Haunted (A Hannah Smith Novel) - Hardcover

9780399169762: Haunted (A Hannah Smith Novel)
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Hannah Smith returns in the stunning new adventure in the New York Times–bestselling series from the author of the Doc Ford novels.
 
The house is historic, some say haunted. It is also slated to be razed and replaced by condos, unless Hannah Smith can do something about it. She’s been hired by a wealthy Palm Beach widow to prove that the house’s seller didn’t disclose everything he knew about the place when he unloaded it, including its role in a bloody Civil War skirmish (in which two of Hannah’s own distant relations had had a part), and the suicides—or were they murders?—of two previous owners.

Hannah sees it as a win-win opportunity: She can stop the condo project while tracking her family history. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, anyway. But some things are more dangerous than ghosts. Among them, as she will learn, perhaps fatally, is human obsession.

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About the Author:
Randy Wayne White is the author of twenty-one Doc Ford novels, most recently Bone Deep; the Hannah Smith novels Gone and Deceived; and four collections of nonfiction. He lives on Sanibel Island, Florida, where he was a light-tackle fishing guide for many years.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
1
In Florida, hundred-year-old houses have solid
walls, so I guessed wrong when I heard my friend Birdy Tupplemeyer
make a bleating noise downstairs. I figured she’d snuck a
man into her room, which was unfair of me, even though Birdy
admits to being free-minded when it comes to romance.

On windy October nights my imagination prefers love to spiders,
I guess. That is my only excuse.

I was in a hammock on the second floor in what had once been
a music room. Birdy, who lacks camping experience, had chosen a
downstairs room for her air mattress because it was closer to the
front door.

“I’d have to hang off the balcony to pee,” she had reasoned,
which made sense even before the wind freshened and the moon
rose. The house was abandoned; no electricity or water, and the
spiral staircase was in bad shape. I myself, after too much tea by
the fire, was debating whether to risk the balcony or those wobbly
steps when, through the floor, I heard a thump, another thump,
and then a mewling wail that reminded me of a cat that had found
companionship.

She’s with that archaeologist, I thought, and buried my face in a
pillow, but not my ears—a guilty device. My curiosity has always
had an indecent streak. I also had a reason. That afternoon we
had met Dr. Theo Ivanhoff, an assistant professor with shaggy
black hair: late twenties, khakis low on his skinny hips and wearing
a Greek fisherman’s cap. He was on the property mapping
artifacts from a Civil War battle that had taken place before the
house was built. Theo had struck me as an aloof know-it-all and a
tad strange, but it had been a month since Birdy’s last date so her
standards had loosened. Later, by the campfire, the two of us sitting
with tea and marshmallows, she had shared some bawdy remarks
including “hung like a sash weight” and “Professor Boy
Toy,” referring to a man only a few years younger than us.

Naturally, I felt supportive of my friend, not alarmed. Until I
heard: “My god . . . what is that?” which could have meant any
number of things.

Guilt battled my curiosity. I turned an ear to the floor just to be
on the safe side. Then shattering glass and a shattering scream
tumbled me out of the hammock and I was on my knees, feeling
around for a flashlight that had tumbled with me.

Birdy’s voice again, more piercing: “Bastard . . . get off.”

Panic, not passion. I ran for the stairs. Thank heavens I was
barefoot, so I knew it was a flashlight I kicked across the room.
Bending to grab the thing, I clunked my head, then stubbed my
toe going out the door. In the hall, the flashlight’s white beam
bounced among cobwebs and a dusty piano while Birdy screamed
my name.

“Hannah . . .”

I hollered back, “I’ve got a gun!” which was true, but the gun
was locked in my SUV, not in my hand. Then I put too much
weight on the banister as I catapulted down the stairs—a brittle
pop; the banister fell. I spiraled down a few steps on my butt,
caught myself, then raced the banister to the bottom. The banister
won. I shoved it aside and was soon standing outside Birdy’s door,
which was locked. That scared me even more.

I yelled, “Birdy . . .?” and pounded.

“Get in here!”

“Open the door.”

“It’s jammed! Oh . . shit, Hannah, hurry.”

I wrenched the knob and used my shoulder. The door gave way
on the second try and I fell into the room, which was dark but for
moonlight reflecting off broken glass on the floor. I got to my feet
and, once again, had to hunt for the flashlight. My friend, dressed
in T-shirt and shorts, had her back to me and was dancing around
as if fighting cobwebs or in the midst of a seizure. “Get it off, get
it off!” she yelled, then winced when she turned, blinded by my
arrival.

I lowered the flashlight, relieved. I’d feared an attacker, but she
was alone. I rushed across the room and put a hand on Birdy’s arm
to stop her contortions. “Hold still,” I had to tell her twice while
I scanned her up and down. Finally I stepped back. “I don’t see
anything.”

“It was in my hair.”

“What?”

“How the hell should I know?” Birdy added some F-bombs
and bowed her head for an inspection. I used my free hand, the
light close, to comb through her thick ginger hair, which was
darker at the roots, Birdy saying, “I was almost asleep when something
landed on my face. Something with legs. It crawled up my
forehead, then stung me on the neck—I’m sure there was more
than one. I tried to run, but the damn door wouldn’t open.”

“Where on your neck?”

I moved the light, but Birdy hollered, “Finish with my hair
first!” That told me the sting could wait.

“Probably a palmetto bug. They don’t sting, so you probably
imagined that.”

“Imagined, my ass.” Birdy pulled her T-shirt up, ribs showing,
a petite woman addicted to jogging who didn’t get much sun because
of her freckles and red hair.

I checked her back and down her legs. “Where’s your flashlight?”
“Goddamn bugs on my face, I must’ve dropped it or something.
I don’t know. I’d just found the switch when one bit the hell
out of me. Anybody would have lost it after that.”

I said, “That explains the broken window.”

“What broken window?”

Birdy Tupplemeyer is a high-strung, energetic woman, but normally
steady in her behavior, as you would expect of a deputy sheriff
with two years’ experience. I had never seen her so upset. “You
didn’t hear the glass break? You must have thrown that light
pretty hard. I’m glad you weren’t waving your gun around when I
came through the door.”

I bent to check the back of her neck, but first took a look
around the room, seeing glass on the pine flooring, the shattered
window, a moon-frosted oak tree outside, and my friend’s air mattress,
a double-wide with cotton sheets, her overnight bag open in
the corner, clothes folded atop it.

“My pistol’s under the pillow,” she countered. “Don’t worry
about getting shot. Worry about the damn bugs—this freaking
room is infested.” She shuddered and swore.

I pushed my flashlight into her hands. “I’m not a nurse. Check
inside your own pants.”

Light in hand, Birdy pulled her shorts away from her hips, then
disappeared down her baggy T-shirt, the shirt glowing like a tent
until she reappeared. “For once, I’m glad to be flat-chested. Those
sons of bitches sting. Here . . . look for yourself.”

She lifted her head, the light bright on a welt that was fiery red
on her freckled throat. My heart had stopped pounding, but now
I was concerned.

“Give me that,” I said, taking the light. “Does it hurt?”

“Burns like hell.”

“Is it throbbing?”

Birdy heard the change in my voice. “Do you think it was a
spider? I hate spiders. Maybe I should go to the E-R. What time
is it?”

“Stop squirming,” I said, but that’s exactly why I was concerned.
I grew up camping, hiking, and fishing in the Florida
backcountry with my late uncle, Capt. Jake Smith, who became a
well-known guide after being shot and then retiring as a Tampa
detective. More than once, Jake had told me, “People are the most
dangerous animals on earth. Everything else, avoid it and it will
avoid you.”

Jake’s long list included creatures that scare most newcomers
and keep them snug and safe inside their condos: snakes, sharks,
alligators, panthers—and poison spiders, too. The only dangerous
spiders in Florida are black widows, brown widows, and, possibly,
the brown recluse, although I have yet to see a recluse for myself.
The widow spiders tend to be shy and seldom bite unless you mess
with them or happen to slap at one in your sleep. I’ve seen many,
often living in colonies on porches of people who have no idea they
are there. Their spiky egg sacs are unmistakable. Which is why,
when camping, I prefer a screened hammock to a tent.

This was something I hadn’t explained to Birdy. She had grown
up wealthy in a Boston suburb so was nervous from the start about
sleeping in a house that had a dark history and was fifteen miles
from the nearest town. Never mind that her Aunt Bunny Tupplemeyer,
a Palm Beach socialite, had hired me to spend a night or
two in the place and record the comings and goings of strangers.
The woman’s reasons had to do with the million dollars she had
invested in river frontage that included the old house—a house
she wanted torn down. Birdy was along to keep me company and,
as mentioned, was currently not dating, so had chosen adventure
over depression rather than spend her Friday night off alone.

She started to panic again. “What if it was a poison spider?
Shit, I should have slept in my car.” Being from Boston, she pronounced
it kaahr. She checked the time. “It feels like midnight, but
it’s not even nine-thirty. I know a woman doctor I can call—she’s
a gyno, but, hell, I’ll just lie about where the damn thing bit me.”

I touched my finger to a speck of blood on her neck. “It’s a
sting, not a bite, but you’ll be fine. A spider would have left two
little fang marks. I’ve got some first-aid cream upstairs.”

“Fangs? Jesus Christ, my Beamer, I should’ve crashed in the
backseat. Those bastards are probably in my bed right now, screwing
like rats and hatching babies. Smithie”—her nickname for
me—“we can’t sleep here. My Aunt Bunny, that conniving bitch,
is to blame for this.”

She was upset, so I discounted her words. “It was a wasp, most
likely,” I said, and, for the first time, shined the light at the ceiling
above the air mattress. Immediately, I pointed the light at the
floor, but too late.

“Oh my god,” Birdy whispered, “what was that?”

She yanked the light from me. Plaster overhead had broken,
showing rafters of hundred-year-old wood so dense with sap that
they glowed where it had beaded. But there were also glowing
silver eyes. Dozens of eyes attached to black armored bodies with
claws and curled tails. They were scorpions, some four inches
long. Stunned by the light, one fell with an air-mattress thump,
righted itself, and scrabbled toward us over clean cotton sheets
that were tasteful but not as practical as a sleeping bag.

Birdy screamed so didn’t hear me say, “It’s okay, this kind isn’t
dangerous,” then nearly knocked me down running for the door.
2
My lineage includes many aunts and uncles, some
noteworthy, most not, but I have yet to refer to a family member
with the word Birdy used to blame her aunt for the presence of
scorpions in Florida.

The word struck me as unreasonable. On the other hand, it
also comforted me regarding my tolerance for a mother and at
least one aunt—the third Hannah Smith in our family—whose
behaviors have ranged from man-hungry to just plain crazy.

My mother, Loretta, and my late Aunt Hannah, being a mix of
both.

It is true, however, that Mrs. Bunny Tupplemeyer, a Palm
Beach widow, was the reason we were here.

Birdy, whose actual name is Liberty Grace, had invited me for
a weekend at her aunt’s beach house, then a cocktail party at a
penthouse apartment that was downtown, close to shopping, at
the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Worth. It was a tenth-floor
saffron high-rise not far from the Kennedy compound, I was told.
The Opry mansion, with its gate and carved marble fountain, was
farther down the beach.

This was two weeks ago.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida but had never been
in downtown Palm Beach. Condos and shops possessed a gilded
indifference, the streets edged with royal palms from Prohibition
days. Residential areas were screened by towering hedges and a
muffled Rolls-Royce hush that warned of money and double
standards.

“Relax,” Birdy kept telling me in the car. “Just be yourself. If the
Great Dame starts interrogating you—and she will—just smile
and compliment her jewelry. Or bring up astrology. She loves
guessing people’s signs. While she’s boring you with that, signal
the staff for another martini. Dame Bunny likes them icy cold.”

Dame Bunny, that’s how my friend referred to her wealthy, socialite
aunt.

There was no need for me to relax because I wasn’t nervous. I’m
a light tackle fishing guide who deals with wealthy clients day after
day in a small skiff around Sanibel and Captiva Islands, although I
live across the bay on the island of Gumbo Limbo. I’ve learned that
the rich are no different than the rest of us when it comes to tangling
lines, or whoops of delight when a big fish jumps, or when
their bladder demands a bucket and a moment of privacy.

Birdy was the nervous one, not me.

Odd, I thought. She had summered in Palm Beach as a girl
and during college. Her mother, Candice, had been a Palm Beach
debutante prior to graduating from Wellesley, then joined a commune
near Aspen, which, I was told, had only solidified the family’s
Palm Beach–Boston ties.

“To people with money, politics are more of a fashion statement,”
Birdy had explained.

But when I’d spent some time with her Aunt Bunny, I understood
why my friend was nervous. It was at the cocktail party.
I had escaped to the balcony. An Italian banker, after backing
me in a corner, had been a little too touchy-feely for comfort. My
hostess noticed and followed me outside, a martini in one hand, a
cigarette in the other.

“Tired of Victor, the sex-starved poodle?” she asked, sliding the
door closed. Then looked me up and down, noting the simple gray
shift I wore belted at the waist, my leather flats and a lavender
scarf I had bought at Pulitzer’s just down the street. “With your
legs,” she added, “I’m not surprised he’s sniffing around. But you
could stand to lose a few pounds, darling.”

I ignored the insult out of respect for my drunken elders. “He
said his name is Vittorio,” I replied. “I asked him to spell it because
of his accent.”

“Made him spell it,” the woman repeated, fascinated I would
bother.

“It’s a good way to remember names. He was polite enough,
but I wanted to see what the ocean looks like from out here. Very
nice place you have, Mrs. Tupplemeyer.” On the Gulf Stream,
miles away, tankers the size of buildings drifted, the sky blacker, it
seemed, than a dark night on Sanibel.

The woman stood beside me at the marble rail and flicked
ashes. “Smart girl.”

“Pardon me?”

“His wife was watching. She’s one drink away from making a
scene. You’ve got enough size, I don’t think even Rita would try
the slapping, hair-pulling thing. But who knows? She drinks absinthe,
the real stuff, and sniffs cocaine to stay thin.” A pause. She
blew smoke into the night and pivoted. “My niece says your family
has quite a history in Florida. That you know people I wouldn’t
know—locals.”

Hicks and rednecks is what she meant.

She continued, “She also told me you shot a man a year or so
ago. Damn near killed him. Is that true?”

I pretended not to hear and asked about a bracelet on her wrist
that glittered with scarlet stones.

“Don’t change the subject. Any woman who can pull the trigger,
I find that damn impressive. But I’m unclear about exactly
what it is you do. Are you a fishing guide or do you run an investigation
agency?”

I said, “Both, ma’am, but mostly fishing. The shooting incident,
I’d prefer not to discuss.” Then looked at the stars and commented,
...

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  • PublisherG.P. Putnam's Sons
  • Publication date2014
  • ISBN 10 0399169768
  • ISBN 13 9780399169762
  • BindingHardcover
  • Edition number1
  • Number of pages352
  • Rating

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