Dead Bolt 2 by Blackwell Juliet

Author:Blackwell, Juliet [Blackwell, Juliet]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781101558997
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2011-12-06T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

I jumped out of the way, throwing myself against the banister. With a sharp crack the railing started to give way under my weight. I grabbed the sturdier newel post and watched, my heart in my mouth, as a section of the wooden banister fell, shattering on the stone floor two stories down.

The toolbox landed on the step below me with a crash, gouging out a chunk of wood. Tools and hardware spilled, clattering and clanging.

Graham grabbed me from behind, swearing a blue streak.

I leaned back against the strength of his chest, and felt the rapid beating of his heart. One muscular forearm was wrapped around me, holding me just under my breasts.

A large metal nut made a whoosh, clink, whoosh sound as it rolled down several stairs.

I peered upward, but saw nothing but an empty hallway.

There had been no one there. And no toolbox.

“Mel! Everything okay?” yelled Raul as he charged up the stairs, slowing as he took in the tools strewn along the stairs, and the toolbox lying facedown. “What happened?”

“I was just coming from the attic. I have no idea where it came from.”

Raul turned over the toolbox. A name was written, clear as day, in magic marker: MEL TURNER.

“It’s yours,” he said, looking at me curiously.

I nodded.

“Did you leave it on the landing, or the banister?” His voice sounded doubtful. Raul, of all people, knew how safety conscious I was.

I shook my head. “I left it in the entry hall. I was coming down to get it.”

He held my gaze for a long moment, then sat on the stairs. I slid down next to him. Graham remained standing, mute.

“Something strange is going on around here,” Raul said in a low voice.

I nodded.

“You think someone’s sabotaging us?” he continued.

“I don’t know . . . but I don’t think so. Not a normal person, anyway.” I picked up an old adjustable lug wrench and turned it over in my palm, appreciating the familiar weight. Even as a child I used to love the feel of my dad’s cold, heavy tools in my small hands. They seemed magical to me, enabling my dad to create houses from a pile of lumber and stone and cement. “Raul, do you believe in ghosts?”

He made the sign of the cross and muttered something in Spanish that I didn’t catch.

We sat for another minute. The fear receded, leaving anger in its wake.

“I’m going back in the attic,” I said, tools clanking loudly as I gathered them up and put them back into the toolbox.

Raul’s eyes held mine. “Are you sure? Maybe . . . maybe you shouldn’t.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Graham.

“I . . . Thanks. That would be great.” I realized that I liked the idea of Graham having my back, quite literally. “Raul, would you check out the dining room ceiling, make sure the handprints aren’t something normal, like grease prints?”

Raul had been a professional housepainter before becoming my foreman and would recognize grease. Like water stains, grease prints would show up, rather ghostlike, through the finish paint.

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