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  “Is that supposed to make me feel better, Mother? Because not only did you remind me that Jack is younger, but you also let me know that I might feel and look this way for the entire nine months.” I bit back a sob, realizing my hormones could probably be seen arcing their way across the table like a rainbow-colored fountain.

  Our waiter approached with a pitcher of water but quickly reversed direction when he spotted me in midbreakdown.

  Sophie took my other hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure when your hormones calm down you’ll feel much better, and when you feel better you’ll look better.” She smiled and I noticed that even her teeth looked whiter. “And don’t forget how important nutrition is, not just for the baby but for you, too. Has your doctor given you any literature yet on what you should be eating?”

  I studied my white cloth napkin in my lap as if it were suddenly the most important thing in my life.

  “Mellie?” my mother prompted.

  “I’m starving,” I said, looking for our waiter. “I hope they bring my soup fast.”

  “Mellie?” she said again, her voice rising a notch and prompting the waiter to retreat again. “Have you not seen a doctor yet? It’s never too early to see a doctor, especially since you’re at a certain age now.”

  I slapped my hands on the table. “Thanks, Mother. Maybe you can help me find a doctor who specializes in geriatric obstetrics.”

  “Mellie, be reasonable. . . .”

  Sophie held up her hand. “You’re what—almost three months along?”

  I stared at her. “I, um, I haven’t really, uh, thought about it.”

  “Surely you have an idea of when you conceived?” Sophie prodded.

  “Excuse me for a moment, will you? I need to go powder my nose.” My mother sent us a gracious smile before standing and heading for the restroom. We both stared after her.

  “She probably doesn’t want to know the specifics,” Sophie said. “Sort of like you not wanting to acknowledge that your father is practically living at her house on Legare.”

  “Ew,” I said, feeling a little of the morning’s nausea return.

  “Exactly.” She pulled her chair up a little closer to the table. “So, I’m assuming you conceived the night of your birthday party.” She began counting on her fingers, starting with her thumb—something I’d always found odd but also endearing. “That would make you about two and a half months pregnant. I’d say it’s the perfect time to find an ob-gyn. I’ve got a list from a colleague of all the doctors in the area who work with midwives and favor drug-free home births. I’d be happy to share. . . .”

  “No,” I said, not needing to hear any more. “I agree that I should look for a doctor who can delivery my baby, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that this is the first time it’s occurred to me that I might need some help—mostly because I can’t give myself an epidural, which is what I’ll be requiring sometime in the third trimester. But I’m not doing a home birth, and I’m most definitely not doing it drug-free.”

  She blinked at me in silence for a few moments. “Well, then. I’ll keep my list to myself. But I think you should at least consider alternative—”

  “No,” I said, my voice firm. “But thanks,” I added to soften my response. “I fainted when I got my ears pierced, remember. I want to be unconscious from about eight months to when the baby starts sleeping through the night.”

  A secretive smile danced across Sophie’s face. “I think you might surprise yourself.”

  I started to argue but was interrupted by my mother’s return to the table. The waiter finally became confident enough to approach with more water and a bread basket. As I buttered my corn bread, ignoring the looks sent to me by both of my tablemates, I turned to Sophie.

  “I wanted to give you a heads-up that a Detective Thomas Riley will be calling you about the history of my Tradd Street house and the Vanderhorsts. I told him you were the expert.”

  Her brows puckered. “That’s fine, but why?”

  I took a drink of sweet tea before answering. “It appears the foundation work has revealed more than just old bricks and mortar.”

  Sophie leaned forward, her eyes wide, like those of a prospector who’d just struck gold. “What?” she asked, her tone reverential.

  “The remains of an infant. And what looks like a christening gown and matching bonnet—haven’t heard back on anything definitive about that yet.”

  My mother leaned forward so she could whisper, “Mellie’s been hearing a crying baby, and a not-so-nice spirit has been making its presence known.”

  “Joseph Longo?” Sophie hissed.

  I shook my head. “No. He’s definitely gone. This was . . . somebody else. Somebody who was awakened when the baby’s remains were found.”

  “So they’re related,” Sophie said, almost to herself.

  “That’s what we figured, too,” my mother added, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin.

  “And then yesterday, when Jack and Nola were over, there was a little incident in the attic.”

  “An incident?” they said in unison.

  “A cradle that I know was buried under a lot of heavy furniture and boxes was moved to the top of the stairs.”

  “A cradle?” Sophie asked, her eyes narrowing. “Was it made of black ash with twisted spindles and rockers shaped like egrets?”

  I stared at her. “Yes—exactly. How did you know?”

  “Because I was at the Charleston Museum at the end of last semester with a bunch of my students and I saw it there. It was labeled ‘Vanderhorst family cradle.’ There are so many Vanderhorsts in the city that I couldn’t be sure if it was from your Vanderhorsts.”

  “They’re not mine,” I corrected. “But it does sound like the same cradle. Maybe there was a two-for-one special when they bought them,” I said, buttering another piece of bread. I’d felt a cold lump of dread settle in the back of my throat when Sophie had mentioned the second cradle, and I needed to lighten the mood so my appetite wouldn’t go away.

  “There could be lots of reasons for there being two of them,” Sophie said. “We should probably do a field trip to check it out. It might tell us something.”

  “Is it behind glass?” my mother asked.

  I looked at my mother with surprise. “You wouldn’t touch it, would you?” She was what people referred to as a “sensitive”—someone who could touch an object to communicate with the spirits of those who’d once owned it. But the last two times she’d done it had nearly killed her.

  “I could if it might help. I’d like to at least see it.”

  “You and Sophie can go. You know I don’t do museums.”

  She and Sophie nodded in understanding, knowing that my aversion to museums had nothing to do with a dislike of history but more to do with the insistent spirits of people who didn’t know when to let go of a favorite armoire. Or cradle.

  The waiter brought our food, and as I was tucking into my plate of purloo I turned to Sophie again. “Anyway, I told Detective Riley that you were the expert on the Vanderhorsts and my house, but I told him he needed to wait until you got back from your honeymoon. If there was any foul play, my guess would be that the perpetrators got away with it and there won’t be any pending arrests.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Sophie paused over her vegetable plate, her brow wrinkled as she appeared deep in thought. “Do they have any idea of how long the remains were there?”

  “No,” I said. “They’re trying to determine that now. Why?”

  “I need to go dig into my files, but I know that there was some kind of renovation done to the house in the mid–eighteen hundreds. If I were going to hide something I didn’t want anybody to find, bricking something up in the foundation of a house would be the perfect way to do it.”

  I looked at Sophie with growing unease. It’s not that I’d ever thought that the presence of the baby in my foundation could have been an accident, but the certain knowledge that somebody had deliberately, and perhaps
maliciously, hidden it there brought a cold chill to the edges of my skin.

  She took a long sip of her water. “I’ll look into it and let you know.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Why would somebody want to hide the body of an infant?”

  We were all silent as we considered the possibilities, none of them uplifting.

  My mother’s voice was quiet when she spoke. “And what are they willing to do to keep their secret?”

  I stared at my plate, my appetite completely deserting me. Almost whispering, I said, “Why can’t the dead just stay dead?”

  My mother put her hand on mine. “Because they need your help.”

  I could almost hear the high-pitched wail of a crying infant as I thought of the falling light fixture and the force required to move the cradle to the top of the stairs. I looked up and met my mother’s eyes, realizing that our thoughts were moving in tandem, and I was suddenly very, very afraid.

  CHAPTER 6

  On my way out the door two days later, I paused to grab my car keys off the hall table, accidentally catching my reflection in the nineteenth-century Venetian mirror over it. I’d learned by now that all the effort of actually getting out of bed and making it to the mirror wouldn’t be rewarded regardless of how much makeup I used. Unless a makeup had been developed for puffy, blotchy skin, I was better off remaining ignorant, and simply swiped on mascara, lipstick, and powder while sitting on my bed, far away from any offending reflective surfaces.

  I stared at my reflection and tugged at the top of my jacket, hoping to hide a little more of my newly rounded cleavage. I was meeting Jack for our first house showings, and while I hadn’t wanted to go overboard with paying too much attention to what I looked like, I didn’t want Jack to run off screaming into the nearest woods, either. I’d put on my favorite jacket that zipped up the front, thinking it would be easier to hold everything in without those pesky buttons that liked to pop like a cork from a champagne bottle when one least expected it.

  I was leaning forward to examine what couldn’t possibly be another pimple on my chin when the distinct sound of a piano key being hit with force jerked me around. My eyes scanned the foyer and the adjoining rooms, then swept up the stairs as I looked for a patch of shimmering air. I saw nothing more than the hand-painted Chinese wallpaper that had cost me an entire commission check to restore and the cracked plaster medallion that attached the Baccarat chandelier to the ceiling. Luckily Sophie hadn’t yet noticed the crack or I’d be out another commission check.

  I relaxed a bit, thinking I’d only imagined the sound, when it came again, only this time it was another note, slightly higher. Very slowly, I walked toward the room that was supposed to be my study, stopping at the threshold. The black grand piano looked much as it had when at Julia Manigault’s house. But when I drew in a breath and my lungs froze, I knew I was no longer alone.

  I am stronger than you, I said to myself, repeating the mantra that my mother had taught me and that we’d put to good use in the last year. I felt the familiar urge to hum an ABBA tune to block out anything the spirit might want to tell me so that whoever it was would give up and leave me alone. I hesitated, thinking of my mother, who held the belief that she and I had been given our “gifts” to help lost spirits move into the light, and a part of me had even begun to agree. But now, standing alone in my house with a spirit who would not allow itself to be seen and who dropped chandeliers on people, I didn’t feel so sure.

  “Hello?” I said, my frosty breath reaching out into the room. I wanted whoever it was to go away, needed it to go away. I had far too many complications in my life already. “I know you’re there. You’re hiding, but I can tell.” I took a deep breath, ignoring everything my mother had taught me, in the distant hope that perhaps this spirit would be easy to eradicate. I’d seen this technique work on one of those haunting shows Nola liked to watch, so it had to be valid. I cleared my throat. “This is my house, and I want you to leave. Look for the light and follow it.”

  I listened carefully, hearing only the ticking of the grandfather clock across the hall. I imagined I could feel the temperature returning to normal and was about to give myself a fist pump when another key from the piano was pressed by an unseen hand, followed by a burst of icy cold air on my face that formed itself into a single word: Mine.

  I screamed, then turned to run toward the front door and found myself enveloped by a pair of large, muscled arms. I stopped screaming and didn’t struggle, my mind and body knowing immediately that I was safe, that it was Jack, and that I didn’t need to be afraid anymore. The cold air had completely dissipated and I’d suddenly gone warm all over.

  “What happened?” he asked, his lips very close to my ear.

  I kept my head pressed against his chest, too comfortable to pull away. “Somebody—something—was playing the piano.”

  “Were they any good?”

  I jerked back and pulled away. “I’m glad you find this amusing, Jack, but it was a little unnerving—even for me. It’s like my house has been invaded, and I don’t like the intrusion.”

  “You’ve had ghosts here before, if you’ll recall.”

  I blinked up at him. Of course, he was right, and for a moment I wasn’t even sure why it was different. “I guess it’s because I think of the house now as mine—my home. And before, well . . .”

  “It was more like a boil on your backside.”

  “Always so eloquent, Jack.”

  “I’d thank you, except those aren’t my words. I’m actually quoting you verbatim.”

  Instead of arguing with him—mostly because I was afraid he might be right, that those had been my words—I put my hands on my hips and stared up at him. “How did you get in here?” I looked down at his feet, where General Lee was happily sitting. I wagged my finger at him. “And what kind of a guard dog are you? You’re supposed to let me know when there’s an intruder.”

  “Perhaps because he feels like I belong here,” Jack said, holding up a brand-new house key. “Nola lent me her key. She wanted me to stop by after our house showings and pick up some of her music she left in the piano bench, but since I was driving right by here . . .” He shrugged and sent me his killer grin.

  I responded with my “I’m immune” grin—which wasn’t completely accurate—and said, “Next time please use the doorbell.”

  “I did, actually. I guess it’s not working again.”

  I groaned, but didn’t stamp my feet. I’d already spent the equivalent of a small nation’s GNP trying to keep it working consistently, but something about the salt air and humidity in Charleston seemed to conspire against old doorbells. It was a well-known fact among most of my South of Broad neighbors that if nobody answered the doorbell, they could knock once and let themselves in.

  I looked at my watch. “Let me just call the office to let them know that we’re heading out from here.” I tossed him my keys. “Go on out to the car and start the air-conditioning. I have to go search for my purse and phone.”

  He stopped me. “Actually, I was hoping I could drive. I’ve got a new car.”

  “A new car? Did you sell your pickup truck?”

  “I’m never selling my truck, except to get a new one. I believe I’ve told you that it might be illegal for a South Carolina boy not to own one.”

  I lowered my voice to a tone of hushed reverence. “You sold your Porsche?”

  “Sure did,” he said, his killer grin back on his face.

  “What did you get?” I asked, moving out onto the piazza. I scanned the street, looking for something red and Italian.

  “Go get your stuff and I’ll take you to it. But you have to keep your eyes closed. It’s a surprise.”

  Too curious to be suspicious, I did as he asked, then allowed him to lead me, with my eyes closed, off the piazza and down the front walkway to the sidewalk, his hand warm around mine.

  “You can open your eyes now,” he said, dropping my hand as my eyes popped open.

  I looked up and
down Tradd Street for something low-slung and foreign, but didn’t see anything. “Where is it?”

  He patted the driver’s-side door of a vehicle parked directly in front of me with the dealer’s sticker still in the rear side window. “It’s this little beauty right here.”

  I blinked several times. It was foreign—Japanese—and it was definitely red. But it was far from being low-slung. “It’s a minivan,” I said.

  “Sure is. Can’t fit a baby seat in a Porsche, and my truck doesn’t have all the safety features I’d want if I’m going to be driving a baby around.”

  He pulled the door lever, and the whole side panel opened slowly. “It’s got pinch-proof doors that won’t close if something’s in the way, and all the seats are leather—easier to clean off apple juice spills. There’s a built-in booster seat, too, for when the baby graduates from the car seat.” His eyes were shining, and he was talking so fast that one would have thought him a teenager with his first copy of Playboy.

  “And check this out.” He leaned into the backseat and pushed a button. “It’s a DVD player so Jack Junior can be entertained while on our way to golf tournaments—Nancy Flaherty has promised us free lessons—and Carolina football games. Only educational programs, of course. No violence or foul language or anything not age appropriate.”

  I wondered for a moment whether I’d accidentally stepped into some alternate universe. But all I could think to say was, “Jack Junior?”

  “Well, it’s just a thought. We have some time to think about it. It sure would be cute if we shortened it to JJ.”

  I was distracted from my focus on the bright red minivan for a moment. “She could be a girl, you know.”

  My heart squeezed as I watched his animated face and saw that the excitement didn’t wane. “Well, sure. And I’d be happy to have another daughter. But I figured it would be nice to have one of each, too.”