“Don’t worry,” she told him. “Ray won’t bother us. Not as long as we’re dressed like people anyway.” She elbowed Rosasharn and gave him a dirty look.
Rosasharn went into his Italian weeping routine. “I maka one mistaka,” he wailed. “How longa must I pay for thissa one mistaka?” He raised his fists to heaven and did some more wailing.
I looked over to see if this got a smile out of Ethan. It didn’t. He was standing up and looking even more serious than usual. “I think I’ll go home,” he said, and gave my shoulder a little tap.
“You just got here,” I said.
He shrugged apologetically. I waited but he didn’t offer any explanation. He gave us his little aloha wave and started walking down the lane.
“He’s been acting funny all week,” I said as soon as he was out of hearing range.
“Maybe he’s a ghost,” Jeremy said.
“He’s probably a little upset about Mr. Lindstrom,” Sudie said. “That’s gotta be tough on a kid his age.”
“It’s more than that,” I said. “It’s like he’s up to something.
“Ethan?” Sudie said. “He’s more responsible than we are.”
“I’m following him,” I announced, deciding all of a sudden. “This whole thing’s driving me crazy.”
“You want us to go with you?” Bo asked.
I shook my head. “Thanks. But it’ll be hard enough to follow him without . . .” I indicated Jeremy, who was pretending he had a phone up to his head.
“Hello, FBI? This is Gabe-boy Riley. I think my brother is a ghost. I have evidence. He just left our campfire here and said he wanted to go home.”
“Hey, Jeremy,” I interrupted. “Can you order me a pizza on that thing?”
“Shut up,” he told me.
• • •
I’d never in my life tailed Ethan before, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy. For one thing, Ethan generally travels without making a sound, and I generally don’t. Also, Ethan has a natural awareness of things going on around him, which meant I had to keep as quiet as I could and keep my distance, which in turn meant that by the time I reached the road Ethan was long gone.
I stood still for a few seconds, listening, but of course it didn’t do me any good. I half expected Ethan to tap me on the shoulder right while I was standing there looking up and down the road.
My first impulse was to head north toward my house. I was thinking about how Ethan had been sneaking around there the night before and how different things there had turned up missing. But at the last second I decided to go the other way. Ethan had announced he was leaving right after hearing about Ray being over at Mr. Lindstrom’s place, so I figured there was probably a connection. And I definitely didn’t like the idea of Ethan being around Mr. Lindstrom’s house alone—not with Ray lurking around in the bushes and God knows what lurking in the house.
Halfway to Mr. Lindstrom’s house I stopped in my tracks and listened. Since I was on a paved road, I was making pretty good time and didn’t want to overtake Ethan by accident if that was the direction he’d gone in. I didn’t hear anything and I couldn’t make out any movement in the road ahead of me, so I continued on. A few minutes later I was approaching the place. The first time I looked out across the field toward the house I didn’t see anything, and I felt a small sense of relief. That didn’t last long. After taking a few more steps, I could see a crack of light coming from an upstairs window; it had been blocked by the old box elder at first. I crouched down and tried to decide what to do. Remembering how I’d run out of there that afternoon in broad daylight, I wasn’t eager to go sneaking down the driveway at night, especially since I didn’t know for sure if Ethan had even come this way. Then there was the Ray problem. I hadn’t seen his car yet, but that didn’t mean anything; there were any number of places where he could have pulled off into fields, and it was dark enough so I could have walked right by his car without seeing it. For all I knew he was crouched behind me in the ditch, watching me and telling Betsy to get ready for some action.
By now every part of me wanted to leave, but I couldn’t do it—not till I made sure Ethan wasn’t right in the middle of whatever it was that was going on there. Straining as hard as I could to hear anything unusual, I started easing my way down the driveway, keeping my eye mostly on that sliver of light, which I was now pretty sure was coming from Andy’s room, but also stopping and scanning the darkness around me from time to time. The whole situation gave me the creeps, and I was wishing I’d at least let Bo come with me.
Halfway down the lane I cut left into the hayfield. It was quieter (but wetter) going through the hay, and it gave me a more dead-on look at the front of the house. The sliver of light was still there, and I could see now that it was definitely coming from Andy’s room. I crouched in the tall grass for a few minutes and watched to see if I could make out any kind of movement up there. I couldn’t. Then I scanned the yard and didn’t see any movement there either, so I started edging forward again, a little slower and more cautiously as I got closer.
A minute later I learned firsthand the meaning of the phrase “all hell broke loose.” It started with a loud crack which I didn’t realize was a gunshot until a little later. Next I heard a voice shout “Son of a bitch!” and some crashing sounds from inside the house. I hadn’t even realized the front door had been open until a figure came charging out of it. He was carrying a flashlight and, from the movement of the beam, I’d guess he did a complete forward roll before coming to his feet and heading lickety-split down the driveway. It was only then that I realized the voice I’d heard was Ray’s, which probably meant he was the person retreating too. My head was peeking out over the top of the tall grass taking in the whole scene when another crack rang out through the night, this time followed by a Fourth-of-July-firecracker whistling noise which was coming my way. I’d never been on the receiving end of a gun before, but I instinctively recognized the sound of a bullet whizzing past and hit the dirt with my hands covering my head, as if that would have done any good. Next I heard Ray’s voice again, farther down the driveway now and more frantic than ever.
“Start the friggin’ car, Clutz, ya dumb son of a bitch!”
From the pace of the footsteps it was easy to tell that these words were delivered at a full gallop. The car roared to life and, judging by the sound, it couldn’t have been hidden far from where I’d turned off the driveway into the hayfield. A door slammed shut, then the car bucked and stalled once, started again, and tore off for the road. It made a decent screech as it hit the pavement and gunned its way north.
With the car gone everything seemed deadly silent. I slowly rose to my knees and peeked out, careful not to raise my head much above the tall grass. One thing I knew—I never wanted to hear the sound of a bullet sizzling that close to me again. As I watched, the shade in Andy’s room pulled back slightly and a figure peered out the window. As a reflex I scrunched tighter into the hay, although there was no way anybody could have seen me in the dark from that far away. A few seconds later the shade drooped down again, leaving nothing but the sliver of light. My head floated back up out of the hay.
What happened next scared me more than hearing the bullet or seeing the guy in the window. A figure came out from behind the old box elder and glided silently toward the house. It paused for a second at the top of the stoop and then disappeared through the doorway.
There was no doubt about who it was. I only knew one person who moved that way, and he was just the right size too.
Ethan was in that house now.
Nineteen
I came skulking out of my hideaway and headed toward the front door. When I reached the freshly mowed lawn, I crouched for a few seconds and studied the house—first the upstairs room with the light on and next the open doorway downstairs. Nothing had changed. I did a little quick and silent sprint until I was on the front stoop, then stood there trying to quiet my breathing. The last thing I wanted to do was go inside, but I had no choice. My
mind was cranking out one message to the rhythm of my pounding heart. Ethan is in there. Ethan is in there.
I stepped inside and listened. Nothing. I didn’t expect to hear Ethan but had hoped I’d hear something. When you’re in this kind of situation and you know you’re not alone, it’s better to hear things than not to hear them. Trust me on this one.
I started creeping toward the staircase, easing into each step, trying almost to think myself across the old floor without having it creak. Surprisingly, I made it without a sound. I tried the same thing as I climbed onto the first stair and made that without a sound too.
I couldn’t be sure Ethan had even gone upstairs, but if he hadn’t, at least I’d be putting myself between him and whatever the trouble was up there, and if he had . . . well, I’d want to be there too.
I was halfway up the stairs when I heard the voice. It was coming from above me and it wasn’t Ethan’s—or anybody else’s I recognized.
“Get out!” The voice was shaking with intensity. “Go away. I don’t want you here!”
For a second I thought it was talking to me, and I froze in my tracks. Then I realized it was talking to somebody else—somebody I couldn’t hear.
“I don’t care!” the voice said. “It’s too late. Don’t you get it? It’s too late!”
I don’t remember starting to move again, but I found myself almost to the top of the staircase. I had a pretty good idea who the person I couldn’t hear was.
“NO, NO, NO!” The voice was really shouting now. “I told you it’s too late. It’s over!” Then, “Don’t come any closer! I’m warning you!”
“No! Don’t!”
There was no mistaking that voice, and I was already tearing down the hall.
“No!” Ethan shouted again. “Don’t do it!”
I made the last few steps almost without touching the floor, it seemed, and charged through the open door.
And froze dead in my tracks.
I saw it, but I couldn’t believe it. Right in front of me, as big as life, was Andy Lindstrom! And if that weren’t shock enough to kill me on the spot, he had the shotgun Jeremy had found in the closet and it was aimed right into his own mouth.
The guy—Andy—looked as shocked to see me as I was to see him, if that’s possible, and he pulled the gun out and leveled it at me. I wasn’t even aware of Ethan until he stepped out in front of me—between me and the gun—and stood there holding his arm out at Andy.
“No,” he said. “Put it down.”
It took me a few seconds to come to my senses enough to remember why I’d come into the house in the first place. When I did, I grabbed Ethan by the shoulders and tried to pull him behind me. He reached back and snagged on to my shirt. Then he locked his arms and wouldn’t budge. I didn’t think the two of us getting into a wrestling match would help the situation any, so I let up. Ethan still had two tight fistfuls of my shirt.
For a minute, I stood there looking over Ethan’s head at the guy—at Andy—still not sure which shocked me more: the sight of him or the sight of the gun. The thing was, he was actually younger than he was when he supposedly died. The kid standing in front of me couldn’t have been any older than I was, if that. And yet I’d looked at that picture of Andy enough to recognize the face, even though the face staring me down now wasn’t wearing any shy grin.
“What are you doing here?” I said, when I was finally able to talk.
“What am I doing here?” he said as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “What about you?” He waved the gun our way.
It didn’t do my heart any good to see him using his gun to point, especially since we were the ones he was pointing at. It was probably a slug from that thing that had whistled over my head earlier. “I’m a friend of your father’s,” I stammered out, still too much in shock to fully grasp that I was probably explaining myself to a ghost.
“You’re lying,” he said, taking a few steps toward me. “You don’t even know my father.”
I wasn’t about to start an argument with anybody—even a ghost—who had a gun pointed at me, so I just stood there.
“Andy,” Ethan said, “it’s my brother. He won’t hurt you.” It seemed funny that he was telling a guy with a gun—let alone a guy who was supposed to be dead already—that I wouldn’t hurt him.
“You know this guy?” I said, kind of turning Ethan around so I could see his face.
He loosened his grip on my shirt and nodded. “It’s Andy Foster. I met him a few days ago.”
“Andy Foster?” As if I wasn’t confused enough to begin with.
Ethan nodded again. “He’s Mr. Lindstrom’s grandson.”
If it’s possible to feel like a total fool at the same time as you’re more scared than you’ve ever been in your life, I did. I should have guessed it was something like that. I knew firsthand how traits could stick with a family, even a few generations down the line. The first time I ever saw a picture of Pop’s uncle Seamus as a kid, I almost fell over. He could have been my twin brother. It was the same thing with Ethan and my mother’s father. So that explained why I thought the kid was Andy Lindstrom. But that was all it explained.
I looked at Andy again—this new, though not necessarily improved, Andy. “So what’s the deal here?” The words sounded a lot more rational and self-assured than I felt.
“The deal is, you’re leaving,” he said.
“Fine by me.” I was already starting to back up when I felt Ethan’s grip tighten on my shirt again.
“No,” he said with as much urgency as I’d ever heard from him. “We can’t. He’s gonna shoot himself!” He looked up at me. He was almost crying, but his face was so trusting—as if he really believed I could do something about the situation. “You gotta talk to him,” he said.
My eyes flicked back across the room to where Andy was waiting, almost patiently, you might say, for whatever I might have up my sleeve. But try as I might, the only thing I could come up with to say was, “Would you mind pointing the gun somewhere else?”
He studied me as if trying to decide what I was capable of, which obviously turned out to be not much. After a few seconds he lowered the gun. “Try something and you will regret it,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t have anything to lose.”
Seeing the gun pointing at the floor was at least the beginning of a big load off my mind. “All right,” I said. “All right. That’s good.” I had my hands up over Ethan’s shoulders and I was doing some kind of an everybody-just-stay-calm thing with them. Andy got calm enough to roll his eyes. Ethan waited patiently for me to say something intelligent.
“Okay . . . ,” I continued. “So . . . I’m Gabe Riley. You already know Ethan, I guess. We’re friends of your . . . your grandfather.”
The kid watched me babble on. I was almost hoping he’d tell me to shut up. He didn’t.
“Sooo . . . ,” I continued. “What’s the . . . uh . . .” I realized I’d already tried that one, so I switched to “When did you get here?” Even in the middle of all the confusion, it was beginning to dawn on me that his presence went a long way toward explaining what had been going on lately. It probably helped that he was wearing my rugby shirt, and his jeans looked pretty familiar too. Something else dawned on me: Mr. Lindstrom hadn’t lost his mind. He’d seen this Andy too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what gave him his stroke. As far I knew, he didn’t even know he had a grandson.
Andy looked me over a little more before deciding whether or not to bother answering my question. “I got here a couple of weeks ago,” he said finally. “The night that goofy kid jumped on the guy’s car.”
“And . . . ?” My calm-down hands were already getting a little impatient, and they were motioning for him to pick up the pace. I pulled them down to my sides before they got us into trouble.
Andy looked down at the floor, and at first I thought he’d said all he was going to say. Then he took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what to do at first, so I hid in the woods until I could decide
. I saw you guys camped by the pond and started watching you, and then I followed you when you went out to the road.”
That probably explained what Ray saw right before Rosasharn landed on his hood. But there was still a lot it didn’t explain. “If you came here to see your grandfather, why were you . . . I don’t know . . . sneaking around like that?”
He shrugged. “I wanted to watch him for a while. I wanted to see what he was like.”
“Didn’t it ever occur to you to just knock on his door and introduce yourself?”
“Listen to him, Gabe,” Ethan said. “He’s had a hard time.” He was still standing in front of me, but he’d dropped the death grip on my shirt.
I looked at him in surprise. Not because he was sticking up for a guy who was holding us both at bay with a shotgun, but because this was the closest Ethan had ever come to giving me any kind of lip. He came around beside me and patted my arm.
“Go ahead,” he said to Andy.
“That guy . . . my grandfather . . . He was my last hope.” Andy’s voice broke on the word “hope” and his face, which been hard and angry, started to break a little too. He slumped down on the floor by the window. He tried his best not to, but he was starting to cry. He leaned back into the wall with the gun across his lap.
I felt sorry for him, but I was still pretty much occupied being worried about Ethan and me. All while I waited for Andy to continue I was staring at the gun in his lap.
He took a couple of big snuffs and then went on. “I had to go someplace. I couldn’t stay home anymore, and this was the only place I could think of.” He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head slowly. “My mother . . . she’s lost it. All she talks about these days is him—about how everything that goes wrong is his fault.”
My mind was working overtime trying to connect the dots. “Him” had to be her father, Mr. Lindstrom.
“Not that that’s anything new,” he continued. “A couple of years ago, we moved from Maryland back to Saratoga, and I swear she did it just to be near him. So she could bother him. She used to get her loser boyfriend—the loser boyfriend she had at the time—to call his house. As soon as the old guy picked up the phone, the loser would say things like, ‘We’re watching you’ and ‘You can run but you can’t hide,’ that kind of crap. Just to do a number on his head. One time she even made a tape of her loser boyfriend’s voice saying that stuff so that she could call him and play it, and meanwhile the loser’s over in his yard shooting little pebbles at his windows. When the old guy came charging out, there was a note taped to his porch that said WE TOLD YOU WE WERE WATCHING. They pulled that one twice before that loser took off on her. Then we moved to Syracuse with her new loser, and she had him make a few calls from there.”
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