Gypsy Magic - J.R. Rain Page 0,59

simultaneously.

No, there was no way I was going to take this home to Finn. I didn’t want to be here at all, but I had a job to do and Marty needed help. With any luck, the Enchanted Spiritual Oil would be as effective on poltergeists as it was on regular spirits.

What was interesting, though, was that so far, since we’d entered the house, I couldn’t feel or see Danny anywhere. And I wasn’t expecting that.

“You really think this stuff will help?” Layla asked, looking down at her wrists with a concerned expression.

I swallowed hard, wishing I’d brought some Compelling Oil, because then I could have forced the truth from her about what really happened to her husband.

“Of course it won’t,” a scratchy voice said from the corner of the room.

The unexpected noise made the three of us jump and spin around to face the speaker. Somehow my eyes had managed to rove over the shadowy corner furthest away from the window, and I’d completely missed the wan shape crumpled at the base of the love seat. It took me several seconds to place the voice, because she barely looked like the exhausted woman I’d met on opening day.

Barbra leaned her head against the love seat, cheek mashed into the plush cushions. Her hair was matted, her eyes almost completely lost to bruise-like shadows. Her lips were chapped, her skin sallower than ever, and she looked ready to drop dead of exhaustion.

I supposed the potions hadn’t been helping her sleeplessness much, then. That was probably also the reason she was glaring daggers at me.

“She’s a fraud,” Barbra croaked, not bothering to lift her head from the pillows. “None of those damn elixirs worked.” I was about to defend myself, but Barbra turned to face her sister. “This whole ghost-exorcism business is just BS. It’s a waste of your time and money! But you never listen to me anyway, do you? Not about Danny, or the house, or the...” She trailed off, grumbling darkly under her breath, apparently too tired to say more.

Layla waved an embarrassed hand in her sister’s direction. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She hasn’t been sleeping well since Danny’s death.” Then she looked at me and dropped her voice so Barbra wouldn’t overhear her. “She’s the one who discovered the...” Layla made a choked sound and her words faltered. “The body.”

The body of the man you killed, I thought to myself.

“Barbra, why don’t you go to the girls’ room and try to rest on Allison’s bed? I think she and Hannah are outside playing in the treehouse,” Layla said.

Barbra looked like she might argue, but ultimately just shrugged and climbed to her feet, performing an ungainly zombie shuffle down the hall. I watched her go, worry prickling at the base of my skull. Something really needed to be done for Barbra and soon.

Layla turned to us with an obviously false smile when her sister left. “Why don’t I show you the rest of the house?”

Chapter Seventeen

Large portions of a once immaculate house had simply been pummeled into so much rubble. I was a bit nervous ascending the stairs to reach the girls’ bedroom, as one section of the drywall on the right side of the stairs seemed on the verge of collapse. White dust coated the bannister and came away on our fingers as we climbed.

The distinct holes I could see were about the size and shape of a man’s fist. My shoulders curled forward as I remembered finding similar holes near the headboard of Finn’s bed. This was definitely the work of a poltergeist. And hopefully one I could banish.

As far as I was concerned Danny was most probably the poltergeist—he’d been murdered by his wife and he was furious over that fact so he’d come back, from beyond the grave, to enact his revenge. It was just a shame Barbra and her girls were in the middle of it.

And, I still couldn’t get a feeling on whether or not Danny was even in the house. Truth be told, I would have expected to see or hear from him by now. Unless he was hiding, making it more difficult for us to detect him.

There was more rubble on the second floor landing. Floorboards had been pried up. The insulation had been pulled partly out of one wall, hanging like a fat, pink tongue on the floor.

Layla paused at the doorway of the room, peering in nervously. “We moved Allison and Hannah’s beds into the downstairs