“This is a conversation I wish to avoid,” Frank said.
Jordan shook her head. Then she shooed all of them back inside, closing the door. “Go back to your portals, or wherever you go at night to sleep.”
“Well!” Charlotte sniffed. “You are singularly ungrateful for our assistance this evening.”
“Thank you,” Jordan told them belatedly. “Really.” She made another shooing motion. “Now go away.”
She turned her back on them and stood in the doorway of the library, staring glumly at the mess. There was no way she was alphabetizing those books a third time. And since Tom would be tearing out the bookcase within a few hours, she could deal with the rest of the damage in the morning.
Before turning out the lights, however, she walked over to the desk and rummaged for a piece of paper and a felt pen. In large, thick block letters, she wrote: I DON’T HAVE THE PAPERS. She found some masking tape and attached the note to the front door. Then she took the small hall table and wedged it under the doorknob.
Satisfied, she and Malachi traipsed back upstairs to get whatever sleep they could before the sun rose.
Chapter 12
JORDAN woke up to a deafening, rumbling roar resembling a jet engine on bad fuel. Shooting straight up before she had fully comprehended the noise, she stared at her room from wide-open, unfocused eyes. The bed vibrated beneath her as the noise continued. Rising and lowering in volume and pitch, it was sometimes a whine, sometimes a deep, grinding sound.
Grabbing her sweats, she ran out into the hall and in the direction of the noise, which seemed to be coming from inside the second-floor parlor. That room was packed to the ceiling, but between boxes and pieces of stacked furniture, she thought she glimpsed sunlight. Where there was no window.
Hopping about on one foot, she tugged on her sweats, slapping a palm against the wall when her balance became precarious. She then headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Where the hell were the ghosts? How could they let something like this happen?
Yanking open the front door, she ran out, trying to pinpoint the location of the noise, tripped over something solid, and was airborne. Strong arms grabbed her before her face pancaked against the porch decking.
“Morning,” a deep voice rumbled from beneath her, barely discernible over the god-awful grinding roar.
Her eyes locked with Jase’s sleepy, amused gaze. He lay in a sleeping bag positioned crosswise in front of the door.
Scrambling off his lap, she demanded, “What are you doing here?”
He seemed to accept her retreat with equanimity, running a hand along his unshaven jaw. “Figured I’d camp out on your porch, just to make certain no one came back to bother you last night.” He pointed at the hand-lettered sign taped on the door above him. “I was probably more of a deterrent than that.”
She reached over him and ripped the paper off the beveled glass. “You slept outside?”
He shrugged, yawning. “It’s summer—I was fine. Actually, this makes a nice sleeping porch during fair weather. The birds woke me up at dawn, serenading from your maple tree. It’s a nice change of pace.”
The grinding noise started up again, reminding her of why she’d tripped over him in the first place. “Shit! Don’t move,” she commanded. “This conversation isn’t finished.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She jogged down the steps and around the side of the house. Tom stood high on the scaffolding, wielding a huge tool that had a long blade made of sharp, menacing teeth. Below him, Amanda was organizing a pile of debris, moving it onto the patio. A second pile of what looked to be dusty, broken pieces of lumber lay nearby on the grass. The air smelled faintly of a peculiarly sharp, musty mold.
The tool was shaking the entire house as it cut. Through her wall.
Tom spied Jordan. “Good morning!” he shouted over the whine, his expression businesslike. People didn’t act calm and businesslike while they destroyed a historic house, right? “Thought I’d get an early start on this,” he added.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
He turned off the machine halfway through her question, causing her words to echo throughout the neighborhood in the sudden silence. “You’ve got dry rot in through here.” Setting the monster down, he dropped to sit with his legs hanging over the scaffolding, his arms propped on the metal supports as he smiled at her. “We can’t let it go any further without replacing the framing, or it will continue to travel through the structure, eventually causing the wall to collapse. And of course if it should reach the floor joists, that could weaken the supports for the second floor—”
“Stop! No caffeine.”
His smile turned to a grin. “You offering some up?”
“Maybe. I thought I was going to bid out this work.”
“You can bid a large portion of it,” Tom replied, “but this couldn’t wait. It’s never a good idea to wait when it comes to dry rot.”
That sounded ominous, but she decided not to ask for clarification. “What is that thing?” She pointed at the tool.
“It’s a sawsall.” Amanda swung around, her ponytail hitting her cheek, her expression surprised. “Haven’t you ever seen one?”
“Oddly enough, outside of my life experience up to now.”
“Really.” Amanda pursed her lips.
“Its real name is ‘reciprocating saw,’ ” Tom elaborated. “Kind of a cross between a Skilsaw and a chainsaw. Very handy for sawing in places other tools can’t get to. And it cuts right through nails, roofing, lumber, and the like.”
“Should I use it to remove the bookcase?”
His easygoing expression turned to alarm. “No! I mean, sawsalls can do a lot of damage if used by someone who doesn’t have much experience.” At her frown, he added hastily, “They really shouldn’t be used for delicate work like dismantling a bookcase made of quality finish wood.”
Jordan stepped back and craned her neck, looking at the large hole above the French doors that gaped almost to the roof. “So how big will that be once you’re finished?”
“Not sure yet,” he answered cheerfully.” Dry rot always travels farther than you would expect, so I’m finding more rotten supports than I originally thought I would. It’s probably moved down through the first floor on this side of the house.”
Of course it had. Honestly, she was quite proud of her composure.
“The boards look just fine to me,” she said, studying the wall structure he’d uncovered where he’d removed the siding. “Are you sure?”
“Believe me, once you’ve smelled dry rot, there’s no mistaking the odor,” he assured her. “If I took a screwdriver and tried to ram it through any of these two-by-sixes, it’d push straight through with almost no effort.”
“I’m kinda surprised, given that this wall had the weight of the wisteria on it, that it’s still upright,” Amanda added.
Jordan instantly envisioned a house of extremely old, dusty toothpicks. And she’d been sleeping on the second floor.
Her thoughts must have been reflected on her face. “Whoa,” Tom said hastily. “The rot is just right in through here, nowhere else that I’ve been able to find. The house is basically solid; don’t worry.”
“Right,” Jordan said faintly. “I’ll just go away now and leave you to it. If anyone asks me, I’ll deny that I saw anything.”
He chuckled. “I’ll be down in a bit to see about that bookcase, but I wanted to get this handled first.”
“You do that,” she said, backing away.