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Her voice echoed back; silence followed.
“Must be the ghost.” Avery grinned, her face full of fun. “Let’s check it out.”
“Avery—” But she was already jogging upstairs. Resigned, Clare followed with Hope beside her as Avery continued to call out.
“Is this cool or what?” Avery stood in the doorway of E&D. “Can you smell it?” She breathed in deep. “Summertime. Honeysuckle.”
“It’s just your imagination.” But Clare folded her arms, chilled, because she smelled it, too.
“Then my imagination took the same trip. It’s fascinating.” Hope moved into the room. “Has anyone done any research to try to find out who she was? That would be . . .” She jumped as the porch door opened. “Look at that!”
“The door wasn’t latched and locked. That’s how someone got in,” Clare insisted.
“Someone carrying an armload of honeysuckle? I don’t think so.” Avery went to the door, opened it wider. Closed it again. “And it wouldn’t be easy to access that porch from the outside, when it’s still light out on top of it.”
“It doesn’t feel sad, does it?” Hope circled the room, opened the door again, stepped out. “Whatever, whoever—it feels friendly.”
“It can’t feel anything, because it’s stone and brick and wood.” Temper snapped in Clare’s voice.
“So was Hill House.” Avery lowered and deepened her voice. “And whatever walked there walked alone.”
“Oh, stop it.” This time, Clare rounded on her. “Just stop it. It’s an old building. Floors creak. They need to fix the door. That’s all.”
“Honey.” Avery reached for her hand. “Why are you so upset?”
“You’re standing here making this place out to be the haunted hotel and you wonder why I’m upset?”
“Yeah.” She tightened her grip on Clare’s hand. “If you don’t believe in spooks, you’d just think we’re being silly. But you wouldn’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad. I’m just tired of being pulled into talking about ghosts as if they existed.”
“Okay. I’m not upset if you don’t believe. Why should you be upset if I do?”
“You’re right. Absolutely. It’s been a hard day, and I’ve still got to fix dinner. I should get home.”
“We’ll go back,” Hope began.
“No, you should stay, go through the rest. I’m sorry. I really am tired. I just—” Her voice broke, undoing her. “I don’t believe in all this.”
“Fine, no problem.” Avery gave an irritated shrug. “We should go up so Hope can see her apartment.”
“I don’t want to believe in all of this.” Tears clogged her throat, stung her eyes. “If it’s possible, why didn’t Clint come back?”
“Clare.” Before Clare could evade, Avery had her wrapped in a hug. “I’m sorry. I never even thought.”
“It’s stupid. I’m stupid.” Giving in, giving up, Clare let the tears come. “And it’s stupid to get mad, but why does she get to come back? Why does she get to stay?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Murphy saw her.”
Avery jerked back. “What? When?”
“When we were here with Beckett. It scared me, seeing him starting upstairs, smiling at . . . her. And it made me furious. Why should he see her, Avery? Shouldn’t he have had the chance to see his father? Just once? Just once. Hell.”
She walked out onto the porch, into the air. As she stood at the rail, Hope pushed a tissue into her hand. Then Hope’s arm came around one side of her, Avery’s on the other.
“It is stupid to be mad.” A sigh trembled out as she wiped at her eyes. “Useless to ask why. I’ve done all that already, and I got past it. When they first started talking about ghosts, I didn’t believe it, so it was interesting. The way a novel is. Just a good story, that’s all. But then, Murphy.”
“You’re allowed to ask why,” Hope murmured. “Even when there’s no answer.”
“I didn’t know why it twisted me up this way, until now. Or maybe I couldn’t admit it.”
“We’ll get out of here,” Avery suggested. “We’ll go back over to Hope’s, just sit and talk awhile.”
“No, I’m all right now. It’s better to know, to admit it, then deal with it.”
Clare turned, watching the door open wider. And let out a long breath.
“I’d better deal, because it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere.”
IN THE MORNING, Beckett huddled with his brothers in the laundry room. If Owen hadn’t called the meeting, he could’ve gotten another hour of sleep—maybe two—since he planned to work at home through the morning.
But Owen was Owen, he decided, and meetings and agendas were his cotton candy.
“The electrician’s coming in this morning to install the exterior lights here, and the new interiors over at the gift shop. The boxes are marked, but you need to double-check the fixtures, Beck. And before you ask why,” Owen continued, “we’ve got close to two hundred light fixtures between here and across the street. We don’t want to waste time, money, and man-hours switching something out if it got mis-marked.”
“Fine. I’ll do it before I go over to my office. And before you ask, yes, I have my checklist.”
“While you’re at it . . .” He added a half dozen tasks and calls to Beckett’s list.
“What the hell are you doing while I’m on the fucking phone?”
Owen turned his clipboard around. The length of the list shut Beckett up.
“Why aren’t you giving a chunk of that to the innkeeper?” Ryder asked.
“Because we’re giving her a couple days to move in, for God’s sake. She’ll earn her rent next week, believe me.” Owen flipped a page on his clipboard. “That’s a list I’ve started for her. While I’m installing the counter across the street, what’s your plan?”
“Two men over there, punching out.” Ryder checked his own list. “When it opens, they’ll go pick up the desk Mom settled on down at the flea market, haul it up to the office there. Exterior painting continues, probably forever, and I’m going to have them start inside, get going on The Lobby since the floor’s done.”
He ran it down while Beckett drank his coffee, and the radio switched on to country rock with the crew’s arrival.
“Mom’s got an appointment in Hagerstown,” Owen reminded them. “So she’ll swing through on her way home. Tell the crew the big boss is coming in. That’s all I’ve got.”
“Thank Christ.”
When Beckett yawned, Ryder smirked. “Babysitting wear you out last night?”
“Is that code for sex?” Owen wondered. “I need to be updated if we’re using codes.”
“No, it’s not a code, and no, it didn’t wear me out. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep. Probably since babysitting isn’t code for sex.”
Ryder kept smirking. “She have a headache?”
“You’re such an asshole,” Beckett said mildly. “It’s not time—it’d be weird to sleep with her with the kids right down the hall. They’re not ready for that, especially since Harry grilled me over kissing his mom.”
“No shit?” Now Ryder’s smirk bloomed into a full, appreciative grin. “Good for him.”
“Yeah, you’ve got to admire him, looking out for her. They’re great kids. Murphy wants me to build coffins for his action figures, for when they die in battle. Who thinks of that?”
“I wish we had,” Owen mused. “That would’ve been cool. We could’ve buried them out back, made little headstones with their emblems on them.”
Brilliant, Beckett thought. “Then they’d rise again, recharged by some supernatural force, to seek revenge.”
“You could burn in their emblems on the coffin lids, too. Every man should have his own coffin. You’ve still got your wood-burning kit, right?”
“Sure. Man, he’d love that.”
“While you two are playing with your toys, I’m going to work.” Ryder strapped on his tool belt. “Plenty of scrap plywood aroun
d,” he added as he walked out.
Owen waited until Ryder was out of earshot and shouting to the crew. “You know if you build them, he’s going to want in, and he’s going to call dibs on Wolverine and Venom, just like always.”
“Yeah, he will. You?”
“Damn straight I want in. I get—”
“Dibs on Spidey and Moon Knight.”
“Damn it. I was going to call Spider-Man.”
“Too late.”
“Batman and Joker.”
“It’s a start.”
He intended to go directly home, straight to his office, but got roped in to pulling on work gloves and helping tear down the old fencing. Then he answered the call across the street to consult with Madeline on the display shelves she wanted to stagger on the left wall of the gift shop.
On his way out, he spotted the barber on the bench outside of Sherry’s, stopped to talk.
“Looks real good.” Together they watched the electrician install one of the big carriage lights flanking the doors. “I hear you’re going to have a big party when it’s done.”
“That’s what I hear, too.”
“People driving by break their necks looking at it.”
“They haven’t got your view, Dick.” The phone jingled in his pocket. “I’ll see you later.” He pulled it out as he walked. “What’s the matter, Ry? Did you miss me?”
“Like a butt rash. Tile guys have a question on the wall pattern down here. Mom’s in Hagerstown, so you’re elected to answer.”
“On my way.”
He finally walked into his office closer to ten than the nine o’clock start time he’d planned on. But he didn’t mind. Every step, he thought—and poured the last of the morning’s coffee in a mug—was a step.
He dealt with the calls first because he hated them most, then settled down to update the plans for furniture placement with some additional purchases.
