The Haunted

The third degree had ended, and his dad headed out to the street to see Robbie’s father. Megan remained where she was. James understood completely. Afraid to go into the backyard or over to their headquarters, he was equally leery of going back into the house. So he remained unmoving in the center of the lawn, waiting for his parents to finish talking and go inside before he took Robbie up to his room, where they could play computer games or do something normal.

He glanced nervously toward the side of the house. He thought about telling Robbie what had happened—and he would, eventually—but his friend seemed subdued this morning, maybe even a little frightened. James’s brain was probably filtering things through its own prism, but, still, he didn’t want to scare Robbie off, and he decided that this was not the time to come clean.

The parents finished talking, Robbie’s father drove away, and James’s mom and dad took their Store sacks out of the van before heading into the house. Megan followed, and James and Robbie went in behind her. Anxious, James looked across the living room and the dining room at the entrance to the kitchen, thinking about the slowly opening door to the basement and those terrible heavy footfalls. He watched his mom go through the kitchen doorway and waited for some type of reaction, but there was none. He heard her humming as she put away cleaning products, and he started to relax. Maybe it was over.

Closing the front door, his eye was caught by a flash of white against the dark brown of the floor. He bent down. An envelope had fallen through the mail slot, only there was no stamp on it, no postmark, no return address. The only words written on the front of the envelope were, The R.J. Detective Agency.

That was weird. They’d settled on the name only last night, after a long phone conversation in which he’d given in on the name in exchange for Robbie’s agreeing to let James call himself “senior detective” as opposed to Robbie’s regular “detective.” Warily, James opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of lined paper on which was written a short note:

Dear Detectives,

I would like to hire you to follow a man named John Lynch. I believe he stole a very expensive bracelet given to me by my mother and have reason to believe he has stolen other items of jewelry from women in the north end of Jardine. If you can prove that he is the thief, I will reward you handsomely.

“This is great!” Robbie said excitedly, reading over his shoulder.

“I don’t think we should do it,” James told him.

“Why not?”

He held up the letter. “Who wrote this? Who’s it from? Why didn’t they sign their name? And why would they hire us for something like this? Besides, how did they know the name of our detective agency? In fact, how did this even get here? The mailman didn’t deliver it. He hasn’t even come yet.”

“What are you saying?” Robbie asked, although there was more worry in his voice than defensiveness. He had obviously caught on to the fact that something was not right about this, and James saw on his face the same look of uneasiness that he’d worn when he first arrived. He might not have seen what James had seen, but he could sense that some of the things that happened in and around this house were not normal.

“I’m saying we shouldn’t take this case. It’s not even a case, really. Some unknown person wants us to follow some guy named John Lynch. We have no real details, and we have no way to even tell the person hiring us what we find. Don’t you think that’s suspicious?”

“Yeah, it is, kind of.” Robbie was silent for a moment, looking at the paper in James’s hand. He nodded toward it. “Was that there when you were in the house earlier?”

“I don’t think so,” James admitted.

“Do you think someone just put it through your mail slot?”

“I don’t know.”

Robbie was quiet again. “You had your mind made up even before you opened the envelope, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because—” James began, but he stopped.

I will kill you both.

“Call it my detective’s intuition,” he said.

Robbie seemed impressed by that, and they left it there. James folded the letter, put it back in the envelope, and the two of them headed upstairs to his bedroom. Megan was in her own room, and the two of them locked eyes for a second as he passed by the open doorway. He was filled with a sense of helplessness. He wanted to tell Robbie what had happened, but couldn’t. Wanted to talk to his parents about it, but was afraid.

What could he do? James wondered, and the only answer he came up with was expressed in a single word.

Nothing.

Fifteen

Pam and her husband, Joe, were the first ones to arrive at the party. Claire greeted them warmly, accepted the expensive bottle of wine they brought, and took them on a quick tour of the house before returning them to the dining room and the food.

“This place is terrific,” Pam told her. “The kitchen is amazing! And I really like the openness. And the high ceilings.”

“Thank you.”