Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“Are we all clear on our roles today?” Natalie scanned her audience as she asked the question.
Gabe nodded. Holding Millie’s hand so the living attendees could hear, he said, “The ghost patrols will keep on Doug until he breaks and tells us exactly what scared him to death. Harriet’s out on shift now. She’s good. She’ll use her therapist skills to get him to talk.”
“Screw talking. I wish we could waterboard him. That’d get him to talk,” Rick mumbled.
Natalie ignored the disturbing suggestion, grateful that as ghosts they couldn’t actually waterboard Doug’s spirit and that the livings in the room couldn’t hear the comment, and moved on.
“Team Trout, are you ready?” she asked.
Agnes dipped her head. “I’ve already baked my famous apple crumble.
It’s Margaret’s favorite. I’ll bring that over to her house.
Now that she’s home from the hospital, I’d of course want to check in on her.
She’ll no doubt invite me inside for tea and pie.
Then, while expressing my concern over her health, I’ll prod her for information about the day she collapsed. ”
“Perfect.” Natalie loved how easily, and efficiently, Harper’s great aunt embraced her role as undercover agent.
“And if Agnes can’t get anything out of her, I’ll visit next. I know Margaret’s going to want to catch up. So much has happened since she went into the hospital,” Mary said.
“Sounds good,” Natalie agreed.
If anyone knew everything that was happening in the village, and was very willing to share, it was Mary Brimley. Maybe Mary’s personal Mudville news report would get Margaret talking. They could only hope.
Natalie glanced around the room with a frown. “I was hoping Alice would be here. I wanted to see how the B-Listers were doing with their community patrols.”
Since it was a weekday morning, the meeting was limited to the spirits and the livings in Mudville who didn’t have businesses to run.
Dee Flanders, the village attorney, was at her law office. Red was manning her thrift store. Bethany was at her bakery.
Natalie had grown to count on Alice, ninety years old and long retired, to be here when the others couldn’t.
“I can call her,” Agnes offered, then groaned. “Never mind. My cellphone is dead. I could have sworn I plugged it in last night.”
“Maybe the charger came unplugged?” Harper suggested. “It’s fine. I can text her.” Harper pulled out her cell and frowned. “Mine’s dead too.”
“Maybe the breaker tripped and the outlets in the house were dead?” Agnes suggested.
“But you charge your phone in the kitchen and I charge mine in my bedroom. I’m no electrician, but would a single breaker control the third floor and the first floor outlets?” Harper asked.
Gabe, Rick and Liam, the only males in the room, all shook their heads.
“Not likely,” Liam said.
“Definitely not. The third floor has its own breaker box,” Gabe informed them. He should know since he’d moved into Harper and Agnes’s house after he got serious with Millie.
Rick pressed his lips together, looking like he had something to say.
“Rick?”
He drew in a visible breath. At least, visible to Natalie and the other spirits in the room. Finally, he said, “Check your cell phone, Nat. Tell your guy, too.”
Wondering what was up, Natalie pulled her cell out of her pocket and hit the side button to wake it. Except it wouldn’t wake.
She glanced up at Liam and said, “Check your phone.”
He did, then raised his gaze to her and said, “Totally dead.”
Rick let out a breath. “Something has drained those batteries.”
Something. Something, like the thing that attacked Margaret. Something, like the thing in the lab Liam felt but they couldn’t seem to find.
“It’s gathering energy,” Rick continued.
“Gathering energy for what?” Natalie asked with a feeling of doom.
Rick shook his head. “I don’t know, but I doubt it’s good.”
“Natalie,” Harper said, pulling her attention off Rick’s ominous prediction. “We can only hear half the conversation but it’s not comforting.”
She didn’t want to scare them. But she didn’t want to hide things either. She’d spent too long already hiding things. She was just carefully choosing her words when the bell above the door jangled and then Red came rushing into the meeting room.
“Why is no one answering their cell phones?” she demanded after a visual sweep of the livings in the room. Before Natalie could tell her, Red continued, “Alice was in an accident. She’s in a coma.”
Natalie felt the air leave her lungs. Alice could be a challenge sometimes, but Natalie loved that old bird. She couldn’t imagine life in Mudville without her.
“What kind of accident?” Agnes asked, rising from her seat. “She doesn’t even drive anymore. She sold her car.”
“She flipped her trike and hit her head when she landed. The driver of a passing car saw it happen, stopped and called 9-1-1. Cash heard the EMS call come through the fire department and called me.”
“Fuck,” Rick mumbled, then glanced up at Natalie. “Nat, what if it’s all related? Everything. Whatever killed Doug that he’s still terrified of, even in death. What caused Margaret Trout’s heart attack.”
“And what made her drive her car off the road and into the phone pole,” Millie added.
“What whispered to you in the lab when you thought it was me,” Gabe continued. “What Liam sensed last night that scared him.”
“And what drained all your batteries,” Rick finished the lengthy and horrifying list, every item of which hit Natalie like a punch in the gut.
“Is Alice going to—” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
Liam reached out and squeezed her hand, then, in doctor mode, asked Red, “Which hospital?”
“They airlifted her to Albany.”
Airlifted. Natalie felt sick to her stomach.
Liam shot Natalie a sideways glance. “It’s okay. They’re better equipped for emergencies there. That’s all. I’ll get on the shop’s landline and call Albany. Try to get a doctor to give me more information. Okay?”
She nodded. It was all she could manage.
Last night she’d been laughing and joking with Gabe about possible mice in the lab while laying out a plan she was sure would get Doug and Margaret to talk. Today she wasn’t laughing anymore. And she definitely wasn’t sure of anything.
Alice was in a coma. She could die.
Was Rick correct? Was all of it related?
But what kind of evil, manipulative entity could pull off something like this? It was calculated. It was complex. It was like nothing she’d come across in Mudville before.
That’s when it became perfectly clear to her. She’d never encountered this kind of spirit here before because it wasn’t here before.
“It’s new.”
“What do you mean?” Harper asked.
Natalie whipped around to answer Harper. “It has to be a new spirit.”
“An evil one,” Gabe added.
“And a clever one,” Rick continued. “One that knew to attack both Doug and Margaret, twice, right after their arguments with Harper to frame her for it.”
“Two birds, one stone,” Millie agreed.
The truth was right there, laid out before them. Natalie turned to Harper, who hadn’t heard Rick. “This entity orchestrated three attacks--Doug at home, Margaret on the sidewalk and also in her car— all to specifically frame you.”
Gabe snorted. “Told you. Evil.”
“And smart,” Rick repeated.
“So what do we do?” Agnes asked. “Because I’ll be damned before I let this thing hurt anymore people I care about.”
“I’ll tell you what we do,” Gabe began, his hand gripping Millie’s so tightly his knuckles were turning white. “We find its damn body and get rid of it, before it kills again.”