Maybe This Time (23 page)

“Okay, then,” Andie said, filing that under “May doesn't know as much as she thinks she does.” “I need you to know that I am going to get you out of here.”

He ignored her, his eyes on his book, but he didn't turn the page. He was listening.

“It's going to be okay. But first, I'm going to make you breakfast.”

“French toast?” he said, looking up.

“If that's what you want, that's what you get.”

He nodded and went back to reading.

Dear God,
she thought as she went to make breakfast,
he listens to me talk about ghosts and still asks for French toast.

When everybody except Alice was eating, she went to get Alice's cereal, pulling Crumb into the kitchen with her.

“Carter didn't kill his aunt,” she said as she got the Cheerios box from the shelf.

Crumb frowned. “What?”

“Also, you're fired.”

Crumb drew back, shocked. “You can't fire me. You didn't hire me. I've been with this house for sixty years and—”

“And you moved a body in a violent death and left two kids uncared for after the trauma. I'm calling Mr. Archer, and then you're gone.”

“I did it to save that boy,” Crumb said, panic making her voice rise, her watery blue eyes protruding even more. “I
saved him
.”

“He didn't kill May. The thing at the foot of Alice's bed did that.” She went to the fridge and got out the milk.

Crumb snorted. “He told you that? Well, how? That's what I want to know. You think ghosts have hands?
He did it.
”

“He didn't tell me anything. May told me. She said you dumped her body in the moat, and then instead of getting him help, you stuck him away in a corner of the house.” Andie gripped the milk carton harder on that one, and then she got a cup down from the shelf. “You just abandoned him.”

“Well, I wasn't going to turn him in to the police,” Crumb said virtuously.

“He didn't kill her.”
Andie poured Alice's milk. “You hung a little boy out to dry for no reason.”

The phone rang, and Andie went to pick it up, telling her, “Pack your things. You're done.”

“That's not fair,”
Crumb said, and Andie said, “I don't care, you're done here.”

When she picked up the phone, it was Will. “It's me,” he said. “I've been thinking about us.”

“Not
now,
Will, I have problems here.” She stuck the phone between her chin and her shoulder and opened the Cheerios.

“We can make it work,” Will said. “The kids can come live with us.”

“I'm going to call Mr. Archer,” Crumb said, her powdery white face even paler now. “That's what I'm going to do.”

“Make sure you tell him what you did to Carter,” Andie said as she dumped Cheerios into the bowl. Then she spoke into the phone. “I appreciate the offer, Will, but no.” She put the milk back in the fridge. “Look, my plate's a little full today.”
I've got a TV reporter, a ghost expert, a wack-job housekeeper, two disturbed children, homicidal ghosts, and a séance this afternoon.
“I have to go.”

“I think I should come down there.”

Andie clutched the Cheerios box. “Jesus,
no,
that's all I'd need, more tension. I have to take care of these kids, I can't handle anybody else.”

“That's right,” Crumb said. “You
need me.
”

“Maybe you wouldn't be handling me,” Will said, annoyed. “Maybe I'd be helping you.”

Sure, right after you have me committed for believing in ghosts.
“No,” she said, shoving the cereal back in the cupboard. “I absolutely cannot take one more person here. I have to go.”

She hung up, feeling annoyed, and then Crumb said, “Now you listen here,” just as Andie heard Alice scream, “No, no, NO!”

She went into the dining room, saw the plate of French toast Southie had just put in front of Alice, and said, “Chill, I have your cereal,” swapping out the toast for the bowl of Cheerios and cup of milk. “You'll get the hang of this,” she told Southie, deciding to give him the bad news about Kelly and the cameraman later. No point in bulking up the ghosts on emotion before the séance.

Then she pulled Alice's bat necklace out of her cereal bowl, picked up a fork, and started to eat Alice's rejected toast.

Outside, thunder rumbled.

It was going to be a long day.

 

Late that afternoon, North was on the phone when he heard his door open and looked up to see his mother striding toward his desk, tailored and furious in black.

“He took that woman and went to that damn house,” she said, biting the words off. “Did you know he was going?”

North held up his hand to finish his phone call. “Thank you, Gabe. I'll get back to you on that.” He hung up and said to his mother, “I told him not to, but today was not my day to watch him.”

“Very funny. We're going down there.” Lydia went over to the cabinets on the wall opposite his desk and opened the one that held his TV.

“No we're not. The worst that can happen to Sullivan is that he'll have sex with a television reporter.”

“He's not the only one she's threatening.” Lydia took a VHS box out of her purse, opened it, and slid the tape inside it into the player. “This was on the news this morning. I made them send me a copy.”

A newscaster popped up in mid-sentence. “. . . Kelly O'Keefe with a breaking report from the south of the state,” he said, and then Kelly O'Keefe appeared, her face pale in some kind of dark paneled hall, her lips blazing red in her white face.

“I'm here . . . at a country house . . . in southern Ohio,” she whispered, leaning closer to the camera as if afraid of being overheard, “where one . . . of the
leading lawyers
. . . of our great city . . . keeps his
secrets
.” Her nostrils flared.
“Two young children
. . . left
alone
. . . to face . . . what
some
say . . . are
ghosts.”

North frowned at the screen. He'd only seen Kelly O'Keefe's broadcasts a couple of times, but she seemed odder than usual. Drunk, maybe.

The picture shifted to Kelly in a studio talking with the last nanny who'd quit.

“The place was haunted,” the girl said, her eyes huge.

Enjoying herself,
North thought from long experience with witnesses.

“And those two
little babies,”
Kelly went on, “left there
alone
with no one to
protect
them . . . Their guardian was
no help
!”

“He told me not to contact him unless it was an emergency,” the
nanny said, looking equal parts outraged and thrilled to be there. “When I told him there was something in the house, he sent the
police
to investigate. Of course they couldn't find anything. The place is
haunted.
”

The picture shifted back to Kelly, standing in what North now recognized as the Great Hall at Archer House.

“Something . . .” Kelly whispered, her eyes glassy, “is
very wrong
. . . in this old house . . . These children . . . are in
danger
. . . and their guardian . . . a man of immense wealth and
stature
. . .
does not care
!” Her face grew larger as she stepped closer to the camera, her pupils dilated so that her eyes looked black. “Are you watching . . .
North Archer
?”

She lifted her chin, defiant, and North said, “Look at her eyes. She's stoned.”

Kelly stepped back. “Tune in tomorrow, Columbus . . . I'll have
interviews
. . . with
the children
. . . and proof of their
neglect
. . . at the hands of their
newest nanny
. . .”

North got up and went around to sit on the desk, his arms folded.

“. . . North Archer's
ex-wife.
”

You're done, O'Keefe,
North thought grimly.

“. . . much more about . . . the
Orphans of Archer House
!”

Lydia clicked off the TV with the remote. “I'm having her killed, of course.” She turned back to North. “I know you can take care of yourself, but that kind of thing does us no good.”

North picked up the phone and punched in the number for Archer House.

“What are you doing?” Lydia snapped.

The phone rang and he got a recording claiming a disruption of service. Was O'Keefe crazy enough to cut the phone lines?

“North, pay attention. If you don't care about what she's doing to you, think about your brother. She's got him alone down there, duping him because I'm damn sure he'd never let her say that about you.”

North put the phone down. “First, Sullivan is not stupid so you
can stop treating him as if he's ten. Second, she doesn't have him alone down there. I sent Andie, remember.”

Lydia turned back to the TV, punched the eject button, and took out the tape. “Get your coat. I don't know the way to the house, so you'll have to come with me.”

“No.”
I can do more damage to her up here.

“North, your brother and a predatory news reporter are in a house in the middle of nowhere with two disturbed orphans and your ex-wife who is not a patient woman.” Lydia put the tape in her purse. “Imagine the possibilities.”

North imagined them. The best was Andie strangling Kelly O'Keefe with videotape. The worst was O'Keefe finding out that Andie thought the house was haunted and was sending him after bodies in Britain.

“Why are you smiling?” Lydia snapped.

“Andie and Kelly O'Keefe in a smackdown.”

“She's probably a biter,” Lydia said.

“She is.”

“I meant Kelly O'Keefe,” Lydia said, her voice frosty.

“Right,” North said. “Leave Andie to handle it.”

“You're an idiot,” Lydia said and walked out.

In the ensuing quiet, North sat on the edge of his desk and considered his options. Some were fair—calling the station to point out libel could be expensive—and some were not—calling the McKennas to find out what string he could pull that would shut Kelly O'Keefe up about the Archers for good. If there was anything, the McKennas would find it, although they'd looked into Will Spenser and found nothing wrong with him, which was disappointing. “Well, he's a writer,” Gabe had said when he called. “You know those guys. But no debt, no police record, people like him. He's clean.”

Kelly O'Keefe was not going to be clean. And she was down there sticking a knife into Andie right now.

But if he showed up out of the blue, O'Keefe would think she
was on to something. He needed a reason to go. Checking on his wards? He could have done that anytime, probably should have done that. He needed a reason to go back, something like Andie's alimony checks. “I had to bring this down . . .”

Yeah, because FedEx was broken. He didn't have to take anything anywhere. Unless it was something he had to deliver . . .

He got up and went over and opened the farthest cabinet on the end of the wall, and then reached in, far to the back, and pulled out the box that Andie had left behind, forgotten under their bed, an old cheap wood thing that she'd glued shells to in junior high or something. Really ugly. She'd loved it, and he'd put in it all the odds and ends she'd left behind, thinking he could give it back when he saw her again because he couldn't imagine not seeing her again. And then he hadn't seen her again.

He took it back to his desk and put it in the middle of his blotter and then opened it to see what thing he could announce was crucial to deliver in person.

Junk. Ticket stubs from concerts—why hadn't he thrown those away? he thought even as he remembered each one, Andie close beside him in the night—and a single earring—she must have taken the other half of the pair with her—and the diamond earrings he'd given her for her birthday—late, he remembered, but he couldn't remember why he'd bought such boring diamonds, she wouldn't have wanted diamonds anyway, it must have been his secretary who'd bought them, he'd been too busy—and finally Polaroids, losing color with age. He pulled the photos out and went through them, seeing Andie with Southie, Andie with her first-period English class, Andie laughing with him, and then he turned over the last two, the oldest, the ones he'd taken of her the morning after they'd gotten married. She'd been tangled naked in the sheets, half awake, and he'd gone out to the car for his evidence camera and snapped the pictures, and she'd yawned and said, “What are you doing?” and then she'd smiled and he'd snapped another one . . .

He didn't need a reason. He could just go down there because it was his house and his wards.

And his ex-wife.

He put everything back in the box and closed the lid, left a note on Kristin's desk to cancel his appointments for the next two days, and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag.

He was fairly sure he knew what he was doing.

 

The storm knocked out the phone lines—“They must be made of tissue paper,” Andie told Southie, “they go out every fifteen minutes”—and then knocked out the sun, too, the heavy cloud cover making it dark when Andie moved Alice's things into the nursery. “I don't like it here,” Alice said as Andie began to move her own things in. “I like my wall drawings.”

“You can draw them again in here,” Andie said, and Alice looked at the vast expanses of white wall available to her and went to get her markers.

Andie looked around and saw no ghosts and went downstairs to help Southie get ready for the séance, feeling ahead of the game. He'd gone out earlier for groceries and liquor, but he was back now, having fully stocked the pantry and the bar.