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Nothing.
Nathan escorted the innkeeper from Beamsville to the door.
“You folks did an incredible job,” the man said. “But I really do hate to take advantage of a tragedy…”
Nathan managed a wan smile. “You’d be doing me a favor. The sooner I can get away, the happier I’ll be. Every time I drive in, I see that balcony, and I—” His voice hitched. “I keep asking myself why she went out there. I know she
loved the view; she must have woken up and seen the moon and wanted a better look.” He shook his head. “I meant to fix that balcony. We did the others, but she said ours could wait, and now…”
The man laid a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Let me talk to my real estate agent and I’ll get an offer drawn up, see if I can’t take this place off your hands.”
“Thank you.”
Nathan closed the door and took a deep breath. He was making good use of those community-theater skills, but he really hoped he didn’t have to keep this up much longer.
He headed into the office, giving it yet another once-over, making sure he’d gotten rid of all the evidence. He’d already checked, twice, but he couldn’t be too careful.
There wasn’t much to hide. The old woman had been an actor friend of one of his theater buddies, and even if she came forward, what of it? Tanya had wanted a haunted house and he’d hired her to indulge his wife’s fancy.
Adding the woman’s photo to the article had been simple Photoshop work, the files—paper and electronic—long gone now. The workmen really had been scared off by the haunting, which he’d orchestrated. The only person who knew about his “bouts” was Tanya. And he’d been very careful with the balcony, loosening the nails just enough that her weight would rip them from the rotting wood.
Killing Tanya hadn’t been his original intention. But when she’d refused to leave, he’d been almost relieved. As if he didn’t mind having to fall back on the more permanent solution, get the insurance money as well as the inheritance, go back home, hook up with Denise again—if she’d still have him—and open the kind of business he wanted. There’d been no chance of that while Tanya was alive. Her money. Her rules. Always.
He opened the basement door, stepped down, and almost went flying, his foot sending a hammer clunking down a few stairs. He retrieved it, wondering how it got there, then shoved it into his back pocket and—
The ring of the phone stopped his descent. He headed back up to answer it. “Restrictions?” Nathan bellowed into the phone. “What do you mean restrictions? How long—?”
He paused.
“A year? I have to live here a year?”
Pause.
“Look, can’t there be an exception under the circumstances? My wife died in this house. I need to get out of here.”
Tanya stepped up behind Nathan and watched the hair on his neck rise. He rubbed it down and absently looked over his shoulder, then returned to his conversation. She stepped back, caught a glimpse of the hammer in his pocket, and sighed. So much for that idea. But she had plenty more, and it didn’t sound like Nathan was leaving anytime soon.
She slid up behind him, arms going around his waist, smiling as he jumped and looked around. Her house might not have been haunted when she’d bought it. But it was now.
She’s My Witch
Norman Partridge
We parked in the old cemetery that night, the Ford coupe I’d boosted up in Fresno wedged so tight between a couple of crumbling mausoleums that we could barely open one door. It seemed we’d spent the entire summer that way—sitting in one stolen car or another, talking or making out while we listened to the latest rhythm ‘n’ blues tunes on KTCB. Shari liked the old cemetery because it was real quiet. No one else ever came there, even in the daytime. As for me, I’d gotten used to the place. I wasn’t crazy about it, but I was crazy about Shari.
That summer it was like no one else existed. The rest of the world couldn’t touch us.
“Tonight’s no different,” I said. “Whatever’s gonna happen later…well, it’s just gonna happen, however it does.”
Shari’s hand slipped out of mine, just seemed to melt away. Her gaze was welded to the dash, like if she squinted real hard she’d actually be able to see LaVern Baker through the radio.
She wouldn’t look at me at all, and I don’t think she really heard the music, either. “I don’t know,” was all she said. And then she shook her head, her dark hair washing over her face like a silent wave.
I couldn’t see her face at all, and I couldn’t stand to be apart from her that way. Sitting there in a stolen car with my girl, her hair as black as night, her dress just as black…and having her whisper those three words in the darkness, like she didn’t have any faith in me—in us—at all.
Those three words parting the only lips I wanted to kiss. And Shari not even looking at me when she said them, afraid that I’d see her doubts hiding in her eyes.
My girl, sitting there in a boosted Ford parked in her favorite place in the world, trembling, like she’d rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else. And who could blame her? Christ, with the things she’d discovered that summer, she could have had anyone. Sticking with me was just crazy, just—
