“Oh? What’d you say?”
I hesitated. Sharing what a spirit told me for someone else wasn’t cool. But, at the same time, it wasn’t like I was bound by Hippocratic oath or something. “I shouldn’t say,” I murmured, “but it had to do with a spring break trip he took in college. It seems…” I trailed off. He had accidentally killed someone while on vacation. He’d anonymously reported the accident—a hit and run—but hadn’t stayed at the scene. He’d never been caught. The screaming young man he’d killed had been in my face, anger keeping him anchored. He’d wanted Thomas to pay for what he’d done, for cutting his life short, for depriving him of everything he’d ever dreamed of. I was determined. I was going to corner him. I got as far as “I have a message for you from a young man…” Thomas had bolted. His own agent hadn’t realized he’d run off till the theme music for the show blasted back stage and Thomas couldn’t be found to get on his mark as the first guest.
The young man hadn’t appeared to me again, and I couldn’t see him around Thomas now as Thomas backed into the room, dragging a Chippendale chair on it’s hind legs. Julian’s light touch on my arm dragged me back to the present, away from visions of an angry, scared, very dead young man. “I found out a secret he thought would never be found,” I finally said. I looked over at Thomas again. The boy was still not there, but another spirit was staring at him intently, a look of cold determination on her face. Annie was flickering in and out of sight near the French doors overlooking the small courtyard that led to the expansive, surprisingly state of the art, greenhouse. Her gaze caught mine and, with a sharp shake of her head, she vanished again. “Shit,” I muttered. “Okay, I don’t know what’s about to happen, but it’s not going to be good.”
“Right. So let’s get this out in the open,” Jacob sighed, finally getting his own ladder back chair situated. He looked up at the ceiling like he was asking for strength before speaking again. “I didn’t want you to find out like this. The timing couldn’t be worse.”
“I mean, yeah, there’s never a good time to find out your brother in law-slash-boss has fucked you over but I suppose when three people in the household are in the hospital due to arsenic poisoning is a pretty shitty moment for it.”
Jacob groaned. “C’mon, Jules. You’re killin’ me here.”
“Ironic choice of words,” Julian spat. “Considering someone apparently tried to CeCe and probably Ezra and Heath, too.” I shot him a sidelong glance. He was in high color, his fingers curled into fists so tight his knuckles were shining white like bare bone through his skin. Tentatively, I reached for his arm only to have him jerk away without looking at me.
“The first I heard of her being… being poisoned is now,” Jacob shouted. “As far as I knew, she was in the hospital for that damned cut on her leg!”
To his credit, he sounded legitimately shaken.
“The hospital’s been trying to get hold of you! I’ve been trying to get hold of you! For hours,” Julian added. “I know your phone isn’t dead.”
“We were in a meeting,” Thomas said, sounding supremely bored. “Renegotiating terms with UnReality.” He smiled, unctuous and predatory. “My schedule finally cleared and I was able to take Jake here up on his offer.”
“Offer?” Jacob didn’t meet my gaze, intensely focused on the scuff mark on the toe of his right shoe. He didn’t see Mandy standing at his chair-side, or Annie lingering near the doors again.
Jennings shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Um, so, I was told this would be like, an hour? That I’d just have to, like talk about the shit, er, stuff I saw during filming and then I’d be outtie?”
“We’re not filming anything right now,” Julian began, only for Jacob to cut him off with a slash of his hand through the air between them.
“Contractually, you’re obligated. This is day three of the investigation. You’re contracted for five investigations.” His smirk was back and more smug than ever. “Once this contract is completed, I’m invoking the escape clause. The preliminary word from the channel is no one is happy with what they’ve seen. They’re interested in my proposal, though.”
Thomas spread his hands and gave his fingers a little wiggle. Ugh, how did I ever think he was handsome? “My big come-back,” he supplied. “Only, shock and awe, I’m no longer a skeptic. No, I’ve been seduced to the dark side,” he giggled. “You see, I’ve had an experience,” he intoned this gravely, touching the fingers of one hand to his forehead like a swooning Victorian lady. “Damnedest thing, I came Upstate to rest and get away a few years ago and stayed at this charming B&B and met a lovely couple who’d come up to get away from the city, work on their shaky marriage…” He cut a glance at Jacob, who had the good grace to look uncomfortable. “He wanted to appease his mistress—oh, I’m sorry, she was your fiancee at that point, wasn’t she? This woman had thrown a lot of money into the man’s production company. An obscene amount, really. He needed something to make her happy or at least get her money back.”
“And you think people want to see you again?” Julian demanded. “After your little disappearing act confirmed your reputation as an ass was well-deserved?”
“My disappearing act is all his doing,” Thomas shouted, smacking his hands down hard on the arms of his chair. “Your little threat at the talk show—”
“I never threatened you,” I protested. “I had a message for you.”
“From him!” He smacked the chair again. “Only one other person knew, and they’re dead.” He paused, the tiniest of smiles curling over his lips. “Well, two people. They’re both dead.”
Annie moved closer. “Can you still hear me?” she asked. I nodded. Thomas frowned, glancing around, batting at one ear as if a mosquito were buzzing close by. “Remember me telling you my old boss sucked?” She came to a stop beside Thomas’ chair. “Taa daa.”
I grabbed hold of Julian’s wrist. “We’ll do it.”
“What?” All (living) eyes in the room swung towards me.
“We’ve been waiting for a rep from the historic society, right? Well, we have one better. An actual family member.” I smiled prettily at Janet, who was flustered to be put on the spot. “I’ll even pull out the big guns,” I added, turning my attention to Thomas. “I’ll let you film me holding a seance.”
Julian wriggled out of my grasp. “What?”
Thomas leaned forward hungrily. “Why?”
“Why what? I have nothing to hide. I want this to be over just as much as you do, if not more so. Let’s do this. I’ll put a neat little bow on it and we’ll walk away. I’ll say whatever you want to the media, post whatever you want on my website—”
“You have a website?” Julian whispered.
“It’s not very good. I haven’t updated it in ages. I think I still have a beard in the About Me picture.”
“A beard or a beard?”
“Just a beard. It was extremely ill-advised. I was in my Ben Whishaw phase and he was looking very rugged with some scruff so I decided to give it a go.”
“Hello.” Jacob shouted, leaning forward in his chair. “How the ever loving fuck did I let CeCe convince me this was a good idea…”
Thomas smiled indulgently. “Because, darling, you’re an idiot.”
It didn’t take much time to set up for the seance. Unlike most people seem to think, you don’t need complicated candles and incense and atmospheric music and all that rot. You just need a medium.
Hi. It’s me.
“So is this going to be like, totally improv or do we have some sides I can take a look at first?” Xavier Jennings asked. He was wide-eyed and curious as a baby otter. He would definitely break someone’s heart in a big way one day and probably not in the demographic his agent was hoping, judging by the gooey gaze he kept directing Julian’s way. “I thought that’s what Stella said the other day.”
“Is it?” Julian asked, leaning forward in his chair. “Is it really?” Jacob made a weird, strangled, moaning noise, bending to press his forehead ag
ainst the cool marble mantle.
I grabbed the back of his sweater vest and held on for dear life. “Down, boy,” I murmured. “You’re on camera.” Julian settled back reluctantly. I felt as if he could throw himself out of that chair at any second, leaping across the room like Springheeled Jack to take down Jacob and Thomas both in one go if I didn’t get a move on. “I’ll need quiet, please,” I murmured. Thomas scoffed but kept his mouth shut for several long moments as I tried to clear my mind. I knew Annie was there, and Mandy, but they were hanging back. “Matthew Hendricks, are you here?”
Deep in the house, something thumped and scraped across a wooden floor.
“We know you didn’t die of natural causes,” I said softly. No need to shout at ghosts—they had better hearing than you’d expect from a dead person. “Can you tell us what happened, then? Were you the one who scared Fred Ernest?” Something else broke, this time the sound coming from the direction of the kitchen. I would have been willing to bet actual money on finding the rest of the china broken if we were to go look right that second.
“Aren’t you going to summon his shade?” Thomas demanded. “Do some automatic writing that can give us the answer?” He flashed a grin at the camera. “Or is it my turn yet?”
“I feel like you have a gross misunderstanding of what I do for a living. Ghosts aren’t trained seals. They don’t come when I call just because I called. If Matthew Hendricks has nothing to say to us, there’s nothing I can do to make him talk.”
“He sounds like he’s an eager beaver to me,” Thomas snarked, footsteps pounding down the stairs but no one crossing the foyer that we could see.
Annie shimmered into view. She was barely visible against the bright glare of sunlight through the French doors, but I could make out her shape, the red tint to her hair. She drifted forward, towards Thomas, her face a mask of intense focus. “Annie—”
Beside me, Julian had gone stiff and so pale I wondered if he was going to faint. He seemed to be barely breathing, “Jessica,” he said softly. “Is she…”
“Who’s Jessica?” Jacob demanded, staring at the spot beside Thomas, about a foot too far to the left for Annie but I wasn’t going to correct him.
“Red hair, cute tits,” Charlie said from behind the camera. “Shit. We’ll edit that out in post.”
“This is Annie,” I said quietly, unable to stop a small smile. “She’s been waiting here for a while, apparently. Ever since she accompanied her boss on a trip upstate and never came back home.” Thomas made a strangled noise he couldn’t cover. I’d never seen a person go pale as fast as he did and, for a moment, I worried for his health before I remembered who he was and what he’d done. What he was trying to do. “What happened, Mark?” I demanded. “Annie’s not telling me, but she’s sure angry at you. Did you hit on her, is that it? And she refused?”
Thomas was doing his level best to act unaffected but he leaned to his right, away from the spot where Annie lingered. “This is cute and all, but it’ll never stand up to actual scrutiny. I don’t know how you dug out my private matters before the show, but I admit it caught me off guard. And because of your attack, I lost credibility. I lost almost everything.” His gaze flickered to one side and I wondered if he could feel her so close. She leaned over him, bringing her face mere inches from his.
“So you decided to, what? Enact a baroque revenge scheme?” Julian demanded. “Fuck!” He was on his feet before I could grab hold of him again. He took Jacob by the arm and spun him about so they were face to face. “Why me? Why did you drag me into this, huh? Because I’m just that malleable? I’m stupid? What is it?”
“That was all CeCe,” he admitted. “Milton disappeared on us, just fucking ghosted, and I needed someone to be the skeptic for the set up. I figured we’d have you on for a few episodes then bring in Mark Thomas to do the heavy lifting. Reveal Fellowes for what he really was then surprise twist, Thomas turns out to be a medium, too. We had the cases all set up, softball bullshit that audiences would eat up but weren’t well known sites. Places that weren’t all over the internet,” he trailed off and his lips twisted into an ugly expression, somewhere between a frown and smile and miles from either. “I’m sorry,” he added. “But I needed the money he was offering, and I just… I thought you’d be able to bounce back better than I could.”
“Bounce back from what?” I asked. “From public humiliation? From slander? Libel?” Annie had moved, kneeling in front of Thomas now. He was shifting uneasily, his eyes darting around the room, belying his own nerves. “I thought it was all bullshit, Mr. Thomas. Why are you so scared if what I do is a lie?”
Jennings bounced to his feet. “Yo, look, here’s the thing… I was told to come on out for an interview and shoot a few pick ups for this show. My agent thought it’d be great, tie it in to the movie since I talked about the ghost shit during the press junket? Bring in some new demo maybe. But this,” he circled one finger in the air, indicating the whole room, “is too messed up for me.” He started to push past Julian and Jacob when the French doors burst wide, letting in a blast of muggy, mud-scented air. “Oh hey! That’s exactly what happened last time I was here! Fuckin’ A, right? Oh! Shit. I mean freakin’ A. Damn it…”
Charlie waved him off. “We’ll get it in post.”
Annie stood by the doors, clear as day. At least to me and, it seemed, Julian. He couldn’t stop staring at her, his lips moving silently as he watched her move close to Thomas again. “Tell them,” she barked. “Tell them what you did!”
Thomas twitched, tugging at his ear like something was bothering him. “What’s wrong, Mr. Thomas? Buzzing in your ear maybe? Hearing voices? A mosquito or a little fly bothering you?” I smiled politely. “Or is it your conscience bothering you? Whispering in your ear about a young woman named Anne who you decided was disposable? Who…” I paused, something nauseating and slick spreading through my belly. Annie looked up at me then over at Jacob, a small tight nod her only acknowledgment that I might be right. “Who helped you cover up her disappearance?”
Jacob motioned for Charlie to shut off the camera. Charlie, bless him, pretended not to notice.
“What did you do, Thomas?” Julian asked. “Why is Annie still here?”
Annie flashed a sunny smile at Julian before leaning in to Thomas again. “Yeah, Mark,” she yelled. “Why am I still here, huh? Why is that? Maybe because you’re a fucking asshole? Could that be why? Ask him,” she turned to me, eyes frantic and so damn alive I nearly doubted myself, wondered if this was one of those hallucinations Julian had gone on and on about. “Ask him why Ernest wouldn’t come in the house. Ask him what Ernest saw!”
Julian beat me to it. “What did the groundskeeper see, Mr. Thomas? What did Mr. Ernest see that scared him so bad, he refused to come to the main house at night?”
“Nothing,” Thomas spat. “How would I know?”
“Which is it? Nothing, or how would you know?”
“Ernest was tetched,” Jacob cut in. “He had problems, Jules. He destroyed the kitchen, for fuck’s sake. Who knows what was going on in his head. He—”
“He destroyed the tea set. He seemed sure that, whatever he had done, it was to save people. He felt he was atoning for some mistake he himself had made due to the negligence of others.”
Thomas sat back down, his expression slowly melting from angry defiance to pure, hollow desolation. “Jake, call Giacomo at the firm. I’m not doing this without him here.”
“You’re not doing it here,” Annie said. I glanced up at her, where she was staring out of the open doors and onto the curving drive, still dappled with deep puddles thanks to Minerva. “Looks like 5-0’s here.”
It turns out, when three people in the same house have arsenic poisoning, they bring everyone in for questioning. They were kind enough to let Charlie film his own transport to the police station, but the camera was confiscated as potential evidence as soon as we entered. Bettina’s police station was positively tiny, with two holding cells,
three desks, and an ancient vending machine that had wood paneling and sold Tab. Ten of us were trotted in front of the chief, who apparently had been rolled out of bed on his day off and did not appreciate a single moment of what was happening in his office. Crew members were interviewed first, all but Charlie released within two hours and sent on their way. I had a fairly strong feeling we wouldn’t be seeing any of them again. “What are they making you stay for?” I asked when Charlie dropped into the hard plastic chair next to mine.
“Oh, they’re not. I want my camera back, though, so I’m gonna hang out till they release it. That and I kind of want to see how this plays out, to be honest. It’s one of the weirdest projects I’ve ever been part of and considering my resume includes Bigfoot Beach Party, that’s really saying something.”
I was called back a few minutes later. Julian was ensconced with one of the on-duty officers in the station’s break room which was serving as a makeshift interview room, and Jacob was huddled in the chief’s office, no doubt still on the phone with various legal reps form UnReality and his own private representation. Thomas was nowhere to be seen. “Mr. Fellowes, have a seat.”
“Officer Barton,” I said on a sigh. “Hello again.”
She smiled tightly, shuffling a few things around on the desk in front of her, flipping through a manila folder I was sure held nothing more than take out menus and maybe old fax cover sheets, then turned her bulldog frown on me. “Care to explain to me how three people in the same house all came down with varying degrees of amygdalin poisoning?”
“I’d love to.” She raised an expectant brow. “I can’t. But I’d love to.”
“Come on,” she cajoled. “Didn’t the ghosts tell you? Or was your ouija board in the shop for repairs this week?”
“Ghosts aren’t vending machines. You don’t put in a coin and they spew out information.”
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