Lyle rubbed his bare arms against the pervading chill. 'I haven't-'
He stopped as he saw a dark line appear in the dust on the dresser top. They could well afford a cleaning service, but didn't like strangers in the house who might see something they shouldn't. So they did the work themselves, but not nearly so often as needed.
Maybe that was going to turn out to be a good thing.
Lyle stepped closer and motioned Charlie to follow him. He pointed to the letters forming slowly in the down of dust.
Where
'Look,' he whispered. 'Just like on the mirror Sunday night.'
is
Charlie pointed to the growing string of letters. 'She can sing a song, why don't she talk?'
the
Good question, Lyle thought. He shook his head. He had no answer.
'Look like the spirit writing we fake,' Charlie said, 'only a thousand times better.'
nice
'Because this isn't fake.'
Spirit writing... all it took was a fake thumb tip equipped with pencil lead, but now he was witnessing the real thing.
The sentence ended with a question mark.
Where is the nice lady?
Lyle heard Charlie breathe, 'Gia. You was right. They connected.'
'She went home,' Lyle said in a voice that was perhaps too loud.
Why?
'She doesn't live here.'
Will she be back?
'I don't know. Do you want her to come back? I'm sure she'll come if we ask her.'
She is nice
'Yeah, we like her too.' He glanced at Charlie. 'Who are you?'
Tara
Lyle let out a breath. She had a first name. That was a start, but he needed more.
''Tara' what? Do you have a last name?'
Portman
Tara Portman... Lyle closed his eyes and balled his fists. Yes!
'Why are you here, Tara? What do you want?'
Mother
'You want your mother?'
Lyle waited but no answer appeared. He felt the chill drain from the air, the tension uncoil from the room.
'Tara?' he called. Then again, louder. 'Tara!'
'She gone,' Charlie said. 'Don't you feel it?'
Lyle nodded. He did. 'Well, at least we know who she is. Or was, rather.'
Lyle closed his eyes and realized he wasn't as tense as he'd been a few moments ago. He was no longer dealing with a nameless, violent entity. Knowing the name of the being that had invaded their house made her less threatening. She'd been someone, and something of that someone remained. He could deal with what remained.
He could help her. And she could help him.
'Right,' Charlie said. 'We got her name. Now what we do with it?'
'First thing we do is get hold of Gia and see if the name Tara Portman means anything to her.'
15
'Tara Portman,' Gia said, rolling the two names through her brain for maybe the dozenth time. 'I've known an occasional Tara and a couple of Portmans, but can't for the life of me recall a Tara Portman.'
They'd returned directly from the restaurant in Astoria-no stop at Menelaus Manor per Jack's insistence-and settled down for a movie. Gia had found Stepmom on one of the cable movie channels and declared tonight her turn to pick. Jack grumbled and groaned, saying anything but Step-mom, but finally gave in. He turned out to be a poor loser, editorializing with gagging and retching sounds at the best parts.
He'd checked his messages before they headed for bed and found an urgent call from Lyle Kenton who'd claimed that the ghost had told them her name.
Lyle had read off what the spirit had written and Jack had copied it down. Staring at the transcription now gave her a chill. A bodiless entity, the ghost of a little dead girl, had mentioned her. She shuddered.
'Well, whoever or whatever it is,' Jack said, 'it thinks you're nice. At least that's what it says.'
Gia was sitting at the kitchen table, the transcription before her. Jack stood beside her, leaning on the table.
'You don't think I'm nice?' she said, looking up at him.
'I know you're nice. And you know my agenda. But we know nothing about this thing's.'
'Her name is Tara.'
'So it says.'
Gia sighed. Jack could be so stubborn at times. 'Are you going to be difficult about this?'
'If being protective of you translates as difficult, then yes, I'm going to be very difficult about this. I do not trust this thing.'
'She seems to want me to come back.'
'Oh, no,' he said. 'That's not going to happen.'
'Oh, really?'
Gia knew he was looking out for her, but still she bristled at being told what she could or couldn't do.
'Come on, Gi. Don't be like that. This is the Otherness we're dealing with here. Responsible for the rakoshi. You haven't forgotten them, have you?'
'You know I haven't. But you don't know for sure it's the Otherness.'
'No, I don't,' he admitted. 'But I think the best course is to assume the worst until proven otherwise.'
Gia leaned back. 'Tara Portman... how can we find out about her?'
'Newspapers are the best bet,' Jack said. 'We can hit the Times or one of the other papers tomorrow and search their archives. Start in '67 and work backwards and forwards.'
'What about the Internet? We can do that right now.'
'The Internet didn't exist back in '67.'
'I know. But it can't hurt to try.'
Gia led Jack to the townhouse's library where she'd set up the family computer. She and Vicky were starting to use it more and more-Vicky for homework, Gia for reference stills for her paintings. She fired it up, logged onto AOL, and did a Google search for Tara Portman. She got over ten thousand hits, but after glancing at the first half dozen she knew this wasn't going to give her what she needed.
'Try 'missing child,' ' Jack suggested.
She typed it in and groaned when the tally bar reported nearly a million hits. But at the top of the list she noticed a number of organizations devoted to finding missing children. A click on one of the links took her to www.abductedchild.org.
