he said. “It’s so damned uncertain, you know?”
She nodded. Oh, yes, she knew, knew too well. And so did Mr. McGruder.
“Why did you move back in here, Lucy?”
“Talk about rattling around. Your Aunt Jennifer doesn’t think it’s healthy for you, Lucy. She says too many ghosts live in the corners.”
“Ghosts?” She smiled. “I haven’t bumped shoulders with a single ghost yet. Listen, I’m fine. Do you know my old bedroom still looks like a teenage girl just walked out of it? Grandmother didn’t change a thing, not that she’d need to, since there are—what? Ten bedrooms in this place?
“Everything’s okay, Uncle Alan. Tell Aunt Jennifer not to worry. If a ghost turns up, why, then we’ll have a nice chat and I’ll offer it coffee with lots of Splenda. As for Bundy’s daughter, I don’t even live here officially, so she can’t know my address, and don’t forget, I’m always armed and dangerous.”
“Even Court says he’s impressed with what you can do in the gym. He still spends much of his time there, you know.”
Lucy thought again about her dashing, beautifully dressed cousin once removed, and that smirk he always wore. From their youngest years, Court had known he was hot. He’d hated his sister, Miranda, enough to make her hate him as much as she loved him. Lucy once saw Miranda haul off and punch him in the nose. He’d been so shocked, he hadn’t retaliated. Lucy laughed. It felt good. She hadn’t laughed since Coop had come to her hotel room in San Francisco. No, she’d also laughed when he’d patted her hand as they left Lansford’s suite at the Willard early that afternoon, and Coop had remarked to no one in particular that anyone who told his lawyer to shut up without even sparing him a glance couldn’t be all bad, and he’d given Lucy a blazing smile.
Uncle Alan drank more coffee, though it had to be lukewarm by now, with all the milk he’d added, and then drummed his fingertips on the table. There was something on his mind, Lucy realized, and he didn’t know how to bring it up. So she patted his hand just as Coop had patted hers, and said, “Spill it, Uncle Alan. I can take it. What do you want to say?”
He took another sip of his coffee, carefully and studiously returned the mug to the middle of a napkin, then finally looked at her. “Your Aunt Jennifer and I want you to come stay with us for a while, Lucy. We’re worried.”
“Of course you’ve got lots to do. This is a very big house, too big for one single girl.”
She ignored that. “I’ve got help. Mrs. McGruder cooked for me and stocked the whole kitchen, and Mr. McGruder takes care of the yard, of course. They were here a while ago. They’ll continue coming. Everything will be fine.”
“She’s a lousy cook.”
“Maybe not as good a cook as Aunt Jennifer, but I don’t mind cooking for myself. I’ve done it for years now. Don’t worry, Uncle Alan, everything’s okay, I promise. Thank you both for inviting me. But I’ll be fine.” And Lucy rose. There wasn’t much daylight left. She had no intention of spending a single minute in the attic after dark, and she had to get back to it.
He didn’t want to leave, she could see it on his face, a face that reminded her of his older sister, her grandmother, Helen. He was a lot younger than her grandmother—she could never remember how many years exactly. They hadn’t been very warm toward each other much, she remembered, but Uncle Alan had loved his nephew—her father, Josh—very much. After her mother’s death, when Lucy and her father had moved in, he used to visit them in the evenings several times a week. She stood there over him, smiling.
He rose slowly to his feet. He was taller than her father had been, and very proud of how fit he was. He worked hard on it with a program Court had designed for him. As far as she knew, Uncle Alan had only to deal with high cholesterol, and a bit of arthritis, nothing else—amazing, really, for someone in their seventies. Actually, she realized, he was on the thin side, even for him. Grief? She understood that; she’d dropped five pounds herself.
“Thanks for coming to see me, Uncle Alan,” she said, and walked with him to the front door. “Do give my love to Aunt Jennifer and to Court and Miranda. How is Miranda, by the way?”
He harrumphed. “The girl has taken to playing her French horn in her room at all hours. Drives me nuts. When she’s not playing that blasted instrument, she’s still hanging out at coffeehouses, probably meeting another loser like that last one who sent her running back home again.”
Lucy had to laugh. “Ah, Uncle Alan, I meant to ask you: did you know Grandmother did a lot of reading about ESP, mystics, psychics, time travels, strange things like that?”
He stilled, never took his eyes from her face. Slowly, he nodded. “Yes, there was a time years ago when Helen was obsessed with odd things. The odder the better. She bought into all of it. What makes you ask, Lucy?”
“I was reading through some of the files in her desk. There’s lots and lots about all of it. She never mentioned it to me, so I was surprised. I wondered if she talked with you about it.”
“I didn’t have much interest,” he said. “Why should I? I was in the most mundane of fields, Lucy, banking, like your father. That’s as far away from magic as it gets. What do you think about it?”
Lucy shrugged. “Everyone’s into something, I suppose. I have a friend who is perfectly nice but is up to his ears in astrology, won’t begin his day unless he knows if Mercury is in retrograde, or whatever.”
“She was your grandmother, not a friend. I’m not surprised she never spoke to you about any of the ESP stuff. Your father would not have approved.” He lightly laid his hand on her shoulder. “Lucy, does this have anything to do with why you’re living here in your grandmother’s house? I mean, you have your own condo; you also have your father’s house. Why this huge house?”
Did he have any idea? No, he couldn’t.
She channeled herself back into a calm, reasoned FBI agent, who could always avoid being pinned down. “Why would you ask that, Uncle Alan?”
“You seem, well, preoccupied, I guess, like you’d really like to see me out of your hair.”
“No, never that. Don’t forget Kirsten Bolger. She’s alive and well, and very likely regrouping as we speak. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“I wonder what your father would have thought about your moving in here.”
“Dad knew I loved this house. It’s why he didn’t sell after Grandmother died.”
“It surprised me when he didn’t sell it,” Uncle Alan said. “You said you were looking through your grandmother’s files? Have you found anything interesting?”
She shrugged, shook her head. “Perhaps in the future, when I’ve got some extra time, I’ll go through her papers more thoroughly. Like I said, I read through some of her files because they were a surprise, but to be honest here, Uncle Alan, I’m really not all that interested in speaking to dead people or aliens right now. Do you know of something that’s particularly interesting I should look at?”
“Well, I’m thinking lately that knowing more about those vampires on TV might put a spark in my marriage. What do you think?”
Lucy was smiling after she closed the front door until she walked back up the stairs to the attic. She’d give it maybe twenty more minutes of searching before she headed back down into the light.
CHAPTER 24
