Ever After (14 page)

“Maybe we should wait until the morning when the light is better and we can—” She broke off when Jamie started toward the side of the house. He was getting quite fast on his crutches! By the time she got there, he was standing in front of the double doors.

“You want to open it or do you want me to do it?” he asked.

Hallie held the key on her outstretched palm. “What happens if we open the door and two beautiful ghosts are standing there?”

“We'll say hello.” Jamie took the key and put it in the lock. It turned easily. “Ready?” When she nodded, he turned the knob.

Inside was a room covered in dust and cobwebs, with dried leaves on the dirty floor. But no ghosts.

“See?” Jamie said and she knew he was laughing at her.

“I guess this means I've met the love of my life.” She began to walk around. It was a large room and although everything was thickly coated in gray, she could see that under it was beauty. In a corner was a seating area with a little couch and some chairs. Two tables were by the dirty windows. Against one wall was a huge old-fashioned Welsh dresser heavily laden with china. She picked up a plate and wiped her hand through the dirt. “Look. This is the pattern of the dishes we've been eating off of.”

“If Edith has a key, based on her actions at the B&B, she probably ‘borrowed' some.” He was at a door in the corner. “Wonder where this leads?”

Hallie went to him as he opened it. Inside was a big pantry, with floor-to-ceiling shelves—and they were packed with objects. There was a window, but little light could get through the dirt.

“What is all this stuff?” Hallie asked.

Jamie swung past her to a door at the far end and opened it to see into the kitchen. “Now, that's weird. This door has a lock on this side but not on that one.”

“You don't think ghosts are strange, but a door that locks on only one side is?”

“So far I haven't seen any proof of ghosts.” In the kitchen, he got a flashlight out of a drawer, then returned to shine it on
the shelves in the pantry. Before them was cooking paraphernalia that seemed to cover the centuries. A rusty cast-iron waffle grill was next to a hand eggbeater from the 1950s. There was a pile of blackened copper molds connected by thick cobwebs. Boxes of products, ranging from elixirs to Swans Down Cake Flour, filled two shelves. Bottles, vials, containers made of marble, pewter, glass, and unidentifiable substances were fit into every space.

“I feel like I'm looking at a sunken ship.” She tried to take a breath but they'd stirred up enough dust that she started coughing.

“Come on, let's get out of here.” They went into the kitchen and closed the door behind them. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Sure, but it is a bit depressing, isn't it? Whether there are ghosts or not, Henry Bell closed off part of his house and didn't go in it. And all those things in there! Do you think they were given to those poor women who died so long ago? By people who saw the room as clean?” Her head came up. “Did the Tea Ladies put them away? In hope for a future they were never going to have?”

“Let's go outside and I'll tell you what Dr. Huntley told me about the garden.”

She knew he was trying to take her mind off the tragic story and she was glad of it. The truth was that she'd been surrounded by so much death in her life that the merest mention of it took her back there. When her father and Ruby died in a car crash, Shelly had fallen apart. She was just a teenager then, so most of the responsibilities had landed on Hallie's shoulders. Choosing burial clothes and caskets—all of it had been left to Hallie.

Once they were outside, Jamie stopped and looked at her. He didn't have to be told what was in her mind. He let his crutches fall to the ground, then pulled her into his arms. “It's okay to grieve,” he said softly. “They all deserve it, but don't get it mixed up with here and now.”

Hallie held on to him, her cheek against his heart. It was good to feel the comfort. She would have stayed that way if he hadn't broken them apart.

“Come on,” he said, “let's go to the gym and work up a sweat. It'll make you feel better.”

Hallie groaned. “Why did I get stuck with a jock? I'm more of a reader. Why don't we check the Internet to find out about the Tea Ladies? We could—”

“I'll fix that,” he said as he picked up his crutches, leaned on them, and began to tap his phone. He was fast and he showed Hallie the message he was sending to his mother: T
HIS HOUSE IS BELIEVED TO BE HAUNTED BY TWO BEAUTIFUL YOUNG WOMEN
. T
HEY FIND PEOPLE
'
S TRUE LOVES
. C
AN YOU TELL US ANYTHING ABOUT THEM
? Y
OUR LOVING SON
, J
AMES
.

“That should do it,” Jamie said. “Mom will call some of her friends and the lot of them will be up all night searching. The minute she has anything, she'll send us everything there is to know about your ghosts.”

Hallie smiled. “Curious, is she?”

“Insatiable. Now can we work out? My knee is aching.”

A look of alarm ran across Hallie's face but then stopped. “If I worked on your whole body, you'd be more balanced. You certainly wouldn't be slumping to one side and causing yourself pain, as you are now.”

“I do not slump!”

“Yes, you do. You move like this.” She did an exaggerated walk with the left side of her six inches lower than the right. “If you'd let me, I could straighten that out.”

Jamie was frowning. “Do it again. I like the view from the back.”

“You!” Hallie said but then laughed. “Come on and I'll work on your leg.”

Grinning, he followed her to the gym.

“A
re you going to take the case?” Mrs. Westbrook asked her son, Braden. Her tone was impatient, annoyed even. But then her ambitious, hardworking son looked like he was auditioning for the role of a hobo in a 1930s movie. He was stretched out on the couch, eating potato chips and watching endless reruns of
Charmed
. He hadn't shaved in days. Actually, he hadn't even taken a shower in the week he'd been home.

“I don't know,” he mumbled. “I hate family law. All those tears and hurt feelings.”

She made herself count to ten. “It's for Hallie. She needs help. Her stepsister did yet another lowdown rotten thing to her, but this time she doesn't just need a shoulder to cry on. She needs
legal
help.”

“Hallie would never go to court, so some first-year student can draw up the papers. She doesn't need someone who's almost
a partner to do it.” He gave a little snort. “Or Hallie could grow a pair and tell Shelly to get out.”

Mrs. Westbrook didn't know when in her entire life such anger had run through her. She went to stand before him, looking down as she snatched the bag of chips out of his hands. “You may talk like that in the big city but not here and not to
me
. Do I make myself clear?”

Braden sat up straight on the couch and turned off the TV. “Sorry, Mom. Really, I am. I know I've been a burden to you this last week, but—”

She held up her hand to stop him. “I understand why you're wallowing in self-pity. Your girlfriend dumped you.”

“Zara was more than a girlfriend. She was—”

“The girl who wouldn't commit to
you
.” Mrs. Westbrook threw up her hands. “Braden, you are the smartest person I've ever met, but sometimes I wonder if you have any sense at all.”

“Mom!” he said, sounding hurt.

She sat down on the edge of the sofa. “My dear son, Zara is a two-faced lying snake. The one and only time you ever brought her home I saw her flirting with the Wilsons' oldest boy.”

“Tommy? I hardly think Zara would go for someone like him.”

“If you ever bothered to look past her shapeless, skinny body, you'd have seen that young Tommy has grown into a real stud.”

“Mom!” He was genuinely shocked.

She lowered her voice. “Braden, my dear child, if you want actual
love
, why don't you look around you? Maybe somewhere closer to home?”

He let his head fall back against the couch cushion. “Not Hallie. Please tell me you aren't going to start that
again
! Hallie is a nice girl. A hard worker. She has a high pain tolerance to stand that family of hers. I'm sure she's going to make some man a wonderful wife and produce a bunch of kids who will walk all over her.”

“Better that than a wife who will walk all over
you
!” his mother said and started to get up, but he caught her arm.

“Mom, I'm sorry. I apologize for this.” He motioned to the mess of empty bags around him. But he also meant his inability to make himself return to the office where he'd have to see the woman he loved with one of the partners. He'd heard that she was now wearing a five-carat engagement ring.

“I know you love Hallie,” he said. “She's been the daughter you never had, and maybe that's the problem. She's like a sister to me.”

His mother narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that so? Yesterday when Shelly was outside wearing less fabric than it takes to make a handkerchief, that was the only time you got off the couch in a week. Is
she
also your sister?”

“Mom, please be reasonable. Shelly is so hot she stops traffic.”

“Hallie is a very pretty girl, but more than that, she has a
heart
. She cares about people.”

“Yes, she does.” He gave a little smile. “I just wish I could put Hallie's heart in Shelly's body.”

His mother did not return his smile. “I'll tell you what you're going to do—and I'm not asking for this. You are going to get up, shower and shave, then you're going to negotiate, mediate, take it to the courtroom, whatever you have to do, to solve this for Hallie.”

Braden opened his mouth to protest, but his mother kept talking.

“And furthermore, you're not going to charge her a penny for any of it.”

He was looking at his mother's face. It was the one she wore after she had repeatedly told him to pick up his toys and he still hadn't done it. He didn't know what would happen if he defied that look because he'd never dared to do it. “Yes” was all he managed to say.

She gave a curt nod and got up. “I got your father's brand of shampoo. Don't use that fancy stuff of yours. It's going to take work to get you clean.” She went into the kitchen.

Rolling his eyes, Braden got off the couch and headed upstairs to the bathroom, all the while muttering, “Damn it, Hallie!” He dreaded the way she looked at him, with adoring eyes that begged him to say even one kind word to her. And his mother's insinuation that he didn't look out for Hallie was totally unfair! For all Hallie's life, he'd looked after her.

As he turned on the water, he couldn't help smiling at the image of Shelly in her bikini. Yesterday half the neighborhood had turned out to see her bending over the flowers. Braden wasn't sure what had happened this time between the stepsisters but he had no doubt that it was Shelly's fault. She'd always been a conniving little brat, always planning something devious, usually with poor Hallie on the receiving end.

The day he'd arrived home after Zara had—as his mother so inelegantly put it—“dumped” him, he'd guessed that Shelly was up to no good. She'd been in the kitchen with his mother, sweettalking her into lending Shelly a tea set and asking where she could buy some bakery items. It seemed that she had an important guest coming.

At the time, Braden had been too miserable to show himself, but even through his deep unhappiness, he'd realized that something was amiss. For one thing, Shelly seemed to think men were put on the earth to do things for her, not the other way around. So why was she going to so much trouble for this one? When she told his mother the man's name, only Braden had heard of the famous architect. Why in the world was that man visiting Shelly? he wondered.