The Christmas Spirits on Tradd Street Read online

  ALSO BY KAREN WHITE

  The Color of Light

  Learning to Breathe

  Pieces of the Heart

  The Memory of Water

  The Lost Hours

  On Folly Beach

  Falling Home

  The Beach Trees

  Sea Change

  After the Rain

  The Time Between

  A Long Time Gone

  The Sound of Glass

  The Forgotten Room

  (cowritten with Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig)

  Flight Patterns

  Spinning the Moon

  The Night the Lights Went Out

  Dreams of Falling

  The Glass Ocean

  (cowritten with Beatriz Williams and Lauren Willig)

  The Tradd Street Series

  The House on Tradd Street

  The Girl on Legare Street

  The Strangers on Montagu Street

  Return to Tradd Street

  The Guests on South Battery

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2019 by Harley House Books, LLC

  Readers Guide copyright © 2019 by Penguin Random House LLC

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  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: White, Karen (Karen S.), author.

  Title: The Christmas spirits on Tradd street / Karen White.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley, 2019. | Series: Tradd street ; 6

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019005554 | ISBN 9780451475244 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698193017 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Christmas stories. | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Ghost. | GSAFD: Ghost stories. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3623.H5776 C49 2019 | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019005554

  First Edition: October 2019

  Cover art by Andrew Haines

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To the real Rich Kobylt, who allows me to use his name, and who actually wears a belt

  Acknowledgments

  I am full of gratitude for my editor, Cindy Hwang, and the other amazing people at Penguin Random House whose enthusiasm and dedication to all the steps in getting my books into readers’ hands are so very much appreciated. I couldn’t do this without you!

  As always, thanks to my first readers, Susan Crandall and Wendy Wax, for gallantly reading every word I write and for constantly challenging me to be a better writer. Thank you for your friendship.

  And a huge thank-you to James Del Greco, RN, MSN, for allowing me to use your name for one of my favorite new characters in this book. You won a raffle and were so kind to let me use my imagination to sculpt your character into one I’m sure my readers will love as much as I do. Note to readers: All aspects of the character (except physical description) are completely fictional and simply a figment of the author’s imagination.

  Last, but certainly not least, thanks to my readers who have fallen in love with Melanie and Jack and the rest of the characters who populate the Tradd Street series. The series was originally supposed to be only two books, but you have inspired me to make it seven. Yes, there will be one more! Sign up for my newsletter at karen-white.com so you’ll get the scoop first.

  Contents

  Also by Karen White

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Readers Guide

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Smoky silhouettes of church spires stamped against the bruised skies of a Charleston morning give testament to the reason why it’s called the Holy City. The steepled skyline at dawn is a familiar sight for early risers who enjoy a respite from the heat and humidity in summer, or appreciate the beauty of the sunrise through the Cooper River Bridge, or like hearing the chirps and calls of the thousands of birds and insects that populate our corner of the world.

  Others, like me, awaken early only to shorten the night, to quiet the secret stirrings of the restless dead who wander during the darkest hours between sunset and sunrise.

  I lay on my side, Jack’s arm resting protectively around my waist, my own arm thrown around the soft fur of General Lee’s belly. His snoring and my husband’s soft breathing were the only sounds in the old house, despite its being currently inhabited by two adults, three dogs, a teenage girl, and twenty-month-old twins. I never counted the myriad spirits who passed peacefully down the house’s lofty corridors. Over the past several years I’d extricated the not-so-nice ones and made my peace with the others, who were content to simply exist alongside us.

  That’s what had awakened me. The quiet. No, that wasn’t right. It was more the absence of sound. Like the held breath between the pull of a trigger and the propulsion of the bullet.

  Being careful not to awaken Jack or General Lee, I slowly disentangled myself from the bedsheets, watching as General Lee assumed my former position next to Jack. Jack barely stirred and I considered for a moment whether I should be insulted. I picked up my iPhone and shut off the alarm, which was set for five a.m.—noting it was four forty-six—then crossed the room to my old-fashioned alarm clock, which I kept just in case. Jack had made me get rid of the additional two I’d once had station
ed around the room. He’d accused me of trying to wake the dead each morning. As if I had to try.

  Since I was a little girl, the spirits of the dearly departed had been trying to talk to me, to involve me in their unfinished business. I’d found ways—most often involving singing an ABBA song—to drown out their voices with some success, but every once in a while, one voice was louder than the others. Usually because a spirit was shouting in my ear or shoving me down the stairs, making it impossible to ignore regardless of how much I wanted to.

  I stumbled into my bathroom using the flashlight on my phone, silently cursing my half sister, Jayne, and my best friend, Dr. Sophie Wallen-Arasi, for being the cause of my predawn ramblings. They had taken it upon themselves to get me fit and healthy after the birth of the twins, JJ (for Jack Junior) and Sarah. This involved feeding me food I wouldn’t give my dog—although I’d tried and he’d turned up his nose and walked away—and forcing me to go for a run most mornings.

  Although I was more a jogger than a runner, the exercise required lots of energy that shouldn’t be provided by powdered doughnuts—according to Sophie—and made me sweat more than I thought necessary, especially in the humid summer months, when bending down to tie my shoes caused perspiration to drip down my face and neck.

  Barely awake, I pulled on the running pants that Nola had given me for my last birthday, telling me that they had the dual purposes of being fashionable and functional, sucking everything in and making one’s backside look as if it belonged to a lifelong runner. I tried to tell Jayne and Sophie that these wonder pants made the actual running part unnecessary, but they’d simply stared at me without blinking before returning to their conversation regarding lowering their times for the next Bridge Run, scheduled for the spring.

  I tiptoed back into the bedroom, noticing as I pulled down the hem of my T-shirt that it was on inside out, and paused by the bed to look at my husband of less than two years. My chest did the little contracting thing it had been doing since I’d first met bestselling true-crime-history author Jack Trenholm. I’d thought then that he was too handsome, too charming, too opinionated, and way too annoying to be anything to me other than someone to be admired from afar or at least kept at arm’s distance. Luckily for me, he’d disagreed.

  My gaze traveled to the video baby monitor we kept on the bedside table. Sarah slept neatly on her side, her stuffed bunny—a gift from Sophie—tucked under her arm, her other stuffed animals arranged around the crib in a specific order that only Sarah—and I—understood. I’d had to explain to Jack that the animals had been arranged by fur patterns and colors, going from lightest to darkest. I’m sure I did the same thing when I was a child, because, I’d explained, it was important to make order of the world.

  In the adjacent crib, Sarah’s twin, JJ, slept on his back with his arms and legs flung out at various angles, his stuffed animals and his favorite whisk—even I couldn’t explain his attachment to this particular kitchen utensil—tossed in disarray around his small body. My fingers twitched, and I had to internally recite the words to “Dancing Queen” backward to keep me from entering the nursery and lining up the toys in the bed and tucking my little son in a corner of the crib with a blanket over him.

  It was a skill I’d learned at Jayne’s insistence. She was a professional nanny, which meant—I suppose—that she knew best, and she insisted that my need for order was borderline OCD and not necessarily the best influence for the children. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my need for order, as it had helped me survive a childhood with an alcoholic father and an absent mother, but I loved my children too much to dismiss Jayne’s concerns completely.

  I would not, however, retire my labeling gun and had taken proactive measures by keeping it hidden so it wouldn’t “disappear” as my last two had.

  As I stared at my sweet babies on the monitor, my heart constricted again, leaving me breathless for a moment as I considered how very fortunate I was to have found Jack—or, as he insisted, to have been found by him—and then to have these two beautiful children. An added and welcome bonus to the equation was Jack’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Nola, whom I loved as if she were my own child despite her insistence on removing my three main food groups—sugar, carbs, and chocolate—from the kitchen.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” Jack mumbled, two sleepy dark blue eyes staring up at me. General Lee emitted a snuffling snore. “Going to work?”

  Before I was married, I’d always risen before dawn to be the first person in the offices of Henderson House Realty on Broad Street. But now I had a reason to stay in bed, and he was lying there looking so much more appealing than a run through the streets of Charleston. Of course, spending the night in the dungeon at the Old Exchange building was also more appealing than a run, but still.

  “Not yet. Meeting Jayne for a run.” I stood by the bed and leaned down to place a kiss on Jack’s lips, lingering long enough to see if he would give any indication that he wanted me to crawl back in. Instead his eyes closed again as he moved General Lee closer to his chest, giving me an odd pang of jealousy.

  I quietly closed the bedroom door and paused in the upstairs hallway, listening. Even the ticking of the old grandfather clock seemed muffled, the sound suffocated by something unseen. Something waiting. The night-lights that lined the hallway—a leftover from when Jayne lived with us and a concession to her crippling fear of the dark and the things that hid within—gave me a clear view of Nola’s closed bedroom door.

  She’d been sleeping in the guest room, as I’d decided right after the twins’ first birthday party in March that her bedroom needed to be redecorated. I felt a tug of guilt as I walked past it to the stairs, remembering the shadowy figure I’d seen in Nola’s bedroom window in a photograph taken by one of Sophie’s preservation students, Meghan Black. She was excavating the recently discovered cistern in the rear garden and had taken the photograph and shown it to Jack and me. We’d both seen the shadowy figure of a man in old-fashioned clothing holding what looked to be a piece of jewelry. But I’d been the only one to notice the face in Nola’s window.

  Having recently dealt with a particularly nasty and vengeful spirit at Jayne’s house on South Battery, I hadn’t found the strength yet to grapple with another. Despite promises to be open and honest with each other, I hadn’t told Jack, bargaining with myself that I’d bring it up just as soon as I thought I could mentally prepare myself. That had been eight months ago, and all I’d done was move Nola into the guest room and then interview a succession of decorators.

  I stifled a yawn. Just one more week, I thought. One more week of working every possible hour trying to make my sales quota at Henderson House Realty, trying to put myself on the leaderboard once more. It was important not just for the sense of pride and accomplishment it gave me, but also because we needed the money.

  Then I’d have enough energy and brain cells to be able to figure out who these new spirits were and to make them go away. Preferably without a fight. Then I’d tell Jack what I’d seen and that I’d already taken care of the problem so he wouldn’t have to be worried. He had enough on his plate already, working with a new publisher on a book about my family and how Jayne had come to own her house on South Battery.

  I entered the kitchen, my stomach rumbling as I reached behind the granola and quinoa boxes in the pantry for my secret stash of doughnuts. But instead of grasping the familiar brown paper bag, I found myself pulling out a box of nutrition bars—no doubt as tasty as the cardboard in which they were packaged. Taped to the front was a note in Nola’s handwriting:

  Try these instead! They’ve got chocolate and 9 grams of protein!

  Happy visions of running upstairs and pulling Nola from her bed earlier than she’d probably been awake since infancy were the only reason I didn’t break down and weep. The grandfather clock chimed, telling me I was already late, so I gave one last-minute look to see if I could spot my doughnut bag,
then left the house through the back door without eating anything. If I passed out from starvation halfway through my run, Nola might feel sorry enough for me to bring a doughnut.

  I stopped on the back steps, suddenly aware that the silence had followed me outside. No birds chirped; no insects hummed. No sounds of street traffic crept into the formerly lush garden that my father had painstakingly restored from the original Loutrel Briggs plans. When an ancient cistern had been discovered after the heavy spring rains had swallowed up a large section of the garden, Sophie had swooped in and declared it an archaeological dig and surrounded it with yellow caution tape. Several months later, we were still staring at a hole behind our house. And I was still feeling the presence of an entity that continued to elude me but that haunted my peripheral vision. A shadow that disappeared every time I turned a corner, the scent of rot the only hint that it had been there at all.

  Walking backward to avoid turning my back on the gaping hole, I made my way to the front of the house, tripping only twice on the uneven flagstones that were as much a part of Charleston’s South of Broad neighborhood as were wrought-iron gates and palmetto bugs.

  “There you are!” shouted a voice from across the street. “I thought you were standing me up.”

  I squinted at the figure standing on the curb, regretting not putting in my contacts. I really didn’t need them all the time, and not wearing them when I ran saved me from seeing my reflection without makeup in the bathroom mirror this early in the morning.

  “Good morning, Jayne,” I grumbled, making sure she was aware of how unhappy I was to be going for a run. Especially when I had a much better alternative waiting for me in my bedroom.

  I was already starting to perspire at the thought of the four-mile jog in front of me. Despite its being early November, and although we’d been teased by Mother Nature with days chilly enough that we’d had to pull out our wool sweaters, the mercury had taken another surprise leap, and both the temperature and the dew point had risen, as if summer was returning to torture us for a bit.