Twenty-Eight

TWENTY-EIGHT

I'm not going to accuse Jin, but Cirillo has to know about the speakers. Basing his funding application on fake data could cost him his career. He can help me sort through the evidence and determine what is legitimate. Because some of it is legitimate, and whatever Jin has done, there's no way he's responsible for the invisible hands that have pushed me or pulled rugs from under me or slammed a spade into my shins.

I tuck the speakers into my pockets. I don't want Shania seeing them until after I've spoken to Cirillo.

I can hear Shania tapping on her laptop in the breakfast nook, so I sneak around the other way, and pause in the kitchen. No sign of Cirillo, not even an empty mug by the sink. He must still be upstairs.

I climb to his room. The door's closed. I knock. No answer. I knock again.

"Davos? I need to speak to you."

Still nothing. I gingerly take hold of the doorknob. It goes a quarter turn and stops.

Locked.

Okay…

The locks on these doors have been changed since the house's bed-and-breakfast days, when each guest required a secure room. These are simple privacy locks, the sort intended to keep your kids from barging in.

I knock again, louder. Worry slides in to replace the annoyance. I keep telling myself that everyone else is safe because the ghost only targets me. Again, that's a logical fallacy. The ghost has only targeted me so far. There's no reason why it couldn't go after the others.

I fetch a pen from my room and take out the refill. Then I knock again before putting the slender cylinder into the hole and popping the lock.

The door opens. I push it one inch.

"Davos? It's Nicola. I'm coming in."

No answer.

I open the door another couple of inches. His room doesn't have an attached bathroom, so he can't be in that. I can see the bed and small desk, and he isn't at either.

I step inside. The only place I can't see is the floor on the other side of the bed and desk.

I check the bedside first. No signs of him there. I turn around where I can see the spot behind the desk. He's not there either.

My gaze goes to the window, as if a forty-year-old professor is going to exit that way.

This makes no sense. If the door can only be locked from the inside…

Wait. If I was easily able to open it, there's no reason Cirillo couldn't lock it behind him and then use something to pop it open. That's the only way to have a semi-secure room.

Mystery solved.

I hurry toward the door. I want to relock it and get out before he returns. I don't relish explaining why I broke into his room. Yes, I was concerned, but I'm not sure my brain is a good judge of reasonable behavior right now.

I'm passing the desk when a notebook snags my attention. I might be a techie, but I do appreciate a fancy notebook. I've even been known to buy them, on the off chance that I'll suddenly decide to start taking longhand notes. The book is gorgeous. Leather-bound by the looks of it. I find myself reaching to open the cover.

Um, weren't you leaving? Quickly?

I just want to see this. Such an expensive cover on a disposable item seems a waste. Also, the book has a lock. It reminds me of the diary I had as a child, only this is a real lock, one that can't be picked with a fingernail. It's been left half latched, as if it didn't quite catch when he shut it.

I wriggle the locking mechanism open, flip the cover, and give a nod of satisfaction. This isn't a disposable notebook. The leather-bound exterior holds a removable pad of paper.

So now I'm at Cirillo's desk, having broken into his room and opened the notebook he accidentally left unlocked. As long as I'm piling on faux pas and misdemeanors…

I flip to one of the latest pages.

NL is not an easy woman to work with. She's argumentative and fixated on disbelieving her own experiences. I'm not sure why she hired me. I know she has a history of uncovering fraudulent mediums, and I've begun to suspect I've been set up.

I snort. You're worried about being set up? Now he knows how I feel when I'm questioning his motives, feeling misled.

That page is about five from the end, shortly after he arrived and before stuff really started happening. He soon lost his skepticism.

This might be the most complex haunting I have encountered, as well as one of the most definitive. There is no doubt that there are entities here. We have successfully summoned AN, but he seems to be trapped on the other side of the veil. There's a second entity as well, a darker force that I can't pin down.

I need to push NL further. Both entities are clearly focused on her. I realize it may be unethical to push her when I have doubts about her safety, but I will keep a close watch on the proceedings. NL herself might be difficult, but she is at the center of a compelling story.

I believe I finally have the cornerstone of my book. Sid has argued that he can't sell it without a strong central narrative to hang my research on. I have fought that, but I finally understand what he means. My experiences and research are interesting and important, but a mainstream audience requires more, and with NL's story—the background and the séance results—I think I have it. Sid agrees.

I reread that last paragraph. Then I skim for a sign that I have misinterpreted, and that Cirillo is not using my séance—a private engagement—for a book.

The following pages only make it clearer, as the asshole tap-dances around the fact that he is milking my tragedy—and endangering my safety—to get a damned book deal.

He's planning to profit off what happened to me, off what's happening here.

He's willing to push me past the point of safety for a better story.

Hey, if we're lucky, the entity will kill Nicola, and I'll get to write a tragic romance of a woman who dies at the hands of an evil entity accidentally summoned while she's desperately trying to contact her husband.

Aww.

I tried to convince her to end the séances when they got dangerous, but she refused. I think she hid the worst of it from me. It was almost as if she wanted to join her husband. How sad… and yet heartwarming at the same time. A satisfying story of lovers reaching across the divide to reunite.

Could that have been Cirillo I heard last night? Telling me to end my life?

By this point, I have no fucking idea. I only know that this asshole has set me up. I kept telling myself that he'd stop if things got too dangerous. Hell, he insisted he would. But here I have the proof of his lie. Whatever we've summoned is dangerous, and he wants to push harder.

Time to pull the plug on this. My brother-in-law has staged at least half this damn summoning, and my medium is ready to shove me into traffic to get a story from it.

If there's any consolation, it's that Cirillo is going to be livid when he realizes how much was faked.

I shut the book and stalk from the room. When my phone buzzes, I barely glance at it.

Keith. Figures.

I send it to voicemail. He texts.

Keith: When did Jin leave?

Really, Keith? This is not the time. I almost ignore the text. Then I remember what Jin has done, and my stomach plummets.

I'd forgotten what might be the most important part of that equation: my brother. I just discovered that his husband…

I'm not sure what Jin's motive is, but he's betrayed both of us, and goddamn it, my brother loves him.

Fuck.

Me: Just after nine.

Keith: Have you heard from him?

Me: No.

Keith: We were supposed to grab coffee before his meeting. I've been waiting for thirty minutes

Me: Toronto traffic?

Keith: He's not answering his phone or texts

Shit.

I don't tell Keith that Jin didn't answer my calls and texts either. I don't want to worry him, and the one who's really worried is me. Is Jin avoiding us? Is there some kind of setup here that I don't see?

Me: Maybe he finally listened to you and shut off his phone while he's driving

Me: Or he didn't plug it in properly last night and it's dead

Keith: Yeah, I'm mother-henning again, aren't I?

Me: Cluck-cluck

Me: I'm sure he's fine

Keith: I'll chill. Talk later?

I send a thumbs-up, and I'm just glad this conversation is by text; if he could hear my voice he'd know something was wrong.

I can't think about Jin right now. If I suspected he was any threat to Keith, I'd stop whatever I was doing and deal with that first. But I don't see any possible motive for those recordings that would involve hurting my brother.

Unless that's his ultimate plan. Drive me to suicide and then kill my brother for the money.

I press my fingertips to my temples. I'm losing my mind. I really am.

And what if that's not hyperbole? What if something really is wrong with me?

First I suspect Anton could have murdered Heather and framed Patrice. Then I think Jin is trying to drive me to suicide to claim Keith's inheritance. Finally, I convince myself that Cirillo is stealing my story for a book.

Except I know the part about Cirillo is right. I read it upstairs.

Am I sure? If I really were spiraling into some kind of mental break, couldn't I have hallucinated that?

I rub my temples.

I know what I saw.

Just like I saw Anton's ghost last night? Saw my husband's spirit lunging at me, his face twisted in rage? Like I'm sure that spade twisted in my hands and rammed into my shin?

Just like I'm sure that basement door swung shut after I propped it open?

Just like I'm sure someone tried to push me down the stairs and yanked out the bath mat?

Yes, damn it. I am sure. If my imagination is edging into paranoia, that only applies to my fears about Anton and Jin. The rest is real, and if the rest is real, then can I be blamed for spiraling into wild theories about my husband and brother-in-law?

I'm forcing myself to question two people I love because whatever is happening here, it's bad, and I need to consider even the ugliest—and most outlandish—possibilities.

I reach the main level. Shania is still in the breakfast nook. When I walk into the kitchen, it's so dark that I think someone has pulled the blinds. Then I hear the buzzing. I hadn't noticed it before now. Maybe I'd gotten inured to it the other day, and when it returned, I just didn't notice.

Beyond the kitchen windows, the world is dark with a swarm of midges thicker than I've ever seen. I have to walk to the window to be sure of what I'm seeing. It is literally black outside the window.

Is that actually the bugs?

Yes, I can hear them, and I can see a few on the glass.

But are you sure that entire roiling swarm is midges?

What the hell else would it be?

Why aren't the others noticing this?

I walk into the living room. Beyond it, I can see the back windows, and they're just as dark. Yet Shania keeps working away in the breakfast nook.

Am I hallucinating?

Where the hell is Cirillo?

I rub my temples and ignore the bugs. Shania will be working with her headphones on and she's probably pulled the blinds against the screen glare.

Now find Cirillo.

I'm passing the basement door when I catch a noise. I'm not even sure what it is—just something in the basement.

I ease open the door. It's dark below, the lights all off. I'm standing at the top of the stairs, head tilted to figure out what I heard.

I'm reaching for that light switch when I stop. It's not completely dark down there. My eyes have adjusted enough for me to see light shining from under the closed furnace-room door.

A door I left open last night.