Chapter 9 #3
“So if we find out anything about the doll, you want us to tell you first,” Beau said.
“Yes. If you would be so kind. I took the liberty of writing down my cell number, just in case you need it.” She shoved it into my backpack, and made no move to head back to the house.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
Her eyes, beneath thinly penciled eyebrows, met mine.
“Lynda was right. About the house being haunted. We probably should have told you before you bought it, but we thought it might turn you off. It’s a little boy, and he likes to cause mischief, but he’s a happy little soul.
We think it’s a great-uncle who died when he was six years old, during the influenza epidemic of 1919.
His name was Patrick.” She smiled again. “I just thought you should know.”
“Thank you,” Beau said. “You weren’t legally required to tell us anything, so we appreciate it. I’m sure Patrick and I will get along just fine.”
She clapped her hands like a little girl, the gold bangles on her wrists jingling in tandem. “I was hoping you would say that. We felt so bad selling the house with him trapped inside without any friends. It’s good to know he won’t be lonely.”
We said our good-byes again, then watched as she seemed, in her long caftan, to float back to the house before we headed to the truck parked at the curb.
Beau cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
I braced myself. I didn’t believe—hadn’t even considered—that he would make any sort of declaration to me, or about me, or, well, anything to do with me, but still I found myself quieting my footsteps so that I wouldn’t miss a single word.
He stopped by the driver’s-side door but didn’t open it. “If Cooper is seriously interested in the Esplanade house, I need to make a full disclosure.”
I mentally sorted through all the things that could be so fundamentally wrong with a historic house that they would be detrimental not only to its renovation and restoration but also in finding a buyer who was interested in either one.
“It’s termites, isn’t it?” They were my biggest fear, up there next to black mold and a crumbling foundation, the trifecta of what could make the difference between restoration and demolition. For preservationists like me, any of those three issues was enough to make our knees shake.
“I wish. It’s a bit more, um, complicated than that.”
I stared at him in silence, my mind flicking through my grad school textbooks, searching for something else that could derail the project.
The mental reel stopped abruptly as I thought of one thing that wouldn’t be found in any historic-preservation textbook.
“We already know about the ghosts of Sybil and Patrick. They seemed pretty harmless to me. Even Cooper didn’t think they were anything to worry about. ”
“Right. And I agree.” He shifted his weight on his feet, then looked past me to the closed door of the house we’d just left.
“Is it the woman you saw at Café Degas?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve only seen her that once, and that was while Cooper was with me. I have a feeling I’ll only see her again when I’m near him, which I’m happy to avoid.”
I frowned at him, but I was too anxious about what he wasn’t telling me to be angry. “So…?”
“It’s a male spirit. An adult male. Definitely not a kid; older than me.
Forties, maybe. Judging by his clothing, my guess is contemporary, like, anywhere from the eighties or nineties to now.
Guys’ fashions don’t really change that much, so it’s hard for me to tell.
And I couldn’t really get a good look at him.
I sensed his presence the very first time I entered the Esplanade house.
I felt that he’s somehow connected to Honey and Joan.
That’s why I was looking so closely at their photos. ”
“Okay,” I said. “But since Cooper and I and the majority of people can’t see him, then it doesn’t matter, right?
Melanie and Jack have lived with the benign ghosts in their Tradd Street house for years.
There was a pretty nasty one that Melanie got rid of, but the rest of them just sort of rub along nicely with the living. ”
Beau nodded. “I know. But Sybil—the one with the perfume—acts like a protector, sort of like she’s shielding the living and any benevolent ghosts, like the little boy, from him.
Because this adult male entity is definitely not a nice person.
Or he wasn’t a nice person, and death hasn’t improved his disposition. ”
“So as long as she’s there, everything’s fine, right? If she’s happy to stay and protect the rest of us, more power to her, right?”
Beau’s brown eyes bored into mine, sending an electric pulse through my blood.
“I’m not so sure. He’s getting stronger with each new person who walks through the door.
That includes you, and Cooper, and any of the workers we hire for the project.
He feeds off your energy and is getting stronger and stronger.
I barely noticed him the first time I entered the house, and now I feel his presence like a sharp blade being held to my throat. ”
I stepped back. “Like Antoine?”
“Yeah. And the stronger he gets, the more he’ll be able to manipulate the physical world in a negative way.”
“So we need to find out who he is, so we can get rid of him.”
“ ‘We’?” A quick mouth tilt momentarily softened his grim expression.
“Well, we do have a good track record. And I’d hate to throw in the towel without a fight on our first murder-flip project.” An involuntary shudder rippled through me as a flashback to the night in the Ryans’ attic played in my head.
He frowned and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not sure, Nola. We barely survived the last time—remember?”
“Oh, I remember. Trust me. But I’d like to believe that our experience has made us stronger. And smarter. So we can be more prepared next time.”
His gaze locked with mine. “My gut tells me that I should say no, that you and I shouldn’t be working together, and that what happened in Mimi’s attic was an anomaly or we just got lucky. Because…”
He stopped, but I knew what he’d been about to say—the same words I’d heard him say to his dead mother over the phone. I want her too much. She’s dangerous. I can’t afford to lose my focus. I can’t ever let that happen again.
“Because…?” I prompted.
“Because it could be dangerous. You need to have a talk with Cooper and let him know. I need you both to go in with eyes wide-open.”
Beau held open the passenger-side door while I climbed in, and shut it before walking around the truck, opening the driver’s-side door, and sliding behind the wheel.
We drove in silence, neither of us wanting to take the risk of turning on the radio.
We hadn’t gone far when I began to feel tiny pricks of awareness on the back of my neck.
Like the feeling of someone watching me.
I turned to look, expecting to find the baby doll propped against the leather and staring at me.
But the space was bare except for a Saints baseball cap and a reusable grocery bag from Whole Foods.
I jerked my gaze to Beau. Dark beard stubble peppered his chin, highlighted by the pallor of his skin. His eyes were trained on the rearview mirror, and he was looking at something in the empty backseat.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.” He pressed his foot down on the accelerator as if trying to outpace whatever it was he was seeing. As if we both didn’t already know that the only way to fight one’s demons was to face them.