Chapter Four

"It's okay to breathe, you know," Ricky murmured.

Because, yeah, I was holding my breath, so I let it out in a rush.

I was standing in what was apparently a slate-tiled mud room, and it had more doors than walls. The one to the right probably led to the garage I'd passed on the way to the backyard. The swinging door midway down the left wall clearly led further into the house, since, you know, that's where the rest of the house was.

The left-hand door immediately to the left was ajar, revealing a… what did they call them when a bathroom only had a sink and toilet? Powder room? Half-bath? I should know this stuff—I'd ghostwritten enough real estate copy, but for some reason, I couldn't dredge up any of it from long-term memory.

Straight ahead, almost flush with the right-hand wall, an open door revealed a landing with stairs leading both up and down. To the left of it, the walls sported shelving at my head height and again about even with my shins.

Ricky's breath hitched, and I glanced at him in concern. His eyes just cleared my shoulder and his gaze was fixed on a red fleece jacket that was hanging from one of the row of brass hooks that lined the wall under the upper shelves.

He caught my gaze. "Sorry. I just hadn't realized some of Avi's stuff would still be here. That's his jacket." He jerked his chin at the boots on the lower shelf—one pair of wellies and another pair of hiking boots. "His boots."

"Do you think all his other belongings are here, too?" I asked, whispering for some reason, as if we were sneaking in and didn't want to be discovered.

"Could be. He and Oren owned the house jointly, and Oren didn't return after Avi's death, so it's probably something of a time capsule.

Oh god. Rats. There are bound to be rats.

I sighed and flicked the switch next to the door. The pendulum light in the center of the mudroom flicked on. Taryn had promised to make sure the utilities were connected, and she was clearly a person who followed through on her commitments.

I took a deep breath. Dread had somehow joined the excited anticipation that had been swirling in my middle since Taryn's first call, maybe because I'd expected the house to be swept clean of its former inhabitants. Clearly it wasn't, and I decided I didn't want to face the rest of the place with only Gil for company.

"Did you spend much time here?" I asked Ricky.

He nodded. "Enough. I used to do odd jobs for Avi and Oren, especially when they were renovating the place."

I perked up a little at that. "They renovated it?"

"Yes."

Except, oh no. What if they'd stripped all the Queen Anne charm from the inside? The outside was pristine and period- appropriate, but weirder things had happened when "open plan" became the clichéd watchword for home remodeling.

Ricky must have caught my expression. "Don't worry. Oren was an architect. They did it right."

"Could you… That is, would you mind giving me the tour, then?" Despite my original desire to experience the house in a "first look" mode, with every room a surprise, now I wanted to see it with somebody who had an affection for it—or at least an affection for the men who'd lived here.

"I'd be honored." He glanced over his shoulder. "Should we bring Gilgamesh inside?"

"Probably not until I figure out where to put his litter box." I peered into his carrier. It was safely in the shade, and Gil was watching a towhee hop across the grass as though he could lure it in with his feline laser gaze alone. "He won't thank me for taking him away from bird TV right now, anyway."

"Okay, then." He pointed to the staircase. "Back stairs to the second floor and down to the basement." He jerked a thumb at the closed door on the right. "Two-car garage." Tilted his head at the gaping door on the left. "One of two powder rooms on this floor. Full baths are all upstairs."

I blinked. "Er… How many bathrooms are there?"

Ricky grinned. "Four full baths, plus the two halves."

"Six toilets?" I croaked. "That seems… excessive. Are you sure?"

He chuckled. "Trust me. I know. I had to carry one up to the attic. Come on."

He pushed open the swinging door and gestured for me to precede him.

I stepped through into a long room that had the same footprint as the mudroom. And gawked. "Holy crap."

Ricky chuckled. "I know, right? This is the butler's pantry. They redid the cabinets, so it's actually more pantry storage than prep area like an actual butler's pantry would be. Upgraded the plumbing. And you can probably tell they were big fans of natural wood."

"I can see that," I croaked as I gazed at the gorgeous cherrywood cabinetry that extended from floor to nine-foot ceiling, except on the wall with the sink and the one with a butcher block counter. "Good grief. You'd need a ladder to reach the top shelves."

He opened a tall cabinet next to the door to reveal a step ladder. "When necessary. But the plan was only to put stuff up there that didn't need constant access. There's another pantry off the kitchen, but they planned to use this one more, since it's convenient to the garage and unloading groceries."

"Right. Got it."

We stepped through a gracefully curved archway into a sunny kitchen with the same kind of cherrywood cabinetry, a long island topped with end-grain butcher block, and gleaming stainless steel appliances. Beyond the island was a circular breakfast nook nestled in one of the turrets, complete with a round table and six ladder-back chairs.

"Um, Ricky?" I pivoted slowly, probably with my mouth hanging open. "You said the place was shut up after Avi died, right?"

"Yeah," he said, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

"So why is everything so… so clean ?" I swiped my finger across the granite countertop. "There's not even any dust."

He bit his lip, and even though I was sort of freaking out for a number of reasons, I could appreciate the way his white teeth dented the full flesh.

"I… don't know. I expected everything to be shrouded in dust covers, you know?" He brightened. "Taryn knew you were coming, though, right? She probably hired a cleaning service to come in and get things ready for you."

"I guess that would make sense," I said slowly. "But how did they get in? Mason bees in the locks, remember?"

He frowned for a moment, then his expression cleared. He strode back through the butler's pantry, propping the swinging door open, and flung open the garage door. He peered inside for a moment and then shot me a grin and poked something out of sight on the wall with a flourish. The garage door lifted with a hum.

"She must have the door opener, or given them the code."

I heaved a relieved sigh. It would have been nice if she'd given the code or the opener to me, although, to be fair, she didn't know exactly when I'd be arriving, and she might have tried calling after my phone died. Plus, she couldn't have known mason bees would have staged Occupy: Keyholes in both doors.

Ricky studied me, his head tilted to one side. "Does that make you feel unsafe? I know how to change the code. I can show you if you want."

I shook my head. "Maybe later. I'm fine. I'd love to see the rest of the house, and I don't want to take up too much of your time."

"No worries about that. My hours are flexible."

"What kind of hours?" I winced. "Sorry. I don't mean to be nosy, but the way your aunt, er, godmother…"

He took pity on my flailing. "She's my aunt through marriage. She married my Uncle Ramon a few years after her first husband died, but she'd been a friend of the family for years. Hence the godson relationship."

"That's why you call her Tia Sofia?"

He grinned. "Everybody in town calls her Tia Sofia. She's that kind of person. Come on. Let's see the rest of the place."

I noticed that he'd evaded my question about how he spent his time, but I let it slide for the moment because I really did want to see the rest of the house.

He led me through a family room with mission-style furniture grouped around a marble-faced fireplace and into a vaulted entry. Wide oak stairs ascended to the second-floor balcony to the left of the front door, and through a pair of french doors to the right—

"Holy crap !" I murmured. "An actual freaking library ?"

There was no other word for it, because the walls were lined with floor to ceiling shelves except in the corner where a built-in desk followed half the curve of the front turret, a padded window seat upholstered in a forest green William Morris print extending the rest of the way.

I barely restrained a happy dance. Not only a library, but a window seat ? All my latent Jane Eyre fantasies were coming true.

The turret windows looked out over the front lawn, the road, and the maple tree. A jewel-toned rug—ruby, dark emerald, sapphire, topaz—covered most of the oak floor, and a little wood stove was tucked next to another arch leading to what looked like a formal dining room, although it was empty of furniture.

But the bookshelves? Not empty. Not empty at all.

I ran my finger across the spines of shelf full of hardcover mysteries and thrillers. Dorothy L. Sayers. L.A. Witt and Cari Z. Conan Doyle. Jake Fields. Charlotte MacLeod.

"They left their books," I whispered.

"I think they left everything." Ricky glanced at the shelf in a way I could only describe as furtive. "Come on. There's lots more to see."

He wasn't wrong. Three bathrooms and four bedrooms on the second floor—and was I thrilled that the main suite included a sitting area in a turret? Why, yes. Yes, I was. But by the time we got to the attic, a quirky space defined by the gabled roofline, I was past thrilled and deep into gobsmacked territory.

"I can't believe this is mine." The house. The furniture. The books . "All my worldly possessions that didn't travel the couch-surfing circuit with me for the last two months are stored in six boxes in my ex's closet." Assuming Greg hadn't tossed them. "And now"—I flung my arms out—" this ."

"It's a lot." Ricky stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. "But good, right?"

" So good." I wandered over to the attic window that looked out over the back yard. A small secretary table—and yeah, I know about furniture styles because I ghostwrote for an antique dealer once—held a vintage Smith Corona electric typewriter, circa the early 70s, I'd guess, in the days before word processors or even the IBM Selectric and correcting mechanisms. "Whoever used this had to be pretty confident of their words."

"That was Avi," Ricky said softly. "He was a writer."

"Really? So am I." I grimaced. "Well, sort of."

"How can you sort of be a writer?"

"I'm a contract writer. What you'd call a ghostwriter. I vet other peoples' stories, but it's their words. Mostly."

Ricky laughed, the joyous sound somehow swallowed by the attic, even though it was mostly empty. "If you're a ghostwriter, my friend, then you've come to the right place. What better place to do ghostwriting than in Ghost?"