by Etta Faire
The book he picked up was Golden Promises.
That did not seem like a coincidence. I slowed down the action so I could catch the name on the cover: Jeremy Mortimer.
Feldman pushed open the kitchen door, setting the glasses into the sink, tossing the book in the trash.
He turned on the water to wash the glasses, but turned it off again. His eyelids were too heavy, his vision too foggy.
I tuned into his thoughts, which were all just how tired he was, how he would finish things in the morning.
As he turned to head to bed, in the shadows of the darkened room, he saw it again.
The horse was on the card table, staring at him. He closed his eyes, and opened them. It was still there. He stumbled over to the table.
“What in the hell…” he repeated over and over, slurring his words, his ears stinging with anger.
But when he concentrated on the horse, the thing blurred into two images. Two horses that fogged around each other. His stomach churned and he rested a hand on the table to steady himself.
“You’re lucky we’re snowed in,” he said to the inanimate object. His voice sounded muffled and jumbled in our mind. Feldman had been drugged, all right, probably sleeping pills. I tried to think back on everything the man had consumed. But then he’d had more drinks than food. We never even tasted that chicken.
He continued, talking to the horse. “I’d chuck you into the snow if I could open that damn door.” He picked up the bank and looked around for a hammer or a bat, anything to smash the thing to pieces, knowing full well that wouldn’t work. The bank was two sides of solid metal, held together by a long, thick bolt. And he was too tired. So very tired. Even holding the horse took way too much effort.
It dropped from his hand, landing with a thud onto the table. He didn’t even check to see if it had dented the wood. Who cared? Wasn’t his table anymore.
He plopped down next to the horse, almost missing the chair, his breathing erratic, his heart pounding into his chest. That’s when he saw a thin ribbon draped across the horse’s back, that seemed to end in the coin slot, right by the horse’s neck.
Finally. He thought. Here was the joke. The punch line. He looked around the room to see if he could spot the jokester waiting in the shadows to spring out and say, “Gotcha” as soon as he pulled the ribbon out and whatever was on the other end popped out. He guessed it was probably a dime-store fake spider or roach or something.
They probably thought he’d be afraid. He wasn’t.
He couldn’t see anyone even though he knew someone had to be there.
He turned his blurred attention back to the horse. Pulling on the ribbon, he was barely able to maintain concentration. Something was at the end, just like he thought. But it seemed to be a note attached by a safety pin. He bit his lip as he angled the pin and the ribbon just right so he could maneuver it out of the slot.
When he pulled it out, I realized the note was more unusual than Feldman had described. He unfolded the small paper. It hadn’t been handwritten or typed. The words had been cut from what looked like the print from books, and pasted onto the paper.
I quickly tried to make sure my own conscience was separated from Feldman’s. He was drugged but I was not. And this was the time I needed to concentrate on the details so I could see how this ended.
He squinted and read the words out loud. You gamble. You lose.
From there, things went dark. Someone from behind must have thrown a small blanket or cloth over our head while yanking our chin back, snapping our neck into position. The force was immediate and swift, and Feldman was in no condition to fight against it.
I tried to get a sense of things. The smell and scratchiness of the fabric. Whether the killer was left or right handed. Anything to ground myself to the details.
I heard it first. The “chuck” sound you hear in horror movies when someone gets stabbed and you wonder how much of the sound would actually be real and how much was manufactured in the studio. A lot of that sound is real.
And I knew right away this was a life-altering cut, deep and undeniable. Pain shot through the numbness of the sleeping pills. Intense, red-hot pain that I knew must’ve been coming from my neck but I could no longer tell.
Every part of me wanted to end this and go back to Gate House, but I forced myself to live through it. This was someone’s life. Someone’s death. And the least I could do was stay here and help this jackass figure things out.
The blade was still in my neck. I felt it along my clavicle. I looked down, through the edge of the pillowcase over my head. It was upside down but I could still see the handle. RM.
I could no longer swallow, or breathe properly. Weird, gurgling noises came from my throat as I thrashed my arms wildly around, trying to pull the thing out. But the perpetrator seemed prepared for that. The knife twisted into my throat farther and farther, wider and deeper.
And as everything went dark and I knew we were done, I felt an odd connection to Feldman I hadn’t felt before.
I knew him better. And he knew me.
A male voice in the distance said, “What the hell…” just as we blacked out.
Chapter 27
Finding Your Voice
I wasn’t even the least bit tired or concerned when I finished my channeling. I strolled into the kitchen, grabbed a bagel from the bag in the bread bin, and began jabbing and slicing it with my dull knife until I eventually ripped it straight down the middle.
I slipped the pieces into my toaster oven, checking the time on the microwave clock. It was well past midnight. I’d been channeling for the longest time yet, but I wasn’t the least bit worried. I now knew the secret:
Ghosts can only hold the power you give them in life.
And I was no longer giving this one any. The other times I’d unintentionally given up way too much of myself.
I pulled open the fridge and grabbed the cream cheese, thinking about the memories I’d just relived. There had been an unknown voice at the time of Feldman’s death. One he probably hadn’t heard because he might already have blacked out from the pain. The voice was male, and very familiar. It had also come from across the room and it had sounded pretty surprised by what it was seeing.
I ran the other clues through my head. The note that had been fashioned from cut-out words of a book, probably the Golden Promises book Feldman had picked up when he was cleaning right before his death. At least now I had a name I could look up. I tried to remember it. Jeremy Mortimer. Mortimer. A pretty interesting and familiar name.
The bagel dinged and the smell of crispy bread filled the room when I opened the oven.
Regret. Golden Promises. Jeremy Mortimer. J. Mortimer.
I sat down at the dining room table and pulled open my laptop. Crunching down on my bagel, I looked up Feldman Banking and Trust. There was only a brief history of the company included on the Wikipedia page for Feldman-Martin, the firm it would later become.
Feldman Banking and Trust was founded in 1850 by Jeremy Mortimer Feldman III after an inheritance from his father.
The name jumped out at me like a weird cast iron bank.
“You wrote Golden Promises,” I said to the ghost I knew was here somewhere. “That’s how you knew it couldn’t have been your writer friend from New York harassing you. You were the writer friend. This was why you got so testy. Why you hated rich people and golden promises. Jeremy Mortimer was your secret. He was the side of you that you could never let people know existed. The side you could never truly be. The artist.”
I really wanted to read that book now.
But now I knew the murderer was someone who wanted Feldman to make the connection between Jeremy Mortimer and the Kentucky Derby, or regret.
“Which ones of your friends knew you wrote Golden Promises?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.
I bit hard on my bagel, thinking about the only other clue I could remember from the channeling, the RM on the end of the knife. Only one person had that monogram.
Richard Mulch. But just because the knife has your initials on it doesn’t mean you were the one behind it. Someone could just as easily have wanted to set him up.
Doc said Richie blamed him for his big loss at the Kentucky Derby even though Feldman was the one who talked him out of betting on the favorite…
It hit me. I stuffed the last piece of bagel in my mouth and went back to the Kentucky Derby page. The favorite. There was something very unusual about the favorite that year.
Chapter 28
The Root of the Problem
“This might not work,” I reminded Mr. Peters and Rosalie as we made our way down the basement steps of the restaurant the next day. The smell of sulphur was strong again, and grew stronger as we approached the door. I kept my breathing calm, refusing to even consider whether or not I was breathing in time with the thing in the wall.
I needed to remember I was in control.
Other than the bandage still around his head and the shaky way he scratched at it, Mr. Peters seemed fine. I could hardly blame him for being nervous, though.
“I just want to be done with this demon once and for all.” His lip quivered as he rummaged through the pocket of his work pants, bringing out a set of keys. “Thank you so much for trying to help.”
He seemed sincere. But I still wasn’t sure about him.
“Well, I, for one, think this is a bad idea. You’re being crazy,” Rosalie said. She casually leaned into Mr. Peters as he unlocked the door. I made a mental note to ask her about the casual-lean-in later.
“I know. But I think closure is the only way to get rid of both of our ghost problems.”
The door flung open as soon as Mr. Peters unlocked it like it had jumped from his grasp. The sound of breathing echoed off every wall of the speakeasy.
And I realized it was worse than ever. The breathing sounds were loud and sticky now, and as soon as I turned my flashlight on, I saw that the hole took up almost two walls, and extended all the way up to just under the ceiling.
I quickly reminded Mr. Peters and Rosalie to stay by the door, ready to call 911 if something happened. Then, I walked calmly over to the lamp and turned it on, picturing the speakeasy as it had been before things changed, back when it was lighter, calmer, and slightly more pleasant smelling.
It was all a part of how I planned to maintain control. I couldn’t picture things how they seemed right now, but instead, how they should seem.
So far, so good. I wasn’t being sucked across the room and nothing was being tossed at me.
I mentally grounded my feet as I walked over to the bar and picked up the horse from where it had fallen behind it. It looked the same as it had in the channeling, with very little fading.
Why were the awful things in life always the things made to last?
I set it down on the bar.
“When the horse this bank was patterned off of was born, the owners named her Regret because they’d wanted a colt and had received a filly,” I yelled over the sticky breathing sounds around me. “That female had a passion for racing, though, and went on to win the 1915 Kentucky Derby, the first female to do that. And she was a clear favorite to win. No surprises there. Still, Feldman, and many other people like him, didn’t bet on her. He talked his friends out of betting on her, too. Too many people weren’t about to bet on the girl.”
I looked around. A chill went up my spine. A low grumbling replaced the breathing. The wall seemed to be holding in its anger. I got the feeling it wanted to know what I had to say, though. I turned toward it.
“Hello, Drew,” I said, yelling out to her. “I know you’re here. I know you feel regret.” I motioned toward the horse. “You were angry when you killed Feldman. You wanted him to feel regret. You wanted him to know it was you. But he didn’t. That must’ve made you even angrier. You were supposed to be a team in life and on the investment. He was all you ever had in life, having been brought up in an orphanage.”
I picked the horse back up again. “Designing and making clothes was your passion, your one dream, and you were promised the opportunity to fulfill it, with your partner in life. You were saving for a dress shop. You both were. You from your meager seamstress job and Feldman from his writing and his wheeling and dealing.”
The opening in the back of the room grew larger, the breathing started up again. This time it was heavier and colder. I glanced over at Mr. Peters. He and Rosalie were standing right by the door, phones at the ready to call for help.
“I think we should go,” Mr. Peters said, his voice quivering.
I shook him off. I was just getting started. “It was supposed to be like Golden Promises. But when he sold the bar out from under you, you were out of luck, and desperate. Apparently, because no one bets on the girl, you were not going to get anything from your part of the investment.”
My eyes focused on the part of the brick wall that was still there, where words were forming.
Never. Never bet on the girl. Regret.
The lamp shot across the room, crashing by the front door. And Rosalie screamed. It was almost pitch black now despite my flashlight, making me realize just how much light that dim lamp was giving off.
I felt where to go, though. It was pulling me toward it.
“I know you won’t hurt me. You’re angry at Feldman. At life. Channel with me. Show me what happened. I’m guessing you had help that night. Was it Richie or Flo? You know you need closure too.”
The opening was pulsating now, with flaps that looked like the weird animated heart valves featured in high-school biology films. Every part of me said not to do this. A normal person would not walk toward a pulsating weird hole at the back of a room that smelled like sulphur. But I also knew I was not normal, and that I was going to do it.
Both Rosalie and Mr. Peters turned their flashlights on, illuminating my path as I walked toward the opening.
Rosalie screamed when she saw what I was doing. “Carly, it’s my job to tell you when you’re being stupid…”
“No it’s not. Nobody asked you to do that,” I replied.
“Well, you’re being stupid. And you know I can’t hold that in.”
“I don’t need you to tell me. And I don’t need you to watch. I’m going to be fine.” I tried to believe that, make my voice as confident as when I’d channeled with Feldman. I had to remember I had the power.
Still, I slowed my steps down. I was in no hurry to prove it to myself.
The room grew colder the closer I got to the pulsating hole. Shivering, I forced myself toward it, noticing for the first time that the snow-like particles floating and drifting in the blackness were ashes of burnt paper. Some still had the faint ink markings of words on them.
Rosalie yelled to me when I got to the edge. “Don’t you dare. That’s the gate to the hosts of evil…”
But I didn’t believe that’s what it was. This hole had been made by a rooting ghost. By Drew, trying to stop Feldman from making a backdoor and invading her space once again.
I let my mind go blank as I took a step into the cold darkness of the hole, barely registering the screams and gasps of my audience in the basement doorway.
I noticed the faint writing on one of the burnt pieces of floating paper said Golden Promises.
Chapter 29
A Convenient Logic
The room was bright and open, the tile along the kitchen counter a stark white, same as the walls and the appliances.
The smell of smoke was everywhere. I realized it was coming from me. I was inhaling it.
I was pretty sure I was Drew. I must’ve been Drew.
Tilting my head back, I blew smoke just above my face and watched it hang there a second before letting it fall against my eyes. I wanted the smoke to sting them. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” I said, my voice feminine and low. “It sounded like you said Felds is selling his part of the bar. That’s crazy. He would have told me. We bought the bar together.”
I knew for sure I was Drew then. I tried to talk to
her in our head. “Is this what you wanted to show me? I thought we were going to the night of Feldman’s death,” I said. She didn’t answer.
When our eyes stopped stinging, I was looking at Flo as she stood leaning over the counter in what was probably her kitchen. Her makeup was perfect, thick false-looking eyelashes, sculpted eyebrows. “Darling, it’s only together if you sign things together.” Her short, golden hair seemed to glisten in the light of the crystal chandelier just above our heads. Her kitchen was modern and sleek, just like her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you both put up money. But if he’s the only one with his Hancock on that paperwork then your share doesn’t count for anything.”
Drew waved the thought off. “It’s a speakeasy, an illegal club. There can’t be paperwork. It’s against the law.”
Her smile was crooked and confident. “There’s paperwork. Trust me. And it reads, ‘Drew gets nothing.’”
“He wouldn’t do that to me.”
“He’s a man. He doesn’t know not to. None of them do. They think your money is their money. But God forbid you try to touch their money. It’s a very convenient logic. Works really well for them.”
Drew shook her head, inhaling the cigarette deep into her lungs. I could tell by the way she was holding back the urge to cough, she didn’t smoke very often. “How do you even know? You’re rich.”
“My father owns everything, including my mother. It’s how he keeps us all on very short leashes.”
“Your leash doesn’t seem too short.”
Flo downed the clear drink in front of her that I was guessing wasn’t water. She opened a cabinet off to the side and grabbed a decorative bottle, pouring herself more, then she added a little more to Drew’s glass. “I found Daddy only pretends to dislike bailing me out. Having an unruly, young daughter is such a progressive problem to have.”