"I heard something. Back inside. I'm not arguing with you."
"It was the bulkhead door. The wooden latch is rotted."
She could see him gritting his teeth. "At least wait in your damn car."
"No. I'm going with you." She proceeded past him into the grass, then stopped, handing him her mason jar. "Here, you're the ex-cop. You'll know how to use this better than I will."
"I'd rather have a.38."
But he took the jar and apparently gave up on convincing her to do what he said, because he pushed ahead of her without a word. They walked through the tall grass between her yard and the lilacs, their fragrant scent overpowering now, strangely disquieting.
As Tess had anticipated, the bulkhead door was unlatched, and another strong gust lifted it an inch or two, then banged it back down again.
"My father and Davey must have left it like this," she said.
Harl eyed her, his expression intense as he apparently considered the situation and her role. He wouldn't necessarily top her list of people she'd want looking after one of her kids. He pointed to her. "Hand me your cell phone."
"Why? You're not calling the police, are you?"
"Haviland, you're a pain in the ass. I don't know what Andrew sees in you. Give me the phone."
She handed it over. "What did you hear? Do you think someone was back here, sneaking around in my cellar?" She took a breath, the taciturn nature of Jedidiah Thorne's descendants enough to unravel anyone. "I'm beginning to think this place is haunted."
"I'm calling Andrew." Using what he had left of his right thumb, he banged out a number. "Thorne? Harl. She's fine. We'll be right over." He clicked off the phone and handed it back to her. "Let's go."
"No way. I'm going back to Boston. It was the wind. I see now where Dolly gets her active imagination, from you and her father."
Harl snatched the cell phone out of her hand, hit redial. "She's arguing. I'll come stay with Dolly. You come here and haul her ass over. My woman-haul-ing days are long gone."
Tess set her jaw. "I'll be gone before he gets here."
She had him, and he knew it. Unless he used physical force, he couldn't stop her. "All right. Good. Go."
"You can't expect me to stick around out here with two strange men-"
"Nope.You're being smart. Get in your car and go."
She eyed him suspiciously. He didn't have the subtlety or patience to try persuasion, but this was giving up too easily. "What are you going to do?"
"I've got a chest of drawers I need to finish painting."
A flat-out lie, and they both knew it. There was nothing she could do. She wasn't telling him about the skeleton, not now, not here. What if it had been him she'd heard, trying to sneak into the bulkhead? He wouldn't have known she'd doubled back to lock her door. After all, what did she know about Harley Beckett? Or Andrew Thorne, for that matter.
She had no good options.
These two men had no more reason to trust her than she did them. Less. She'd lied to them. What would they think if she drove out of here and Harl went down to her cellar and found the skeleton?
At least she was well aware that kissing Andrew had no bearing on anything.
"Call me if it turns out there was someone out here," Tess said, and gave Harl her cell phone number as she started toward her car. She glanced back at him. "But it was the wind."
He said, "Tess, I have your cell phone."
"Well, damn it, give it to me."
He tossed it to her, studying her closely. "You want your mason jar back, too?"
"No, you can keep it."
Her cell phone rang in her hand. She clicked it on, and Andrew said, "Drive carefully."
She almost caved-but she couldn't tell him about the skeleton. Not here in the dark, with Harley Beckett watching her every move, suspicious, not after the scare she'd just had. She couldn't rely on instincts, not this time. She had to think.
"I will."
"I can't leave Dolly here alone, not if there's even a chance there was someone out there. Harl doesn't want to call the police?"
She lowered the phone and asked him. "Harl, do you want to call the police?"
"To do what, fix the latch on your bulkhead?"
She returned to Andrew, edging her way to the car. "He says no."
"Tess," he said softly, "what happened last night?"
"Snakes." She cleared her throat, sticking to her story even if she knew he didn't believe it, never had. She'd tell him the truth when she could, not now. "I was worried about snakes."
She climbed in behind the wheel, got out her keys, tried two before she got the right one into the ignition. Andrew hadn't yet hung up. Neither had she.
"Tess."
She licked her lips, her throat burning. "I'll be back in the morning."
Silence.
"Tell Dolly that Tippy Tail ate all the food she brought her."
She clicked off and backed out of the driveway, wondering how long it would take before he and his cousin, both or one at a time, searched her cellar. Would they wait until daylight?
What if they already knew a skeleton was there and decided to move it? What if they'd put it there? What if one had and the other didn't know about it?
She was getting carried away. They wouldn't be making such a big deal about why she'd screamed last night if they had any responsibility for the skeleton. They'd get her out of town as fast and quietly as possible, then make their move. They wouldn't invite her to dinner. Andrew wouldn't have kissed her.
What if they were suspicious of her?
Her mind was racing. She couldn't think coherently.
She pulled in to a well-lit gas station on a busy main road and called Susanna Galway.
"Susanna? Good, you're home."
"Where else would I be on a Saturday night? What's up? How's the haunted carriage house?"
Tess couldn't get a word out. Her throat was so constricted, and suddenly she couldn't seem to get any air. She made a choking, gurgling sound.
"Tess?"
"I found a skeleton in my cellar."
The words came in a rush, and Susanna sighed. "Well, damn. Human?"
"I think so."
"You think so? What do the police say?"
"I don't know, I haven't called them."
"Their number is 911. Easy to remember."
"Susanna…"
"I'm hanging up. You call me after you've talked to them."
"There are complications-"
"Ghosts, I know. And you're not sure what the hell you saw. You don't want people thinking you're a weenie or the sort of woman who conjures skeletons out of thin air. Yeah, I know all the complications. You've also got a rich eccentric who's been missing for a year. Call the police."
She hung up.
Tess stared at her dead cell phone. Then she dialed the police.
Thirteen
"Askeleton? Hell, I was hoping for buried treasure."
No one took well to Harl's dubious sense of humor. Andrew glowered at him, but Harl shrugged, unrepentant. They were all on Andrew's back porch. Harl, Andrew, two cops-and Tess. Andrew didn't think she looked the least bit contrite. She'd cleared out, called the police, and met them back here, before he and Harl had had a chance to work out who'd do the first search of her cellar. Harl took no pains to hide his flashlight and the pick and shovel he'd collected from the toolshed.
"You go on," he told Andrew now. "I'll stay here with Dolly. I've already done the dead-body-in-the-basement thing in my day."
The officers, two regular patrolmen on the small Beacon-by-the-Sea force, had already questioned them about the flapping bulkhead. Harl stuck to a recitation of the facts, without editorializing or speculating. He'd heard something earlier in the evening and investigated, discovering Tess and the unlatched bulkhead catching in the wind. Nothing else.
Andrew had nothing to report. Given the position of his house, he hadn't heard the bulkhead, or whatever it was, but had spotted Harl out back. They'd conferred briefly, and Andrew waited on the back porch with the phone in case the police were needed.