Page 17 of Sharp Force (Kay Scarpetta #29)

I take off my boots, leaving them near the door. Inside the entryway closet are the shearling-lined moccasins I wear in the house, and I slip them on.

My feet are quiet on centuries-old pumpkin pine flooring original to the house and outbuildings. The wide smooth boards are a deep dark orange, the walls white plaster with rosy bricks wearing through. Exposed oak beams in curved wooden ceilings look like the ribs of a ship.

“I need to visit the wine cellar if you want to come along,” I say to Merlin.

Opening the door off the pantry, I turn on the light over old stone steps, the air cool and damp carrying the faint scent of cannabis. I flip up another switch, the dangling lightbulb overhead garishly bright on the low ceiling and brick walls.

Merlin dashes to the deadbolted basement door leading outside. He paces back and forth in front of the cat flap at the bottom of it, muttering and meowing irritably when it won’t open. The wind howls, the storm heaving around us, the house shivering and creaking.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Merlin. “But no way you’re going outside right now. I don’t know why you’d want to.”

His answer is to hiss, suddenly clawing at the air as he often does down here.

Marino swears the house is haunted. He claims to have experienced the paranormal.

Laughter. Metal clacking and clanging like swordfighting.

A voice whispering in what he swears was Old English, although I’m not sure he would know what that sounds like.

He once saw a young man dressed like a pirate in short tight pants, a long coat and tricorn hat.

The description sounds like Dobbin Lumley, the British sea captain who was the original owner.

He named the estate Belle Rise, the parcel of land at the time fifty acres directly on a wide bend in the Potomac River.

He was described as short of stature but superhumanly strong, handsome with long dark hair, and fierce with a cutlass.

Growing up on the London docks, he made his fortune from capturing pirate ships loaded with ill-gotten booty.

Or that was what he told people. Based on what I’ve read, it’s questionable who was the pirate.

After Benton and I bought Belle Rise, I made it my mission to excavate more than the garden.

In my home office is a banker’s box of photocopied records and correspondence relating to the history.

During quiet moments when I look out our bedroom windows, I imagine the sea captain’s view of what today is Point Lumley Park, and beyond it the river.

Stubby timber footings are all that’s left of his wharf, and at low tide they peek above the water.

I imagine his seventy-foot sloop the Black Pearl with its rampant white sails, a painting of it on display in the local history museum.

I’ve never seen the sea captain’s ghost down here in what used to be his cellar and servants’ kitchen.

But I’ve felt a presence. Scraping sounds as if someone is looking through boxes of Benton’s and my belongings.

Footsteps on the floor above my head when no one else was home.

Drafts of unearthly cold air. Shadows that move like wraiths.

I’m not bothered by whatever is here and what it might mean.

Benton isn’t either. The first time we saw the house, we felt it wanted us living here.

The weedy scent is stronger as I reach the old kitchen that my sister appropriated.

It’s nothing more than a fireplace that’s been nonworking for decades.

On the soapstone countertop is a decarboxylator that looks like a large coffee thermos.

Hanging from a wooden rod overhead are branches of cannabis curing.

Beyond is a workbench scattered with tools, then through a doorway is the large glass-doored wine cooler filled with reds and whites that Benton collects. Finding a Barolo, I slide it out of the rack.

“I know you’re upset that you can’t go outside,” I tell Merlin as he fusses. “How about I build us a nice cozy fire in the bedroom?”

He shadows me back up the basement steps, and I leave the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. Muttering and mumbling, he follows as I return to the entryway in the soft glow of caged copper sconces that Benton and I discovered at a flea market.

The stained-glass transom over the front door is a whale breaching in an ocean of variegated blue.

We found it in London along with the port and starboard lanterns that are lamps in the living room.

Benton grew up with a love of all things nautical, his family owning a sailing yacht they moored in the Boston Harbor.

One of our favorite hobbies together is finding unusual antiques at auctions, in salvage yards and junk shops. Other treasures are the framed marine maps, the paintings of schooners, fishing vessels, a frigate in a storm I climb past on the steps.

The chandelier over the second-floor landing is a brass ship’s wheel we happened upon in Genoa, Italy, while I was there lecturing on forensic medicine.

Inside a shadowbox on the wall is the wooden-barreled spyglass telescope from France that we were told was used by a naval officer during the Napoleonic Wars.

“It’s okay,” I reassure Merlin, smiling as if all is fine when I know it’s not. “Please don’t be afraid.”

He stalks me along the second-floor hallway, yowling as thunder claps and mumbles. The wind pummels the house, roaring and whistling. Lightning flashes in brass porthole windows at the roofline as if we’re being fired upon by enemy vessels.

“We’re perfectly safe.” I tell Merlin another lie.

I continue waiting for the inevitable, a horror that we might not survive. Any second, the Wi-Fi will fail, the red orbs will reappear as the phantomlike figure floats through a window. Or the power will go out. Maybe a tree will fall on top of the house.

“It’s just a bad storm. Usually, we don’t have thunder and lightning when it’s snowing,” I explain as Merlin mutters and meows.

“And yes, there was something weird going on outside a little while ago that you no doubt sensed. I’m sure you heard the growling and all the rest. I don’t like it any more than you do. ”

He rubs against my ankles, his big gold eyes looking up at me.

I’m careful where I step as he weaves between my feet.

Beehive pendant lights shine from the ceiling as I near the guestroom where Marino and Dorothy stay.

Uncharitable as it sounds, I’m not sorry they won’t be here tonight, no matter what I’ve said to the contrary.

I’m not in the mood for a fight, and Janet’s right that the spa package is too personal.

I wish Marino hadn’t gotten me a gift that’s bound to upset my sister.

I know she’s angry at me, as if what he did is my fault somehow.

That’s why I’m not hearing from her. It isn’t because she’s been guzzling wine all night.

Dorothy can hold on to rejections and perceived slights longer than anyone I know. I imagine the two of them going at each other right about now. Marino must have anticipated that his gesture toward me would create a dangerous chemistry. How could he not know that Janet would find out and weigh in?

Reaching the guestroom that I use as an office, I scan my thumb in the ergonomic lock.

The door opens onto wooden bookcases, my covered microscope on the desk, the plastic anatomical skeleton grimacing from his metal stand.

I walk in, making sure the computer is off, and that the windows aren’t leaking, and Merlin follows.

Satisfied that all is in order, I lock up again, and mostly it’s my inquisitive, clever sister I need to keep out.

She and Marino have agreed to housesit while Benton and I are gone these next two weeks.

It’s happened more than once that Dorothy wanders into my office when I’m not around, insatiably curious about anything I’m working on.

She doesn’t mind helping herself to whatever isn’t locked up in fireproof cabinets, offering her unsolicited opinions and insights.

She’s been exploring volunteer work at the local police department.

Crisis counseling I’ve been alarmed to hear her mention, and I suspect it won’t be long before she insinuates herself into my cases.

The hallway ends at the main bedroom, and I open the solid oak door, feeling the cool darkness inside.

I turn on the chandelier that’s shaped like an anchor, its electrified candles illuminating wide plank flooring the color of dark reddish honey.

The exposed brick walls are hung with paintings and etchings handed down from Benton’s father.

The antique leather sofa and matching club chairs, the hand-knotted Persian rugs, almost everything of value is from Benton’s family.

I’m used to the abundance he’s brought to our relationship.

But it was overwhelming at first, and difficult to accept that I had little to offer by comparison.

I didn’t become a forensic pathologist for the money.

Dropping my briefcase on top of the bed, I start undressing as I walk to my closet.

I hang up my suit, tossing undergarments into the hamper.

The black silk pajamas I put on were a birthday present from Benton.

I wash my face, brushing my teeth again, scrubbing away Rowdy O’Leary’s remembered stench.

I can’t stop seeing the wistful faces of Mick and Rick looking out the window as Marino and I drove away.

I’m afraid I’ll see the twins forever in my thoughts.

I know why I had to stop by their house.

It was important to return their father’s personal effects, and I gathered important information in the process.

What Marino and I did was professional and humane, even kind and considerate. Underlying that are my own personal reasons. Except there’s no getting over childhood traumas milled deep into the psyche.

How’s it going? I type another text to Benton, lonely for him.