Ghost Of A Chance Part 19

"She has to be here," I repeated, rubbing the back of my neck wearily.

"She is. You know as well as I do that it's almost impossible to find a polter when they don't want to be seen. I'm not too worried about her; she appears to be savvy enough to take care of herself."

"I doubt if she can handle a murderer, though."

Adam squeezed my shoulder. "I set Jules to watch Meredith's room. If he leaves it, we'll know. That's the best I can do until we find Pixie, OK?"

I hated to leave the girl alone and unprotected, but I didn't see any alternative. If Meredith was being watched...well, that would have to do. "All right. Dad, I guess you're up."

"Interview?" His face brightened. "Excellent! Do you mind if I don't sit?"

"Not at all." Adam led the way over to our little table and took a seat opposite me.

Dad walked around us in a fast circle, one that caused dizziness if watched too long. I raised my eyebrows at Adam, distracted by a sudden thought.

"You don't seem to have any problem sitting still."

"Decades of training. I wanted a job in the mundane world, and although I used glamours at times, I figured it was better if I learned to pa.s.s as a mortal before the third arm dropped off. Plus, I'm a quarter human."

"It does help," I agreed.

"You don't seem to have inherited much of your father's traits. They're downright quiescent," he said, giving the pair of us a questioning look.

"It's sad, isn't it?" Dad asked. "She does have my eyes, though. And my good taste, in all things but her choice of men. The rest of her comes from her mother, sadly."

I ignored my father and gave Adam a little smile. "Like you, I knew I was going to make my way in the mortal world. It just took a little work to stifle the polter traits."

"You disapproved of Karma's choice of husband?" Adam asked, s.h.i.+fting his attention to Dad.

"Good lord, yes. I loathed the man, and he me," Dad answered, whipping around us in his circuit of restlessness. "He hated all our kind, except those he could s.e.xually exploit. I didn't understand at first why he wanted to marry Karma, until I figured out his perverted s.e.xual tastes."

"Gee, thanks, Dad."

He patted me on the shoulder as he went past me. "No offense intended, honey. You know I loved your mother deeply, at least until she turned into a shrew."

"Dad!"

"Sorry. Until she decided she needed a life without me. I have nothing against mixed marriages-but Spider didn't want you for yourself, as I did your mother. He wanted you because of what you were."

"Did Spider ever threaten you?" Adam asked.

"h.e.l.l, yes. All the time!" Dad answered cheerfully. "He started by threatening to cut me out of Karma's life, but by the time he knew she wouldn't go along with that, the threats turned to permanently eliminating me."

I gawked in astonishment. "He threatened your life? You never told me that!"

He gave me an oddly meaningful look as he pa.s.sed by me. "Unlike some people not a million miles away from here, I don't feel obliged to spill every secret I have."

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, you listened to my private conversation with Adam!"

"I couldn't help but listen to it. You didn't even bother to leave the room."

I muttered a curse against the excellent hearing I knew he possessed.

"Next time, you are free to excuse yourself from the room."

"What, and miss all the good bits?" He grinned. "Not likely."

"Can we get this conversation back on topic?" Adam asked. "We've established your profound dislike of Spider, and vice versa. Were your feelings about him enough to make you want to kill him?"

"Every day. Every time I saw his face smirking at Karma. Every pa.s.sing year, when I saw what effect he had on her, how he was draining the life out of her."

"No one has drained the life out of me! I'm just fine!"

"Honey, honey, honey." His hand clapped onto my shoulder. "You're a shadow of what you used to be. You were vibrant before you met Spider. Now you're just...worn out."

I twitched my shoulder out from under his hand. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to cope with all these compliments, so let's get off the subject of me, and back to Spider. Where were you when he was being killed?"

He tossed all three hands into the air. "How do I know? I don't know when he was killed."

"You left the living room before I did. What did you do after Karma and Spider went upstairs?" Adam asked.

Dad paused in his circuit for a moment as he tried to recall. "Hmm. I went up to make sure my girl was all right, but when it was clear she was holding her own against him, I had a look around the house. You've got bats in the attic."

"I know. Did you go downstairs into the bas.e.m.e.nt at any time?"

"Well ..." Dad flitted over to the far window and twitched back the curtain. "I did for a minute, just to see what was down there. I heard someone breathing, and had a look-see about that, but it was only Amanita behind the heater. I was leaving when Spider and Meredith came in. Before you ask-I hid behind a rowboat until they'd gone into the other section of the room. Then I came back upstairs."

Adam frowned in thought. "You didn't see anyone down there other than Nita?"

He looked downright innocent, which usually meant he was anything but that. "No. There was no one there but her."

"Ah," Adam said. "Did you see anyone going into the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

"Not a soul. I have a bit of a sweet tooth, so I went to the kitchen to see if there wasn't something to nosh on. Didn't see anyone there. Since the two ghosties were gone, I took a few liberties with some pecan pie I found in the fridge. By the time I was done, Karma was up from her nap, so I came back here to see what was going on."

Apporting as he entered the room...which meant he was under stress or in the grip of some strong emotion, neither of which would be applicable if what he told us was true. I bit the end of the pen as I thought about what he could possibly have been up to that had left him in such a state.

"Anything else you want to know?"

Adam's pale gaze met mine for a second, asking a question. I shook my head.

"OK. Think I'll go have another look for Pixie. I'm an old hand at finding little girls who like to hide, aren't I, honey?"

"I was never very good at hiding," I pointed out.

"No, but you sure tried. It was instinctive. See you later, then." He hurried off toward the kitchen, no doubt to molest the pecan pie a bit more.

"Where are Tony and Amanita?"

"Hmm? Oh. Bed. I told them we'd talk to them in the morning. Once we find Pixie, I'll tell Jules he's off sentry duty."

I gave him a silent look of disapprobation.

"I know, you still think the boys are suspects, but I'm telling you they couldn't be. They don't have the energy to do it, for one. It takes just about everything they have to manifest enough energy to cook. And tonight they served coffee, and were visible a lot longer than they're used to. They couldn't do that if they'd spent every bit of strength they had killing your husband first."

"True." I sighed, too tired to sort through my thoughts.

Adam eyed me as if I were something that had crawled out of the river.

"You look like h.e.l.l. There's a room on the third floor you can use if you'd like.

It's nothing fancy, but at least you can get a little rest."

"I'd thank you for such a chivalrous comment, but sadly, I feel like h.e.l.l.

I'd better go make another attempt to find Pixie. I won't be able to sleep until I know she's all right."

"We can swap floors if you like. I'll give this floor a once-over, and you can do the upper floors."

I nodded wearily and trudged up the stairs, trying to think of where I would hide if I were an angsty teenage polter. A half hour and three sweeps of the floor later, I found her hidden in the back of a linen closet.

She gave a little startled yelp when I yanked the door open. "Deus! You made me apport!"

"Out," I said, jerking my thumb toward the stairs.

She scooped up the couple of s.h.i.+ny black stones and tucked them away before picking up the flashlight she'd been using to light her journal. "I'm busy.

Go away."

"And I'm exhausted, my husband has been killed, and I think I'm getting crampy, so if I were you, I'd get moving. Now."

"Move where?" she snapped, getting to her feet. "Where am I supposed to go? All the rooms are taken."

"You're going upstairs with me. Adam has given us an attic room."

I gave her a little shove in the direction of the narrow flight of stairs at the landing. Adam looked up as we pa.s.sed.

"Found her, I see."

"Yes. Thank you for your help. Morbidia will apologize for causing so much trouble in the morning."

"Deus! It's Misericordia! Is it so much to ask that people remember what my name is? And what do you mean we're going to share a room? Do you expect me to sleep with you? Are you some sort of psycho-lesbian? I'm not sleeping with you! I refuse to sleep at all! I just want to be left alone so I can write my poems!"

She stomped up the small stairs with a mutinous look on her face. I summoned a feeble smile for Adam.

"Get some rest," he said.

"I will. Sleep sounds heavenly right now." I walked slowly up the stairs, pausing midway to look down on him. He stood half in shadow, his pale eyes oddly illuminated, as if lit from within. "Things will look better in the morning, right?"

He grimaced, flipping off the light, and his bodiless voice emerged from the inky darkness. "I've always found they look worse."

16.

The yelling didn't wake me up a few hours later, but Pixie kindly remedied that.

"Karma, wake up! Meredith is yelling! He says he's dying! Deus, why won't you wake up?"

I opened one very sleepy eye to squint at her kneeling on the bed, shaking my shoulder in an attempt to rouse me. "I thought you said you'd sooner have hot pokers shoved under your fingernails than be on the same bed as me."

She whumped me on the arm. "This is an emergency! Someone tried to kill Meredith."

"Too bad they didn't succeed." I snuggled into the pillow and tried to go back to sleep, but I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn't going to happen.

"You have to get out there!" She gave me one last shove, then jumped off the bed and ran out of the room. I rolled over and sat up to peer with blurry eyes at my watch. It was early morning now, the sun up, but just barely. I'd gotten all of three hours' sleep.

"Karma!"

"All right, all right, I'm coming." I grumbled to myself as I got out of bed and staggered to the stairs. "Although I don't see why I have to get up. If Meredith is yelling, he's not actually dead, so where's the hurry?"

"Morticia, did you-Oh, there you are, honey." My father smiled when he caught sight of me.

"Misericordia!"

"You better come down. There's been some trouble with that murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.d Meredith."

"My name is Misericordia! It's not Morticia or Morbidia or Mephistopheles! It's Misericordia! Cheese on toast, people! Why can't you remember that?"

I clutched the banisters to keep from plunging headlong down the narrow staircase. Dad slid me a quick look. "You look like h.e.l.l. Didn't you get any rest?"

"Why does everyone feel the need to tell me just how awful I look?" I asked, straightening my shoulders.

"We care," Dad said, giving me a little pat before hurrying down the hallway to where several people were gathered around the bathroom door.

"Aha! I knew it! You didn't think I'd find this, did you?" Meredith's voice bellowed from the bathroom, quickly followed by the man himself. He shoved a small bottle under Adam's nose. "Tell me I'm imagining it now!"

"What's going on?" I asked, peering over Adam's shoulder. He was holding the small green bottle up to the light. The label on it read SYRUP OF IPECAC.

"Someone tried to poison me, as if you don't know," Meredith snapped. I frowned at him. He was always snapping at someone, usually me.

"You have some serious anger issues," I said. "I'm thinking therapy is in order."

"Or a hammer upside the head," my father offered.