A small thump sounded from the corner of the room near the door. Harrison glanced casually in that direction, but the doorway was empty. All he saw was one of the racks of clothing and a pile of crates that were stacked nearly to the ceiling beside it. For the briefest of moments he thought that he saw a flicker of movement, but he chalked it up to the draft that ran through the building blowing some of the hanging clothes.
“Come off it,” he continued, shaking his head at John as he moved on to the next pew and the items it contained. “You’re even more in love than I am, if such a thing is possible.”
“Ha!” John barked, stepping into his next pew as well. “No one could possibly be as deeply in love as you are.”
“Oh, no?” It was Harrison’s turn to laugh. “Spare me. You’ve been dancing around Diana since Reese’s house party last year.”
“Dancing around someone is not the same as being madly in love with them,” John said. He abandoned the crates in his pew and strode up to the front of the chapel to see what was waiting there.
Harrison sorted through a basket at the end of his pew, and when he found nothing, he gave up with a sigh and move up the aisle to join John near the chancel. “You can pretend all you like, but you and Diana flirt shamelessly at every opportunity.”
“That’s not flirting,” John chuckled. “If I was going to flirt with Diana, you would know it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Harrison thought he spotted another bit of movement. But when he turned to the side aisle, once again, he saw nothing but the clutter that packed the alcoves. He might have heard something that sounded like whispering, but as likely as not, it was mice. Churches were full of them, after all.
“If what you and Diana are engaged in isn’t a flirtation of the highest order,” he went on, turning his attention back to the work at hand, “then I don’t know what flirtation is.”
“You said it, not me,” John laughed.
“Ah, but I most certainly do know what flirtation is,” Harrison went on, a bit wistfully. “I only wish there were more I could do with Bea at the moment than flirt with her.”
“Nothing is stopping you from making your grand declaration—oh! Is this it?”
Harrison abandoned the sack of old shoes he was searching through to join John on the other side of the aisle. Again, he could have sworn he heard a thump or clatter of some sort, but when he looked over his shoulder, nothing was there.
He turned his attention to the box of sundries John had uncovered in an old suitcase that had been left at the edge of the pew. It contained several ring boxes, but it was clear at a glance that none of them were the one containing his great-grandmother’s ring.
“What on earth is this?” he asked, leaning closer to John as he reached for a bright red velvet ring box. He opened it, only to find it was empty.
“Can you imagine the monstrosity this must have contained?” John asked. “Red velvet.” He snorted. “I mean, really.” He took the box from Harrison and leaned in closer. “Only a bit or bauble given by a man to his mistress should be housed in red velvet.”
Harrison cleared his throat, his face heating. They were in a bloody church. They shouldn’t have been discussing things like mistresses or gifting them with gems mere yards away from the Holy Bible. Because of that, he hunched closer to John, almost as though the two of them were engaged in some sort of conspiracy, and whispered, “Not in church, John. Besides, I thought you looked down on men who kept mistresses.”
“I do,” John said, playing along and whispering as though they were naughty schoolboys. “But I also recognize that these things happen.”
A creak sounded from the opposite end of the room that had Harrison flinching back, as though they’d been caught. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched, but when he glanced around, the chapel was exactly as it had been before. The only thing he could figure had caused the creak was the scaffolding supporting the section of the roof.
“Do you suppose this is safe?” he asked, stepping away from John and moving to examine the structure.
“It looks sound enough.” John followed him.
Harrison stared up at the ceiling, then went so far as to climb a few rungs of the scaffolding to make certain the whole thing was in good shape. As far as he could see, there was a door of some sort in the ceiling that was tightly closed. He figured it had been used at some point in the church’s history to climb out onto the roof in order to clean or chase away birds. Perhaps there had even been a belfry on the other side. Either way, the trapdoor was securely fastened with a latch.
“It looks fine,” he said as he climbed back down the scaffold to resume his search. John followed him back to the pew with the collection of ring boxes. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I wonder if the scaffolding is there because they plan to seal the door.”
“Who knows?” John shrugged and the two of them got back to work.
A few minutes later, Burt skittered into the chapel, glancing over his shoulder as if someone were chasing him.
“And what are you up to, lad?” John asked with a grin.
Burt stopped so suddenly that he nearly fell over. “I didn’t see you in here, my lord,” he said, his face going pink.
“Well, as long as you’re here, why don’t you make yourself useful and help us search,” John said.
“Um.” Burt jerked this way and that, either looking for whoever he thought was chasing him or for an excuse to get out of doing work. His eyes alighted on the scaffolding in the corner, and his expression flickered to a grin. “All right, my lord. If you insist.”
“I do,” John said.
Burt ambled his way up the center aisle, hands in his pockets—which seemed to be filled with something, though Harrison could only imagine what it was—until he reached the chancel. “Maybe it fell up here,” he said, climbing up a few steps and turning in a circle as he looked up at the ceiling.
Harrison ignored the boy. He had always been eager to get out of work whenever possible at that age himself. But at the moment, he was highly motivated to do the work in front of him.
Only, within a few more moments, it was clear that the ring wasn’t there.
He straightened, huffing a sigh. “If only—”
His words were cut off by a clatter near the chancel. He and John both whipped around to see what it was, but again, eerily, it was nothing. Burt, too, looked startled from where he was perched halfway up the scaffold.
Harrison cleared his throat and turned to John. “If only I had gone straight home after visiting Grandmama the other day. I could have avoided this whole thing.”
“You were eager to help out with the cause,” John said, shrugging and giving up his own search. “And, I suspect, you were eager to see your sweetheart again.”
“I probably was.” Harrison let out a breath and pushed a hand through his hair. “That’s the last time I do something impulsive. It’s not worth the risk. I should have known better.”
“Everything will work out for the best,” John said, thumping his back and starting up the aisle to the back of the chapel. “You’ll see.” They made it halfway to the back of the church before John glanced over his shoulder and called, “Burt, are you coming?”