Hmm…maybe this one. This guy’s bio was interesting. Rayvon Jericho, but he preferred to be called Jericho. I liked his face. He gave me a good feeling from his bio pic. Even though I’d not yet met him in person, I felt good about him. That’s me, just plain old weird. Let’s see, he majored in music and had some experience leading tours in New Orleans. He was willing to work flexible part-time hours. Yep, I liked him. He was a possibility.
I printed his resume and placed it in Joshua’s interview stack. Eventually, I found another few that were maybes. Man, this was tiring. At least my part was done.
That was how we were going to do this. I was going to run the applications and make the selections for interviews, and then Josh would take it from there. That way for sure we’d be working together. I was a firm believer in teamwork.
I picked up the phone and called just to check in on my daughter. No answer. Shoot. I’m not going to read into that. Maybe my mother-in-law is giving her a bath before midmorning naptime. She does like a nap, and let’s face it, my dumpling has more than her share of fat rolls. She sweats like crazy, but she’s my little fat roll so that’s all that matters.
I then called the client, Amanda Hayes, the owner of Wayland Manor. It was a house in Mobile off the beaten path. I’d never heard much about it. I wasn’t even sure I had the right place in mind until I clicked on the email attachments from the lady.
Amanda was concerned because of an incident that happened with a volunteer recently. They don’t do ghost tours per se, but they do use reenactors on certain occasions. One reenactor, a young woman, apparently had a terrifying experience with a dark entity. Word had spread, and volunteers were dropping off the roster. Every day, parents were calling and removing their children from the Historical Society’s Junior Program. Pretty soon she would not have any reenactors at all.
Like flies circling an abandoned slice of watermelon, old rumors about the Wayland and Owens families made their way back into the conversations of Mobile’s elite social set.
On the phone, I asked her what I asked them all, “Why don’t you just sell the house and be done with it?”
She told me that would be giving up on her dream. This had to be the place—the place she had dreamed about, a beautiful bed-and-breakfast. A place where people could enjoy the beauty of the architecture, the unusual antiques and the lovely oil paintings in the house, but things didn’t go as planned.
Amanda cried into the phone and then excused herself a minute. When she came back, she picked up the story where she left off, but she was a bit more together. “I am down to the last of my money. I had only so much in savings. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that I won’t get that full kitchen remodel we needed and some of the rooms won’t get new flooring. You see, I cannot keep a contractor. Things turn up missing: lumber, tools, even ladders, wet saws…”
As she poured her heart out, I bit my tongue. It was easy to blame all this on the paranormal, but that’s simply not the truth in most cases. Usually, stolen things are stolen by human hands, not dead ones. But anything was possible. When I called her back later that day to set the time to begin our investigation, she sounded so relieved.
“Don’t think you have to get in and get out. You’ll have the place all to yourselves this weekend. It’s shut down from Friday to Monday.” I thanked her for being so kind and making it easy for us, and she offered another suggestion. “Would you be up to spending the night there? I wouldn’t mind at all. And just think, if something did happen, you’d be right there with the team.”
Wonder what Midas would think about that? Would he be excited and agree, or would he pass on her offer just to protect us? Sometimes I would go with him on the initial walk-through, but borrowing his ear was no longer an option. It was just me. I wiped away a tear and reminded myself that Midas was not dead, just taking a break.
No sense in making that call about the sleeping arrangements now. I would like to see what the team had to say about it. Maybe we’d canvas the first night and see if it was safe enough to stay there. It would be cool to have three days at Wayland Manor, though, except for baby Emily. She wouldn’t be happy about being away from me for that long.
Midas, I can’t believe I am doing this without you! I miss you, Big Brother!
He never said he was giving it up or quitting the business—he preferred the phrase “taking a break.” See there, Big Brother? You are leaving the door open a crack, so I’m hopeful.
But back to this new gig. Wayland Manor. Besides an overall sense of gloom, I didn’t get much. Usually, a sensitive such as myself can lock into a place and tell you if there’s something there, but it wasn’t always that easy. The craftier types of dead or inhuman entities can hide from sensitives, but those places had been few and far between for us. I hoped that was not the case with this house. The idea of bringing a bunch of newbies into a haunted location when I had no idea what lived there did not sit well with me.
Grabbing my purse, keys, digital recorder, notebook and pen, I closed and locked the door to my office. Joshua had a key if he needed to get in there. I don’t even know why I bothered to lock it. We all had too much respect to invade Midas’ privacy.
Right now, it was just Joshua, Macie and me, and neither of them came to the office often. Who would have believed that Macie Graves would one day show up on my doorstep? I wonder what Jocelyn thought about it? I didn’t sense her presence much anymore. However, I smelled her perfume when I decided to take this case. Maybe she was still with us, after all.
I picked up the phone and called Joshua. “Hey, handsome. I am leaving the office. We are taking the Wayland Manor case. It is amazing, and you’ll finally get a chance to use all those new tools you bought.” See, I was being more mature and calling them “tools” instead of “toys.” I could sense his grin through the phone. It was a real phenomenon; you can hear it when people smile during a phone conversation. Smiles have sounds. I learned that back when I worked my first crappy job as a customer service representative. The company I used to work for put tiny mirrors by each of our seats, reminding us to smile before we dialed. Yikes, what a bunch of weirdos, but it did work. That whole smile thing was amazing. I do that now too, even if I’m talking to someone I don’t know. Makes life a little easier, I reckon.
“Sweet. When do we start?”
“Well, unless you have a hot date or something…I mean, I’d like to get in there tonight, do a walk-through and then set up the equipment. It’s just going to be the three of us tonight: me, you and Macie. But I’ve got you some newbie interviews before we go over to Wayland Manor tonight, and I’m hoping that one or two of those will work out and we’ll have some more help for this investigation.”
“One or two? We had dozens of applicants. What happened?”
I sighed, feeling a little frustrated that I had to explain myself to him. It is what it is. I’m the kind of girl who thinks everyone should just follow my lead and only ask questions when they are important.
Life doesn’t work that way, does it?
“Too many fangirls and fanboys. We had one who was a blood-letter, one who wanted to use black magic, and a few other names you would recognize, including that guy who did the documentary about Peter Broadus. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Not ringing any bells, Sierra Kay.”
“You’d know him if you saw him. The documentary was called something like Fake or a Flake. He does these little hit pieces on YouTube. I kind of suspect that’s what was happening here, and we don’t need that kind of negativity.”
“No, we don’t. Thanks for catching him—we certainly don’t want to bring him onto the team. I was hoping we would at least have some experienced investigators. That’s the problem now with all these TV shows. Everyone thinks they’re an investigator.”
I laughed into the phone. I don’t think that’s true at all. I think people are more familiar with it, so they’re more willing to take a chance if they have a problem. But
as far as people buying SLS cams or getting into the business, that takes real commitment. And I don’t see that happening unless you feel like you’re really called to do something.
As if he read my thoughts, Joshua said, “I guess everyone wants to be on television, except us.”
“Yep.” I couldn’t argue with his thinking. I knew exactly who he was talking about. Both Pete and Sara went to Hollywood with stars in their eyes. At least for a while. Pete later regretted how he had treated Midas, so I think that took the shine off of it sooner for him. But there was no stopping Sara. At least until somebody stopped her.
I wondered what she finally did so wrong that there was no coming back from it. Karma, yes, it must have caught up with her because she was out of the limelight these days. Even her social media and her website were quiet. Strange.
At least she hadn’t been calling me again. That would’ve been awkward.
“What time are we going to meet Amanda?” Joshua asked.
“After supper, which is going to be a little earlier than usual. Your mom’s cooking her chicken and dumplings, and you know I’m not going to miss that. Your dad’s got an appointment, so we’ll have to remember to save him some. Maybe we’ll have a little time to spend with Emily before we go. Oh, and by the way…Macie is going to take Sherman home with her.”
I smiled into the phone again as I drew closer to my house. But I did not hear a smile coming back to me. Joshua cleared his throat. “Well, Sherman is kind of like our family now. I wish you would have talked to me about this, Sierra. See? This is what I am talking about. You make decisions about things and you don’t talk to me first.”
His reaction floored me. I had no words, so he kept on. “Do you think it’s going to be fair to Emily to take her pet away? I mean, she loves him.”
“She’ll have Bozo and you and me. It’ll be just fine.”
“I don’t know, Si Si. I read a few studies online, and they said that kids get real attached to their animals.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Joshua was usually the one complaining that we had so many people and animals in the house. At one point, there was so much noise in our house I wanted to put myself out. Between Emily’s teething troubles and her crying from Sherman and Bozo baying at the moon or whatever else they were singing about and me having postpartum, Joshua practically lived in the garage now. I couldn’t blame him. I wished I could avoid all the craziness too. Now all of a sudden, he didn’t want to part with one of his dogs?
“I didn’t expect this from you, Joshua McBride. Why are you dragging your feet? It is almost as if you might miss him. Is that the truth? Are you going to miss Sherman?”
That was meant to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh so I immediately decided to lay off on the ridicule. “Think of it this way, sweetheart. You and I are connected in so many ways. We have Emily and Bozo, we have your parents, me and you, my crazy family. Macie doesn’t have anyone. No one at all. Her mom died, remember? There’s no one else now that Jocelyn is gone. But in a strange way, it is as if heaven above has found a way for Macie to have a family again, to build her own family. We are a part of that too, but she needs Sherman. And it starts with him. Sherman belongs with her.”
He didn’t say anything at all, and I figured he was staring off into the distance thinking about things. I continued, “I haven’t spoken to Jocelyn about it—she’s being very quiet these days—but I knew her well enough in life to know that she will be totally okay with this. She would be really happy with it, so please let’s be supportive of Macie and not cry when she shows up at the door tonight.”
“She’s coming tonight before the investigation or after?” Was he worried about the dog being alone?
I was pulling into the driveway and waved at him. “Joshua…” I hung up the phone, turned off the car and reached over for my bag before I walked into the open garage and hugged his neck. The dogs were playing with a ball at his feet while pretending to be aggravated with one another. To my surprise, my husband’s eyes were full of tears. His tools were spread out around the garage, and I could see he’d been doing something to that old truck of his. Joshua was always tinkering. He was covered in grease and enjoying his day off.
It was a beautiful day. I could hear his mother and our daughter singing in the kitchen. Emily was banging on pots with wooden spoons and singing at the top of her lungs. She didn’t speak well, but she could sang, sang, sang. Literally, that’s the word she said over and over again. “Sang, sang, sang!”
It was happy chaos, and I was glad to be a part of it.
Chapter Three—Sierra
I sent Mrs. McBride home so she could get started on the chicken and dumplings. After our little family had spent some time together, we all headed over to the McBrides’ house for supper. I’d barely gotten inside when my phone started blowing up. I was getting messages in rapid-fire succession, and I knew exactly who they were from without even looking. Cassidy was widely known for her machine-gun texting. I could barely keep up, and I had learned the hard way to wait until the barrage ended before trying to respond. Especially when she was excited about something.
Josh snuck up behind me and stuck his spoon into my bowl of dumplings. “Remind her that she’s on vacation. These are great, Mom!”
“Cut that out! Get your own bowl and leave mine alone! See there, Emily? Daddy is bad! He has to get his own bowl, right? Say Daddy is bad.”
“Hey, not cool.” Joshua’s playful grin quickly disappeared. Uh oh. I knew I’d crossed the line then. “Sierra Kay. Don’t teach her that.”
“Just kidding, Emily. Sorry, sweetheart.” Okay, maybe I did cross a line, but it was pretty funny to me. Suddenly, Emily seized on the word “bad” and used it repeatedly. Even Mrs. McBride moved her phone away from her mouth long enough to offer her own disapproving frown.
I smiled at them both and kissed my baby on the top of her head. “Mommy is bad. Not Daddy. Just Mommy.”
She whispered back to me in her sweet baby voice, “Bad, bad…”
Yeah, I really started something here. Big mouth. Why couldn’t I keep my big mouth shut? More proof that I was a terrible mother.
Mrs. McBride hung up the phone and had a thoughtful look on her face. She shivered a second and reached for her pretty cardigan hanging on the hook beside the phone. So stylish. Mrs. McBride did love her pretty sweaters.
“You okay, Mom?” Sometimes I dared to call her that. We had become pretty close friends in the past few months. I helped her with her paranormal matter, the kind that made her a believer, and she had a new respect for my abilities. For that I was glad.
“That was Gloria, Sierra. I feel like she wanted to tell me something, but she kept beating around the bush. With her marriage on the skids, I would think she had enough to worry about.”
“You know how she is, Mrs. McBride. I know she’s your friend and all, but she is a bit flighty. All you can do is be there for her when she lets you. Other than that, don’t invite the crazy into your life.”
Mrs. McBride couldn’t hide her concern. She shook her head at my advice, but at least she didn’t smirk at me. That’s what she used to do before we became better friends. Smirk and ignore. I think for a long time she believed that I’d stolen her son from her, that I’d taken him away.
Little did she know I’d bring him back—with a grandkid in tow. She didn’t seem to mind me too much these days.
“It’s just that she’s going through a terrible patch in her marriage, and I hate to say it, but I don’t think it is all Cal’s fault. I mean, he does work a lot, but his business takes him away quite a bit. She’s been after me to go out with her, but I never do. It’s almost like she wants a partner in crime. If I do something naughty, she’ll feel justified in doing whatever it is she’s already doing.” She shivered again. I was trying to keep up, but she was confusing me already.
“Maybe she wants to introduce you to her new boyfriend. Or girlfriend.” I laughed between bites.
Joshua frowned at my suggestion as he scooped up another bowl of chicken and dumplings. He said, “Gloria? What makes you think that? Don’t all marriages have their problems? I mean, look at us. None of us are perfect, but we love each other. I’m sure Gloria and Cal will work it out, but they won’t be helped by us gossiping about them. I think the important thing is to listen but also set boundaries, Mom. Don’t let Gloria’s crazy ways worry you.”
He took another spoonful and offered some to Emily, who turned up her nose. Such a picky eater. I hoped she would grow out of that. She was missing out on these tasty dumplings. From what I gathered just by overhearing—okay, eavesdropping—Gloria was about to make a big decision. A life-changing move. She did not want to be patient or work things out. I got the sneaking suspicion that Gloria had her heart set on someone else.
Uh oh. That was right. I could feel it deep in my bones. I had known Gloria for quite a few years, ever since Josh and I got married. At the beginning of our friendship—no, we weren’t really friends. Well, ever since I met her, Gloria always seemed so devoted to her husband, Cal. Wonder what changed? It’s sad knowing that people can change seemingly overnight.
I glanced over at Josh. He was on his third bowl of dumplings. Like the amazing dad he was, he sat on the floor playing with Emily while he ate. I managed to wolf down about half of my bowl and my hunger was satisfied.
This would be a good time to text Cassidy back. I read what she had sent my way, and it startled me. Wow, I wasn’t prepared for this. She was painting and drawing again! While the beauty of her work was simply unparalleled, the subject matter was terrifying. A little Asian girl, with short bangs clipped across her wide brows, was hunkered in a dark closet with her eyes wide in terror. And she was not alone. Yikes! I was no art expert, but I knew enough to trust Cassidy’s skills. She was always so in tune with our team, even from the beginning. Now here she was, oceans away and still working on our behalf. She had such an amazing talent and a heart for people.
The Wayland Manor Haunting (Gulf Coast Paranormal Season Two Series Book 1) Page 2
