by Nathan Roden
“Your Daddy hasn’t turned down cash money in his life, you smart little pup,” the loud man said. “These are brand new darts—they’re not calibrated yet.”
“Well, you be sure and let me know when they’re good and calibrated,” the young bartender smirked. “So I can get started fixing that wall.”
“Where is your old man, anyway?” the loud man asked.
“He and Mum are off on holiday for the first time that I can remember,” the bartender said. “I bet he’s stretched out watchin’ football and soaking his feet—and his liver.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said the loud man. “If I can ever get another pint over here.”
“Maisy!” the young man yelled to the barmaid. Maisy sat behind the bar, lighting the third cigarette of her current break. “Get me a round over here, would ya?”
Maisy waved a hand in the bartender’s general direction. The bartender whispered to the men before returning to the bar.
“I swear—she must have pictures of my dad in a compromising position.”
Arabella shoved Bruiser’s shoulder.
“I swear,” she said. “You men love to go on about how women gossip. We got nothin’ on this bunch.”
“Well, when you bring beer into the pic—”
“Shh!” Arabella said.
The loud man’s next two darts managed to find the board, netting him a score of “4”.
“You’re talking about that boat they found, I guess?” the thin man asked.
“Yeah,” the loud man said. “It’s been all over the tellie. You heard about that couple that they thought sunk their boat and drowned? Well, six months later they’ve found out that the boat was stolen. It was nicked by a gang of thieves that they caught up with in London.”
“I heard about that,” the short man said. “Now nobody has a clue what happened to those folks.”
“Makes a good story,” the loud man said. “But it don’t sound like the coppers have much to go on. The trail on that one is good and cold.”
“YES!” the short man screamed and jumped up and down. He scored a bullseye and scared four ghosts in the process.
“You know, it seems to be a really bad time to own a castle,” the short man said. “Did you hear about that Wellmore woman?”
The name ‘Wellmore’ set off alarms to all four ghosts at the same time. They closed in on the men.
The barmaid arrived with three full glasses.
“Ah, here we go,” the loud man said. “A woman has come to my rescue, yet again.” He winked at the barmaid, who rolled her eyes.
“Oh for the love of—!” Arabella exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air.
A crash came from across the room, where Dougie had knocked two glasses to the floor from an empty table. The barmaid looked up at the bartender. He shrugged. Her shoulders drooped as she walked toward the mess.
“Thank you, Mr. Day,” Arabella said.
“I have a few skills,” Dougie said. “Mostly breakin’ stuff.”
“We all heard that, did we not?” Arabella asked the others. “He said ‘Wellmore’?”
“Yeah, he did,” Bruiser said.
“We all thought they were sayin’ ‘Will Moore’, Bruiser,” Dougie said. “That’s what I thought—”
“Shhh!” Arabella pointed a finger at Bruiser and Dougie before placing it to her lips.
“Wellmore?” the thin man asked. “You’re talking about the woman that got herself run over by walking down the middle of the highway—and in the middle of the night? That was some nasty business.”
“I’ll say it was,” the short man said. “She must have been totally out her head—it’s a wonder that she could drive. It sounds like she was trying to get herself killed. They said that she swallowed a bunch of sleepin’ pills, and there were whiskey bottles in her car and on…well, on her.”
“Look,” Delbert whispered to Arabella.
He pointed at the man seated at the corner table. The man had been still and apparently immune to the goings on in the rest of the pub—until the last few moments. It now appeared as if he was straining to hear every word of the current conversation. His right ankle pumped feverishly, working his knee up and down. The hand that held his glass was shaking. He spilled some money onto the table, gave his bowler hat one tug, and slipped away toward the exit.
“What do we do now?” Dougie asked.
Bruiser and Arabella looked at each other before saying at the same time.
“We follow him.”
Fifteen
Wylie Westerhouse
Branson, Missouri
I had my key in my hand and I was halfway to the office door. It occurred to me that I hadn’t tried the main entrance in several days. I decided to enter through the front doors, just to make sure that everything was working properly. There was a keypad for the security system inside the front door identical to the one inside the office door.
I mentally gave myself a pat on the back for acting so responsibly and being a good grown-up. I entered the code and turned the key beside the front door. The heavy-duty hydraulic system kicked in and the enormous front door began to move. This door always reminded me of the entrance to the Batcave. It worked exactly like it was supposed to, so I stepped inside and pressed the button to close it. I was standing beside one of the two suits of armor that guarded the entrance. I rapped my knuckles against the arm of the nearest one.
“Good morning, Ralph,” I said. “How was your knight?” Ta dum tshh! I flipped a salute to the other suit. “Mornin’, Bob. Hey, have you been working out? Lookin’ good there, Stud Muffin.”
I keyed the security code into the keypad.
“Good morning, Wylie.”
Oh, for the love of—
I totally forgot about the computer voice. Again.
I sighed and stared down at the puddle of five-dollar coffee.
“Elphaba, you insufferable witch,” I muttered. “I know you’re laughing your backside off right now. I will get even, one day.”
I trudged off to get a mop, having lost all of my grown-up points.
As soon as I made it to the office and took a seat, the office phone rang.
“Good morning, Castle McIntyre,” I answered.
“Good morning, Wylie. It’s Quentin.”
“Hey, Q,” I said. “What’s happening so far?”
“We’ve met with a pair of investigators, and we’re scheduled to meet with the Edinburgh police in the morning.”
“What do they have to say? The investigators, I mean,” I said.
The following pause was pretty long.
“Well, I’ll put it this way,” Q said. “They were getting ready going to walk away from us—until Holly grabbed one of them.”
“What?” I squealed. That’s not very manly, I know, but that’s what I did.
“She—?”
“Yeah,” Q sighed. “The Finnegans have met Arabella, Bruiser, and the rest.”
I had already jumped from the chair once. I sank back into it.
“You said there are two of them?” I asked.
“Yes,” Q said. “Twin brothers.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Plus Brian,” Q said.
“Brian McAllen too?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s…he’s in on everything,” Q said. “That was my fault.”
I blew out a long breath.
“I hope Holly knows what she’s doing. She’s been hiding this from people her whole life, and now she’s passing it out like Halloween candy?”
“She felt like she had no choice, Wylie,” Q said. “The Finnegan brothers are really sharp. They don’t know what kind of help we can expect from the police. They don’t think that these new facts will be enough to revive interest in a six-month-old missing person’s case.”
“Can I talk to her, Q?” I asked.
“Sure,” Q said. “How’s everything going there?”
“Way ahead of schedule,” I said. “Two of these
guys are really sharp, and they’re working hard to get ready. I’m going to have each of them lead a tour by themselves on Friday night. If all goes well I should be ready to come your way Saturday morning.”
“That’s great news,” Q said. “I’m checking now…there‘s a nine-twenty-five morning flight to JFK with a two-hour layover in New York. That’s not bad.”
“Perfect,“ I said.
“Hello, Wylie,” Holly said.
“Hi, there,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’ve just lost my bloody mind, that’s all,” she said.
“Yeah, Quentin told me that you had to—”
“I didn’t have to do nothin’,” Holly said. “I didn’t know what else to do. Brian McAllen introduced us to the Finnegan brothers, and they seemed to be perfect for what we need. They have no confidence that there will be a full investigation by the police. They were asking us questions that we couldn’t answer—and they knew that we weren’t tellin’ them everything. They were going to walk out on us. These are men of character and principle, and they were willin’ to walk away from Mr. Lynchburg’s money.”
“I’m sorry, Holly,” I said quietly. “I know how hard it must have been for you, especially with people that you don’t even know. I guess they’ve met…?”
“Oh, yeah,” Holly said. “As soon the Finnegan’s eyes were opened, all four ghosts were right up in their faces.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Arabella was first.”
“Of course, she was,” Holly said. “And Bruiser was growling and flexing his muscles—”
“So what do you think the Finnegans will do now?” I asked.
“Pffft!” she said. “They won’t tell anybody, I know that. That would do wonders for their business wouldn’t it?”
I laughed. “I guess you’re right. They might not want to stick around and help, though. Just how freaked out are they?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Mr. Lynchburg rented them a suite here next to his. He says it’s to make working on the case more convenient, but I think he wants to keep an eye on them.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
“These are smart men,” she said. “And obviously they’re the curious sort—that’s why they do what they do.”
“Hey, you know what I just thought of?” I asked.
“What’s that?”
“What kind of investigators wouldn’t jump at the chance to have four invisible assistants?” I said.
“You might have a point, there,” Holly said.
“They work cheap, too,” I said.
“As far as we know,” Holly said.
“They might find it exciting,” I said. “Challenging. Fun—and no real danger to speak of.”
“As far as we know,” she said.
“It’s not like they can wind up….more dead,” I said.
“There are worse things than dead,” Holly said.
“There are?” I asked. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s something I’ve heard before.”
“That sounds like a movie trailer,” I said.
“In a world…where there are worse things than being dead…”
“Wylie, I need to go,” Holly said. “We have to be ready to meet with the police tomorrow, and at the moment, our investigative team is having a hard time concentrating.”
“Okay,” I said. “I hear that Brian McAllen is a club member now, too.”
“He’ll be here any minute,” Holly said. “He knows, but he hasn’t been introduced yet.”
“I’ll let you go,” I said. “Sounds like a hectic day for you. I…
“I miss you, Holly.”
There was a slightly long and awkward pause.
“I miss you, too,” Holly said. “You’re still…you haven’t lost Duncan?”
“No,” I said. “I’m still seeing the others, too. I just about messed up this morning. I didn’t know where Duncan was, and I thought—”
“You thought you had lost him,” Holly said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I sort of panicked.”
“Listen to me, Wylie,” Holly said. “You have to prepare yourself. This is one reason it was so hard for me to—it’s going to happen, Wylie. I’ve been through this with my Uncle Seth. It shocked him whenever he lose the sight—and he wasn’t losing sight of his family. He got really afraid. You should prepare to lose sight of Duncan. Be ready for it. Duncan will still be there—just like he had been for weeks.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good luck, Holly. I’m always there with you, in spirit.”
“Thank you,” Holly said.
In spirit. That means so much more to me than it used to.
Less than a minute after I finished talking to Holly, my cell phone rang. I answered it without looking.
“Wylie?” said a familiar voice. “So, you haven’t been abducted, after all.”
Yikes.
My mom. And I haven’t begun to prepare for this conversation.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. “Sorry. It’s been really crazy around here.”
“I can imagine,” she said. “Keeping the Whack-A-Mole and bowling games loaded with tickets—hosting birthday parties—you must be selling tons of pizza.”
“Ha, ha, Mom,” I said. “I told you, the Castle is not a pizza restaurant. It’s a real Scottish castle; originally constructed in the fifteen hundreds.”
“Well, of course, it is, Honey,” she said. “I’ll bet it’s just adorable—like a box of baby bunnies.”
“Oh, it’s cute, all right,” I said. “I could show you the blood stains from the peasant rebellion of sixteen—”
“That will be enough of that talk,” Mom said. “I promise not to make fun of your job anymore. That’s what my job is now, you know; making fun of things.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” I said. “I was going through your online store the other day, and some of your t-shirts are getting a little….edgy.”
My mother went to work writing for a Christian greeting card company after she and Dad split up. She eventually started her own company, which specializes in t-shirt design. This isn’t as homogenized as you might first believe. My parents grew up in the heart of the “hippie” movement.
“I guess I have taken a little bit of a left turn, you might say,” she said. “My mood got a little dark for a while and some of my employees—Oh, I just hate the word! My girls—came and talked to me—like an intervention. They were probably afraid we were all about to go on welfare. I had to do something, though. All of my costs have gone up, and sales are nothing like they used to be.”
“Are you doing okay?” I asked. “Don’t sit up there eating cat food and not telling me.”
“The bills are being paid, and I can afford bologna at least once a week,” she said. “I fry it up for a special treat.”
“I’m serious, Mom,” I said. “I’m making decent money. We’re family, you know.”
“I remember,” she said. “Don’t start worrying about me. I can diversify a little more if I have to—I’ve heard that there is a Christian Biker t-shirt market that’s looking for an infusion of new designs.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” I said. “Hey, stop me if you’ve heard this one. Jesus, Peter, and Judas climb off of their Harleys and walk into a bar—”
“Wylie Osborne Westerhouse!” she yelled. “You watch your mouth!”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Baby steps.”
“Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”
There it was.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it, Mom,” I said. “I met this girl—”
“I should have known,” she said. “Let me guess—she works at the pizz—at this castle, too.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I don’t know what differ—”
“Believe me—I’m not complaining,” she said.
That’s funny. That’s what it sounded like to me.
“How can I co
mplain, Son?” she said. “You have a job and a healthy interest in a relationship that has the potential for making me a doting grandmother. Maybe I’m being presumptuous; I shouldn’t automatically assume that this girl is ready for children. Does she have good-sized hips?”
“My God, Mom,” I said. “Is that really your first question?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have to ask at all if you were bringing her here for Thanksgiving,” she said.
“Mom—”
“But I suppose she’s already invited you to have dinner with her folks and her grandparents—and Aunt Agnes, who makes the pumpkin pie that’s just to die for—”
“Dial it back a little, Debbie Drama,” I said. “You’re not even close.”
“No?” she said. “It’s her pecan pie, then. Or her candied yams.”
“Nope,” I said. “You’re cold as ice.”
“Oh, my,” she said. “They’re not in the Mafia or one of those space-cults? Wait. They’re not Libertarians, are they?”
“Holly lived with her uncle until he passed away a few weeks ago,” I said. “Her parents have been missing for over six months.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Wylie. I’m acting like a fool.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said. “There’s no way you could have guessed—”
“Her parents are missing?” she asked. “They disappeared?”
I heard her inhale.
“Do they work for the government?” she whispered. “They’re not spies, are they? Do they work for the CIA or the NSA—?”
“No, Mom,” I said. “They don’t. Holly and her family are from Scotland. They used to own the Castle McIntyre. It was their home.”
“The castle where you work?” she asked. “In Branson?”
“The same one,” I said.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “This girl lost her parents; and then lost her uncle, and then your friend bought her house and moved it to Branson—and now she’s your girlfriend?”