Inside the production van and at the New York headquarters of UBC, everyone, including Abe Feuerstein, jumped.
Jennifer almost dropped the antique toy. She examined the features of the clown. The paint on the face had chipped, leaving the mouth turning at a downward angle. Instead of a happy smile, the clown had a look of terror etched on its once happy face.
“Oh, yeah, that’ll keep a child occupied,” George said, standing next to Jenny. John Lonetree took the toy from Jenny’s hands and placed it back in the box. He straightened and moved off toward the trap door that led to the subbasement.
“George, are you still feeling something?” he asked.
“Only that there was recent activity down here.”
Jennifer remained in place and the camera zoomed in on her. She felt a momentary flutter of her heart as if she had just wakened from a dream and didn’t know where she was. John caught her attention with a look that asked if she was all right.
Jenny nodded, but her thoughts felt distant and not her own. She realized Bobby Lee McKinnon was making a return to her subconscious. She didn’t feel threatened by his presence; she felt only his curiosity as to what she was doing. It was as if he was feeling her unease. Then the feeling was gone. Either Bobby Lee didn’t like the basement, or his curiosity had been satisfied. For the first time since her own personal haunting had started seven years before, Bobby Lee’s presence, brief as it was, had been comforting. She almost felt he was looking out for her.
As the camera moved away from Jenny and focused on the trapdoor in the concrete floor, a loud bang sounded, frightening everyone in the room. Even Lonetree felt his heart jump. Just as the team started to settle, another loud bang sounded, then another, and another. Three in a row, and they could all feel the power behind them. They felt the beats through the soles of their feet.
“This isn’t right,” George said once again. “Something isn’t right. Do you feel it, John?”
Lonetree looked around, trying to pinpoint where the banging had come from, but he was having trouble. It had come from two different directions. He tilted his head.
“There’s no change in room temperature,” George said, and John knew that George was right. “If this was real I would feel something.”
Another bang sounded and Lonetree started forward, away from the trap door. He stopped in front of the box of toys and without hesitation reached over and upended the torn box. Toys, music boxes and children’s art supplies spilled all over the floor. With the aid of the penlight he examined the toys and the box. His foot kicked at something big and round. The camera zoomed in on the object but no one recognized it for what it was.
“What is it, John?” Jenny asked.
Lonetree turned on his heel, moving directly for the large wood-burning stove in the far corner of the basement. He ripped open one of the large oven doors and rummaged inside. Then he slammed it shut. He went to the next door and pulled it open, rummaging through its interior. Then he yanked and pulled and finally emerged with a small black box with an antenna on it. It was attached to the same kind of big, round object that was in the toy box.
Inside the van, Harris Dalton’s gut wrenched as he watched John. He closed his eyes and ordered the cameraman to get a better shot of what John was holding. In the green-tinted low light filter, they saw Lonetree hit a small switch. Suddenly the basement was filled with the sound of the banging they had heard a moment before. First the round, black object that had spilled from the toy box boomed loudly, then the one John was holding.
George smiled, but Jennifer looked angry. Lonetree threw the speaker and transmitter, smashing them into the large stove.
Harris Dalton felt his heart sink. Abe Feuerstein, over a hundred and fifty miles away, also felt his stomach churn with the whiskey that was washing around inside. Back in Pennsylvania, Lionel Peterson’s eyes widened. He laughed out loud, unable to stop himself. Kelly Delaphoy buried her face in her hands and bit hard into her left palm to keep from screaming. On the third floor, Kennedy watched Julie Reilly. There was no surprise on her face.
“Goddamn it, go to commercial — NOW!” Harris shouted.
Suddenly the phones started buzzing. Harris knew without being told that New York was on the line, screaming for his head. He looked back at Kelly Delaphoy with murder in his eyes.
“Go to the extended commercial package. We’ll need ten minutes here!”
“Sir, New York wants to know exactly what they just saw?” his assistant said, holding the phone to her chest.
“What do you think? We just saw all of our careers and possibly the entire network go under. Someone placed those goddamn speakers inside the basement!”
Lionel Peterson stood and patted Kelly on the back, then opened the door and stepped out into the night. They didn’t need him to tell them that they were as fucked as a turkey the night before Thanksgiving. Kelly had done it. Against every order from New York, she had tried to put one over on Professor Kennedy’s team, and she had gotten caught. It was just too good to believe. Nothing had happened inside the house for over three hours, and now this. It was over for the special, and he would swoop in to save the day with the alternate programming he had arranged.
Summer Place, it turned out, was nothing more than a house.
Abraham Feuerstein felt the wolves gathering at the bar at the end of the large screening room. The board members that had been backing Lionel Peterson were no longer hiding that alliance, but outwardly flaunting it. Just thirty seconds into the extended commercial break, not only had he been handed the last ratings report, but he had been informed that three major sponsors were all demanding release of their sponsorship agreement. The compartments of Feuerstein’s ship were filling with water fast and there was nothing he could do to stop the flooding.
The CEO slid his empty glass over to the bartender and nodded that he wanted it filled. He calmly sipped his drink and waited for the network wolves to attack.
Harris Dalton sat hard into his chair and tossed his headphones onto the console before him. Below his elevated platform his technical team was silent as the first of ten commercials played on the broadcast screen. The monitors were all full of the camera views coming from inside Summer Place. One of them showed Julie Reilly hurrying down the staircase from the third floor. The only other monitor showing movement inside the house was number 14 in the kitchen. John Lonetree stepped through the door, carrying the damning evidence of the hoax in his hand: two large sub-woofers and the transmitting box that had produced the loud banging and the moaning. Harris thought it would be People’s Exhibit Number One in their fraud trials.
“Harris?”
Dalton didn’t turn at the sound of Kelly Delaphoy’s voice. He ran his right hand through his graying hair and sat motionless, waiting for the ax to fall from New York. His eyes roamed over to monitor seventeen. The Boston family was sitting confused in front of their television. The father was snickering and the mother was motionless. The kids had wandered away to another room, which was merciful in and of itself. The hoax was called, and the world knew it.
“Harris, I had nothing to do with this, I swear to you,” Kelly said through the tears welling up in her eyes. “I really thought we didn’t need any gags to get through the night. I really believed that Summer Place would be the proving ground Professor Kennedy needed.”