Twenty

TWENTY

Shania and I eat our snack in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and talking. Jin hears conversation and joins us in the coffee, but takes an apple instead of the sweet bars. At some point, Shania slips off to take a call from work, and Jin and I keep talking. Then Keith calls Jin, and I get out of there fast.

I'd phoned Keith earlier, but he'd clearly wanted more details than I gave, and I'm not sticking around to be pulled into that. I'm trying to forget what happened upstairs—with the dream and flakes on the floor—and talking to my brother is guaranteed to yank that back.

Jin is the kind of person who brightens any room he's in, which makes him an excellent partner for my brother. Keith has a gravitas that always makes me painfully aware of anything I'm trying hard to ignore. Like when, as a kid, I'd do something wrong, and just having Keith in the room somehow drove me to confess. It was like having our own resident black-frocked priest.

As Jin talks to Keith, I catch snatches of their conversation, Jin's voice light and teasing, and then dropping as he tells Keith he misses him. I move away, partly to give them privacy, but also partly because, while I'm thrilled that my brother has found someone, it hurts listening to them. All I can think of are my phone calls with Anton, when he'd been away at conferences, how I'd long to hear his voice and then chastise myself for acting like a schoolgirl getting a call from her crush. After all, he'd only be gone for a few days.

And then he'd be back.

I grab two fresh cups of coffee and go in search of Cirillo. I'd heard him in the hall, but he'd veered off, as if not wanting to disturb my conversation with Jin. Now I wonder whether he'd been coming to grab his own afternoon caffeine, and I feel bad if we'd kept him from that.

I think he'll be in the breakfast nook, which he seems to have commandeered as his office. When I don't find him there, I check the sitting room. He's not there or in the living room, which I passed through, along with the dining room.

I'm circling back to the kitchen when I spot him in the back gardens. Taking advantage of the bug diminishment. I should do the same. I've been mentally snarling like a caged lion, and now that it's nearly bug-free and a sunny twenty degrees, I should be outside, basking like a lizard in the sunshine.

I return to the kitchen to grab a couple of apples and a small tray. At the door, I remove my socks.

I slip out the breakfast-nook door into the gardens. I literally get one step outside before a midge smacks into my face. Hey, I did say nearly bug-free. I blow the bug from my face, take another step and—

"—really have something here," Cirillo is saying.

I perk up, thinking he's talking to me. Then I see the back of his head and the phone against his ear.

"I'm serious," he says. "We not only seem to have made contact with her husband, but there's something else here, too. I can't describe it."

My eyes narrow. This is supposed to be a private and confidential séance.

I slip back into the shadows and keep listening.

"No, actually, I can describe it," Cirillo says. "I just don't like to because it makes me sound like a carnival clairvoyant. There's something dark here, a negative force. Oppressing. A dark force watching and waiting, like a vulture waiting for its prey to die." He gives a short laugh. "God, did I really just say that?"

He pauses, as if listening.

"Dangerous? No. Spirits are never dangerous. This one reminds me of the Moorehouse case."

I lift my phone and silently tap in "Moorehouse case ghost" but nothing comes up.

Cirillo continues, "I've never forgotten what that boy's spirit felt like. Malevolent. Accidental shooting, my ass. Someone put that kid down like a rabid dog."

I add more search terms. Still nothing.

"That's what I felt here," Cirillo continues. "A malevolent spirit. But the guy we're summoning is just a regular joe, volunteered with disadvantaged youth on the weekends, for Christ's sake."

Pause.

"Yes, I know that could have been a cover, but my point is that something is here. The wife and her brother-in-law are having experiences, and both are definitely skeptics. No one's hearing pipes creak and calling it spectral footsteps."

He listens for a few minutes. Then he says, "I should go. I think I hear voices. Someone might be coming out."

He hangs up. I move from the shadows, quietly set down the tray, and wait. Cirillo turns, pocketing his phone. He sees me, standing with my arms crossed, and gives a start.

"Done with your call?" I say.

Guilt creeps into his gaze before he straightens with the air of a man who refuses to feel guilty for such things. I'm still struggling to get a read on Davos Cirillo. He comes off as pleasant, mild-mannered, and passionate about his work. Every now and then, though, there's steel in Cirillo's gaze and in his words, and I get the sense that if I mistake him for a mild-mannered professor, I've fallen into a trap that is to his benefit.

Maybe he really is pleasant and mostly mild-mannered, but it also serves his purpose, making us snap to attention when his voice and manner firm. It leaves me feeling like we're his grad students—he's fine with letting us do our thing until we forget who's in charge.

"Yes, I was eavesdropping," I say as I take my coffee and apple from the tray. "I would have walked away, except that the first words I heard were you excitedly telling someone that we've made contact, when you assured me this was a private session with all data to be used anonymously."

I meet his gaze. "When did that change? When you realized my dead husband might actually be here?"

"Ouch." He tries for a smile. "You don't pull your punches, do you?"

"Oh, I haven't even started. I have all our correspondence, in writing, with your assurance of anonymity. This is scientific data only. I don't know whether you're trying to change that, Davos, but if you do, you'll see how well I can throw my punches."

He lifts his hands. "I yield. Nothing has changed. You didn't hear me use names, right? It's all still anonymous."

"So why were you excitedly calling someone about our sessions?"

He makes a face and settles into a patio chair. "Because of the boring side of research. Funding." He looks up. "Your husband was a mathematician. A university professor? I don't know much about math, so maybe grants aren't a thing there."

"Grants are always a thing in academia."

A faint smile. "Then you might understand what it means when I say I'm in danger of losing my funding. My expenses are low, but they exist, and since I'm hardly discovering a cure for CF, it's difficult for me to get funding, and rightfully so."

"Okay."

"If I'm excited about what I have here, it's because success would help me secure funding."

"You should have told me that."

"It will still be anonymous data, Nicola. The person you heard me talking to is the department head, who is also a friend and supporter. He knows nothing specific about you or your husband."

"I mean that if you need funding, and success here would help you secure it, then you aren't as unbiased as I needed you to be."

"I am." He meets my gaze. "Because I'm a scientist and, yes, there is always a bias toward proving what we set out to prove, but in a field like mine, the worst thing I could do is inflate the data. There are professors in my own department looking for an excuse to discredit me. They consider me an embarrassment to the college. I'm excited because the most I expected was possible signs of contact, and I have much more."

"A malevolent spirit."

He stops short, as if just realizing I'd heard that.

I continue, "You said it wasn't a second ghost."

"I said it wasn't an ordinary ghost, meaning we didn't accidentally summon some ancestor of Anton's who died in this house and wants us to pass on a message. When you think of contacting someone like Anton, that is a ghost. When you think of a haunting, that is what I call a spirit. The difference is twofold. One, the intent—whether to communicate or to frighten. Two, whether it has been summoned… or comes of its own accord."

"So you think Anton is here as a ghost, but there's a malevolent spirit, too, which your department head suggested could also be Anton."

He makes a face and gives a dismissive wave. "It's not."

I want to pursue that, but I don't dare speak the words. They're a betrayal of my husband. Whatever "dark spirit" is here, it's not Anton. It can't be.

Can't it?

"Tell me about the Moorehouse case," I say.

He sighs.

"Since you used a name, I presume they didn't require anonymity," I add.

I get a sour look for that, but he says, "No, they did not. Still, the family never went public, so there's a limit to how much I'm willing to say, particularly now that you have their surname."

I grudgingly respect that. He's protecting his source even if they didn't demand anonymity.

I take a seat and pass him his coffee and apple.

"Oh, so I've earned these now?" he says.

"Nah, it's a bribe for the basics of the Moorehouse case. Also, the coffee is probably cold by now."

"Well, so is this case." He glances at me and sighs. "Fine, my sense of humor needs work."

"Never said it, Doc."

He opens his mouth as if to say something, and then sips his coffee instead. He takes a bigger swig before putting it on the table. "The Moorehouse case was a sad one. The family lost their fifteen-year-old son in a shooting."

Accidental shooting, my ass. Someone put that kid down like a rabid dog.

Cirillo continues, "The family became convinced that their son's ghost was haunting them. They thought he was tormented because his killer hadn't been caught, and so his ghost was acting out in desperation."

"And…"

"And I encountered the very malevolent spirit of their son, who was not the sweet and gentle soul they'd made him out to be. I later discovered that the boy had a police record for torturing cats, and two young women had taken out restraining orders against him. He was charged with the assault of a third young woman, which was still before the courts when he died."

"Huh."

"Yes, so this was not a poor soul seeking justice. It was the angry spirit of a disturbed and dangerous young man. Except, in death, his target became his family."

"What did he do?"

Cirillo settles into his seat. "Typical haunting manifestations. Mostly frightening his family with noises. There was one incident of a push on a staircase, but it was a light shove, barely causing a stumble."

"Like what I experienced. As if the spirit managed to make physical contact, but not enough to cause serious harm."

"Yes. The family was never in any real danger, which is why I haven't insisted we leave. You are, of course, welcome to do so if this new information changes that, though I hope it won't."

Yeah, you hope that because your funding is on the line.

Cirillo is not an unbiased observer.

Am I?

No. I am not.

I can't even truly say he was unbiased before I found out about the funding concerns. Science is about proving a theory. Evidence that disproves a theory is valuable, but it's never going to be the result the researchers hope for.

So what do I do? Tell Shania, who will follow my lead? Tell Jin, who'd be trapped between me and my brother if I decided to stay? Tell Keith, who would come and drag me out of here if I even hinted that a ghost made me stumble on the stairs?

"So far, no one else has had a negative experience. If they do, we'll leave. I can accept risk for myself. I won't accept it on behalf of Shania or Jin."

"Fair enough," he says.

I see the relief on his face, and I know that should worry me.

He's not impartial. He doesn't have my best interests in mind.

I shake it off. He's a professional, and I need to trust him.