The Haunted Air

  "But—"

  "The dead do not come back to visit the living. Think about it: The faithful are with Jesus and when you are in the presence of the Lord you want for nothing. You do not miss the living you left behind, no matter how much you loved them in life, because you are basking in the love of God, you are in the blinding Holy Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember Corinthians: 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' To abandon that Presence would be… why, it would be completely unthinkable."

  Charlie nodded. He could get down with that. "A'ight, then. What about someone who ain't among the faithful?"

  "They burn in hellfire, Charles. Oh, the damned would dearly love to return, every single one of them. They'd give anything to come back, even for a second, a fraction of a second, but no matter how much they want to, they cannot. They aren't allowed. They're in hell for all eternity, and they must spend every second of forever in torment. 'The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night.'"

  "Then what—?"

  "A demon, Charles." The rev nodded gravely. "You see the simple logic of it, don't you. An angel wouldn't bear false witness to the living by pretending to be a dead person who's returned. Only a demon would engage in such a fiendish endeavor."

  "But why?"

  "To seduce the faithful away from the Lord and lead them onto the path toward eternal damnation. Your brother attracted the demon, but it is you it is after, Charles." He stabbed his finger across the table. "You! It lusts after your fragile soul so that it can serve it to its evil master on a silver platter!"

  The target of supernatural evil… not me, Charlie thought, terror rising like a flood tide. Please, Lord, not me.

  Charlie jumped as the rev slammed his palm onto his desktop. "Now will you leave your evil brother?"

  "He's—" Charlie cut himself off.

  The rev's eyes narrowed. "He's what? Are you going to tell me again he's not evil—after he's called up a demon?"

  He'd been about to say just that. And Lyle didn't call up no demon. Least not on purpose. He wasn't evil, just off track. He hadn't seen the light yet. But Charlie knew the rev wouldn't accept that.

  "He's in danger too, Rev. His soul, I mean. Shouldn't we try to save his soul too?"

  "From what you've told me I fear you brother's soul is lost forever."

  "I thought you always said no soul was lost forever long he still had a chance of accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior."

  The rev's gaze flickered. "Well, that's true, but do you really believe your brother will do that? Ever?"

  Lyle? Not very likely, but…

  "Miracles happen, Rev."

  He nodded. "Yes, they do. But miracles are the Lord's province. Leave the miracle of your brother's salvation to Him and see to your own by leaving that house."

  "Yes, Rev."

  "Today. Do I have your word on that?"

  "Yes, Rev."

  But not without Lyle. Charlie wasn't going to leave his brother in the clutches of no krunk demon.

  The rev hoisted himself out of his chair. "Then you better get to it."

  Charlie rose too. "I will." He hesitated. "Um, is Sharleen round about?"

  The rev fixed him with a stern gaze. "I've seen the way you've been looking at my daughter. And I've seen the way she's been looking back at you. But I want you to steer clear of her until you've removed yourself from this evil. Right now you're at a dangerous crossroads. I want to see which path you choose before you involve yourself with Sharleen. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes." Stung, Charlie backed away. "Very."

  Reverend Sparks thought he was a danger to his daughter. He'd have to prove himself worthy. Okay. He'd do that. Today.

  8

  "I still don't believe you did it," Jack said.

  Gia sipped her green tea and tried to read his expression: Shock? Dismay? Anger? Fear? Maybe a mixture of all.

  "I'm fine, Jack. Besides, it wasn't as if I had much choice."

  "Of course you had a choice." He'd settled down from his original outburst and now wandered her kitchen, circling the breakfast table with his hands jammed into his jeans pockets. A barely touched beer sat on the table, condensation pooling around its base. "You could have said to yourself, 'Going alone to visit the possibly psycho father of a murdered girl and not telling anyone where I'll be is a dumb idea. Maybe I'll just skip it.'"

  "I had to know, Jack. It was going to drive me crazy if I didn't find out about her."

  "You could have told me what you were doing."

  "You would have thrown a hissy fit, just like you're doing now."

  "I don't throw hissy fits. I would have tried to talk you out of it, and if you still insisted I could have gone along as backup."

  "Who are you kidding? You've become so superprotective since I told you I was pregnant, you'd have probably locked me in a closet and gone yourself."

  "Maybe I'm suddenly superprotective because you're suddenly Repairwoman Jane."

  This was getting nowhere. Another sip of her tea—too sweet. She'd overdone the honey.

  "Do you want to know what I found out?" she said.

  "Yes, I do." He grabbed his beer and quaffed a few inches. "I just wish you hadn't found out the way you did." He sat on the end of the table. "Tell me. Please."

  Gia told him about Joe Portman, about Tara's mother and brother and what had befallen them since her abduction. She told him about the day of her disappearance, how she'd been wearing the exact same clothes, how she'd left the stable area to go down the block for a pretzel and was never seen again.

  "She did that every Thursday?" Jack said.

  Gia nodded. "Why? Is that important?"

  "Could be. Means she had an established pattern of behavior. That says to me there's a good chance it wasn't a random snatch. Somebody had been watching her. She'd been marked."

  Gia felt a chill. An innocent child, walking the same route every Thursday afternoon, just going for a snack, never realizing she was being stalked. How many pretzel runs had her abductor watched before deciding to pounce?

  She rubbed her arms to smooth the gooseflesh. "That's so creepy."

  "Because you're dealing with creeps. Just like…" His voice drifted off as he frowned.

  "What?"

  "Just like Bellitto and his buddy. The kid they snatched the other night—"

  "Due."

  "Right. He had a pattern too, at least according to his mother. Down the block for ice cream every night around the same time. The kid was already in the store when Bellitto and Minkin arrived and parked outside. They knew he was coming out. They were waiting for him."

  "Just like someone was waiting for Tara between the stables and the pretzel cart. A pattern of behavior?"

  Jack stared at her. "You mean a pattern of behavior in the abductors of looking for victims with a pattern of behavior?"

  "You don't think this Bellitto could be responsible for Tara too, do you?"

  "Be a hell of a coincidence if he was."

  "But—"

  "Yeah. I know." Jack's expression was grim. "No more coincidences."

  "I still don't see how such a thing could be."

  "Neither do I. Let's face it, just because some crazy old lady said it doesn't mean it's true." He could still hear the old woman's Russian-accented voice as he leaned over Kate's grave. Is not coincidence. No more coincidences for you. He shook his head, willing the memory away. "What else did you learn?"

  Gia snapped her fingers. "Oh, I learned that the sixties tune was really an eighties tune. Tiffany—"

  "Right! Tiffany covered 'I Think We're Alone Now'! How could I have missed that? Especially after she was in Playboy."

  "She was? When?"

  "Don't remember. Heard it on the radio or something."

  "Well, according to her father Tara sang the song all the time. But you know what really cre
eped me out? She was a Roger Rabbit fan."

  Jack didn't exactly go white, but his tan abruptly became three shades paler.

  "Jeez."

  "What's wrong?"

  He told her about the locked display cabinet in Eli Bellitto's shop, how it was filled with kids' knickknacks that he wouldn't part with at any price, and how one of them was a Roger Rabbit key ring.

  Gia's skin crawled. "Do you have it with you?"

  "No. It's back home. Let's not go jumping to too many conclusions here. Probably sold a million or two Roger Rabbit key rings back in the eighties."

  "You could take it to the police and—"

  He blinked. "The who?"

  "Sorry." What was she thinking? This was Jack. Jack and police didn't mix.

  He said, "I wish I had a way to connect Tara and the key ring… so I could know for sure. Right now I can only suspect Bellitto."

  "Why not take it to the house. See if she reacts."

  Jack stared at her. "What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that?"

  "Because you're merely Repairman Jack. Only Repairwoman Jane could come up with that."

  "Touche," he said with a smile and toasted her with his beer. "You think she'll respond?"

  "Only one way to find out. When do we bring it over?"

  "'We'?" He rose, shaking his head. "'We' are not going back to that house. Oh, no. One half of 'we' stays here while this half goes alone and returns with a vivid eyewitness account of whatever happens."

  Gia had expected this. "Not fair. It was my idea."

  "We've been over this already, Gi. We don't know this thing's agenda."

  "That 'thing' is a little girl, Jack."

  "A dead little girl."

  "But she appeared to me. Not you, not Lyle, not Charlie. Me. That's got to mean something."

  "Exactly. But we don't know what. And that's why you shouldn't get within miles of that place. It's got an unhealthy pedigree, even stranger and weirder than what's in Lyle's Menelaus Manor brochure."

  Worse than the part about the mutilated child? Gia didn't think that was possible.

  "What? That real estate agent told you something, didn't he."

  "He told me lots of things, and I'll tell you later, but right now we have to agree that you're staying away from that place."

  "But I'm the one she contacted."

  "Right. She sent a message and you received it. Now we're going to dig up what might be her grave. If we find her, and she can be linked to Bellitto, you'll have done plenty. You've pointed the way."

  "But what if there aren't any clues?"

  "Well, then at least she gets a proper burial. And maybe that's what her father will need to kick start his life back into motion."

  Gia wasn't concerned with Joe Portman right now. It was Tara who consumed her. Her need was like a noose around Gia's neck, drawing her toward Menelaus Manor. If she didn't yield to it she felt sure it would strangle her.

  "She wrote 'Mother,' Jack. I don't think she meant her own mother—Dorothy Portman is brain dead. I think she meant me. It may be twenty-some years since Tara was born, but she's still a child. She's still nine years old and she's frightened. She needs a mother. That's a comfort I can provide."

  "How do you comfort a ghost?" Jack said. He slipped his arms around her and pulled her close. She caught the lingering scent of his soap, felt the afternoon stipple of whiskers on his cheeks. "I guess if anyone could, you'd be the one. But tell me: If Vicky were here instead of away at camp, would you be so anxious to go back to that house?"

  What was he saying? That this need she felt burning through her veins was simply displaced yearning for her own child? She had to admit it wasn't such a far-fetched notion, but she sensed that the longing within her went beyond that.

  "Maybe, maybe not, but—"

  "One more question: If Vicky were here, would you take her along?"

  That caught her off guard. Her reaction was immediate: Of course not. But she didn't want to voice it.

  "That's not the point. Vicky's not here, so—"

  Jack tightened his hug. "Gia? Would you?"

  She hesitated, then, "All right, no."

  "Why not?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "I am. Because it's an unstable situation, and you wouldn't want to expose Vicky to an unpredictable outcome. Right?"

  Gia nodded against his shoulder. "Right."

  "Then why expose your second child to that same unstable situation?"

  She sighed. Trapped by unassailable logic.

  "Please, Gia" He backed away to arm's length. "Stay away. Give me a couple of days to help Lyle find her bones. Then maybe the circumstances won't be so unstable or unpredictable and we can reassess the whole situation."

  "Oh, all right," she said. She didn't like it but she'd been backed into a corner. "I suppose a couple of days won't matter."

  "Great." He let out a whooshing breath. "That's a relief."

  "For you maybe. How about me?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, if that house is potentially dangerous for me, what about for you?"

  Jack smiled. "Did you forget? Danger is my business."

  "I'm serious, Jack."

  "Okay. I'll check in regularly."

  "Leave your phone on in case I need to get in touch."

  "Will do." He wriggled it out of his pocket and pressed a button. She heard a beep as it activated. He glanced at the clock. "Got to go. Pick a place for dinner—anyplace but Zen Palate—and I'll tell you all about Konstantin Kristadoulou's history of the Menelaus cellar and the findings of our archeological dig down there."

  Gia sighed. All secondhand, but she supposed it would have to do.

  "And the key ring," she said. That was what she wanted to know most of all. "You've got to tell me what happens when you cross the threshold with that."

  "Yeah," Jack said softly. "That could be very interesting. But how do you top an earthquake?"

  9

  "What?" Lyle said. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "You're joking, right? You're pulling my chain, is that it?"

  Charlie shook his head as he pulled clothes from his dresser and dumped them on his bed. He concentrated on what he was doing, not making eye contact.

  "Nope. This is on the fo' real, bro. I'm geese."

  First the craziness this morning with the first three sitters, seeing into their lives, their pasts, their futures—what little there was for each of them. Now this. He felt as if his world was coming apart.

  "But you can't leave. We're a team. The Kenton brothers have always been a team. Who brung ya, Charlie?"

  Finally Charlie looked at him. His eyes glistened with tears. "You think I want to? I don't. We still a team, Lyle, but not in this game, yo. And not in this house."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean we bust outta here together and start all over, givin' value for value, like Jack said."

  Jack… for a moment Lyle wished he'd never heard of him.

  "You mean dump the game?"

  "Word. And yo, the way you playin' the game lately, y'know, cancelin' sitters up and down, ain't gonna be a game left, know'm sayin'?"

  Lyle winced. Charlie had a point. Lyle had canceled the morning's fourth sitting along with the whole afternoon. He couldn't handle any more. He hadn't told Charlie why.

  Should he tell him now? No. It would only reinforce his determination to leave.

  "But we don't know anything else, Charlie. We'll starve!"

  "No way. We two smart guys. We get by."

  "Get by? Since when is getting by enough? I want to make it, Charlie. So do you."

  "Not no more. 'What profit it a man if he gains the whole world but loses his immortal soul?' I wanna save my soul, Lyle. And yours too. That's why I want you to come with me."

  "And if I don't?"

  "Then I got to roll on my own."

  "Roll on your own?" Lyle gave in to a blistering surge of anger. "Why don't you think on your own?"

>   "Say what?"

  "This isn't you talking. This is that preacher down that brimstone-breathing, tongue-speaking, snake-handling wacko church you found, right?"

  "We don't do no snake handlin'."

  "You're such a sucker for these guys. It was the same back in Dearborn when that Reverend What-his-name—"

  "Rawlins."

  "Right. Reverend Rawlins. He's the guy who told you to boycott the Harry Potter movie."

  "That's because it promotes witchcraft."

  "How would you know? You never saw it. You never read a line of one of the books. And neither did Rawlins. He got the word from someone else who hadn't read or seen them either. But you all fell in line, marching lockstep against Harry Potter with not a scrap of firsthand knowledge."

  Charlie lifted his chin. "Don't gotta do a drive-by to know it's wrong."

  "Reading a book to make an informed decision is hardly the same as shooting someone. But you're doing the same thing here. It's this preacher at this new church, right? What's his name?"

  "Reverend Sparks."

  "It's him, right? He's the one who's put you up to this."

  "Didn't put me up to nothin'! He told me this ain't no ghost, it's a demon and it's after our souls!"

  A demon? Good thing Lyle hadn't mentioned the morning's strangeness. Charlie would probably think he was possessed and try to drag him off to an exorcism.

  "Has he been here, Charlie? Has he seen and heard and experienced what we have? No. Has he sifted all the evidence that points to this being the ghost of a girl murdered back in the eighties? No. He hasn't moved his ass from his church down there in Brooklyn but somehow he's got a lock on what's happening in our house, knows it's not Tara Portman but Beelzebub instead. And you fall right in line and go along." Lyle shook his head, dismayed. "You're a bright guy, bro, but you put your brain on standby whenever one of these ministers opens his mouth."

  "Don't have to listen to this." Charlie turned away and returned to emptying his dresser.

  Lyle sighed. "No, you don't. But what about that pin on your shirt? WWJD. What Would Jesus Do, right? So why don't you ask yourself that? Would Jesus run out on his brother?"

  "Jesus didn't have no brother."