“Lots of kids read about ghosts.”
“She’s got things bookmarked—she’s in deeper than you think. If Jeanie finds out what this house is . . .”
“But she isn’t going to find out, is she?”
Mark held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, you’ve gotten yourself into some crazy shit here. I love you like a brother, Lou. But I have to tell you, there’s something intrinsically fucked up about what you’re doing here. And now, with this guy standing you up the way he did. What was the deal—that you’d live here in exchange for him talking to you about what happened?”
Lucas nodded.
“Then why would he stand you up? It doesn’t make sense. I mean, something’s not right.”
“You know what’s not right?” Lucas’s agitation breached the levy of self-control. He rose from his seat, pushed the chair away a little too hard. “Where my life has gone. Your life isn’t my life, okay? If I haven’t lost it yet, I’m in the process of losing it and everything I care about. Remember how that feels? I didn’t know what the fuck else to do.”
“But how does this make sense?” Mark asked, his tone steady, undeterred by his best friend’s outburst.
“Because it’s the only plan I have,” Lucas said. “I saw an opportunity and I took it, and now things have changed and I don’t know what any of it means. But I don’t have the cash to turn it around, and I’m all out of ideas for material. I’m going to lose my kid, Mark. Caroline, I mean, I wish I could fix that . . . I’m going to do everything I can. But at the end of the day, it isn’t Caroline I give a shit about—it’s the fact that if I lose Caroline, I lose Jeanie, too.”
Mark pushed his fingers through his hair, then shook his head as if not sure what to say anymore. After a moment, he spoke. “Give me the truck keys.”
“What?”
“The keys to the moving truck. Give them to me.”
Lucas grabbed the keys off the kitchen table and arced them through the air toward Mark’s awaiting hand.
“I’m going to pick up your car for you. You keep mine.” He tossed his own keys back at Lucas. “We’ll trade when you come up for dinner. And maybe you should consider staying with us—if this place gets too heavy, I mean.”
Lucas nodded.
“I still think this whole thing is crazy,” Mark said.
“Maybe it is,” Lucas replied. “But normal isn’t going to fix this.”
“I guess you’re right,” Mark said. “I mean, normal never was your thing.”
18
* * *
SURROUNDED BY OPEN and half-empty boxes, Vee heard the yelling all the way up in her room. She raised her head from the book in her lap and squinted at the muffled tones filtering through her open door. She hated the sound of arguing, but this was new. Her dad was battling it out with Uncle Mark—a person she’d never heard him fight with before. Her curiosity got the best of her. Rather than closing her door to block out the sound, she tiptoed into the upstairs hallway and peeked over the banister to the living room below.
“You know how you said that any idiot with an Internet connection could look this stuff up? Well, guess what. This idiot has an Internet connection and looked it up. I put in the address, found articles about a congressman and his kid . . .”
Uncle Mark’s voice dropped off then, as though he had said too much. She chewed on a nail, descending the stairs one after the other, careful not to make any noise.
“It’s a house, Mark. It’s got walls and a floor. It’s just a place to live in.” Her dad, frustration punctuating his tone. The tension in his voice was familiar. He hadn’t sounded anything but stressed for what seemed like years, but these last few weeks had been particularly hard.
“Right. Like Amityville was just a house.”
Vee stalled at the reference.
Amityville.
She’d watched that movie with Tim and Heidi on Tim’s TV only a few months before. Tim had a whole collection of old horror movies he’d bought at some going-out-of-business sale for a few bucks a pop; Troll and Dolls and Critters. They were cheapie films that Vee laughed at while watching but spooked her when the lights went out. But The Amityville Horror had been no joke. Both she and Heidi had watched it wide-eyed the whole way through. Even Tim had kept quiet until the end, which was a feat in and of itself. Tim was notorious for mid-movie commentary; half the time, they couldn’t get him to shut up for more than five minutes.
Was Uncle Mark comparing this house to the Amityville one? No way, she thought. Besides, the story about that house wasn’t real. She’d looked it up after she’d gotten home that night, after Tim had sworn up and down that the filmmaker based the movie on a true story. You’re full of crap, Tim! Heidi had yelled when Tim had warned his sister to sleep with one eye open. But that was Heidi’s way. She was a denier, while Vee was a seeker. Tell Heidi that there was a chance she’d get swallowed up by a demon and she’d scream for you to shut up. Tell Vee the same thing and she’d spend hours in front of her computer, researching the possibility. It was one of the undeniable traits she’d inherited from her dad.