Gabriel nodded. “Will you excuse me; I have something I want to say to the director?”
John turned to Jenny and smiled.
“To hell with Bobby Lee, huh?” he said looking into her green eyes.
“I think he’s afraid of that, too — hell I mean,” Jenny said with a smile, then lost it almost as soon as it had appeared. “But I think he’s far more afraid of this place.” Her eyes went from John to the house, through the mesh screen opening of the commissary tent.
“I’m a little busy at the moment, Professor,” Harris Dalton said as Gabriel approached. He scribbled a note about a camera placement for the subbasement.
“Kelly — do you trust her?” Kennedy asked.
“I don’t trust anyone, Professor Kennedy. That’s why I’m a director, and that’s why I’m good at what I do.” Dalton looked up from his notes and gestured for Kennedy to have a seat. He looked around the large tent and saw only one set of eyes on them: Kelly Delaphoy.
Gabriel sat down and leaned toward him.
“I’ll tell you something up front, Mr. Dalton: if my team catches Kelly laying her special effects gags in the house, we’ll expose her and the network for fraud.”
Harris Dalton spun his pencil between his fingers, looking Kennedy over.
“Professor, this is my last assignment. I don’t give a flying fuck if you catch her, don’t catch her, or chuck her out of a third floor window. There something wrong with this place, and as much as I hate that woman and her silly show, I really don’t care to find out what it is. I want to get through these eight hours and then take my grandkids fishing for the rest of my life. So, you have at it, Mr. Kennedy. This is your show, not mine.”
Gabriel nodded and stood to return to his own table. The conversation had been enough to tell him that Harris Dalton would not try to whitewash any of the experiments’ findings to suit what the network wanted.
Lionel Peterson and Wallace Lindemann came through the commissary tent’s wide opening, in the middle of an argument. Lindemann was gesturing wildly in the air with an empty glass; it was obvious the alcohol had long since disappeared. Gabriel looked from the scene to his companions. They watched Kelly Delaphoy advance on the two men. When Peterson spoke to her it was with a short hiss. He moved off to a table where he sat alone.
“Ignore me if you want, you can’t stay in the house overnight,” Lindemann said, glaring at Peterson.
Kelly smiled. She followed Peterson to his table, where she leaned over and said something as he took a bite of his salad. He grimaced, using a napkin to cover his distaste for the commissary meal. He looked up at Kelly and then nodded his head. The producer of Hunters of the Paranormal straightened and returned to her production table, issuing orders that sent many of her team members scrambling out of the tent. Then she turned toward Gabriel’s team.
As he stepped up to the table she was writing on her clipboard and tried to act nonchalant.
“It seems there’s been a large accident with a few of our trucks. They were hauling the trailers we were going to use as dressing rooms and bedrooms. Well, they’re nothing but splinters on the roadway now. Mr. Peterson said he wants everyone to bed down in the house tonight.”
Gabriel looked at Kelly in silence.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea at all,” John Lonetree said.
Kelly lowered her clipboard and looked at the group, including her own producer. He was sitting next to Jennifer, shaking his head.
“Oh, we’re not using the bedrooms. I just sent all of my assistants out to Bright Waters to get the hardware store owner to open up. They’re going to get all the cots and air mattresses they can find. The rest of us will sleep with blankets on the floor, inside the ballroom — one central location for all.”
“My team will sleep out here or in the barn. We’ll not be stepping into Summer Place until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Look Professor, this gives us a chance to get our equipment in place and maybe even enough time to have a dry run of the show.”
“We have nothing to do with that. Your cameras will either follow our lead, or you can run around Summer Place all night long on your own, something I would not recommend.”
Harris Dalton was watching from his corner table. Kelly grimaced at him, and that told Gabriel that she was also leery of Dalton watching her every move. Yes, he thought, Dalton would be an asset to the experiment. He wouldn’t let Kelly get away with anything.
“You do what you want, Professor,” she said with a strained smile, “but I, for one, am not sleeping in a barn.”
Gabriel stood and walked away without saying anything more. John, Jenny and finally even Jason Sanborn stood. John and Jenny followed Gabriel from the tent, and Sanborn gave Kelly a pointed look.
“Look, I know we need a hit, and I’m all for being enthusiastic, but please don’t take this extra time inside the house to lay any tricks,” Jason said as he pulled his pipe from his jacket pocket. He placed the cold pipe in his mouth and rubbed the two day growth of beard on his cheek. “If you do, Kelly, I’ll expose you myself.”
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked, her smile widening. “Have you become a disciple of Professor Kennedy?”
Jason Sanborn turned away and then stopped. He slowly turned and faced his fellow producer. “Maybe not a disciple, but I’ve learned that, while Kennedy may be a lot of things, he is not a liar. What he says happened that night, I believe happened. I’ll be sleeping in the barn with them. And if I were you, Kelly my dear, I would also.”
“Oh, come on—”
“And one last thing. This is my last show.” He placed the pipe into his mouth once more. “After this, I think I’ve had enough of ghosts and ghouls, on both sides of the camera.”
Kelly looked stunned and couldn’t hide it from the men and women watching her. She attempted to smile and then pretended to write something on her clipboard. She tried to figure out where she had lost one of her best friends.
Summer Place was starting to cost far more than she ever thought it would. When she looked up as Jason disappeared through the tent’s opening, she actually did smile, and this time it was genuine. She would go through with her dream and all would be well. They would all sip champagne and declare that they had produced the most watched television event in history. When that happened, she would forgive everyone who had doubted her.
She turned and saw Lionel Peterson looking at her.
“With the exception of a well chosen few,” she mumbled.
Gabriel pulled open the large barn door and found the power box. He turned on the bright overhead lights and looked around the immaculate barn. It was far nicer inside than most of the homes in the rural countryside.
“You feel safe here?” Lonetree asked. He walked over to one of the large stalls and looked inside at the freshly tossed hay.
“No, but there’s no history of anything bad happening here.” He looked up past the loft toward the towering roof of the barn. “So this is as good a place as any to sleep.”
Julie Reilly approached them, carrying her large bag. She had a blanket wrapped around her right arm.
“Common sense tells me I should be crawling in the barn with all of the PhDs, but my inner voice is also telling me not to leave Kelly alone in that house. Harris Dalton will have to fall asleep at some point. He can’t watch her all night long.”
Gabriel nodded. He had also worried about the reporter sleeping inside the house. And the thought that she might tamper with the house had also crossed his mind.