The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(76)

She didn’t seem to hear me. “Did you smell something while we were getting the sheet off my neck?”

“Like pipe smoke?”

“Yes.” A soft smile lifted her mouth. “I think it might have been Sumter.”

“So what do we do now?”

Ginette shrugged. “We wait for Jack to turn up something new, to help us understand why Hasell and Anna are still here. Sometimes, when a death is unexpected, the person is confused and doesn’t realize she’s dead. I don’t think that’s the case here. I think they’re both here for a reason, and I know for sure that at least one of them doesn’t want us to know what that reason is. And when we think we know what that is, we come back. At night.”

She seemed unsteady on her feet, so I took hold of her elbow and led her to the stairs. We were halfway down before I saw what all that scratching had been. The stairwell wall had been covered from ceiling to floor with what looked like childish writing drawn in pencil. I had to look at it for a long time to realize that the words were written backward, as if from the other side of the wall. I jerked back when I realized what it said.

“Help me,” my mother read out loud, meeting my gaze.

We looked back at the marked wall, staring at it for a long moment before heading down the stairs. I was getting ready to close the door, locking in the doll and whatever else was up there, when I heard the unmistakable sound of a mewling cat, coming from inside the stairwell wall.





I lay in bed next to Jack, listening to the steady sound of his breathing. I’d feigned exhaustion and had skipped dinner, then gone to bed early, pretending to be asleep when Jack crawled into the bed and kissed me gently on the cheek.

I wouldn’t have been able to go to sleep even if the neon lights on the bedside clock hadn’t continued to flash the time of ten minutes after four. I’d reset it three times already, but it always reverted to four ten if I made the mistake of looking away or allowing my eyes to close. Not that they closed very often. I’d promised my mother that I would talk to Jack, bring my fears out into the open, be the new Melanie I was trying to be. But it was so much easier to promise something than to actually do it.

A cell phone rang shrilly and it took me a moment to realize it was mine, the unfamiliar tone throwing me off as I struggled to sit up and reach for the phone at the same time. I might have fallen out of the bed if Jack’s strong arm hadn’t reached over to pull me back, nestling me into the curve of his body.

“Hello?” I finally managed, holding the phone close to my ear. As before, there was nobody there, just the odd prying noise that seemed to echo from a long way away. I glanced at the number, knowing it was Button’s even before I registered all ten digits.

“Hello?” I said again. I looked at the time on my phone. Four ten. I hit the end button and threw the phone back on the nightstand, then waited for Jack to go back to sleep before I moved.

“Mellie?” he whispered into my neck.

“Umm?”

“Who was that?”

“Button Pinckney.”

“Hmm.”

Either it didn’t register or he wasn’t concerned that I was still receiving calls from the house of a dead woman.

“Mellie?”

“Umm?”

“Are we going to talk about what’s been bothering you, or are you going to pretend to be sick for the rest of the year?”

I considered faking my death and just lying there, but I realized at some point he’d figure it out. Instead I pushed back the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed, my back to him. It was dark in the room, but the moonlight from the windows granted a blue glow across the bed and onto our framed wedding portrait over my dressing table. It had been taken in the garden of the house, less than a year ago. Next to the birth of our children, it was the happiest day of my life. “You owe it to your marriage and your children.” It was almost as if my mother were sitting next to me, whispering in my ear.

Remembering how my grandmother used to tell me it was easier to yank out a loose tooth than to let it wobble, I took a deep breath and said, “Are you having an affair with Jayne?”

There was a stunned silence, and then, “Jayne as in Jayne the nanny?”

I glanced over my shoulder. “Yes, of course. Unless you know any other Jayne you might be having an affair with.”

I felt him move up behind me, but he was smart enough not to touch me. “There is no affair, Mellie. With Jayne or anyone else. Why would you even think that?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

“Because the other day when I took the kids to the park, we came back to the house and were in the kitchen. We heard you and Jayne in the foyer, practicing golf, and you were laughing. And then it was . . . quiet.” It was hard for me to say that last word.

There was a long moment of silence, and my heart sank. I dipped my chin, then glanced back at him. His teeth gleamed in the moonlight and I realized he was grinning, a big, wide, open grin that he only did when he was really amused.

“Oh, Mellie. Sometimes I wonder why I’m the writer and not you, because you have one heck of an imagination.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, allowing indignation to creep into my voice.

“Well, if you’d just walked a few steps farther into the foyer, you would have found Jayne and me at the bottom of the steps, listening to Nola in her bedroom. She was singing, and plucking something out on her guitar. She said she mentioned to you that she was having a dry spell, and that had me worried. I was just so grateful that she was making music again, and we didn’t want to disturb her.”