“We have to split up,” Scott said.
They were standing in the sitting room. Darryl and Steve wore identical expressions of guilt.
“It’s not your fault,” Anjali said. “It…they…she…whatever, used my voice. Creepy.”
“We’ll go in two groups and cover the house and the grounds,” Scott instructed. “Everyone has each other’s cell phone number, right?”
Coulter looked over at Steve’s phone. “That’s one tiny machine.”
“I can bid on eBay with it,” Steve said.
“Really?” Coulter moved in for a closer look. “Hey Wilder.” He looked up. “What kind of crap did you give me?”
Scott ignored him. “If anyone gets into trouble, call.”
“I think we should search the inside first,” Anjali said.
Scott agreed. “I’ll take two people with me to search outside. You take the inside.”
“I’m going with you,” Jane said to Scott.
“Coulter, Jane, and I will take the grounds. Anjali, you, Darryl, and Steve take the house.”
“Fine,” Anjali said, trying to conceal her annoyance and not succeeding. Then again, she wasn’t trying very hard. “But I don’t see why we can’t all search the house and grounds together?”
“It’s faster this way,” Scott said and left, Jane by his side.
Coulter hung back. “I did you a favor.”
Anjali stared at him. “What?”
“You’re jealous, aren’t you? The first step is admittin’ it. Now you know how you really feel about the guy so stop wasting time.” He strolled off.
Darryl and Steve huddled together. “What do we do?”
Anjali sighed. “Shaggy, Scooby, come with me.”
The grass was wet with mist and Coulter couldn’t see hide nor tail of the exuberant Dr. Madison.
“Look,” Scott said softly.
Ahead of them the carousel was slowly going round and round.
“Oh my God,” Jane said and stepped closer to Scott, entwining her arm with his.
Coulter walked up to the carousel and touched one of the horses as it went by. A soft energy flowed through him.
Anjali explored the third floor, followed by Darryl and Steve.
She could hear them whispering behind her. She stopped in the middle of the hallway and they almost bumped into her. “What are you two whispering about?”
“Your boss and Jane,” Steve said.
“Why?”
“Well, it keeps our minds off the fact that we’re scared to death.”
“I didn’t sign up for this,” Darryl said. “I’m just the lighting guy. I thought it was all going to be a big joke. Like the time Geraldo tried to raise the Titanic. I’d rather be back in Iraq with a news crew.”
“Flying bullets we understand,” Steve said. “But writing on the walls? Voices that don’t exist?”
“I hear ya,” she said. “We’ll do a quick search and then meet up with the others. In the meantime, tell me about Jane and my boss.”
“Jane’s definitely interested,” Darryl said. “She’s a wild one and she likes guys who are conservative, figures she can teach them a thing or two.”
“The men love her cool façade,” Steve said.
Anjali rolled her eyes.
“No, they do,” Steve insisted as they moved down the hallway. “They find her exciting.”
A quick but thorough examination of the rest of the floor proved futile.
But she did get to hear all about Jane’s charming quirks and traits.
“She’s a rising star in documentary filmmaking,” Darryl said as they headed for the stairs. “And—”
A piercing male scream erupted from behind them.
Anjali whirled around. “Where’s Steve?”
Darryl’s face was white with fright. “He was right behind us. Steve!”
Anjali raced back the way they’d come and found Steve staggering out of the last bedroom. “Pain,” he gasped. “So much pain.”
She grabbed him by the shoulders. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“Blister on my foot…popped…just now.”
Darryl shoved him hard. “Christ! You’re a jackass!”
Anjali let out a deep breath and counted to three. “I’m going downstairs. Do you want to sit down, Steve?”
“I can walk,” he said and began limping after them.
A half hour had passed, and Scott, Coulter, and Jane still hadn’t located Dr. Madison.
They were heading back up to the house when Scott saw Anjali crossing the lawn toward the carousel, trailed by Darryl and a limping Steve.
Scott sped up, realized Jane was still holding on to him, and reluctantly pulled her along. Coulter jogged after them.
Anjali had her hand on the carousel. “The twins, can you feel them?”
“Definitely,” Coulter said.
“What happened inside?” Scott asked.
Anjali looked at him and then down to where his arm was entwined with Jane’s. Scott quickly untangled himself. “Mrs. Booth is in the house, not Molly,” she said. “I mean, she was in the house. I set her to rest.”
“We saw it,” Darryl said. “There was this loud sobbing and then the room became warm.”
“Get it on film?” Jane asked.
“We got it,” Steve said. “Anybody have a Band-Aid?”
“The twins have been playing with us all along then,” Scott said.
Anjali nodded. “Pretending to be Molly.” She frowned and looked toward the lake. “Something’s there.” She began walking toward the water.
Coulter and Scott followed behind her. They walked down the grassy bank, and Anjali veered right and began wading through a clump of waist-high bushes. She stopped and stared at the ground.
They ran to her side. Lying in the middle of the bushes was Dr. Madison.
After a hot cup of tea with lots of sugar, Dr. Madison was her usual perky self and absolutely thrilled she’d almost been the victim of a haunting. “I heard the girls calling to me down by the water. I was so excited, I started running. I must have fallen.”
According to Anjali, Mrs. Booth shot her husband, Randall. Even after his affair with Molly resulted in the death of their daughters, Randall still continued with his philandering and took up with another woman just one year later.
Jane, Darryl, and Steve readied themselves in the dining room to film the removal of the twins’ spirits.
It made for great TV.
Coulter kept the twins from distracting Anjali. Furniture moved, writing appeared on the walls, temperatures dropped, but in the end the twins slipped through the gap.
Afterward, Dr. Madison opened a bottle of champagne and a bottle of sleeping pills and passed both around.
Scott went outside to phone Eddie and tell him the news and when he came back, Anjali was gone.
“She’s gone to get some sleep,” Coulter said. “She took one of the doctor’s pills.”