Ghosts were usually pale essences. They didn’t want to hurt anyone; they wanted to be helped. Occasionally, they were bitter or liked to play pranks. Both Adam Harrison and Nikki Blackhawk had told her that they’d never encountered a ghost that was actually vicious—except against whoever had caused them to become a ghost.
She groaned softly, laying her head on her arms on the table. She could just see the conversation with a therapist. Am I paranoid? I don’t think so. I’m not afraid of the dark, and I’m certainly not afraid of ghosts. Hell, some of my favorite people are ghosts. In fact, I may never date again. I have this spectacular ghost who comes to me at night…But the thing is, I feel like I’m being stalked, but not by a ghost, by…evil.
She lifted her head, determined that she had far too much work ahead of her to fall prey to her imagination.
She dialed Brad’s cell phone.
“Leslie?” he asked. “Where are you?”
“The library. Are the engineers still working at the site?”
“Yup. They think they’ll finish around three.”
“Can you meet me back at Hastings House? I’ve got something exciting to show you.”
“When? I’ll need a little time.”
“Four o’clock?”
“Sure. What did you find?”
“I’ll show you.”
First things first. Joe put in a call to Genevieve’s old office and, after only a few minutes of exasperation, got through to the voice menu and then to Alice. Bless her. She’d copied the files and agreed to meet him downstairs with them.
He took the files, giving her a big kiss on the cheek and promising her the best dinner the city of New York could offer. Flushed and pleased, she assured him it wasn’t necessary but also that she would love it.
Then he hurried home. Time was of the essence—he felt that keenly. But he still had to shower, shave, change and get organized.
But the shower could wait another few minutes.
In the basement, he impatiently took a pickax to his wall. Dumb—it could have been done with much less damage—but he didn’t have time.
What was it with people choosing to wall up their treasures—or their buried sins—in the fireplace wall?
At first he found nothing. Great. He had destroyed half his basement on a whim. But on what he had determined would be his last stroke, he hit a hollow spot.
And there, behind the bricks, was a little shelf. On the shelf was a single Civil War-era tobacco tin.
And in the tin were sheets of handwritten music.
He stared at the tin and its contents for several minutes, disbelieving at first, then uneasy. He looked around the house. What? Was he suddenly going to start believing in ghosts?
Was it all logic and research, as Leslie sometimes claimed?
“I’ll get it to a music publisher,” he said aloud. Then he was embarrassed. He was alone in his own house, talking to himself. Worse. Talking to someone who wasn’t there. To someone who had been dead for more than a hundred years.
But he spoke aloud again. “I promise. I’ll do it.”
He took the tin and left the basement, still feeling that sense of urgency, that certainty that time was of the utmost importance. He headed straight to the copies of the files from Robert Adair’s folders and those Alice had given him, and started cross-referencing. He found one name in both.
Heidi Arundsen.
Genevieve had worked with her.
The cops had interviewed her regarding a girl who had disappeared about a month before Genevieve O’Brien.
On his way to the door, he was waylaid by a phone call.
Didi Dancer.
“Joe?” she inquired almost hesitantly.
“Didi. How are you? Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine. I think I might have found someone who can help you out.”
“Oh?”
“There’s a Starbucks on my street. How about if we meet you there?” she added. “You know where.”
“I’m on my way.”
As he drove, he organized his mind, much as he organized his papers. Fact one: He was now convinced that Genevieve O’Brien had been kidnapped, and that she had been taken by the same person or persons responsible for the disappearances of the prostitutes. She had last been seen getting into a dark sedan.
She might still be alive somewhere.
Possibly beneath the city.
Buried sins.
Fact two: The explosion at Hastings House had not been an accident. Okay, that wasn’t a proven fact, but it was a supposition so strong that he felt comfortable treating it as fact.
Fact three: Matt, who had died in that explosion, had written a number of articles on the disappearances.
Theory: All three things were related. Matt’s death, the missing prostitutes, Genevieve O’Brien.
He felt a quickening in his heart. What had Matt known? What had he known that he hadn’t realized he knew? Whatever it was, it had so disturbed a killer that he’d conceived and carried out the perfect plan, a targeted execution that appeared, even after a thorough investigation, to be an accident.
He reached for his cell phone. Robert Adair’s assistant got him a number, and in moments he was talking with Greta Peterson.