Chapter 64
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
“I think we should check out the old textile mill in South Carolina,” Chris suggested. They sat on the couch in Oscar and Nigel’s apartment, drinking a beer.
“Too accessible,” Tina said from beside them. She didn’t bother to look up from texting Zeek. “Other urban explorers have probably been all over the place by now.”
“Says the woman dating someone who investigated the Stanley Hotel.”
She flipped them off in reply.
“The old house in Meat Camp is a better bet.” Dr. Lawson tipped her beer in Chris’s direction. “It’s off the beaten path, and almost every house over a century old has had at least one person die between its walls.”
“True, but that means visiting a town literally named Meat Camp,” Tina countered. “Which means we’ll definitely encounter a ghostly butcher who wants to serve us up for lunch.”
Oscar took a swig from his own beer, then looked over at Nigel, who sat alone at the dining room table staring at his laptop. “What do you think?”
“I think this grant application has given me an aneurysm.” He sat back with a sigh. “But I vote for Meat Camp. What’s the worst thing that could happen in such a charming locale?”
“You just had to go and say that, didn’t you?” Tina muttered.
Oscar grinned. It had been five months since the coast guard rescued them from Devil’s Den, and Christmas was right around the corner. They’d scheduled time off work to go on another ghost hunt. The only thing left to do was choose the location.
“Meat Camp it is, then,” he said.
None of them had spoken directly to Ms. Montague after leaving the island.
Dr. Lawson was refusing her calls, and Ethan had been the one to contact Oscar with an offer to ship the equipment they’d left behind back to Durham.
He’d also relayed an offer of a large check “for your trouble.” Oscar accepted the equipment, but not the check.
Montague had rallied her company’s PR team to get out in front of the story before anyone else could break it.
According to the press release, they’d been there investigating the property when they’d stumbled upon the mass grave.
Further investigation revealed the shocking truth that a Montague—not a direct ancestor of anyone currently involved in the company, of course!
—had been involved with a group exploiting vulnerable women and boys.
Moved by the suffering of the unfortunate victims, Montague was setting up a foundation to fund organizations fighting human trafficking.
She conveniently left out the part about hunting and eating people for sport, but it wasn’t long before the story got out.
The corporation that still bore the family name took a hit on the stock market, but the rest of their holdings were doing just fine.
How long it would take before she was once again invited to charity dinners remained to be seen.
In the meantime, the rest of them regrouped.
They didn’t have the previous influx of cash, but at least OtP still had the equipment they’d bought with Montague’s money and the sponsors their newer videos had attracted.
They’d have to scale back a bit, but Oscar liked to think of it as returning to their roots.
And they had a new member of the team. A few weeks after returning to the mainland, Dr. Lawson declared that retirement was boring and she would be joining their investigations for the foreseeable future.
They were all happy to accommodate her, and viewers already liked her from the previous videos of the Matthews house and asylum investigations.
Hopefully, it helped her cope with everything she’d learned at The Cottage and with her second, presumably final, breakup with Patricia Montague.
Nigel was busy trying to find grants to continue funding his work at the Institute. There hadn’t been any interest so far, but hopefully someone would step up before the situation became critical. And if not, well, they’d worry about that when it happened.
They spent the next hour finalizing plans for the trip to Meat Camp, North Carolina, before breaking for the night. Dr. Lawson left in her car, while Tina and Chris caught an uber together.
Oscar shut the door behind them and turned to Nigel. “You’ve been staring at that screen for hours. Give your eyes a rest and sit on the couch with me.”
Nigel stretched, his sweater riding up to expose his stomach. “Gladly. I hate this part of the job.”
“I know.” Oscar sat down and held out an arm so Nigel could snuggle against him.
“Maybe I should change focus, see if I can get a grant to study tulpas.” Nigel snagged Oscar’s half-empty beer off the coffee table and helped himself to a swig.
“I wish I could have learned more about Gloria. How exactly was she created? How long did it take for her to gain independence? Is she still out there, now that her self-assigned purpose is complete, and if not did she cross the veil or just dissolve?”
Oscar kissed Nigel on top of the head. “I love you, sweetheart, but I’m not sure that studying how to create tulpas is the best idea. It didn’t exactly go well for Ullman, and it got Robin killed.”
“I suppose. I just…” he trailed off.
“Worry about the future.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “And opportunities lost. I almost wish I’d never met Montague and her bottomless well of money. There’s so much we could have done…but the cost was too high.”
“It was. And you don’t know what will happen in the future—none of us do. Things could turn around. If they don’t, we’ll figure it out together.” Oscar paused, then added, “Besides, I’m grateful we met Montague. Otherwise, we’d never have met each other.”
“There is that,” Nigel said, and tilted his head back for a kiss.