Ghost of a Chance (17 page)

“We’re not together,” I said quickly. “Not
in a relationship way, that is. We’re just working together for a
bit.”

“She’s an exterminator,” Adam added.

The old man whistled and took a few steps
backward. “I’d best be on me way. Feeling a mite sleepy, I am. Give
yer grandam a kiss for me, Adam, and tell her to wake me up as soon
as she’s done runnin’ things in the Court.”

“I will if you promise to go back to sleep,”
Adam warned.

The ghost’s eyes flicked in my direction for
a second; then he faded.

“Oh, but wait! I have questions—” Savannah
stopped as the elder Adam disappeared entirely. “Dammit! There was
so much I wanted to do with him!”

“Please don’t bring back any more of my
family,” Adam told her.

Her brow furrowed. “Are there more dormant
here?”

“Not that I know of, but I could be
wrong.”

“Well, I’ll try not to if you insist,
although I thought your grandfather was delightful. But why did he
only have two arms?”

“He used to be mortal,” Adam said, abruptly
turning and marching back to where Meredith was eating the last of
my croissant.

“Court?” I asked, following him.

“Court of Divine Blood.”

“Your grandmother lives in
heaven
?”

“It’s not heaven, it’s the Court, and yes,
she lives there. She’s the polter ambassador to the Court. Grandpa
doesn’t get along well with Court life, so he sleeps a few decades
at a time, then wakes up to see how things are going.”

“You people just get freakier and freakier,”
Meredith said with a shudder. “It’s a good thing I had more than
one diffuser made. Sooner or later, I’ll be rid of all of you that
aren’t turning a profit for me.”

Adam’s gaze met mine. It was pregnant with
meaning.

“Let’s go over the events of the evening
again,” he said to Meredith.

“I just told you what happened!”

“I want to hear it again.”

My coffee was more lukewarm than hot, but I
sipped it as Adam forced Meredith to go over the evening’s
activities yet another time. Savannah went into another summoning
trance but produced only one other spirit, a process server, who
served Tony for breach of contract.

“But that was a century ago,” Tony said
nervously, glancing at his partner. “It was before I met you,
honey, I swear! Angelique meant nothing to me, nothing! She
completely misinterpreted my offer to go in together on a scheme to
farm kobolds.”

“Indeed!” Jules said with injured
dignity.

“Thank you for waking me up,” the process
server said with a bow to Savannah. She sat with openmouthed
surprise. “I lost track of time. I remember stopping here and
thinking I’d take a little nap until someone summoned me forth, but
I guess I was more tired than I thought. Still am, for that matter.
Think I’ll take another little nap…”

He disappeared before she could say
anything. Adam’s two spirits went off to the kitchen, no doubt to
work out their relationship woes. Savannah blinked a couple of
times, shook her head as if to clear it, and then announced they
would continue trying to contact Spider.

“Tell me again what you said to him, and
what he said to you.”

A sulky look slid over Meredith’s face as he
repeated what he’d told us earlier.

“Is that all he said?” Adam asked.

“That’s all I heard before I was knocked
out,” Meredith answered with obvious exasperation. “If you’re done
with this third degree, I’m going to get a drink.”

Adam’s gaze met mine. I shook my head.

“Go ahead,” Adam told him, then waited until
Meredith was out of hearing before asking, “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t seem to me like he
was lying. You must be able to read people better than me; what do
you think?”

Adam looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’d
just about swear that he wasn’t lying. But if Spider wasn’t talking
to Meredith, then who else was there?”

I nibbled on the end of my pen. “Good
question.”

Adam called Amanita over.

“I hope you’re not frightened by me being
here,” I told her with an encouraging smile as she settled into the
chair next to me. “I’m not going to clean this house, so you really
don’t have anything to fear from me.”

“I know. Adam said he would keep us safe.”
She didn’t look me in the eye when she spoke, her fingers working
the material in her gauze peasant top.

Despite her statement, I could feel her
fear. I sat back, nodding at Adam. It was clear she would respond
much better to him than me.

“Nita, this is important. I want you to tell
us again everything that happened after Karma came into the
house.”

Her voice was low and hesitant, but it
gained both a little volume and confidence as Adam guided her
through the happenings of the last few hours. While she was
recounting her actions, a cold chill brushed the back of my neck,
making the hairs on my arms stand on end. I looked around, but
there was no one behind me.

“And was anyone in the basement when you
went to hide there?”

“No, it was empty then. But a little later,
there were voices, so I hid even farther behind the furnace.”

Kaaaarma
. The wind seemed to speak my
name, another chill wisping past my back.

“What were they… Are you all right?”

I looked up as Adam interrupted himself.
“Yes, sorry. I’m just tired, and there’s some sort of draft that’s
hitting me the wrong way.”

He frowned for a second before turning back
to Amanita. “What were the men saying, do you remember?”

She repeated the conversation she’d told us
about earlier.

“Kaaarmaaaa.” The skin on my arms and back
crawled at the voice. I wasn’t imagining it.

“Oh, goddess! It’s Spider!” Savannah
cried.

“Karma, darling wife—”

I jumped up at the voice, too vague to be
identifiable, but eerie enough to cause me to knock my coffee over.
There were a horrible burning smell and a bright blue flash, then
the house was thrown into darkness.

“Dear goddess, he’s come!” Savannah
shrieked, her voice high and frightened.

Mass pandemonium followed. Amanita squeaked,
a rush of air passing me indicating she was running for a hiding
spot. Dad and Pixie both shouted as Adam pushed the table back
slightly. Meredith demanded to know what was going on. Adam’s
spirits were calling for each other from the dining room and the
kitchen. The imps, which had been sleeping at my feet, woke up and
started
eek
ing in a confused manner.

“Everyone stay put!” Adam bellowed over the
cacophony of confusion. “It’s probably just the fuses.”

“It’s my fault,” I said loudly, feeling my
way along the walls to follow Adam. “I knocked my coffee over onto
a frayed lamp cord. It’s nothing to get excited about.”

The imps clung to my feet as I shuffled
toward the hallway.

“Watch where you’re going,” Meredith snapped
as I inadvertently bumped into him.

“Sorry. I’m just going to help Adam with the
fuse box.”

I felt my way blindly down the hall, then
froze when someone whizzed past me. There were only three people in
the house who had the combination of excellent night vision and
speed needed to zip around in the darkness, and one of them had
already gone ahead. “Dad?” I whispered. “Pixie?”

There was no answer. I cursed the fact that
I didn’t inherit the polter ability to see in the dark. My cursing
became more pronounced as my shins took a beating running into
various pieces of furniture. I finally gave up and limped painfully
back toward the living room. A whisper of air that passed me
indicated that someone had beaten me back. The lights came on just
as I entered the room, its occupants providing a tableau of
startled faces.

Pixie and my father were both seated at the
table. “What were you just up to?” I asked Dad in Poltern.

His eyebrows rose. “What do you mean, what
was I up to? I’m just sitting here.”

“Uh-huh.” I turned to Pixie. She had her
iPod fired up again, her head nodding in time to the music. One of
them had taken a quick trip out of the room, but I had no idea
which. I shrugged it off, telling myself I was making too much of
nothing.

“It was the fuse, nothing more,” Adam said
as he entered the room. “The wiring needs badly to be updated. It’s
on my list of things to do this summer. Nita? You can come out now.
We’re almost done.”

“I’ve lost contact with Spider,” Savannah
said, her voice reflecting the frustrated expression on her face.
She sat back down at her seat, frowning at the table. “I’m not sure
I can get him again.”

“I think that someone here doesn’t want
Spider to talk,” Meredith said. His eyes narrowed as he looked at
Adam.

Amanita shot Meredith a nasty look as she
walked over to us.

“You’re not going to start that again, I
hope,” I said, too tired to temper my words.

“You’re sitting there so high-and-mighty,
like you’re above it all,” he snapped back at me. “You’re just
protecting your boyfriend there. Everyone knows how much Adam
wanted to get his house back. He threatened to sue the bank, for
god’s sake! And Spider told me that Adam made all sorts of wild
threats to him on the phone. So it’s no use, you trying to cover it
up; we all know who the real murderer is here.”

“Yes, and his name is Meredith Bane,” my
father said, sallying. I smiled at him.

“You freaks all band together, don’t you?”
Meredith answered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if
you
were the
one who killed Spider. He’s hated you long enough; I’m sure the
feeling was mutual.”

“Please, Meredith, this isn’t doing any
good,” Savannah said with a hand to her head.

“You stay out of it. This is between me and
the freak cop over there.” He pointed at Adam. “He’s trying to
railroad me into a murder charge, but it won’t work. I have no
reason for wanting Spider dead! He was my partner!”

“Don’t partners often make legal
arrangements so any business assets are given directly to the
surviving partner in case of death?” I asked. “One that guaranteed
if he died, you’d get it all… and vice versa?”

The sneer on Meredith’s face was not a
pleasant thing to behold. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sorry,
Karma, Spider owned his assets outright. We didn’t have any sort of
a survivor clause in our agreement.” He paused for a moment, a
speculative look in his eye. “Something I’m willing to bet you
knew. Which gives you, Miss High and Mighty, the perfect motive for
killing your husband.”

I frowned at him. “What on earth are you
talking about?”

“You’re sooo innocent, aren’t you? You
pretended you didn’t know anything about the Fun House, but I’m not
buying that innocent act. Spider was more excited about the brothel
than anything else we’d worked on. He must have told you how much
money we were going to make on it, and you decided you wanted it
all for yourself, didn’t you?”

“Brothel?” Savannah gasped, half rising from
her chair.

“Oh, sit down,” her husband snarled. “Like
you give a damn where I get the money you’re always demanding for
your crackpot hobbies.”

She threw a startled look at him, an
outraged “Crackpot! Oh!” quickly following.

“Are you saying that this Fun House place
you mentioned is a brothel?” I asked, unwilling to believe Spider
would have anything to do with a project like that, but knowing it
was entirely too possible.

“Don’t act like you don’t know what it was.
Spider told you.”

So that was why this house meant so much to
Spider, why he wanted so badly for it to be cleaned, and why it was
important enough to agree to not fight a divorce. “No, wait, that
doesn’t make sense,” I said, shaking my head at the confused
thoughts chasing themselves around and around. “Why
this
place? What’s so special about Adam’s house? I believe your
statement that Spider was excited about a brothel—he had no morals
that I knew of, so it doesn’t surprise me that he’d happily take on
the role of pimp—but it doesn’t explain why he wanted
this
house so bad.”

“Oh, for god’s sake, are you so stupid you
think this innocent act is fooling anyone?” Meredith said, a
disgusted look on his face.

“Stop speaking to her that way!” To my
surprise, Savannah jumped up and stood behind me, glaring at her
husband.

“I’ll speak any way I want. Shut your mouth
and sit down!” he yelled back at her.

Savannah wasn’t having any of it. She
reminded me of an angry Chihuahua taking on a mastiff. “That’s it!
I have had it with you! You are being rude and unfeeling, and
downright insulting to these good people!”

“They aren’t people,” he answered with yet
another sneer. “They’re not human.”

“Hmm.” Adam ignored the argument between the
husband and the wife, his gaze blank as he clearly tried to work
out the puzzle of the house.

“They are so! Just look at them! Well, all
right, I admit the extra arms are a bit… different… but they are
human in every other respect! And Karma and Adam look one hundred
percent human!”

“You should have seen Adam before he finally
lost that third arm,” Jules said as he drifted past us, carrying a
coffeepot. “He went through hell trying to hide it. I thought he
would rot his brain with all the glamours he used to look mortal.
That was before he got a job in the mundane world, of course.
Anyone want a refresh?”

Savannah turned distraught eyes to me. “Tell
him you’re human.”

“I’m half human,” I said slowly, not wanting
to upset her any more than she already was. The situation was
volatile enough without anyone else freaking out. “Polters aren’t
really the same as mortal humans. It’s more than just the extra
arms; they have several other traits inherent to the species, one
of which is a life span about four times that of a mortal.”