Page 50 of What Happens at Nightfall

“Don’t tell me she left a diary,” said Adam irritably. “Or a memoir. Life with Demon, made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor and Jimmy Stewart as the demon.”

“Jimmy Stewart would make a terrible demon,” said Jess.

“Fine. Clark Gable.”

Jess considered. “Better.”

Adam rested both his hands on the table, pushing himself up. “My point is—this is a great story. If this were a miniseries, I’d watch it. But I don’t believe a word of it. I believe that you believe it—”

“Because it’s true,” countered Ingrid, narrowing her eyes at him. “Your daughter is in grave danger.”

“The only threat I’ve encountered to Melinda is you,” said Adam wearily. “Melinda has enough on her plate with school. She doesn’t need imaginary demons. Feel free to pursue your researches however you like—I can’t stop you—but I ask that you pursue them elsewhere.”

“Bel—” Ingrid caught herself, glancing anxiously around the room. “He isn’t imaginary. Ignoring him won’t make him go away. He has to be caught and contained before he strikes again.”

“If you want to go demon hunting,” said Adam, picking up her tote bag and handing it to her, “that’s fine with me. Just leave us out of it.”

“Adam,” said Jess tentatively. “Are you sure . . . ?”

“You’ll change your mind.” Ingrid scribbled a number on a piece of paper and tossed it on the kitchen table. “Call me when you do.”

As the kitchen door banged shut behind Ingrid, Jess stirred in her chair. “I should be going too. Are you sure she’s wrong?”

“She needs help,” said Adam shortly. He looked at Jess, who was holding up her head as if it weighed too much. “And you need sleep. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Jess pressed her eyes shut and breathed in deeply through her nose. “I feel like someone drained all the life force out of me.”

Adam couldn’t help remembering her standing at the tomb, light pouring out of the parasol in her hands, forming a shield against the rank cloud with the growling voice. Illusions, he reminded himself. Some sort of sensor in the parasol. Possibly a mild psychedelic. Jess was considerably smaller than he was. Even a microdose could have hit her hard.

Not that he’d know. The only thing he microdosed was Advil.

“What about all that stuff tonight? At the tomb?”

“NYU is known for its film school, isn’t it?” Adam tried unobtrusively to get a look at her pupils. That was one thing they taught in those “how to recognize drug use” parent seminars: enlarged pupils. Jess’s didn’t look enlarged, just sleepy. “What if she has a friend or friends who are special effects people? What seemed remarkable to us might be just another homework assignment to them.”

“But she seemed so earnest about it. I’d have sworn she meant it.” Jess grimaced. “Not that that means anything. I don’t have the best track record identifying liars.”

“Believing it doesn’t preclude fraud,” said Adam grimly. “As a kid, I went through a phase of being really into Harry Houdini. I had one of those kid biographies of him and it caught my imagination.”

“The escape artist?”

“That guy.” Adam had driven the school librarian crazy demanding more books about Houdini. “In addition to being an escape artist, his big passion in life was debunking fraudulent spiritualists. It was a big thing in the early twentieth century, spiritualism. A lot of the people who claimed to practice it really believed they did. There are cases of people who faked phenomena—not because they weren’t believers, but because they were.”

“I see what you’re saying. You think she’s a true believer faking her evidence.” Jess caught her lip between her teeth. “It felt so real.”

“That’s what the people at Edwardian séances said too. Some were obvious fakes, but others—a really good medium could make even skeptics break out in a cold sweat.”

With obvious effort, Jess rose creakily to her feet. “I suppose it’s like a good locked-room mystery. It seems impossible until you find out how it was done, and then you wonder how you didn’t see it in the first place. Like the one with the puddle of water on the floor that was a block of ice that melted.”

“Was that Sherlock Holmes?” Adam didn’t like the way Jess looked at all.

Jess shook her head. “I don’t remember. I don’t even remember why the ice was important. I just remember it seemed impossible but it wasn’t.”

“You look like you’re about to collapse. Can I walk you to the subway?”

Jess swayed on her feet, catching the edge of the table. “If you hand me my phone, I’ll call an Uber. I don’t trust myself on the subway tonight. I’d fall asleep and wind up in Coney Island and have to embark on a career as a bearded lady.”

“I don’t think they have those anymore.” Adam plucked her phone from the cord and handed it over to her.