Exclusive

by Fern Michaels

  Abby should have listened to her gut instinct. When she received the e-mail inviting The Informer to interview Hollywood’s first family, she should have known something was awry. She’d tried numerous times to call the publicist in question. Each time she called explaining who she was and what happened, some little smart-ass twit laughed at her, then hung up. Abby had to face the facts: The Pitt/Jolie interview wasn’t going to happen. She’d been screwed, blued, and tattooed, and now she had to suffer the consequences.

  All she had to do was find an actor or actress that would be considered front-page, headline-breaking news and write something so newsy that it would live up to the buildup she’d created. Abby considered calling Chris to ask him for any dirt on the many starlets who passed through his arms, but she couldn’t bring herself to stoop that low. Chris wouldn’t have told her anything worth printing. He might be a player, but Abby knew he kept any newsworthy gossip to himself.

  Briefly, Abby wondered about that doctor her mother had asked her to check out. He ran a clinic that catered to the stars. Maybe there was something there. Hell, at this point I’ll try anything, she thought. Deciding a trip to her mother’s was needed, Abby clicked off her computer and turned the televisions and lights off before she left. Surely the new owners would appreciate her economizing.

  “Come on, Chester, we’re going to the beach.”

  “Woof!” He ran out the door and down the hall before she had a chance to hook his leash to his collar. Didn’t matter, she told herself, as the offices were all but empty anyway. Her reporters were covering small-time events for the back pages. The way things were going, she might have to bring some of that small-time news to the front page. Worse, she might have to take that same news and spiff it up a bit, make it more interesting without telling any flat-out lies. Yes, if she had to, that was exactly what she’d do. The Globe and The Enquirer did it all the time, and that was the reason they were the numbers one and two tabloids in the country.

  “Come on, boy, let’s go see what Coco is up to.” Outside, Chester ran around in circles, letting her know he was excited. She laughed. Smart dog.

  Traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway was bumper-to-bumper. Abby popped Britney Spears’s latest in the CD player. The girl had made a comeback, but her music wasn’t anything to rave about. Abby turned the volume down as she inched her way toward Malibu. She should have called first, but her mother wouldn’t mind her just popping in. She hadn’t been to the house since the inside remodeling had been started.

  She couldn’t wait to see what magic her mother and the contractors had performed. The inside of the house had been beyond tacky. Her mother was one talented woman. Abby knew she would be turning the place into the perfect beach house.

  Forty-five minutes later, she parked her MINI Cooper next to her mother’s bright-red Thunderbird. Chester was pulling at the bit to get out of the car. “Hang on, boy, let’s get you unbuckled.” Abby released the seat-belt buckle just in time. The shepherd jumped across the seat before Abby could get out of the car.

  “Coco, that’s what you’re all excited about.”

  Chester ran back and forth, digging his hind paws into the dirt. “Chester, stay!” Abby commanded. The big dog stopped in his tracks. Abby scratched his back. “Good boy. We’re learning patience, aren’t we?”

  Abby knocked on the door, causing it to open. Must not have been closed all the way. Abby held Chester by the collar in order to keep him from flying through the house knocking down whatever was in his path. “Mom?” She called out.

  She heard her mother talking to someone. Abby hoped she hadn’t come at a bad time, interrupted anything important. “Mom, Sophie?”

  Abby walked through the kitchen, surprised at the total makeover. White cabinets, sleek blue granite countertops. Chrome appliances. Very beachlike. “Mom, where are you?”

  Her mother whizzed out of the dining room like a rocket. “Abby! I thought that was you! What in the world are you doing here? If I had known you were coming, I wouldn’t have…I would have made dinner.”

  Abby laughed. “Then I would’ve left hungry.”

  Toots hugged her daughter. “You’re not very nice today.”

  Her mother pulled her arm. “Mom! What are you doing? My arm!”

  “Sorry. Follow me.”

  “Okayyy, what’s going on here?” Abby said as she followed her mother through the house to the main deck outside.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. What makes you think there’s something going on?” She practically dragged her through the sliding doors. “I just want to…smoke.”

  “Chester, no!” Abby ran down the steps leading to the beach. Chester sat at the bottom of the steps next to Coco’s carrier. She lugged him back up the stairs. In her most commanding voice, she said, “Stay.” She turned to her mother, who was sucking on a cigarette as though her life depended on inhaling every last bit of the tar and nicotine.

  “Where’s Mavis’s dog? I can’t say her name without Chester going bonkers. I think he’s in love.”

  “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Toots put her cigarette in a bright green ashtray.

  “Mother, what is going on?” Abby called before Toots had a chance to open the glass doors.

  “Nothing, Abby. I’m just going to get the dog. Stay put for two minutes. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  Abby nodded, then plopped down on a blue-and-green lounge chair. Her mother was acting beyond strange. Not that she didn’t act strange any other time. Her mother was keeping secrets from her. She laughed, thinking there might be a man involved. No wonder her mother wanted her out of the way. Abby could’ve sworn she heard her mother say she was swearing off men after Leland.

  “I’m back,” Toots said. She held Coco in her arms like a baby. “Just be careful. Mavis would kill me if something happened to her.”

  “Where are Mavis and the others?” Abby asked as Toots gently placed little Coco next to Chester. The large dog nudged the Chihuahua with his nose, then Coco licked Chester’s ears. “True puppy love. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Ida, Sophie, and Mavis stepped outside.

  By the time the round of greetings was over, Abby was certain that each of her godmothers had hugged and kissed her at least ten times. After a prolonged episode of oohing and aahing over how adorable Coco and Chester were, they all gathered around the new table. “You three—four—are up to something, and I want to know what it is. Right now. No ifs, ands, and buts.”

  “Abby Simpson, we are grown women. We are not ‘up to’ anything, and if we were, it would be our business. I don’t know what makes you think that we’re doing anything we shouldn’t be doing in the first place,” her mother said, her nose tilted up just a tad too high in the air to be believed.

  “Oh shit, Toots, Abby’s a big girl. Let’s tell her what’s been going on. She might want to write a story for the paper,” Sophie said.

  “You have the biggest frigging mouth; has anyone ever told you that? I’d like to stuff a great big—”

  “—Girls! Let’s stop fussing. Abby dear, what your mother meant to say is…is, well, we seem to have a new friend. Yes, we have a new friend. He’s a man. I have a new friend. His name is George. He has a dachshund named Albert. We meet on the beach every morning at sunrise.” Mavis looked at Toots.

  “Yes, Mavis is in love again. Isn’t that just peachy? We’re trying to find out if she’s made it with George, but she won’t tell us.”

  “That’s great, Mavis. But there’s more, and I’m not leaving until you tell the truth.” Abby glared at her godmothers and her mother. “The whole truth and nothing but.”

  “If you won’t tell her, I will,” Sophie said.

  “Tell me what?” Abby demanded. She was starting to get concerned. Maybe her mother was hiding a fugitive. That would be so like her and her godmothers.

  “This house is haunted,” Sophie stated.

  Abby’s jaw dropped halfway to her chest. She raked her gaze acro
ss the four most important people in her life, the most loved. They all looked to be sane. No wild eyes or electrical-socket hairdos. Nope, they looked the same as always. Four attractive older women. Abby took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s start over. Say what you just said. Slowly.”

  “She said this house is haunted, and we were getting ready to hold a séance when you interrupted us. Now, Abby, don’t look at me that way. We’re not crazy.” Her mother shot Ida a glance.

  “Don’t look at me when you say ‘crazy,’” Ida quipped.

  “I wasn’t,” Toots said.

  “Yes, you were. I saw you.”

  “Would you two just shut the fuck up? Sorry, Abby. Both of you quit picking on each other. It’s getting old. And, Abby, your mother is telling you the truth. This dump is full of spirits, ghosts, whatever you want to call them. I think some of them are old movie stars. We’ve been holding séances twice a week trying to figure out exactly who they are. We were pretty sure that one of them is Bing Crosby, but we couldn’t verify it until last week. We were just preparing for another séance when you arrived. Unless you want to join us, in the future make sure you call ahead before driving all the way out here.”

  Abby was truly, totally, completely struck dumb. “I see.” No, she didn’t, not really, but what else could she say? Briefly she thought of calling Chris, then changed her mind. If word got out that her mother and godmothers were seeing ghosts, it might float back to the owners of the paper and somehow reflect badly on her. She would be out of a job. Hell, she was going to be out of a job anyway for flubbing up her so-called exclusive. This was simply the icing on the cake.

  “I told you she would think we’re loony,” Toots said, a cigarette dangling out of the corner of her mouth like she was an old-time gangster’s moll.

  Abby remained as still as a statue. She needed to think. “Give me a minute.”

  Toots nodded, drew a long drag off her cigarette, then blew the smoke out through her nose like a dragon.

  “Now let me get this straight. You’re saying that this house is haunted? By Bing Crosby?” Abby paused, praying she was mistaken but knowing she wasn’t.

  “Yes it is,” Sophie stated matter-of-factly, thinking back to the confrontation between Bing and Aaron Spelling.

  Like a marionette, the quartet’s movements were jerky and quick, as though each were orchestrated by an unknown puppet master. Each woman stared in awe as the two eerily cloudlike bursts of fog appeared to argue with one another.

  The man, rather the spirit they knew as Bing Crosby, shook his fist at the other spirit, his pale purplish lips moving with the speed of light.

  “Why have you followed me here? What have you got to complain about? The place was a treasure! You…you bulldozed it down as if it were nothing more than an old tree stump!”

  More fist shaking.

  The other cloudlike mist who they recognized as the famous movie mogul, Aaron Spelling, shook his head as though amused, his close-cropped silver hair shimmering in the dark like glistening crystals.

  “Look, old pal, you were dead when I bought your…house. The other one, of course, not this one. You’re dead now, so why should you care?”

  The four women continued to stare at the two spirits, who’d made several appearances since Sophie had started conducting her twice-weekly séances. In the other séances, however, it was one or the other, never both at the same time. And it was clear that, for some obscure reason, the Aaron Spelling spirit was looking for the Bing Crosby spirit.

  The Bing spirit threw up his hands, which took the form of two gauzy appendages flowing from his torso, high into the mist that surrounded him. “And you’re not? You’re dead as a doornail, my friend, or haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  The Aaron figure dropped his head to his fading chest. “I think you’re hallucinating. I just finished a nap, I’m not dead.”

  Bing’s spirit laughed a hearty lifelike laugh. “You haven’t been dead long enough to realize you’re dead. Takes a while. Took me almost a year to realize I wasn’t among the living. Don’t worry, it will hit you when you least expect it.”

  The Aaron apparition looked down at some unseen object, appeared to bend over to pick it up, then held out his hand to Bing. “These are the keys to my homes. Dead men don’t have house keys.”

  The Bing spirit reached into a translucent pocket and pulled out a key ring with at least a dozen keys. “These were placed in my coffin before I was buried. I sure don’t know why, but I have keys, too.” Bing appeared to be contemplating something. “Your keys have any special meaning?”

  The four women remained rooted to their chairs as they watched the interchange between their two resident ghosts play out.

  The Aaron ghost considered the question. “I have a key to every house I’ve ever owned on here. I guess you could call that special.”

  “I bet someone you loved placed them in your casket.”

  The Aaron ghost shook his semitransparent head vigorously. “No, my wife would never part with them, knowing how special they were to me.”

  Bing laughed again, then floated over beside Aaron. “So, that just proves my point, Mr. Spelling. You, too, are as dead as a doornail.”

  Suddenly the foglike mists whirled around the table, then began to spin like mini whirlwinds. The purple satin sheet on the old wood table snapped off the surface and draped itself around Sophie’s shoulders like a cape. The whirling mists disappeared as fast as they’d appeared.

  Toots, Ida, and Mavis gaped at Sophie, who had turned as pale as the images of their two now-departed spirits. She seemed to be in a mild state of shock.

  Knowing they couldn’t remain like that all day, Toots leaned across the wooden table and snapped her fingers directly in front of Sophie’s face.

  Sophie jerked to attention, slung the purple sheet off her shoulders, and stood. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am about to get sloshed.” She left the séance room, heading straight for the liquor cabinet with Toots, Ida, and Mavis right on her heels.

  “Haunted by Bing Crosby? You actually saw him?” Abby asked.

  “Yes,” Sophie confirmed.

  “I see.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. I’m guessing you think we’re just a bunch of old fuddy-duddies who have lost their marbles.” Sophie stared at Abby. “Am I right?”

  Abby reached down to pet Chester and Coco. They were real. Okay, this wasn’t a dream. She was really at her mother’s new beach house in Malibu. And her mother, her strong-willed, no-nonsense, cut-out-the-bullshit mother was talking about ghosts as though they were her new neighbors.

  If only one of them believed she’d seen a ghost, Bing Crosby’s ghost, then Abby could explain it away. Too much to drink, not enough sleep, a trick of the light. It could be a number of things. But all four of them? And her mother? No. Her mother wasn’t flighty, airheaded, or someone with an overactive imagination. So, Abby had a decision to make. She could either believe them or tell them they were all losing their minds.

  “Tell me about them, the ghosts. Who saw them first?” Abby asked. She could see that she had their undivided attention. The four of them gathered around the patio table, and Abby pulled her lounger as close as she could without bumping into Chester and Coco, who continued to bathe one another with kisses.

  “I did,” her mother explained. “It woke me out of a sound sleep.”

  “You were awakened by Bing Crosby’s ghost?” Abby asked.

  “No, I think I woke up because of the chill in the room. I don’t remember exactly. I just remember feeling as though someone was watching me. Then the next time I opened my eyes, I saw these clouds. They were sort of translucent, almost like fog, but they were shaped like a cloud. There were faces in them. Just heads and the mouths were moving like they were…arguing with one another.”

  “You never told me that,” Sophie said.

  “No, it just occurred to me that that’s what they were doing. They were male faces,
or at least I think they were. One woman, too. Her hair was blond, fixed in one of those bouffant styles of the sixties.”

  “How is it you’re able to recall these images with such vivid detail when you couldn’t remember anything about them the day after they materialized?” Sophie questioned. “Don’t make this up just so Abby won’t think you’re nuts. If this is true, then we might be onto something.”

  “Sophie, kiss my ass. I wouldn’t lie about something this crazy. You know I never lie. I don’t know why I can recall these details now. They just came to me all of a sudden.”

  Abby held up her hand. “Stop it. Both of you. This is too weird. Ida, Mavis, what are your thoughts on this? Neither of you has said much.”

  “I didn’t see the ghost clouds your mother saw, but I did see Bing Crosby. This experience has opened up an entire new belief system for me. I never believed in ghosts before now. I know it’s a lot to absorb, but it’s true.” Mavis smiled, a sad smile.

  Ida piped in, “They’re telling the truth, Abby. The spirit we saw was definitely Bing Crosby. It’s beyond bizarre, but it’s the truth, I swear.”

  Abby nodded. “Show me where you hold the séances. Inside, Chester.”

  Mavis scooped Coco up in her arms, and Chester followed right on her heels.

  “In the dining room. It’s the only room that we haven’t finished remodeling. Sophie thinks we should leave it alone until we find out more,” Toots said.

  Inside the house, Abby entered the dining area and saw the round table with the purple satin sheet draped on top. “Nice touch.” She flipped the light switch but nothing happened. “What about lights?”