Dead Bolt Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Author’s Note

  Teaser chapter

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  ALSO BY JULIET BLACKWELL

  Praise for the Novels of Juliet Blackwell

  If Walls Could Talk

  “A riveting tale with a twisting plot, likeable characters, and an ending that will make you shudder [at] how easily something small can get totally out of hand. Juliet Blackwell’s writing is able to mix paranormal experiences with everyday life. [It] leaves you wondering what you just saw out of the corner of your eye . . . a good solid read.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “Ms. Blackwell’s offbeat, humorous book is a fun, light read. . . . Mel makes a likeable heroine. . . . Overall, a terrific blend of suspense and laughter with a dash of the paranormal thrown in makes this a great read.”

  —TwoLips Reviews

  “Kudos and high fives to Ms. Blackwell for creating a new set of characters for readers to hang around with as well as a new twist on the ghostly paranormal mystery niche. I can’t wait to see what otherworldly stories Juliet has in mind for us next!”

  —Once Upon a Romance Reviews

  “Mixes a cozy mystery with supernatural elements and romance for an amazing book.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Secondhand Spirits

  “Juliet Blackwell provides a terrific urban fantasy with the opening of the Witchcraft Mystery series.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Solid plotting and realistic but odd characters bring a cozy tone to this wonderful debut . . . looking forward to the second.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “An excellent blend of mystery, paranormal, and light humor, creating a cozy that is a must-read for anyone with an interest in literature with paranormal elements.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “It’s a fun story, with romance possibilities with a couple hunky men, terrific vintage clothing, and the enchanting Oscar. But, there is so much more to this book. It has serious depth.”

  —The Herald News (MA)

  Praise for the Art Lover’s Mysteries by Juliet Blackwell writing as Hailey Lind

  Brush with Death

  “Lind deftly combines a smart and witty sleuth with entertaining characters who are all engaged in a fascinating new adventure.”

  —Romantic Times

  Shooting Gallery

  “If you enjoy Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books, Jonathan Gash’s Lovejoy series, or Ian Pears’ art history mysteries . . . then you will enjoy Shooting Gallery.”

  —Gumshoe

  “An artfully crafted new mystery series!”

  —Tim Myers, Agatha Award–nominated author of A Mold for Murder

  “The art world is murder in this witty and entertaining mystery!”

  —Cleo Coyle, national bestselling author of the Coffeehouse Mysteries

  Feint of Art

  “Annie Kincaid is a wonderful cozy heroine. . . . It’s a rollicking good read.”

  —Mystery News

  ALSO BY JULIET BLACKWELL

  Haunted Home Renovation Mysteries

  If Walls Could Talk

  Witchcraft Mysteries

  Secondhand Spirits

  A Cast-off Coven

  Hexes and Hemlines

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, December 2011

  Copyright © Julie Goodson-Lawes, 2011

  All rights reserved

  ISBN : 978-1-101-55899-7

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Shay and Suzanne:

  You take “neighborly” to a whole different level.

  Thank you for being family.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing a book takes the support, patience, and knowledge of a huge number of people. I can’t thank you all by name, but I carry you in my heart.

  Special thanks are due, as always, to my editor, Kerry Donovan, and to Kristin Lindstrom of Lindstrom Literary Management. And to my incredible network of friends and family, for inspiring my writing, for holding my hand when things get tough, and for always being there. I hope by now you know who you are, and how much I appreciate you! A special shout-out to my long-lo
st friend Antonio Jimenez—I missed you so much, for too many years. Can’t wait to eat lobster on the beach again, and soon.

  To all the Pensfatales, without whom I couldn’t function, and in particular Gigi Pandian, for her courage and humor. I can’t wait for Scotland, when you’ll be well beyond today’s challenges. To Adrienne and Tom Miller, for showing me their cool ghost-busting equipment and checking my old house for ghosts. To Rachael Herron, for cemetery walks and endless plot lunches that devolve into gossip, each and every time. And to Sophie Littlefield . . . there really are no words. Without you I’m sure I would be huddled in a dusty corner somewhere, unable to write. L. G. C. Smith, Lisa Hughey, and Martha Flynn—you guys make this crazy business fun, and never fail to inspire me.

  To Victoria Laurie, for her wonderful ghost tales, conference hijinks, and encouragement. To Nicole Peeler—looking forward to getting into lots of trouble in the future, professionally, personally . . . in all sorts of ways, from rural Pennsylvania to Scotland! And to Lesa Hol-stine, librarian and book reviewer extraordinaire!

  To JC Johnson, who really knows the meaning of providing “helpful critiques”—thank you so much for your time and suggestions, and for your steadfast love of reading and your passion for the written word. To Carolyn Lawes, for all the ideas, jokes, and very tactful suggestions, even when I’m catatonic from deadline pressures.

  And finally . . . to Sam-the-brown-dog, we miss you so much, especially “single bark.” Thanks for sticking around in ghost form.

  Chapter One

  My father always used to say: There’s nothing quite like a protracted remodel to test a person’s sanity.

  Still, one thing was very clear to me: The handprints on the ceiling were real, not a product of my imagination.

  Damn it. My mind cast about for a way to explain them to my clients. They weren’t flat, as if someone had used their hands to steady themselves while teetering atop scaffolding or a tall ladder. Rather, it looked like someone had dragged five fingers along the surface of the ceiling’s wet plaster or paint, resulting in a subtle chicken-scratch pattern fanning out in concentric circles around the hole for the light fixture.

  The ceiling had been perfectly blank yesterday.

  As with so much of what was happening on this job site, it was . . . disturbing.

  My clients, Katenka and Jim Daley, stood with me amidst the construction debris and dust. The workers had finished for the day, and the house was quiet save for the loud cooing of eleven-month-old Quinn, who squirmed like a baby kangaroo in a padded pouch slung across his father’s stomach.

  We gazed up at the twelve-foot-high coffered ceiling of what would be an elegant dining room as soon as the walls and ceiling were patched and painted, the antique light fixtures rewired and remounted, and the inlaid wood floors sanded and stained. The Daleys’ home, an 1890s Queen Anne Victorian in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood, was structurally sound—a pleasant surprise, rare for structures from that era—but decades of operating as the Cheshire Inn, a boardinghouse for drifters, down-at-the-heels bachelors, and homeless cats had left their mark. The home’s bones were exquisite, but the rest required plenty of renovation, repair, and ornamentation. Queen Anne Victorians were celebrated for their elaborate decorative designs and lavish “gingerbread” details.

  This is where I come in. Mel Turner, General Contractor, Jill of All Trades.

  But at the moment, I feared my crew and I weren’t the only entities at work within the ornate halls and chambers of the historic house. I had been trying—and failing—to ignore or explain away the series of strange events that had plagued the project from its inception: lumber and sheetrock disappearing from one spot and then showing up in another; work gloves and safety goggles right there one moment and gone the next; rusty old dead bolts locking and unlocking though the keys had long since been lost; footsteps resonating overhead when no one was upstairs. A handful of workers had already walked off the job, unwilling to deal with the unexplained occurrences.

  “Are those . . . handprints? On the ceiling?” Katenka’s heavy Russian accent made it sound as though she were swallowing her vowels. Dark, wavy hair hung halfway down her back; her big brown eyes were limpid; her posture languid. She had just celebrated her thirtieth birthday but appeared much younger. This was due to her petite stature as well as her penchant for gauzy baby-doll dresses, a wardrobe choice completely unsuited to a foggy San Francisco December.

  Since I was known for my own offbeat fashion choices, I wasn’t about to cast stones . . . still, whenever I was in the same room as Katenka, I had to stifle the entirely uncharacteristic urge to bundle her up in a big fluffy sweater.

  If Katenka inspired such protectiveness in someone as cynical as me, I could only imagine what havoc she wreaked upon the average heterosexual man.

  “Yep, they look like handprints to me,” I answered with a nod.

  “Maybe from the painters?” Jim offered.

  “Sure, that must be it,” I lied, hoping he didn’t notice there wasn’t a paintbrush in sight. This project was nowhere near ready for the final decorative stages; we hadn’t even started with plaster repair, patching, and mud. “We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. You won’t even notice them once we’re done.”

  “Great.” Jim was a typical thirtysomething Bay Area high-tech professional: He wore stylish eyewear, his hair was artfully cut and tousled, and he spent what few leisure hours he had training for triathlons or bicycling up Mount Tamalpais. At least he had until his son was born. Now he threw his energy into parenthood, which was a good thing: Jim seemed better cut out for it than Katenka, who struck me as bemused, even outright discomfited, by her wriggling, demanding bundle of joy.

  At the moment little Quinn was enthusiastically gumming his father’s thumb, a long trail of drool marring the front of Jim’s shirt as though left by a giant snail.

  “He’s cutting a tooth,” Jim said with an indulgent chuckle.

  I returned his smile, enjoying the sight of a dad with his beloved boy. Jim was easy to work with . . . with one exception: He had been adamant about living in the basement apartment while we worked on the house. My own father, the original Turner of Turner Construction, had cautioned me against allowing clients to remain onsite during renovations. Apart from the obvious problems with the dust, the noise, and the early-to-rise hours of the construction trade, there were aspects of the job that clients really didn’t need to know about. Incessant raunchy jokes and blaring rock music were only the beginning. There were also the occasional, but inevitable, minidisasters: broken windows or fried wiring, any number of “oopsies” that we would make good in time, but that I’d rather the clients didn’t witness.

  Maybe because I was a woman—not a gruff former marine like Dad—or simply because I lacked sufficient backbone, I had a hard time enforcing this policy. Katenka and Jim insisted on living downstairs, and they were paying the bills. In the high-end construction business, the one with the checkbook rules.

  As a principal in a successful Internet start-up, Jim had pockets deep enough to return this Queen Anne to its former glory. In fact, he possessed an almost messianic drive for historical restoration, and spared little expense.

  These are highly attractive traits in a client.

  “Is very dusty. Dust everywhere,” Katenka commented as she glanced around the dining room, delicate nostrils flaring.

  “Hard to avoid on a construction site, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, by the way, Mel,” Jim said. “I’ve taken the liberty of calling in a green construction consultant.”

  “Is that right?” I said, trying to keep a neutral expression on my face. I’m territorial about my construction sites. When a general contractor is on The Job, they own The Job. I might cave in to clients, but there was a reason my workers called me “the General” behind my back.

  Apparently my attempt to cover up my feelings was not successful. No surprise there. Diplomacy has never been my strong suit.
r />   “I know you’re pretty green already, but it makes me feel better to have an expert on the job,” said Jim, his tone conciliatory. “I’m sure you two will get along great. As a matter of fact, he mentioned you know each other—his name’s Graham Donovan.”

  “Yes, I do know Graham,” I said, my emotions reeling. The sexy contractor and I had history. The kind of history I didn’t want to dwell on while in the company of clients.

  “And check this out,” Jim said, using his free hand to pick up a package from a plywood plank laid across two sawhorses. “I had this plaque made. I was thinking you could put it up when we’re all done.”

  The gleaming brass plaque read:

  CHESHIRE HOUSE, CIRCA 1890

  RESTORATION BY DALEY FAMILY

  AND TURNER CONSTRUCTION, 2011–2012

  “That’s beautiful, Jim,” I said. Okay, Jim Daley had more going for him than just deep pockets: He loved this house. As one who is enamored of historic homes, I felt a certain kinship.

  Quinn’s adorable coos escalated into a fretful whimper. His chubby legs danced and his tiny arms flapped.

  “Chow time! I’d better go feed the baby,” Jim said. “Coming, honey?”

  “You go. I come after. In a minute.” Katenka’s mouth tightened and one side pulled down in a barely-there grimace. I’d noticed that expression before. It was usually directed at unpleasant tasks . . . or just about anything involving her son.

  Still, in her big hazel eyes I read a mixture of eager concern and trepidation. I found it hard to warm to Katenka, but a part of my heart went out to her. The unceasing demands of an infant would be tough for anyone, especially someone living in a foreign country without her family.