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Welcome Home
Saturday morning felt like forty hours long in my impatience to see Brandon. When I told Susan we needed vegan supplies for three or four meals, she put up a list in a minute and sent Mike to town to get them. I think my dreamy good mood had her intrigued, but she would rather chop her right hand off than ask about it. She helped me tidy up my room and the study, and I decided it was enough fraternizing and I got off her hair to let her go on with her routine.
I called dear Mrs. Arbosky to let her know I might need her expertise on Monday or Tuesday. Lucky me, she assured me she would be available whenever I needed her, be it in person or over the phone. Considering Ann’s warning, I anticipated her it would most likely be a meeting like back in October, to have her take a look at documents I needed to sign before Wednesday. She told me to just go see her as soon as I had the papers, or call her if I needed her to come to the Manor.
Okay, I’d invested about
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Brandon simply loved the study. He explored every corner of the large room, that took up the equivalent to half the second floor.“Man, this is awesome!” he murmured.Then he spotted the desk with my laptop on it. He approached it and rested his hands on the back of the armchair, a cushioned spinning piece that had nothing to do with the rest of the furniture. He leaned a little forward, looking out the window, and turned the armchair to sit down on it.I saw him there, an elbow on the armrest, his other hand resting on my laptop lid, his eyes out the window, on the Quabbin, and grabbed my phone, stepping back. He didn’t notice. I think he was too used to having cameras on him around the clock, and had learned to just ignore them and carry on.My camera didn’t quite capture the whole ambiance of the moment, the sun coming in to wrap him in a golden glow, the warm contrast of lights and shadows with the stuffed bookshelves behind. B
Haunter One More Day Together
I was surprised when he volunteered to help me make dinner, proving he was a skilled cook, at least with vegan recipes. When we sat down to eat, I showed him one of the Fourman brothers’ investigations. “Told you that’s boring,” he said, pointing at the TV with his fork. “If we’d tried to make a TV show like that, they would’ve canceled us halfway through the first season.” “That’s why they declined to sign up with your network.” “Really?” “Yup. They want to keep it real. The problem is that your style became the standard, so if something doesn’t meet it, it’s not use. But the genre needs more of this.” He tilted his head, chewing, and nodded. “Y’know? Isaac would be an interesting middle ground, doing this in his over-the-top way.” “That’s why I wanted to show you this.” He shot a suspicious glance at me. “Trying to influence my business decisions, young lady?” “No, old man. Just giving you a piece of mind from the ord
Haunter Feints Within Feints
Monday morning.Lady Audrey showed up at nine sharp, her Mercedes followed by a big pickup truck with two big men on it. Two big men who, like Ann had anticipated, didn’t like women sticking their noses in their stuff, especially a short girl that looked hardly of age.The moment they set foot in the guesthouse, they started talking about tearing walls down and doing this or that. And when I tried to object, Lady Audrey patted my shoulder with a patronizing smile.“Let the experts decide, dear,” she said. “They know better.”I didn’t bother to reply. I just produced my phone and called Brandon, who picked up still in bed.“Hey, kid,” he said, eyes hardly open. “Any problem over there?”“What we expected.”“Okay. Call you back in five.”He disconnected and I turned to the big experts, forcing a smile. “Please, take a look around. We’l
Haunter Parting Ways
Tuesday.Jeez, only two days into the week and I was already tired.I put Mike in charge of keeping an eye on and direct the contractors and their crew when they arrived at nine, which seemed to please the man a great deal. Who knew.Greta and I drove all the way to the Cradle of Liberty and Jenkins’ office. The receptionist pretty much jumped over the front desk to lift us up in her arms and carry us to one of the conference rooms, where the lawyer was already waiting for us.The whole thing took about three hours, because Greta and I wanted to read down to the last line of the last document, and she asked for modifications to clarify some muddy technical terms. Another detail was that the documents had already been certified by a notary, even before I signed them, which wasn’t legal. So Jenkins was forced to let her act as certifying notary, which she could bill him.As for myself, I wanted the deed to state clearly the Manor still be
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The next days were busy and noisy, with the contractors getting everything ready to start working on Monday. And that next week was enough for me to know I would be counting down the days for them to finish their work and be gone. The worst wasn’t the constant noises and loud voices, or the mess they were doing on that side of the garden, or the dust that no closed window seemed able to stop from getting into the Manor whenever even the slightest breeze blew from the guesthouse. The worst of all was that those men considered Mike and me a nuisance, and tried to have their way the moment we looked away.I’d thought I could take a couple of days to go to Pennhurst. Changing the construction buzz for a night in the woods with Kujo looked like the deal of the century, but by the third day of work, it was already clear I would be stuck in the Manor from Monday to Saturday until they left.Despite all that, April was sort of a quiet month. I adjusted to the routi
Haunter Who Could It Be Now
To my surprise, when I dropped by to give Amy back her keys, she asked me if I would have her over for a couple of days.“I’m sick and tired of being at home,” she said.“Sure. If you don’t mind a little racket starting on Monday.”“Oh, right, the guesthouse. I couldn’t care less.”So she packed one of her bags to carry elephants unnoticed and jumped into her red machine. Needless to say she got to the Manor about twenty minutes before me. The pros of having friends with better cars than me: when I got home, the coffee was already made.The Blotters were happy to see her again, and we spent a nice family Sunday all together.I was exhausted after all the driving over the last few days, so I called it a night early. I traded a few texts with Brandon, already in bed, and fell asleep with my phone still in my hands. I missed him badly. Facetime and texts were okay, but it didn’t make u
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“How long?” I asked Amy as we walked out of the ER.“Three to four weeks. I gotta check with my physician first thing tomorrow.”She let me help her into the car and buckle her seatbelt.“Shit, Fran! What the fuck’s going on?” she snarled when I got in behind the wheel.“You ask me?” I reversed out of the slot and drove onto the street. “Why did you ask to come to the Manor so out of the blue? We had breakfast together that morning and you said nothing about it.”She shook her head, frowning ahead. “I don’t know. When you came back to say goodbye, I just felt this strong impulse to go with you. I don’t question that kind of feeling when I get them, so I just played along.“Like something inside you knew we would need you here,” I muttered.My phone rang, because the Haunter Supreme didn’t dig waiting. I handed it to Amy, who
Haunter All Too Real
I breathed deep, opened the door and stuck my head in to show off my poor French. “Un moment, Cristine, s’il vous plait.”I think that took her by surprise, because she stopped whatever she was doing. We walked in, and my first look was at the laptop, which I had completely forgotten about when Amy had gotten hurt. It was still on the desk, seemingly untouched. I hurried to grab it and take it out of the room, leaving it on the hallway floor by the wall.“Really, Fran?”“Hey, it’s important to me. Okay, where is she?”“Give me your hand.”I didn’t stop to think, I just held the bowl with one hand and stretched out my spare to the side. A firm cold grip wrapped around it and I saw Joseph’s tall silhouette by my side. He pointed at the middle of the room and I let out a muffled interjection: I could see a greyish shape in a disheveled heap, sitting or kneeling by the dis
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