“He went into town. He’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” one of them answered.
“Tell him when he gets back to come to the house as fast as he can,” I said. Reversing, I ran back to Tinkie, suddenly afraid that she’d been left alone.
Tinkie didn’t even look up when I burst into the room, breathless and sweating. “It has to be the fireplace,” she said.
“You’ve watched too many B movies,” I told her. “Be careful or Vincent Price will be standing behind the secret panel. What do Lana Turner and Peyton Place have to do with this situation?”
She took time to roll her eyes at me. “I can’t say for sure, but in Peyton Place there’s a scandal involving the daughter’s legitimacy, and there are the layers of lies and deceit and also a fear of what others will think. There’s also a murder of a father by a daughter…” She stopped and stared at me. “But Estelle is in Maine.”
“Maybe not,” I said.
“Shit.” She leaned against the fireplace and the stone mantel behind her gave. To my amazement, the entire stone structure shifted to the left. The opening in front of us was dark, and a cool odor came to me, reminding me of marsh grass and some of the river brakes beside the Mississippi.
Tinkie started in, and I grabbed her arm and held her.
“What?” She had her flashlight on probing the depths of the dark hallway that were revealed.
“I do believe in ghosts,” I said. “I do, I do, I do.”
“You’re the one who’s always telling me that ghosts can’t hurt us. They’re noncorporeal.”
“I think maybe I was misinformed,” I said, stepping into the darkness behind her. “Maybe we should wait for backup.”
A low wail echoed down the cool passage. It was followed by the sound of dull thudding.
“Help me.” The cry was weak, but we both heard it.
Together we stepped into the darkness and the smell of rot and decay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The passageway was narrow, just large enough for us to go sideways. I would have taken the lead, but Tinkie was there and it was impossible to wedge past her.
When the corridor took a ninety-degree turn, I figured we were moving between rooms, but in the darkness, I’d lost all sense of proportion and direction. I was about to speak when muffled sobbing came to me.
Tinkie halted so abruptly I rear-ended her. I suppressed a moan as my sternum slammed into her bony head.
“Ouch, Sarah Booth. That hurt. When we find the ghost, what do we do?” she asked.
Run wasn’t an option because in the narrow confines we had to move like crabs. “Ask her how we can help?” I’d read somewhere long ago that a human could, sometimes, assist a ghost in moving on to the next plane. I’d never actually asked Jitty if this would work, and I’d certainly never tried this tactic on her because-I’d come to admit-I wanted her in Dahlia House. Even though she was an unmitigated pain in the ass, she was part of my heritage, part of Dahlia House, and part of my family. Somehow I had invited her to live with me, and that’s right where I wanted her.
Tinkie swung her light beam in front of us. “What if the ghost says that what she needs is to kill us? I mean, not all ghosts want to ‘go to the light,’ you know. It only stands to reason that some are going to the dark side. And then there are those who want to hang out here and screw with people.”
Tinkie’s logic was sometimes illogical but always intriguing. “We want to help her, why would she want to harm us?”
“Because she’s an evil entity that’s already lured you to a near death by drowning, and she pushed Jovan down the stairs and-”
“We don’t know any of those things involved the ghost.” I hung hard to fact. Ghosts were real, but not all of them were vengeful spirits. Besides, if Tinkie panicked, even as small as she was, she might stampede over me and finish me off before the ghost got a chance. “Maybe it’s not an entity at all. Perhaps it’s someone dressed as the ghost.” The idea was exciting. “Someone who wants to blame a supernatural being. Think of all the things you could get away with if you had a ghost to blame.”
“Like…?”
I didn’t have time to answer. I glanced over Tinkie’s head, and standing in the flashlight beam was a translucent figure dressed in a flowing red dressing gown. The woman was beautiful, though terribly sad. She was closer than I’d ever seen her, and in the unforgiving illumination of the flashlight, I could see the sharp bones of her face. Her eyes were large and burned with an inner fire.
“Tinkie,” I whispered. “Ghost.” The word seemed to tear my throat as it exited.
Tinkie stepped forward and turned her shoulders so she could look. I heard the sound of a loud whump, and she fell backward against me. I caught her as she slid to the floor.
“Tinkie!” She was out cold, and when I shone my light, I saw the support trestle she’d struck with her forehead. I eased her to the floor as best I could, all the while fighting the horrible sensation that the entity was on the move-toward me.
When I finally picked up a flashlight and shone it down the passage, the woman in red was only twenty feet away.
The apparition, for it was most definitely something from beyond our world, lifted a hand that held a white cloth. She put it to her mouth and coughed, a racking sound that ended in a choking noise. When she finished, she lowered the cloth toward me in a pleading fashion. “Help.”
The word seemed to waver in the air, moving like an echo rather than speech.
Whatever this ghoul was, she bore no resemblance to my lovely Dahlia House haint. Jitty was sexy and beautiful, voluptuous and groomed to perfection. If this was Carlita Marquez in her last days, I could only say that Federico was right to keep the children away from her. No child should have to see a parent dying in such a manner. Carlita was a skeleton barely covered by skin, her suffering etched into every plane and angle. The beautiful woman in the portrait hanging in my bedroom had evaporated, leaving only the dregs of who she’d once been.
Tinkie moaned softly. She was coming around. Her full weight was pressed against my shins and I had to brace myself to stand steady. Even if I could get away, I couldn’t take Tinkie. We were jammed like sardines in the secret hallway.
“What do you want?” I asked. My voice quavered, and I wished with all my might that Jitty would appear to intervene for me. I could handle a family member’s ghost, but not this pathetic creature that looked to be in agony. Even though she hadn’t spoken again, I could feel her pain like waves rolling over me.
“Help,” she said in that strange voice that was like air molecules colliding together and moving to me.
“How?” I dreaded her answer.
“Help me,” she said again. She seemed to move closer, but she wasn’t walking.
Tinkie moaned and shifted. “Tinkie, wake up.” I needed her to see this. “Tinkie, wake up.”
“Help me,” the ghost said again. “Too late.”
I had her pinned in the beam of the flashlight, and I could tell she was starting to fade.
“What can I do?” I asked.
“Save…” But she didn’t finish. Just as Tinkie sat up, the figure disappeared.
I knelt down beside my friend, using the flashlight to reveal the lump swelling on her forehead. She’d had a rough time with her noggin these past few days. While she’d taken a fairly good lick, the swelling was coming out, which Aunt Loulane always said was a good sign.
“Damn, I nearly knocked my brains out,” she said.
I took it as a favorable omen that she knew what had happened. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
“Saw who?”
“The ghost.”
She grabbed my knee and used it as a brace to push herself up. “I can’t believe you’re trying to scare me after I just slammed my head into a board.”
“But I’m not. She was there. She asked us to help her. She said we were to save… someone or something.” The more I talked, the more I realized Tinkie was having no part of this. She’d been unconscious, lying on the floor, while I’d spoken with the ‘Ghost of Marquez Manor,’ and now she’d never believe it.