Page 60 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
Both Jack and Thomas looked longingly at the photographs. Turning his head back to address my mother, Thomas said, “That sounds likefun. I’ve got all those nieces and nephews I have to buy gifts for, so the Shop and Stroll could be just what I need.”
“And they have a service just for men, to help them select gifts,” my mother said as she sidled up to my dad. “Although I must say that some men don’t need any help at all.”
I started to roll my eyes but stopped when I saw Jayne looking at them with adoration. I was thrilled my parents had found each other again and were so much in love. And, yes, our relationship with each other had a difficult past, but we’d moved so far beyond those old resentments and hurts. Or we should have. Even I recognized this. Maybe negative emotions were like bad habits, and I needed a twelve-step program to cure myself so I could move forward without all that baggage tethered to my ankles that kept me firmly planted in the past. I made a mental note to add that to the top of my New Year’s resolutions spreadsheet.
“Great,” I said. “Everyone get bundled up. I’d rather take an Uber, but I don’t feel like arguing with Jack, who apparently enjoys the cold. We’ve got a long walk in the frozen tundra, but I understand there are warm drinks waiting.”
“It’s not that cold,” everyone said at once as I wrapped my scarf around my neck twice and tucked my hair and ears under my knit cap.
“Humph,” I said, shoving my gloved hands into the pockets of my coat and leading everyone out the front door.
We’d made it only to the end of the drive before Jack’s phone rang. He looked at the screen and groaned. “It’s Harvey. I’m going to let him leave a message.”
We’d left him and his crew at the house for the second night in a row, the previous night being a complete wash because none of their equipment would work for some reason. Nola and the twins had been forced to camp out at my parents’—a small price to pay, according to Nola.
I frowned. “I think you should answer it. Maybe he’s just telling you he’s leaving forever and wants to know how to set the alarm.”
Jack frowned back at me but hitANSWERon his phone. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but the growing smile on Jack’s face told meit was good news. When he’d hung up, he put the phone back into his jacket pocket.
“Are they done?” I asked.
“Nope. First of all, he needed to complain about the man with his crack showing above his pants who was working in the dining room and wouldn’t leave.”
“That’s Rich Kobylt,” I said. “He wanted to finish the dining room floor before Christmas so he could spend time with his kids, who will be home from college, and I told him he could take as long as he needed.” I grinned at the success of my plan.
“And then he said the power kept going off but that the breakers were still in the on position and none of the other houses on the street were without their lights.” He sounded practically jovial now. “Then he said most of his crew ran out of the house after the lighting guy said he saw a woman standing behind him in the mirror in the front parlor, but when he turned around no one was there.”
“Go figure,” I said, my smile matching his.
He looked up into the clear night sky and put his arm around me, pulling me close. “Have I ever mentioned what a brilliant team we make?”
“I think so. But I don’t think I’d ever get tired of you saying it.”
We stopped on the sidewalk, allowing the others to walk around us as Jack bent his head to kiss me. “I think we’re on the home stretch now, Mellie. I think we’re right on the cusp of getting Marc Longo out of our lives forever.” He kissed me again. “We’re going to bury him alive.”
He pulled me close to his side, walking fast to catch up to the rest of our group. “Still cold?” he asked.
I nodded, unable to tell him that the trembling of my lips had nothing to do with the air temperature, and more to do with remembering Rebecca’s dream and how it hadn’t been Marc being buried alive.
CHAPTER 21
We stood in the elegant lobby of the Francis Marion Hotel beneath antique crystal chandeliers, soaring ceilings, and tall columns with gilt acanthus leaves on their capitals. The hotel had undergone a face-lift in the late nineties, winning a twelve-million-dollar restoration award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and, more important, the approval of my friend (and sometime nemesis) Dr. Sophie Wallen-Arasi. The restoration team had brought the hotel back to its nineteen-twenties elegance, which, although beautiful, was one of the reasons I usually avoided this particular hotel.
“Do you hear that?” I asked Jayne.
“The twenties music?” She nodded. “Have you spotted the girl dancing the Charleston in midair where a table must have once been?”
I almost didn’t turn, not wanting to attract the spirit’s unwelcome attention, but couldn’t stop myself. There was something about seeing unadulterated history as it had been lived, even in brief snippets, that was the one and only part of my sixth sense that I didn’t hate.
The girl, not much older than Nola, had blond, bobbed hair peeking out of a net cap with dangling pearls over her ears. Her drop-waist dress and long ropes of pearls swung in sync with her kicking legs as shedanced the Charleston, the low heels on her ankle-strapped shoes making soft thudding noises each time they landed on the invisible table.
I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t, because now her dance movements had slowed as she became aware that someone was watching her. That someone could see her. She stopped completely and slowly turned toward us so that we could see her entire face, including the dark bruise that covered one cheek and the red blood dripping from her nose and lips.
We watched each other for a long moment, as if each was expecting the other to make the first move. “We should go,” I said softly to Jayne, who was also unable to turn away from the sad eyes of the flapper.
“We could help her, you know,” Jayne whispered back. “Not right now, but later. We could ask the hotel to allow us access so we can find out what’s keeping her here and send her on her way.”
“Send who on her way?” Thomas appeared at our sides with a glass of wine from the lobby’s corner bar in each hand.
