The Haunted Air Part 66

Jack knew what he was getting at: It might already be too late.

"Don't like it either," Jack said. "But we have to chance it. She holds all the cards."

What if this doesn't work? he wondered. What then? He was out of options.

He glanced around. That Indian woman, the one who seemed to know everything-where was she now when he needed her? Hadn't seen her or her dog since he and Lyle had left for Manhattan.

Bellitto's legs went limp as they reached the threshold and he sagged in their grip.

"Pa.s.sive resistance won't cut it here, Eli." Jack looked at Lyle. "Grab the back of his belt."

Lyle did and together they gave Eli Bellitto an old-fashioned heave-ho toward the door.

Jack half expected him to bounce back at them but he sailed through and sprawled in the short hallway.

"You were right!" Lyle cried.

Jack tried to follow but met with the same impenetrable resistance as before. He leaned there, clawing at the thick air that wouldn't let him pa.s.s.

Please, Tara, he thought. Don't welch on us. We did our part. You've got the guy who killed you. Now you've got to do your part.

On the other side of the invisible divide, Jack watched Bellitto regain his feet. Somehow, in the course of the heave-ho, the tape on his wrists had loosened. He struggled with it, frantically working his arms behind him until his hands came free. He then pulled the tape from his face and lunged toward Jack and the door. Jack c.o.c.ked a fist, ready to smash him back but he never got close. He slammed against the divide and staggered back.

At that instant a little girl appeared behind him. Jack had seen her picture only once on the Internet site but recognized her immediately.

Tara Portman.

Jack saw her mouth work but heard nothing. Bellitto whirled toward her, then spun back. Jack knew from the horrified expression on his face that Bellitto recognized her. He hurled himself at the doorway but once again was halted inches from Jack. His mouth worked, screaming no doubt, as his fingers clawed the impenetrable air between then. Jack heard nothing and felt less.

"Sometimes, Eli," he whispered, "what goes around comes around. Not nearly as often as it should on its own, but sometimes we can help it along. That's why I'm here."

Behind him Tara smiled, her face a malicious mask of incandescent glee, then winked out of sight.

The next thing Jack knew, Bellitto was falling backward, arms flailing, then landing on his back and being dragged by some force Jack couldn't see. He slid kicking and screaming down the hallway and out of sight.

Jack and Lyle leaned on the barrier, waiting.

"Come on, Tara," he whispered. "We did our part. Time to do yours. Don't let us down. We-"

Then Jack saw movement in the hallway. Someone coming their way. Bellitto? How had he got away?

No. Someone else. His pain and despair vanished as he recognized Gia-but Gia as he had never seen her. Hair, clothes, and hands coated with dirt, face muddy from the tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes looked wild as she stumbled his way, picking up speed and rushing toward him with outstretched arms when she saw him.

Don't! he wanted to shout. She might run into the divide and hurt herself.

But she leaped at the threshold and flew into his arms and then he had her, he had her, he had her, arms locked around her, spinning her around, absorbing her quaking sobs, unable to speak past the fist-sized lump in his throat.

They held each other, Gia's feet not touching the floor, and would have stayed that way much longer if not for Lyle's question.

"Where's Charlie? Where's my brother?"

Aw no, Jack thought, looking around and seeing only the three of them. Don't tell me... not Charlie...

Gia slumped against Jack and reached out a hand to Lyle. Between sobs she told him about she and Charlie falling into a pit, how the sides began to collapse, and how Charlie had sacrificed himself to save her.

"Charlie?" Lyle whispered, his face slack, stricken. "Charlie's dead?"

His features tightened as tears began to slide down his cheeks. He stumbled toward the door but still couldn't enter. He leaned against the resisting air and pounded on silent nothing, sobbing, calling his brother's name.

FRIDAY.

1.

Jack let Gia sleep in as he got up early, intending to run back to Astoria to see what he could do for Lyle. But a quick listen to the news changed his plans. "The Horror in Astoria" was all over the radio. He flipped on the TV and that was all any of the local newsheads could talk about.

Gia came down in a light yellow terry cloth robe, looking tired and worn but so much better after a shower and some sleep.

He kissed her and held her and said, "I was hoping you'd sleep in."

"I woke up and started thinking about last night." She shuddered against him. "How can I sleep when I remember how Charlie-?" She bit her lip and shook her head. Then she looked up at him and touched his throat. "This still looks sore. And that eye..."

"I'll be fine."

He'd told her about trading Bellitto for her and Charlie and how one of Bellitto's friends had tried to choke him, but had decided against mentioning the fax that had targeted Vicky. She'd already had enough shocks to her system.

She stiffened and pointed to the TV. "Say, isn't that-?"

"Yeah. Menelaus Manor. Looks like Lyle called the cops."

Jack surfed from channel to channel until he found a newshead with the good grace to summarize the developing story.

"For those of you just tuning in, here's what we know so far. At 1:37 A.M. this morning the police received an emergency call from Lyle Kenton, owner of the house in Astoria you see pictured here, saying that he'd returned home after a night out to find his brother Charles dead in a ditch they'd been digging in their cellar. The ditch had apparently collapsed and smothered him.

"Why were they digging a ditch in their cellar?" you ask. Good question. Here's where the story veers into the Twilight Zone. Lyle Kenton claims to be a spirit medium who 'practices' under the name Ifasen. He states he and his brother were contacted by a spirit who called herself 'Tara Portman' and claimed she had been murdered and buried in the bas.e.m.e.nt by a previous owner. For the past few days, Lyle and Charles had been digging up the cellar, trying to find her remains. Last night their excavation collapsed, trapping Charles. When the police arrived, Lyle had dug his brother out but it was too late.

"If that were the whole story it would be sensational enough. But it gets stranger. The police did a little digging themselves and have so far unearthed the skeletons of two children. They are looking for more."

"The police want to make it very clear that Mr. Kenton is not a suspect. He has lived in the house less than a year and the remains found in the cellar so far appear to have been there much longer."

"Back to you, Chet..."

Jack surfed on, looking for mention of Eli Bellitto, but his name never came up. Where was he? What had Tara done with him? He hoped it hadn't ended quickly for him.

He clicked off the set. "The barrier must have come down some time after we left."

"Poor Lyle," Gia said. "I feel so bad that we left him to deal with this alone."

The three of them had waited together for the barrier to fall, but after an hour or so, Gia started to get the chills and shakes. Jack had needed to get her home and offered Lyle a bed for the night. Lyle told them go, he'd wait here. Jack promised to come back in the morning.

"Alone is the only way he can deal with it. We can't show our faces-at least I can't. And no reason you should. We can't add anything."

"We could be there for him. He and his brother seemed so close."

"They had their differences, I can tell you that, but there was a bond there, beyond blood. They'd been through a lot together."

"I'm glad he called in the police, though. They'll find the rest of the bodies. Then the families of those poor children will be able to bury what's left of them and have some closure."

Her gaze seemed to drift.

"Thinking of Tara's father?"

She nodded. "I wonder if burying Tara will change things for him and his son." She sighed. "Somehow I doubt it. I think they've been pushed too far off track to get back on."

"I've got an idea," Jack said. "Why don't we get out of town, say, drive up to Monticello and visit Vicky at camp?"

"But she's coming home tomorrow."

Jack knew that, but from the brightening of Gia's expression he could tell she loved the idea. After her ordeal with Tara, seeing her little girl would be just the tonic she needed.

"Even better. You and I can find a motel, stay over tonight, take her out for breakfast in the morning at this neat old-fashioned diner I know, then we'll drive her back ourselves. It'll be fun."

Gia smiled. "Okay. I think I'd like that. When do we leave?"

Jack repressed a sigh of relief. He'd been looking for a way to get up to Vicky's camp without alarming Gia. This was it. Last night, when Gia was in the shower, he'd made a couple of calls, one of them an anonymous tip to the camp warning them that one of the children-he didn't name the child-was in danger of being abducted in a custody dispute. He placed the same call to the Monticello police department, suggesting extra patrols around the camp.

With its leader dead, Bellitto's circle was a snake without a head. But even so, it wasn't enough for Jack. He wouldn't rest easy until he'd seen Vicky and placed her under his his protection. protection.

Gia too. She'd told Jack what Tara had said: It wants you dead It wants you dead. Who knew if Tara was telling the truth, but Jack had to a.s.sume she was. "It" could only mean the Otherness. What was it trying to do? Wipe out everyone he cared about?

That gut-wrenching thought had kept him awake most of the night. How do you fight something you can't see, that works so far behind the scenes you can never reach it?

The only thing he could think of was to circle the wagons and keep Gia and Vicky close by.

"You pack up some things while I run a few errands, and we'll get going soon as I get back. Make a day of it."

"What kind of errands?" she said, serious again.

"Just a stop by Julio's. Need to check out something with one of the regulars."

2.

Jack sipped coffee at the bar and watched the TV while he waited for Barney to show. He'd put on a gray turtleneck to hide the bruises on his throat and wore sungla.s.ses despite the bar's dim interior. Made it hard to see what was happening on the TV. Everyone around him, including Julio, was glued to the on-the-scene reports from what was being called "the house of horror."

He thought about Lyle and wondered how he was dealing with his brother's death. It left him alone for the first time in his life. Jack knew alone. He'd handled it, but he probably had a better tolerance for it than others. He wondered about Lyle's tolerance. He was tough. He'd done all right last night. Hadn't liked it, but he'd hung in there.

He'd be all right.

Bellitto. Lots more questions about him beyond where the h.e.l.l he was.

h.e.l.l... yeah, if it existed, he'd be a charter member.

He'd said he was hundreds of years old and didn't seem to be lying. Could that be true? Not likely. Maybe he'd just thought he was telling the truth. Told himself he was that old for so long he'd come to believe it.

Still, Jack wondered where Tara had taken him. Down through the dirt and into the fault line? Someplace where she could toy with him for the longest time without being disturbed?

That was all right with Jack. The longer the better.

And then the question of Edward, Eli's ersatz brother. Early last night Jack had wanted to wring his neck; by the end of the evening he'd wanted to thank him. If Edward hadn't put him onto Eli, Adrian might have got to Vicky...

His mind refused to go there.

A familiar face popped through the door then and bellied up to the bar about three stools down.

"Barney!" Jack called, waving. "Sit over here. I'll buy you one."

Barney grinned and hurried over. "Never turn down a man who's in a buying mood, I always say."

He'd just got off work and needed a shave. The essence of his grimy Willie Nelson T-shirt gave advance notice of his approach and he had pretty much the quant.i.ty and quality of teeth you'd expect in a Willie fan.

"What're you having?"

"A shot of Johnny Walker Red and a pint of Heinie."

Jack nodded to Julio who laughed. "Ay, meng, what happen to your usual of Smuggler an' eight-ounce Bud."

"That's when I'm buying." Barney turned to Jack. "To what do I owe this generosity?"

"Julio tells me you recognized an older gent dropping off an envelope for me the other day."