Page 8 of Ghostridden
I heaved a relieved sigh. It would have been nice if she’d given the code or the opener to me, although, to be fair, she didn’t know exactly when I’d be arriving, and she might have tried calling after my phone died. Plus, she couldn’t have known mason bees would have staged Occupy: Keyholes in both doors.
Ricky studied me, his head tilted to one side. “Does that make you feel unsafe? I know how to change the code. I can show you if you want.”
I shook my head. “Maybe later. I’m fine. I’d love to see the rest of the house, and I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
“No worries about that. My hours are flexible.”
“What kind of hours?” I winced. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be nosy, but the way your aunt, er, godmother…”
He took pity on my flailing. “She’s my aunt through marriage. She married my Uncle Ramon a few years after her first husband died, but she’d been a friend of the family for years. Hence the godson relationship.”
“That’s why you call her Tia Sofia?”
He grinned. “Everybody in town calls her Tia Sofia. She’s that kind of person. Come on. Let’s see the rest of the place.”
I noticed that he’d evaded my question about how he spent his time, but I let it slide for the moment because I really did want to see the rest of the house.
He led me through a family room with mission-style furniture grouped around a marble-faced fireplace and into a vaulted entry. Wide oak stairs ascended to the second-floor balcony to the left of the front door, and through a pair of french doors to the right—
“Holycrap!” I murmured. “An actual freakinglibrary?”
There was no other word for it, because the walls were lined with floor to ceiling shelves except in the corner where a built-in desk followed half the curve of the front turret, a padded window seat upholstered in a forest green William Morris print extending the rest of the way.
I barely restrained a happy dance. Not only a library, but awindow seat? All my latentJane Eyrefantasies were coming true.
The turret windows looked out over the front lawn, the road, and the maple tree. A jewel-toned rug—ruby, dark emerald, sapphire, topaz—covered most of the oak floor, and a little wood stove was tucked next to another arch leading to what looked like a formal dining room, although it was empty of furniture.
But the bookshelves? Not empty. Not empty at all.
I ran my finger across the spines of shelf full of hardcover mysteries and thrillers. Dorothy L. Sayers. L.A. Witt and Cari Z. Conan Doyle. Jake Fields. Charlotte MacLeod.
“They left their books,” I whispered.
“I think they left everything.” Ricky glanced at the shelf in a way I could only describe as furtive. “Come on. There’s lots more to see.”
He wasn’t wrong. Three bathrooms and four bedrooms on the second floor—and was I thrilled that the main suite included a sitting area in a turret? Why, yes. Yes, I was. But by the time we got to the attic, a quirky space defined by the gabled roofline, I was past thrilled and deep into gobsmacked territory.
“I can’t believe this is mine.” The house. The furniture. Thebooks. “All my worldly possessions that didn’t travel the couch-surfing circuit with me for the last two months are stored in six boxes in my ex’s closet.” Assuming Greg hadn’t tossed them. “And now”—I flung my arms out—“this.”
“It’s a lot.” Ricky stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “But good, right?”
“Sogood.” I wandered over to the attic window that looked out over the back yard. A small secretary table—and yeah, I know about furniture styles because I ghostwrote for an antique dealer once—held a vintage Smith Corona electric typewriter, circa the early 70s, I’d guess, in the days before word processors or even the IBM Selectric and correcting mechanisms. “Whoever used this had to be pretty confident of their words.”
“That was Avi,” Ricky said softly. “He was a writer.”
“Really? So am I.” I grimaced. “Well, sort of.”
“How can you sort of be a writer?”
“I’m a contract writer. What you’d call a ghostwriter. I vet other peoples’ stories, but it’s their words. Mostly.”
Ricky laughed, the joyous sound somehow swallowed by the attic, even though it was mostly empty. “If you’re a ghostwriter, my friend, then you’ve come to the right place. What better place to do ghostwriting than in Ghost?”
After Ricky left, I introduced Gil to the location of his food dishes (kitchen turret) and litter box (mud room), and left him to poke around the house while I sluiced myself off in theveryroomy tiled shower in the primary bedroom’s ensuite bathroom. Afterward, I was too exhausted—both physically and emotionally—to do anything but sleep.
Despite the truly pristine state of the house—I made a mental note to thank Taryn for the cleaning service because, hey,no rats, much to Gil’s disapprobation—I didn’t feel right yet sleeping in the king-sized oak sleigh bed that had belonged to two men who’d never had a real chance to enjoy their home.
Instead, I inflated the air mattress that had been my constant companion for the last couple of months and slept in my sleeping bag in the suite’s turret sitting room. I’d fallen asleep gazing at the stars, with Gil curled, purring, at my side.
