The Uninvited

He heard another sound—whining. He glanced down. There was a dog by his feet. a hound, large and tawny in color, with huge brown eyes that looked up at him trustingly. He hunkered down to touch the dog, feeling air, but aware that the hound knew it was being stroked. “Thank you, boy. Thank you for coming to me,” he said softly. “If I can help, I will.”

He was so involved with visions of the family creatures that he was startled when his phone rang.

“Montague,” he said quickly, grinning to himself. The ghost hound had pushed him—nothing but a blast of air or imagination, but it had almost knocked him over.

“Agent Montague, it’s Allison Leigh. I’ve, uh, had a nap. If you want to talk, I’m willing.”

“I’ll be right by to get you,” he said.

* * *

Allison had managed to convince herself that she was totally sane; she was just under intense pressure.

And she was going to do the sane and intelligent thing. See a shrink.

Annette Fanning sat on a stool at the counter, looking at her with concern.

She was grateful to Annette. Her friend had arrived just as she’d come to, and when she’d let Annette in and continued to run through her house searching for a sign that someone had been there, Annette had kept quiet and helped. Now, she stared at Allison.

“You’re making more tea? What you need is a good shot,” Annette told her sagely. “And if you won’t have one, I will. You’d barely gotten off the floor when I got here. You could have hurt yourself! I still don’t understand what happened. You saw someone in your house, or you think you saw someone?”

“I don’t think anyone was really here. I’m sure I’m just mourning Julian, which is something I wasn’t able to do before. I mean, I found him, and then the rest of the night I was with the cops and at the station and back at the house, and then we found the office trashed....”

“You need a good shot of whiskey,” Annette said again, getting up and going to the cabinet.

“I don’t want any whiskey. I just called that agent and said I’d go out with him.”

“Now that’s a plan. He’s really hot-looking, Allison.”

Allison frowned at her. “I don’t mean go out in that sense. I’m going to answer questions for him and tell him about people. It’s not a date.”

“That’s a pity,” Annette said. She was tiny and blonde and struggled to reach the bottle shoved at the back of the cabinet. “You should get a real life, you know. You can’t spend your life in the past.”

“I don’t spend my life in the past,” Allison said, getting the bottle for her. “And I don’t want a shot, really.”

“I do—really!” Annette accepted the whiskey bottle and poured herself a measure. “You haven’t gone out since you were dating Peter Aubrey, right? I thought you two were great together.”

“When he was clean, we were great. I cared about Pete and it was fun being with him. But I didn’t have the power to change him. I picked him up from various gigs three times when his friends called to say he’d passed out and needed help. And I went back to him twice when he said he’d kill himself if I left him. I learned. It has nothing to do with me—he has to find a way to face his demons. I went to Narcotics Anonymous and learned that I can’t change him. Only he can do that. If he ever gets cleaned up, goes into rehab and is serious about it, I’ll consider seeing him again,” Allison told her. “I’m not antisocial. I’m not lonely. And now is not the time to worry about my social life. Julian is dead, Annette, and the house is in the middle of some investigation....” She let her voice fade away; Annette’s big brown eyes were moist again.

“I still can’t believe it,” Annette said. “I can’t believe that Julian’s dead.”

“I’m sorry, Annette, I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, I know.” She let out a long sigh. “I called Nathan to find out if the board knew anything about funeral arrangements but no one’s heard anything. The family wants the body shipped back to Indiana, but the morgue isn’t going to release him until…until whatever, I don’t know. There are still tests being done, I guess. Do you think he’d been drinking or that he was high or something? This is all so mysterious. Oh! Nathan did say he’d make sure we have a memorial in the next few weeks, no matter what. Julian had a lot of fans in the city.”