“You lost your job over Summer Place, and now my career is hanging on that same damnable house.”
“I don’t see how one connects with the other, especially since I don’t give a flying fuck about your career. Here’s to your health.” He finished his drink and then, again, grabbed the next before the server could place it on the table. Julie did the same and downed hers without hesitation.
“One more please. I have a rather long and disheartening plane ride back to New York with company I really don’t care for.”
“Where’s your little friend—being punished for failing to land the big one?”
“Professor, don’t give yourself too much credit. No matter what you may think of yourself, Summer Place will always be the star of your story.”
Kennedy was taken aback by the strange comment.
“So you actually believe the house is at the center of it all?”
“Of course. Now ask me if I’ve changed my view about you being guilty of negligent homicide?”
Gabriel didn’t say anything, he just waited.
“Why am I to blame for you losing your student, Professor? Can’t you admit that you took them into that house, and then afterwards there was one less than before?”
“I was always able to admit that. However, I will never admit to being a part of his disappearance. As I remember, the other participants backed me on that. Hell, it was they who reported it to me. There is a difference between being responsible for a thing, and being the cause of it.”
“From a man who, before he went into that house, didn’t really believe the bullshit he was researching, you just can’t get past that story about the house taking him and ruining you, can you?”
Kennedy downed half of his second drink and looked into Julie’s green eyes.
“That’s your problem, Ms. Reilly. I always believed in what I taught. The lesson of Summer Place was a lesson of the mind—how one inanimate object, and how it’s perceived, can influence the thinking pattern of a viable and otherwise intelligent person. It was never about haunted houses. But then again, my ancestors never thought the world was round, either.”
“One million dollars, Professor,” she said, swirling the ice in her glass.
“Excuse me?”
“Eight hours of your time. I host, and you are, well...the color, so to speak.” She didn’t smile at her obvious joke.
“I know you’re not asking me to return to Pennsylvania.”
“No, I’m asking you to fight for what you believe in—or once did, anyway. And I’m offering you one million dollars to do it. You get what the university was offered, plus a chance to show the world on live television what you couldn’t show them years ago.”
“You are out of your fucking mind!” He stood suddenly, almost knocking Julie out of the booth. He dug in his pocket and threw two twenties on the table, then thought a moment, reached out and took the money back. “You can use part of that million to pay for the drinks—I’m unemployed.”
Julie opened the passenger door and climbed into the rental car. The air conditioning felt like heaven as the morning gave way to the early afternoon.
“God, I forgot about the humidity here.”
“Well, I saw Kennedy leave in a huff, so I guess your charms failed to sway him,” Kelly stated flatly as she buckled her seatbelt.
“My charms, as you put it, had nothing to do with it. I planted a seed and now we’ll see if anything grows. Let’s head over to Kennedy’s apartment building. This is the part where he figures out he’s in deep trouble. Fertile ground will encourage the seed, and make my offer a little more attractive.”
“Offer?” Kelly asked, putting the car in gear.
“One million dollars to a man with $625 in his savings account can be very good fertilizer, don’t you think?”
“Does the network know about this offer?”
“Unlike you Ms. Delaphoy, I have the power of negotiation.”
Kennedy sat in his apartment, staring at the chipped top of his rickety table. He opened his personal journal from that night at Summer Place—the one with the evidence tag still stuck to its cover—and turned to the last page. He read and re-read the mocking words through the police cellophane. It had taken a full year after the night in question for them to release the single detached page back into his custody. The transparent word—EVIDENCE—was almost as bad as the words the plastic protected. However, the words were meant as a challenge just for him.
They Are Mine.
The words were an affront to him. One student had been taken from him, and the others were now lost in a world that no longer made sense to them, because of an entity the likes of which was unprecedented in the field of...Here, Kennedy always laughed. It was hard to find the words for what he was dealing with. Everything sounded too fantastical to be true.
He stared at the words through the plastic.
His doorbell rang, making him blink. He realized he had been transfixed for the span of several minutes. Worse, he couldn’t remember a single thought he’d had while he stared at the journal’s last page.
Kennedy slammed the journal closed and stood. He took a deep breath and then tossed the battered journal down onto the table. He knew who was at the door, but he opened it anyway, returning to the kitchen without a word.
“I only have one chair to offer,” he said over his shoulder.
Kelly and Julie looked around the small but tidy apartment. Kelly started to speak, but Julie placed a hand on her arm, silencing her question before it could be spoken. She watched the professor sit down at the table and pick up a journal.
“Tell me, has either one of you ever seen this?” He slid the book across the table.
There was a Pennsylvania State Police evidence tag still stuck to its cover and a larger plastic bag sticking out of the back pages somewhere. Gabriel opened it and turned the journal upside down so they could read the three words below the last entry through the plastic.
They Are Mine.
“I’ve never seen the actual journal, no. Only photographs,” Julie said. She placed her bag on the kitchen counter and took the only available chair.
“I only saw a copy, too,” Kelly seconded. Finding nothing to sit on, she leaned against the kitchen wall.
Kennedy pulled the journal back toward him and closed it.
“I have read and touched those words so many times. Do you know what happens when you touch the letters that make up those three words?”
Julie and Kelly waited. Kennedy had the reins now. They were there just to witness his turn of faith, and fate.
“Not a fucking thing. No insight into who—or what—wrote them. No magical epiphany that explains the mockery or the malice. It was a statement of fact. Whatever wrote it was in complete control.”
Julie wondered now if Kennedy really was in control or not. His deep blue eyes looked haunted as he lowered them to the closed journal.
“Now you want to go back into a place controlled by something that can kill?”
Kelly again started to speak, but Kennedy’s eyes said that the question had been rhetorical.
“This house,” he tapped the pile of research before him on the table, “is the haunted house. The one house that inspired every horror writer in the country to write about haunting, and the funny thing is, most never knew it even existed. Most still might not know. It’s like Summer Place travels through people’s minds and then they magically forget all about it, even though most of the literature on the subject of ghosts may be based upon this property, and this property alone.”
“You’re speaking of Shirley Jackson?” Kelly asked.
“Before her, there were ghost stories, but none that truly grabbed the reader and said, yes, there are things that go bump in the night. There is an unknown thing under your bed, and most definitely a horror in your closet. It preys on your mind and it knows exactly what scares you. It knows because whatever it is, it was once one of us.”
“Ghosts?�
� Julie asked.
“Ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them,” Kennedy said. “They protect something, maybe a dark secret. I think what makes this entity in Summer Place so evil, so insane, is the fact that it’s hiding a secret from the world that it will kill to keep.”
“Is that why anyone who goes in there runs a risk of encountering—it?” Kelly asked, mesmerized by Gabriel Kennedy’s intense gaze.
“It’s in here somewhere,” he said, tapping the pile of research. “It’s in the house’s past.”
“Can you find it?” Julie asked.
“I don’t know if I want to. Probing around has already cost one boy his life, and it’s cost five others, including myself, a life that makes sense. And now, as I understand it, two of your people are missing, and one young man may have lost his mind. The gamble is too great, I think.” Kennedy placed both hands on the table as if he was done with a lecture. The gesture seemed to say, I hope you wrote that down, because that’s all you’re going to get.
“But can we—”
“One million dollars and the right to choose my investigative team, and they get two hundred thousand dollars for their services—each,” he said firmly.
“Done,” Julie said. Her eyes held his as if she were challenging a bluff in a card game.
“The people I need, well, some will be hard to find; others, not so hard. However, I’ll warn you now, there is one thing they’ll have in common with me: they won’t like the two of you, one bit. They won’t like who you work for, and they most assuredly won’t tolerate any interference.”
“You got it,” Julie said.
“Wait, Ms. Reilly, this part concerns you directly.” A small smile creased his lips.
She arched her eyebrows, waiting for the drama to end.
“Lieutenant Damian Jackson will have to be on the team. There will be no negotiation. Without him, the deal is off.”
“We can’t guarantee his cooperation,” Kelly said. “He hates and despises you.”
“Not my problem,” he answered, still staring at Julie. “He’s your...” he smiled without humor, “co-conspirator in the ruining of my career. So, get him.”
“Despite the undeniable desire to tell you to go fuck yourself, Kennedy, I’ll just say instead, somehow I’ll get Lieutenant Jackson, if only for the reason that Kelly already stated. He’ll want the opportunity to finish tying the knot in the rope he placed around your neck seven years ago.”
“Also, have that weasel Wallace Lindemann handy during the show. He may be useful,” he said, ignoring Julie’s threat.
“Is that all?” Kelly asked. She looked up from the list she’d made of Kennedy’s requests, grimacing at each written word.
“It’s still not enough,” Gabriel said. He started writing a list of names. “If one person on my list doesn’t enter the fight, the deal is off.”
The word fight wasn’t lost on them.
“Okay, Professor. I can give you what you ask for, but I need an answer to a question that our principles back at the network will be certain to ask.”
“Why I changed my mind?”
Julie Reilly’s silence told him he was correct.
“When I look at you two, I see the world for what it really is. Or at least, what it’s become. I figure, why not join the rest of the human race and become as big an asshole as both of you.”
“Not buying it.” Julie smirked.
Kennedy leaned forward. “Then how about this: I’m going to destroy whatever it is that walks inside that house. If I have to use you and every one of the people backing you to do it, I will.” He settled back, then gave the two women a smile and a wink. “In other words...Unlike in the movies, ladies, if you trip and fall when the monster is chasing you, you’ve had it.”
Standing, Julie nervously returned Kennedy’s smile. “Well, I think that’s all we have—”
“Tell me, are you the least bit concerned about what happened to my team in Summer Place that night?”
“Yes,” Julie said as she turned away. “I’m concerned that I’m going in there with the only man to walk out still sane—and alive. And you can take that to mean whatever you want it to, Professor.”
As Gabriel Kennedy resigned himself to his fate, his smile vanished.
He was going back to Summer Place. He prayed that he was bringing the right army with him.
eight
UBC Building
Burbank, California
Lionel Peterson signed the payroll outlay for Gabriel Kennedy and the four names on Kennedy’s list without batting an eye. It was just another silver bullet in the chamber to eventually use against Kelly Delaphoy. He knew the same silver bullet could take him down too, but that was a fact he was almost willing to live with as long as she hit the ground before he did.
As he leaned back, he also looked over the projections for the advertising revenue for the Halloween special. Thus far, they had landed Microsoft and GM, and several spots from Pepsi. He just hoped after this hoax was completed, he could get these valuable dollars back again for his own pet projects. He knew he had to find a way to distance himself from Kelly’s destiny. All he could do for now was make sure the production side went off without a hitch. He and Harris Dalton would make sure that Kelly’s downfall was live, in color, and technically perfect, for the entire country to see.
He smiled as he looked over the list Kelly had faxed him. The people Kennedy wanted for his team had, according to network security, all fallen from grace. Just like Kennedy himself.
“This is going to be something,” he said to himself. “If I wasn’t tied directly to this suicide attempt, I would be laughing my ass off.”
Ogunquit, Maine
The first name on Gabriel Kennedy’s list was a man well known to the local constabulary of the seaside resort of Ogunquit. He was one of the broken people, homeless, seeking the comfort of the ocean that drew so many. He was a man in hiding, almost a twin of circumstance to Gabriel himself.
On any other day of the week he could be found down by the beach, dragging along the one possession that was his constant companion; a Halcyon A-260 metal detector. However, today he was in the local jail. He sat not on the steel cot but on the cold concrete floor, with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. Instead of digging for the lost treasures that had belonged to vacationers, he was a guest of the local community. That, in and of itself, was a small blessing to the islanders, who despised people like George Henry Cordero.
The private detective hired by UBC had a hard time tracing Cordero down. Then he came across his name on the Internet, listed by the night desk of the Ogunquit police department. One of the four officers on duty escorted the detective through the booking area and into the holding cell, exactly twenty-four hours after Cordero’s name had been placed on Kennedy’s list.
The tall man looked at the vagrant’s unkempt beard and long hair, and winced. This was the creep he’d been sent to round up for a television special?
“What’s the charge against him?” the detective asked.
“Charge—you mean charges?” the policeman said. “That’s plural, buddy.”
The detective didn’t comment, he just looked at the duty sergeant.
“Some kids were, you know, playing around with him. Things got out of hand, as things sometimes do.” He looked at the filthy man on the floor. “One of the teenagers accidentally broke his metal detector, and Grizzly Adams here took offense.”
“I see. They destroyed his property?”
“It was accidental.”
“And these kids...they’re locals? You call them islanders?”
“Yes.”
“So, what are the specific charges against Mr. Cordero?”
“He manhandled one of the boys. He, well, spanked one.”
“Spanked?”
The cop looked uneasy.
“How much to set Mr. Cordero free?”
“That’s for Judge Bennett to decide tomorrow morning, but it won’t be
cheap. The judge doesn’t take to kindly to vagrants.”
The tall detective removed a cell phone from his pocket and held it to his ear. “Judge Bennett, you say?”
The cop nodded his head.
“And the charge is...?”
“Aggravated assault, panhandling, and disturbing the peace.”
“That’s three charges. You said two.” The detective held up a hand to silence the officer, and spoke into his phone. “Yes, this is Jenkins. Let me speak to security, please.” He addressed the officer. “What’s the last name of the boy that was allegedly assaulted?”
“Addison,” the cop answered.
“Is he a local businessman’s son?”
“Yes, his family owns the restaurant not far from—”
“Not far from where he was combing the beach for change,” the man from New York finished.
“Yeah.”
“Yes, I have Cordero,” the detective said into the phone. “The judge’s name is Bennett, and the charges are bullshit. Right, right... Okay, I’ll be here, just let me know.”
The detective returned the phone to his pocket and turned to the man sitting on the floor, ignoring the officer.
“Mr. Cordero, you’ll be out of here by ten o’clock in the morning. I’ve made arrangements for you to come to New York.”
“I don’t want to go to New York,” the man said with a thick Spanish accent.
“A man you may know said to tell you...” the detective pulled out a small note pad and referenced Cordero’s page. “That he’s going back into the house, and that he needs your expertise. You’ll be paid two hundred thousand dollars for the four days leading up to and including Halloween.”
The police officer momentarily lost control of his jaw as it fell open.
“House?” the shaggy-haired man asked, his eyes still closed. “Just who is this man?”
“Professor Gabriel Kennedy.” The detective closed his notebook.
Cordero’s eyes opened. His demeanor seemed instantly more alert and aware, as though he had just awakened after a long sleep.
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