“Does anyone hear a baby crying?” Donna asked, tears streaming down her face. “I swear I hear a baby crying.”
~
“How’s Jemma?” Heath didn’t like how pale Austin looked when he came into the pub.
“She will be fine. Rory sent over lunch, and the girls are forcing her to take a nap. Britney tried to force a pregnancy test on her. I thought Jemma would shove the thing where the sun don’t shine there for a moment.” Austin looked around the nearly empty pub as he slid into the booth seat across from Heath. Rory wasn’t in the dining room. Heath saw him leave the kitchen and go into the back and come back out. He hadn’t stuck around this morning after Heath had kissed Austin. After he’d overheard Austin say he could love Heath.
“I don’t see the mystery bouncer if that’s who you’re looking for,” he said loud enough for Austin to hear him. Nodding, Austin glanced at the table and busied himself by unwrapping a straw for his water glass and fussing with the silver. “And Rory is in the kitchen.”
“I wasn’t looking for Rory,” Austin said, his voice tight with annoyance. “Maybe I was. I… have to talk to him. I can’t just leave everything the way it is. All confused and…” He stopped fiddling and tinkering and looked up. Color returned to his face as his eyes met Heath’s gaze. “Thanks for the heads up on the bouncer. I’m still trying to decide if that was a hallucination or too much alcohol.”
“Still going with not a hallucination.” Which brought him back to what happened in the workroom and how to even go about broaching the topic.
“There’s a ghost infant in the house,” Austin said as if he read Heath’s mind. “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy. I’ve heard it. Jemma heard it. Jemma said the cry was so loud it was like she was in the same room with it. Almost like she could smell it. A baby… and blood. She didn’t tell the others. About the blood or anything else. But Britney and Donna heard it this time. Stop looking at me like I’m crazy.” Austin swiped a hand over his face, but stopped when he realized it was the one with the cast.
Heath reached for his good hand and took the straw wrapper from him. “I heard it. It was… heartbreaking.” Heath clutched his chest with his free hand, letting Austin twine their fingers together. His hand cold and trembling in Heath’s grasp. “Like…” he closed his eyes and tried to find the words to express how he felt watching Jemma collapse. “Like it was my child and I couldn’t help it. Not that I know what that feels like. I just…” he sighed as Rory walked in front of the kitchen pass-through-window. “Jemma says she feels something off about the house.”
“Bad juju would be her exact words.” Austin released his hand when the waitress brought the lunch neither of them had ordered. “Thanks, Molly, tell Rory it looks good.”
“You betcha, Hon.” She smiled and winked at Austin. “Y’all enjoy.”
Heath, expecting to find a bowl of stew or corned beef, was pleasantly surprised to find a burger and fries instead of traditional Irish fare sitting in front of him. “What if I go vegan? What would he do?”
“Send you off to graze in a field some’eres.” Austin grinned and pointed a fry at him. “Don’t tell him if you are. And if you ever meet his Da, just… don’t even think such thoughts.”
Heath picked up the mustard and dressed his burger. Ketchup for his fries. “Is it too early for a pint?” He asked instead of admitting he’d met the older Callaghan last night.
“You’re the boss. You tell me?” The smile he’d worn, faded as he glanced past Heath to the window overlooking the street. He couldn’t possibly see the house from this angle, but they both knew it was there. “Are we still on the clock?”
Heath set the mustard down and studied the man across from him. He saw real fear in the man’s every move. Heard it in every word he spoke. “No. I guess not.”
Austin nodded and left Heath sitting at the table to go to the bar to place their drink order. Instead of waiting for someone to come from the back, he went behind the bar and pulled two beers as if he’d done it a million times. A customer came in and sat at the bar. Rory yelled something Heath couldn’t understand from the kitchen. Austin shouted back and pulled a third glass, setting it in front of the guy before bringing their pints back to the table.
“You seem at home here.” Heath dipped a fry in ketchup and followed it up with a sip of ale.
“Not here so much, but Callaghan’s prime was my home away from home. I worked my way through… well, that’s a lie, it’s not possible to work your way through college on tips anymore. But it sure made life easier to have that extra cash in my pocket by picking up a few shifts a week back in the day.” Austin didn’t seem to want to discuss the freaky shit going on across the street any more than Heath did. “What about you? Where’d you go to school? Or did I ask that already?”
“Can’t remember. I think we started the whole getting-to-know-you conversation the other night, but it derailed when I told you…” He didn’t mean to bring it up again. He remembered the look on Austin’s face the first time.
“You’re divorcing.” He shrugged this time and flattened his burger to fit it into his mouth. “I can… wait… I guess.”
“Yes.” Heath did the same with his burger. The thing is, he didn’t want to wait for the divorce papers to catch up with him. Maybe they were sitting on his desk in Manhattan. Maybe they were still pending. Maybe… maybe they’d already jumped the gun and he couldn’t remember a damn thing about it. The television over the bar switched to an entertainment gossip channel while Heath chewed. The sound came on. People stopped eating to turn their attention to the interruption. It wasn’t football or basketball or breaking news, so they ignored it. But Heath couldn’t.
Felicity Monroe, the beautiful blonde model turned actress, the one he’d played second fiddle to his entire marriage, was sobbing none too delicately on the screen. Cameras flashing in her face as she tried to escape the attention. She was obviously pregnant. More than just a few weeks. Closer to a few months. Her people tried to clear a path for her, but the paparazzi continued shouting questions at her. About her break-up with Clark Dawson. With each question, her shoulders slumped even more.
“Felicity. Felicity. Is it true, he’s already married?” One paparazzo shouted over the others.
Felicity stopped walking, her delicate shoulders no longer slumping. The tears in her eyes failed to hide the anger flashing behind them, “To a man. He’s married to another man. He never told me. I didn’t know. My child deserves a better father. I can’t. I just can’t. Just get the fuck away from me. Go find that asshole, he’s married to. His name is Heath Cortlandt. The bastard’s name is Heath Cortlandt. They’ve been married for a year.”
And the television went dark.
The leprechaun on the bar grinned.
As did the one standing behind the bar.
“Jesus. Fuck,” Heath said as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t need to check it to know who was calling him. “This just got really… fucked.”
“Yeah, it did,” Austin said, ducking his head to focus on his lunch instead of any unfinished conversation. “And the leprechaun bouncer thinks it’s funny as shit.”
The leprechaun in question tipped his hat to Heath and disappeared in a ripple of light and color. As if he’d never been there at all.
“Maybe I really did get hit by that SUV and this is all just a coma induced dream. Or I’m in my own deathday loop. A never-ending-strange-never-happened-in-my-life, deathday loop.”
Heath had no reply to that. He was thinking maybe he was right there in the coma with the man living some freak nightmare… that was about to get even more nightmarish. “You and me both,” he said, taking his phone out of his pocket long enough to turn it off.
Austin nodded and tucked into his lunch.
There was nothing left to say.
Chapter Thirty-One
August 1917
My dear brother is dead. Taken far too early. And that is the only truth I may ever know
.
He traveled to Savannah but never made it. There is little news as to what killed him. The local police say it may have been a random robbery gone awry.
The nephew took the news remarkably well. He hasn’t spoken to me since HC’s body was returned to us for internment. He keeps to the stable, coming into the house to eat or to bring his sisters sweets from the candy store he passes on his way from the mill each day.
I’ve tried to distinguish our finances from those of the business. HC’s study is a disaster. His lawyer says not to worry, that we are taken care of. I am not comforted.
Ella has informed me she does not wish to return to school in the fall. She wants to attend a real school. She is to be married in a little more than a year. But she will not listen to reason.
The child, Ruth, no longer speaks. She is a filthy urchin of a child. She clings to her brother as if he is her only kin. The nephew is the only voice she listens to. He is the only person who can convince her to bathe as infrequently as she does. She will only wear clothes because he forces her to. She does not take meals in the house. She rarely comes near the house of late. If she does, she screams incessantly, enough to alarm the neighbors.
HC will be laid to rest tomorrow afternoon in the family cemetery. It is too hot to wear black, but I will endure for my brother’s sake.
~
It was late when Rory knocked on his door. Austin tucked the journal away before answering. Rory had texted a few minutes ago, giving him a heads-up in case he had company. Austin didn’t understand how everything had fallen apart so completely in the past few days.
“Come in,” he said to the scarecrow of a man standing on his stoop. His heart beating hard in his chest at the sight of his friend’s obvious distress.
“I don’t mean to interrupt.” Rory leaned inside as if he wanted to make sure the coast was clear before damning the torpedoes full speed ahead.
“You’re not interrupting anything. I was reading,” he replied, aware that he held the doorknob in a defensive manner. He pulled the door open wider and stepped to the side. “He’s not here.”
Rory nodded and ducked his head. He paused for a long moment before dragging in a deep breath and stepping over the threshold. He let out the breath once he was inside and no big boogie man was waiting for him. Or Heath. Austin closed the door, but didn’t lock it. Not that he was afraid of Rory. Or trying to tell him that this was just a visit. That there would be no sleepover tonight. He… just left the damned door unlocked, okay.
“Want something to drink? I have beer, wine, and all the other stuff you insist I need in my fridge. I have leftover pizza from a delivery place if you’re interested.” He didn’t go to the fridge. Rory knew where everything was and could help himself.
“Maybe later.” Rory kicked off his work shoes and collapsed onto the sofa. He leaned back against the cushion and sighed. “I’m exhausted. Half my staff called in tonight. I fired three people. One for doing drugs on the job. Caught him doing a line of coke in the cooler. Had to throw out an entire case of meat because he spilled the shit. And if the cops come around before trash pickup tomorrow… I’m fucked.”
“Sounds rough.” Austin took the seat across from his friend and propped his feet on the coffee table.
“You have no idea.” Rory slunk lower in the seat and put his feet up, his toes nearly touching Austin’s. Almost. Austin had to wonder why he wanted that extra space to disappear. “About the other night?”
“Nope,” Austin blurted, dragging his feet back so he could sit up. “I really don’t want to discuss the other night.”
“I want you back,” Rory almost wailed.
“You never lost me,” Austin shouted at him. “It doesn’t matter who you sleep with. Or who I sleep with. We’re still us. We have always been us.”
“What if I want more?” Rory didn’t shout this time. He whispered. Pain in his voice.
“You wouldn’t have slept with anyone else.” Austin hated stating the truth. Especially a truth he, himself, didn’t want to hear. “If you were in love with me, you would be in love with me.”
“Are you in love with him?” Rory’s voice sounded tight, almost angry now. Austin looked him in the eye for the first time since he came in. And didn’t recognize his friend.
“I just met him. I don’t know. And you’re confusing me. Because I want to love you, Rory. And I do. I love you so much. You know that. And we keep going around and around with this because you’re jealous. Just admit you’re jealous and… get the hell over it. Please… please, Rory, I’m begging you. Don’t destroy us, because… I fell in love with someone else.”
Rory closed his eyes and let his head drop back onto the seat cushion. He looked… broken. “But you are in love with him.”
Austin wanted to scream and pull hair and throw things. “Yes,” he whispered when he successfully controlled the rage building in his chest. “I’m in love with him and you slept with two of my interns in a fit jealousy. And it hurt. Because it felt deliberate. Like you were trying to hurt me. When I’m not trying to hurt you. I do love you, Rory. I will always love you.”
A tear slipped down the side of Rory’s face to his ear. He still wouldn’t look at Austin. He lay there and let Austin destroy him. Austin wiped at his face, refusing to acknowledge the wetness he found there.
“What do we do now?” Rory whispered, his voice choked with unshed tears.
“What do you want to do now?” His heart ached at the very thought of Rory going back to Savannah… without him.
Rory shook his head. He opened his eyes but continued to stare at the ceiling. “He’s married, Aus,” he said finally. As if Austin didn’t know. As if Austin wasn’t sitting here, letting that same thought tear him apart.
“He says the divorce papers have been filed. That it was over a long time ago.” Austin could only say that much.
“And you believe him?” Rory sat up, his eyes blazing with anger now that the tears were gone. “What if he’s playing you?”
“I mean, my god, that fortune, I have stashed away somewhere so secret that I don’t even know where, brings all the gold-diggers to my yard. Is that it? He’s after what? Money? He has money. More money than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. He could be thinking the same thing about me right now. Just some gold-digger. Or sex? We haven’t had any yet. And it’s not like you and I are innocent babes when it comes to using other people for sex. Remember Etienne? I’m fairly certain we were both fucking him at the same time… because he was hot, and stupid, and didn’t care as long as he got off. If he’s married… then… he’s married, end-of-story.”
“And you’ll end it if he’s married?” Rory’s eyes narrowed, his head cocked to the side. As if he were figuring out how to get away with murder.
“That’s it. Just… get out. Okay. Get the hell out.” Austin flung the journal, he’d been protecting like it was a newborn babe, at his friend. The fragile pages escaping the binding to scatter across the coffee table and the floor.
“Ahem hmm.” Someone cleared their throat from close by and Rory dashed out from beneath the pages that had fallen on him. Looking spooked as all get out.
The three of them stood there, in a triangle, Heath by the door. The knob still in his hand. Rory across from Austin. Tension simmering in the space between them. The energy in that space, so negative it was almost visible, made Austin’s head spin. He clutched at the arm of the chair he’d been sitting in, determined not to throw up or faint or any of the other new afflictions he’d been blessed with since the concussion.
“I’m not using him, Rory.” Heath was the first to speak. The shimmering energy trapped in their triangle swirled, becoming iridescent. “I swear to you. I’m not using him to get over a bad relationship. And yes, I was married. Was. The divorce was supposed to be finalized yesterday. Clark didn’t take it well and is taking legal action to drag this out longer, it seems. His fiancée… took the news that he’s been lying to her all this time as we
ll as anyone would. She lashed out at me. I don’t know if I blame her. But… we’re… it’s over. He knows this. I’m sorry, Austin.”
Austin swayed, the tense energy trying to strangle him. He didn’t give in to it and it shimmered and swirled and slowly ebbed.
“I swear… I just saw my cousin.” Rory pointed to the space in the middle of the room where the shimmer had been. He went very pale. “Did you see him?”
Rory’s face drained of all color and Heath caught him as his knees buckled. “Yeah, man, I saw him. Or someone, there was something… someone… like a mirror image of someone, between us. I saw him.” Heath spoke calmly, his voice strong and even and confident as he helped Rory to the sofa. “Pretty freckle-faced redhead, right?”
“Yeah,” Rory answered, his voice weak, he gulped in air, trying to steady himself. He didn’t pass out or throw up… yet. “No one called to tell me anything has happened to Conner. You don’t think… like something just happened, and he came to me? Oh, my god, that sounds insane. This place… it’s messing with my head.”
“It’s messing with all of our heads.” Again, a new voice entered the conversation. Jemma came around Heath and placed a thick book on the coffee table before taking Rory’s hands in hers. “He looks like he’s seen a ghost.”
“He did. So did I.” Heath left the patient with Jemma to go plunder Austin’s refrigerator. He brought back a can of soda for everyone. “Seems like booze would be a bad idea in this situation.” He shrugged.
“Thanks,” Rory accepted the can with a weak whisper. Jemma declined. Austin did too, but took the can when Heath forced it into his hand. And drained the contents in one chug.
The sugar and caffeine hit his system like a rocket. The slice of pizza he had for dinner suddenly not enough. Or maybe he didn’t want to sit around discussing anything having to do with ghosts. Or his love life. Or why they were always fighting. All of them. He went to the kitchen for another slice of pizza and popped it into the microwave for thirty seconds. He grabbed a beer and sat at the table with his back turned to his audience.
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