Page 12 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
"To her room?" Hollis asked. Then he shook his head. “Not that I’m asking the skunk. I’m asking rhetorically. But it makes sense."
"Maybe she felt overwhelmed and just needed to step away," Father Claude suggested, though he didn't sound convinced. "Spiritual work can be...intense."
Ginger snorted. "Delia DuMont doesn't get overwhelmed. That woman could conduct a séance during a hurricane while juggling flaming batons."
It occurred to me for the first time that Ginger acted like she knew Delia very well…much more so than I had realized. Or maybe she just perceived every other medium as a threat.
We trooped upstairs in a loose formation, with Hollis first man in and Teddy as his backup. The skunk stopped outside Room Three and sat down, his tail puffed to twice its normal size.
"Delia?" I called, knocking on the door. "Are you okay? We were worried when you disappeared."
No answer.
Hollis tried the handle. "It's locked."
We all looked at each other, uncertain. “Do we just leave her alone to gather herself?” Claude asked.
“I say bust it down.”
Unsurprisingly, that was Maggie.
"I have a master key," I said, fishing it out of my pocket. The old skeleton key was one of the few things I'd kept from Aunt Odette's original system, partly for emergencies and partly because it was too pretty to throw away.
The lock turned easily, and the door swung open.
Room Three was empty.
Not just empty of Delia, but empty in a way that made the hair on my arms stand up. The purple velvet dress she had been wearing—just wearing!—was laid out neatly on the bed, as if she'd carefully removed it. Her jewelry was arranged on the antique dresser in perfect rows. The rings, necklaces, bracelets were all gleaming in the overhead light. Even her shoes were placed precisely by the door, as if she'd stepped out of them and simply...vanished.
"This is getting really weird," Maggie said, voicing what we were all thinking. “How did she change so fast? Does she have two purple velvet dresses and couldn’t decide which one to wear?”
"Her suitcase is still here," Beau observed, pointing to the purple rolling bag in the corner. He glanced into the bathroom. "Nothing out of the ordinary in there.”
Hollis was examining the windows, which were just as painted shut as the ones downstairs. "No signs of forced entry or exit. Room was locked from the inside." He paused, studying the key in my hand. "How many of these master keys exist?"
"Just this one," I said. "Aunt Odette kept it on her nightstand, and I took it when I inherited the house."
"So theoretically, no one else could have locked this room from the outside?"
"Theoretically, no. But this is New Orleans. Anything's possible. Anyone could have a key from thirty years ago for this room for all I know."
Teddy had waddled into the room and was sniffing around the base of the bed with intense concentration. Suddenly, he sat back on his haunches and made a sound I'd never heard him make before. It was a low, mournful whine that raised goosebumps on my arms.
"What is it, boy?" I knelt down beside him.
That's when I saw it.
A small, dark stain on the hardwood floor, barely visible unless you were looking from exactly the right angle. It was tucked under the edge of the bed's dust ruffle, no bigger than a silver dollar. Not enough to indicate bleeding out, but it was blood. On top of Delia’s thirty-second disappearing act, this was definitely cause for alarm.
And Ginger hadn’t wanted theatrics.
"Hollis," I said. "You need to see this."
The detective crouched down beside me, his phone light illuminating the stain. In the harsh glow, it was unmistakably dark red.
"Is that...?" Maggie started.
"Blood," Hollis confirmed grimly. "Fresh blood."
