Page 13 of How to Fake a Haunting

Three days later, Bea and I walked into the house after spending the afternoon out on her swing set.

The elaborate wooden structure had been her big Christmas gift last year, and because it’d been a warm winter, we hadn’t had to wait until spring to install it.

Bea loved the teeter-totter and the swings, though she was still waiting for Callum to add the extra “big kid” swing in place of the baby one.

Nothing, however, compared to the spacious clubhouse at the top of the slide.

Unlike most playhouses, this one had real windows and doors.

The doors at the ladder and before the slide could remain open, but Bea liked to keep them shut, insulating the fort against the elements.

She’d had me drag her beanbag, several blankets, half a dozen stuffed animals, and her tea set up the ladder.

We’d then collected dozens of pinecones and hung them on different-colored lengths of yarn from the clubhouse rafters.

The kicker had been when she’d overheard me telling my mother I was curating a new exhibit for Marble House.

“That’s one of your mansions, right, Mommy? That you collect things for at work?”

“It is, love.”

“You know what I named my mansion?”

I’d looked around, thinking she’d drawn a picture or found an image in a book. When I saw nothing, I asked, “What mansion is that?”

“The clubhouse!”

“Oh, of course! What’d you name it?”

“Pinecone House. Like Marble House, but full of pinecones instead of marbles.”

The fort had been Pinecone House ever since.

I’d even found a gorgeous gold mirror to hang on the eastern-facing wall, a replica of the one situated above the mantelpiece in Marble House’s impressive ballroom.

Its intricately patterned border resembled the scales and prickles of a pinecone. Beatrix adored it.

“Where’s Daddy?” Bea asked as we abandoned the outdoors for the quiet of the kitchen. She shivered. “It’s freezing in here!”

As I looked around for Callum, I realized Bea was right; the kitchen was about fifteen degrees cooler than the warm spring afternoon we’d just come in from. “I’m not sure, love. Why don’t you put your shoes in the basket and head to your room? I’ll run you a nice warm bath.”

Beatrix scampered up the stairs. I looked to the central air-conditioning vents, then up to the ceiling. What trick do you have up your sleeve today, Adelaide?

I’d given Adelaide a key to the house for those times when it made more sense for her to come in through the front door before Callum got home as opposed to setting up the ladder.

Adelaide worked from home on Tuesdays, and Callum left his office around three thirty.

To what extent might Adelaide have already tortured Cal over the three and a half hours he’d been here?

Had he been guzzling vodka sodas the entire time to drown out the knocking and ignore the chill?

“Cal?” I called, rounding the corner, but the living room was empty.

I ascended the stairs, catching the faint whiff of something rotten at the top.

Adelaide had said she would be experimenting with different stink-bomb recipes, everything from match heads mixed with household ammonia to raw eggs, milk, and vinegar.

Had she deployed a stink bomb in the attic above Cal’s room and I was smelling it from the hallway?

Inside Bea’s bathroom, I closed the door to be safe and fished her bath toys from under the sink.

Then I went to help Bea out of her clothes.

Once she was bathed and dressed in pajamas, I set her up at her art table with a coloring book, Disney songs playing on the iPad, and crept down the hall to Callum’s room.

He’d never said anything about the vomit a few nights earlier or the broken soap dispenser. The door was closed, but when I placed an ear to it, I could hear the persistent knock-knock-knock, as well as the clinking of ice against glass. I took a breath and rapped firmly on the wood.

“Jesus Christ!” came Cal’s startled shout. Then, “Lainey, is that you?”

I pushed the door open. Callum sat in the center of his bed, glass in hand. He was red-faced and tired-looking. I could smell him from the doorway, heady with the vodka he’d already consumed. He placed the sweating glass onto the nightstand and fixed me with a wild-eyed glare.

“Do you hear that?” He cocked his head, listening, but no sound came. I kept my expression neutral, but inside, my thoughts were churning: Adelaide must be here now, manipulating the voice recorders herself, not relying on the prerecorded knocking.

“I don’t hear anything,” I said truthfully. “What was it?”

“It’s that fucking knocking again,” Cal said, only It’s came out Ish. “It starts then stops, starts then stops, over and over and over again.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Bea and I have been here for twenty minutes, and I haven’t heard a thing.”

“It’s not just the knocking.” Cal’s voice was low. “The house has been freezing all afternoon. Like someone turned on the air-conditioning.” His gaze turned suspicious. “You didn’t, did you?”

“What? No. I haven’t been here all day. And why on earth would I turn on the air-conditioning? It’s the beginning of May.”

“And the smell!” he exclaimed, ignoring my comments. “The goddamn smell in the bathroom. It came out of nowhere, sulfurous, like rotten eggs, or maybe something dead!”

I twisted my features with what I hoped looked like pity and more than a little disbelief. I nodded in the direction of his glass. “Are you sure you haven’t been drinking too much? I haven’t smelled a thing.”

He said something I didn’t catch, then, more coherently, “What are we doing for dinner?”

I groaned. Typical Callum. Avoid and change the subject.

“I have leftover pasta in the fridge for me and Bea.” I spoke curtly.

“You didn’t want it last night, so I’m not sure what you’re doing for dinner.

” I turned, then spun back to face him and narrowed my eyes again, this time going for concern rather than judgment.

“Are you okay?” I asked, making sure not to lay it on too thickly.

Callum might not buy a jump from anger and impatience to full-on worry; I had to play this right.

“You’ve been . . . on edge lately, I guess.

” I allowed a bit of the usual clipped annoyance back into my voice.

“I mean, aside from what your drinking is doing to our relationship, our lives, have you thought about what it’s doing to your body? ” I raised an eyebrow. “Your mind?”

Callum stared at me quietly. Might he be replaying the last handful of incidents?

The overreaction to the thunder and music?

Tonight’s mini-meltdown over the knocking and the smell and the frigid temperature?

I let my words hang in the air a moment longer, then shrugged and bit my bottom lip.

“I’m going to get Bea out of the tub and heat up the pasta.

I’ll order groceries tomorrow.” I almost added, Your best bet might be takeout, but stopped myself in time.

Let him make the decision to call somewhere himself.

I turned and stepped into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind me. As I was descending the stairs with Bea, I heard Callum on the phone ordering Chinese food. Here we go, I thought. Let’s see if Adelaide can pull this off.