“My god,” Jason Sanborn said aloud.
Leonard Sickles was also wide-eyed. He slowly pushed his chair back and almost fell, trying to get as far away from John and Jennifer as he could while still looking macho. The voice coming from the small, woman was perfect, the highs and lows of the song drew in her listeners like a memory from youth.
Jason Sanborn was remembering being rejected by the girl of his dreams, and Harris Dalton was being transported to a triumph at the drive in movie theater thirty-five years before. But it was John Lonetree who was left in the moment, staring into Jennifer’s eyes and feeling like he was drowning, and not minding it one bit. His left hand slowly rose and slid up her back, caressing her as she sang.
For exactly two minutes and twenty-two seconds, she sang only to John Lonetree and no one moved. Then she smiled at him with eyes that finally had her own light shining through them, and she slowly lay her head upon John’s chest. She sobbed a moment, and then passed out.
Kennedy leaned over and smiled at his old friend, and then nodded and mouthed the word “thanks.” Then he straightened and stood over John, who still held Jennifer while she slept.
“Bobby Lee McKinnon, are you there?” Gabriel asked. Leonard Sickles edged further away from the haunted woman.
Suddenly the blinds shifted as an internal wind hit the room, raising the temperature as if someone had opened a door to a summer Arizona day. There was a loud moan that seemed to sound from every corner of the room. Then as suddenly as it started, the wind died and the room’s temperature returned to normal. A gunshot fired loudly and they all jumped as one. Then there was nothing.
“He’s gone,” George Cordero said from his seat directly across from Lonetree. He hadn’t moved since the show had started. Unlike the others, he hadn’t been transported down memory lane. He had been living the last minute of Bobby Lee McKinnon’s life as he was dragged from his bed and shot in the back of the head by the Mafioso he had been in financial debt to. It had been a horrible vision and George had even felt the bullet penetrate his head. He wasn’t frightened; it was something he lived with most every day of his life. But it was never easy living the final, terrifying moments leading up to someone’s death, and Bobby Lee’s had not been a good way to go.
“Jesus Christ, Man!” Leonard said from his standing position. “What the fuck!”
“Gabriel, you know for a fact this woman is insane, don’t you?” George said, ignoring Sickles’ protests. The others around the table slowly realized that perhaps they hadn’t witnessed the haunting of an individual, but the torn and fractured mind of a woman lost to the real world.
“Obviously, she has to be,” Harris Dalton added. He slowly sank back into his seat.
No one saw the angry look that came into John Lonetree’s face as he slowly stood, Jennifer’s limp, light body cradled in his massive arms. He walked over to a couch and gently laid her down. Her hand wouldn’t let him go until he eased it from his neck. He removed his jacket and laid it over her still form.
“I don’t mean she’s insane alone,” George said. “I mean whatever is inside her head, he’s also insane, and he made this woman that way. He’s angry he was murdered.” He looked at Gabriel. “How did Bobby Lee latch onto her, Gabe?”
“She went to study a small case of an apartment haunting in 1999. She went thinking it was routine, but when she left that small place in New York, she didn’t leave alone. This trip to Summer Place is not only for our benefit, but hers. Bobby Lee, whether he knows it or not, is going to be a link.”
“A link?” Jason asked.
Kennedy smiled and looked from face to face. “Yes, Mr. Sanborn, Jennifer and Bobby are our link to the other side.”
For the first time, Harris Dalton and the others realized this trip to Summer Place may not have been the joke everyone outside of this room was thinking it would be.
Professor Gabriel Kennedy looked at the team he had assembled and realized it was a small army indeed preparing for battle in a house he knew to be a gateway to something few people on earth understood. All he knew was that the force the house held inside of its rotten bowels was something from a place that scared the hell out of him. And, worse…
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.