15 Amityville Horrible (6 page)

I slept until almost noon. Considering I’d be up all night shooting the show, that was perfectly reasonable, but I’m not an early riser at the best of times. This just gave me a good excuse.

Jeremy was reading when I woke. He’d been an early riser even before there were little ones in his house. Today he’d already gotten up, quietly dressed, slipped out and grabbed breakfast before settling in to read.

I placed a quick call before my shower.

“Cortez Winterbourne Investigations,” a voice sang. “When dead loved ones twitch, it’s time for a witch.”

“One of these days, you’re going to do that accidentally. To someone who really shouldn’t know what you guys investigate.”

Savannah made a rude noise. She was the receptionist at the agency where her former guardians—Lucas Cortez and Paige Winterbourne—worked. Savannah is Eve’s twenty-one-year-old daughter. We met a couple of years after her mom died, when I’d helped Lucas and Paige on a case. That’s how I met Eve and got my guardian angel.

“So, what’s up?” she said.

“I had a weird experience that I’d like Paige to cross-reference in the files.”

“Weird? Huh. Let me guess. You’ve managed to go several years now without being kidnapped, and you suspect it’s a sign of the apocalypse.”

“Hey, you’ve tied my record.”

“No, I believe I’m still one kidnapping behind. So what’s so weird?”

I told her.

“Huh. You know who you should ask about that? The necromancer council delegate. She’s the expert. I’m sure she’d know…Oh, wait.”

“Do you still want that delegate to take you shopping in Paris this fall? I could ask Elena to take my place. You know she loves fashion almost as much as she loves shopping.”

“No need for threats. I’ll get on this right away.”

“Thank you.”

…

When I came out of the shower, there was a fresh, steaming cup of coffee waiting. Jeremy was at the tiny desk, on Skype with the twins. I got him to tilt the screen so I wasn’t flashing five-year-olds as I dressed. Once I was decent, I sat on the bed behind him so I could talk to the kids.

In public, Jeremy usually refers to the twins as his grandchildren. That’s easiest, though it does lead to some confusion from those who are quite certain he doesn’t look old enough to have them. To the kids, he’s just Jeremy. More parent than grandparent, a part of their everyday life, just as likely as Elena and Clay to be fixing their breakfast or driving them to school.

What does that make me? I’m not sure. When I’m there, I’m part of the family circle. When I’m not, I’ll talk to them a few times a week. Maybe I’m like an aunt, maybe a grandmother. Maybe, as with Jeremy, the label isn’t important. What matters is that I am
something
to them, more than the family friends who pass in and out of their days.

I like that. It fills something in my life. I won’t say it fills a maternal hole, because I’m not sure I ever had one. I suppose, if we wanted, Jeremy and I could still have children, but the subject has never come up because it’s moot, really, for both of us. We’re past that stage in our lives and we’re okay with that.

I don’t think I miss not having children. If I’d had a child and resented that child for hampering my career, then I’d be no better than my own mother. I would never inflict that childhood on anyone. So I have the twins now, and they fill that gap, whatever it is.

…

After the call, we got ready and headed out for lunch, then to the set. It was still hours until showtime, but there were plenty of taped bits that needed to be done, so they could be spliced in through the show. For me, that consisted mostly of relaying past ghostly encounters, which they could insert when the action on screen was underwhelming.

The afternoon and early evening sped by. Finally, it was time to head into the house for a few last-minute things before the cameras rolled. They wouldn’t film us actually entering. That had been done last night, a staged clip of us meeting for the first time, then streaming into the dark house.

I left Jeremy at one of the trailers, where he’d watch the taping. Naturally, I’d told him he didn’t need to stay. Go have a nice dinner. Return to the motel. Read, sketch, relax. At the very least, he didn’t need to stay all night. He would, of course, no matter how boring it got.

Gregor and I headed to the house together. We were talking about a case he’d had in Russia, where he kept seeing a ghost who wouldn’t make contact. I gave him some advice. It was honest advice, more like I’d give to a fellow necromancer than a fellow spiritualist. I still wasn’t sure if he was the real deal, but he was earnest and sincere enough, and that prodded me to be the same in return.

“Hey!” someone called as we climbed the steps. “You can’t go in there. Cast only.”

A blond girl was coming up behind us. I recognized her as one of the “ordinary folks” who’d be joining us.

“Melinda, right?” I said with a big smile. “We met yesterday. I’m Jaime.”

“You can’t go in there, Janey. It’s a closed set.”

“I’m one of the cast. Jaime Vegas.”

She stared vacantly at me.

“I’m a spiritualist,” I said. “I contact the dead. We met last night.” I waved to the side of the house. “Remember, I was up on that balcony?”

“Were you the one who talked about the dead girls?”

“No,” Gregor said. “That was me.”

She still looked confused.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re part of the show.”

I turned and climbed the steps. Gregor held the door for me.

“Hey, what about him?” Melinda called. “No one told me we could bring a date.”

She stalked off to speak to someone about that oversight. Gregor stared after her.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Don’t even try. Just work with it.”

…

I won’t mock poor Melinda for not remembering me. I can’t, considering that I’m not even sure I was talking to Melinda. Apparently, we had identical twins in our cast. I’d probably been introduced to them separately and never figured out they were two people. So, yes, I can’t mock Melinda. Or Belinda, as the case may be.

We went inside and chatted with the parapsychology guys. I was supposed to explain their equipment in a few pre-taped clips. I was running through my notes with them when the cast—the regular folks—filed in.

Becky had stopped by earlier and taken Gregor. He’d be taping the bits about Cotard’s and “throwing to” the victims’ families. Sadly, it was hard to remember this was a charity event at all. I’d taped shout-outs to the victims and families, entreating viewers to make donations, and those would be added in with Gregor’s pieces, but from where we stood, there was no sign of the charity angle. Although, given the nature of the syndrome, I should probably be happy—I shudder to think of how Mike would have incorporated it into the show.

“All right,” Becky said, walking into the now-crowded parlor. “Jaime? Let’s get you upstairs. We’ll start with the EVP equipment.”

“What’s she doing?” asked Melinda—or Belinda.

They wore identical pink sweatsuits and had their blond hair pulled back in ponytails. If they weren’t wearing a half-inch of makeup, I’d have thought they were ready to go jogging. There was no way to tell them apart. If I had to address one, I’d mumble the name.

“She’ll be taping segments explaining how the equipment works,” Becky said. “We can splice those in at the appropriate times, so the action on camera is otherwise seamless.”

B/Melinda just stared at her.

A girl to my left sighed. It was Rory, the token Goth chick, a tiny girl with a shock of blue and black hair, wearing a tight black Poe tee. “Imagine the machine starts blipping because there’s a ghost. Are you going to stop screaming and running away so Jaime can tell us what the machine does?”

“You mean she gets extra screen time?” the other twin squawked.

“Um, yeah. ’Cause she’s the star.”

“What?” Wade, the token jock, woke up from a standing nap. “Who’s the star?”

“Why can’t we do it?” the twins asked.

“Can either of you even spell EVP?”

“Why do we need to spell it? We can just say it.”

Cameron, the token geek, snickered.

“Maybe we should get one of the cast to help me,” I said. “That way I’m explaining to a person, not the camera.” I turned to Rory. “You know what an EVP is, I take it?”

“Electronic Voice Phenomena. It occurs when white noise, such as static or interference, sounds like a voice. Para-psychologists study the possibility that it’s the spirit world trying to communicate.”

“Show-off,” B/Melinda muttered.

Becky waved for us both to come along. When we reached the foot of the stairs, Rory said, “We should invite one of the guys, too, so it doesn’t look as if only the girls need explanations. I’d suggest Ricardo. He’s very pretty. And he barely knows any English, so he won’t say anything dumb.”

“He doesn’t speak English?” I said.

“The networks were getting flak for only picking English speakers for reality shows. Apparently, it’s better to have non-English speakers standing there, lost and confused, looking like idiots.”

“I see.”

“At least he’s pretty.”

I turned to Becky. “Get someone to grab Ricardo..

The final pre-show step was splitting the cast into two groups, one to be led by me, the other by Gregor. It was supposed to be a random draw, but I’d texted my picks to Mike, who’d asked for them. Another concession to keeping his star happy.

I chose Rory, Cameron and Ricardo. Yes, Ricardo was pretty. Or I suppose he was, but I’ve reached that age where I see a hot twenty-year-old and a mental barrier leaps up in my brain, substituting
cute
for
hot
. As Rory said, though, he didn’t speak much English and seemed content to follow us around, listening intently. Kind of like a puppy. A cute puppy.

Cameron was a student at MIT, which gave him his token geek status. He didn’t know much about ghost-hunting, but he obviously had a brain, and he was as quiet as Ricardo, so he seemed a safe choice.

Rory had pulled off the science clips with aplomb and seemed shockingly normal for someone who’d sign up for a reality show. Yes, I suppose it’s ironic that the Goth girl was the most normal one of the bunch, but in my experience, they often are, which just might suggest that my
normal
is a little skewed.

I did feel kind of bad leaving Gregor with the twins and the jock, whose combined IQ probably didn’t hit triple digits. But I figured if they asked stupid questions, he could always fake a language barrier and ignore them.

It wasn’t yet dark when the show began. It would have been smarter to tape in the winter, when night stretches longer, so they’d get more footage. That’s why they’d pre-taped us meeting and entering the house last night. Now, though it wasn’t yet dark, they’d have us start in the basement and the attic, with the windows blocked out and we could pretend the sun wasn’t shining.

The twins had a little trouble with that concept. “But it’s still light out,” they wailed. “Ghosts won’t come out when it’s light.”

Gregor made the mistake of trying to explain that real ghosts don’t care if it’s day or night. That only made them start grumbling that he must not be a real ghost whisperer, if he didn’t know how spirits worked. Which made me feel even worse about pawning them off on him. But not enough to offer to take them myself.

My team got the basement.

“Good,” Cameron said as we headed toward the stairs. “The attic is bound to be dusty and I have asthma.”

“Of course you do,” Rory muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cameron said.

“Only that I really wish they’d make their tokens a little less token.” She plucked at her shirt. “I don’t even like Poe. Dude was a druggie boozer who married his thirteen-year-old cousin. I came dressed in a Scooby-Doo T-shirt, but they thought that was too cute for Goth Girl.”

“Well, I do have asthma,” Cameron said. “These glasses aren’t prescription, though. They gave them to me.”

“I rest my case.” She looked back at Ricardo. “If you do speak English, go ahead. We’ll just keep it off camera.”

“¿Cómo dice?
” he said.

She sighed and looked at me. “It was worth a shot.”

…

Frank, our cameraman, waited downstairs to film our descent into the gloomy, musty basement. With him was Sal, our assigned crew guy. As we went down, I could see signs that it hadn’t been so gloomy or so musty before they’d gotten to it. Judging by the fine scattering of drywall dust, it’d been a nicely finished basement. Reverse renovation. Because a basement with a big-screen TV and a pool table just isn’t all that chilling. Unless you add teenage boys and a full liquor cabinet.

They’d gotten rid of most of the lighting, too, leaving us sickly yellow bulbs with dangling pull cords. I didn’t even know they made those anymore. Quite impressive, really. It did add to the atmosphere. Even Rory shivered a little.

Ricardo pulled a light cord for us. It only made things worse, bringing the shadows to life. Then the light flickered and, with a pop, went out.

“Okay, that’s not a little creepy,” Cameron muttered.

Rory opened her mouth, doubtless to say they’d rigged it. My look silenced her. I nodded, though. Yes, it was rigged, but pointing that out would only get her on the fast boat off the island.

“It’s rumored this is where the killer brought his victims,” I said, shining my flashlight around the empty room. “Into the basement. Through one of those doors.” I pointed each out with my beam.

Yes, it was a basement
, I thought.
But not this one.

I mentally flashed back to the inn. To that room. The girl racing in. The blood. Her screams. Her pleas. The door slamming. The voice behind me.

Run
.