As Leonard looked over the final spectral placement, he saw Kelly Delaphoy standing nearby. She reached out to touch one of his black boxes and the small black man jumped, startling her.
“That is one sensitive piece of equipment, you break it — you buy it.”
“I already own it,” she said with a smirk.
“The hell you do. Your network may have paid for the parts, but the patent is listed in my name. So, hands off.” Leonard’s eyes blazed a hole through Kelly.
“I don’t see any hookup for a feed to the production truck,” she said, looking from Leonard to Gabriel. Everyone else, technicians and investigators alike, watched the small power play in silence.
“That’s because there isn’t one,” Gabriel said. “The spectral cameras are for my team and their safety. If something shows up on one of these, it will be caught by Leonard down in the ballroom, and he’ll warn us. We would rather not have any surprises coming down the hallways at us if we can help it, and we would rather not be seen running like frightened school children by a national audience.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Leonard will be recording everything the spectrograph picks up. If and when I say so, you can put it on the air. Otherwise, it’s a warning device only.”
Harris Dalton walked up and handed a coil of electrical wire to one of the technicians. “May I ask, why the Christmas lights?”
Gabriel looked at Leonard and nodded.
Leonard looked smug. “This is a special air density meter.” He removed one of the LEDs from the string of lights taped halfway up the wall, and held it up. “This looks like a normal Light Emitting Diode, but it isn’t. At the base is a small chip that measures air density, air temperature and humidity change, particulate matter disturbance, and air velocity.”
“What?” Harris Dalton took the small blue diode from Leonard’s fingers and looked at it.
“If something moves, it creates a disturbance in the air. I don’t give a damn if it’s a ghost or a freight train, if it’s physically in this world, it creates a disturbance. Even if it’s infinitesimal. The laws of physics say it has to obey, and my sensors will pick it up.”
“You can track whatever it is when it moves?” Kelly looked impressed.
“That’s right. If it’s moving down the hallway, or up or down the stairs, we can see it just like tracking runway lights at an airport. As it moves past one of my diodes, it will light up.”
Leonard hooked up the connection to the electrical line that was snaked up and around all of the staircases and hallways. He then nodded at John Lonetree, who moved a few feet down the hallway. As he stepped down the center of the carpet runner, the small blue LEDs lit up as he passed.
“It tracks everything. And before you even ask, it’s also patented.”
Everyone, including Kelly and Harris, laughed. Leonard was enjoying showing everyone just how brilliant he was.
“Now, can you explain the four computers down in the ballroom, besides the one you’re using for recording?” Kelly asked.
“Leonard has connections at UCLA and USC in California. The operators out there are going to break into the Lindemann family records in Philadelphia and New York for photo archives and birth records. We have to do it as the show goes out live, since we never had the opportunity to investigate for ourselves. And before you ask, no, Wallace Lindemann does not know about this, and we would appreciate it not being mentioned, since computer theft is a crime.”
“Why is all of that necessary?” Harris Dalton asked.
“The reason why we’re all here tonight is because there is something in this house that is inherently evil, and the reason it is here is in those family records — maybe in the plans for the house, or in the property’s history, or even in the family’s past. Leonard will coordinate with the computer people at the two universities and then feed up information as it becomes available.”
“Will we have access to that information for broadcast?” Kelly asked. She looked worried that Kennedy would keep the juicy stuff all for himself.
Kennedy looked at his team and nodded his head. They agreed that since Julie and the network’s camera and sound men would be in the same danger as themselves, they deserved to hear anything that could be important.
“Yes, Ms. Delaphoy, we’ll hook up a sound box so that Julie Reilly can hear everything we hear.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Now, I need to know about power. Do you have a backup for the electricity coming in from Metropolitan Edison?” Leonard asked.
“Yes. We have three backup generators rated to cover everything on the property, plus the two production vans. They have a non-interruption contact start, meaning that there would be only a split second of light failure before the generators kicked in,” Harris said, looking proud. “It’s the same backup we use for sporting events.”
“Sounds like we’ll have enough power in case that storm seriously hits us.”
Kelly smiled at Gabriel. “As a matter of fact, our network meteorologist says we could be in for one of the largest storms of the year, hitting sometime after we go on the air.”
“And this is good because?” Jennifer asked. She didn’t like the look that came across Kelly’s face at all.
“Ambiance Ms. Tilden…ambiance. What’s better than a haunted house investigation on a dark and stormy night?”
Kelly’s smile deepened and she moved past them. Harris Dalton shook his head but followed along with the technicians, leaving Gabriel and his people alone on the third floor.
The group was quiet as they took in the gathering darkness in the third floor hallway. John and George could feel the energy coming off of Gabriel in waves. They couldn’t tell if it was growing fear of the night ahead or the hatred he felt toward Summer Place. The two men exchanged glances and a silent message — one of them would be at this man’s side all through the broadcast.
“Jenny,” Gabriel looked down the hallway toward the suite where the German opera star had once stayed, and then past it to the sewing room. He purposefully refused to look at the area of the wall where his student had vanished, but he felt the spot nonetheless. “You haven’t felt the presence of Bobby Lee at all?”
Jennifer could tell that Gabriel had been banking heavily on Bobby Lee McKinnon’s help. She could see it in his eyes as he finally turned to face her. She almost wished she could help Gabriel, even though it would have meant having Bobby Lee back inside of her. Yet, she knew if that happened again, she would never survive the ordeal. He would make her go without sleep and practically sing herself to death. The past few days, she had regained strength and the perception of what a living hell she had endured at the hands of the mad ghost, and she didn’t think she could willingly go back. It had been a fluke at the Waldorf when Bobby Lee had came across the man ultimately responsible for his death, and she knew how lucky she had been to get relief; lucky that Bobby Lee felt avenged when he confronted the man after all those years. It had been as simple as that, as if the old-time record producer had unwittingly performed a half-assed exorcism and sent Bobby on his way, content just to have had his say.