The White Night (13 page)

Acting out of
habit? Afraid the black-eyed children would try to get inside while they were
gone?

Sure. Maybe.

I need to ask her
about that.

First, food.

In the
refrigerator, I discover some leftover munchies, perfect items to whip together
a makeshift picnic; a pack of sliced, dry salami, sliced havarti cheese, and an
open bottle of Chardonnay go onto a serving tray conveniently stationed nearby
on the counter. Crackers from the cabinet too, once I check the date and ensure
they’re not as old as Ellen.

Wine glasses.
Can’t forget those.

Napkins. Check.

Salami, cheese,
and wine. You’d think we should be smack in the middle of Napa Valley, not
setting up perfect appetizers for a night of paranormal frivolity.

I balance the tray
on one hand, like back from my days waiting tables, and stroll into the front
room where Lauren remains stationary at the window. “Tasty snacks for m’lady,”
I say, setting our mini-meal down on the coffee table.

Lauren has light
in her eyes again. “Oh, yay,” she squeals, clapping.

It’s weird, you
know? Like I don’t feel as if either one of us is as scared as we should be,
given what we’re facing. Or what might be coming. Lauren seems to be swaying
back and forth between normal and cautiously strange, and, I have to admit,
there are a few molecules inside me that remain skeptical of her story.

That said, it catches
me totally unaware when Lauren, mouth full of cheese and salami, asks me the
scariest question I can think of:

“Are you ever
going to get married again, Ford?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mike Long

We retreated to my
place, and now I’m standing here in a confused daze.

By the time we got
here, the kids had left for the Daltons’ house, friends of ours who live up the
street and also have an in-ground swimming pool with a diving board. Dayton and
Ashley spend more time there than anywhere else—which is completely alien to me
since they have an entire ocean to swim in mere feet away. Not that I care,
it’s just that sometimes I’m burdened by an adult’s logic. Aren’t we all? Most
of us, anyway.

Toni gave me no jealousy-fueled
argument about leaving again with Dakota, and in fact, she almost seemed
excited by the idea that I’d be out of the house. She didn’t even beg Dakota to
hang around and take a tour of
Casa de Long
. She had on makeup, dangling
earrings, and that skirt with the revealing slit up the side that I love so
much, offering minimal details about a ‘meeting’ she was late for.

“You might see me
designing for a new client,” she’d said. “Wish me luck!”

Stranger still,
Toni also kissed me goodbye when she left, which I’m sure was just an act in
front of Dakota, and whisked herself out the front door in a flurry of perfume
and dramatic flair. She called back over her shoulder, “The kids are going to
spend the night at the Daltons, so take all the time you need. Be careful,
Dakota!”

Then she was gone.

And now Dakota
stands beside me in the living room, studying me with an arched eyebrow. “Evil
Medusa, huh?”

I snort in
disbelief. “I have no idea who that person was. Keeping up appearances for you,
I guess.”

“She doesn’t seem so
bad.”

“Give it time.”

“That skirt,
though. I’m jealous of her legs, that’s for sure.”

“
What
?
Don’t even go there. You’re—” I cut myself off. The conversation—my brain,
rather—is heading down a playground slide coated in lard. I gotta stay on
track. Dakota is attractive, yes, and I’m married—final word. Perhaps not
happily
married, but still, I have principles. I am
not
Ford. I’m a dedicated
father and husband, not a cheating horndog.

I stammer
something dismissive about her looking great, smile awkwardly, and make a hasty
exit, telling her I’m going to put my paranormal equipment out in the garage,
charge the batteries, and then we can go to the library for some research.

So, yeah, that
entire interaction just now was like watching a crash-test dummy take a hit at
sixty-five mph in slow motion.

What had poured
water on the hot ‘n’ bothered flames of my once-stagnant libido was that black,
floating-mist-spirit thing blatantly noting that I
want
Dakota. If I’m
projecting enough of that energy for it to be picked up all the way in the
goddamn afterlife… then I need to back the hell off.

Jus’ sayin’.

What I really need
right now is a hard workout—Old Faithful—to burn off some of this mental
garbage. I need to go pick up heavy things and set them down, over and over, to
wash my sins clean.

I check the wall
clock and see that it’s not much past eight-thirty in the morning. Best bet is,
Ford’s asleep out on the west coast. It’d be nice to ask him how he’d approach
this scenario—the investigation, I mean, not about being Don Juan with
Dakota—because he always had the best ideas. You know, theories, angles, or a
way to come at the spirits that would elicit the best response. He was so amazing
at assessing a situation, creating a scenario as if it were a movie or a play
in his mind, figuring out how these people had lived, what motivated them, what
would be best to use as a trigger object.

The one and only
time he royally screwed up was with little Chelsea Hopper.

One unheeded
warning—mine—sank an entire ship like a midnight iceberg.

***

Toni took the
Audi, and that’s cool by me. Dakota and I hop into the BMW sedan, my first true
gift to ourselves when the show got renewed for a second season. I love this damn
car—bangs, knocks, rattles, and all. Loveable warts that remind me daily of so
many good memories. I’ll drive this thing until the wheels fall off because
there in the passenger side floorboard is the perpetual stain where Toni
spilled an entire glass of red wine. Above Dakota, the cloth material is torn
in a lightning shaped pattern, evidence of Toni’s stiletto heel and a
particularly adventuresome, uh,
event
a long time ago when money wasn’t
required as an aphrodisiac.

The buttons on the
CD player have ancient crumbs wedged between them where Dayton tried to see
what his PB&J would sound like. Behind me and in the seatback pocket,
there’s a miniature shovel that we brought back from the beach one afternoon a
few years ago. We had no idea to whom it belonged, and none of the four of us
had any clue where it came from. It simply showed up among our collection of
toys.

General consensus,
at least from my side of things, was that a ghost had been trying to get our
attention that day. I never discovered a reason, and since spirits can get
attached to objects, I brought it out here to the car rather than unleashing a
spiritual stowaway on our brand new home back then.

I didn’t have the
heart to throw it in the trash, because it’s a kid’s toy, and, well, you know,
child spirits tug on the heartstrings.

Over in the
passenger seat, Dakota seems distant, distracted. It’s muggy, but not quite air
conditioner weather, so we have the windows down. Wisps of loose hair, somehow
escaped from the Alcatraz of her hair band, drift around in the thirty-mph
wind. “Dakota?”

She turns to me.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I dunno. Seems
like you left us there for a bit.”

“Just thinking.”

“About?”

“Mostly about how
I got here. I mean, like,
here
here. It’s funny, you know, how I just
randomly decided one day to go audition for this new show because I was bored
at my old job. I absolutely could not hang around and plate up my old chef’s
bland steak, his stupid, lumpy potatoes and his limp, soggy, disgusting salad.
Not anymore. It wasn’t what I went to culinary school for, and I was completely
wasting my life. I got bored with a song and changed the station, right over to
an ad for auditions on the radio.

“Instead of going
to work, I made a left turn, and here I am. My life took an entirely different
direction because I got bored with a song. That amazes me.”

“You don’t think
you would’ve ended up here eventually?”

“Destiny? Could
be. But the point is, I’m in a place where I have more money in the bank than I
could have ever imagined, a humongous house on the beach—that happens to be
haunted—and, honestly, I feel like such a first-world cliché. Beach house, nice
cars, a few extra zeroes in my bank account… All great to have, yeah, but you
saw my kitchen. I’m eating burgers and fries, pizza. I’m not even cooking
anymore. I haven’t in
weeks
, and I feel like I’ve lost sight of doing
what I loved.”

“And this just hit
you now?”

“Earlier.
Something clicked, maybe after you mentioned Toni wasn’t happy after the
paychecks stopped coming. God, if I ever got to that point, shoot me. I’d
rather a hurricane come through and wash this all away than let money rule my
world.”

My stomach
flutters with pride and admiration.

Same team, Dakota
and me. It’s like she’s been reading my mind.

She puts her head down
into her hands, takes a deep breath, and says, “Ignore me. I shouldn’t be
unloading on you like this. It’s just that I haven’t talked to anybody about
something other than food or fame in so long.”

“No, I get it,
definitely. And
unloading
? Please. It’s a conversation. It’s how normal
people interact.” I hesitate to tell her that I’ve been feeling the same way
about wanting to wipe the proverbial slate clean. That’s too close to the sun,
Icarus. Save that conversation for some other time, like when she’s not in
soul-baring mode. “Really,” I tell her. “It’s no big deal.”

“This is crazy.
Cray-zeeeee. Poor, poor pitiful me, right? My multi-million dollar beachfront
mansion is haunted. I literally sound like I should be on your show.”

“Yep. You’d make a
perfect season finale.”

“It’s… Jesus,
Mike, it’s been exhausting. I’ve barely slept, I’m eating like shit, and the
only thing that’s keeping me sane is exercising.”

True dat, sister.
“It’s a good thing. At least you’re doing that.”

Dakota sits up
straighter in her seat, like she’s pouncing on an idea as she slaps her lean
thighs. “Fuck it. You know what? I need to cook something. Let me cook you
dinner tonight.”

“You’d do that?”

“If you don’t
think your wife would care, yeah. It’ll be the most gourmet home-cooked meal
you’ve ever had. That’s how I can pay you back! Does that sound good? Gourmet
meal from the multi-season, not-humble-at-all winner of
Yes, Chef!
? Would
that work for you? In exchange for bug-zapping the bad guys?”

Have I died and
gone to heaven? Funny, it looks more like the inside of a BMW than I thought it
would. “Abso-freakin-lutely. Are you kidding me? I’ve literally daydreamed
about that, like, five thousand times. Deal.” Then, reluctantly, I have to
address the situation because the smart, yet tentative, side of my brain
understands that if this happens without Toni and the kids along, my bed for
the next, oh, century or two, would consist of the rickety Adirondack chairs on
our deck. I’d take up permanence residence in the doghouse.

I tell Dakota, “I
have to invite Toni, though. She’d stab me with a butter knife in my sleep. A
dull butter knife because it’d hurt more.”

“Sure, sure,”
Dakota says, not entirely hiding the flicker of disappointment I can hear in
her voice. “Of course they can come.”

“Come? Oh, you
mean do it at your house?”

“That’s where all
my supplies are.”

I chuckle. “Don’t
get me wrong, I’d love to, but I don’t want you to be under any kind of
impression that all we have to do is say a few magic words and your house is footloose
and demon-free. There’s a chance it could take a while.”

“I know.” This
comes with a narrowed glare that insinuates,
dipshit
.

“And you
still
want to do it?”

“Yes,” she says,
matter-of-factly. “That’s the whole idea. A big fat middle finger to that jackass
in my house. I’d like to take my life back.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“You don’t sound
so sure.”

I lift one
shoulder. “I’m not, to tell you the truth. This shit is
dangerous
. If
we’re focused on anything other than this floater, we could be in trouble. It takes
time, and patience, and a lot of in-depth concentration, especially if it’s malevolent.
Technically, I shouldn’t even have you around the house, it’s that risky. You
could get possessed. You could be scratched, attacked… anything. As much as I’d
love to eat one of your meals, time is a limiting factor here.”

“Mike?” She grins.

“What?”

“You do remember
the format of the show, don’t you? Cook the perfect dish in forty-five minutes
or less?”

“Right, but—”

“And who was the
champion three years in a row?”

“You, but—”

“No more buts. We
got this. You and me. And your wife, and your kids, and a ghost, and, hell,
invite the whole neighborhood. Bottom line is, I feel safer with you there, and
I need this little win. Does that make sense?”

“Oh, I get it, but
I’m not bringing my kids to your house. And Toni”—I can’t believe Boy Scout
Mike is actually going to say this—“what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”

“So just us then?”

“Yep. Ghost
hunting on a full tummy. No better way.”

“Now you’re
talking.”

I turn left, changing
streets. The trees are green and lush this time of year. They sway in the
breeze, casting early morning shadows on the squat buildings on either side of
us; the surf shops and crab shacks, the banks and drive-through beer stations,
they’re peacefully empty. The real crowds are at the restaurants where the
tourists are filling up on pancakes and good southern grits before heading out
to the beach to get bad sunburns and drink one six pack after another.

It’s a beautiful
morning, really, and I have a crazy lady sitting beside me.

Determined, but
crazy.

I like it.

This might be one
of my most favorite investigations ever.

Tonight will be a
good night.

What could go
wrong?