The Supernaturals (28 page)

Kennedy mumbled under his breath as he gathered his papers.

“What was that, Professor?” Dalton asked.

Gabriel smiled and then shook his head. He slowly wiped his brow of the sweat that had formed there as he thought about the days ahead.

“I was just saying to myself that the advantage of this fight still goes to Summer Place.”

“And why is that?” Kelly Delaphoy asked.

“Because that goddamned house knows exactly what scares the hell out of us.”

The conference room fell silent. The live broadcast was only days away.

The planning for the battle of Summer Place was about to begin.

eleven

After the fantastic and terrifying scene in the conference room an hour before, the group was slow to respond when Lionel Peterson walked back into the meeting with the CEO of UBS following close behind. Peterson sat at his usual place at the head of the table and Abe Feuerstein took a seat in the far corner, his smile and ever-present bowtie impeccable as always.

“We seem to be missing someone—two someones, to be exact,” Peterson said as he looked from face to face, finally settling on Kelly Delaphoy.

“Mr. Lonetree is sitting with Jennifer Tilden in my office,” Kelly answered. “She felt a little ill. We had a rather—”

“—strained session a little while ago, and Ms. Tilden felt ill, that’s all,” Kennedy said. He didn’t like Peterson and felt he need not explain anything to him.

“If the young lady is ill, I would think a doctor—a real doctor, and not a medicine man—would be of a more practical use than Mr. Lonetree,” Peterson said. It was clear that they were keeping something from him, but it didn’t matter. He would eventually know everything about what had happened, anyway.

“Now, now, no need to disparage anyone’s background here, Mr. Peterson,” Feuerstein said. “Let’s move on, I have a meeting in a few minutes and I would like to gauge your reactions to an idea from programming.”

“What idea?” Kelly asked, frowning slightly.

“Live reaction coverage . We think it would be a hoot to see the general public’s reaction to the event—if there is one, of course.”

Kelly glared at Peterson, knowing the idea had sprung from his warped mind. He knew that if nothing happened, the reactions of the public would kill her ratings and make her a laughing stock. She couldn’t understand; did this son of a bitch want her to fail that badly that he would make their downfall so public? She wanted to stand up and rip his face off in front of everybody, but instead she smiled.

“That’s a great idea. Who came up with it? Was it you, sir?” Kelly asked.

Abraham Feuerstein nodded his head toward Peterson.

“Professor Kennedy, what do you think of getting reaction shots of a real American family to what’s happening live at Summer Place?” Peterson asked, moving his beady eyes from Kelly to Gabriel.

Before Kennedy could respond, Harris stood and looked at Peterson.

“If you ask me, I think it stinks, purely from the production end of things. We have a crowded air schedule as it is.”

“Oh, we’re talking brief, very brief cutaways to a home. This family will be chosen at random from a contest on our website. Since this morning’s press release about the show, our switchboards here and in Los Angeles have been overwhelmed with calls and emails. It’s a good gag, as Kelly would say,” Peterson answered. He smiled right at the show’s producer, deliberately using her own term against her.

“We were just getting ready to go over the schematics for Summer Place,” Kennedy said, cutting the conversation short. “It seems Mr. Sanborn has something interesting he’s been dying to tell us since he came across the plans. Mr. Sanborn?”

Jason stood on shaky legs. He still had not recovered fully from the experience with Professor Tilden. He was wondering after that if he was up to the tasks that lay ahead of him. For a man who was accustomed to random sounds on a digital recorder or a mere cold spot in a house, he was wondering about the real side of parapsychology for the first time.

“Uh, the plans...” He moved the diagrams over to a large easel. “The originals as drawn up by Mister Lindemann himself back in 1890 were at best crude. However, I did come across something that was not in the later specs for the house.” He rifled through the large schematics until he came to a hand drawn depiction of the lower levels of Summer Place. “Right here,” he said pointing at the lowest part of the page. The drawing was in old fashioned led pencil and was hard to read. “You see Lindemann’s drawing of the basement, and below that on this side view of the diagram, is the root cellar.”

“Your meaning, Jason?” Kelly asked.

“The root cellar is not depicted on the original architectural drawings. It was as if the root cellar was eliminated from the plans, but was built anyway.”

“So?” Peterson said.

“So,” Kelly said for Jason, “we saw the root cellar, it’s there. Why would the cellar be eliminated from the final drawings?”

“Oh, come on, there’s no big mystery there. It’s a root cellar, for Christ’s sake.”

Kennedy looked at Peterson. He was right, of course; on the surface it didn’t seem all that important. But as he thought about it... Most architects were very deliberate in their drawings for legality’s sake. He himself had never explored the lower reaches of Summer Place seven years ago, due to their short term lease of the property.

“Ms. Delaphoy, I think we need to make time in the schedule for a trip down to the root cellar. Maybe Mr. Sanborn has something here.”

“This seems like a waste of time and equipment,” Peterson said.

“We will have trouble broadcasting from there,” Harris Dalton said. “We discussed this earlier— it’s far below ground and it’s covered by concrete and dirt, the best signal blocker there is.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, my man. I could rig up a relay system to boost your signal out of the basement, no matter how far down you go—to hell and back if need be.”

All eyes went to Leonard Sickles. He pushed forward a quickly drawn schematic of a series of relay antennas he had sketched on his notepad. He looked at Kennedy, the only person he was really trying his best to impress. The professor smiled.

“Okay, that takes care of that.”

Peterson even smiled, but it was an alligator’s smile. Control was slipping even further away from him.

Jennifer Tilden opened
her eyes. The brightness of the office lights made her blink and roll over on the couch.

“The lights, please. I can’t see,” she said to the presence she felt beside her. Her voice was harsh and barely audible.

John Lonetree stood quickly and shut off the overhead fluorescents, and then he closed the drapes halfway.

“You had a rough go of it, about an hour ago. How are you feeling now?” John eased himself back into the chair next to the couch.

“Like shit.” She slowly rolled over, keeping her arm over her eyes. “Who are you?”

“My name’s John.”

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked who you were.”

“I’m a friend of Gabriel Kennedy’s.”

Jennifer slowly moved her arm away from her face and blinked several times.

“Do you know how long it’s been since I saw sunlight that wasn’t through the lenses of dark glasses?”

John didn’t answer; he just watched her facial features as her eyes took in the office and then finally, him.

“Well, neither do I,” she said with a smile as she sat up. She looked at the clothes she was wearing and then at John. “May I assume you didn’t change my clothes for me?”

Lonetree was taken back for the first time in many years. He prided himself on knowing what people were going to say or do within a few seconds of meeting them. However, this question took him off guard.

“Why…uh…no, I didn’t—”

“Easy does it, big fella. I wasn’t accusing you of peaking at my underwear.” She placed her small feet on the floor. “But someone did get my bra size wrong, I’m afraid I am the victim of someone’s wishful thinking.” She smiled at Lonetree and adjusted her blouse and bra.

“You’re—in—New—York,” John said very slowly and deliberately.

Jenny looked at the large man and smiled, then leaned closer to him like she was conveying a conspiracy.

“I—know. I—have been—in—here,” she said tapping her temple, “and—I—remember—most—everything.”

“Everything?” John asked, becoming a little concerned. But he was even more embarrassed at the dumb way he’d handled things thus far.

“Yes, everything. Bobby Lee isn’t as bad as he tries to make out. He doesn’t torture me all that much. He allows me to control a few things—by the way, I love your aftershave.”

Again John Lonetree was taken back.

“Don’t look so shocked, I smelled it when I was sitting on your lap.”

“You have a beautiful voice,” he said, to hide his further embarrassment.

She looked at John for the longest moment of his life, and then she smiled.

“Thank you, but you have to give the credit to Bobby Lee, not me. Listen to me...I’m not exactly capable of singing like that. I sound like like Janice Joplin with her vocal chords cut.”

John smiled for the first time since bringing her into Kelly’s office. “Is he….is he—?”

“He kept his word. He’s going to let me sleep.” She stood, wobbled, and allowed John to steady her. “I’ll tell you right now, he’s not too happy with what Gabriel has in mind.” She took John’s strong arm and leaned into him.

“You’ll have to take that up with Gabe; I don’t think he’ll let Mr. McKinnon off the hook that easy.”

“Well, where is he? I would like to see him before I sleep forever.”

“He’s right down the hall,” John started leading her to the door, but stopped. “Can I ask you something?”

“Since you have the advantage of brute masculinity and I don’t have the strength to swat a fly, I’m think you can brave your question.”

“Why did you choose me to sing to?”

Jennifer looked up and into John’s dark eyes. Then she swallowed and stepped toward the door.

“Because I thought you were safe, and you were thinking good thoughts about me. That’s why I sang to you.”

“Oh.”

Abe Feuerstein was
the first to notice the door slowly opening, and Jennifer Tilden’s entrance. She pulled her sweater close to her body and crossed her arms over her chest. John Lonetree followed and gestured toward Kennedy.

“She wanted to see you, Gabe.” He steered the small, exhausted looking woman toward the professor.

Kennedy went immediately to her and she took him in her arms. He could feel Jennifer sobbing while he held onto her closely.

“Where have you been?” she said low enough that only he and Lonetree could hear.

“Oh, Jenny, I’ve been hiding away from the world. I’m so sorry I left you out there.” Gabriel finally broke the embrace and looked her over. Her eyes were red and puffy but he could see that Bobby Lee McKinnon had kept his word—he was tucked somewhere far back in her subconscious. Gabriel hoped the dead songwriter would stay there for the next twenty-four hours, letting Jennifer regain her strength. “Do you forgive me?” he asked with a sad smile.

“Fuck no,” she said through a sob.

Gabriel smiled and led Jenny to a chair. The rest of the room watched them with curiosity. Leonard Sickles wasn’t thrilled at all when Gabriel placed her next to him. And then to the surprise of all, Abe Feuerstein gently placed a cup of coffee in front of the small anthropology professor. No one had even noticed that he had stood. He smiled and quietly returned to his chair.

Lionel Peterson decided to forego the attack on the credibility of Professor Tilden for the moment—it seemed Mr. Feuerstein had taken a liking to the sad little woman.

Gabriel returned to the front of the conference room and cleared his throat as Jenny took her first sip of the coffee.

“John, Doctor Tilden, has a suite at the Waldorf Astoria, as do all of you. Would you take her to her room when this is over?”

Lonetree looked from Kennedy to the others around the table.

“I’ll take her,” Julie Reilly said before John could answer.

Kennedy looked into the reporter’s eyes, his accusation clear. She swallowed, and then lightly shook her head. She wouldn’t question the professor on her ghostly experiences—at least, not yet.

“All right. Everyone aside from the team I have invited, has their doubts as to the validity of the power of Summer Place,” Kennedy continued. Harris and Kelly started to say something simultaneously, but Kennedy held his hand up to stay their protests. “Yes, I know you had an experience at Summer Place. But that does not mean that you believe. Deep down inside, you are still looking for the rational explanation.” Kennedy leaned between John and Jennifer. “Let me tell you, there is no rationality as far as that house goes. I didn’t believe it at first. I sought out explanations, too. I looked for anything from underground waterways to old mining operations.” Kennedy straightened and looked purposely toward CEO Feuerstein, and then at Lionel Peterson. “I’ll say this—while you’re taking this as a joke that could possibly bring you ratings, I have learned through my research that Summer Place is insanity personified. Whatever lives in that house is real, and it is angry. It drove the wood, the plaster, the foundation of that house insane, and now the pretty yellow home is just as culpable as its unwanted guest.”