Wishbones

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Tinkie was in a funk as she drove back to the mansion. She gripped the steering wheel, drummed her fingers, sighed, and generally showed her discontent. When we pulled up to the gate, I was glad to see three security guards still there.

Federico had insisted that Promise Security Agency remain on the premises until Tinkie and I were completely clear of the house. The interview with Estoban Gonzalez had disturbed both Tinkie and me. It was difficult to look into the abyss and not be affected. He was unhinged, and in a way that I would never understand. How had his love for Carlita and Estelle become so twisted that he’d deliberately destroyed them trying to make them hate Federico?

And why hadn’t Federico told us that the old man was alive? That nagged at me. Even if he thought Estoban was in Venezuela, surely it was worth a mention that he was still breathing and meddling.

As we stopped at the entrance, I recognized Daniel. He and two additional guards were checking a horse trailer that had come to pick up Nugget and Flicker and return them to their home. Seeing the horses gave me a pang, because I’d grown fond of them, but it also reminded me that I missed Reveler and Miss Scrapiron. It seemed like a million years since I’d ridden my wonderful gelding through the vast expanse of the cotton fields.

The horse trailer pulled through, and Daniel turned to us. “Did you forget something? I thought everyone had left.”

“We’re getting our things,” Tinkie explained.

He looked at Sweetie in the backseat and gave her ears a rub. “Federico was explicit that I remain here until you leave, so I and these men will stay.” He frowned. “I’ve sent all my men to other jobs but I can call them back.”

I hesitated. It was true that the security guards hadn’t been able to protect us, but it was nice to know someone with a weapon was on the premises. “We’ll be fine with you watching the gate. If we need something, we can call.”

“Senor Marquez made it plain that your safety was my first priority.”

“It’s okay, Daniel. We won’t be all that long.” My emotions were mixed. Tinkie and I had a perfect success record with our cases. We’d solved every one. It went against the grain to simply walk away without knowing who was behind all the problems at Casa Marquez.

Daniel shook his head. “So many unfortunate things have happened here.” He looked at the mansion, beautiful and elegant in the distance. “I never thought it before, but perhaps this place is really cursed. Thank goodness no one died here, but you came very close, Ms. Delaney. I just can’t imagine who would do such a thing.”

I could imagine, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud. It could be Grandpa Psychopath or Estelle the Demented. “Have you heard anything from Estelle?” I asked.

He shook his head, a furrow deepening between his brows. “I’m very worried. I know she’s been… difficult about her father and the film crew being in the house. She’s not like that really. You don’t know her. Estelle is a kind person. It’s only her family that makes her act crazy.”

“I’m concerned about her, too,” I said, and I was sincere. Even if she had tried to kill me, I was apprehensive that something untoward had happened to her. She literally had disappeared, and while her father and grandfather could dismiss that fact, I found it unsettling.

“Were you aware that Estelle’s grandfather was in town?” I asked Daniel.

I could tell by the look on his face that this news came as a shock to him.

“I never asked Estelle, but I assumed he was dead. In all the time I’ve known her, she never mentioned him once.”

“He’s very much alive,” Tinkie said. “And let’s just say that his obsession with Estelle isn’t exactly healthy.”

Daniel checked to be sure his employees were out of earshot. “Estelle never talked about her grandparents. She didn’t want anything to do with her family. She can’t speak of her father without getting furious. She hates them, except Ricardo. She speaks of him as if she really loves him.”

“Do you think Estelle is behind all of this because she’s trying to ruin her father’s film?” Tinkie asked.

“Estelle would attempt to frighten you out of the house, and she would damage property like the cameras. I have no doubt of that. Would she push a woman down a flight of stairs? Would she try to drown you, Ms. Delaney? No. I can’t believe she would go that far.”

“Did Estelle ever talk about the house?” I asked. “Like there were special rooms or secrets here?”

He thought about it. “It’s strange because she seemed to seek out the ghost stories, but I also had the sense she was afraid of the place. I tried to get her to take me here one night for some wine and…” He had the grace to flush. “But she refused. All of those empty bedrooms, and she wouldn’t even walk through the front door.”

“You honestly think she was afraid?”

“I do.” He blew out a breath. “And I let her down.”

“How so?” I asked. Tinkie was staring at the place as if she could use X-ray vision to see into the heart of the house.

“Once Estelle wanted to talk about the house, about how her mother might be here, and if she could only talk to her.” His fingertips dug into his forehead as he rubbed the sweat away. “I didn’t take her seriously and I teased her. After that, she wouldn’t say any more about the house or Carlita. I blew my chance. If I asked about her family, she said she hated them, except Ricardo. I don’t understand. Senor Marquez seems like a nice man.”

“Did Estelle ever mention growing up in the house?” Tinkie asked. “Playing games, maybe.”

Daniel shook his head. “The only thing I remember is that once she said when she was little, she used to believe the house made her mother cry.”

That was a bizarre statement, but knowing what we did about Estoban and his spy system, I understood why Carlita might weep. To a child, that could have been very confusing. “Did Estelle say how the house made her mother cry?”

“If she did, I don’t remember.” His gaze went back to the house. “Do you believe in evil, Ms. Delaney?”

“I believe in evil people,” I said.

“And you, Ms. Richmond? Do you believe in evil?”

Tinkie considered longer than I had. “I believe people can be evil,” she said, “and I also believe that sometimes negative energy gets trapped in a place. Maybe it’s evil or maybe it’s not. What do you believe, Daniel?”

“I think this place is bad. Estelle would drive by here and look. It was like she was drawn here by something greater than herself. Even when it made her unhappy, she still came. Just to look.”

“This was her link to her mother,” Tinkie said. “Perhaps she merely wanted to feel close to Carlita.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe there’s something in that house that pretends to be Carlita and isn’t.”

Now that was a cheerful thought. “We should go, Daniel,” I said. “We need to pack.”

“Call me if anything suspicious happens,” he said. “I’ll be here all night.”

“We’ll be fine,” Tinkie assured him. “I just hate that we have to leave without figuring out what’s going on.”

He put a hand on the door. “If you hear anything from Estelle, will you tell me?”

Tinkie nodded. “I will. And the same from you. If she calls, please tell us.”

He saluted and stepped back as we drove away.

When we were parked in front of the house, Tinkie killed the engine and sat. She finally looked at me. “I’m not ready to give up. I know something is going on here, but I don’t know that we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“Tinkie, everyone is gone.”

“What if Estelle is still here?”

“Then she’ll have the house to herself once we leave.”

“I’m not sure that’s what she really wants, and to be honest, I’m ready to go home. I miss Oscar.” She looked up at the empty windows. “I may be a coward, but I don’t want to spend another night here.”

She was selling herself short. She wasn’t window dressing in the detective agency. She took action when it was necessary. I had a flashback of her running across an open field toward Virgie Carrington as Virgie held a gun trained on Coleman. Virgie had drugged Oscar and taken him hostage, and Tinkie meant to save her husband. She was willing to risk her life to do so. To prevent her from running straight into gunfire, I had to tackle her. Good thing she had a penchant for high heels or she might have outrun me.

When she opened her car door, Sweetie jumped out and began to patrol the property. The house looked dejected. I was reminded of a film star I couldn’t name-so beautiful, until the camera closed in too much and revealed the tiny sag of flesh and wrinkles. Casa Marquez looked as if the people who loved her had left for good. I swallowed a lump of unexpected emotion. The place seemed sad and abandoned.

Did our homes miss us? I wondered. Was Dahlia House waiting for my return? For some a house was merely a structure, a place of shelter. But for a Delta girl, home was a place where the past met the future. It was part heritage and history, a place of comfort and safety. This mansion, though more modern and larger than Dahlia House, had been Carlita Marquez’s home. Her children had grown up here, laughing and playing games with a grandfather they adored.

And probably should have feared.

We entered and went straight to the kitchen, where Tinkie examined Chablis and found her to be coming along satisfactorily. Chablis would be able to fly tomorrow without any ill repercussions.

Per the vet’s directions, we gave the dustmop a tiny tablet for pain and let her snooze on a plump pillow in a corner of the kitchen. Sweetie settled in beside her, friend and guard. With Sweetie on call, Chablis was safe and we could go and collect our things.

We were halfway up the staircase when we both heard it. Tinkie grabbed my arm. It sounded like a child running, and every movie with an evil child popped into my head. If a little blond child peeped around the corner-

“We’re getting our things to leave, Estelle!” Tinkie yelled the words. “You can stop this foolishness. We’re leaving. The house is yours.”

Somewhere on the upstairs hallway, a table crashed. I remembered the beautiful Chinese vase and knew what had happened.

“Damn it!” Tinkie started up the steps. She was angry. “I have had enough of this. Stop being a spoiled child.”

Just as she got to the top, the lights went out. Even though it was still daylight outside, the hallway was plenty dark.

“What the hell?” she asked. “She’s acting like she doesn’t want us to go.”

“Well, we’re leaving anyway.” I’d had it with the flying glassware and the tables that went thump in the night. The things that were wrong with Estelle couldn’t be fixed by me or Tinkie. Or even Daniel’s love.

“Could we just take a look through the east wing?” Tinkie asked. “We didn’t really search there.”

I checked my watch. “We’ll try for two hours. Then we’re leaving. I don’t want to be here after dark. Why risk getting hurt?”

“It’s a deal.”

I gathered the high-powered flashlights Graf had bought and we took off down the second-floor hallway. Tinkie had purchased a stethoscope from a drugstore so we could listen to the walls. My plan was to find any additional secret passageways, check them and leave. Estelle was too clever for us. We’d never catch her. But if we did manage to hem her up, we were going to drag her out and turn her over to the authorities-either legal or mental health. She was going to pay for kicking Chablis.

The house was L-shaped, with the main wing extending north to south and the east wing jutting off. And then there were the stables and other outbuildings. I’d begun to wonder if there might not be tunnels that linked the buildings together underground. Hell, anything was possible where Estoban Gonzalez was concerned.

Because we hadn’t spent any time to speak of in the east wing, it was creepy and unfamiliar, even in broad daylight. I kept having images of Jitty as Mrs. Danvers standing at a window saying, “It’s a lovely view. Why don’t you jump, Sarah Booth? Just jump and put an end to all of it.”

“Sarah Booth, is something wrong?” Tinkie asked.

I shook my head. “Just thinking of an old movie, Rebecca.”

“I’ve thought of that film more than once,” she said as we moved down the hallway, tapping the plaster, moving portraits and tables, as we tried to find some place that sounded hollow. “The parallels are a bit uncomfortable.”

We searched several bedrooms and finally ended up at the small study. The painting I’d admired was there, and Tinkie knew the artist. While she talked about the composition and use of color, I remembered something else.

“Tinkie, I was thinking about being tied to that rock in the ocean.”

“Not a good thing to think about.” She removed a shelf of books and began pressing on the built-in mahogany bookcase.

“When I was tied to the rock, Cece told me Sweetie and Chablis had been locked up in a third-floor bedroom.”

Tinkie turned slowly and looked at me. “So someone in the house knew you were going to see that ghost and chase it. And that someone didn’t want the dogs to mess things up, so they confined them.”

I nodded. “Because the dogs can run so much faster than I can. The dogs might have caught the person I was chasing.”

She nodded. “So there have to be at least two of them. Our ghost has an accomplice.”

“So it would seem.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” she asked.

“I thought you were going home. I didn’t want to worry you. Then so many other things happened, it slipped my mind. If Estelle was the person I was chasing, who was the person who locked up the dogs? Even if Estelle is a sprinter, she couldn’t be in two places at once.”

“Who else was here? Never mind, because if someone was hiding in the house, in the passageways, we’d never know.” She turned back to her shelf. I moved to help her, and we worked our way toward a lovely fireplace that held Indian pottery.

I moved the pottery. “This is the whole problem. With these hidey-holes all over the house, a battalion of miscreants could be involved.”

“Press the stones around the edge of the fireplace. There has to be a trigger.” Tinkie was taking books from another shelf. She had one wall denuded.

“Why the fireplace?”

“It’s always the fireplace,” she said. “Don’t you watch any detective shows?”

The soft sound of thumping froze me on the spot. It was the same sound I’d heard for the past few days, but fainter, maybe weaker.

“Doesn’t that sound like someone kicking the floor or a wall?” Tinkie asked. She rubbed at the chill bumps that had sprung to her arms.

“It does. Or a head rolling down stairs, à la Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.”

Tinkie got out her stethoscope and put it against the wall behind the empty shelf. Her face told me everything. She handed the listening device to me.

Someone, or something, was definitely thumping in another part of the house. The sound was traveling through the walls. I swallowed and strained to hear.

A heartrending sob trembled down the dead space of the wall and straight into my heart. In the past, I’d felt the strange noises were designed to frighten me. This was different. “Someone’s in trouble,” I said.

Tinkie touched my shoulder. “Or else it’s a trap.”

My chest constricted painfully. “Or it could be the ghost.”

Tinkie’s eyes widened. “Or it could be both-the ghost and a trap.” She picked up a heavy candlestick. “What should we do?”