She finishes chewing, swallows, and looks at me with her full attention. “Yes.”
“Harry Cox.” I can’t help but snicker as I say it.
Perry, however, isn’t smiling. “What?”
“I take it you’ve heard of him? Least that’s what he told me.”
She frowns. “How did he find you?”
“Our address is on the website. Is there a reason you didn’t tell me about him?”
She sighs heavily and looks away, worry on her brow. “Because the man is a joke.”
“Is he now? What makes you say that?”
She gives me a sharp look. “If you met him, I’m sure he told you what he’s been emailing and calling me about.”
“Emailing and calling us. This is an us, kiddo. We’re a team here. You should have told me. You know nothing good comes from keeping secrets.” I pause, biting my lip. “It’s not exactly fair that you can access my mind anytime you want but I’m often shut out of yours.”
She rolls her eyes. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
Yeah, yeah. She says that all the time. It’s her go-to excuse, but I know that since she has the ability to read minds at will (not everyone’s mind, and not always very clearly), it’s made our marriage a little one-sided at times.
“Anyway,” she continues, “you can pick up on feelings and energies. It’s pretty much the same.”
“It is very much not the same. If I meet someone and they’re giving off the vibes that they’re afraid of me, the buck stops there. I don’t know why they’re afraid of me. I just know that they are. But you do.”
“It’s because you’re a weirdo,” she says with a smirk.
“I’m not asking you why they’re afraid of me. Anyway, point being…you’re the fucking weirdo here.”
She laughs and then grows serious, her gaze sharpening. “Back to Mr. Cox.”
“Really? You’re not going to use his full name? Cheap laughs may be cheap, but they count.”
I can tell by her steely gaze she’s not finding me very amusing at the moment, nor the name of Harry Cox.
“What did he want?” she asks.
“For us to go into his old boarded-up haunted house and have a fucking séance with his dead wife.”
She presses her lips together into a thin line. I already know that it’s going to be an uphill battle to even get her to consider this. Hell, I can’t blame her. It was absolutely out of the question until Mr. Dick started waving his check book around.
“And you wondered why I didn’t pass the messages along?” she asks, reaching for another slice of pizza.
“Did he tell you he wants to pay us?”
Her hand freezes in mid-air, her eyes flitting up to mine. “No.”
I grab her hand and hold it, giving it a squeeze. “He wants to pay us a lot of money to do this. I know it sounds fucking ridiculous, the whole being paid a bunch of money to spend a night in a haunted house, but that’s pretty much the deal.”
“How much money is a bunch of money?”
“A hundred grand.”
Her hand goes limp in mine, her mouth gaping. “What?” She takes her hand back, eyes round. “A hundred grand?”
I nod. “That’s what he said.”
“And you believe him?”
“I think so. The man is desperate, Perry.”
She continues to stare at me, dumbfounded. “That…none of this makes any sense.”
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t get the impression he was lying or trying to fuck us over. I don’t know, I’m sure you can get a better read on him and find out the truth, but I have to say, I think he’s damn serious.”
“It’s a trap.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. Why would anyone have that much money to give?”
“I don’t think it really matters.”
“Well, what does he do?”
“He’s an accountant.”
She laughs in disbelief. “An accountant? What does he do, launder money for a drug cartel? This isn’t Ozark.”
“Maybe he does. Either way, it’s a hundred fucking grand. This would change our whole life, Perry.”
Her jaw tenses and she straightens up, leaning on the counter. “You’re seriously considering this?”
“You’re seriously not?” I throw my hands out. “Do you not realize what that money can do for us?”
“Do you not realize that this could destroy us?!” Her voice is high, shrill, and there’s fear washing over her, radiating outward like a tidal wave.
Fuck.
“Baby,” I say to her quietly, feeling every cell inside me soften. I go over around the island and grab her hands, holding them up and pressing them against my chest. “Talk to me. Talk me through this. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Why do you even have to ask?” she says softly.
“Because that’s how we communicate. Please don’t expect me to read your mind, because I can’t.”
“You’re asking me to step into that world again.”
“I’m not asking anything of you yet, just to listen, just to consider it.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Her words slice me. Usually Perry is pretty even keeled, except when she’s PMSing (and I know better than to ever admit that out loud to her), but for the past few weeks she’s been on edge. I’ve been waiting for her to tell me and talk to me about it, but I suppose that’s a conversation for another time.
“Explain,” I say patiently.
She shakes her head and I know she’s about to pull away, but I press her hands against me tighter. She’s not going anywhere, and she knows it.
“Things have been pretty good, haven’t they?” she asks, her eyes searching mine. “It’s been three years and six months since I lost my mother, and every day is a new step forward, walking out of those ashes. I’m married to my best friend, whom I am still deeply in love with, we have a successful company. We have good friends in a city that’s been good to us. My father finally seems to be…moving on. Or he’s at least trying to. My sister…” she trails off and shakes her head, blinking. “Well, that just proves my
