The Sense of Reckoning Read online

  She crossed the veranda to the door of the hotel and, with some foreboding and with frequent glances behind her, tried the knob. It turned, and she opened the door and stepped inside. The room—in fact, the whole building—felt empty of any presence, living or dead. Garrick had mentioned that the spirit appeared in the lounge. Was this the lounge? There certainly wasn’t a spirit here. She crossed the room to a doorway leading to another room, which looked and felt even more empty than the first. Still nothing.

  She didn’t fancy searching the hotel any further—the idea of Ellen returning from her errand early kept nagging at her nerves. She hurried back to the front door and felt a little sigh of relief as she closed it behind her.

  She spent some time, first on the veranda and then on the drive and lawn, walking back and forth like a retriever searching for a ball in tall grass, hoping for an angle or perspective that would reveal the man she had glimpsed. But the lights—both yellow and gray—were gone, although when she walked through the space in which the man had stood, she could pick up a faint scent of sun-warmed skin and fresh sweat.

  Chapter 18

  Eventually, a glance at her watch told Ann that she had used up the time she had allotted to her reconnaissance run—she had to hurry if she wasn’t going to keep Scott waiting at their meeting place. She again considered taking the route along the inlet, but clouds were building and she had no wish to get caught on slippery rocks in the rain. She headed back through the pine woods to the shore road.

  Entering the dimness of the woods was oddly comforting because she thought she’d be better able to see the yellow light if it was in fact a spirit pursuing her. She glanced behind her periodically, looking for any sign of the light that had preceded the pain in her hand. Was it Biden Firth? She hadn’t seen anything remotely identifiable, but the noxious presence she had sensed certainly matched up with her brief but tragic acquaintance with Firth. But the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that the explanation for the pain was the sensing experience itself. Even if the man who she had eventually glimpsed hadn’t intentionally caused the pain, perhaps his very presence had been enough. And it obviously wasn’t some malignant intent of the spirit that was causing the reaction—she had experienced it after seeing Scooter, for heaven’s sake. And after seeing Beau and the old woman, both of whom she knew from experience were intent on protecting her.

  At the small family cemetery, her now-attentive senses picked up two faint lights hovering over two small headstones behind the chain-link fence, accompanied by a barely perceptible and tuneless humming. Probably young children and definitely not the spirit she had encountered at the hotel. She tucked her hands deeper into her pockets, ready for the pain to strike, but she passed the cemetery unaffected. Perhaps it was only when she was caught unawares that the sensing had this effect.

  By the time the road left the pine woods and began its run along the shore, the waves on the Narrows had become choppier, small whitecaps forming at their tips. A few minutes later, the clouds closed across the sky like curtains across a stage and she felt the first drops of cold rain on her face. She pulled her cap more firmly down on her head, zipped up her parka, and made fast time back to Indian Point Road.

  When she reached the main road, she was chilled to the bone and was happy to see the Audi parked on the shoulder, Scott in the driver’s seat with a map spread open across the steering wheel. He saw her coming and leaned across the seat to open the passenger door for her. She fell into the seat, throwing her soggy hat into the back.

  “So how did the secret mission go?” Scott asked.

  “Okay.” She considered how much she could tell him and decided that it wouldn’t be violating the oath of secrecy to let him know it involved a sensing; what other reason would Garrick have to send her off on an assignment? “I saw a spirit. And I got that pain in my hand again.”

  “Really? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She turned to look out the foggy window at the dreary scene outside. “It certainly is tedious, though.”

  “Was it Biden? Did he follow you?” Scott glanced around the car.

  Ann also glanced around the car, then pulled her sunglasses down to the end of her nose so she could look over them and scanned the car again. “I don’t think so.” She flopped back in her seat. “I’m starting to think I don’t need Garrick, I need a shrink.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Scott. “Whatever it is, it’s a real thing, not something you’re making up.”

  “How can you know that?”

  He patted her knee. “Because I know you. Why are you wearing sunglasses?”

  “I’m traveling incognito,” she said. “What were you looking up on the map?”

  “The map was my cover story, since I’m masquerading as the chauffeur of someone who’s traveling incognito. Just in case someone stopped and asked why I was parked there, I was going to tell them I was looking for Thurston’s Lobster Pound.”

  “I’d tell you more about what I’m doing if I could,” she said apologetically. “Garrick says it has to stay a secret.”

  “Well, I’m sure Mr. Masser knows best,” said Scott equably, starting the car. “Where to next?”

  Ann shivered. “Somewhere warm—I’m freezing.”

  “I know just the place!”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  *****

  They drove back to the eastern side of the island, where they entered Acadia and wended their way along the park roads, then turned off at a sign for Jordan Pond House.

  “What’s this?”

  “The perfect place to warm up—they have tea. And popovers!”

  Despite the fact that the tourist season was winding down, the parking lot was packed, with a spillover of cars parked on the sides of the road leading to the parking lot. However, they happened upon a car—a beat-up Honda with a pair of bicycles on the roof—just as it was pulling out and Scott slipped into the space.

  Visitors milled about in the restaurant lobby, but Scott had called in a reservation before they left Indian Point Road so they waited only a few minutes before being seated at a table near the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  After they had settled in, Scott consulted his guidebook.

  “That’s Jordan Pond,” he said, indicating the body of water at the bottom of the lawn that extended down from the restaurant. “And those,” he said, gesturing with his guidebook at a pair of mountains on the other side of the pond, “are ‘The Bubbles.’” He looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Sure enough.” He set the guidebook aside. “Does your hand still hurt?”

  “No. It never lasts very long.”

  “Do you think it was Biden Firth?”

  Ann considered, turning her spoon over and over on her napkin. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t you think that if it were Biden Firth, I would see him?”

  “I have no idea, sweetie. Maybe he has a way of hiding himself.”

  “I suppose.” After a moment, she continued impatiently. “What if it’s not something that’s trying to hurt me? What if this is some physical reaction to sensing, like with the nausea I used to get? Some completely innocuous spirit shows up, and maybe I have this physical reaction as an aversion to experiencing it?”

  “What innocuous spirit?”

  Damn, she hadn’t intended to mention seeing Loring Lynam—if that’s who it had been—to Scott. “Just theoretically,” she said. She hurried on. “Or maybe I just have something completely normal wrong with my hand, like you suggested. What if it turns out I just have carpal tunnel syndrome or something and I’m just making all this up about being haunted?”

  “I’ve had clients with carpal tunnel and never heard about them having symptoms like you’re having, but we can always get it checked out when we get back to West Chester. I’ll just be glad when you meet Mr. Masser again and find out if he sees anything.” He picked up his menu. “We have to get the popovers—that’s what they’re known for.”

  They orde
red those along with salads and bowls of lobster stew. Scott got tea and Ann got a Chardonnay.

  When the popovers arrived, it was clear why they were a draw—a magnificent tower of roll which, when its caramel-brown crown was breached, emitted a fragrant puff of steam from its hollow center. Scott took a photo of the popovers and sent it to Mike. He tried to take a photo of Ann, but she shooed him away. Ann took a photo of Scott and they sent that to Mike as well.

  “This is nice,” said Ann, sipping her wine. “Let’s stay here forever.”

  “Here on Mount Desert? It is nice.”

  “I was thinking of here in the restaurant, but the island is nice too.”

  “You could get a summer place here. Spend your winters in West Chester.”

  “How would I get to engagements? I can’t very well ask Walt to fly out to Maine every time I need to go somewhere.”

  “I’m sure there are charter pilots in Maine. We could look into that while we’re here.”

  Ann laughed. “I just said I liked the restaurant and now you want me to move to Maine?”

  Scott shrugged. “I just think a change would do you good. Plus,” he added, “maybe you could go into business with Mr. Masser.”

  “I think Garrick’s a one-man show.”

  Their salads arrived and Scott tucked in while Ann moved the greens around on her plate.

  Finally, she pushed back from the table. “I should really call Garrick and give him an update. Is it okay if I abandon you for a few minutes?”

  “Sure, I’ll ask them to hold the soup until you get back,” said Scott, waving to their server.

  Ann returned to the restaurant lobby to call Garrick.

  “Yes?” answered Garrick.

  Ann described her encounter with Ellen Lynam.

  “You spoke to her?” Garrick asked, his disapproval clear over the phone.

  “Yes,” said Ann. “I don’t know what difference it makes. She doesn’t know who I am and she doesn’t have any way of knowing I know you. I told her I was looking for wedding reception sites.”

  “And she believed that?”

  “Sure, why not? It was a good excuse because it gave me a chance to check out the area. She had to leave to run errands and I thought she had left the door to the hotel unlocked, so I was starting to go in and check out the lounge where you said you meet with the spirit, but then I got another one of those pains in my hand. Right before it happened, I thought I saw a yellowish light, but then the light was gray and it partially resolved into a human form. I asked him if he was Loring and I got the sense it was.” Ann described the man she had seen.

  “Yes, that’s Loring,” said Garrick. “Very promising.”

  “Do you think this Loring guy would try to hurt me?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. His unpleasantness seems more geared to verbal abuse than physical. Plus, based on my studies, a person who is limited to sensing spirits as lights almost always senses a particular spirit as a particular color of light—I hardly think he would have manifested as a yellow light to harm you and then a gray light to interact with you. Your past experience might be instructive in this case.”

  Ann thought back over her sensing experiences. “I agree that spirits usually appear as the same color over time. In any case, I think he was trying to say something to me, but I couldn’t understand what it was. He seemed happy to see me, though.”

  “Ah, good. Perhaps with more exposure you will become more attuned to his communications. Where did you see him?”

  “Right where you showed on the map—near the front door.”

  “Excellent.” Garrick sounded almost cheerful.

  “Garrick, when I told Ellen I was looking for a place for a wedding reception in July, she acted like the hotel might be available for that. But doesn’t that seem strange if she knows she might lose the bidding war, especially if she can’t get in touch with this lady she’s looking for?”

  “As I said, she is rarely logical when it comes to matters concerning the hotel.”

  “That seems more than illogical, it seems sort of delusional.”

  “I hardly believe it would meet the textbook definition of delusional behavior,” said Garrick irritably.

  “Well, she’s your client, I guess you know best.”

  “Quite. We’ll go back to the hotel this evening and see if his presence is more substantial for you then. Have your driver drop you off in Somesville at eleven o’clock.”

  Chapter 19

  When she got back to the table after her call to Garrick, Scott gestured to the server, who brought over their soups. The rain had stopped and weak sunlight struggled to break through the low clouds. When they were done with the soup, they ordered another pot of tea for Scott and another glass of wine for Ann and scooched their chairs together so they could both look at Scott’s guidebook.

  “We should definitely do a hike while we’re here,” he said. “Do any of these look interesting to you?” He slid the book over to Ann, who paged through it.

  “Here’s one right nearby—Jordan Cliffs. How about that one?” She slid the book back to Scott, who read through the description.

  “I don’t think that would be a good one, sweetie—it has metal ladders to get up the steep parts.”

  “That could be fun.”

  Scott raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Oh. Right.” She tossed her napkin onto the table. “I’m getting really tired of this. What if I have to spend the rest of my life avoiding things that could turn out badly if I get one of these stupid hand cramps?”

  “That won’t happen. You and Mr. Masser will figure it out. And if that doesn’t pan out, we’ll take you to a hand specialist in Philly.” He pointed to another page in the guidebook. “This one looks nice—right around Jordan Pond.”

  They finished up their beverages and set out, congratulating themselves on having the path largely to themselves once they passed the small number of walkers near the restaurant. However, they soon found that the normally easy trail had been made challenging by the rain—the rocks they needed to scramble over here and there were slick and branches weighted down with water hung over the path. But they were rewarded with lovely vistas across the water to the surrounding mountains, and Ann was again transported back to the Adirondacks.

  She felt the tension of the incident at the hotel begin to loosen its hold on her as she focused on the physical effort—relatively minor though it was—of the walk. Whether the woods surrounding Jordan Pond were actually “clean” of spirits or whether the moisture-laden air and dim sunlight were merely masking their presence, the effect was the same—she was able to relax as she could only when she felt herself unlikely to encounter a spirit.

  The rain started up again on the last leg of the walk. They jogged up the hill to the small complex that housed the restaurant, taking shelter in a breezeway between the restaurant and gift shop with the other tourists whose gabblings bounced off the walls like clucking in a chicken coop. Ann’s chest felt tight, whether from the run or from the first twinges of claustrophobia she wasn’t sure.

  She pulled off her cap and patted her hair, which was soaked below hat-level and squashed flat above. “I think I better make some repairs.”

  Standing at the edge of the crowd, Scott flapped the excess moisture out of his coat and wiped the raindrops off his glasses with a clean handkerchief. “Okey doke,” he said, replacing his glasses. He glanced around. “I’m going to check out the gift shop.”

  The women’s room was quiet after the hubbub outside. When she had dried her hair as best she could, Ann started combing it out to put back in its usual ponytail when she caught a glimpse in the mirror of a yellowish light hovering behind her.

  Her comb clattered to the floor as she whirled to face the light. There was no human form she could discern, just a transparent yellow oval about six feet high. She scooped her knapsack up from the floor and moved to skirt the light and reach the exit, but the light moved to block her. She step
ped to the other side. Again the light blocked her.

  “Loring?” she said hopefully, but she didn’t really expect the spirit from Lynam’s Point Hotel to have followed her to Jordan Pond, and certainly not to have been lurking behind her in a restroom. “Biden?” she said, her voice catching. She cleared her throat and said with what she hoped was more authority, “Biden Firth?”

  There was no response, and no visible change to the floating yellow light.

  Ann squared her shoulders. “If you’re Biden Firth, you should let me know. This isn’t accomplishing anything.”

  No response, no change.

  “Couldn’t you have just stayed dead?” she asked angrily.

  There was a noise from the stalls and one of the doors opened, a woman peeking out around the door. She scanned the restroom, then her worried look came back to Ann.

  “Is there a man out here?”

  Ann was silent, her gaze flitting between the woman and the yellowish light.

  The stall door opened a bit more and the woman’s look changed from worried to suspicious. “Are you talking to someone?”

  “There was a man in here a minute ago,” said Ann, her voice taut with strain while also flutey with an overenthusiastic attempt at normalcy. “Just went in the wrong restroom, I guess.”

  The woman emerged from the stall, her attitude shifting now from suspicion to annoyance. “You had an awful lot to say to him.”

  Ann laughed weakly. “I guess he had had one too many beers in the restaurant—he wasn’t paying any attention to me ...”

  The woman crossed the room, heading right for the yellow light.

  “Wait, don’t do that—” said Ann, right before the woman walked through the light.