The Supernaturals

SIX

Harrison Lumley had known Gabriel Kennedy since their graduate studies at Cal Berkley. For the past few days he had seen his old friend go from his classes to the quad area outside of his building and do nothing but sit under one of the trees and pretend to eat his lunch, or read a book. Harrison knew that television producer had visited Kennedy, and had a hunch her visit was what was occupying Gabriel’s mind. After reading this morning’s Houston Chronicle, he thought he better check on Gabriel.

“You know, October in east Texas isn’t like October in LA, my friend,” Lumley said as he looked down on Gabriel. “It’s hot as hell out here. It’ll make your peanut butter melt.”

Kennedy looked up, shielding his eyes, and held out the sandwich.

“With what you pay me, all I can afford is cheese.”

Harrison tossed the Houston paper down upon the grass next to Kennedy.

“I already know. It was on Good Morning America. Nice way to start the morning information, losing your toast and coffee.”

“This vindicates what you told the police seven years ago, wouldn’t you say?”

Kennedy shook his head. He looked at his half-eaten sandwich, then tossed it onto the brown paper bag next to him.

“Vindication for me, or vindication for my lost student?” he asked, looking away toward the science building.

“You. If you’re cleared of this mess, that means they have to reopen the case and try again to find that kid.”

“Just because a network television show will go to any lengths to promote a Halloween special, doesn’t mean anyone has been vindicated.”

“Gabriel,” Harrison said uneasily, “I took the liberty of calling the hospital where this caretaker’s boy is.”

Kennedy put his half-eaten sandwich in the bag and then looked up. He held his right hand over his brow to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Of course they wouldn’t tell me anything at the nurse’s station, so I used an old trick. I spoke with one of the elderly volunteers at the reception desk. She said that the boy is comatose — and then she told me he’d been scared nearly to death. Of course there is no such thing as being scared almost to death, clinically speaking, but we all know what shock can do to higher and lower brain function.”

“I met that boy, you know. I really liked his mother and father.”

“From what I’m hearing, this helps your story.”

“No, Harrison, it just adds to it,” Kennedy answered sharply. He stood and tossed his lunch bag into a nearby receptacle.

“Did Good Morning America inform the public that this crazy producer is going on with the Halloween special?” Lumley reached down and picked up the newspaper.

Kennedy slowly took the paper from his friend’s hand, looking him in the eyes as he unfolded it.

“What do the police have to say about that?”

“Doesn’t say.”

“If they keep fucking around with that house, it will kill them all.” He scanned the paper for the article.

Harrison turned away and started walking back to his office. “Then if I were you, I’d make sure they understand just what they’re getting into.” He stopped and looked back at Kennedy. “For your own peace of mind.”

Gabriel closed the paper. “I will never in my life go back to Summer Place, Harrison.”

His friend smiled at him sadly and walked away. Opening the paper once more, Kennedy quickly found the headline.

Old Nightmares Churn Once More in Pocono Mountains.’

“Jesus,” he mumbled, scanning the article.

All around him, the hot fall day went on its merry schedule of classes and first semester finals. Kennedy stood riveted to his lunchtime spot, and read. As he lowered the paper and let it slip from his hands, an old familiar chill coursed through his body, defying the heat of the Texas sun.

Kelly Delaphoy had been expecting a boardroom full of suits, but instead she found herself facing only two men. One was nodding his head like a grandfather, his heavy jowls almost covering his ever-present bowtie. His thick glasses made his dark eyes larger than they actually were, giving him a cartoon-ish look. The other man had the smirk and dead eyes of a circling shark about to feed.

Abraham Feuerstein looked at Kelly calmly and silently. He had taken over a company a thousand times smaller than General Electric, and one with negative fluid capital, and turned it into a manufacturing juggernaut. It allowed him smaller, but just as profitable, playthings — playthings such as movie studios and television networks. He was the only man to claim a Chairman of the Board position, along with being CEO.

On the other side of the table, sitting and smiling like the Cheshire cat, was Lionel Peterson, fresh from his morning shower at the Waldorf Astoria. His grin lingered as he opened a folder in front of him. His hair was combed back so severely that it mirrored the soft lighting of the chairman’s office.

“Let’s open this little get-together with a few numbers,” he said, looking from Kelly to Feuerstein. “There’s only one good number here. It’s the that says Kelly and her crew actually stayed within budget for the broadcast test. In fact, she came in under budget. Probably only because the test was terminated thirty-five minutes in.”

“Were we supposed to keep going after—?”

Peterson held up his hand, cutting her protest short.

“We have two people missing, and after two full days it seems the Pennsylvania State Police cannot locate them. The house, Summer Place, has been searched with the proverbial fine toothed comb. The network is being accused of hiring a known child molester and exposing a teenager to that danger — a teenager who, by the way, is in a near comatose state. I say near because every few hours he awakens and screams for a solid thirty minutes. Then when he can’t continue, he passes back out.”

“You’ve seen the tape, what—”

“One of the hosts of the show is missing, probably with the child molester Kelly brought to the house without network knowledge. Now your other co-host has resigned.”

“The show will—”

“There is no show, Kelly,” Peterson said, closing the file.

“Mr. Feuerstein, am I going to be allowed to talk, or am I to be cut off by Mr. Peterson every time I open my mouth?”

“I believe Lionel has said what he came here to say,” the chairman said. He stood up and poured a cup of coffee at the large credenza, then turned and slowly paced back to Kelly’s chair at the table. He placed the china cup and saucer in front of her. “You may now have the floor, Ms. Delaphoy,” he said, returning to his large chair.

“No matter what the State Police are saying, you saw the tape, the eight frames of footage. Something came out of that vent and took Kyle. I know the same thing took Paul. It’s the same thing Professor Kennedy claimed happened to his lost student.”

Peterson cleared his throat. “Our best, most experienced technicians don’t know what they’re looking at on that tape. They say the image was recorded at such a slow speed, due to the loss of battery power, that the image may have been created by dust caught up in the night-vision and infrared optics.” He smiled at Kelly, and then looked at the chairman and shrugged his shoulders.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” Kelly stared a hole through Peterson. “The goddamn image was blue, which according to the infrared scan means it was cold! Loss of battery power or not, the FLIR camera was operating. It was drawing power from a source other than the batteries or the outside power grid. Fucking dust? Is that the best you can do?”

“Ms. Delaphoy — Kelly — please. I think we can get through this without resorting to profanity. Mr. Peterson proves the point that everyone who sees the images will interpret this thing differently. You can’t beat their heads together to get the result you want. Being from the electronics business, I know how rarely engineers and technicians agree on anything. Now, we also had to turn the tape over to the Pennsylvania State Police, who — I may add — are threatening charges against you, Mr. Dalton and Mr. Sanborn for withholding evidence.”

“If we don’t capitalize on this free publicity for the special, it would be unforgivable to the stockholders.”

The chairman let his face drop for a brief moment before looking up at Kelly. “Young lady, I and I alone answer to those stockholders. You do not.”

“You see what I have to deal with here, sir?” Peterson asked.

Feuerstein held up his hand for Peterson to be silent.

“However, I am a business man, and did not rise up to be the head of this corporation by being blind to opportunity.”

Kelly closed her eyes and allowed her heart to settle back into its normal position in her chest.

“Now, we have a mess on our hands. Wallace Lindemann has recovered some of the bravado he lost in front of our attorney, and has filed an injunction to have our lease cancelled before Halloween.”

“I’m sure we have legal recourse to—”

“Kelly, you have a bad habit of jumping the gun before people have finished.”

Peterson looked away.

“Now,” Feuerstein continued, “as I was trying to say, our friend Lindemann has many unpaid obligations to other people, most notable of which are right here in our fair city. I think he can be persuaded to cancel the injunction and allow the special to go forward.”

Kelly let out the breath she had been holding with relief. Peterson, still tense, did not.

“So, I am inclined, at least for the moment, to start the final preparations for October 31^st.”

“Thank you, sir. Thank you so—”

“There is one caveat, Kelly.” Feuerstein looked at her intently through his thick glasses.

Kelly waited for the ax to fall and sever her head from her neck.

“Professor Gabriel Kennedy has to be a part of the show. Not just part of the show — he has to host it.” Again, he held up his hand before Kelly could open her mouth. “You have lost both of the longtime hosts of Hunters of the Paranormal, thus crippling your credibility with your loyal viewers. Kennedy is vital, not only for your loyal viewership, but for the many, many new viewers we are seeking. I need the best person to lead this thing forward. I want Kennedy.”

Kelly’s mind was churning at the speed of light. “Do I have a blank check for hiring Gabriel Kennedy?” she asked.

“Let’s just say you have a free hand to do what you do best.”

Kelly ignored the slight. She knew exactly where the information about her coercive talents originated. She looked at Peterson and didn’t back down from his intense gaze. The real shark sat in the large chair behind the conference table in a silly bowtie, and that shark had just finished feeding.

“I need Julie Reilly also,” she said. “You said she was to be a part of the show, anyway. She may be useful in getting Kennedy to cooperate.”

“What can I say? You have her. She goes on official assignment as of today. She answers to me alone, not to you. Use her any way you wish, but I want her face on that television screen forty percent of the time, preferably right alongside Kennedy.”

“Fair enough,” she said, and then thought a moment. “There is one more thing…” She looked back at Peterson.

“You’re just full of demands, aren’t you?” This time, Feuerstein was smiling.

“I want a free hand. No interference from programming, and no budget arguments. Of course, that is, if the President of Entertainment can fulfill his side of the bargain and land those high-rolling corporate sponsors he brags about so much.”

“You must learn to curb your tongue, Ms. Delaphoy. I’m sure Lionel will do as he is told. Isn’t that so?”

“Kelly, I’m going to get you so much advertising revenue that you’ll drown yourself in budget money.” Peterson stood and buttoned his coat. “And with all due respect, sir, I’m also going to get the proper length of rope at the same time, so that Kelly will have no trouble hanging herself when this thing flops.”

“Well, if it does, you’ll be ringside to see it.”

“Sir?” Peterson asked.

“I believe you started out as a producer, yourself. Am I correct?”

“Yes,” he answered, sinking hesitantly back into his chair.

“I think Kelly and Harris Dalton would be more comfortable having your expertise on site during the live broadcast.” He looked up thoughtfully, and then fixed Peterson with a wry smile. “As a consultant.”

“But sir, I—”

“Pack your bags, both of you. You’re going to the Poconos.” He nodded, enjoying his private little joke, then rose and walked to the door.

Kelly and Peterson did not see the old man pause at the open door, and his final thoughts on the subject caught them both off guard.

“I expect this to be better than the live broadcast of War of the Worlds. I want everyone in this country talking about it the next day. If they aren’t, changes might be in order over at the entertainment division.”

With those words, the door closed. Kelly and Peterson’s fates had just been tied together into a knot — a knot that was tied not only tied around their necks, but also firmly connected to the rafters of the most dangerous house in the world.

The hired security guards kept the press outside of the massive wooden front gate of Summer Place. Three network news trucks and several print journalists waited for Lieutenant Damian Jackson to give a statement about the progress of his investigation. The news crews were perpetuating the rumors that the two missing men had never left the property, in stark contrast to the Pennsylvania State Police “off the record” statements that suggested the two men were part of an elaborate hoax aimed at capitalizing on the UBC television special only two weeks away.

Julie Reilly wasn’t with the news van that had been dispatched from the local UBC affiliate in Philadelphia, or the one from Pittsburgh. Instead, she parked her rental car a quarter of a mile away from the crush at the front gate. She looked at her watch and frowned.

Julie had fought against the stereotype of the dumb blonde field reporter most of her career. She rose through the ranks with solid filings to the network from Iraq and Somalia, earning the right to call her own shots at UBC. She knew the anchor chair for the evening news was going to be up for grabs within the next year, and she wanted it. Julie knew she was now irrevocably linked to Kelly Delaphoy’s disaster in the making; she also was aware that this stunt would do nothing for her credibility with the news division unless she could get an angle. She had to prove either a real haunting, or an elaborate hoax. Since she didn’t believe any of the crap Kennedy or Delaphoy spouted about ghosts and mysterious happenings, she was aiming for the hoax angle.

Julie had her hair in a simple ponytail and she wore little makeup. She was here to take notes and ask questions of two men she had interviewed many times before: Lieutenant Damian Jackson, and the owner of Summer Place, Wallace Lindemann.

She looked at her watch one more time, then she glanced out her window. To her right, several state policemen and their bloodhounds left the barn and entered the stables, the dogs pulling hard on their leashes. She shook her head. She knew the two missing employees were holed up somewhere off the property, waiting until such a time as Kelly Delaphoy could stage a dramatic return— live, before the eyes of forty million people, more than likely. Julie was not going to be a part of that kind of deception.

As Julie watched the search team, she pulled up the collar of her leather jacket. The morning was actually getting colder. Fall was finally in full force. She yawned, and noticed the limousine coming up the road. It slowed down to pull in behind her rented compact.

She took a deep breath, setting her jaw as she always did when she braced herself for confrontation. Opening the door, she put on her best smile. She reached the rear door just as it opened, and climbed in.

Wallace Lindemann looked haggard and tired. He wasn’t wearing his customary tie and he was unshaven. He instructed the driver to continue onto the house, and paid no attention to the gathered reporters screaming for the limo to stop as they slowly pulled up to the front gate.

“Mr. Lindemann, it was good of you to allow—”

“You people have more gall than I could ever have. First your bosses in New York sic your legal dogs on me, and then they resort to strong-arm tactics, and now here’s their ace reporter come to ask her questions, knowing I have to cooperate. Un-fucking-believable.”

Julie saw that the owner of Summer Place was going to be hostile. She should have figured as much, after seeing the bedraggled look on the small man’s features. He looked as if he had lost his razor and had been sleeping in his clothes.

“Number one: I cannot be held accountable for the actions of our legal department, nor the influence my network has with your creditors, although a man as smart and savvy as yourself should have seen this coming. Two: I suggest you take advantage of whatever opportunity is presented to you. This can be a godsend for you, if you play your cards right.”

“Lectured by a talking head,” Lindemann grumbled. Then he looked over at Julie. “Although…a beautiful talking head.”

“I won’t even comment on your opinion, Mr. Lindemann. I never do when people take that tack with me.”

“Okay. What do your masters in New York want?”

“I need more background. The last time I was here, you were far more in control of things and wouldn’t let me near you. I need to know what you really think about—”

“Look, Ms. Reilly, I was in the production van that night and I didn’t see anything. If you want—”

“Professor Gabriel Kennedy,” she finished.

If Lindemann was shocked by the question, he covered it up well, only raising his right eyebrow.

“He’s a crackpot. Of all the people in the world, you should know that. You and Lieutenant Jackson were the ones who placed that label squarely on his forehead. You two would have done well in the days of the Spanish Inquisition.”

The limo pulled through the gate. Reporters smashed their faces against the tinted windows to view the long black car’s interior. They slapped at the glass and shouted questions that were muffled and unidentifiable.

“Score one for you. I assume you’ve been thinking about that the whole way here.” Julie closed her eyes and then opened them. “I don’t care what you’ve heard or what you believe.” She removed a notepad from her bag, just as the limo stopped under the massive portico’s overhang. “I just want to know about the cleanup after that night in 2003.”

Wallace Lindemann was taken aback by the question. Julie could see it.

“Cleanup?”

“Yes. You obviously had to hire someone to repair the physical damage to the house. It’s described in the official police report.” She made a pretense of looking at her notes, though she knew the details by heart. “Plaster was damaged in the second floor hallway, several heavy doors had to be re-hung — the police confirmed those parts of Kennedy’s story.” She looked up from her notes and fixed him with her penetrating eyes. “So, what was the damage and what did your contractors have to say?”

“They came and fixed several items. I don’t exactly recall—”

“Why didn’t you use local contractors? You hired a company out of Altoona — almost two hundred miles away.”

Lindemann looked away as the chauffer opened his door. He stepped out quickly. “I’ll have to check my records. I don’t remember what was done exactly.”

“Who said you could bring in a reporter?” a booming voice called from the top of the steps.

Julie looked up and saw the large figure of Damian Jackson, replete with his tan raincoat, standing with his right hand in his pocket and looking down on them — his favorite position in life. Probably sexual in nature, Julie thought.

“Nice to see you again, Lieutenant,” Julie said as she climbed out of the backseat. “I see you’re still trying to convince the world that you’re Colombo and Superfly all rolled into one.”

Jackson didn’t respond, he just watched as Lindemann and Julie climbed the steps. He eyed Wallace as he passed.

“I’ll be in the bar,” Lindemann said. He slithered by the detective.

“This crime scene is off limits to the press for the time being. Your network may have enough on Lindemann to get him to sneak you in here, but they have nothing on me.”

Julie eased up to Jackson and leaned closer to his large frame. He didn’t look down at her, but stared straight ahead.

“Let me clue you into something, Damian. You and I are linked to this place, and this case.” She continued past him, up the stone steps. “After all, many people think that it was you and I who railroaded an innocent man. And now here we are all over again. Only this time there’s not just Kennedy, but a whole network team of Emmy winners saying something’s wrong with this place. And that, Detective, has bite.”

Jackson took a deep breath, waiting until the front doors had opened and closed before he turned around. The moment he had first heard about the network broadcast test, he had known that the past would be coming back to bite him right in the ass. Now the first piranha had arrived to start the feeding.

When Jackson entered the barroom, he saw Lindemann at his usual barstool and Julie helping herself to a cup of coffee.

“Look, before you start with your crap, I can bring anyone in my house that I want to,” Wallace said like a petulant child. He stared into his glass of whiskey.

“So, what is the state of your investigation?” Julie asked, removing her coat and leaning against the bar.

“What, no note taking?” Damian advanced into the large ballroom.

“No, this is more of a personal interview. After all, Lieutenant, I think both of our career advancement opportunities are on the line.”

“Yours maybe, but I see my career advancement as still viable. After all, I based my report on facts, unlike you. As I see it, you have to prove Kennedy guilty all over again, while I only have to prove another party guilty of the same crime. A fresh start, you might say.”

“Still smug as hell, aren’t you?” Julie asked, studying Jackson.

“Not smug, just right. I know this house didn’t take those people. There are no ghosts and there’s no such a thing as a bad house, just bad and very stupid people who prey on the gullible.”

“Look, I’m here to call a truce with both you and Lindemann. I’m going to report the same facts that I did before. I need to prove that people are the real evil here, just as you say. If I don’t, and if Kelly Delaphoy proves that there’s an otherworldly problem here, then our careers are both finished.” She took a sip of the hot coffee. “Public opinion is a strange thing, Damian. Its power has even been known to stop unpopular wars.”

Jackson knew Julie was right. His harshness with Gabriel Kennedy in 2003 was on record. Jackson removed his hat and tossed it on the bar next to Lindemann. His bald head gleamed in the overhead lights. “You’re willing to go against your network and actually say this Halloween special is a put-on job?”

“I’m going to do far more than that,” Julie said. “I’m going to be here for all eight hours, and I intend to prove that this haunted house crap is just that. And there is one more thing, Lieutenant…” Julie locked her green eyes onto Jackson’s.

He raised his eyebrows, waiting for the piranha to take its last bite.

“The network is trying to get Gabriel Kennedy to host the special.”

Lindemann and Jackson both stared at Julie. The big detective glanced around the ballroom, a curious look on his face.

“What is it?” Julie asked, placing her coffee down.

“Didn’t you hear that?” Jackson said, looking at the two of them with eyes wide.

“What?” Lindemann asked standing from his stool, spilling his drink on his hand in his haste.

“Why, the house, of course.”

“What….what do you m-m-mean?” Lindemann looked around.

Julie hid her grin at Wallace’s obvious discomfort.

“It’s laughing its shingles off — Kennedy is coming home.”

Every door on the second and third floors suddenly slammed closed, making all three of them jump.

Julie swallowed and looked at Jackson. “Draft must have closed all the doors up there.”

“How in hell would a draft close doors that were already closed and locked?” Lindemann emptied his glass and slammed it down.

Damian Jackson smiled as Lindemann stormed past him. He looked at Julie, who had also lost her brief sense of humor.

“Maybe the house isn’t happy that Kennedy is coming back.”

Jackson looked at her, then looked around him at the ostentatious ballroom.

“Maybe not.” He smiled again. “But I surely am.”

SEVEN

The sun had set and the heat of the day had finally drained from the air in the classroom. It was now cool enough that the windows could be opened and Kennedy could catch some of the breeze that found its way between the old buildings.

He watched the silent campus through one of those windows and wondered if he was the only faculty member still there. He turned and walked with purpose to his desk, producing his set of keys as he went. There were only four keys on his key ring — one to his studio apartment, one to his classroom, one to his mailbox, and the last and smallest opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He sat heavily into his chair and took a deep breath.

The drawer and its contents had eaten at him all day. He stayed after everyone had left, finally deciding to breach the vault that held the combination to that night in Pennsylvania. He inserted the key and opened the lock, and then he pulled open the largest drawer. He pursed his lips and scratched his beard. Before he could lose his nerve, close the damn thing and once more hide the truth, he reached in and removed the five journals and ten file folders. He slammed them on his desktop as he kicked the large drawer closed with his foot.

Gabriel sat back in his chair and looked at what the last twenty years of his life had become. The story of how he came upon Summer Place and the research behind it. Since that fateful night, he had lacked the courage to delve back into the historical research of the house and the family Lindemann. But now there had been more disappearances at the mansion. The house, he knew, wasn’t done with him. Or, perhaps, he wasn’t finished with it. He had realized it even before the newspapers had started reporting on it again.

The journals chronicled the experiment he had been conducting that night, long ago. He wasn’t interested in rehashing what happened to him and his students; he was concerned with the research that had led him originally to Summer Place. The interviews, the research on the property, the numerous face-to-face talks with what living Lindemann relatives were left. The answer, the very key to what the house was about, was here in his research files — somewhere.

He was responsible for that night. He knew that and never denied it, not even to himself. Before that night, he had been a skeptic himself. Never a believer in the paranormal world, his only faith was in the science of the mind; his fascination had been with how static objects could instill such inherent fear into ones psyche. How the influences of rumor and innuendo had the power to change the reality of perception, thus creating the human ability to literally scare oneself into a state of unrest. A person could end up with a broken mind merely because the mind had believed in the impossible, and thus made it real to them.

Kennedy had to smile at the memory of the theory. He pulled on his beard. Yeah, scare yourself into a state of unrest and broken mind — that was what I surely did.

He spread the journals and folders out onto the desk and found the file he wanted. Absentmindedly removing his corduroy jacket, he began reading about the history of the Lindemanns one more time.

Eighteen hundred miles to the north, Summer Place waited. Kennedy suspected that whatever was in that house knew its history was being studied once more.

The following day, Gabriel Kennedy entered his classroom and placed his briefcase on the desk. The Summer Place materials he had removed from the desk drawer were still sitting out. He rubbed his face. He had shaved his beard off for the first time in years. Now he didn’t recognize the man who faced him in the mirror. His blue eyes were better served without the growth of beard, though, and he had even garnered the gracious looks of several students as he briskly strolled across campus.

He gathered up the journals and files and placed them back into his drawer, then locked it. Not for fear that he would be tempted to revisit that damnable house as before, but because he wished to protect what he knew now were some of the most valuable writings in the field of paranormal study. He had realized their importance only after worrying all night at his apartment about having left them unsecured on his desk.

He looked up at the clock behind his desk and decided he would move the damn thing back to the opposite wall, the first chance he got. Time, he suspected, was no longer an enemy.

The door at the topmost tier of the classroom opened, admitting Harrison Lumley. His friend stood there looking down at him, amazed. “Well, the ice-man cometh,” he said as he started down the aisle. “Why the sudden change in personal imagery?”

“What change? You mean being early? Well, the simple answer in our field is always best: I never went to sleep.”

“Although that’s a nice breach of your recent habits, I do mean the beard.”

“Oh, you noticed?”

“Yes. I must say it takes ten years off of your face — and, apparently, your demeanor.”

Kennedy gave Harrison the briefest of smiles.

“I want to discuss something with you, if you have a moment.”

Gabriel pulled up the cuff of his blue shirt and looked at his watch. “It’s your dime for the next eight minutes.”

“What would you say to tenure here at Lamar?”

Kennedy had turned to pull his weekly lesson plan out of his briefcase. He stopped and looked at his old friend, and smiled. “The beard was that much of a hindrance to my career potential?”

Lumley laughed. “No…you know these things take time.”

“I know that I’ve only been here for four years. It should take considerably longer.” He closed the briefcase with a loud pop. “Especially with my, let’s say, sordid past.”

“Well, having the chairman of your department as a friend can be beneficial.”

Kennedy pursed his lips and then smiled. He walked to his blackboard to erase the lesson from the day before, but stopped and turned to Lumley.

“The one benefit of being a clinical psychologist, Harrison, as I’m sure you know, is the ability to smell a rat.” His smile didn’t reaching his blue eyes. “Have anything to say to that, Mickey?”

“I should have known you would smell me out,” Lumley said, slapping the desktop lightly. “There is a catch. And Mickey Mouse was…well, a mouse, not a rat.”

“A rodent is a rodent is a rodent. Who said that, Tennyson? Anyway, I digress. Continue, I’m listening,” Gabriel turned back and resumed erasing his blackboard. His humor was limited when he was being led around the proverbial mulberry bush.

“What would you say if you were responsible for the psychology department receiving a one and half million dollar grant?”

“I’d say I gave you too much. I want at least one million, four hundred thousand of it back.”

“You have actually changed, and overnight. Did you meet a woman, or something?”

“Stay the course, Doctor Lumley, and explain your fantastic statement.” He picked out a piece of chalk and started to write the day’s lecture topic on the blackboard.

“I received two visitors to my home late last night.”

Gabriel tossed the chalk back into the tray and slapped his hands together. A soft cloud of dust rose from his fingers. “You know, most universities have dry erase boards. Maybe with the department’s newfound windfall, you can get me one.” He paused. “Who offered you the money, Harrison?”

Lumley took a few steps back from Gabriel’s desk and gestured toward the door at the top of the classroom. Two figures stepped in and looked down.

Gabriel Kennedy recognized the woman from a few days before, the young producer from UBC. With her was a face he had never wanted to see again. Julie Reilly still had an arrogance about her that only seemed to have intensified over the years, and its aura travelled from above to inflict itself upon Gabriel.

“Ladies, will you join us please?” Lumley called out. “Gabe, listen, they have an offer for you to consider. I wouldn’t ask if it was only for the grant, you know that. I’m asking it of you because you’re a friend, and this is your one chance to redeem your credibility.”

Kennedy looked from the two women walking slowly down the steps to Lumley.

“I’m sure Judas had something similar to say — that he only did it because he was a friend, and it was all for the best. That makes your betrayal justified in your mind?”

“That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

“No — but this may be.” He pulled out his keys and opened the bottom desk drawer. Out came all his research on Summer Place. He closed his briefcase and, with everything under his arms, walked past Lumley.

“What are you doing?” Lumley asked.

“Harrison, you can kiss my ass, and shove your tenure up your own.” He brushed past Kelly Delaphoy and Julie Reilly.

“What about your class? What about my offer?”

“I already told you what to do with your offer. The lesson plan is by the blackboard.”

With that, Gabriel Kennedy left his classroom for the last time.

“I’ll give him at least that much credit,” Julie Reilly said. “He does have his standards. Which is far more than I can say for you,” she added to Kelly, “or the Professor, here.” Frowning, she started back up the risers and left the classroom.

“Fucking great!” Kelly said, glaring at Lumley.

Gabriel Kennedy chose not to return to the studio-sized prison he called home. Instead, he found the nearest sports bar. There were a few that stayed open round the clock, catering to the students who found themselves wanting diversion at any hour.

The server didn’t even flinch when he ordered a bourbon and water. Her reaction, or non-reaction, was what was nice about college towns across the nation; no one gave a damn what you did with your personal time.

“Can I join you for a minute?”

Gabriel looked up and could not believe the woman had actually followed him. It wasn’t everyday that you could look into the beautiful face that had ruined, or helped to ruin, your professional life — twice. For him, that face was Julie Reilly’s. He had hoped never to see it in person again.

“Once wasn’t enough for you? You had to track me down to zap me one more time?” He snatched his drink from the server’s tray. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t stand on ceremony.” He took half the glass down in one swallow.

“I’ll have the same as the Professor,” Julie said. She removed her bag and squeezed in beside Gabriel. She unceremoniously bumped him over and settled in. “And bring my friend another.”

Kennedy shook his head and raised the glass to finish off his drink, but instead reined in his temper and eased the glass down to the booth’s tabletop.

“Friend…Is that what they call victims nowadays?” he asked.

“That’s what they call someone who’s in the same boat, which we are.”

“I don’t follow, Ms. Reilly,” he said, stringing her name out.

“You lost your job over Summer Place, and now my career is hanging on that same damnable house.”

“I don’t see how one connects with the other, especially since I don’t give a flying fuck about your career. Here’s to your health.” He finished his drink and then, again, grabbed the next before the server could place it on the table. Julie did the same and downed hers without hesitation.

“One more please. I have a rather long and disheartening plane ride back to New York with company I really don’t care for.”

“Where’s your little friend — being punished for failing to land the big one?”

“Professor, don’t give yourself too much credit. No matter what you may think of yourself, Summer Place will always be the star of your story.”

Kennedy was taken aback by the strange comment.

“So you actually believe the house is at the center of it all?”

“Of course. Now ask me if I’ve changed my view about you being guilty of negligent homicide?”

Gabriel didn’t say anything, he just waited.

“Why am I to blame for you losing your student, Professor? Can’t you admit that you took them into that house, and then afterwards there was one less than before?”

“I was always able to admit that. However, I will never admit to being a part of his disappearance. As I remember, the other participants backed me on that. Hell, it was they who reported it to me. There is a difference between being responsible for a thing, and being the cause of it.”

“From a man who, before he went into that house, didn’t really believe the bullshit he was researching, you just can’t get past that story about the house taking him and ruining you, can you?”

Kennedy downed half of his second drink and looked into Julie’s green eyes.

“That’s your problem, Ms. Reilly. I always believed in what I taught. The lesson of Summer Place was a lesson of the mind — how one inanimate object, and how it’s perceived, can influence the thinking pattern of a viable and otherwise intelligent person. It was never about haunted houses. But then again, my ancestors never thought the world was round, either.”

“One million dollars, Professor,” she said, swirling the ice in her glass.

“Excuse me?”

“Eight hours of your time. I host, and you are, well…the color, so to speak.” She didn’t smile at her obvious joke.

“I know you’re not asking me to return to Pennsylvania.”

“No, I’m asking you to fight for what you believe in — or once did, anyway. And I’m offering you one million dollars to do it. You get what the university was offered, plus a chance to show the world on live television what you couldn’t show them years ago.”

“You are out of your fucking mind!” He stood suddenly, almost knocking Julie out of the booth. He dug in his pocket and threw two twenties on the table, then thought a moment, reached out and took the money back. “You can use part of that million to pay for the drinks — I’m unemployed.”

Julie opened the passenger door and climbed into the rental car. The air conditioning felt like heaven as the morning gave way to the early afternoon.

“God, I forgot about the humidity here.”

“Well, I saw Kennedy leave in a huff, so I guess your charms failed to sway him,” Kelly stated flatly as she buckled her seatbelt.

“My charms, as you put it, had nothing to do with it. I planted a seed and now we’ll see if anything grows. Let’s head over to Kennedy’s apartment building. This is the part where he figures out he’s in deep trouble. Fertile ground will encourage the seed, and make my offer a little more attractive.”

“Offer?” Kelly asked, putting the car in gear.

“One million dollars to a man with $625 in his savings account can be very good fertilizer, don’t you think?”

“Does the network know about this offer?”

“Unlike you Ms. Delaphoy, I have the power of negotiation.”

Kennedy sat in his apartment, staring at the chipped top of his rickety table. He opened his personal journal from that night at Summer Place — the one with the evidence tag still stuck to its cover — and turned to the last page. He read and re-read the mocking words through the police cellophane. It had taken a full year after the night in question for them to release the single detached page back into his custody. The transparent word—EVIDENCE—was almost as bad as the words the plastic protected. However, the words were meant as a challenge just for him.

They Are Mine.

The words were an affront to him. One student had been taken from him, and the others were now lost in a world that no longer made sense to them, because of an entity the likes of which was unprecedented in the field of…Here, Kennedy always laughed. It was hard to find the words for what he was dealing with. Everything sounded too fantastical to be true.

He stared at the words through the plastic.

His doorbell rang, making him blink. He realized he had been transfixed for the span of several minutes. Worse, he couldn’t remember a single thought he’d had while he stared at the journal’s last page.

Kennedy slammed the journal closed and stood. He took a deep breath and then tossed the battered journal down onto the table. He knew who was at the door, but he opened it anyway, returning to the kitchen without a word.

“I only have one chair to offer,” he said over his shoulder.

Kelly and Julie looked around the small but tidy apartment. Kelly started to speak, but Julie placed a hand on her arm, silencing her question before it could be spoken. She watched the professor sit down at the table and pick up a journal.

“Tell me, has either one of you ever seen this?” He slid the book across the table.

There was a Pennsylvania State Police evidence tag still stuck to its cover and a larger plastic bag sticking out of the back pages somewhere. Gabriel opened it and turned the journal upside down so they could read the three words below the last entry through the plastic.

They Are Mine.

“I’ve never seen the actual journal, no. Only photographs,” Julie said. She placed her bag on the kitchen counter and took the only available chair.

“I only saw a copy, too,” Kelly seconded. Finding nothing to sit on, she leaned against the kitchen wall.

Kennedy pulled the journal back toward him and closed it.

“I have read and touched those words so many times. Do you know what happens when you touch the letters that make up those three words?”

Julie and Kelly waited. Kennedy had the reins now. They were there just to witness his turn of faith, and fate.

“Not a fucking thing. No insight into who — or what — wrote them. No magical epiphany that explains the mockery or the malice. It was a statement of fact. Whatever wrote it was in complete control.”

Julie wondered now if Kennedy really was in control or not. His deep blue eyes looked haunted as he lowered them to the closed journal.

“Now you want to go back into a place controlled by something that can kill?”

Kelly again started to speak, but Kennedy’s eyes said that the question had been rhetorical.

“This house,” he tapped the pile of research before him on the table, “is the haunted house. The one house that inspired every horror writer in the country to write about haunting, and the funny thing is, most never knew it even existed. Most still might not know. It’s like Summer Place travels through people’s minds and then they magically forget all about it, even though most of the literature on the subject of ghosts may be based upon this property, and this property alone.”

“You’re speaking of Shirley Jackson?” Kelly asked.

“Before her, there were ghost stories, but none that truly grabbed the reader and said, yes, there are things that go bump in the night. There is an unknown thing under your bed, and most definitely a horror in your closet. It preys on your mind and it knows exactly what scares you. It knows because whatever it is, it was once one of us.”

“Ghosts?” Julie asked.

“Ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them,” Kennedy said. “They protect something, maybe a dark secret. I think what makes this entity in Summer Place so evil, so insane, is the fact that it’s hiding a secret from the world that it will kill to keep.”

“Is that why anyone who goes in there runs a risk of encountering — it?” Kelly asked, mesmerized by Gabriel Kennedy’s intense gaze.

“It’s in here somewhere,” he said, tapping the pile of research. “It’s in the house’s past.”

“Can you find it?” Julie asked.

“I don’t know if I want to. Probing around has already cost one boy his life, and it’s cost five others, including myself, a life that makes sense. And now, as I understand it, two of your people are missing, and one young man may have lost his mind. The gamble is too great, I think.” Kennedy placed both hands on the table as if he was done with a lecture. The gesture seemed to say, I hope you wrote that down, because that’s all you’re going to get.

“But can we—”

“One million dollars and the right to choose my investigative team, and they get two hundred thousand dollars for their services — each,” he said firmly.

“Done,” Julie said. Her eyes held his as if she were challenging a bluff in a card game.

“The people I need, well, some will be hard to find; others, not so hard. However, I’ll warn you now, there is one thing they’ll have in common with me: they won’t like the two of you, one bit. They won’t like who you work for, and they most assuredly won’t tolerate any interference.”

“You got it,” Julie said.

“Wait, Ms. Reilly, this part concerns you directly.” A small smile creased his lips.

She arched her eyebrows, waiting for the drama to end.

“Lieutenant Damian Jackson will have to be on the team. There will be no negotiation. Without him, the deal is off.”

“We can’t guarantee his cooperation,” Kelly said. “He hates and despises you.”

“Not my problem,” he answered, still staring at Julie. “He’s your…” he smiled without humor, “co-conspirator in the ruining of my career. So, get him.”

“Despite the undeniable desire to tell you to go fuck yourself, Kennedy, I’ll just say instead, somehow I’ll get Lieutenant Jackson, if only for the reason that Kelly already stated. He’ll want the opportunity to finish tying the knot in the rope he placed around your neck seven years ago.”

“Also, have that weasel Wallace Lindemann handy during the show. He may be useful,” he said, ignoring Julie’s threat.

“Is that all?” Kelly asked. She looked up from the list she’d made of Kennedy’s requests, grimacing at each written word.

“It’s still not enough,” Gabriel said. He started writing a list of names. “If one person on my list doesn’t enter the fight, the deal is off.”

The word fight wasn’t lost on them.

“Okay, Professor. I can give you what you ask for, but I need an answer to a question that our principles back at the network will be certain to ask.”

“Why I changed my mind?”

Julie Reilly’s silence told him he was correct.

“When I look at you two, I see the world for what it really is. Or at least, what it’s become. I figure, why not join the rest of the human race and become as big an asshole as both of you.”

“Not buying it.” Julie smirked.

Kennedy leaned forward. “Then how about this: I’m going to destroy whatever it is that walks inside that house. If I have to use you and every one of the people backing you to do it, I will.” He settled back, then gave the two women a smile and a wink. “In other words…Unlike in the movies, ladies, if you trip and fall when the monster is chasing you, you’ve had it.”

Standing, Julie nervously returned Kennedy’s smile. “Well, I think that’s all we have—”

“Tell me, are you the least bit concerned about what happened to my team in Summer Place that night?”

“Yes,” Julie said as she turned away. “I’m concerned that I’m going in there with the only man to walk out still sane — and alive. And you can take that to mean whatever you want it to, Professor.”

As Gabriel Kennedy resigned himself to his fate, his smile vanished.

He was going back to Summer Place. He prayed that he was bringing the right army with him.

EIGHT

Lionel Peterson signed the payroll outlay for Gabriel Kennedy and the four names on Kennedy’s list without batting an eye. It was just another silver bullet in the chamber to eventually use against Kelly Delaphoy. He knew the same silver bullet could take him down too, but that was a fact he was almost willing to live with as long as she hit the ground before he did.

As he leaned back, he also looked over the projections for the advertising revenue for the Halloween special. Thus far, they had landed Microsoft and GM, and several spots from Pepsi. He just hoped after this hoax was completed, he could get these valuable dollars back again for his own pet projects. He knew he had to find a way to distance himself from Kelly’s destiny. All he could do for now was make sure the production side went off without a hitch. He and Harris Dalton would make sure that Kelly’s downfall was live, in color, and technically perfect, for the entire country to see.

He smiled as he looked over the list Kelly had faxed him. The people Kennedy wanted for his team had, according to network security, all fallen from grace. Just like Kennedy himself.

“This is going to be something,” he said to himself. “If I wasn’t tied directly to this suicide attempt, I would be laughing my ass off.”

The first name on Gabriel Kennedy’s list was a man well known to the local constabulary of the seaside resort of Ogunquit. He was one of the broken people, homeless, seeking the comfort of the ocean that drew so many. He was a man in hiding, almost a twin of circumstance to Gabriel himself.

On any other day of the week he could be found down by the beach, dragging along the one possession that was his constant companion; a Halcyon A-260 metal detector. However, today he was in the local jail. He sat not on the steel cot but on the cold concrete floor, with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. Instead of digging for the lost treasures that had belonged to vacationers, he was a guest of the local community. That, in and of itself, was a small blessing to the islanders, who despised people like George Henry Cordero.

The private detective hired by UBC had a hard time tracing Cordero down. Then he came across his name on the Internet, listed by the night desk of the Ogunquit police department. One of the four officers on duty escorted the detective through the booking area and into the holding cell, exactly twenty-four hours after Cordero’s name had been placed on Kennedy’s list.

The tall man looked at the vagrant’s unkempt beard and long hair, and winced. This was the creep he’d been sent to round up for a television special?

“What’s the charge against him?” the detective asked.

“Charge — you mean charges?” the policeman said. “That’s plural, buddy.”

The detective didn’t comment, he just looked at the duty sergeant.

“Some kids were, you know, playing around with him. Things got out of hand, as things sometimes do.” He looked at the filthy man on the floor. “One of the teenagers accidentally broke his metal detector, and Grizzly Adams here took offense.”

“I see. They destroyed his property?”

“It was accidental.”

“And these kids…they’re locals? You call them islanders?”

“Yes.”

“So, what are the specific charges against Mr. Cordero?”

“He manhandled one of the boys. He, well, spanked one.”

“Spanked?”

The cop looked uneasy.

“How much to set Mr. Cordero free?”

“That’s for Judge Bennett to decide tomorrow morning, but it won’t be cheap. The judge doesn’t take to kindly to vagrants.”

The tall detective removed a cell phone from his pocket and held it to his ear. “Judge Bennett, you say?”

The cop nodded his head.

“And the charge is…?”

“Aggravated assault, panhandling, and disturbing the peace.”

“That’s three charges. You said two.” The detective held up a hand to silence the officer, and spoke into his phone. “Yes, this is Jenkins. Let me speak to security, please.” He addressed the officer. “What’s the last name of the boy that was allegedly assaulted?”

“Addison,” the cop answered.

“Is he a local businessman’s son?”

“Yes, his family owns the restaurant not far from—”

“Not far from where he was combing the beach for change,” the man from New York finished.

“Yeah.”

“Yes, I have Cordero,” the detective said into the phone. “The judge’s name is Bennett, and the charges are bullshit. Right, right… Okay, I’ll be here, just let me know.”

The detective returned the phone to his pocket and turned to the man sitting on the floor, ignoring the officer.

“Mr. Cordero, you’ll be out of here by ten o’clock in the morning. I’ve made arrangements for you to come to New York.”

“I don’t want to go to New York,” the man said with a thick Spanish accent.

“A man you may know said to tell you…” the detective pulled out a small note pad and referenced Cordero’s page. “That he’s going back into the house, and that he needs your expertise. You’ll be paid two hundred thousand dollars for the four days leading up to and including Halloween.”

The police officer momentarily lost control of his jaw as it fell open.

“House?” the shaggy-haired man asked, his eyes still closed. “Just who is this man?”

“Professor Gabriel Kennedy.” The detective closed his notebook.

Cordero’s eyes opened. His demeanor seemed instantly more alert and aware, as though he had just awakened after a long sleep.

“Summer Place, isn’t it?” Cordero said with a growing smile. “That stupid bastard is slapping that bitch again? What can I say — count me in.” He stood and felt at his beard. “Can I get a shave and a haircut?” he asked his jailer.

“Yeah, in the morning, before you see the judge.”

The detective looked at the cop. “I don’t think he’ll be seeing your local magistrate after my bosses make their calls to your city council — which they should be doing right about now.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll be sending one of your local barbers down to see to Mr. Cordero. He has a plane to catch.”

“Summer Place…You know, I always wanted to pork that bitch myself.” Cordero had a gleam in his eye that made him look for all the world like Charles Manson’s twin brother.

“Mr. Cordero, if I may ask, what is it that makes you important to Professor Kennedy?”

The man in the cell thought a moment, pulling on his long beard.

“I’m a clairvoyant.”

The policeman laughed as he left the holding area. The man from the network was now alone with the nutcase in the cell.

“You’re kidding. If that’s so, why didn’t you see your arrest coming?” the detective asked.

“Maybe I did, and I just wanted to spank that little bastard anyway. My sense of justice has always been out of whack. And I’m hard-headed.”

The detective nodded. “See you in a while, Mr. Cordero.” He handed his card through the cell’s bars, and didn’t notice Cordero touching his fingers as he accepted it.

“Hey, Mack, tell me something?”

The detective stopped and turned around. Cordero pushed his bearded face through the cell bars.

“If I can.”

“You know the little bastard I’m supposed to have assaulted?’

“What about him?”

“You know he’s responsible for ten fires in the past two years? Three lives were lost in one of them. That’s the real reason I beat his ass.”

“And you know this how?” the detective asked. He took four steps back toward the glaring man behind the bars.

“I sensed it when he laid his hands on me to snag my metal detector. You know, he actually has an erection when he sets his fires…”

“You’re nuts,” the detective said and he turned to walk away.

“Yep,” Cordero said. “I’m just as about as nuts as you were, after you caught your ex-wife in bed with that fella she worked with at the school district, and in your very own house.”

The detective stopped dead in his tracks and his shoulders stiffened. His ex-wife had been a teacher and her boss had been the school superintendent, back on Long Island. He had caught them in bed, and had beaten the man almost half to death. He’d been a split second away from hurting his wife. How had this man known that?

“You have to take me serious about this punk; he’s going to kill more people.”

The man from New York walk away. Behind him, Cordero returned to the floor and crossed his legs again, shaking his head. “Oh, Gabe, what have you gone and done? That house just may well win it all this time around.”

Five hours later, a freshly shaven man by the name of George Cordero stepped out of his jail cell in Ogunquit, Maine. His hair was cut and combed. He seemed actually human, for the first time in his long stay on the island, and not bad looking, either. The policemen looked stunned when he walked out into the station wearing a new suit and shoes.

Before the tall detective could show him to the door, he was taken by the elbow and steered to a small room down the hall. The man who had pulled the strings to set him free nodded his head at the police detective sitting at his desk. The man twirled a small monitor on his desk outward to face Cordero. On the screen was a young man sitting beside a man with a suit, and what looked like two police officers across from him.

“Recognize the kid?” the policeman at the desk asked Cordero.

George leaned in and stared at the cleancut teenager who sat stoically with a smug look on his face. He nodded his head. It was the same kid he had been accused of assaulting and the one that broke his metal detector.

“His name is Chad Addison. Thanks to you, or the warning we received from your friend here, he was taken into custody. The arrogant little bastard confessed to a string of arsons like they were good deeds done for a merit badge, the little sick fuck. Well, his father’s lawyer showed up and he clammed up quick enough, so it looks—”

George Cordero turned away and headed for the front door. The policeman and the detective would never understand that his abilities were what had driven him away from society. He had come to fear that everyone he ever knew had deep, dark secrets to be kept, and that his days would be forever filled with the thoughts of bad people.

Cordero opened the door and took a breath of fresh air. He knew the deal he had just struck for his trip to the Pocono Mountains would be the last deal he would ever make. He knew, if what he heard and felt was true, he was going to a place that would end his torment.

“Summer Place.”

The dinner party was proceeding proceeded far better than Leonard Sickles would have ever thought possible. The young man from Los Angeles had held his own with intellectuals from both Hewlett Packard and IBM. Every once in a while his language would revert back to the streets from which he sprang, but more times than not, he would mentally corral the harsh words that were boiling over to get out.

Leonard Sickles, former gang banger, was famous for rising from the front ranks of the Crips in East Los Angeles, to become one of the most gifted software designers in the world. His talent had been discovered by accident by a former professor at USC. It took two years for the professor to gain the trust of Lenny “too smart” Sickles and then another year for the kid to recognize his own genius. Leonard was a prodigy. He had just graduated at the top of his class, completing six years of instruction in only four. It had taken the death of his younger brother in a drive-by shooting to make him focus on bettering himself. He knew his mother could not take another death in their small struggling family.

The dinner party was an excuse for Electro-Light Design Incorporated of Fort Collins, Colorado, to thumb their noses at the people from IBM and Hewlett Packard, who had not been able to land the brilliant former gang member for their own.

His new boss and the owner of Electro-Light Design, Thomas Reynolds, pulled Leonard away from one of the hired kitchen helpers — to whom he was telling a very sordid joke — and smiled his way into the hallway with his arm around the boy.

“Leonard, you have visitors at the front door. A couple of men from New York.”

“Really?” he asked.

“How did anyone know you were here?” Reynolds asked. He nodding his head to one of the guests in passing. “Is there something you’d like to tell me? I mean, we do have a deal in principle, right?”

“Sure, my word is righteous.”

“I mean, you wouldn’t hang me out to dry by talking with another company, would you? Computer Associates in New York, or some other east coast outfit?”

“Look, Mr. Reynolds, I said I would sign the contract. What’s the matter, my word ain’t good ‘nough?”

Reynolds placed his arm around the smaller black man. Leonard got very uncomfortable every time his new boss performed that particular gesture. It was as if he was trying to act like his father. The clothes Reynolds had purchased for him for the dinner party were starting to feel just a little tight.

“Okay, son, just checking. Maybe you better go and see who your visitors are. I’ll make nice with the sharks in the dining room.”

“Sure,” Leonard said. He returned to the kitchen worker he had been speaking to earlier.

“Hey baby, where’s the front door to this funeral parlor?”

She pointed to the left and Leonard treated her to his once-famous slumped-over walk, winking at her before he rounded the corner.

When he was out of sight, he straightened up into the practiced calm and confident stride that made white society take him seriously. He approached two men in dark suits, who stood just inside the door. His mind was racing, but on the outside he remained cool.

“I didn’t do it, number one. And number two, I was actually invited here.”

“Sir?” the larger man on the left asked.

“It’s obvious you’re cops. Come on man, I really was invited.”

“No, sir, we’re private security from the UBC Television Network in New York.” The two men looked at each other, and then at a file photo that the shorter one held. Leonard shifted. He’d jacked some cars from the UBC lot in LA, once, but that had been a long time ago.

“Mr. Leonard Sickles?”

“Come on man, just say you’re cops.”

“Sir, we are here to offer you a job for seven days and one night — Halloween night. The offer is for—”

“Get the fuck outta here, man,” Sickles said. He slapped at the air and started to turn away.

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” the man finished.

Sickles tuned back around and looked at the two men.

“Two hundred large?” he smiled. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. You’ll have to spend the week before Halloween in New York doing some technical work.”

Leonard looked the smaller of the two over, and then eyed the larger.

“Get the fuck outta here,” he repeated. “This is a fuckin’ joke, right?”

The two men exchanged looks. “No joke, Mr. Sickles, Professor Gabriel Kennedy asked for you personally.”

“Professor Gabe? Where’s he at?”

“We don’t know,” the large one said. “We are to retain your services and get you to New York within the next 24 hours.”

“Is he in trouble again?” He fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“We don’t know, sir.” The smaller man pulled a sheet of paper out of the file he was holding. “There is this.” He handed the paper over to Sickles.

He eyed the man and then slowly reached for the paper.

“Bring your Infra-Spectroscope design — I found you the money to build it.” He read down the page, looking for a signature, but there was none. In its place was one word that he read aloud. “Punk! That’s Professor Gabe all right — the asshole.”

“Hey, hey, what’s going on here? You’re taking a hike on me and my company for New York?”

The three men at the door turned to see Thomas Reynolds standing angrily in the outer entranceway.

“Spying, Mr. Reynolds?” Leonard asked, his right eyebrow rising. “Is this the kind of trust I can expect from you and your company, man?”

“I’m paying you enough to buy your trust. Now what’s this about?”

“What this is about, is the man who saved my life. My shrink from a long time ago. He needs me, and I’m going to help him. I’ll be back—” he looked questioningly toward the two men.

“The day after Halloween, sir.”

“Yeah, the day after Halloween. Then I’m yours. And don’t think I’m not going. I owe this man everything I am, and all that I will become.”

Reynolds’ posture eased. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew his wallet. He handed a card to Leonard.

“Use this. It’s a company credit card. Try and keep it reasonable, okay?”

Leonard smiled and nodded. “You bet. The big city hookers can wait until I have an expense account,” he joked. Reynolds shifted uncomfortably, and so did the two network security men. Leonard stuck out his hand, and when Reynolds took hold of it, he turned his hand upside down and grasped Reynolds’ hand with both of his in a hood-shake.

“Thanks Mr. R, I’ll be cool with it.” He let go of his hand and then smiled again. “Give my regards to the pukes inside; tell them my main man needs me.”

“Leonard, do you even know what you’re getting into?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you know what this man does now?” Reynolds asked.

“What does he do now?” Leonard asked the two men.

“Sir, all we know is that he is working for the producers of a reality television show.”

“Yeah, what’s it about?” Leonard asked.

The two men looked at each other, and the larger one opened the door and turned.

“Ghosts I believe. A haunted house type of thing. Shall we go, sir?”

Leonard’s smile faded. He started to wonder what the hell he had just agreed to.

“Ghosts, huh?” he asked as he cautiously stepped forward.

“Yes, sir,” the small man said. He gestured for Leonard to leave first.

“Haunted house?”

“From the rumors and gossip we’ve heard at the network, sir, it’s very, very, haunted.”

Leonard felt a sudden chill. He reached out and snapped on the front porch light before stepping out into the darkness. “I thought Professor Gabe was a full time shrink,” he mumbled to himself. “Ain’t there enough live people around, he’s gotta go after dead ones?”

Kennedy’s team had its second member for the live broadcast from Summer Place.

John Smith — at least, that was how he had signed in — sat alone inside the coroner’s examination room. The lights were low, with only a single spotlight illuminating the sheet-covered body on the stainless steel table before him. He knew the sheriff and coroner of Glacier County would be coming along soon, so he waited. That sheriff would know him as John Lonetree, headman, activist, and also the Chief of Police of the Blackfeet reservation, located near the border with Canada. He had used the fake name and ID to gain entrance to the county offices when the sheriff and coroner went to dinner. He had made his prayers, his examination, and had done all the right things his people traditionally called for, for the young woman laid out on the cold steel table.

The girl’s name was Betty Youngblood. John had known her from the day she came into the world, and now on this dark day he performed her death rites. As he lowered his head, he removed his cowboy hat and tossed it on the chair next to him, freeing his long black hair to cascade around his shoulders. Blood had stained the area at the top of the sheet, and at her midsection. Betty hadn’t been important enough for the coroner to delay his dinner. Her wounds were unattended and had been unexamined when John had arrived. He swallowed hard to keep his emotions in check. The world would never change for his people, it seemed.

The girl had been born, like most Indians on the Blackfeet reservation, into abject poverty. She had endured a life of abuse by a single mother who had tended toward the bottle, and who had taken out every one of life’s failures on her oldest child. At fifteen, Betty had left the Rez and escaped into the white world. John had heard she had taken to prostitution and other forms of criminal life to keep from going home again. He shook his head. She could not avoid it now; she was going home with him tonight. Another bright red spot on everyone’s shame: the reservation system, the white world, and his own closed world of the American Indian.

John heard their voices long before the examination room door opened. As the overhead lights came on, he kept his head lowered and his hands clasped in front of him. The voices ceased suddenly when the two men saw they weren’t alone.

“Just who the hell are you?”

Lonetree finally looked up. He saw the small, balding fat man who called himself the county coroner, standing with his hands at his sides. Beside him was Sheriff Van Kimble. They had been friends since they were kids, but now the sheriff had his hand on the butt of his nine-millimeter, looking at him in anger.

“What are you doing here, John?” the sheriff asked.

“Who is this man?” the coroner asked.

“He’s the police chief over at the Blackfeet reservation. You two haven’t met yet. John this is Doctor Fleming, our county coro—”

“I know who he is, Van,” Lonetree said, standing. He towered over both men at six feet five inches. “Doctor, do you usually leave a body to sit while you go and eat, without taking the decedent’s vital stats?”

“I, uh—”

“This girl was raped; there may be seminal fluids that are at this moment deteriorating. Have you even fixed the time of death through body temperature?”

“Now wait a minute, John, we already have the killer in custody,” the sheriff said. He stepped forward and let the door close behind him.

“Yes, I’ve heard that also. Randy Yellowgrass, that right?”

“Your Harvard education hasn’t failed you. Yeah, that’s right. My deputy found the drunken, stupid bastard still standing over the girl in the alley at Eighth and Monroe.”

“And you believe Randy, harmless Randy Yellowgrass, could do something like this?” Lonetree pulled the white sheet away from the body and let it fall to the floor.

On the table, Betty lay with her eyes open. The left one was half shaded by her eyelid, the other dilated to almost pure black. Her throat had been savagely cut from ear to ear. Her left breast had been completely removed, and her vaginal area was wrecked. John stepped forward and placed his hand on her hair. It had been tinted with tiny streaks of blonde dye. He shook his head.

“Please don’t touch her until—”

“Until what? Until you examine her, Doctor?” John turned and faced the much smaller coroner. His own nine-millimeter handgun was temptingly heavy at his right hip.

The sheriff looked at the gun and the man wearing it. John was dressed in Levis and a plain blue chambray work shirt under a denim jacket. His features, although darker than the sheriff’s own, were light in comparison to some of the other Indians that frequented the town, but he looked most definitely like most white men would expect a modern day warrior to look.

“Why are you armed, John? You’re not on the Rez; you’re in my bailiwick now.”

Instead of answering the sheriff, Lonetree walked to the other side of the table and looked down at Betty.

“She used to walk up to my pa’s porch. We could see she had been crying. Her face was puffy and swollen…she was only nine, and had learned even at that age to cover up her mother’s beatings. My father and mother would feed her, clean her up and wait until morning to send her back.” He looked up at the sheriff. “Betty’s ma would be sobering up by then, and would be more regretful. On the Rez secrets are kept pretty well.”

“John, why are you here?”

“I had a dream the other night.”

“Do your dream-walking on the Rez, John. Not here.”

“The dream was of falling stars, a meteor shower. Then a smiling girl came into the dream. It was the young Betty, coming over to my ma’s house after a beating. The stars in my dream circled her, colliding as she smiled at me. Then the stars stopped, and all but one fell. That lone, single star stayed floating around her heart, and then it too finally vanished, and as I looked up in my dream, Betty wasn’t smiling anymore.”

“And?” the coroner asked.

John shook his head and smiled briefly. “Then…nothing. I woke up. Didn’t think a thing about it until this evening. I received a call from Randy Yellowgrass’ mother, telling me about Betty and of her son’s arrest.”

“All right, John. Now that you’ve entertained us, the doc has an examination to conduct. I’m sure this young woman’s mother would like her daughter’s body back.”

“Betty’s mother died of cirrhosis of the liver five years ago.”

“John, damn it—”

“Tell me, Doctor what you make of this.” He pointed to a small red line, a mere impression to the right of center on Betty’s chest, not far from the breast that had been removed. It was shaped like a tilted, backward L.

The coroner leaned in close, and then lowered the large light and magnifying glass.

“Seems like a compression wound.”

“That’s what I see, Doctor. Obviously postmortem, wouldn’t you agree?”

The coroner nodded. “Yes, there was no blood pumping through her system when this was made.”

“And the vaginal wounds, I see the same. Post mortem. Oh, there was blood, but not as much as should be present in a wound such as this.”

The coroner examined the vaginal area and then looked up. “I concur, Chief, but—”

“Don’t call me that,” John said. He walked to the head of the examination table.

“I meant no—”

“It’s an Indian thing, they don’t like the word Chief,” the sheriff explained.

“Now, the removal of the breast was obviously done while she was still alive. The wound would have eventually been fatal if she hadn’t had her throat cut, correct?”

This time the coroner didn’t have to look at the body. With the amount of blood that had been expelled through the chest wound, the large Indian was obviously correct. He nodded his agreement.

John swallowed and then raised his right hand and gently touched the cold flesh at the side of the young woman’s face. Then he slowly pulled her lips apart. The girl’s front teeth were broken all the way to the gum. John looked from the table to the coroner, waiting.

“Well, from first impressions, I would say the killer held her mouth closed while he tortured her. Maybe even struck her with a fist.”

“Close, Doctor. But, notice the bruising around the mouth, the redness, the breaking of small capillaries in the lips and the lower cheek area, all the way up to the orbital bones of the face?”

“Yes, I see that now. Not a blow to the mouth, but a constant pressure, yes. Her mouth was being kept closed with some considerable force.”

“Not only that, but with enough force not just to loosen her teeth, but to snap them off. Quite a feat for little Randy Yellowgrass, all one hundred and forty-five pounds of him.”

“There could be any number of expl—” the sheriff started to say, but John cut him off.

“Yes, any number of explanations for it, I’m sure,” John patted Betty’s face lightly, closing her destroyed mouth. “Sheriff, it’s not the wound itself, but the size of the impressions left on the skin. Randy would have had to use both of his hands to cover that much area with that much force. Not only that, but he would have to have fingers of steel. Mere pressure would not have been enough to sheer those teeth off like that. The hand that did this was not only a larger one, but one that wore at least one ring, possibly two. Metal needs very little help to cause damage to teeth. I suspect if you check Betty’s throat, you’ll find a few of the broken teeth, chipped by metal.”

The coroner nodded his head, conceding that John was possibly right.

“So?” the sheriff asked.

“Randy Yellowgrass wears no jewelry, except for a small cross around his neck. But you know that, because you took his personal effects when he was booked.”

“Jesus Christ,” the sheriff mumbled.

“You agree with this so far?” he asked the coroner, who merely nodded once.

The sheriff’s radio crackled to life. “Sheriff, this is Jennings. We just had a message dropped off at the station from the reservation. I was told to deliver a telegram to John Lonetree over at the coroner’s office. Is he there with you?”

Sheriff Kimble reached for the microphone clipped to his brown jacket, but stopped when John raised his eyebrows and then held his hand up.

“Your deputy, Jennings, he was the one who discovered the body?”

The sheriff’s silence was answer enough for John.

“Ask the deputy to bring the message to me here.”

After the sheriff relayed the order, the answer came.

“It’ll only be a minute, Sheriff; I’m right outside the county building.”

John picked up his cowboy hat and put it on.

“What now?” Kimble asked.

“We wait.”

Five minutes later, a knock came at the door. The sheriff opened it and took the small yellow piece of paper from the young deputy and invited him inside. Spotting the exposed body on the table, the deputy quickly turned away. He started to leave, but John stepped forward and closed the door, effectively blocking it with his large frame. The sheriff looked up from the message, then at the closed door, and then at John. He handed the telegram to Lonetree.

“From New York, of all places,” he said. Lonetree pocketed the paper, ignoring it and the sheriff. Instead he looked at the deputy.

“Hard thing to look at, isn’t it?” he said to the young man, who removed his hat and then turned and looked at John, carefully keeping his gaze away from the examination table.

The sheriff stepped away from the door and walked around the table to watch the two men. He was tempted to stop whatever it was Lonetree was up to, but his instincts held him back.

“She had most of her clothing on when I found her. It made me sick.”

Lonetree nodded and patted the deputy on the back. “Deputy Jennings, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did good work tonight. I wish I had dependable men like you on the Rez.” He smiled and looked at the sheriff. “Hell, we wouldn’t have any crime at all.”

“Just lucky, coming across that Indian like I did.”

“That Indian?”

“The suspect, I mean. No offense to you, sir.”

“No offense taken, Deputy. That was a stroke of luck, coming across a murder and rape in that alley. Do you always check the alleys on that side of town?”

“As often as I can, yes sir.”

John lightly pinched the deputy’s shoulder, then patted it again. “Say, that’s a nice set of rings.”

Jennings looked down and nervously switched his wide brimmed hat to his other hand. John wasn’t looking at the deputy’s hand any longer, but at the embroidered badge on the man’s jacket.

The sheriff slowly unsnapped the holstered weapon at his side.

“We’ve had some disagreement here, Deputy. Maybe another set of trained law enforcement eyes can sort it out for us.” John held his hand out, gesturing for Jennings to face the girl’s body. He kept his large hand on the boy as he led him over to the mid-point of the stainless steel table. “This impression right here…do you have any idea what that could be?”

The deputy leaned in and looked at the backward L indentation on the girl’s chest. He cleared his throat.

“No, sir…I uh…no, I don’t know.”

“Falling stars,” John said. He looked away from the body and released the boy’s shoulder.

“Sir?” The deputy looked up.

“Nothing. Just a dream I had a few nights ago,” John smiled. He looked at the sheriff and let the smile fade. “Deputy, you say Randy Yellowgrass was leaning over the body when you found him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind Randy was intoxicated. You know, drunken Indian and all that. But I find it hard to believe Randy was capable of doing this. Especially since Betty was his very own cousin.”

“I didn’t know that, John,” Kimble said, staring at his deputy.

“Yeah, well, in all honesty, that’s neither here nor there, sheriff. Cousins have killed cousins long before this. However, there is one thing… That damn dream I had, falling stars…Well, they were falling around Betty, of all people.”

“There’s some who say John here has certain…” the sheriff looked from the deputy to Lonetree, “abilities. We laugh it off most times down at the station. Dream-walking they call it.”

“Indians — what are you going to do?” John asked jokingly. But he quickly advanced on the deputy, reaching inside Jennings’ uniform jacket, past the embroidered star, and ripped free the metal badge pinned to the officer’s shirt. He took Jennings by the arm and threw him toward Betty Youngblood’s body. The deputy turned in indignation as he slammed into the autopsy table, shaking the dead girl’s body violently. John Lonetree placed the star-shaped badge on Betty’s chest — right into the imprint of the backward L. “Falling stars, Deputy Jennings.”

“Goddamn!” the sheriff said. He pulled his nine-millimeter out of its holster.

For a split second, John didn’t know who the sheriff was going to point the weapon at. He was relieved when he saw it was Jennings who was being covered.

“When you held her mouth closed, you broke her teeth off with your rings. And then after you cut her breast off, you cut her throat.” John grabbed the deputy by the jacket and deftly removed Jennings’ own weapon. He tossed it to the shaking coroner, who juggled it and finally caught it. “After that, you thought it was safe enough to fuck this little girl — after she was dead!” he said through clenched teeth.

“You fuckin’—” the sheriff said, taking very close aim at his own man.

“Then you cut her up some more, didn’t you? But you didn’t count on the badge you were wearing…the star. It made that backward L shape. Add three more of those L’s and you have a five-pointed star.”

“Jesus,” the coroner said. He looked like he was close to going into shock.

“I think if you look in the back of his cruiser, or search his house, you’ll find the uniform he was wearing when he murdered this little girl. The knife he used on her is more than likely in the sewer or a lake. The doc here will be able to extract his DNA from Betty’s body.” He shook Jennings one last time, tossed the deputy aside like a rag doll and stormed out of the examination room.

An hour after Jennings was taken into custody for the rape and murder of Betty Youngblood, Sheriff Kimble found John Lonetree sitting on the curb, leaning against a parking meter.

“I’ve never in my life seen or heard anything like that.”

Lonetree looked past the sheriff, up toward the night sky. The nights held a chill that was getting ready to morph into outright cold, as the middle of October approached.

“Cursed is what I am,” John said. He took a shuddering breath. “The curse of Dream Walking has always been with me, my mother, and grandmother.” He finally looked at the sheriff. “It really sucks.” He pulled his gun, and then his own badge from his Levis jacket and handed them to the sheriff.

“What’s this?”

“I want you to give them to the tribal council for me. I can’t go back and face them.”

“Why? You have nothing to hide. You did good John — real good. You made me look like a fool.”

“Van, making a redneck like you look like a fool isn’t that difficult a task, and not something I aspire to do very often.” He shook his head. “I had the dream of Betty and the falling stars, and didn’t act on it. I’m not tired of my red blood, but I’m tired of being numb inside and not recognizing things for what they are. I guess I refused to act because I was almost ashamed of being an Indian. That has to stop.” John rose slowly to his feet.

“Where will you go?”

Lonetree pulled the telegram from his jacket pocket.

“New York, and then Pennsylvania — a house called Summer Place. An old classmate of mine from Harvard, we used to play football together. Anyway, he needs my help. I figure this is a good time for a vacation and a hard case study on what it is that I am. He needs help, and I need to get the hell out of here.”

“Help with what? What is Summer Place?” Kimble asked.

John had turned and started to walk away, but he stopped. When he turned back, he had a crooked grin on his face.

“It ate his grad student a few years ago. Leave it to Gabriel Kennedy to make my guilt seem small.”

John walked off into the darkness of the Montana night, his black hair gleaming in the moonlight. His cowboy boots clicked down the road leading away from the reservation, possibly forever.

The third member of Gabriel Kennedy’s team was on his way to New York.

The man tilted the faculty ID so the heavyset bartender could see it clearly in the dim light of the filthy, smelly dive someone had the gall to name Nirvana. The bartender looked it over and eyed the man at the bar. The man wore a brown suit and a white shirt. His collar was open, and he wore no tie.

Instead of answering his question, the bartender poured a tap beer and walked away. The man in the suit sighed and placed the photo of Jennifer Tilden back in his coat pocket. He turned to leave.

“Let me see that again,” the bartender said. He had returned, and was wiping his hand on a wet towel.

The man in the brown suit reached into his pocket once more and produced the photo.

“You say she’s a what?” the burly bartender asked.

“She’s a professor of paleontology from the University of Oklahoma.”

“Get the fuck outta here,” the bartender said. He handed the picture back to the network’s detective.

“By your reaction, I assume you know her?”

The bartender looked around at the fifty people in the dingy bar. The Karaoke machine was blaring Hit me with your best shot, by Pat Benatar, and most of the dregs were watching the slovenly lady who belted the vocals from the small stage.

“Look, I can tell a cop when I see one. As much as I like doing my civic duty, I don’t want to hurt someone I know.”

“I’m not a cop. If you point her out, you’ll be doing her a big favor.”

“That right?”

As he waited for the bartender to make his decision, he watched the heavyset lady finish the song with a flourish. She seemed oblivious to the cat calls and boos from the rough audience. She stepped down with a graceful wave, as if her devoted followers were plastering her with applause.

“Look, she may be down and out, but everyone in downtown pretty much likes—?” the bartender paused and looked expectantly at the detective.

“Jennifer,” he supplied.

“We know her as Pinky — you know, her red hair.”

The man waited. He knew enough not to push the bartender. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Give me a draft while you think about it.”

“Look, we all know she’s a little whacked out, but she doesn’t need to be put away or anything. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. Hell, she’s hard on herself, no one else. These assholes here don’t know her like I do. I saw her once, before…well…before, is all.”

The man watched the bartender pull his beer from the tap.

“She’s right over there, in the corner booth,” he placed the beer down in front of the man, spilling the foam over the rim of the glass. “The one that looks like she’s passed out.”

The man turned toward the booth in question. The smallish woman sitting there was slumped over the table with her head in the crook of her elbow. Her red hair was recognizable from her photo, but it looked like she had diminished even further — she had already appeared almost emaciated in the picture. “Well, give me what she’s drinking,” the man said.

“She doesn’t drink.”

“I thought…I mean…she looks like she’s—”

“Yeah, well don’t do any more thinking,” the man said angrily. “She’s tired, is all. I’ve never seen her drink anything other than water. Ever.”

The detective started through the dingy bar toward the booth, dodging people who looked his way with indifference or mild hostility. He sat his beer down and the thump made the small woman jump, but she still didn’t look up from where her head rested on her arm.

“Doctor Tilden, may I have a moment?” When she didn’t respond, he sat down in the rickety seat across from her. He raised his voice and repeated the question.

Finally, she looked up. Doctor Jennifer Tilden had startling green eyes, ringed in red. She was clearly exhausted and could barely focus on his face.

“I don’t know you,” was all she said. Her voice was hoarse and raspy, as if she hadn’t had a drink of water for years. She looked at him more closely and then closed her eyes. She had fallen asleep.

“Doctor, I’ve been sent by—”

“Sorry buddy,” the bartender said. He took the smallish woman by the shoulders and shook her. “She’s on, and if I let her miss her spot, well…we don’t want to see her lose her temper.”

“Wha — what?” She came awake, if only barely.

“You mean she’s actually going to—”

“Yeah, she’s going to sing.” The bartender helped her to her feet. “Come on Pinky, wake up.”

The detective forgot about his beer as the woman was lifted from her seat in the booth. She wore faded blue corduroy pants, a small white shirt that had seen better days and a green sweater. Her short red hair looked as if it hadn’t been introduced to a hairbrush in weeks.

As she was helped to the small stage, the crowd became restless and started making catcalls. Several of the women and a few of the men called names at the small woman as she stumbled onto the stage. The bartender waved his bar-towel to shoo several of the patrons out of his way, and hopped down from the small raised platform.

Jennifer Tilden held the tall microphone with both hands as if it were a lifeguard and she were a victim of the rising and angry seas around her. Her head tilted forward and struck the microphone, producing a loud and piercing screech. That brought most of the patrons to their feet with even more boos and curses.

The heavyset woman who had been singing a moment before stood and shouted, “I got off the stage for that?”

The bartender waited with his finger on the button of the Karaoke machine. More boos, far more hostile than before, met the woman. She could only lean against the microphone stand, tilting first one way and then the other. Then her small hands started to move. She adjusted the height of the stand, still with her eyes closed. The bartender waited until the small woman pulled her short, red hair back slowly and deliberately. Then he pressed the button. Without looking up, she started to sing as the slow piano music from the Karaoke machine filled the room.

“It’s almost heaven — being here with you — the first time I saw you — I knew it to be true — but after all dear, I love you — I do — angel baby — my angel baby—”

She sang the first verse in slow, hauntingly soft words, and then the Karaoke machine chimed in with more instrumentation at the start of the chorus. The barroom became quiet as a church, all the patrons enraptured by the sweetness of the voice coming from the woman on the small stage.

The man recognized the old song, Angel Baby, originally recorded by Rosie and the Originals. As Tilden sang, her eyes remained closed and she gently swayed with the song— as if she were feeling it from somewhere deep in her soul.

The notes, both high and low, were perfectly struck. The red haired woman had transformed from a frumpy-looking five foot drunk a moment before, to someone you would kill to hear sing. The detective had never before seen a change such as he was seeing now. When the song came to an end, the crowd was mute. Only the tinkling of a few glasses interrupted the silence.

Jennifer Tilden once more grabbed the microphone for balance, but this time she went over, dragging the instrument with her.

That broke the spell. The barroom erupted in applause and shouts for more. The detective ran forward and assisted the doctor to her feet, then helped her from the stage. When she gained her balance, she glared at him.

“Leave me the fuck alone,” she shouted. Her voice was once more ragged and burned out.

The detective was stunned. Had he just heard a recording of someone else? She could not have sung like the angel he had just heard. She shrugged his hand away and stumbled through the crowd toward the front doors.

It took a moment for the man to come to his senses. He quickly followed her outside into the cold night air, where he found her sitting on the curb. Several passersby had to step around her, but she paid them no mind. She had no coat, just the light sweater she had been wearing inside. The woman was hugging herself and crying.

The man removed his suit jacket and placed it over her shoulders. She shrugged out of it and bent at the waist, then straightened. She rocked forward again, hugging her knees.

“Go away,” she moaned through her tears.

“Doctor Tilden, that was an amazing song. Your voice, it just—”

She turned on him with her red and angry eyes. “It’s what — what?” she shouted.

“Ma’am, I’ve been hired to find you and give you a message.”

“You just don’t take ‘fuck off’ very seriously, do you?” She tried to stand, swayed, and then fell right back onto her ass.

“Professor Kennedy said to tell you he needs you.”

The woman opened her eyes and turned her head slowly toward the detective. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

“Two hundred thousand dollars ma’am, for a week’s worth of work in Pennsylvania.”

Slowly, she wiped a hand over her wet eyes.

“Gab…Gabriel Kennedy?”

“The UBC network has sent out a private jet for you. It’s at SeaTac right now.”

She stood weakly and shrugged the man’s jacket back on, nodding at him through her tears. “I may as well; I can’t sleep as it is.” She tried to clear her throat. “What the fuck do you care, afraid of some competition?” she mumbled beneath her breath, as if she was addressing someone close by her.

The man ignored her strange behavior. “As I said, you have the most amazing voice.”

For the first time, the detective heard her laugh. She turn away until she was once again under control.

“I take it Professor Kennedy didn’t enlighten you as to my…malady?”

“I’ve never met the man. I was hired out of the Seattle office to find you.”

“Well, let me explain something to you.” She took the man’s arm with her hands. “That wasn’t my voice.” She laughed again.

The detective nodded his head, slowly coming to the logical conclusion. “A recording,” he said. He started walking, escorting the doctor toward the parking garage across the street.

“You’re smart,” she said, wiping her eyes, “but no. No recording.”

“Then what?” he asked.

She let go of his arm, walked a few steps forward, and then turned. A car swerved out of the way, its horn blaring and its driver cursing at her.

“Kennedy should have warned you that I have some baggage. Actually, another person has to come along, so you’ll be traveling with two of us. Me, and the ghost you just heard sing. His name is Bobby Lee McKinnon.”

The detective stopped in the middle of the street. “What?”

“For a man working with Kennedy, you’re not very informed.” She turned and continued toward the car park. “I’m possessed by the ghost of a songwriter, murdered in 1959 in New York. The motherfucker won’t let me sleep. He thinks his penance is to sing forever, and he does it through me.”

The man stared after her.

She turned, waiting on him. For the first time this evening, Doctor Jennifer Tilden seemed present behind her own eyes. She smiled and batted her eyelashes, looking almost relieved to be going somewhere.

The final game piece had been found. The real game could soon begin.

NINE

Gabriel Kennedy sat outside the hospital room and watched the occasional nurse stroll by and eye him with suspicion. He waited for Eunice and Charles Johansson to leave their son’s bedside in the ten-room building that passed for a hospital.

He heard the click of heels approach, and knew who they belonged to before he saw her.

“I had a feeling this would be your first move.” Julie Reilly stopped before Gabriel.

“Ace reporter, always vigilant,” Kennedy answered. He tried not to look the woman in the face.

“Professor, since you agreed to take the network’s money, that makes us partners. Do you think for the next eight days we can be civil?”

Kennedy smiled faintly. “No.”

“I did my job. I asked the questions everyone was thinking. Because you couldn’t answer them, Professor, to any degree of believability, I’m the bad guy?”

“A reporter’s job is to report the truth, not to speculate on what she thinks might have happened. Not to offer alternative solutions to a question that has but one answer. You lynched me in the public’s opinion and gave the state police what they needed to open the trapdoor underneath me.” He finally looked her directly in the eyes. “And the fall hurt, Ace Reporter.”

“What happened that night, Professor? Did your student really vanish into thin air, or was he part of a broader conspiracy for your financial freedom?”

“You just never quit, do you? Is it so much of an embarrassment to say that you took it too far, that maybe you liked the guaranteed airtime you got from using me as a stepping stone? You’re a real piece of work. After what happened to people from your own network, and that boy in there, I still don’t warrant the benefit of the doubt? Or at the very least a ceasefire on the fraud front?” Gabriel stood and looked down at Julie. “Have you contacted Detective Jackson?”

“Not yet. I expect he’ll be around soon enough. I don’t have to hunt him down — he’s hunting for us.”

“What do you want?” a deep voice asked from behind them.

Julie and Gabriel turned. Charles Johansson stood just outside his son’s room. He glanced behind him and made sure the door was closed.

“Sir, my name is—” Gabriel started.

“I know who you are, Kennedy. I remember the mess you made at the house — a mess me and my missus had to clean up. What do you want?”

“Mr. Johansson, I would like to speak with your son,” Kennedy said. Julie stepped up beside Gabriel and smiled, taking his arm. He flinched.

“He’s not speaking with anyone, haven’t you heard?”

“I understand he’s nonresponsive. I’m a psychologist. I think I may be able to help him.”

“He’s seen all kinds o’ docs that ain’t helped one bit. He still just stares at nothin’ and says nothin’.”

“Mr. Johansson, Professor Kennedy just needs a little—”

“Look, Miss, you and this ghoul get away from here and let my boy be. If I have to throw you out, I will. You don’t have a right to come here and—”

“Charles, that’s enough.”

Eunice Johansson stood just behind her large husband, rebuking him softly. The pretty woman was tired and haggard looking.

“They want to see Jimmy, Eunice. I won’t let—”

“Honey, go get us some coffee.” She placed a small hand on her husband’s arm. “Maybe get these folks some, also.”

“No, thank you ma’am,” Gabriel said. Julie only shook her head.

Charles looked from his wife to Kennedy. Then he deflated, the anger leaving him like the air out of a balloon. He lowered his head and walked away. Eunice watched his back retreat down the hall.

“Charles is the type of man that gets angry when he doesn’t understand something.” She turned and placed her hand on her son’s door. “This…well, he doesn’t understand it.”

“Mrs. Johansson, perhaps you remember me. I’m Professor Gabriel—”

“Kennedy. Yes, I remember. I remember both of you.”

Julie untwined her arm from Gabriel’s with an embarrassed look.

“Tell me, Professor, why would you want to see my boy?”

“I think I may be able to—”

“Too late in the day for lies, Professor,” she said sadly.

Gabriel looked from Eunice to the closed door. “I’m going back into the house.”

Eunice Johansson shook her head. She thought a moment, and then slowly pushed open her son’s door, behind her. Her tired eyes remained on the two visitors.

“You just won’t learn, will you? Your students, those TV folks and now my boy…well, look and see what that house did to my son. I never really believed in things before, but something took part of our boy. He was wayward sometimes, but he didn’t deserve this.”

Kennedy cautiously stepped around Eunice and through the door she held open. Julie followed.

Gabriel was shocked. It was as though he was looking at a young child with white hair, not a strapping teenage boy, strong from working for a living with his father. He was curled in a fetal position on the hospital bed, wide-eyed and staring at nothing. A small puddle of drool had accumulated just below his mouth and had run onto the small pillow. Eunice moved to her son’s side, wiped his mouth, and then dabbed at the pillowcase.

“Pretty sight, Professor?” she asked. Tears flooded her reddened eyes.

Julie had slowly pulled out a small notebook. Now Gabriel glared at her until she placed the pad back into her bag. He gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs in the corner of the room and out of the way, and then he turned to Eunice.

“Five minutes, ma’am. I’ll do your son no harm.”

Eunice’s eyes went blank for a moment. She allowed Kennedy to lead her to a chair and sit her down. “What more harm can be done?” she asked sadly.

Kennedy patted her hand and then turned back to the boy, and his demeanor changed. He was in his element now.

Kennedy eased himself toward the bed. He reached out with one hand and brushed the long white hair back from the boy’s eyes. He tilted his head and looked deeply into Jimmy’s vacant, bloodshot eyes. Straightening, he reached into his sport coat and pulled out a small notebook. Thumbing through the pages until he found the one he wanted, he looked up at Jimmy again, then sat down on the edge of the bed.

Eunice had stopped crying and was watching the professor. He leaned close and said something into Jimmy’s ear. There was no reaction. Kennedy looked into his notebook once more.

Julie Reilly leaned forward in her chair, also watching as Kennedy confidently read a page and then closed the notebook once more. Again he whispered something to the boy. Still no reaction. Again, Kennedy checked his notes.

The door opened and Charles Johansson stepped into the room, carrying a cardboard tray that bore three cups of machine brewed coffee. He gave one to his wife, and then placed the tray on the table. Standing over Eunice, they both watched Kennedy. When his eyes shifted to Julie, she couldn’t hold the man’s accusatory stare.

Kennedy put the notebook away and leaned over the boy once more, again whispering into his ear. Suddenly the boy sat straight up in bed, almost knocking Kennedy over. Jimmy’s vacant eyes stared at nothing and he started to shake. Kennedy was strangely calm. Eunice stood with a start, her Styrofoam cup of hot coffee spilling to the floor, forgotten. It was the first time since her son had been brought to the hospital that he had made a voluntary movement of his own. Charles Johansson took his wife by the shoulders and held her, not allowing her to go to their boy.

Gabriel Kennedy leaned over and said something else to the boy, and this time they heard it.

“It’s gone, Jimmy. It didn’t want you.”

Jimmy Johansson seemed to relax for a brief moment, and then he pointed insistently at nothing. His arm stretched out so tautly that they could see the muscles working under the skin. Kennedy gently pulled the boy’s arm down.

“No! It’s gone now. She will never bother you again. She wasn’t after you…she wasn’t after anybody. She was lost and she felt you in her room. She only wanted to be close to you. She didn’t mean to scare you.”

Jimmy’s eyes blinked, as though he were waking up. He looked over at Kennedy and blinked eyes more rapidly. Kennedy gestured for Julie to shut off the lights; he stood and pulled the curtains closed. When he went back to Jimmy’s bedside, he suddenly lashed out and struck Jimmy in the face, making his head snap back. This time it was Charles who started forward and Eunice who held him in place.

The slap produced the desired effect. Jimmy started to cry. Looking around the room, his eyes fell on his mother, and then he really let loose. Gabriel stepped back and nodded for Eunice to go to her son. She threw herself on the bed and took the boy to her chest. She was soon joined by Charles and they hugged their son together. Kennedy stepped away from the three and pulled a handkerchief from his jacket to wipe the sweat that had covered his forehead. He was soon joined by Julie, who was wide-eyed.

“What did you say to him? What’s in that notebook?”

Kennedy glanced toward the Johanssons, then turned and slipped out of the room, Julie following close behind. They soon saw a doctor and two nurses go into Jimmy’s room; as they passed Kennedy, they both gave him strange looks.

Kennedy sat down in a chair in the hallway, leaning forward to catch his breath.

“Well, what did you say?” Julie persisted, standing over him.

He finally looked up. “I spoke some words to him.”

“What words?”

“It’s not the words, but the language. I played a hunch.”

“Goddamn it, Kennedy…”

“German. I spoke German to him.”

“What did you say?”

Kennedy stood and walked a few steps. Then he turned and looked at Julie.

“You’re a non-believer, but you’ll have to agree, the boy woke up.”

“Yes, I agree with at least that. Now, what did you say?”

“The German opera star, the missing diva from the third floor, from the 1920s.”

“What about her?”

“She was taken by whatever is in that house. I don’t think Jimmy came across the real entity at Summer Place, because he wasn’t taken — he’s still alive.”

“So, what did you say to get him to wake up?”

“As I said, I played a hunch. I said something in German. I don’t know if it was the words themselves, or if he just recognized the language and it brought him back.”

“What were the words?”

“Helfen Sie mir,” he answered.

Kennedy turned his back on her.

“Just what the hell does that mean, damn it?”

Gabriel turned back and smiled. His small breakthrough with the boy had made his day, but frustrating Julie Reilly was the icing.

“It means help me.”

Julie said nothing.

“This means, I suspect, that we may have more than one ghost at Summer Place. Possibly several. But one thing is for sure… That boy didn’t meet the real entity that’s walking those halls. He wouldn’t be in there with his parents right now — he’d be missing, or dead.”

Julie climbed in behind the wheel of the rental car and glanced at Kennedy. He sat quietly, looking through the windshield at the crystal blue sky overhead. As she snapped her seatbelt, she blurted the question before she knew she was going to ask it.

“Feel like seeing Summer Place?”

He sat quietly, long enough that she began to think he hadn’t heard her question.

“Yes, I think it’s time. I’m ready to see it.” He looked over to her. “From the outside.”

“You don’t want to go in?”

“We’ll save that for your big night. It would be better for your cameras. Suspense, I guess you’d call it?”

“Yes, that’s what we call it.”

She put the car in gear and drove away from the hospital.

Kennedy was silent for most of the forty-five minute drive to the house. Julie took her time, watching Kennedy for any kind of reaction as they made their way closer to the property. Gabriel kept his eyes closed most of the way. It wasn’t until they were almost right above Summer Place, near the spot from which the UBC crew and Kelly Delaphoy had first caught sight of the house a week before, that Kennedy’s eyes suddenly popped open. It was like watching a small animal sense the shadow of a predator flying over its hiding place.

“May I ask, off the record…What are you feeling?”

Gabriel looked over at Julie. He was feeling that anything was preferable over looking into the small valley below where the beast waited patiently.

“I don’t know. It’s not fear, though I am fearful. It’s not confidence that I’m right about what that house is, because I am not confident. And it’s not the overwhelming feeling that it’s expecting me back, because how could it?” He shook his head. “I am afraid, but not of the house. I’m afraid I won’t be able to kill whatever is in there.”

The conviction of Gabriel’s beliefs burned brightly in those few words. Julie was beginning to see that she would have more than a hard time proving Kennedy was a nut, or a stone cold liar. Years ago, he had been like an eyewitness to a tragedy, expected to give a full and complete statement immediately. She never realized that his perspective would have changed and developed confidence once he’d had time to absorb what had happened; she and Detective Jackson had never allowed him up for air. As she drew around the corner and the house became visible through the trees, she found cold chills running the length of her arms. Gabriel’s fervor had been convincing, even to her. It was like he was capable of pulling back a curtain to allow you to see what the possibilities really were.

“Jesus,” he whispered to himself.

The property looked quiet. The Johanssons were still in Bright Waters attending to Jimmy. The house was brilliant in the dazzling sunlight and the sparkles coming off the pool dappled the awnings and deck chairs with a beautiful, otherworldly glimmer. Julie watched his face as he took it all in. It was like witnessing a soldier as he went back to a place of battle where he had lost friends in a long ago war. He reached up to remove his glasses, absentmindedly cleaning his lenses with a handkerchief. He seemed to be soaking up the view from a distance, but he also looked like a rabbit ready to spring at any moment.

As the car crept down the long hill toward the house, Julie was kicking herself for not taping what Kennedy had said. Not for the television show, but as some sort of record for her personal use — maybe as a talisman that would later prove just how right she had been about Gabriel’s mental makeup and his capacity for doing what she and Damian Jackson had accused him of: the glorification of an event for later celebrity.

As the house grew in the windshield, Julie saw a large car parked off the road just outside the gates. A large man was leaning on the hood. State Police Lieutenant Damian Jackson watched the house from a distance. Julie started to pull into the entrance.

“We can avoid this if you want,” Julie said. “I’ll just turn right around and head back to town.”

“Why?” Kennedy asked, placing his wire rimmed glasses back on. “Neither you nor he have ever intimidated me. Honestly, I would much rather have you both where I can see you.”

As the car pulled to a stop, Kennedy opened his door and stepped out without hesitation. Ignoring the police detective, he walked straight to the gates. Julie stepped out too, watching Kennedy bypass any greeting to Jackson. Then she watched the black state policeman as his dark eyes followed the professor.

“So, have you transferred permanently to the thriving metropolis of Bright River, foregoing the small city challenges of Philadelphia, Lieutenant?” Julie called.

Damian Jackson removed his hat and tossed it onto the hood of his car.

“No, no transfer. Vacation time. Halloween has always been a favorite of mine.”

Jackson spoke to Julie, but his eyes remained on Gabriel Kennedy’s back. The professor studied Summer Place quietly through the large beams that made up the front gate.

“Did you receive the invitation to the big event here on Halloween?” Julie stepped casually in between Jackson and Kennedy, allowing Gabriel the time he needed.

The large state policeman reached into his coat and retrieved a large envelope. Then he pulled out the check that had come inside it.

“Handsome reward to give someone who just wants to do his duty, wouldn’t you say?”

Jackson smiled, watching her face as he slowly, deliberately ripped the two hundred thousand dollar certified check in two.

“Does that mean we won’t have the pleasure of your company on the thirty-first of October?”

Jackson stepped around Julie and made his way to the silent Kennedy. He stood beside him and, like Gabriel, took in the view of Summer Place.

“Tell me, Professor, how it feels coming back,” he said, gazing out at the house.

“You mean, how does it feel returning to the scene of the crime?” Gabriel asked, looking over at Jackson with a smile.

“Something like that.”

“I think it’s the same for both of us.” He half turned, acknowledging Julie. “Excuse me, all three of us.”

“The Lieutenant just tore up his compensation for attending on Halloween, Professor,” Julie said. This visit wasn’t turning out at all like she expected. Gabriel was just too cool and collected, seeing the house for the first time in so many years.

“Is that right?” He smiled. “Well, that’s about what I expected. The Lieutenant’s always been more of a ‘wait until they hang themselves’ kind of guy. Watch from the sidelines and then piece it all together later — no matter if the puzzle pieces fit or not.”

Jackson chuckled. “Just because I can’t accept your money, doesn’t mean my investigation won’t continue. I’ll be there on the thirty-first, on two conditions.”

“Okay, I’m waiting,” Julie said. Kennedy turned and looked at Jackson, too. Now he seemed interested.

“One: there will be no camera shots of me. I am officially not there that night. No mention of me in your script and no mention of my name on any electronic media. Two: I want ten minutes with Kennedy alone on the third floor before the night is done. You see,” he held the professor’s gaze, “I believe the good Professor Gabriel here is going to give up far more than the ghost that night. He’s going to make my case all by himself, and I’m going to take him into custody for murder. And that, you can film all you want.”

Jackson turned his gaze toward the house once more. “Now that’s pretty good, Miss Reilly. If your network can pull off the small stuff like that, then we may be in for quite a funhouse ride on Halloween.”

Julie and Kennedy turned back toward the house in silence. Both of the large front doors were standing wide open and every window blind in the house had been raised. It was as if the house was welcoming them all back, inviting them inside so the party could start early.

Lieutenant Damian Jackson turned away, laughing at what seemed to be a clever prank. He picked up his hat from the hood and placed it on his head at a jaunty angle.

“Yes, ma’am, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He opened the car door and then looked back at the house. “Yes, ma’am…Nice touch, with the doors and windows.”

“Well, I guess that makes the guest list complete,” Julie mused.

Gabriel said nothing. His eyes were still glued to the open front doors of Summer Place.

TEN

The next day, the large conference room at UBC headquarters played host to Professor Gabriel Kennedy’s invitees. George Cordero, at the wet bar in the corner of the large room, tried mentally to size up the others. They had introduced themselves earlier, with the exception of the small woman who sat in a chair in the far corner near the window instead of at the conference table with the rest. Her bloodshot, darkened eyes looked out over the Manhattan skyline.

The large Indian sat quietly at the center of the table. George knew that although the large man didn’t look around, the ponytailed lawman from Montana had already evaluated each of them. John Lonetree was dressed in black slacks, a white shirt with string tie, black sport coat, and black cowboy boots; his black cowboy hat sat on the table in front of him. George looked away and plopped ice into the cut crystal glass.

Cordero next surveyed the small black man sitting beside the Indian. He had introduced himself as Leonard Sickles, and then quickly told them all to call him “Too Smart” instead. Leonard was not as well dressed as the big man next to him. He wore tan Dockers with a red polo shirt. He was doodling on one of the expensive notepads that had been placed at every seat around the table. Every once in a while the black kid would look up suddenly, as if he expected the police to break in at any moment.

Cordero poured the expensive whiskey, then considered the small woman at the window, who seemed even more out of place than the rest of the menagerie at the table. She didn’t move at all, wasn’t the least bit curious about her surroundings, and every once in a while she would look up and to her left as if someone were sitting next to her. She would frown, her delicate brow pinching as if she were about to cry. The short-haired woman looked like a lost soul. She had not said a word.

George moved to his chair across from John Lonetree, and smiled as he sat. Lonetree looked Cordero in the eyes for the briefest of moments, and then looked away. He sat up a little straighter and then glanced at the door. The Indian raised his index finger and pointed to the conference room’s large double doors. At that very moment, the doors opened. Lonetree’s smile grew and he winked at Cordero.

Julie Reilly, Kelly Delaphoy and Lionel Peterson entered the room, followed by the man who had been introduced to them earlier as Harris Dalton, dressed in a blue shirt and tan sport jacket. Behind the mysterious project’s director, Professor Gabriel Kennedy entered, clean shaven and carrying a small briefcase. He stood rooted just inside the door for a moment, looking at each of his friends in turn. Then he smiled and came forward, laying his briefcase on the table as the others settled in around it.

“John, I hoped you would come,” he said, taking the larger man’s hand in his own.

Lonetree slapped the hand away and took Kennedy into an embrace, patting his back so hard that Gabriel thought it would knock the wind out of him.

“What can I say? Rez life ain’t what it used to be — figured I needed some crazy shit to lighten my burden.”

Leonard Sickles waited patiently until John released Kennedy. Gabriel smiled and took Sickles by the shoulder. “Hello you little shit, how are things in the hood?”

“Too Smart” smiled and slapped Kennedy’s outstretched hand.

“Man, the hood don’t have nothin’ on those vultures in the business world. Those cats are dangerous!”

“I told you when we last spoke, watch out what you ask for—”

“Yeah, yeah — I just may get it. Well, I got it.”

Kennedy gave Sickles a low five and then turned his attention to Cordero, who stood on the far side of the table. He was admiring Kelly Delaphoy’s ass as she leaned over to place her own case by her chair. He looked up and raised his eyebrows twice. The last time Kennedy had seen George, he had been performing on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to sold-out crowds. He hadn’t spoken to him since his arrests on several embezzlement and fraud charges. Kennedy just smiled and pointed a finger at Cordero, who held up his hands in a mock surrender.

Jennifer Tilden hadn’t even seemed to notice that the others had filed into the room. Kennedy approached her slowly while the others took their seats around the table.

She had been cleaned up nicely and dressed well. She was wearing a green skirt with no stockings and a nice blouse covered by a sweater. She sat with her hands together, watching the goings-on in the city below. Her hair had been styled severely but neatly, suiting her pretty face. Kennedy knelt beside her and lifted her chin with his hand.

“Hi, Jenny,” he said, smiling into her tired face.

A slow moving smile started to brighten her face.

“Hello Gabriel. I see you’re trying to get back into business again.”

Kennedy touched her cheek.

“How’s Bobby Lee?” he asked.

Jennifer looked away, out the window once again.

“Oh, he’s been pointing out all the changes down on Seventh Street. He says the town’s going downhill fast.” She smiled wider and then looked up into Gabriel’s concerned face. “Did you know he recorded his last album right here in this building, just before…before…” she trailed off.

Gabriel frowned gently. “I think Bobby Lee needs to layoff for a while, Jenny. It’s nice that he’s taking you on a tour of memory lane, but it wasn’t you who had him killed, and it wasn’t you who led him to deal with the worst elements of the music industry.” Kennedy stood and took her hand. “Why don’t you join us at the table, and I’ll explain what it is we need you for — what we need you and Bobby Lee for.”

Jennifer Tilden tried to smile, but failed miserably. Still, she allowed Gabriel to assist her from her chair and lead her toward the conference table. Before sitting, Jennifer pulled out an empty chair to her right. She sat, then looked expectantly at the empty seat next to her. She looked as if she wanted to say something, but Gabriel leaned over and whispered in her ear. She lowered her gaze to the shiny tabletop. She didn’t look back up, but she did slide her notepad over to the space in front of the empty chair.

Kelly and Julie exchanged looks.

Lionel Peterson rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Professor, I have a busy day planned. There’s more to my job than seeing to Kelly’s wants and wishes.”

Kennedy’s dislike for Peterson had been instant, the moment they had been introduced at a breakfast meeting that morning. The man was a schemer, and was not to be trusted any more than Delaphoy or Reilly.

Gabriel walked to the head of the long conference table. He looked at the faces of the only people he trusted — his old friends.

“John, I’ll start with you.”

Lonetree eyed Gabriel. He already knew what was wanted of him. He knew he could deliver, but wondered if Kennedy remembered the toll it would take on him to do so.

“Ms. Delaphoy, we will need you to contact Mr. Lindemann to request several items from Summer Place for Mr. Lonetree’s use.”

Kelly started writing on her notepad. “Such as?”

“A family portrait, a dish or two, a piece of the drywall, water from the pool, hay from the stables, silverware—”

“What this is for, Professor?” Peterson asked, raising his right brow as if that alone was enough to show Kennedy that he was still in charge.

“I’ll explain when I’m done.”

Peterson bit his lower lip, stopping the demand that was about to burst out of his mouth. He dipped his head forward in a brief, sharp nod.

“Thank you. John needs a sampling of the house. In particular, anything from the upstairs. Bed linen, a swatch of wallpaper, a piece of drywall, anything. You’ll see to that, please?”

Kelly finished writing, then looked up as if to ask if there was anything else.

“Can you add to the list, John?” Kennedy asked.

“That may be a good start. But with less than four days until Halloween, I need the items overnighted if possible.” He smiled at Gabriel. “I’ll only have two nights in which to travel.”

Kennedy returned the smile and then looked at the curious faces around him. “Dream Walking runs in John’s family. By keeping items from the house close around him, John may be able to feel something that may help us in the long run, and it may help him key in on something during your broadcast.”

Julie glanced over at Lionel Peterson, who closed his eyes and shook his head.

“I hope you’ll let us in on whatever Mr. Lonetree comes up with so it can be used on the air?” Peterson said.

Kennedy again didn’t answer Peterson; he turned back to Kelly instead.

“Do you foresee a problem with acquiring those items, or similar ones?”

“When you deal with Wallace Lindemann, you don’t foresee. You know. Yes, he will bitch and complain, but he’ll do what’s asked.”

“Good, because if he doesn’t, I’ll need you to get out there and steal the items I have asked for — it’s key to the overall assault plan on Summer Place.”

“Assault?” Peterson asked.

“Yes, that’s the only word that fits. We have to assault that house. Its defenses will be up, and I already know its offensive capabilities.”

Peterson smiled and shook his head again. “I hope you’re writing down everything Professor Kennedy is saying, Kelly. It should make for one hell of a script.”

Kelly looked up from her notepad. Before she could retort, Peterson nodded to Kennedy. “Continue, Professor.”

Gabriel walked around the table to Leonard Sickles, who was still doodling on the notepad in front of him.

“Leonard, we come to you. The Infra-Spectroscope — how’s it coming?”

Leonard felt the pressure of Gabriel’s hands on his shoulders — still the only man alive that Leonard trusted enough to touch him. The young man ripped the first four pages from his notebook and lifted them into the air. Gabriel took them and glanced over them. While they had thought the small black man was doodling, he had actually been working.

“Looks like these parts may be expensive,” Gabriel said.

“Nah.” Leonard looked toward Harris Dalton. “The network techs may have everything we need right here in this building. I might have to contact Sperry-Rand, or maybe GE, for a few things, but nah… It should be no problem.”

“May I ask just what Mr. Sickles is going to be building?” Peterson asked. When Gabriel looked his way, he quickly held up his hand. “I have budget concerns here, Professor — and I will ask whatever I want to ask regarding this show.”

“The Infra-Spectroscope is a device Mr. Sickles started developing when he heard about my rather curious investigation.”

“What kind of device is this, kid?” John Lonetree asked, visibly curious.

Leonard “Too Smart” Sickles looked absolutely delighted to be asked a direct question. He didn’t care about the network people, but was pleased to be accepted by Kennedy’s friends.

“Well, Mister Lonetree, it’s a cross between a night-vision scope and an air density accelerator. I can use it in several different ways. If it’s ghosts we’re looking for, I may be able to see them. I made a cheap version once and was able to catch a few things that Dr. K didn’t even believe.”

“They scared the hell out of me. I still don’t know what he caught on that damn thing.” Kennedy smiled at his young friend.

“Can this device be hooked into one of our remote cameras?” Harris Dalton asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“Yeah, man, I think so… if you can spare a few of your guys to do some experimenting.”

“You’ll have a team assigned to you from any division you want, if it means we might catch a ghost on camera,” Dalton said with a smile.

“Well, failing that, I know I can at least track the bastards.”

“You’re kidding?” Julie asked, looking from Leonard to Gabriel.

“Air density,” Leonard said. He grinned appreciatively at Julie, eyeing her up and down and not caring who saw him do it. “Anything that moves — I don’t give a damn if it’s invisible and weighs nothing — even a ghost has to push aside air in order to move from place to place. No matter what, it has to change its environment — air temperature, dust in the air, or even light refraction. And when it does, old Too Smart will have its ass.”

Leonard looked around the room with an I just ate the canary smile on his face. Lonetree nodded appreciatively.

The double doors opened and Jason Sanborn came through them holding a giant roll of paper. He laid the sheets on the conference table, almost burying George Cordero. George politely smiled and removed half of them from his lap, then shook spilled whiskey from his hand.

“Sorry, old man,” Jason said, removing his pipe from his mouth. “And you must be Gabriel Kennedy.” He came around the table and took Gabriel’s hand in his own.

“And you must be the producer.”

“Yes, Jason Sanborn…and I have something for you, Professor.” He released Kennedy’s hand and walked back around the table. “Excuse me, young man, can you hand me that schematic at your feet, please?”

Cordero looked from Sanborn to Kennedy. He smiled without moving. “Let me guess…You found the diagrams of the original specs to Summer Place?” he asked Sanborn.

“Yes, that is correct,” the producer answered. He replaced his pipe between his teeth and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

“That’s not really a stretch, is it, Mr. Cordero?” Lionel Peterson asked with a small smirk. “I mean, it’s is quite obvious that Mr. Sanborn was carrying architectural drawings.”

“That’s not the something he was talking about,” George said. Kelly and Julie were watching him, as if they both suspected that another of Kennedy’s prodigies was about to show off. George smiled at them, then closed his eyes and held up his right hand. With a mysterious hum, he shook the hand over the table. “He’s going to tell you that the original architect was none other than F.E. Lindemann himself.”

“That is correct,” Jason said. “How could you know that? These drawings weren’t listed with the county, but in the family wing at the Philadelphia museum.”

“I’m sure we’re impressed with this gentleman’s prowess at guessing games. Can we move on?” Peterson said, frowning.

“Well, George here just demonstrated his ability to feel things,” Kennedy said. “The same with Mr. Lonetree. Now we’ll use them to—”

“Professor, we get the gist. You can set up the details with Mr. Dalton later.”

Kennedy stared at Peterson for the longest time. Then he turned and sat in his chair. He looked from Kelly Delaphoy to Julie Reilly and fixed them with his blue eyes.

“This man is going to get people hurt,” he said.

Peterson didn’t say anything; he only smiled and raised his brows at Kennedy’s statement.

“If we rush in there without a plan, that house will literally chew us to pieces. This asshole doesn’t even believe the damn place is haunted. He thinks it’s nothing more than a pretty summer retreat for rich idiots like himself.”

“Lionel, it seems you’re upsetting a man we have just paid an awful lot of money to. May I suggest a little leeway here?” Julie said. She tapped her cell phone, on the table in front of her. Peterson didn’t begin to fathom the power she herself wielded at the network.

“When you have concrete plans, I’ll go over them with Harris. Until then, I’ll be in my office.” Peterson stood, buttoned his suit jacket and strode from the conference room.

“Thank you,” Gabriel said as he stood. “He didn’t need to be here for this, anyway. George, could you close the blinds please? Ms. Reilly, will you do the same on your side?”

They drew the blinds and Kennedy turned off the overhead lights. He walked over to Jennifer, who still sat quietly at the window, even though her view of the outside world had been cut off by the closing of the blinds. Her eyes were still fixed on the same spot. “Let me say this to you, and you may research it if you wish, but Dr. Tilden is the most brilliant anthropologist in the United States, if not the entire world.”

All eyes sought out Jennifer in the semi-darkness. She lowered her head, turning her gaze to her hands where they rested in her lap. When Kennedy placed a gentle hand on her small shoulder, she looked up for the first time.

“Jennifer Tilden is why I sought out paranormal research. She came to me as a patient, and I’ll be betraying no confidential aspects of her case that she would not care to share. As a matter of fact, she really doesn’t care one way or another.”

“What is wrong with her, Professor Gabe?” Leonard asked.

Kennedy kneeled beside her and pried one of her hands free, holding it in his own. In the darkness, none of the others could see the gentleness that came to Gabriel’s face as he touched her.

“Jenny is quite insane.”

“Really?” Cordero said mockingly.

Kennedy glanced over. “And I would expect anyone but you to have something smart to say about her circumstance, George.”

Cordero tried to smile, shifting to cover his embarrassment.

“How are you doing in there, Jenny?” Kennedy asked.

Jennifer didn’t answer, but she did use her free hand to brush away some hair that had fallen into her face. She also squeezed Gabriel’s hand a little tighter.

“We need Jenny for what we have to do in Summer Place. She will be invaluable as we try and seek out what it is we’re dealing with.” He looked up at the men and women sitting around the table. “Jennifer and her special friend will be able to talk to that house and what inhabits it.”

“You’ll have to explain that, Gabe,” Lonetree said.

Kennedy turned back to the anthropologist. “Jenny, I want you to relax. You’re here with me, so he won’t be mean to you.”

Cordero, perhaps thinking Gabriel was referring to him, scrunched down in his seat just a little more.

“He’s not angry, he just wants to know why I’m not singing,” she said without looking up.

Jason and Harris stood so that they could hear better. Julie was watching Kennedy more than the small woman he knelt with, and Kelly Delaphoy was writing furiously on her notepad.

“If you sing, will he let you speak to us without interfering?”

Jennifer looked up at Kennedy and tilted her head to the left, as if she were listening to a far off voice. She almost smiled, and then she looked over at Leonard Sickles, who sat further back in his chair.

“Hey, boy, whiskey and water with lots of ice.”

Jason Sanborn’s pipe fell from his mouth. Kelly’s pencil snapped its point off against the paper. Julie Reilly stared in stunned silence, and the others — Harris Dalton included — stood suddenly.

The voice that had come out of Jennifer Tilden’s small mouth was male.

Leonard looked just as shocked, but infuriated even more.

“Who you callin’ boy, bitch?” The words didn’t come out with as much bravado as he would have liked.

“That’s not her, Leonard, and you will damn well apologize when she wakes up,” Kennedy said. He looked sternly at Sickles, who only stared wide-eyed at Jennifer.

“We don’t call a black man ‘boy.’ Not here, not anymore, Bobby Lee.”

“Ah, you know I didn’t mean nothin’ by it,” the male voice said. This time Jenny looked directly at Sickles. The male voice had a thick New York accent. “Hell, most of my friends are Negros, you know that.”

“Forget it. I can see you’ve backed out of our deal,” Kennedy said. He released Jenny’s hand and stood, then lifted her chin up toward him.

“Look man, you left this poor girl alone for years. What was I supposed to do, abandon her like you did?”

“We’ll get into that later, Bobby Lee. If Jenny sings for you, will you let her be for the next few hours, maybe even let her have a full night’s sleep?”

“She’s gonna sing, Kennedy, you can bet your ass on that. And as far as leaving her alone, well you can just kiss my—”

Gabriel reached into his coat pocket with his free hand and brought out a small syringe, holding it where she could see it. He still held Jenny’s chin.

“What the hell you gonna’ do with that?” Jenny’s male voice was starting to sound strained.

“I’m going to put her out for more days than you would care to know about. Now, if she sings, will you leave her be for the next twenty-four hours so she can rest?”

“She sings first — that’s the deal.”

“She sings first.”

Kennedy stood over Jenny and waited, keeping the syringe in the woman’s sight.

“Professor, is this dangerous to the girl?” Harris Dalton asked. He slowly lowered himself into his chair at the head of the conference table.

Kennedy shrugged. “Jennifer has nothing to lose here. She’s bordering on exhaustion and her system is close to shutting down. If she had stayed on the streets another month she would have died from malnutrition or sleep deprivation. As it stands, we may not be able to use her — and her friend — if she can’t rest. Without Jennifer, this project will be for nothing. I need her, and to put it frankly, she needs Summer Place.”

Before Harris could voice further concerns, the anthropology professor slowly stood. With her eyes closed, she walked over to where John Lonetree was sitting and eased onto his lap. If he was surprised by her actions, he didn’t show it. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped at least ten degrees. Julie folded her arms across her chest for warmth.

The rest of them stared, watching Jennifer as she looked deep into John Lonetree’s eyes. Jason glanced over at Kelly, and she exhaled a breath that produced vapor — the temperature in the conference room was dropping even more than they had realized.

Gabriel swallowed. He had seen all of this before. He had seen it just three weeks before the incident at Summer Place, and his guilt at not helping Jennifer was something that he regretted even more than the disaster of that night seven years before. He had left her after she had sought out his help, and he was miserable for it. Still, the fact of what he was about to witness never failed to scare the hell out of him. A case study would show that Jenny exhibited a classic case of split personality, but he knew that diagnosis to be the easy way out. She had a split personality, all right, but it was because she had someone else inside of her — not unlike a haunted house, Jenny herself was being haunted, by Bobby Lee McKinnon.

As they all watched with rapt fascination, Jenny slowly placed her arms around the big man’s neck and stared deeply into his eyes, as if she were begging John’s forgiveness for something she was about to do. John would never see it that way; when Jenny opened her mouth, John Lonetree’s world changed forever.

In 1958, the prodigious record producer Phil Spector, before his more powerful days behind the glass directing the talents of most of the early rock n’ roll stars of the fifties and early sixties, had been a part of a singing group The Teddy Bears. This small group had one song that went straight to the top of the Billboard Top 100: To Know Him Is To Love Him. It was this slow and melodic song that came out of Jenny’s mouth as she stared into Lonetree’s brown eyes. Phil Spector, Gabriel would later explain, had been a writing partner of one Bobby Lee McKinnon.

“To know, know, know him…is to love, love, love him — just…to see him smile…makes my life worthwhile.” Jenny took a breath and leaned closer, her eyes never leaving John’s. It was if everyone in the room was seeing Jennifer relax for the first time, as if she were safe for the first time in years. She took a small breath, her voice beautiful and haunted at the same time. Harris Dalton, who knew the song, swallowed and then slowly stood from his chair as he watched the scene play out before him. The room was becoming ever colder. “Yes, to know, know, know him — is to love, love, love him — yes, I do — yes, I do — yes I do—”

“My god,” Jason Sanborn said aloud.

Leonard Sickles was also wide-eyed. He slowly pushed his chair back and almost fell, trying to get as far away from John and Jennifer as he could while still looking macho. The voice coming from the small, woman was perfect, the highs and lows of the song drew in her listeners like a memory from youth.

Jason Sanborn was remembering being rejected by the girl of his dreams, and Harris Dalton was being transported to a triumph at the drive in movie theater thirty-five years before. But it was John Lonetree who was left in the moment, staring into Jennifer’s eyes and feeling like he was drowning, and not minding it one bit. His left hand slowly rose and slid up her back, caressing her as she sang.

For exactly two minutes and twenty-two seconds, she sang only to John Lonetree and no one moved. Then she smiled at him with eyes that finally had her own light shining through them, and she slowly lay her head upon John’s chest. She sobbed a moment, and then passed out.

Kennedy leaned over and smiled at his old friend, and then nodded and mouthed the word “thanks.” Then he straightened and stood over John, who still held Jennifer while she slept.

“Bobby Lee McKinnon, are you there?” Gabriel asked. Leonard Sickles edged further away from the haunted woman.

Suddenly the blinds shifted as an internal wind hit the room, raising the temperature as if someone had opened a door to a summer Arizona day. There was a loud moan that seemed to sound from every corner of the room. Then as suddenly as it started, the wind died and the room’s temperature returned to normal. A gunshot fired loudly and they all jumped as one. Then there was nothing.

“He’s gone,” George Cordero said from his seat directly across from Lonetree. He hadn’t moved since the show had started. Unlike the others, he hadn’t been transported down memory lane. He had been living the last minute of Bobby Lee McKinnon’s life as he was dragged from his bed and shot in the back of the head by the Mafioso he had been in financial debt to. It had been a horrible vision and George had even felt the bullet penetrate his head. He wasn’t frightened; it was something he lived with most every day of his life. But it was never easy living the final, terrifying moments leading up to someone’s death, and Bobby Lee’s had not been a good way to go.

“Jesus Christ, Man!” Leonard said from his standing position. “What the fuck!”

“Gabriel, you know for a fact this woman is insane, don’t you?” George said, ignoring Sickles’ protests. The others around the table slowly realized that perhaps they hadn’t witnessed the haunting of an individual, but the torn and fractured mind of a woman lost to the real world.

“Obviously, she has to be,” Harris Dalton added. He slowly sank back into his seat.

No one saw the angry look that came into John Lonetree’s face as he slowly stood, Jennifer’s limp, light body cradled in his massive arms. He walked over to a couch and gently laid her down. Her hand wouldn’t let him go until he eased it from his neck. He removed his jacket and laid it over her still form.

“I don’t mean she’s insane alone,” George said. “I mean whatever is inside her head, he’s also insane, and he made this woman that way. He’s angry he was murdered.” He looked at Gabriel. “How did Bobby Lee latch onto her, Gabe?”

“She went to study a small case of an apartment haunting in 1999. She went thinking it was routine, but when she left that small place in New York, she didn’t leave alone. This trip to Summer Place is not only for our benefit, but hers. Bobby Lee, whether he knows it or not, is going to be a link.”

“A link?” Jason asked.

Kennedy smiled and looked from face to face. “Yes, Mr. Sanborn, Jennifer and Bobby are our link to the other side.”

For the first time, Harris Dalton and the others realized this trip to Summer Place may not have been the joke everyone outside of this room was thinking it would be.

Professor Gabriel Kennedy looked at the team he had assembled and realized it was a small army indeed preparing for battle in a house he knew to be a gateway to something few people on earth understood. All he knew was that the force the house held inside of its rotten bowels was something from a place that scared the hell out of him. And, worse…

Kennedy mumbled under his breath as he gathered his papers.

“What was that, Professor?” Dalton asked.

Gabriel smiled and then shook his head. He slowly wiped his brow of the sweat that had formed there as he thought about the days ahead.

“I was just saying to myself that the advantage of this fight still goes to Summer Place.”

“And why is that?” Kelly Delaphoy asked.

“Because that goddamned house knows exactly what scares the hell out of us.”

The conference room fell silent. The live broadcast was only days away.

The planning for the battle of Summer Place was about to begin.

ELEVEN

After the fantastic and terrifying scene in the conference room an hour before, the group was slow to respond when Lionel Peterson walked back into the meeting with the CEO of UBS following close behind. Peterson sat at his usual place at the head of the table and Abe Feuerstein took a seat in the far corner, his smile and ever-present bowtie impeccable as always.

“We seem to be missing someone — two someones, to be exact,” Peterson said as he looked from face to face, finally settling on Kelly Delaphoy.

“Mr. Lonetree is sitting with Jennifer Tilden in my office,” Kelly answered. “She felt a little ill. We had a rather—”

“—strained session a little while ago, and Ms. Tilden felt ill, that’s all,” Kennedy said. He didn’t like Peterson and felt he need not explain anything to him.

“If the young lady is ill, I would think a doctor — a real doctor, and not a medicine man — would be of a more practical use than Mr. Lonetree,” Peterson said. It was clear that they were keeping something from him, but it didn’t matter. He would eventually know everything about what had happened, anyway.

“Now, now, no need to disparage anyone’s background here, Mr. Peterson,” Feuerstein said. “Let’s move on, I have a meeting in a few minutes and I would like to gauge your reactions to an idea from programming.”

“What idea?” Kelly asked, frowning slightly.

“Live reaction coverage. We think it would be a hoot to see the general public’s reaction to the event — if there is one, of course.”

Kelly glared at Peterson, knowing the idea had sprung from his warped mind. He knew that if nothing happened, the reactions of the public would kill her ratings and make her a laughing stock. She couldn’t understand; did this son of a bitch want her to fail that badly that he would make their downfall so public? She wanted to stand up and rip his face off in front of everybody, but instead she smiled.

“That’s a great idea. Who came up with it? Was it you, sir?” Kelly asked.

Abraham Feuerstein nodded his head toward Peterson.

“Professor Kennedy, what do you think of getting reaction shots of a real American family to what’s happening live at Summer Place?” Peterson asked, moving his beady eyes from Kelly to Gabriel.

Before Kennedy could respond, Harris stood and looked at Peterson.

“If you ask me, I think it stinks, purely from the production end of things. We have a crowded air schedule as it is.”

“Oh, we’re talking brief, very brief cutaways to a home. This family will be chosen at random from a contest on our website. Since this morning’s press release about the show, our switchboards here and in Los Angeles have been overwhelmed with calls and emails. It’s a good gag, as Kelly would say,” Peterson answered. He smiled right at the show’s producer, deliberately using her own term against her.

“We were just getting ready to go over the schematics for Summer Place,” Kennedy said, cutting the conversation short. “It seems Mr. Sanborn has something interesting he’s been dying to tell us since he came across the plans. Mr. Sanborn?”

Jason stood on shaky legs. He still had not recovered fully from the experience with Professor Tilden. He was wondering after that if he was up to the tasks that lay ahead of him. For a man who was accustomed to random sounds on a digital recorder or a mere cold spot in a house, he was wondering about the real side of parapsychology for the first time.

“Uh, the plans…” He moved the diagrams over to a large easel. “The originals as drawn up by Mister Lindemann himself back in 1890 were at best crude. However, I did come across something that was not in the later specs for the house.” He rifled through the large schematics until he came to a hand drawn depiction of the lower levels of Summer Place. “Right here,” he said pointing at the lowest part of the page. The drawing was in old fashioned led pencil and was hard to read. “You see Lindemann’s drawing of the basement, and below that on this side view of the diagram, is the root cellar.”

“Your meaning, Jason?” Kelly asked.

“The root cellar is not depicted on the original architectural drawings. It was as if the root cellar was eliminated from the plans, but was built anyway.”

“So?” Peterson said.

“So,” Kelly said for Jason, “we saw the root cellar, it’s there. Why would the cellar be eliminated from the final drawings?”

“Oh, come on, there’s no big mystery there. It’s a root cellar, for Christ’s sake.”

Kennedy looked at Peterson. He was right, of course; on the surface it didn’t seem all that important. But as he thought about it… Most architects were very deliberate in their drawings for legality’s sake. He himself had never explored the lower reaches of Summer Place seven years ago, due to their short term lease of the property.

“Ms. Delaphoy, I think we need to make time in the schedule for a trip down to the root cellar. Maybe Mr. Sanborn has something here.”

“This seems like a waste of time and equipment,” Peterson said.

“We will have trouble broadcasting from there,” Harris Dalton said. “We discussed this earlier— it’s far below ground and it’s covered by concrete and dirt, the best signal blocker there is.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, my man. I could rig up a relay system to boost your signal out of the basement, no matter how far down you go — to hell and back if need be.”

All eyes went to Leonard Sickles. He pushed forward a quickly drawn schematic of a series of relay antennas he had sketched on his notepad. He looked at Kennedy, the only person he was really trying his best to impress. The professor smiled.

“Okay, that takes care of that.”

Peterson even smiled, but it was an alligator’s smile. Control was slipping even further away from him.

Jennifer Tilden opened her eyes. The brightness of the office lights made her blink and roll over on the couch.

“The lights, please. I can’t see,” she said to the presence she felt beside her. Her voice was harsh and barely audible.

John Lonetree stood quickly and shut off the overhead fluorescents, and then he closed the drapes halfway.

“You had a rough go of it, about an hour ago. How are you feeling now?” John eased himself back into the chair next to the couch.

“Like shit.” She slowly rolled over, keeping her arm over her eyes. “Who are you?”

“My name’s John.”

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked who you were.”

“I’m a friend of Gabriel Kennedy’s.”

Jennifer slowly moved her arm away from her face and blinked several times.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I saw sunlight that wasn’t through the lenses of dark glasses?”

John didn’t answer; he just watched her facial features as her eyes took in the office and then finally, him.

“Well, neither do I,” she said with a smile as she sat up. She looked at the clothes she was wearing and then at John. “May I assume you didn’t change my clothes for me?”

Lonetree was taken back for the first time in many years. He prided himself on knowing what people were going to say or do within a few seconds of meeting them. However, this question took him off guard.

“Why…uh…no, I didn’t—”

“Easy does it, big fella. I wasn’t accusing you of peaking at my underwear.” She placed her small feet on the floor. “But someone did get my bra size wrong, I’m afraid I am the victim of someone’s wishful thinking.” She smiled at Lonetree and adjusted her blouse and bra.

“You’re — in — New — York,” John said very slowly and deliberately.

Jenny looked at the large man and smiled, then leaned closer to him like she was conveying a conspiracy.

“I — know. I — have been — in — here,” she said tapping her temple, “and — I—remember — most — everything.”

“Everything?” John asked, becoming a little concerned. But he was even more embarrassed at the dumb way he’d handled things thus far.

“Yes, everything. Bobby Lee isn’t as bad as he tries to make out. He doesn’t torture me all that much. He allows me to control a few things — by the way, I love your aftershave.”

Again John Lonetree was taken back.

“Don’t look so shocked, I smelled it when I was sitting on your lap.”

“You have a beautiful voice,” he said, to hide his further embarrassment.

She looked at John for the longest moment of his life, and then she smiled.

“Thank you, but you have to give the credit to Bobby Lee, not me. Listen to me…I’m not exactly capable of singing like that. I sound like like Janice Joplin with her vocal chords cut.”

John smiled for the first time since bringing her into Kelly’s office. “Is he….is he—?”

“He kept his word. He’s going to let me sleep.” She stood, wobbled, and allowed John to steady her. “I’ll tell you right now, he’s not too happy with what Gabriel has in mind.” She took John’s strong arm and leaned into him.

“You’ll have to take that up with Gabe; I don’t think he’ll let Mr. McKinnon off the hook that easy.”

“Well, where is he? I would like to see him before I sleep forever.”

“He’s right down the hall,” John started leading her to the door, but stopped. “Can I ask you something?”

“Since you have the advantage of brute masculinity and I don’t have the strength to swat a fly, I’m think you can brave your question.”

“Why did you choose me to sing to?”

Jennifer looked up and into John’s dark eyes. Then she swallowed and stepped toward the door.

“Because I thought you were safe, and you were thinking good thoughts about me. That’s why I sang to you.”

“Oh.”

Abe Feuerstein was the first to notice the door slowly opening, and Jennifer Tilden’s entrance. She pulled her sweater close to her body and crossed her arms over her chest. John Lonetree followed and gestured toward Kennedy.

“She wanted to see you, Gabe.” He steered the small, exhausted looking woman toward the professor.

Kennedy went immediately to her and she took him in her arms. He could feel Jennifer sobbing while he held onto her closely.

“Where have you been?” she said low enough that only he and Lonetree could hear.

“Oh, Jenny, I’ve been hiding away from the world. I’m so sorry I left you out there.” Gabriel finally broke the embrace and looked her over. Her eyes were red and puffy but he could see that Bobby Lee McKinnon had kept his word — he was tucked somewhere far back in her subconscious. Gabriel hoped the dead songwriter would stay there for the next twenty-four hours, letting Jennifer regain her strength. “Do you forgive me?” he asked with a sad smile.

“Fuck no,” she said through a sob.

Gabriel smiled and led Jenny to a chair. The rest of the room watched them with curiosity. Leonard Sickles wasn’t thrilled at all when Gabriel placed her next to him. And then to the surprise of all, Abe Feuerstein gently placed a cup of coffee in front of the small anthropology professor. No one had even noticed that he had stood. He smiled and quietly returned to his chair.

Lionel Peterson decided to forego the attack on the credibility of Professor Tilden for the moment — it seemed Mr. Feuerstein had taken a liking to the sad little woman.

Gabriel returned to the front of the conference room and cleared his throat as Jenny took her first sip of the coffee.

“John, Doctor Tilden, has a suite at the Waldorf Astoria, as do all of you. Would you take her to her room when this is over?”

Lonetree looked from Kennedy to the others around the table.

“I’ll take her,” Julie Reilly said before John could answer.

Kennedy looked into the reporter’s eyes, his accusation clear. She swallowed, and then lightly shook her head. She wouldn’t question the professor on her ghostly experiences — at least, not yet.

“All right. Everyone aside from the team I have invited, has their doubts as to the validity of the power of Summer Place,” Kennedy continued. Harris and Kelly started to say something simultaneously, but Kennedy held his hand up to stay their protests. “Yes, I know you had an experience at Summer Place. But that does not mean that you believe. Deep down inside, you are still looking for the rational explanation.” Kennedy leaned between John and Jennifer. “Let me tell you, there is no rationality as far as that house goes. I didn’t believe it at first. I sought out explanations, too. I looked for anything from underground waterways to old mining operations.” Kennedy straightened and looked purposely toward CEO Feuerstein, and then at Lionel Peterson. “I’ll say this — while you’re taking this as a joke that could possibly bring you ratings, I have learned through my research that Summer Place is insanity personified. Whatever lives in that house is real, and it is angry. It drove the wood, the plaster, the foundation of that house insane, and now the pretty yellow home is just as culpable as its unwanted guest.”

The room was silent, watching the conviction grow in Kennedy’s eyes.

“It devours people, and there has to be a reason for it. As I said before, those it doesn’t want, it will scare. Those that it does want, those whom it likes, or those who may cause it harm, or those who get a little too close to its secret…It will eat them alive.” Gabriel moved slowly around the table, looking off toward the distant Pocono Mountains. “Insanity is the closest I can get to describing what’s in there. Horror is just a word. Haunting is another. But whatever walks there, it wants mayhem and death. It’s as if it uses these to cover a purpose. Our job, before the thirty-first, is to find out what that purpose is.”

“Researching the family, the house?” Peterson asked. He pulled his notepad forward with a small roll of his eyes.

“Everything about the family, the house, and the grounds, all the way up to and through the live broadcast. Anyone who isn’t on assignment or going out live will report to the ballroom, where they will continue going over all the research that I have gathered about Summer Place. They will be connected to mainframes at NYU and Columbia here in the city. They will have computing power. They’ll be able to dig all the way past curtain time.” Gabriel he finally smiled down on Feuerstein, who returned it most uneasily.

“I assume that doesn’t mean you want technical people in the ballroom, Professor,” Peterson said with a smile.

Kennedy returned the smug look. “As far as I am concerned, Mr. Peterson, you do not exist. Anything outside of Summer Place is not my problem. My job will be to make sure those people inside the belly of the beast remain alive for the fourteen hours they are there. The control van, the producers, you’ll all be on your own, with the warning that Summer Place may not be able to be controlled.”

“We’ll risk it, Professor. Now, you say fourteen hours inside the house?”

Gabriel held Peterson’s glare, and then smiled.

“That’s right, fourteen hours. Everyone needs to get a feel for the physicality of the house. Remember, we’ll be mostly in the dark for the broadcast hours.”

“How many camera teams will there be all together?” Jason Sanborn asked, looking from the Kennedy and Peterson to Kelly and Harris Dalton.

“We’ll have six teams, fifteen static cameras, and the entire house rigged for viewing. Nothing will be able to move in that house without us knowing about it,” Kelly said proudly.

“It’s not you that will be watching the house; it will be the house watching us.”

Kennedy turned toward Jennifer.

“What was that honey?” he asked.

Professor Tilden placed her coffee cup down upon the table and then tried to smile.

“The house already knows you’re coming, Gabriel. It has a connection with more than you in this room. This little meeting has been observed from the moment it began.”

“What are you saying young lady?” CEO Feuerstein asked from his chair in the corner, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his aging knees.

“It’s like Gabriel’s Summer Place has been waiting for this moment since its existence began, long after it was built.”

“She’s right, Gabriel. I have been getting vibes ever since the professor’s performance this afternoon,” George Cordero said, looking very much concerned. “It’s like Miss Tilden’s presence has given me a boost of some kind, like I’m a battery that was once drained, but is now connected by jumper cables to a fresh one.”

“Oh come on, enough with the mysticism. Say what you mean,” Lionel Peterson interrupted.

“What I mean to say, Mr. Producer Man, is that Summer Place, or whatever is trapped there, is here right now, in this room.” George stood and moved around the table. “It’s like a tiger examining its prey, and let me tell you this: it’s not afraid of what its seeing. It’s anticipatory. I get the feeling that it believes we are there to harm it, to stop it from doing what it does best, what it feels it has the right to do.” He stopped and looked at Gabriel. “It’s there to protect something, just like the professor has surmised. Whether it’s the house itself, or a secret, it’s not afraid of us. It figures it has that right — at least that’s the way I figure it.”

“And that is?” Feuerstein asked, leaning forward in his chair. “I mean, what right is that?”

Kelly watched the old man. He was taking this in, hook, line and sinker. She could have kissed Cordero and Tilden for their performances.

“Why, the same as any living entity — the right to defend itself,” Jennifer answered for Cordero.

They all looked at Jenny and a chill filled the room.

“Do you feel it?” John Lonetree asked Gabriel.

Indeed he did. The room temperature had fallen by twenty degrees, just as it had before. Feuerstein watched his breath fog in the air in front of him.

“I think this is one little trip that you’ll have to make without old George, Gabe,” Cordero said as he moved away from the table.

At that moment, the double doors of the conference room creaked. They all looked that way as the sound repeated. Then came the cracking of wood. The doors were actually bending inward.

Peterson stood, angry at being toyed with. He started toward the doors, but the air became almost impossible to breathe — it was as if something were sitting upon the chests of everyone in the room.

“No!” Harris Dalton reached out and grabbed Peterson’s arm. “Leave it!” he hissed.

Abe Feuerstein, closest to the double wooden doors, stood and backed away. The smile he wore was a mask to try to cover the fear he was really feeling. He bumped into the long table between Kelly and Julie.

The door handles started rattling and the doors bent further in.

Kennedy looked at Jennifer. She wasn’t watching what was happening. She saw with eyes closed as whatever was outside of the room continued to put pressure on the doors.

Finally, the left side door cracked down the middle from the pressure exerted upon it. Then, as quickly as the phenomenon had started, it ceased. The room temperature immediately rose back to normal and the air was clear of the suffocating atmosphere from a moment before.

Peterson threw off Harris’ restraining hand and went to the double doors. He examined the crack and then suddenly threw the door open. Outside, all was normal in the news division. People went from desk to desk sharing assignment reports and the soft clacks of typing filled the air. Not one person outside the conference room had heard a thing.

“Who the hell is fucking around out here?” he demanded from the doorway.

The few people closest to the conference room stopped what they were doing and looked at Peterson as if the man had lost his mind.

“Close the door, Lionel,” Feuerstein said. He gently pulled the entertainment president back inside.

Everyone in the room was shaken. Kennedy didn’t even know how to proceed.

“It knows what scares us.”

“What was that, Jenny?” Kennedy asked Tilden.

She looked up, and her eyes went from face to face.

“It knows what scares us, and has the power to project that over time and space.” She finally looked back at Kennedy and then lowered her head.

“Are you all right, Jenny?” he asked, placing a hand on her shoulder. She seemed to be listening to something — she tilted her head first left and then to the right.

“It’s laughing at you, Gabriel. It’s laughing at all of us.” She looked at Kennedy. “It hates.”

“What?” Peterson asked, by the door. “What did she say?”

“I said, it hates.”

After the chills had departed and everyone settled back in, Kennedy sat silently by the large easel at the front of the room. He swallowed and then looked up. He was afraid he was showing his emotions on his face. John Lonetree, who had pulled his chair closer to Jennifer’s, finally looked up at him and shook his head slightly.

Kelly Delaphoy didn’t like the way Professor Kennedy had been looking at the members of the broadcast team since the assault on the conference room door. He was once more feeling the effects of Summer Place. She needed to boost his confidence and get him back on track, make him defend his right to find out what happened to his student and himself.

“So, Mr. Peterson,” Kelly said. She glanced at Feuerstein to make sure he was paying attention. The old man was in the process of wiping his brow, and she could see that he had been as affected by the demonstration of power from Summer Place as the others in the room. “Do you think that was a gag concocted by me and my team?”

Peterson didn’t hesitate to attack even this most obvious of demonstrations.

“If you’re asking if I’m convinced it was that house reaching out to us here in New York, no, Kelly, I’m not convinced at all. Now, I will allow you this: I have no doubt that our environment can be altered. Ms. Tilden herself has obvious powers. Combine that with Mr. Lonetree, Mr. Cordero, and the expectations we all feel — well, I’m sure you can see my point.” Peterson looked from Kelly to Feuerstein. “It’s just a house, for crying out loud.”

Abe Feuerstein nodded and stood from his seat. He was grateful to be able to perform that simple movement; a moment before he had literally been scared stiff. For a man who knew himself to be a non-believer, he was slowly coming around to Kennedy’s point of view.

“I understand your consternation, Lionel. Before this morning I suppose that even I had certain…doubts about what we were trying to attempt here. But after what just happened — whatever just happened — I feel that no matter what, we at least have the makings of a very special show here.” He held up his hand, silencing Peterson. “Whether it was Summer Place or just the power emanating from some of the people in this room, that’s neither here nor there. If the event I just witnessed can be reproduced on Halloween, this will be the most spectacular special in this network’s short history. Of that I have no doubt whatsoever.”

“So, what are you saying, sir?” Kelly asked and bit her lower lip.

“I came in here this morning to see Professor Kennedy and his team, to judge what we had sitting in our laps, if you will. If I hadn’t been impressed, I was going to pull the plug on this thing. But now? You are a go.” He turned and hesitated, running his fingers slowly over the crack in the thick wood. He turned to look at Kennedy. “Anything you need Professor, anything at all, it’s yours.” He turned toward Peterson. “Lionel, make this happen. God I love this business,” He opened the door, admiring the crack as he did, and then left.

Kelly Delaphoy nodded as everyone filed past her. She made as if she were gathering her notes and materials as she watched the others leave. It was Julie Reilly who stopped and gave Kelly a curious look, and neither of them saw Kennedy pause at the door with a glance back. As he turned to leave he saw Leonard Sickles looking at the left side of the double doors, running his hand up and down the crack in the wood. He looked up at Gabriel and they locked eyes, and then with one more glance back at the producer of Hunters of the Paranormal and her ace field reporter, Kennedy nodded at Leonard and they both left.

“Well, how do you think that went?” Kelly asked as she slid her notes into her case.

Julie didn’t respond at first. Then she smiled.

“Impressive demonstrations — all,” Julie answered.

“That Professor Tilden is something isn’t she? She’s going to be great for the show.”

Julie nodded slowly. She shifted her bag to her other shoulder and started for the door.

Kelly watched her leave, suspecting that the news woman wasn’t as easily impressed as the CEO. The demonstration here had made him feel his age, and started him questioning the here-after. He had played his part very well. She grinned to herself and then turned for the door. She was startled to see a middle aged man in a blue jumpsuit, looking over the crack in the wood. He turned his head and then closed the door, stepping inside.

“Maintenance ma’am.”

“Goddamn it, you could have waited for a few moments.” Kelly glared at the heavyset man as he placed his large toolbox on the tabletop.

“Take it easy. Peterson called me to get down here and fix the door.”

“You still could have waited,” Delaphoy said as she placed the strap to her large bag over her shoulder. “Can you get that…that thing out of the door frame without being noticed?”

“I got it in there without anyone seein’ me; I imagine I can get the hydraulic ram out without everyone knowin’ you fleeced them.” The man eyed Kelly in his arrogant way.

“What about the thermostat control?”

“Look, that first time wasn’t my fault. I was monitoring the thermostat settings when it went haywire and went down all on its own. I figured it was something with the internal thermometer and the temperature release valve in the wall.”

“The first time?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah. When that crazy professor broad was doing her ghost thing? I had nothing to do with that one. And that breeze that sprang up was pretty good. You’ll have to tell me how you did that.” The man finally eyed the smaller woman before him. “But the second time, when the door trick happened, the thermostat dropped without a hitch. That was mine, and that’s what you owe me for.”

The man climbed his small ladder and lifted out the wall panel above the double doors. Inside the small space rested the small hydraulic ram he had built the night before. The ram had placed just enough downward pressure on the left-side door to make it bow and then crack.

The night before he had also replaced that door with a cheap standin that matched the opposite door in color and texture, to make the small ram’s pressure work more efficiently. He smiled to himself as Kelly started toward the door and deftly held out his right hand.

Delaphoy, without missing a beat, placed a folded check for five thousand dollars in the man’s outstretched hand.

“Remember, if anyone finds out about this, I can always put a stop on that check.”

The man didn’t say anything; he just smiled and reached up, yanking the small system out of the door’s upper panel.

As Kelly left the conference room, she saw Kennedy and his people waiting by the elevator. She nodded her head, and then turned without a goodbye and made her way to her own office.