Caroselli's Baby Chase by Michelle Celmer Page A

you don’t believe me.”
    “I didn’t say that.”
    “You didn’t have to.” Exasperated, she looked over at the clock and said, “We had better go.”
    She grabbed her clutch from the coffee table. “I want to go out the garage door so I can grab the opener. If we’re going to ‘not be friends’ after the party tonight, I want you to put your car in the garage.”
    “Why?”
    She shot him a look.
    Clearly she didn’t want anyone to know he was there. Like he would argue over such an inconsequential detail when sex was involved. “Fine. Paint it camouflage for all I care.”
    He grabbed his coat and was tugging it on as they walked through the kitchen to the garage door, and she stopped so abruptly that he actually ran into her.
    “Rob, that’s really not funny,” she said, looking at the basement door. Someone or something must have been making a point because the door wasn’t open an inch or two this time. It was open all the way.

Eight
    “I t opens by itself?” Terri looked as skeptical as Rob had when Carrie told him about the basement door. They stood in Terri and Nick’s kitchen with several of their friends, including Tony’s sister Elana, and a guy named Mark who was making no secret of the fact that he found Carrie attractive. He was cute in an average way. Average height, average weight, naturally blond hair that was thinning a bit on top. And though he went a little gung ho with the aftershave, he seemed very nice, if not slightly forward in his intentions. But when he stood close to her, the air didn’t crackle with energy, and her heart didn’t beat faster, and when he touched her arm, her skin didn’t shiver with awareness. In other words, he was no Rob.
    She had already formed a gentle rejection in case Mark asked her out. Which seemed inevitable at this point.
    “I take it that never happened when you lived there,” Carrie said.
    Terri shrugged. “If it did I never noticed. Far as I remember, the door was always closed. I hardly ever go down there. I mostly just use it for storage.”
    “Storage of what?” Elana asked. “Human remains?”
    Terri shot her a withering look. “Old furniture.”
    Lisa, who worked in Nick’s department at Caroselli Chocolate, asked, “Haunted furniture?”
    “Not that I know of. But some of it is pretty old. Things my aunt had in her attic when she died. Stuff that has been in the family for a couple hundred years. I doubt I’ll ever use any of it, but it seemed wrong to sell it.”
    Carrie glanced over to the living room where Tony, Rob and a very attractive Asian woman Carrie hadn’t yet been introduced to stood by the sofa talking. The woman had come to the party late, and whoever she was, Rob seemed utterly enthralled by what she was saying, hanging on her every word.
    Abruptly, as if he’d sensed her eyes on him, Rob looked over at Carrie and caught her staring. The corner of his mouth tilted into a wry smile.
    Even though they had arrived together, they hadn’t said more than ten words to each other in the two hours they had been there. A few times when he’d walked past, his arm had brushed hers, and once, when they reached into the chips bowl at the same time, their fingers touched. He’d given her his “look” and all she’d been able to think about since then was how they would go back to her place and “not be friends” all night long.
    As far as she had seen, Rob had been nursing the same drink since they arrived, confirming what Terri had told her about his not being much of a drinker. Carrie on the other hand was on her fourth glass of wine. Each time she drained her glass, Mark would automatically refill it. She was beginning to think that he was trying to get her drunk. He seemed a bit tipsy himself.
    “Anything else weird happen?” Terri asked her.
    “There was one other thing. I was in the garage and reached inside to feel around for the light switch, and I felt a hand settle on top of mine. A very cold