Maybe This Time Read online

  “You can wear this, I don’t want it anymore,” she announced, and then went back into the hall.

  Andie followed her, taking a quick look around before she went into the hall and then into Alice’s room. If May decided to try another hijacking, she was going to tangle with somebody who was ready for her this time. “Alice, honey, this is your shirt—”

  “No it’s not,” Alice said, her head in her drawer, searching for one among many black T-shirts. “It was Aunt May’s. I took it after she died.” She straightened, holding up a plain black T-shirt. “I don’t want it anymore. You can wear it today.”

  Andie was pretty sure that meant something that she was missing, but she was late so she said, “Thank you,” and pulled it over her head. The last thing she wanted was anything of May’s, but she wasn’t going to look a gift Alice in the mouth.

  May had been thinner than Andie because the shirt was tight, the letters that spelled “Bad Witch” stretched out of shape across her bust, but Alice smiled and nodded, and Andie thought, The hell with it. Most of these people think I’m crazy, might as well add slutty to the mix. She helped Alice get her hair in her topknot, and Alice said, “Can we still do the Three O’Clock Bake this afternoon?” and she said, “Absolutely,” and thought, As long as we’re done before the séance, and took Alice downstairs for a late breakfast, keeping an eye out for May the entire time.

  North had been up since seven, determined to get the mess he’d found at Archer House cleaned up and Andie and the kids back to Columbus by Sunday at the latest. Gabe McKenna must have gotten up at the crack of dawn, because he pounded on the doorknocker at eight. “I’m here,” he said when North opened the door, his sharp dark eyes taking in the place without comment. “What are we looking for?”

  “Ghosts,” North said.

  “All right then,” Gabe said and walked in.

  They started on the first floor since nobody was up yet. Gabe was thorough, tapping walls, looking at the stone floors, turning furniture and paintings over, and North put anything they found that didn’t clearly have a purpose for where it was stored into a box. The front two rooms were empty, their walls solid stone behind the drywall, so they were done in minutes. The hallways were equally bare of furniture and decoration although the paintings that hung there took a few minutes to flip and examine. The kitchen showed the most signs of life—North saw bananas browning in a bowl on the counter and opened a cupboard and found chocolate chips and nuts, flour and sugar, and thought, Andie’s here—but the dark little pantry off the back of the kitchen was mostly empty aside from old spices and drying herbs, half a dozen half-empty bottles of quality booze that North recognized as Southie’s choices, and a jug of tea, the tea leaves sitting in a sludge at the bottom. The dining room and sitting room were pretty much storage for unused furniture. It wasn’t just that there wasn’t anything out of place in those rooms, it was that there wasn’t anything in place: no dishes in the sideboard in the dining room, no photos on the tables in the sitting room, nothing except the furniture and the paintings on the walls.

  “This place is strange,” Gabe said when they headed for the library. “Nobody lives here.”

  “They live here,” North said grimly, “but they shouldn’t.”

  Then Gabe opened the door to the library and said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  North went in and really looked at the room for the first time. Last night, when it had been full of people and Alice screaming, he’d registered it as a library because it was lined with books, but now in the cold light of early morning, it was clear that this room was used. The window seat had books and papers tumbled in it, the big table in the middle of the room had workbooks and papers and textbooks spread out across it, and there were more books in front of the fireplace where somebody had obviously stretched out to read.

  “I think this is where Andie teaches the kids,” North said, and then he heard Kelly O’Keefe say, “Well, hello,” from the bottom of the stone stairs. “We’ll look here later. Avoid that woman,” he said, and Gabe nodded, waved at Kelly, who said, “Aren’t you Gabe McKenna, the detective?”, and followed them to the basement door.

  “Leave,” North said, “today,” and shut the basement door in her face.

  By the time Andie and Alice got to the kitchen, Flo had made breakfast for everybody and cleaned up, so Andie got Alice her cereal and milk and took it to the library, where Carter was reading and ignoring Kelly’s efforts to talk to him.

  “Get out,” Andie told Kelly when she found her there. “Out of the house, out of our lives.”

  “Well, really,” Kelly said, but she left them alone.

  Andie made sure the gas fireplace was on and went to find Isolde.

  “We need another séance,” she told the medium when she found her standing in the middle of the Great Hall, frowning.

  “Bad idea,” Isolde said. “Too many people here, too much tension.”

  Andie looked around. Still no May. “Could we go into a room that has a fireplace?”

  Isolde raised her eyebrows but followed her into the sitting room where Kelly was arguing with Bill and Southie in front of the fire.

  “Not here,” Andie said, and took Isolde into the dining room where Dennis had papers spread out, making notes. He looked at them as if he wished they would leave and they ignored him, so he got up and went into the kitchen, either passive aggressive or hungry.

  Andie turned the gas fire on, and then faced the medium. “May possessed me last night, took my body. We have to stop her, all of them, get rid of them.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Isolde said. “She took you? Are you all right?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Andie said. “If we ask them, will they go away?”

  “No. They got a great setup here. Why should they go?”

  “Can you read their minds or something? Find out how to get rid of them?”

  “Two of them don’t have minds,” Isolde said. “The other one’s still new. She’s not dumb and she doesn’t want to go, and no, I can’t read her mind.”

  “Isolde, work with me here.”

  Isolde sat down at the dining room table. “Let me think.” She looked at the books and papers spread out on the table and said, “What is this?”

  Andie picked up a book and looked at the marked page, which was about faked hauntings in English country houses. “It’s Dennis’s research.” She dropped the book back on the table. “Ideas, Isolde. You’re my expert here.”

  Isolde ignored her to look at the papers, opening the other books to scan the pages Dennis had bookmarked. “He’s researching the house.”

  “Well, that’s what he does, investigate hauntings.”

  Isolde nodded. “He’s very methodical. This is good. He may find out something.”

  “Yes,” Andie said patiently. “But he doesn’t believe in ghosts. So whatever he’s looking for, it’s not a way to get rid of them. He and North think it’s some kind of fraud, they’re looking for a live person who’s gaslighting me.”

  “It happens,” Isolde said, frowning at the notes Dennis had made on a legal pad. “Not here, you’ve got ghosts, but people fake hauntings all the time.”

  “We need to get the ghosts out,” Andie said. “Last night was bad, but what if they start possessing the kids?”

  Isolde waved her hand. “I’m working on it. We’ll do the séance at four. That gives me some time to look through this stuff and talk to Dennis—”

  “What are you doing?” Dennis said stiffly from the door to the kitchen.

  “Reading your notes,” Isolde said without looking up from the legal pad. “Get in here, we need to talk.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “Well, it’s time you started,” Isolde snapped. “Sit down here and explain this to me. They brought the contents of the house over, too?”

  “The furniture,” Dennis said, coming in to stand beside her. “The paintings. The accoutrements.”

  “That cou