Getaway by Fern Michaels (3)

“Hey,” Goebel called out from the entrance to the attic. “You want me to get a flashlight?”

“No,” Sophie said. “I already have one. Don’t come in here, stay back. The smell is sickening. It could be a dead rat. Just stay put.” Sophie spied the old trunks she wanted to look through, still stacked in the corner where she had last seen them. She instantly changed her mind. “You better come inside. I might need some help with these trunks.”

Goebel stooped as he made his way across the attic. “It smells awful in here. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear there was a dead body in here. It certainly smells like rotting flesh.”

Sophie turned around so fast she had to grab one of the low-hanging beams to steady herself. She’d also thought the odor was the smell of death, but hadn’t wanted to put words to her thoughts. She remembered working in the hospital morgue all those years ago, when she’d been in nursing school. Once you smelled a decomposing body, the odor stayed with you forever.

“I want to look in these trunks. Help me move them to the hallway. And be careful where you step. When I came up here a few days ago, there was not enough light and I stepped on a floorboard that cracked under my feet. See where someone started a remodeling project up here and never finished it? I want to see what, if anything, might relate to what’s going on in this house.”

For the next fifteen minutes they dragged the dusty trunks across the attic floor and out into the hallway, pushing them against the wall. “Do you want to go through these now?” Goebel asked, wiping a stray cobweb from his face.

“Yes. I need to,” she said.

“You want me to stick around and help? Remember, we’re meeting Dabney at seven.”

Sophie glanced at the time on her cell phone. “There’s enough time to look through a couple of them.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

Sophie swiped her hands over the top of one of the trunks, trying to remove who knew how many years of accumulated dust and what looked like mouse droppings. “Let’s get an exterminator up here, and soon,” she said. “God only knows what else we might find.”

Luckily, the trunks weren’t locked. Sophie took that as a good sign. Brushing her hands across her slacks to remove some of the dust, she hooked her fingers under the edge of the trunk and lifted. Hundreds of tiny dead spiders clung to the faded pinkish silk that lined the trunk’s lid. “This is disgusting,” she complained, but didn’t let a few dead spiders alter her plan. She had to do this, no matter how gross she thought it was. To date, nothing could ever compare to what she’d done for Ida and Mavis in that embalming room in California. No, this was a piece of cake compared to slicing off a dead man’s penis. She’d promised them she would never tell a soul, and to this date, she hadn’t. Clearing her mind of the image, she focused on the contents inside the trunk.

“You want me to get some cleaning rags?” Goebel asked. “Wipe the stuff down?”

“Sure, that’s a good idea,” she answered. Actually, she didn’t care one way or another.

Knowing she had to get down to business, Sophie removed a stack of old newspaper clippings. Hardened with age, the print was barely visible, but she was able to make out a date:

Okay, this meant nothing to her until she skimmed to the bottom of the page. A wedding announcement. Theodore Dabney and Nancy McCartney were married on that date. This had to be the great-great-nephew they were having dinner with. Why would they keep something this significant in an old, dusty trunk? Why hadn’t they taken this whenever they’d sold the place? Lots of questions, and hopefully, she would soon have the answers. She placed the stack of papers on the floor. Leaning over and peering down into the trunk, Sophie spied a small black box. She wiped away the dust, and a smattering of something she didn’t want to put a name to, and opened it. Inside was a tiny cuff-like bracelet, no more than two inches in circumference. To Sophie the bracelet looked like sterling silver. An elaborate bit of scrollwork surrounded the outer part of the bracelet. She shined her flashlight on it and saw what appeared to be writing. “Goebel, run downstairs and get the silver polish.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

She nodded. This must be a baby bracelet. Given its size, it couldn’t be anything else. Straining to read the name engraved on the inside, she thought the first letter was an M. She rubbed the inside of the bracelet with her sleeve but still couldn’t make out the rest of the letters. Goebel’s pounding footsteps told her she was only seconds away from finding out exactly what the name was.

“Here, I brought some extra rags, too,” he said as he handed her the container of silver polish and a rag. Sophie squeezed a small amount onto the rag, then rubbed it on the inside of the bracelet. Using the end of the rag to buff away the polish, Sophie drew in a deep breath when she read the name.

“Look at this!” Sophie exclaimed. “This must’ve belonged to one of the Dabneys.”

Goebel leaned down for a closer inspection. “It has to,” he said. “Maybe Ted can tell us who Margaret is.”

She nodded, then finished cleaning the bracelet as best as she could. When she finished, she looked at her husband. “I’m going with you tonight. I think I’ve seen enough dust and mouse droppings for now.” Sophie stood up and brushed away the dust that had fallen on her slacks. “Let’s get showered. I can’t wait to find out . . .” She stopped when she remembered Toots’s phone call. Ida thrashing about was not a good thing. Not at all.

She had a decision to make. Did she meet this Dabney fellow, or should she return to Ida’s bedside? Knowing the importance of both, it was a tough choice.

She followed Goebel to the master suite, the bracelet safely tucked inside her pocket. Thankful their room hadn’t been mysteriously vandalized like the kitchen, Sophie brushed her slacks off again and sat down on the bed. “You okay?” Goebel asked her before heading to the shower. “You don’t mind if I go first? Or you can join me if you like,” he added with a wicked grin.

She laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it. “I’m good, you go ahead.”

Since acknowledging her psychic abilities, Sophie had never felt so unsure of herself and her skills. She’d had misgivings here and there, but nothing like now. Being pulled in two directions by an unknown force was new to her. She needed to make a decision and be quick about it. This wasn’t a Hollywood starlet, or a frantic mother in search of her children. This went back almost a hundred years. Ida’s soul was virtually at stake, Sophie’s home was uninhabitable, at least for today, and she hadn’t a clue which way to turn. For the millionth time, she wished she had Madam Butterfly, her former spiritual mentor, to advise her. The book of Roman rituals she’d given her was completely useless to her now.

Wanting to clear her mind, she lay down on her bed, feeling the need to close her eyes for a few minutes. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in what seemed like forever.