“Tomorrow,” Andie lied, sitting down on the floor next to Alice’s bed. “It’s too late, he’ll be in bed now.”

He won’t care if it’s you.

“No.” Andie leaned her head against Alice’s mattress. She wasn’t calling North, that was the last thing she needed, North here feeding May’s fantasies, not to mention her own. No, she was going to have a séance, tell the ghosts to leave, and then get the kids the hell out of Dodge and back to Columbus. There might be ghosts in Columbus, too, but she was damn sure they weren’t in North’s house. If they fed on emotion, they’d starve to death there.

Call him tomorrow then, May said and left, and Andie wrapped her arms around herself against the cold from the thing at the end of the bed and settled down to watch through the night until Alice woke up.


When Alice woke up the next morning, she looked at Andie, half asleep with her head on the side of the bed, and said, “What are you doing?”

Andie straightened to get the crick out of her neck and checked out the foot of the bed. Nothing there. “I was worried.”

Alice looked down at her, perplexed. “Why?”

“Because there was a ghost at the end of your bed.”

“There aren’t any such things as ghosts.”

“I saw her, Alice,” Andie said, pretty sure it was the right thing to say. “Your aunt May told me all about her. I can see them just like you can.”

Alice stared at her for a long moment, and Andie thought, She doesn’t see ghosts, she thinks I’m crazy, she thinks she’s trapped with a crazy person, and then Alice said, “That’s just Miss J. She doesn’t hurt me.”

“Miss J.” Andie was torn between relief that Alice saw the ghosts, too, and horror that Alice saw the ghosts, too. “Good to know. We’re moving into the nursery anyway.” Andie got up slowly as her muscles screamed. “You and me. There are two beds in there. We’ll be roommates.”

Alice shrugged. “Miss J can go in there, too.”

“Yeah, but in there I have a bed,” Andie said, and went to take a shower and face her day.

It began with cornering Carter in the library where he was reading in the window seat, ignoring the storm that still raged outside.

“I talked to your aunt May last night,” she said to him, and watched his eyes freeze on the page. “She said Mrs. Crumb thinks you killed her, but it was the ghost at the foot of Alice’s bed who pushed her through the railing because she was going to take Alice away. I don’t know how ghosts can push humans, but May says that’s what happened.”

He kept his eyes on his book.

“She thinks you think Alice did it.”

He was still for a long time, and she was about to turn away when he said, “Alice wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“Okay, then,” Andie said, filing that under “May doesn’t know as much as she thinks she does.” “I need you to know that I am going to get you out of here.”

He ignored her, his eyes on his book, but he didn’t turn the page. He was listening.

“It’s going to be okay. But first, I’m going to make you breakfast.”

“French toast?” he said, looking up.

“If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.”

He nodded and went back to reading.

Dear God, she thought as she went to make breakfast, he listens to me talk about ghosts and still asks for French toast.

When everybody except Alice was eating, she went to get Alice’s cereal, pulling Crumb into the kitchen with her.

“Carter didn’t kill his aunt,” she said as she got the Cheerios box from the shelf.

Crumb frowned. “What?”

“Also, you’re fired.”

Crumb drew back, shocked. “You can’t fire me. You didn’t hire me. I’ve been with this house for sixty years and-”

“And you moved a body in a violent death and left two kids uncared for after the trauma. I’m calling Mr. Archer, and then you’re gone.”

“I did it to save that boy,” Crumb said, panic making her voice rise, her watery blue eyes protruding even more. “I saved him.”

“He didn’t kill May. The thing at the foot of Alice’s bed did that.” She went to the fridge and got out the milk.

Crumb snorted. “He told you that? Well, how? That’s what I want to know. You think ghosts have hands? He did it.”

“He didn’t tell me anything. May told me. She said you dumped her body in the moat, and then instead of getting him help, you stuck him away in a corner of the house.” Andie gripped the milk carton harder on that one, and then she got a cup down from the shelf. “You just abandoned him.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to turn him in to the police,” Crumb said virtuously.

“He didn’t kill her.” Andie poured Alice’s milk. “You hung a little boy out to dry for no reason.”

The phone rang, and Andie went to pick it up, telling her, “Pack your things. You’re done.”

“That’s not fair,” Crumb said, and Andie said, “I don’t care, you’re done here.”

When she picked up the phone, it was Will. “It’s me,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about us.”

“Not now, Will, I have problems here.” She stuck the phone between her chin and her shoulder and opened the Cheerios.

“We can make it work,” Will said. “The kids can come live with us.”

“I’m going to call Mr. Archer,” Crumb said, her powdery white face even paler now. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

“Make sure you tell him what you did to Carter,” Andie said as she dumped Cheerios into the bowl. Then she spoke into the phone. “I appreciate the offer, Will, but no.” She put the milk back in the fridge. “Look, my plate’s a little full today.” I’ve got a TV reporter, a ghost expert, a wack-job housekeeper, two disturbed children, homicidal ghosts, and a séance this afternoon. “I have to go.”

“I think I should come down there.”

Andie clutched the Cheerios box. “Jesus, no, that’s all I’d need, more tension. I have to take care of these kids, I can’t handle anybody else.”

“That’s right,” Crumb said. “You need me.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t be handling me,” Will said, annoyed. “Maybe I’d be helping you.”

Sure, right after you have me committed for believing in ghosts. “No,” she said, shoving the cereal back in the cupboard. “I absolutely cannot take one more person here. I have to go.”

She hung up, feeling annoyed, and then Crumb said, “Now you listen here,” just as Andie heard Alice scream, “No, no, NO!”

She went into the dining room, saw the plate of French toast Southie had just put in front of Alice, and said, “Chill, I have your cereal,” swapping out the toast for the bowl of Cheerios and cup of milk. “You’ll get the hang of this,” she told Southie, deciding to give him the bad news about Kelly and the cameraman later. No point in bulking up the ghosts on emotion before the séance.

Then she pulled Alice’s bat necklace out of her cereal bowl, picked up a fork, and started to eat Alice’s rejected toast.

Outside, thunder rumbled.

It was going to be a long day.


Late that afternoon, North was on the phone when he heard his door open and looked up to see his mother striding toward his desk, tailored and furious in black.

“He took that woman and went to that damn house,” she said, biting the words off. “Did you know he was going?”

North held up his hand to finish his phone call. “Thank you, Gabe. I’ll get back to you on that.” He hung up and said to his mother, “I told him not to, but today was not my day to watch him.”

“Very funny. We’re going down there.” Lydia went over to the cabinets on the wall opposite his desk and opened the one that held his TV.

“No we’re not. The worst that can happen to Sullivan is that he’ll have sex with a television reporter.”

“He’s not the only one she’s threatening.” Lydia took a VHS box out of her purse, opened it, and slid the tape inside it into the player. “This was on the news this morning. I made them send me a copy.”

A newscaster popped up in mid-sentence. “… Kelly O’Keefe with a breaking report from the south of the state,” he said, and then Kelly O’Keefe appeared, her face pale in some kind of dark paneled hall, her lips blazing red in her white face.

“I’m here… at a country house… in southern Ohio,” she whispered, leaning closer to the camera as if afraid of being overheard, “where one… of the leading lawyers… of our great city… keeps his secrets.” Her nostrils flared. “Two young children… left alone… to face… what some say… are ghosts.”

North frowned at the screen. He’d only seen Kelly O’Keefe’s broadcasts a couple of times, but she seemed odder than usual. Drunk, maybe.

The picture shifted to Kelly in a studio talking with the last nanny who’d quit.

“The place was haunted,” the girl said, her eyes huge.

Enjoying herself, North thought from long experience with witnesses.

“And those two little babies,” Kelly went on, “left there alone with no one to protect them… Their guardian was no help!”

“He told me not to contact him unless it was an emergency,” the nanny said, looking equal parts outraged and thrilled to be there. “When I told him there was something in the house, he sent the police to investigate. Of course they couldn’t find anything. The place is haunted.”

The picture shifted back to Kelly, standing in what North now recognized as the Great Hall at Archer House.

“Something…” Kelly whispered, her eyes glassy, “is very wrong… in this old house… These children… are in danger… and their guardian… a man of immense wealth and stature… does not care!” Her face grew larger as she stepped closer to the camera, her pupils dilated so that her eyes looked black. “Are you watching… North Archer?”