Chapter 14 #3
Mrs. Van Dyre—who had asked both of us to call her Millie—had a house that smelled distinctively of potpourri and mothballs.
There was clutter everywhere: tiny porcelain figurines with ridiculously rounded rosy cheeks and oddly pointy shoes, glass animals with swooping lines, silk flowers whose petals had been frosted by spiderwebs, and framed photographs of people, some of which looked far too old to be anyone Mrs. Van Dyre herself could ever have met.
And about a dozen dead people.
“Holy shit,” Ward breathed softly as the chattering—and pretty clearly oblivious—Mrs. Van Dyre led us deeper into her house, past a wall full of photographs that spanned at least a century in non-matching frames.
I assumed that the dead, who were drifting toward us—because of course they were attracted to Ward—with idle curiosity.
I saw no suggestion that any of them were at all hostile, and the striking similarities in their features hinted at familial connection between many of them.
I hadn’t gotten a good enough look at Mrs. Van Dyre to tell if she shared some of those characteristics, but I assumed she did—and that these people were the reason we were here.
The living woman led us into a sitting room that was so packed full of objects with very little reason or order that I had to suppress the desire to shudder. The dead followed us, settling into places in corners or on the furniture that seemed, at least to me, to be habitual.
I took my gloves out of the satchel I’d brought with me, pulling them on so that I didn’t accidentally brush against anything, since I had no idea what it would tell me about the woman who currently lived here or, just as likely, given the coating of dust and spiderwebs on everything, the previous owners of whatever it was.
Mrs. Van Dyre gave me a curious look—lots of people did, when I had gloves on inside a building.
“Rayn is a contact psychic,” Ward explained, also seeing the look. “He wears gloves to avoid inadvertently triggering past memories from objects.” He smiled.
So did Mrs. Van Dyre, although hers could only be described as predatory.
It was almost eight before Mrs. Van Dyre let us go, and the headache that had been slightly lessened when we’d arrived was pounding.
Mrs. Van Dyre had wanted us to talk to her dead ancestors—who included the fourteen ghosts occupying her residence—to ask them about her family history, but she’d also been unable to resist asking about quite a few of the objects in the house, although thankfully not even remotely most of them.
I had the feeling, however, that this wouldn’t be the last time either Ward or I saw Mrs. Van Dyre.
I’d texted Raj first when it became clear that we weren’t going to be done by five, then promised that we wouldn’t attempt to go anywhere or call a ride share service until he got there to pick us up.
At six, Ward had told her that she was an hour past her contract, and she’d waved a hand and told him she’d pay us double for the overtime.
At seven-thirty he’d insisted that we needed to get going as we had other obligations—like his children. She’d caved at that point, and I’d texted Raj to come get us.
It was two minutes to eight when I slid into the back of Raj’s Subaru and let myself lay across the bench seat.
“Are you okay, mera ravi?” his voice asked me, the worry in his tone obvious.
“I hate that woman’s house,” I grumbled, causing Ward to laugh.
“Let’s just say that Rayn’s not a fan of… collectors.”
“Collectors?” Raj asked, although his voice sounded less tense. “Collectors of what?”
“Tiny porcelain children. Old pictures. Creepy feather animals. Dead people.” The list was a complaint, and I could hear the whine in my voice.
“Dead people?” Raj repeated.
Ward chuckled. “There were fourteen ghosts in the house,” he explained. “All her relatives.”
“And she wanted you to get rid of them?” Raj guessed.
“Oh, no, not at all,” Ward answered, sounding amused, if a little tired.
“In fact, she was thrilled. She’s writing the history of her family, so she wanted to interview them.
The fact that she chose to do so during Halloween season is a complete coincidence.
” He paused a moment. “Poor Rayn tried to block out some of the knick-knacks by putting his gloves on, and I stupidly informed her that he’s a contact psychic.
Sorry about that,” he said, presumably to me.
I waved a hand, not bothering to open my eyes or take the energy to speak.
“She, ah, got a little excited at the idea of being able to determine the origins and owners of quite a few of the… objects in her collections.”
“Was that part of the contract?” Raj asked, and although he kept his tone fairly even, I could hear the slightest edge to the question.
“It wasn’t,” Ward admitted. “Which I did point out, but Rayn agreed to do it when she offered to pay for both his services and mine.”
“I insisted,” I said, still not opening my eyes, but knowing Raj would blame Ward if I didn’t. Honestly, he’d probably still blame Ward at least a little, but I could have said no. “I just underestimated how much the headache would impact me.”
“And the smell in there probably didn’t help,” Ward put in. “I have a headache, and I didn’t get hit by a brick.”
“I did notice the smell,” Raj admitted, and I could tell that while he wasn’t happy about the fact that I was lying prone on his back seat, he was giving up some of his anger at Ward. “It’s… unique.”
“It’s a bit old-lady, yeah,” Ward agreed.
“Old lady who smokes pot and tried to cover it up with a rose-scented wax plug-in,” Raj replied.
“Really?” Ward laughed. “That would explain the faint light-headedness.”
It also explained the headache. I don’t do well with marijuana smoke, and it almost always gives me a splitting headache. Add it to a concussion, and you apparently get me in a semi-stupor on a car seat. I decided to say this out loud. “It’s also why my headache is worse,” I said.
“Pot gives you a headache?” Raj asked.
I made an affirmative noise.
“You smoke?” Ward asked him.
“I’m a federal agent.”
“It’s legal.”
“Not for me,” came the response. “But no, not my thing.”
“Catnip?” my boss asked, and I could tell he was teasing.
“We don’t talk about that,” Raj replied, and I was surprised to detect a note of embarrassment in his answer.
“About what?” I asked, opening one eye in time to get a glare in the rear view mirror.
“Ask Hart,” he grumbled, cheeks going dark. “Or, better yet, forget I said anything.”
Ward laughed.
“Mera ravi, you need to eat something.” I opened one eye to find Raj’s face very close to mine. A quick assessment of my body told me he was right.
“’Kay,” I agreed meekly. I had no idea what time it was, but it had to be at least nine or ten.
Ward had warned both Vi and I that our sleep schedules were going to get completely, in his words, ‘fucked to hell’ by Halloween season, and I was starting to understand what he meant in a very real way.
I’d had a big breakfast, but hadn’t eaten anything since, and my stomach had that faint gnawing sensation that it got when I went ten or twelve hours without eating.
I’d be fine if I didn’t eat—I’d gone much longer between meals sometimes at Tranquil Brook, either because they’d been dosing my food with drugs and I didn’t want to take them, because someone forgot or deliberately chose not to feed me, or because I’d been too sick or out of it to actually eat when they did bring me food.
But just because I wouldn’t get sick or die didn’t mean that I shouldn’t eat.
Every time I went in to St. Cyprian’s for a check-in—every six months—I was reminded that I was underweight, although not by much anymore.
“Pizza?” Raj asked me.
I nodded, rubbing at my eyes. At least the headache had receded somewhat, thanks to the combination of being out of Mrs. Van Dyre’s house, a nap, and the two pills Raj had put into my hand when he’d given me a glass of water.
“Coming right up,” Raj promised, then kissed my uninjured temple before standing and leaving the room.
I managed to get myself sitting up, then looked around the room. I’d been too out of it when I’d gotten here to really pay attention to the design choices Raj had made in his house.
He had a house, not an apartment, on the South side of the river out by the West End.
It was small-ish, I remembered vaguely from whenever he’d helped me out of the back of the car.
But it had been dark, so I just had a vague impression of a second story over part of the house, with an overhang that stretched across the driveway.
I had a brief impression of a kitchen, then the room I was in now.
The piece of furniture I was sitting on was commonly referred to as a sectional, with thick, pillowy cushions and wide seats, curving around a corner with the same two-or-three seats of couch on the other side.
The upholstery was a dark blue, and the throw pillows that covered it—and there were a lot of them—were vibrantly colored with circular or swirling patterns.
There were also, I noticed, several quilted blankets thrown over the back and arms.
On each end of the sectional there was a small side table with a reading lamp and set of coasters.
On the far left, there was also a small stack of books, a mug with a collection of pens, mechanical pencils, and highlighters, as well as a remote control.
Two pillows were wedged into the corner of that seat.
Raj’s spot.
I liked that I knew where he sat, when left to his own devices, although I now felt a bit guilty that I’d been making him sit in a beanbag chair when he had a really comfy couch he could have been sitting on.
But he’d come to my apartment because I’m a touch psychic and he’d wanted to spare me having to touch his things.
I ran a hand over the blanket he’d left over my legs.