Ben’s breath was doing the same.
And it felt a lot colder all of a sudden.
Their eyes met across the shadowy space as the air eddied around them. A few crisp leaves—how they’d come to be in here, Callie didn’t know—tumbled and swirled on the floor.
“At midnight,” she said, figuring she might as well go all the way. “The wedding will be at midnight on New Year’s E—”
Something crashed behind her, and she spun around as Ben bolted toward her, nearly flying across the room to get to her side.
The large picture that had been hanging on the wall had fallen.
Even though the painting had landed facedown, Callie already knew whose portrait it was.
Brenda Tremaine.
She and Ben stood next to each other without touching—but close enough that she could feel his warmth—breaths heavy and white as they looked at the painting. She refused, absolutelyrefused, to look at the aged plastic mistletoe that hung just a few feet away.
“It was old,” Ben said after a minute. “The wood, the hanger, the string. Something must have just, you know, collapsed after all these years.”
Callie, who’d grown up reading her mother’s Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mysteries, was skeptical. She’d long released the pepper spray from her fist, but now she dug in the deep pocket of her long down coat to pull out her phone.
Swiping on the phone’s flashlight, she went over to the painting to examine it. Her breath no longer clouded up quite as white, and whatever she had felt in the air seemed to have gone. It was just her and Ben Tremaine, a bunch of vermin (please don’t let it be rats) (or bats), and a painting that had just fallen off the wall at an eerily opportune moment.
“The hanger looks completely intact,” she said in a neutral voice as she skimmed the light over the back of the painting and pulled on the wire with a gloved finger. “It’s made from wire and though it’s a little rusty, it’s not broken or even bent.” She looked up at Ben, who hovered over her.
“I’ll check the wall,” he said, pulling out his own phone for the light.
Callie didn’t stand back while he did the examination. She wanted to make sure it was done to Trixie’s standards, so she joined him at the wall where the painting had hung. She shined her own light over the mildewed and stained wallpaper as they edged right up to the wall, their two beams mingling like the clouds of their breath. She could smell faint mint coming from Ben, they were that close, and Callie wasveryglad she’d eschewed the cup of coffee she’d considered earlier and had had lemon-flavored sparkling water instead.
“Looks intact to me,” she said needlessly as they both stared at the two nails that had held up the heavy painting. Both protruded from the wall and were angled slightly upright. When Ben tried to jiggle each of them, neither were loose.
“All right, then,” he said in a quiet voice.
Callie didn’t have anything else to add. There was no way the painting had justfallenfrom the wall.
Her heart was thudding hard and she wasn’t certain whether it was because she’d been standing so close to Ben, or because of the creepy things happening.
She stepped back and tucked her phone away. And, just in time, she stopped herself from running a hand through her hair, remembering how wild it would look if she pushed off her hat.
Not that it mattered.
Other than that one time she and Ben had kissed—thanks to the mistletoe she was still absolutely not looking at—nothing else had ever happened between them…at least in that way.
They’d been friends, sure, and they’d spent a lot of time together with their group of nerdy compatriots, but that was it. Other than a few spicy conversations about whether Legolas and Eowyn would have made a good couple, and why on earthFireflyhad been cancelled—complete with whether Mal and Inara ever got together—everything had been definite “friend zone.”
“Well,” Ben said after a minute. “Are you done here?”
“I should check out the balcony,” she said, suddenly feeling the chill despite her heavy coat. “After all, that’s where the magic” —she gave an awkward chuckle— “is going to happen. But you don’t have to stay. I promise to lock up when I’m done.”
“It’s getting dark pretty quick,” he replied. “Probably best if I stick around, just in case.”
She gave him a little frowny sort of look. “I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“It’s dangerous to be poking around in the dark in an unfamiliar place. Especially one that hasn’t been used for decades,” he said mildly.
“I thought you had a caretaker,” she said, walking with firm, confident steps to the balcony’s door. “Though it really doesn’t look like he does much caretaking.”
“Shedoes just fine,” Ben replied again in that same easy voice. “But her responsibility is really only to make sure the clock and bells—and the New Year’s Eve light-up ball, too—work. Since the rest of the building is unusable.”
