car. I think it’ll be a hit at your Ghost Center.”

She said good-bye, then hung up—and dreaded the look on Jace’s face.

But he was at his computer and didn’t look up. “Here it is. Tolben Hall in Hampshire. Shall I give them a call?”

“Sure,” Nigh said tentatively, waiting for him to say something. “About Jerry…”

“None of my business,” he said, concentrating on the screen.

“It’s just that we dated in school, and we were friends, that’s all. And now because of you and this Ghost Center—”

“You made that up, not me.”

“All right, my Ghost Center, then. He’s pretty excited about it and, well…”

Jace looked up from the computer. “We’ll stay at this place and have a look around. Like the idea?”

She held out the bulky gray fabric of the sweatpants she was wearing. “Unless I go back to my house, this is all I have to wear.”

He looked at her. “That is a problem. Think you could slip in the back door of your house and get some clothes?”

“And not be seen? Not even in the middle of the night.”

“Hey! I know. Why don’t you call your landlord and ask him to get some things for you. He must have a key.”

She looked at him as though he was daft.
“You
are my landlord.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Do you really not know that? Why in the world did you buy this enormous house that you obviously know nothing about?” She’d meant it as a rhetorical question, but the look on his face made her know she had made yet another dent in his armor.