The Haunted Read online

  Julian saw in his mind those teenagers flipping him off, thought about James spending his summer hiding in the house. “Maybe we should start looking,” he said.

  She smiled, kissed him. “Maybe we should.”

  Two

  They’d narrowed the choices down to three, and though Claire was leaning toward a foreclosed McMansion that was part of the new DesertView development on the south end of the city, Julian thought they should be more prudent. Just because they were in good financial shape at the moment, it didn’t mean they always would be. Claire’s office had seen a slight downturn in clients recently, and the Web design business was notoriously fickle. If they ended up overextended, someone might be buying their foreclosed home in a year or two.

  Personally, he liked a ranch-style house only a mile or so away from where they lived now, in a nicer version of their present neighborhood. It was slightly smaller than their current home, with one bedroom fewer, which meant that his office would probably have to be moved into the garage, but it was situated in the middle of a double-size lot, which meant they would have quite a bit of land. On the east side of the property was what amounted to a small orchard, with two lemon trees, two orange trees, an avocado tree and a fig tree. The previous owner had also had a large vegetable garden, and though it was overgrown and full of weeds, with a little work it could easily be restored to its former glory. Claire wasn’t thrilled with the fact that the house was smaller than the one they had now, but, as he’d been telling her, if things continued to go well for them, they could always add on.

  “If we got that house, you’d be back to your old school,” he told James, trying to lure the boy over to his side.

  “I don’t want to change schools,” Megan said, overhearing them.

  “You’ll be going to the same junior high either way,” Julian pointed out.

  “I like Mom’s house better,” Megan insisted. “It has a pool.”

  “I like pools,” James admitted.

  The pool was another strike against the McMansion, as far as Julian was concerned. Maybe he was just being paranoid because all summer the Albuquerque newscasts had kept a running tally of backyard drownings, but to his mind the benefit of being able to swim and have fun was more than offset by the potential for serious injury and death.

  There were three houses in the running, and the dark-horse candidate was an older two-story home within walking distance of the historic downtown district. It was big enough for Claire, had yard enough for Julian, and while it was not the first choice for either of them, it had no major drawbacks to which the other could object.

  The real estate agent was the one who’d suggested they look at the property, and it was she who suggested another walk-through when, after a week, and despite her numerous high-pressure phone calls, it became obvious that they were no closer to choosing a house than they had been the first day. “I’ve been in this business for over ten years,” she said, “and I’m pretty good at matching home to homeowner. Let me take you through the house one more time. I think, looking at it with fresh eyes, you might see some very positive attributes that you may have overlooked before.”

  So, Saturday morning, Julian, Claire and the kids all piled into the van to meet the realtor at the house.

  “I still like the one in DesertView,” Claire said.

  “And I like the one with the fruit trees. But it can’t hurt to check things out again. In fact, maybe we should look at all three of them today and see what we think. Besides, we don’t have to decide right now. If we can’t agree on one of these, we can just wait a month or so. I’m sure there’ll be more homes up for sale.”

  It was only a five-minute drive, but Megan still brought along her iPod, and her earbuds were in before Julian even put the van into gear.

  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror as he drove down the street. It occurred to him that while this generation had access to an almost unlimited amount of music over the Internet, they were much more narrowly focused in their interests than had been the kids of his day—or even his parents’ day. When his mom and dad had been growing up, as they’d never failed to tell him, Top 40 radio played everything from rock to country to easy listening. They’d been exposed to the Beatles and Ray Charles and Glen Campbell and Neil Diamond, all on the same station. When Julian was a teenager, he and his friends had not only listened to music on radio, records, CDs and mix tapes borrowed from their peers, but they’d also been able to raid their parents’ and grandparents’ stacks of old albums and discover for themselves gems from the past. Now that avenue of discovery was completely cut off, for the simple reason that kids today did not have devices on which to play records or, in some cases, even CDs. The music could not be physically translated from those media, and that surreptitious passing down of knowledge—done behind parents’ backs, which made it somehow more acceptable than when adults tried to turn kids on to a song themselves—no longer occurred.

  Next to Megan, James could have been playing with his DS—but he wasn’t. Instead, he stared happily out the window, and Julian smiled. As far as he was concerned, the boy was turning out okay.

  Julian drove down the street. The Willet kid was skateboarding at the end of the block, and he grinned at the van as it passed, no doubt planning to head back and play in their driveway as soon as they were gone, probably with his punk friends.

  Julian was going to be glad to get out of this neighborhood.

  There was an accident blocking traffic on Carson Street, so they took the highway and got off two exits down. Now that he thought about it, this house did have the most convenient location of the three. And the neighborhood was nice, with well-maintained homes and people who had probably lived there forever. He could not recall seeing any teenagers or skateboards.

  Claire seemed to be giving the house more serious consideration as well. “It has a good yard, as I recall. And I like the fireplace in the living room.” She glanced over at him. “What do you think?”

  They drove slowly up Old Main. “Good location,” Julian pointed out as they drove past the brick building that housed Claire’s law office. “You’d be within walking distance of work.”

  “It’s closer to Grandma and Grandpa’s, too,” James said.

  “That’s true.”

  Claire was nodding in agreement, and she did not look displeased. Julian glanced around at the downtown businesses. Most people in Jardine, themselves included, bought their groceries at Safeway and shopped for everything else at The Store. The downtown district was just an area they drove through in order to reach those locations. But as his gaze took in the used-book store, the children’s clothing boutique, the sandwich shop, the ice-cream parlor, the plumbing supply store, the thrift shop, the tax preparer’s office, he could see himself taking a break from work and walking down here during the day, maybe meeting Claire for lunch. The idea appealed to him. This was close to the small-town life he’d originally imagined.

  They drove past City Hall and around a park before turning onto Rainey Street. Two blocks down, they saw their realtor, Gillette Skousen, waiting next to the For Sale sign in front of the house. Julian pulled into the driveway and parked, bracing himself. Gillette gave off a distinct Up With People vibe. Blond and perky, with white teeth and perfectly smooth skin, she reminded him of a Disneyland tour guide, circa 1970. He hadn’t liked her before and still didn’t like her now, but she seemed competent and was a friend of Claire’s sister, so he put aside his personal antipathy and got out of the van to meet her.

  She was already on her way, smiling, hand extended. He shook her hand—he always felt weird shaking women’s hands—as did Claire, and Gillette held forth the clipboard she was carrying. “I have some great news! The owners have agreed to come down an extra twenty-five hundred. I talked to them last night, and if you decide to take it today, they’ll drop the price. How perfect is that?” Her smile grew brighter. “What say we take a look around?”

  As before, they started o
ff outside. Like many older houses, particularly the ones in this neighborhood, it had a big yard. Julian liked that. The home itself was set back from the street, and a shade tree grew in the center of the green lawn. A tire swing hung from one of the tree’s lower branches, and off to the side was a birdbath in which two sparrows were loudly fighting. In the backyard, the realtor reminded them, were several blooming rosebushes, as well as tall hedges that gave them privacy from the neighbors on either side. An alley ran behind the property, and the garage opened onto both the alley in back and the driveway in front. An adjacent storage shed provided enough room for a lawn mower, garbage cans and gardening implements, leaving the garage itself free for other uses. “You could even convert it into a rec room,” Gillette had suggested last time.

  Inside, the house seemed nicer than Julian remembered. There’d still been a few pieces of leftover furniture on their previous visit, as well as assorted trash and debris, but all that was gone and the place was now clean and empty. He had a much better sense of what the rooms looked like. The living room, he saw, was nearly twice the size of the one in their current house, with a hardwood floor, and a picture window that looked out on the tree in the front yard.

  And Claire was right—the fireplace was impressive. Made of flagstone, it was built into the east wall and was large enough to accommodate a midsize tree stump. To either side of the hearth were rock benches, and above was a mantel, also rock. On the opposite end of the living room was the dining room and, beyond that, the kitchen. Homey, with a small, windowed breakfast nook that protruded into the backyard, the kitchen had been recently remodeled and featured plenty of cupboard space as well as a state-of-the-art gas stove.

  Claire and the kids remained with the realtor, who took them outside on a reprise tour of the backyard, while Julian left to explore the upper floor of the house by himself. It, too, was bigger than he remembered, and though the master bedroom was downstairs, there were three more bedrooms up here, as well as a full-size bathroom. One of the rooms, the one in the middle, was perfect for his office. It had a large window overlooking the backyard, was agreeably square and functional, and had multiple electrical outlets and plenty of wall space. Opening the narrow but deep closet, then walking around the room, he could envision where his computer desk would go, and his printer table, and his filing cabinets and his bookcase.

  He could get a lot of work done here. Unlike his current office, it was far away from the family room with all of its attendant noise and commotion. He might actually have some privacy.

  And he needed to get a lot of work done. Right now, he was reconfiguring a Web site for the music publishing company Darwin-Huxley, and if he wanted to keep that account, he’d better get busy. House hunting had been consuming far too much of his time over the past week, and the actual process of moving would take up even more time. The sooner he could put this all behind him, the better.

  He also needed to finish the project as quickly as possible so he could get started on upgrading the interactive Web site of a midsize municipality, which had a looming deadline in less than a month.

  Peeking out the window, Julian saw Gillette leading Claire and the kids from the garage onto the lawn. If he recalled correctly, the garage had a sort of attic, an A-shaped storage area accessed by a wooden ladder attached to one of the walls. James probably loved that. Just as he probably loved the basement in the house. Although it was very unusual for this area, the home had a small cellar beneath the kitchen. James had recently discovered James Bond and The Prisoner and a whole host of 1960s spy shows that some cable channel had been running, and was in a phase where he was fascinated by secret hideouts and underground rooms.

  Through the window, Julian watched his family head back into the house, and he met them at the top of the stairs a few moments later when they came up to see the second story. Together, they accompanied the realtor through an airy corner room that Megan immediately claimed as her own, through his potential office, and through the square-walled room overlooking the front lawn that was next to the bathroom and that James announced would be perfect for his bedroom.

  Julian was not one of those decisive guys who made split-second decisions on matters of major importance. He was a worrier and an incrementalist, and he liked to weigh all options, liked to study and think and play devil’s advocate with himself before eventually choosing a course of action. Claire was probably the one who would have to pull the trigger on this and make the final decision. Still, he could tell that the house was not only a good bargain but a great place to live. There might be minor problems or inconveniences, small flaws that he’d probably fret over incessantly given the chance, but if they bought the house today and moved in tomorrow, he was sure he could be happy living here.

  Downstairs, he walked through the backyard and garage with Gillette while Claire and the kids noisily went through the house yet again.

  “You know,” the realtor said as they stepped onto the rear patio, “I am so thankful I got this listing. I knew it was going on the market, but RE/MAX had it before, you know? So I figured the owners would want to go the same way again. But I was blessed that they chose me to sell their home.”

  “It’s a nice house,” he agreed.

  “I’m blessed,” she repeated.

  Julian tried to keep a pleasant smile on his face, though already it felt strained. He was uncomfortable with people who used the word blessed as part of their everyday speech. The implication was that God was intervening in the minutiae of their lives, hanging around and helping them with their jobs or children or household chores as though He had nothing better to do.

  Maybe it was true, Julian thought wryly. Maybe that was why there were wars and murders and earthquakes and hurricanes: God was too busy helping real estate agents find new listings to deal with those other issues.

  He and Claire asked whether they could look again at the other two houses, and Gillette took them all in her car, leaving the van behind in the driveway. This time, the McMansion seemed gaudy and overly indulgent even to Claire, and Julian had to admit that while his first choice did have a lot of land, the house itself was really too small for their needs. Returning to the home on Rainey Street, Julian felt like Goldilocks. One house was too big, one was too small, but this one was just right.

  “So,” Gillette said brightly. “Are you ready to get the paperwork started?”

  Julian hesitated. The house was great, but what if something even better came on the market next week? Or what if the neighborhood wasn’t as nice as it seemed and they ended up living next to white-trash losers who were even worse than the Willets? Or what if …

  Claire looked at him, and he read the expression on her face.

  He nodded.

  She smiled.

  “Let’s do it,” he said.

  Three

  James sat on his bed, playing a Star Wars game on his DS until his mom called him for lunch. The sun was shining through the window, illuminating his desk, bookcase and the movie posters on his wall. He loved his new room. It was away from Megan’s, for one thing, and it definitely felt good to be free from her. In the old house, their rooms had been right next to each other, and she had always been walking in uninvited or pounding on the wall, yelling at him to turn down his television. This room was also bigger than his old one, with space on the floor for his beanbag chair—which had previously sat in his closet, to be brought out only for special occasions—and a built-in wall cabinet for his TV and his Wii—if he ever saved up enough money to get one.

  “James!” his mom called a second time.

  “Coming!” he yelled back. He finished blasting the last of the clones, then closed his game and went downstairs to the kitchen. He expected his mom to hand him a sandwich on a plate, expected to see his dad eating at the kitchen table, Megan in the living room in front of the TV. But both Megan and his dad were out in the backyard, and his mom was just carrying a dish of baked chicken drumsticks outside, pushing the screen door
open with her rear as she backed out into the yard. “Wash your hands,” she told him. “We’re eating on the new picnic table.”

  James was surprised both by the type of food and by the fact that they were eating outside and all together, but he nodded and walked over to the sink, where he squirted some antibacterial soap into his hand and turned on the water. Seeing his parents and his sister through the window made him realize that he was alone in the house, and he glanced nervously to his left, toward the closed door that led to the basement.

  He didn’t like the basement.

  James scrubbed his hands quickly. It wasn’t something he’d admit to, and he was embarrassed that he even felt this way, but for the week since they’d moved in, he hadn’t been able to set foot in the underground room, and though he’d successfully hidden it from everyone else, he had made a conscious effort to stay away from the door that led to it.

  He’d had a nightmare about the basement when they’d first started taking things over to the new house. In order to save money, his parents had decided not to hire movers but to bring the small stuff over by themselves a little bit at a time, then rent a truck and have friends and family help them haul the beds, couches and heavy furniture. That first day, they’d made three or four trips, bringing over boxes of books, knickknacks and a lot of tools and things from the garage. His mom and Megan had stayed home, packing up more stuff for them to take, while he and his dad had ferried the boxes over, unpacking some so the cartons could be reused, leaving others in the rooms where the contents belonged. Neither of them had been sure where a grocery bag full of his mom’s old cooking magazines was supposed to go, so they left it in the basement, which his dad said they were probably going to use as a storage room anyway. The basement was pretty small, approximately the size of the kitchen above, and they’d put the sack of magazines in the far right corner of the otherwise empty room.