“One of these days, you’re going to do that accidentally. To someone who really shouldn’t know what you guys investigate.”
Savannah made a rude noise. She was the receptionist at the agency where her former guardians—Lucas Cortez and Paige Winterbourne—worked. Savannah is Eve’s twenty-one-year-old daughter. We met a couple of years after her mom died, when I’d helped Lucas and Paige on a case. That’s how I met Eve and got my guardian angel.
“So, what’s up?” she said.
“I had a weird experience that I’d like Paige to cross-reference in the files.”
“Weird? Huh. Let me guess. You’ve managed to go several years now without being kidnapped, and you suspect it’s a sign of the apocalypse.”
“Hey, you’ve tied my record.”
“No, I believe I’m still one kidnapping behind. So what’s so weird?”
I told her.
“Huh. You know who you should ask about that? The necromancer council delegate. She’s the expert. I’m sure she’d know … Oh, wait.”
“Do you still want that delegate to take you shopping in Paris this fall? I could ask Elena to take my place. You know she loves fashion almost as much as she loves shopping.”
“No need for threats. I’ll get on this right away.”
“Thank you.”
When I came out of the shower, there was a fresh, steaming cup of coffee waiting. Jeremy was at the tiny desk, on Skype with the twins. I got him to tilt the screen so I wasn’t flashing five-year-olds as I dressed. Once I was decent, I sat on the bed behind him so I could talk to the kids.
In public, Jeremy refers to the twins as his grandchildren. That’s easiest, though it does lead to some confusion from those who are quite certain he can’t be old enough for them. To the kids, he’s just Jeremy. More parent than grandparent, a part of their everyday lives, just as likely as Elena and Clay to be fixing their breakfast or driving them to school.
What does that make me? I’m not sure. When I’m there, I’m part of the family circle. When I’m not, I’ll talk to them a few times a week. Maybe I’m like an aunt. Maybe a grandmother. Maybe, as with Jeremy, the label isn’t important. What matters is that I am something to them, more than the family friends who pass in and out of their days.
I like that. It fills something in my life. I won’t say it fills a maternal hole, because I’m not sure I ever had one. I suppose, if we wanted, Jeremy and I could still have children, but the subject has never come up, because it’s moot for both of us. We’re past that stage in our lives, and we’re okay with that.
After the Skype call, we headed out for lunch and then onto the set. It was still hours until showtime, but there were plenty of taped bits to be filmed and spliced in through the show. For me, that consisted mostly of relaying past ghostly encounters, which they could insert when the action on-screen proved underwhelming.
The afternoon and early evening sped by. Finally, it was time to head into the house for a few last-minute things before the cameras rolled. They wouldn’t film us actually entering. That had been done last night—a staged clip of us meeting for the first time and then streaming into the dark house.
I left Jeremy in one of the trailers, where he’d watch the taping. Naturally, I’d told him he didn’t need to stay. Go have a nice dinner. Return to the hotel. Read. Sketch. Relax. At the very least, you don’t need to stay all night. He would, of course, no matter how boring it got.
Gregor and I headed to the house together. We were talking about a case he’d had in Russia, where he kept seeing a ghost who wouldn’t make contact. I gave him some advice. It was honest advice, more like I’d give to a fellow necromancer than a fellow spiritualist. I still wasn’t sure if he was the real deal, but he was earnest and sincere enough, and that prodded me to be the same in return.
“Hey!” someone called as we climbed the steps. “You can’t go in there. Cast only.”
A blond girl was coming up behind us. I recognized her as one of the “ordinary folks” who’d be joining us.
“Melinda, right?” I said with a big smile. “We met yesterday. I’m Jaime.”
“You can’t go in there, Janey. It’s a closed set.”
“I’m one of the cast. Jaime Vegas.”
She stared vacantly at me.
“I’m a spiritualist,” I said. “I contact the dead. We met last night.” I waved to the side of the house. “Remember, I was up on that balcony?”
“Were you the one who talked about the dead girls?”
“No,” Gregor said. “That was me.”
She still looked confused.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We’re part of the show.”
I climbed the steps. Gregor held the door for me.
“Hey, what about him?” Melinda called. “No one told me we could bring a date.”
She stalked off to speak to someone about that oversight. Gregor stared after her.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Don’t even try.”
I won’t mock poor Melinda for not remembering me. I can’t, considering that I’m not even sure I was talking to Melinda. Apparently, we had identical twins in our cast. I’d probably been introduced to them separately and never figured out they were two people. So, yes, I can’t mock Melinda. Or Belinda, as the case may be.
We went inside and chatted with the parapsychology guys. I was supposed to explain their equipment in a few pretaped clips. I was running through my notes with them when the cast—the regular folks—filed in.
Becky had stopped by earlier and taken Gregor. He’d be taping the bits about Cotard’s and “throwing to” the victims’ families.
“All right,” Becky said, walking into the now-crowded parlor. “Jaime? Let’s get you upstairs. We’ll start with the EVP equipment.”
“What’s she doing?” asked Melinda—or Belinda.
They wore identical pink sweat suits and had their blond hair pulled back in ponytails. If they weren’t wearing a half-inch of makeup, I’d have thought they were ready to go jogging. There was no way to tell them apart. If I had to address one, I’d mumble the name.
“She’ll be taping segments explaining how the equipment works,” Becky said. “We can splice those in at the appropriate times, so the action on camera is otherwise seamless.”
B/Melinda just stared at her.
A girl to my left sighed. It was Rory, the token Goth chick, a tiny girl with a shock of blue and black hair, wearing a tight black Poe tee. “Imagine the machine starts blipping because there’s a ghost. Are you going to stop screaming and running away so Jaime can tell the audience what the machine does?”
“You mean she gets extra screen time?” the other twin squawked.
“Um, yeah. ’Cause she’s the star.”
“What?” Wade, the token jock, woke up from a standing nap. “Who’s the star?”
“Why can’t we do it?” the twins asked.
“Can either of you even spell EVP?”
“Why do we need to spell it? We can just say it.”
Cameron, the token geek, snickered.
“Maybe we should get one of the cast to help me,” I said. “That way, I’m explaining to a person, not the camera.” I turned to Rory. “You know what an EVP is, I take it?”
“Electronic Voice Phenomena. It occurs when white noise—such as static or interference—sounds like a voice. Parapsychologists study the possibility that it’s the spirit world trying to communicate.”
“Show-off,” B/Melinda muttered.
Becky waved for us both to come along. When we reached the foot of the stairs, Rory said, “We should invite one of the guys, too, so it doesn’t look as if only the girls need explanations. I’d suggest Ricardo. He’s very pretty. And he barely knows any English, so he won’t say anything dumb.”