Cara had a ton of questions for Mal, but by the time they’d retrieved all her things from the trailer, and he showed her to the spare bedroom, she was dead tired.
“There’s a lock on the door,” he said. “Use it if you want.”
What exactly would she be keeping out? A sex-crazed Mal? Unlikely. But she did appreciate that he was trying to make her feel safe. Still, she didn’t bother to lock it.
He pointed out his own room and told her to knock if she needed anything. Cara had no intention of doing that. She closed the door and undressed, pulling on the leggings and loose T-shirt she used as pajamas.
When she pulled the covers up, she sighed, fully realizing how wiped out she was.
Then she heard a click. The door handle was one of those lever style ones. It lowered, and the door pushed open a few inches.
“Hello?” she asked. Maybe she should have locked the door after all.
But it was Behemoth who slinked in, then leaned against the door to close it again.
“Wow. You are a smart cookie,” she said.
The big cat plopped onto the bed with an oof, and then padded over to her. Cara reached out to pet him, scratching gently behind his ears.
She let the cat curl right next to her. “Cat. I have had a day. Caught a thief, found out ghosts are real, and I’m sleeping in the same house as my employee. Mostly, though, ghosts are real. I’m not crazy, right? I realize that talking to a cat and asking for non-crazy validation might be all the info I need.”
Behemoth began to purr.
“Yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter if I’m crazy or not. Still gotta keep on doing whatever I do.”
That earned her a meow. Cara smiled at him. Behemoth. It was really a very fitting name for the massive, inky-dark feline. He continued to purr at her, and within seconds she was asleep.
She woke up feeling great. Against all odds, she had zero nightmares. The cat was now curled into a ball near the foot of the bed. When Cara sat up, the cat stretched and yawned.
“Me too, Mr. B,” she said. “Shall we get some food? I think I skipped dinner.”
Cara dressed in her usual work uniform of jeans and a plaid shirt. After a moment’s consideration, she added a layer. The days were definitely cooling down, and Egan House didn’t have working central heat.
Behemoth pawed at her, so Cara scooped him up and brought him downstairs with her.
Mal was in the kitchen, standing over a skillet on the stove. The scent of coffee pervaded the room.
“Mr. B wants breakfast,” Cara announced.
He turned around at her entrance. “Mr. Who? Oh no, you’re holding Behemoth,” he said, sounding as if she were holding a bomb.
“Yeah.” He was not a light load, but she liked the weight of the cat in her arms, the softness of the midnight-black fur.
“Put him down. Now. You’ll get clawed in the face.”
Cara looked down at the cat, into his gleaming green eyes. “You’re not going to claw me in the face after I brought you all the way downstairs, are you? That would be rude, and you’re far too civilized to be rude like that.”
The cat meowed, and Cara knelt down, gently letting the cat pour out of her arms to the floor, where he sauntered over to a bowl filled with fishy-smelling food.
“What did you do?” Mal asked. “Behemoth doesn’t like anyone or anything.”
“That is not true,” she protested. “He may look big and mean, but he’s really a lovebug.”
Mal’s eyes widened. “A what?”
“Watch your breakfast,” she warned.
He whirled around and prodded at the contents of the skillet with a spatula. “Hope eggs are ok. And there’s sausage. I should have asked if you’re veggie.”
“I’m agnostic. And I don’t expect breakfast to be made for me. I’m just crashing here for a couple nights.”
“Hey, I’m making breakfast anyway. It’s not any extra work. Coffee’s ready, by the way.”
Cara definitely wasn’t turning that down. She poured a cup and inhaled the smell with a sense of bliss.
Her good mood notched down when she saw Mal piling scrambled eggs and sausage links onto a plate. The familiar tension of anything food-related hit her all at once. People tended to assume she either ate ALL the things, or deserved NONE of the things, and there was no middle ground. It didn’t help that Mal obviously had no food issues himself, not with the shape he was in.
He put down two plates, exactly equal in terms of quantity. “Eat,” he said, gesturing to the seat closest to her.
She sat down. “Thanks, but don’t do this again. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” In the sense that calling a bag of chips dinner was “capable.”
“Ok, here’s the thing. You stay here, you’re a guest, and if you’re a guest, you get fed. Tia Aida would murder me in my sleep if she ever heard that I didn’t treat a guest right. Worse, she’d tell my abuela.”
“And what would she do?”
“She wouldn’t wait for me to be asleep to murder me, that’s for sure.”
Cara ate some of the eggs, which were tasty. She thought of the word tia. And abuela. Then she said, “Maybe I’m really dumb and missing something, but neither East nor Salem are Spanish, right?”
“My mom was Mexican, and her name was de Silva. Dad’s side was Irish…mostly. And Salem is technically an English name, and it’s a bit of a long story. But we—my brothers and me—spent a good chunk of time with my mom’s side growing up.”
Cara nodded and ate the rest of her meal, and then downed her coffee. “I have to go over to the site.”
He glanced at the clock. “Shift doesn’t start for half an hour.”
“Good. I’d appreciate it if you took the full half hour.”
“Ah. Ashamed to be seen with me.”
“It’s not exactly a good look professionally, ok?”
“You’re all about professionalism, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she said. “My business is my life, and if you mess it up even a little bit, I’ll find your abuela myself and tell her you were a terrible host.”
“The nuclear option.” Mal sighed. “Ok, get to work. I’ll saunter in with a minute to spare.”
That day was a little awkward at work, not just because Cara was terrified Mal would let slip that Cara was now sleeping in his house, but also because she had to explain Barry’s absence.
The crew took it well, and if anything, they seemed happy that Barry was revealed as the thief. Turns out, Mal wasn’t the only person who disliked the guy.
Jalen was in such a good mood that day that he actually smiled at her and said good morning when she passed him while he was installing the housing for the electrical.
“Whoa, Jalen. Was that a good morning? I thought you hated me.”
“No, ma’am. You’re probably the best foreman…forewoman…whatever…I’ve ever had on a job.”
“Then why can’t I get the time of day out of you?”
Jalen looked at her, really looked at her, for the very first time. “Remember the first day when you said no flirting, no hitting on you, all that stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that. I know that. I had that drilled into me. And when stuff started going missing, I was just waiting to be called for it. Cops always look at a black man first.”
Cara blinked, seeing things from his perspective. “Oh, Jalen.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s depressing. I guess it was a good thing Barry was a dumbass and let himself be caught. Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re a good worker. If I was local, I’d hire you permanently.”
“Thanks.” He turned back to his work, but Cara felt like the brusqueness she’d seen before was a little lessened.
Cara spent the rest of the day working on the fireplace carving, wanting it to be done so she could have a nice backdrop for the shots of the floor. She took a ton of process pictures, chronicling her work on the carving and the installation of the whole mantelpiece.
She once again forgot that she’d had no opportunity to make her own lunch. She dashed to the office trailer and found several granola bars. She ate them and washed the sticky rice taste down with caustic orange soda. Then she returned to work.
At four, Mal walked into the parlor. Just like he did every time, he skirted around the edge of the floor and gave the whole room a dirty look. Cara was going to have to ask why he didn’t like her marquetry.
“Shift’s over. You want help packing up the tools?” Barry was in jail, but Cara had reiterated to the crew that they should still practice caution and put all the expensive stuff under lock and key when it wasn’t in use.
She shook her head. “I want to keep working.”
“Do you? Or is this a way to avoid being seen with me?”
“Not everything is about you, Malachy East,” she said, laying on the sarcasm. “I actually want to finish this.”
“It looks amazing, by the way,” he said, gesturing to the mantel. “The carving on the people’s robes and all the little folds and stuff. I’m sure there’s a term for that.”
“The term is drapery. It’s easier to render in wood than in stone.”
He snorted. “Easy. Sure.”
“Go home, Mal. I’ll show up when I’m done, ok?”
“Not too long.”
“You’re not the boss of me. In fact, I’m the boss of you. Go home.”
He left, and she heard the rumble of all the guys’ cars starting and then fading down the drive. Then it was quiet.
She turned up the volume on her phone speaker and returned to work. A little while later, she had to turn on another floodlight. The sun was going down earlier and earlier, and she walked across the hall to a room with a view to the west. The sky was already bleeding into those intense sunset colors—orange, red, purple—gorgeous right now, but only until darkness swallowed up all the light.
Cara was just turning around when she saw the faint outline of a little girl pass by the doorway. Cara froze for a second, and then moved to follow the shape.
The girl had just reached the turn in the hallway when Cara got to the door. She went left, and Cara followed.
The ghost walked, or seemed to walk, all the way to the basement stairs. Cold crept up Cara’s spine, but she pursued the shape down there. She’d been in the basement plenty of times. The crew spent a whole day reinforcing beams in one corner. There was nothing frightening about the basement. Right?
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw a filmy shape illuminating the space. The ghost was in the corner of the basement, near the wall close to the large, sagging back porch. It seemed to be looking up, trying to see something. But whatever ghostly powers it had, levitation wasn’t one of them. It was too short to get whatever it wanted.
“Hey.” Cara tried to sound friendly but forceful.
At the sound of her voice, the ghost froze and blinked out.
Cara then heard a strange sound, like a baby whimpering, or a mouse squeaking.
She walked closer and heard the weird sounds again. Frowning, she decided to find out what was causing the sound and fix it. No way was Cara going to pull late night shifts when the stupid house was squeaking and moaning at random, making even ghosts get out of Dodge.
She grabbed a stepladder. Beaming her flashlight at the wall, she studied the rough surface and knocked on the crumbling plaster. “Hello?”
Scratch, scratch.
What could be scratching like this? Rats? Someone buried alive, trying to claw their way out of a grave…
“Wow, slow your roll, honey,” she told herself.
A thin, high-pitched sound emanated from the hollowed-out spot. Cara jumped, nearly falling from the ladder. The flashlight wobbled and caught a reflection where the wall met the joists of the flooring. There was a gap, and whatever was making the sound was on the other side.
Cara leapt to her feet and stormed up the stairs and out the back door of the house. The night air was cool and dry, a welcome change from the musty, dust-choked atmosphere inside.
She heard the sound again, high-pitched and pitiful.
Cara crawled into the space under the porch steps, crouching down to get a better angle. The damn shrubbery was thick as chain link over here. Something smelled nasty too.
She pulled the flashlight up, but before she could switch on the beam, she saw two glowing spots right in front of her. Eyes.