Maybe This Time

“I just miss De

“I’ll think,” Carter said, and Andie held Alice and said, “We’ll all think.”

By ten, North had talked to the ambulance crew and the police, discovered De

Instead he went into the Great Hall where Isolde sat at the round table there, staring out the big mullioned windows on the front of the house.

“Can I get you anything?” he said gently, and she shook her head.

He waited a moment, studying her. She was a caricature of a woman dangerously out of touch with fashion, all dark eye makeup, big hair, and shoulder pads, but the emotion she was feeling was real, and he couldn’t leave her alone in that icy barn of a hall, especially since she really believed the place was haunted.

“The sitting room is warmer,” he told her before he remembered that the sitting room was where De

She shook her head.

He sat down across from her.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he told her.

“I know that,” she said, all of her former snap gone.

North nodded. “Can you tell me why you don’t want to move someplace warmer?”

She looked at him with interest then. “It’s cold because of the ghosts. They’re feeding on the emotion here. I don’t know what they’re doing or who they are because Harold is gone, but they’re still here in this room. That’s why it’s cold.”

I don’t believe in ghosts, North thought, but she clearly did. Whatever Isolde Hammersmith was, she wasn’t a faker or a con artist. “Harold is gone?”

“He went to the other side. He said he’d had enough of humanity, living and dead.” Isolde took a deep breath. “Which is pretty rich considering he killed himself because he’d gotten caught fleecing humanity. He liked them just fine when he was taking their money.”

“Fleecing?”

“He was Harold Rich, the guy who ran the big Ponzi scheme out of Florida.”

“Oh,” North said, taken aback. If she was going to make up a spirit guide, Harold Rich was an interesting choice.

“Not a nice person,” Isolde said, “but very good at reading people. And ghosts. I was down there doing a reading and he was wandering around, bitching and moaning, so I took him on. He was really pissed when I brought him back to Ohio, but then nothing was ever good enough for Harold. Damn good spirit guide, though. Good with investments, too. Harold helped me a lot, so I put up with his lousy personality.”

“So that must be hard, losing Harold,” North said, trying to stick to the key points. “I’m sorry. But I really think you should come into the sitting room. It’s too cold in here.”

“If the room gets warmer, it means the ghosts have gone somewhere else. Which would be bad because I think they have a plan. So I want to know where they are.” She smiled at him, a tight little smile that he was pretty sure wasn’t natural to her.

“I can get my brother to come monitor the temperature in here. He thinks a lot of you. I’m sure he’d want you someplace warm-”

“Southie,” Isolde said, with some of her old spirit. “There’s a great guy.”

“Yes, he is,” North said. “Let me get him-”

“De

“You think he died because of that? His excitement gave him the heart attack?”

Isolde smiled at him kindly, as if he weren’t quite bright. “No, I think one of the ghosts killed him.”

North sat back. “Isolde-”

“I think one of the ghosts went in there when he was weakened and scared him to death. I think they have a plan, and he knew too much about ghosts, and he was getting in their way. His information was very good, you know. He didn’t believe, but he did his homework.”

North nodded, trying to think of a way to make her suspicion normal. Maybe somebody in the house, the housekeeper, had done something to keep the fantasy of the ghosts alive and frightened De

“I know you don’t believe,” Isolde said. “That’s all right, most people don’t. But the danger is real. They want your children and they want your wife.”

North stiffened, but Isolde went on.

“I don’t know why they want them. Harold didn’t think two of them were even sane. But the danger is real. So I’m sitting here trying to… sense them. To see if they’ll come to me. I think-”

She stopped and stiffened, as if she were listening.

“Isolde?” North said.

“It’s getting warmer in here,” she said, and he realized she was right.

“They’re moving,” she said and stood up.

“Where are you going?” North said, as she walked toward the big stone arch.

“To find the cold spots,” she said, and even though he didn’t believe, he followed her.

Andie made sure the gas fire was burning brightly in the nursery, told Alice and Carter to stay put, and went downstairs to get them lunch. The police and the EMTs were gone, even Isolde was gone from the Great Hall, so she went into the sitting room and sat down on the green-striped sofa. De

North came to the doorway between the sitting room and the dining room.

“I’m going through the house with Isolde,” he said. “She’s upset and I don’t want to leave her alone. Do you need me to sit with you?”

The idea of North sitting with anybody for comfort was so ludicrous that she laughed, and then she burst into tears.

He came over and sat down beside her and put his arms around her.

“I only knew him two days,” Andie said, trying to stop the tears as she cried into his chest. “But he was a good man. And he didn’t believe in ghosts but he tried to help us anyway, and then he did believe and he was so happy and one of them killed him…”

“Isolde thinks they killed him, too,” North said. “She’s going through the house looking for cold spots.”

“It had to be Peter,” Andie said. “Murderous son of a bitch. De

“There I agree,” North said. “Southie and Mother are in the kitchen with Flo, putting together some kind of lunch. I’ll find Isolde. You go eat something.”

Andie shook her head. “I just want to sit here alone for a while and think about De

North rubbed her shoulder. “Okay. I’ll go find Isolde.”

Andie nodded, and North left, closing the door behind him, and she let the tears come then, quietly dripping while she thought about poor De