Ghost Of A Chance Part 20

Meredith glared at both of us. He did that a lot, too. "Why don't you just admit you tried to poison me?"

"Me?" I hoped I looked as surprised by the accusation as I felt. "I was sleeping. What's been happening?"

"Someone tried to poison me! That stuff was in the bottle of whiskey I brought up to bed with me. I d.a.m.ned near barfed my guts up. I could have been killed!"

"It's an emetic. I think all it can do is make you vomit," Adam said with such calmness I couldn't help giving him a little smile. He acknowledged it with a brief nod.

"You take enough of anything, and it'll kill you," Meredith said darkly, his face flushed. "Someone here tried to kill me, dammit! I demand you do something!"

"What would you suggest?" Adam asked, pocketing the ipecac.

"You're the police! Do your job! Figure out who tried to kill me, and turn 'em over to the real cops!"

"I don't deny that someone somewhere may want to poison you, but why would you imagine one of us would want to do so now?" I asked, waving my hands around at everyone gathered in the hallway. Savannah, strangely silent, stood with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Antony stood next to her, wearing a minuscule pair of fishnet briefs, while Jules was clad in scarlet silk pajamas that made my mouth water. Amanita peeped out every now and again from her slightly opened door. "We're trapped here for another four hours or so. It doesn't make sense that anyone would be so stupid as to attack you now."

Meredith's mouth opened and shut a couple of times while he tried to work up an answer. Finally, he sputtered, "I know what I know, and I know that someone tried to poison me!"

Some peacekeeping urge drove me to try to point out the ill reasoning of that statement. "You were fine when you went upstairs, right?"

Grudgingly, he admitted that was so.

"Have you been drinking the last few hours, or did you go to sleep?"

"Not that it's any of your d.a.m.ned business, but I dozed on and off a bit. I woke up a few minutes ago, puking all over myself."

"Ew!" Pixie said softly.

"Which means that the whiskey couldn't have been poisoned while it was downstairs," I said, yawning. "I think you'll find everyone was asleep for the last couple of hours. I was upstairs, in a room with Pixie all night."

"I slept on the chair! We weren't in bed together!" she said quickly, brows pulled tight in her perpetual scowl.

"My father roomed with Jules and Tony, right?"

The three of them nodded. Dad, who had the most innocent expression on his face, trailed apports.

"Oh yes, he was with us," Tony said. "He slept on the divan in our room.

We wanted him to take our bed, but he wouldn't hear of it."

"No reason to put anyone out," Dad said quickly with a weak smile. I turned a look on him that had the smile melting away to nothing.

"I was alone," Savannah said slowly. "But I was sleeping. All this has been so trying..." Her hands fluttered for a moment, then dropped.

"After you puke your guts up because someone has attempted to poison you, then we'll talk about what so trying is," her husband replied before narrowing his eyes at Adam. "And just where were you?"

"Sleeping." Adam's face gave nothing away.

"Sleeping where? Isn't that your room she came out of?" Meredith asked, pointing at Savannah.

"Yes."

Meredith swaggered over to Adam, or swaggered as best someone who'd just spent a session praying to the porcelain G.o.d could. "So just where were you?"

A click had us all turning to look at Amanita's door. Speculation was rife in everyone's eyes as we looked back at Adam.

His color was high, as if he was blus.h.i.+ng. "My whereabouts aren't a concern, since I didn't put ipecac in your drink. In fact, I'm inclined to believe no one did...No one but you, that is."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! If I wanted to kill myself, I'd sure as h.e.l.l have a nicer way of doing it than poisoning!"

"I agree. Which makes it clear to me that this so-called poisoning was really an attempt at gaining pity. No doubt you thought to avert suspicion on yourself by making it seem like the murderer was attacking you."

"And I say you all did this together! You've set me up as a scapegoat, and now you're trying to get rid of me before the police prove just how trumped up and ridiculous the evidence is against me! Well, no more! I'm not going to eat or drink anything else in this madhouse until the police come to rescue me!"

Meredith shoved Adam aside, stomped through the bathroom to the door adjoining his room, and slammed it without a backward glance at us.

I pinned my father back with a look. "I'd like to have a word with you, Dad."

"No time now," he said, whisking past me toward the main stairs. "I promised Jules I'd make my world-famous bacon omelet. Must get started."

I grabbed his arm before he could get out of reach, spinning him around and pus.h.i.+ng him toward the smaller flight of stairs, leading upward. "I would like a word."

"Karma! I am your father! There is no need for you to manhandle me in this fas.h.i.+on!"

"Oh, I think there's every need," I said, pus.h.i.+ng him into my room. To my surprise, Pixie, Adam, and Savannah followed us.

"Oooh, pretty," Savannah said, picking up something from the floor. She held out her hand. A couple of my dad's apports lay on it next to two s.h.i.+ny black stones. "Is it hemat.i.te?"

"No. Those are from Pixie. Er...Misericordia." I raised both eyebrows at my father. I knew the signs, knew he wouldn't be able to stand my unwavering stare for long.

My room was small to begin with, and now, filled with people, the s.p.a.ce in which he could move was nonexistent. He tried to pace, tried to avoid my persistent stare, but it was no good, and he knew it. With a small cry, he finally collapsed onto the bed, his hands covering his eyes. "All right! You win! Now let me get out of here before I go crazy!"

"Not until you answer a couple of questions." I glanced at Adam. He looked confused for a moment; then his eyes widened with comprehension.

"Why did you try to poison Meredith?"

"What makes you think I'm the one who ..." Dad took one look at me and slumped into a miserable blob of polter. "I wasn't trying to poison him. I just wanted to make him a little sick. You can't kill someone with ipecac. If I had wanted to kill him, I certainly would have used something else."

There was that. The way Meredith had been slugging back the whiskey, it would have been laughably easy for Dad to slip something a little less benign into his gla.s.s while he was napping.

"He has a point, d.a.m.n him," Adam said to me.

I nodded. "All right, I'm willing to absolve you from attempted murder, but that doesn't excuse you for poisoning Meredith's drink with ipecac."

"He deserved it," Dad answered with a sullen look on his face.

"He deserves a lot more, but that's not the issue." I remembered too late that Savannah was in the room and, while apparently on the outs with her husband, probably didn't appreciate the plain speaking going on. "I'm sorry to have to say that in front of you, Savannah."

She shrugged. "I see now that it's true. The scales have fallen from my eyes with regards to Meredith. He's not the man I married. He's...changed. And I don't like it."

"That seems to happen a lot to people," I said, thinking of the way Spider had changed the last few years. "Still, it was wrong of me to say that so abruptly, and wrong for my father to get his jollies at your husband's expense."

"Oh, don't give me any c.r.a.p about not being judge and jury," Dad suddenly said, getting quickly to his feet. "I won't buy it, not from you. You know full well if I didn't do it, you would have."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Adam stepped in. "I think we've said everything that needs to be said. Matthew, I will have to charge you with malicious mischief for the attack against Meredith."

With lightning quickness customary to full-blooded polters, Dad's countenance changed from accusatory to mischievous. "It was worth it," he said, grinning and rubbing his hands together. "Did you hear him puking up his guts? Music to my ears."

"You are in trouble with me, too, buster," I said, pointing a finger at him.

"Shakin' in my boots, honey. Shakin' in my boots."

"I suppose it's too late to try to get any more rest," Adam said, consulting his watch. "The boys are probably starting breakfast. Shall we go downstairs?"

"She talks to you just like she does to me," Pixie said to my father as the two went out the door. "Is she always this bossy?"

"Always. Has been ever since she was a little girl. She gets that from her mother's side, you know. ..."

Their voices faded as they tromped downstairs. Savannah murmured a desire to wash up before breakfast, quickly heading for the bathroom.

Adam and I were left alone in the room.

"I'm sorry about my father," I said after a moment of silence. "I don't blame him for what he did, but I don't condone it, and I certainly didn't encourage him to do it. It does, however, bring up an interesting point."

"That if he wanted to kill Meredith, he certainly had the opportunity, and yet he only pulled a prank instead...which leaves the idea of murder a little less likely?"

"Exactly." I chewed on my lower lip. "As far as my father is concerned, it would have been completely reasonable for him to pull something like that with Spider. I think the only reason he didn't was because he knew I'd live with the repercussions of such an act. But it's totally out of his character to murder someone. Pranks? Yes. Murder? No. I just don't think he could do it."

"Neither do I, as it happens."

A little knot of tension I hadn't been aware of relaxed at Adam's words. "I appreciate that. Dad isn't always the most levelheaded of people, but I admit that Meredith is particularly trying."

Adam threw me a curious look. "You really don't like him, do you?"

"Meredith, you mean?" I sat on the bed to put on my shoes. "I think he's responsible for murder, so no, I don't like him. In addition to that, he's clearly some sort of electronics genius bent on destroying as many spirits as he can. He needs to be stopped, Adam. The question is, are you going to turn him over to the watch when the seal expires?"

"Mmm." He moved over to the window and twitched back the curtain, exposing sky that was beginning to change from gray to rosy pink. "I don't have any concrete proof that he killed your husband."

"He's guilty of murder, Adam. I know that as sure as I know my name. I feel it in my bones. He's guilty, and I don't want him to get away with it."

"Unfortunately, the feeling in your bones isn't enough to get a conviction, not even with the watch. I need some real proof in order to charge him."

"I know. It's just so wrong that he should do something so cruel, so heinous, and get away with it." Frustration roiled within me. Time was running out and Adam didn't seem to be any closer to nailing Meredith. Once the seal was gone and the watch took over, my chances of convincing Adam of Meredith's guilt would be nil. I had to do something to make him see the truth...But what? What more could I do?

"There're still a few hours to go before the seal lifts. We can question him again."

I sighed and nodded, following him out of the room. "Let's do that. I have a feeling I'm missing something important, something someone said that refuses to come into focus. Maybe talking with him again will help."

"After breakfast." He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, a smile slowly spreading as he sniffed a couple of times. "Smells like the boys are pulling out all the gastronomic stops. Shall we?"

The heavenly scent of bacon wafted out from the dining room, along with the pleasant chatter that accompanied people sitting down to a much-antic.i.p.ated meal. I was surprised to feel a dull, hollow rumbling in my stomach.

I couldn't imagine how I could be hungry, but I was. "Oh yes, please. I'm famished."

"Good. I'll take a plate up to Nita; then we can make a game plan for the interview with Meredith."

"You're very protective of her," I said, half-distracted by the sight of all the food on the sideboard that took up almost an entire wall in the dining room.

"She's shy around people she doesn't know well."

"I have one of those at home. A Roman G.o.ddess of doors. We ought to get the two of them together," I said with a smile before giving in to the temptation that lay before me. "That looks wonderful, Tony."

The spirit made a little bow as he deposited a carafe of coffee on the table.

"We won't be worth dirt for the rest of the day, but we thought you all deserved a hearty breffy. The potato-and-sausage frittata is particularly...good G.o.d, Julie! What are you thinking-parsley on eggs? If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times: parsley is pa.s.se. It's all about basil now!"

Jules tweaked the tablecloth and adjusted a plate. "Parsley can never be pa.s.se. So sayeth the Iron Chef."

"My dear, it's gospel according to Martha. And you know she's never wrong!"

The two spirits floated back to the kitchen, arguing over which of their cooking gurus was right.

I set my plate down at the end of the table. Dad, reading the previous day's newspaper, was happily stuffing his face with parsley-bedecked eggs. Pixie had her iPod going, but her eyes were wary as she sipped tea and nibbled on a naked piece of toast. Savannah entered just as Adam left to take a plate up to Amanita.

"Everything looks so tempting," Savannah said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "No, thank you, Tony. I'll help myself in a few minutes."

Tony set a carafe of orange juice on the table and shrugged, then returned to the kitchen.

"Did you get any rest?" I asked her.

She smiled. "I was about to ask you all the same thing. I had a difficult time relaxing. I think it's because there's something I need to do, and haven't yet done."

"Divorce your husband?" my father asked, still reading the paper.

"Dad!"

He looked up and made an apologetic face at Savannah. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me. It kind of slipped out..."

I gave him the gimlet eye, but as usual, it did little good.

"My marriage is something that I will need to reevaluate," Savannah said with placid acceptance as she sipped her coffee. "But I will meditate on that later. I communed with my spirit control, and he told me that Spider's ethereal being-his essence, if you will-was restless, and wanted to communicate with us."

"Not another seance?" Pixie asked, crumbling toast. "They're no fun if you won't summon a demon or two."

"Demons! Gracious G.o.ddess, no. I would never condone such a thing! It's bad enough to call a poltergeist, but a demon!" Savannah fingered her amulet bag and gave one of her delicate shudders. "No, indeed. I had thought to try a little automatic writing, though. I haven't always had the best luck with it, but Jebediah-he's my control-thought that we might have a better chance of reaching Spider if we used a method that taxed his essence less than a seance."

A thought clicked into place in my mind. I looked up at my father to see if he had caught the same thing I had, but he was engrossed in the newspaper. I puzzled over the point for a moment before asking Savannah, "How long have you been interested in spirits and polters and all the rest?"

"Oh, since I was a little girl. I had a poltergeist experience when I was about twelve. It was very unnerving. I dabbled in it a bit growing up, and through college, but didn't settle down to do serious research with the PMS until last year." She glanced at Pixie and my father before turning back to me, saying in a lowered voice, "Although I had no idea at all about any of this. No idea whatsoever! It seems so fantastic, and yet makes so much sense, that people like you all exist. But that you could pa.s.s for normal people ... I just had no idea!"