CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
It was still raining when Michaela woke up. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and stood in front of the window. It was dark out; behind the spilled light from the window, the darkness spread like a vicious stain. Nothing out there, except over near the corner of the cabin, a red light. Michaela strained to see. A tiny red light. She looked around the cabin behind her, where was Trisha?
She pulled open the door and the rain hammered on the cedar shingles on the porch roof. Yes, there was the red light, doing an erratic dance in mid-air.
‘Trisha?’ Michaela said.
The red pinpoint of light went arcing out into the rain. Trisha stepped up onto the porch, blowing out a lungful of smoke and carrying an armful of firewood.
‘Sleeping Beauty’s woken up, I see,’ she said. ‘What’re you doing standing around outside?’ She went inside and took the wood through to the fireplace.
Michaela took one last look outside and followed her, pulling the door securely closed and locking it behind her.
Trisha looked up. ‘You warm enough?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just about finished cooking, too. Though it’s nothing fancy. We need to go get more supplies if we’re staying here any longer.’
Michaela sat down and looked at her bare feet. ‘Do you want to stay here longer?’ she asked. ‘We can go back to the city tomorrow if you like. You can stay with me,’ she added.
Trisha sat back on her haunches. ‘What about Selena and whatever’s going on there?’ she asked.
Michaela shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s not any of our business,’ she said.
Trisha appeared to think about this. ‘It might not be any of our business, sure. But you think something bad is going on and for what it’s worth I agree with you. And we mightn’t have talked to Selena for long, but I liked her.’ Trisha stood up. ‘And if she’s in trouble, then we should help her. No one else is going to believe any of it.’
Michaela looked up at her, standing resolute, hands-on-hips, the firelight turning her hair a dark burnished red. She nodded.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We get to the bottom of this, then.’ She stood up too. ‘But it’s not a game any longer. There’s no Sherlock and Nancy Drew here. It’s serious.’
Trisha pulled a face. ‘What’s the warning for? You think I’m too stupid to take this seriously?’ She was shaking her head. ‘I liked that old bird, Michaela, and I want to make sure she’s all right. Those lights the other night, that ghost girl we saw today
– someone’s trying out some serious shit. I know it’s not a fucking game.’ Michaela held out her hands in a truce gesture. ‘I’m worried, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t trying to say I didn’t think you could take it seriously.’ She sighed.
‘I’m not sure what to do next,’ she admitted.
Trisha shrugged and backed down. ‘Have something to eat then find us out something about the Gardeners. Especially the sleazy bastard one.’
Michaela blinked, smiled. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘What’ve you made us eat?’
‘There was a box of Mac Cheese in the cupboard.’ She threw back a grin as they went into the kitchen. ‘I’m somewhat culinary challenged,’ she said.
They ate the Mac Cheese and Michaela ran a search on her laptop, looking for more information on the lodge, pool house/ folly, and Gardener family. Apart from the article about the child’s drowning, they didn’t find all that much.
Trisha was scrolling through the pages while Michaela made more coffee.
‘This looks interesting,’ said Trisha.
‘What’s it say?’
Trisha was reading. ‘Apparently, our friend Joseph Gardener has been having a bit of trouble lately.’ She looked up at Michaela. ‘Financial trouble,’ she added.
Michaela touched her bandaged cheek. ‘Why does it always have to be about money?’ she asked, dispirited by the thought.
Trisha was reading again. ‘Everything’s always about money, didn’t you know that? It ain’t love that makes the world go round, baby.’
Michaela put the coffee on the table. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe that. Money allows you to make choices, but it shouldn’t be the determination for those choices.’
Trisha glanced at her. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘Our friend over the other side of the lake won’t be making many choices one way or the other for a while. According to this, his company’s facing bankruptcy. And,’ she added, ‘there’s been a suggestion of his diddling his investors out of their hard-earned retirement funds.’ She looked up from the screen, eyes gleaming. ‘I’d say we just found our motive, wouldn’t you?’
Michaela turned the computer towards her and scanned the page. Yes, it certainly seemed Joseph Gardener was in a measure of deep shit. ‘I think we’re onto something here,’ she told Trisha.
Trisha tipped her coffee mug toward Michaela. ‘Cheers,’ she said. ‘So now we have to figure out what exactly he’s up to and what to do to stop him.’ She put the coffee down, untouched. ‘I don’t see us being able to take our suspicions to Officer Friendly, do you?’
Michaela shook her head. ‘I don’t think that’s an option. Even if we don’t get into the whole gay phobia thing of his. Imagine trying to explain that we’ve been seeing ghosts and we think Gardener’s behind it.’ She shook her head again. ‘No, can’t see that going down well. The Gardener family’s been here forever, and against that, who are we? I’d probably find myself with my visa revoked and getting hustled out of the country.’
‘Right, so the long arm of the law is only going to stand around scratching its ass in this particular case.’ Trisha stared at the article on the laptop screen. ‘What can we do, then?’ she asked.
Michaela dragged fingers through her hair. ‘Don’t know. On the one hand, I’m pretty sure we have this asshole who’s trying either to scare his mother to death or at least into being declared mentally incompetent. And the worst thing is, that even if we catch him in the act of dragging freaky ghost lights through the trees, he isn’t doing anything illegal so there’s no way of stopping him.’
‘We have to make sure that Selena is all right though,’ said Trisha. ‘I mean, we have to.’
Michaela shrugged. ‘How? We get seen near their place Joseph’s just going to call the cops in again, do us for trespass, actually lay charges this time. Our hands are tied.’ She got up and put another log in the fire. ‘Not only that, but we can’t stay here for much longer either. It’s not our place, for starters, and I have to get back soon. I have an appointment with the Dean and work to do.’ She watched the embers explode in sparks and tapped her foot.
Trisha joined her, passed her the coffee. ‘There has to be something we can do,’ she said. ‘Maybe if we were able to talk to Selena. We could find out if there were somewhere else she could go, someone else she could have stay with her, at least.’ She sat down.
Michaela thought about it. ‘It’s probably our best bet,’ she conceded. ‘But how do we get in to see her?’
Trisha shrugged. ‘Same way you visit anyone,’ she said. ‘Roll on up and knock on the door. But we gotta make sure the son is out of the house first.’
It was a good plan and probably all they could do. ‘Okay,’ said Michaela. ‘Let’s do it as soon as possible.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Trisha. ‘As soon as that bastard is out of the house. We’ll watch and wait all day if we have to. And the next. He has to go out sometime.’ She looked at Michaela. ‘I’m not leaving that old bird alone and defenseless with someone trying to scare her shitless. No one deserves that.’