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.
“This is not amusing, Sarah Booth. And it’s in poor taste, I might add.” With my assistance, she got to her feet. She was unsteady for a moment, but then she regained her equilibrium. “Did you really see a ghost? You’re positive it wasn’t some trick of lighting?”
“Carlita Marquez’s spirit is here, in this house, and she wants us to save someone or something. I don’t think she’s evil.”
Tinkie bit her bottom lip. “I wish I’d seen her, too. I want to believe you. It’s just that why would she appear right at the moment I get knocked out?”
That wasn’t a question I wanted to ponder while still crammed into a crawlspace without good ventilation or a speedy path of retreat. “We should go back to the study,” I said. I would come back later to look for evidence.
Even if Tinkie didn’t believe me, I knew I’d seen Carlita Marquez, and she’d asked me to save someone. Federico? Estelle? Both were safe. Then who? Maybe save her spirit from her father? It was very complex.
“You know, you and Jovan are the only people who’ve seen the ghost.” Tinkie was inching her way out, following my lead. She was wobbly but doing okay. If I didn’t get her on a plane and back to Zinnia, she might damage her brain for good. She couldn’t take a lot more bumping and whacking.
“There are stories in town,” I pointed out. “So kids have seen her standing on the balcony.”
“Or they just like telling the story. Good date material. Gives the girl an excuse to cuddle close.”
“For a woman who healed her own breast lump with the help of a faith healer in New Orleans, I find it strange you’re so determined not to believe this house is haunted.”
“I just find the timing interesting. And a little convenient. Maybe you want to see a ghost.”
Now that was the regular Tinkie-a zinger lurking behind every multiglitzed curl. “Thanks.”
“Why do you think the ghost presents to you?”
We were almost back to the study. “Because I’m willing to see her?” I didn’t add that it might be because I had my own ghost and had learned to listen.
Thinking of Jitty brought back the remarks that she’d made earlier in the kitchen while acting out Peyton Place. I stopped dead still and Tinkie bumped into me with a curse. “What’s wrong? I’m not going to have an inch of skin left that isn’t bruised.”
Jitty had said a picture was worth a thousand words. “Tinkie, we can’t be sure Estelle is in Maine.”
“Daniel said he had a photo sent from her phone. He was torn up because he figured some new guy had taken it. Do you think he’s lying?”
“No, but a photo doesn’t prove anything.”
She swung her light so that it was directly in my eyes, blinding me. I pushed it away as she spoke.
“You’re right. What if-”
“What if Estelle is who we’re supposed to save? What if the ghost of Carlita was talking about her daughter?”
Tinkie aimed the light down the passageway we’d just sweated down. “We’re going to find out.”
“You should go to the kitchen and check the dogs. I can do this.”
She ignored me and reversed down the tunnellike path. We’d gone only fifteen or so yards when we both stopped dead in our tracks.
Soft sobbing wafted to us, and this time it was closer. It sounded like a woman, exhausted and ready to give up.
“Estelle!” I called. “Estelle, can you hear us?”
The answer that came chilled me to my bones. “Please. So… much… blood.”
After stumbling and banging our way down the torturous passage and climbing the narrowest stairs I’d ever seen, we finally found Estelle in the back of a cupboard in one of the rooms on the third-floor east wing. In my searches of the house and questioning of the staff, I’d been told the room was a linen closet. I’d even searched it once before.
There were stacks of sheets and towels, but there was also a false front that concealed a space large enough for Estelle’s body. Her hands and feet were tied so tightly, I wondered if the lack of circulation would necessitate amputation. She’d also been gagged, but she’d managed to work that loose. She was bleeding from a head wound and a severe cut to her thigh. Blood, dried and oozing fresh, had puddled around her.
The exterior door of the closet was locked, but using our shoulders, Tinkie and I managed to split the wood at the hinges and crash it open. While Tinkie called an ambulance, I untied Estelle and dragged her out into the hallway.
Estelle had slipped into a thrashing sleep, and I could tell by the heat coming from her body that she had a high fever. She was also dehydrated, but I was afraid to try to rouse her to drink. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sat on the floor and cradled her head and talked to her, even though she was so delirious she couldn’t possibly understand my words.
I didn’t want to think how long she’d been in that cubbyhole, unable to move and without water or food, bleeding from two serious wounds. I could only hope that her condition wasn’t fatal.
Tinkie came running back upstairs. “The ambulance is on the way, and I put in a call to the Petaluma authorities and Daniel.” She saw the look on my face. “I think he was duped, Sarah Booth. I talked to him when he thought Estelle had broken up with him. He was devastated. I don’t think he had anything to do with this.”
Tinkie had good gut instincts, but I wasn’t as trusting in the area of love as she was. She’d married once and well. She’d lived a life where fairy tales did come true. That hadn’t necessarily been my experience, but I let it go.
“We’ll find out who’s responsible for this when Estelle regains consciousness.” I spoke with more authority than I felt. Looking at the unconscious young woman, skin taut from dehydration, her face pale but hot with fever, and her hands and legs still an unnatural gray color from the lack of circulation, I wondered if she would ever wake up. We had found her, but maybe too late.
Footsteps pounded toward us, and Daniel Martinez came up the stairs. If his expression could be taken at face value, he was shocked and horrified at what he saw.
“Estelle.” He slid across the polished floor on his knees. He picked up her hand and held it to his chest. “Holy Madre,” he whispered. “What’s wrong with her? Who hurt her?”
Tinkie gave him a rundown on how we’d found Estelle, and how we didn’t know who might have hurt her.
I could see the anger building behind his eyes, and when he spoke, the flash of fury was in his speech. “I’ll find the person who did this, and he will pay.”
“Any ideas who it might be?” I asked.
He considered. “Estelle sometimes behaved like a spoiled child. She made enemies, but not the kind that would do this.” He waved a hand over her unconscious body. “Will she live?”
I didn’t have an answer to that, but I heard the sirens of the paramedics. At least the presence of the movie crew and my friends had helped the local economy by keeping the hospital and vet clinic busy.
“Estelle.” He rubbed her hand frantically, as if he could erase the gray tone and bring it back to the full flush of life. “Wake up,” he begged.
I eased her head into his lap and stood. There were things to be done. At a signal from me, Tinkie backed away so we could talk privately.
“So it couldn’t have been Estelle who was haunting the house. She’s been in the closet awhile.” Tinkie was watching as Daniel stroked her hair from her face. If he wasn’t acting, he was truly grief-stricken.
“The timeline is everything. Was Estelle in the closet when I was lured onto the beach?” I’d always assumed it was Estelle playing the role of her dead mother for dramatic effect. Now my theories were blown to hell and I needed to rethink the sequence of events. “Estelle could have pushed Jovan.”
“Or the ghost could have.” Tinkie met my gaze. She was choosing to believe me and what I’d said I had witnessed.
“I saw Carlita up close. She didn’t have enough meat on her bones to push a pea across the table. She looked awful.” I shook my head. “I had this crazy idea that ghosts got to choose their bodies and how they looked at any time in their life. Poor Carlita. She died a terrible death, and she’s stuck in the phase just before she passed on.”
“Carlita didn’t do this to Estelle,” Tinkie said, “and we have to find out who did.”
“I’m afraid that answer is going to be in Hollywood, not Petaluma.” It had to be someone on the cast and crew. If it wasn’t Daniel, and I believed Tinkie was correct in her assessment, then it had to be a member of her father’s movie ensemble-or someone who’d passed himself off as part of the crew. Each day there were dozens of hangers-on-people who catered or drove cars or cleaned clothes and brought them back or provided some special service like a massage or bottled water of a certain brand. While the core group of the movie was fairly well known to me, there were people coming and going all the time.
“What about the grandfather?” Tinkie asked.
He was an evil and unhappy man, but why would he punish Estelle in this manner? Yet he’d refused to divulge the floor plans of the house even when he knew Estelle was missing. “He’s a possibility.”
We heard the ambulance pull up in the yard and right behind it was a squad car with two police detectives. I ran down to let them in and direct them to Estelle. The paramedics wasted no time putting her on a gurney and moving her into the ambulance. The medical experts gave me and Tinkie the strangest looks, but they said nothing and focused their skills on Estelle.
“I’ll ride with her,” Tinkie said. “Sarah Booth, you can give a statement to the detectives.”
“Please, let me go with Estelle.” Daniel was distraught. “I should never have left. She was obsessed with her father. I knew she was doing things she shouldn’t, but I never dreamed she was lying in that hole, hurt.”
“Go with her,” Tinkie told him. “We’ll be there soon.”
After the ambulance was gone, we told the police officers the sequence of events, showed them the secret passage, and then answered their questions. Before they began the forensics work, they told us we could go.
I turned to Tinkie. She had a huge lump on her forehead. I touched my own head, where the heel of her stiletto had done its work. We looked at each other.
“Frik and Frak.” She shook her head. “Jesus, Sarah Booth, we look like members of some religious cult that batters their foreheads. No wonder the paramedics were giving us the evil eye.”
“The good news is, I can’t work looking like this so I might as well solve this case.”
“Oscar is going to throw a hissy, but that’s too bad.”
“Let’s ride,” I said, though I wasn’t certain which direction we needed to take.