Page 57 of I'll Be Waiting

I’d been half asleep, and my imagination took advantage of that susceptible state.

I should talk to Cirillo about it. I know last night’s footsteps in the attic were a hypnagogic hallucination. I should tell him about that and also get his opinion on what just happened with the dumbwaiter. He’s the expert, after all.

I bite my lip again.

I don’t want to tell him.

I don’t trust him.

Part of me scoffs at the thought… but then I look at him, sitting in the dark, with my husband’s ashes, and he might not have had anything to do with the dumbwaiter, but he’s up to something.

I step forward.

He notices me and gives a start. “Nicola.”

“Davos.”

He follows my gaze to the items on the table. “I…”

“Can explain? I’m guessing those are your next words.”

He pushes back his chair. “I wanted to continue the séance.”

“Alone? After telling us it was over? Practically sending us all to bed?”

“It wasn’t like that. I did go to bed, even before you did. I came down about an hour ago.”

“In the middle of the night?” I ease back, trying to look casual. “Did you hear something?”

He seems genuinely confused. “No.” He searches my face. “Is that why you came down?”

“I heard someone talking down here. Seemed to be conducting a séance without me.”

He rubs his mouth. “Sorry. I thought I was being quiet, but Jin did say you have good hearing.”

He tries for a smile. When I don’t return it, he clears his throat. “I came down because I couldn’t sleep. What happened this evening bothered me, and I wanted to try understanding it without the pressure of an audience.”

When I don’t speak, he says, “I don’t know what happened earlier. Nor was I prepared to deal with it.”

He runs a hand through his hair and waves to the chair opposite. I hesitate, not sure I want to move to conversational quite so quickly, but my brain is still spinning from that newspaper—and the realization I’d imagined it. I’m suddenly exhausted.

When I sink into the chair, he continues, “I hate admitting that I don’t understand something I’m supposed to be an expert in. I’m a scientist. To start talking about feeling blocked and sensing something wrong? That’s for the kind of mediums you’ve been dealing with. It’s woo-woo, and I don’t do woo-woo.”

“Okay.”

He holds my gaze, as if searching for something. Then his shoulders slump. “I was an ass earlier, wasn’t I?” When I don’t answer, his lips quirk. “Let me rephrase that as a statement, not a question. I was an ass earlier.”

“Yep.”

He blows out a breath. “I’m not usually…” An inhale. “I was going to say I’m not usually like that, but that’d be a lie. I’m not like that atséances. I’m a professional, and I behave professionally. But this…” He waves around the room. “This is different. I’m excited about it, but I’ve never done this before. I don’t live in a house with my subjects.”

“You’re the one who suggested this arrangement.”

“I wanted to see how spending time in the environment and getting to know the other participants affected the outcome. What I meant is that this isn’t a side of me that clients see. My grad students, though? That might be another story.”

He passes me a quarter smile. “When I first became a thesis advisor, I’d sometimes have one student leaving while the other came in, and there’d be this weird exchange. Not hello or goodbye, but H or J.”

I arch my brows.

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