Hidden Rooms, Secret Spaces

By Connie L. Beckett

After the much-anticipated Y2K disaster doesn't happen, freelance writer Kat Addison searches for a story to write.

Visiting an abandoned Prohibition speakeasy beneath Prescott, Arizona, she discovers the body of a long-dead woman in a secret cabinet. Intrigued, she decides to write about her efforts to identify the woman, find out who killed her, and why she was murdered.

Soon after, Kat gets targeted by a stalker and realizes that there must have been secrets that died with the dead woman...secrets that somebody wants to keep buried no matter the cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Jun 27, 2024

Book preview

1

HIDDEN PLACES / SECRET ROOMS

Kat Addison caught a flash of something out of place in the beam of her flashlight as she swept it across the underground cavern. She backtracked, slower this time. Fine dust covered everything: the bar, chairs, and abandoned liquor glasses on the tables, making them all the same woolly brown. Still, those objects were recognizable. What Kat had caught in the light was different—some odd bit out of place.

There it was again, something crumpled on the floor against the back bar. Its odd softness was out of place among the recognizable objects. She made her way toward it, shifting the flashlight beam back and forth so she wouldn’t trip on one of the broken bottles that littered the floor. Time had halted decades ago in this old Prohibition speakeasy tucked twenty feet underground in the middle of Prescott, Arizona.

At first, it looked like an old bar rag that had been dropped in the hasty retreat when the speakeasy was raided by Prohibition agents. Kat bent and tried to pick the cloth up, but it was held fast by something. She gave it a shake, trying to dislodge it. Red flared in the beam of her flashlight.

What the hell, she yelped. The echo of her voice bounced around the empty space; the haunted sound making a shiver run down her spine. In reply, something skittered along the far wall. Rats? A giant cockroach with waving antennae? Did the saucer-size desert tarantulas live this far underground? This foray had seemed like a good idea when Kat had pitched the idea of an article about a visit to the abandoned Prohibition bar. Of course, that was before the skittering things.

No way some little cockroach is going to scare me, Kat muttered. It didn’t sound very convincing. She wiped dirty hands on her dusty jeans and pushed a strand of escaped hair back under the hard hat. She squatted and pulled at the cloth. It held tight. She folded her legs under her so she could grip the flashlight between her knees. Her efforts had dislodged the dust, and now she saw it was a silky red cloth the size of a washcloth sticking out from under the bar. The edge had been folded under and stitched like the hem of a shirt or skirt, not a bar towel. She tugged once more, but it was still stuck under the heavy wooden back bar. Had they stuffed old clothes under the edge to stabilize it on the rough stone floor? That didn’t make sense.

Damn, Kat said. In reply, dust shifted down. It wasn’t a comforting sign. The ceiling had been shored up with posts and beams, but Kat didn’t know how reliable they were after sixty years. She waited a minute, heart pounding, poised to run should the ceiling start to collapse. She considered fleeing, but permission to enter the boarded-up speakeasy had been difficult, and she already had a contract for the story.

Kat was a freelance writer, penning articles about the places she went to. Sure, she drove an old Toyota with almost a quarter-million miles on the odometer and lived in a room she rented from her brother when she wasn’t on the road, but didn’t that beat a cubicle in some sterile office?

Oh, yeah, so much better here on hands and knees in the dirty, dank Silver Mine bar that had been raided during Prohibition and then abandoned, trying to ferret out a story so she could buy new tires for that old Toyota.

When it appeared the ceiling wasn’t going to fall—at least not today—she shined the light on the massive bar. The wood was dark and carved with intricate designs. As the light played over it, Kat saw deep lines around the edges of the lower panel. She used a sleeve to brush away the dust and realized the panel was a hidden door, some four feet high and two feet wide. Without a handle, it was nearly invisible. Was this where they hid the illegal hooch? She felt along the edges, looking for a latch. Nothing. Kat pressed the middle of the panel and heard a click of release, loud in the silence. Secret spaces inside hidden rooms. Another article idea she could garner from this adventure.

She tucked the flashlight under her arm and pulled the car keys from a pocket. The key ring held a set of fingernail clippers. Kat opened the thin fingernail file, inserted it, and forced the panel open a little more. Then she jammed the tips of her fingers in and pulled. A foul, musty odor hit her. Were there forgotten commodities stored inside, gone to mold and rot? Kat aimed the flashlight into the opening.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit, she screamed, jumping back. She stumbled and fell.

Kat lay there, heart thumping, vomit threatening. She had dropped the flashlight, and as it rolled across the floor, light reflected in the wavy bar mirror and threw strange shadows. It was a horror movie. After a minute, when Kat realized she was still alive and the ceiling hadn’t fallen, she retrieved the flashlight and again approached the compartment, both hands clasping the light in a defensive position.

Inside the cabinet was a mummified body dressed in a red flapper dress, a glittering necklace around what remained of her neck. She had been dead a very long time.

I thought the city closed off all those underground passages years ago, the police officer at the dispatcher desk told Kat. She squinted to see his name tag, which read J. Bryant. What were you doing down there anyway?

I had permission. It’s for a story I’m writing. Good God, she had discovered a dead body, and the only thing this officer could ask was what she was doing there. Figures. He looked like he was still in high school. There was a blonde fuzz under his nose that she figured Bryant called a moustache. Of course, Kat was turning forty this year, and she’d noticed how much younger everyone seemed now. Still, where were this kid’s priorities?

Who gave you permission? Those underground areas are unsafe, he went on.

Kat couldn’t stand his brainless questions any longer. After all, she had bolted from the cavern and driven straight to the police station, like any good citizen would, and reported a dead body. Now she was dusty, stinky, and tired, and what was this Officer J. Bryant most concerned about? Not the discovery of a body, but what she was doing there? Hello, that wasn’t the problem.

I found a dead person, Kat said through clenched teeth. Isn’t that what’s important here? I’m reporting it like I’m supposed to, and it’s up to you to send someone out there to check.

She crossed her arms and glared at him, as insistent as one could be looking like that cartoon character Pig-Pen.

The officer sighed and picked up the desk phone. Hey, Ron, you busy with anything? I got someone here who claims she discovered a body in that old speakeasy the city boarded up years ago.

He listened for a minute, explained what Kat had found, using the word allegedly several times, and hung up.

Kat stood and pulled car keys from her jeans’ pocket, ready to follow them.

You, said Bryant, pointing at her, are staying here to write up a statement about what you found.

But you don’t know where—, she tried to argue.

I do know where.

Damn.

It wasn’t until Kat was driving back to her brother’s house that what she’d found snapped into place. She had discovered a dead woman, in a situation that was already like a scary movie with scuttling things in corners and a propped-up ceiling that hinted at collapse. Her hands started trembling. She pulled into a deserted parking lot. Kat tucked her hands under her thighs and breathed deeply, willing the shaking to stop. Her stomach rumbled ominously, and she opened the car door, just in case the rumble was a precursor to puking. After a couple of minutes, she stopped shaking and her stomach settled. That’s when she realized it had become dark, and the parking lot was very empty. Scary movie, part two. Roll the commercial. It was time to leave this freak fest.

Jeez, Kat, her brother said when she finally dragged herself through the front door of his house. It’s after ten, the news is about over. Where have you been, anyway?

Nate was sitting in the same chair that he always sat in to watch the news. After the news was over, he would wash out his glass, dry it, and put it back into the kitchen cabinet. Then he’d go to bed and do whatever reading that accountants do. So predictable. One of them had to have been switched at birth. It was the only explanation as to why he adhered closely to a routine, and Kat abhorred anything vaguely resembling one.

Anything on the news about finding a body? she asked.

Huh?

Nate turned his attention from the television to Kat.

You’re covered in dirt. He sniffed. And you smell bad, too. What in the hell happened?

Let me take a shower first, then I’ll tell you.

Kat did just that, running the hot water until her hair was clean and the water sluicing down her body had turned from muddy brown to clear. Then she toweled her hair, still honey brown thanks to regular visits to the salon, dressed in baggy shorts and a T-shirt, and went back to the living room. She told Nate about exploring the underground speakeasy searching for a story and discovering more than a story. He only interrupted her twice with questions. She yawned after she finished talking. It had been a long day, and the hot shower made her realize how exhausted she was.

Why did the police want to talk with you? Nate asked, a frown wrinkling his forehead. Did they think you were involved somehow?

Not even close. I’m guessing she died long before either of us was born. The dry cavern helped preserve the body, but still, it wasn’t much more than dried skin and bones in a party dress.

Kat shivered, remembering a skull that had grinned up at her and the gleam of a necklace in the light from her headlamp.

Would have scared the crap outta me, Katie Kat, Nate said, using her childhood nickname. This was the big brother she remembered. The one who, after Mom died of cancer and their dad abandoned them to the care of an aunt they barely knew, had wrapped his arms around his little sister and told her that as long as they were together, they’d be okay.

Yep, she replied in a voice hoarse with the memory.

So you have enough about the old speakeasy to write the story, then you go on to something else?

This was the grown-up accountant brother talking now.

I’ll do that, of course. I’ve already floated the idea to several magazines, and they’re interested. I’ll write up an article or two, and send them on. But I have an idea I tossed around on my way home.

Uh-oh.

Hear me out, first. I’ve always wanted to write a book, but there are tons of travel books already out there. I’m thinking about something different—like who was this woman and how did she end up shoved inside a secret compartment. I’ll use the topic of underground taverns during Prohibition as the backdrop. Hell, maybe I’ll come across other old murders.

She stopped talking. Nate was giving her the stink eye. The same one he always gave when they were kids and she proposed an adventure that made him worry she might fall into a pit and impale some important body part. That stink eye.

2

BEYOND COLD

The sun was up before Kat managed to drag herself out of bed. The red dress lady had haunted her night. An opportunity to stay in one place and write a book-length piece was appealing, but now it had become more than that. Kat wanted to know the dead woman’s story. In dreams, the woman had begged Kat with outstretched skeleton arms to bring her home. She felt a responsibility to this poor girl whose future had been stolen. Never mind that had she lived, the party girl would be old enough to be her grandmother.

That was one reason. Another was that wandering the world and writing about the places Kat explored and the people she met was fun. Necessity narrowed her to a suitcase, laptop, and camera. Better, she was not chained to the obligations of an office desk and a mortgage. There was the summer she spent in Maine aboard a fishing boat and the winter in California talking with nomadic retirees who, in their RVs, sought seasonal work in state parks and tourist towns. Fast-forward a dozen-plus years, fifty states, and stints overseas, and Kat was staring at her fortieth birthday. She’d accumulated a nice balance in her retirement account and acquaintances she met along the way, but no real friends with a shared history. She’d be brushing her teeth in front of the mirror in this week’s cheap rental or motel room and realize she didn’t know if she was in New Orleans or Pittsburgh.

Kat peed and returned to her bedroom. Still in the baggy shorts and tee, she ran through one of several yoga routines she had done every morning since high school. It kept her slender and supple, something one needed when hauling a camera, laptop, and other essentials from assignment to assignment.

The whole Y2K thing was a factor, too, in why she felt unsettled. Last year, in 1999, she’d had a plan. The self-styled experts told anyone who would listen that at midnight, January 1, 2000, computers would shut down, utilities that provided electricity, communications, and water would shudder to a standstill, and the world would time-warp back to the pre-industrial age. Kat had arranged her life to report on the fallout. Except that ten minutes after midnight, everyone realized Y2K was going to be a non-event. What was the saying, the best-made plans get eaten by mice? Something like that.

There was a tap on the bedroom door. "Hey, Kat, I’m off to work. There’s coffee left in the pot and breakfast sandwiches in the freezer that you can heat in the