Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [37]
Seeing small red blisters on the tips of two fingers and her thumb, he asked, “What happened here?”
“I think I burned myself,” she admitted. “I didn’t realize it until I came down the stairs, but there’s no bulb in the light fixture at the bottom of the stairwell. I wasn’t about to stay perched on the step pounding on the door with the little tiny bit of light spilling down from above. So I had to go steal one from up in the attic.”
Did the woman have no common sense? Unable to resist, he drew her hand to his lips and kissed the tip of each finger, resisting the urge to suck them into his mouth.
Shaking his head, he asked, “Couldn’t you have shut the lights off and let them cool off before trying to unscrew one?”
She snatched her hand away and frowned. “In case you haven’t realized it, the only switch for your stinking attic is down here by the door. And if you thought I was going to march down in the dark, flip the switch off and then climb back up into that black hole of death, trying to feel my way to a cool lightbulb, you’re nuts.”
Well, when she put it that way…
“I wasn’t thinking at first,” she grudgingly admitted, her temper cooling as quickly as it had heated up. “I just grabbed. Once I realized it was hot, I found a rag and twisted the bulb off, then brought it down and felt around until I could get it into the socket.”
The woman was damn lucky she hadn’t electrocuted herself. He could just imagine if she’d jammed her finger into the live socket while poking around in the darkness. This story was getting worse and worse. And he still hadn’t found a way to tell her the door must have only been stuck, since it certainly had not been locked.
“You really ought to fix that door so it doesn’t lock like that. It’s dangerous.”
Knowing he had to be honest with her, he walked over to the door and pushed it shut. “This is one of the original locks to the house.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you should replace it then.”
“Yes, I should,” he murmured. “But my point is that it’s an old type of fixture that can only be locked or unlocked with a key. There are no buttons or switches.” Opening and closing it a couple of times, he added, “There’s no way it can be accidentally engaged.”
Her eyes narrowed as she began to catch his meaning. “You’re wrong. It was locked.”
“It must have been jammed, Lottie.”
The strong jaw jutted out and her dark eyes glittered. “Simon, I tried twisting the knob several times. It wouldn’t move at all.”
He simply stared at her, certain she must be mistaken. But the woman wouldn’t back down, wasn’t changing her story at all.
“That door was locked.”
VIVID NIGHTMARES interfered with Simon’s sleep. Not about Charleston, but about his uncle Roger.
In the months he’d lived in Seaton House, Simon had grown more angry about the way his last remaining relative had died. The unfairness of it, the lousy whim of fate that had sent the sixty-year-old man wandering out on the lawn on a foggy morning, then plunging over the side of a mountain.
His uncle had died an awful death.
And all through the night, Simon kept seeing it over and over in his mind, hearing the plaintive calls for help that had never reached anyone’s ears. He saw his uncle’s final, lonely hours. When he woke, a slick sheen of sweat covered his skin and hot moisture pricked the corners of his eyes.
“God,” he whispered in the semidarkness of early morning. His covers were wrapped around him, as if he’d thrashed in the night.
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, he got up and headed outside, determined to walk off the anger and sadness. As he often did in the early hours, he found himself heading for the cliffs.
The morning had dawned gray but not misty, unlike what it must have been like on his uncle’s last day. Standing at the farthest point on the south side of the lawn, Simon was able to see down into