“Who hurt you, Lad?” he asked.
He didn’t miss a beat.
“Drill instructors for the US Marines,” he stated.
His buddy agreed with him there, and gave him a fist-bump out of solidarity.
They broke Gryphen, too.
“Any objectors?” Graham asked.
When they all stood there, no one objected, and that meant they’d agreed to at least be courteous and ask permission before opening some psychic gate to hell in the basement of the castle.
That was likely for the best.
“Okay, I’ll go call them, and we’ll put all of these paintings away. Catherine’s note can go to the library, and we’ll see what our next step is.”
Michael was to the point.
“The next step is I have to go back into the water for the bones.”
Oh, Graham was aware, but he was trying desperately to put that off if he could.
His gut said it was a bad idea.
And when you lived in a haunted castle, caretaking it, you tended to listen to your gut.
For survival.
Chapter Eleven
The Kitchen
Monday
Eleven A.M.
Because he needed a minute to make that call, Graham slipped away to regroup and prepare to tell Callen and Chris that he was going to invite a psychic to their home to stir up the hellscape.
How could this go wrong?
While it was early in the States, Callen had reassured him that they had wonky hours, his words, and to call whenever.
If he was asleep, his phone would be on‘do not disturb’, and he wouldn’t be able to wake him.
So he made the call.
It was four in the morning where he was, and honestly, he wasn’t expecting the man to answer. Maybe that was just what he was hoping for, but unfortunately, like many things in his life, he didn’t get what he wanted.
“Yes, Graham?” came Callen’s whiskey warm voice over the phone, catching him off guard.
Well, so much for leaving a message and running for the hills.
“Sir, I apologize.”
Callen stopped him.
“I’m up working,” he said. “Elizabeth is off today, and she’s going to be at the office handling personnel issues now that we’re staying in Damascus, so I thought I’d get up to write. You’re not disturbing me. I do my best homicide in the dark.”
