The Ghost Who Stayed Home

by Anna J. McIntyre

  Agent Thomas, who had just stepped onto the front walk leading to Marie’s house, stopped a moment. “How do you know about the kidnapping?”

  Marie let out a snort and said, “I’m old, I’m not clueless.”

  When they were in the house, Adam explained, “The man who works for me is the one who found the pilot. I stopped by the police station a little while ago and spoke to Brian Henderson—I assume that’s the one who contacted you. We discussed the possibility of a kidnapping, which is why I’m here.”

  “You’re the grandson?” Wilson asked.

  Adam nodded and then put out his hand. “I’m afraid I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Adam Nichols.”

  WALT STOOD at the door of the parlor, watching a strange cartoon character dance across the TV screen. Yellow and square with brown pants, black boots, and a large nose, Walt had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to be—but he was fairly certain the creature next to him was a starfish—one wearing flowered pants.

  “What is that supposed to be?” Walt asked as he walked toward the television.

  Evan looked up from the sofa, where he was spread out, watching the show. “SpongeBob SquarePants,” he explained. He sat up and turned to Walt.

  “It should be SpongeBob RectangularPants,” Walt said.

  Evan wrinkled his nose. “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” Walt snapped his fingers and the television turned off.

  “Wow, you can turn the TV off by snapping your fingers!”

  Walt shrug. “I don’t actually need to snap my fingers to do it.” To prove the point, the television turned on again and then off while Walt stood perfectly still. “It just looks more dramatic when I snap my fingers.”

  “Oh…” Evan got up from the couch. “Did you find my dad?”

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t successful in the dream hop. But I’ll try again later—maybe I’ll be more successful tonight. But for now, I was wondering if you’re hungry?”

  “Yeah, I am.” Evan followed Walt out of the room and down the hall.

  Once in the kitchen, Walt opened the refrigerator. “I’m afraid there isn’t much in here. Danielle had Joanne clean it out before she left.” He closed the refrigerator door and then opened the freezer. “There’s some frozen meat in here, but I’m afraid that won’t be of any use.”

  “Why not?” Evan stood by Walt and looked in the freezer.

  “It will take hours for this to thaw.”

  “Don’t you have a microwave?” Evan asked.

  Walt glanced at the microwave on the counter. He remembered when Danielle had bought it. At the time, she had explained what it was, but he had never given it much attention. “Yes, but I have no idea how to use it.”

  “I do!” Evan said proudly.

  Walt looked down at Evan and frowned. “You do?”

  “Sure. My brother and I always help Dad make dinner. Dad lets me thaw the meat. He showed me how.”

  “Really? Interesting.”

  Evan nodded and then glanced around the kitchen, looking for the microwave. When he spied it, he walked over to have a closer look. “It is a little different from ours, but I think I can figure it out.”

  “Just as long as you don’t burn the house down.”

  Evan smiled. “Dad told me never put foil or metal in the microwave because it’ll blow up the house.”

  “Blow up?”

  Evan shrugged. “Eddy said Dad only said that so I wouldn’t put metal or foil in the microwave ’cause it might break it. He said the house won’t really blow up; but I’m not sure.”

  “Well, let’s not test it.”

  “But I did start a fire in it once when I made popcorn!” Evan said proudly.

  “What happened?”

  “Dad turned the microwave off and the fire went out. I was getting ready to spray it with water when he walked in the kitchen. We aren’t allowed to have microwave popcorn anymore.”

  “Humm…then perhaps we should leave the microwave alone,” Walt suggested.

  “Oh, I’ve never started a fire when thawing meat. Promise!”

  Unsure, Walt looked from Evan to the freezer. “Well, let’s see what we have in here…” He pulled out a package of frozen hot dogs.

  “I like hot dogs!” Evan announced when he saw the package.

  “Then hot dogs it is.” Walt closed the freezer and examined the package, looking for signs of metal or foil. Satisfied it was safe, he handed the frozen package to Evan and watched as the young boy put it in the microwave and turned on the appliance.

  They stood there a few moments, watching the digital numbers tick away, when Sadie started barking.

  “Oh no, that must be Joanne.” Walt glanced at the clock. “She’s earlier than I expected. Hurry, Evan, hide!”

  With the microwave still running, Evan dashed from the kitchen and headed for the downstairs bedroom closet.

  NINE

  Forgetting the microwave for a moment, Walt followed Evan to the downstairs bedroom and made sure he was tucked safely in its closet. It wasn’t until he heard Joanne open the front door did he remember about the microwave. In an instant he moved from one room to the next, appearing in front of the still-running appliance.

  “I can do this,” Walt mumbled under his breath. Looking over the controls of the microwave, he pushed the stop button. The microwave turned off. Walt smiled, proud of himself. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Sadie, I’m happy to see you too!” Walt heard Joanne say as she entered the kitchen, Sadie jumping gleefully at her side.

  Walt went to the kitchen table and sat down, watching Joanne, who was now refilling Sadie and Max’s stainless steel water bowl at the kitchen sink. As she waited for the bowl to fill, her gaze wandered over to the nearby microwave. She cocked her head slightly, as if she was seeing something unexpected.

  Walt frowned, wondering why she was staring at the microwave. He watched as she abruptly turned off the faucet—her gaze still fixed on the appliance—and abandoned the water bowl in the sink.

  Absently wiping her hands on the sides of her jeans, she walked to the microwave and stood before it, staring. Walt got up from the table and walked to her, wondering what she was looking at. The light was off and the face of the door was dark. There was no way she could see the hot dogs still sitting inside the appliance.

  In the next moment, Walt knew what had caught her attention. Normally, the numbers displayed on the microwave reflected the time—unless it was running. The digital number currently on the microwave reflected the remaining defrost time. Walt realized he had only paused the appliance; he hadn’t cleared it.

  Joanne reached for the microwave door and Walt panicked. If she found the partially frozen hot dogs inside, she would know someone was in the house.

  “Sadie, quick, start barking and run to the front door—hurry!” Walt commanded. “And keep barking!”

  The golden retriever started barking and ran from the kitchen. Joanne immediately abandoned the microwave and hurried after Sadie.

  Walt followed Joanne to the door and watched her hurry down the hallway away from the kitchen. Satisfied she was momentarily distracted, he returned to the microwave and opened its door, removing the hot dogs and returning them to the freezer.

  “DANI,” Lily whispered in the darkness.

  “Yeah?” Danielle turned to Lily. The two women lay together on the concrete floor of the dimly lit building, each with a foot securely shackled to a chain.

  “Do you think we’re going to get out of here?”

  Danielle reached out and took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. She didn’t let go, but continued to hold it.

  “We’re still alive. If they wanted us dead, I think we’d be dead already. I’m just worried about Chris; he needs a real doctor.”

  “At least he has Carol Ann,” Lily reminded her.

  “I know, but she’s not a doctor. He needs to get to a hospital.”

  “I feel sorry for the guys. At least y
ou and me can talk about this without them hearing. Everything the guys say, they can probably hear.”

  “If they’re listening,” Danielle said.

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “They obviously don’t want to give the guys the opportunity to plot some escape, which will be kind of difficult if they have to shout while putting together a plan.”

  “It’s a little insulting if you think about it,” Lily said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If they chose to separate us so it would be harder for us to formulate an escape plan, yet were forced to chain two of us together, it obviously means they felt you and I were less of a threat than the guys—or even Kelly.”

  Danielle chuckled.

  “What is so funny? I don’t think this is funny!”

  “Think about it, Lily. Of all of us, we are the two who shouldn’t have been put together. You and I have the ability to get a message to the outside world.”

  “You mean the dream hop?”

  “Yes. I bet Walt will keep trying, and when he does, we can let him know what’s going on. And if Percival comes back, maybe we’ll have something useful to tell Walt.”

  “And exactly how is that going to help?” Lily asked. “Even if we knew where we were, how is Walt going to help us if he’s stuck in Marlow House and can’t communicate with the outside world?”

  “Lily, that’s why it’s a good thing we’re together—because we can devise a plan and come up with something. In fact, that’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

  “Okay, so what have you come up with?”

  “What are you two talking about?” Ian called out from the darkness.

  “I hope it’s a plan to get us out of here,” came Kelly’s voice.

  “If they only knew,” Danielle whispered.

  “We’re just wondering where we are,” Lily called back.

  “Lily!” Danielle scolded. “They might hear.”

  “So. They have no idea what we can do with the information.”

  “My guess is somewhere in the desert,” the chief called out.

  Danielle and Lily exchanged glances.

  “Why do you say that?” Lily called back.

  “Think about it. It’s April—well, I guess it’s May now,” came Joe’s loud voice. “Doesn’t seem to be any air-conditioning or heating in here. If we were near home, it would be a lot colder in here at night.”

  A door opened, letting in a stream of light. “Quiet in there unless you want us to take your water away,” a man’s voice ordered. The door shut, cutting off the brief streak of sunlight.

  “They don’t want us to figure out where we are,” Danielle whispered.

  “Even if we do, how is Walt going to get that information to the right people?”

  “He could write a note and leave it for Joanne,” Danielle said with a snort.

  “Right,” Lily said dryly. “Like that would work.”

  “It would probably give poor Joanne a heart attack.”

  Silently, they each considered possible options. Finally, Lily blurted, “Heather!”

  “Heather what?”

  “Walt can get Heather to help us!” Lily suggested.

  Danielle frowned. “Heather?”

  “The only people I know who can see spirits—you, Chris, Heather, and Evan MacDonald. You and Chris are here. I don’t really see a six-year-old boy being able to help. It would be possible for Walt to communicate with Evan via a dream hop. But seriously, what could Evan do? But Heather, she might be able to get the information to the right people.”

  “Heather sees spirits on occasion. Sure, her sensitivity has increased, but we don’t even know if she’d be able to see and hear Walt. In the past, she’s only seen flashes of him. Nothing more. And if he did reach out to her in a dream hop, she’d probably wake up in the morning thinking she had just been dreaming.”

  “I think we need to consider it, Dani. Heather might be our only link between Walt and help.”

  BRIAN HENDERSON WAS SITTING in his office, talking to the two FBI agents, Special Agents Thomas and Wilson, when he heard back from the phone company. The two agents sat quietly and listened while Brian took the call.

  When he got off the phone, he looked at the agents and said, “That’s interesting. The phone Evan MacDonald used to call his aunt, it’s the landline at Marlow House.”

  “Marlow House?” Wilson frowned.

  “It’s the bed and breakfast—”

  “Yes,” Wilson interrupted. “We know what it is. If you’ll recall, we went over there when we first interviewed Danielle Boatman about Baron Huxley.”

  “Ahh, that’s right.” Brian stood up. “I’m going to go over there. Hopefully Evan’s still at the house.”

  Wilson and Thomas simultaneously stood up.

  “We were led to believe the house is currently vacant,” Thomas said. “Is whoever staying there in some way involved in the hijacking? Are they holding the boy hostage?”

  “I have no idea why Evan would be there. But as far as I know, the only ones staying at the house are Max and Sadie.”

  “I think we need to learn a little more about Max and Sadie before we barge over there and put that boy in danger,” Wilson said seriously.

  “I agree,” Thomas concurred.

  Brian began to chuckle.

  “I don’t find this amusing,” Wilson snapped.

  With a sheepish grin, Brian said, “Max is Danielle’s cat, and Sadie is Ian’s golden retriever. They were left at the house. Joanne has been going over there several times a day to feed them and check on things. In fact, I need to call Joanne so she can let me into the house.”

  “NOW THAT I think about it, it’s entirely possible Evan is in the house,” Joanne told Brian and the two FBI agents. They stood by the gate leading to Marlow House.

  “Why do you say that?” Brian asked.

  “When I got here this morning, there was mud all over the kitchen porch and all over the outside of the doggy door. But neither Sadie or Max had any signs of having been in the mud. There was also a broken tree branch, which I suppose could have happened if he climbed the tree to get into the yard.”

  “Is this doggy door large enough for a boy to crawl through?” Wilson asked.

  “Yes, someone Evan’s size. I think he could easily get through it. But I can’t imagine why he would come here.”

  “And you didn’t see him when you were here earlier?” Thomas asked.

  Joanne shook her head. “No. I’ve been here twice today, and never saw anything. But this is a big house. I didn’t really go through it. Didn’t see any reason to check all the rooms. But I still don’t understand, why would he come here?”

  “Hopefully he’s still here and can tell us. One thing we do know, he made that call from this house,” Brian said.

  A few minutes later, Joanne handed Brian the house key. Instead of going inside, she waited in her car.

  “This house is a little creepy,” Wilson muttered as Brian unlocked the front door.

  Brian laughed. “You have that right.”

  “What do you mean?” Thomas asked Brian. The door was now unlocked, but instead of entering immediately, the three men stood on the front porch of Marlow House.

  “Just that I’ve witnessed some strange things here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the damn place is haunted.”

  Thomas and Wilson exchanged glances while Brian pushed the door open and stepped inside the darkened entry hall.

  WALT HAD Evan once again tucked safely into the downstairs bedroom closet. It was Max who had signaled the alarm this time. Sadie had been sleeping soundly in the library, but Max was outside in a tree when he noticed company had arrived. He immediately dashed into the house to tell Walt, who in turn rushed Evan into hiding.

  “What are they doing here?” Walt asked when the three men entered the house. He immediately recognized Brian—not one of his favorite people, although Danielle had insisted he had become mu
ch more friendly. As for the other two men—it took Walt several minutes for recognition to click into place.

  “You’re those G-men who were here a few weeks back, questioning Danielle.”

  “I’ll go check the kitchen,” Brian whispered. There’s a door in there, and I don’t want him taking off.”

  “I’ll check this room.” Thomas nodded to the parlor.

  “I’ll look in that one.” Wilson motioned to the downstairs bedroom.

  “No!” Walt shouted. “You really do not need to go in there.”

  In the next moment, Walt was in the closet with Evan. “I want you to be real quiet. Don’t say a peep. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”

  Evan nodded, and in the next moment Walt vanished, reappearing in the bedroom outside the closet door. Wilson entered the room and looked around. Walt watched as the agent peeked under the bed and then looked in the adjoining bathroom before turning his attention to the closet.

  Clutching the doorknob of the closet door, Wilson attempted to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “He wasn’t in that front room or the living room,” Thomas told Wilson when he entered the bedroom a few minutes later, only to find his partner wrestling with the closet door.

  “What’s the problem?” Thomas walked into the room.

  “This won’t budge, and it doesn’t have a lock.”

  “He’s not in the library or kitchen. I also checked the bathroom,” Brian called from the doorway. Noticing Wilson struggling with the closet door, he stepped into the room. “What’s the problem?”

  “This damn door is stuck tighter than a drum!” Wilson cursed.

  Walt realized he couldn’t keep the door immobile indefinitely. It then dawned on him, If Evan has to go home, I can still visit him in a dream hop. What was I thinking?

  Brian walked to the closet. “Evan? Are you in there, Evan? This is Brian Henderson. Come on, open the door.”

  “If he is in there, I certainly don’t think he’s holding the door shut!” Wilson snapped. “I seriously doubt a six-year-old is stronger than me!”