The Supernaturals (30 page)

The man climbed his small ladder and lifted out the wall panel above the double doors. Inside the small space rested the small hydraulic ram he had built the night before. The ram had placed just enough downward pressure on the left-side door to make it bow and then crack.

The night before he had also replaced that door with a cheap standin that matched the opposite door in color and texture, to make the small ram’s pressure work more efficiently. He smiled to himself as Kelly started toward the door and deftly held out his right hand.

Delaphoy, without missing a beat, placed a folded check for five thousand dollars in the man’s outstretched hand.

“Remember, if anyone finds out about this, I can always put a stop on that check.”

The man didn’t say anything; he just smiled and reached up, yanking the small system out of the door’s upper panel.

As Kelly left the conference room, she saw Kennedy and his people waiting by the elevator. She nodded her head, and then turned without a goodbye and made her way to her own office.
 

PART THREE

BATTLEFIELD

twelve

The Waldorf Astoria

New York City

The meeting room had been sectioned off for Gabriel Kennedy, John Lonetree, Leonard Sickles, and George Cordero. It had taken Gabriel two hours over drinks to assist George in making up his mind to see the project through. Kennedy could have cut that time down to two minutes if he had given him his certified check for two hundred thousand dollars immediately. Cordero’s eyes lingered on the check for the briefest of moments, and then he quickly snatched it from Gabriel’s hand.

“Before we start, may I ask Professor Tilden’s condition?” Lonetree asked. He removed his suit jacket and draped it over the back of his chair.

Kennedy set his small black bag on the tabletop and then smiled at the large Indian. He had known even before John and Jennifer had ever met that there would be an immediate connection between them. As distant and quiet as John was, Gabriel had known he would feel a need to protect Jenny from any harm that may befall her—and that had been his number one reason for bringing Lonetree here. The number two reason was about to be revealed.

“Doctor Tilden is sleeping soundly upstairs. She is in deep REM sleep,” he looked at John and then away as quickly as he could. “I just checked on her. Thus far, Bobby Lee is keeping his word. Now, Professor Tilden is someone we need to discuss at length. Before I allow our last guest to come in with the items he has brought for John, I want to ask your opinions on something that has been festering ever since the meeting this afternoon. I’ll start with Jennifer. George, your opinion on the episode in the meeting, regarding her…” Again Kennedy looked around at the three men sitting at the table. “...possession?”

“Damn, you know my opinion on it. It goddamn near chased me out of the fucking room. I have never in my life seen anything like that. If she’s not the greatest ventriloquist in the world, that girl has one big ass problem.”

“Then you believe what you witnessed?”

Cordero tilted his head to the right, widened his eyes and took a deep breath. “My talent is getting into people’s heads. Number one, Doc, I couldn’t get into Professor Tilden’s head because it was too damned crowded. It was like I was being kept out by something stronger than me. Number two, while I didn’t feel this McKinnon guy inside of her, I did feel her thoughts. And let me tell you,” he looked at John, “she is close to insane.” He looked down at the polished table. “Sorry, but she is.”

John nodded his head. He told himself it was just sympathy for a fellow human being that made him care so deeply, but he knew he liked the small professor and had known it from the moment he saw her helped into the conference room at UBC.

“Good. Now, Leonard, your impressions?”

Sickles raised his eyes to the ceiling.

“I agree with this guy, Doc, that b—lady, is off her fuckin’ rocker.” He quickly looked at Lonetree. “No offense, Red Cloud.”

Lonetree said nothing, but from his look the small gang banger knew he had better tread the Indian line far more carefully in the future.

“John, there’s no reason to ask you. I could see that you felt McKinnon’s presence when Jennifer came into the room.”

Lonetree continued to look at Leonard, who had started studying the ornate wallpaper. He nodded.

“Okay, I think I know where Leonard stands on my next question, so I’ll ask you, John. What about the second presence, the incident of invasion?” Kennedy asked, turning his back on the small group.

“Clever trick, but I felt no presence from your Summer Place,” John said.

“George?”

“Didn’t have the same feeling as with Professor Tilden. In other words, I wasn’t scared at all.”

“Leonard?”

“Fake. The wood on the left side door was different than the wood on the right. It would take me a minute of study, but I would venture to guess someone tried to bullshit the intrusion—hydraulics maybe. Good, but anyone capable of installing hydraulics on a car could do the same thing.”

“I agree. Someone faked the door bending in and out—Ms. Delaphoy more than likely, or all of them, for the CEO’s benefit. So, that leads to my point: we trust only those of us in this room and Professor Tilden upstairs. Ms. Reilly, Kelly Delaphoy, that prick Peterson, or the director, Dalton—no one from UBC is to be let into our circle. They still believe that even after the loss of the host and engineer that the place isn’t haunted. They all suspect one another of some kind of duplicity, and what’s worse is the fact that they don’t care. They may think this is a joke they are playing for ratings, but let me tell you, that damnable house has no sense of humor.” He looked at each man again. “It will kill us all if we don’t find out what it is and what it wants.”

The three men were silent. Cordero felt for the check in his front shirt pocket, wondering if he had submitted to this thing a bit sooner than he should have.

“Leonard, I don’t want to keep our guest waiting. Would you let him in please?”

Sickles stood and opened the meeting room door. An angry Wallace Lindemann stood there, his face scrunched into a ball of twisted flesh at having been kept waiting.

“Mr. Lindemann, would you join us please.” Kennedy walked to the front of the room and held out his hand.

Instead of taking Gabriel’s hand, Lindemann turned and waved two men inside. They were pushing two bellman’s carts loaded with items that had been covered by a red tarp.

“I do not like being summoned like a delivery man. I do not like removing items from my house and I most assuredly will not be taking orders from you.”

Gabriel lowered his hand and smiled as he turned back to the rear of the room.

“The delivery and use of these items will be the last favor I ask from you, Mr. Lindemann.”

“You’re goddamned right it will. And I hold you personally responsible for the items now in your possession. They are to be returned to Summer Place the day before Halloween.”

“You have my word.”

“A lot of good that is. The last time I signed something over to you the house was damaged and my reputation suffered the indignity of having to explain your mess. As a matter of fact I ought to—”

“You ought to leave now and lay off talking to the Doc like that, you silver spoon up-the-ass mother—”

“That’s good, Leonard,” Gabriel said. He tried hard to fight back laughter. “Your items will be returned in pristine condition, Mr. Lindemann, I assure you.”

Wallace Lindemann, with one last look at the small black man standing in front of him, stormed out of the meeting room with the two bellmen.

John Lonetree was smiling at Leonard also. It seemed that Sickles disrespected everyone, and some of them deserved it. Lonetree was good with that—you always knew where you stood with the kid. Earn his respect and you’d be in.

Gabriel watched the double doors close and relaxed when they were finally alone again.

“Leonard, I am fully capable of handling Wallace Lindemann. You’ll find out the little bastard is mostly hot air.”

“Ah, Doc, the guy’s a—”

Leonard stopped short of his name calling when he saw Kennedy staring at him.

“Okay,” Gabriel said pointing at Sickles, “dim the lights a little and we’ll start with John and George.” Kennedy paced to the bellman’s cart and pulled the red sheet from the items.

Several items were immediately recognizable from the pictures they had seen of the interior of the house. The largest was the family portrait of the Lindemanns. Gabriel lifted the four-foot by five-foot frame and hefted the portrait to the easel he had brought in earlier. When Lonetree saw the professor was having a hard time lifting it, he jumped from his chair and assisted. As soon as his large hands touched the gilded edges of the frame, an electrical current seemed to course through John’s hands, arms, and then his entire body. As much as the large man tried not to react, he couldn’t help it. He let go and stumbled backward from the massive painting, almost making Kennedy lose the portrait to the carpeted floor.

As John grabbed for the back of a chair, George and Kennedy went to him. Leonard stood next to the long table, laughing at the look on Lonetree’s face.

“Man,” he said as he approached the painting, “you would think this thing was wired or something,” he said, reaching toward the frame.

“Don’t!” John said.

Sickles jumped at the loudness of Lonetree’s voice. He turned and looked at the Indian as if he had lost it.

“Cool it, Geronimo, I just—”

“You’ll interfere and block my feelings.”

“Leonard, take a seat,” Kennedy said as he helped John straighten up.

“Look, I’m getting bad vibes from this thing.” George took to a chair next to Lonetree. “Something is coming off of that painting in waves. I didn’t start picking it up until John touched the damn thing.”

Kennedy looked from Cordero to Lonetree, who was looking at the portrait as if he were taking in every nuance of the artist’s brush strokes. The sepia tones of the background, the bright colors of the skin tones, and last of all, the smiling faces of the family.

“What did you feel?” Gabriel asked. He was tempted to go to his own chair to write it down in his notebook, but was unwilling to move in case he broke John’s concentration.

“Something came through the portrait…but it wasn’t the painting itself. It was like—”

“The house is here with us.”

Everyone looked at Cordero who was now leaning his head on his crossed arms on the tabletop.

“He’s right,” John stood, stepping closer to the portrait. “It may not be the portrait itself, but its attachment to the house. It has eyes on us.”

Kennedy patiently listened.

Lonetree touched the old oil paint. He ran a finger over the faces of the small children, and then up to the older features of F.E. Lindemann. The fingers touching the face lingered for a moment and then slowly went down in a zigzag motion toward the beautiful face of Elena. When he finally touched the brush-stroked features, the reaction was quite different from the initial shock he had felt. There had been nothing when he touched the other members of the family, but now John sighed as a feeling of safeness came over him. At the same moment Cordero raised his head and started to shake.

“John…get away from there, I feel…like, hell, just get away until I can sort this out.”

George stood up, knocking his chair over. He was rubbing his hands together, almost as if he wanted nothing more than to tear the skin from the bone. Leonard backed away from the table uneasily.

Lonetree didn’t move. He felt like he was a child again—no, even younger. He felt as though his mother’s hand was caressing his face, while she smiled down at him in his crib.

“Gabe, pull him away from that damn thing. It’s not what it seems. The fucking thing is…is tricking him. He feels safe around it, but it’s taking something from him.” George stepped around the table and approached John, still wringing his hands together. “It’s like the picture is learning from him.”

“You mean like a Vulcan mind-meld or somethin’?”

Cordero started to reach out to touch Lonetree’s arm but he hesitated, and then went back to wringing his hands.

“John?” Kennedy said, stepping closer to Lonetree and the portrait.

John tilted his head and then nodded like he was answering a question only he could hear. “Mama—”

John blinked several times and then he removed his hand. He continued to stare at the portrait for a long time, and then, as if coming from a faraway place, he blinked and looked at Cordero.