He did so, several times, as she mashed avocado, lemon, cumin, salt, and pepper intoguacamole.
“It’s definitely familiar. Right on the tip of my ear, so to speak,” Declan finally said. “Maybe it will come to me later. By the way, did you ever find the pink velvet wrap that ismissing?”
“No. It’s definitely gone. I just don’t understand why anyone would take that and leave a bunch of other vintage articles in the speakeasy. I found a ladies’ dinner jacket from the 1920s that Gilda Herring said could be worth a thousanddollars.”
“Ajacketworth agrand?”
“That’s what she said. So why would someone take the pink stole? And leavethat?”
“Maybe they didn’t have time to look through everything in the speakeasy. We might have interrupted them when we droveup.”
“But if they were in the speakeasy, there’s no way they would have heard or seen us arrive.” Leslie shook her head. “No, I’ve done a lot of thinking about it, and I think whoever it was left on their own—either because they were finished with what they were doing, or because the ghost made an appearance.” She grinned. “I’m kind of hoping for the latter, because then I doubt the intruders will ever come back. And so far—to my knowledge, anyway—theyhaven’t.”
She brought dishes of shredded chicken, guacamole, chopped tomatoes, queso fresco, and plain yogurt to the table. “Et voila—Soft Tacos a la Leslie,” she said, returning to grab the cilantro and the warm corntortillas.
“Wow. Will you marry me?” he said, looking at the array of food. “Neither Stephanie nor I are all that great in thekitchen.”
“I’ll consider it,” she said, sliding into her chair as he began to heap filling into a foldedtortilla.
“I sure hope so,” he replied, glancing at her with an expression pointed enough to make herblush.
“So…anyway,” she said, filling her own taco, “I’ve been searching in the speakeasy when I have some free time to see if there is any sort of hidden cache down there. If Red Eye Sal did have those jewels, it seems a likely place to hide them,right?”
“One would think. And you’re sure theyexist?”
“Yes. I’ve dug deep enough in oldChicago Tribunearchives—online—to find a few articles about them, and even one photo of the rubies. They did exist. And no one seems to have seen them for almost a century. So the timing is right for them to have been hidden when Sal livedhere.”
“Maybe the ghost—if it’s Dorothy Duchene—can help you findthem.”
Leslie laughed. “She’s not been much help otherwise, but I guess I could askher.”
“So you really do talk to her?” He was already loading up a second taco. Good thing she’d made plenty oftortillas.
“Well…it’s more like shouting at her.” Leslie grinned. Then her smile faded. “You know…I was thinking. This is going to sound really weird, but…that sort of corrosion that’s on the iron bars that’s not rust? I think… I wonder if it might be some sort of physical manifestation of thehaunting.”
That caught his interest enough for him to pause, taco halfway to his mouth. “As if whatever happened to Dorothy Duchene—or whoever she is—is a sort of evil growth spreading inside the house? Inside thestairway?”
“Yes. I guess that’s what I mean. Put that way it sounds strange—but what other explanation is there? It’s not anywhere else in the house. And that makes me think that whatever happened to her has something to do with the stairs. Especially that section of the stairway.” She scooped up the last bit of guacamole. “I sent away a sample of a piece of wood with the corrosion on it to friend of mine at a lab at Michigan State University. Just to see what it was. It’s… Well, they’re not sure what it is. They can’t identifyit.”
“That is more than a littlecreepy.”
“I know, right? So I really hope that whatever it is, it goes away once I figure out how to help the ghost settle back into her afterlife.” She looked at Declan, then laughed, shaking her head. “If someone had told me I’d be a cat owner and also be having this very serious conversation about a ghost six months ago, I would have thought they were ondrugs.”
“Same here. And I’ve seen a lot of creepy things in my line of work.” He stood and began to clear the empty dishes, sliding them into place in the dishwasher with the ease of a single parent. “So maybe we should take a closer look at that staircase, stair railing, and soon.”
“I was so hoping you’d saythat.”
It wasn’t long before they had the kitchen put back to rights and were standing in the foyer, looking at the majestic stairway. The temporary wooden poles Declan had put in while he was working on the railing looked horribly out ofplace.
“I really need to pull up that carpet. It’s probably a hundred years old,” Leslie said, looking at the swath of dark red Oriental rug that covered the stairs in a long, threadbare strip. It was held in place on most steps by a slender brass rod that fit flush to the back of each one. “I keep putting it off because of all those rods—they’d each have to be unscrewed, and there are twenty-sixsteps.”
“Except for that one—the broken step,” Declan reminded her. “Was that broken before or after your break-in?”
“If it was broken, I didn’t notice it before. There are a few bars missing in the middle of the stairway, and the carpet is loose. I used a staple gun to punch the rug into place so no one tripped on it while going up and down—just a temporary fix.” She paused suddenly, stilling as a thought struckher.
“What isit?”
“The second time I saw the ghost, and every time since then, she’s no longer standing at the top, along the balcony, but on the stairs. About a third of the way down.” Leslie’s shoulders began to prickle violently. “She’s pointing…and she could very well be pointing atthis step.The brokenone.”
