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But then my mother seemed to gather herself and said, “It’s very nice to meet you, Brant. Come inside.”
He held up a hand, ignoring my outstretched one. “No, you need to come outside. It’s imperative that I experience the house on my own, without any interference from other people’s vibrations.”
My mother slanted a glance at me. Clearly, she wanted me to take the lead here, since I was the one with all the experience in the psychic world.
Well, having too many people hanging around while you were trying to get an impression of a place could be difficult, so I made myself ignore Brant’s high-handed manner and stepped out onto the porch. After a brief hesitation, Tom and my mother followed.
“Most of the phenomena came from — ” she began, but Brant held up another hand, this one also with heavy silver rings on all the fingers.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “I need to discover all this for myself.”
Fine. I hadn’t gone into a lot of detail in my email, only giving a brief description of the awful noises I’d heard without describing exactly where they were emanating from. It would be interesting to see if he could pick up on any of that without input from me.
“She’s all yours,” I said, trying to smile, and he gave me an imperious nod before he stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him.
For a moment, the three of us stood there on the porch, staring at each other. Finally, Tom cleared his throat.
“Well, he’s a personality, isn’t he?”
I gave a helpless lift of my shoulders. “A lot of people in the psychic industry are kind of…quirky,” I said. “But that doesn’t detract from their abilities.”
“If your friend recommended him, he must be very good at what he does,” my mother added.
Privately, I’d been wondering just what the heck Mazey had been thinking. Most likely, she’d never met him in person, and so hadn’t gotten the full Brant Thoreau experience for herself.
“Mazey is generally a very good judge of these sorts of things,” I said, and left it there. After all, just because someone got my hackles up didn’t mean they weren’t a decent psychic.
Another of those awkward silences fell. Then I said, “Did you decide where you wanted to have dinner tonight?”
Because Calvin had been fine with the whole “meet the parents” thing, even as he was a little surprised that they’d be interested in socializing while they had such odd developments brewing at their house. I hadn’t told him about my suspicions of demonic infestation, mostly because I had absolutely no evidence to back them up. I’d only said that that the place definitely had some weird phenomena going on, and because I hadn’t been able to sense any ghosts, I’d decided it would be a good idea to bring in an outside expert. We’d sort of left things there, mostly because our lunch had been interrupted by a call from one of his deputies, and Calvin had been forced to hurry off.
My mother actually smiled. “It doesn’t seem as though we have a lot to choose from, based on what we saw as we were driving around town yesterday. What do you suggest?”
She was right; Globe wasn’t exactly known for its fine dining. Olamendi’s, the Mexican place where we’d all gone out to dinner the first night they’d come to town, was probably my favorite for dinner, but it wasn’t exactly what you could call fancy. Really, there was only one obvious choice.
“Probably the restaurant at the casino,” I said, even though I had a feeling Calvin wouldn’t be thrilled by that suggestion. The two of us had never had dinner there, and going out to eat with my mother and Tom might feel a little like flaunting our relationship to the other members of the San Ramon Apache tribe.
Then again, Calvin was the one who’d said we didn’t have anything to hide. Now he could prove it. And even if he didn’t entirely approve of our dining venue, I knew he wouldn’t let me down.
“Have you eaten there?” my mother asked.
“Once. It was very good,” I replied, and hoped she wouldn’t ask for any details. I’d had dinner with Chuck Langdon there, a dinner that had only proved we had absolutely no chemistry with each other. He’d turned out to be a good friend, and I was thrilled that things were going well for him and Hazel, but I would prefer to avoid mentioning any of that to my mother.
“A decent steak?” Tom put in, looking hopeful.
“Excellent steaks. And they have a great wine list.”
Those comments seemed to convince them, because Tom pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll go ahead and make reservations, then,” he said. “Is seven o’clock all right?”
“It’s fine,” I told him. “Calvin gets off at six, so I’ll ask him to meet us there.”
Any further conversation was curtailed by the arrival of Brant Thoreau, who threw open the front door and paused there, looking dramatic in his dragon-embroidered robes.
“Well?” I said.
His eyes narrowed slightly. In contrast to his bleached hair, they were very dark, as were his eyebrows. The contrast was startling…and purely intentional, I was sure.
“There is definitely something in this house,” he replied.
