Sole Possession

by Bryn Donovan

  “I think it might be hard,” Andi said wryly. “Hey. You know who can do it?”

  “Obviously, no.”

  “Carlos.”

  “What?”

  “He used to work on a road crew! He told me that first day I met him.”

  He couldn’t believe she would suggest this. “Yeah, you know what else he used to do? Throw you against walls!”

  “Well, I have a theory about that.”

  David rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know if I can take another theory.”

  “I think the house made him do it.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t look at me like that! A lot of bad things happened there,” she explained. “I think it affected him somehow. He was always nice when you worked with him before. And he said he didn’t know what came over him.”

  He stared at her.

  “You admit it makes a little sense,” she prodded.

  He stood up and walked over to the window. “Nothing about that place makes sense. But yeah, let’s have him over so the house affects him again. But first? Let’s make sure he has a jackhammer.”

  Undaunted, she moved to his side. “I think it could happen to anyone. And if we warn him…maybe it won’t get so far this time. I mean, we can’t tell a new guy, ‘Hey, if you start feeling violent, take a coffee break.’”

  “That’s not the worst advice in the world. Just in general.”

  “I think Carlos would keep the bones a secret,” Andi said. “I bet he wants to make things up to us.”

  David thought of the flips he’d worked on with him in the past. Carlos had always been his favorite contractor. Sure, he wouldn’t work on Sundays because he had to go to church, but that had been the extent of David’s complaints about him.

  “We should talk to him anyway,” Andi urged. “It’ll help us know what we’re dealing with.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” David said, though he hated saying it. “You know, I just talked to Mr. Willingham about what happened…he did feel someone push that chainsaw at his face.”

  “Just like I saw.” She didn’t look happy to have her story confirmed. “Maybe Carlos, you know…felt something pushing him, too.”

  It did make David wonder. “But he won’t pick up if I call him,” he said.

  “I’ll call him.”

  “No,” David said. “You know what? I’ll go over to his place, see if I can catch him.”

  “Well, I’m coming, too.”

  In the car, after they’d been quiet for a few minutes, Andi said to him, “So, you’re not too disturbed by me doing the…” she gestured vaguely. “Like what Morty does?”

  “I’m disturbed by a lot of things. I don’t think I’ve gotten around to being disturbed by that yet.”

  “I really feel things, you know,” she told him. “It’s not me just telling myself it’s happening.”

  He nodded. That much, he got. “Are you disturbed by it?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what to think yet.”

  At Carlos’s house in Cicero, a short woman with gray in her dark hair answered the door.

  “Hi, you must be Nancy,” David said to her. “We’re, um, clients of Carlos’s. Is he home?”

  The woman glanced at Andi and seemed reassured by her presence. “Sure, come on in. He’s out in the shop, but I’ll go get him. Go ahead and sit down.”

  Andi and David settled themselves on the very fat faux leather sectional. In a few minutes Carlos appeared at the doorway to the living room. When he saw them he stiffened, his professional smile dissolving into fear.

  “David,” he said, not too loudly. “What is this? Are you suing me?” He cast a backward glance as though his wife might be within earshot.

  “You’re lucky Andi’s not suing you,” David growled.

  “It’s okay,” Andi said. “We just want to talk for a few minutes.”

  Carlos sat down on the edge of the armchair, his face paling. “You know I’m still sorry about what happened. I’ve never done anything like that in my life before. Please don’t tell my wife. Please. I…are you okay now?” he asked Andi.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Listen, Carlos. I think maybe it wasn’t your fault.”

  Carlos looked to David and then quickly back to Andi again. David realized he was still glaring at the guy. “Not my fault,” the contractor said. “What do you mean?”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and leaned forward. “You thought that house was haunted.”

  He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement. “Well, yeah. Maybe. It gave me the creeps, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Right before that—thing happened, in the kitchen,” Andi said.

  Right before he slammed you against the wall, you mean, David thought.

  She didn’t want to make the guy feel bad. She was too nice for her own good. The thought, oddly, filled him with a momentary despair.

  “What were you thinking, right before then?” she asked him. “I was starting to help pry the cabinets off the wall. Do you remember?”

  The man shook his head. “Andi, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m so ashamed. And it’s all a little blurry. It’s like I heard a voice in my head saying that you were going to hurt the house.” He winced. “I know it’s crazy. And I just felt like something told me it was okay to…stop you. Hurt you.” He grimaced in self-disgust. “After that, I thought maybe I was going crazy. I didn’t tell Nancy, but I set up an appointment with a shrink. But I haven’t felt anything like that again.”

  “A lot of bad things happened in that house,” Andi told him. “Did you know that?”

  This seemed to startle him out of his shame. “No. Bad things like what?”

  “Murders. More than one. I think you somehow…picked up the bad vibes, you know?”

  Carlos sighed. “Well, that would make me feel a lot better. All I have to do is not ever go there again.”

  “Actually,” Andi countered, “we were wondering if maybe you would.”

  “What?” The man looked to David. “You don’t want me over there, I know that.”

  He wasn’t exactly wrong. But Andi’s theory struck him as more and more plausible. And while David had his doubts about the whole banishment thing, he had to think that getting any old bones out of the house was a good idea. “We think there are bodies in the basement,” he told Carlos.

  “Oh, my God. Are you serious?”

  “Yes. We need someone who can keep his mouth shut to dig them out.”

  “Of course you could trust me, David,” he said. “I mean…of course I wouldn’t tell anyone. But I just don’t know if I can go in there again.”

  “I would take it as a personal favor to me. And hey,” he added, “if you start to feel violent, you can take a coffee break.”

  Andi rolled her eyes at him.

  Carlos pinched the bridge of his nose. “So let me get this straight. If you get the bodies out, the problem’s gone? Don’t you…need to have a priest in there to do an exorcism? Something like that?”

  “We are going to,” David said. “Something like that.”

  Carlos nodded slowly. “I’ll do it. For free, of course. I’ll pay for the equipment rental, all that.”

  “Morty’s going to be there,” Andi said to David. “I bet he’ll know how to keep things from getting out of control.”

  “Morty’s the priest?” Carlos asked.

  “More or less,” David told him. “What about this Saturday?”

  “I think that’ll work.”

  Carlos’s wife appeared in the doorway of the living room. “Can I get anyone anything? Some coffee?”

  David guessed she was used to being a hostess to Carlos’s clients. “No, thanks,” he said. “We need to get going.”

  Carlos followed him and Andi outside. “Thank you. Both of you. I’ll take care of this. Nothing’s going to go wrong this time, I promise.”

  When they were back in David’s car, Andi asked, “You feel okay about all
that?”

  “Only because I’m not going to let him out of my sight on Saturday.” David’s stomach rumbled. “You want to get some lunch?”

  “Mm, I’d better go get my truck. I’m supposed to be at my mom’s pretty soon.” Andi brightened. “You should come have dinner with us! My parents would love to meet you.”

  “I bet.”

  “They’re going to like you!” She studied him. “You want to meet them sometime, don’t you?”

  He understood the question behind the question: You’re serious about me, aren’t you? “Sure.” He hadn’t even told her yet whether he would go to her sister’s wedding. With a little time, he’d be able to talk himself into it. He asked, “Why are you going to your parents’ today anyway?”

  “I’m supposed to help Mom and Lissa make wedding centerpieces. And we want some time to just hang out, you know? The whole family together.”

  “Right,” David said. It was always so easy for him to forget that some people really liked to do that.

  * * *

  Lissa and Andi sat at their parents’ dining room table laden with craft supplies. When their mom went into the other room to hunt for another pair of scissors, Andi went ahead and told Lissa she’d invited David to the wedding. “But I don’t know if he’s coming. Don’t say anything,” she added in an undertone as their mom came back into the room.

  Mrs. Petrowski asked, “What’s the matter?”—her typical way of finding out what they were talking about.

  “Nothing,” Lissa answered, and then got a gleam in her eye. “Andi was just telling me more about her boyfriend.”

  “He’s just a guy I’m dating,” Andi lied.

  “I didn’t know you were dating.” Her mom’s voice brightened with interest. “So, what’s he like?”

  Oh, man. David was a little hard to sum up in just a few words. “He’s nice,” she offered. “Smart.”

  “Well, that’s good. What does he do for a living?”

  “He’s a lawyer.”

  “Oh,” Mrs. Petrowski said. “Well, he sounds interesting, Andi. But just take it slow. That’s my advice.”

  “I am, Mom,” Andi lied again. Lissa smirked, and Andi felt the need to change the subject. “So Lissa, I was wondering—what are your something old, new, borrowed and blue things going to be?”

  “Well, new is the dress, obviously,” Lissa said, “and I bought a blue garter belt…but we are not doing that thing where the groom takes it off. I think that’s so tacky!”

  “Thank goodness,” their mother said.

  “And I’m wearing my friend Carrie’s veil from her wedding, so that’s the borrowed. I don’t have the ‘something old’ yet, though. Mom, I was thinking maybe you could help.”

  “Something old from someone old?” Mrs. Petrowski quipped.

  “Mom! That’s not what I meant.”

  “Actually, I do have something, and I keep forgetting. Come on in the bedroom. You come too, Andi.”

  Mrs. Petrowski opened the top drawer of her jewelry armoire, the one she’d forbidden Andi and Lissa to open when they were children. “These were your Busha’s,” their mom said, using the name they’d always used for their maternal grandmother. She set an ornate, sparkling pair of earrings in Lissa’s hand. “They’re not real diamonds, of course. You know, when she and Daddy came over, they didn’t have anything.”

  “Oh, but they’re so pretty!” Lissa exclaimed.

  “Well, she wore them at her wedding. You can keep them. They’re yours.”

  “I love them. Thanks,” Lissa said.

  Andi felt a twinge of jealousy. She was the older sister, after all. She pushed the feeling aside. Lissa was getting married first, and if she was going to wear them at her wedding, it made sense for her to keep them.

  “I’ve got something Mom wanted you to have too, Andi,” Mrs. Petrowski remarked. “I meant to give it to you last Christmas, but I forgot.”

  “Oh, really?” Andi said, sounding casual but feeling a little bit better.

  “Here.”

  Her mother handed her a length of iridescent faceted red beads connected with silver filigree. A silver medallion hung at the bottom, with what looked like a delicate starburst above it.

  “Wow,” Andi said. “What a pretty necklace.”

  “It’s not a necklace, exactly. It’s her rosary.”

  “Of course it is,” Lissa said, touching the medallion. “Look, it’s Jesus. And this must be kind of a cross,” she said, touching the part that looked like a lacy silver star.

  “Exactly.”

  “Busha said that Andi should have it?” Lissa asked. “Guess she thought Andi would be more religious.” Their mother already knew Andi pretty much never went to Mass.

  “Oh, she was very clear about it,” Mrs. Petrowski asserted. “She said Andi was the one who would need the protection.”

  The back of Andi’s neck prickled. She closed her fingers around the rosary.

  “Protection?” Lissa repeated. “What’d she mean by that?”

  “God only knows.” Their mother rolled her eyes. “I know you girls don’t remember her too well, but she could be a little batty. I think that’s where you got it from, Andi.”

  Lissa was kind enough to shoot her sister a pitying look at that, but Andi didn’t even care. “Busha was batty how?”

  “Eccentric. Hey, I think I’ve got little boxes you girls can put those in,” their mom said, going over to the closet.

  Lissa looked down at the earrings in her hand. “Where did Busha get these, do you think? They look kind of old. Maybe they were her mom’s?”

  “No, they’re not that old. Your grandpa gave them to her. But they’re probably good luck,” Mrs. Petrowski said, rummaging through a shelf in the closet. “They were very happy together.” She returned with two small jewelry boxes and handed them to her daughters. “Well, here’s what I mean by batty,” she said. “One night I was sitting with her in her living room and she looked up at the window and said, ‘Look, Dobry is here.’ And I told her, ‘Mom, Daddy died fifteen years ago.’ But she just said, ‘He’s right outside the door! Aren’t you going to let him in?’”

  Lissa pressed her lips together, looking sympathetic. “She must have had a little Alzheimer’s, at the end.”

  “Oh no, she was always sharp as a tack. That wasn’t the first time she said something crazy like that, though. She said some nutty things when I was growing up, even. Talking to people who weren’t there.”

  “You never told us that before,” Andi said.

  “I didn’t want to encourage you. I wanted you to get over that craziness, and I’m glad you did.”

  Andi would never be able to talk to her mom about this stuff. Well, that was all right. There was no sense in bothering her.

  “Did she ever see Grandpa Dobry again?” she asked her mom. She remembered what Morty had told her about people almost never seeing or talking to the people they loved. “I mean, did she ever think she saw him? After that night?”

  “Well, not after that,” Mrs. Petrowski said. “That was the night she died.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Is Lissa coming back home anytime soon?” David asked Andi as they sat the sofa in her living room. It had only been a couple of days since Andi had seen him, but it seemed like much longer.

  Andi shook her head. “She’s got a ballroom dancing lesson with Greg. You know, so they’ll do a good job on their first dance? And she has to meet with a photographer.” She shrugged. “She didn’t think she’d be back in time for dinner.”

  “So we’ve got the place to ourselves.”

  “Yep. Guess so,” she said.

  “What do you want to do today?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  David pulled her close and kissed her.

  Now how did he know I wanted him to do that? She closed her eyes and relished the sensation. Who was she kidding? She always wanted him to do that.

  One of his hands cupped the back
of her head while the other slid along her waist to grip her hip. As he kissed her mouth and shoulders, she felt him grasp her hair, almost tugging it.

  Passion rose in her like someone suddenly turning the volume way up, so that a thrumming bass pulsed through her body. She leaned over to pull up his tee shirt and he quickly stripped it off. Distracted by his next kiss, Andi was only vaguely aware that he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans.

  She lay back on the couch, pulling his half-bare body over hers. He stopped kissing her long enough to find a condom in his wallet on the coffee table, and she took it and put it on him. Although he rushed things, she heard herself purr with pleasure when he entered her. As she wrapped one leg around him, he kissed her more deeply, his mouth forcing hers wide open. His hand lay on the front of her throat.

  His fingers curled around it.

  “Hey, I don’t like that,” she let him know, expecting him to stop immediately. Instead, his fingers tightened.

  How crazy—he didn’t seem to realize what he was doing. As she tried to pull away, Andi almost laughed…but she didn’t have the breath. As he choked her, his other powerful arm wrapped around her waist, crushing her to his chest, and his mouth smothered hers.

  Her blood rushed in her ears. She felt like she was drowning.

  Struggling harder, she got both arms up against his shoulders and pushed him back with all of her might. She scrambled out from under him and hurtled herself off the couch and onto her feet.

  David looked up at her with green eyes gone dead and flat. One side of his mouth curled up in a smile.

  Not a David smile at all.

  He scared the hell out of her.

  “What’s the matter with you!” she screamed at him, shoving his shoulders.

  He shook himself as though she’d thrown a glass of water on him.

  “What?” he said. “What’s the matter with you?” He sounded a little pissed off…the way most men would be, cut off mid-screw. He sounded bewildered. And he sounded like David.

  “You were hurting me!”

  “Hurting you? No I wasn’t,” he said, but his forehead creased with doubt. Still visibly half-aroused, he stripped off the condom and thrust it in his pocket, jerked his jeans back up and zipped them. “What do you mean?”