Chapter Six #2
“Are you leaving the country?” one of the creepy twins says in the background. I take great satisfaction from the way Marina turns her head, slow and raptor-like, gives her the death stare, and draws her finger across her neck in pure menace.
“The Shropshire Express wants to shadow me at work for a couple of days for a big feature in their autumn supplement. The castle will feature heavily and we’ll make sure they highlight the tourism aspect for you.”
Lois smiles bravely. “That’s great news, honey,” she says.
Leo doesn’t seem as impressed though. “Tell me this isn’t just some thin ruse to spend more time with your boyfriend,” he sneers, and I shoot icicles at him from my eyes. In my head they fly toward him pointy-end first and stab him all over his smug, superior face.
Lois perks up. “You’re doing the hot patootie with the reporter guy?”
The hot patootie? I know Lois isn’t from these parts, but I expect that’s a phrase even native Oklahomans don’t chuck around on a daily basis. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to get the gist though and I’m incensed.
“No, I’m absolutely not doing the hot patootie or anything else with Fletcher Gunn!
” I say hotly, and then I want to take one of those icicles and thrust it through my own heart because he’s just sauntered through the open castle door and heard every word.
He’s like a genie in reverse: He keeps popping up whenever I don’t want him to.
If I ever find the lamp he pops out of I’ll take it to the nearest scrapyard and feed it into the jaws of the crusher.
“Did someone mention my name?” he drawls, smirking.
Artie nods. “And something about jacket potatoes.”
Marina rolls her eyes and I close mine for a second to regroup. This morning is already spinning off plan so I refocus my attention on Lois and try to pull things back on track.
“Why don’t you have a cup of tea and I’ll go and see if I can talk to the ghosts? I’m sure there’s no need for you to do anything as drastic as moving out.”
Leo is on his feet in a flash. “I’ll talk to them.”
Fletch laughs to himself, delighted, and pulls out his notebook. When everyone looks at him, he just glances up and waves us away. “Don’t mind me, folks. Just making notes.”
I seethe but force myself to ignore him as Lois shakes her head and gets to her feet, gripping the fireplace for support.
“My mind is set,” she says in a grim, determined way Scarlett O’Hara would have been proud of.
“I will not stay in this castle another night until those ghosts are gone.” She looks across at her husband for moral support. “Barty?”
He nods. “Lois and I have booked into the B and B,” he says. “And we’d appreciate it if you folks moved in for a few days while we’re gone, be here around the clock until the job’s well and truly done.”
I’m aware that my jaw is clenched almost tight enough to break my teeth. “I can’t stay here,” I say, because the last thing I want is to play house with Leo. “I have a dog to look after.”
“So bring him,” Lois says, wiping out my only real excuse with a casual wave of her hand. My other reasons—I love my own bed and I don’t want to stay here with Leo because he’s my dastardly ex-boyfriend—don’t sound very professional, do they?
“We’ll pay you for the inconvenience, of course,” Barty says, and then he mentions a figure that’s considerably more than double the fee I quoted, and one that any fledgling business would be crazy to knock back. I look toward Marina for guidance, but she shrugs helplessly back at me.
“I really couldn’t stay over,” she says. “I’m needed at home.”
I knew that already. Marina watches over her elderly nonno—grandpa to you and me—most evenings while her mum works, especially so at the moment with Nonna Malone back in Sicily.
I know without asking that staying here is out of the question for Artie too.
He keeps this job on the understanding that his mother thinks he works a regular nine to five, and in any case, he needs to get home to tend to Pandora, his python.
Somehow I don’t think Lois would be so fast to invite him to bring his pet to work as she was with me.
Although she hasn’t met Lestat yet, after which she’ll probably rescind his invitation too. I would.
Fletch raises his hand.
“My boss tells me that I’ve been assigned as Melody’s shadow for the next couple of days, so if there’s a room around here with bunks…?”
My cheeks flame. “I think you’ll find that you’re the one person we stipulated wasn’t invited to shadow me at work.”
He shrugs with a smug smile that tells me he’s well aware of the fact he’s unwelcome and it only made the job more enticing.
“Well, I’m the only one available, so suck it up, buttercup.”
If I wasn’t at work and therefore behaving like a professional in front of Lois and Barty, I’d pick up the nearest heavy object and take him down.
“Fine,” I say, faux breezily. “That’s just fine. But office hours only.”
He scrubs his hand over his chin. “Your office hours are my office hours. If you’re working around the clock, then so am I.
” He shakes his head ruefully. “Looks like we’re camping out, Ghostbuster.
Would you like me to call Most Haunted and see if they want to send people over too?
We could have ourselves a big old ghostly sleepover in the ballroom. I’ll bring a sleeping bag—”
Barty interrupts, cutting us off. “No need. There’s tons of rooms up there.” I really hope that Fletch’s wisecracks about calling in sensationalist TV crews went over his head. “You kids can take your pick.”
I cannot actually believe this. Isn’t it bad enough that I have to share this job with Leo?
Now I have to live with him as well, and not only that, Fletch is coming to the pajama party too?
I want to be resolute and demand that he doesn’t get to stay, but the fact that he’s living in that crummy flat lingers in my mind, and I know that a few days here would be a world away from cockroach city, so I hold my tongue and curse my streak of decency.
“My team and I will gladly stay on site,” Leo says grandly, backing me into a corner. “Whatever it takes, Mr. and Mrs. Letterman. I always do whatever it takes to get the job done properly.”
I’m a tiny bit sick in my mouth at his obsequious sucking up.
He always has had ideas above his station, so to get to be lord of the manor for a couple of nights is pretty much his fantasy.
It will definitely be a smoking jacket–worthy situation.
I’m not even joking. He ordered one from America when we were still together; it’s one of the many things I don’t miss about him.
Lois blinks up at him like a mole emerging into sunlight. “You’re so kind, Mr. Dark.”
Barty ferrets about on a side table and then presses a key into Leo’s hand.
“The key for the left turret.” He points out of the window to a turret set into the far corner of the moat.
“It’s all decked out with the latest fancy equipment: TVs that rise from the bedstands and all that fuss.
I want you guys to have it while you’re here. ”
His arm gesture incorporates Leo and the creepy twins.
Leo frowns, obviously not happy with being relocated from the main building into one of the turrets, even though it sounds pretty darn fabulous and Barty bestowed it upon him as a favor.
The main house rooms are grand and super traditional; it sounds as if the previous owner had a teenage son who was allowed to go tech crazy in the left tower.
“You and your team can take rooms in the house, Melody,” Lois sniffs. Me and my team? Fletch, Lestat, and I are going to play happy wacky families in a whole castle?
A horn toots out on the drive and Lois scuttles to the windows.
“It’s our cab, honey,” she breathes with clear relief, glad to be getting out of Maplemead.
Until this morning I’d got the impression that Lois and Barty were made of pretty stern southern stuff, so I can only assume that the ghosts, or Dino most probably, put on quite a show last night.
Within five minutes I find myself standing on the stone portico with everyone else watching Lois and Barty clamber into a silver minivan.
“The staff will be on hand if you guys need anything,” Lois calls, already far chirpier because of her imminent escape.
Barty rolls his window down and shouts to us as their driver starts the engine. “I’ll call to see how your first night went.”
We smile bizarrely like their children seeing them off on their vacation, and then we all stand and stare one another down.
“It’s a bit like Big Brother,” Artie says. “Lots of strangers suddenly living in a house together.”
“Or an Agatha Christie murder mystery,” Marina says, scowling. “Melody did it, in the library, with a candlestick.”
Fletch laughs dirtily, clearly taking Marina’s words in a very different sense from how she intended.
“Big Brother works for me. I’m off to choose the best bed and then drink vodka in the Jacuzzi.
” He saunters away and we all watch him go.
I notice one of the twins tip her head to the side to watch his backside and feel all stabby again, so I moodily suggest everyone takes some time to get their accommodations sorted and then gather for a lunch meeting in the dining room later.
Leo casts a miffed glance at the stairs, then struts out and away across the driveway toward the left tower with the twins behind him, stumbling to keep up on the gravel in their high heels.
He sighs loudly and offers them each an elbow to cling to, and they waddle off like a six-legged monster and disappear into their new abode.
“That just leaves us then,” I say, leaning my back against the cool stone wall beside the castle doors.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay with this?” Marina asks, serious now that we’re alone.
“Honestly? No, of course I’m not,” I say, scrubbing my hands over my face. “It was a bloody ambush from the second we stepped inside, wasn’t it?”
Marina grimaces. “It was a bit.”
“At least you’ll have Lestat to guard you.” I think Artie intended this as genuine comfort, which just shows how much he has to learn.
I huff and consider punching the wall. In the end I don’t, because I am a well-put-together businesswoman with dignity, but I really, really wanted to.