“But what if… what if they are bad people, or if it’s a bad situation? I mean, something was wrong, or she wouldn’t be with you.”
“True. But you know, you can’t just take a child and keep it, even if you think you are doing the right thing. On the other hand, if I try to go to the authorities with the truth at this point, I’m screwed, but more importantly, I don’t know what would happen to Julia.”
Bronwyn took a deep breath. Julia had to be given legal status, but given the complexities of her case, an end run around the system was called for.
“I don’t know what to do—” Bronwyn gasped as she realized the answer had been handed to her on a silver platter and she hadn’t noticed until this instant. “Since you brought it up, I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything.”
“Can you introduce me to the senator and make sure I have time to talk to him privately?”
Chapter 37
“I’ve been going over the recordings,” Garth told Bronwyn a few nights later, after Julia was put to bed. “I haven’t been able to catch any source for most of the sounds.”
Bronwyn finished folding the tiny baby shirt. She added it to the baby items she was sorting onto the sofa seat beside her and reached into the basket at her feet. She had done more loads of clothes since Julia came to her than in her entire life.
“So there’s nothing? Oh, well. I appreciate the effort, and I’m not disappointed. Whatever it was seems to have died down. It was probably just my imagination.” She grinned at a sudden thought. “Or maybe ghosts are camera-shy. All you have to do to get rid of one is train a camera on it.”
“I’m glad you’re comfortable enough to make jokes about it. Because I didn’t say there’s nothing on the tapes.”
Bronwyn stopped folding a washcloth to look him full in the face. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve put everything on one disc. Come over here.” He indicated the big brown chair that he’d pulled the scarred coffee table up to. His open laptop sat on it. “I’d like to show it to you.”
“I’ve done a split screen on every incident,” he said when they were where they could both see the screen. “Most of the time, there’s nothing to see when the noises happen. In fact, most of the time, the recorders didn’t even pick up the noise.”
“You mean there wasn’t really a noise? I’m hearing things?”
“No. It’s real. Remember, I’ve heard it, too. And, several times, apparently so has Mildred. Most likely, it’s just indistinguishable from all the ambient sound. I’m going to show you the two clear incidences that were recorded.” He tapped the space bar to wake up the machine and started the disc.
“Here’s the first.” He pointed to the right side of the screen. “That’s the empty bedroom. You’ll hear a clearly audible thump, picked up by the mic there, but there’s no obvious cause.”
“That’s me in the split screen. In the kitchen. Looks like I’m opening a jar.”
“Watch it again. This time, watch yourself. I’ll set it to loop. Watch yourself and watch Mildred.”
Bronwyn studied the picture. “I don’t see anything. I’m opening a jar. There’s some interference. When it clears, I look like I’m listening for something… so does Mildred.”
“Okay.” He consulted some notes. “Here’s the next one. Your bedroom. The sound is picked up by the mic on the camera.”
This time the split screen showed Bronwyn reading, Mildred at her feet. The picture was snowy for the blink of an eye, and then Bronwyn looked up as if she’d heard something, and Mildred looked up at her.
“Did you see it?”
Bronwyn shrugged. “See what?”
“You saw the interference—looks like a short burst of microwave or shortwave radio interference? Did you notice that when Mildred looks up, she looks at you?”
“That doesn’t mean anything.” Bronwyn chuckled fondly. “She always expects me to deal with ‘ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night.’” She ruffled the dog’s raggedy neck. “Don’t you, girl?”
“Okay, moving right along. Remember when you told me the leak had started up again? This is recorded by the baby’s webcam.”
Bronwyn was leaning over Julia’s crib. The split screen showed the staircase. Bronwyn appeared to be wiping her cheeks with the flat of her fingers. An instant of snow. Mildred looked at her. In the other scene, there was an instant of snow. When it cleared, a puddle was widening on the landing floor.
“Where did it come from? I mean, I knew it wasn’t Mildred…”
“Here’s another. This time there’s no split screen—just you. Watch the table behind you.”
Bronwyn watched. The camera had caught her walking past the little breakfast table. The table was empty. It was obscured as Bronwyn walked in front of it. When it was visible again, a book lay on it. The hair stood up on her neck.
“The book. It wasn’t there. And then it was!”
“Right. I’m going to slow it down. At first the book appears to be an inch or so above the table. Then it drops. You hear something and look around.”
She watched the replay with the same grisly fascination of watching a train wreck. Her insides felt like they had been hit by a blast chiller.
After the day Bronwyn had spent with Garth’s SEAL friends, she had begun to come to terms with the flashes of knowing, of literal insight into what was taking place under the skin. She had tried to adopt Lon’s attitude and just not care whether the ability was psychic or not. If it worked, it worked. She didn’t have to talk about it, and as long as she didn’t, no one would know. But this?
Eyes wide, she watched the book blink into existence and then drop the couple of inches to the tabletop. This wasn’t a clever trick her mind had learned to do. This was breaking the laws of physics! No one could say it was normal or natural.
“No. It’s impossible!” She struggled for an explanation. “You’ve messed with the cameras.”
Garth blanked the computer screen. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t have the skill, and if I did, I don’t have the time.”
Bronwyn drew deep breaths. “All right. I’m going to stay calm. There’s a rational explanation.”
Garth smiled apologetically. “I emailed everything I collected to Do-Lord, font of all paranormal wisdom. He says what we have is fairly typical poltergeist phenomena.”
Horror scenes flashed in her mind. She felt the blood leave her cheeks. “Like the movie?” Her throat was so tight she could barely croak.
It seemed like the more upset Bronwyn got, the calmer and more almost bored Garth acted. “No, that was Hollywood hype.” He dismissed the movie with a casual wave. “But poltergeist stuff, like what has been happening here, really happens, and it’s not all that uncommon. The word poltergeist means noisy ghost, but Do-Lord says it’s badly named. There’s no ghost at all. The entity doing this is very much alive and embodied. It’s you.”
As an intern, she, too, had learned that measured, unemotional way of delivering bad news. On the receiving end, she discovered that it matched what she was feeling so poorly that it made her feel crazy. “You’re going too fast. Slow down.” Bronwyn sprang to her feet and began to pace. “What do you mean, it’s me?” She pointed a finger as if accusing the laptop. “I wouldn’t begin to know how to fake all this.”
“Calm down. I didn’t say you’re faking it. The technical term is psychokinesis, PK for short.”
Her old scorn for pseudo-science began to take hold, steadying her and making her feel rational again. “Assuming there is any such thing as a poltergeist, what makes you think it’s me?”
“I can’t prove you caused it. But I can show you that it doesn’t happen when you are not in the house. Do-Lord says typically the phenomena manifests around one person, and if it’s any comfort,” Garth’s lips curved slightly in a sympathetic smile,
“poltergeist phenomena tends to be self-limiting. It happens off and on for a couple of weeks or a month or two and then stops. As you already said, it seems to have stopped already.”
“But why?”
“Usually, the person who, shall we say, is the locus of the poltergeist is a teenage girl or young woman, socially isolated, who is experiencing a lot of emotional and physical upheaval. There’s been a breakup or death, or a move, and a lot of feelings of anger and grief and upset are going unacknowledged—not dealt with.”
Okay, that described her. Ever since Troy’s death, she had been the poster child for life in turmoil, little as she wanted to admit it. “Is there always a—living person?” Good Lord! Was she really hoping that a ghost, an actual ghost, was haunting her house?
Garth nodded slowly, his lips twitching as if he’d had the same thought. “Most of the time, yes. According to Do-Lord, everything we’ve seen is absolutely classic. Strange noises and knocking, items moving around, light bulbs blowing. And by the way, even the puddles of water aren’t that unusual. Sometimes the water appears running down walls or even dumps on people.”
Bronwyn felt her anxiety rising again. It didn’t matter if she believed or not; stuff had happened, stuff that a camera could capture. “Weird.”
“What didn’t happen was for things to break mysteriously. Some poltergeists are really destructive.” He smiled tolerantly. “But you’re not the type to smash things.”
“You seem really convinced it was me. But I’m telling you, it wasn’t. I can’t levitate books or make water appear.”
“Again I have to quote Do-Lord. He thinks the person has psychokinetic talent that isn’t under their conscious control. In this case, I would have to agree. After all, what is the ability to heal but that?”
“Heal?” Bronwyn snorted in disbelief. “I can’t do that, either. Sure, medicine is called the healing profession, but doctors can’t heal. I can set a bone, sew up a wound, give medicine, but the body heals itself.”
“Don’t give me that. I’ve seen what you do. You healed Julia, you healed my scratch, you healed Davy’s ankle.”
“What? No. Be rational. Getting better was completely natural, totally predictable in every instance.”
Garth rose and put his hands on her shoulders, holding her in place. “Is it rational to refuse to see the evidence before your eyes? What’s so hard about seeing that you have the ability to heal?”
“Can’t you see my shingle? It would read Bronwyn Whitescarver, MD, Psychic Healer. No thank you.”
“It’s not about what you tell the world. It’s about what you know about yourself.”
She shook her head. “No. No doctor could believe I heal, and no doctor could respect me.”
“Do you see any other doctors here?”
“No, but…”
“Face it, Bronny. The doctors you’ll never win the respect of are your parents. You say you stopped listening to them years ago, but you still carry them inside you. When are you going to wake up and face the truth? It isn’t their respect that will make a difference to you, but your own.”
“But I can’t—”
“Listen, your parents might love you, but they are not on your side. The world is a harsh place. Tell all the lies you need to to protect yourself—even from your family. But I’m on your side, so don’t lie to me. And don’t lie to yourself. Not anymore.”
She looked at him long and slow, and Garth watched Bronwyn’s face turn—what? sadder? lonelier?—than he had ever seen it. If he had caused that expression, he wished he would have kept his mouth shut.
Chapter 38
Garth cut the last strip of grass in Bronwyn’s yard. He killed the mower’s motor and leaned on the handles, looking around. He had cleared a lot of the brush and subdued the blackberry brambles. There was more to be done, but it was beginning to look like a real lawn.
He could have persuaded himself not to bother. As soon as he was gone, the brush would come right back. If he was honest, he hadn’t even done it because it would please Bronwyn. He had taken on the task because it was a job that needed doing.
He pushed the lawn mower the few feet to the storage shed. The door was still warped and hard to get open, but once in motion, it swung easily on oiled hinges now.
Mower and yard tools stowed, he stepped out of the musty dimness of the shed into the mellow light of late evening.
Another job needed to be done today. He hadn’t put it off—exactly. He’d been carrying around the ring since the oyster bar date. He’d just been waiting for the right time. But time was running out. Tomorrow night was Davy and JJ’s big wedding bash. Bronwyn had given him until then to settle Julia’s future—or she would—and he believed her. She didn’t know how completely he would be screwed, of course, and she didn’t understand she’d be shooting down her own future.
The problem was that Bronwyn had never said she loved him—after that time she’d joked about it. He thought she did, and God knew he loved her. He was so damn grateful she had turned to him for comfort the other evening. Holding her had been better, more satisfying than a lot of sex he’d had. And thanks to air-conditioning (and Lon’s push), she had stayed in his arms all night long.
She thought he was a good man, and that almost meant more than saying she loved him, but he no longer thought she would make up her own mind in due time to marry him.
Well, he couldn’t ask her in sweaty lawn-mowing jeans. He tried not to be relieved to put it off another half hour while he showered and changed. But he was.
***
The wicker settee Miss Lilly Hale Sessoms had given her didn’t allow Bronwyn’s feet to touch the floor. She dealt with it as she had all her life; she folded her legs under herself. But the real source of discomfort was what Garth was saying. He looked wonderful in a yellow shirt that brought out the gold in his deep tan. And showered, his jaw gleaming slightly from a fresh shave, he was positively yummy. But his blue eyes were serious.
He took her hand. “And I’m asking you, will you marry me? I know you don’t want to leave here, and you shouldn’t, this is your place. I’ve held off because I kept thinking I couldn’t ask you to move. Life in the navy will take me all over, and you can’t live just anywhere. We’ll have a long-distance relationship and that isn’t ideal, but it’s doable.”
Life in the navy? She couldn’t believe it. “Whatever secret thing you’re doing for Coastal Air isn’t enough? You want to go back into the navy? Back to being a SEAL?”
“It’s who I am. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
She sighed sadly. “No matter what I think I know about you, there’s always another piece, isn’t there?”
He went mask-faced. “What do you mean?”
“You knew this was what you wanted, but you didn’t tell me until now, and even now, I think I’m only hearing part. I love you, but it doesn’t matter because you will never quite let me love you.”
“But you love me.”
Obviously he’d heard only the part he wanted to hear. “Yes, God help me, I do. And the truth is, living separate from you will be no problem. I can love you as just as much as you’re ever going to let me from a distance of several thousand miles. If it was only about love, your idea of a long-distance relationship wouldn’t be all that bad.
“But do you think I’m going to put up with a relationship in which you disappear—no warning—and you can’t tell me anything, and it’s for my good”—her voice was rising, and she didn’t care—“and if I don’t see or hear from you, it could be because you’re dead, or it could be because we’ve broken up and you don’t have the courtesy to tell me!”
He had the nerve to look surprised at her vehemence. “But JJ—your best friend—seems to be handling the lifestyle just fine.”
“News flash: JJ is a different person—a real different person. Right now she’s sat
isfied that she and David live parallel lives. Right now, in case you haven’t noticed, David comes to her. She does not go to him. The first time she needs to go to him and he isn’t there?” Bronwyn laughed cynically. “It’s going to be a different story.” She could sit still no longer. She jumped to her feet.
“But I’ve already done the parallel lives thing once. I wouldn’t see him for a week or two, and I was so busy that if he had been around, I probably wouldn’t have had time for him. We didn’t have a schedule. We had no expectations of each other. He’d be gone, and then he’d show up. And then, there was the time he’d been gone for a while, and suddenly, there he was.” Abruptly, Bronwyn sat back down. “On a table. In Trauma Room 3.”
“God.” Garth’s face went ashen under his tan. “You had to see that?”
“Yeah. Half his face was gone.”
The room was quiet. Feeling the tension in the atmosphere, Mildred got up and put her face in Bronwyn’s lap—whether to get or give comfort, it would be hard to say. Bronwyn massaged behind the dog’s velvety ears for a minute. Mildred subsided to lie at Bronwyn’s feet.
“That was bad,” Garth said, his tone gentle. “But you know, trauma happens to all kinds of people. There is no job, no way of life that will guarantee you won’t die suddenly.”
Bronwyn’s laugh was short, sharp. Ugly. “Don’t you think I know that? The problem wasn’t just that as a result of his job, he died. It wasn’t that the job robbed me of him. It’s that the job had been robbing me of him all along. After he died, I added up all the hours we had actually spent together in a year of dating. It came to thirty-nine days.
“And the fault wasn’t just his job, it also was mine. When you’ve been up for thirty-six hours, the choice between sex and sleep is a no-brainer. Sleep wins. Candlelight dinners and long soulful chats? We got along at first because he got my crazy schedule. Our dates went like this: have you had your dinner break yet? How about I come by and take you to the cafeteria?”
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