Page 84 of The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street
“Hmm,” I said noncommittally, eagerly filing away the information to use later.
He glanced at the screen of his phone. “Sorry—I’ve got to run. Let me go grab the fabric swatch and my cookies from the kitchen and I’ll see myself out. I’ll be in touch after I speak with Uncle Oliver.”
“Thanks so much, Greco.”
I listened to the sound of his boots heading down the stairs as I began to scoop up the dead bees onto a paint-swatch board, disappointed that Greco had remembered he’d left his little bag of cookies in the kitchen. When I was done, I dumped the dead bees into an empty paint can being used as a trash receptacle and headed down the stairs, eager to share with Jack the signet ring and the brooch Meghan had found in the cistern.
A loud, hacking cough came from the direction of my bedroom. I ran back up the stairs and pushed on the partially open door. Jack lay huddled under the covers, his teeth chattering. I moved quickly to the bed and placed the back of my hand on his forehead.
“Jack—you’re burning up!” I looked at the digital thermometer on the bedside table. “Did you already take your temperature?”
He nodded, his teeth continuing their chatter. “It’s one hund-d-d-dred and f-f-four.” He attempted a smile, but it looked more like a grimace. “I h-h-have a f-f-fever because you’re st-st-standing so n-near.”
Despite how horrible he looked, I smiled. “Right.” I leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, my lips burning where they contacted his skin. “I’m going to get something to give you to bring down the fever, then call your doctor. This could be the flu that’s been going around, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
I took a wool throw from the back of one of the two armchairs and placed it on top of him, tucking it around him before sitting down on the mattress. “Is there anything else I can get for you? I could read to you. Or sing.”
His eyes widened in alarm. “N-n-n-no. P-p-please.” He widened his eyes hopefully. “Ch-ch-chicken s-s-soup?”
“Sure. I’ll ask Mrs. Houlihan. If she can’t make you some, I’ll open a can for you.”
He smiled, then closed his eyes. I kissed him again, then stood, absently wondering if I could stick a Santa hat on his head and leave him in the bed just in case he wasn’t better in time for the progressive dinner. “I’ll be right back. I’ll leave the door open in case you need something, and you can shout. The bell I used when I was on bed rest with the twins somehow disappeared before they were born.”
Jack began coughing again and I hurried from the room toward the stairs, my steps slowing as I reached the hallway outside Nola’s bedroom. The door was open, although I was positive I’d closed it to keep the dogs out. I took a step forward to close it but stopped as my stockinged foot landed in a puddle of liquid.
I immediately thought of Bess, who still occasionally had accidents in the house when the weather conditions and temperature weren’t to her liking and therefore not conducive to her using the outdoor facilities.
My gaze traveled past the threshold and into the room, where the puddles continued in a pattern. The kind of pattern wet feet would make. I looked down at where I’d stepped into one of the footprints, noticing how big and solid it was. Definitely not a bare foot, then. Most likely a booted foot, the narrower heel of each footprint making it clear that the wearer had been headed from the room toward the stairs. I thought for a moment I should call Greco and ask him if he’d stepped in anything, but I stopped when the unmistakable scent of gunpowder and leather saturated the air in the room.
“Alexander?” I whispered.
The only response was the buzz of a lone bee as it flew around my head before colliding with the window, its body plummeting to the windowsill, where it lay still and quiet.
CHAPTER 29
I searched behind all of the greenery draped around the front door of my parents’ house on Legare Street for the doorbell. I knew it was there, just well hidden beneath the fruits of the zealous administrations of the decorating committee. I recognized the enormous and stunning wreath as the one my mother had made at the workshop, and I tried not to compare it to my own pathetic attempt. Of all the gifts I’d inherited from my mother, apparently talents for singing and wreath making hadn’t been included. Not for the first time, I wished I’d been given a choice as to which genes I wanted. And which ones I didn’t.
The sky sat leaden and ominous above us, the scent in the air unfamiliar to us Charleston natives. The meteorologists on every channel kept predicting snow, but the models weren’t exactly clear as to when or how much. One even said it would miss us entirely and head straight to North Carolina. I just kept hoping the storm would hit hard Saturday so that the progressive dinner would be canceled and I could get back to work on figuring out what was hidden in the mausoleum.
When my finger finally found the doorbell button, I pressed it, then waited for the dulcet tones of the chime. After trying two more times and not hearing anything—typical in the damp and salty climate of theLowcountry—I knocked. Then knocked again. Finally, I resorted to pulling out the key that my mother insisted I have and let myself in.
“Mother,” I shouted from the foyer. Despite her constant reminders that this was my house, too, and I didn’t need to make an appointment to see her, I’d sent her a quick text to let her know I was coming. Just in case she and my father were busy. Doing exactly what, I didn’t want to know, but I did want to give them fair warning.
I walked through the foyer, which was bedecked, similarly to mine, in garland and fruit, my grandmother’s furniture a warm and familiar backdrop to the decorations. She’d loved Christmas and had always made it a special time for me despite the tension between my parents. Her antique miniature English village had been set out on the center-hall table, the small figures of a caroling choir dressed in distinctive Victorian garb. I wondered if Sophie knew about this and had given her blessing. Not that it mattered. My mother had a way of doing what she wanted while making others think it was their idea. And Sophie, a huge opera fan, was always a little starstruck where my mother was concerned.
“Mother!” I called again, peeking into the front parlor with the stained glass window, then back through the foyer toward the dining room. “Mother!” I shouted, more loudly this time.
“Back here,” called a small voice toward the back of the house.
I made my way through the kitchen and a narrow hallway into a glass-walled sunroom that my father had transformed into a greenhouse. My mother used it as a morning room to drink her tea and listen to her music, piped through brand-new speakers hidden within the walls according to Sophie’s advice. The room had been a later addition to the house, but that was no reason to desecrate (Sophie’s word) the integrity of a historic house with unsightly modern conveniences.
My mother, wearing a thick red velvet lounging robe and matching slippers, reclined on a chaise, delicately sipping from a teacup. “Hello, Mellie. I’m sorry—I didn’t hear the doorbell.”
“It didn’t...” I began, then stopped when I realized she wasn’t alone.
“Hi, Melanie.” Rebecca sat opposite my mother in an upholstered armchair that had been my grandmother’s but was recently re-covered ina gorgeous Liberty of London floral print. Rebecca looked small and wan within its brightly patterned cushions, and I wondered if she might be sick. Or if something had happened to Pucci, since her ubiquitous four-legged companion wasn’t with her. Her eyes looked puffy and red rimmed and I wondered if she might have lost her favorite pair of pink gloves.
“Oh, hello, Rebecca. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
