‘Yeah but… No one’s happy about that. The fans would go ballistic, Alex. Think about it. A grand comeback. And even the title…Lady de Wilde…’
She needed to shut this down fast. ‘I’mnota de Wilde. And there is no title. I told you. It’s extinct.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘No one actually cares about that,Alexandra. Our very own sceptic inherits a haunted house in Ireland. Think of the promo. It’s too good, babe.’
Ugh, even the way he said it:Eye-are-laaand. She wanted to slap him. He knew she hated that. She’d told him often enough so he had to be doing it on purpose. To wind her up. Like the way he used her full name. Because she hated that as well.
Well two could play at that game.
‘Oh yeah,Gabriel, the same fans who sent me the death threats? Those nutjobs? Should I send them change of address cards, do you think, or just mass invite them over to theisolatedhouse in the middle ofnowhere? How many bloody dahlias do you think they can get shipped here? Why not roll up with good ol’ Ted as well? I’m sure they’d happily break him out of jail, don’t you think?No thank you.’
That sobered them all again. It was the primary reason she had left. Ted Sanderson and his acolytes, whose intimidation had been even closer to home and not just online but in her face. They had sent her flowers – black dahlias, of course, his favourite – with little notecards, all completely innocuous unless you knew the hidden meanings. It had been relentless. She’d been so scared she stopped sleeping and she knew she would have had a breakdown if it hadn’t been for the others. Gabe had insisted the cops were called, Daphne had stayed with her, Arnold and Eduardo had tracked several of them down. She would always owe them for that.
‘Yeah, well,’ Gabe said, chastened. ‘Not them, I guess.’
There was a long and awkward silence which, of course, she felt she had to be the one to break. As always.
‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m just tired. But I really need a vacation from it all. You know that. Until they forget about me. You’re already filming the next season, aren’t you? You all havecommitments over there. And you have Bob McGarry now to do what I did. He’ll be great.’
Bob who was not on this call. Who they had deliberately left out. She tried to ignore how ominous that felt. But Bob was just a colleague and she was a friend. That was a difference. They had been through a lot together, the five of them.
‘Bob,’ Daphne growled, and the tone was all the indication Alex needed of what she thought of their new parapsychologist. He had rubbed her up the wrong way right from the beginning and Daphne was determined that Alex would come back. She hadseenit, apparently. The spirits hadspoken. Alex herself had no say in that. It was notable that the spirits often declared that things would happen which matched up exactly with whatever Daphne wanted to happen. Or something that might make spectacular television and generate a host of clickbait headlines.
This was getting her nowhere. Alex shifted around in the chair to get more of the heat of the fire.
‘Look, I need to get myself sorted here. I’m going to work on the book, which is all part of the brand, isn’t it? And I’ll run everything by you, I promise. It’ll be a whole new publicity stream. Then we’ll see. I’ll be in touch and I’m always on the end of the phone if you need me. Or an email. You know that, right?’
Her little posse of ghost hunters didn’t exactly look placated. As Alex tried to think of something else to say to them to put them at ease, or at least put them off, Daphne’s eyes widened. It was almost comical.
‘Alexandradarling?’ she asked in her most teasing tone. It was never a good sign when Daphne got in on that act. ‘Tell me, does your little corner of the Emerald Isle have a history of Sasquatch sightings?’
Sasquatch?As in Bigfoot? Alex was well aware that Daphne was a loveable loon but really? What on earth was she on about?
‘No, why?’
Gabe roared out a laugh and the others followed suit. Alex stared at them, bewildered, and then she caught movement in the screen, in the right-hand corner, that window which showed her and the room in which she sat. Someone stood behind her, in the doorway to the hall outside the drawing room, someone impossibly tall, long-haired, bearded…
The bastards!
She killed the call right away and turned around to face Nick, standing there with a tea tray, frowning at her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said without sounding anything like it. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.’
‘You didn’t. Don’t worry. I was just—’ There was no way he couldn’t have heard that. Oh, damn it all. He had obviously heard Daphne, and the laughter. ‘I’m sorry. That was so rude of them.’
He set the tray down without acknowledging her apology. China clinked as he did, that expensive, delicate, fragile sound, and he straightened, handing her the thick fluffy towel he had draped over one arm. ‘I’m not exactly looking my best, I admit.’
Neither was she with her wet hair starting to frizz.
‘They probably thought I had headphones in. They were worried about me getting here, about me moving so far away. They’re my friends. And colleagues. I mean, they were my colleagues. Former colleagues.’
He nodded as if she had just explained everything rather than blurted out word salad, and took the knitted tea-cosy off the teapot, pouring the dark amber liquid into a cup for her. Only one cup, she noticed.
‘You’re not having any?’ she asked.
He shook his head a little too firmly. Well, why would he want to hang around after that? ‘I’ll take your bags upstairs for you.’
‘Oh, I can do that if you just show me where to go.’
