“You’re not going to believe this, Kayla,” my friend Corey wrote, “but that stuff with the hot-air balloons is mine. Who does this guy think he is? I took the liberty of asking a few other friends in a private Facebook group if they recognized the footage, and they were able to attribute three more of the clips to someone else. Watch out for this guy.”
My teacher sent a similar note, saying the beach footage had been shot in Fort Lauderdale by a former colleague.
I hadn’t given them all the context when I’d sent them the reel, only asked if they’d known Max Kantera Jr. I’d never expected this tsunami of plagiarism.
And now I was in a difficult spot. I wanted to tip off Marla, but I didn’t want to look like I was sabotaging Max — my stepbrother, even though he didn’t seem in a hurry to claim me. Sure, I wanted the job, but this would be a shitty way to get it.
However, I couldn’t let this go. Plagiarism was one of the worst crimes on earth, in my opinion. It stole the lifeblood of artists who put their soul into their creations. Everybody online seemed to think they owned everything, but the truth was, they were killing the art by stealing it. I had a lot of friends who were artists. They were having a hard enough time getting by, and if they couldn’t make anything off their creations, in the end, they couldn’t sustain themselves making them. They didn’t need putzes like Max stealing their work.
After much agonizing while munching on a bowl of Cheerios studded with pieces of banana, I wrote Marla a quick note detailing the theft.
“It’s painful for me to write this, and I’m not telling you this to get the job,” I concluded, “although I’d love to get the job. I’m telling you this so you don’t hire someone who isn’t who they say they are, who doesn’t have the ethics someone in your office should have. All the best, Kayla.”
Milkweed Mansion was quiet and empty when I got there. Almost.
Landon was there, cleaning up the foyer. He wore holey jeans and a white T-shirt that said “Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening” with a drawing of Galileo on it.
“Hey,” I said, suddenly too tongue-tied to say anything else.
“Hey,” Landon said in a warm-butter voice, coming over to me and taking my mouth with his.
Somehow his languid kiss untied my tongue.
“You left early this morning,” I managed when we took a breath and stepped apart.
“I saw some stuff on the tour last night I want to take care of. Just a few things here and there.”
“Don’t clean up all our decay, now. That’s the main selling point.”
He laughed. “No chance of that. The decor last night really brought out how rough-looking some of those rooms are.”
“Don’t I know it,” I said dryly.
“Are you worried? Tonight is going to be great. I’m feeling really good about this.”
“And you should. Because you did everything, Landon. There’s no way I could have pulled all this together by myself.”
“Oh, you put in plenty of sweat equity.” He shot me the Fireworks.
His smile made me want to taste his lips again. I barely restrained myself. Take it slow, idiot. “I wanted to clean up the kitchen a little bit. Just make sure the caterers can use the sink if they need it. Though Millie says they’re bringing a truck.”
“She’s a whirlwind. I think you’re in good shape. Great, actually.” He scanned my body, my shorts and tight little T-shirt, and my face heated.
I had no idea how I was going to get through this. My emotions were popping like popcorn. Lust. Fear. Like. Deep like. Not the other “L” word. I couldn’t articulate that yet, but it was there, just under the surface.
But we managed to keep our hands off each other, mostly, as we did the last-minute jobs to get the house ready for visitors. Landon had an extra portable toilet brought in, so now there were two for guests; only the VIPs and our performers were allowed to use the one in the house, which had been minimally renovated in a retro style under Landon’s guidance, with secondhand fixtures.
Separately, we went home to get ready for the night, but he volunteered to drive us both over after we changed into our costumes.
It was almost Halloween. We had to have costumes.
I was a spider woman, dressed in a short, tight, sleeveless black dress printed with sparkly white webs that was a thousand times more daring than my usual garb. It went up to my neck, but it barely came below my ass. My legs were clad in webby black tights, and I wore black flats just in case I had to run from any ghosts. My hair was swept up in a sparkling spider clip to complete the look, and I went dramatic with the makeup. Considering I hardly ever wore makeup, it was definitely dramatic.
Landon visibly did a double-take when he saw me emerge into the living room.
I did the same, because he was dressed in an outlandish two-piece suit. It was black, covered in cartoony white skulls, and had broad black lapels. He wore a red shirt beneath with a black bow tie and his black high-tops. He was ridiculous. Yummy. Ridiculously yummy.
“Where did you get that?”
“Damien hooked me up. Apparently he has a thing for crazy suits.”
“It’s too bad I don’t have the time to undress you,” I said, then clapped a hand over my mouth.
Landon’s easy, deep voice almost stripped me of its own accord as he walked slowly over to me. “I could make the time.”
We had a volcanic stare-off, and then my phone buzzed in my little black purse. I held up a finger, pulled it out and glanced at the screen. “Text from Millie. She says all the ghouls and staff are there and ready to go and where the hell am I?”
“Guess that solves that little problem,” he said, his voice a low growl. He leaned in, slipping an arm around me and — hello! — under my short hem to grab my behind, and then he kissed all my lipstick off. “I’m driving,” he said when he let go.
“OK,” I squeaked. At this point I just wanted to skip the haunted house and fuck his brains out.
Instead, I fixed my lipstick on the ride over, and we made an entrance, since several of the VIPs had already arrived. Tours hadn’t started yet, but Ez and the Emeralds were rocking in the ballroom, and the food was making the rounds. Neil and the Bohemia Bartenders were doling out delicious cocktails. One was a variation on the Dark and Stormy with rum and ginger beer, garnished with disgusting-looking eyeballs made from lychees and cherries, and that’s the one I opted to try first, carrying it around as I met the well-heeled of Bohemia.
There was a whirlwind of introductions as Alex brought us to a lot of the people he knew from the fundraiser circuit, and they were eager to talk about my plans for an event space. Some of the VIPs were dressed in Halloweeny garb, but most just went with black. It appeared most of the women had taken the advice we’d given them and worn semi-sensible shoes, though there were still a few heels. Hey, some women could run marathons in them, so they’d probably be fine going on the scary tour. Personally, I’d break a leg.
There were a lot of comments on how Landon and I matched and how good we looked together. They were treating us like a couple. It was so weird. I hadn’t been in a couple in a while, and to be fair, I still wasn’t in one. But this moment of couplehood felt so much better than anything in the past, and I wondered if there was any chance of this feeling in the future.
I was way, way out on a limb on a tree I’d sworn I’d never climb again.
Annabel and Andy, my newfound stepsiblings, had shown up, and they were enthusiastic about all the work that had been done with the place. I thanked them for what they’d done — Annabel had made good on her word and sent over professional help a few times in the past few weeks — and I promised I wouldn’t be a stranger. They even had a friendly conversation with my mom and grandma, which was totally weird, but their mom wasn’t there, saving us all what I suspected would’ve been a supremely awkward moment.
There was no sign of Max, and when I met Marla and her boss, they said nothing about my little note about hi
s stolen footage. But Marla was super-nice, so at least I’d made a friend, I told myself, even if I didn’t get the job.
Landon introduced me to his father, Paul Putter. I could see traces of Landon’s good looks in his father’s face, though his dad was a lot more sunburned — from construction or golf, I couldn’t say. He was friendly and polite, and I caught him giving Landon a look I found hard to define but wasn’t particularly happy with. I think it said, “Yeah, I’d hit that. Way to go, son.”
To Landon’s credit, he didn’t look at all comfortable at the moment.
When Jace made his entrance in his vampire outfit, even the aged ladies among the crowd gasped like schoolgirls and rushed over to meet him. He was incredibly gracious, and I was incredibly grateful.
A striking woman in a vampiric dress trailed him. Her purple-hued sparkling makeup contrasted beautifully with her dark skin. “Wendy?”
“Hey, Kayla!” she came over to greet me and Landon. “Penelope recruited me to be the tour guide after Jace does his thing tonight, so I’ll be shadowing the groups as they go through.”
“That is soooo cool of you,” I gushed. Wendy had been one of the stars of Jace’s rewrite of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Chamberlain Theater. I’d heard a lot about it but never had a chance to see it.
“Well, I’m not in any plays right now, and my software job is driving me nuts. I need an outlet, you know?”
“I totally know,” I said. “I was recently relieved of my job. I guess this is my job now.”
She grinned. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, but this place is amazing.”
“Totally worth the effort,” Landon said.
“Thanks again!” I said as Jace beckoned for her to follow.
Many of us followed them out to the porch to see the launch of the tours. Jace stood in the yard with the big illuminated wraith billowing behind him. He’d prepared a few words to introduce the haunted house, and he was in the middle of his speech when a car roared up the drive. There weren’t supposed to be any cars out here except for some of the people putting on the event, and they’d all parked off to the side to leave plenty of room for guests to stroll around the yard.
The invader was a Porsche SUV, and Max Junior stumbled out of it, holding a bottle and screaming, “WHERE IS THE BASTARD BITCH?”
Then he spotted me on the porch. “Ah. There you are!”
Chapter 24
“Well, this is awkward,” Landon said at my ear, and his droll comment made me do the most inappropriate thing.
I laughed.
“You’re laughing at me?” Max screamed. He pitched his booze bottle at me, and the crowd screamed and scattered. I jumped, but the bottle didn’t even make it to the porch, just shattered on the walkway.
“I’m not laughing,” I said. Now I wasn’t, anyway.
“It wasn’t enough that you got this — this house,” he said, moving closer.
That’s when I remembered our security guy didn’t start until the next night. I clutched Landon’s arm.
“Noooo,” Max said, stopping just shy of the porch. Some of the VIPs had gone inside, but others just gawked, unsure whether this was part of the entertainment. “You had to submarine my job, too. What kind of a slut bastard bitch are you?”
“Hey!” Landon said sharply while I gaped.
Marla, of all people, called out. “If anyone killed the job, it was you, sir,” she said. “And you know exactly why.”
Slightly taken aback, Max wavered on his feet before letting out a roar. “I’ll show you what I think of your haunted house!”
He sprinted back to his SUV. I was debating trying to usher everyone inside, not knowing whether he was armed or just drunk, when he revved up the engine, backed up, then gunned it, aiming right for the giant glowing wraith behind Jace.
Jace leapt out of the way with the magnificent grace of Batman swinging from the Batrope.
“Oh, no,” I said just as Landon held up his hands and shouted “Stop!”
It was too late. If anything, Max accelerated, and he slammed into the wraith with a loud crunch.
Because the wraith was built atop the giant tree stump.
“Oh, fuck,” I said, running out to see if he was OK, followed by Landon, along with Annabel and Andy, who’d seen the whole thing.
“I told you he was drinking again,” I heard Annabel say to Andy.
Oh, geez.
The airbags had gone off, but before we even got to the car, Max stumbled out. He was intact, but he had a small, bloody cut on his head, and he seemed as dazed as a zombie. He lurched forward, then fell back on his butt.
Marla had run out, too. “I called 911,” she said. “An ambulance will be here any minute.”
Even as she spoke, I heard the siren, and a few minutes later, the flashing lights lit up the oaks as it pulled up the drive, followed by a couple of police cars.
Jace called out to his first tour group. “Let me take you to the real show, ladies and gentlemen. I understand you’re interested in some haunted real estate?” And by some miracle, he and Wendy got the guests moving as the cops sorted out what happened and the EMTs checked out Max.
“He’s refusing transport,” one of them told Annabel, who’d stepped up and claimed her brother.
“I’ll take him home,” she said. “And I’ll call a tow truck tomorrow,” she said to me.
“No hurry,” Landon said, a trace of amusement in his tone. “The car actually looks pretty good there.”
It kind of did. The glowing wraith hadn’t budged at all. Only now its huge, skeletal claws reached out over the car as if the ghost had caused the disaster.
Annabel also somehow talked the cops out of citing her brother — that’s what the reasonable one in a wealthy family did, I imagined — and she came over to say goodbye. Max was now sobbing and saying over and over, “I had an invitation!”
“I’m so sorry about this,” Annabel said. “Please don’t think any of this is your fault. Someone else on the tourism council had tipped off the chief of the office about one clip in Max’s video, but he was reluctant to act because of his relationship with our father. Your letter revealed just how bad it was.”
“I’m still sorry,” I said, even though Max had tried to take out my wraith and called me some very nasty things.
“He needs some help. Maybe he’ll get it this time.” Then she hugged me, and they went on their way.
Through it all, Landon was calm and cool, helping out where needed, stepping back when his presence wouldn’t have been welcome. And once the Kanteras had left, the party went back to being relaxed and fun, though I heard the buzz around the ballroom about what had happened. I hoped Millie was right about all publicity being good, because this was the kind of gossip that was too good to die here.
I was delighted to see the guests coming back from their tours flushed, excited and laughing about what they’d seen, but not revealing its twists — Jace’s parting request to each group was to keep the house’s secrets intact. Duncan made an appearance between tours, filming himself in a video blog in his ridiculous spider outfit — he had a zillion followers, so that would be good publicity, at least. In spite of the evening’s chaos, I started to relax.
As I watched Landon chatting up some of his clients in the room, that ember of hope in my heart fluttered up into a flame. This was the day we were supposed to have that “date,” his silly condition for helping me with the house. Our post-midnight encounter certainly qualified.
And he’d also joked that I’d be in love with him by now. A familiar fear threw water on my hope, but the heat of the flames kicked it back.
I was afraid he was right.
But wouldn’t it be great to be right? Couldn’t it be?
As the tours concluded, Jace posed for pictures with guests. Millie collected the donations. I said goodbyes and thank-yous to as many people as I could. As the last few people left the ballroom and the band shut down, I looked around for Landon.
“I think he said something about showing his dad the garden?”
“OK, thanks.” More likely he was showing his dad where he’d placed the shed he’d donated. I didn’t blame him. It was a really fine shed. I headed to the back door and stepped out.
It was dark out here and fairly quiet now that the band and the haunters had ceased their racket. But I dimly heard voices beyond a cluster of oaks and palms. I took a few steps and stopped when I heard my name.
“Has she agreed yet?” came Paul Putter’s voice.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Dad.” Landon.
“This is the perfect spot. The lot is huge. We don’t have to knock down the house. It could even be a clubhouse. But the condo buildings will look great on the south end. The river view is fantastic. Don’t you agree it’ll be perfect?”
“Yes, it’ll be perfect,” came the offhand response.
“We’ll just cut down the oaks … ”
A wave of nausea hit me, and I faltered backward, then turned and ran. I wasn’t sure where I was going. I ran around the house and toward the cliff that overlooked the river. I stopped and gasped for breath, my hope crunching underfoot like the leaves.
Silhouetted there against the starry night and the glittering water, the beautiful gazebo promised a future. A future I wasn’t going to have with Landon.
Chapter 25
I gave Millie my key to lock up, and then I got a ride to Bohemia Beach with Alex and Sloane. They were excited about the big success of the haunted house. Sloane had funny stories about people’s reactions to her horrific costume. And I tried to be happy, too, at least until they dropped me off at my mom’s.
As soon as she opened the door, I burst into tears.
Here’s the thing about my mom. She didn’t demand an explanation. She just took me in and gave me a long hug and made me some hot cocoa, loaned me yoga pants and a T-shirt, then gave me a fluffy pillow, sheets and blankets so I could crash on the couch. Nightmares plagued my fitful sleep, but finally I was ready to get up and get on with the day and my new life. Which in one significant way was the same as my old life.
Bohemia Chills Page 14
