Maybe This Time (31 page)

“Here's my concern,” North said, his voice very kind. “You believe in ghosts.”

Andie closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of it all. He was never going to understand, he was never going to believe her. If she hadn't seen the ghosts,
she
wouldn't believe her. “I know. But they're real, and they're dangerous, and that's my big problem now. I understand if you can't help me, but that's what I've got to fix.”

“I'll help you. I'll always help you. I'm just not sure how to do it.” He hesitated. “There's a psychologist I work with a lot—”

“No,” Andie said. “I'm not crazy and there's no room for anybody else in this house.”

“Well, Lydia is evicting Kelly and her cameraman as we speak.”

“She can't. It's storming like crazy outside. They'll never get that satellite truck up that drive and out onto the road without wrecking it, and they can't leave it, it's worth a fortune. They're here until the storm stops and the road dries out.”

“Okay.” North rubbed his forehead with his free hand, while his arm tightened around her. “Have the kids been threatened by these ghosts?”

“No.”

“So whoever's doing this is focusing on you?”

“Nobody's ‘doing this,' ” Andie said tiredly. “There are
ghosts.
” She pushed herself up off the bed, not willing to fight a useless battle. “I know you don't believe. You know I believe. We'll just have to leave it there.”

He looked like he was going to say something, and when he didn't, she said, “I'm really sorry about throwing up on you. That was rude.”

“It really was,” he said, straight-faced.

“Well, it won't happen again. Thank you for the shower and . . . for being so kind.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” North said. “Because that isn't.”

“I think if your ex-wife comes to your room in the middle of the night, throws up on your feet, and tells you she's been possessed, the absolute minimum she has to say when she leaves is, ‘Thank you for being so kind.' ”

“I think it's what two people who care about each other should just expect.”

“So if you throw up on my feet, you're not going to apologize?”

“Nope,” North said, smiling at her, his shoulders broad in that ratty old T-shirt, and she wanted to say, “Let me sleep with you tonight, make this go away,” but instead she said, “Well, I owe you one now anyway, so that would be fair.”

“Stop keeping score, Andie.” He stood up, and she tried not to look at him. “We're not married anymore but that doesn't mean we're not us.”

Andie swallowed. “That's . . . good. I mean, I agree.” She began to back toward the door. “I have to go now. I'm really tired and . . . Thank you.” Her back hit the door and she escaped into the nursery, taking one last look at him standing tall in the lamplight, expressionless as he watched her go.

She closed the door and looked around to see if May was nearby, waiting to pounce.

The thing was at the foot of Alice's bed, and Andie sucked in her breath and then realized that the room was dark, too dark.

The fire was off.
Somebody had turned the fire off.

She ran over and fell on her knees, feeling biting ice at her back as she turned the tap, and then the fire whooshed to life, and her back was warm again, and when she turned, there was nothing at the foot of Alice's bed, nothing in the room.

But somebody had turned the fire off.

She got up and pushed furniture against the doors to the little
hall and the gallery. She hesitated before the door to May's bedroom because North was in there and she trusted him, but she didn't trust anybody else, so she shoved the worktable up against that door.

Then, barricaded in the nursery now warm from the fire, she tried to think of what to do but her mind was so addled from exhaustion . . .

She checked on Alice, who'd slept through it all, her cheek on Rose Bunny's furry head, and then she sat down on the other bed, leaned back against the wall, and thought,
I have to think, I have to think, I have to
. . .

. . . and slept.

 

When Andie woke, Alice was sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her.

“Good morning, baby,” Andie said, yawning as she sat up.

“I can't get out,” Alice said, clutching Rose Bunny to her, and Andie remembered that she'd blocked the doors to make sure nobody turned off the fire.

She got up to shove the bureau away from the door to the little hall so Alice could get to the bathroom, yawning again as she shoved. “Sorry,” she said around her yawn, and then she looked at the time. It was past ten. “Oh, no,” she said, waking up completely. “We overslept.”

“I didn't,” Alice pointed out, and then put Rose Bunny on the bed and went to get ready for the day.

Andie turned off the fire and shoved the table away from the door to May's bedroom and went in to get her clothes. North was long gone, the bed made, and she put on clean underwear and grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and then went back to the nursery to check on Alice. She was zipping up her jeans when Alice came in from the hall, dressed in leggings and her flounced skirt, and handed her the Bad Witch T-shirt she slept in.

“You can wear this, I don't want it anymore,” she announced, and then went back into the hall.

Andie followed her, taking a quick look around before she went into the hall and then into Alice's room. If May decided to try another hijacking, she was going to tangle with somebody who was ready for her this time. “Alice, honey, this is your shirt—”

“No it's not,” Alice said, her head in her drawer, searching for one among many black T-shirts. “It was Aunt May's. I took it after she died.” She straightened, holding up a plain black T-shirt. “I don't want it anymore. You can wear it today.”

Andie was pretty sure that meant something that she was missing, but she was late so she said, “Thank you,” and pulled it over her head. The last thing she wanted was anything of May's, but she wasn't going to look a gift Alice in the mouth.

May had been thinner than Andie because the shirt was tight, the letters that spelled “Bad Witch” stretched out of shape across her bust, but Alice smiled and nodded, and Andie thought,
The hell with it. Most of these people think I'm crazy, might as well add slutty to the mix.
She helped Alice get her hair in her topknot, and Alice said, “Can we still do the Three O'Clock Bake this afternoon?” and she said, “Absolutely,” and thought,
As long as we're done before the séance,
and took Alice downstairs for a late breakfast, keeping an eye out for May the entire time.

 

North had been up since seven, determined to get the mess he'd found at Archer House cleaned up and Andie and the kids back to Columbus by Sunday at the latest. Gabe McKenna must have gotten up at the crack of dawn, because he pounded on the doorknocker at eight. “I'm here,” he said when North opened the door, his sharp dark eyes taking in the place without comment. “What are we looking for?”

“Ghosts,” North said.

“All right then,” Gabe said and walked in.

They started on the first floor since nobody was up yet. Gabe was thorough, tapping walls, looking at the stone floors, turning furniture and paintings over, and North put anything they found that didn't clearly have a purpose for where it was stored into a box. The front two rooms were empty, their walls solid stone behind the drywall, so they were done in minutes. The hallways were equally bare of furniture and decoration although the paintings that hung there took a few minutes to flip and examine. The kitchen showed the most signs of life—North saw bananas browning in a bowl on the counter and opened a cupboard and found chocolate chips and nuts, flour and sugar, and thought,
Andie's here
—but the dark little pantry off the back of the kitchen was mostly empty aside from old spices and drying herbs, half a dozen half-empty bottles of quality booze that North recognized as Southie's choices, and a jug of tea, the tea leaves sitting in a sludge at the bottom. The dining room and sitting room were pretty much storage for unused furniture. It wasn't just that there wasn't anything out of place in those rooms, it was that there wasn't anything in place: no dishes in the sideboard in the dining room, no photos on the tables in the sitting room, nothing except the furniture and the paintings on the walls.

“This place is strange,” Gabe said when they headed for the library. “Nobody lives here.”

“They live here,” North said grimly, “but they shouldn't.”

Then Gabe opened the door to the library and said, “Now we're getting somewhere.”

North went in and really looked at the room for the first time. Last night, when it had been full of people and Alice screaming, he'd registered it as a library because it was lined with books, but now in the cold light of early morning, it was clear that this room was used. The window seat had books and papers tumbled in it, the big table in the middle of the room had workbooks and papers and textbooks
spread out across it, and there were more books in front of the fireplace where somebody had obviously stretched out to read.

“I think this is where Andie teaches the kids,” North said, and then he heard Kelly O'Keefe say, “Well,
hello,
” from the bottom of the stone stairs. “We'll look here later. Avoid that woman,” he said, and Gabe nodded, waved at Kelly, who said, “Aren't you Gabe McKenna,
the detective?”,
and followed them to the basement door.

“Leave,” North said, “today,” and shut the basement door in her face.

 

By the time Andie and Alice got to the kitchen, Flo had made breakfast for everybody and cleaned up, so Andie got Alice her cereal and milk and took it to the library, where Carter was reading and ignoring Kelly's efforts to talk to him.

“Get out,” Andie told Kelly when she found her there. “Out of the house, out of our lives.”

“Well,
really,
” Kelly said, but she left them alone.

Andie made sure the gas fireplace was on and went to find Isolde.

“We need another séance,” she told the medium when she found her standing in the middle of the Great Hall, frowning.

“Bad idea,” Isolde said. “Too many people here, too much tension.”

Andie looked around. Still no May. “Could we go into a room that has a fireplace?”

Isolde raised her eyebrows but followed her into the sitting room where Kelly was arguing with Bill and Southie in front of the fire.

“Not here,” Andie said, and took Isolde into the dining room where Dennis had papers spread out, making notes. He looked at them as if he wished they would leave and they ignored him, so he got up and went into the kitchen, either passive aggressive or hungry.

Andie turned the gas fire on, and then faced the medium. “May
possessed me last night, took my body. We have to stop her, all of them, get rid of them.”

“Oh, fuck,” Isolde said. “She took you? Are you all right?”

“Not even a little bit,” Andie said. “If we ask them, will they go away?”

“No. They got a great setup here. Why should they go?”

“Can you read their minds or something? Find out how to get rid of them?”

“Two of them don't have minds,” Isolde said. “The other one's still new. She's not dumb and she doesn't want to go, and no, I can't read her mind.”

“Isolde,
work with me here.
”

Isolde sat down at the dining room table. “Let me think.” She looked at the books and papers spread out on the table and said, “What is this?”

Andie picked up a book and looked at the marked page, which was about faked hauntings in English country houses. “It's Dennis's research.” She dropped the book back on the table. “Ideas, Isolde. You're my expert here.”

Isolde ignored her to look at the papers, opening the other books to scan the pages Dennis had bookmarked. “He's researching the house.”

“Well, that's what he does, investigate hauntings.”

Isolde nodded. “He's very methodical. This is good. He may find out something.”

“Yes,” Andie said patiently. “
But he doesn't believe in ghosts.
So whatever he's looking for, it's not a way to get rid of them. He and North think it's some kind of fraud, they're looking for a live person who's gaslighting me.”

“It happens,” Isolde said, frowning at the notes Dennis had made on a legal pad. “Not here, you've got ghosts, but people fake hauntings all the time.”

“We need to get the ghosts out,” Andie said. “Last night was bad, but what if they start possessing the kids?”

Isolde waved her hand. “I'm working on it. We'll do the séance at four. That gives me some time to look through this stuff and talk to Dennis—”

“What are you doing?” Dennis said stiffly from the door to the kitchen.

“Reading your notes,” Isolde said without looking up from the legal pad. “Get in here, we need to talk.”

“I hardly think—”

“Well, it's time you started,” Isolde snapped. “Sit down here and explain this to me. They brought the contents of the house over, too?”

“The furniture,” Dennis said, coming in to stand beside her. “The paintings. The accoutrement
s
.”

“That could explain how the two old ghosts got here,” Isolde said to Andie. “If they'd left something behind they were tied to, and it got shoved in the back of a drawer or put behind a secret panel in a desk or something.”

“Secret panel,” Dennis said, barely concealing his scorn.

“Sit down and stop patronizing me, you jerk,” Isolde said. “Andie needs help.”

“I really do, Dennis,” Andie said. “Please.”