by Rachel Lee
He waited until Candy had parked, then joined him on the front steps.
“I need to get out my warmer jacket,” he remarked. “Can you introduce me to Miss Emma?”
Her expression turned wry. “Are you sure you want to put your reputation in my hands?”
“Cute. Let’s go.”
The library was warmer inside, not surprising, but it wasn’t exactly warm. Maybe to help preserve the books, maybe to save on energy or maybe because the locals were used to cooler temperatures and nobody wanted to bake.
Candy led the way to the round center desk, the hallmark of an era. From one of the side rooms he heard voices, young voices who seemed to be discussing games. Off in one corner, a woman was reading a storybook to a bunch of very young kids, too young for kindergarten, he surmised.
The middle-aged woman behind the desk was a study in graceful aging. She had the kind of bone structure in her face that would keep her beautiful for decades to come. Her reddish-and-gray hair was caught up in a bun. With those green eyes, he’d have bet she had once been an eye-catching redhead.
“Hi, Candy,” she said, looking over the top of the wooden counter. In front of her sat an older computer that probably meant the library had switched to digital cataloging but, nearby, a wooden card catalog still remained. He was old enough to remember searching through one of them to do research when he was in elementary school. Nostalgia breathed through him. Of course, once upon a time he’d believed he’d never give up print books. He liked the smell of them, the weight of a volume in his hands.
He’d lost the battle. His laptop had two e-readers on it.
“Miss Emma,” Candy said, “I’d like you to meet Steve Hawks. He’s in town to do a ghost-hunting show.”
“Yes, I heard.” Miss Emma rose, still smiling, and extended a hand across the counter. “We have your earlier programs available on DVDs here.”
“I’m flattered.” Not really. If his ego could be so easily flattered, self-disgust should overwhelm him. “I understand you have the best brain to pick around here when it comes to local history.”
Emma laughed. “I’ve been here for much of it. My dad was once a judge here, and my family helped found this town. You could say I’m steeped in the history. Always my avocation. Let’s go into my office.”
Another woman appeared in answer to Emma’s call. She came out of the room that was full of young voices.
“Can you take over for me out here, Nora?” Emma asked her.
“Absolutely. My sons will probably enjoy my absence more than my presence.”
Emma had a spacious office. Apparently, space strictures didn’t apply here. Shelves were filled with books, a few stacks of them decorated a corner, and her desk had very nearly disappeared beneath another computer and a scattering of papers.
“Pardon my desk,” she said. “We’re still trying to get all the books into the digital catalog.”
“Probably one heck of a job,” Steve offered.
Emma nodded. “And way past due. Have a seat, both of you.”
* * *
CANDY TOOK A chair that was farther from the desk than the one Steve chose. She was prepared to listen with half an ear to a subject that didn’t especially appeal to her. A little local history? Great. A detailed one? Not necessary for her.
This was a go-nowhere task. She had to suppress a sigh. She wasn’t at all sure what Steve needed from her, and not sure what her bosses expected of her, and she wondered if this was going to be much fun at all. She sure as heck didn’t feel like she was accomplishing much.
Maybe she ought to just go back to the office, find some work to do and wait for Steve to call her if he needed something. Whatever the town wanted from her, she doubted this was it. Making his path easier? Hey, didn’t they have a PR person they could have asked to take on this job?
Impatience was beginning to irritate her. Sure, it had been interesting to hear him interview the Castelles, and their story had been fascinating. But.
Yeah, but. Here she sat listening to an innocuous conversation about the history of this town. How could most of that be involved in a ghost hunt?
Then her interest awoke again.
Steve asked, “Do you know anything about the house at the edge of the town that the Castelles have bought?”
Miss Emma frowned. “I heard a family had moved in, if you mean that farmhouse to the east of here.”
“That’s it.”
“Off Granger Road,” Candy elucidated.
Emma nodded thoughtfully. “I’m not specifically aware of the history. I know when I was young it had become the subject of campfire stories. But an empty house is a perfect stage for that.”
Steve leaned forward a bit. “It was empty for a long time?”
“Yes, it was,” Emma answered. “You’d have to go to the recorder’s office to get any details, though. It hasn’t been high on my list of things to learn.” She smiled slightly. “As a historian, I prefer the broader sweep in the local area. You can get details from the recorder.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you very much.”
Steve was standing when Emma said, “You know who might have more personal information? The previous sheriff, Nate Tate.” She looked at Candy. “Have you met him?”
“Not yet, but I’ve heard plenty about him.”
Emma’s smile broadened. “He’s local icon. You don’t want to miss the chance. I’m sure Gage can set it up.”
“Gage?” Steve enquired.
“My husband, a.k.a. the current sheriff.”
“Wow,” Steve said to Candy as they stepped outside. “The previous sheriff. And her husband. Is this place incestuous or what?”
Candy laughed. “Not really, but it’s small. The other woman you glimpsed? Nora Madison, the current police chief’s wife.”
“Okay, then. Don’t steal a book.”
“Might be wise.”
He stopped on the sidewalk. “You know, if I was a historian, I’d want to spend weeks, if not months, interviewing Miss Emma. She sounds like a font of local information. Unfortunately, I have to be more directed.”
“I can see that. First, you don’t have months. Second, you need to do a TV show.”
“Yep. So about this former sheriff...”
She forestalled him. “I’ll get in touch for you, set something up if he’s willing.”
“Thank you.”
“What about the Castelles, though? I don’t want to make the appointment if you’re going to be tied up.”
“No,” Steve answered. “I wouldn’t want that either. I’m going to call the Castelles this evening and set a time. I’ll let you know.”
Evening. Evening had crept in while they were in the library, and it was dragging into night. Clouds still sailed through the twilight overhead. She wondered if they’d last another day.
Candy watched Steve drive away and felt a bit of relief. It had been a long day for her, never alone, always alert to matters that didn’t especially interest her. Guard duty.
Well, not exactly that, but close enough. She reached to snap her jacket, then to head back to the office. The former sheriff had to be next in her sights.
* * *
FOR STEVE IT had been a productive day. He’d met his clients face-to-face and had been favorably impressed. He’d also gotten a good lead to that guy, Tate, who might be exactly what he needed for his show.
And Emma herself had provided more information: the house had generated tales of haunting. Now he had to find out how long the house had remained empty or if it had ever been renovated, and if so, had the Castelles done it.
While he might not agree with a lot of the explanations in his field, he knew he had to answer for them. It was widely believed that renovating a house could disturb spirits.
He wasn’t inclined to believe it. He had
a general problem with the whole idea of people hanging around after death. But if they did, why should they get exercised because a house had been altered? Especially since that house had probably been altered more than once over time?
The other problem he had was a simple one: too many ghost hunters spoke for the dead. Unless there was some communication with the so-called spirits, how could anyone know what they were thinking? Assuming they could think at all.
He was a skeptic by nature, but he also accepted his own curiosity about the subject. He’d like to know. Really. He’d like to settle all this in his own mind somehow. So far he hadn’t been able to.
That left him with doing his best to reassure frightened people. After he met Viv, and started to build a relationship with her, he was going to go all over that house and property, looking for a rational explanation.
And he was going to explore the family’s background. He picked up the phone to call his researcher, Dena.
One thing he knew for sure: if that child was genuinely hearing a man’s voice in her room, he was going to get to the bottom of it.
Chapter Four
The next day, Steve awoke refreshed and ready to begin. His hope for conversations with more locals had begun to get answered the evening before at the diner.
Apparently, word was getting around that he was in town to do a TV show. Some folks even recognized him. A few actually stayed to talk after a greeting.
He hadn’t gotten any truly useful information, but he felt that might come eventually. It was difficult right now because he didn’t want the whole community to know whose house he was investigating. That might hamper his work, but worse, it might upset the Castelles to become front-page news before there’d been a solution.
He got it. They didn’t want people all over town discussing whether their daughter had a mental problem or whether they sucked as parents. Who would?
He didn’t yet have anything to legitimize their experiences. That was a bad way to go public. The Castelles had every right to expect better of him. It would be different once he had some answers for them, but he didn’t need a warning announcement that they wouldn’t be happy if they ended up with neighbors camping outside because of curiosity. Or teens being drawn because it was cool there might be a ghost.
Or Viv facing teasing from classmates.
It wouldn’t take long for one nightmare to become a second.
He ate breakfast at the truck stop because it was conveniently across the road from the motel. And maybe because it gave him some thinking space to be in a place populated mostly by transients. Nobody here was likely to want to talk to him about much, if anything.
* * *
BEN WITTES LEARNED that the guy he’d seen was the ghost hunter. He was delighted with the possibilities. He could speak for the spirits who lingered so unhappily. He called the show’s producers to see if they would use him.
The spirits had been clamoring for attention for weeks now, as if they knew who was coming. They surely wanted Ben to speak for them, the voiceless who couldn’t begin to speak for themselves.
Ben was the only voice they had, and it made the inside of his head awfully noisy. It’s not like he could simply turn them off. Yeah, he could get them to tone it down, but he knew they were desperate. He felt guilty sometimes for not listening more or better.
Lately one voice had become louder than the rest. He wasn’t sure who exactly it was, but he kept listening for information.
In the meantime, Ben had a bigger worry. He often woke in the morning with dirt on him, under his nails and on his clothes. Why was he dressed and what was he doing at night? He had no idea, and that frightened him. What if one of the spirits was taking him over?
They had no limits on what they could do, not anymore.
Heaven and hell no longer bound them.
Chapter Five
Steve went over to the Castelles’ in the morning to meet Vivian. He left a message on Candy’s phone about where he was going and why, but he couldn’t imagine any reason for her to want to follow him.
She was a liaison, not a guard, and while he liked to have a connection with the local cops, he didn’t need to be constantly watched. It wasn’t as if he were any kind of threat to the community.
He met Buddy first. Last night he’d spent some time online looking up the two breeds the Castelles had indicated, wanting to know what he might be getting into with this “big” dog. If they didn’t get along, he’d ask to get to know Vivian without her pet. It would be better, however, if she had Buddy with her to relax her and give her a friend at her side.
The dog resembled the American Staffordshire breed more than he looked like a bloodhound, but he had some cute wrinkles on his forehead that seemed to give him character. He was also taller than an Am Staff, closer in size to a bloodhound.
Steve also quickly discovered that Buddy had the bloodhound personality: gentle, sweet, affectionate. It didn’t take them long to become fast friends, and Buddy showed absolutely no hesitation about welcoming Steve. The Castelles had been right about him—he was more likely to knock you over and love you to death.
Buddy also had a bloodhound’s nose. When he fixated on an odor, he forgot everything else until he was satisfied.
Which got Steve to thinking about the dog staring at the wall like that. Maybe he hadn’t been sensing danger. Maybe there was a smell that had caught his attention.
An interesting change in perspective.
As Steve sat on the grass with the large dog stretched out beside him, content to be scratched until Steve thought his arm might fall off, he thought about Buddy staring fixated at the wall.
There had to be some kind of odor, he decided. Buddy wouldn’t stare fixedly at a sound. But what? It could be almost anything. Maybe there was a smell in the wall itself or coming up from the basement. He’d have to check it out.
A good lead for a start. Something other than the obvious paranormal.
Although that didn’t do a damn thing to explain the voices Vivian was hearing, or the talking that Annabelle had briefly heard.
Lying back on the cold, hard ground, he stared up at the gray sky while Buddy sniffed him. Okay, maybe it hadn’t been an odor that had caught Buddy’s attention. He’d heard of dogs reacting to the paranormal, although that was another idea he needed to check out for himself. Maybe Buddy would wind up helping him with that.
At last he sat up, convinced that the dog wouldn’t be a problem, and headed into the house to meet with Vivian. While he didn’t want anyone to disturb his conversation with the girl, and it would be totally innocuous to start, he didn’t want to take the child away with him, not even as far as the backyard, on their first meeting.
He was sure Vivian had been given all the stranger warnings, especially in the big city.
Annabelle and Vivian were sitting in the kitchen. Steve smelled hot chocolate and Vivian had some of it smeared around her mouth. She looked at him rather suspiciously.
Central casting couldn’t have sent him a more photogenic child. Long blond wavy hair, bright blue eyes. A pretty child’s face.
“Viv,” Annabelle said, “this is Mr. Hawks. He’s going to try to find out about the voice you keep hearing.”
Viv’s expression didn’t relax very much. He guessed it was a topic she didn’t want to visit.
He queried Annabelle with his eyes and joined the two of them at the kitchen table. “You can call me Steve, Vivian,” he said pleasantly. “If I get to use your first name, you get to use mine.”
That brought a slight smile to Vivian’s lips. Annabelle handed her a napkin, and Viv wiped her mouth with it.
Buddy had followed Steve in, and now he sat beside Vivian, looking even larger when measured against the girl’s size. That dog had to seriously outweigh her.
“Buddy’s a great dog,” Steve said. “I like him a whole
lot. But he’s so big. Does he listen to you?”
Viv nodded, set down her mug, then leaned over to hug Buddy right around his neck. The dog started grinning.
Okay, Steve thought. That relationship had been established.
“Did you get Buddy when he was a small puppy?”
Vivian answered for the first time. “He’s still a puppy.”
Annabelle spoke. “I think Steve is asking about when we first got him, when he was still a baby.”
And that was why he needed to gain Vivian’s trust so he could talk to her alone. Annabelle would mean well, but she’d insert as she thought necessary for clarity. Not what Steve wanted at all.
Vivian was okay with it, however. She let go of Buddy’s neck and spread her arms, palms turned inward. “He was this big.”
“Not very big at all.”
“Smaller than me,” Vivian asserted. “He slept in my bed.”
“Does he still? I mean, if he sleeps in your bed, where do you sleep?”
That drew a giggle out of the girl. “I make myself tiny.”
“I bet you do. Very tiny.”
And this added yet another wrinkle. If the dog was sleeping in her room, why was she so scared? Maybe because Buddy wasn’t protective? Or did she think Buddy didn’t hear the sounds because her parents didn’t?
Or, if she thought it was a ghost, nobody else needed to hear it at all?
Or even, from his perspective, voices didn’t bother that dog at all. Given how friendly he was, maybe it was just another background noise to him.
A little over an hour later, Steve departed, promising to return the next day. He’d played card games with Viv, who was on her way to becoming a card sharp. He’d never done so badly with a simple game of War. She had the devil’s own luck on a deal.
Vivian’s acceptance of him had begun. Good.
Now he needed to find a way to look into the history of the Castelle house. Was there lore associated with it? Was there some kind of notable history?