The Haunted

His dad turned on the light, and the room was suddenly filled with a brilliant glare that, coming after the darkness, caused James to squint. “What’s the matter?” his dad asked kindly.

“I want to go home,” Robbie repeated.

The look on his father’s face told James that his dad thought the boy was probably just homesick. That was a possibility—but Robbie had stayed overnight at their old house before and nothing like this had happened.

“I have an idea.” His dad left for a moment and came back with a cordless phone, which he handed to Robbie. “Here. Let’s call your parents.”

Nodding assent, Robbie took the phone. In the silence, James could hear the beeping of the numbers as his friend dialed, and then several rings before a faint voice answered.

“Dad? I want to come home.” Robbie was no longer crying, but his voice still quavered with emotion. There was a pause. “I know.” Robbie sniffed into the phone. “Yeah.” There was a long silence. James could hear the faint chipmunk chatter of his friend’s dad on the other end of the line. “Okay,” Robbie said finally. “Okay. I will.” He handed the phone back. “Here. My dad wants to talk to you.”

“Kent?” James’s dad moved into the doorway and lowered his voice so the two boys couldn’t hear the conversation.

James looked at his friend quizzically. “So?”

“My dad said I have to stay.” Robbie sounded resigned but no longer frightened. He’d not only stopped crying, but the panicked edge was off his voice.

James couldn’t help himself. “Why do you want to go home?”

Robbie shook his head, not willing to answer.

Did you have a nightmare? James wanted to ask. Was it about the basement?

But he didn’t say anything, and seconds later his dad came in, cheery smile in place, and told them both to go to sleep, waiting until Robbie was back in his sleeping bag, and James was in his bed and under the covers, before turning off the light. “Good night,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

“Night, Dad,” James said.

“Good night, Mr. Perry.”

James heard his dad’s footsteps retreat down the hall. He almost asked Robbie if the reason he wanted to go home was because he was homesick … or because he was afraid of something. But once again, he didn’t. Instead, he lay there silently, staring upward into the gloom.

Thinking about the basement.

And the dirty grinning man in the corner.

Four

Claire looked up at the clock. It was just after ten. She was supposed to meet her sister, Diane, and their friend Janet for lunch at noon, but this morning’s only client had canceled, and she had nothing to do for the next two hours. She considered calling and rescheduling the lunch for eleven—it would be easier to get a seat at the earlier time—but both Diane and Janet were at work, and she wasn’t sure they’d be able to get off. She settled for e-mailing them, and received two quick replies, informing her that neither could meet any earlier.

Claire shook her head as she read the e-mails. She had learned to read and write before the advent of the online age and still felt out of place in the e e cummings world of the Internet, where nothing was capitalized, periods were known as dots, and the normal rules of grammar and punctuation did not apply.

At least her sister had spelled everything correctly.

Sighing, she leaned back in her chair. Shouldn’t more people be suing one another during a recession? When times were tough, weren’t people supposed to look for easy money and big payouts? The business of law didn’t really work that way, but that was the common perception, and she was a little surprised herself to find just how untrue it was. Right now, all she had on her plate were a couple of divorces, a dog bite case and a property-line dispute. She was meeting with the client disputing the property line this afternoon. The paperwork was pretty well finished on the other three cases, so there wasn’t anything for her to do until she met with those clients later in the week.

Claire glanced out the window, where David Molina was carrying out a metal rack of paperbacks and putting it next to the door of his bookstore. She contemplated routing the office phone to her cell and just going home for the next hour, but the woman bitten by the dog had been a walk-in, and she couldn’t take a chance that she might miss someone else coming in off the street. She needed the business.

On a whim, she e-mailed Liz Hamamoto, the only person from her old Los Angeles firm with whom she still kept in touch. She hadn’t spoken or written to Liz since they’d decided to move, and she made up for that by writing a long multipage message describing the new house in detail, as well as their reasons for moving, and providing Liz with her new address.

Now David was adding new paperbacks to the rack.