Maybe This Time Read online

  “You’re North Archer,” the woman said. “You’re the missing piece.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re the one they’re all fixated on,” she went on. “Some of them are angry with you and some of them are afraid of you and some of them just want you. And I have to warn you, one of the ones who wants you is dead.”

  “You’re the medium,” North said, putting it together.

  “Isolde Hammersmith.” She stood up. “Things are bad here. Get these people out of here before it gets worse.”

  “That’s my plan,” North said mildly. “Do you need a ride back to town?”

  “I’m staying the night.” Isolde picked up her big leather bag from the stone floor. “Andie needs me.”

  North opened his mouth to suggest she’d be more comfortable someplace else—anyplace else—and then heard the storm pound the windows.

  “Everybody’s in the sitting room,” he said instead. “It’s probably warmer in there. Southie was going to light the fireplace.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “No ghosts. Make sure the fires are lit in the bedrooms, too. Ghosts don’t like fire.”

  “Good to know,” North said, and went out to the hall phone and checked for a dial tone. The line was working again, so he got out his address book and dialed Gabe McKenna’s private number. When the answering machine picked up, he said, “I need you down here first thing tomorrow,” and gave directions to the house. Whoever was playing games with Andie and the kids, Gabe would find out. And after that, he’d pack up Andie and the kids and take them home. Lydia and Southie could deal with Kelly O’Keefe and Isolde Hammersmith.

  Then he picked up his overnight bag from where he’d left it by the door and went back upstairs to the nursery.

  Ten

  When he walked in, Andie looked up from where she was sitting on the floor beside Alice’s bed, looking exhausted. “She’s okay.”

  He sat down in the rocker. “How are you?”

  Her chin went up. “I want them forever. Alice and Carter. I’m staying with them forever.” She met his eyes, as if she thought he was going to argue.

  “That’s good.”

  “Who are you?” Alice mumbled, rousing a little from her sleep to blink at him.

  “This is Bad Uncle, remember?” Andie said softly.

  “Oh, thanks,” North said.

  Andie leaned closer. “But he’s not taking you away. Nanny Joy got that all wrong. He won’t come get you until you want to leave. He promises.”

  Alice turned accusing Archer blue eyes back to him, so he said, “As long as you’re not in danger, you can stay here until you say, ‘I want to go.’ When you want to go, I will take you home to Columbus.”

  Alice pushed herself up on her elbows then, her face still blotchy with tears, an ugly doll tumbled beside her. “I’m not in danger.”

  “We’ll see,” North said.

  Alice scowled, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m not going.”

  “As long as you’re safe here, you don’t have to,” North said.

  “Pinky swear?”

  “Pinky swear,” he said, having only a vague idea of what that meant until she held out her hand, her little finger crooked. He linked his little finger with hers, hoping there wasn’t some kind of ritual that he was going to screw up, and she shook his hand once and let go.

  “Okay,” she said. “If you break a pinky swear, you have to cut your finger off.”

  “That’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to tell me before you make me do it,” North said.

  “Then you shouldn’t have done it without asking,” Alice said, and since that was an argument he’d often used in court, he nodded.

  “You’re right. Pinky swear.”

  Alice lay back down again, frankly surveying him now. “You were here before. When Daddy died. When Aunt May was here.”

  North nodded.

  “You never came back.”

  “I know.” All the rationales he’d used—they were in good hands with their aunt, he didn’t know anything about kids, somebody had to run the practice—looked pretty stupid in the light of Alice’s direct gaze. “I was wrong. I was a Bad Uncle.”

  “Whoa,” Andie said, and Alice looked at her. “Bad Uncle doesn’t say he’s wrong very often. Well, ever.”

  “I’ve said that.”

  Andie looked at him, exasperated. “When?”

  Right offhand, he couldn’t think of an example, so he said to Alice, “I brought you something.”

  “Books,” Alice said, and yawned again.

  “No.” He opened his overnight bag and pulled out the soft, furry, long-eared, pear-shaped little bunny that had felt squashy in his hands when he’d picked it up after seeing it in a store window. He’d put it on her bed in Columbus so she’d have it when she moved in and then grabbed it on his way out the door with a vague idea that there should be gifts when he arrived. Kids liked gifts. “I thought since your name was Alice that you should have a white rabbit.”

  “Huh?” Alice said, and then looked at the rabbit as he held it out to her.

  “Alice in Wonderland?” he said and looked at Andie, who shook her head.

  “She doesn’t know it,” she told him and then said to Alice, “There’s an Alice in a book who chases a white rabbit and has adventures.”

  Alice looked at the rabbit, and North could tell she wanted it, but something kept her from reaching out.

  Andie took it instead. “My God, this is a great rabbit.” She squeezed it, her strong hands holding it up in front of the little girl. “Alice, it’s squooshy. And really soft. And it’s smiling underneath its fur.”

  Alice stuck her chin out, clearly trying to resist but watching the bunny anyway.

  “And the tag says ‘Jellycat.’ Do you think that’s its name?”

  “No. Its name is . . .” Alice frowned and then held out her hand. “Let me see.”

  Andie gave the bunny back to North. “It’s from your uncle North.”

  Alice looked exasperated. North held out the bunny to her, and she took it, knocking Jessica off onto the floor as she reached for it, her eyes widening as she held it up in front of her and felt how soft it was.

  “What do you say for the nice gift?” Andie said.

  “Thank you, Bad,” Alice said automatically, still staring at her bunny.

  “You’re welcome,” North said, ignoring the “Bad” to watch her stare at the toy. Nobody he’d ever given a gift to had ever looked like that, all that unashamed naked wonder. Then Alice hugged the rabbit to her, and he felt his throat close in, completely blindsided by the little girl and her vulnerability. And he’d left her alone down here with a bunch of idiot nannies and some asshole who was faking ghosts to keep her there. “Bad Uncle” was exactly what he deserved.

  “Good present,” Andie whispered beside him, and he remembered she was there, too.

  He looked back at Alice, rocking the bunny, her cheek on its head, and cleared his throat. “What’s his name, Alice?”

  “Her,” Alice said, frowning.

  “Sorry. What’s her name?”

  Alice pulled back to look at the bunny. “She has a pink nose. Her name is Rose Bunny.”

  “Not Pinky?” Andie said.

  “Pinky is not a real name,” Alice said sternly, and lay back down in her bed, Rose Bunny jammed under her chin.

  “Good point,” North said. “Rose is a fine name.”

  “Did you get Carter one?” Alice said, around a yawn.

  “No, I got Carter something else.”

  “What?”

  “Colored pencils. In a case. Will he like that?”

  Alice’s eyes closed as her lips curved in a smile that could break a heart. “Yes, he will.” She snuggled deeper in her bed, looking normal now, no trace of her hysterics left except for the smudges of her tears, now mostly rubbed off on her pillow.

  “Good night, Alice,” Andie whispered. “Good night, Rose.”