We waved and said hello and then Robby squinted at me. “Well, hell! Is that Mary Jane Holliday?”
I offered another lackluster wave. “Hey, Robby. How ya been?”
Instead of replying, Robby jumped down from the cab and came racing around, heading straight for me with outstretched arms as if he fully intended to sweep me up in a giant bear hug. I braced for impact, but right before Robby reached me, Heath stepped to my front, squared his shoulders, and thrusted out his hand. “Heath Whitefeather,” he said, introducing himself while making it really clear whom I was currently attached to.
Normally, I would’ve rolled my eyes at such manly theatrics, but the truth was, I was relieved Heath was acting as a buffer between me and that big embrace. I’d been through enough for one afternoon, and I wasn’t in the mood to be squished too.
Plus, I still harbored a bit of a grudge against Robby.
For his part, my old prom date stopped short and at first seemed puzzled by the fact that Heath had stepped in front of me, and then he seemed to get it. Shrugging slightly, he grasped Heath’s hand and squeezed hard enough for Heath to grimace. And then Heath’s already pronounced biceps bulged, and I knew he was squeezing back for all he was worth.
I sighed and pointed to Robby’s truck. “Is your parking brake on?”
Immediately Robby let go of Heath and whirled around, taking three steps toward his truck. “Wha . . . ?”
I smiled and put my hand on Heath’s back. The ruse had worked, and judging by the white handprint on Heath’s already injured palm, not a moment too soon. “Oh, sorry,” I said. “Thought it was rolling forward.”
Even though the truck clearly wasn’t moving, Robby headed there anyway and we heard him set the parking brake. Then he came back to us. “This is my fourth trip out here,” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Looking nervously down the road toward the manor, which loomed large and formidable in the distance, he added, “Ever since they started working on this place, I been gettin’ at least a call a week.”
“You have?” Gilley asked, expressing the surprise I think we all felt.
“Yep. And every time it’s something really weird. First call was for Sean Cadet’s crew. M.J., you remember Sean?”
“Vaguely,” I said. The Cadets had had six boys come up through our schools, but none of them had been in my grade. Sean, the oldest of the six, had been a senior when I was a freshman. “I remember his brothers Steve and Cal better.”
Robby nodded. “Steve works construction for him now, and Cal went off to Florida to open up a fish shop. Anyway, Sean called me one afternoon and said he’d just gotten the job to fix up this old place. He was real excited, you know? He’s always been talkin’ about how much he wanted to see inside of that house, but the Porters, well, they was a weird bunch. Never invitin’ nobody over who wasn’t filthy, stinkin’ rich, like they couldn’t stomach the rest of us common folk or somethin’. And all along they was burnin’ through their money until there wasn’t much left for themselves.”
I mentally sighed. Robby was taking a long time to get to the point, so I thought I’d help him. “You say something happened to Sean when he came to work here?”
Robby blinked like he’d just remembered what he’d been trying to tell us. “Oh, yeah. So, anyhow, Sean calls me and says that he needs me to tow three of his trucks. I say, ‘Three of your trucks, Sean? What’cha all been doin’ out there?’ and he was like, ‘Weren’t us! There’s somethin’ spooky goin’ on with this here house!’ and I was like, ‘How’s that?’ and he was like, ‘Boy, you’d best come here and see for yourself!’ So I came and shoooeee! Three out of four of Sean’s trucks had bricks all over their hoods and smashed clean through their windshields!”
I glanced sideways at Gilley, who’d made a small squeaky noise. He was staring bug-eyed and pale at Robby. “That’s what happened to our van! Well, except that it wasn’t bricks, but some pots from the balcony.”
Robby nodded again, like he just knew we’d had trouble like that. “Good thing y’all didn’t get hurt. Sean lost three members of his crew before he finally called it quits.”
I gulped. “They . . . died?”
“Oh, sorry, no. I mean, three of his boys, including his brother, walked off the job. Said all sorts of crazy stuff was happening inside and they wanted no part of it. But as I hear it, there’s been a bunch of accidents out here that folks is sayin’ weren’t no accidents. Everything from scaffolding falling, to workers sayin’ they was pushed down the stairs, to power tools losin’ all their power and the extra batteries being out of power too. Yep,” Robby said with a sigh. “You ask me, I’d say this place is cursed.”
We all fell silent as we each turned to look back toward the house, and I couldn’t suppress the shudder that vibrated down my spine. “Our van is parked in front of the house,” Gil said after a moment, jingling the keys in Robby’s direction. I knew he wanted Robby to go take care of it so that Gil could hurry to the road and be as far away from the house as he could get until Mrs. Gillespie could pick us up.
Robby grimaced when he took the keys. “Gonna make me head over there by myself, huh?” he said, trying to make light of it.
“I’ll go with you,” Heath told him, and the look of relief on Robby’s face was unmistakable.
“Good,” Robby said. “I’ll need someone to be my lookout so my truck don’t get damaged.”
Heath and Robby set off in the tow truck while Gil and I stood guiltily under the shade of a tree.
“They should be all right,” Gil said, but not like he really believed it. He then got on the phone with our insurance company to report what’d happened so that they could start processing the claim. At one point he covered the phone mic and said, “I probably shouldn’t say that a spook threw planters at the van, huh?”
I shook my head. “Keep the details to a minimum if you can, Gil.”
“We had the van parked in front of an old historic home that’s having work done to it,” Gil explained to the insurance rep. “I think the third-story balcony may have become compromised during the construction, causing the planters to slip down from the ledge and onto the hood of the van.” I gave him a thumbs-up for that one.
After Gil was finished filing the claim, we both waited tensely for nearly ten additional minutes until Robby’s tow truck appeared with our wrecked van behind it.
Robby came to a stop next to us, and Heath got down from the cab while I offered up my credit card to pay for the tow. “You sure I can’t give y’all a lift?” Robby said as he swiped my card through his portable card reader.
I eyed the front of his cab. There’d be no way Heath, Gilley, and I could all squish in there with Robby without the aid of a Twister mat. “Thanks, Robby,” I said. “But Mrs. Gillespie should be here to pick us up anytime now.” At least I hoped that was true.
“Okay, then,” Robby said, handing me the receipt before offering me a two-finger salute. “I’ll tow your van to Grady’s on Bemiss.”
We watched Robby pull away and I knew I wasn’t the only one who wished we could’ve all fit inside his cab.
“Come on,” Heath said. “Let’s get to the road.”
As it happened, we only had to wait a little while for Mrs. Gillespie to show up. She came plodding along in her trusty white Buick and waved at us as she approached.
Mrs. Gillespie had been driving the same car since Gil and I were in high school, even though I suspected she was wealthy enough to afford a fleet of cars. She believed in using things until they wore out, not just until something prettier came along. I admired that about her. I admired a lot of things about her.
She’d been a surrogate mother to me since my own mother’s death, and because Daddy had all but checked out of my life after Mama died, Mrs. G. had pretty much raised me.
She was almos
t a decade older than my mother had been when she’d had Gilley. Her husband—Gil’s father—had abandoned the family when Gilley was quite young—around five, I think. The rumor was that Gilley had insisted on parading about in a tutu and his mother’s feather boa (which Gil still held a fondness for) and it soon became clear that the Gillespies’ only child would grow up preferring the company of men to women. This had caused a rather violent reaction on the part of Mr. Gillespie, but I never knew the specific details as Gil claimed not to remember too much about it and Mrs. G. sure wasn’t talking.
All I knew was that she’d come home to find her husband violently abusing her son (trying to smack the gay out of him, is what I’d specifically heard) and she’d shown Mr. G. the door that instant. The divorce had been nasty, and I knew that because my daddy had handled it and once I’d snooped through his old files and read a few pages of the transcripts. I’d never met Mr. G., but within the context of those transcripts, I thought that he’d come off as a first-class douche bag.
Anyway, Mr. G. had relinquished all parental rights to Gilley without ever being asked, and he’d written Gilley right out of the family will. The Gillespies had been worth a fair amount of money at one time, and it still upset me that Gil would be denied his family’s inheritance simply because his father was a pigheaded bigot of a man.
Still, his mom had done pretty well for herself in spite of being on her own all these years. With Daddy’s help, Mrs. G. managed to win a good settlement from her ex-husband and she’d used that money to purchase several homes that she’d then fixed up mostly on her own and turned into rentals. She liked to rent to single mothers, and was considered a very fair and good landlord.
Her real estate ventures had blossomed over the years and now she owned nearly thirty properties, which she managed almost single-handedly—well, at least the business side. She had several contract workers who kept the properties up to code and solved any maintenance issues. Meanwhile, Mr. Gillespie had moved right out of Valdosta and had never come back. At last word, he was said to be living north of Atlanta.
As Mrs. G.’s car came closer, I felt myself exhale at the sight of her and I smiled as I recognized the calming effect Gilley’s mom always had on me. Mrs. G. looked very much like her son; she’s rather short in stature, a little plump around the middle, and loose curls adorned her head. Her face was kind even if her nose was perhaps a bit prominent, but there’s always a twinkle in her eye that’s disarmingly charming. “Yoo-hoo!” she called to us as she pulled to a stop. “My, my! Y’all look like three lost frogs waitin’ on a lily pad!”
Heath and I chuckled, while Gilley simply got into the Buick’s backseat. He was obviously anxious to be away from Porter Manor. Heath opened the door to the front passenger seat for me, and I thought it was cute he was on his best behavior in front of both my dad and Mrs. Gillespie.
As I got in, she smiled brilliantly at him to show him she approved. “You sure you weren’t raised in the South?” she asked of him. “Such good manners for a Western boy.”
Heath gave her one of his lady-killer smiles, and bless her heart, Mrs. G. blushed. But then she squinted at him again and said, “Heath, is that a bandage on your forehead?”
Heath put a hand to his head. “Yes, Mrs. G. I bumped my head on a low-hanging branch. Gilley fixed it up for me, though.”
“Well, I should probably have a look at that when we get to the house. It looks like you have a good knot forming under there.”
After Heath got in, we set off and I settled into the familiar leather seat with another contented sigh. There was something so comforting about the Buick’s slightly bouncy ride and worn but squeaky-clean interior. “So tell me again what happened to your van?” Mrs. G. asked.
“It’s nothing, Mama,” Gil said.
“Well, it must be something, Gilley, or y’all wouldn’t need me to pick you up.” Mrs. G. was not to be so easily dismissed.
“One of the planters dislodged from a third-story balcony and hit the van,” I explained.
“Oh, my,” Mrs. G. said, her hand going to cover her heart. “None of you were hurt, were you?” I noticed that she was looking in her rearview mirror at Heath again as if she suspected he might’ve lied to her about the way he got the bump on the head.
“No, ma’am,” Heath said, sticking to his story. “We were all out of the van when it happened.”
“Well, thank goodness! You know that Porter house is the talk of the town these days. I can’t believe Christine hasn’t abandoned the place yet. People are saying it’s cursed.”
“Yeah, we heard that too,” I admitted.
Mrs. G. suddenly cut her eyes to me. “Y’all didn’t enter that place, did you?”
“No, Mama,” Gil said quickly. “We stayed outside.”
Mrs. G.’s eyes never left mine, which made riding in the car with her a bit precarious. Mrs. G. was someone I’d never been able to lie to, and she knew it. “Uh, Mrs. G.?” I said, extending my hand to steady the wheel as we began to drift a bit to the right. “The road?”
She sighed and focused back on her driving. After a bit she said, “Mary Jane?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Did you go inside that house?”
I tensed and felt Gilley’s and Heath’s gazes on the back of my head. “I did,” I told her, trying to leave the boys out of the confession. “But only for a minute. Christine asked if I could check out the house because a few of her construction crews had been complaining about strange goings-on.”
Mrs. G.’s brow rose with interest. “And what did you find?”
I squirmed, picking my words carefully. “Nothing definitive. I’ll probably do a little more background research before I go back for another look.”
“We’re going back?” Gilley squeaked, and when his mother raised her skeptical eyes to the rearview mirror, Gilley blushed and flashed her a toothy, innocent smile.
“I think we might have to, Gil,” I said, turning slightly in my seat to look at him. “Christine sank a lot of money into buying that old place, and I can’t very well let her keep sending crews there who might get hurt. I think we’ll need to figure out what’s causing the activity and do our best to clear it.”
Gilley frowned and settled down into the seat for a good pout. Heath’s expression was unreadable, and I suspected that he felt a little conflicted about committing ourselves to another encounter at Porter Manor. I knew he knew I was right, but still, it’d be dangerous work; of that we could both be sure.
“We’ll have to gear up,” he said at last. “We’ll need some spikes and some vests.”
My sweetheart was referring to the magnetic spikes we used to close up the portals the more evil spooks utilized to float between the lower planes and our plane of existence. Not all ghosts are bad, of course. In fact most spooks are quite harmless albeit somewhat annoying at times. Those spirits were often easy to deal with through conversation and persistence and a reminder that their bodies had stopped living, and it was time for their spirits to go on home.
The ones we had to be cautious of were the evil spooks who had no interest in crossing to the other side, or what most people thought of as heaven. These more malevolent souls enjoyed causing mayhem, and some even lusted for hurting the living. These spirits were especially dangerous because most of them had figured out how to create a portal—a hole between two planes of existence—that they could travel through, and they’d spend much of their time on a lower plane, where most dark energies lurk. Here, they could gain power and know-how, and plot against the living.
Often the only way to stop these spooks was to shut down their portals and lock them into the lower realms, and to do this we used magnetic spikes, which, when driven directly into the center of a spook’s portal, would cause total havoc with the electromagnetic energy that held the portal open, and it would disintegra
te and collapse, leaving the spook safely locked on the other side.
Heath, Gilley, and I had encountered more than our fair share of these rather rare entities, and all of them had been incredibly difficult to deal with, but somehow we’d managed to shut them all down. Each really creepy spook taught us something about dealing with the next, and I had to admit that we’d become very good at tackling even the scariest of entities.
And even though we’d only encountered a bunch of slamming doors and a big creepy shadow, something told me that whatever was haunting Porter Manor would require all of that expertise and, of course, some ghostbusting equipment.
For added protection we usually wore our bubble vests, which were ordinary down vests with much of the down in the front removed and replaced with magnets. “We’ll need to get some bubble vests,” I said, thinking out loud.
“Where the hell are we going to find a bubble vest during the summer?” Gilley complained. “It’s June, M.J. It’s not like they’re at the local department store.”
“I might have the perfect solution,” Mrs. G. said with a sneaky grin.
I eyed her curiously, but she didn’t give up any more details.
“We’ll need more than just the vests,” Heath said from the back. “Maybe we should have someone in Boston send us some of our equipment.”
“Yeah!” Gil said. “M.J., call Teeko and see if she can send us our stuff.”
Teeko was my best girlfriend, Karen. She’d gotten the nickname Teeko from Gilley, who’d elongated it slightly from TKO, total knockout, which appropriately described my bestie.
“I’ll call her as soon as we get back,” I said.
“Have her send the Smasher!” Gil insisted, tapping my shoulder.
“The Smasher?” his mother repeated. “My goodness, Gilley, what’s that?”