The Carriage House. Carla Neggers
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subsided, slowly. “Tippy Tail?”
Her cell phone was missing, too. It must have gone flying at the same time she had. She brought the lantern around, searching for cat and cell phone.
She spotted the phone in the dirt under the bed frame.
But no cat.
She wasn’t about to continue the night without a phone. Ignoring her bruises and scrapes, she lifted the bed frame and reached down into the dirt. “Just don’t think,” she muttered.
Her light caught something. She wasn’t sure what, but her response was visceral, almost primal. Adrenaline pumped into her bloodstream, and her muscles tightened, every fiber of her body and soul urging her to run.
Bones.
Her mind registered what the rest of her already knew she had seen.
Bones.
And not rat bones. Human bones.
No. This was not possible. She was imagining things because she was totally grossed out from falling onto the dirt floor.
She steadied her lantern for another look. “Jesus.”
It was a human skeleton. A skull, right there in the dirt under the bed frame. She must have dislodged the shallow grave when she’d taken her spill.
Well, it wasn’t a real skeleton. It couldn’t be. Some weird doctor or mad scientist must have lived here, had himself a little fun. It could not be real.
The skull looked real.
“’Alas, poor Yorick.’” Her voice was a rasping, dust-choked whisper, and she couldn’t breathe. She coughed, sick to her stomach. “Holy shit.”
She was blinking rapidly, unable to get a decent breath. Her heartbeat was wild. She took a step backward, then another, then turned and ran.
When she reached the laundry room, she screamed. It was a cathartic scream, no holds barred, loud and deep and unrepressed. When she finished, she shuddered. “Damn.”
She was shaking now, and she flipped off the light and stumbled up the bulkhead steps, just managing to hold on to her lantern. “Holy shit.”
A cat having kittens. Cobwebs. A spooky, dark, old cellar.
And a skeleton.
“My God.”
She didn’t even sound like herself. She charged out into the cool, clear, clean night air and slammed the bulkhead door shut as fast as she could, as if the skeleton might swoop up out of there.
She breathed deeply. Lilacs tinged with ocean salt. The wind was calmer. She breathed again.
“Ike—Jesus, what the hell was that?”
She was drenched in sweat, shaking, coughing dust and God only knew what, and she breathed again, trying to calm herself.
She had no idea what to do. Call the police? Her father? Davey? What did she know about the Beacon-by-the-Sea police? She was alone up here in a strange town, at night. Susanna would come in a flash. Her ex-husband was a Texas Ranger, her parents both in law enforcement.
No. Tess shook her head, breathing more slowly now, more deeply. She must have imagined the skeleton—or, with her vivid imagination, turned something innocent into a skull. This place had been in the Beacon Historic Project’s hands for five years before Ike had turned it over to her. Surely they’d have noticed if a damn skeleton was buried in the cellar.
Maybe it was just a dog skeleton, or a raccoon. Not human.
Ike.
That was more than her mind could comprehend. She wouldn’t even let the thought form completely. This was an old house. Whatever was down in her dirt cellar could have been there for more than a century.
Maybe it was Ike’s idea of a joke.
She brushed herself off, wondering what had happened to the cat. And if her neighbors had heard her scream.
Seven
Harl showed up at Andrew’s back door with a baseball bat. It was after ten, dark outside. “You hear that?”
Andrew nodded. “It wasn’t the wind.”
“Nope.” Harl rolled the bat in his big, callused palm. “I know a scream when I hear one. You want to call 911?”
That had been Andrew’s first impulse, but he shook his head. “We don’t know enough. I’ll check next door. You stay here with Dolly. She’s asleep.”
“Watch yourself.”
“Our new neighbor probably just tripped in the dark. Let me see what’s up.”
The bloody-murder scream had drawn him to the back porch, where he’d already flipped a light. He had his flashlight from the kitchen, debated taking some sort of weapon. He dismissed the idea. That was Harl-thinking.
“I’ll stay out here,” Harl said. He wasn’t giving up his baseball bat. “You need help, yell.”
“Under no circumstances are you to leave Dolly here alone.”
Harl nodded. “Understood.”
Andrew set out across the lawn, the grass soft under his feet. He didn’t need his flashlight until he was at the lilac hedge at the far side of the yard. Dolly was small enough to find an opening she could fit through, but he followed his side of the hedge out to the street, then hooked around to the carriage house driveway.
He heard someone breathing, gulping in air in the dark.
“Tess?” He pointed his bright arc of light at her kitchen steps, moved it back toward the lilacs. “Tess, are you out here?”
His light caught her in the face as she stood in the overgrown grass at the other end of the driveway. She blinked rapidly, blinded, and he lowered the flashlight.
“Oh, it’s you.” She choked a little as she spoke, then rallied. “Thank God. I didn’t know who might be sneaking around out here. You heard me yell?”
He nodded, watching her closely. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Yes, fine.”
She walked over to the steps, moving unsteadily, almost drunkenly, and sat, putting a hand on her upper chest, as if trying to still a wild heartbeat. She pushed her other hand through her short curls. She wasn’t looking at him, didn’t seem to be looking at anything.
Andrew switched off the flashlight, the light from the open kitchen door sufficient. “What’s going on?”
“I was startled, and I yelled. Screamed my head off, actually.” She cleared her throat and attempted a smile. “I found your cat.”
“Tippy Tail?” He took another step toward her, still watching. She had strong, attractive features, nothing delicate or tentative about her. But she’d had a scare. He could see that. “Dolly will be pleased.”
Tess nodded. “I hope my scream didn’t wake her up.”
He saw she was more pale than he’d thought, and her clothes were streaked with dirt and cobwebs. He noticed a scrape on her left wrist, another on her jaw-line. And more cobwebs in her hair.
He stood at the bottom of the steps and touched her jaw next to the scrape. She had soft, smooth skin. “The cat do this?”
She shook her head. “No, no,” she said, her voice hoarse. Whatever had happened, she was stemming a shock reaction. Chattering teeth, trembling, rapid heartbeat. She looked as if she had every muscle in her body tensed to keep herself from jumping out of her skin. “I just fell. It was stupid. I heard the cat down in the cellar and went to investigate.”
“At night? You’re braver than I am. Old Tippy Tail would have been on her own if I’d heard her.”