The Invited(98)

    “But what?” Riley said. “What would be worth killing you over?”

“I have no idea. But the one thing I know, the one thing I truly believe, is that I should listen to Hattie. I think she’s guiding me. She needs me to find someone. And I’ve got to hurry. The stunt last night with the gas really drove home that point.”

“I don’t know, Helen. I don’t like this. This is scary shit.”

“I have to keep looking. Try to find Ann’s children. I learned her daughter’s name: Gloria Gray. She was born in 1971, so she’d be forty-four now. I found her birth certificate but nothing else. She just kind of disappears. Fades into the thousands of possible Gloria Grays out there. The newspaper story covering the murder and the woman I met who runs the antique shop said that the children were sent to live with relatives. I need to figure out where they went, who took them in.”

Riley nodded, her face full of worry.

Helen looked at her watch. “I should get back to Nate. He doesn’t know I’m here. I was just supposed to make a quick run for finishing nails and more putty.”

“Just be careful,” Riley implored. “You and Nate both.”



* * *



. . .

Helen pulled into the driveway and saw a beat-up red pickup parked there. Then she spotted Nate sitting on the steps of the new house with Dicky Barns. They were each holding a can of beer.

“Oh shit,” Helen mumbled, hurrying out of the truck, carrying the bag from the building supply store.

What the hell was Dicky doing here?

Nate gave Helen a cold glance. “Helen,” he said. “Your friend Dicky brought back your phone.” Nate held it up to show her.

“My phone?”

Dicky nodded. “You must have dropped it last night.”

Helen held her breath.

“When you visited Dicky’s ghost-summoning circle,” Nate said, staring at her. His face was a blank slate.

She said nothing. Nate continued. “Dicky’s been telling me about his weekly gatherings. And about his father. About the white deer and Hattie.”

“I should go,” Dicky said, standing up, draining his beer, and carefully setting the empty on the step. “I just wanted to make sure you got your phone and that you were all right.”

    “Thank you so much, Dicky. I’m fine. I’m…I’m sorry about last night.”

“No worries. Hope to see you again. We meet every Wednesday at eight,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Thanks for the beer, Nate,” he called as he got into his pickup. They watched him drive off.

Nate reached for the six-pack, cracked open another beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was what the new frugal Nate drank these days.

Helen braced herself for what might come next.

“I have never in my life felt like such a complete idiot,” he said finally, his voice low but furious, enunciating every word too clearly. “Holy fuck, Helen, how do you think it looked when this guy pulls up and introduces himself, tells me he met you at a fucking ghost-hunting circle?”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“You lied to me, told me you and Riley went out for dinner and drinks. Not to mention lying to the cop last night!”

“I didn’t lie. Not exactly,” Helen said, scrambling. “I just left some parts out because I thought you’d get mad.”

“I can’t imagine why,” he said, voice thick and harsh with sarcasm. “You said you were going for a girls’ night out on the town. I was imagining karaoke and cosmos, not summoning the dead. You went because of Hattie, right? You’re so obsessed with this woman, this woman you’ve never met, who died almost a hundred years ago, that you go and sit down with a bunch of nutjob strangers to try to conjure her up?”

“I thought they might—”

He held up his finger in a but wait, there’s more gesture.

“Tell me about the mantel, Helen,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking. First the beam, then the bricks. I thought it was great at first, that you were incorporating pieces of history into our house, repurposing materials.”

Really? Then why’d you argue with me about it every step of the way? she thought, but stayed silent.

“But it’s weird, Helen. Your insistence on bringing home objects connected to these women who died in terrible ways. So, who did the mantel belong to, Helen? What’s the real story behind it? I wondered when you brought it home but didn’t ask. But now I’ve got to know.”

    “I—”

“Tell me the truth, Helen. Please. Or are you just going to lie to me again? It must be getting pretty easy by now.” He looked so crushed.

She felt a horrible weight bearing down on her. Guilt. How had it come to this? How had she become a woman who could do something like this, sneak around and lie to her own husband, the man who was once the great love of her life, the man she once shared every secret thought with?

Because he doesn’t understand, a little voice whispered. He never has.

“Okay. The mantel belonged to a woman named Ann Gray. She was Jane’s daughter. Hattie’s granddaughter.”