Annie rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Seriously.” Mandy joined us at the sofa and mouthed something that made Annie laugh. “Okay, okay. We’ll go see if he’s shirtless yet. Hey, if you need me,” she added, turning to face me even as she faded, “I’ll totally come when you call. Don’t even need the pendulum. I’m totally wireless, baby.” She winked and waved her spectral phone at me as she and Mandy both disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Julian
Bettina, New York did not have Ubers, Lyfts, or even a taxi service. They did, however, have an extremely cheerful high school math teacher I met in the hospital lobby who needed to go ‘up the road a ways’ to check on her mother after the worst of the storms had passed and offered to drop me off at Hendricks House. “The whole town knows about the show,” she confided, swinging her car through the twisty road with one hand on the wheel, the other with a death grip on an iced coffee. “Most of us are pretty excited but some folks,” she sighed and clicked her tongue, brushing so close to a stand of aspen that I was the one left quaking. “Some folks worry it’ll stir up some doo-doo again.”
“I’m…sorry?” I clutched the door handle was Becky Cortez navigated another hairpin turn with the ease of a race car driver, her tap on the brake the merest whisper of a suggestion as we sailed down the slick blacktop road. “I wasn’t aware there was any sort of widespread feeling about the show.” As far as I knew, Jacob hadn’t done much in the way of promos yet, opting for the manufactured ‘viral’ method that involved fake-leaked footage, some well placed interviews with the right radio shows and bloggers, then a blitz the day or so before where a bevy of paid minions posted all over social media and various demographic-intensive sites about how, OMG, they just heard about this show coming on and OMG… Or however people talked on social media.
They could all get off my lawn.
Becky took a long pull on her coffee. “Lord, this rain made things such a mess, didn’t it? I swear…” she clicked her tongue again, seemingly chiding the few drops still falling from lead-colored clouds. If I squinted, I could see a hint of pale blue between the dark bands of gray. “Oh! The doo-doo! Right! Well, lots of folks here don’t like how that movie star blabbed on and on about the house being haunted. I mean, what old house isn’t, am I right?”
“I, ah, I’m starting to think it’s more common than I previously believed.” My stomach rolled as she hit a puddle and we lost traction for a second.
“Well, we’re pretty protective of the Hendricks family here,” she said with a bit of a pout. I hoped it was a fake one—I wasn’t sure which I hated more, the way she drove or the idea I was in the car with an adult who affected a Shirley Temple pout without a trace of irony. “That whole murder curse thing? Total b.s.—pardon my language, Doctor Weems!”
“Julian is fine,” I reassured her, flailing for a grip on the seat arm as she swung wide, nearly hitting an oncoming utility truck. My yelp was most dignified, thank you.
“I mean, it’s practically public record, isn’t it? What happened? That Lacroix woman and all that malarkey.” She took her foot off the gas as we passed the sign indicated the turn off for Historic Hendricks House-One Mile. “And even if it wasn’t, Janet Hendricks at Monroe Branch Library is Lucinda’s great-granddaughter and would tell you whatever you wanted to know, right down to the court case!”
“What?”
Becky executed a neat sideways skid onto the wide gravel drive, the Camry’s wheels biting into the pebbles as she straightened the car for the slight climb towards the house. “Oh! Busy morning,” she said, slamming the car into park before giving me a pointed, curious look. “Everything okay?”
A police car and two older, van-type ambulance were all parked at the top of the drive. Stella stood on the porch, rage-smoking. “Oh my god,” Becky breathed. “Someone’s getting arrested? This is better than the time the Ladies’ Circle did Real Housewives of Bettina as a fundraiser for the community center and Sandra Jorgensen threw Manhattan clam chowder at Margart Beechum.” She shook her head, adding in confidential tones, “Wouldn’t have been so bad if it was just regular chowder. Manhattan style is tomato based and stains like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I… okay? Um, here, gas money!” I shoved a few fives at her and threw myself out of the car, slipping on the wet, muddy gravel. Stella came down the porch steps to greet me. “What’s happened? Who did what to who and got caught?”
She blew a cloud of mentholated smoke in my face. “Ernest went ham on the kitchen. Your boyfriend found him.”
“Oh, hell,” I muttered, ignoring the odd little perk in my belly at the word boyfriend. Time and place, I reminded myself. Time and place. “Where’s Oscar now?”
“Oscar’s inside with his little boyfriend. Baxter’s got a case of food poisoning.” As if her words summoned them, Oscar appeared in the doorway, supporting a sweaty, greenish Ezra. Hell, if I was on a first name basis with Oscar now, might as well extend the courtesy to his best friend.
“I just need fluids and rest,” Ezra protested. “Tell ‘em, doc,” he said, swinging his too-loose neck around to face me. “Fluids and rest!”
“I’m not that kind of doctor. By the time I see people, they’ve been dead and buried for years.”
“What a coincidence,” Oscar murmured. He glared past me at Stella. “You stole my last cigarette?” She shrugged back, grinning toothily. “Fucking hell.”
“I’m not going,” Ezra said stoutly. “I’ll be fine. I’m just feeling queer… Oh, hey! I made a joke! I am queer, and I feel queer.” He lolled his head to one side, staring up at me again and trying for a leer. “And sometimes I feel other queers, too.”
“Oh my god,” Oscar moaned under his breath. “Help me, would you?”
I hurried up the steps and slid my shoulder under Ezra’s other arm. “Where are we going?”
“Up,” Ezra demanded.
“To the throwback-mobile,” Oscar corrected. Two EMTs wearing uniforms identifying them as working for Bettina Medical Center, the place I’d just left my sister after they officially admitted her and kicked me out with a promise to call as they got results from blood work, pulled a stretcher from the back of the old style ambulance. “C’mon, mate. We get you down there before they get the stretcher unlatched, maybe they’ll let you blow the horn.”
“Oh, hey…” Ezra suffered us to carry him down the slick porch steps. We met the EMTs half way, letting them wrestle a weakly protesting Ezra onto the stretcher.
“I’m sorry, you can’t ride along unless you’re family or spouse,” one of the EMTs said not unsympathetically. “You can meet us at the hospital though. If he’s admitted, they’ll let you in to see him.”
Oscar nodded and we stood back as the ambulance followed the coroner’s van down the drive, crunching past Becky’s Camry. She stood next to it, wide-eyed. “Is this going to be on the show, too?” Stella barked a rough laugh and flicked her butt out into the grass, leaving us to follow. “Y’all need to get back to town, you just give me a holler, Doctor Julian,” she urged. “Janet knows how to get hold of me!”
We waited until she backed up and swung the car around, tearing off down the drive like her life depended on it. “Who’s Janet?” Oscar finally asked.
“The town librarian.”
“Why would you be talking to her?”
“She’s apparently Lucinda Hendricks’ great-granddaughter.” Oscar stiffened beside me. “Small towns, huh?”
“Lucinda Hendricks not only has a descendant, but one nearby?”
“Apparently, she’s a talker.” I took him by the elbow and led him into the house, relaying what Becky had told me along the way. Oscar grew more stiff as I talked, finally dragging me to a stop before we could mount the steps.
“What time does the library open?”
“I have no clue. Why would I know?”
“I don’t know,” he growled. “Maybe your new BFF told you?”
Wow. I bit down hard on my tongue, th
e urge to snarl right back at him nearly overpowering. “It’s not that hard to look it up,” I pointed out. “Here.” My phone was dead but the ballroom still had Jacob’s makeshift office tucked into one corner, the one he’d arranged our first night on site. One of the official Wish Granted Productions laptops with it’s glittery silver wrap and cheesy WGP logo picked out like smoke from a bottle were eye catching but not in a good way. Oscar made a face as I flipped it open and entered the temporary password CeCe had given me about a week before so I could fill out payroll and contractor forms on the company server. “I hate it when people leave their shit open,” I muttered, clicking through the tabs whomever had used the space last left open and ready to view. Mostly social media stuff, a few platforms like Reddit and Buzzfeed, and finally an uploaded video on Bump in the Night’s official video channel.
“Oh,” Oscar sighed. “Stella. Fuck. This is hers, I bet. She’s been prepping the viral promo crap for the first episode.”
“Is this us then?” I asked, pressing the play icon. An atmospheric shot of Hendricks House all picked out in deep shadows against an even darker background loomed on screen, followed by shots of Oscar and Ezra lugging their bags up the steps and me peering at books in the library. “This looks like the sequel to Clue.”
Oscar shushed me. “I have a very bad feeling. She was far too insistent I see this earlier but with one thing and another…” On the screen, Oscar and Ezra were setting up for the impromptu seance in the foyer. The way it had been edited, Jacob and I were nowhere to be seen, the focus tight on Oscar, Ezra, and the pentagram dish of salt between them. Having been there, I remembered what had been going on, how we’d all be frazzled and I’d been snarling. But the only sound on screen now was generic spooky music and, surprisingly, my voice. “There’s been cases of alleged mediums who employed specially made devices hidden about the space a seance was being held and having an assistant activate them when certain cues were given.” I drew back, stung. “That’s not what I said. I mean, I did say it, but not about you!”
Oscar shushed me. “Let me hear this.”
The next shot was Oscar standing in the third floor dormer area, hands held down and out at his sides, eyes closed as he spoke with the spirit up there. Ezra’s voice came from the tinny speakers. “What are you thinking?” It wasn’t anything he’d said during our investigation up there. It must have been culled from some other encounter.
My voice answered him. “I am above all of this.”
Oscar hit stop. “Well.”
“Oscar…”
“I know what this is.”
Fuck! Don’t you fucking cry, I told myself. Exhaustion, stress, worry, and fear all combined and congealed in my gut, making hard, painful knot of growing unease. “I didn’t mean this how it sounded,” I said with no small amount of desperation in my tone. “I’m not going to beg but please, try to believe me here. This is out of context and—”
Oscar’s long, cool fingers pressed against my lips. “I know,” he said, soft and quiet. “It has been a morning here, and there’s a lot of things we need to discuss. But first I want to go to the hospital and make sure Ezra’s going to be okay.”
I nodded, parting my lips just a tiny bit, enough to press a kiss with a hint of tongue against the pads of his fingers.
“Oh my god, guys… Y’all are the sweetest and I will totally watch this show now that I know it’s gonna be a romance and not just people shouting at shadows and making asses of themselves!”
“Ah. Um, Oscar, this is Becky Cortez. She teaches math at Bettina Central High School and is on her way to check on her mom up the road. Becky, this is Oscar Fellowes. He—”
Becky shot forward from the doorway where she’d been watching us fret. “I know who you are,” she said, shoving a hand out for Oscar to shake. “I loved those episodes of your show I got to see before they got taken down! I think you’re the only actual legit medium out there!” She was pumping his hand hard enough to make him sway on his feet even as she kept her rapidly warming coffee gripped tight in her other hand. “Look, fellas, I really do gotta go check on Mom and make sure she hasn’t done a harm to my step dad after being cooped up together for three days, but if you’re needing a ride back into town I’ll be passing by this way in about an hour and I’m more than happy to drop you off!” She fluttered her hands near her eyes, fanning away what were presumably happy tears. “I only popped back to ask if you guys needed me to bring back anything. I know power’s been bad this end of town and my stepdad is such a prepper so he’s got some burner phones, crossbow bolts, Spam…”
“I think we’re okay on the canned meat front,” I said, smiling politely.
“It really is awful, isn’t it?” she whispered loudly. “Well, if you guys still need a ride later…?”
Oscar and I exchanged looks and he sighed. “That would be wonderful, Ms. Cortez.”
“Call me Becky,” she insisted. “Be ready to go in an hour We’re stopping at the Koffee Kwik on the way!”
Oscar let out a long, slow breath when she’d gone. “Holy shit.”
I nodded. “I hope you aren’t prone to carsickness.”
Becky’s driving had not improved during her sojourn at her mother’s. If anything, she only got more Mad Max. Oscar yelped when she took off from in front of Hendricks House, spraying gravel from beneath the rear wheels before we’d managed to get buckled in.
“I didn’t know a Camry could do that,” I said through clenched teeth. She dropped us off in the parking lot with the promise she’d show up within half an hour if we needed her to drive us home.
I was fairly certain we’d be okay walking home at that point.
Oscar followed me to the admissions desk where I asked after CeCe. “Oh, um. Just a minute.” The desk nurse turned away and fussed with the computer. “So, you see,” she drawled when she turned back around, “she’s kind of not allowed visitors. Due to the whole… suspicious circumstances thing.”
“The what now?”
“Oh, I’m really not supposed to say. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you that much,” she giggled. “Oopsie!”
“What about Ezra Baxter?” Oscar asked, nudging me aside gently. “He was brought in earlier?”
“Hmmmm. Let me check.” She did her thing with the computer again. “Yeah, see… Same situation.”
“Julian.” Jacob’s strident tone was a weird little relief. “There you are! When they called to tell me CeCe had been admitted, I just about lost my mind!”
I turned to find him striding towards me, two other men in tow. “What,” I snarled, “the actual fuck?”
“Oh, um, sir? I’m gonna have to ask you to mind your language. You can say frick, or even frack, but the other f word is a big ol’ no here.” The nurse dropped her voice to a whisper. “The maternity ward is only like ten yards away!”
Oscar laid his hand atop my arm, stilling me. “Jacob,” he said. “And if I’m not mistaken, Mark Thomas.”
“Hi!” The other man with them said, cheerful as a golden retriever, “I’m Xavier Jennings! I totally get to be on your show. Isn’t that awesome?”
I didn’t recognize the voice that growled, “What the actual fuck, Jacob?” It took me a moment to realize it was my own, not some new party who’d come over to join in the clusterfuck that was my life. “Your wife nearly died and you were out schmoozing with Dimples McGee and the asshole of the year, ten years running?”
“I’m going to assume I’m Asshole and not Dimples.” Thomas’ voice was so dry and salty, it could’ve hosted JATO car races.
“Shut up. Jacob, speak.”
“I’m not a dog, Jules.”
“No!” I slammed my hand down on the nurse’s station desk, barely registering her making a panicked call to security. “People I like call me Jules. You don’t get to call me Jules!”
“Listen, Doctor Weems, let’s go sit and talk somewhere, okay? I know this isn’t how it was meant to go down but I think, once you hear us out
, it’ll be clear that this is for the best.”
Dimples bounced on his toes. “My agent thought it’d be a neat little coda to get me on your show for this interview on site so I could, like, promote the movie all low-key,” he confided to no one in particular. “The previews aren’t doing so hot so the company is hoping to stir up some interest. Like, ‘oh hey, wasn’t he the guy who saw the ghost and was so brave and talked about it on t.v., we should totally see his movie’!”
He seemed so proud of himself that I didn’t have the heart to disabuse him of his notions of grandeur.
“Gentlemen,” a new voice on the scene called out. Two of the burliest, bulldog-faced men I’d ever seen in my life were striding towards us from down the corridor. “I’m afraid we need to ask you to vacate the premises. You have ten minutes to get to your vehicles and leave before we call the local police to have you forcibly removed.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Oscar
Thomas, Jennings, Jennings’ agent Sully, and Jacob all trooped in to the library at Hendricks’ House about twenty minutes after we’d arrived. Becky’s driving might be the stuff of nightmares, but she was great on time. She was also fiercely protective of Julian after knowing him for just a few hours. “You call me if these assholes give you trouble,” she said so the assholes in question could hear her. “I got a crowbar that’s just the right size for their kneecaps and a lot of acreage to hide bodies on.”
“I think I’m in love,” I muttered to Julian. “Don’t tell Ezra.” Julian smirked, both of us falling quiet as Thomas turned his death ray glare on me.
“Remind me how it was your fault Thomas’ career tanked and not at all because he turned into a raging, hemorrhoidal asshole and people started hating him?”
I snorted, unable to hold in my laugh at Julian’s softly voiced question. We were sitting on the sofa, which I’d come to think of as ours after that first night, and Janet and Becky were sharing the fainting couch and Jennings sat with his agent in the wing back chairs near the hearth. Thomas and Jacob had to go find two more chairs before they could be seated. “He took something I said rather poorly.”
Bump in the Night Page 17