“Okay.”
They stared at each other for a moment longer. Then she cleared her throat and did her best to speak normally as she changed the subject. “Did you know that your house was once owned by a very talented composer?”
“Um…no.”
She nodded. “His name was Zachary Duff. He had a few pieces published and performed before he was called up to fight in the Civil War.”
“And just how do you happen to know this?” he asked. “I mean,” he joked, “the Civil War. That was a long time ago. He’s not still hanging around, is he?”
She shrugged. “Well, you know, music lives forever.”
“Seriously, where did you get your information? I’ve seen some of the records on this place…in fact, I think I remember seeing the name Duff. But in the late 1800s, the property was owned by a family named Norman. Duff must not have had children. Was he killed in the war?”
“He survived long enough to come home, then died from complications due to his injuries,” she said.
“Is he haunting the house?” Matt teased.
She didn’t smile.
His laughter faded, and he frowned.
“Leslie?”
“Check out the bricks by the fireplace in your basement,” she said. “The left outside wall. Pull a few of them out, and you’ll find a cache of his work. It would be great if you could get it to a music publisher.”
He laughed then. “You are joking, right?”
“No, I’m serious. And I’m asking you to do this for me, as a special favor. Take the bricks out on the left side of the fireplace. You’ll find you’ve been in possession of a treasure trove of old American music.”
“How did you get this information? Seriously.”
She pretended not to hear him, slipping past him, heading toward the door.
“Leslie.”
He caught up with her, set his hands on her shoulders and spun her around to face him. Her expression was guileless.
“Leslie,” he said very seriously, “you don’t really believe in ghosts, do you?”
“I spend a lot of time in libraries,” she said. “You know…we do tons of research on an area before we work it. A lot of Lower Manhattan—and some areas of Brooklyn, too—is a treasure trove, once you dig deep enough.”
“And you just happened to research my house, and you know there’s music stashed in a niche inside the bricks of my basement fireplace.”
“Right,” she said.
“Leslie—”
“I feel an urge for something stiff and fortifying before tonight. Let’s head out, shall we?” she asked.
He had “fortifying” right there, in the apartment.
But they needed to get out. Being alone was…
Painful.
“Sure.”
As he followed her out, locking up, he said, “Research, huh?”
“Check out your basement fireplace,” she said.
Hastings House. His prison.
But she was all right; Leslie was all right. He had seen her…almost touched her. She had called out to him, and he had tried so hard to reply. Then she’d gone, and he’d known that she was all right, but he was still so…
Afraid.
It was laughable.
He was just the ghost of a man. Pathetic. Why was he here if he couldn’t even help, couldn’t stand against evil and injustice?
In dreams. There was a place for him in her dreams. Dreams filled with whispers and reminiscences. Poignant and sweet and surreal.
If he couldn’t manage to summon enough of himself to be seen, to linger for more than a few seconds, to leave the confines of the house, how was it that he could pace—or seem to—endlessly and desperately?
Peace, rest in peace…
He couldn’t. There was a reason for this pain of simultaneously being and not being, of needing to remain. It was fear. Fear for her. Strange warnings plagued his spectral soul. Somehow he knew she was in danger. He raged against it. What good did it do to feel this certainty that he should warn her, that the evil behind his death was still out there, when he was powerless to do anything about it? What had he ever done to deserve this wretched hell where he learned with more certainty each day that the greatest agony on earth didn’t lie in the pain of living or the pain of death, but in the pain of separation that haunted the heart and soul?
It seemed, as he paced, that everything always came back to this room. The servants’ pantry where he had died.
The dead room.
So often he stood here, reliving those last moments. Hearing the hum of a voice, trying to pretend he was paying attention, looking over others’ heads and seeing her eyes. It had been a great party, swimming with all the right people, with money, power and politics. The perfect evening…
And then the very air had exploded….
But she had been all right. Leslie had been all right….
He found himself in the main kitchen.