Page 111 of I'll Be Waiting

“That’s fair.”

He lifts his phone and begins to tap. “I’ll let him know, but I warn you that he is much too busy to get it done on such short notice.”

“Really? Shit. Well…” I gnaw my lower lip. “Maybe you can make it a priority? We can’t hold our last séance until it’s signed.”

“What?”

I give a rueful scrunch of my nose. “Yeah, my lawyer is a real hard-ass. She’s furious with me for even starting this without a proper agreement. She’s warned that if I proceed without a signed contract, she’s dropping me as a client because she can’t be held responsible for what happens if I proceed against her advice.”

Thank God my lawyer is my former university roommate, who really will be able to squeeze in this agreement today… and won’t give me shit for putting words in her mouth.

I relish the look on Cirillo’s face and then, because I truly am the most petty bitch ever, I add, “Maybe skipping the séance is for the best. I’m starting to think this isn’t safe for me. I’ve heard from Anton. I know he’s fine. That’s what I wanted.”

“B-but you can’t leave it like this,” he says. “You’ve unleashed something here—”

“Pretty sure I’m not the one who summoned it. When I say I can’t proceed, I don’t mean you can’t finish up. I just can’t be here. I’m—”

He turns sharply, and my brows shoot up as he directs his glare into the room at large.

“Did you hear that?” he says.

I resist the urge to cross my arms at the obvious distraction.

“A dripping sound,” he says. “I heard it just before you came down.”

Okay,thatgets my attention.

“I heard it last night,” I say. “I can’t find it, though. I thought it was the hot-water heater.”

“It’s not. The sound is too sporadic for me to get a fix on it.”

Part of me wants to brush this off, so I can go place that call to my lawyer. Yet another part can’t help but be drawn into this most minor of mysteries. Sure, a random drip is the least of our concerns, but it pokes at me, and if we can solve it together, I can keep Cirillo from knowing I’m pissed off… until I want him to know it.

I look around. “I investigated the water heater and the furnace. Neither seems to be dripping. Same with the pipes.”

“And I looked for any moisture on the floor. There’s nothing. We aren’t below the main-floor bathroom, so that isn’t the answer. I can’t—”

He stops. “There, did you hear it?”

I only lift a finger for quiet. It was a single drip, one that seemed to come from my right. I’m starting to move in that direction when another drip sounds, this one loud enough for me to pinpoint.

“The old furnace,” I say. “I didn’t think to check that.”

Cirillo frowns. “Because it clearly hasn’t been used in decades. What would be dripping in that?”

I shrug. “Furnace oil? Condensation?”

I move closer for a better look. It really is a monster of a machine.

“There’s a service door there,” Cirillo says as he points at a metal hatch on the side.

I shake my head. “That’s for wood.”

“It’s a wood-burning furnace?”

“Combination oil and wood. Anton told me about it. After his grandfather died, it was his and his brother’s job to chop wood when they were here. His brother paid him to do it for both of them.”

I walk over and take hold of the lever. “You open this and put in the wood.” I turn it, surprised to find that it moves easily. When I yank open the metal door, something drops inside. I fall back with a yelp and then give a short laugh.

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