DAY 2
T illy woke, hours later, disoriented and with a desperate need to pee. A glance at her phone told her it was 3:14 a.m. Smoosh stirred, too, then sat up and pawed at her leg.
“I know,” she whispered. “Me too.”
She tucked him under her arm and crept, in her stockinged feet, down the stairs to the second floor, where loud snores were emanating from the bedroom she’d abandoned earlier in the evening. She paused outside the door and pictured George there, stretched out on the lumpy mattress, cozy and warm, tucked under the mound of quilts she’d unearthed from a trunk at the foot of the massive carved four-poster. She turned the doorknob, peeked inside, and got a glimpse of his bare, well-muscled shoulders before Smoosh started to whimper, and she remembered why she’d risked emerging from her lair.
There was a bathroom down the hall, but it was too risky. So she kept going, wincing when the third step from the landing let out a loud creak.
She made it to the ground-floor bathroom just in time, then closed the door and placed a rolled-up towel underneath it to muffle the flush of the toilet. When she emerged from the bathroom, Smoosh was waiting patiently by the kitchen door. She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, instantly regretting it when her feet touched a patch of ice on the floor.
Smoosh trotted over to a raggedy clump of boxwoods and, for once, did his business quickly and efficiently. When he returned to the kitchen, she flipped him a treat from the bag she’d left on the counter earlier in the day.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. The empty M it had been overfull, so he’d left the flaps unfastened. Now, they were neatly closed, and when he looked inside, he could tell that a couple of pieces were missing.
What the hell? He glanced around the room, but nothing else had been disturbed. He checked the front and back doors and was positive the locks hadn’t been tampered with. He walked slowly around the first floor, opening every cupboard and closet. He stared at the contents of the pantry and frowned. He could have sworn he’d spotted a box of Ritz Crackers there just last night, but now it was gone, and the box of instant oatmeal seemed to be short a couple of packets too.
He went up to the second floor and, at first glance, was relieved that nothing was amiss, until he got to the bathroom. The toilet seat was down. Huh? He’d gotten an unreasonable amount of satisfaction these past few days from deliberately leaving the seat up most of the time, because Vanessa was constantly harping on him about leaving it down as a courtesy to her.
George climbed the stairs to the attic, stooping because of the steep pitch of the roof. He tried the door, which was weirdly short, but it was locked. “Huh.” He shrugged and went back downstairs to tackle his seemingly mile-long list of repairs.
Tilly’s heart sank when she spied George unloading the contents of the Jeep. Back and forth he went, with boxes and bags from Moody’s Building Supply. This was what she’d been afraid of—that he’d settle in and start working on the house. And then how would she escape?
A chill went down her spine when she heard him walking around on the first floor, opening and closing cabinets. Next came footsteps on the stairs. He was doing the same thing on the second floor. But he wouldn’t find anything, would he? He kept climbing, and now he was right outside on the landing, on the other side of the attic door, and as she backed away, to the farthest corner of the room, she thought she’d pass out from fear. The knob turned, but the lock held. She froze and found herself holding her breath. Two minutes that felt like two months passed. She heard him mutter something, and then the footsteps receded. She slowly exhaled.
Her phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was from him.
Hey Tilly. Any chance someone else has a key to this house? Strongly suspect someone has been in here. Missing pieces of china and food.
Dammit. She could have kicked herself. She chewed her lower lip while she considered how to reply. He seemed to respond well to sarcasm, so ...
All keys accounted for. Have you considered possibility house is haunted? Guests have reported strange noises, which is why house hasn’t been rented. Suggest you leave and arrange for an exorcism.
His answer came back immediately.
I ain’t scared of no ghosts. In the meantime, maybe you should drop by this afternoon so I can get your opinion on how to get this mausoleum ready to sell? I bought a decent bottle of wine while I was in town. I’ll use that swill that was in your company’s hospitality package to clean my paint brushes.
“Noooo,” she whispered, glancing over at Smoosh, who thumped his tail in agreement.
Sorry. No can do. Company policy forbids fraternization with our homeowners.
His response was quick.
It’s a consultation, not a fraternization. Anyway, I’m selling the house, so I’m technically no longer “your” homeowner.
Tilly glanced over at Smoosh. Was George actually flirting with her? It felt kind of nice. But also kind of scary. She shoved the phone under the sofa cushion so she wouldn’t be tempted to flirt back.
George stared at his phone, willing Tilly to text back, to agree to come over to the house, strictly in a professional capacity, of course. Although, yeah, he was curious to see what this Tilly person looked like in person. When five minutes passed without another message, he sighed and tucked his phone in his back pocket.
Ghosts? He had to laugh. No self-respecting ghost would have taken up residence here. Uncle Gus would have driven them off long ago.
He got out the spray bottle of solvent and was about to tackle the parlor wallpaper when he noticed the old-timey clock radio sitting on top of the fireplace mantel. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such a relic. The hands of the clock had stopped at 11:35, but maybe the radio still worked? He fumbled around with the yellowing plastic knobs, then finally turned one with a satisfying click that filled the room with the bombastic voice of a talk show host debating tax policy with an irate male caller.
His great-uncle had been a big fan of talk radio. George fiddled with the tuner dial until he settled on a station playing what it billed as “All Christmas, All the Time.”
“That’s more like it,” he muttered as he settled back down to work. He sprayed the solvent on the wallpaper, then stepped back and set the timer on his smartwatch for five minutes.
When a Perry Como version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” came on, he started singing along, purely out of instinct.
“O little town ... how still we see thee lie ...”
His deep voice echoed in the high-ceilinged first-floor rooms. Tilly crept out to the stair landing and sat down. It was George, the owner of the Crowe’s Nest and also of an impressive baritone singing voice. He was singing along with a radio, and she was suddenly filled with an ineffable mixture of nostalgia and yearning.
She whispered along with the words ...
And now she realized where she had heard that voice and who it belonged to.
He’d been a junior at Piney Point High, and she’d been a senior. He had brownish hair and a wispy attempt at a mustache and was so skinny he’d earned the hated nickname of Sticks.
Definitely, her unwitting landlord was Sticks Holloway, genius math prodigy who also possessed the loveliest baritone voice Tilly had ever heard. They’d been in high school glee club together—she a so-so soprano, he apparently the only nongay glee guy, whose very existence made him the target of an unending stream of torment from the alpha male jocks of Piney Point, including her future ex-husband, Denny.
Of course, Sticks wasn’t his real name. It was ... George. She nodded. George Holloway.
A certifiable math genius, he’d graduated a year early and entered MIT as a sophomore, at the tender age of sixteen.
Her phone lit up with an incoming call, and she pressed connect as she hurried back into the confines of her garret.
“Tilly, I’m so sorry,” Ruth said, sounding genuinely remorseful. “I just got your message. Don’t tell me you’re still hiding out in that attic.”
“My car’s dead.”
“You should have called Triple A,” Ruth said. “Or Uber. You can’t stay there indefinitely.”
“I don’t belong to Triple A. So where do you suggest I stay for the next two weeks?”
“I’d let you stay here, but ...”
“But you and Gina live in a two-bedroom cottage, and Dooley and Theo are coming home from boarding school. I get it.”
“They got home last night,” Ruth said. “They’re eating machines. I’d forgotten humans could consume that much food in twenty-four hours. What are we going to do about finding you a place to live?”
“Nothing, until I get paid after Christmas,” Tilly said, trying to tamp down the mounting despair she was feeling. “I just have to get through the next two weeks, until my new place is ready.”
“Denny owes you,” Ruth said fiercely. “He’s such a worm. This is all on him.”
“I told you I don’t want a dime from him.”
“Ugggh. When I think of all you went through with him, it makes me want to scream. Bad enough he was a liar and a cheat—he actually stole from you, Tilly. That house was half yours. More than half. You made the down payment, put all that work into it yourself, and then he sold it out from under you, and you walked away with nothing, just because the judge is one of his fishing buddies ...”
“If I have to live in a van down by the river for the rest of my life, I’m still better off than I was six months ago. So let’s change the subject. My phone battery is getting low, and there’s no outlet in the attic. Do me a favor: see what you can find out about Augustus Crowe.”
“Easy peasy.”
Tilly heard Ruth’s fingertips racing across a keyboard. Ruth was a ninja at ferreting out obscure or arcane data from the internet. She’d managed to track down Denny’s last girlfriend just on the basis of a blurry photo of the two of them on the girl’s best friend’s Facebook page. Within an hour, Ruth had the girl’s address, phone number, and place of employment—which, no big surprise, turned out to be a gentleman’s club called Bonerz.
“Got the obit,” Ruth said. “George Augustus Crowe. Died at his residence in Simpkinsville.” Ruth listed where he’d been born and raised and then the names of his surviving family, including a nephew named Peter George Holloway.
“I knew it,” Tilly exclaimed. “George is actually Sticks Holloway. Remember him? A year behind us in high school. Total rocket scientist type.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Ruth said.
“Our senior year, Denny and his idiot pals mounted a write-in campaign to get George elected to the homecoming court.”
“Ohhhhh,” Ruth said. “Now I remember. That poor guy.”
“Yeah. To his credit, Sticks, or George, went along with the gag. I felt so bad for him I drove him to the costume shop in Simpkinsville. He rented a velvet cape and a crown and went onto the football field and waved to the crowd like he thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Totally had everyone in school rooting for him. Denny was fit to be tied.”
“How’d you figure out it was Sticks?”
“He’s downstairs right now, singing along to Christmas carols on the radio. We were in glee club together. He sang a solo to ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ at our Christmas concert. I would have recognized that voice anywhere.”
“So he’s Old Man Crowe’s nephew,” Ruth said. “Hang on. I’ll get the rest of the four-one-one on him.”
Tilly waited as Ruth dug deeper.
“His girlfriend is a super-bossy woman named Vanessa,” Tilly said.
“Here we go,” Ruth said. “Geez. He’s got a BS from MIT, master’s from Stanford, second master’s from MIT, PhD from MIT. Founder and owner of something called TechKnow. Ooh. Here’s some photos of him in the society pages of the Boston Globe . The lady friend is Vanessa Blanchard, owner of a company called Events by Vanessa,” Ruth said. “Wow. Here’s a photo of them together at some society soiree. George has definitely improved with age. Total stud. And Vanessa is stunning.”
“Text me that photo,” Tilly said. “But in the meantime, good ol’ George needs to go back to Boston. This attic is freezing, and I’m getting tired of living on crackers and instant oatmeal.”
“Right. We need to scare him out of that house,” Ruth said.
“I tried. He’s not afraid of mice. Or ghosts.”
“Spiders?”
“Already here,” Tilly said. “You could knit a blanket with the cobwebs.”
“Bats? I’d run screaming for the hills if my house was bat infested.”
Tilly shuddered. “Me, too, but I don’t think Amazon ships live bats.”
“My neighbor sells Tupperware. I could ...”
“My luck, he’d probably order a salad spinner and a cake taker. We need something more radical, like Old Testament–level plague. What else have you got?”
“Gina’s niece is a Jehovah’s Witness. Absolutely relentless ...”
“We need him to leave, not go into hiding,” Tilly said with a moan. “Anyway, even if he did leave long enough for me to escape this attic, where am I gonna go? The only vacancy we have is right here. At the Crowe’s Nest. George can’t stay here much longer; this Vanessa chick wants him back in Boston for some charity ball on Friday. So they can announce their engagement. Poor guy.”
“Can you keep hiding out that long?” Ruth asked.
“Not like I have a choice,” Tilly said, her tone grim.