a witchcraft mystery 08 - a toxic trousseau (36 page)

BOOK: a witchcraft mystery 08 - a toxic trousseau

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“Anyway, that leaves three guest suites on the second floor, each with an attached bath, plus one in the former
attic. Oh! Did I tell you? The attic is full of old furniture and knickknacks, including the keeper’s logs.”

“After all this time? I’m surprised no one took them.”

“I suppose that’s the advantage of being on an isolated island. Can you imagine? We can put items on display to add to the historic ambiance!”

I smiled. “Of course we can. It’s going to be great.”

“Now, I was wondering. . . . It might be possible to create an additional bedroom in the foghorn building, unless we decide we need a separate office. The problem, though, is the noise.”

“What noise?”

“The foghorn is still in use on foggy days. It’s not the original horn; it’s an electronic version. But still, it’s loud. I mean really loud.”

“Hmm, that could be an issue. Unless you throw in a free set of earplugs. Lay them out on the pillow with the mints.”

“That’s what I was thinking!”

“What about the lighthouse tower? What are your plans for it?”

“That’s the best part! I was thinking—”

She stopped midsentence, and her face lost all color.

“Alicia? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I thought I saw . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said with a shake of her auburn hair.

I looked around, paying careful attention to my peripheral vision and crossing my fingers that I would not see a ghost or a body—or both.

Because I see things. Not all the time, but often enough. Given my professional focus on historic renovations, this probably wasn’t surprising. I’d inherited my
sensitivity to the spirit world from my mother, and in the past few years had encountered more than a few lost souls who had been caught on the wrong side of the veil between this world and the next. I’d struggled to accept that my ability to see what others could not was simply part of my life and had gradually become resigned to it.

My tendency to trip over dead bodies, on the other hand, remained . . . disturbing.

In this moment I saw only the debris-filled main parlor of the old keeper’s house. My mind’s eye began to imagine the space filled with vivacious guests sharing meals and swapping stories, visitors holding their cold hands up to the fire in the raised stone hearth, and perhaps a cat lounging on the windowsill. All of them were warm and happy, safe from the chilly winds blowing off the bay, the occasional mournful blast of the foghorn or flash of the lamp atop the tower adding to the dreamy atmosphere. There was the sense that they were in another time and place instead of mere minutes from a major metropolis. Alicia was right. With Ellis’s financial backing and Turner Construction’s renovation skills, this place could be magical.
Would
be magical.

Who’s the romantic now?

“Let’s . . . I think we should go, Mel,” Alicia said.

The tightness of her voice told me something was wrong. “What is it, Alicia? Did you see something?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? You know you can tell me.”

“It’s just . . . Let’s go outside.” She led the way through the front door, its charming beadboard paneling buckling here and there, and out to the covered porch that ran the length of the house. Wooden boards laid over the rotting
floor allowed us safe passage to the steps. “It’s nothing, really.”

“Yeah, I’m really not buying that. Fess up.”

“I think I’m just spooked. I received a letter, not long ago.”

“And?”

“It was from Thorn. He’s . . . he was my husband. Thorn’s my
ex
-husband.”

“That must have been a shock,” I said. Alicia had told me how, with Ellis Elrich’s assistance, she had changed her name and had created a new identity to escape her abusive ex-husband. “How did he find you?”

“I’m not sure,” she said with a humorless laugh. “For years I was careful, so careful, to stay out of the public eye. But I’ve let my guard down recently. When Ellis bought this island and announced the plans to renovate and open an inn, I was photographed next to him. And one thing I can say about Thorn: He’s not stupid. Never was. When he puts his mind to something, he can be quite determined.”

“What did Ellis’s security team say about it?”

She didn’t answer, instead leading the way down the shored-up front stairs to a stone courtyard designed to funnel rainwater into the underground cistern. In 1892, when the buildings were constructed, access to fresh water would have been a priority on this barren island. Lack of water was ultimately what closed Alcatraz, the federal penitentiary that still held pride of place on another island in the bay, much closer to San Francisco. When everything, even drinking water, had to be brought in by supply boat, priorities shifted.

No pizza delivery while on
this
job.

Lighthouse Island’s appeal—its isolation—was also its chief liability, at least when it came to the restoration. All construction supplies—every single piece of lumber, every sack of concrete and piece of Sheetrock, and every single nail and screw and tube of caulk—would have to be brought to the island by boat, hoisted onto dock with a winch, and carted up to the building site.

The prospect was daunting but exciting. I had been running Turner Construction for a few years now, and while I still enjoyed bringing historic San Francisco homes back from the brink, it was fun to have a new challenge. Something different.

And this was a
lighthouse
.

What was it about lighthouses that evoked such an aura of romance and mystery? Was it simply the idea of the keeper out there all alone, polishing the old lamps by day, keeping the fires burning at night, responsible for the lives of equally lonely sailors passing by on the vast dark waters?

“Alicia—”

My words were cut short when I realized she was standing frozen, looking stricken. I followed her gaze.

A man stood next to a green hedge just beyond the courtyard, smiling a smile that did not reach his eyes.

My first thought:
At least it’s not a ghost.

My second thought:
Could that be Thorn, Alicia’s ex? Did he manage to track her here, to a secluded island?

It was really too bad he wasn’t a ghost.

A
BOUT
THE
A
UTHOR

Juliet Blackwell
is the pseudonym for the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Witchcraft Mystery series, including
Spellcasting in Silk
and
A Vision in Velvet
, and the Haunted Home Renovation series, including
Give Up the Ghost
and
Keeper of the Castle
. She is also the author of
The Paris Key
. Together with her sister, Juliet wrote the Art Lover’s Mystery series. The first in that series,
Feint of Art
, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Juliet’s lifelong interest in the paranormal world was triggered when her favorite aunt visited and read her fortune—with startling results. As an anthropologist, the author studied systems of spirituality, magic, and health across cultures and throughout history. She currently resides in a happily haunted house in Oakland, California.