Page 25 of Spooked
Instead, he surprises me. Leaning forward, he places his deep tan coloured hand over mine for a second. “Bro, fuck, that’s a lot to be dealing with. Give me a moment to unpack it, yeah?”
He sits back, closing his eyes as if meditating.
He’s our original tech guru, accustomed to dealing with computers and programming, finding information, and making connections where others might see none. While his tool is a computer, it looks to me like he’s currently sifting through everything I’ve said in his mind, analysing, rearranging, trying out various algorithms to come up with an answer.
I give him space. He doesn’t disappoint.
“Maeve Sullivan exists as I said.” Suddenly, he sits forward, his hands on his knees. “And get this. You and she were admitted to the hospital at almost the same time. You were in a coma, she is still.” He raises his eyes to mine. “What if you met on some spiritual plane? You heard a message she was trying to convey?”
“You’re talking nonsense,” I retort. “Fuck, Mouse, it doesn’t make sense.Met on a spiritual plane?You’re talking out of your ass.”
“Iam?” Mouse cocks an eyebrow at me. And despite the circumstances, I have to smile.
Although, to my logical mind, it’s something I’m inclined to dismiss out of hand. But there are coincidences I can’t ignore. Like that Maeve and I were brought to the same medical facility almost simultaneously. How could my imagination have conjured a real, albeit unconscious, person up? Racking my brains, I’m absolutely certain I’ve never heard of those names before, and Bullet mentioned nothing about them, of that I’m sure.
Mouse suddenly stands. He passes me my crutches. “Come on, I’ve got an idea.”
Bewildered, I get myself upright. “Where we going?”
Jerking his head toward the door, he gives me an explanation. “To the clubhouse, or to my office, to be precise. I like fitting puzzle pieces together, and you’ve just given me a doozy.”
I’ve just admitted to him I’m fucked in the head, that I’ve been seeing ghosts. While he might be the one brother in the club who wouldn’t straight out laugh at me, or send for a straitjacket, I’ve no fucking idea why he thinks his computers can help. Unless he has those gadgets you see on paranormal television shows, the ones where they investigate reported hauntings. Narrowing my eyes as I follow after him, I wouldn’t actually be surprised if he sent me back to the house with motion detectors or whatever gimmicks they use.
He slows his pace so I can keep up with him, and when he holds the door to the clubhouse open for me, I step/hop inside. It’s midafternoon, and there’s a prospect half-heartedly cleaning the bar. Tommy, perched on his scooter is fondly looking on as Olivia and Gwen play with their babies in the corner kitted out for kids. They hardly look up as we enter, just giving a brief acknowledgment with a wave of their hands. Ignoring them, Mouse heads straight on, leading me to his office.
Apart from regularly updated equipment, I doubt his domain has changed in the thirty-odd years he’s been at the club. It’s dark as the blackout blinds are always drawn. Discreet lighting minimises any glare on the screens, and there, on his desk, is his ever-overflowing ashtray, and next to that, one rolled blunt, and the makings for more.
Pointing me to the chair in front of the desk, he goes to his that’s behind it. It comes as no surprise that his first action is to light the blunt, his next to take a deep drag, drawing the smoke in, holding it in his lungs before breathing it out. He offers it tome, but I decline. My head doesn’t need to get more fucked than it is. Whatever senses I’ve got left, I still want around me.
At the click of a few keys, screens flicker to life, and I’m entranced as Mouse gets to work. Watching his hands fly over the keyboard is like seeing a virtuoso pianist in action, his long fingers gliding, frantically tapping, then pausing while his brow scrunches as he reads through results. Rejecting what he finds with a small shake of his head, his lips thin as his hands dance on.
While Mouse is a serious man sitting around the table in church, his face rarely giving away his thoughts, regarding him now, I notice he’s far more open. The slight upward curve to his lips and the arching of a brow suggest he might have found something interesting. But it doesn’t stop him from clicking the keys and moving on.
Anxious to hear the results of his searching, even though I don’t know precisely what he’s looking for, I resist the temptation to prompt him for updates, knowing I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t expect to give me answers.
It seems hours, but it's probably only about ten minutes, before he lifts his fingers from his keyboard, and leans back, linking his hands behind his neck. A shake of his head makes his long hair fly, and he huffs out air to blow a strand off his face.
It’s only then that he raises his eyes to me. “Well, I’ll be fucked.” He turns a screen, angling it so we can both see.
“I started at the source. Emerald and Albert Sullivan.” He points to the picture on the screen, and I suck in air as the two people who’d I’d seen getting it on in the bedroom are pictured before me.
What the fuck?It was possible I’d heard Bullet mention Siobhan without taking it in, but there’s no way that I’d ever seen the two people in the grainy picture in front of me. Yet, everydetail of their faces is just as I remember, complete with the softness in their eyes that shows how much they were in love.
While working, he’d placed the blunt in the ashtray. With a new tremble in my hands, I reach for it and his lighter, picking them both up. I light one end, put my lips to the other, and breathe deeply in.
As Mouse starts summarising their story, I’m grateful. Though it’s the same words that are right in front of me, I’ve lost the ability to focus properly or read. My heart is pounding, and I feel dizzy. Hallucinations are one thing, but how could my brain materialise people who are real?
“They were quite the story back in their day. Albert Sullivan was wealthy, his grandfather having made his fortune in gold here in Arizona and having invested it wisely. Albert’s father died during World War I, so he, as the only grandson, inherited everything. He was highly respected and well-known in society. He remained single despite being faced with numerous rich debutantes whose families were courting him. He was in his fifties when he finally fixed his sights on a dancer who definitely came from the wrong side of the tracks. Emerald Dias.”
He pauses to shake his head and smirk. “There was obviously something about her that caught his attention when he saw her on the stage.” He stops again to glance at me. “I doubt Emerald was her real Christian name, but I can find no birth certificate. But that was what she used to sign the marriage certificate.” He swipes his hair behind his ears again and raises a corner of his mouth. “It was the golden years of the fifties. No one would have blinked an eye if he’d kept her as his mistress. But in nineteen sixty-three, something made him decide to marry her. By then she’d spent ten years performing her arts and had become sought after and popular—among the male crowd.” He rolls his eyes. “Her change of status did her no favours in New York. As his wife, it seems she was tolerated, but not welcomein the drawing rooms of the city. He brought her back to his roots, here in Arizona, where his family had generated wealth. He’d renovated the Sullivan House for her, and they took up residence.” Mouse clicks a few keys, and a new screen appears. “Seems they had the final joke. They used to throw lavish parties, and people wanting Albert to invest in their businesses either lost the chance or had to come to bumfuck nowhere to tap into his fortune. He used to flaunt Emerald in front of the men who used to leer at her when she was dancing, forcing them to show her respect. I suspect he also enjoyed having captured a woman whom they’d all thirsted over, but who was only his to touch now.”
“They really loved each other,” I tell him, forgetting that I’m trying hard not to remember how I know, let alone admit it.
Mouse misses nothing. “You saw them?” he asks sharply.
I give a sheepish nod and then shrug. In for a penny… “I saw them at their most intimate.”
He chuckles, but softly. “Love can sometimes find itself in the strangest of ways.” His eyes glaze slightly, and the upturn to his lips makes me wonder if he’s remembering how he met Mariana. He’d saved her from a bear if I correctly recall the story.
