The White Night (16 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Mike Long

The exterior of
the library is insanely quiet, which seems off to me, and like a hilarious summer-movie
pratfall, I walk straight into the sliding glass doors that don’t open on my
approach.

I stumble to the
side, momentarily dazed and confused. “What the hell?”

Dakota asks me if
I’m hurt, then breaks into a grin that she had no chance of hiding. She
chuckles and puts her hand over those perfectly lush lips and stunning white
teeth. I have to laugh too because, of course, I hadn’t been paying attention,
instead choosing to focus on my lovely cohort.

Glancing down, I
note the small sign indicating the library won’t open for another hour.

“What? Not until
ten?”

“Maybe they think
people don’t read early?”

I cup my hands
around my eyes and try to peer through the tinted glass doors. “I see someone
in there already. Is he working?” A thin guy with horn-rimmed
spectacles—really, you can’t call them anything else than that archaic
term—walks by pushing a cart full of books, I.D. lanyard dangling from his
neck. He looks over and sees us, offering an apologetic frown as he taps his
wrist, then holds up both hands, fingers splayed.

He mouths,
Sorry, ten o’clock.

I back away from
the glass doors and wipe a thin layer of sweat from my forehead. “Well, shit.
What now? You hungry? Grab a bite while we wait? There’s an awesome greasy
spoon diner a couple blocks that way—”

Before I can
finish, I hear the clatter of keys against glass, followed by the fat, fumbling,
metallic clunk of a lock tumbler. Horn Rims is eagerly trying to get the lock
open, smiling at us, telling us to hang on like he thinks we’re going to run
away from him. “Just one sec,” he says, his voice muffled by the doors.

“Changed your
mind, huh?” Dakota asks him.

Horn Rims gets the
latch free and worms his fingers into the crevasse between the doors, grunting as
he shoves them fully open. “Oh my gosh! You gotta be kidding me. Sorry about
that. If I had recognized who you were I would’ve come over right away but I
couldn’t see with the shadows and the—never mind.
Mike Long
and
Dakota
Bailey
? Together?
Here
? I don’t even know… I’m Preston. And you’re
Mike. And you’re Dakota. Wow, I’d heard people say that you guys lived here in
town but—wow. Sorry, I’m Preston. Did I say that already? I’m babbling.
Babbling Preston. I mean, yeah, I’ll shut up now. Wow.”

Dakota flashes the
sparkling smile that charmed America for three seasons, steps forward, and
extends a hand to shake. “Hi, Preston. Nice to meet you.”

He reaches for her
hand and halts like it ran into an invisible forcefield. “Wait, can I give you
a hug? Sorry, it’s just that I’ve always wanted to do that. Is that weird? It’s
weird, isn’t it?”

This guy is too
much, in an amusing way, of course. It’s been a long damn time since I’ve seen
this level of fandom gone wild.

Chuckling, Dakota
says, “Sure, why the hell not? Bring it on, dude!”

And it makes me
adore her all the more.

Babbling Preston
dives in and squeezes her tightly, saying, “My friends will never believe this.”
Chin on her shoulder, he glances over at me with expectant eyes and a knowing
grin. “I’m coming for you next, big guy.”

“Right. Arms open
wide, chief.” Might as well. You gotta be good to the evangelists like this,
the ones who will tell a thousand people on Facebook and Twitter about how
amazing you are in person.

Preston lets go of
Dakota and leaps over to me, wrapping one arm up over a shoulder, and the other
around my side and back. Total “bro hug.” We slap each other on the back like
old friends, and I’m already thinking about how I need to come down to the
library for some promo if I can talk Ford into the documentary.

Always thinking,
always on.

Anyway—setting my
dreams of a bank account in the black to the side—it’s cool that Preston has so
much enthusiasm. I really do miss it.

He steps back from
us, hands at his waist, huffing from the excitement. “Wow. So cool. What can I
do for you? Did you guys want to come in early?”

I have this thing
where I’m always worried that I’m on the verge of inconveniencing a total
stranger, so I wave him off, tell him he doesn’t have to do that for us just
because we’re, well,
us
.

That gets me a
hearty
pshaw
, like I’m being utterly ridiculous, and we find ourselves
following him inside before I have a chance to protest again. He squirms around
us to shove the glass doors closed under his own power and secures the lock
once more.

After a couple
more rounds of assuring us that we’re not going to get him in trouble, we learn
that he’s the only one here, and he’d be thrilled to give us a tour or help us
find something if we need it.

“But can I just
ask something first? Be totally nosy for a second?”

Dakota says,
“Sure,” before I can hedge the discussion with subtle misinformation.

“What’re you guys
doing here? I mean, like, together?” He must recognize the squint I’m giving
him as a sign that this is probably too far over the line. “No, no. I don’t
mean
together
. I just meant, like, do celebrities hang out with each
other all the time? You know, because you don’t really have anything in common
with the little people?”

Dakota says with
measured amusement, “We’re not too far from common ourselves. It just so
happens that I’m having some—what would you call it, Mr. Long? Ghostly…
troubles
?”

Ah, shit. That’s
exactly what I didn’t want her to say.

Preston’s eyes
can’t possibly get any wider. “Holy crap! Really? That’s like a season finale
episode of
Graveyard
. Or maybe some sort of crossover episode on
Yes,
Chef!
, like you would have to cook a masterpiece while you were terrified
of the spirits in your house. How cool is that?”

I raise an eyebrow
at Dakota. “Sound familiar?”

She nods. “You
should make him a producer.”

Before Preston can
explode into an excitable mist of giddy glee, I ask him about public property
records or if those microfiche things still exist so we can do some research on
Dakota’s house, past occurrences there and the like.

Sometimes fate,
chance, or luck smiles down upon you, while a choir of heavenly angels sing a
tune so sweet that you can’t help but feel like the universe is blatantly
moving the chess pieces around for you.

Preston’s entire
demeanor changes. His smile droops. His hands go to his hips. He briefly checks
the first floor, and it makes me wonder what he’s looking for, considering the
fact that we’re supposed to be the only three in here. He lowers his voice and
says, “To answer your question, public property records—you might need to go to
the courthouse to find what you’re looking for. Probably? Microfiche, yeah, but
can I make a confession first?” He waits until I nod assent. “Don’t think I’m a
creepy weirdo, okay? That was—I mean, I know who you guys are. I was trying not
to be an obsessive stalker fan or anything.”

So that was just
an act? Damn, he’s good. Dude has a career waiting for him in the theater.

Preston continues,
“It’s not like we were spying on you.”

“We?” I ask.

“A friend of mine
thought he saw Dakota moving into Damon Healy’s old beach house.” He turns to
her. “Is that true?”

Dakota doesn’t
hesitate to tell him it is—though I wish she would’ve—and she adds that she
hasn’t been there long. “You’re not creepy,” she reassures him. “I’m not
keeping it much of a secret.”

Preston says, “That
place is bad news, and I’ve been wondering how long it would take before
someone showed up here. After Healy sold it, I mean. Never in a million years
did I think both of
you
would. You’re
here
. You’re actually here.
What are the odds?”

“Given the fact that
you work at one of two places where people go to dig up local history, I’d say
they’re not that astronomical.” I wink to let him know I’m just yanking is
chain.

“Good point. What
I meant was, what are the odds that I know something you’ll want to hear?”

“Higher, but when
you’ve been balls deep in the paranormal for as long as I have, coincidences
are a permanent part of the equation.”

“True.”

“If you expected
us, then why didn’t you come looking for me, specifically?”

“It’s not the kind
of thing I’m willing to broadcast.”

“What changed your
mind now?”

“I’ll get to
that.” Preston pushes his horn rims up where they rest on top of his skull like
a headband, holding his curly mop back out of his face. His eyes dart left and
right as the corners of his mouth lift. It’s completely a look that suggests,
I
have a secret to share
, and,
Wait until you get a load of this
.

We’re the only
ones in the library. Half of the lights are off, and while it’s filled to the
ceiling with books, computers, magazines, without the hullaballoo of readers
marching to and fro, it feels empty and hollow. And yet, he lowers his voice
further, barely audible, whispering, “You ready to hear some crazy shit?”

***

Preston made sure
all the doors were securely locked before he led us upstairs to the second
floor, turned left, and practically scampered behind a shelf of young adult
books, leading us at a brisk pace toward the northwestern corner. “We can go in
here,” he says. “You know, for privacy.” He uses his jangling set of keys to open
a solid oak door that reads, “Study Room 1” in bold white lettering on a black
wall plaque.

The study room is
starkly empty of everything but a basic table and four uncomfortable chairs, along
with brass pegs on the wall for coats and backpacks. The walls are painted a
soft mushroom color. The chairs and desk are a single shade off for variety.
Seems like the decorator was a total wild man.

“Sit, sit,” Preston
begs, pulling the chairs out for us.

We do, and he sits
down on the opposite side, lifting his eyes to the ceiling, shaking his head. “Okay,
here goes. I
can’t believe
I’m going to tell you this. Unless, of
course, you guys already know what I know, but then I doubt that would be the
case because you probably wouldn’t be here if you did and—”

“Preston?”

“Yeah?”

“We don’t know
anything.”

He leans across
the table. “You didn’t hear this from me. Not a word of it, because this is
some storybook plotline stuff right here. Dangerous, too.”

“Sounds juicy.”
Dakota leans up on her elbows.

Preston dips his head
to the side, clucks his tongue once. “Not the word I would use, but yeah.”

I feel a bit lost
because I forgot to bring a notebook with me. That was my role on the show; I
was supposed to follow everyone around with a notebook and act like I was
taking notes. Occasionally I would mumble something in the affirmative and look
like what I was scribbling down was terribly important.

You know what I
was really doing?

Playing Sudoku.

No lie. I’d have
Ambrosia or one of the other interns print out some game sets for me, cut the
boxes out, and tape them to the yellow-lined paper. You’d probably wouldn’t be
surprised how many of those you can go through during a particularly grueling
and boring B-roll film day.

Anyway.

Preston clears his
throat and trips through a handful of false starts before he finally sputters
through his top-secret info. And what he tells us about Damon Healy is like a
jackhammer to my sternum, which means my earlier instincts about Dakota’s
infiltrator were off by miles and millennia.

Goddamn, was I
ever wrong.

“Damon Healy,” Preston
says, knocking on the table, “was into some stupid scary stuff. Séances, animal
sacrifices, Ouija board parties with other Fortune 500 CEOs. I haven’t told a
soul about this, and one of the reasons is that who would fucking believe it?”

I say, “Come on,
now.” He’s right, because for a moment, I’m feeling like we’ve been totally
duped, and this dude just wants us to listen to his nonsense because when is he
ever going to get the chance to say he lied to Mike Long and Dakota Freakin’
Bailey, right?

I push back from
the table. “Dude,
really
? You’re not gonna give us some ‘sold his soul
at the crossroads for money’ silliness, are you?” Though Dakota and I had joked
about it earlier, I didn’t think I would actually hear it as a reason.

The hurt in his
expression is evident.

Wow. He’s honestly
wounded.

“No way, Mr. Long.
This is a hundred percent truth.”

Dakota nudges me
under the table with her foot.

“Sorry. Old
habits.”

“I get it, but the
thing is, that’s exactly what it was.”

I snigger in
disbelief and rock back on the chair’s hind legs. “I’m—sorry, continue,
please.”

Seems like I might
be working my way onto Preston’s Shit List, because he turns away from me and
tries Dakota. “They would have these meetings there at least once a month,
sometimes more. They dressed up in robes and lit these blood-colored candles.
If you were out on the beach, especially at night, there were so many candles
going that you could see it from a quarter of a mile away. It sits up so high—of
course you know what I’m talking about, you live there. It sits up high enough
that nobody could ever look in to see what was going on, right?”

I ask, “How do you
know this?”

“That friend I
mentioned, his dad was there once.”

“And he told his
son about some secret robe-wearing ritual?”

“I know, I know.
But don’t forget, the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.”

“And this friend
of yours believed his dad?”