Jake had to smother a smile at Trixie’s bloodthirsty imagination, but he noticed Rainbow looked pained.
“I’m not really sure,” she said hesitantly. “I need to… think about it some more before I say anything. Maybe get a few more impressions.”
Trixie looked severely disappointed. “You mean we have to keep listening to the banging?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said honestly. “I really don’t know. There’s something going on, and I’d have to say the ghosts are involved in it, but until someone can figure out exactly what it is, they may keep banging. I wish there were something more I could do.”
“Just keep working on it,” Martin said, looking uncomfortable. “I’ll take any help I can get. Maybe Trixie and I will take a trip in the meantime. We need some sleep, and if that obnoxious Harvey Little isn’t responsible for this—well, then, I guess we’ll have to find a way to get through it.”
Rainbow nibbled disinterestedly at a cookie, declined an offer of coffee, and just generally indicated that she wanted to go as soon as possible.
Jake did, too, but he figured his chances of taking Rainbow back to bed were about nil. She certainly didn’t look like a woman who wanted to make love.
As soon as they could do it gracefully, they made their escape and went back down to Jake’s apartment. Once there, he drew her into his arms and hugged her.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing, really. I’m just confused. You know, I was standing in that bedroom, trying to feel what was behind all that banging, and I got the same impression I got from one of my clients this morning—fire and water and doom. Now, how could I get the same impression from the ghosts? And what does it mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know …” Involved in her thoughts, she pulled away from him and started to pace. His arms felt empty, but he let her go. “The very first time I met Harvey Little, I felt death around him. I thought for sure he was on the edge of a heart attack.”
“He looks it.”
“But what if that’s not it? What if it’s someone else’s death I was feeling?”
Until then, such simple words had never caused a chill to run down Jake’s spine. It was as if Rainbow had spoken some great truth, and he knew it at a level beyond conscious thought. Not yet ready to put both feet on the psychic bandwagon, however, he said noncommittally, “I don’t know.”
She gave him a rueful smile over her shoulder. “Me, neither,” she said.
With great reluctance, but feeling somehow compelled, he pursued the conversation. “Are you sure it’s the same feeling you’re getting? Or could they be different but similar?”
She cocked her head, thinking about it. “I don’t know for sure. This morning I told my client not to take a cruise in December because of that feeling. But then I got the same feeling when I was standing there concentrating on the cause of the banging. Yes, I’m sure it was the same feeling.”
“Well…” The words wanted to stick in his throat, but he forced them out anyway. “Well… Joe was killed in that boat explosion. Fire and water and doom.”
She nodded. “I know. But what would that have to do with my client?” “I don’t know, but it could sure as hell have something to do with that banging. If it’s Joe making that ruckus.” He couldn’t believe he was saying these things. Worse, he was appalled that they actually seemed to be making sense.
Rainbow didn’t look as if she thought he’d lost his mind, though.
“It’s Joe and Lucinda,” she said. “That much I’m sure of.”
“So where does this get us?”
She shook her head and gave a tired laugh. “I don’t know, Jake. Maybe Joe and Lucinda don’t like Harvey Little. Or maybe they don’t like the Martinses. Or maybe for some crazy reason, that’s the only wall they can pound on. Ghosts have to follow rules, you know.”
“Rules? Really?” The idea caught his attention, striking him as at once ridiculous and brilliant. “What kinds of rules?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. It’s not as if they’re posted anywhere. But look at us, Jake. There are rules we have to follow just to participate in this reality. Physical rules. The things you call the laws of physics. Naturally, in their realm, ghosts have to have similar limitations.”
Jake suddenly felt as if he were standing on shifting sands. He had always assumed that physical laws were immutable, but he hadn’t taken that assumption and looked at it the way Rainbow just had. He had never thought of himself as following those laws. That implied a certain amount of volition where he had thought there was none.
Stricken, he sat on the couch and stared up at the furniture on his ceiling. “Damn, Joe,” he heard himself murmur, “that’s a hell of a message.”
And right then, he wouldn’t have been the least bit astonished to see the furniture start dancing a polka.
Seventeen
“Don’t tell me you were out with him,” Roxy said, as soon as Rainbow stepped through the door. Jake had brought her home when she insisted that she had to get back. The storm had turned to a steady drizzle, and she’d been perfectly willing to walk, but he had refused to hear of it.
“He just gave me a lift because of the rain, Mother.” Which was true enough, although far from the whole truth.
“After what he did to you last night, I’m surprised you’d give him the time of day.”
“It was a misunderstanding. We talked it over.”
“Oh, really?” Roxy asked ominously.
Gene looked up from the script he was reading. “Roxy, please. Let Rainbow run her own life, and let me have the peace to study my lines. I start filming next week, and I still don’t have a grip on my character.”
Roxy sniffed. “You don’t have a grip on anything you don’t care that your niece has just spent time with a man who hurt her badly last night.”
Gene sighed and closed his script with a snap. “I care, Roxy. I care that it’s her life and she’s entitled to do as she sees fit without your interference!”
“I’m her mother! “
“Somehow when you say that, it sounds like a threat!”
Rainbow stepped forward, taking her mother’s arm, and trying to divert the coming explosion. Shouldn’t you be resting for your seance tonight?”
Roxy rolled her eyes. “As if I can rest when I’m worried sick about you. You walked out into that awful storm, and I had no idea whether or not you were lying dead on the beach!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” said Gene in disgust. Putting aside the script, he rose and announced, “I’m getting the hell out of here. And if you’re wise, Rainy, you’ll get out, too. She’s in a real mood.”
“I was worried!”
“Well, there’s no need to worry now,” Rainbow said firmly, steering her mother toward the kitchen. I’m safe and dry, and I’d really like a cup of hot tea. Mother, are you sure you should do this seance tonight?”
“Well, of course,” said Roxy, diverted. She never liked to have her judgment questioned. “I said I would, and so I must.”
“But Mary Todd is up to something.”
“Well, of course she is. I know that.”
“But I have to live in this town, and if something outrageous happens tonight—”
“If something outrageous happens, Rainbow, you can hardly be held responsible. After all, you’ll have no part in it.”
“I was thinking that I ought to come along—”
“No!” Roxy was quite definite on that. “You stay clear. If you’re not there, no one can blame you.”
“But, Mother, if you feel that way, you shouldn’t be going either!”
Roxy filled the kettle and put it on the stove. “Ah, but I’m curious to know just what that woman is up to.”
Rainbow sighed, realizing she wasn’t going to be able to prevent this. “Just be careful, all right?”
“You’re worrying too much about it, dear. The spirits rarely cooperate, you know. They have their own agendas. Mary Todd is apt to get a great big disappointment.” She spooned tea into the teapot and set out cups, then joined her daughter at the breakfast bar.
“You look troubled,” she said to Rainbow. “Did that man do something else?”
“No! No,” she repeated more calmly. “It’s just that—Mother, have you ever gotten exactly the same psychic impression from different sources?”
Roxy tilted her head, frowning. “I don’t understand you.”
“This morning I had a very strong impression of fire, water, and doom from one of my clients. Then I had the same feeling when I was at the Towers a little while ago, investigating the banging that some of the residents are complaining about.”
“The banging? You looked into that? What is it? A poltergeist? It would be so unusual in a building where there are no children!”
“It isn’t a poltergeist.” Rainbow sighed and wished the kettle would start to boil. She was dying for a cup of tea. “No, the banging has the same source I’ve been feeling all along.”
Roxy nodded. “That poor man who died when his boat blew up. Well, that certainly explains the fire, water, and doom impression.”
“Of course. That’s obvious. But it doesn’t explain why I got the same impression from my client this morning. And why I keep feeling that death hovers around one of the building’s residents.”
“Which one?”
“That unpleasant man who was hiding behind the ferns yesterday.”
“Oh, him. Well, it’s hardly surprising that he’d have an unpleasant aura. It goes with the rest of him.”
“But it isn’t just an unpleasant aura, Mother. It’s that feeling of death. And today, I got the feeling that it’s not his death I’m sensing.”
“Oh.” Roxy lifted both of her plucked eyebrows. “Oh!”
“Indeed.”
“You want to be careful about saying things like that, dear. You could get sued. This man, unpleasant as he is, would certainly not like it if you were suggesting he caused someone’s death.”
“I’m not saying he did! I’m just saying—oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. It just seems like entirely too much coincidence to have all these feelings associated with that building and some of the people in it.”
“Maybe the building is about to collapse.”
Rainbow shook her head. “No, that’s not it. The feeling wouldn’t be attached to just a couple of people.”
“And the haunting,” Roxy reminded her. “It’s attached to the ghosts.”
“And that’s why it’s so confusing.”
Roxy nodded. “Well, there’s nothing else for it. I’ll have to hold a seance at the Towers.”
And this time Rainbow didn’t disagree. “I think so, Mother. I’ll let Jake know, so he can announce it. I think we ought to invite anyone who wants to attend so they can see and hear for themselves. It’ll cut down on rumors and problems later.”
“Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled at the idea of trancing in front of a huge crowd, but I suppose you’re right.”
The kettle started whistling, and Roxy went to pour the boiling water into the teapot. “If the ghosts at the Towers really do have a message for someone there, we might as well give them an opportunity to deliver it. But if we’re going to have a crowd, at the very least they must agree to be quiet. It’s hard enough to go into trance with a half-dozen people stirring and whispering. A roomful of them would make it just about impossible. It requires concentration, dear. Intense concentration.”
“I know, Mother.”
“Of course you do. I have a terrible habit of repeating the obvious for emphasis. It’s just that I want you to make sure they understand the difficulties.”
Roxy sighed and carried the teapot over to the bar, where she sat down and faced her daughter. “The most frustrating part of being psychic is that it is not under our complete control.”
“Tell me about it.” Rainbow sighed. “A few weeks ago I started to get the feeling that my life was about to undergo a major change. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t discover anything else.”
Roxy reached out and patted her daughter’s hand. “Actually, that’s a blessing. Life would be so boring if we knew what was around the next corner. Most of us who have abilities are gifted at helping others but are blind when it comes to ourselves. You just have to trust that everything will work out as it should.”
Which was a remarkably optimistic statement from Roxy, who was forever predicting doom for her daughters if they didn’t take her advice.
But it comforted Rainbow nonetheless. It would all work out. And as long as she didn’t think about Jake, she could almost believe that.
Mary Todd was the ringleader of a group of senior citizens who called themselves the Hole in the Seawall Gang. This small group—never larger than seven and currently at an all-time low of five since the death of one of their members, and the recent defection of David Dyer to Fort Myers—gathered at Mary’s house for dinner that evening.
Mary had years ago given up cooking, so she served Chinese takeout and pizza on paper plates. It was an eclectic menu, but Felix Crumley, the city attorney, claimed Chinese food gave him indigestion, and Luis Gallegos, a retired restaurateur, claimed it was too bland. Mary shuddered as she watched them eat heartily of the pizza while she delicately picked at her lo mein with a fork. The two others used chopsticks, but only Hadley Philpott, a retired philosophy professor, seemed to have any real skill at it. Arthur Archer, a local minister, finally gave up halfway through the meal, realizing he was apt to starve if he didn’t resort to his fork.
After dinner, Mary swept everything into a trash can and passed around the liqueur glasses and a bottle of Tia Maria. The fortune cookies were dessert.
“So, Mary,” asked Arthur, “have you called us together to discuss replacing our two lost members?”
Mary shook her head. “I don’t know that I’m ready to do that, Arthur. I was considering breaking our traditional rule and asking someone younger to join us, but—” Mary shrugged. “She married the chief of police. Entirely too close to the law for my comfort.”
“Well, I’m an attorney,” Crumley reminded her. “But a sensible one. No, I realized that asking Jillie Corrigan would put her in an untenable position. She hasn’t been married long enough to want to keep secrets from her husband.” “True,” Luis agreed.
Arthur looked shocked. “A woman should never keep secrets from her husband.”
“Really?” Mary asked. “And is that a two-way street, Arthur?”
He reddened faintly.
Mary’s grin was evil. “I rather thought you weren’t telling your wife about some of our hijinks.”
Hadley Philpott cleared his throat. “It seems to me you didn’t call us together to discuss the ethics of marital secrecy.”
“No, of course not, Hadley. How brilliant of you to realize it.”
Hadley frowned at her but didn’t bother to retort.
“I thought we should discuss the strange events at the Paradise Towers.”
Silence greeted her announcement. Arthur, she noticed, looked down at his liqueur glass, betraying discomfort.
“What is it, Arthur?” she demanded. “It has always struck me as supremely odd that ministers, who spend their entire lives insisting on life after death, are the first to become disturbed when the subject of ghosts arises.”
He lifted his head. “My conception of the afterlife doesn’t include ghosts roaming the earth, rattling chains. They have far better things to do.”
“Such as singing in the heavenly choir until the end of time?” Mary’s tone was dry. “Pardon me, but they’d all die of boredom. Regardless, the ghosts at the Towers aren’t rattling any chains. They’re rattling crockery. Putting furniture on ce
ilings. Creative little things like that.”
“I don’t think God would allow—”
“Excuse me,” Mary interrupted. “There are a great many things going on in this world that we would both agree God wouldn’t allow, yet they still happen. Perhaps we shouldn’t attempt to speak for God, but instead address what is actually happening.”
“Quite,” said Hadley, feeling his pockets for the pipe he always carried. Mary wouldn’t let him light it, but he could chew on the pipestem, which was a great comfort when these discussions began to get hairy. “The Deity is, and always has been, inscrutable. But ghosts, Mary. The implications!”
“They are fascinating, aren’t they?” Her dark eyes sparkled.
Hadley cleared his throat again. “Basically, what ghosts suggest is the intersection between separate universes with different physical laws.”
Mary nodded. “And where these universes intersect, the physical laws of both are altered.”
“Well, possibly. To an extent, I suppose that would have to be true. Otherwise, there would be no manifestation.” He found his pipe and popped the stem between his teeth.
“But where does this get us?” Luis asked. He was an eminently practical man. “We can’t expect to solve the mysteries of the universe over liqueur.”
“Certainly not,” said Mary. “But there is the question of the haunting at the Towers. Assuming—what is that phrase you always use, Felix?”
The lawyer swallowed a mouthful of Tia Maria. “Arguendo,” he supplied. “Assuming arguendo, for the sake of argument.”
“That’s it. Assuming arguendo that the ghosts exist, what do they mean, and what can we find out about what they’re up to?”
Hadley frowned. “Why should we do any better than anyone already working on the case? Didn’t the residents already call in Rainbow Moonglow?”
“Yes. And now her mother has arrived as well. Roxy Resnick is a trance channeler. She’s going to hold a seance for us tonight.”
Now every face at the table except Mary’s looked appalled.
“Now, really,” said Hadley. “So many of these people are frauds.”
“Not Roxy. I hear she’s actually quite good. But I figured we’d give her a trial run tonight.”