Page 22 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception (A Midnight House Mystery #1)

We drove the rest of the way back to my house in silence. Maggie was irritated with me and I was irritated with the whole situation. I needed to find a way to either resolve this or let it go. Neither seemed easy to achieve.

It wasn't until I pulled into my driveway that I realized something was wrong.

The front door was standing wide open.

"Did you leave that open?" Maggie asked.

"No. Definitely not." I turned off the engine, my heart starting to race. "I don’t think Abigail or Arthur would just leave it like that. Well, maybe they would. I honestly have no idea. I just don’t love the idea that anyone could wander in off of the street."

We approached the house cautiously. I called out as we climbed the front steps. "Abigail? Are you here?" Arthur should have been attending the final day of the paranormal convention so I didn’t expect him to be in the house.

No answer.

Inside, the house felt…off. Furniture had been moved slightly, drawers left partially open. It looked like someone had been searching for something.

"Abigail?" I called again, louder this time.

Still nothing.

“Maggie, where is Teddy?” The laundry room door where I had corralled him was wide open. I started to panic. “Oh my God.”

Maggie and I frantically checked every room on the first floor, then raced upstairs. Room Three was empty, but Abigail's suitcases were still there, clothes scattered across the bed like she'd been interrupted while packing after the big homecoming weekend.

She had probably just run out for something she needed for her flight home.

“Teddy has to be here somewhere,” Maggie said reassuringly. “He wouldn’t just go out the front door. He knows better.”

Actually, he didn’t. He loved to escape to Hollis’s garden whenever he could, which was why I never left the front or back door open, even for a minute.

Then I heard a sound that gave me instant relief. A weak chittering coming from somewhere in the walls.

"Teddy! Where are you, boy?" I followed the sound to the linen closet at the end of the hall. The door was closed, but I could hear him scratching at it from the inside.

When I opened it, Teddy practically fell into my arms, chittering frantically and shaking. The only way for him to be in there was if someone had locked him in the closet deliberately.

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry," I said, holding him close. "Are you hurt?"

He seemed physically fine, but clearly traumatized. And he kept looking toward the stairs, making urgent little sounds.

"What is it? What are you trying to tell me?"

Maggie had her phone out. "I'm calling 911."

"To tell them what? My skunk got locked in the linen closet?" I’d already damaged my credibility enough for the day.

“You’re right.” Maggie shoved her phone back in her pocket. She put her palm to her chest. “That scared me. I thought Teddy was toast.”

I set Teddy down and watched as he immediately waddled toward the attic stairs. "I think he's trying to show us something."

We followed him up to the third floor, where my bedroom was located along with storage space and access to the roof. Teddy went straight to a door I rarely opened. It led to the unused servant's quarters.

When I pushed it open with a loud creak, I found Abigail Hart tied to a chair with duct tape over her mouth, very much alive but clearly terrified.

“What the actual hell?” Maggie shouted.

My sentiments exactly.

We heard police sirens blaring outside the house.

As I worked to free Abigail, I realized two very freaking obvious things. First, someone had definitely been in my house searching for something.

And second, I owed Father Claude Broussard one hell of an apology.

An hour later, I was sitting in my kitchen with Detective Hollis Broussard, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

Abigail had been taken to the hospital as a precaution.

She was physically unharmed but understandably shaken.

It turned out that Abigail had accidentally left the front door open when she’d returned to the house with an old boyfriend from college.

They’d heard noises downstairs and discovered a man going through the drawers in the parlor.

When he’d pulled a knife on the ex-boyfriend, the ex had just taken off out the front door, leaving Abigail to fend herself.

It was obvious to me why he was her ex.

But, to his only credit, he had called 911, which was why police were already arriving as Maggie and I found Abigail, who had been tied up by the would-be burglar.

"So let me get this straight," Hollis said, not bothering to hide his exasperation. "You accused my uncle of mugging you yesterday, then came home to find your house ransacked and your guest tied up in the attic. And you’re worried about bad publicity?"

I might have mentioned something along the lines of I didn’t want this to get out, if at all possible. It had come out much colder than I had intended.

"When you put it like that, it sounds really bad." I exchanged glances with Maggie, who looked like she didn’t know what to think or say.

"It is really bad, Harper. You're lucky Uncle Claude isn't pressing charges for harassment. And some random criminal assaulted your guest. So yeah, that’s really bad."

I winced. "Are you sure she's okay? Abigail?"

“It sounds like it. She called a friend to be with her. I’m sure she’ll be back soon to collect her things.”

From haunted B&B to the Hell Hotel. That’s what this was becoming.

Hollis leaned back in his chair. "What were you thinking going over to Claude’s?"

"I was thinking someone followed me from the Dungeon and stole that envelope, and your uncle was the most logical suspect."

"Based on what evidence?"

"Based on..." I trailed off, realizing how flimsy my reasoning sounded. "Based on a feeling."

"A feeling." His voice was flat. "Harper, I've been doing this job for fifteen years. Feelings don't solve cases. Evidence does. Facts do. Not wild accusations based on paranoia."

Maggie stayed silent. I knew she agreed with Hollis.

Teddy, who was still glued to my side after his ordeal, made a small sound that somehow managed to sound reproachful.

"Even your skunk thinks you screwed up," Hollis said.

"Okay, I get it. I made a mistake. A big one. But someone did break into my house today, and they were looking for something specific."

"How do you know?"

"Because they didn't take anything valuable. My laptop was sitting right there on the kitchen table, and they didn't touch it. Same with the cash I keep in the drawer, or any of the obvious stuff a regular burglar would go for."

Hollis frowned. "So what do you think they were looking for? And why tie up Abigail?"

"More journals, more documents. Anything that might connect them to what happened to Francine Darrow. I think they panicked when they got interrupted by Abigail and her ex."

"Or they were looking for you."

The thought sent a chill down my spine. I liked it better when Hollis didn’t take me seriously. "What do you mean?"

"They grab your guest, tie her up, lock your pet in a closet. Maybe they were planning to wait for you to come home."

I hugged Teddy a little closer. The idea that someone had been in my house, had threatened my guest, had terrorized my skunk made all of this far too real. It made me feel sick and furious in equal measure.

"So what do we do now?" I asked.

Hollis was quiet for a moment, studying my face. "We process the scene, dust for fingerprints, interview your guest more thoroughly once she's feeling up to it. Standard police work."

“Harper, what about the camera upstairs?” Maggie said. “Pull it up on your phone.”

“Of course!” I hurriedly pulled out my phone. “Give me a second.”

There was no sound on the video because I hadn’t wanted to violate my guests’ privacy.

Given the limitations of the angle, all I could see was Abigail coming out of her room and going down the hallway.

Instantly disappointed, I showed it to Hollis.

“There’s nothing there. They must have gone up the servant stairs at the back. ”

He watched it silently, then just handed my phone back.

"What should I do?" I asked him.

"You stay out of it. I mean it."

That stung, but I deserved it. "Hollis, I know I screwed up. But I'm not going to just give up and pretend none of this happened."

"Your guest is safe, your skunk is safe, and whoever broke in didn't actually take anything. Maybe it's time to let sleeping dogs lie and not push your luck."

I thought about Delia, dead in my bathtub. About Ginger, fighting for her life in a hospital bed. About Francine Darrow, missing for forty years.

"Because sleeping dogs have a way of waking up and biting you," I said. "Delia DuMont came to me for help. She trusted me with her last message, and I'm not going to break that trust by giving up at the first sign of trouble."

"Even if it gets you killed?"

Well. I mean…

"I’m not going to get killed," I said with a bravado I didn’t really feel.

Maggie made a sound of total exasperation.

Hollis stared at me for a long moment, then shook his head. "You're as stubborn as your aunt was."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't meant as one." He stood up. "Harper, I'm serious. Stay away from my uncle, stop playing amateur detective, and let the professionals handle this."

After he left, Maggie pulled out a chair and sat down across from me.

“What now?” she asked.

I sat with Teddy in my lap, emotionally wrung out from the day's events. The house felt different now. Not just violated, but somehow vulnerable.

“I don’t know. I keep asking myself what my aunt would do in this situation.”

“She’d probably sage the hell out of this house. Do a tarot spread. Call in reinforcements.”

As I sat there, I realized something. Despite everything that had happened—the break-in, the accusations, the feeling that I was grasping at shadows—I wasn't ready to give up.

Maybe it was stubbornness, maybe it was guilt, or maybe it was just the knowledge that some secrets were too important to stay buried.

Delia DuMont had died trying to uncover the truth about Francine Darrow. Ginger St. James was in the hospital for the same reason. And now someone had violated my home, threatened my guest, and terrorized my pet.

Whatever was hidden in the past was dangerous enough to kill for. Which meant it was important enough to risk everything to expose.

I just had to be smarter about it next time.

And I had to figure out who I could actually trust.

Because if today had taught me anything, it was that my instincts weren't nearly as reliable as I'd thought they were.

“You’re my reinforcements,” I told Maggie. “You and Teddy.”

“Then talk to the skunk. Because I have to tell you, this is all a little too bizarre to be coincidence, but I don’t really understand what any of it means. I’m worried, Harper. Like maybe you should close up the house for a few days and come and stay with me.”

I wanted to say that I wouldn’t be chased out of my own home, but part of me wondered if she was right. This was dangerous.

The lights flickered.

I took it to mean I was on the right track. That I should stick it out.

This time, I was going to find out what Midnight House was trying to tell me.