“Tell him Stanly,” Seth said gravely and finally.
Though Jonas was on the other side of the world, in his mind he could see Stanly Cushman turning beet red and snorting like a pissed off bull. The idea that Stanly Cushman had to answer to a junior partner in any venture was inconceivable, but that’s exactly what was happening and Jonas couldn’t suppress his grin. Damn, it was a good thing that the old men couldn’t see him now.
“There are audio playback devices in the refectory and the People’s Church. On the hospital grounds there are identical devices on the third and fourth floors. There is also a box in the refectory that mimics electromagnetic fields.”
“That’s it?” Jonas skeptically questioned. “Nowhere else? Not the bell tower, the dormitories, the cemetery?”
There was a long pause and it was as if Jonas could hear the wheels in Stanly Cushman’s head turn. “No. Nowhere else.”
“And what do these recordings consist of?” Jonas questioned.
Another long pause filled the line. “Why does that matter? You said that you wanted to know where they were to keep your ghost hunters from discovering them. You said nothing about wanting to know what’s on them, and I don’t see why it would be important.”
Jonas could once again feel himself losing his grip on his emotions and to keep from screaming into the receiver he ground his molars together with such force he thought that he could feel them cracking under the pressure. “You might as well tell me, because when I find them I’m going to take them down and listen to them.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, you’ll leave those damned devices be and keep your little throng of ghost hunters away from them,” Stanly Cushman demanded.
“Like hell,” Jonas blurted. “This investigation is going to be by the book and I want all results, whether they’re in our favor or not, to be genuine and inarguable.”
“Watch your tone boy,” Stanly Cushman sneered. “You’re a junior partner here and you signed a contract. If you do anything detrimental to this investment you’ll lose your shirt.”
“The only person harming this investment is you and your bullshit!” Jonas blurted. Immediately he wished that he could have sucked those particular words back in, though he wasn’t about to apologize for them.
“That’s enough,” Seth said as evenly and calmly as ever. “This argument is getting us nowhere.”
Jonas welcomed the interruption; in fact he wished that it would have come sooner, though he knew that the old man was forcing himself to interrupt even now. Seth liked a good show and Jonas imagined that the only thing Seth regretted, outside of breaking up the argument, was the fact that Jonas and Stanley weren’t standing face to face in front of him and coming to blows.
“If you can remove the devices and store them away without suspicion, go ahead and do it,” Seth calmly allowed. “Otherwise leave them where they are and keep the others away from them.”
Jonas wasn’t entirely happy with Seth’s tone – he’d always thought of the old man as fair and honest – but as he conveyed the order, he sounded every bit as deceptive as Stanly Cushman. However, Jonas didn’t push the issue. He may not have been happy with his partners – his father’s friends – but getting to the truth was most important to him now. “Yes sir,” Jonas said through a clenched jaw.
Seth completely ignored Jonas’s tone and questioned, “Was there anything else to report?”
Jonas could have told him and Stanly that the team may have well found a legitimate haunting but after the way they had both treated the investigation as well as himself, he chose to let them stew and wonder for a while. “Nothing so far,” he lied. “I’ll be in touch,” he said then immediately ended the call before they could say another word.
“Be in touch with who?” a woman’s soft but searing voice questioned from his back.
Though he hadn’t been in the presence of the ghost hunting team long he knew Jorden Mason’s voice well. In spite of the fact that she seemed to be one of the most frigid people on the planet, over the last few days he had learned about her sense of humor and passion for both teaching and ghost hunting. It surprised him that he actually found that he liked her…hell, he liked them all…even Matt, who would make him swim back to the island just as easily as he would drink a beer and watch a ball game if he thought he could get away with it.
After the initial shock of Jorden’s voice wore off another thought occurred to him, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. “Have you been following me?”
She didn’t answer in words but did lift a curious brow.
“Naples isn’t exactly small.”
“And coincidences do happen,” she said evenly then surprised him when she almost smiled. “I just finished up some research at the hospital and happened to see you over here on my way to dinner.”
Jonas wasn’t sure what kind of research she would be doing at the hospital, but then no one in the group had been all that forthcoming with information as far as he was concerned. “What kind of research?”
“An incident regarding a tourist who died on the island twenty years back. She was eventually taken to the hospital just up the street,” she said as she pointed to a distant brick and stone building. “It took a lot of begging and lying but I was able to get a copy of her chart from one of the nurses.”
Jonas felt his insides tighten and knot formed in his throat. “Should I ask?” he asked in a deceptively calm tone.
Once again Jorden only lifted a brow and that was answer enough.
“So what did you find?” he asked, not really expecting her to cooperate and answer but hoping she would. He needed to know just how much information she was able to find, though in the end it didn’t matter. It was only a matter of time before Jorden and the others found the truth.
Again, her almost smile returned. “Why don’t you join us for dinner and I’ll tell you.”
Jonas was pretty sure that he had stopped breathing; the shock of the invitation was like a shot put upside the head. “Us?” was all he could say.
“I’m joining Nigel and Isis for dinner and I was going to go over it with them, but you’re more than welcome to join us.”
Jonas wanted to accept, but knew that he needed to get back to the island before the others to remove the devices. “I’d love to, but whatever I ate at lunch isn’t sitting well,” he skillfully lied. “I thought that I would hop a local ferry back to the island.”
“None of them run over to the island; all of the ferry Captains are scared witless of the place.”
Jonas smiled. “It’s amazing what a person will do for the right price.”
Jorden’s almost smile faded. “Yes. I suppose it is.”
Jonas could have kicked himself for his conceit, especially when things seemed to be going so well.
“Enjoy your evening Mister Harper,” Jorden said then disappeared back through the square before he could apologize.
Naples – 4:30pm…
Fondness was not a word that Jorden would have used to describe her feelings for Jonas, rather quite the opposite. And now, with his evasiveness and refusal to join them for dinner, she was even more suspicious than ever. So suspicious, in fact, that she put in a call to Syd’s satellite phone to warn him to keep an eye on the business man. However short of following him around Naples and back to the island, that was about all she could do. Instead of putting all of her energy into worrying about what Jonas Harper was up to, Jorden headed down the crowded street to a small café not too far from the docks where she found both Nigel and Isis already waiting. From the looks of things they weren’t feeling any of the stress that was weighting Jorden down; rather the opposite seemed to be true. They appeared as if they didn’t have a care in the world and Jorden almost envied them.
“Jorden!” Nigel called to her as she weaved in and out and around the tables on the café’s patio.
As warm as it was, Jorden would rather have sat inside with the air conditioning, but the small café was pack
ed wall to wall with locals watching football and the only available tables were outside and out of sight of the television. It wasn’t the crammed bodies that bothered her as much as the occasional, deafening roar that erupted from the crowd every time a foul call was missed against the opposing team or a goal was scored.
“You look like you’ve had a bitch of a day,” Isis greeted candidly, as always.
“The last few hours anyway,” Jorden confirmed as she signaled the waiter and ordered a beer, which he promptly brought to her. “The morning was actually fun; touring Vesuvius and Pompeii with Matt and Tony, but after that I headed back to town to check out the reports of the tourist who died on the island.”
By now the jovial ambiance that had just moments ago engulfed Nigel and Isis had all but completely disappeared. “What did you find out?” Nigel asked then took a swig of his own ale.
Jorden reached behind her and pulled out a file folder from her backpack.
“You stole the file?” Isis questioned with a mischievous smile. “I’m in shock.”
Jorden knew that she was thought of as an honest, virtuous person who would never do anything against the law, but then like everyone on the planet, she had made her mistakes. This, however, was not one of those times. None of the personnel at the hospital were cooperative, though even if they had told her what she wanted to know she wouldn’t have understood much, so she did the next best thing she could think of – she found the file and liberated it.
“It isn’t as though I had a choice,” Jorden said finally then briefly explained her ordeal at the hospital. “My only choice was to take the damned thing and hope that between Nigel and Syd we could find out what really happened.”
Nigel took the file from her and started to glance over it. “Well we’re definitely going to have to have Syd look over this. I can read most of the words and tell you a bit of what it says, but a lot of it is medical terminology and for that you’re going to have to have someone look at it that is at least familiar with the terms and meanings.”
“I figured that much,” Jorden said patiently, “I was just wondering if you could give us the gist of what happened.”
“From what I can tell here, the woman, an American in her early forties, had no serious health problems, died of a sudden and fatal heart attack. She was actually dead before she arrived at the hospital, though efforts were made to resuscitate her and they obviously failed. As far as I can tell there’s no mention in here of what they felt caused the heart attack.”
Jorden was disappointed by the lack of information; more disappointed that she stole the damned file just to find out that it held information that she already knew, though they did manage to get the woman’s full name and names of her family. It was there that things seemed to turn around and Jorden didn’t feel that her efforts were a waste after all.
“I’m not the only one who read that…right?” Isis said as she pointed to the list of kin and her children.
“I knew that I didn’t like that guy,” Nigel sniped.
Of course Jorden found the name interesting, but instead of feeling somewhat triumphant in attaining the information, she was left with too many damned questions. The foremost being what the woman’s only son, Jonas Harper, was really up to.
Rome – 7:30pm…
The romantic day in Vatican City and Rome that Jesse had planned was laid waste the moment he and the rest of the team set foot on the mainland. Of course everyone went their own ways and he was alone with Saph, though he hadn’t planned on spending the entire day in dusty, forgotten stacks in the library looking for more information on Lorenzo Island. To be honest, he didn’t even want to think of the godforsaken place for even just five minutes but quite obviously the choice was not his.
Saph was almost obsessed with the island, or more importantly, the history of the psychiatric hospital. Because she was a psychology major he could understand her fascination, but this was taking it a bit far. After stopping at a local bookstore to buy an Italian-English dictionary, Saph had steered the two of them around Rome and the surrounding cities for the better part of the day visiting libraries.
It took every ounce of self-control Jesse had not to throw Saph over his shoulder and haul her off to a small café with a dark corner, or better yet, to a nice hotel room with a large tub and even larger bed. He knew, however, that to do something so rash would get him nowhere and would only piss her off. So he stayed and forced himself not to fall asleep at the huge table scattered with dusty books.
“Look at this,” Saph said, which only momentarily pulled him from his stupor.
Jesse lifted his head from his forearms, which were resting on the polished table top and looked over at the book she was holding. It looked more like a year book from a small high school than anything else.
“It’s the staff of the hospital when it first opened.”
That piqued Jesse’s interest somewhat and he scooted closer to her to get a better look.
“The hospital opened its doors in nineteen-eighteen to some of the more difficult patients in not just Italy, but much of Europe from Spain to Russia. The head surgeon was Doctor Herman Klaus, and if my memory is correct, I believe that he was the chief physician there the entire time the hospital housed patients.”
“Why’d the hospital close?” Jesse asked as he looked at the tabletop in there general area, which was nearly completely covered with books and back issues of newspapers.
“I haven’t found anything yet. I think that there might be something in the newspapers, I just haven’t had the time to go through them,” she said then flashed him a pleasant smile that was more a threat than congenial, “do you think that you can go through them for me?”
Jesse knew what would happen if he said no or suggested that they simply take the materials back to the island and spend the rest of the evening having a quiet dinner. “Sure,” he said then picked up the first large book that contained the back issues starting in January, 1918.
“Look for anything referencing Lorenzo l’Ospedale Psichiatrico,” she said not even looking up from the book.
“You know, I hope that Matt and Jorden appreciate your using your free time to do this,” Jesse said as he started to leaf through the fragile papers.
“I’m sure they will,” she said with her concentration remaining on the book ahead of her. “And before you ask, the answer is no. They didn’t ask me to do this and they have no idea that I’d planned on doing this. It’s just something I felt I needed to do.”
Jesse would almost rather Jorden or Matt had asked her to do the research. Knowing that she chose to do this over spending a romantic day with him hit his ego hard.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
When he looked over at her he found her dark eyes staring back at him. “And what’s that?”
“That I chose dusty books over you,” she said then smiled, only this time it was genuine. “And I didn’t…really. It’s just that we don’t have a lot of time to do this and investigate the hospital grounds along with the rest of the island at the same time so I thought I would help out.”
“Not to mention that you are completely fascinated with the subject,” Jesse added in understanding.
Her smile remained though seemed to change meaning. “I suppose I am. I’ve always been fascinated by the history of psychiatry and psychology. The fact that ghosts are in the mix just makes it all that more fun.”
Jesse had to admit that she had a point, though he would still choose a quiet dinner over the dusty books any day of the week.
Oh well, he thought, if this is how he had to spend his time with her then this was how he would spend his time.
Isola Forte di Lorenzo – 8:00pm…
Jonas hit all the areas that Stanly Cushman mentioned, though he was not completely convinced that he had retrieved all of the playback devices that were planted. He only hoped that if any were left that Matt and the others would not scrap the entire investigation; it was
too damned important. Even if Seth and Stanley didn’t want real answers he did, and he wanted nothing to jeopardize the process. This was his best and really only shot to find the truth to a tragedy that started him down this road.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Naples – 9:45pm…
Jorden sat at the edge of the pier and looked over the water as the near full moon reflected off of the relatively calm waters. In spite of the fact that Matt had told everyone to be there no later than nine-thirty, she was the only one from their group who had arrived. It didn’t really bother her, that she was alone, in fact it gave her time to think and even relax a bit. After leaving Isis and Nigel back at the café with the file from the hospital, she walked her way down to the docks, expecting to find at least Matt and Tony there, but instead she found them empty.
As she thought about the day and what it had revealed, she developed a new understanding for Jonas Harper. She still didn’t like him and hated even more that he hadn’t been honest with them, but she understood. When Eric died she’d already known how and maybe even why, but that didn’t stop her from pursuing the matter to the end; until his bastard father was behind bars. While the circumstances were quite different, she understood the emotion, and grieving was hard no matter who you were.
“Want some company?” a soft, deep voice asked from behind her.
Jorden didn’t have to turn around to know that Matt was behind her and even before she could answer he took a seat beside her and dangled his feet over the pier, just as she had.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
What wasn’t on her mind would be easier to answer, but the first and foremost thing was Jonas and she knew that she had to talk to Matt about it. And while she didn’t want to waste a perfectly pleasant evening ruffling Matt’s feathers, it was better to talk to him now, with no one around, rather than after the others arrived.
The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo Page 15