Ghost Of A Chance Part 22

The condemnation lay heavily on me, but there was nothing I could do to deny it. "Yeah. Life sucks sometimes, doesn't it?" I said, forcing down a painful lump in my throat as I left the room to check on my father.

"You're sure they won't break anything?"

I closed the door gently on the sound of imps cooing with happiness as they splashed around in a couple of inches of water in the bathtub, and smiled at the worried look on Adam's face. "They're not that sort of imp. They get into things and sometimes make a mess, but they aren't destructive. Besides, they love water. They'll be quite happy to play in the tub for a couple of hours, especially since Jules donated his devil ducky."

Adam gave me a long look. "You are one of the oddest people it's been my pleasure to meet."

"Thank you. I think. Shall we tackle Meredith again? Dad is Pixie-watching for me."

Adam waited for me to precede him up the stairs. "Does she need a babysitter?"

"Not in the normal sense of the word, no. But I don't want her disappearing again." I stopped in front of the door to Meredith's room and took a deep breath. "Do you want to be the good cop or the bad cop?"

"Don't be ridiculous; we don't do that anymore." Adam gave a couple of curt knocks and tried the door handle. "Dammit, he's locked it. Meredith?

Open up. We want to talk to you."

It took a minute, but at last Meredith opened the door a smidgen. "Where the h.e.l.l's my wife with my breakfast?"

"She's a bit busy now," I told him. "If you're absolutely starving, I suppose something could be brought up for you."

The look he gave me could have stripped paint. "And be poisoned again?

No, thank you. Tell Savannah to get off her a.s.s and bring me some food. Some safe food."

"I don't think your wife is inclined to do you any favors," Adam told him.

"I believe her words were 'Let the b.a.s.t.a.r.d suffer,' weren't they, Karma?"

"Yup. It would seem she has washed her hands of you."

Meredith swore with colorful, if impossible, creativity. "That stupid b.i.t.c.h.

Parading around like her s.h.i.t don't stink, demanding money from me all the time for her crackpot schemes, telling me how she's going to use those d.a.m.ned machines to get what's rightfully hers. You want to know what's rightfully hers?

Jack s.h.i.t, that's what!" Meredith shoved his enraged face toward us, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. The whiskey on his stale breath made my nose wrinkle. "She'd have nothing without me, nothing! Those machines are worthless without me. And you can tell her that!"

The door slammed in our faces before Adam and I had time to do more than blink in confusion.

"Machines?" Adam asked.

"What's rightfully hers, I wonder?" I said at the same time.

He pursed his lips for a moment. "I think we need to have another talk with Madam Savannah."

"I think you're absolutely right."

18.

We arrived at the dining room, which was now bare of breakfast, to find the table covered in papers.

"...and keep my mind a blank. I'm totally unaware of what my hand is writing. As you can see, I don't even have my eyes open," Savannah was saying to an audience that consisted of my father, Pixie, and the two spirits. "Now, dear, if you would just replace the paper...perfect. That way, you see, my hand can continue to write without stopping."

Pixie looked from the piece of paper she held to the others littering the table. They contained nothing but random loops and waves. "What's it mean?"

"Not every page shows actual writing. Sometimes it takes a bit to get to a communication from a spirit. We can help it by asking specific questions, but in a situation such as this, I prefer to just let whatever ent.i.ty who wishes to make contact do so without pressure. So I just keep my mind blank, and let my hand move as it will."

"I thought with the house sealed, no spirits could get through to anyone here," Pixie said, pulling another sheet of gibberish from Savannah as she reached the end of the page.

I picked up a couple of the topmost sheets of paper. As I'd suspected, there was no communication on those, either, only random waves and swoops.

"That's true, but as we found out with the seance, there are dormant spirits in the house. Who knows what else may be residing here? And I have high hopes that we'll make contact again with Spider."

"If you wake my grandfather up again...," Adam said warningly.

"I can't control who uses me at all," Savannah murmured, her eyes closed as she swayed ever so slightly with the movement of her hand over the sheet of paper. "I'm a blank ma.n.u.script, waiting to be written."

"Sounds stupid," Pixie muttered.

Tony suddenly sat up straight. "Oh, my dear, no! It works, it really does!

One of Adam's old girlfriends tried it with us that time we went underground- When was that, Julie?"

"The 1950s," Jules answered with a shudder. Both ghosts were barely visible, in what I thought of as a low-watt mode.

"Those shoulder pads!" Tony answered with a similar shudder before pulling himself to the present. "That was such a grim time, Julie and I thought we'd take a little rest, only somehow, we forgot to tell Adam. So his girlfriend, a really lovely woman once you got past the fact that she was a Moravian, did some automatic writing to contact us."

Jules cackled to himself. "She was ever so startled when she woke up Tony and he started dictating the most risque limericks. What was it, now?"

"There was a young man from Perth, whose cods were the finest on Earth-," Tony started to recite.

"I think that's enough of a trip down memory lane," Adam interrupted with a glance toward Pixie. "Karma and I would like to have a word with Savannah, if you don't mind. Alone."

"We want to see who comes through," Tony protested. "This is the most excitement we've had for years!"

"I don't care. Go rest up. We may need you later," Adam said, making shooing motions with his hands.

I turned to my father and c.o.c.ked an eyebrow.

He heaved a martyred sigh and pushed himself up from the table, holding out a hand for Pixie. "Looks like we're de trop, my girl. Shall we go check on the imps?"

"I am not a child! I don't have to be gotten out of the way!" she said with an indignant look tossed in my direction.

"Of course you're not. But there are times when three is company, and seven is a crowd."

"Lame excuse. What's a Moravian?"

"Another word for vampire." Dad gently pushed her through the door, pausing to say in Poltern before he left, "I want to hear the full details when you're done."

"What's all this about?" Savannah asked in a dreamy voice, cracking one eye open briefly to shove aside a filled paper and start on a new one. "Karma, would you mind taking over page duty? It's distracting for me to have to keep track of it, and the more distracted I am, the less ent.i.ties can use me to write for them."

"We had a little chat with your husband," Adam said, standing in what I'd mentally termed his confrontational pose: arms crossed over his chest, weight balanced on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, eyes glittering with icy blue intent.

"I can't be distracted with such negative thoughts as that man sp.a.w.ns,"

she answered without opening her eyes. "Page, Karma."

"Oh, sorry." I obediently whipped away yet another page, giving Adam a meaningful look.

"I regret having to distract you, but we need to talk. This is important."

Savannah was silent for a few seconds before heaving an exaggerated sigh.

She set down her pen, laced her fingers together, and opened her eyes. "I only hope that when you're done I'll be able to attain the state of mental awareness I just had. What is it you wished to discuss with me?"

I took a seat at the end of the table, trying un.o.btrusively to pull out my notebook. Adam, evidently feeling a less authoritative air would be conducive to confidences, also sat down, absently tidying up the ma.s.s of scribbled-on papers. "During the course of our brief conversation with your husband, he said you'd told him that you were going to use the machines to get back what was rightfully yours. Would you care to explain that?"

Her face was placid, but her fingers tightened. Her laugh wasn't its usual water-tinkling-in-a-brook variety, either. "G.o.ddess above, how am I to explain anything that man says? I'm sorry to have to say this about someone in whom I had placed so much trust, but I see now that Meredith is not in full control of his faculties."

Well, that was a new one. "Are you saying he's insane?" I asked.

"Not insane per se," she answered, unlocking her fingers to make an airy gesture of dismissal. "Not inst.i.tutionally insane, just...not very grounded in reality."

"So, if we were to ask him to explain what he meant by the accusation, you don't think he could tell us anything?" Adam's hands lay relaxed on the table. I took a moment to admire his self-control. I knew how hard it was for me to sit still when I was excited; it must have been much more difficult for him, with his almost pure polter ancestry.

"On the contrary, I'm sure he'll have lots to say." Savannah looked just as relaxed as Adam, but I got the feeling we were seeing only what she wanted us to see, as if she, too, were enacting the strictest control over her emotions. "It's just that none of it will be the truth. I can a.s.sure you I have no ulterior motive for anything I do, save the intellectual pursuit of knowledge."

Adam's expression was unreadable. I wondered if he was as suspicious of Savannah as I was. "Hmm. And the machines Meredith mentioned you using?

What would those be?"

"Machines? I told you before: I'm the most technophobic person on the planet. I don't even try to work the TV remote. Electronics and I do not get along."

I might not have the polter ability to accurately read emotions, but I could generally recognize a lie when I heard it, and Savannah had just told a whopper.

I took a peek over the top of my notebook. Adam met my gaze, acknowledging my suspicion.

Almost imperceptibly, his body language changed to that of an interrogator. "Indeed. How long have you lived in this area?"

"In Washington, you mean? Oh...about four years. My family is from a small town in northern California."

Lie, I wrote down in the notebook.

"And what did you do before you met your husband and became involved in the psychic group?"

"I was an insurance actuator for a national company."

Lie.

"You had no knowledge of the plans your husband was partic.i.p.ating in to turn this house into an Otherworld brothel?"

"None whatsoever. I would have thought my statements before made it quite clear that I'd never condone such a heinous act."

That, at least, was the truth. Whatever else she might have going on, she didn't appear to have known about the plans for the house. Which left me to wonder exactly what Meredith was talking about. What did she hope to regain?

What had been lost? Money? Prestige? An heirloom? And did any of that have something to do with Adam's house? She'd been poking around the house earlier in the day; was there something there that she wanted?

Adam continued grilling Savannah while my thoughts ran along grim lines. At one point I was struck with the chilling idea that perhaps it was Adam's spirits that she had in her sights. I'd heard about supposed scientific groups that trapped spirits and used them to generate income, much like Spider and Meredith had planned, but without the s.e.x. Could she be pretending innocence to capture Tony and Jules?

"Why on earth do you want to know what my maiden name is?"

Savannah's voice, tinged with exasperation, pierced my dark musings. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Adam shot me an inquiring glance.

"Honestly, I'm happy to answer questions so long as they are pertinent, but I am getting the feeling that you're fishing for something you can use to accuse me. I have explained repeatedly that I did not kill Spider, and I do not have some deep, dark ulterior motive for anything."

Ding, ding, ding! Lie!

I made a little face at Adam. He rightly interpreted it to mean I had nothing to add.

"I'm sorry if my questions or manner have been offensive or overly taxing.

If you could run through your actions of last night one more time, I'd appreciate it."

She sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, apparently looking for patience, recounting yet again her movements of the night before. Adam, having heard it a couple of times, absently shuffled through the papers before him, nodding and making encouraging noises as Savannah spoke.

I listened with half my attention, still puzzling over what it was she was hiding, and why. She wanted the house; that I knew. But did that have anything to do with whatever secret she was keeping from us? Or was it a coincidence? I had a feeling that the answer was right before me, but I couldn't bring it into focus. It was a maddening sensation, the source of which seemed to become more elusive the harder I tried to pin it down.

"...and then I said I'd find Meredith, and we all went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. You know what happened after that."

"Mmmhmm," Adam murmured, glancing down at a page. "Who's Bethany?"

I shot out of my chair, s.n.a.t.c.hing the paper from him before he could so much as blink, "What?"

"Bethany. That's the name on the paper. At least I think it is. What's wrong with you?"

I stared at the sheet of paper clutched in my hands, my world narrowing to it and the name it contained. It couldn't be. It just couldn't be. How could Savannah know about the death of my little cousin? She couldn't. Bethany's death hadn't reached the mortal media, and coverage in Otherworld circles had been kept to a minimum out of respect for my aunt and uncle. There was no way Savannah could have heard about Bethany...unless it was Bethany herself who had made contact.

"Karma? Is something wrong? You look as white as snow."

Grabbing the rest of the papers and quickly searching them, I shook away the feeling of horror that crawled up my arms. The random scribbled loops filled page after page, but at the bottom of one page, the word "release" was discernable.