“How long has it been nice?”
“All night, I presume. Don’t you know?”
“Don’t you?”
I wanted to say I did. But it would be a lie—it was more like she’d just appeared there next to me when I woke—and I didn’t feel like lying just at that moment. “Well…sort of.”
Her body went the slightest bit stiff against me. “No you don’t.”
I pulled back, craned to look at her pretty profile, so close and warm. The profile of an angel. “Oh, yeah?”
“You were snoring when I got in with you, snoring most of the night afterward. I’m surprised I got any sleep at all.”
I smiled. “So you do remember.”
She seemed to become aware of her breast pressing my side and pulled away a fraction. “Sort of.”
“Hey. I was enjoying that.”
She made a nasal sound. “You’re a married man, Elliot.”
I had on my incredulous expression when she turned to look at me. “Married? Katie, I was never married. I’m not even engaged to her anymore.”
“Rita?”
I rolled my eyes. “Rita. Yes. Who else?”
“Still living with her though.”
“For convenience’s sake only.”
“Is it?”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“See?”
“Just…curious.”
“Uh-huh.” I ran my palm down her slim arm where the jersey had ridden up. “You’re cold.” I pulled her against me again. “Come back over here.”
She stiffened a moment, then went what-the-hell relaxed.
“So. Are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Why you quit your luxurious smoking study up there last night, and came down here on this too-narrow, rock-hard divan with me.”
She breathed a morning sigh. “I don’t know…”
“Right.”
“I got spooked, okay?”
“By?”
She shifted a hip against me, started to push up on one arm. “We should get up—“
I dragged her back down, got that breast against my rib again, where it belonged. “In a minute. Tell me.”
I wasn’t sure she was going to at first. Finally, reluctantly, “Something woke me.”
“Oh?”
“Not long after we all went to bed. Around two a.m.”
I smiled inside. There’d been nothing ‘around’ about it; it had been exactly two a.m., I could envision her in the study, writing down the exact time on her bedside notepad under a flashlight glow. “And? What was it?”
“Something walked past my room.”
I felt a mixture of fear and vindication. “Are you sure?”
She didn’t distinguish that with an answer and pulled away a fraction.
“Someone or some thing?”
She pulled away another inch. “It wasn’t a panther, Elliot.”
“How do you know, did you see it?”
“The hall light was on. I saw its shadow pass under the study door.”
“Maybe you dreamed—“
“Don’t even start that shit with me, Elliot! I’m a professional!”
Ouch. “Okay. Chill. May I have your breast back?”
“No!”
“Did you get up and check? Maybe it was one of the Sandersons using the bathroom.”
“Of course I checked. The Sandersons were all cuddled up adorably and asleep in bed, all four of them. Besides, they have a bath in their bedroom.”
“Huh. So, why didn’t you awaken me? I am still your partner. Aren’t I?”
“I came down here to do that but you were dead to the world. And it all began to seem a little silly…”
“Not so silly. You slid in with me rather than go back up there alone.”
“It was dark. I was tired. And I forgot my flashlight.”
“Why don’t you just admit it? You know, I’m not going to think any less of you, Katie, for admitting you were scared.”
“I was not scared! There was simply nothing else to see, no further signs of an occurrence.”
“Uh-huh.”
She turned sharply on the divan, an elbow replacing the breast in my rib. “What do you mean, ‘Uh-huh’!”
“You could have curled up over there on the big easy chair, borrowed one of my blankets…”
She shoved up fast again, all the way to a sitting position, raking fingers through her hair with quick, dismissive movements. “I’m going to the kitchen to put on some coffee…”
She threw her legs over me and stepped down to the carpet.
I didn’t use my hand to stop her this time. “I suppose I should apologize…”
She kept walking.
“…for my indiscretion last night, while you were sleeping.”
She froze.
“Wasn’t very gentlemanly of me, taking advantage of you like that.”
She stiffened, not turning. “Must have been a very small advantage! I didn’t feel a thing, snored right through it!”
“Actually, I think that was moaning…”
Her shoulders slumped, still not turning to me. “Elliot, as a great Greek philosopher once said, Screw you.”
I grinned at the small, curvy back under the big loose jersey. “Does this mean you’re into Greek?”
Katie groaned hugely, threw up her hands in submission, stomped off and left me there.
* * *
Katie was still in her jersey in the kitchen, pouring coffee; Donna was still in her robe and I was in Tee-shirt and jeans when the pounding started at the front door.
Katie jumped so hard she sloshed hot coffee on her hand. “Shit!”
“Who in the world?” from an aghast Donna.
I just sat there like my heart wasn’t in my throat.
More thunderous pounding, echoing through the entire foyer, followed by clearly unnecessary stabs at the doorbell.
Donna got there first. Me next, Katie wide-eyed behind me.
Mrs. Sanderson pulled open the door as I was entering the foyer; all I could see was part of a long arm and hand shoved in her face, followed immediately by impatiently snapping fingers.
“Okay, very funny! Let’s have the check!”
“Mr. Rankin!” Donna stumbled back from the snapping. “What are you—is everything all right?”
Rankin pushed past her without invitation, angry red eyes shooting everywhere. He wore an open dress shirt without a jacket, slacks without a belt, loafers without socks. His dark curly hair hung in his handsome face, not—at the moment—looking terribly handsome. Just red, like his eyes. He was half-loaded. “Where’s that swindler husband of yours?”
And without waiting for an answer, he shouted so loudly beside the startled Donna that she actually covered both ears. “Sanderson! Where the hell are you?”
He started charging through the house.
Something about the fear in Donna’s eyes sent a wedge of heat through me.
I stepped in front of Rankin. “Something I can help you with?”
He tried to brush past but I sidestepped him again. “Where’s Sanderson?”
“Shaving,” I said calmly, “do you know what time it is?”
“Later than you think, Mr. Mystic!” His glare shot to the staircase. “Sanderson! Get down here!”
“How dare you?” from Katie, wearing a face the equal of Rankin’s and one even I didn’t care to confront, “bursting in here like this unannounced!”
“I want to see Sanderson!”
Donna jerked savagely at her robe sash. “Kindly keep your voice down! The children are asleep!”
Rankin started around me for the stairs. I side-stepped in front of him again.
“Get out of my way, Bledsoe!”
“When you calm down,” I nodded in his face. “What’s this all about? Did you screen the footage from last night?”
That got him looking at me at least. “Oh, we screened
it all right! We screened it! And if I don’t get back that money I wired into Sanderson’s account in the next thirty seconds”—he dragged a cell from his pocket savagely, ripping the lining slightly—“I give my attorneys the green light to move! My attorneys, Paranormal Pete! The most powerful in Tinsel Town! And they won’t stop with a simple suit! They won’t stop until this lovely old Victorian goes into my account along with my dough!”
“The money’s already spent,” from Byron, tightening his robe, hair ruffled, one side of his face swathed in shaving cream.
A near apoplectic Rankin brushed me aside with a strong tennis arm and confronted Byron. “I knew you’d try that! That’s why you’re going to get on the phone right now and put a hold on it! I’ve already tried!”
Byron smiled mirthlessly at the bottom step. “I doubt it. Not unless you contacted my Swiss account.”
Which only made an already beet-red Rankin somehow redder, his voice lowering to an even more menacing growl as he lifted his arm, tapped at his watch. “Thirty minutes, Sanderson! And if I don’t get confirmation from my own bank, the authorities will have yellow police tape across your front door along with a certified foreclosure notice signed by the DA’s office faster than you can shave the other side of your sun-bronzed face! Yes, I do wield that kind of power! And I know all about your current shaky financial situation!”
If Byron was the least bit intimidated his features didn’t show it.
The house went abruptly silent, except for Rankin rasping breath.
Nobody moved for a moment.
Then Donna took a meek step forward. “Would anyone like some fresh coffee? It’s Kona!”
Rankin ignored her, raised the cellular, thumb hovering over a red key.
I thought I glimpsed a quick flash of fear in Byron’s eyes then.
“Put the phone away,” I told the producer with firm politeness.
He didn’t take his eyes off Byron. “What do you know about it, Professor?”
“I took two years of law before I taught screenwriting. Did Mrs. Sanderson invite you into this home?”
Rankin remained stolid. But his cheek twitched once.
“Because if she didn’t, that a clear case of breaking-and-entering, with a houseful of witnesses to confirm it.” I nodded at his phone. “If you don’t believe me, call my attorney. 912-071-075.” It was a complete lie but Rankin wouldn’t have checked into me that far. “Or you can call Wendell if you like. He’ll be happy to oblige you, just mention my name.” Sheer luck that I remembered the first name of San Diego’s Mayor Dolan; it was my writer’s mind, I guess.
But the mention of ‘Wendell’ made Rankin hesitate; you could see it in his body language.
“So, before Mr. Sanderson calls the local Sheriff’s Office himself, why don’t we all just sit down over a cup of coffee as Mrs. Sanderson suggests and see if we can’t come to terms with this thing?”
Again the thunderous silence.
Then, finally, Rankin lowered his phone. “The terms are already stated,” he sneered in that low, menacing tone, replaced the cell and whipped out a gleaming gold disk in its place. He held up the DVD, shook its glaring surface threateningly at Byron. “Twenty-four hours then, Sanderson! To explain and admit to a court of law how you managed to rig my camera!”
“Nobody touched your damn camera—“ Byron started.
Rankin’s wolfish smile cut him off. “Don’t con a con man, Mr. Sanderson, not the best one in Hollywood! I was churning out a million in porn a year over in The Valley while you were pulling your sophomore pud in Valencia! I’ve out-shystered the best, beach boy, and,”—waving the flashing disk again—“I can spot a scam with my eyes closed!”
He tossed the DVD to Byron.
Then he turned abruptly for the front door. “Twenty-four hours, Sanderson, not a minute more! Or your hottie blonde wife here will be raising those two brats alone in Chula Vista!”
Byron started to vault from the staircase but I stepped in front of him, too, and held an acquiescing hand to his chest; Rankin was halfway out the door and I wanted to have a look at that disk.
Katie was already crossing the room to take it from Byron’s fingers.
* * *
The kids stayed asleep long enough for the four of us to gather round Donna’s work station and watch Katie feed the disk into the computer.
I’m not sure what any of us really expected; the room was silent but you could cut the anticipation with a knife.
Katie pressed a key and the computer’s monitor screen bloomed to life.
Static.
“Shit,” from Byron and me at the same instant.
Byron made a gesture like he was about to walk away in disgust when the static began to flicker strangely. Then the screen went completely black.
“This is Rankin’s so-called video,” I sighed, “how do we know it isn’t bullshit? The guy admits to being a con man.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Katie said, still studying the screen.
“Don’t worry about it!” from an exhausted Byron.
Katie swiveled around, looked up at both Sandersons’ anxious faces. “Don’t either of you worry about Rankin.”
She turned back, reached across the desk console and flicked a switch on a small, squat, boxy piece of equipment I finally realized was hers, put there by her sometime after we arrived at the house. A red light on top of the box went green. There was a short metallic squealing. Katie pressed another switch and the light went red again. Rankin’s voice sang loud and clear from the little box speaker:
“…don’t con a con man, Sanderson…not the best one in Hollywood! I was churning out a million in porn a year over in The Valley when you were pulling your sophomore pud in Valencia!”
Donna squealed. “You recorded him!”
Katie smiled, snapped off the recorder box. “Doing it daily from the day we arrived, just in case we caught any unusual noises, unaccounted-for sounds—“
“Or slimy rats,” I added, patting her back proudly.
“Bless you, sweetie!” from Donna, kissing Katie’s cheek.
“Should keep him off your back at least for a while. Strange though…” she nodded at the monitor, “…with my crew we got nothing but pure static. With Rankin’s video—“
“If it is Rankin’s video,” I reminded.
“—we got a little initial static and then just a black screen.”
“Meaning what?” asked Byron, moving closer to the group again.
Katie pointed to a crawl of numbers and letters at screen’s bottom, the red REC among them. “This proves the DVD has recorded material on it, no matter who taped it. If Rankin was trying to snooker us, why not just give us a blank DVD?”
I leaned over her shoulder, squinted. “He knew you were good with computers so he left a lens cap on his camera.”
She shook her head. “There are no examples of video expertise in my dossier, and I was watching Rankin’s camera last night; the lens cap was off.”
She started to lean back in the swivel chair, then pushed forward again quickly. Katie held up a warning hand, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Wait a second…might be getting something…”
The black screen began flicker again…go black…flicker again…
And all at once a perfect medium-close shot of the nursery appeared, crystal clear.
“The kind of clear you can only get with an expensive Red digital camera,” Katie murmured.
The image came on so unexpectedly it took all of a second to realize that something was wrong.
“Oh!” Donna gasped.
“Damn…” Byron whispered.
“Shit,” I added.
Katie whirled around, looked up imploringly at the open-mouthed Sandersons. “You’re sure that’s the nursery, right?”
They nodded in tandem.
Katie regarded the screen again. “Then where’s all the crew? Where are the actors? Where are Elliot and I?”
The group stared in
equal parts confusion at the screen.
“And for that matter,” I breathed, “where are the cribs? The rest of the furniture?”
I caught movement from the corner of my eye; Donna was backing away from the computer with an expressing of rising dread. “T-The room is…empty!”
* * *
Katie stayed with the video all day.
And all night.
Donna brought her lunch and dinner and I stayed with my partner until my eyes began to bleed from the same stagnant image, but I had to take a break every hour or so. Katie never took a break. Just played the video. From start to finish. Over and over again.
“How do you do it?” I asked early that evening, “How do you stare continuously at the same inert scene hour after hour?”
“It isn’t inert,” Katie told me, sipping iced tea and arching her stiff back, looking closely. “See the dust motes?”
“I did notice those. Riveting.”
She offered a tired smile. “I love you.”
And jerked toward me an instant later, hand to mouth. “I’m sorry! I meant—I love you for staying with me like this, for being so patient. It just…popped out.”
I turned back to the screen to avoid eye contact with her, I’m not sure why, maybe to spare her embarrassment, maybe to spare my own. Maybe something else. “I know,” I said. “And anyway, I don’t think Zeus is going to throw a thunderbolt at you for loving me just a little.”
She smiled back at the screen as I pecked her cheek and rose. “But this old dog is about to disappoint you, I’m afraid,” stretching long and yawning wide.
“No he isn’t. Go on to bed. I probably won’t last much longer myself. Oh…”
She glanced over at the living room, my not-quite-seen divan. “Will the monitor light keep you from sleeping?”
I yawned again and scratched my stomach. “If I don’t sleep in this house it won’t be because of the monitor. I’m going to stretch my legs a minute and then hit it. Please feel free to join me at any time.”
She gestured with her shoulders without looking up from the screen. “Off with you, un-chivalrous cad!”
“Is that a nice label?” I yawned, leaving her for the darkened north end of the house.
“Sorry. Unabashed sex fiend.”
“That’s better, thanks!”
I turned at the first dark corner, flashlight ready this time, but managed to navigate that part of the house okay for the moment. In truth I wasn’t the least in the mood for ‘stretching my legs.’ I was walking the shadowy downstairs of the big house in an attempt to conquer my fear. I did fear the place and wasn’t ashamed to admit it anymore, at least to myself. I couldn’t image how the Sandersons could bear staying here. Every room in the house now seemed creepier to me than the last. And it only seemed to grow worse the longer we stayed. I would be glad when this investigation was over. I was going to get myself into a small, crowded room full of lots of party people, all lights blazing.
NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 11
