Happy Medium: (Intermix) (14 page)

Her brain seemed to stutter.
I must have seen this before somewhere. Maybe it’s on the wall at Rosie’s house.
That would certainly be a comforting explanation.

Unfortunately, Emma was pretty certain it wasn’t true.

She’d never seen Siobhan Riordan, either at Rosie’s house or anywhere else, before she’d appeared in the white room in her dream last night, telling her to look for “the keepsake.” Which meant Emma was maybe going crazy. Or that something really, really weird was going on.

Correction. That something
else
really, really weird was going on.

She started down at the picture again. The page wasn’t an illusion—the book existed, the picture was there. And she’d never seen the book before today. She wasn’t crazy, although she was definitely freaked out at the moment.

Which meant?

She rubbed her temples, trying to stave off the headache that threatened. None of this made any sense. She deliberately hadn’t talked to Ray about her dream that morning because she didn’t know what to say about it. After all, it was just a dream.

A dream that turned out to star his great-grandmother, who had been dead for more than fifty years and still willing to share a few hints about their current situation. His great-grandmother, who’d been a medium like Gabrielle. Emma closed her eyes for a moment, taking a few more very deep breaths.

Not like Gabrielle
. She blew out a breath. Gabrielle really was a con artist. She didn’t talk to ghosts. She barely talked to her staff. The idea of Gabrielle appearing in anyone’s dreams to provide help was enough to make Emma snicker.

Siobhan Riordan seemed more likely to be the real thing. If nothing else, she was a lot more powerful than Gabrielle was or ever could be. She’d died more than a half century ago, but she was still around, and still talking to the people who lived in her house.

And now Emma got to tell Ray all of this.
Your great-grandmother was a very successful medium. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, her ghost appeared to me in a dream and she passed on some information that might have something to do with your haunted house
.

Emma rubbed her temples again, then she glanced at her watch. A quarter to twelve. Just enough time for her to make a quick copy of the picture of Siobhan before she put
Shadows of San Antonio
back in its place on the shelves.

And then, by God, she was going to find a Target or a Kohl’s or a Macy’s and buy herself a new casual wardrobe. If ever a day required retail therapy, this was definitely it.

***

Ray wasn’t sure what he’d find at the Hampton house when he got back there. Worst case scenario would be that the ghost had trashed the place. Best case scenario? He wasn’t sure there was a best case scenario. The only one he could think of involved the ghost deciding that she didn’t like the Hampton house that much after all and heading over to the next-door neighbor’s.

Yeah, that’s really gonna happen.

He checked the upstairs first and found the same scattering of objects that had been there when he’d left with Emma. His measuring tape was on the floor of the landing where he’d left it after the ghost threw it. But nothing else seemed out of place. Apparently, once he’d gone, she’d lost interest in mayhem.

He stood in the middle of the hall, waiting for doors to slam, but nothing happened. Whatever was pissing her off—the wards or his presence—didn’t seem to be having the same effect today.

He went back to prying off wallboard, playing his iPod at top volume. If the ghost didn’t like his taste in music, she could always head off to more silent houses.

She.
He paused for a moment, remembering Emma’s story about the suicide. What was the name? Amina. Maybe the next time the ghost decided to make trouble, he’d try using it. Hell, all she could do would be throw more stuff, assuming he was there during the daytime. At night, all bets were off.

By noon, he was tired and dusty. He went downstairs to the kitchen, where he’d left the sandwich and beer he’d brought with him. Lunch with Emma would be nice. Also distracting. He needed to keep working if he wanted to finish this place on anything resembling his original schedule.

When he was halfway through his sandwich he felt a throbbing on his thigh that made him jump until he remembered he’d set his cell phone to vibrate. He pulled it out of his pocket and checked the number. Rosie.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

“How are things?” Rosie’s voice sounded staticky, like she was calling from Orion or something.

“Great. How’s Evan?”

“Great.” There was a pause, which experience told him meant Rosie was trying to figure out how to tell him something. His shoulders tensed.
Please don’t be coming back early.

“How would you feel about taking care of things for a little longer?”

He blinked.
Nice reversal, fate
. “Okay, I guess. Are you staying in Chicago?”

“I’d like to go with Evan to the next two stops on his tour. Have a little Upper Midwestern vacation.”

“Oh. Sure, sis, go for it. How long?”

“Probably until the end of next week. You can still reach me by phone. I’ll have my cell with me.”

Right.
He really doubted he’d be calling Rosie for anything short of an earthquake. “Have a good time.”

“I intend to.” Her voice sounded faintly smug, but she quickly damped it down. “Is anything happening with the house?”

“Yes and no. I did the warding. It wasn’t popular.” He glanced around the kitchen, checking to see if there was anything the ghost could throw at him, but nothing happened.

“Okay. So we’re on the right track. I’ve got Evan working on it too.”

“Evan?” Ray frowned. Rosie’s boyfriend was an investigative reporter who wrote about psychic frauds. That didn’t seem exactly relevant in this case.

“Yes, Evan. Trust me, he’ll help.”

“Okay. Emma’s found some stuff at this end.”

“Really? I’m not surprised.” The smug was back. “What’s was it?”

He leaned back in his chair. “There was a suicide in the house back in the twenties. A guy’s mistress.”

Something upstairs crashed to the floor. He managed not to drop the phone. Score one for Emma—it looked like she was on the right track, too. Unless the ghost had just decided to knock something over for the hell of it.

“A mistress?” Apparently Rosie hadn’t heard the crash. “That’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“It sort of works with a theory I have.”

He gritted his teeth. “And that theory would be . . .”

“I’ll tell you later. I need to think about it a little more. But we’re onto something Ray. And I think we’re getting closer to a solution.”

“Good.” Something else bumped upstairs and he flexed his suddenly tight shoulders. “So you’ll keep in touch?”

“Absolutely. You too.”

“Right.” He pushed himself to his feet. “Have fun, sis.”

“Back atcha,” she murmured as he disconnected.

Chapter 13

Emma glanced down at her jeans, wiping her suddenly damp palms on her thighs. She hadn’t worn anything like this for several years, certainly not since she’d gone to work for Gabrielle. She’d found a small western wear store a couple of blocks from her motel, full of brand names she didn’t recognize. Her credit card wasn’t exactly smoking, but her wardrobe now included a lot more casual wear than it ever had before.

Her jeans were almost as low-slung as Ray’s were. Her turquoise T-shirt had a design that incorporated crossed pistols and twining roses. She wasn’t sure what they were supposed to represent, but they looked really . . . cool. She’d managed not to buy a pair of cowboy boots, although she was really tempted. The flip-flops with rhinestones on the straps would have to be enough.

She hadn’t forgotten about Siobhan Riordan and all the things she had to tell Ray, but she hoped she could get him into a more relaxed mood if she looked a little like the Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Maybe they could spend the evening talking about western accessories rather than mysterious ancestors.

She pulled into the driveway at the Riordan house, then paused to look up as she stepped out of her car. Siobhan Riordan had built it. She’d conducted séances in it. And apparently, she was still in residence. Emma fought back the quick shiver that worked its way across her shoulders. At least Siobhan Riordan seemed benign, unlike the spirit in residence at the Hampton house.

She wasn’t sure Ray was around yet because his truck wasn’t in front of the house. The ping of the doorbell echoed deep inside, sounding remarkably empty. But a few moments later, the door opened wide to reveal Ray, holding back Rosie’s huge dog. The animal made a bound, breaking Ray’s hold before Emma was ready, resting its massive paws on her shoulders and running its enormous tongue across her face.

“Helen, get down. Come on.” Ray wrapped his arms around the dog’s body and pulled it back.

Emma stood in place, trying not to shudder over the amount of dog slobber she felt on her cheeks, to say nothing of the animal’s breath, which was unspeakable.

“Here.” Ray passed her his handkerchief, which she used to mop her face.

Helen was still bouncing in the background, more than ready to give Emma another kiss. Emma stepped to Ray’s side to put herself a little more out of range. “I didn’t realize Helen was here. I thought you said she was being boarded.”

Ray glanced back into the living room, where the dog was now turning around three times in front of the fireplace before dropping into a gigantic heap. “She’s staying with friends. Sort of. She comes and goes.”

“Your sister lets her run free?”

“Pretty much.”

Emma started to say something critical and then thought better of it. Maybe Rosie had tolerant neighbors. It would take a squad of dogcatchers equipped with nets and tranquilizer guns to bring Helen down anyway.

She started to walk into the living room, but Ray caught her hand, pulling her back so that he could look at her. He twirled her around and whistled. “Hang on there—let me get a good look. Nice outfit. Really nice.”

Her cheeks flushed. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have a pale complexion to contend with. “Thanks. I decided you were right. I needed something more casual for digging around the archives.”

“Looks good.” His ran his gaze over her body from toes on up, his smile widening as he did. “Very, very good.”

Emma felt her cheeks heat to flaming, then slipped by him, practicing her deep breathing. Somehow he always managed to get her pulse rate running on adrenaline.

He stepped after her. “Did you bring your overnight stuff with you?”

She nodded a little shakily. “I’ve got it here.” She patted the tote that had the printouts about Siobhan. Printouts she’d have to show him fairly soon.
And won’t that be a great way to ruin an evening?

“Good. Rosie called me this afternoon. She’s going to travel with Evan for a few days. So we’ll have the place to ourselves for a little longer.”

He grinned at her again, re-starting that whole pounding pulse thing. Having the place to themselves sounded like a great way to spend the rest of the week. Assuming neither of them needed to get anything else done. “Okay,” she murmured. “That’s good.”

“I ordered pizza for dinner. Hope you don’t mind. I was hungry.”

“Pizza? Oh. What kind?” Plain cheese had the fewest calories. But asking for low-calorie pizza was sort of like asking for non-alcoholic whiskey.

“Pepperoni. I figured everybody likes pepperoni, right? That’s why I’m sort of hanging around the living room. It should be here in the next ten minutes or so.”

“Oh,” she repeated as she sank onto the couch. Pepperoni pizza was absolutely not on her diet. Gabrielle and Calorie Counters would both be upset with her.

She took another deep breath.
Gabrielle and Calorie Counters can both take a flying leap.

Helen ambled up to the couch, looking hopeful. “I’ve got no food, dog, sorry.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to figure out what to do with her when the pizza guy shows up.” He dropped down beside Emma on the other end of the couch. Helen placed her front paws next to her, leaning up with a doggy grin.

Emma managed to scoot a little to the right to avoid Helen’s demonstrations of affection. She preferred Ray’s. “So how was your day. Any other problems?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. But when I told Rosie about the whole Grunewald thing, some stuff fell on the floor upstairs.”

“You think it was the ghost throwing things around?”

He nodded. “Seems like a good bet. Which might mean the Grunewald thing is a bulls-eye. What’s new with you?”

Perfect opening.
She licked her lips but couldn’t for the life of her think of a way to open the conversation. “I . . . well . . . I found some stuff about your great-grandmother—the one who built the house. Like you asked me to do,” she added hurriedly.

“Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow. “So what was it?”

“She lived here in this house for a long time,” Emma explained carefully. “Came over from Ireland around the beginning of the twentieth century, died in 1950. I figure she was around eighty-five.”

“Okay. That’s more than I knew before. Is that it?”

She took another deep breath. “No. But I think I need a glass of wine before I tell you the rest of it. Or maybe you do.”

He blinked. “It’s that bad?”

“It’s that confusing.” She sighed, running her fingers through her tangle of curls. San Antonio humidity wasn’t as bad as Houston, but it wasn’t good. She’d decided to forget the blow dryer for the weekend. “I don’t really know how to explain all of this, but I figure if we have a glass of wine it might get easier.”
Or not.
At least having a glass of wine would delay things long enough to give her a chance to think.

“Okay, now you’ve really got my interest.” His eyes narrowed as he reached for the wine bottle. “Does this have something to do with the whole haunted house business.”

She shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not exactly sure.”

“But . . .”

The sound of the ringing doorbell echoed feebly from the depths of the house. “Pizza, probably,” she said brightly.

He gave her a long look, then shook his head. “To be continued.”

“Sure. We’ll have to talk about it later.”
Unfortunately.

***

Dinner proceeded under something of a cloud, which Ray would never have anticipated when he’d first seen Emma walking up his front steps. She looked great. She looked hot. She looked like he going to be a very lucky man indeed later this evening.

Now he wasn’t so sure about that.

Emma nibbled on her pizza and drank her wine and prevented Helen from eating the remaining pizza as well as the box.

Helen.
She’d appeared, literally, in the living room shortly before Emma had arrived. Even knowing that she wasn’t exactly a normal dog, it was still disconcerting to have her suddenly materialize in front of him. Of course, she then proceeded to behave like most of the other dogs he’d known in his life—stealing snacks and begging for what she couldn’t steal. He wondered if the ghosts who were currently interfering with his life had anything to do with the sudden appearance of a retired hellhound in his vicinity. He wouldn’t be surprised, but then not much surprised him these days. Except for Emma, who managed to surprise him almost every time he saw her.

He picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “So that makes glass number two. Ready to talk yet?”

She blinked, widening her eyes a little as she stared at the glass in her hand. “Two glasses? I never have two glasses.”

“Live a little.” He grinned, hoping she might loosen up. Or something.

She glanced around the kitchen. “Where’s Helen?”

“Gone again. Do you need her for this?”

Emma shook her head. “I just wondered where she was.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if she were gathering her thoughts. “Okay. Here goes. Your great-grandmother came from Ireland originally.”

He nodded. “Yeah, right. You said that earlier.”

“Right, but what I guess you don’t know is that your family had a particular profession in Ireland and that your great-grandmother brought it over with her.”

Shit.
He hadn’t figured she’d find out about the whole medium thing at the historical society. He’d assumed the district would frown upon people who practiced that kind of talent openly. He just wanted to know what kind of woman Siobhan was apart from her occupation. Then again, maybe Emma didn’t know all the details yet. “What profession was that?”

She combed her fingers through her curls and sighed. “She was a medium. So was your grandmother.”

Busted.
He should have known gossip that juicy couldn’t be kept quiet. Maybe everybody in town knew. Except for him until Rosie had enlightened him. “Okay.”

Her forehead furrowed. “Okay?
Okay?
You knew about this already?”

“I didn’t until all of this stuff at the Hampton house started happening. But yeah, I found out about it a few days ago. It was sort of a family secret.”

“So what exactly did you expect me to find at the historical society that you didn’t already know?” She looked slightly pissed.

“Just . . .” He stared down into his wine. What
had
he expected her to find? “I don’t know exactly. More about her as a person, I guess. Who was she? What kind of life did she lead? Is anything about my family related to what’s happening to us now?”

Of course the most important questions were
Why the hell did she pass on these weird abilities that I’d just as soon not have, and what do I do now that I have them?
Not that Emma was likely to find answers to those particular questions at the King William Historical Society. And not that he was going to discuss them with her now.

“There wasn’t that much information about her otherwise,” Emma said slowly. “There weren’t many references to her other than this one book that talked about her being a medium. And that sort of distracted me.”

“That’s okay.” He blew out a breath. “So now you told me what you were worried about and we’re good, right?” He picked up another piece of pizza.

She closed her eyes for a moment, her fingers fastening on the edge of the table. “Not entirely.”

Ah, shit
. “What else?”

She took a deep breath. “Last night I had this dream.”

Slivers of ice seemed to drip down his backbone. Lately, dreams were never good. “About what?”

“It wasn’t about something so much as it was about
somebody
. I dreamed I was in this room, and this woman was there with me. She had on an old-fashioned dress and her hair was all done up like something out of the late nineteenth century. And she had a black cane.”

The slivers of ice solidified into a solid block encasing his spine. “A cane.”

Emma nodded. “She held it in front of her, like she was sort of leaning on it.”

Right.
He concentrated on trying to slow down his pulse rate. “What about her? Did she do anything interesting?”

Emma shook her head. “It wasn’t so much what she did as what she said. She told me to find ‘the keepsake, the love token.’ And that some girl had gone to the wrong kind of medium.”

“The wrong kind of medium?” Ray shook his head. “That sounds sort of like dream talk. I don’t even know what that means.”

“Don’t ask me—I don’t know either. And she said . . .” Emma closed her eyes again, as if she were trying to remember exactly. “She said someone was growing stronger and that we had to move quickly.”

“Someone?”

“The woman said
she
was growing stronger, so I guess she was talking about some other woman. But I don’t know who she meant. And I mean, it was just a dream. A really vivid dream, but a dream.”

I know who she meant.
His shoulders clenched even tighter. “A keepsake.”

Emma nodded. “A
love token
—those were her exact words.”

He sighed. “What constitutes a love token anyway?”

She reached for her tote bag, pulling out the inevitable stack of papers. “I looked it up. It’s something given to seal your love—a token of your affection, I guess. One of the sources said it could also be a charm. Maybe Livingston gave her something that was supposed to be a token of his love for her.”

“But how would that tie in with a medium?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Amina took it to the medium for some reason.”

“And the
she
who’s getting stronger would be who?”

“Amina? I mean, assuming Amina’s the ghost in the house.”

He leaned back in his chair, trying to get his thoughts to line up. And trying to ignore the elephant in the room—the fact that the same dream woman had talked to them both. “So Amina was worried about Livingston Grunewald sticking around?”

“Which turned out to be something she needed to be worried about,” Emma muttered.

“Yeah. So according to the old lady in your dream, she went to some fortune-teller or something and got a love token?”

“Maybe. Maybe the fortune-teller gave her something that was supposed to keep Livingston interested in her. You know, that makes sense—in a weird, kind of sad way.”