“I watched this here…I was viewing this show one time where this here…this person changed their handle…name. It was something that this chick…this woman was afraid of. I can’t remember the name of the damned thing…darn thing, but there was this guy chasing her to beat the shit out of…chasing her for some reason.” She nodded at Donny, and Steele had to cover his mouth. The kid was going to take forever to tell them this if he was always being careful with what he was saying. “I heard tell of this broad…woman…nice lady that has the last name of Náire. Carlton told me it was Irish for…. What was it again, Carlton my man?”
“Shame. It’s the Irish word for shame. I do believe the young woman is hiding too. When young Donny here took me to see her, she had the most amazing aura around her, and it was all fear.” Steele had explained to Kari that, like the men in the house, some of the ghosts had different things they could do. Carlton could read a person’s aura. Donny? Well, they were still working on that one.
“And she looks like that picture in the hall.” Donny moved to the hall and they all followed. “Spitting image of her. I mean, all the way down to her eyes. They have them flecks of gold in them just like this here Mr. Steele has.”
“This here is not necessary to that sentence. And where is she and when did you find her?” Donny looked at Grandda, who looked slightly embarrassed. Kari asked him what was going on.
“They took me to see her too. A few days ago. It was her.” Grandda sat down on the chair and picked up the framed picture of Aster, one of the last pictures he’d been able to find of her. “I just couldn’t believe it, so I did some snooping. This ability to move small things has come in handy.”
Kari knelt in front of him. “What did you find, Grandda? Something has made you sure, and it couldn’t be just the picture.”
“She’s got all those clippings in this book of hers. I saw her taking it out one day and wondered why it made her so sad. Then I saw it and knew. It was of the death of that man, that bastard Bennett, and his daughter dying. There was even a few on Eloise too. She had them all, and they’d been put in this book with…well, she’d not been a great fan of the man.” Steele never thought of how all the things that had come out would have affected her. But then, he’d had no idea she even existed until two months ago. He would imagine that she’d keep tabs on the family if for no other reason than to know when to be afraid or to stop being afraid.
“I’ll send a letter to her.” Kari shook her head. “No, that won’t work. She can just ignore it. And I can’t go and see her either. That would be…I don’t have any idea what I’d even say to her. ‘Hello, Mom. I’m your long lost son.’ That’ll go over well.” Steele wanted to go to her now, but was worried that she’d not be the right person; or the right one, but wouldn’t want him in her life.
“I’ll write to her. And I’ll do it as Kari Briggs. Or better yet, send a lawyer to see her and talk to her. You have a lot of them, Steele. Which one do you think would do the best job and not make her pissy about coming here?” Steele had no idea, but he had a feeling that Kari did when she smiled brightly at him. “I know. I’ll talk to Mr. Chandler. He’s a nice, grandfatherly type. He won’t put her off. Not like that man you sent to have me sign those papers.”
She moved down the hall and disappeared into her office as he thought about who she meant. All he’d done was have a lawyer come to the house and have her sign off on a few forms. She now owned everything he did. That hadn’t gone over as well as he’d hoped either. He started to follow but looked at the three men who had come to mean a great deal to him. There was more, he’d bet his life on it.
“She’s not just afraid, Steele. The poor woman never leaves her house. Her food is brought to her. She has a job that she does in a spare room in her house. A person comes by twice a week to pick up the things she does, but she never sees them. And when she does go out, it’s not for long, and she goes alone and returns that way too. While I was with her, she’d gone to the paint store all by herself and only handed that man at the counter her list before she sat in one of them chairs and waited until he told her it was ready.” Steele asked his grandda what she did. “Paints pictures. Haunting and sad paintings that sell well. She’s been…I would say that she’s been living out some nightmare for a long time. My poor baby has been hurt so badly by all this. And here I sit, can’t do a damned thing about it.”
“We’ll see if we can get her some help. I’m sure that she’s going to take some convincing, but with Kari in charge, she won’t be able to resist giving into her.” Grandda snorted. “You think she’ll be able to make her see us or not?”