Most private eyes on TV do their business in fast, fancy cars. I do mine mostly on the computer and the phone. I have a lot of numbers in my phone—friends, clients, former clients, doctors, cops, vampires, exorcists, and others. And Rachel, of course. Periodically I do delete anything that’s a year old or more, but I tend to keep people for longer than I really need to. Call it nostalgia. Or laziness.
And as a P.I. I always pick up the phone even when I don’t recognize the number. It might be a telemarketer, but you never know when it could be a break in the case. Or a new client.
Or your ex-wife.
My phone buzzed at 9:23 on a Tuesday morning. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Hello, Tom.”
It took me a minute, because I hadn’t heard that voice in 20 years. Except in dreams, sometimes. Not good dreams. “Hello, Susan.”
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
The first four years or so of marriage had been great, but by the end we were communicating mostly through lawyers. Since then we’d had no reason to talk to each other. No desire, either. At least we’d never made the mistake of having children, hoping it would “fix” things somehow. The marriage went bad long before we got there.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
She took a breath. “I need—your help.” It felt like an effort to admit.
Huh? “What kind of help?”
She sighed. “The kind of stuff you know about. The stuff I didn’t want to hear about. I want to—to hire you.”
Supernatural stuff. Ghosts and phantom killers and vampires. The stuff that got me fired because I insisted on trying to report on it for the newspapers. “What kind of stuff is it?”
“Can we—meet somewhere?” She sounded as if she was making an appointment for root canal surgery.
Talking to Susan was awkward enough on the phone. Meeting in person wasn’t likely to be any easier. But she was a prospective client. I couldn’t turn her down. “What did you have in mind?”
She gave me the name of a coffee shop not far from my apartment in Lincoln Park. “An hour?”
“I can be there. I may—”
“Okay.” She hung up before I could finish, as if she’d had enough of my voice as she could stand.
I sighed, drank some coffee, and got up to walk around the partition Rachel had put up in our shared office. Rachel is my wife. Second wife, and hopefully the only one going forward. She’s a mental health therapist, and does a lot of work talking with patients from our home when she doesn’t have to go to her office. She’s always tolerated my phone calls, but in the end she had to do something to preserve confidentiality for her people.
I peeked around the partition. Rachel was doing paperwork, not on the phone or Zoom. “I have an appointment.”
She didn’t look up. “Client? Cop? Ducking out on a bill collector?”
I took a deep breath for courage. “Actually, it’s my ex-wife.”
That made her turn around. Rachel has red hair, hazelnut eyes, and mildly psychic powers, but they apparently hadn’t warned her about this. “Susan?”
“She wants to hire me.”
“For what?” Rachel’s eyes grew narrow.
“I don’t know. It has something to do with my, uh, specialty in the supernatural.”
Now she got even more suspicious. “I thought she didn’t believe in any that. She thought you were crazy.”
“More for not shutting up about it than believing what I saw. But—yeah. This is a shocker.”
Rachel shrugged. “Okay.”
“You want to come?”
She leaned back, unnerved. “Why?”
“I don’t know. To make sure I don’t say anything stupid. Or so I can prove that I managed to have a pretty good life without her.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “You can do stupid on your own. And I think I can trust you to be alone with your ex at this point in our lives.”
I nodded. “Okay. Can I show her pictures of you?”
She snorted. “Whatever. Just remember it’s your turn to make dinner. And no mac and cheese from a box again.”
“I’ll stop at the store on the way back,” I promised.
The coffee shop was more of a wine bar that served a little coffee to draw some morning business. Ferns hung from the ceiling and paintings from Paris and Spain hung on the walls. Susan was waiting, an espresso in front of her and a frown on her face, as if she just wanted to get this meeting over with.
I sat across from her at the small table. “Hi, Susan.”
She nodded. “Tom.”
She had short blond hair, the same length as when we’d been married, with some streaks of gray. Sapphire blue eyes. High cheekbones and a sharp nose. She wore a gray pantsuit that reminded me of the slacks and blouses she used to wear when we went out to dinner or a play. An espresso sat on the table in front of her.
She looked me over too. I’ve gained some weight—I need to work out more—and my hair is grayer too. I was about to sit down when she pointed past me. “You have to get your coffee at the counter.”
I returned a minute later with a large mug. “So—how have you been?”
She blinked, as if the question made no sense. “I only wanted to—” Then she stopped and looked at me. “Okay. Married two times. Not counting you. Three kids, two girls and a boy. No husband right now. I’m doing real estate. You?”
“I’m married. My wife Rachel’s a therapist.” I restrained the urge to pull out my phone and show her off. “So what’s going on?”
Susan frowned, annoyed. “I’m trying to sell a house.”
“We’re not in a position to buy, thanks for—”
“It’s haunted.” She said it as if repeating a swear word. “You deal with that kind of thing, right?”
I stared at her, trying to keep long repressed emotions still buried. “You never believed me.”
“What was I supposed to believe?” Her voice was acid. “Vampires? Ghost stories? Flying monsters kidnapping children? And you were the only one seeing them? Nobody else? And you wouldn’t keep your mouth shut even to keep your job while I was working 12-hour days at an ad agency where sexual harassment was part of the benefits package? Yeah, I was the irrational bitch, and you were the voice of reason.”
This is what I remembered from the last days. The anger, the resentment, the accusations. Yeah, I wasn’t very understanding. I was younger then, and drinking too much, and way too self-righteous, convinced of the justice of my crusade and the invincibility of “the truth.” I’m not proud of who I was then.
We were happy at first, of course. We were young and horny and had completely unrealistic expectations about life, and each other. When reality started to crack, we tried to force it back into place, which only made the cracks wider and deeper. We argued, we went silent, we cheated—both of us. I’m not sure if I did first or Susan, but as the marriage fell apart we spent more time trying to hurt each other than trying to repair what was broken, or even figure out why it broke in the first place.
It was a long time before I trusted myself to be in a relationship again. Not because I didn’t trust Rachel, but I didn’t trust my own instincts. Rachel had some issues of her own, things progressed slowly—first just admitting we were a couple, then moving in together, and finally deciding after almost 10 years to get married. It had helped that we’d both encountered the supernatural before we met—me on the job, and Rachel from leading a support group for survivors of vampire attacks. We clicked right away.
I sighed. “Yeah. I was an asshole. I treated you very badly. No excuses.” I looked at her. “I’m sorry.”
Susan was surprised. “All right,” she said slowly, as if ready for a trap. “Thank you, I guess.”
“So tell me about this house.”
She opened a laptop. “It’s in Ravenswood Manor.” A neighborhood north and west of us. “Nice house, two stories and an attic, attached garage, lawn and garden. The previous owner is anxious to sell, so it’s a good price.” She showed me the online listing.
“Anxious to sell? Because it’s haunted?”
“He lived there about eight months. Just him and his pregnant wife. They moved right before her due date. They’re angry, but the previous owner did warn them about strange things happening, and they lived there for eight years. I think things got worse.”
“What kind of things?”
Susan sighed. “Knocking sounds, doors and cabinets opening and slamming. Then—whispering in the walls. Sometimes screams in the middle of the night. Plates getting shoved off tables. A fire in the kitchen. I don’t blame them for getting out., But now I’m stuck with it.” She rubbed her eyes. They were blue, and not as bright as they used to be. Not like Rachel’s. “I suppose you want to see it?”
I nodded. “I need Rachel.”
Susan scowled. “You’re afraid to be alone with me?”
Yes, I thought. But I said, “She’s psychic.”
Susan laughed. “Of course you’d marry a psychic.” She sat back. “Fine. Bring her. The more the merrier.”
“Let me call her.” I stood up and walked over to a spot near the restrooms. Rachel picked up. “How’s the ex?”
“Just as I remembered her. You want to go see a haunted house?”
“Will she be there?”
I looked over at Susan, glaring at her espresso. “Yeah.”
“Oh, good. Well, I’ve got sessions, but let me see—Three thirty?”
I walked back to the table. “Can we do 3:30?” I asked Susan with Rachel listening.
She shrugged without looking at me. “Fine.”
“Okay. I’ll be home in a few minutes.” I hung up.
Susan smirked. “No ‘I love you’?”
I shrugged. “She’s psychic. She knows.”
The house had a small front yard with a big tree, a covered porch with a bench next to the door, and a “For Sale” sign with Susan’s picture jammed into the grass. We parked. I looked at Rachel. “I’ll let her know.”
“Yeah.” Rachel smiled. “Give her a little warning.”
I texted Susan. She texted back right away: I’m inside. Wave for the Ring camera. “Okay.” I took a breath. “She’s already here.”
Rachel patted my arm. “Don’t be nervous. I’ll protect you from the big bad ex.”
“Great, but who’s going to protect me when she tells you all my long-forgotten crimes of the heart?”
She snorted. “They can’t be any worse than the ones I know about. Come on.”
Susan opened the door as we stepped up onto the porch. “Hi.” She looked past me. “I’m Susan Moore.”
“Rachel Dunne.” They shook hands across the doorway.
The living room inside was almost bare. One sofa, a table, and a chair looked through the big window onto the front yard. Hardwood floors with a rug, and built-in bookshelves held a few hardcovers and a framed photo of the Chicago beachfront with the John Hancock building in the background.
“So.” Susan looked Rachel over. “You’re psychic?”
“Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind.” Rachel looked her over. “Unless you want me to.”
“No thanks.” She looked Rachel over. “You kept your name?”
She nodded. “I like my name. “
“Yeah.” Susan glanced at me. “I had to change mine back. Twice. Third time I just kept it and I didn’t have to do anything later.” Another look at Rachel. “You’re a shrink?”
“A therapist, yeah.”
“Comes in handy with him, I bet.” Another glance my way, then she crossed her arms. “So what about the house?”
Rachel sighed and closed her eyes. Susan watched her, skeptical. I stood back from both of them, wishing I was anywhere else.
Something thumped in the other room. Susan groaned and turned. I followed her down a short hall into the kitchen, where a plate had shattered on the floor next to a small table set for a family of four.
“Damn it.” She yanked on a closet door next to a cupboard. “Third one I’ve had to clean up this week. I’d use plastic but it looks cheap. You want a place to look like somebody could really live here without making it look like you’re kicking somebody out.” She reached into the closet.
A broom shot out and hit her in the face. Susan yelped and jumped back. A dustpan fell from the closet at her feet, as if demanding she clean up the mess.
“You okay?” I picked up the broom as Susan rubbed her face. “Does that happen a lot?”
“It’s the first time anything hit me.” She glared at the broom in my face. “One of the books in the living room fell on my foot—”
Then a scream interrupted her.
I raced for the living room. I knew it wasn’t Rachel. It wasn’t her voice, and she never screams, but she might be in trouble.
Instead she was still standing in the middle of the room with her eyes closed, but the room itself seemed to shudder as the screaming rose and then dropped off—first into silence, and then thread of whispers drifted in the air.
Susan was behind me. “This is what the owners talked about. Screaming and whispers.”
“Rach?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
Rachel opened her eyes. “Something bad happened here.”
“Oh, really?” Susan said sarcastically. “Like what? A beheading? Cats drowning? What?”
“I can’t tell,” Rachel snapped. “There’s too much noise! There are too many voices!” I can’t—” She stopped herself, took a deep breath, and swallowed whatever she’d been about to say. “Let’s get out of here.”
We went down to my car, with Susan in the front and Rachel behind her in the back seat. “What do we do?” Susan demanded. “I can’t show the house like this! Do we call a priest? Did that work in Amityville Horror?”
“No,” I told her. “And that’s been debunked. Don’t believe every supernatural story you hear.”
Susan’s eyes got wide. “Coming from you, that’s a shocker.”
“Believe it,” Rachel said. “But this is real. We need to know more about what happened here. Then we can figure out how to get the ghosts gone.”
“Susan, get me the last couple of owners,” I said. “Find out everything else you can about the history of the house, and I’ll look into it too. Once we have some idea about what happened, we can figure out if we need an exorcist, or a witch doctor, or maybe a demolitions expert.”
“I’m pretty sure blowing up a house would lower the property value,” Rachel said. “But I’ll let Susan handle that one.”
Susan pushed her door open. “Just call me when you’ve got something.” She slammed it and stalked back to her car.
“She’s paying us, right?” Rachel asked.
“I got a retainer.” I looked in the rearview mirror. “You want to switch?”
“No, let’s pretend you’re the chauffer and I’m the rich heiress.” She sat back. “Home, James.”
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