“That’s not fair,” Kelly said, pulling back.
“Neither is what you’re doing to North.” Andie turned back to May. “So she’d have done it anyway. Let’s talk about me.”
“Or we could talk about Kelly some more,” Southie said, checking his watch. “What do you want to know?”
“Sullivan!” Kelly said.
“You shouldn’t have gone after my brother,” Southie said, before turning to the camera. “She fakes her orgasms, and she’s not very good at it.”
“If you were any good at it, I wouldn’t have to,” Kelly snapped.
“She fakes ’em?” Bill said from behind the camera.
“Nobody makes sounds like that naturally,” Southie told him.
“Do you mind?” Andie said. “I’m trying to have a serious conversation here?”
“There’s way too much emotion in this room,” Isolde said quietly. “Dial it down, Andie.”
Andie nodded and turned back to May. “You were out of line,” she said calmly, and thought, You body-snatching bitch.
That was a mistake and I’m sorry. May smiled at her. I thought you’d want to go to him. I mean, North Archer. Who wouldn’t?
“You can’t ever do that again.”
I don’t want to, May said. It was interesting for a night, but you’re mad at me, and that Kelly was awful. At least in you I was warm. She’s just cold clear through. I’m not sure there’s a soul there.
“There is, and you can’t have it.”
“Can’t have what?” Southie said.
“Southie, be quiet,” Andie said.
Okay, okay. May swished again. What’s he looking at?
“Who?” Andie followed May’s eyes and saw Dennis, frowning in May’s direction. “Dennis?”
“Is there something moving over there?” Dennis said. “Or am I tipsy?”
“Yes,” Isolde said. “There’s something moving and you’re drunk.” She turned back to the table. “Harold, find out what the hell is going on.”
Oh, hell, not Harold, May said. He keeps hitting on me. I don’t know what the hell he thinks we can do. We’re both fucking dead.
He thinks you can do dead fucking, Andie thought. “You have to go.”
Where? I’m tied to this place, I can’t leave. You think I’d stay here if I could haunt someplace else? My best friend scattered my ashes at the Grandville Grill, but do I get to haunt there? No. I’m stuck here with Crumb.
“Ashes,” Andie said with a sinking heart. If May had been cremated…
“Harold says she says she was cremated,” Isolde told Andie. “What about the others, Harold?”
I don’t know about the others, May said. Harold, get the fuck off my leg, I am not interested in you. Jesus, men. They don’t listen.
“I know,” Andie said. “May, you have to move on. To the other side.”
May stopped dancing. You mean, DIE?
“You’re dead,” Andie said. “It’s over. Move on.”
It’s not over, May snapped. I’m here. I’m staying.
“Harold says you’re making her mad,” Isolde said to Andie.
“Yeah, well, she pissed me off first,” Andie said.
“I can see two people,” Dennis said, a little pompously. “Early nineteenth-century dress. I don’t think they belong here.”
He’s loaded, May said, not judgmentally.
“Harold says their names are Peter and Miss J,” Isolde said. “But they’re not communicating much else.”
“Tell me how to get rid of the other two,” Andie said to May. “Okay, you can stay”-The hell you can-“but you must know how to get rid of them.”
I don’t know anything about them, May said. Keep the fires going and you’ll be fine.
“I had a fire going in the nursery. Somebody turned it off.”
May stopped dancing. I made Crumb do it. I just wanted to be with North Archer. He liked me when he came down that first time. He was so beautiful and expensive, and he liked me, he told me he really appreciated everything I was doing with the kids, like I was doing him a favor…
That was North, Andie thought. All that cool charm, and there was nineteen-year-old May-
… and I thought he’d come back and then he’d love me, and I waited but he never did.
“May,” Andie said.
So I wrote him and asked for things, but I always got his secretary, and that’s when I decided it was time to take the kids to live with him. We’d all live with him. She swished her skirt again. And once I was there, he’d love me. I’m lovable.
“Yeah, you probably were,” Andie said.
I’m lovable NOW, May said, her face contorting for a moment, and Andie saw the empty eyes she’d seen that first night, the skull beneath the phantom skin May clung to.
“All right,” Andie said.
And then that bitch KILLED ME.
“Harold says things are not good,” Isolde said. “I’m ending this.”
“She killed you,” Andie said, talking fast, “so let’s return the favor. Let’s get rid of her. How do we do it?”
May hesitated.
“She stole your life,” Andie said. “For no reason, she took your life. Let’s end hers. Tell me something that will get rid of them.”
There might be one thing, May said.
“Somebody’s been doping people here with salvia,” Gabe told North when they’d locked the satellite truck and were in the pantry with the tapes.
“Salvia.” North shook his head. “Red flowers?”
“Wrong branch of the family. I called Chloe and had her look it all up to make sure, but I remember this stuff. We caught Riley growing it out behind the agency once a couple of years ago. You know teenagers.”
“I will very shortly. Carter’s twelve. What’s salvia?”
“Salvia divinorum. Very old natural high, not dangerous, produces visions.”
“Hallucinations,” North said, everything dropping into place.
“Yep. It’s not illegal, it’s not addictive, and it doesn’t hurt anybody. It’s not a crime to grow it. I still kicked Riley’s ass, though.”
“So how-”
Gabe pulled the jug of tea out of the lineup of decanters. “I tasted this. It’s not tea.” He jerked his thumb at what North had thought was a bundle of dried herbs. “Somebody’s drying Salvia divinorum, steeping the dried leaves and, I will bet you anything, spiking your booze with it.”
“Andie told me she drinks tea with a shot of Amaretto at night to sleep,” North said.
“Which somebody spiked.” Gabe leaned back against the counter. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know why people see ghosts. They’ve been doped.”
“You are a good man,” North said, more relieved than he thought possible. “Let’s go tell Andie.”
But when they got to the doorway to the Great Hall and saw the séance in progress, Gabe stopped him.
“It’d be smarter to watch this,” he told North in a low voice. “See who’s benefiting from people believing.”
“It has to be Crumb,” North said. “She’s the one who’s been here with Andie and the kids the whole time.”
“Yeah, but what if somebody is paying her to do it?”
North looked at the people around the séance table, watching Andie talk to empty air. Southie wouldn’t drug Andie, but the rest…
Isolde, whose reputation rested on ghosts being real.
Dennis, who’d told him the night before that he could get a book sold if he ever really saw a ghost.