“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 ra
m 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.
PART THREE
BATTLEFIELD
twelve
The Waldorf Astoria
New York City
The meeting room had been sectioned off for Gabriel Kennedy, John Lonetree, Leonard Sickles, and George Cordero. It had taken Gabriel two hours over drinks to assist George in making up his mind to see the project through. Kennedy could have cut that time down to two minutes if he had given him his certified check for two hundred thousand dollars immediately. Cordero’s eyes lingered on the check for the briefest of moments, and then he quickly snatched it from Gabriel’s hand.
“Before we start, may I ask Professor Tilden’s condition?” Lonetree asked. He removed his suit jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.
Kennedy set his small black bag on the tabletop and then smiled at the large Indian. He had known even before John and Jennifer had ever met that there would be an immediate connection between them. As distant and quiet as John was, Gabriel had known he would feel a need to protect Jenny from any harm that may befall her—and that had been his number one reason for bringing Lonetree here. The number two reason was about to be revealed.
“Doctor Tilden is sleeping soundly upstairs. She is in deep REM sleep,” he looked at John and then away as quickly as he could. “I just checked on her. Thus far, Bobby Lee is keeping his word. Now, Professor Tilden is someone we need to discuss at length. Before I allow our last guest to come in with the items he has brought for John, I want to ask your opinions on something that has been festering ever since the meeting this afternoon. I’ll start with Jennifer. George, your opinion on the episode in the meeting, regarding her…” Again Kennedy looked around at the three men sitting at the table. “...possession?”
“Damn, you know my opinion on it. It goddamn near chased me out of the fucking room. I have never in my life seen anything like that. If she’s not the greatest ventriloquist in the world, that girl has one big ass problem.”
“Then you believe what you witnessed?”
Cordero tilted his head to the right, widened his eyes and took a deep breath. “My talent is getting into people’s heads. Number one, Doc, I couldn’t get into Professor Tilden’s head because it was too damned crowded. It was like I was being kept out by something stronger than me. Number two, while I didn’t feel this McKinnon guy inside of her, I did feel her thoughts. And let me tell you,” he looked at John, “she is close to insane.” He looked down at the polished table. “Sorry, but she is.”
John nodded his head. He told himself it was just sympathy for a fellow human being that made him care so deeply, but he knew he liked the small professor and had known it from the moment he saw her helped into the conference room at UBC.
“Good. Now, Leonard, your impressions?”
Sickles raised his eyes to the ceiling.
“I agree with this guy, Doc, that b—lady, is off her fuckin’ rocker.” He quickly looked at Lonetree. “No offense, Red Cloud.”
Lonetree said nothing, but from his look the small gang banger knew he had better tread the Indian line far more carefully in the future.
“John, there’s no reason to ask you. I could see that you felt McKinnon’s presence when Jennifer came into the room.”
Lonetree continued to look at Leonard, who had started studying the ornate wallpaper. He nodded.
“Okay, I think I know where Leonard stands on my next question, so I’ll ask you, John. What about the second presence, the incident of invasion?” Kennedy asked, turning his back on the small group.
“Clever trick, but I felt no presence from your Summer Place,” John said.
“George?”
“Didn’t have the same feeling as with Professor Tilden. In other words, I wasn’t scared at all.”
“Leonard?”
“Fake. The wood on the left side door was different than the wood on the right. It would take me a minute of study, but I would venture to guess someone tried to bullshit the intrusion—hydraulics maybe. Good, but anyone capable of installing hydraulics on a car could do the same thing.”
“I agree. Someone faked the door bending in and out—Ms. Delaphoy more than likely, or all of them, for the CEO’s benefit. So, that leads to my point: we trust only those of us in this room and Professor Tilden upstairs. Ms. Reilly, Kelly Delaphoy, that prick Peterson, or the director, Dalton—no one from UBC is to be let into our circle. They still believe that even after the loss of the host and engineer that the place isn’t haunted. They all suspect one another of some kind of duplicity, and what’s worse is the fact that they don’t care. They may think this is a joke they are playing for ratings, but let me tell you, that damnable house has no sense of humor.” He looked at each man again. “It will kill us all if we don’t find out what it is and what it wants.”
The three men were silent. Cordero felt for the check in his front shirt pocket, wondering if he had submitted to this thing a bit sooner than he should have.
“Leonard, I don’t want to keep our guest waiting. Would you let him in please?”
Sickles stood and opened the meeting room door. An angry Wallace Lindemann stood there, his face scrunched into a ball of twisted flesh at having been kept waiting.
“Mr. Lindemann, would you join us please.” Kennedy walked to the front of the room and held out his hand.
Instead of taking Gabriel’s hand, Lindemann turned and waved two men inside. They were pushing two bellman’s carts loaded with items that had been covered by a red tarp.
“I do not like being summoned like a delivery man. I do not like removing items from my house and I most assuredly will not be taking orders from you.”
Gabriel lowered his hand and smiled as he turned back to the rear of the room.
“The delivery and use of these items will be the last favor I ask from you, Mr. Lindemann.”
“You’re goddamned right it will. And I hold you personally responsible for the items now in your possession. They are to be returned to Summer Place the day before Halloween.”
“You have my word.”
“A lot of good that is. The last time I signed something over to you the house was damaged and my reputation suffered the indi
gnity of having to explain your mess. As a matter of fact I ought to—”
“You ought to leave now and lay off talking to the Doc like that, you silver spoon up-the-ass mother—”
“That’s good, Leonard,” Gabriel said. He tried hard to fight back laughter. “Your items will be returned in pristine condition, Mr. Lindemann, I assure you.”
Wallace Lindemann, with one last look at the small black man standing in front of him, stormed out of the meeting room with the two bellmen.
John Lonetree was smiling at Leonard also. It seemed that Sickles disrespected everyone, and some of them deserved it. Lonetree was good with that—you always knew where you stood with the kid. Earn his respect and you’d be in.
Gabriel watched the double doors close and relaxed when they were finally alone again.
“Leonard, I am fully capable of handling Wallace Lindemann. You’ll find out the little bastard is mostly hot air.”
“Ah, Doc, the guy’s a—”
Leonard stopped short of his name calling when he saw Kennedy staring at him.
“Okay,” Gabriel said pointing at Sickles, “dim the lights a little and we’ll start with John and George.” Kennedy paced to the bellman’s cart and pulled the red sheet from the items.
Several items were immediately recognizable from the pictures they had seen of the interior of the house. The largest was the family portrait of the Lindemanns. Gabriel lifted the four-foot by five-foot frame and hefted the portrait to the easel he had brought in earlier. When Lonetree saw the professor was having a hard time lifting it, he jumped from his chair and assisted. As soon as his large hands touched the gilded edges of the frame, an electrical current seemed to course through John’s hands, arms, and then his entire body. As much as the large man tried not to react, he couldn’t help it. He let go and stumbled backward from the massive painting, almost making Kennedy lose the portrait to the carpeted floor.
As John grabbed for the back of a chair, George and Kennedy went to him. Leonard stood next to the long table, laughing at the look on Lonetree’s face.
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