Patrick receded into the relative shadow of the hallway. “You what?”
“We need help,” I told him. “The locals are getting suspicious. Someone saw Ethan come up this way the day he disappeared, and the town psychiatrist knows someone broke into her office. I thought having someone like Alex, someone that everyone trusts, to dispel rumors about us would help. Not to mention, he knew you and Caroline personally. Without Ethan around, we need another resource. How else are we supposed to find your bodies?”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you’re still around,” I answered, stacking the water bottles under one arm. “He didn’t believe us. I wouldn’t either to be honest, but there’s a chance he could turn up tonight, so be prepared for that.”
When I looked up, Patrick was staring at the floor, lost in thought. He looked like a seventeen-year-old boy in need of a reassuring word from his mother, but I was the best he had.
“Patrick, if Alex does visit, just remember that Bodhi and I will be there for you,” I said to him. “You won’t be alone.”
He took a step backward, his physical image fading as he retreated down the hallway. “It’s not me I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s Caroline.”
And then he was gone. I swallowed. Maybe inviting Alex to the house had been a mistake. Would Caroline go off the deep end if she saw him? I banished the thought, turning on my heel to go back outside, and brandished the water bottles.
“Who’s dehydrated? Catch.”
After tossing bottles to the guys that needed them, I picked up where I’d left off with my section of the decking, ignoring the squelch of the plaster cast against my skin. Blissfully, it wasn’t long before the heat and the work scrubbed away the worry manifesting about what might happen later that night.
When the day was done and the crew was gone and we had finished dinner, Bodhi and I moved the Winchesters’ old chairs from the widow’s walk to the backyard in order to enjoy the newly completed deck. The sun was long gone. We had worked extra hours to finish up, and the moon hovered over the garden like a glowing orb. Bodhi and I shared a chair. He sipped wine from a plastic cup and played with my hair.
“I could get used to this,” he murmured.
I snuggled into him. Near the edge of the bluff, the blooms on Caroline’s plumeria tree waltzed in the wind, sending waves of their sweet scent wafting in our direction.
“Me too,” I said.
His fingers combed through my hair. “No Alex though.”
I sighed, closing my eyes. “It’s only nine-thirty. Lido’s probably hasn’t closed yet.”
“They close at nine on weekdays.”
“Damn it.”
I heard footsteps behind us and craned my neck to see Patrick hovering in the doorway. He juggled a football anxiously between his hands.
“Mind if I come out?” he asked shyly.
“Not at all,” I answered.
Patrick walked the length of the deck, peering over the far end to look down at the rocks. He cradled the football to his chest as if afraid it might leap over the edge.
“What do you think?” Bodhi asked. He adjusted me a little so that he could sit up straight on the deck chair.
“It’s nice,” Patrick answered.
Bodhi got up, walked toward the opposite end of the deck, and opened his hands toward Patrick. “Here. Throw me the ball.”
Patrick looked down at the tattered football in his grasp. “Really?”
“Yeah. Unless you don’t want to.”
“No, I want to.”
I stretched my legs out along the chair. Patrick drew circles with his right arm, warming up muscles and ligaments that no longer served him much of a purpose. Then he found the laces of the football with his fingers, wound up, and tossed the ball across the deck in a perfect, spiraling arc. It was like watching art in motion. Bodhi caught the ball and returned it, but it wobbled through the air uncertainly. Despite its shaky path, Patrick caught it with one hand.
I watched as the ball traveled back and forth, entranced by its crescent-like path across the starlit sky. Bodhi’s throws improved with each pass, and he started challenging Patrick by aiming outside of the younger boy’s reach. But Patrick snapped up the ball at every turn, darting all over the deck and grinning every time he made a particularly impressive catch.
“Be careful,” I called as Patrick reached backward over the railing to snag the football with the tips of his fingers. Then I realized there was no point in warning a dead boy to watch his step. It’s not like anything could happen to him.
Bodhi squinted in the moonlight in order to catch Patrick’s return pass, but the football bounced off his hands and rolled into the garden. Bodhi bounded off the deck, pushing aside overgrown bushes in search of the ball. When he returned, he hurled the ball back at Patrick with a wide grin on his face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him look so carefree. Was this what it would’ve been like? In an alternate timeline, did Bodhi kick a soccer ball back and forth with Kali? Or go to her dance recitals? Or teach her how to meditate?
We were all missing something. Patrick, Caroline, Bodhi, and I. Opportunity. Patrick and Caroline missed growing up. They missed celebrating good SAT scores and college acceptance letters. They missed learning how to do their own laundry and cooking grilled cheese with an iron in a dorm room. Bodhi and I had experienced all of that—to some degree at least—but we missed the chance to raise our kid the way we wanted to. With the same hope and happiness and adventure in her heart that I saw now on Patrick’s face.
“Okay, okay,” Bodhi huffed, holding up his hands in defense before Patrick could throw the ball again. He stretched his arm over his head with a groan. “I think I’m done. My shoulder’s going to be all kinds of sore in the morning.”
“Geezer,” Patrick joked, spinning the football in the palm of his hand.
“Hey!” Bodhi smacked the football out of Patrick’s grasp and sat down on the edge of my chair as the younger boy chased after it.
When Patrick returned, he leaned against the new deck railing. Frowning, he stared down at the old ball. “He’s not coming, is he?”
“Who?” I asked, forgetting for a moment.
“Alex.”
But just as Patrick said his name, a knock echoed through the open sliding glass doors that led to the combined entryway and living room.
29
Allied Forces
The three of us looked at one another. The knock sounded again. Someone was definitely at the front door. Patrick’s eyes widened. He dropped the football, pacing back and forth across the deck.
“Um, how do we do this?” Bodhi asked.
I peered over my shoulder into the house. Through the small window pane set in the door, I could see the outline of Alex’s strong, shaded chin. He bounced nervously on the balls of his toes. “I’ll answer the door. Patrick, you wait here. Where’s Caroline, do you think?”
“Hiding, I hope,” Patrick muttered.
I shushed him and pushed myself out of the deck chair to walk into the living room. At the front door, I looked behind me. Bodhi was visible, waiting for me to invite Alex inside. Patrick was hidden beyond the frame of the sliding glass doors, but I could picture his anxious frown. I opened the door.
Alex stood with his hands tucked deep in the front pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hunched up to his ears as if it was the dead of winter rather than the middle of summer.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m glad you decided to stop by.”
Alex lingered in the doorway. “I haven’t been here in twenty years.”
“That’s okay.” I stepped aside to make room for him in the entryway, but he remained on the threshold. I linked one of my arms through his and pulled him inside. “Come on. You’ll be fine.”
He gazed around the new living room. “It looks different.”
“That’s kind of the point of house flipping,” I reminded him as I led him to one of the aluminum folding chair
s that accompanied the card table we ate off of. They were the only pieces of furniture in the living room. “Here, sit. Bodhi?”
Bodhi stepped in from outside. “Hey, Alex. Doing okay so far?”
“So far.”
Bodhi wandered into the kitchen. “Would you like a glass of water? Or something stronger?”
“Water’s fine, please.”
Bodhi brought over three water bottles and placed them on the card table. We sat down next to Alex. I glanced out to the deck, but Patrick was nowhere in sight. Had he lost his nerve?
“Well?” Alex prompted, popping the cap off his water bottle and draining half of it in one gulp. “What am I doing here?”
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked Alex.
“Ready for what exactly?”
Bodhi and I looked at each other. There was no preparing Alex for what he was about to see. Instead, I prepared myself for Alex’s potential reaction.
“Patrick,” I called to the backyard. “Why don’t you come in now?”
For a moment, no one moved. Alex’s breathing quickened. I could hear the strain of his inhales, the rapid burst of his exhales. Outside, the wind tickled the overgrown garden and the moon shone down on the decking. At last, Patrick’s blond hair edged out from behind the frame of the sliding glass door. He peeked into the living room.
“Alex?”
Alex shot out of his chair faster than a bullet from a gun, backing up against the far wall of the living room as Patrick tiptoed into full view. His chest heaved as he stared at the younger boy, unable to wrap his head around the situation.
“Pat?”
“It’s me.”
Slowly, Alex peeled himself away from the wall. He took a tiny step forward. Patrick inched into the living room. Bodhi and I watched with bated breath as they neared each other. When they met in the middle of the floor, I half-expected for the world to implode. Patrick stared at Alex. Alex stared at Patrick. And then Patrick said:
“Man, you got lines now.”
Alex looked stunned. Patrick punched him in the shoulder in a fruitless attempt to lighten the mood, but all it did was confuse Alex even more. His hand rose. He placed it on Patrick’s shoulder. He stood still for a moment. Then Alex tugged Patrick into a tight hug.
“I can’t believe this,” Alex said, releasing Patrick and stepping back to look at him up and down. “You haven’t aged a day! This is insane!”
Patrick struck a goofy pose. “Perk of being undead.”
Alex let out an incredulous sigh, shaking his head. He held his hand out to shake Patrick’s. “Do you remember?”
“Of course.”
They performed a complicated handshake, complete with high fives and some variation of jazz fingers. Alex was eighteen again, playing with his best friend. I could envision them in the end zone during a high school football game, doing a touchdown celebration dance together.
“I’m not hallucinating, right?” Alex asked me and Bodhi as he grasped Patrick’s forearm. “He’s really here?”
“He’s really here,” I confirmed.
“What about Caroline?”
It was a good question. Caroline had been uncharacteristically quiet for the past few days. I assumed it was because she was running out of energy as the anniversary of her death approached, but I also thought that Alex’s visit would lure her out of dormancy. On the other hand, maybe it was a good thing that Caroline was lying low. Alex wore a wide smile. He was ecstatic to see his old friend again, but the reality of the situation hadn’t sunk in yet. If Caroline made an appearance—knocking things about in that reckless way of hers—it might prevent Alex from helping us.
“She’s around,” I told Alex. “But she’s not like Patrick. She can’t appear like he does.”
Alex looked disappointed. “Oh. Why are they here at all?”
“Hey, man,” Patrick interrupted. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”
Alex patted Patrick on the shoulder. “Sorry, bud.”
“Take it away, Pat,” Bodhi said.
Patrick steeled himself, adjusting his T-shirt as if it were a nervous tic of his. “Honestly, Alex, I don’t want to relive the events of that day again, so here’s the long and short of it. Ethan killed us. All of us. He ran Mom and Dad into the rocks, then he circled back to finish off me and Caroline.”
“How?” Alex asked, his devastation evident in the downward turn of his mouth. “Why?”
“Believe me,” Patrick replied. “You don’t want to know. It was bad. As for why, I guess Ethan blamed his troubles on us. He thought that my father caused the heart attack that killed his father.”
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Alex.
Patrick shrugged. “I agree, but that’s what it was. After we were gone, Ethan had every opportunity to regain his status in town. It turned out well for him. I honestly thought we were never going to get a chance to find peace. Luckily, Bailey and Bodhi have changed that.”
Alex glanced at us. “Are you guys some kind of ghost hunters or something?”
Bodhi and I laughed.
“No,” Bodhi answered. “Caroline terrorized Bailey when we first got here. It took us a while to figure out she wasn’t actually trying to kill us.”
“And you need our help,” Alex said to Patrick.
“That would be correct.”
“With what exactly?”
Patrick fiddled with the buttons on the front of his shirt. He seemed unable to voice his needs out loud to Alex the way he had with us a few days ago. I took over for him.
“This Saturday is the official anniversary of the Winchesters’ deaths,” I told Alex. “Patrick and Caroline need to cross over to the next life, or whatever it is, before then. Otherwise, they have to stay here forever.”
“Okay,” Alex said slowly. “So what are we supposed to do?”
“In order to move on, Ethan has to pay for what he did,” I explained. I squeezed Bodhi’s hands. This is where things got a little dicey. “Patrick needs us to locate a few things.”
Alex shifted from one foot to the other, eyeing Patrick uncertainly. “What kind of things?”
“The murder weapon he used to kill me,” Patrick answered.
“And their bodies,” Bodhi added.
Suddenly, the glass doors flew shut, shaking in their frames. Without the breeze, the air should’ve grown quickly humid. Instead, a chill settled over the living room. Goose bumps rose on my arms, making the fine hairs there stand straight up. The coffee maker in the kitchen gurgled to life.
“That’s Caroline,” I said to Alex, who had frozen in horror. Looking over my shoulder into the kitchen, I added, “Caroline, please don’t break anything. We just bought that coffee maker.”
She replied by sending the metal carafe crashing to the kitchen floor.
“Her listening skills need work,” Bodhi said to Alex. An apple levitated from the kitchen counter, zoomed across the room, and hit Bodhi in the back of the head. “Ow!”
Alex was rooted in place, watching the action unfold.
Patrick nudged him. “Say hi,” he suggested.
Alex’s mouth dropped open. “Uh,” he said. “Hi, Caroline?”
The temperature in the room shifted again, this time warming us as though we were sitting next to a cozy bonfire outdoors. It was something Caroline had never done before—I didn’t know she was capable of it—but there was a distinct change in the overall mood. I was overcome with a feeling of pleasure, and judging from the goofy smile on Bodhi’s face, I wasn’t the only one affected.
“She missed you,” Patrick said to Alex.
Alex smiled, looking toward the ceiling as if hoping to locate some sort of physical manifestation of Caroline. “Missed you too, Caz. I really wish you were still around.”
Another swell of warmth undulated through us. Caroline hadn’t been this happy or satisfied in all the time we had been at the Winchester house.
“However,” Alex continued
. “If your intention is to distract me from what these three just told me, it isn’t working.” He turned to me and Bodhi. “Did you say that we have to find their bodies?”
Thankfully, Patrick intercepted the question. “Caroline and I were never buried properly. That’s one of the reasons we haven’t been able to pass over. Our bodies need to be dug up and reburied respectfully.”
The thought made me shiver. By now, Patrick and Caroline were most likely no more than a collection of bones, depending on what Ethan did with them.
“But we don’t know where they are,” Bodhi added. “And Patrick can’t remember.”
“So how am I supposed to find them?” Alex asked, perplexed.
“You know this town better than we do,” I said. “You know Ethan better than we do. You can dig for information without being noticed. The town is already suspicious of me and Bodhi.”
“Which is another reason we need you.” Bodhi scooted his chair closer to mine to rest his hand on top of my knee. “For the next few days, we need to go unnoticed, but that’s not going to happen if the locals start thinking we cooked Ethan for dinner. You can distract them. Lead the conversation away from Ethan. Away from this house. They trust you.”
Alex sat down in the aluminum chair again, running his fingers over his short buzz cut. He seemed rather calm compared to when Patrick first appeared. In fact, Alex was receiving the news with a lot more finesse than Bodhi and I combined.
“That’s easy,” he said to us. “The town is just worried about Ethan. No one really thinks that you two had anything to do with it. It’s all speculation.”
As Alex drained his first water bottle, Bodhi offered him his own drink. “We need them to speculate about something other than us.”
“Got it. What about Ethan? I’m assuming you know what actually happened to him.”
Patrick, Bodhi, and I exchanged glances, wondering how much information was too much when it came to the subject of Ethan.
“Kind of,” I told Alex. “But if he’s coming back, it’s going to be soon. If he does return, we need you on our side.”
The Haunting of Winchester Mansion Omnibus Page 32