“Really? Does Kristi know that?” Dallas asked.
Finley shrugged. “Probably not—but Jamie is a good boy. I imagine he thinks if he defied Ian’s wishes, he’d rot in hell, or some such notion. But it wouldn’t be fear of reprisal—Jamie loves Kristi and appreciates all she did for Ian, especially after he went away to school. And she’s only about four years older than Jamie, but when you’re kids, that’s a lot. She was his babysitter. He thinks of her as a big sister.”
“Did Ian come up with anything special about two years ago?” Dallas asked.
“Anything special? Two years ago, huh?” Finley said thoughtfully. “Interesting, maybe. I haven’t got a good recollection of time. But I do remember a while back he was excited about something...thought he might blow the minds of local folk—and maybe historians all around. He asked me to come over. He was going to show me, and ask me what we should do about it—think he’d called old Jedidiah, too. When I called and told him I’d be there the next day, he started laughing. Said he didn’t know what he did with the letter he’d found, that he was researching, and that he’d put me off just a bit until he had it in his own two hands again.” He paused, and shrugged. “Mr. Wicker, I’m almost eighty-seven, and I was considered to be the young-un in our crew. Well, me along with Jonah Whitney. Don’t go getting me wrong—we’re good people. Did we like to play dress up and go to battle? Hell, yes. But hey, that’s not all. See, studying the past helps let us see where we go in the future. Ian was a huge believer in education—there’s a saying, or several sayings. But the gist is that, in America today, it’s not supposed to matter how you were born to who—what matters is what you choose to make of yourself. So, Ian thought we were all born equal—what wasn’t equal were the opportunities that might present themselves to a man or a woman. He was a huge proponent of education—said he never minded his taxes going to schools, whether he had a kid in school at the time or not. Education was everything.”
“I wish I could have known him,” Dallas said, smiling sincerely.
“Yeah. Hey, we’re here for Lachlan, and chatting up old Ian. But Lachlan loved Ian, too.”
“They knew one another well? His coworkers believed Ian might have had talked about some therapeutic exercise, but I didn’t know the two were really friends.”
“Friends, sir, is when you meet someone, and you like them, and maybe you haven’t even known them long, but there’s something there. Acquaintances is when you see someone all the time, and you’re polite and all—but you’d really not have much to say to one another if you went to lunch.”
“Very sage, sir,” Dallas said. “But—”
“Sage—hell, yes. I’m eighty-seven, like I told you.”
“But was Lachlan seeing Ian as a friend—as well as to instruct him?”
“I don’t think that they ever got to the instructing part—they were friends, yes.” He laughed softly. “Ian, me, Jedidiah, over the years, we’ve driven the poor kids—like Jamie and Kristi—to just about mania, we repeat our old stories so over and over again. Lachlan Plant was a new set of ears—he loved listening! Hard to find someone who wants to listen on end to a bunch of old opinionated geezers!”
“The cops interviewed hundreds of people when the deaths occurred. Did you tell all this to anyone?”
“What was to tell? Ian went out his balcony—hard to argue suicide when he said he was going to do it. And Lachlan, well, there was an inexplicable tragedy. Yes, cops talked to me. They asked me if I’d ever heard Ian say he was going to end it his way when the time was right. I don’t lie to cops—I told them the truth, that, yes, I’d heard him say such a thing. As to Lachlan—could he have died on a damned curb? Damned strange, but then I’ve seen a hell of a lot—I did tell you I was eighty-seven, right?”
He saw there was a twinkle in the old man’s eye and he smiled. “Yes, you told me, and I think your faculties are all there, and you like to use your age when you choose to forget something—or say something over again.”
“You got my number, kid.”
Dallas smiled and glanced at his watch.
Kristi had been gone too long for a simple trip to the restroom.
“Excuse me, sir, please. I so enjoyed listening to you, and I hope we can meet again. But I’m going to see where Kristi got off to—she needed to get back.”
“Sure thing. You go find that pretty girl, son!”
* * *
Dead—or alive.
Kristi didn’t scream; she pulled her phone from her purse and clicked on the flashlight app and burst out of the stall, shining the light around.
Someone opened the door and came in.
“Whoa...hey, what’s up in here?” a young woman asked. “There...the switch is there, right by the door. There’s the light!”
And Kristi was left standing there, as if she hadn’t been bright enough to know if entering a darkened room, there just might be a light switch by the door.
She smiled weakly and ran out. Hurrying through the bar, she saw Dallas was no longer at the table with Henry Finley. She moved through the crowd to reach the old man’s table; he was in discussion with two of the gym trainers who had been Lachlan’s coworkers.
“Sorry, but, Henry, do you know where Dallas went?” she asked.
“Looking for you.” He eyed her up and down. “You all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something. Oh, I know!” he lowered his voice. “Constipation. Just get yourself a bunch of roughage, my girl, pretty thing like you, no, you don’t want to discuss or think about it, but...lots of roughage!”
“Um, sure, thanks, Henry.” She waved to him, and looked through the crowd, but she didn’t see Dallas. She realized she was still scared—uneasy. The whisper had been close; it had snaked along her spine.
She found Amy and Boyd and thanked them, and walked out onto the street. It was busy with people. The afternoon was waning into evening, and the riverfront was a popular destination, filled with restaurants and bars.
But while she felt safe in the multitude of people, she still didn’t see Dallas. Then her phone rang.
“Where are you?” he asked her.
“Outside—looking for you.”
“Find you there.”
He hung up. Barely a minute later, and he was out on the street with her, slipping an arm around her shoulder. “I was getting worried,” he admitted.
She smiled. “I’m fine—but I have had an interesting time.”
“So have I—but you tell me. What happened?” He studied her intensely for a moment. “What’s going on—what’s wrong?”
“Let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you on the drive.”
The drive was only a matter of blocks; she still did her best to tell him about the whispered words she’d overheard out by the trellis—and then the strange threat that had been directed to her in the restroom.
“In the restroom, were you threatened by name?”
“No, not by name. The voice just said, ‘Leave it alone, I’m warning you. Leave it alone, or you’ll be next.’ I was in there, and it was suddenly dark. Maybe—maybe it was meant for someone else. Maybe it was even someone in management, warning a server there, or they thought I was someone else. Now that I’m out of the dark, I’m not so afraid. But when it happened, I didn’t know, Dallas. I couldn’t tell if it came from someone living, a woman with a throaty voice—or if a dead man was threatening me.”
“You should have screamed—loud, like a banshee,” he told her.
“I almost did, but... I was too afraid I’d be screaming because of a ghost.”
“Ghost or not—scream. Better to look a little foolish and live. Kristi, with what’s going on here, you have to be safe.” He was silent a minute. “You need to get out of here—take a vacation somewhere unknown for a few weeks.”
She was surprised by the way she reacted, but s
omething about his words just hit her wrong. Leave? They were close. The ghost was coming to her.
“What?” she demanded. “No, oh, no, Mr. FBI-Private-Investigator-Whatever—you need to solve this thing. We’re nowhere, nowhere at all.”
“Believe it or not, we are somewhere, Kristi. We aren’t just scratching our heads and saying, ‘Wow, yes, this is weird.’ We are moving forward—I learned a great deal from your friend Mr. Finley. And you were just threatened—someone knows we’re close, and that’s why I’m afraid for you. And, you...you’ve made contact. Eliza Malone reached out to you. And Jackson and Angela are coming—and maybe we’ll get your wish, we’ll find a rotting body!”
Kristi gasped. “It’s not my wish!”
“Kristi, I’m sorry—”
“So am I. I’m just scared.”
“That’s why you should get away from here.”
She shook her head and said softly, “No. You need me now.”
“And,” he said, “you overheard other whispers. Someone talking about a letter. Maybe whoever that was saw you, too, and it sounds like they were flesh and blood.”
“They could have been talking about something else, too. I’ll never know—they were gone. I didn’t see them.”
“Just because you didn’t see them does not mean they didn’t see you.”
“I don’t see how they could have seen me. And you’re in just as much danger as I am, if someone thinks we’re close. Lachlan Plant was a big man, fit in every way possible. And they got to him!”
“There’s a difference,” he said.
“And what’s that?”
“Lachlan wasn’t a trained agent, looking for danger. And he didn’t carry a Glock.”
They’d arrived at her house; there was another car in front. Dallas got out of the driver’s seat; he closed the door heavily and came around to her side. As he did so, the front door opened, and Jonah came down the steps, an attractive couple in tow.
The man was tall and dark, with a handsome face that gave evidence of a Native American background.
She was pale and blond, tall still, but not so much next to him.
“Hey, super—you guys got here really quickly!” Dallas said.
Dallas greeted the blond woman with a warm hug, and the man with a quick handshake. Kristi watched them all, and while they quickly greeted one another first, Jonah came toward Kristi.
“Nice couple, really cool—I was surprised when they got here, worried I’d made reservations we couldn’t honor, but they said they were friends with Dallas, and they weren’t staying here, just waiting for the two of you to get back. Jackson and Angela. I guess you haven’t met them yet.”
“I guess I haven’t,” Kristi said.
“Come on,” Jonah, said, taking her by the arm. “Hey, folks, the queen of our little world, Kristi Stewart. Kristi, Angela and Jackson.”
She shook hands with the pair, wishing she wasn’t falling into such a tumble of emotions.
“What a beautiful house!” Angela told her.
“Thank you,” Kristi said. “We really would be fine with you staying here.” She glanced at Dallas. “We could rearrange a bit. I did get a text from Jamie—anything is fine with him, you’re welcome to the Murphy house, but no one has lived in it in for a bit now, and it’s musty, and it could really use a good cleaning.” Again, she glanced at Dallas. “It’s just quite—dark.”
“Oh, trust me, we’ll be fine. We’ve stayed all kinds of places,” Jackson assured her. “I think we’ll be very lucky to stay over there, then we’ll really see your place, and the Murphy house—how many tourists get to say they’ve enjoyed that kind of visit?”
“Did you want to go now?” Kristi asked.
Jonah was still out there with them, beaming, happy to have made new friends. “Go now? They may not be staying here, but we’ve got our teatime and cocktail hour going on here. Why, they were just chatting it up with Granger and his girls, and Carl is in there—I think he’s a little shocked himself with the results of his video. Says he can hardly go out on the streets anymore, now that people know he’s in town!”
“We are getting to know your guests,” Jackson Crow said. “And, I must say, Genie Turner is a talent. Best piece of pecan pie I’ve ever had.”
“Sure—I’m more than happy to handle the evening however you would like,” Kristi said.
“Well, come on, then, let’s head back in.” Jonah set a fatherly arm around Kristi’s shoulders, his smile fading slightly as he asked, “You feeling all right? I figured that funeral had to be hard on you—I know you liked the fellow. And him and Ian Murphy dying so close together, and not that long after Jedidiah. It’s just got to be a lot—a lot on anyone.”
“I’m fine—and happy that it all came together for him. In fact, I feel guilty. I wish I’d been more pro-active in taking care of a funeral for him. It just was all so fast. No excuse—I should have been a better friend.”
“Don’t you say that, Kristi. You’re good to everyone.” He winked at her. “Good to that new guy, huh, and he’s the one with the friend who gave most of the money for the funeral, right?”
“Right,” Kristi said.
Inside, she was immediately greeted with warmth and enthusiasm by Claire Danson and Carl Brentwood.
“The lady of the hour,” Claire greeted her.
“Lady of the hour? My heroine!” Carl said. “In fact, I should be jealous—almost half of the hundreds of comments on the video are about you.”
Murray Meyer walked up, nodding to her. “I got a call on Carl this morning—there’s a major studio with a picture in development about a man dealing with a haunted house—back in the West, 1880s, but it seems that Carl’s video made it to the producer, and he’s being offered the lead role.”
“I’m going to be a ghost!” Carl told her happily.
“That wonderful, Carl, congratulations,” Kristi told him.
He grinned. “And it’s all because of you.”
“I’m sure it’s because of your talent and work ethic,” Kristi said, “but I’m very glad that you’ve enjoyed it here.”
“We tried to go out today, it didn’t work out so well,” Murray said. “We had to get Carl whisked away in a car again. But people are careful about accosting us at the house.”
“Good. I’m glad it’s working out,” Kristi said, looking toward Dallas, Jackson and Angela. They were deep in conversation with Granger and Janet Knox. Kristi noted that Lacey was with them, but she wasn’t participating in the conversation—she was watching Carl.
Puppy love! So painful.
Kristi excused herself to head into the kitchen and check on Genie and Sydney.
Sydney was busy brewing more tea. Genie was just taking a tray of pastries from the oven.
“You’re back—how was it?” Genie asked her.
“I probably should have gone,” Sydney softly. “I did meet him a few times.”
“It’s okay, Sydney, there were a lot of people there. And it was nice, really—Amy Simmons and Boyd Morris did a really nice job on making very awkward arrangements. I’m sure that Lachlan would have appreciated what was done for him—and that they managed to get him into such a beautiful cemetery.”
“Well, there was nothing going on here today,” Sydney said. “The whole kit and caboodle of our guests were out.”
“Sydney, we do make beds and clean rooms,” Genie reminded her.
“But these are such tidy guests!” Sydney said.
Genie transferred her pastries from the baking tin to a plate. “And bless them! They eat. I’ll never forget when we had those folks we didn’t know were here for a meeting of the Beach Body Babes diet group. If I’d known...”
“Not to worry. Their loss. More delicious stuff for the rest of us,” Kristi said. “What can I do? Anything?”
“Get something to eat for yourself,” Genie instructed.
Kristi laughed. “I just came from the after-funeral reception at the brewery. I’m good, thanks.”
“Then, get out of the kitchen,” Genie said. “Go—socialize. Those new folks—friends of your friend. They’re lovely.”
“They are,” Sydney agreed. “But where are you going to stick them?”
“Oh, they’re not staying here, not to worry,” Kristi said. She headed out to the back parlor, and from there, she slipped outside to the courtyard. If Dallas was concerned that any of this mystery could have to do with her household or her guests, it was probably best not to say exactly where Jackson and Angela were staying.
Out back, she looked around, thinking that Monty and Justin might be there.
But they weren’t.
And when she headed back in, she discovered that the ghosts of both men were in the front parlor—like a pair of bookends, they were posed on either side of the mantel, apparently fascinated by whatever had been going on between the guests. Only Dallas wasn’t in the room. She was about to ask Jackson where he’d gone, but before she could, Granger Knox, who had been seated on one of the overly stuffed antique chairs by the sofa, stood up and looked at his wife. “Appetizers and desserts were delicious,” he said politely. “But, Janet, Lacey, I think we need to go out for some real dinner.”
Lacey Knox had finally made her way into conversation with Carl Brentwood. She stared at her father as if he had just shot an arrow through her heart.
“Mom, Dad, why don’t you two go on? I’m not hungry—I had some of the little sandwiches and one of Genie’s eclairs. I mean, honestly, I can’t believe you’re ready to eat after this.”
Granger frowned. “This is a family vacation. I want to go to dinner.”
Janet stepped in. “Granger, dear, Lacey is eighteen,” she said softly, reminding him that their daughter was of legal age—and didn’t have to accompany them anywhere.
The Summoning Page 21
