“Oh, look, Detective Jackson looks downright sad that we’re leaving him,” Julie said, nodding her head toward the small motel across the street.
Kennedy saw Damian Jackson standing in the shadows near the ice machine, watching their car turn for the road out of Bright Waters.
“You know the look of a lion when he’s surrounded by a pack of hyenas?” Julie asked.
“If I recall, you and he were business acquaintances.”
Julie looked over at Kennedy with a curious slant to her features. “Professor, just because we were non-believers, never made us allies. I particularly don’t like that man. As for you,” she raised her voice just a little, making him glance toward her, “you seem to be just as unforgiving. Have you ever tried to consider my point of view, or Jackson’s? No, it’s always your point of view, because the rest of us don’t have a Harvard-educated slant on the paranormal, so our perspectives don’t count. To let you in on a little secret, Professor Kennedy, I have done my research and over seventy-five percent of all Americans believe in some form of activity, paranormal or scientific. I went into your investigation seven years ago with my eyes wide open. I never do anything half-assed. Give both of us — Jackson included — a break. He sees the fucked up side of things in his line of work. He’s a skeptic, but all he’s saying is that he knows it doesn’t take a ghost to be evil. Maybe he knows that over ten percent of all people in the world are insane. As for me…” She looked away. “Nothing fucking surprises me anymore. But I do know when to admit that I need to reexamine something, and maybe Summer Place, for one reason or another, needs to have its doors opened again.”
Kennedy was silent as he steered the car out of town. Then he smiled.
“What did you say to that reporter from Philadelphia?”
The question caught Julie by surprise. She shook her head.
“You thought I would steal her crew and make a report using her field team and not apologize for it? If you must know, I told her I liked the way she and her news crew made it to Bright Waters so fast after the fact, and that I will see what I can do about getting her some light work out of New York, you know, weekend stuff. That should help her.”
“But you’ve never seen her work, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Isn’t that a leap of faith on your part?”
“Oh, so it boils down to you analyzing me about my conclusions seven years ago?” she asked angrily.
Gabriel spared her a look and laughed. “No, it just shows me that you’re capable of not being a bitch all the time.”
Julie raised her eyebrows, and then she laughed.
As the car moved down the small road leading down the mountain, Kennedy didn’t see the black shroud as it moved along behind them. It vanished into the tree line to the left, heading for the large bend in the road three miles away.
Summer Place was reaching out.
The limousine was quiet as Kelly Delaphoy worked on her laptop. She had thus far ignored the hateful looks from Lionel Peterson, who was sitting across from her. Abe Feuerstein sat sipping a drink, watching Kelly work. It was as if the old CEO was studying her.
“What do you think about placing your team on site a day early?”
Kelly looked up from her computer, the light from the monitor casting her face in a wash of colors and shadow. Feuerstein took another swallow of his drink.
“I mean, if we’re on the property, the state police would find it that much harder to have us removed if they were so inclined, wouldn’t you agree, Lionel?”
Peterson looked from Kelly to his boss, sitting next to him. “That raises more concerns on expense for the show. Having the entire production crew onsite is an expense not budgeted for. Lodging, tent rental, commissary, and the overtime, all of that would run us over an already extended budget,” Peterson looked at Kelly. “Plus, with the police now so interested, it may not be wise to rock the boat at this juncture.”
Feuerstein smiled and placed his crystal glass in a small holder on the wet bar in front of him.
“I see your concern on the budget. I have spoken to marketing and sales and they say we can push the envelope just a little further.”
“The contract with Lindemann only covers one night in the house; I would anticipate him throwing a fit about the added—”
“That’s enough about Lindemann and quite enough about budget concerns, Lionel.” The CEO looked out of the darkened widows as the limo pulled into the underground parking garage at UBC. “You are not just the president of programming for this show, you are also its producer. And let me put it another way and make this absolutely clear, Lioneclass="underline" your job is on the line, so you better damn well get on board. Kelly here deserves the benefit of the doubt, at least to this point.”
“So, you’re a believer in this crap, too?” Peterson asked.
“Believer? No, I’m not. The scariest thing in the world to me is our stockholders, Lionel; they should be the scariest things in the world to you, also. They believe in their quarterly reports, and that’s all they believe in. Now, inform the legal department that since Kelly was not present at the murder scene, I don’t want her disturbed as long as she’s in New York. They can have at her on the thirtieth when she arrives in Pennsylvania.”
As the limo came to a stop, Feuerstein looked at Peterson and waited for a confirmation of his orders, which the president of entertainment finally gave by a quick nod of his head.
“Good.” The CEO reached for the door handle when the driver failed to open it for him. Another employee he would have to straighten out.
Kelly closed her laptop and started gathering her bags. She watched the CEO pull on the handle twice, then a third time. He reached for the lock on the door and pulled up on it, but it slipped through his fingers. Feuerstein angrily slammed his hand down on the intercom to the driver’s compartment.
“Unlock the goddamn door!”
The slim locks popped up, down, up and then down again in a rapid movement that made them all flinch.
Peterson reached over and used the electric lock mechanism to pop the door locks, but the same rapid movement repeated. “What the hell is going on?” Lionel leaned over near Kelly and slammed his palm against the glass partition. “Open the fucking door, you moron!”
Kelly flinched at the loudness of Peterson’s voice. She half turned in her seat. Through the glass, she saw the driver’s shadow sitting motionlessly. Then without preamble the car’s interior temperature dropped by about thirty degrees, frosting all the glass.
“What kind of fucking idiots do you employ here?” He slammed his hand on the glass, then repeated the move again. This time it was answered by the large black limousine rocking hard to the right, and then the left. Kelly grabbed for the seatbelt that she hadn’t bothered to use. Feuerstein lowered his hands to the seat, bracing himself against the violent rocking.
“Jesus Christ!” Peterson screamed. He was thrown against his door just as the glass partition cracked. The break zigzagged downward and disappeared into the seat frame.
The glass broke free, showering them with tinted shards, and the radio came on. The electronic numbers scaled up and then down, far faster that the radio was capable of. Soon they started catching words from different stations. Although they had to be random, they came through as a full sentence.