The House on Prytania (Royal Street #2)(69)
Author: Karen White

 

“Any luck?” I asked.

 

Sunny grimaced. “Nope. Nada. I was hoping that maybe all the psychic genes hadn’t bypassed me completely. Or maybe Beau just hogged them all before I came along.”

 

Beau squeezed her around the shoulders, then used his knuckles to rub the top of her head. “But you got all the looks.”

 

“And the brains,” I added.

 

They both laughed as Sunny tried to jump high enough to give her brother a noogie and failed miserably.

 

Mimi entered the kitchen, and her face broke out into a wide grin as she spotted her grandchildren. She looked years younger, her eyes brighter and her face more relaxed than I’d seen since we’d met. It had been as if she’d worn her grief like a sheet of cellophane that muted her features. The sudden reappearance of her granddaughter had ripped it away, allowing us to see the grandmother she had planned to be before Sunny had been taken and her son and daughter-in-law had been lost in the storm.

 

“Children, settle down or take it outside.” Her smile took away any sting that her words might have held if the children in question were, well, children.

 

“Sorry, Mimi,” Sunny said, and planted a kiss on the older woman’s cheek. “Beau started it.”

 

“I’m not sure that’s how I remember it,” I said.

 

“Well, regardless,” Mimi said, trying to sound stern. “I lost my helper, and I need her back to help me move a bag of mulch.”

 

“I’m on it!” Sunny said, opening the door and motioning Mimi ahead of her. She hesitated briefly before following Mimi outside.

 

Beau turned to me. “I thought we could go up into the studio room so we could talk in private.”

 

I thought of the Frozen Charlotte dolls staring at me from the wall shelves. “How about a snake pit? Or a mime convention?”

 

His lips quirked. “If only I knew where to find one.”

 

“What about your grandfather’s library?”

 

“No. Absolutely not.” His abruptness startled me.

 

“He’s not there, you know, if that’s what you’re worried about. He seems to have made my house his permanent residence.”

 

Beau opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of iced tea. “It’s not that. Mimi doesn’t allow anyone to go in there, not even Lorda. Mimi does all the dusting and vacuuming. She hasn’t moved a thing since he died.” He held the pitcher up to me. “Sweet tea?”

 

I shook my head. “Blech. Just water for me, please.”

 

“Blasphemy,” he said as he reached into a cabinet for two glasses. “Does Jolene know you don’t like sweet tea? We might have to ask Jaxson’s brother the priest to say a mass for you.”

 

“Very funny. And yes, she knows. She has a plan to convert me.” He handed me an empty glass. “Back to your grandfather. Do you think you can suggest to him that he return to wherever it was we sent him?”

 

He glanced out the kitchen window to where Mimi and Sunny stood next to an empty flower bed. “You might not want me to. Not yet. Let’s talk about this upstairs.”

 

“Fine.” I bent down so I could fill my glass from the large bottle dispenser ubiquitous in New Orleans homes. When I’d straightened, I started to walk out of the kitchen the way we’d entered. I was almost at the stairs when I realized that Beau wasn’t behind me. I retraced my steps, but Beau wasn’t in the kitchen, and I would have seen him if he’d walked by me. The only other way out of the kitchen was out the back door. More than a little annoyed, I walked past the banquette and into the adjacent morning room that contained three walls of windows but no doors.

 

I stuck my head around the corner. “Beau?”

 

I was already headed back toward the kitchen when I heard him call my name from behind me. I startled, my hand flying to my throat as I spun around. “Where did you come from?”

 

“The hidden stairs behind the wall.” His face was serious, but his eyes made it clear he was messing with me.

 

“Of course,” I said. “The hidden stairs. Because according to Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo, all old houses have at least one set.”

 

“Something like that.” Beau slid his finger along the thick chair rail on the wall without windows until I heard a click. A small portion of paneling popped open, revealing a set of worn wooden steps, faded dips in the middle of each stair where over a century of feet had landed.

 

“Servants’ stairs,” I said, an educated guess based on the hundreds of historic houses I’d studied during the pursuit of my master’s in preservation.

 

“Good guess,” he said. “But I bet you’ve never seen a set like this. They were altered at some point since the steps don’t lead to any living area anymore, and the hidden door was added. Which probably sounds strange to you until you actually see it for yourself.”

 

Intrigued, I followed him up the narrow stairwell with plastered walls until it reached a landing with one door in front of us and one to the left. The only light came from the open door behind us. Beau rested his hand on the knob of the door in front. “Be prepared to be amazed.”

 

“I’ve heard that before,” I said.

 

“Yeah, but this time it’s for real.” He held the door open and waited. Just as I reached him, he said, “Watch where you step.” I turned my head to where our noses were almost touching in the small space, and I could see his eyes laughing.

 

I stepped through the narrow door and immediately felt the chill of an unheated attic. A wide footpath of unstained wallboards crossed over the studs and ended on the far side of the attic. There were no handrails, which reminded me of pictures I’d seen of workers on high-rise scaffolding, their legs dangling into the abyss below.

 

Beau stepped through the doorway and moved to stand next to me. “Hold on to me, and then look down.”

 

My instinctive response to Beau telling me what to do meant that I immediately looked over the edge of the wooden path. The disorientation hit me right away as my eyes attempted to adjust to what seemed like a fun-house mirror on the floor. I knew my feet were on the ground, but my mind didn’t agree, thinking instead that I was riding a wave on a surfboard. I started swaying, tilting more and more to one side despite my matter-of-fact mind insisting that I needed to stand up straight or I’d fall. Yet my body kept tilting, one foot letting go of the walkway and then the next sending me toppling over the edge.