The Sam Prichard Series - Books 9-12 (Sam Prichard Boxed Set 3)

by David Archer

  “Yes, but Beauregard says we’re not in any immediate danger. Something’s going to happen with Sam and Harry, though, and you’ll need to be at home when it does.”

  Indie rolled her eyes. “Oh, Lord,” she said. “He better be right, or I’m going to find a way to kill him. He can go and haunt all the other ghosts.” She took a left turn into a parking lot and then headed back toward home.

  * * * * *

  Harold arrived a few minutes before his sister, and was surprised to find his parents sitting there with two other men. He tried to find out what was going on, but Michael told him to wait until Beth arrived. She obliged by showing up only a few minutes later, and then the six of them were all seated in the living room.

  Michael had put his gun beside the cushion of the chair he was sitting in, so there were no weapons visible. Once both of the kids had settled themselves onto one of the sofas, he leaned forward and clasped his hands together as if he was upset.

  “Kids, what we are about to tell you is probably going to upset you,” he began, “but something is happening that—no, I’d better let your mother tell it.” He looked at Kathleen, and nodded.

  She lowered her eyes to the floor for a moment, then looked up at her grown children. She took a deep breath, then opened her mouth to speak. “I think you guys have both known that your dad and I were having problems,” she said. “What you didn’t know is that—that I’ve been having an affair.” She indicated Harry with a wave of her hand. “This is—this is an old friend of mine, from years ago. He and I ran into each other a while back, and we started talking about old times, and that’s when we both realized that the old attraction we had felt long ago was still there. We started seeing each other, quietly, and sometimes I would take trips to be able to see him, and…”

  “Mom!” Beth yelled. “Mom, how could you do this?”

  Kathleen swallowed, and looked her daughter in the eye. “I know you may not understand,” she said, thinking fast. How would a woman having an actual affair say this? she asked herself, and the answer came out of romance novels she’d read years before. “The truth is, things haven’t been all that good between me and your dad for some time. When I ran into Harry and we started seeing each other, I started to feel better. I felt better about myself, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I want to be with Harry. Your dad—well, I guess he was suspicious, because he hired this other man who’s a private investigator to follow me, and that’s how he found out Harry was coming to see me today while he was supposed be out of the country. He pretended to leave for Japan, then came home and walked in on us.”

  Harold was looking from one face to the other, and his eyes seemed to linger on Harry’s. “Do we know you?” he asked. “Me and Beth, I mean?”

  “Your mother and I knew each other when you were very young,” Harry said with a straight face. “I can remember seeing you both many, many times. If I look familiar, that’s probably all it is.”

  Beth scoffed, shaking her head. “And were the two of you having an affair back then? Kind of hard not to notice that he and my brother have the same name. Is that just a coincidence?”

  Michael held up a hand to interrupt the conversation. “Not entirely,” he said. “See, Harry and I used to be good friends. We were so close that we named our son after him.”

  “Fine,” Harold said. “So what happens now? You guys getting a divorce?”

  “Yes,” Kathleen said. “With it all out in the open now, your father and I have agreed. I’m leaving the house today, and it will be an uncontested divorce. I don’t want to drag our names through the mud, so we’ll do this quietly. I hope you guys can understand, and not hate me over this.”

  Beth only glared at her, but Harold gave her a lopsided grin. “No one’s going to hate you, Mom,” he said. “I’m sure this isn’t going to be easy on anyone, but you’re still our mother.” He looked at his sister and scowled. “Lighten up, Beth,” he said. “You and Danny got divorced, and Mom stood by you the whole time, even though a lot of it was your fault. Don’t forget that.”

  “I never had an affair,” Beth grumbled.

  “And I’m sure Mom never thought she would, either, but sometimes life throws you a curveball.” He turned and looked at Michael. “Dad? How are you handling this?”

  Michael looked at the man he had raised as his own son for a moment, then shrugged. “Of course it hurts,” he said, “but if your mother is that unhappy, then I’m not going to try to make her stay. If she wants to be with Harry, so be it. I just don’t want it to affect our relationship.”

  “It won’t,” Beth said emphatically. “We’ll both be here for you, Dad.” She turned and glared at Harry. “Forgive me,” she said, “you may be a great guy, but I have a hard time finding any respect for someone who would steal another man’s wife. Don’t expect me to like you anytime soon.”

  Sam tensed, half-expecting Harry to explode, but the old man simply nodded to his daughter. “I understand,” he said.

  “Beth!” Harold said sharply. “Come on, you’re better than this! Remember that old line about not judging someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes?”

  “Sorry, Bro,” she shot back, “but civil is about the best I’m going to be able to manage for a while. Take it or leave it, I really don’t care.” She looked at her mother. “Your mind is made up?”

  Kathleen nodded. “Yes,” she said simply.

  Beth got to her feet. “Dad, I’ll call you later. I just can’t stay here right at the moment.” She turned and walked out of the room, and they heard the front door open and close a moment later. Her car started and drove away, while the rest of them sat in silence.

  “She’ll get over it,” Harold said. “I know my sister, she can’t stay pissed off forever.” he turned and looked at Michael again. “Divorce isn’t the end of the world, Dad,” he said. “Don’t worry about any problems between us, there won’t be any.”

  He turned and looked at Harry. “Harry, I’ll say the only thing a son can say in this situation. If Mom loves you, then all I ask is that you don’t hurt her. If you do, you’ll find I can be one mean son-of-a-bitch.”

  “I would expect nothing less—especially considering who your father is,” Harry said. “And I can assure you that I never will.”

  The younger man stood and said his goodbyes, then left. The motorcycle he had ridden in on roared to life when he got outside, and then faded into the distance as he rode away.

  “Well,” Michael said, “I think that went very well, don’t you? And as long as everybody remembers the conditions of this little arrangement, everybody stays happy.” He turned to Kathleen. “You can go now,” he said, and then he rose from his chair, picking up his machine pistol and tucking it into the waistband of his pants. He walked over to the entertainment center and withdrew the two guns Kathleen had put there earlier, quickly removed their magazines and cleared them, then handed them to Sam.

  “I imagine these are yours,” he said. “You can have them back, but I’ll hang on to the magazines. Kate can pick them up next week for you when she comes to pack her things.”

  “No problem,” Sam said as he and Harry stood.

  Kathleen picked up the small suitcase she had hidden behind her chair and walked toward them. She turned and looked at Michael, and managed a small smile. “Michael,” she said, “thank you. This really is the best solution, I think.”

  The look he gave her could only be termed a smirk. “It certainly works for me,” he said. “And Heather is likely to be happy.”

  Sam lowered his eyebrows. “Heather?”

  Kathleen looked at Michael for a moment, then turned her eyes to Sam. “Heather Keller is his secretary,” she said. “If I remember correctly, she’s about twenty.” She reached out and took Harry’s hand, and started toward the front door.

  Sam looked at Michael for another moment, then turned and followed them. He couldn’t help wondering whether a bullet was going to hit the center of his ba
ck at any second, but then he closed the front door behind him and slid behind the wheel of the rented Buick. Harry and Kathleen were in the backseat, and Sam smiled at them in the rearview mirror as he backed the car out of the driveway.

  “That was some good thinking, Sam,” Harry said. “You got us out of there in one piece. If I had suggested the same thing, Michael probably would have started shooting.”

  “Or me,” Kathleen said. “Yes, Sam, thank you so much. But what’s going to happen now?”

  “Now, we’re all going to hold up our ends of this bargain,” Harry said. “Michael is right about one thing, and that’s the fact that he could easily harm any of us if he chose to. I’m afraid we have locked ourselves into a lifetime commitment. As long as we do what we’ve agreed and never let the kids, or anyone else, know the truth, then we ought to be safe.”

  “Well, that sucks for you, Harry,” Sam said. “I think it would kill me to never be able to let my own children know I was their father.”

  “Yes, but you’d do it under the circumstances. Sam, boy, there’s no doubt in my mind that Michael would kill me and Kathy, and probably you and your entire family, if those kids ever find out the reality behind this. If they ever meet your family, which isn’t outside the realm of possibility once they get used to me being in their mother’s life, you’ve got to make absolutely certain that Indie and your mothers don’t let anything slip. And, for God’s sake, make sure Beauregard understands that.”

  “Beauregard?” Kathleen asked.

  “You don’t want to know,” said both Sam and Harry at the same time.

  13

  Indie was keeping herself busy in the kitchen while Sam’s mother, Grace, was watching television with Kenzie in the living room. Her own mother, Kim, was sitting at the table and watching her as she scrubbed and cleaned.

  “Indiana,” she said hesitantly, “how are you and Sam doing?”

  Indie looked up at her in surprise. “Me and Sam? Fine, why?”

  “Well, what I mean is—are you getting along okay? Are there any problems between the two of you?”

  “Problems? Mom, where is this coming from? Why are you asking something like that? And no, we’re not having any problems, we get along great.” She actually giggled. “I think we both fall more in love with each other every single day.”

  Kim smiled at her. “Oh, I’m so glad,” she said. “But then, with situations like this coming up all the time, I just worry that there might be some stress in your relationship. You could tell me if there was, you know. You can talk to me about anything.”

  Indie carried her dishcloth to the sink and wrung it out, then dropped it into the sink and sat down at the table across from her mother. “Okay, stop beating around the bush,” she said. “Tell me where this is really coming from. And if you say Beauregard…”

  Kim grimaced, and Indie groaned. “It’s not what you think,” Kim said. “You know, bad news isn’t all Beauregard ever gives. Sometimes there’s—sometimes there’s good news, but good news isn’t always good news if it isn’t news you’re ready for.”

  Indie shook her head. “Wait, what? What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

  Kim let out a deep sigh and looked her daughter in the eye. “Beauregard told me last night that you’re going to go from three to four.”

  Her daughter made a face and squinted at her. “Three to four? Mom, stop being so vague and tell me what on earth this is…” Indie’s eyes suddenly shot wide open, and her mouth stopped moving in the shape of an O. She tried to speak a couple of times, but nothing would come out and then she almost seemed to collapse onto the table. She caught herself on her elbows and stared at her mother.

  “Three? To four? Mom, come on, how could Beauregard possibly know…” Once again, her mouth stopped wide open, but it didn’t take her as long to regain her composure this time. “You’re telling me that he says Sam and I are going to have a baby?”

  Kim nodded slowly. “He wanted me to call and tell you last night, but I was chicken. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Sam to pieces. He’s been wonderful to you, and he’s a great daddy to Kenzie, there’s no doubt about that. I’m just wondering, you know, how it’s going to affect him if he actually has a child of his own?”

  Indie stared at her for a long moment, then finally closed her mouth. “First, let’s get one thing straight,” she said. “Sam Prichard already has a child of his own. Her name is Mackenzie, and she’s in the living room right now watching Scooby Doo. Believe me, Mom, that child is his through and through, and anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is liable to be looking down the barrel of his gun.” She paused to take a breath and cleared her throat. “Now, as for this—prediction of Beauregard’s, all I can tell you is that we recently talked about maybe trying to have a baby brother or sister for Kenzie, and—so I stopped taking the pill.”

  Kim’s face suddenly broke into a huge smile. “You did? You are? Oh, Indiana, that’s wonderful! If you already talked about it and decided to try, then there’s really nothing to worry about, is there?”

  “Mom, there wouldn’t have been anything to worry about even if it happened by surprise. Trust me, Sam and I love each other very much, and we love Kenzie with all our hearts, but there’s plenty of love in this family to go around.” She dipped her head and looked at her mother from under her eyebrows. “I don’t suppose Beauregard happened to mention what we’d be having, did he?”

  “Now you come on, Indie,” Kim said. “When does he ever give any clear, concise information? Besides, I think it ruins everything when you find out early what sex the baby is. It used to be that you never knew until it was born, and that sounds to me like the best way to handle it.”

  “Yeah, well, that was before the days of ultrasound. I don’t know anybody who waits for the surprise anymore. Besides, if you know what you’re going to have, it’s easier to get the nursery all decorated in advance.”

  “Nursery? And where would you put a nursery?”

  Indie giggled at her. “I told you, Sam and I have talked about this. Our bedroom has two huge closets, and either one of them would be plenty big enough to make a nursery. Neither Sam nor I have enough clothes to fill one of them out, so we’d just move all our stuff into one and Sam said I can decorate the other one anyway I want. If it’s true and I do get pregnant, I want to know what it’s going to be so I can decorate properly.”

  Kim laughed. “Indiana, I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that you’d be happy about it. I honestly worried about this all night long, and all day today. I can’t wait, now, to hear what Sam has to say.”

  “Oh, I think we’ll wait on telling Sam until I can show him a plus sign on a stick. Somehow, I don’t think he’d take too kindly to Beauregard being the one to make the announcement.”

  Kim’s face seemed to fall a bit. “That’s something else,” she said. “Beauregard says Sam thinks he isn’t real, like he’s something I just made up. Is that true? I mean, why would I make up something like that? I certainly don’t have any way to know the things he tells me, especially when he talks about things that haven’t even happened yet.”

  Indie tried to lighten the mood. “Oh, Mom, Sam always says things like that, but he doesn’t mean any harm by it. And for the record, all he ever really said was that he thinks it’s really you that can see the future, and that you subconsciously made up Beauregard so you wouldn’t have to admit that to yourself.”

  Kim leaned on the table and fidgeted with a napkin. “Is that what you think? That it’s really me?”

  Sighing, Indie reached over and laid a hand on her mother’s arm. “I think it doesn’t matter. No matter where it comes from, the things Beauregard says have saved so many lives that I’m just thankful. I don’t know that anyone could say for sure if he was real or not, but the only thing that really matters, I guess, is what you think. Have you ever wondered?”

  Kim flicked her eyes up at her daughter for a second, then lowered them back to the nap
kin in her fingers. “Maybe. I mean, I admit there’s been a few times when I thought I was just going crazy. But then it always turns out he’s right, no matter what he says, so that makes it pretty hard to not believe in him. And it isn’t like I ever really got into any of that Spiritualism stuff, I never played with Ouija boards or séances or anything like that. Beauregard just sort of showed up one day, back when you were just a baby.”

  Indie cocked her head to the side and looked at her mother. “Really? I thought he was always with you, your whole life.”

  Kim shook her head. “No, the first time I ever heard him was right after we moved into that old house in Kentucky. Do you even remember that place? It was like almost 200 years old, all the wiring was just stapled to the walls right out in the open. The only reason we moved into it is because the rent was cheap enough I could afford it, or I never would’ve bothered.” She shrugged and grinned at Indie. “Anyway, I had you in a playpen in the living room while I was in the kitchen trying to cook something, I can’t remember what, now, and all of a sudden this voice told me that if I didn’t take you out of the playpen you were going to get hurt. Well, at first I thought it was God talking, so I ran in the living room and snatched you up, and I was just walking around and cuddling you when all of a sudden a big chunk of plaster fell out of the ceiling and landed right smack in the middle of your playpen. I was so shocked I couldn’t even think, but I got down my knees and started praying and saying thank you to God, and all of a sudden I heard that voice again.”

  Ken fell silent for a moment, and Indie motioned for her to go on.

  “It said, ‘How do you do, Madam? My name is Beauregard, and I welcome you to my home.’ Well, it was so clear that I spun around, trying to find out who was talking, and I think I yelled out something about who was there or something, and then he said, ‘Please forgive me if I startled you, I just thought it would be terrible if something happened to your adorable baby girl.’ Now, by that time, I was pretty sure I was going crazy, but he kept on talking and telling me that he had been waiting for more than 120 years for someone who could hear him, and I was the first one that ever did. Other people who had lived in the house had claimed it was haunted, I knew that when we moved in, but I never believed in ghosts before that. I just ignored those stories because the rent was so low, but once I got to know Beauregard, none of it ever scared me anymore. And you know, yourself, he’s always warned us about problems and even helped us solve a lot of them.”