The Dark Stage: Wylie Westerhouse Book 2

by Nathan Roden

  “Who went where?” he asked.

  “Bruiser, Arabella, Dougie, and Delbert,” Holly said. “They went into town to look for these men. Oh, and these men brought up the name of a Mr. Moore, for what that’s worth. It’s nobody that I’ve ever heard of.”

  Quentin ran his hand through his hair.

  “We’re working with the police, two private investigators, and a team of detective ghosts,” Q said.

  “I’m so sorry for all of this, Mr. Lynchburg,” Holly said.

  Quentin smiled and reached over to pat Holly’s hand.

  “We’re going to find your folks,” he said.

  Eight

  Wylie Westerhouse

  Branson, Missouri

  The tires of the powerful little Porsche barked when Skyler pulled away from the curb. Normally this would be the moment when I grumbled something to myself like,

  Poor little rich girl, or

  Should an eighteen-year-old girl be the head of an empire that generates more wealth than some third-world countries?

  But this particular girl seemed to be genuine, and quite nice. She went out of her way to visit me, and according to her Manager/Mother, she was willing and able to give my nearly non-existent music career a much-needed kick in the pants.

  I was still psyched from the experience, which caused me to crawl onto the floor and roll around with Toby for a little while. I admit it; watching Skyler play with him made me feel like I hadn’t been paying Toby enough attention lately. Sometimes I forget how playful he can be.

  When the excitement wore off a little, my stomach growled. Suddenly, the slim pickings in my pantry didn’t have as much appeal.

  “Let’s road-trip for some hot vittles, Buddy. Whaddya say?” I said to Toby.

  “Splendid idea, Mate,” Toby said with a bark.

  Allow me a little guilt-free imagination, if you please. I’m a twenty-three-year-old, mostly normal male, who lives with his dog. Most recently, I also live with my brother who has been dead for ten years. Oh, and this brother now has a girlfriend—a girlfriend who died five hundred years ago. In Scotland. Okay, I’m going to stop now before this gets weird.

  I drove through my favorite fast-food restaurant and ordered a burger combo for myself, and a meat patty plus chicken nuggets for Toby. His nose was twitching like crazy when I brought the bag in through the window.

  “Just one nugget before we get home, Boy,” I said, “You can wait that long. I’m going to stop for ice cream first, so if you’re good, you can have another nugget before we leave there.”

  There was no drive-thru at my favorite ice cream parlor, so I put the food up on the dash after I parked. I pointed my finger at Toby.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said. “I’ll be right back, and I’ll be able to see you through the window.”

  I approached the counter and was looking over the menu on the back wall when I saw him. Nate Barlow was sitting at the table in the back corner of the dining room with a banana split the size of a football in front of him.

  He was alone.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Oh. Hey, Wyles,” Nate said. He was twirling his spoon, the same way I’ve seen him twirl a drumstick ever since the first day that he learned how. That was almost eleven years ago.

  “Breakfast of Champions, eh?” I said, pointing at the mountain of ice cream.

  Nate stuck the spoon into the dish and left it there.

  “Force of habit is more like it,” he said sadly. “I just walked over from the movies.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How many boxes did you have?”

  “Just two,” Nate said.

  This was one of a list of many inside jokes that we’ve shared since the first years of our friendship. Nate has a weird psychological trigger that caused him to crave chocolate mints, but only inside of a movie theater. He made himself sick on them on several occasions back when we were kids growing up in Boston. The fact that this part of him hadn’t changed was one of the reasons why I’ve called him my best friend since the first time we met.

  I made a show of looking around the room.

  “So, is uh…”

  Nate shook his head without looking at me.

  “No,” he whispered. “I haven’t seen her, or talked to her, since…”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry, Nate.”

  “It’s not your—” Nate said. He exhaled. “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just…well, it’s more than she can handle. I can’t really blame her, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know what you mean. Holly’s own mother couldn’t handle it either. They had a bad experience when Holly was only six years old. Her mother never touched Holly again after that.”

  “Wow,” Nate said, the word coming out over about three syllables. “That sucks bad.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “So, they think her parents might actually still be alive? Somewhere?” Nate asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Holly and Quentin left for Scotland yesterday.”

  “What?” Nate looked up at me. “Why didn’t you go? I thought you two were—”

  I nodded.

  “We—we are, I guess. Together, I mean. But the Castle tours are booked solid for the next six weeks, and it was going to cause problems if we canceled them. I’m training some of Elvis Rushmore’s tour guides to cover for me, and then I’ll make my maiden voyage to Europe.”

  “Are you on your way home?” Nate asked. “Would it be okay if I stopped by? Hang out with you and Duncan for a while? I got nothin’ else to do.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Duncan and I specialize in people that have nothing else to do.”

  Nate looked a little hurt. That wasn’t like him. I’m going to have to watch what I say now, which will be a first. But the whole “ghost” thing has screwed up his relationship with Tooie, and he seems pretty lost.

  Our whole worlds have changed, and there’s no going back.

  I had to fight the urge to tell Nate about Skyler KwyK’s visit. Nate was in a little bit of a dark place. This didn’t seem like the time or place for me to tell him about my awesome afternoon.

  “I’m sorry, Nate,” I said. “You know what I mean. I’m picking up dessert for Toby and me—I have a sack of burgers in the car.”

  I rose up to check on the sack of food on the dash of my car. It was still in place, but I was trying the limits of Toby’s patience. The smell was probably driving him crazy.

  “You don’t need an invitation, Nate,” I said. “That will never change. Duncan wasn’t home when we left.”

  “Where is he?” Nate asked.

  “Did you miss that part?” I asked. “He has a girlfriend. His first one ever.”

  Nate took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “Chunky Dunky is a ghost, he’s still fifteen-years-old, and he has a…a ‘ghost’ girlfriend?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Older woman, too. She’s seventeen. Or to be more exact—five hundred and seventeen, give or take a few years. And she’s like—supermodel hot.”

  “Well, of course, she is,” Nate said. “Wylie?”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “We might know that we’re completely sane,” Nate said. “But no one else is going to believe that. You know that, right?”

  I took a deep breath and leaned toward Nate.

  “Look deep into my eyes, Grasshoppah,” I said. “I am just as lost as you are, Amigo.”

  Toby and I finished dinner. I bought him a scoop of ice cream too, even though I should know better. I didn’t think about it until later but watching Skyler KwyK pay Toby so much attention was influencing me to spoil him rotten. Skyler had Toby prancing around like a three-year-old puppy.

  Toby has been my closest family member for the last few years, and we’ve been through a lot together. There have been several straight months that I worked full-time at the Branson Music store and gigged several nights a week at local clubs. T
oby spent a lot of time alone. Having someone to come home to—let alone someone that was always happy to see me—probably did a lot to keep me sane. Well, sane-ish.

  The reason that I should know better than to give Toby ice cream is that it always gives him gas. Maybe it’s from the air that they mix into ice cream. Did you know they do that? Stick with me—I know a lot of useless trivia. I don’t give Toby chocolate because I’ve heard that it’s bad for dogs. I’ve tried a few variants of vanilla ice cream, but always with the same result. I never think to ask anyone else for suggestions; it just doesn’t come up in normal conversations.

  I put on a movie while we waited for Duncan to come home. Toby lay on his back at the end of the sofa. He snored and occasionally sent up an SBD. That’s been the universal acronym for “Silent-But-Deadly” for a few decades, as far as I know.

  I woke up, still sitting on the sofa. My DVD player was in screen-saver mode; producing floating, colored balls that bounced silently around the TV screen. It was fifteen minutes after midnight and there was no sign of Duncan.

  I opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. All was quiet. There was a folded piece of paper attached to the screen door.

  Stopped by at 11:30. Everything was dark and quiet. Sorry I missed you. Nate.

  I sighed. I felt really bad for what happened between Nate and Tooie. Tooie has never been a big fan of mine, but she makes Nate happy, and that counts for a lot.

  Life has been full of twists and turns lately, and they haven’t all been good ones by any means. It would have been great to spend the evening with Nate and Duncan and Toby. Oh well.

  Nine

  Holly and Quentin

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  Ian and Myron Finnegan greeted Quentin and Holly with a friendly enthusiasm. This may have been their standard greeting for all prospective new clients or a reaction to the double retainer guaranteed by their mysterious new client from America.

  Hearty double-handed handshakes and introductions made their way around the room.

  “First impressions?” Quentin Lynchburg whispered to Holly.

  “Dunno, yet,” Holly said from the corner of her mouth. “I trust Brian McAllen, though. So let’s see what they have to say.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Quentin said.

  “These are the photos of the boat that was recovered,” Ian said. “You can vouch for it, Miss? You recognize it?”

  Everyone looked at Holly.

  “Yes,” Holly said. “Of course, that’s it. The registration numbers match, right? It’s not like I’m any boat expert. I hate the bloody things.”

  “We’re sorry about going over the obvious details,” Myron said. “Of course, the numbers match. But, sometimes, walking slowly through the evidence triggers the mind to recall other valuable information.”

  Holly sighed and held the pictures in front of her eyes with shaking hands. She pointed at a spot on a photo.

  “There,” Holly said. “Beneath the registration number. It’s too tiny to read in this photo, but it says, ‘Three Sisters Mc/Mc’. That was my father’s doing.”

  “Three Sisters Mc/Mc, huh?” Ian said. “What does that mean, Holly?”

  Holly shrugged, and looked away. “A wee joke between my dad and me. That is his boat. Their boat. His and my mother’s. You wanted confirmation. That’s the best I can do.”

  “I’ll not sugar-coat this for you, Miss Holly,” Myron Finnegan said. “The authorities are most concerned with tying the stolen property to a criminal operation. They want all the evidence they can get to put those louts behind bars. Of course, recovering your parents’ boat leaves them curious, but the more concrete evidence we supply them, the more help we have—”

  “My parents were thought lost at sea, and now their boat has been recovered!” Holly said. “Clearly they didn’t die in a boating accident, so they have to be somewhere! Why should we have to beg for help?”

  “Let’s try and stay calm, Holly,” Quentin Lynchburg said. “We’re all on the same team, here. The Finnegans are not about to promise you anything, and that is not their place. But I am making it my place. I promise you that we’ll do whatever it takes to find them, whether we have the diligence of the local police, or not. The more evidence we have to link this criminal ring to your parents, the more likely that the police allocate personnel to track them down. It’s as simple as that.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Lynchburg,” Myron said. He stepped between Holly and Quentin and continued in a whisper.

  “While it’s true that the boat was indeed not lost at sea, there is little reason to think them still alive. They’ve been missing for six months—”

  “We have our reasons to believe that they’re alive,” Quentin said, his jaw firm.

  “What reasons are these, Mr. Lynchburg?” Ian said, stepping to his brother’s side. “Are you not giving us all the information you have? What are you not telling us? This is not the best way to proceed.”

  Quentin looked at Holly, helplessly.

  “I expected better from the likes of McAllen,” Myron said. “We don’t care about your money, Mr. Lynchburg. We can’t work with clients that withhold information from us.”

  Myron looked at Ian.

  “Let’s go, Ian,” Myron said. “We’re wasting our time here—”

  Ian began to walk away.

  Holly threw her arms around Ian’s chest. He grabbed her arm to toss it aside.

  “Get off of m—!” Ian Finnegan said. His voice trailed off into a whisper.

  “Me…”

  “Where do you think you’re going, Handsome?” Princess Arabella asked, leaning into Ian’s face.

  Ian was panic-stricken. Myron turned around prepared to come to his twin brother’s aid until he saw the terror in his eyes.

  “Aye,” Bruiser Brady said. He stepped behind Arabella, crossed his arms, and flexed his biceps. “We seem to be havin’ trouble getting the old ‘team spirit’ up and running here, wouldn’t you say, Princess?”

  Delbert Scoggins jumped next to Bruiser. With a serious scowl on his face, he dropped into a karate stance.

  “Somebody give the word,” Delbert growled, “And I put this punk down.”

  Dougie Day stepped next to Delbert and began screwing his cue stick together.

  “I’ll take out their kneecaps,” Dougie said.

  Ian Finnegan’s eyes darted back and forth, his face drained of color. Quentin grabbed Myron’s arm. Myron was trying desperately to reach his brother.

  “Holly,” Q said, “They’re brothers. You can’t—”

  “Oh, all right,” Holly said. She turned loose of Ian. He struggled to stand. Holly offered a hand to Myron, who backed way as if Holly was a venomous snake. Quentin grabbed him and walked him forward, right into Holly’s outstretched hand. She grabbed Myron by the forearm, and he stumbled and nearly fell as his brother had.

  “Fine,” Holly said. “Gentlemen, we do indeed have other information to introduce. Let’s get the introductions out of the way. We have work to do.”

  Two hours later, Brian McAllen knocked on the door of Quentin’s hotel room. Quentin answered the door.

  “Brian,” Q said. “Good to see you. Come on in.”

  Quentin gathered up stacks of paper from the desk and offered Brian a seat.

  “So, the Finnegan brothers,” Brian said. “They’re gonna work out okay?”

  “You bet,” Quentin said. “Good call on those two, Brian. Thanks a lot.”

  Brian nodded.

  “So how’s business, eh, Brian?” Q asked. “You staying busy?”

  “Aye,” Brian said. “Never busier.”

  “That’s great news,” Q said. “All the more reason that Holly and I thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “You’re good people, Quentin Lynchburg,” Brian said. “And your friends, as well.”

  “Thank you, Brian,” Q said. “What can I do for you?”

  Brian shuffled uncomfortably in his
chair. He didn’t seem able to look Quentin in the eye.

  “It’s about that McIntyre Castle, Mr. Lynchburg,” Brian said. “I can’t stop thinkin’ about it.”

  Brian shifted his weight and sighed.

  “What was in there?” he asked.

  .

  “I’m…excuse me?” Quentin asked.

  “There was…were…people in that castle,” Brian whispered. “Ghosts. I know there was.”

  “You do?” Q asked.

  Brian nodded.

  “I know you think me loony, but that doesn’t matter,” Brian said. He stood.

  “I’ve been in hundreds of buildings, all around the U.K.,” Brian said. “Inside some of them….I’ve seen things. Heard things. I ignored it all, mostly. The Spaniards that run off while we were takin’ down the McIntyre—that wasn’t the first time I’ve lost crews because of funny goings-on. But what am I supposed to do? It’s my company—my means of makin’ a living. I can’t go running away every time I think there are spooks about, can I?”

  Quentin shrugged.

  “I suppose not, Brian.”

  Brian returned to his chair. He leaned forward.

  “The McIntyre was different, Quentin,” Brian said.

  Quentin swallowed hard. Brian McAllen had never called him Quentin.

  “We took it apart, Mr. Lynchburg,” Brian said. His eyes were moist. “We took it apart, put it aboard ships, and sent it half-way around the world. Now, I lie awake nights and…and…I’d swear on my sweet mother’s grave that what we took apart was a…it was someone’s home. I have dreams—that there were children. Sweet, beautiful, children… I see ‘em laughin’, and playin’… and I don’t know what’s become of them—I don’t know if they’re lost, or afraid—”

  Brian sat back in his chair and cleared his throat.

  “Now I’ve done it,” he said with a chuckle. “You think me completely mental. And I can’t blame you.”