Parrish

  “I already did. They said they don’t have anything about her in their records except for a small document stating that she was some kind of maid or servant for Alice Littlefield.”

  “Stardust.”

  “So our mystery man came over on the Queen Mary because his girlfriend Eva was suddenly unemployed after her employer died,” I said. “But why did he get here a whole year after her death?”

  “Stardust?” Deacon asked.

  I glanced over my shoulder at Jefferson, who looked at me with a sly smile. He was winning at their little game. The Parrish boys were nothing if not competitive.

  “Maybe he couldn’t get enough money to come over right away?” Brighton asked. “Or he had to take care of some business first. I mean it’s not like he could just buy a plane ticket online and fly over an hour later.”

  “Robert De Niro. Ha!” Deacon said triumphantly.

  “Brighton, does he have his phone out?” Jefferson asked.

  She and Deacon exchanged glances but didn’t say anything.

  Jefferson sat up abruptly, pushing me up in the process since I had been using him as a human backboard. He craned his neck over the front seat and pulled Deacon’s phone out of his hands.

  “It’s very dangerous to surf the web and drive, cousin,” Jefferson said darkly, though I could see his lips curling into a smile.

  He was being “funny” Jefferson, not “I might snap and kill everyone in this Jeep” Jefferson.

  “You need to lean back—trying to sit up like this on my own is an ab workout I’m not fond of,” I said, reaching behind my back to push Jefferson against the seat so I could lean against him again while my toes finished drying out the window.

  “I’m guessing the people at the Littlefield House were okay with us investigating?” I asked Brighton.

  “So, here’s the thing,” she began.

  “Brighton Gilbert, we are not breaking into this place to investigate,” I said. “It’s a school. They’d have on-campus security on us from the second we got in there.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” she said, stopping my accusation before it really took flight. “I may or may not have let the university think that we were part of a historical society doing research for an important scholarly project. But that’s not important. What I was going to say is that this building is owned by the university now and they’re doing some kind of Founder’s Day town thing for the next week. They need the building for that.”

  “So how do we investigate if they’re using the building?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact that she had definitely lied to the school to get our investigation approved.

  “We only have tonight to do it,” she answered.

  “Tonight?” I repeated. “Tonight?”

  “I think we only have tonight to investigate. Is that what you heard, Jefferson?” Deacon asked, making fun of me.

  “Brighton, we already had to leave at five this morning, with only a few hours of sleep, to get to this place by midnight, and now this is the only chance we have to investigate?”

  Even though we had taken shifts sleeping in the car, we were all exhausted. We’d already spent our nights on the Queen Mary investigating, and with our early morning departure time, we were barely functioning. There was no way we’d be able to conduct a successful investigation on such little sleep.

  “It gets worse,” she said with a wince.

  “How could it get worse?” I asked.

  “Our funds aren’t stretching quite as far as I’d hoped.”

  “It’s this brute of a Jeep,” Deacon said knowledgeably. “It can’t handle driving so far. It’s sucking up gas like it’s the end of the world.”

  “And what does that mean for us?” I asked.

  “It means we have to share a hotel room tonight. And it’s not the nicest place I’ve ever seen.”

  “We may get botulism staying there,” Deacon added.

  “What is it with you and botulism?” I asked him. “Everything is going to give us botulism.”

  “Okay, fine, we’ll probably get athlete’s foot from that place.” He grinned. “Is that better?”

  “What time will we get to Austin?” Jefferson asked, back to being all business.

  “Originally I was thinking one in the morning,” Brighton began.

  “But thanks to my superb driving skills, we’ve managed to make up some time and we should be there around eleven,” Deacon finished.

  “That’s not a terrible timeframe,” Jefferson said with a nod, shifting his long limbs behind my back.

  “I’m declaring tomorrow a ‘no drive day,’” I said. “We can use the time in the hotel to go over footage and sleep until they kick us out.”

  “Sounds like a good plan to me,” Brighton said.

  I appreciated her support, especially since she didn’t need a hotel room to sleep in. I could drop her into a dumpster and she’d sleep just fine. Well . . . except for the germs.

  “I don’t know why you guys are complaining so much anyway,” Brighton went on. “You get to go into the Littlefield House to investigate. I’ll be stuck sitting cross-legged in the back of this tiny Jeep with all four of the monitors. At least you get to stretch your legs a bit.”

  She did have a point. I felt bad that Brighton was always stuck in the small confines of the back of the Jeep. Unfortunately, until we could afford a nicer van (which probably wasn’t going to happen any time soon), it was our only option.

  “At least you’re small,” Jefferson said, tilting his head to the side and cracking his neck.

  “Thank you for that,” I said, finally pulling my feet inside of the Jeep and rolling up the window.

  “I quite enjoy being your seat,” he said with a smirk.

  I grimaced. “I was talking about the neck cracking right in my ear. How long until we get there?”

  “About six hours,” Brighton answered with a sigh.

  “Does anyone have a sleeping pill I could borrow?” I asked sarcastically.

  “I’ve got some Xanax,” Brighton offered with a laugh. “It always puts me to sleep.”

  “Being alive puts you to sleep,” Deacon pointed out, quite accurately.

  “Touché.”

  “I’ve got a brilliant idea on how we can pass the time,” Jefferson said, instantly making me wish I hadn’t said I was bored.

  Whatever his idea was, it was sure to be monotonous and awful.

  “Let’s go over your lines for tonight.”

  Chapter 12

  The Littlefield House was an amazing sight. As much as I’d loved investigating on the Queen Mary, the ornate details of this historic home continually distracted me while I was supposed to be asking ridiculous questions to any disembodied spirits that might be lurking about. Even though the paranormal-nerd in me ruled most of my life, my appreciation of historic buildings sometimes got in the way of investigations.

  We’d managed to make it to Austin by ten at night, giving us about six hours to investigate before we had to pack up and be out of there. We’d already spent a good five hours checking claims from the docents, conducting question and answer sessions with empty rooms, and trying to get Deacon to take the investigation seriously. That count didn’t even include the nine minutes of Beethoven Jefferson insisted on listening to before the investigation. I’d somehow managed to convince the Parrish boys that I didn’t need to wear some ridiculous old-fashioned dress for this investigation, and instead remained in my striped shirt and jean shorts. The questions, though, I couldn’t seem to get out of.

  “Why am I asking about the Great Depression?” I asked, waiting for a response from Brighton, Deacon, or Jefferson, who were all stationed in the Jeep outside.

  We’d been taking turns investigating all night, and now that I was inside for the second time, I was starting to think the location was a bust. We hadn’t found a single scrap of evidence, let alone a game-changing clue.

/>   “I was trying to think of relevant things that happened in 1935,” Deacon said in my earpiece.

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to ask normal questions for once to see if that gets us anywhere.”

  “Might as well,” Jefferson said, his voice muffled by the static of the earpiece.

  He was in a foul mood because we’d already used up most of our investigating time that night and still hadn’t managed to find anything. He was quickly losing hope of locating our next clue and his hopelessness was starting to turn him into “dark and twisty Jefferson.”

  “Go ahead and ask your question,” Brighton said over the mic. “I’ll try to cheer up the little ball of sunshine out here.”

  Jefferson didn’t respond, but I imagined he was narrowing his huge eyes at Brighton for that comment.

  Holding the K2 meter in one hand and my camera with a flashlight fixed to it in the other, I glanced around the beautiful space with its billowing drapes and gold carpets. Maybe I should have worn the dress Jefferson brought for me; I was very out of place in my jean shorts and yellow ballet flats.

  “Is Alice Littlefield here?” I asked.

  I was trying to block out the sounds of Deacon and Brighton whispering in my ear about how we should get an RV instead of a van when we became millionaires. It wasn’t an easy task.

  I was met with silence to my question, but held onto the hope that I might be picking up some unheard audio on the camera.

  “Alice, if you’re here, can you reach out and touch the device in my hand?” I asked. “It’s nothing to be scared of. When you touch it, these lights will light up to let me know you’re here.”

  Nothing.

  “It doesn’t have to be Alice,” I tried. “If there’s anyone here with me, they can reach out to touch this device.”

  Nothing.

  “Or even yell really loudly next to it,” I offered. “Anything to make it light up.”

  “I’m sure your desperation is very inviting,” Jefferson deadpanned in my ear.

  He was slowly trailing into “snide Jefferson”—one of my least favorites of his mood swings.

  Trying to ignore everything else, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, thinking I could will the ghost of Alice Littlefield into contacting me.

  “Did anyone here know an Eva?” I asked, holding the K2 steady and stretching my arm out a bit further, as if distancing it from me would make it more accessible to them.

  Still nothing.

  “This is useless,” Jefferson said. “We’re almost out of time and we haven’t found so much as a cold spot. This is a bloody waste of time.”

  “Maybe we’ll find something when we review the tapes?” Brighton offered, sounding less than convincing.

  “What are we supposed to do if we don’t find anything?” he asked.

  Brighton was silent for a moment, probably having a panic attack and grasping her inhaler to her chest. I wasn’t about to let her be pushed around by Jefferson Parrish. She didn’t need the added anxiety in her life.

  “Stop pestering her, Jefferson,” I said. “I’ll call the university and see if we can reschedule after their Founder’s Day events.”

  “And what are we supposed to do until then?” he asked, making me want to punch him in the face.

  “Sleep for once? Review tapes? You pick.”

  “Unless you want to sleep in the car, we don’t really have that option,” he said, pointing out our unfortunate financial situation that I was desperately trying to ignore.

  “Everyone just be quiet,” I finally said. “I wouldn’t be able to hear even if someone was trying to make contact with all of this background noise.” I hoped that would be enough to quiet the insufferable Parrish.

  I expected an immature, “You started it,” but was gratefully met with silence. Satisfied that I had ended the argument, I walked into the main sitting room and perched on one of the old arm chairs, resting the camera on my lap and reveling in the silence for a moment.

  When stuck in a Jeep with Deacon and Jefferson, silence was difficult to come by. They were either always bickering with each other or trying to make my life miserable, so I took this rare opportunity to let myself listen to the old house, hoping I’d hear something.

  It was several minutes before the sound of Jefferson’s voice startled me back into reality.

  “I’m pretty sure she fell asleep.”

  “This place is ridiculously quiet,” I said, ignoring his accusation. “I mean, in a house this old you’d expect some creaky floorboards or wind sneaking through loose window panes, but there’s just nothing. We don’t even have normal sounds to blame on the plumbing.”

  “There’s nothing here,” Jefferson said, still sounding like he was throwing a fit. “Unless we plan to tear this place apart looking for some rubbish hidden letter, I think we need to call it a night.”

  “We’ve still got about thirty minutes before they wanted us out,” Brighton said, trying to save the situation.

  “I’ll have a go,” Deacon replied, not waiting for Jefferson to shoot his idea down. “Sadie, come on out. I’m going to work my magic.”

  “Sure thing,” I answered with a yawn, grabbing the equipment I’d been toting around and making my way out into the warm night air.

  I gave Deacon a sleepy high five as he passed me on his way into the house, then jumped up into the back of the Jeep where Brighton was squished between monitors and piles of equipment. Jefferson sat on the edge of the Jeep’s gate, his long legs reaching the ground where mine dangled like a child’s.

  He was wearing a sweater vest over his shirt and tie, and his curly hair was a mess where he’d apparently run his fingers through it over and over again. He stared dejectedly at the ground, not bothering to look up when I sat next to him.

  I glanced back at Brighton with a questioning look. She simply looked at Jefferson and then back at me before rolling her eyes in exasperation. We were used to his extreme mood swings by now, but that never made them much easier to deal with. The fact that he was so easily defeated didn’t do much to boost the group’s morale.

  “You should know better than anyone that some of our best evidence has come after we review tapes from our investigations,” I said, resisting the urge to hit him.

  It was amazing how often I waffled between the that and being his friend. I guess it wasn’t really his fault he was weird. Somehow, his lack of awareness made him slightly more sympathetic in my eyes.

  “Well, we’d better find something in the next few minutes because I’m not calling my mum for more money,” he said, twirling the gold wedding ring around his ring finger.

  “I’m sure we’ll find something,” I lied.

  The truth was we had hit a wall and I knew it. Coming to the Littlefield House, I’d thought evidence would be a piece of cake. There were so many claims surrounding the location of voices and objects being moved that it seemed impossible to do an entire night’s investigation without finding a single scrap of evidence. Yet there we were, cramped in the back of an ancient Jeep Wagoneer in the warm Texas night with nothing to show for our efforts.

  “If we’re going to get all of our stuff packed up, we might want to start now,” Brighton said gently, trying not to set Jefferson off.

  “I’ll start turning on the lights,” Deacon said over the speaker.

  None of us actually said we were giving up, but we all knew that’s what was happening. We could only hope we’d find something on our tapes and audio files, but if we didn’t find a clue, we’d have no idea where our next location was and our search would have been in vain. It wouldn’t matter that we’d found amazing evidence on The Queen Mary because we’d hit a dead end in Austin.

  “I’ll wrap cords,” I said, hopping out of the Jeep and walking into the beautiful old house.

  After a moment, Jefferson stood and followed, silently gathering equipment and pulling tape off the floors.

  I tried to s
mile at our team when I passed them in the hallways, but I was just as dejected as Jefferson. The trip had ended in a failure, and now we’d have to return to our mundane lives of being broke in Portland. Somehow I’d have to start making up for the days of work I’d missed, too.

  “I didn’t think we’d fail,” Jefferson said, suddenly beside me. “Especially not at our second location.”

  He didn’t sound particularly angry. If anything, he seemed resigned. We both silently stared at the painting, not voicing our failure aloud any more than we needed to.

  “We still have the tapes to review,” I reassured him, glancing at him for just a moment to offer a half-hearted smile.

  He returned it for a split second before his already round eyes suddenly grew even bigger.

  I felt my blood run cold at the look of amazement he was now aiming over my shoulder, afraid for what had changed his mood so quickly.

  “What?” I asked, looking at the painting behind me.

  “The light,” he said, opening the door to the fully illuminated closet. “The light popped on.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, I can see that it’s on now. But you’re sure it wasn’t on the whole time?”

  “This is our ghost’s MO,” he said, now openly grinning. “The directions to the next location have to be in here.”

  I squeezed my way into the tiny coat closet with Jefferson, determined to find whatever small clue had eluded us during our entire investigation. If this really was our ghost’s way of directing us down the right path, I wasn’t going to risk Jefferson overlooking something.

  “Sadie, I appreciate your willingness to assist,” he said, “but there really isn’t enough room in here for both of us.”

  As it was, I had pinned him against the wall with my hip as I dug through dusty coats and boxes of old files. It looked like the closet hadn’t been opened in ages.

  “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the closet,” I said.

  “First, that’s not how that saying goes. And second, I saw the light first, ergo, I should get to find the clue.”

  I straightened up and faced Jefferson, ready to list the many reasons why I was a more worthy candidate of the closet search (starting with my small stature), when the closet door slammed shut and the light turned off. I jumped about a mile in the air at the sudden burst of noise.