Harrison Investigations 1 Haunted (36 page)

"Yes, please!" Darcy said.

Matt threw up his hands. "Hell. Sure. Get a shovel. Let's dig in
the middle of the night."

Sam disappeared with Carter. They were back in a minute
with two shovels, a portable floodlight, and a pick.

"Darcy, move, let me at it," Carter said, entering the little
room, and starting right off with the pick. He loosened the
earth, and Matt joined him to start digging, swearing beneath
his breath as he did so.

The others looked on. Minutes ticked by, and mounds of dirt came
out of the smokehouse.

Sweating despite the coolness of the wee hour, grimy with dirt,
Matt wiped his brow. He glared at her. She forced herself to stand
firm, wishing that she didn't note that his physique remained
exceptionally imposing, tanned biceps and chest glistening with
sweat, streaked with mud.

"Darcy, we're down several feet."

She let out an impatient sound and started for the smokehouse
herself. He raised a hand to her. "All right, all right!"

He went back to it with a vengeance.

Still, it was Carter who gave a sudden cry.

"Damn!"

"What, what?" Darcy cried.

"He probably shoveled his own toe," Penny murmured.

Matt hunkered down with Carter. Clint nosed his way in. Darcy
couldn't get past them.

"What is it?" she cried out.

Matt rose, tossing down his shovel, glaring at her once again as
he started to walk by her. "Don't anyone touch anything else. I'm
getting a team out here."

"A team?'' she said.

He stopped walking, hands on his hips, eyes like ebony as he
stared down at her. "A forensics team, Darcy. Yes, we found
bones."

"Could be an animal," Penny suggested softly. "It is a
smokehouse."

Matt glanced over to her. "It's human. It appears to be
complete, or nearly complete."

"But do you really need a team in the middle of the night?"
Penny said, perplexed. "Poor thing has probably been there for
hundreds of years."

"Maybe not, Penny. We don't know that."

Darcy felt her breath catch. That was it, of course. She'd
assumed, they'd all assumed, that the ghost had to have been there
for years. She had never really thought that Matt might have killed
his ex-wife, and yet...

The suspicion had been there.

She stared at Adam. He stared back at her, and she knew that
they were both hoping that they hadn't found Lavinia Harper
Stone.

Matt was still staring at Darcy. She felt his eyes and looked
back at him.

"We don't know anything about this skeleton-
yet,"
he
said. "But we will."

With that, he walked on by.

And all eyes turned on Darcy.

______ 17___

It was approximately one in the morning when they first dug out
the bones.

It was four by the time Matt's team had carefully dug out the
surrounding dirt along with the skeleton and sealed off the
smokehouse for further excavation. The box containing the
remains was locked into the morgue at the Ma-honey Funeral Home by
four-thirty, and Matt was back at the house by five and finally
showered and in bed at five-thirty.

He was exhausted, and should have slept easily, but he lay awake
staring up at the ceiling.
How the hell had she
done
it?

He was tempted to go to her. Knock on her door, the hell with
whoever might hear the sound. He felt a greater need than ever to
be with her. He tried to tell himself that he was an idiot-she had
suggested that he might be capable of murder, for God's sake!
And there was still that thing...tonight, once again, seeing the
look in her eyes, the set of her jaw. It was creepy, and if he was
failing to realize it, it was all because he was blinded by
emotion, he was letting his dick, rather than his mind, rule his
thinking.

Didn't matter, he realized. He felt the same way about her, no
matter what. Except...he was damned indignant. He looked at his
watch. Six. He groaned, then rose, went out to his desk, and began
shuffling through his papers. Somewhere, he had the cell number he
wanted. Not in his phone, it was too new.

At last, in the bottom drawer, with a stash of old
pictures, he found the number. He punched it in, expecting an
answering machine.

She didn't answer with a simple hello. After all these years,
she must have recognized the house number on her caller ID.

"Darling!" Lavinia cooed over the wires. "Darling, do you know
what time it is?''

"Six-o-five, I believe," Matt said dryly. "Sorry, I thought your
machine would pick up, and you'd give me a call back."

"That's quite all right, although really, you should know better
than to call me at this hour, unless, of course, you have some kind
of incredibly hot proposal to make?" she teased.

' 'No. Actually, I just called to see how you were
doing."

"At six in the morning?"

"Like I said, I didn't expect you to answer."

He heard Lavinia's low, husky, rumbling laugh. Once, the sound
of it had been sheer aphrodisiac. Now...

"Things are going wickedly down there, so I hear," she told him.
"Believe it or not, I was going to call to see if you were all
right."

"Oh?"

"An article made it into the New York papers by that local
walking-stick you've got down there. All about the occult. You'll
just have to see it, darling. All about the world's most beautiful
ghost hunter finding a skull, then being cast into a grave."

"That just happened yesterday!" Matt said.

"Darling, it's only 'news' because they get it out quickly."

"Good point, Lavinia."

"Is she that beautiful?" Lavinia inquired.

Matt wondered if there was a touch of jealousy in her voice, and
even, a touch of pathos.

The past was long gone. And Lavinia was alive and well and in
New York. He was suddenly feeling very generous.

"Lavinia, she looks a great deal like you. A tall redhead with
all the elegance in the world."

"Should I come down and meet her?" Lavinia asked. Matt wasn't
sure if she did so with mischief, or the best of intentions. ' 'I
mean, it sounds as if you could use a little help. You
know...actually, I wasn't all that fond of the Lee Room myself,
but...the article this fellow wrote tells about all these weird
events at the house, how a ghost has pulled hair and slapped
people, and all that kind of stuff. If you need help... ?"

"That's sweet, Lavinia. I think we're fine." He hesitated.
"Miss Tremayne led us to a skeleton last night. Once the remains
are identified, I think we'll be fine."

She was silent for a minute, intuitive, then she said, "Oh,
Matt! I am so sorry. I haven't been there in years, of course, and
I had said that I was coming back. I had an offer in Paris I
couldn't refuse, and mere was no point in pursuing that lovely
affair between the two of us...."

"A marriage isn't the same as an affair, Lavinia," he said.

"But someone there thinks the bones are me!" she
exclaimed.

"Lavinia, look at that! If you tire of the social whirl, you'll
be perfect for Harrison Investigations. What intuition."

"Don't tease, Matt. I'm between events right now. Summer
can be so droll. If you need to prove that I'm alive, I'll be happy
to come down."

"Lavinia, I know you're alive and well, and I'm grateful.
That's all I need."

"Ah, well. You do have my number." The last was filled with
sexual innuendo. It didn't mean anything. Lavinia was
incapable of anything else.

"Thanks, Lavinia. And hey, if you need me, I'm here."

"Oh, darling, on nights when I'm alone, I do need you."

"Good thing there aren't many nights like that, eh,
Lavinia?" he said, his tone light. "Sorry to have awakened
you. Take care."

"You, too. I'll love you a little, Matt."

"Yeah? Thanks. Take care."

He hung up, feeling remarkably smug. Maybe he should have asked
her to come down. Make sure everyone saw her.

He nearly jumped when the phone started to ring again.
Thayer.

"Thayer, what's up? Didn't you get anyone to spell you yet?"

"Matt, you're not going to believe this."

The pleasure he'd felt at hearing Lavinia's voice
evaporated in a flash. "Try me."

"The bones are gone."

"What?"

"The bones are gone. There was a break-in at Mahoney's
place. And the box with the dirt and the bones has been
stolen."

"Anything else missing?" he asked Thayer.

"The office drawers were trashed, some petty cash was taken,"
Thayer said. Then he plunged in with, "But if you ask me, they
broke in for the bones. Someone has chalked a few of the walls with
Greek letters as if it were a fraternity prank, but...who
knows? College kids have been known to do more than steal bones on
a lark."

"You've got the area sealed?" Matt asked, a little too harshly.
But he'd be damned if he'd lose fingerprints or any other important
evidence on this one.

"Matt, you know that we're capable of protecting the integrity
of a scene,'' Thayer said.

"Sorry, I do know that," he said. "I'll be right there."

Darcy woke to the sound of an ear-shattering scream. She'd had
to shower again last night, after her bout in the smokehouse, and
she was wearing a knee-length sleep T-shirt. She didn't bother with
a robe or slippers, or care in the least about her appearance, not
at the sound of a scream like that one.

She tore out of her room and to the railing, looking
downward.

Penny was standing in the foyer, her hand to her throat.

"Penny!" Darcy cried, and came racing down the
stairway.

She came up abruptly against Penny's back, and stared past
her.

There was a soldier at the front door. He was wearing worn
butternut and gray, his sash tied perfectly around his hips, his
sword swinging at his side. His hat was low slung over white hair,
and he wore a regal silver beard. He was ready to march to
battle.

"Harry Smith!" Penny chastised, her finger falling from her
throat.

Harry Smith. Darcy smiled, recognizing the medical technician
who had come to her aid when she'd crashed through the floor at the
library.

"You scared me to death!" Penny told him.

"Penny Sawyer, why I'd suddenly scare you after all these years,
I can't begin to imagine!" he said gruffly, shaking his head. "But
I sure am sorry." A smile was tugging at his lips, and only barely
hidden by his growth of beard.

Darcy started to laugh herself, and then Penny eased completely
and laughed as well. It was easy to see how Penny might have
thought that she had indeed come across a ghost from the past.
Harry Smith was the perfect image of a long-ago soldier.

"Harry, you look great!" Darcy said.

He inclined his head toward her. "Thank you, ma'am. The uniform
belonged to my great-great-grandfather, who was captain of one of
the units that fought here. The sword is authentic, too."

"Harry, this is all well and good, but did you forget the
concept of knocking?" Penny asked. "If you'd knocked at the door, I
might not have come so close to having a heart attack!"

"Penny, now, you're the one who's claimed to have seen ghosts in
the past, anyway," Harry told her. "I did knock. No one answered,
and the door was open."

"That's odd-we've been careful about locking it lately," she
murmured, then challenged Harry again, her eyes sparkling. "And we
had a rough night. Darcy led us to a stash of bones in the
smokehouse, so you see, Harry Smith, there is a ghost!"

Harry looked at Darcy. "I heard," he said. "Good work, young
lady. Except, it seems that you ladies haven't heard the
latest."

"What happened?" Darcy asked.

"The bones have been stolen."

"Stolen!" Penny repeated. "Who on earth would have stolen old
bones?"

"Are you sure?" Darcy said. "They were just dug out in the very
early hours of this morning."

"I'm sure. This is a small town, Miss Darcy. I'm with the fire
department, and we know the minute something has happened down at
the sheriff's office."

"So Matt is down there already?" Darcy said.

"He's been down there for hours now," Harry Smith said. He
smiled. "It isn't exactly morning anymore. It's almost one in the
afternoon."

Darcy hadn't had the least idea it could be so late. But then,
she hadn't gone to sleep until very late-or very early.

"Who would want old bones?" Penny said again.

Harry shrugged. "Looks like a fraternity prank. Like a
challenge, even. Thayer told Bill Jenkins that there were some
Greek letters chalked on one of the walls. And some money was
taken, too. Not a lot. Maybe a hundred dollars. Anyway, Matt is
livid. Don't blame him. We make a discovery, hold the bones
overnight in a mortuary so that they can be brought up to
Washington the next day-and they disappear. Bad business. Makes us
small-town folk look like real hicks. Anyway, he's on it. Don't you
all worry."

But Darcy was worried. She didn't think that it was any kind of
fraternity prank. "That's very strange. The bones must have been
stolen during a very small window of time."

"Yep," Harry said.

"How would fraternity pranksters even know they were at the
funeral home?" Darcy asked.

"Ah, the kids can listen in on the police radio," Harry said,
waving a hand in the air. "Had to be kids. Who else would want old
bones?"

The front door had remained open when Harry had come in and
Clint came up behind him then. "Hi, Harry. Why, you old geezer! You
look like a million bucks."

"Thank you, young sir," Harry said, and went on to explain that
they were discussing the bones-and the fact that they'd been
stolen.

"That's friggin' bizarre," Clint said.

"Clint, mind the language," Penny said.

"Yes'm," Clint said, rolling his eyes. "You should hear her
swear when she's got a bee in her bonnet."