He looked pained. “I didn’t have enemies. Not a single one.”
“You talked about the wrong sort in your letters. ‘Some of the wrong sort have been hanging around town.’ You said that. Who were you talking about?”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“What were they doing?” Robin asked. “Was it illegal? Were they hurting someone? Did you find out something dangerous? What made them the wrong sort?”
“I don’t know, dammit!” Billy’s eyes burned her. She could feel his anger, and his outline rippled.
“She is in there.” Robin pointed at the house. “She’s almost gone. She’s ready to go, but she’s holding on to something. There’s something that won’t give her peace. What is it? Is it you?”
“I just want to go to her.” His outline rippled and wavered. “All I ever wanted was for her to know I tried, but I can’t get to her. I can’t be near her when she’s in there. I know she’s in danger, but he won’t let me.”
Robin’s heart beat fast. “Who won’t let you?”
“I can only get near her when she’s outside. When she’s outside, I can watch over her. But in the house…” His voice started to fade.
“Who is it, Billy?” Robin felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. She knew. It could only be one person. “Billy, who keeps you from the house?”
He was gone. The place where he’d been held no more evidence of Billy Grimmer’s ghost than a cool shaft of air. Robin closed her eyes and took deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.
“Robin?”
She opened her eyes, and Mark was standing on the edge of the grass, staring at her with wide eyes.
“Robin, who the hell are you talking to?”
Chapter 23
Mark was sipping an herbal tea, and Robin was drinking a large glass of water with two extra-strength pain relievers for her raging headache. They’d taken the tea from the kitchen and into the first-floor library, keeping their distance from the nurses who were tending to Helen in the north wing of the house.
“So…” Mark swallowed hard. “You think you’re seeing ghosts.”
“I don’t think I’m seeing them. Trust me, I’ve already gone up and down with Val and Monica on this. I know exactly how crazy it sounds. But it’s not just me.”
He blinked. “So you’re all seeing ghosts?”
“Not exactly.”
He narrowed his eyes. “So what exactly is happening with you? With them?”
Robin sighed. “Listen, I can tell from your voice you don’t believe me—”
“Robin, it’s not a matter of believing you.” His voice rose. “It’s a matter of thinking you probably have more lasting effects from the accident than we realized. It’s about getting you help so—”
“This is not a fantasy.” She brought out her sketchbook and started flipping through pages. “I’m going to tell you a story, and I want you to listen.”
Robin opened her sketch to the first picture she’d drawn of the mystery man. “This is Billy Grimmer. He’s the man who rescued us from the car. I’ve seen him more than once. He’s the one I was talking to out in the woods.”
She opened Grandma Helen’s cigar box and got out the sketch. “And if Grandma Helen were awake, she would tell you this is a picture of Billy Grimmer she sketched back in the forties when they were having a love affair before she married my grandfather.” She pointed to the sketch in her book. “This I drew just a week or so after I got out of the hospital.” She held up the sketch Helen had done. “This I just found tonight, in this box, which is also full of their love letters.”
Mark opened his mouth. Then closed it. “Okay, but—”
“My Uncle Raymond” —she kept her voice low— “is Billy’s son. That’s why he and my grandfather always fought. That’s why he’s never been close to the rest of the family.” She showed Mark the picture of Raymond just out of high school. “This is Mom and her brother. See how much he looks like Billy?”
Mark said, “Okay, the resemblance is pretty uncanny, but—”
“You can ask Uncle Raymond about his DNA testing kit when he gets here tomorrow. Trust me. It’s interesting.” Robin showed Mark the photograph in Helen’s cigar box. “Billy was a boy from Grimmer. His family founded the old town that was flooded when the dam was built. He and Grandma Helen grew up together. He worked on the dam, and then he was buried by the lake. His bones are the ones that were in the back of my car.”
Mark watched her intently. “What?”
“I know that because Val can see things sometimes when she touches objects, and she touched the chains attached to the body and she saw him. Trust me, she was not happy about that.” Robin flipped back to the picture she’d sketched of the mine. “Like this. She saw this image, and she described it to me. Someone chained him up and let him drown in the bottom of this mine shaft. Only according to Sully, they got impatient and cut Billy’s throat first. I guess they really didn’t want Billy escaping.”
She handed Mark the last letter from Billy. “In this letter, Billy Grimmer mentions a cabin. It was his and Helen’s secret place, and it’s not very far from where my car went into the lake. Monica saw that in a vision. Saw me and Billy walking by it. Billy’s ghost led me to it just before you called to tell me Grandma had fallen. I still need to go back with Val and Monica though, because I didn’t really get much information and I think the cabin is important.” She shoved her sketchbook toward him. “So there you go. There’s all the evidence that your wife is completely nuts.”
Mark stared at her. He folded his hands and pressed his thumbs to his lips. Then he looked down at the sketchbook, the photographs, and the letters.
“Well,” he said slowly, “this would definitely explain why you’ve been so distracted lately.”
Robin blinked. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
He frowned. “Robin…” He bit his lip. Looked away, then looked her straight in the eye. “If you had told me anyone else was seeing ghosts—Monica or Val or Emma or anyone—I would think they were in need of serious mental help.” He spread out his hands. “But this is… an investigation. This is evidence. Combine that with your telling me that you—the most practical person I know—have seen this… person.” He held out his hands in a helpless gesture. “I can’t ignore that. Even though it kinda fries my brain. It’s you.”
She felt a tight knot in her chest begin to unravel. “Thank you.”
Mark sorted through the pictures and flipped through the sketchbook. “Who is this?” He was pointing at the picture of the ghost in the antique shop.
“That’s the ghost in the antique shop. Her name’s Clara. She died in the house giving birth to her son. You can ask Mom about the story.”
“There’s a ghost in the shop?” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait, is that why the bell randomly rings sometimes?”
“I think so.”
“You said it was a draft.”
“I thought it was.” She shrugged.
“Have you seen any other… ghosts?” Mark wasn’t mocking her, but Robin could tell he was still having a hard time.
“Just Billy and Clara, and there’s a little girl I saw once at the edge of the lake. I think she drowned, but I’ve never spoken to her. And a nurse who was murdered at the hospital.”
His eyes were wide. “Wow.”
“Oh, and Car Lot Man.” Robin nodded. “I forgot about him.”
Mark frowned. “There’s a ghost at the car lot?”
“Yeah, I’m starting to think sometimes people just stay in places that made them happy. Like Clara? She’s happy. She misses not having the children around, but she doesn’t seem all that troubled. And the ghost at the car lot was really happy. Big smiley guy with a round face and a droopy nose, wearing the most horrible dated suit, but he was happy as a clam, walking around—”
“Wait, what kind of suit?”
Robin frowned. “Just… dated. Like it was from the seventies, you know, with the big wide
collar?” She grabbed a pencil and sketched his face in the margin of her book. “He looked like this. He was happy; he just wandered up and down the rows of cars and—”
“Holy shit!” Mark stood up from the table and started pacing.
“What?” Robin put the pencil down.
Mark pointed to Car Lot Man. “That’s the founder of the dealership. The old man. His picture was up in a giant frame inside the building.”
“Oh.” Robin blinked. “I didn’t go in the building. I didn’t know.”
“I know you didn’t go in the building!” His voice was oddly high. “But you just sketched his face.”
“Because I saw his ghost at the car lot. I told you.”
“I know.” He paced. “I know. You told me.”
“Wait, so you’re just now believing me?” Robin rolled her eyes. “Because of Car Lot Man?”
“His name is Jerry O’Donald. O’Donald Motors?”
“I don’t know, Mark. I just saw him, I didn’t talk to him.”
“Oh my God.” He was still pacing, looking slightly ill. “You can see ghosts.”
“Yep.
“You can see ghosts?”
“Yeah, I…” She sighed and just watched him pace. “I just said that.”
“You can see ghosts.” He stopped and let out a long breath. “Is there a ghost on the third floor of this house?”
Robin’s eyes went wide. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because there has always been something about this house and especially that floor that just creeps me out so bad.” He rolled his shoulders. “Emma and Austin flat refused to go up to the third floor after that Easter when Emma was ten.”
“Is that what that was about? I could never figure out—”
“It was Austin who finally said something. Emma kept crawling in his bed, and he was embarrassed because he was twelve, almost thirteen I think? Anyway, she told him she was having bad dreams about the man in the attic and he got completely creeped out.” Mark stopped. “I went up there to check it out because I was worried someone had broken into the house, but it was completely covered in dust so I— Wait.” He pointed at her. “Why don’t you look surprised?”
Robin felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. “Let’s just say that you’re not the first person who might have mentioned it.”
* * *
They were lying in bed after another hour of trying to piece together everything they knew about Grandma Helen, Billy Grimmer, and the destruction of the town. Mark had offered some insight that Robin wouldn’t have thought of, and he’d volunteered to go with her to the cabin the next day.
She was lying in the curve of his arm, feeling more at peace than she had in months. Maybe years. “I think Grandma Helen needs to know what happened. I think that’s why she’s still here.”
Mark twisted a piece of her hair around his finger. “I think whoever killed Billy sent that postcard from Reno. The handwriting is close, but it could have been forged. All that was on there were initials. And it was dated after Helen married your grandfather, so Billy was already dead.”
“You think whoever sent it wanted her to think Billy had run off to Reno?”
“Why else? She kept it with her letters and sketches of him. She must have thought he was the one who sent it.”
Robin turned to him and burrowed her face into his shoulder. “Thank you for believing me.”
“I can’t lie—your wife suddenly developing psychic powers is not the change that men are warned to expect when their wife hits the midforties.”
She playfully slapped his stomach. “Ha ha. It wasn’t exactly in my plan either.”
“Hey.”
Robin looked up.
Mark winked at her. “Kind of fun though.”
She couldn’t stop the smile. “You’re into this?”
“I mean…” He shrugged. “It’s like my wife developed sudden mysterious superpowers. That’s pretty cool. You’re like one of the X-Men. X-Women. Whatever.”
“Don’t forget Monica and Val. Visions and telepathy. If anything, I have the most boring superpower of the three of us.”
“Not to me.” Mark slowly took her mouth in a kiss that spun out and deepened, heating Robin from her toes to her belly. “You will never be boring to me.”
“Good.” She hooked her leg over his hips. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
She bit her lip but decided that she might as well say it. After all, she’d told him she saw ghosts and that had gone over pretty well. “Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“I really, really hate waking up alone.”
He locked his eyes with hers. “I didn’t know that.”
“Communication, right? I’m trying to be better about telling you what I want. Or what I need.”
“Right.” He nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t react well the last time you tried doing that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say something before.”
“A year from now, it’s going to be just you and me,” he said. “That could be great. Or it could be awful if we’re hardly talking to each other.”
“Agreed.”
“I want to do this right,” he whispered. “I hate feeling like we’re just existing in the same space. I never wanted that for us. My parents are that way, and I get so pissed off with them.”
“I miss you.” She swallowed hard. “When you leave the bed before I even wake up. I miss you being there. I know you like getting a jump start on work, but you’re the senior programmer on your team now and—”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I know you want to set a good example for your team, but—”
“Ignoring you isn’t good for anyone,” he said. “Not me or the people I work with. Like you said, I’m the senior guy on the team. I’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you.”
“Besides, I need more time in bed with my hot superhero wife.”
She smiled. “Yeah?”
“Can I make a request?”
“Does it involve a golden lasso?”
“No. But now you’re giving me ideas.” The corner of his mouth turned up. “Will you start wearing more spandex?”
Robin couldn’t stop her laugh.
“’Cause…” The half smile turned into a full smile. “I’d be into that.”
Chapter 24
Monica and Val were staring at her like she was a crazy person when she pulled up to the lake with Mark in the passenger seat.
“Okay, just stay in the car for a second,” Robin said to him. “We didn’t exactly agree to tell significant others.”
“I’m not a significant other,” he said. “I’m your husband.”
“Yeah, but I gave Monica shit about telling her daughter, so she’s probably pissed at me.”
“Sylvia?” Mark scoffed. “That girl isn’t going to believe an inch of this. Does Monica know she’s not going to Mass anymore?”
“No, and you’re not going to tell her.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever.”
“Just… give me a minute.” She leaned across and kissed him quickly. “Thanks.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “No problem.”
Robin left the car and approached her two friends, both of whom looked slightly pissed.
“You told him?” Val asked.
“Yes, but—”
“We didn’t agree to that,” Monica said.
“You’re the one who suggested it in the first place.”
“But you said you didn’t want to do it, so I thought we were keeping it just between the three of us!”
“He caught me talking to Billy’s ghost over at Russell House. What was I supposed to do?”
“Make excuses,” Val said. “That’s what I’ve been doing every time Jackson asks why I’m wearing gloves to pick up their laundry.”
“I’m not really sure what I could have used to excuse talking to m
yself in the middle of the night in the forest,” Robin said. “But that’s probably a very good call with the gloves and the laundry thing.”
“Trust me, I learned the hard way.” Val closed her eyes and shuddered a little. “Boys are gross. Speaking of which” —she pointed at the car— “Mark is a boy. A grown boy, but a boy. And we did not agree to tell boys.”
“Are we twelve?” Robin asked. “He’s my husband. And he wants to help, okay?”
Monica softened. “Really? He doesn’t think you’re making things up?”
“No. He did at first, but no.”
“What can Mark do?” Val asked.
“I don’t know, help make excuses? Hand us Tylenol when we get headaches from using our superpowers?”
“Superpowers?”
Robin shrugged. “He’s kind of taking this as an X-Men thing. Like we suddenly mutated into superheroes.”
“It seems like more of a Spider-Man thing, don’t you think?” Val asked. “I mean, we weren’t born this way. There was some kind of outside stimulus that—”
“Okay, comic book nerds, can we focus please?” Monica said. “Robin, I accept that if Gil were alive, I would absolutely want to tell him about all this, so… I guess I’m fine with Mark knowing. Val?”
Val shrugged. “I mean, it’s Mark—he’s Mr. Boy Scout—so okay. It’s not like I don’t trust him.”
“Thank you.” Robin turned and waved at Mark. “Come on over, honey.”
Mark got out of the car and walked over to Val and Monica, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“Look at that,” Val said. “He does exist outside his office.”
“Ha ha,” he said. “I’ll have you know, I already called work and told them I’m taking family leave to help take care of Helen. So whatever you ladies feel like you need to do, I’m here to help.”
Monica smiled. “You’re a good man, Mark Brannon.”
“Thank you.” He turned to Val. “Hmm?”
She crossed her arms. “You’re okay, I guess.”
“I’m giving you space because I can tell already you’re going to have the darkest storyline in the group,” Mark said. “So it’s fine.”
Suddenly Psychic: Glimmer Lake Book One Page 19