Charlotte looked mollified.
“Though we might want to revisit your attempts to doctor the home inspection report,” Jordan added mildly. “Did you really think to keep the full extent of the necessary repairs from me? How do you expect me to come up with the money for everything that needs to be done to preserve your home?”
“You could go back to work,” Charlotte replied. “Many respectable women of our time, such as Eleanor Canby’s niece Celeste, were in the trades.” Charlotte’s expression turned dreamy. “Celeste ran the most wonderful millinery shop …”
“I doubt Jordan would make very much money, since she doesn’t seem to be very good at her prior trade and has few skills,” Frank pointed out. While they’d been talking, he’d come into the room to study Tom’s list. “And repairs such as these will be quite expensive.”
“I made very good money in L.A., I’ll have you know,” Jordan retorted. “I helped numerous people improve their lives.”
“You could use the money in the wall safe to pay for the repairs,” Hattie suggested.
Jordan’s head swiveled around. “What? What money?”
“Ah.” Frank looked smug. “So that’s what Seavey is after. I thought as much.”
“Nonsense,” Hattie protested. “Michael had no way of knowing about it.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Frank replied. “And if Seavey had any inkling that it was there, I’d wager he’s been trying to get hold of it ever since.”
“What are you talking about?” Jordan was bewildered. “What wall safe? I haven’t found anything of the sort in this house.”
“That’s because it’s been concealed behind a bookcase since I came back as a ghost,” Hattie replied. “I didn’t want any of those questionable owners in past decades to get hold of the money. They would have used it to tear down walls and build on rooms of dubious architectural integrity. Why, they would have used it to destroy Longren House!”
Jordan held up a hand. “Hold on—let me get this straight. Are you telling me there’s a hidden safe in this house that contains all kinds of money?”
Everyone looked at Hattie, including Charlotte, who looked as surprised as Jordan.
“Yes,” Hattie replied serenely. “It’s in the library. Come—I’ll show you.”
Jordan grabbed her cup of tea and they all trooped down the hallway and into the library. Hattie floated around behind the oak desk and pointed to a bookcase covering the wall that, on closer inspection, did seem to be of slightly different design than the other bookcases in the room. Frank moved over to it, inspecting it more carefully.
“When I was alive,” Hattie explained, “my husband, Charles, kept a wall safe there for his business papers. After his death, I discovered a large amount of cash in it, possibly ill-gotten gains from smuggling, although I was never able to prove it. I was forced to use some of the money to free Charlotte from her kidnappers, but the rest was still in the safe at the time of my death. Therefore I made certain, once I was able to come back to earth, that our housekeeper, Sara, returned to the house and hired workers to conceal the safe behind a built-in bookcase.”
“Wait a minute,” Jordan said, excitement chasing chills down her spine. “Do you mean to tell me that someone else, someone human besides me, has been able to see you?”
Hattie frowned at her. “Well, of course. Though admittedly, there have only been a few of you over the years. Fortunately, Sara was one.” Her expression turned sad. “I like to think I was able to console her a bit—she was devastated by Charlotte’s and my deaths.”
Jordan waved that aside. “All right. Maybe I’m not crazy; maybe I can find others whom I can at least talk to about all this—”
“Oh, I doubt others exist today. And really,” Hattie sniffed, “I’d think you’d be much more interested in the money.”
Scrutinizing the bookcase, Frank faded through it, then reappeared. “There’s definitely something back there,” he told Jordan. “But you’ll need to have one of your workers dismantle the bookcase to get to it. You don’t want to unduly damage the plaster.”
Jordan remembered her tea and took a sip before it got too cold. “How much money is in there?” she asked Hattie out of curiosity.
“About forty thousand dollars, I think.”
Jordan spewed the tea all over the Aubusson rug. “Are you kidding me?”
“Kidding you … oh, you mean would I say it in jest? Whyever would I do that?” Hattie asked seriously, not understanding the colloquialism. “Unless someone was able to remove the money before I returned, that’s what should be in there.”
“This is wonderful!” Charlotte cried. “We can use it to pay for your wedding.”
Chapter 9
AFTER taking a shower and downing several more aspirin tablets, Jordan stopped in at the neighborhood florist’s to pay for Hattie’s roses. The owner seemed more thrilled by the prospect of being robbed by a ghost than by Jordan’s offer to reimburse her for the loss.
By the time Jordan arrived at All That Jazz, Darcy was already holding a table. As Jordan crossed the room, she gave Jase a questioning look, wondering if he needed help behind the bar, but he shook his head. Relieved that she would have some downtime, she headed for Darcy’s table, but ended up detouring to check in with Tom, who was sitting at a nearby table with two men she’d never met before. Both wore paint-streaked overalls, though, so she surmised that they worked with him.
“Any chance you can drop by the house tomorrow morning to help me dismantle a bookcase?” she asked Tom when she was within hearing.
He raised both eyebrows but refrained from asking outright. “What time?”
“Tenish? That gives me time to take Malachi out for breakfast.”
“I’ll be there.”
The pub was crowded for a Wednesday night, and several of the patrons weren’t drinking. Absently noting a number of ghosts dressed in old-fashioned work clothes, Jordan pulled out the chair across from Darcy and sank into it. An unshaven man two tables away caught her eye. While she was puzzling out why he looked familiar to her, he looked her way, locking gazes with her. He smiled, his expression more cocksure than friendly. Then he stood and left. She frowned, still not placing him, and gave up, shrugging the feeling away.
Malachi made the rounds, greeting everyone he knew with a lick, holding up his paw for a shake, then took up his favorite position on the floor by her feet. Not for the first time, Jordan wondered why the big dog didn’t seem to be wary of the ghosts in the pub, while at home, he frequently disappeared when they were around. Perhaps it had more to do with the level of tension in the house, versus the relatively low-key buzz from the ghosts in the pub, who were typically on hand to socialize and listen to the live jazz. Whatever the reason, she found it reassuring that he could see them.
“Looks like we’ve got four distinct sets of unidentified fingerprints at Holt’s house,” Darcy said by way of greeting. “Your fingerprints were all over the attic.”
“That would be from when I hunted through the boxes to find Michael Seavey’s papers, about three weeks ago.” Jordan propped her running shoes on the extra chair. “So three sets that are unidentified.”
Darcy nodded. “You did notice that there are mice up in that attic? Lots of them? Everywhere?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then. So much for worrying whether you contracted hantavirus.” Darcy shook her head, taking a sip from her glass of wine.
When officially off duty, Darcy typically exchanged her work clothes for outfits that were more flattering to her tall, slender build. This evening, she had on a jazzy red, form-fitting, ribbed cotton sweater with a high collar, low-rider black jeans, and black leather boots—as usual, effortlessly pulling off far more style than Jordan would manage in her entire lifetime. It hadn’t escaped her notice that whenever Darcy entered a room, more than one man’s gaze followed her, showing appreciation and interest.