Rodney walked down Beach Drive carrying two fishing poles. He wore the same clothes he’d had on the night before, denims, a long-sleeved navy-blue T-shirt, and a dark gray, bulky down jacket, with a gray baseball hat and an old pair of black athletic work shoes. Before leaving the tunnel house, he had shoved his gun in one jacket pocket, with the walkie-talkie in the other.
On the other side of the street was Marlow House, with its front living room window blinds wide open. A man stood in the living room, but Rodney didn’t want to stare or stop to get a better look, so he kept walking.
He had just passed Marlow House when he spied Heather Donovan on the other side of the street, walking from her house to Marlow House. At the mini-mart yesterday, he’d worn a black hoodie instead of the bulky jacket, and a different baseball hat, so he didn’t think she would recognize him, plus he doubted she had even noticed him in the store.
Rodney glanced at his watch. It was almost nine. He should have been in the alley by now, but by the time the guy had finished bolting down the tunnel door, it had been past 8:30. And before Rodney could leave the house, he’d had to use the bathroom.
After he passed Heather’s house, he crossed over to her side of the street and sprinted up to the road leading to the alley. A few minutes later, as he started down the alley, he spied the Marlows’ Packard coming in his direction. Rodney stopped a moment and watched them drive by. Had they been in their other car, he wouldn’t have stopped. But he imagined they were used to people stopping and staring at them when they drove that car. He thought it would have looked suspicious had he pretended to ignore it as it drove by. After a moment, he started back up the alley, looking for the hiding place he had previously staked out.
* * *
Betsy didn’t understand why her daughters’ quilt was in this house, with these people. She still wasn’t sure if they could see her if she showed herself, but she knew they saw the other two ghosts. At least, she assumed they were ghosts. She assumed she was a ghost. It was all too confusing.
One thing she knew, she missed her daughters and was drawn to the other twins, who now napped in the living room. Last night they had taken them upstairs to the parents’ room to sleep. She wanted to get closer to the babies because she knew somehow they could make her feel closer to her own daughters.
This morning, they’d brought them back downstairs. She hid behind the door and listened as they talked about going out to breakfast and how someone named Heather would come over to watch them, along with Marie and Eva. She had already figured out those were the names of the other two ghosts.
This morning, the one called Eva mentioned the quilt was missing again, and she wondered if they were talking about her quilt. But then she found her quilt, no longer upstairs, but sitting on the floor by an open door. Curious, she wondered where the open doorway led. She moved through the doorway to investigate.
Betsy floated down the stairs to the basement, and to her surprise, a man stepped out from the darkness, holding a gun. He clearly could not see her. He held what looked like a small radio next to his right ear. A crackling sound came from the radio.
“Rodney, I’m in the basement,” the man said into the radio.
“Heather’s alone in the house. Don’t drag this on. Find her and put a bullet in her head. Leave the ransom note we prepared on her body. Grab the babies before you do anything else. You need to get them in the tunnel as soon as possible, in case the parents come home early,” a voice on the walkie-talkie said.
“You’re kidnapping the babies!” Betsy roared. He didn’t even flinch.
“I’m turning off the walkie-talkie,” the man said into the device. “I don’t need to warn Donovan that I’m here.”
Betsy tried grabbing the gun from the man, but her hand slipped through his, and then he walked through her body.
Not willing to let what had happened to her happen to Heather, or let anyone harm the babies, Betsy floated up the stairs, reaching the landing on the first floor before he was halfway up the stairs.
* * *
A woman’s scream caught the attention of Heather, Eva, and Marie. They had been in the living room with the babies, and all three moved quickly into the entry hall just in time to witness a woman’s transparent apparition move down the entry hall from the basement, reminding Heather of an incoming tornado, with long strawberry blonde hair cascading around her body.
The apparition reached out her hands to Heather. “He plans to kill you! He’s after the babies.”
The next moment, Clay stepped into sight. He spied Heather and without hesitation aimed his gun in her direction. Marie’s energy was primed to snatch the gun from his hand, but the quilt beat her to it, wrapping itself around him until he dropped the gun.
Clay hadn’t yet processed the fact a blanket had disarmed him, and he reached down to the floor to pick up the gun, but Marie was quicker, and the gun flew from the floor before he could pick it up, landing in a light fixture, out of Clay’s reach.
In shock, Heather stared at Clay Bowman, who glared angrily in her direction. Enraged, Clay walked toward Heather, prepared to kill her with his bare hands, and unaware they weren’t alone. But before he took two steps, a ball of black fur and razor-sharp claws flew into his face. Clay wailed in pain, unable to push away the angry feline.
Stunned at Max’s attack, Heather stood with the spirits and watched as Clay, in a panic, tried to get the cat off his face. He fell to the floor and rolled around in pain, his hands injured by the claws as he unsuccessfully attempted to pry the rabid animal from his face.
“That’s enough, Max,” Marie told the cat before lifting the still hissing ball of fur and claws from Clay.
Heather cringed at the damage Max had inflicted.
“I’m going to kill you and that cat!” Clay stumbled to his feet.
Marie’s energy threw Clay to the floor, and when it did, the walkie-talkie fell out of his pocket. He tried to reach for it, but Marie released her energy from Clay momentarily, pushing the walkie-talkie out of his reach before pinning him to the floor again.
Betsy pointed to the walkie-talkie. “He was talking to someone named Rodney. Rodney is helping him!”
“Let’s get him tied up, shall we, before we have to deal with whoever else is out there,” Marie suggested. “I need some rope.”
“I’ll get something,” Heather said before dashing off. She returned a few minutes later carrying two rolls of duct tape. “This is the only thing I could find.”
Marie eyed the duct tape. “Well, we must make do. Heather dear, can you please start one roll for me? Pull off about two feet.”
Clay, who continued to lie on the ground, confused why he couldn’t stand up, watched as Heather pulled a long strip of duct tape from the roll, yet did not tear it off.
“What do you think you’re going to do with that?” Clay barked at Heather.
Heather just smiled and let go of the duct tape.
Still on the floor, Clay stared at the roll of tape floating in his direction, the piece Heather had pulled from the roll waving like a strange tail. He didn’t need Marie’s energy to hold him in place at that moment. Mesmerized, his eyes widened in horror as he began rolling down the hallway while the tape wrapped around him, securely wrapping him in duct tape, holding down his arms and then his legs. When Marie depleted that roll of duct tape, she started on the second until Clay lay helpless on the floor, resembling a mummy with bandages pulled from its face to reveal bloody scars.
“How did he get in here?” Eva asked.
“He was in the basement. They talked about a tunnel,” Betsy explained.
“I’ll be right back.” Eva disappeared.
Since Clay could not see or hear the spirits, he assumed he was alone in the room with Heather.
“What are you going to do?” Clay growled.
“I think we need to find Rodney,” Heather said.
Clay glared at Heather. “What do you know about Rodney?”
Eva returned the next moment. “No one is in the tunnel, but that’s clearly how Clay gained entrance. The doors on the Marlow end have been unlocked and are open. There are lit lanterns in the tunnel. Someone has been staying in there.”
Heather looked at the walkie-talkie. “These things don’t have a big range. This Rodney has to be close by.”
“Let me go, or else you’re going to be sorry. It’ll be worse for you,” Clay shouted.
Heather reached down and pulled off both of her socks. She tucked one sock into another and handed it to Marie. All three spirits looked at Heather. “I can’t have him yelling in the background while I try to catch this Rodney dude. Can you please shove these in his mouth to shut him up?”
Clay started to shout something, only to have the socks fly into his mouth. He tried spitting them out, but Marie took the remaining strip of tape and wrapped it around his face and mouth, holding the socks in place.
Heather cringed. “I imagine those are stinky. I wore them jogging today.”
“What’s your idea?” Marie asked while Clay squirmed in frustration on the floor, trying to get loose.
“You go outside, and I’ll try to flush out this Rodney by making static noises on the walkie-talkie. Listen for it. Check the backyard and around the alley first.”
Marie vanished, and Heather gave her a few minutes before she turned on Clay’s walkie-talkie and started making spitting sounds into the device.
“Clay?” the voice on the other end called out.
* * *
Marie went first to the garage to grab some rope. She didn’t want to use duct tape again, plus she didn’t have enough. Marie found some rope, and instead of taking it with her, she placed it on the garage roof. She didn’t want Clay’s partner to see a rope floating in his direction and scare him away before she could catch him.
She moved over the bushes along the alley, listening for any strange sounds.
“Clay? Is anything wrong?” a voice said.
Marie smiled when she saw the man hiding in the bushes, clutching a walkie-talkie matching Clay’s. Focusing her energy on the man, she watched as he lifted into the air and began floating toward Marlow House.
The man screamed and kicked his feet. From his pocket, he pulled out a gun and started shooting. Marie immediately dropped the man to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. Her energy took his gun and placed it on the roof of Marlow House’s garage and then retrieved the rope.
* * *
Inside Marlow House, where the twins continued to sleep peacefully, Heather, Eva, and Betsy, who remained in the entry hall with Clay, heard Marie’s voice call out, “Yeehaw!” And then, to their astonishment, a man wrapped tightly in a rope came floating down the hallway from the kitchen, with Marie straddling him, riding her bound prisoner as if he were a horse, while she waved a gun over her head.
“Playing cowgirl, Marie?” Heather asked.