1 The Ghost in the Basement Read online

  The three men poked around under the hood of Sonny’s old car. Carson said, “This car is shot. It’ll cost more to fix than it’s worth.”

  “I know.” She’d have to buy a car, and she needed a reliable one, because Donovan didn’t want to have to rescue her again. Once was more than enough.

  After his men left, Donovan told Hannah, “You need a new car.”

  “That’s what I figured.” She handed Donovan two keys to the house. “You can have another one made. I’d do it myself, but I am without transportation.”

  “We don’t need another key. Sonny gave Pop one years ago. As soon as we get settled, we’ll replace the doorframes and put in new locks. A kid could pick these locks and a man could push his way in.”

  Hannah groaned. “Don’t tell me those things until after you move in.”

  “Are you worried about staying here alone?”

  “I wasn’t before. You have this underhanded, yet charming way of making yourself necessary.”

  A little lopsided grin softened his face and his eyes sparkled. “Charming? Me?”

  “Wrong choice of words.”

  “Charming. I’ll remember that.”

  He was charming. The handsome boy Hannah had a crush on when she was a little girl had grown into a drop-dead gorgeous man with eyes as blue as the sky on a sunny summer day. He was around six feet tall, solid and strong, and that lopsided smile removed the perfection from his face. He was Prince Charming with a police badge, but there was sadness behind those blue eyes. He must miss his wife.

  Hannah cooked dinner for Donovan and Billy. Pop didn’t come.

  “Pop’s having trouble getting around,” said Donovan. “His arthritis gets bad this time of year. We’re on the second floor and there are times when it’s hard for him to get up and down the stairs.”

  She took the meatloaf out of the oven and whipped around to face him. “Why didn’t you say something? He can have the bedroom downstairs.” Donovan started to shake his head. “Don’t you shake your head at me, Donovan Kane.”

  Billy giggled.

  “Don’t you want us to stay upstairs except for meals?”

  “What on earth gave you that idea? This is your home, not just the upstairs, but the whole house.” She waved her hand a little. “Except for my room, that is.” She handed Donovan a plate of meatloaf to put on the table.

  “Pop snores,” said Billy. “You can hear him all over the house.”

  Donovan took the dish of stewed apples from her hand and leaned in close. “What about the seat problem in the bathroom?”

  “You’ll have to learn to put it down. Uh… you guys don’t wander around in the buff, do you?”

  “All the time.” The smile in Donovan’s eyes spread to his mouth.

  She cocked her head. “Not anymore.”

  This living arrangement was getting more complicated, but she couldn’t let an old man climb up and down the stairs when he was hurting. Better to give Pop the bedroom downstairs.

  As they sat down to eat, Hannah asked Donovan, “Do you have a microwave?”

  “Why, doesn’t yours work?”

  “Yes, it works. I was going to send a plate of food home with you, for Pop. He can warm it in the microwave.”

  “He’ll like that, Hannah. Thank you.”

  “You’ll have to tell me what you guys like to eat. What did your wife cook?”

  It took him a few seconds to respond. “She didn’t cook, and I don’t want to talk about her.”

  His words slammed a door shut in her face. His wife was behind that door, and she was off-limits. Hannah didn’t understand why.

  After Donovan and Billy left, Hannah took a box of trash bags upstairs and started to work in her grandmother’s bedroom. Every drawer in the room was filled with bank statements and receipts and other useless papers. Some of the statements and receipts dated back to the fifties. Why would Grandma keep them this long?

  Hannah put two drawers on the bed and started to toss the papers into a trash bag when she spotted a twenty-dollar bill sticking out of one envelope. She checked other envelopes, and every one of them had money in them. She dumped the trash bags on the bed, pulled out the money, and started over.

  Most of the older bank statements had ones and fives in them, and the later ones had tens and twenties. “Thank you, Grandma,” Hannah said to herself, and she felt a cold breeze stir the air in the room. Shivering, she checked the windows. They were all closed tightly, so where did the cold breeze come from?

  It took her hours to empty the drawers in the room and carry the trash bags out to the kitchen porch. She put the bank statements from the past seven years in a box. They’d go into the attic tomorrow, when it wasn’t so dark up there. The attic was huge, and there was only one dim bulb in the fixture up there.

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  Donovan brought his family to Sonny’s house the next morning. Billy ran up the stairs yelling for Hannah. Donovan stood in her open bedroom door, watching her sleep. She moaned and pulled a pillow over her head.

  “Sorry, we didn’t know you slept in.”

  “Only when I’m up until three the night before.”

  He glanced at the clock beside her bed. It was only seven in the morning. “Go back to sleep. I’ll take care of the furnace people.” He tried to pull the door closed, but it wouldn’t go all the way.

  Hannah tossed the pillow and covers back and sat on the side of the bed. She wore sweats and thick socks, insulation against the cold, and she looked rumpled and sexy as hell. Plowing her fingers through her tangled hair, she asked, “Do you know how to make coffee?”

  “On my way.” He couldn’t remember when he’d last been this attracted to a woman. Sleeping down the hall from her and keeping his hands off could present a problem.

  The coffee maker finished as Hannah walked into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and yawning. He handed her a cup and waited until she’d had several sips before asking, “Why were you up half the night?”

  “I was cleaning upstairs. My quirky grandmother saved every bank statement since 1952, and every one of them had money in the envelope. There’s enough to buy new blinds for all the bedroom windows and new wallpaper and bedding for Billy’s room. The whole house needs to be redone, but we’ll start with his room.” She sipped her coffee. “You can take me shopping, since I am without transportation and, as you so rudely pointed out, I don’t know my way around River Valley.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She’d probably never forgive him for his remarks about her getting lost.

  She glanced at him over the rim of her cup. “I filled all the trash bags, but there’s more trash up there. A lot more. There’s enough paper in this house to be a fire hazard, and I’m not sure the smoke detectors work.”

  “I’ll check the batteries. They probably haven’t been changed in years.”

  Hannah grimaced and reached up to rub her neck. Donovan pushed her hand away and found the sore spot. He kneaded until the hard spot in her muscle eased and she could move her neck around.

  “Mmm, I guess there is an advantage to having you here.”

  “And I’m charming,” he said with a little laugh. “Don’t forget charming.”

  She groaned. “Are you ever going to let me forget I said that?”

  He laughed again.

  She drank the rest of her coffee. “Did you have breakfast?”

  “Billy was too excited to eat and I had coffee.”

  She pulled the eggs out of the refrigerator. “French toast okay?”

  “Sounds good.” More than good, and he was more tempted by the cook than the breakfast. He had to remind himself this was Monique’s daughter, and as pretty as she was, she’d probably learned a thing or two about men from her mother. According to Pop, Monique was little more than a common prostitute.

  After breakfast, Pop stayed to supervise the furnace installation while Donovan took Hannah and Billy shopping. Hannah bought new blinds for all six bedrooms and a big new area rug for Billy’
s room. They flipped through wallpaper samples until Billy saw something he liked, but it didn’t go with the dark blue rug with the white baseball stitching they’d bought. Finally, Hannah said, “We could strip off the wallpaper and paint, maybe put a baseball border around the middle of the room.”

  Billy looked up at Hannah. “Can I hang my baseball posters.”

  “Of course you can. It’s your room.”

  By the time they finished shopping, Hannah had spent most of the money she’d found in the old bank statements. Billy had a new comforter and pillows, rug, and paint for his bedroom. She’d also bought curtains to match his comforter. No more pink ballerinas for this kid. Like his father, he was all boy.

  While the new furnace warmed the house, Hannah cleaned Grandma’s room on the second floor, the one with the round alcove. As she made the bed and moved her things upstairs, the old house seemed to sigh with contentment. Every now and then, she felt a pocket of cold in the room, as she had the night she’d found the bank statements, but as soon as she rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, it disappeared. She tried to convince herself it was just the new furnace blowing out the cold air in the ducts.

  The closet in the corner of the room was tiny – all the closets in this house were small – so she hung some of her clothes in the closet in Grandpa’s old bedroom. She’d brought everything worth keeping with her, but it wasn’t much. The only clothes she’d bought since she married Trevor were essential items for work. Most of her paychecks had gone to pay their living expenses and Trevor’s bills.

  The new furnace put a huge dent in Hannah’s savings, and she still had to buy a reliable car. As soon as she found herself a job and replenished her bank account, she’d replace the plumbing and add a closet in her bedroom. With no rent to pay and no groceries to buy, she could use most of her earnings to restore the house.

  Her home.

  In spite of the sorry condition of the house, she loved this place. It would take a lot of work to make it look as good as it did when she was a little girl, but she could do it. Grandma had always kept this house sparkling clean, but it looked like no one had done much cleaning in the past few years. She could barely see through the windows, and the dust was so thick it made her sneeze. Grandma must have been sick for a long time for her to let the house get so dirty.

  When she was a little girl, she used to play princess in Grandma’s bedroom. The round alcove was her tower, and Grandma’s old necklace her crown. Grandpa and Grandma pretended to be the king and queen. And Donovan was unknowingly her Prince Charming.

  She pulled a basket off the closet shelf. Grandma’s sewing basket. She was ten the year Grandma taught her how to sew. Monique couldn’t be bothered to teach her anything, but Grandma did. Hannah learned to cook and sew and clean in this house. Grandma’s gentle hands guided her as she learned to thread a needle, mend a torn hem, and sew on a button.

  Holding the basket on her lap, Hannah opened it and took out a package of iron-on tape, a pin cushion, scissors, and a tray of assorted sewing supplies. Under the tray she found several bundles of hundred-dollar bills with the bank’s band still around them. She’d forgotten how Grandma liked to hide money in her sewing basket. “Grandma’s emergency fund,” she called it.

  Hannah’s hands dropped to her lap. “Oh, Grandma. I love you so much.”

  The room grew cold and something dripped on her hand. Hannah gasped. “Grandma, is that you?” Was that the ghost of her grandmother? Were those tears that dripped on her hand?

  Were her grandparents still here?

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  Two days after Hannah moved into her grandmother’s bedroom, while Pop and Billy and Donovan were settling into their rooms, she found an old diary in her grandfather’s bedroom. Her great-grandmother’s name, Charity Mullins Taylor, was inscribed on the inside of the faded brown cover. The writing was tiny and ornate, almost like miniature calligraphy. It was beautiful, but difficult to read. The yellowed pages crackled with age as she turned the first page. It was dated January 19, 1912.

  - My Wedding Day -

  I married Cal Taylor today. Daddy gave us the old farm, as he promised. The house is small and needs work, but we’ll have our own place.

  I asked Mama about tonight. She said to let him do what he wants and it will soon be over. She says it only hurts a little the first time.

  Things were different back then. No sex education, but surely farm kids knew how the plumbing worked. Hannah turned the page and continued reading.

  I cried last night. Cal was so mad he hit me. I did what Mama said, but he hurt me. I had to get up and change the sheets, then wash the blood out so it wouldn’t set. I cried all day. I don’t want him to hurt me again.

  Fascinated, Hannah opened the diary to another page, one dated July 27, 1912.

  Cal and I went to Sis’s house for dinner today. We came home to find the barn door shut and the pig dead in the hot sun. Things can’t get much worse, especially with the baby on the way. We can’t pay the midwife and won’t have enough food to last the winter. No rain this summer. The crops are dying from the heat, and Cal is angry all the time.

  It must have been a hard life if the death of one pig meant they’d starve that winter. The next page read:

  Sis and James loaned us enough to get by. It was very generous, but Cal resents it, says he hates James and won’t be beholden to him. Sis says James doesn’t like Cal either.

  Hannah wondered what happened before this, so she went back several pages, to a page dated March 16th, 1912:

  Cal gave me another black eye last week. I couldn’t see out of it for days. I HATE HIM! I told Mama, but she said I had to stay. Papa said divorce would bring shame on the family. He said he’d talk to Cal. Maybe if I run away, he’ll forget about me.

  The next page was dated May 30th, 1912.

  I’m with child. Cal will be a terrible father, but what am I to do? I hope to die in childbirth and the child with me, so this nightmare will end.

  Donovan stood in the doorway. “You found the diaries?”

  “I found one. It’s from 1912, the year my great-grandparents were married.”

  “Read anything interesting?”

  “Interesting and sad. My great-grandfather beat my great-grandmother on her wedding night, and from what little I’ve read so far, that was just the beginning.” She had no idea her great-grandfather was such a cruel man. Poor Charity. She didn’t expect her husband to treat her like that.

  He sat on the bed beside her. “Why did he beat her?”

  “Because she cried.”

  He gazed into her eyes. “Did your husband beat you, Hannah?”

  It took her a few seconds to respond. “You’re asking about my marriage, but you won’t talk about your wife?”

  Donovan took a deep breath and blew it out. He wasn’t comfortable talking about Maggie. Hell, he didn’t even like to think about her. “I didn’t beat my wife, and Maggie didn’t like to cook.”

  “Trevor cooked a little, and he didn’t beat me.”

  Donovan hoped she’d say more, but she didn’t, and he had no right to ask unless he was willing to talk about his marriage. And he wasn’t.

  Billy stood in the bedroom doorway. “Dad, here’s the hammer you wanted.”

  Donovan sent Billy back to the basement to look for nails while he checked out the attic steps. He pulled off one loose step and peered inside with his flashlight. There was a deep well under the step, which he found odd, and a rusty metal box in the well. He pulled it out and handed it to Hannah.

  The nails on the bottom of the step had been filed off. Since the nails on the other steps were an exact match, that meant this step had never been nailed in place. “I’ll be damned. This was built this way on purpose.”

  Hannah peered over his shoulder. “Why?”

  “Good question.” He handed the flashlight to her and checked the other steps. All were firmly nailed in place, all except the fourth one from the top. The well beneath that step was
n’t as deep, but it was boxed in like the other well. This one held a little white ceramic box with a purple flower painted on the lid. He handed it to Hannah and nailed both steps in place.

  They walked down to the kitchen, where Hannah spread newspapers on the table so Donovan could work on the metal box. The lid was rusted on. After tapping around the top with the hammer, the metal broke apart. He pulled out a big, thick envelope, yellowed with age, and shook it off. There was a second, smaller envelope in the bottom. He pulled it out and shook it off while she looked through the contents of the big envelope.

  “What is this stuff?” She handed him the papers.

  He read one paper and scanned the others. “It looks like stock certificates: Coca Cola, Hershey’s, AT&T, railroad stock, and some other stuff that may or may not be any good now. Hannah, this stock could be worth a small fortune.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have that kind of luck. Not me. I’m Monique’s daughter, the woman who married a deadbeat and stood in the middle of a busy street in rush hour traffic.”

  He chuckled. The spunk he’d seen when he pulled her off the street was back.

  “So, what’s in the other envelope?”

  “Money.” He pulled the bills out and counted. “Two hundred and forty dollars of very old money in very good condition. Don’t spend this, Hannah. These bills might be worth more to a collector.”

  Hannah dropped into a chair and looked up at Donovan. “Why would someone hide these things under the steps?”

  He handed her the ceramic box and sat beside her. “I don’t know. Open it.”

  She took the top off, pulled out a black velvet bag, and poured the contents out on the table. Donovan picked up one of the coins. “Hey, Pop, come look at this.”

  Pop shoved his reading glasses on his nose and examined a coin. “It’s a twenty-dollar gold piece. I haven’t seen one of these in years. These should be worth a few hundred dollars apiece by now.” He sat down and examined the stock certificates. “This was issued in 1920. If it’s genuine, this stock should be worth more than the coins. I know a guy who can check it out for you.” He pulled a dog-eared business card from his wallet and pushed it across the table to Hannah. “You might have a lot of money here, Hannah.”