Maybe This Time Read online

  “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?”

  She lifted her chin, defiant, and North said, “Look at her eyes. She’s stoned.”

  Kelly stepped back. “Tune in tomorrow, Columbus . . . I’ll have interviews . . . with the children . . . and proof of their neglect . . . at the hands of their newest nanny . . .”

  North got up and went around to sit on the desk, his arms folded.

  “. . . North Archer’s ex-wife.”

  You’re done, O’Keefe, North thought grimly.

  “. . . much more about . . . the Orphans of Archer House!”

  Lydia clicked off the TV with the remote. “I’m having her killed, of course.” She turned back to North. “I know you can take care of yourself, but that kind of thing does us no good.”

  North picked up the phone and punched in the number for Archer House.

  “What are you doing?” Lydia snapped.

  The phone rang and he got a recording claiming a disruption of service. Was O’Keefe crazy enough to cut the phone lines?

  “North, pay attention. If you don’t care about what she’s doing to you, think about your brother. She’s got him alone down there, duping him because I’m damn sure he’d never let her say that about you.”

  North put the phone down. “First, Sullivan is not stupid so you can stop treating him as if he’s ten. Second, she doesn’t have him alone down there. I sent Andie, remember.”

  Lydia turned back to the TV, punched the eject button, and took out the tape. “Get your coat. I don’t know the way to the house, so you’ll have to come with me.”

  “No.” I can do more damage to her up here.

  “North, your brother and a predatory news reporter are in a house in the middle of nowhere with two disturbed orphans and your ex-wife who is not a patient woman.” Lydia put the tape in her purse. “Imagine the possibilities.”

  North imagined them. The best was Andie strangling Kelly O’Keefe with videotape. The worst was O’Keefe finding out that Andie thought the house was haunted and was sending him after bodies in Britain.

  “Why are you smiling?” Lydia snapped.

  “Andie and Kelly O’Keefe in a smackdown.”

  “She’s probably a biter,” Lydia said.

  “She is.”

  “I meant Kelly O’Keefe,” Lydia said, her voice frosty.

  “Right,” North said. “Leave Andie to handle it.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Lydia said and walked out.

  In the ensuing quiet, North sat on the edge of his desk and considered his options. Some were fair—calling the station to point out libel could be expensive—and some were not—calling the McKennas to find out what string he could pull that would shut Kelly O’Keefe up about the Archers for good. If there was anything, the McKennas would find it, although they’d looked into Will Spenser and found nothing wrong with him, which was disappointing. “Well, he’s a writer,” Gabe had said when he called. “You know those guys. But no debt, no police record, people like him. He’s clean.”

  Kelly O’Keefe was not going to be clean. And she was down there sticking a knife into Andie right now.

  But if he showed up out of the blue, O’Keefe would think she was on to something. He needed a reason to go. Checking on his wards? He could have done that anytime, probably should have done that. He needed a reason to go back, something like Andie’s alimony checks. “I had to bring this down . . .”

  Yeah, because FedEx was broken. He didn’t have to take anything anywhere. Unless it was something he had to deliver . . .

  He got up and went over and opened the farthest cabinet on the end of the wall, and then reached in, far to the back, and pulled out the box that Andie had left behind, forgotten under their bed, an old cheap wood thing that she’d glued shells to in junior high or something. Really ugly. She’d loved it, and he’d put in it all the odds and ends she’d left behind, thinking he could give it back when he saw her again because he couldn’t imagine not seeing her again. And then he hadn’t seen her again.

  He took it back to his desk and put it in the middle of his blotter and then opened it to see what thing he could announce was crucial to deliver in person.

  Junk. Ticket stubs from concerts—why hadn’t he thrown those away? he thought even as he remembered each one, Andie close beside him in the night—and a single earring—she must have taken the other half of the pair with her—and the diamond earrings he’d given her for her birthday—late, he remembered, but he couldn’t remember why he’d bought such boring diamonds, she wouldn’t have wanted diamonds anyway, it must have been his secretary who’d bought them, he’d been too busy—and finally Polaroids, losing color with age. He pulled the photos out and went through them, seeing Andie with Southie, Andie with her first-period English class, Andie laughing with him, and then he turned over the last two, the oldest, the ones he’d taken of her the morning after they’d gotten married. She’d been tangled naked in the sheets, half awake, and he’d gone out to the car for his evidence camera and snapped the pictures, and she’d yawned and said, “What are you doing?” and then she’d smiled and he’d snapped another one . . .

  He didn’t need a reason. He could just go down there because it was his house and his wards.

  And his ex-wife.

  He put everything back in the box and closed the lid, left a note on Kristin’s desk to cancel his appointments for the next two days, and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag.

  He was fairly sure he knew what he was doing.

  The storm knocked out the phone lines—“They must be made of tissue paper,” Andie told Southie, “they go out every fifteen minutes”—and then knocked out the sun, too, the heavy cloud cover making it dark when Andie moved Alice’s things into the nursery. “I don’t like it here,” Alice said as Andie began to move her own things in. “I like my wall drawings.”

  “You can draw them again in here,” Andie said, and Alice looked at the vast expanses of white wall available to her and went to get her markers.

  Andie looked around and saw no ghosts and went downstairs to help Southie get ready for the séance, feeling ahead of the game. He’d gone out earlier for groceries and liquor, but he was back now, having fully stocked the pantry and the bar.

  “I don’t see why we can’t do this in the dining room,” Andie told him as they shoved an old round table into the middle of the Great Hall.

  “Kelly wants it here.” Southie looked around the room. “It’s probably a good place for it. Hard to fake results in here. Not impossible, but not as easy as in a smaller room with lots of furniture.”

  “I thought this Isolde woman was the best medium in Ohio.” Andie frowned. “Which, come to think of it, probably isn’t that great a distinction. How many mediums does Ohio have, anyway?”

  “I think Kelly wants it in here for the filming,” Southie said. “She’s interested in ratings.” He smiled at Andie. “I, on the other hand, am interested in ghosts.”

  Andie raised her eyebrows. “Don’t tell me. Your newest hobby is séances?”

  “Hauntings,” Southie said. “I don’t know if there’s anything in it, but researching it has been interesting.”

  “There’s something in it,” Andie said, and waited for him to laugh.

  “Really.” He sat on the