Smoke and Mirrors (52 page)

“Something just happened.” Henry stepped out onto the front path and frowned at the front of the house.

Graham joined him, rubbing at the rain running down his neck and under the collar of his overalls. “Yeah, I felt it, too.”

“Felt what?” CB demanded. His tolerance for obscurity had never been high and what little there was had clearly already been used. “Is it over?”

Vampire and medium exchanged a glance. Finally, Graham shrugged. “Unfortunately, there's only the one way to find out and you're still fucked up from the last time.”

Henry's eyes narrowed. “I'm fine.”

“You usually got those big purple bruises around your eyes? Nope. Thought not. And you keep rubbing your temples when you think no one's looking. Bet it's been a while since you had a headache.”

Henry snarled softly.

“Long while. So it's up to me.” He scrubbed his palms against his thighs, walked up the path, reached out, and touched the edge of the porch.

Flash of red light.

And he was lying at Henry's feet. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” he muttered as he put his hand in Henry's and was set upright again. “It's not over.”

“What's not over?”

The three men turned slowly.

Jack Elson stood in the driveway at the edge of the light.

“Cop?” Graham asked quietly.

“Cop,” Henry replied at the same volume.

CB drew in a deep obvious breath and let it out slowly before meeting the advancing RCMP officer halfway. “My night shoot is not over. Can I help you with something, Constable Elson?”

“No, not really. I was just driving by and I saw some cars were still parked out on the road, so I thought I'd come in and find out if there was a problem.”

“I see.” And included in those two words, was the certain knowledge, shared by everyone who heard them, that Deer Lake Drive didn't actually go anywhere, which made just driving by . . . unlikely.

“Not as many cars as there were.”

“We don't need as large a crew at night.”

Elson smiled in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way that set Henry's teeth on edge. His father used to smile like that. “I assume your permits for a night shoot are in order?”

“We've been shooting at this location all week,” CB told him.

“But not at night.”

“No, not at night.”

“So your permits?”

“Are inside.”

There was an undercurrent of warning in the producer's voice that Elson ignored.

“All right.” His smile broadened. “Let's go take a look.”

“The doors have swollen shut in the damp.”

Blinking rain off pale lashes, Elson shot Graham an incredulous glare before turning his attention back to CB. “Damp?”

“Yes. Damp. My people are working on getting out.”

“There're no lights.”

“Constable Danvers.” CB nodded as a second figure appeared in the driveway—nodded politely enough but with an edge of impatience in the movement.

Elson turned to scowl at his partner. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.” She shrugged and stepped up beside him. “But I won't. After all that research you did, I had a feeling you weren't heading home.”

“So you followed me?”

“I didn't have to follow you, Jack. I knew where you were going. There're too many unanswered questions here for you to stay away.”

“Research?”

Both constables turned to face the producer.

“There've been a number of unusual occurrences in this house over the years,” Danvers told him, ignoring the signals her partner was shooting her. “After speaking with Tony Foster this afternoon, Constable Elson took a look at our records and found a list of murder/ suicides as long as your arm.” She paused, dropped her gaze to the arm in question, and amended, “Well, as long as my arm anyway. Funny how these sorts of things start piling up in one place.”

“Yes. Funny.” CB didn't sound particularly amused.

“So you're not here to check our permits.”

It wasn't a question, but Elson answered it anyway, lips curved into a tight smile. “Might as well look since we're here.”

“I get the strong impression you're here off duty.”

“The Horsemen are never off duty.” Danvers glanced over at Henry as though somehow aware he was the only one of the four who knew about the blood rising in her cheeks. “Heard the line in an old movie once; I've always wanted to say it.”

“Yeah, now you've said it,” Elson sighed. “What do you mean there're no lights?”

“What?”

“When you arrived, dogging my heels, having not followed me, anticipating my interest . . .”

A raised brow cut off the list.

“. . . you said there were no lights.”

“Oh. Right. There're no lights on in the house.” One hand gestured gracefully toward the building. “If they're in there, shooting, why is it so dark?”

“Because we've been shooting day for night and the windows are covered in blackout curtains.” CB's words emerged clipped of everything but bare fact. If Henry had to guess, he'd say that at the end of a long night of waiting and worrying about his daughters, CB was beginning to get angry. Too practical to lose his temper at the house, fate had just given him a pair of targets. Given that the last time Henry'd seen CB angry he'd lifted a grown man by the throat and thrown him across a soundstage, it might be a good idea to intervene.

“Blackout curtains? Okay. And you've probably got an explanation for that flash of red light that knocked . . .” Elson paused, the question in his stare unmistakable.

“Graham Brummel,” the caretaker muttered.

“. . . Mr. Brummel here five feet back onto his ass?”

The fabric of CB's trench coat rippled as he settled his shoulders. “You saw that?”

“ 'Fraid so.”

The faintest growl and Henry was there, left hand wrapped around CB's right wrist, holding the big man's arm to his side.

“I saw it, too. From the driveway.” Danvers' eyes locked on the muscles straining under CB's coat, the movement obvious even in the darkness.

“What the hell is going on here?” Elson demanded, his attention having snapped instinctively to the greater threat. “You were there. Now you're here. No one can move that fast.”

Henry kept his smile just to the safe side of dangerous. “Obviously, since I did, someone can. I'm very fit.” Feeling the pressure against his grip ease, he let his fingers slide off CB's heated skin. Holding Constable Elson's suspicious gaze, his eyes darkened. “I suspect what happened to Mr. Brummell was a result of weather. We've had a fair bit of lightning and old houses like this can acquire quite the buildup of static electricity.”

“Static electricity?” The suspicion began to fade slightly. “Yeah, I guess that could . . .”

“What a load.” Danvers' attention flicked from CB to Henry and back to CB again. “I'm thinking that either one of these cables you guys are running in from your truck here isn't properly grounded and you've created a hazardous environment—in direct violation of any number of workplace safety regulations—and that's what's screwed up the doors, or the house is haunted, has grabbed your people . . .” One slim finger jabbed toward a broad chest. “. . . including your daughters—who we saw entering the house this afternoon—which is why you've lost your vaunted cool, and that red flash was the house keeping you—all of you—the hell out. Were you not listening when I said we've done the research? Why don't you tell us what's really going on?”

“Vaunted cool?” Elson muttered.

“Not now, Jack.”

“I think you're confused, Constable Danvers.” CB's voice had returned to its usual masterful tones. “My studio is shooting a haunted house episode in this building. The house, therefore, is haunted because I choose it to be.”

“Uh-huh.” She rocked back on her heels, eyes narrowed. “And the murder/suicides?”

“Not in this episode.”

“Not in
any
episode.” Emphasis dared him to deny he knew about the incident she referred to.

“Ah. You're referring to the unfortunate deaths of Mrs. Kranby and her infant son?”

“And the others. In the thirties, a number of people were killed during a dance. During her time in the house, Mrs. Kranby heard dance music. In the fifties, Christopher Mills killed his two children and himself with an ax. Mrs. Kranby was terrified of a man with an ax that no one else ever saw.”

“So you're saying that during her postpartum depression, Mrs. Kranby thought the house was haunted because of its unfortunate past?”

“No, that's not what she's saying.” Elson, who'd been staring at his partner in disbelief, moved to stand beside her, shoulder to shoulder. “She's saying we're going to stick around until those doors open.”

“Hauntings aren't against the law,” Graham pointed out, folding his arms and moving up the path to fall in at Henry's right.

“No one said they were. But, since we're here and since it's our job to know what the hell is going on, I think we'll stay.”

“You're wasting your time.”

“It's our time.” Eyes narrowed, Elson's expression dared all three men to try and run them off. When no one took the dare, he flashed them a triumphant grin. “Now, if you don't mind, just so we're dotting the i's and crossing the t's, I'm going to go try to open that door.”

“You saw what happened to Mr. Brummell.”

“I did.”

CB stepped out of the way. “Then be my guest.”

Graham tried and failed to hide a smirk as the pair of RCMP constables walked past.

A moment later, he tried and failed to hide a snicker as light flared red and Constable Elson swore, stumbled back, sat, and squashed an overgrown plant by the side of the path.

“Didn't go far,” he murmured as Henry moved up beside him.

“I suspect that paranormal ability affects the amount of force used—got a lot, go far. None at all . . .” He nodded at the constable. “. . . don't.”

“Yeah, but CB made some distance when he got zapped earlier.”

“CB is a law unto himself.”

Graham glanced back at the producer still standing by the end of the path somehow managing to dominate a scene that involved a haunted house, a shocked police officer, a medium, and a vampire and nodded. “I hear you. Satisfied?” he asked as the two constables passed again going the other way.

Elson glared at him but turned a less readable expression on Henry. “Static electricity, eh?”

“It's an explanation.”

“Not a good one.” He took Constable Danvers' arm and headed for the driveway. “We'll be waiting over here if you need us for . . . anything.”

“Go ahead. Say it. Tell me I've lost my mind.”

Rubbing the back of his neck in the hope of getting the hair to lie down, Jack stared up at the dark silhouette of the house. “I wish I could.”

Geetha ignored the house and watched him. “You're glad I said it because you couldn't.”

“Not glad.” His mouth twisted into and out of half a smile. “I
know
there's something going on with these people. There was something going on last spring and there's something going on now. Something that isn't . . .” His hands sketched words in the air.

“Normal?”

“Close enough. And, although I'd rather you'd spoken to me before you info dumped on them, I'll hold my opinion on your mental state—and my own—until after those doors open.” Folding his arms, Jack nodded toward the cluster of men on the front path. “Or until they tell us what's really going on.”

“Is that why we're over here? So they can talk among themselves?”

They were close enough to the edge of the light she could see the glint of a pale eyebrow rising. “Yeah. That's one of the reasons.”

And he wanted her away from them before she said anything else that might make it look like RCMP Constable Jack Elson believed in something other than crime and punishment, but she was too tired to take the bait. “The greasy one's right, though. If the house
is
haunted, that's not a crime.”

“Granted.”

“So why are we here?”

“We? Why are you here?”

“Because you are.”

“Right.” He rubbed the hand that had been in contact with the house against his sleeve. “I like to . . . I mean, I need to . . . We're supposed to . . .”