The Girl From Summer Hill Read online

  Tate turned off the engine, then reached across Casey to the glove box and pulled out a baseball cap and a little packet. She watched him tie back his hair and slide the cap down over his eyes. Next went a huge, bushy mustache, which didn’t seem to want to stay on, and aviator glasses.

  “I should have shaved,” he said.

  “And ruin your image?” Casey said, making him smile. “Okay, everyone know what to do?”

  “Sure.” Jack handed his pile of papers to Gizzy. “We work together.” He opened the truck door.

  “But that’s not—”

  Tate took Casey’s papers and put them with his. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

  Casey started to protest, but the truth was that she didn’t look forward to wandering about the ratty old place by herself. She got out of the truck and joined the others. “If anyone gets hungry or thirsty, food is in the back of the truck.”

  They left the parking area, and when they rounded the corner they looked up at the house. Up close it was downright scary. A gutter hung down, some of the windows were cracked, and a roof at the far end appeared as if it might collapse at any second.

  “Welcome!” said a little man standing by a table where a woman sat with a cash box. “There’s a twenty-dollar-per-person cover charge to see it all. If you buy anything, it’s refunded, but I have to get something from the looky-loos.”

  “This is your house?” Jack asked.

  “It is now. My great-aunt’s family owned it. Monster, isn’t it?”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Gizzy asked.

  “Sell everything I can, then bulldoze the house and plant kale. This whole country is kale-mad. There’s money to be made in anything kale.” He was staring at Tate. “You look like—”

  “Don’t say it,” Tate said in a heavy Southern accent. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Jack handed over four twenty-dollar bills and they went through.

  In front of the house were tables covered with dusty items. Chairs and small tables were set around on the grass, which seemed to have been freshly mowed. The couples separated.

  “Big stuff is in the house,” the little man called to them. “The prices are on everything, and I won’t sell anything before ten A.M. But I might be persuaded to bargain.”

  “He dreams of bidding wars,” Tate said and Casey agreed. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’d like to see this place before the hordes get here.”

  Casey knew she should start searching for the items they needed, but she stuffed the papers into her pocket and followed him. He didn’t go in the front door but through the side. They came out into what seemed to be a basement passage with lots of doors leading to side rooms.

  “It looks like a movie set,” Casey said.

  “My thought exactly. Can’t you imagine a guy with an ax chasing the pretty girl through here?”

  “He wants her kale?”

  Tate laughed as he went through a doorway into the kitchen. A row of copper saucepans hung over the big stove, and against a wall were a dozen copper cake molds.

  “Ooooh,” Casey said.

  “Your idea of heaven?”

  “Close to it.”

  They wandered about the old house, all four stories, and found most of the items on the list. High up was a bedroom that looked to be the master. An old inlaid-wood jewelry box caught Casey’s eye, but the price was too high. She and Tate agreed that it was sad that the house was to be torn down.

  They lost track of time and only realized the sale had begun when people began arriving. Tate and Casey raced down the stairs. Jack was already at the sale table, handing over a stack of hundreds to the little man.

  “You find everything?” Tate asked.

  “Most of it. There are some small items we didn’t see.”

  “Your voice!” the man said. “You are him.” His small eyes glittered. “I forgot to tell you that some of this stuff has been priced incorrectly. The sofa you want is an antique. It’s about three hundred years old. I don’t know who priced it at four hundred dollars, but they left off a zero. It’s four thousand dollars.”

  “Listen, Buster—” Jack looked as he did in the movies, like he was about to punch the man in the face.

  The screams of a woman cut him off.

  They all turned in the direction of the sound. At the far end of the house, a woman stared up at the roof, her face showing her fear. Sitting on the edge, three stories up, was a little boy, smiling, his chubby legs hanging down. It was as if he was getting ready to leap down into his mother’s arms. But then, the roof seemed almost too rotten to hold him.

  Tate looked at Jack. “You go. I’ll get the rope. I hope you don’t have to play catch.”

  Casey’s mind raced. “Where is Gizzy?” She ran to the back of the truck.

  Tate flung open the doors, climbed inside, and got the box of ropes and bungee cords. “I have no idea where she is. Call 911 and get the fire department here.” He took off running.

  “You can’t go out on that roof,” she called after him, but he didn’t hear her.

  Casey took her phone out of her pocket. The signal was weak, but she got through to 911.

  The dispatcher answered right away. “You’re our third caller,” she said. “The truck is on its way, but it’s going to be twenty to thirty minutes before they can get there. Can someone talk the child into holding still?”

  “We’ll try,” Casey said and hung up.

  “What happened?” Gizzy asked from behind her. “I was looking for—”

  Casey grabbed her sister’s hand and started running. “They may need you.” People were gathering around the front door and blocking it, so Casey ran to the side. “We’ll take the back stairs. I hope I can remember how to get there.”

  There was a big man at the head of the main staircase, and he was keeping people from going up. A flash of a badge showed that he was a deputy sheriff.

  Casey turned to Gizzy in question and she nodded. While the deputy was distracted by some guy with a camera, the two women sneaked past the crowd and ran down the hallway.

  “I think this is it.” Casey flung open a door to reveal a narrow staircase leading up. There were a lot of footprints in the thick dust.

  “Those are from Jack’s boots,” Gizzy said. “I recognize the print.”

  At the top was a closed door, but when Casey tried it, it was locked. She knocked. “It’s us. Let us in.”

  “Wait for us in the truck,” Tate said through the door. “Jack’s going out on the roof to get the kid.”

  “He’s too heavy!” Casey shouted. “He’ll go through. Landers, if you don’t let us in—” She couldn’t think of a good threat.

  “Please,” Gizzy said. “Please.”

  Her sweetness made Tate open the door. Jack was by the wide window, with a rope looped about his waist, one end on the floor, the other end in Tate’s hands.

  Tate was frowning. “We’re handling this.”

  “No,” Casey said as she looked at Jack. “You’re too heavy. Gizzy will go.”

  “Absolutely not!” Jack said.

  Ignoring him, Casey asked Gizzy, “Can you move in those skinny jeans?”

  “No.” She unzipped them.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jack spat out.

  Casey knelt to unbuckle Gizzy’s tall wedge sandals. When Casey stood up, Gizzy was wearing only her pink underpants and a shirt. Her long, trim legs were bare.

  Tate was standing to one side, still holding the end of the rope. He seemed to understand what the women were doing because when Casey looked at him, he stepped forward. This wasn’t a time to argue. As he looped the rope around Gizzy’s waist, he talked to her in a calm voice. “The roof is in bad shape and the old tiles are falling off. You need to step carefully. Test every tile with your foot before putting your weight on it. Understand?”

  Gizzy nodded.

  “Jack will keep the rope around him and he won’t let you go. If you fall, he’ll hold on