The Other Side: A Novel in the Alastair Stone Chronicles

by R. L. King

  Stone paused a moment in the doorway to take the place in with magical sight. Auras blazed in many colors: blues, greens, oranges, yellows, and reds blended together to light up the room, pretty much as he’d have expected from even a relatively subdued party like this. He didn’t spot anything concerning, though Randy Yates’s wife’s pale-blue aura did have a few faded patches that might indicate she wasn’t feeling well. Perhaps she had been telling the truth about the headache.

  He switched back and headed to the bar, got a single-malt Scotch, and approached Mortenson and Celina over by the window. Even though it was dark, the faint lights around the winery’s outer edges revealed drizzle but no rain. Maybe the weather would hold through tomorrow—possibly through Larry Duncan’s sheer force of will, if nothing else. “Evening,” he said, raising his glass.

  Mortenson raised her own. She had one of those brightly-colored tropical drinks with an umbrella sticking out of it, and it was already three-quarters gone. “Alastair. Glad you could make it. Have you met Celina yet?”

  “Haven’t had the pleasure.” He offered the dark-skinned woman his hand. “Alastair Stone. I hope Edwina hasn’t told you anything too horrible about me.”

  She smiled. “Nothing yet. But if you’d like to get a head start, I’m listening.” She was in her middle thirties, with short-cropped, naturally-curled hair and warm brown eyes. Attractive in an androgynous way, she wore a loose-fitting purple silk blouse over skinny jeans and short leather boots.

  “Oh, we haven’t got that long. Perhaps tomorrow.”

  “Celina’s been telling me some fascinating stories about some of the things they’ve run across while investigating locations for the show,” Mortenson said. “Naturally because she’s sensitive to the spirit world, she usually gets a better picture of what’s going on than the others do.” She shot a quick, sharp look at Stone, as if warning him not to make any of his usual flippant comments.

  “Naturally,” he murmured. “Ms. Wanderley, I noticed while watching a few episodes to prepare me for this, that you serve as both the group’s resident medium and their technical wizard. I found that intriguing—those are two skills that don’t often appear together in my experience.”

  “It was sort of by necessity,” she said, chuckling. “I was hired as a medium, but somebody on-camera has to make sure the gadgets are doing what they’re supposed to. Since Cody can barely figure out how to turn them on and Bryce can’t be bothered, it fell to me.”

  “We’ve been discussing the Brunder house and the curse,” Mortenson said, as if determined not to be left out of the conversation. “I thought I might have felt something in the air…the energy around the town seems strong.”

  “Indeed,” Stone said. “Have you noticed it to be true as well, Ms. Wanderley?” Her aura was halfway between a deep lavender and a dusty blue—an unusual color.

  Mortenson waved her glass. “Dr. Stone’s quite a star in our department, but I’m afraid he doesn’t have our connection to the—well, the other side.” She giggled and looked away.

  Stone couldn’t help staring—he’d never, in all the years of their association, heard Edwina Mortenson giggle. He suspected her connection to the spirit world, at least at the moment, had more to do with her nearly-empty glass than her affinity for the supernatural, but didn’t contradict her.

  Celina looked thoughtful. “I haven’t noticed much yet,” she said. “But then, I haven’t been near the Brunder place. I’m sure Larry mentioned he likes to get our first impressions on camera during the walk-through.”

  “He did, yes.” He glanced around. “Did I miss Mr. Riley? Has he already made his appearance?”

  Celina snorted. “Are you kidding? If he shows up at all, he’s never less than a half-hour late.”

  As if on cue, another figure appeared in the bar’s doorway. “Hey, everybody! Let’s get this party started!”

  Everybody turned in that direction. Bryce Riley stood there grinning, almost as if holding a pose long enough to make sure he got all the adulation he was due. He wore his leather jacket, tight jeans, and a crisp white shirt halfway unbuttoned. Stone was sure he’d spent at least fifteen minutes in front of a mirror making sure his hair was mussed just so.

  “Bryce, baby, good to see ya could make it!” Larry Duncan hurried over, took him by the arm, and steered him toward the bar, then turned back to the crowd. Raising his drink, he called, “If I could just have everybody’s attention for a moment, please?”

  When the small groups had stopped their conversations, he continued: “I promise I won’t interrupt for long, so you can all get back to getting to know each other. I just wanted to thank you all for being here, and especially the good people of Brunderville for being a part of our little production. We’re really excited about getting started tomorrow, and grateful to Randy and Mary Yates for bringing this place to our attention. We promise not to disrupt your town too much with our filming—but I wanted to let you know that we’ll be looking for folks to interview on camera about the Brunder place and the town in general tomorrow. So if you want to see yourself on TV and you’ve got some good stories, come by tomorrow morning at nine a.m.—you know where we’re set up, I’m sure you’ve all seen it—and talk to Rita. She’ll gather your stories and I’ll be getting in touch within the next couple days to get you on camera. Sound good?”

  Stone watched the townspeople. Some of them seemed excited by Duncan’s words, while others were shaking their heads. Clearly everyone in town wasn’t as excited about The Other Side’s presence as Duncan expected them to be.

  “And of course,” Duncan continued, “I want to thank our gracious hosts here at Shangri-La Winery for putting us up at this beautiful place. If this is what the rest of Brunderville will be like when everything’s finished, I’m absolutely certain people will be showing up in droves to experience your hospitality! I love you guys! Please—talk, enjoy your drinks, and get to know each other. We’re all gonna be great friends, I’m sure of it! Bryce, anything you want to say to these good people?”

  “Oh, absolutely, Larry!” Riley turned on his million-watt smile, swept his windblown hair off his forehead, and addressed the crowd. “You folks are awesome, and I’m looking forward to meeting every one of you over the next three days.”

  “Like hell he is,” Celina muttered under her breath.

  Riley raised his glass. “To Brunderville!”

  The TV crew all applauded, and after a moment, so did most of the townspeople. Stone noticed that Mary Yates was a notable exception: she stared down into her drink and appeared to be doing her best to fade into the background. Yates whispered something to her while still applauding, and she sighed and patted her hands halfheartedly together two or three times before returning to her drink.

  After that, the party proceeded in about the way Stone expected it to. He wasn’t, as a rule, fond of cocktail parties, since they usually consisted in equal parts of people he wouldn’t otherwise choose to spend time with, and small talk. Although he liked a good drink (or several) as well as the next person, he preferred to do his drinking in the company of friends—while he prided himself on his ability to play the part of an extrovert “on TV,” as it were, the truth was that pointless small talk bored him to distraction.

  Still, he supposed he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see if he could glean any other information about the Brunderville curse; perhaps as the townspeople got more lubricated on free drinks, they might let something slip that they wouldn’t have if sober. He got his Scotch topped off and began circulating through the crowd, eavesdropping on snatches of conversations in hopes of picking up something he could use as an entry point.

  A hand slapped down on his shoulder as he reached the edge of the room. “Hey, Stone, how you doing?”

  It was Bryce Riley, and from the look of him, he’d started drinking well bef
ore the party had begun. “Mr. Riley. How are you?”

  “I’m good, I’m good. You all ready for tomorrow?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  Riley grinned. “Hey, don’t worry about it, man. You’ll be fine. You just make with the academic gobbledygook. We got this, don’t you worry.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried.” He glanced pointedly at Riley’s hand, which was still on his shoulder.

  Riley completely missed the hint. Instead, he leaned in a little closer, his boozy breath wafting over Stone. “Listen,” he said. “I know Larry thinks you’re some kinda hot shit, but you just remember you’re the wonk, okay?”

  “The—what, now?” Stone took a step back, dislodging Riley’s hand.

  “The wonk. The wonk.” Riley waved his glass. “You know. The expert.” it was hard to put finger quotes around a word while clutching a half-full glass of whiskey, but he managed. “The guy who rattles off all that boring historical shit so people can take craps before the good stuff starts, y’know?”

  “Ah,” Stone said with a sage nod. “The wonk. Of course. I’ll do my best to keep people in their proper seats, I promise.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I don’t know why Larry insists on having you along on the walkthrough and the night shoot, anyway. We never do that with wonks. Usually they just sit in front of a wall full of books like that Mortenson broad’s gonna do.”

  Stone narrowed his eyes. “Dr. Mortenson is my colleague,” he said in an even tone. “You’ll show her the proper respect.”

  Riley snorted. “Screw that. You two can’t stand each other—a blind man can see it. Don’t go all white-knight on me now. She’s pissed because you butted in on her meeting with Larry, and I don’t blame her.”

  “Mr. Riley, I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink,” Stone said calmly. “Perhaps you should—”

  “Don’t tell me what I should do.” He pointed at himself. “I’m the star here, not you. Got it? Larry might be the big cheese, but he can’t do shit if I walk. Without me, there’s no show. If you had any sense, you’d just stay out of it and let the old hippie chick do the job, instead of trying to bogart the limelight.”

  Stone glanced past him. They were standing in a shadowy corner on the far side of the bar, and although a couple of the TV crewpeople glanced in their direction, nobody approached to intervene. He wondered if this kind of behavior was common with Riley. “Mr. Riley, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Truth hurts, does it?” He poked Stone hard in the center of the chest. “Just stay away from me, Stone. You might have Larry fooled with the spooky act and the accent, but you remember your place, got it?”

  “I always do, Mr. Riley.” He leaned in a little, putting pressure on Riley’s finger until he had to pull it back, and added a harder edge to his unruffled tone. “And don’t touch me again.”

  “Or what?” He eyed Stone contemptuously. “You’ll put a hex on me?”

  “I might at that.”

  “Ooh, I’m scared. Why don’t you just hop on your broom and scoot on outta here before I—”

  “Bryce, there you are!” Kelly Petrucci appeared from nowhere and gripped Riley’s arm. “I was looking for you. Come over here, will you? I’ve got some folks who are dying to meet you.”

  For a moment, it appeared Riley would ignore her and continue his altercation with Stone. Then he sighed and glared. “Just remember what I said,” he muttered, and allowed himself to be steered off.

  Petrucci glanced back over her shoulder at Stone and rolled her eyes.

  Stone shrugged and nodded thanks, then chuckled to himself. Perhaps he should have let Riley pick a fight with him. It would have been satisfying to poke a few pins in the man’s bloated ego, and as a side benefit, perhaps he’d have finally convinced Larry Duncan that he was more trouble than he was worth. That way, he and Mortenson could both get what they wanted—she’d be featured more prominently on the show, and he’d have less time around the TV crew and more to investigate the curse.

  He looked around for Duncan, hoping he’d witnessed the tiff, but was surprised to notice that the producer was nowhere to be seen in the bar. That was odd—Duncan seemed almost as much of a life-of-the-party type as Riley. Yates and his wife were gone too, but in their case it was more of a surprise that they’d lasted as long as they had. Maybe the three of them had gone off to discuss last-minute details about the Brunder place.

  Stone gravitated toward Mortenson, who’d finally separated herself from Celina (or vice versa) and was nursing another umbrella drink near the corner of the bar. “When did Duncan take off?”

  “About ten minutes ago. I think he said something about script updates.”

  “Did the Yateses go with him?”

  “I don’t think so. They left before he did.” She sighed and glanced over to where Stone and Riley had been talking. “I heard you two, by the way.”

  Stone raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t been speaking loudly, but Riley hadn’t made any effort to lower his voice. He supposed it was possible the whole bar had heard them. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve met plenty of his type. He’s an arsehole.”

  She nodded. “So have I. But I do appreciate your standing up for me. You didn’t have to do that.”

  “What can I say? I don’t like rudeness, and I take great pleasure in deflating overstuffed egos.”

  “It’s not true, you know.” She looked down into her swirling drink, not meeting his gaze.

  “What’s not true? I assure you, I do quite enjoy—”

  “That I can’t stand you,” she said, still not looking at him.

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. You do a bloody good job at what you do, and you’ve always been courteous. That’s all I have a right to ask. Whether you like me personally is irrelevant.”

  She sighed. “Look…I was annoyed when you showed up at that meeting. I already told you that. I was jealous. But…you can’t help being you, any more than I can change from being me.” She made vague gestures at herself, then at him. “And it’s not your fault that Mr. Duncan thought you’d be a better fit for the show.”

  “Edwina,” he said gently, “I think perhaps you’ve overindulged a bit. You’re going to do a brilliant job tomorrow. I’m sure of it.”

  “As a wonk,” she said with a damp, mirthless chuckle.

  “As an academic expert,” he said firmly. This conversation was going in an entirely strange direction, and he wondered if the other drink he’d seen Mortenson with had indeed been her first. “You’ve got a lot to offer them. Remember that.” He gripped her shoulder briefly. “We wonks have got to stick together, after all. Don’t let prats like Duncan and Riley see you sweat. They’re not worth it.”

  “No,” she said, and set her drink down. “I suppose they’re not. And I think you’re right—I’ve had a bit too much to drink. I think I’ll go back to my room. Thank you, Alastair.”

  “My pleasure. Listen—before you go, I might have something you’ll find interesting tomorrow.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was chatting with Mr. Yates after dinner tonight, and he’s got a big box of historical documents related to the area that he got from a friend whose gran died recently. Duncan says it’s too late to use them on the show, but I was planning to go through them anyway and look for anything related to the curse on the town. He’s dropping them by my room tomorrow so I can take a look at them. Care to help out?”

  As he’d expected, that perked her up instantly, and some of her tipsy moroseness dropped away. “Oh, yes. I’d love to see them.”

  “Brilliant. I’ll let you know when they arrive. Depending on our schedules, you might even get a chance to dive in to them before I do.”

  “I look forward to it.” If she realized he was diplomatically implying that
her schedule was likely to be more open than his, she didn’t comment. She got up, leaving the remains of her drink where it was. “I should go now, though. I’m still tired from the drive, and I was hoping to get up early tomorrow and walk around a bit, if the weather cooperates.”

  “All right, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  After she left, he remained only long enough to finish his drink. Most of the townspeople had left already, leaving a small group of the Other Side crew hanging around near the bar and taking advantage of the free-flowing liquor. He glanced at his watch: only a little after ten p.m. Too early to go to bed, especially since he was still keyed up from his confrontation with Bryce Riley and not at all tired yet.

  He drifted over to the window and glanced out. The rain had stopped, and even the drizzle looked like it had taken a break. The faint glow of the moon was visible over the tree line.

  In other words: it was as good a time as any to take a quick look around the Brunder place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was already dark when Jason and Verity left the Pussycat Club. The panels alongside the doors were now lit with pink neon, and the naked woman on the animated sign above the door now flashed back and forth in an endless repetitive dance step, her cat ears and a tail appearing and disappearing as she moved. “Did you find out anything?” Verity asked.

  “Not much. The bartender had never seen Gary. He thinks he might have seen David Ames, but he can’t be sure. Said the cops were all over the place askin’ questions the night Gary was found, and claims he told them all he knew. You?”

  “The stripper said she didn’t remember Gary or David, but she thinks the fact that Gary was dumped so conspicuously means somebody was sending a message.”

  “A message? What kind of message?”