“I told you he was drinking again,” I heard Annabel say to Andy.
Oh, geez.
The airbags had gone off, but before we even got to the car, Max stumbled out. He was intact, but he had a small, bloody cut on his head, and he seemed as dazed as a zombie. He lurched forward, then fell back on his butt.
Marla had run out, too. “I called 911,” she said. “An ambulance will be here any minute.”
Even as she spoke, I heard the siren, and a few minutes later, the flashing lights lit up the oaks as it pulled up the drive, followed by a couple of police cars.
Jace called out to his first tour group. “Let me take you to the real show, ladies and gentlemen. I understand you’re interested in some haunted real estate?” And by some miracle, he and Wendy got the guests moving as the cops sorted out what happened and the EMTs checked out Max.
“He’s refusing transport,” one of them told Annabel, who’d stepped up and claimed her brother.
“I’ll take him home,” she said. “And I’ll call a tow truck tomorrow,” she said to me.
“No hurry,” Landon said, a trace of amusement in his tone. “The car actually looks pretty good there.”
It kind of did. The glowing wraith hadn’t budged at all. Only now its huge, skeletal claws reached out over the car as if the ghost had caused the disaster.
Annabel also somehow talked the cops out of citing her brother — that’s what the reasonable one in a wealthy family did, I imagined — and she came over to say goodbye. Max was now sobbing and saying over and over, “I had an invitation!”
“I’m so sorry about this,” Annabel said. “Please don’t think any of this is your fault. Someone else on the tourism council had tipped off the chief of the office about one clip in Max’s video, but he was reluctant to act because of his relationship with our father. Your letter revealed just how bad it was.”
“I’m still sorry,” I said, even though Max had tried to take out my wraith and called me some very nasty things.
“He needs some help. Maybe he’ll get it this time.” Then she hugged me, and they went on their way.
Through it all, Landon was calm and cool, helping out where needed, stepping back when his presence wouldn’t have been welcome. And once the Kanteras had left, the party went back to being relaxed and fun, though I heard the buzz around the ballroom about what had happened. I hoped Millie was right about all publicity being good, because this was the kind of gossip that was too good to die here.
I was delighted to see the guests coming back from their tours flushed, excited and laughing about what they’d seen, but not revealing its twists — Jace’s parting request to each group was to keep the house’s secrets intact. Duncan made an appearance between tours, filming himself in a video blog in his ridiculous spider outfit — he had a zillion followers, so that would be good publicity, at least. In spite of the evening’s chaos, I started to relax.
As I watched Landon chatting up some of his clients in the room, that ember of hope in my heart fluttered up into a flame. This was the day we were supposed to have that “date,” his silly condition for helping me with the house. Our post-midnight encounter certainly qualified.
And he’d also joked that I’d be in love with him by now. A familiar fear threw water on my hope, but the heat of the flames kicked it back.
I was afraid he was right.
But wouldn’t it be great to be right? Couldn’t it be?
As the tours concluded, Jace posed for pictures with guests. Millie collected the donations. I said goodbyes and thank-yous to as many people as I could. As the last few people left the ballroom and the band shut down, I looked around for Landon.
I went over to Neil, our nerdily handsome bartender, who was packing up the bar. “Have you seen Landon?”
“I think he said something about showing his dad the garden?”
“OK, thanks.” More likely he was showing his dad where he’d placed the shed he’d donated. I didn’t blame him. It was a really fine shed. I headed to the back door and stepped out.
It was dark out here and fairly quiet now that the band and the haunters had ceased their racket. But I dimly heard voices beyond a cluster of oaks and palms. I took a few steps and stopped when I heard my name.
“Has she agreed yet?” came Paul Putter’s voice.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Dad.” Landon.
“This is the perfect spot. The lot is huge. We don’t have to knock down the house. It could even be a clubhouse. But the condo buildings will look great on the south end. The river view is fantastic. Don’t you agree it’ll be perfect?”
“Yes, it’ll be perfect,” came the offhand response.
“We’ll just cut down the oaks…”
