Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead (25 page)

“Leslie and I were involved years ago, and the company hadn’t taken off then. Things didn’t really change until I took it public. I was in a very different situation when we were together. I haven’t exactly made a point of updating her on my financial status. I do make nice gifts to the museum, among other places, but she’s never commented on that. And I’ve established a trust for each of her children. She doesn’t know that yet.” He stared at her, trying to read her face. “You’re angry.”

Abby found that was true. “Yes. I am. You hid all of this from me, even when we started getting … close. What about all this seeing the dead stuff? Was that just a con?”

“No! Everything I told you about that was true. I couldn’t have made it up. Are you really going to say that what we have isn’t real? When we touch? Don’t you feel it?”

Abby chose her words carefully. “I believe that part is real. It’s all the rest that’s the problem.” For which she had herself to blame, in part. She’d been so busy dealing with the mess that was her life that she hadn’t asked questions. She’d just been grateful that Ned was there.

“Abby, I just didn’t want to overwhelm you with everything at once. You were having enough trouble as it was.”

“Oh, and you decided that I couldn’t handle the truth? You don’t seriously think I’m a gold digger, do you?”

“Of course I don’t!”

“When were you planning to tell me about … everything else?”

“I don’t know. I mean, how could I tell you when we met? ‘Hello, can I get you a cup of tea, by the way I’m a millionaire.’”

“Is that why I’ve never seen your house?”

“No! No matter what you’re fantasizing, it’s not a mansion. It’s exactly as I’ve described it—a gorgeous Victorian that’s falling down from neglect and a lot of stupid renovations. The expensive part is the location, not the house itself. I like Lexington. I grew up there. When the property came on the market, it happened that I could afford it. I haven’t taken you there because it’s a dump and barely livable at the moment.”

“You have the money to fix that,” Abby pointed out.

“Yes, I do, but I like to work with my hands. I think carpentry is fun, and relaxing, except that I can never find the time for it. Besides, there hasn’t been any reason to finish it. Until now.”

His last words hung in the air between them. Abby tried out and rejected several responses. Ned Newhall was thoughtful and considerate and she had thought he really understood her—the real struggling her, not the cheery public her who liked to teach young children. But they’d jumped straight into research into all those dead relatives, just as the rest of her life was collapsing around her. They still hadn’t had a discussion about where their shared life might be going, and now he had thrown a big monkey wrench into the middle of it.

“Abby? Please? Say something.” He looked so miserable that her heart twisted.

She took a deep breath. “Ned, I’ve said this before. I want to prove that I can stand on my own two feet—to myself, to my parents, and to you. What you’ve just told me … well, maybe it’s good news, but I need to come to terms with what it means to me. To us. Can you understand that?”

“I’m trying to, Abby. But I have to say, what we have, what we’ve shared over the past few months, it’s something special. Maybe even unique. I don’t want to lose you, Abby.”

“Then let me work this out for myself.”

“What about Leslie? And Ellie?”

Abby had conveniently forgotten them. “I’ll talk to them with you, if that’s what Leslie wants.”

“Thank you. You want me to go now?”

“Yes. Please.” He stood up, and she stood up too, and escorted him to the door, going through the ritual of disarming the electronics. She was careful not to touch him; she even stepped back when he reached out a tentative hand.

He gave her a long, wordless look, then finally said, “Good night, Abby.” Then he turned and walked out into the darkness.

Abby shut the door behind him and leaned against it. She was surprised to find tears running down her cheeks.

25

I am so stupid!
Abby lay in bed, staring at the darkness and wondering what was wrong with her. The man she’d been involved with, dating, sleeping with, whatever, for the last several months had announced, oh, I happen to be a millionaire, and she’d told him to get out. Most people would consider that insane.

But she felt betrayed. She’d come to trust Ned and to depend on him, and all the time he’d been hiding something pretty major from her. She hadn’t pushed too hard for the details when he tossed off casual comments about going to work, or taking a work-related trip. She knew he had more than one degree and he did something scientific, but that was as far as it had gone. It had been easy not to ask, and she had to admit she thought they were on the same page as far as values and principles went, so why rock the boat? And what they had, it had been good—hadn’t it? Ned was everything she could want in a man—smart, sensitive, supportive—but he had left out some big chunks of who he was. Rich. Famous? No, she probably would have seen that in the paper, or overheard something.

Which prompted her to get out of bed, turn on some lights, and find her laptop, which she dragged back to bed. She sat cross-legged on the bed and booted it up, then Googled Edward Newhall, and watched as pages of references appeared. If she wanted, she could trace the entire history of his company, which was pretty much as he’d outlined it. He’d founded it with a couple of college buddies, more than a decade earlier; they’d landed some lucrative contracts; they’d issued an IPO a few years back, that had gone very well, with the stock price taking off from the first day and never looking back. The great American success story, right there on the page.

References to his personal life were few and far between. No society snapshots of Ned in a tuxedo with a gorgeous blonde on his arm at the symphony or an exhibit opening at the MFA. No scandalous gossip tidbits linking him with the wives or exes of celebrities the ordinary person might recognize. No lawsuits. No criminal record. She almost laughed out loud when she found one small reference to “reclusive millionaire entrepreneur Edward Newhall.” And that was all. Okay, so Ned wasn’t living the lifestyle of the rich and famous—that much was pretty clear. Was that his choice? Or was there some fatal flaw that he’d managed to conceal from her until now? He was a serial killer who kept bodies in the basement of that ramshackle Victorian? That idea at least made Abby smile.

So why did she feel bad now? Because she thought they had shared everything, inside and out. Instead he’d been making decisions about what she should or shouldn’t know, and he’d withheld a lot. Not just that he clipped his toenails in the living room or was allergic to spinach, but that he was very, very rich. He hadn’t trusted her to react well to that news. What had he thought she would do?

Probably not what she
had
done, which was push him away. Her reaction had been immediate and unthinking. Now what was she going to do?

She had no idea. She wasn’t about to declare that they were finished, but she wanted to let her new knowledge of him sink in, and at least guess at what difference that might make between them. In any case, they’d have to see each other, because they still had to deal with Leslie and Ellie. Abby wasn’t about to walk away from that, for Ellie’s sake. If this seeing the dead thing was real—if she wasn’t psychotic or hallucinating—and Ellie shared it, she would do anything in her power to help Ellie understand it and manage it. And to keep Leslie from freaking out, if Leslie would even talk to her, about which Abby had some doubts. But Ellie needed help, and that was Abby’s first priority—not Leslie’s feelings, not her own job security, not even her relationship with Ned. When she had chosen to become a teacher, it was for the children. Ned was an adult who could flounder his way through any coming conversation as best he could, because he’d kind of failed to fill in Leslie about some important aspects of his life as well. Hmm, there seemed to be a pattern there. He liked to hide things. Or was he in deep denial? He didn’t believe he was different from anybody else? Seeing dead people and making millions were just little quirks. For a smart man, Ned Newhall could be kind of dumb.

That conclusion made Abby feel better, although she didn’t want to examine too closely why. She shut off her computer, turned out the lights, and managed to go to sleep.

• • •

Things did not look brighter in the morning.
I have a rich boyfriend
, Abby thought.
Except he never bothered to tell me he was rich.
What a ridiculous problem to have! At least she’d cooled down a bit now, but she thought Ned should stew in his own juices for a short while. He’d probably call when he heard from Leslie, and they could talk after. In the meantime, she could look forward to some precious hours at the Littleton Historical Society, although she didn’t expect to make any startling discoveries. Mostly she hoped to confirm the bare outlines of what she had learned from other sources.

She was waiting at the door of the historical society when a woman approached, clutching a heavy ring of keys. “Good morning!” the woman said brightly. “Are you here to do research?”

“That’s what I hoped. I wish you were open more often.”

“You’re not the only one. But then, we’ve got only the administrator—that’s me, and I’m Helen—and volunteers. If we’re real lucky, now and then we get a grant, but that usually has to go for operating expenses or to patch the roof. Come on in,” the woman said, turning on lights as she went. Abby noticed her nudging up a thermostat on one wall too—the interior felt a bit damp. “What are you looking for?”

“I’m doing some genealogy research on the Perry family that lived here in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. I already got a good start a couple of weeks ago—Esther Jewett was helping me. Is she around?”

The woman was staring at her with a peculiar expression on her face. “Uh, not right now, but maybe I can help you today. What have you learned so far?”

“Well, I’ve done a fair bit online, and …” Abby outlined what she had discovered so far, ending with, “And then Esther showed me the original town record books in the back room.”

“Oh, dear God,” the woman whispered. Then in a stronger voice she said, “You were lucky, then—the public isn’t usually allowed back there. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I did—lots of Perrys, going back to the Revolution and before. That was all I had time for the one time I was here. I wanted to find out more about Henry and Reuben Perry—they were my lineal ancestors. You know, where they lived, what they did. Where they’re buried. I looked in the cemetery in the middle of town but I didn’t find them there. But then, I know a lot of people never had tombstones made, so they could be there and I wouldn’t know it. What do you suggest?”

“Let me see what we’ve got in our files. I know there’s a transcription of a nineteenth-century journal here—it’s never been published—and I think we may have some property records too. Give me a second. Oh, sit down and make yourself comfortable.” Helen hurried away toward the back. Abby took off her coat and extracted her notes and printouts.

Helen was back in a couple of minutes. “Here’s what I mentioned,” she said, laying some yellowed manila folders on the table. Then she hesitated before saying, “You might want to push the Perry line back a couple of generations, too—there are some interesting stories there. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Come find me if you want more.”

“Thank you,” Abby called out to Helen’s retreating back—she had left in a hurry. Then she dug into the new material.

The more she read, the more she was amused by the picture of the Perry family that emerged. Father Henry had been a model citizen, serving in two wars, raising a family, including two sons who had served in the Revolution. His namesake Henry Junior had lived nearby and had followed his father’s model. Reuben, on the other hand, came across as what Abby could only call a loser. He seemed perpetually short of money, to the extent that he had been on the public dole for a while. The town had offered him money to take in his aged mother, after father Henry had died, but that hadn’t lasted long, since the next entry in the town book reported that mother had moved herself out, saying she couldn’t tolerate living with her son. Reuben had died penniless, and the town had had to cough up the funds to bury him, although she couldn’t find where. Was there a potter’s field in Littleton? Her ancestor Reuben was a real charmer. It didn’t surprise Abby that his daughter Mary Ann had left town quickly and married a man from somewhere else.

All this was fascinating, but it wasn’t contributing anything to the problem she faced with explaining things to Leslie and Ellie. What had Helen said? She was supposed to look further back into the Perry history? That wouldn’t take long. She leafed through the hard copies of the vital records the society kept on hand and found nothing noteworthy. It was only when she returned to the early years of the town records that she came upon what Helen must have been hinting at: the record of the death of Henry’s grandfather John Perry, in a prison in Cambridge in 1692. He had been awaiting trial for witchcraft.

Oh, boy.
Abby swallowed hard. All right, she knew what most people knew about the brief witchcraft frenzy around that time—the accusations, the trials, the hangings. There were a lot of theories about what had really gone on. Suggestions had included mass hysteria (which seemed most likely); some sort of widespread poisoning by a substance that could have been ergot in grain, which caused hallucinations; or even local economics, since most of those accused had been widowed women who were sitting on nice inherited pieces of property that other people coveted. Which didn’t stop a handful of people from believing in witchcraft, or stop modern Salem from selling crystals and candles and going a bit crazy around Halloween, or so she’d heard.

But … what if John Perry really was a witch? What if he’d passed down …

“Excuse me?” Abby was jerked out of her reverie to find Helen standing in front of her. “Can we talk?” Helen asked.