How to Fake a Haunting, page 2
“Maybe someone’s using the bathroom upstairs?” Adelaide offered.
“Maybe.” I turned back toward the living room, but the grating sound came again. I sighed. “I better go see what that’s about.”
We climbed the stairs to the large room above the garage, but it was clear the sound hadn’t emanated from here. “Might as well continue the tour while investigating the strange noises coming from some dark corner of my house.” Adelaide laughed, and I shrugged. “This is my office,” I said. She eyed the boxes waiting to be unpacked, the artwork leaning against the walls. “At least, it will be at some point,” I added.
“This feels like a room I would’ve wanted as a kid. Off-to-the-side and quiet. A little hidden. A good place for scheming.”
I gave a Hmm of agreement while studying Adelaide. We’d been friends for nine months, the same length of time I’d dated Callum before getting engaged. If anything, learning what made Adelaide tick had been more of a process than getting to know my husband, something Cal pointed out whenever he had to spend more than five minutes with her. Adelaide and Callum weren’t each other’s biggest fans.
Adelaide could be cagey and bossy and had a bizarre, albeit mesmerizing, style—a cross between a bohemian academic and a second grader obsessed with glitter, as evidenced by her evil eye–patterned sweater and fingernails painted ten different shades. She never ordered the same drink twice at a coffee shop, and her hair color changed only slightly less frequently than her nails.
I looked down at my own clothes: white shorts, white top, white tennis shoes. White was my thing. Clean. Cool. Easy. The polar opposite of the new assistant to the director of development. But as far as free spirits with devil-may-care attitudes went, Adelaide was the smartest and most responsible one I knew.
I closed the door, and we doubled back along the hall. “Guest bedroom,” I explained when we reached the room at the front of the house. “And I guess maybe a nursery in the future.”
Adelaide cooed. “You’d be such a good mom.”
I shot her a look. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s a vibe you have. In control. Totally in control. Selfless.”
“Huh,” I said. “Well, thanks.”
We left the guest room, Adelaide closing the door behind us. The only room left was the primary bedroom. At the door, a string of muttered curses reached our ears.
“Callum?” No response. I turned the knob and stepped inside. The space was as I’d left it. Late-afternoon sunlight streamed through an open window. A hollow clang echoed wrongly from beneath the bathroom door. Anxious to figure out what the hell was going on, I crept toward it. Adelaide followed.
“Cal? What’s going on?”
I tried the door handle and found it unlocked. “I’m coming in,” I said, and pushed the door open.
Callum, red-faced, paced on the other side of it, a metal candleholder clutched in one hand. Vomit stained the white tile floor behind him. “Lain-ney,” he slurred. When he saw Adelaide, he straightened, trying to appear more sober than he was.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and reached for the candleholder. He jerked away.
“I’m—” he started, then looked down, as if unable to recall why he was holding the piece of metal.
Adelaide nudged me. Her eyes were on the brand-new, intricately arched mirror we’d hung the previous weekend. It was cracked in one place and marred by three deep grooves in another; Callum had evidently dragged the metal across the mirror deep enough to carve out strips of its reflective surface.
“Callum,” I said, not recognizing my own voice, the incredulity and uncertainty there. “What the hell is this?”
He looked down at the candleholder again and then up at the mirror. As he did, his mouth trembled. “I saw—” he stammered. “I saw a—”
White-hot rage coursed through me. Sure, Callum was stressed, and not just about finishing the house. Now that we’d moved in, there was no more planning, no more anticipating living up to the expectations of his parents. Now that Rosalie and Dustin had given Cal his “leg up,” he would have to deliver on it. But I didn’t give a shit how frightened Cal was of growing up; getting drunk and destroying our new house was unacceptable.
“If you trashed the mirror because you’re shit-faced and, I don’t know, you saw a spider or something, I’m going to kill you.”
Callum shook his head, the movement slow. “Not a shpi—spider. I saw . . .”
He locked eyes with his own reflection and raised the hunk of metal.
“No!” I cried, and leaped forward, but it was too late; Callum brought the candleholder down against the mirror’s center. The sound was the shattering of a frozen lake beneath a monstrous oak. The cacophony filled the room—and my head.
For an instant, the explosion was beautiful, shards of glass like flakes of ice spinning through the air. But not before I saw my husband’s face in the mirror at the moment of impact. Callum’s face, but not quite his face. Twisted and distorted. Dark and shimmering and multipaned, like the iridescent eyes of a fly.
I dropped to the ground like falling glass myself, slivers of crystal piercing my arms and neck like stinging rain. A stark, desperate thought occurred to me as I crouched in the ruin, the beat of my heart like the hooves of a runaway horse:
This is for the best. This is for the best because after this, it will be over . . .
After this, there’s no way he’ll ever drink again.
Now
Chapter 1
The rain fell in a steady drizzle, stinging my skin and wetting the white lace sleeves of my dress. I held Beatrix tightly against me, an action that’d been easy when she was two but was much more difficult two years later. She shifted in my arms and murmured something unintelligible, her lips soft and warm against my cheek.
“I know, baby, I know,” I cooed. “We’ll be home soon. Ten minutes. Then you can get in bed.”
She nestled farther into me, and I forced myself to hold her steady, the taffeta of her dress making it even tougher to get a good grip. A car pulled into the circular drive of the stately mansion, and I squinted through the mist, heartbeat rising at the prospect of escape. Don’t be so dramatic, I chastised myself. It was a sleek gray Porsche, not my dinged-up and dusty Subaru.
I spun around looking for Callum and caught sight of what appeared to be the sleeve of his suit jacket behind one of the clay-colored pillars. A figure stepped out of the shadows beside me. The jasmine and ambergris of her expensive perfume snaked down my throat, thick as smoke.
“Lainey,” Rosalie Taylor said. She pursed her lips and glanced at a nonexistent watch. “Leaving so soon?”
I stared, a little incredulous, despite an intimate knowledge of Rosalie’s tactics of manipulation. “It’s after eight,” I said. “I’ve got to get Beatrix to bed.”
I hated the defensiveness in my voice, a by-product of my worry that I’d not done enough to ensure Rosalie and Dustin had seen their granddaughter over the course of the evening. No matter that I’d brought Bea over to their table several times, or that they couldn’t be bothered to tear themselves away from their “esteemed” guests. The simple fact that Rosalie had insisted on a four-year-old’s presence at the gala—held annually in honor of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association—was ridiculous.
“The night just started,” Rosalie said. “We haven’t even given out the scholarships.” She sipped from her champagne flute, and I cringed.
Why did the Taylors have to hold the gala here, at the Elms? But I knew the answer. It’d been a little over a year since I’d been promoted from director of visitor experience to director of museum affairs and chief curator, a position Rosalie interpreted as my now holding power within the Preservation Society of Newport County. And power in my hands was to be met with a display of power in her own. You may curate the mansions’ contents, her actions said, but I can rally a small army to fill any one of them for whatever purpose I deem fit.
I shifted where I stood, feet aching in my too-high heels, the muscles in my arms and neck burning. Still, I refused to put Bea down, filled with an irrational fear that if I did, Rosalie would snatch her up and disappear into the mansion like an evil fairy after delivering a changeling. I shook away the thought, noticing as I did that more partygoers had spilled from the Elms’ cavernous front entrance. They mulled about, laughing and puffing on e-cigarettes. I had to refrain from yelling through the drizzle that there was no smoking allowed on Preservation Society properties.
Rosalie kept her attention on me, but I looked past her to where the suit-jacket sleeve was emerging from behind the pillar to reveal Callum. He was laughing with one of the valets, slapping the younger man on the back. Cal handed him something that winked silver in the misty gray. The man returned the palm-size item to an inside breast pocket. It didn’t take a psychic to know they’d been sharing a flask.
Anger flared within me. Callum had been drinking martinis all night. The last thing he needed—as usual—was another drink. I patted a pocket in my dress, relieved to feel the bulk of my belongings beneath the lace: glasses, phone, wallet. Looks like I’ll be driving home, I thought as the valet pulled up with my car. Callum reached us a moment later, grinning lazily at me and then at Rosalie.
“Good timing,” he said. Beatrix stiffened at the sound of his voice.
“If you say so,” Rosalie responded breezily. “I still think it’s awfully early to be taking off.”
I swallowed my retort and opened the back door, depositing Bea gently into her car seat. I secured the buckles with swift, practiced movements, aware that Callum still stood on the sidewalk and had not yet moved toward the car.
“Where’s Love?” Beatrix asked.
“Right here, sweetheart.” I plucked the koala from the seat-back pocket in front of her and nuzzled it against her cheek. “Remember, ten more minutes and we’ll be home.” I kissed her forehead.
“’Kay, Mommy.” Bea nuzzled harder against the koala and closed her eyes. I straightened and shut the door. Callum had stepped off the sidewalk and was circling the front of the car.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, aware that Rosalie was studying me intently. Several of the partygoers had migrated toward us, shooting clandestine looks at Rosalie, eager to get a word in. Between their great personal wealth and their admittedly generous philanthropic efforts, Rosalie and Dustin Taylor were one of the most well-known—and sought-after—couples in Newport.
“What do you mean, what am I doing?” Callum asked, confusion rippling across his features. “I’m driving. Get in.”
I froze, thoughts firing: Damn the event’s valet parking—the keys in the ignition, the engine primed and whirring. “You drank tonight,” I said, delivering the words without the judgment I knew would incite him to anger. “I’ll drive.”
Callum scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine.” He took another step around the front of the car, and I moved in that direction as well, coming alongside Rosalie in the process. I felt her bristle beside me, an attentive fox in the undergrowth, all pricked ears and glittering eyes.
“Callum,” I said through gritted teeth, cursing the revelers who’d moved closer, desperately hoping to avoid a scene even as I knew we were in the midst of one, “I didn’t have anything to drink.”
“Didn’t you, though?” Rosalie spoke the words with enough pointed curiosity to make it clear it wasn’t a question. “Surely you had at least a few glasses of wine.” She laughed and gestured vaguely around her. “I mean, who didn’t?”
My mouth fell open. “I didn’t,” I insisted, but she wasn’t listening. She jerked her chin at Callum, indicating he should get behind the wheel.
“Get your family home.” Her tone was final. She smiled and smoothed her dress.
These stupid people, I thought, panicking. This sick, secretive family. How deep their denial ran, how perfect and complete their delusions. Callum and his mother were so committed to the belief that he was “fine,” that his drinking was “normal,” that they were willing to put Beatrix’s—and my—safety in jeopardy. Anything to keep from having to glimpse the truth, to keep the skeletons locked in the closet even as they rotted and discolored the floorboards.
Callum gave his mother a nod, mumbled “night,” and slipped into the driver’s seat. I shivered on the sidewalk, not just from the rain but from the rage that threatened to consume me.
“No way,” I said, though Callum could no longer hear me. “He can’t drive in his condition. I’m not letting him drive Bea.”
The group of gala attendees had inched closer, and a scream was rising in my throat, a command for them to back off, to give us space. Rosalie leaned forward, the scent of her perfume overwhelming, her words like flames that curled into my ear, burning away rational thought.
“I cannot imagine they’d want someone so prone to drama in charge of things at the Preservation Society. Kathy would likely be very interested to hear about it. Or, you can stop making something out of nothing, and get in the goddamn car.”
She pulled back with a shark’s smile and nodded at the door. Lead-limbed, certain I was in a nightmare, I yanked the handle and practically fell into the car. Rosalie slammed the door and spun toward her guests without another look at me or her son, who had put the car in drive and was inching it forward.
With the smell of vodka permeating the air and the metallic tang of dread in my throat, we left the bright, festive lights of the Elms behind and ventured into the dark.
Chapter 2
I flexed my fingers to quell their shaking. In the intermittent glow of the streetlamps coming through the car windows, Callum looked ill, his sweat-sheened skin a sallow color, his eyes more bloodshot than I’d ever seen them. He was breathing heavily, jaw clenched, and the muscles in his arms twitched as if he were cold, despite the jacket.
I spun in my seat; Beatrix’s eyes were half closed. Praying she would fall asleep, I turned back around and swallowed. “Please, Cal. Pull over and let me drive.”
Callum glared. “Will you stop this?” he slurred. “I’m fine. We’re already halfway home.”
I forced myself to breathe. I needed to stay calm. “Pull over,” I said flatly. “I’m not asking. I mean it.” Callum didn’t respond.
The rain was still a drizzle, but the night was foggy, dangerously so. I squirmed in my seat. My fear was a rising tide of arctic waters, numbing me. “You’re drunk,” I said. There was something in my voice now, a preface to hysteria. “I told you what would happen if you kept drinking.” Despite the growing terror, these lines sounded scripted. Then again, I’d been repeating them—some taken verbatim from therapists—for as long as I could remember.
“I’m not—” he started, but I cut him off.
“Not what? Not drunk? Not that drunk? Not doing anything differently than you’ve done since Beatrix was born? Since we got married? You’re right, you’re not doing anything differently. That’s what’s so exhausting. But I am. I told you there’d come a time when I reached my limit, and I have. You shouldn’t be around your daughter like this. In fact, why don’t you keep right on driving after you drop us off, since, you know, you’re so fine.” Sarcasm dripped from my words. “Don’t stop until you get to Monty’s. Let him help you in your hour of need.”
Callum’s expression hardened. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“No shit,” I said, matter-of-fact. “Because it’s Tuesday, Callum, a night on which normal people don’t get shit-faced.”
“Give it a rest, would you?” He shifted back and forth in his seat, the movement making me nervous. He wasn’t focused on the road, on seeing the road through the fog.
“I won’t. Pull over, Callum.” Anxiety swirled through my stomach, the same anxiety I’d gotten in the face of empty promises and passing years, ever since his behavior had stopped affecting just me and started affecting Beatrix, putting her in danger. I rubbed my temples, where a headache was blooming, and thought of Bea behind me, nuzzling her koala. The dam broke.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
Callum shot me a look, jerking the steering wheel in the process. The car lurched over the line, and I yelped. He straightened the wheel and returned his gaze to the road. “What do you mean?” His voice was slurred and whiny. It set my teeth on edge.
“This.” I waved my hand at him. “All of this. You know you have a problem. How many times have you said you’ll get the number for the Employee Assistance Program from your boss or go to a meeting? That you’re going to change? A hundred? Five hundred? But you never do.”
The car sped up. Callum’s jaw tightened.
“Slow down,” I begged.
“Not another word about my driving,” he growled. “What do you mean, you can’t do this? So what, you want a divorce? You’re done with me? With us?”
“There is no us!” My tone teetered between a frenzied whisper and outright ferocity. I didn’t dare turn around to see if Bea was still awake. The idea of her listening to this hurt my heart. But I couldn’t stop. This was too long coming. “There is no us,” I repeated. “There’s me and Beatrix. And there’s you and your booze.”
Callum accelerated again. The Subaru swerved like a wind-battered ship. A whimper escaped me. “Callum, stop it. Slow down. Please. You can’t even see.”
We were on a winding back road not far from Bellevue Avenue. Somewhere to our left was Seaview Terrace, a privately owned mansion never acquired by the Preservation Society that had fallen into tragic disrepair. Seaview was buttressed by a massive iron gate, but I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see anything. There was only the blinding, billowing fog.
“There’s no us?” Callum asked. It wasn’t a question but a challenge. “Just you and Beatrix? You’re fucking kidding me, right? She’s my daughter too. You think I don’t care about her?” The car swerved again, and I reached for the wheel. Callum batted my hand away.
