“He told me not to contact him unless it was an emergency,” the nanny said, looking equal parts outraged and thrilled to be there. “When I told him there was something in the house, he sent the police to investigate. Of course they couldn’t find anything. The place is haunted.”
The picture shifted back to Kelly, standing in what North now recognized as the Great Hall at Archer House.
“Something . . .” Kelly whispered, her eyes glassy, “is very wrong . . . in this old house . . . These children . . . are in danger . . . and their guardian . . . a man of immense wealth and stature . . . does not care!” Her face grew larger as she stepped closer to the camera, her pupils dilated so that her eyes looked black. “Are you watching . . . North Archer?”
She lifted her chin, defiant, and North said, “Look at her eyes. She’s stoned.”
Kelly stepped back. “Tune in tomorrow, Columbus . . . I’ll have interviews . . . with the children . . . and proof of their neglect . . . at the hands of their newest nanny . . .”
North got up and went around to sit on the desk, his arms folded.
“. . . North Archer’s ex-wife.”
You’re done, O’Keefe, North thought grimly.
“. . . much more about . . . the Orphans of Archer House!”
Lydia clicked off the TV with the remote. “I’m having her killed, of course.” She turned back to North. “I know you can take care of yourself, but that kind of thing does us no good.”
North picked up the phone and punched in the number for Archer House.
“What are you doing?” Lydia snapped.
The phone rang and he got a recording claiming a disruption of service. Was O’Keefe crazy enough to cut the phone lines?
“North, pay attention. If you don’t care about what she’s doing to you, think about your brother. She’s got him alone down there, duping him because I’m damn sure he’d never let her say that about you.”
North put the phone down. “First, Sullivan is not stupid so you can stop treating him as if he’s ten. Second, she doesn’t have him alone down there. I sent Andie, remember.”
Lydia turned back to the TV, punched the eject button, and took out the tape. “Get your coat. I don’t know the way to the house, so you’ll have to come with me.”
“No.” I can do more damage to her up here.
“North, your brother and a predatory news reporter are in a house in the middle of nowhere with two disturbed orphans and your ex-wife who is not a patient woman.” Lydia put the tape in her purse. “Imagine the possibilities.”
North imagined them. The best was Andie strangling Kelly O’Keefe with videotape. The worst was O’Keefe finding out that Andie thought the house was haunted and was sending him after bodies in Britain.
“Why are you smiling?” Lydia snapped.
“Andie and Kelly O’Keefe in a smackdown.”
“She’s probably a biter,” Lydia said.
“She is.”
“I meant Kelly O’Keefe,” Lydia said, her voice frosty.
“Right,” North said. “Leave Andie to handle it.”
“You’re an idiot,” Lydia said and walked out.
In the ensuing quiet, North sat on the edge of his desk and considered his options. Some were fair—calling the station to point out libel could be expensive—and some were not—calling the McKennas to find out what string he could pull that would shut Kelly O’Keefe up about the Archers for good. If there was anything, the McKennas would find it, although they’d looked into Will Spenser and found nothing wrong with him, which was disappointing. “Well, he’s a writer,” Gabe had said when he called. “You know those guys. But no debt, no police record, people like him. He’s clean.”
Kelly O’Keefe was not going to be clean. And she was down there sticking a knife into Andie right now.
But if he showed up out of the blue, O’Keefe would think she was on to something. He needed a reason to go. Checking on his wards? He could have done that anytime, probably should have done that. He needed a reason to go back, something like Andie’s alimony checks. “I had to bring this down . . .”
Yeah, because FedEx was broken. He didn’t have to take anything anywhere. Unless it was something he had to deliver . . .
He got up and went over and opened the farthest cabinet on the end of the wall, and then reached in, far to the back, and pulled out the box that Andie had left behind, forgotten under their bed, an old cheap wood thing that she’d glued shells to in junior high or something. Really ugly. She’d loved it, and he’d put in it all the odds and ends she’d left behind, thinking he could give it back when he saw her again because he couldn’t imagine not seeing her again. And then he hadn’t seen her again.
He took it back to his desk and put it in the middle of his blotter and then opened it to see what thing he could announce was crucial to deliver in person.
Junk. Ticket stubs from concerts—why hadn’t he thrown those away? he thought even as he remembered each one, Andie close beside him in the night—and a single earring—she must have taken the other half of the pair with her—and the diamond earrings he’d given her for her birthday—late, he remembered, but he couldn’t remember why he’d bought such boring diamonds, she wouldn’t have wanted diamonds anyway, it must have been his secretary who’d bought them, he’d been too busy—and finally Polaroids, losing color with age. He pulled the photos out and went through them, seeing Andie with Southie, Andie with her first-period English class, Andie laughing with him, and then he turned over the last two, the oldest, the ones he’d taken of her the morning after they’d gotten married. She’d been tangled naked in the sheets, half awake, and he’d gone out to the car for his evidence camera and snapped the pictures, and she’d yawned and said, “What are you doing?” and then she’d smiled and he’d snapped another one . . .
He didn’t need a reason. He could just go down there because it was his house and his wards.
And his ex-wife.
He put everything back in the box and closed the lid, left a note on Kristin’s desk to cancel his appointments for the next two days, and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag.
He was fairly sure he knew what he was doing.
The storm knocked out the phone lines—“They must be made of tissue paper,” Andie told Southie, “they go out every fifteen minutes”—and then knocked out the sun, too, the heavy cloud cover making it dark when Andie moved Alice’s things into the nursery. “I don’t like it here,” Alice said as Andie began to move her own things in. “I like my wall drawings.”
“You can draw them again in here,” Andie said, and Alice looked at the vast expanses of white wall available to her and went to get her markers.
Andie looked around and saw no ghosts and went downstairs to help Southie get ready for the séance, feeling ahead of the game. He’d gone out earlier for groceries and liquor, but he was back now, having fully stocked the pantry and the bar.
“I don’t see why we can’t do this in the dining room,” Andie told him as they shoved an old round table into the middle of the Great Hall.
“Kelly wants it here.” Southie looked around the room. “It’s probably a good place for it. Hard to fake results in here. Not impossible, but not as easy as in a smaller room with lots of furniture.”
“I thought this Isolde woman was the best medium in Ohio.” Andie frowned. “Which, come to think of it, probably isn’t that great a distinction. How many mediums does Ohio have, anyway?”
“I think Kelly wants it in here for the filming,” Southie said. “She’s interested in ratings.” He smiled at Andie. “I, on the other hand, am interested in ghosts.”
Andie raised her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me. Your newest hobby is séances?”
“Hauntings,” Southie said. “I don’t know if there’s anything in it, but researching it has been interesting.”
“There’s something in it,” Andie said, and waited for him to laugh.
“Really.” He sat on the
edge of the table. “You’ve seen them?”
“Yes. So if you’ve seen anything weird here, it’s not you. It’s real.”
“I had weird sex last night.”
“You had sex with Kelly?”
“She showed up in my room, acting strangely. It wasn’t because of the Bert and Ernie bedspread. The lights were off.”
“So of course you slept with her.” And now the cameraman is furious. Andie shook her head, picturing May sucking up power like a milkshake, making that scraping noise with the straw when she got to the bottom.
“She was naked,” Southie said, as if that explained everything. Then he frowned. “So, you really think there are ghosts here.”
“Yes, and I want them out, which is why I let you and Dennis in. It’s a shame we had to let Kelly in, too, but as you said, package deal.” She watched him, wondering if it was kinder not to tell him that Kelly was also sleeping with the cameraman or better to clue him in. May was probably already glutted from last night, maybe now was the time.
He smiled at her cheerfully: happy, uncomplicated Southie.
“Southie,” she began, and then Kelly came in looking hungover and said, “So, are we ready?”
“For what?” Andie said, looking at her with distaste.
Kelly frowned at the table. “We need candles,” she told Southie. “Go find a lot of them.”
He nodded and ambled off, and Kelly smiled brightly at Andie. “Now we’ll be filming this, and I think it would be really interesting if the children were here.”
“Over my dead body,” Andie said.
“Okay then,” Kelly said brightly. “I’ll just interview them before—”
“You will not go near my kids.”
“Your kids?” Kelly arched her eyebrows. “So you and North are adopting them?”
“Stay away from the children,” Andie said, and the note of dead seriousness must have soaked in through Kelly’s big hair because she lost her smile.
“Well, really, Andie, I’m just trying to give as unbiased a report on the ghosts as possible. The children have lived in this house longer than anyone except Mrs. Crumb. They’ll have many insights.” She flashed her toothy smile again. “So you see—”
“Suppose I give you a choice,” Andie said, watching her. “You can film the séance or you can interview the kids.”
“Oh.” Kelly brightened. “Well, I’d prefer both, of course, but if I had to choose, interviews are always better, human interest and all, and the kids are so bright that I’m sure my viewers will prefer that.” She patted Andie’s arm. “I’ll take the kids.”
Andie bit back the urge to snarl. “That’s what I thought. You don’t give a rat’s ass about ghosts, you’re here to get at those kids. I don’t know why, but trust me, if I find you anywhere near them, I’ll have your ass out on the driveway faster than Southie had you in bed last night.”
Kelly drew back, outraged, and Andie plunged on.
“You cannot talk to them, you cannot approach them, hell, I don’t want you waving to them across the Great Hall. They are forever off limits to you.”
Kelly stared at her for a long minute and then said, “I would have thought a woman would have more sympathy for me.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to rebuild my career,” Kelly said, stepping closer. “You make one mistake and it’s gone—”
“You made a woman throw up on television.”
“—but all I need is one great story and I could be back again. I just want to do a little ghost story, Andie, is that so much to ask?” She put her hand on Andie’s arm. “One woman to another?”
“You go near my kids and I promise you, you’ll throw up on TV.”
Kelly pulled her hand back. “So that offer of the kids or the séance wasn’t an offer at all. I took your offer as a contract, and a verbal contract is binding, you know.”
“So is my foot up your ass,” Andie said, as Southie came back into the Great Hall with a box of candles.
“Mrs. Crumb gave me these,” he said. “We’re all set.”
“Would you like to discuss legally binding verbal contracts with my lawyer?” Andie said to Kelly, gesturing to Southie. “Or would you like to quit now?”
Kelly glared at them both and left the room.
“You want to catch me up?” Southie said to Andie.
“I won’t let her near the kids,” Andie said.
“Of course not. She’d probably suck their souls out.” Southie started to take pillar candles out of the box.
“Isn’t this the woman you’re sleeping with?”
“Yes. She sucked my soul out last night.”
“That I didn’t need to know,” Andie said, feeling nauseated.
“Oh, no, I meant the weird, cold sex, not that she . . . although she did that, too.”
“Southie, I’m having a bad day—”
“Mother kept talking about her teeth but I never really thought about them until she was—”
“Southie!”
“Now I can’t stop thinking about them.”
“Southie, please stop.”
“I’m just saying, that’s a scary woman.” He pulled out a Precious Moments candle and looked at it, frowning, and then put it on the table.
“So you’re not going to sleep with her anymore,” Andie said, thinking, Good, I don’t have to tell him she was doing the cameraman, too. That’ll cool May’s jets.
“Of course I’ll sleep with her again,” Southie said. “I’ll keep the lights off. Can’t see her teeth then.”
Andie shook her head and helped him unload the last of the candle assortment onto the table, and when they were done, he hesitated, and then he said, “You know North still loves you, right?”
Andie stepped back. “What?”
“I’m not going to tell you there haven’t been other women because there have been. Quite a few, to tell you the truth.”
“Good for him,” Andie said, frowning at him while she ignored the little leap her heart had taken when he’d said “still loves you.” “Although not information I really wanted. I have other problems right now—”
“But it’s always going to be you for him,” Southie said, sounding mystified. “I do not understand this one-woman-for-life thing, but then we’re different, North and me.”
“Really? I never noticed.” Andie jerked her head toward the dining room, pretending she didn’t care. “I have to get the chairs. Want to help?”
“I’m trying to help,” Southie said, sounding exasperated. “If you and North would stop being so damn civilized and just have that knock-down-drag-out fight you’ve been spoiling for for ten years—”
“We’ve been fighting.”
“You’ve been bitching at each other. You need to just let it all out. And then everything will be fine.”
“You’re delusional,” Andie said, and went to get the chairs.
“The makeup sex would be phenomenal,” Southie called after her.
The sex was always phenomenal, Andie thought. But now there are ghosts, so no, thanks.
She picked up the first dining room chair and carried it into the Great Hall as Southie went in to get another one, trying really hard not to feel good about the idea that North still loved her. Southie was such a romantic, it was probably all in his head. Where it should have stayed.
When he came back, she said, “You annoy me.”
“Good. I’ll stop when you and North get back together.”
“Never gonna happen,” Andie said.
“Then why are you wearing his ring?”
Andie looked down at the ring she’d forgotten she was wearing. “Because I’m pretending to be married to him.”
“And why are you doing that?”
“Because . . .” She glared at Southie. “Hey, this is none of your business.” She didn’t have to explain anything to Southie, especially now, when she was trying to evict ghosts.
She went back to the dining room fo
r more seating.
“Okay, fine, tell me about the ghosts,” Southie said, following her, and grateful for the change in subject, she told him everything as they set up the séance.
The medium arrived at six, just after Andie settled the kids in the library with Coke, cheese sandwiches, carrots and ranch dressing, potato chips, and strict instructions not to come into the Great Hall for any reason. Then she heard the doorknocker and went to get it, but Kelly beat her to it, letting in a lot of the storm along with her hired ghost wrangler.
“This is Isolde Hammersmith,” Kelly said, as if she’d just invented her and they should applaud.
Andie wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting a medium to look like—probably something between Madame Arcati and Miss Havisham. Kelly’s medium was somewhere between forty and death with a face like a hatchet: high forehead, high cheekbones, long nose, long chin, the verticality broken only by Cleopatra eyes, narrow green leopard-print glasses, and lips so huge and red they practically ran from ear to ear even though Isolde was not smiling. “Fucking Motel Six,” she said to Kelly, pulling a wildly patterned scarf from her explosion of black, teased Farrah hair and shaking the rain from it. “Fucking storm.”
“You should stay here for the night,” Andie said, hanging up Isolde’s coat. Putting one more person to bed on the second floor wasn’t going to cause a blip in her life at this point.
“Oh, yeah, I’ll stay here.” Isolde snorted, her blouse glittering as she turned to survey the place. She was wearing an orange, red, and yellow Picasso-print silk shirt dotted with sequins and tiny glittery beads over skintight black pants and black stilettos.
Alice was going to shriek with envy when she saw the blouse.
Isolde jerked her head in the direction of the front of the house, making her big gold bangle earrings swing. “Fucking driveway. Almost took my bumper off. And your phone is out. Harold doesn’t like it.”
Andie looked around for Harold, but Kelly said, “Harold’s her spirit guide.”
“Of course he is.” Andie tried smiling at the medium, who was surveying the stone corridor with suspicion. “Kelly thought you’d want to hold the séance in the Great Hall. We have smaller rooms if you’d rather.”