“Do you know everyone here by their cooking?” I asked, finding I liked his lighthearted attitude.
He chuckled. “Well, boy’s gotta eat, ma’am—especially one who can’t cook worth a damn. Darn,” he amended quickly, glancing down at Henry. “Worth adarn. Sorry about that. Not used to having kids around until recently.”
“There are other kids nearby?” I asked, hoping Henry could make friends—something that was in short supply in our old neighborhood. What few people who’d still been around were older, too poor or too stubborn to move from a neighborhood, which had more houses boarded up and rotting to ruin than not.
“Well, a few kids, I guess,” Chase said, pausing and drawing his brows together like he was mentally taking inventory. “There’s a family a couple doors down got a little boy I’ve seen. And then there’s Adelaide. She lives in this apartment here.” He motioned toward the door on the other side of the lobby. “Her Mamaw June and Papaw Earl have custody. She’s probably about the same age as your son. Sweet little thing.” He winked at Henry. “She’s got a headful of curls, too. Y’all could be cousins.”
He led us past a bank of brass mailboxes on the wall to a set of heavy double doors that opened into an enormous room that looked like it had once been two. The area had a heaviness to it—the walls were painted deep green and the wood trim, like in the rest of the building, was rich mahogany that gave the impression of decadence and wealth. A few couches were arranged around the room that also held a pool table, a couple of large screen TVs, and a very expensive-looking card table covered in green felt.
“This is the common room,” Chase explained. “Y’all are welcome to use it whenever you like. The Johnsons and Foresters play cards down here most evenings after dinner. Even Old Man Dean sometimes comes down to be sociable. He’s up on the third floor.”
I glanced at Henry to see if he was as nervous as I was now that we were inside the imposing house, but he was his typical happy, bouncy self, excited to see everything Chase showed us.
“Like a lot of these old homes in Savannah,” Chase went on, leading us down a dimly lit hallway, “this place once belonged to a rich dude—prominent businessman in these parts—but it fell to ruin when his descendants moved on. For afew years back in the 1980s, Dawes House was turned into apartments for poor folks—”
He stopped talking abruptly and flushed, sending me an apologetic glance. Apparently, my arrangement with Whit wasn’t a secret.
I gave him a tight smile. “Don’t worry, Mr. Crawford. I’m well aware I don’t have any money. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“Sorry, all the same,” he said with a nod. “But you’re right—nothing to be embarrassed about. We all gotta have a little help now and then.” He flashed that wide, charming grin and put a hand on his chest in mock solemnity. “Me, I like to rely on the good graces of my dear cousin Whit Proffitt, whose last name, it seems, was quite prophetic.”
“Mr. Proffitt is your cousin?” I repeated, wondering if I’d heard right.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a wink. “He prefers to leave all the dirty work on the properties to me. Thinks maybe it’ll keep me out of trouble.”
I laughed a little, unable to resist his roguish charm. “Well, I’m glad to see I’m not the only charity case.”
He grinned again and gestured to an elevator. “Your chariot awaits.”
I studied the rickety—albeit beautiful—elevator, then sent a side glance at Chase. “Are you sure that’s safe?”
The conveyance looked more like a birdcage than an elevator. Its dark wooden panels on the bottom half were each emblazoned with some kind of insignia featuring a raven surrounded by filigree. The top half of the elevator was an actual cage of intricate bronze scrollwork and included a domed top sporting bronze statuettes of ravens mid-takeoff, as if carrying the elevator upward. The whole contraption looked old enough to be original to renovations a century ago.
Chase pulled open the door and stepped inside. “Yes, ma’am. And I’m sure you’ll find it easier to get to the fourth floor than climbing all the stairs.”
Henry bounded in and motioned for me. “C’mon, Mama!”
“Okay, okay, you two can stop ganging up on me.” I said, stepping in.
Chase pulled the door closed and pressed the button. There was a loudclunk, and the elevator slowly began to creep upwards, creaking ominously as it inched along.
“Oh, yeah,” I murmured. “Totally safe.”
Chase chuckled. “Now, Ms. Dupont, do you think I’d put you and this handsome young man in danger on your very first day in this fine establishment?”
I had no idea what Chase Crawford would do. He was charming, handsome, maybe even a little bit wicked in all the good ways—but I didn’t trust him. Not yet. Certainly not with the safety of my son. I let his question go unanswered. It was probably meant to be rhetorical anyway.
The elevator dinged as we passed the third floor.
“Is Mr. Dean the only tenant on this floor?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Nope,” Chase answered. “Three apartments on the third floor. You’ve got Billy Wayne Wright and his wife Kitty. And then there’s Ms. Netty and her full-time nurse, Merilee Vaughn. Pretty sure Ms. Netty came with the house. Not quite all there anymore, but she’s a feisty old gal.”
“And Merilee?” I prompted.
Chase flushed slightly. “She’s young, pretty. You’ll like her.”
Clearly, he did. I suppressed a grin as the elevator jolted to a stop on the fourth floor.
