“Alistair, or Lacey, or maybe both,” Gary muttered.
Griffin turned and headed toward the front door, then opened it. A very soaked Lacey Shaw stood there, shivering, a paper still over her head, though she stood beneath the cover of the front porch.
“Oh, Lord! What a storm. Let me in, let me in, please!” she begged.
“Of course, of course,” Gary said, hurrying to the door and drawing her inside. “You poor thing. You’re utterly soaked. It will be dark and shadowy, but maybe you want to hop right in a shower while there’s still some hot water, Lacey.”
“Sounds great, but my things are out in the car,” Lacey said. “I can’t brave the rain again. A fire! We should all head into the parlor or the music room and put on a fire. That would be wonderful.”
“I’ll be happy to get your things,” Griffin told her. There was an umbrella caddy by the door. Griffin helped himself and assured them he’d be right back in. Lacey thanked him effusively.
Hallie and Sven arrived in the hall.
“Welcome to our storm world!” Hallie said. “When it rains here, it really rains!” She was carrying a big mesh bag and she went from person to person, handing out flashlights and candles, with Sven working as her assistant. “These are the coolest flashlights,” she assured them. “Three settings, and you can stand them on end, like a lamp in a room. Low, for a night-light, medium to softly illuminate a room and high for some real light! And candles...just because. Candles are just so nice, huh? Like a roaring fire.”
Just as Griffin came back in the front door with Lacey’s bag, Liza Harcourt came running down the stairway, looking at them all. Vickie realized she wasn’t upset by the storm or the loss of power.
She wanted to see who had arrived.
“Lacey! You’re here,” she said, pleased. “This is actually quite nice—the powerful storm, the wind, the lack of modern electrical interference. Perfect!”
“Perfect?” Alice muttered.
“For my séance. Lacey, did Alistair come out here with you?”
“And here I was thinking charades,” Gary said. He suddenly seemed to brighten. “Actually, I love charades. We’re still hoping that Alistair will make it out... While we’re waiting, why don’t we play charades?”
“Dad, tell me you’re kidding,” Alice begged.
“Alice! Come on, parlor games can be fun—really fun!” Jon said.
She looked at him and smiled.
“Okay, if you’re game...”
Lacey looked over at Griffin and Vickie. “What about you two? I don’t mean to be rude in any way here, but...would a game of charades be something you two would enjoy?” She let out a sigh, looking around. “Let’s face it—I’ll be honest. It’s fine that you two are here. Vickie—not to be insulting, but you don’t do much for me in terms of protection, but we’re all glad to have Griffin out here—a muscle-bound man with a gun.”
“We’re out of the city!” Gary said, sounding both testy and frightened. “We’re away from whatever sick criminal has been using my place for his or her even sicker intentions.”
“Yes, but you’re happy they’re here, too, Dad,” Alice said. “Let’s be blunt here. They’re obviously just here to protect us—or figure out which one of us is a killer.”
“There is that,” Griffin said.
“Which? You want to protect us—or find a killer?” Alice demanded.
“Both,” Griffin said. He seemed to be getting impatient.
“I personally love charades,” Vickie said. “It will be a lot of fun. And we haven’t even seen the parlor or the music room yet.”
“East wing!” Gary said happily. “Come on. Hallie, Sven, you’ll play, right?”
“Sure!” Hallie said. “But first, what can we get people? I have coffee on. There’s tea and hot chocolate. I’ll get everyone settled while you draw up teams.”
Vickie looked at Griffin. He raised his eyebrows.
Playing along is part of the job. Okay.
Charades it was.
“Into the parlor,” Gary said, urging them all along.
At one time, Vickie thought, it had been a grand old Victorian parlor. There were several beautiful love seats, wing-back chairs, carved buffets and secretaries and a massive double fireplace that served the music room as well.
“Eastern end of the house,” Griffin murmured to Vickie. “Our room is right above.”
She nodded.
The upholstery on the furniture was all but threadbare. Someone had cleaned, and so the floor was swept and everything had been dusted, including the many fine lamps around the room.
“Split ’em up, shake ’em up. No couples together,” Lacey said. “It will be more fun. So, I’ll take the lead with one team—and I’ll take Griffin and Alice and Hallie. Gary, you take Vickie and Jon and Sven, and...”
Her voice trailed. There was one “odd man” out—Liza Harcourt.
“Not to worry. I will sit in judgment, call foul when it is necessary,” Liza said. “I’m rather anxious. I want Alistair to get here!”
“Has anyone talked to him?” Vickie asked.
They looked around at each other.
Griffin pulled out his phone. “I’ll call him.”
He walked away as he put through the call.
They could all hear him talking. With Griffin, of course, it was impossible to tell from his inflection or his expression just what was going on.
He hung up and came back over. Watching him, Vickie quickly lowered her head to hide a frown.
Griffin hadn’t just called Alistair Malcolm. He’d made a second call.
Had something else happened?
“Well?” Liza asked anxiously. “Actually, you know, I am the president of the Blackbirds. And Alistair Malcolm is the vice president. He really should have had more courtesy. He should have let me know what was going on with him.”
“He was a little bit nervous about coming,” Griffin said.
“Nervous? Why?” Gary asked.
Griffin smiled then, looking at Liza. “Well, he believes in our medium, of course.”
“And that makes him nervous?” Liza asked, frowning.
“Some people don’t like the concept of connecting with the dead,” Griffin told her.
“That’s just silly. The dead don’t come back to hurt people,” Liza said.
“No—just give them heart attacks!” Jon said.
“Alistair didn’t look so good when we found Brent, did he?” Alice asked.
“It’s our duty to help the dead!” Liza said.
“But for now we’ll play charades!” Vickie said.
* * *
The strange thing was that their game of charades was actually fun.
They all quickly had the knack of book, movie, TV show, two of the above or all of the above. Alice got into her father’s game, showing them all her way of giving the clue to a group as to whether their chosen subject had been a comic before becoming anything else.
Liza became very involved as well. As a “timer,” she was a positive dictator. But she kept them all laughing with her buzzing sounds and absolute tyrannical determination not to give anyone a break.
Griffin wasn’t really great with charades. Vickie whispered that he needed to think of it as undercover work. Of course, it wasn’t the same—not in any way, shape or form. But he had to give it a try.
He pulled Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea when it was his turn. Old was easy—the rest not so much, but his team got it before Liza chimed in with one of her buzzing sounds.
Vickie was excellent. And she was constantly cheerful, keeping everything going well. When she drew her paper, however, she seemed to freeze for a minute and reflect hard on what she had drawn.
She tur
ned to her group.
Book and movie.
She began to act it all out. They quickly realized that she was pretending her death. And then the fact that she was walking again.
Two words, book and movie.
“The Ghost in the Machine!” Alice said.
“Beetlejuice!” Sven suggested.
“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir!” Jon called out.
“Not your team, Jon, and no! That’s not two words!” Gary protested. “And none of those is two words. What’s the matter with you guys?”
“Ghost Story!” Alice cried. “Peter Straub—and there was a movie, too! I saw it on Netflix. Old dudes were in it... Red Buttons, I forget who else!”
Lightning flashed hard against the sky. The wind shifted.
There was a slam at the door.
Everyone jumped.
“Alistair, of course!” Gary said, shaking his head.
“Let’s get him in here!” Lacey said, and they all hurried out to the hall, ready to greet Alistair.
At first, he appeared as some kind of monster, or weird creature of the storm; he had himself pressed against the window by the door, his mouth was open and he seemed to be screaming.
It was, indeed, Alistair. He was soaking wet and startled by their reception.
Gary threw open the door.
Alistair the monster was no more. The man stood there, large and smiling. “Damn, it takes you people long enough to answer the door.”
Alice and Lacey laughed, a little nervously, Griffin thought.
Gary begged him to come on in. “We’re sorry, so sorry! Get in here!”
Alistair noticed Griffin, and Griffin smiled.
Alistair Malcolm was truly frightened. Brent Whaley had been killed, Franklin Verne had been killed. They were both men, both writers...both involved with Poe in one way or another.
He had not wanted to come out to Frampton Manor—he had only agreed because Griffin had promised him that extra agents would be watching the house—unknown to the other visitors.
And then Griffin had called Jackson Crow.
Jackson promised he and Angela would shadow Alistair Malcolm. They could leave the tediousness of door-to-door and finding anyone associated with the dead men to the police and other agents. Yes, the weather sucked. Not to worry—they’d all worked in bad weather before. They’d be close, Jackson promised. And he’d make sure that Alistair knew that they were on hand.
The dynamics of such a situation could be advantageous, Jackson had determined.
So now they were all there. The original group who had gathered around for Liza’s séance when they had found the body of Brent Whaley. They had Hallie and Sven as well.
“We were playing charades,” Alice told Alistair. “It was fun, honestly.”
“Yes. You all can finish your game,” Liza said firmly. “And then we can have my séance.”
“Great. Perfect. Now that it is dark!” Alice said.
“Alice, it’s okay!” Hallie told her. “We may not have a generator, but Sven and I are used to the fact that the electricity fails in a storm. There are tons of lights and candles.”
“I don’t want to raise the dead,” Alice said petulantly. “I’m tired of all the old and the dead. Jon and I will sit out.”
“Why? Did you and Jon have something to do with killing Franklin and Brent?” Liza demanded.
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Alice said.
“Honey, let’s just humor everyone, okay?” Jon said.
“She keeps insulting you, and...”
“It’s all right,” Jon said. He yawned. “Let’s do it, huh? I’m exhausted. We have the séance, we can make up some sandwiches or leftovers for dinner...”
“Fine!” Alice announced. “It’s dark, it’s rainy and we have our very own creepy family cemetery just outside. Hell, yes, let’s scare ourselves to death,” Alice said. She wagged a finger at her father. “Don’t you even think about having some kind of a fit if Jon sleeps in my room!”
“Alice,” Jon murmured uncomfortably.
“As if she hasn’t slept with him a zillion times already,” Liza said. “All of you, this way. Hallie, I can’t let you and Sven be part of my séance, but you are welcome to be in the room. Let’s get this thing set up and going!”
* * *
Vickie made an excuse about getting a sweater and ran up to their room; she knew that Griffin would follow.
He did.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked him. “Alistair—the way that he looked at you. He is freaked out, right? He doesn’t want another séance. Alice doesn’t, either.”
“Boy, though, Liza does!”
“Which should make her innocent,” Vickie said.
Griffin hesitated. “I think that Liza is innocent. She is so passionate about this. But I also think she believes that someone here did kill those two men.”
Vickie shook her head. “So hard to believe! I mean, why would Gary do it? He’s had to close his restaurant. Why would Lacey? She loses her work, and she loves the place. Alice? Jon? Alice is Gary’s daughter—Jon is a waiter and he wants to work in the kitchen there.”
Griffin was quiet a minute and then he shrugged and set his hands on her shoulders. “You’re just coming into this, but you’ve seen a lot, Vickie. The sick son of a bitch who nearly killed you when you were in high school, and the legacy he created. And the twisted minds of those who kidnapped one of your best friends. It’s almost impossible to follow the human mind. We can have dozens of theories as to what makes someone tick, or what their motivation is. I think this could go two ways—either someone wants people dead, and they’re using the Poe thing as a cover, or someone has a fixation on Poe, and perhaps a desire for revenge for one reason or another.” He hesitated. “Adam is convinced that Monica is innocent, and she’s not here now. I can’t help but believe that she would have found a way to be here if she’d had anything to do with the murders. I also believe that she really, truly loved her husband. One down.”
“One down, two dead,” Vickie murmured. “Anyway, I think that Liza does have something.”
“A nasty, elitist attitude?” Griffin asked.
“Well, that, too. But I think she does have a sense of things around her. Maybe she did do something that allowed us to hear the echoes of Brent Whaley’s last heartbeats.”
“And maybe we just heard them because we are who we are. The thing is, Whaley’s body would have been discovered. This is indelicate, but the smell would have become noticeable very soon.”
“Yeah, well... Want to go speak to the dead?”
“Sure.” But Griffin still hesitated. “Did you get anything from the family graveyard?”
“Not a thing,” Vickie told him.
“Interesting. Gary Frampton gave us a tour, and he told us about his wife’s interment—but he didn’t actually bring us to the grave.”
“It’s probably too painful.”
He nodded. “Maybe. Well, anyway, we do have people checking out the mausoleums.”
“Oh?”
“Jackson and Angela.”
“They’re in the graveyard?”
“Yep.”
“And Alistair Malcolm knows that they’re near. I hope I’m putting together something that will cause something else to happen.”
“Let’s hope it’s not another murder!” Vickie said.
“That’s our role, Vickie. We have to stop the next murder. And have a séance in a creepy old mansion. Why the hell not, huh? Shall we?”
“All right, ready if you are.” Vickie couldn’t help but pause again for a minute, walking over to the French doors that went to the balcony. She looked out over the sculpture-garden trail to the cemetery.
The rain was stil
l coming down. It had given way to little more than a trickle.
Dusk had fallen. There was still just enough light in the sky to make the world before her appear shadowed and eerie.
The marble statues looked as if they could move.
The cemetery looked haunted, as if cherubs might fly...as if the dead might arise.
“Séance,” she murmured. “Great. Just great.”
And she wondered just where, out in the realm of the dead, Jackson and Angela might be.
* * *
“Actually, you’re right—it’s all really nice and lovely, with all the candles. And dusk has come and gone—it is dark now!” Liza said happily.
She’d brought something else to the table for the séance that night, making Griffin think more than ever that the woman was a total nutcase.
Liza had packed and brought with her the crystal ball from her home.
It was very large and heavy. She had a wood pedestal for it, and she’d set it in the middle of the table.
“Are we going to have a séance or tell fortunes?” Gary asked her.
“Crystal is simply very powerful as far as the universe is concerned,” Liza said, not about to be rattled. “Really, Gary. Two friends died. We need to reach them. We need to have them tell us what was done to them.”
“Liza, Liza!” Gary said. “They are not going to pop out of your crystal ball like a pair of genies, ready to talk.”
“I think they will talk,” Liza said.
“I think I should have stayed in town,” Alistair Malcolm said, shaking his head. He rubbed his hands together as well. “Dark, dank, chilly! What are we doing? Have we all gone mad?”
“Hey, you want to be a writer, Alistair,” Liza said.
“I am a writer,” he told her flatly. “I write—and writing makes me a writer! Not to mention that I have been published in a few prestigious places!”
“This should give you lots of inspiration for great stories, huh? A séance, a dark, stormy night—candles wavering?” Liza asked.
“I think what you’re doing is dangerous,” Alistair said flatly.
“But you’re here—you’ve agreed to be here!” Alice pointed out.
“I’m not going to be the one to deny anything that might help,” Alistair said.