I put my hands on my hips. “You think you could’ve told me about this earlier? You know, before I was bounced out of the chimney?”
Scott offered a smile that told me that he was a fan of practical jokes in any form. “Twyla and me knew about the salt when we saw it around the mansion earlier, but you wouldn’t have brought us if you didn’t think you needed us.”
Then he got back to haunting. “We’ll go into this little house here after Twyla finishes frying any silent alarms inside. She’s quick about it, too, so nothing should’ve gone off at all. We don’t want anyone to think anything spooky is happening out here.”
“We just want to attract mild attention.”
“You’ve got it.”
I was about to ask him how he and Twyla had become experts at break-ins, but what was the point? They could probably take over the War Games computers or whatever the government used nowadays for national defense, if they wanted to.
When a sharp series of knocks sounded on the door—bump, bump-ba-bump-bump… bump-bump—Scott went to it and swept his arm out.
“After you, milady,” he said, bowing.
Cute. “The salt’s gone, but what if I can’t get in because of the cleaner’s incantations or whatever?”
“If you’re susceptible to them, we’ll find out right away. But you gotta get in there to find out.”
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?
I went for it, slimming myself to a pencillike proportion and streaming under the door, into the pool house, filling out to my regular shape once I was in.
I waited, but nothing happened to make me explode or wither away or fly off to ghosty Never Never Land. Rad.
As I felt Scott entering through the same route, I took in my surroundings. It’d be dark in here for a human with the windows shuttered and the lights off, but I could see just fine. And I could surely say that, for a pool house, this was gnarly. But what else did I expect from the Edgetts? It wasn’t marble and palatial like the mansion, but it had a big old leather couch in front of a huge, flat TV, a kitchen, a bar, and a hallway that seemed to lead to a bedroom.
Scott was surveying me. “Looks like either someone has an immunity to cleaner tactics or the Edgetts didn’t bother safeguarding the pool house all the way.”
“No one lives here,” Twyla said, stepping out of nowhere in front of me. “So, like, why not just salt the outside and spend incantation time on the big house instead?”
The sound of a door opening and then shutting outside made us all look at each other. Through the barely gaped slats of the shutters, the security lights came on, creating minuscule lines on the far wall.
“A human,” Scott said, flying to the window and attempting to peer through the slats. “From what I can see, it isn’t Gavin, either. It’s one of the girls.”
Farah or Wendy. But Farah was a chicken compared to the younger Edgett. She wouldn’t be out here inspecting anything.
“Can you see what she’s doing?” I asked.
“She’s looking at the pot Twyla destroyed earlier. And take a listen to what she’s saying… .”
I definitely heard Farah’s voice outside.
“Tugger? Is that you? Come here, little boy. Mama’s missed you.”
Well, well. “When she heard the pot go down, she thought her kitty did it, but she probably waited to see that everything was clear out here,” I said. After all, Eileen Perez had told the family that their pet might come home, now that the house was clean.
The Edgetts were feeling really safe, weren’t they?
Scott and Twyla exchanged a smug glance. They’d been there to hear the cleaner talking about Rum Tum Tugger, and I had the feeling they were going to run with that.
Twyla had slimmed the front part of herself, slipping through a shutter slat. It gave her the appearance of a gray ghost with no head. “She must’ve been up, drinking coffee in the kitchen. It’s all over the front of her nightgown, like she spilled it when she heard the crash here.” She pulled out of the slat and grew back her head, talking excitedly to Scott. “You ready?”
“For what?” I asked.
“Ready to get Gavin out here instead of this useless skank.”
Something told me to slow all this down. I’d never been able to go into Farah’s mind. Why not now? Why not get more than just Gavin’s puzzle pieces?
“Wait,” I said. “Let’s bring her in here first. Then we’ll go for Gavin.”
Without questioning, Scott gave me the okay sign, then flew to the door and under it. But Twyla sent me a daredevil glance, then got real close to the door. Even though she didn’t open her mouth, she threw out some sound.
A loud, long meow.
Electricity pumped through me, because I knew what she was up to. She was luring Farah into the pool house with the bait of her missing phantom pet cat.
Twyla slipped under the door just before Farah tried the knob. But the door was locked.
Picking up where Twyla had left off, I threw sound toward the door.
Meow.
The night seemed dead as I waited for Farah to either stay or go.
Just come in, I thought. I only want to invade your mind for the good of the world.
I heard a scraping sound, like a pot being moved over concrete. A spare key?
When the tumble of the lock rang through the room, I hovered. The plan was working.
With a long groan, the door opened, and Farah stepped inside, almost looking like a ghost herself, wearing a spaghetti-strap nightgown with a coffee stain marring the white material. Her long dark hair was in a side braid, dipping over her shoulder, and she was carrying a phone in her hand, like she was still worried about what was out here… and a phone was going to help.
Just her presence gave me a rush of trembling energy.
“Rum Tum Tugger?” she whispered. “Is this where you’ve been hiding out?”
Perversely, in anticipation of her fear, I meowed again.
“Tugger?” she asked, leaving the door open a crack behind her.
Pretty, but not very smart. In Friday the 13th, she’d be toast by now.
I projected a purring noise to a dark corner where the slats of light from the shutters and the sliver of illumination from the door didn’t bleed into the black.
Farah laughed nervously. “Tugger, Mama’s missed you. Just come out now. Come here, kitty kitty.”
A trace of fear had started to hum inside her, and I reveled in it. Her fear even made me forget that I liked to take it easy on the innocents, and I went a little further than usual.
I threw another purr to the corner as Farah sauntered toward that darkest part of the room. I eased my essence over there, too, as more energy rustled through me, making me light-headed and greedy from her growing fear.
As I got closer, closer, still redirecting those purrs, I smelled her soft perfume. Jasmine. Saw how her pale skin darkened in the shadows.
“Tugger… ?” she said as I came up behind her.
She reached toward the wall, obviously for a light switch. I kept purring.
Her growing fear had put ideas into me: I needed to do more than just look into her mind. The Edgetts were such a cold, unfeeling family that I had to get a rise out of them to get information.
They needed to remember Elizabeth, needed to think of her death so I could tap in to any memories they might have of what Gavin could’ve done to her. And they needed to be scared enough to do that.
I cut off the purrs and sprang at Farah, skipping the empathy reading and going straight for a hallucination as I pressed against her cheek and, not knowing what kind of images would come, brought her to a scene that would definitely make her think of the night Elizabeth had died…