“Ms. James, I have to tell you, I am the biggest fan.” The mini-skirted woman stepped forward as Nicky and her mother reached the first-floor hall. “I’m Marsha Browning with the Coastal Observer. We cover all the local news for Pawleys Island, Litchfield, and Murrels Inlet. That was just remarkable. Could I possibly get an interview?”
“I’d be honored.” Every inch the gracious diva now, Leonora smiled and shook hands.
“You’ll need to call her assistant and set up an appointment for another time. I’ll get you the number.” Nicky ran interference with the ease of long practice. As her mother accepted congratulations all around, Nicky was relieved to see Livvy, flanked by Uncle Ham and Uncle John, who were each holding one of her arms, slowly approaching. Livvy’s face was pale and puffy, and she was moving as though each step was an effort, but at least she was no longer red-eyed and weepy.
Nicky’s gaze locked with her sister’s. A moment of wordless communication passed between them. During the course of their growing-up years, they’d been the opposite of close, as popular boy-magnet Olivia had queened it over gawky wallflower Nicky. Even as adults, though the three years that separated them seemed to shrink with each passing birthday, they weren’t exactly friends. The fact was, they had very little in common except genes. Livvy had married right out of college, married Ben Hollis of the Charleston Hollises, which in this part of the country was akin to marrying a god, and had spent the last ten years living in Charleston sixty miles from where they’d grown up, queening it over local society just like she had once queened it over Nicky, being the perfect wife as her husband had risen in the family business, volunteering, lunching, doing things that were inexplicable to Nicky, such as serving as president of the Junior League. Nicky, on the other hand, hadn’t been able to shake the dust from this little corner of the South off her feet fast enough. Since college, she’d been doing her best to carve out a career in television, moving frequently, as she’d gotten jobs in bigger TV markets in bigger cities until she’d wound up in Chicago last August on Twenty-Four Hours Investigates. It was her big break, she’d thought at the time, but as the show had failed to take off, she finally was forced to amend that thought. She and Livvy saw each other maybe twice a year, and the rest of the time communicated basically through their mother. But sometimes, particularly when their larger-than-life mother was concerned, they found themselves in accord and able to work together, especially when something was to their mutual benefit.
Like now. Livvy wanted to go home; Nicky wanted to get their mother out of her hair. Their needs dovetailed perfectly.
Raising her voice slightly, Nicky called to her sister over the heads of the assembled company, “Oh, Liv, don’t you feel well?”
Everyone turned to look at Livvy, something which Nicky knew her sister, in her present condition, would not appreciate. But to Livvy’s everlasting credit, she kept her game face on.
“I have a headache,” Livvy said in the pathetic little-girl voice that never failed to get their mother’s instant attention—and never failed to set Nicky’s teeth on edge. Now, though, as Leonora looked past her public to frown at her older daughter in concern, Nicky blessed Livvy’s acting ability. “I need to go home. Now.”
“You should go with her, Mama,” Nicky said in her mother’s ear. She herself couldn’t leave yet—there were lots of things that had to be finished up before she could call it a night—but getting her mother out of the way before Leonora could blow a gasket was absolutely Job One. “She needs you.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.” Without the turbulence of an upcoming TV appearance to distract her, Leonora was once again ready to concentrate on her elder daughter’s well-being. With a gracious smile and a few more hand-shakes all around, she moved toward Livvy.
“Take my car,” Nicky called after her. Without the bright light that was Leonora to hold them, the little knot of her admirers started to flutter away in various directions. “The keys are in it. There are some things I need to do here, so I’ll just catch a ride with somebody.”
Uncle John acknowledged that with a wave. Nicky watched with relief as the four of them headed in a tight little cluster toward the door. Then Leonora looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes were once again baleful as they met Nicky’s.
“Nicole,” she said. “Find out.”
Nicky sighed. She should have known that she wasn’t going to get off quite that easily.
“I will,” she promised, knowing that her mother meant find out where the screams had come from.
“And then you come straight home and tell me.”
“I will,” Nicky said again, although her voice was a little fainter. So much for the peaceful solitude of her hotel room in Charleston, she thought, wistfully picturing the airport Holiday Inn accommodation with its two queen-sized beds and a TV. Oh, well, she had never really expected to use it anyway. She’d last seen her mother and sister during a whirlwind Christmas visit, and she’d known even when she’d checked in that the chances that she would actually sleep there were slim. Her mother would never forgive her if Nicky came home and stayed in a hotel. One night of family-centered chaos wouldn’t kill her.
On the other hand, if it turned out that the screams had been faked and somebody on the TV crew was responsible, Leonora might.
As if she could read Nicky’s mind—well, she probably could—Leonora gave her a final sharp look before Livvy and the uncles managed to take her with them out the door.
“Looks like we get to keep our jobs one more day,” Gordon said cheerfully from behind her. Nicky turned around to see that he was winding up cable. A big orange coil of it was looped over his arm, and he was adding more to it by the second as he moved through the downstairs, taking it up from the floor. “I’ve been hearing good things.”
“Yeah?” That was good news.
“That was one hell of an ending.”
“Yeah.” If this time she sounded slightly dispirited, it was because she was. She lowered her voice. No point in letting anybody who wasn’t on the payroll know that there was some question about the authenticity of their blockbuster finale. “Those screams—you were down here. You didn’t happen to see anybody screaming, did you?”
Gordon shook his head. Then, pausing in the doorway between the hall and the dining room, he frowned at her. “It was some kind of ghost or something, wasn’t it?”
Nicky wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. I’d like to think so. They just sounded so . . . real.”
“All I know is, I was right here in the hall, and I didn’t see anybody screaming. I sure heard ’em, though. Made me jump, I don’t mind telling you.”
Nicky made a wry face. “That good, huh?”
“Hey, last time I jumped like that was when my ex-wife walked in while I was scoping out the babysitter.”
Nicky laughed. Gordon grinned and resumed his task. Feeling a little better, Nicky headed for the kitchen, where, she presumed from the sounds that were emanating from it, she would find the rest of the crew. Maybe the screams had been legitimate. After all, she’d certainly thought they were at the time. It could be just that after her negative experience with her own TV show, Leonora was paranoid. And Leonora hadn’t been totally herself tonight. Maybe she was enough off her game not to recognize a ghostly shriek when she scared one up.
A group was coming down the stairs as Nicky went by: Tina, Marisa, the Schultzes, Barney Fife, and his side-kick. Nicky grimaced inwardly at the sight of those last two, and picked up the pace in a bid to avoid any further encounters of the unpleasant kind.
The show was over. Time to get out of Dodge while the getting was good.
When Nicky entered the kitchen, Cassandra and Mario were packing up their supplies and guzzling their favorite cranberry Snapple, while Bob was setting a partially dismantled camera down on the counter near the sink. They suspended their conversation to greet her with high fives, low fives, and a variety of other variations of “Great show!”
“Okay,
I’ve got a question for you guys,” Nicky said when the accolades had died down. She was leaning back against the center island, trying not to remember that her mother had said that fifteen years ago, there had been a puddle of blood about six inches from her right foot. Tara Mitchell had been stabbed in this room. . . . Nicky gave an inner shiver, found her gaze resting on the vivid scarlet roses that adorned the wallpaper, and tried her best to dismiss all thoughts of violence and gore from her mind. After all, the murders and the subsequent reports of ghostly sightings were the sole reason they were in the house to begin with. It was ridiculous, at this late date, to let the whole haunted-house thing start to freak her out. “Did somebody on our team get a little creative and fake those screams?”
A beat passed. Three pairs of eyes looked at her, clearly surprised.
“No way,” Bob said, his hand suspended over the lens cap he’d been tightening. “That wasn’t in the script. Anyway, here on location, we don’t have the technical capability to digitally come up with anything like that.”
“I’m not talking high-tech.” Nicky folded her arms over her chest and gave him a level look. “I’m talking somebody screaming.”
Bob frowned. “Not that I know of. ”
Nicky looked at Cassandra. She shook her head, her chocolate-brown eyes wide and innocent. “Girl, believe me, if I could scream like that, I’d be looking for a career in slasher movies,” she said, and took a swig from her Snapple. “Those were some eerie-ass screams.”
“I thought it was a ghost for sure.” Mario snapped a makeup case closed. “Gave me the—what do you call them?—Williams, let me tell you.”
He shivered theatrically.
“Willies,” Cassandra corrected.
“You mean it wasn’t some kind of paranormal thing?” Bob asked, his frown deepening. Like Nicky, the bulk of his experience was with hard news, and the idea that something on their program was less than authentic, once digested, wouldn’t sit well with him, she knew.
“I don’t know that it wasn’t,” Nicky said cautiously. “I’m just trying to make sure. Isn’t there some saying, like, trust but verify?”
“I never heard of that.” Mario, who, as a fairly recent immigrant from Guatemala, was constantly trying to perfect his English, looked interested. “Is that on one of your coins?”
“No,” Cassandra said. “It’s, like, a famous quotation or something.”
“Ah.” Mario nodded. His expression made it clear that he was storing up the expression for later reuse.
She’d known this group long enough and well enough to tell when they were lying, Nicky decided, looking from one to the other. They weren’t.
“Where’s Karen?” Nicky asked, as the next likely possibility occurred to her.
“She got a call on her cell phone and took it outside,” Gordon said. Pulling a camera dolly behind him, he’d entered the kitchen just in time to hear her question and jerked a thumb toward the French doors. “From the way she acted, it was important. I kinda got the impression that she was talking to His Highness the Head Honcho.”
His Highness the Head Honcho was Sid Levin, Twenty-four Hours Investigates’s executive producer.
“Oh, yeah?” Nicky knew she sounded apprehensive, but she couldn’t help it. Her job—her career—rose and fell on Sid Levin. “What did he say?”
Gordon shrugged. “Don’t know. You’ll have to ask Karen.”
“I will.” Nicky headed toward the patio. Her exit was hastened by the fact that Barney Fife and his little cop buddy entered the kitchen just as she reached the French doors.
“You guys need any help closing up shop?” he asked.
With one hand on the door latch, Nicky glanced over her shoulder to find his eyes on her. Gordon said something to him by way of a reply, but Nicky missed hearing it as she pulled the door open and stepped outside. She’d had enough stress and worry for one day, she thought as she closed the door behind her. She felt emotionally and physically drained, tired to her toes, used up, worn-out, empty. Dealing with the pain-in-thepatootie local fuzz was more than she could face at the moment.
Let somebody else do it for a change.
She stopped just outside the door as darkness and the sweet night air enfolded her. For an instant, she simply stood there on the small stone patio with her eyes closed, savoring the heady aroma of flowers and sweetgrass and the sea, the faint taste of salt on her tongue, the gentle wafting breeze. It was warm, even warmer than it had been in the house, but the breeze kept it from being hot. On this part of the island, the gurgle of the ocean was muted, distant: a backdrop for the calling of the night birds that nested in Salt Marsh Creek. Their fluting cries, along with the whirring of the insects and the rustle of the leaves high up in the trees, made an eerily beautiful chorus that was as much a part of her as her bones.
The night music of Pawleys Island. In all the years she’d been away, she’d never, ever forgotten what it sounded like.
Tonight, it called to her, made her think of ghosts—not the ghosts that might or might not be hanging around the Old Taylor Place, or the ghosts that popular tradition said had long walked the island, but her own ghosts: the ghosts of her past.
She had to hold them at bay only a little while longer, she reminded herself, even as, unwanted and unsolicited, they began to unspool themselves from the deepest recesses of her mind. Her father . . . the boat . . . torrents of cold, dark water . . .
No. She refused to remember. By this time tomorrow night, she would be safely back in her apartment in Chicago.
Mission accomplished.
It was a good feeling, and as she savored it, Nicky felt some of the tension that had built up in her neck and shoulders begin to ease. As impossible as it had earlier seemed, they’d done it: put on at least twenty minutes (and never mind that it was an hour-long show) of must-see live TV.
Pay attention, CBS.
With that thought, Nicky opened her eyes and looked around for Karen.
There she was. Nicky spotted her almost at once. The moon was brighter now, a pale white disk that gave off just enough light so that Nicky could see Karen’s slender shape walking slowly down the inky black asphalt path that was the driveway. It was too dark for her to be able to make out any details, but from the way Karen was moving, Nicky guessed that she was still talking on the phone: Her pace was slow, and there was a certain aimlessness to it that made her appear to be walking more for the sake of being in motion than with any destination in mind. Certainly, she did not seem to be heading anywhere purposefully, such as toward her car, which, like the others, was parked out of sight around the bend in the driveway.
After I ask her about the screams, I need to tell her she’s giving me a ride, Nicky reminded herself, and crossed the patio to head down the driveway after Karen.
She felt herself growing tense all over again at the thought of what she might be getting ready to hear.
Please, let the news from Chicago be good.
Once she was away from the warm, yellow rectangles of light that spilled from the house’s windows, the driveway became unexpectedly dark. First, the solid bulk of the garage to her right, and then the trio of magnificent live oaks that stood sentinel beside it, blocked out the moon. The night sounds were louder now, as if being away from the house somehow amplified them. The breeze seemed to have picked up, so suddenly Nicky was almost chilly, despite her suit jacket. She could see Karen’s shadowy figure in front of her, moving into the bend of the driveway now, and she almost called to her to wait. Then she remembered that Karen was on the phone, probably on a business-related call, possibly even talking to the Head Honcho himself, and refrained. How unprofessional would she sound if the phone picked up her voice in the background, yelling at Karen to stop?
Nicky stepped up the pace, determined to silently catch her. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she imagined how pleased the home office must be with how the program had turned out. Karen was probably listening to somebody—or may
be several different people—extol its praises. She could probably expect a congratulatory call herself, just as soon as she retrieved her phone from her purse and turned it back on again.
There was no—okay, almost no—possibility that the news could be bad.
As she hurried after Karen, Nicky made up her mind about something: Even if the screams turned out to be anything other than paranormal in origin, she wouldn’t be telling—not her mother, not the rest of the crew, not anybody. When and if she discovered the culprit—if there even was a culprit—she was going to impress upon them the wrongness of what they had done, and then swear them to eternal secrecy. That way, her mother’s integrity would be preserved, her wrath would be averted, and Nicky herself would not have to make any uncomfortable and possibly career-damaging admissions to anybody.
The show was over: Let it rest in peace. It would be best for all concerned if it was allowed to go down in the annals of television history exactly as it had been experienced by the viewers: with the origin of those chilling final screams forever a mystery.
Nicky had almost reached the bend in the driveway when she realized that she couldn’t see Karen anymore. She frowned and slowed her steps, peering intently ahead. A number of tall pines with shaggy branches that reached clear to the ground clustered together to her left a few paces ahead, just as the driveway made its swooping turn to slope down toward the street. One of the gnarled and bearded live oaks on the other side seemed to reach out toward the pines, its branches arching above the pavement some twenty feet overhead. The shadow that the trees cast was so dark that it seemed to swallow up everything, even the faint gleam of the asphalt itself.
Even Karen.
No, wait, there she was—a stray moonbeam glinted off something metallic deep in the shadow of the trees that could only be Karen’s cell phone. Karen was closer now—surprisingly close. She must have stopped to finish her conversation, and Nicky had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t noticed that she was rapidly catching up.
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