Maybe This Time Read Free Page A

he was going to start making mistakes.
    â€œSo I was thinking of something a little more in my area and out of yours,” Sullivan said. “People. You’re not a people person, North. I am.”
    â€œPeople.” North turned the top sheet on his legal pad over so he didn’t have to look at the blot.
Andiana. What the hell?
    â€œYou remember those two kids that second cousin left you a while back?”
    â€œYes,” North said, fairly sure that had been a rhetorical question, although with Sullivan, you never knew.
    â€œI thought I might drop in, check on things for you, see how they’re doing.”
    North looked up at that. “You want to ‘drop in’ to the wilds of southern Ohio to visit two children you’ve never met.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Sullivan grinned at him. “I want to see the house.”
    â€œThe house isn’t worth anything. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
    â€œIt’s haunted.”
    â€œSullivan, there are no such things as ghosts,” North said, and for a moment he was twelve again and Sullivan was six, staring wide-eyed into the room where their father was laid out in his coffin.
He’s not going to sit up, Southie,
North had said then.
He’s dead. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
    â€œI know that,” Sullivan said now. “But I want to see a house that everybody thinks is haunted.”
    â€œ ‘Everybody’ being a nanny who got bored and wanted out.”
    â€œOther people have thought so, lots of rumors. So I thought I’d go down there and talk to some of the people. See what’s going on.”
    â€œAnd how did you find out about these rumors?”
    â€œI did some research for a friend of mine. She’s interested in hauntings, and she looked me up at a party and talked to me about the house and, you know, it
is
interesting.”
    â€œShe,” North said, Sullivan’s motives becoming much clearer now. The combination of a shiny new hobby and a shiny new girlfriend must have been irresistible.
    â€œKelly O’Keefe. The ghost thing is fascinating. I’ve talked to—”
    â€œKelly O’Keefe?” North thought of the tiny, sharp-faced, sharp-tongued newscaster he’d avoided after one viewing. “The little blonde with the teeth on Channel Twelve?”
    â€œThey’re very good teeth,” Sullivan said, going for indignant and missing.
    â€œThey look like they were very expensive,” North said, and remembered Andie the first time he’d seen her, her big eyes dancing, her curly hair wild, her wide smile flashing her overlapped front teeth. She’d never had her teeth fixed.
    â€œWell, you need good teeth for TV.”
    â€œTrue.” That had been the first thing his mother had said about her.
For God’s sake, North, get her teeth fixed.
    â€œThe close-ups are murder,” Sullivan said.
    And he’d said,
I like her teeth. I like everything about her. And now you do, too, Mother.
    Sullivan was looking at him oddly. “Are you okay?”
    â€œI’m fine,” North said.
    â€œOkay. Well, then, I’d like to take Kelly down there and look into the ghosts. I can check on the kids for you while I’m there.”
    â€œI’d prefer you didn’t,” North said bluntly. “I don’t see Kelly O’Keefe being a good experience for them.”
    â€œNo, no, she’s not interested in reporting on kids anymore, she’s on to ghosts now. She found out that the house was originally a haunted house in England and she’s very excited about it. Did you know they brought the house over here in pieces and rebuilt it? Kelly could be really grateful if I took her down there. Plus, I’d get to investigate a haunted house. I’ve talked to two highly regarded ghost experts and there’s something behind this stuff. I told the experts that there’s a haunted