I didn’t say anything, however. “Where did the knife incident take place?” I asked.
Louise was about to answer when one of the clean plates that was sitting on the counter suddenly flew into the air, spun around, and came whizzing my way. It spun round and round, and I stood there, gaping, until the busboy shoved me out of the way. We landed hard against one of the counters as the plate sailed past to crash against the wall. Only seconds and the busboy had stood between me and getting beaned by a heavy ceramic plate.
“Thank you,” I told him. “What’s your name?”
“Dean,” he said. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Thanks to you.” Turning back to Louise, I added, “Well, I guess that answers any lingering doubts.” I glanced down at the shards of the plate. “Where did the knife incident happen again?”
She gestured to a counter near the refrigerator. “I was standing over there. The knife came flying off the knife rack on the wall and if I hadn’t ducked, it would have skewered me, tip first.”
I reached out, hoping Esmara was around.
Hey, can you see what this thing is?
She answered, sounded worried. Not quite. He’s hiding himself well, but be cautious on this case, January. Whatever it is, it’s killed before and has no compunction about doing so again.
“Why don’t you show me the basement and the secret room?” I turned to Louise, trying not to show that alarm bells were shrieking in every fiber of my body.
“All right, follow me, please.” Louise led the way out of the kitchen and we headed through the bar, past the staircase going up, to the authorized-personnel door. As she opened it, the back offices came into view. There appeared to be a store room, an office, and a private bathroom in the back, as well as the door to the basement.
She flipped on the light that flooded the stairwell and started down. “Mind yourself on the stairs. They were completely stable—we had them redone during the renovation, but the past few weeks, the boards keep coming loose and the railing shakes, as well. The contractor came to check them out, and he said that there should be no reason for them to be coming loose. He tried to fix them, but…”
“Were they loose the night your waitress fell?”
“That’s the damnedest thing. He had just fixed them that morning, so no, they weren’t.” She cautiously led me into the basement. “After she fell, I can’t get the girls to come down here, even though they’re supposed to in order to replenish the bar. So either Jim, Sal, or I take care of it.”
The basement had a much stronger Don’t fuck with me vibe than the bar had.
I could see where the renovations had begun and the original work left off. The brickwork around the renovations was new and clean, and the wall where they had discovered the secret door was newly drywalled and painted where the brick had been removed. The secret door itself was short—about five feet tall—and wider than a usual door. It was a pocket door, rolling back into the wall. As I stared at it, I began to feel slightly panicky. There was something squirmy and dark there, something with long fingers that could reach out in the night and—
“Whoa,” I said, “What the hell?”
“What is it?” Louise asked.
“I’m not certain. What did you say you found in there?”
She slid the door open. As she did, I cringed, not wanting to look inside, but when it was open and she flipped on a light switch inside, the room was bare. The light was new—I could tell by the design of the light fixture.
“I’m not sure what I expected to see when you opened the door, but…” I paused, shaking my head. The room had felt indescribably evil, but now, facing the empty chamber, it was just an empty room. “Was there anything inside when you found the room?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing. Just the four walls and floor. Actually, they were painted a different color. I had them painted white.”
“What color?”
“That’s the thing—it was a pale lavender, like you might find in a girl’s bedroom. But the feel of the room and the paint color seemed so incongruous.” She shrugged.
I paused, then asked, “Did you realize that the original owner ran a brothel? He turned it into a boardinghouse/tavern when his new wife objected. But one of the customers fell for her, and he ended up killing both her and the owner, then himself, when she rejected him.”
Louise stared at me, mouth open. “You’re kidding. I figured that, with the age of this building, somebody probably died here, but…”
“Right, at least two murders and a suicide. Why don’t we go back upstairs and you can show me the upper floors.” I backed away from the secret room, not wanting to turn my back on it. The entire pub gave me goose bumps.
The second floor was Louise’s home, and everything there seemed straightforward, blocked off from the elevator and the stairwell by a door she could lock. She had turned the bedrooms on the second level into a kitchen–dining room, a living room, a bedroom with an en suite, and an office that doubled as a den. I wandered through the rooms, looking for anything in particular that might set me on edge, but everything looked normal.
“How do you sleep at night?”
“Other than being afraid the place is going to burn down around my ears, not too badly.”
“What about your kitchen? Anything ever happen in there?” I peeked in at the kitchen–dining area, but nothing felt off about it. In fact, I wasn’t feeling anything odd at all here.
“No, everything’s been fine. The entire second floor feels protected, except for if something happened like the restaurant burning down.” She paused, then led me into her bedroom.
Right away, I understood why her quarters felt so safe. There, on the wall, was a beautiful plaque with a protection symbol engraved on it, and the energy emanating from the hanging was intense, filling the room with harmony.
“There’s the answer as to why you feel safe here,” I said, pointing to the plaque. “Where did you get that?”
“My sister made it for me. She said that it would help me sleep better.” Louise paused, then added, “Actually, she’s my half-sister. We have different mothers, but we’re close.”
“She’s a witch, isn’t she?” I asked. Whoever had carved the plaque knew what they were doing.
“Yes, her mother’s a witch. Our father wasn’t.” Louise paused. “Is that really a charm?”
“It’s more like a ward—and it’s well-made. That should be strong enough to keep most of the nastiest creatures out on the astral away from you. But you’re right, it won’t protect you from something like a building-wide fire.” I stood back, shaking my head. “I’m glad you have this, or you’d be in a lot more trouble than you already are. Does your sister live in Moonshadow Bay?”
“No,” she said. “She lives on the East Coast, near Salem, Massachusetts. She dreamed that I needed this, she said, so she made it and express-mailed it to me.”
Her sister was astute, I thought. “Show me the third and fourth stories, please.”
Louise led me up the stairs, and we peeked into each guest suite. At one point, the top two floors had contained rooms with communal bathrooms, but they had been renovated into four guest suites per floor. Each floor also contained a communal sitting area, with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the dock and the Sound below.