Twenty-Seven

TWENTY-SEVEN

I decide to tell Cirillo what's happening. Yes, I don't trust him not to use my story, but it's not as if he's planning to sell movie rights.

He's the expert. He'll know what to do.

I don't get a chance to talk to Cirillo. Before breakfast, he's in his room working, coming down only for a coffee and then heading back up before I can get to him. I consider knocking on his bedroom door, but it's six in the morning.

Everyone convenes for breakfast, which means I have no chance to speak to him privately then. After we eat, Jin has to leave and before he does so, he needs—apparently—to be really, really sure that I'm not going to start the last séance without him.

I agree, and I mean it. Yes, it'd be easier to do the séance without Jin. I could tell Cirillo enough about my past to explain why I need to ask Anton about someone named Roddy. But I have enough common sense—and self-preservation—not to do it without Jin around. I don't trust Cirillo to stop the séance if things go wrong, and Shania will trust my judgment. In short, I need someone who can and will stop me, even if answers are dangling right in front of my nose.

I don't walk Jin out. The bugs are back, not as bad as they'd been at the height of their invasion, but enough for me to hand Jin my keys and wish him a safe journey… and then slam the door shut behind him as he races to my car.

Once he's gone, I find Shania in the kitchen, cleaning up. Cirillo has retreated to his room again.

I do my nebulizer therapy and then put on my vest. If Cirillo doesn't come down by the time I'm done, I'm going up.

I'm in the sitting room, hooked up to the vest, trying to concentrate on my book. I hear Shania in the hall, and I wait for her to enter, but she backs off. She must realize where I am and decide to leave me alone, in case Anton reaches out.

In case Anton reaches out.

After last night, I have no idea what to think. So much is happening and so much of it is contradictory that my puzzle-loving brain has thrown this aside as unsolvable.

Temporarily unsolvable, I should say, pending either more data or more caffeine. Anton used to buy me books of logic puzzles, and some that definitely fell into the too-challenging category, but I never gave up. I just set them aside. That's what I've done here. Set aside—

"Nic?"

My head jerks up.

I look around the room. The voice seemed to come from behind my head.

"Hey."

The word is a whisper, as if we're someplace quiet and he's trying to get my attention. But it definitely sounds like Anton's voice, coming from my left this time.

"Anton?"

The whisper comes from behind me again. "I love—"

There's an odd popping noise, and the voice stops. Then another pop, louder.

"It's okay," Anton's voice whispers to my left, but I ignore it now, my brain fixated on that double pop. It sounded mechanical.

I turn off the vest and remove it. I've never heard it make that sort of noise, which doesn't mean it couldn't, but the sound seemed to come from behind and above me.

Setting the vest aside, I look at the wall behind where I'd been sitting. There's a bookshelf covered in bric-a-brac, including two dolls. I take down the dolls first and turn them over. Nothing.

I tear that damn shelf apart looking for the source of the sound, and I don't find anything. Then I plunk down on the recliner with more force than necessary and re-situate myself as I had been.

I close my eyes and mentally replay the sound. It came from behind and above, yet I've emptied the bookcase and…

I gaze up and find myself looking at a vent.

I stand on the recliner seat, but the vent cover is still a foot from my hands. That means doing some fancy—and risky—footwork, and it's only once I'm balanced on the recliner arms that I remember I'm in the house with a ghost that likes to shove me.

I steady myself, reach up, and pry out the vent. It comes free with a pop that makes me stagger backward. Something drops out and bonks me on the head. I get down from the recliner and find the offending object on the floor.

It's a miniature speaker, the sort that I know—from my séance experiences—will have a battery and an MP3 player. When I first found one at a séance, I looked it up online and found a similar model being sold for Halloween costumes and haunted houses. A tiny speaker and player, with a motion-sensor trigger. This one looks more elaborate. Judging by the Bluetooth symbol, it can be activated that way, too.

There are three tiny buttons on the side. I press one, but nothing happens. That's when I see duct tape over a light, and I take it off to see that the light is red. That was the popping sound I heard—the speaker broke.

I look in the other direction from which I'd heard Anton's voice. Sure enough, there's another vent, this one a cold-air return. I remove the cover and find another microspeaker. When I pull the tape off this one, the light is green.

I hit the first button.

"Hey," Anton's voice says.

It takes a moment before my trembling fingers can hit the button again.

"Everything's fine," Anton says.

I hit it again, and there's a soft laugh. Anton's laugh. Another push, and he murmurs, "I love you, Nic."

I collapse onto the sofa as something inside me shatters.

Something inside me? No, I know what's shattering.

Hope.

This is what I'd heard. All the times in this house that I thought I heard Anton, this was what I was really hearing. His recorded voice.

But what about that time in here when he startled you, when he apologized? What about when you couldn't quite make out what he was saying, like last night?

I push that aside. I have the answer here in my palm, and anything else was either more recordings or my imagination adding to the repertoire because I'd been so sure he was here.

Hey.

Everything's fine.

I love you.

The tears come then, hot tears streaming down my face. I wanted this so bad. Even if I'd doubted, had felt that this wouldn't be what Anton would say, I'd still hoped.

I push the thought away and angrily swipe at my tears. I play the speaker again. That's Anton's voice. I'm sure of it.

Where the hell would Cirillo get recordings of Anton's voice?

Not Cirillo.

He'd been too excited at hearing these recordings.

Shania? No, she wouldn't have access to Anton's voice, and certainly not clips where he whispered that he loved me.

I hit the button again and put the speaker to my ear. When I do, there's a slight hitch between "everything's" and "fine," as if two clips were stitched together. The "hey" is clear. The laugh is clear. So is "I love you, Nic," but there's something about the way he's saying it…

Anton's voice is low and rough with emotion. I've heard him say it exactly that way. But where…

Our wedding video. Signing the register. Anton leaning over my shoulder, telling me he loved me.

There's only one person who could have done this. The guy who always joked about being in the AV club at school, who videotaped every family event for posterity, from my wedding to birthdays with my niece and nephew. Endless footage to comb through and find the bits he needed to re-create Anton, reassuring and loving Anton.

I remember that night in here with Jin. How we'd both heard Anton. Then he had me close my eyes while he left notes where he'd heard the voice. While he'd removed the speakers that created the voice.

Jin had only been the first to hear Anton when he allegedly heard him laugh, which no one else had. For the recordings, he must have triggered them and then waited, only chiming in after others had. Making sure I didn't think it was suspicious that my skeptical brother-in-law was always the first to hear Anton.

Before Jin left, he'd insisted we wait for him before doing the last séance. Because it's hard to stage a show when you're a hundred kilometers from the stage. Oh, this little performance would be easy enough, but the real show needs him.

Jin has spent the last eight months running intervention with my séance obsession. He knew I was going through hell, unable to stop myself, and he'd been there to help me stop.

Or had he? Libby had been the one truly running the intervention. Jin had just tagged along for moral support.

Still, he knew what I'd been through with endless con artists pretending they'd made contact. So after all that… he sets it up to seem like Cirillo contacted Anton?

I don't understand.

The whispers from last night come back.

Why are you still here? You should be dead by now.

Anton is waiting. Isn't that what he said? What are you waiting for?

My stomach twists. Could those have somehow been Jin?

I'd heard a noise in the basement and gone downstairs, where I heard a rustling that turned out to be a mouse, and I forgot the clangs that originally caught my attention.

That mouse wasn't responsible for the clangs. Or for the dripping that held my attention while Jin could close the door upstairs and activate the recording.

A recording of someone urging me to join Anton. To kill myself.

Or not even a recording, but Jin himself, using his tech to disguise and throw his voice.

I rub my face. No, that's ridiculous.

Is it?

He's playing me clips of Anton's voice, his laugh, his reassurance, his love.

I'll be waiting.

Anton is right there, on the other side, waiting. Hear his voice? Remember how much you loved him? You want to be with him, don't you?

I rub my face harder. That makes no sense. What would Jin have to gain by my death?

Money.

I don't know my brother's financial situation. He refuses to discuss it, which tells me it's not as good as my own—he doesn't want me feeling bad about inheriting my parents' estate. I know that I make more, and my take-home pay is significantly more, since I don't have dependents.

Libby might be a clinical psychologist, but she works for a hospital, which means she's not bringing in private-care-level income. Neither is Jin.

My brother isn't struggling financially. If he were, I'd be there to fill the gap. But Jin isn't Keith, and there's a million-dollar jackpot waiting for the death of someone who has lived longer than anyone expected her to.

More than a million now, with my personal estate doubling after inheriting from Anton. After Anton's death, I changed my will. All the remaining trust goes to Keith, as our parents wanted, but now so does half of my estate, with the rest still divided between his two kids.

It's a lot of money. And the only thing standing between it and Keith is me.

The only thing standing between it and Jin is me.

Am I honestly thinking Jin would try driving me to suicide to cash in? That's ridiculous.

Is it?

I've already been questioning whether my husband could be a sociopathic killer. I've been telling myself that no one ever really knows anyone, and Anton has only been back in my life for a few years, and am I really sure he couldn't have killed Heather?

Now I'm refusing to believe something horrible of someone I've known for less time? Yes, Jin and I are close, but I don't know him as well as I knew Anton, so if I'm questioning my husband…

If I'm questioning my husband, maybe it's a sign that I need to get the hell out of this house. Stop this bullshit and leave.

I can't leave because Jin has my damned car.

I sit there, staring down at the speakers, and then realize a fundamental truth. Jin is not dead. So, unlike my deceased husband, I don't need a séance to ask him what the hell he's doing.

I grab my phone and call. After six endless rings, it goes to voice mail. I frown down at the phone. Unlike my brother, Jin always answers while driving. Keith won't, nor will he learn how to use Do Not Disturb while driving, and I swear sometimes he does it just to piss off his tech-savvy little sister.

Jin must be on the line. Not to Keith, who would give him shit for talking in the car, even over Bluetooth. But if it were Keith on the other end, Jin would swap calls to tell me. It must be work.

I should wait patiently, but I just found out that my brother-in-law—and one of my best friends—faked my dead husband's voice on a recording. I don't give a shit about being patient or polite.

I call again. Again it goes to voicemail.

I text, but the message sits there, delivered but not read. As I stare at it, I reconsider whether I really want to speak to Jin right now. I can't read his body language over the phone. This might be a conversation best held in person.

I turn the speakers over in my hand. Then I flip my phone to the notepad and start a list of everything I've experienced that I suspected could be Anton.

Next I go through the list and remove every voice that was definitely recorded.

I sort the rest of the list into things I thought were Anton and the rest.

Without those recorded reassurances, the Anton list is short. A few utterances, and one physical manifestation, where I thought I saw him lunging at me last night.

The only things that others experienced were those recordings, meaning the rest could be my imagination. If there's any chance those things were Anton, none of them are clearly positive in nature. And for all the times I thought I heard him, there are none where I can say, beyond any doubt, that it wasn't another recording.

Cirillo thought we had two entities here: Anton and some darker force. I'd worried that the darker force was Anton, and the only thing arguing against that was the quiet reassurances… which were fake.

But without those, there's also no corroborated evidence of Anton at all. Cirillo was basing "Anton is here" on those recordings.

Now I really need to speak to Cirillo.