Second Glance Read online

  Ross lifted a shoulder. “That’s a pretty big if.”

  “Not really. You’ve been surrounded by ghosts your whole life. You just don’t know that’s what you’re seeing,” Az said. “Adio, Mr. Wakeman.”

  He disappeared around the front of the house as the wind picked up. Ross shrugged into his jacket. He swallowed repeatedly, but could not get the taste of disappointment off his tongue. He told himself it was because Az had come, when Ross was hoping for a ghost. That it had nothing to do with the fact that Az had come, when Ross was hoping for Lia.

  “I’ve had it!” the nurse cried, dropping the tray of pills. “I do not have to take this kind of treatment from a patient!”

  Spencer Pike watched from his wheelchair, his hands folded in his lap. When he needed to, he could play the doddering fool well. He stared at a soap opera on the television set, feigning interest, as the supervisor approached.

  She was a large woman with hair dyed the color of apricots. In his mind, Spencer called her Nurse Ratchet. “Is there a problem, Millicent?”

  “Yes, there’s a problem,” the younger nurse fumed. “Mr. Pike’s verbal abuse.”

  Ratchet sighed. “What did he say this time?”

  Millicent’s lower lip trembled. “He said . . . he said I’m an idiot.”

  “If I might interrupt, that’s not what I said.” Spencer turned to Ratchet. “I told her she came from a family of imbeciles. Not idiots. There is a difference, however subtle.”

  “You see?” Millicent huffed.

  “I only asked if she was related to the Cartwrights of Swanton. It’s a known fact that nearly half of that family tree grew up in state homes for the feebleminded.” He did not say what he had so politely refrained from telling even Millicent Cartwright—that given the number of times she’d mistaken him for one of the other rest-home patrons, she seemed genetically wired to follow in the footsteps of her kin.

  Millicent shrugged out of the cotton vest she wore as an employee of the nursing home. “I quit,” she announced, and she walked out of the rec room, the heels of her white clogs crushing a rainbow of pills in her wake.

  “Mr. Pike,” Ratchet said, “that was uncalled for.”

  Spencer shrugged. People never wanted to face up to their own flaws. He ought to know.

  In Dr. Calloway’s office, Meredith felt like a giant—too big for the tiny chairs and table, too oversized to fit in the gingerbread playhouse with the wooden slide, too awkward to fit small stubs of crayons between her fingers to color. Lucy, though, fit perfectly. Across the room and out of earshot, she lay facedown on an enormous stuffed frog, dressing one of Barbie’s anorexic friends.

  “An isolated visual hallucination is rare,” the psychiatrist said. “More often, psychotic symptoms present as auditory hallucinations, or agitated behavior.” Dr. Calloway glanced at Lucy, quietly playing. “Have you seen any abrupt changes in her attitude?”

  “No.”

  “Violence? Acting out?” Meredith shook her head. “What about changes in her eating or sleeping patterns?”

  Lucy hardly ever ate—skinny as she was, Meredith used to joke that her daughter photosynthesized instead—and as for sleeping, well, she hadn’t gone straight through a night in ages. “Sleeping’s a problem,” she admitted. “Lucy’s imagination runs away with her. She usually leaves the light on, and she gets herself so worked up about what’s in her closet or under her bed that the only reason she even gets to sleep at all is because she passes out from sheer exhaustion.”

  “It’s possible that Lucy’s suffering from the same anxieties any eight-year-old might have at bedtime.” Dr. Calloway said. “And then again, it’s possible that she is seeing something in her closet and under her bed.”

  Meredith swallowed hard. Her child couldn’t be psychotic, couldn’t be. Not Lucy, who would rather hop than walk; who read picture books to her stuffed animals; who had just mastered all the words to “Miss Mary Mack.” There was a truth in the back of Meredith’s head, as sharp and blue as a flame: You didn’t want her, once, and this is your punishment.

  “What do I do?” she asked.

  “Just remember that eight is the age of Santa Claus and imaginary friends and make-believe. Children Lucy’s age are just beginning to separate fantasy from reality—and there’s a very good chance that whatever she’s envisioning is part of that process.”

  “But if it keeps up?”

  “Then I’d recommend starting Lucy on a low dose of Risperdal, to see if it makes a difference. Let’s just wait and see.”

  “Okay.” Meredith watched Lucy begin to braid the doll’s hair. “Okay.”

  Ross wasn’t hungry, so he didn’t quite understand why he’d come to the town diner—an establishment that had been around as long as Comtosook, passing like a plague through a chain of overweight, crochety owners who all believed that grease was a gourmet seasoning. Not that this seemed to affect business: when Ross arrived, every table and counter stool was taken. Settling against a mirrored wall to wait, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes. “Sorry,” the waitress said, turning the moment he flicked on his lighter. “We’re smoke-free.”

  It seemed ridiculous that an establishment whose menu catered to early heart attacks would be so hypocritical, but Ross just tucked his Merits back into his jacket. “I’ll be around back,” he told the waitress. “Can you save me a table?”

  “That depends.” She smiled. “Will you save me a cigarette?”

  Now, five minutes later, he leaned against the Dumpster behind the diner and lit up, letting the smoke curl down his throat like a question mark. He crossed his eyes a little and watched the tip glow.

  He should have brought a jacket—it was easily ten degrees colder back here. Temperature fluctuations like this were becoming customary in town, and its residents seemed to have turned a corner—instead of fearing these anomalies, they unpacked their winter boots and mittens, and left them beside their beach towels and suntan lotion, because either one might be called for. The best thing about New Englanders, Ross thought, was that when they finished complaining they swallowed fate like a dose of medicine—unpleasant in taste, but ultimately, something you’d get through all the same and be better for it. Ross pressed his shoulders against the dark metal wall of the Dumpster, stealing the heat it had trapped. Head bent, he tossed the rest of the cigarette away.

  “You didn’t even finish that.”

  He turned around. “Lia.”

  Ross would have known she was behind him even if she hadn’t spoken; the scent of flowers was in the air. She ground out the butt with her loafer, her fingers fluttering at her sides. She was wearing her polka-dotted dress again, this time with a beaded cardigan, as if she were embarrassed to be seen in the same clothing and wanted to freshen it up.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Lia said.

  Her words didn’t match her stance; she looked ready to bolt. There was something about her—something helpless, boxed-in, that seemed familiar to Ross. “I’ve been looking for you, too.” As he said it, he realized how much this was true. He had been searching for Lia in the reflection of store windows, in the cars that pulled up beside him at traffic lights, in line at the drugstore.

  “Did you find your ghost yet?”

  “Not my ghost,” Ross clarified. “A ghost.” He got to his feet, smiling. “Why were you looking for me?”

  Lia spoke in a rush. “Because . . . I didn’t get to tell you the other night . . . but I look for ghosts, too.”

  “You do?” This was such an unprecedented, enthusiastic response that it took Ross by surprise. Most people who believed in paranormal phenomena admitted it grudgingly.

  “I’m an amateur, I suppose, compared to what you do.”

  “Have you found anything?” Ross asked.

  She shook her head. “Has anyone?”

  “Sure. I mean, beyond spirit photography and mediums, there’s been research from Princeton and the University of Edinburgh. Even the CIA did valid