Page 49 of Crazy Spooky Love

Being in the shadowy cellar again gives me the creeps, so we waste no time in making our way across and around the assembled boxes and crates to the stone steps that lead into the main house.

“Cross your fingers, Artie,” I whisper as I place my hand on the doorknob. “Because things are going to get a whole lot more difficult if this door is locked.”

I turn the knob and push, but it doesn’t budge. “Oh no,” I murmur, going cold.

“Give it a really good shove,” a rich voice urges behind me, and I recognize it straightaway as Douglas rather than Artie. “It sticks sometimes.”

“You try, Artie?” I step aside to let him try. He wasn’t privy to Douglas’s tip, so I suggest he gives it a barge with his shoulder to see if there’s any chance.

“Okay,” he murmurs, sounding unsure, but he moves up anyway.

When he turns the knob and rams his shoulder decisively into the door it flies back on its hinges and slams against the wall, sending Artie tumbling out into the hallway in a heap.

When he jumps to his feet, the look of satisfaction on his face is pure gold.

“We’re in,” he laughs.

I nod, dusting cobwebs from my hair. Whispering a quick thank-you to Douglas beside me, I follow Artie into the house.

“Nice job,” I say, dropping the kit bag by the skirting as I close the door, and he gives me his “it was nothing” shrug that tells me he’s secretly wildly impressed with himself.

I try the front door, but as I’d expected it’s locked and dead-bolted. There’s no way I can open it to let the others in that way. “Let’s check if the back door key is in the lock,” I suggest.

Douglas shakes his head. “Donovan shoved it in his pocket, I saw him.”

“Bum,” I grumble, leaning against the cool wall. “No good. Now what?”

“We could open one of the big dining room windows at the front,” Artie says. “They might be able to climb in through those.”

I don’t like the idea of making a scene out front; it could draw all kinds of unwanted attention.

“Or you could just open the French doors in the sitting room.” Douglas’s face brightens. “The key’s always kept on the picture rail to the left of the doors.”

“French doors,” I abbreviate Douglas’s plan, just enough for Artie to get it, as I make a dash. “Sitting room, come on.”

We hurtle in, and I pull up short when we find Lloyd standing in front of the doors in question, blocking my way.

“I’m quite certain that you were given the express instruction not to come back here again,” he says, his hands clasped behind his back.

In his oh-so-precisely belted silk robe and pajamas, he reminds me of a cold, austere headmaster pleased to have caught a bunch of schoolkids sneaking off for a midnight feast. If he could, I have no doubt he’d be on the phone to Donovan Scarborough this very second.

I make a snap decision not to tell Artie that Lloyd’s in here, so I don’t reply.

“The key should be on the picture rail up there.” I point, and Artie reaches up and feels along until his fingers come into contact withit.

“This one?” he holds the little, old, silver key out to me and smiles.

“That one,” I agree. “Would you mind, Artie? You seem to have more success with doors than me today.”

Lloyd Scarborough had probably been counting on the fact that I wouldn’t reach straight through him to unlock the door, and he’s right.

It’s not something I find palatable, because to me he looks as real as flesh and blood, and I can’t actually see the lock through him.

If Artie knew he was there he’d probably struggle with the concept too, but as it is he steps up and stands nose-to-nose with Lloyd Scarborough without even realizingit.

“You’re doing great, Artie,” I say, ignoring the absolute fury on Lloyd’s arrogant face.

“Tell him I’m here,” he demands. “Tell him to step back.”

I shake my head in reply, and then I flinch as Artie’s arm disappears inside Lloyd’s body in front of my eyes.

Ghosts look so real to me that I can easily forget their otherness, but watching Artie step forward and inhabit the same physical space as Lloyd Scarborough brings it into sharp, uncomfortable focus.

My stomach flips over unpleasantly, and I have to glance away.

Maybe this is why ghosts don’t scare me; I just see them as normal people.

I don’t get to witness a flying book without the arm that’s hurling it, and right now I see a tall, elderly, disdainful man blocking the way to a door he doesn’t want us to open.

“Bingo,” Artie grins, oblivious to the drama as he swings the French doors open with a gleeful little laugh then heads out into the sun to get the others.

Lloyd stalks away from the doors at last, and his spiteful, malevolent stare leaves me in little doubt that when he was alive, he would have been the kind of person capable of committing murder.

“Leave her alone.” Douglas steps forward between me and Lloyd, and the brothers stare at each other baldly.

It’s bizarre to think that they’re twins, and not just because of their ages.

It’s more than that. They are such very different men.

The atmosphere between them is tense enough to slice with a knife; and then Lloyd laughs suddenly, mocking and contemptuous. It’s an ugly, bitter sound.

“Still chasing women, even when you can’t do a damn thing about it,” he says, searing me with a filthy look that makes me uncomfortable right before he pulls his favorite disappearing trick.

“I’m sorry about my brother, Melody,” Douglas says gravely. “He doesn’t like not getting his own way. He never did.”

“It’s okay,” I murmur, shaking off my unease at Lloyd’s menacing behavior.

Douglas nods briefly and passes his hand over his jaw. “Can I say something before the others come back?”

I watch him and wait.

“I want to thank you.” He smiles his heartbreaker smile.

“And not just for supplying the TV, although that has been quite the education.” He breaks off and looks almost bashful.

“I’ve felt more alive in these past few weeks than I have in the last hundred years.

The truth is I think you’re rather magnificent, Miss Bittersweet.

If I could kiss your hand right now, I would. ”

In my life I’ve felt many emotions for the ghosts I’ve encountered, but never this. A lump forms in my throat, and I touch my forest-green painted fingernails against the back of my hand where his kiss would have been.

“I can feel it,” I say, as the others approach the French doors. A small, wistful smile touches his lips, and then he lowers his head and leaves me alone in the room.

“You did it.” Jojo looks apprehensively beyond me into the sitting room when I gather myself and cross the room to meet them.

Richard still looks concerned. “You didn’t need to break anything, did you?”

“We used the key.” I point to the key still nestled inside the lock. “See, no damage at all.”

I mean, I expect it would still count as breaking and entering, technically, but I didn’t lie about not damaging anything and I’m counting on the fact that the end will justify the means.

“I think we should go inside, and then I’ll go up to see Isaac in the attic and hopefully bring him down here to meet you guys. I know it’s weird but trust me when I say I’ve done this before and it’s not spooky or scary. It’s just like sitting down for a chat.”

“With someone you can’t see,” Marina adds.

“Or hear,” Artie nods.

“But other than that, it’s perfectly normal,” I say, shooting them both a warning look.

Jojo looks round the long sitting room, taking in the dated furniture and decor.

“There isn’t anyone else in here with us right now, is there?

” She folds her arms over her chest and rubs her hands briskly up and down her biceps, making her bracelets jangle.

It’s cold in here, despite the warmth of the May sunshine splashed across the patio outside.

I can only imagine how bitterly cold this house must get in the winter months without an up-to-date heating system.

“Just us,” I assure her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Wait here with Artie.”

She nods, and I glance at the others. “Marina, would you come upstairs with me? Artie, you stay here and text if you need me, okay?”

She nods, and we leave the Hensons and Artie sitting on wingback chairs in the sunshine close to the open French doors as we go in search of Isaac.

“How do you think this is going to go?” Marina asks quietly when we’re out of earshot.

“Well, I hope?” I bend to retrieve my kit bag in the hallway. “Come on, quick. We’ve got a murder weapon to find.”

Marina looks at me as I sling the dark bag over my shoulder. “You look like a suburban Katniss Everdeen. You could totally work that side-braid.”

We’ve just reached the first-floor landing when we hear a key turn in the front door.

Shit! Marina and I slide into the nearest open bedroom doorway and stand still, listening.

“When I get my hands on that bloody girl I’m going to wring her scraggy neck!

” Donovan Scarborough’s enraged voice bursts into the downstairs hallway.

Oh God, oh God, oh God! He knows I’m here, obviously, because Babs is pretty darn hard to miss.

I wish so hard that Jojo and Richard weren’t here right now, this is the last thing I wanted to happen for them.

The click-clack of heels tells me that Scarborough isn’t alone, and then I hear Leo’s voice.

“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for Melody being here. If she’s here at all?”

He’s speaking loudly, almost as if he’s trying to warn me of the incoming danger.

“She’s here somewhere,” Scarborough bellows. “Best twenty quid I’ve ever spent, paying the neighbor to let me know if she turned up here again. She’s like a dog with a fucking bone.”

I hear the light tinkle of sycophantic laughter. Great. The creepy twins are here too.

“I think we need to hide,” Marina’s whisper is urgent in my ear. “Buy ourselves a bit of time to think.”