“That would be private,” Andie said. Why would you want to know that?

“Well, yes, but since Sullivan and I are, well, you know, then you and I must-”

“No,” Andie said. Southie and Kelly? Lydia must be having a coronary somewhere. “We mustn’t.”

“After all, you’re here taking care of his children,” Kelly said again, watching her closely.

“Wards. He’s their guardian, not their father.”

“So he’s distant,” Kelly said sympathetically.

“Not at all,” Andie said, thinking, Hell, yes, he’s distant, have you met the man? “After all, he sent me.”

“After three nannies.” Kelly smiled as if to soften what she said. “That’s pretty distant.”

How do you know about the three nannies? “And as soon as I was available, he sent me,” Andie said.

“And what were you doing before this?” Kelly was wide-eyed with interest now.

“None of your business,” Andie said. “I thought you were interested in ghosts.”

“Oh, I am. That’s why the séance tomorrow is going to be so important-”

“There is no séance tomorrow.”

“-and you’ll be glad to know that Isolde Hammersmith is the absolute best medium in the tristate-”

“I’m thrilled, but there’s still no séance.”

“-so we’ll get wonderful results, guaranteed.”

“She guarantees results?” Andie said.

“No, I guarantee results,” Kelly said, the grimness in her voice holding a ring of truth. “Mrs. Crumb showed me the Great Hall, and I think that would be perfect for-”

“Here we go.” Southie interrupted them with two glasses, one of which he gave to Andie, the other of which he shoved in Kelly’s face. “Here you are, darling. I promise you a better selection tomorrow.” He took Kelly’s elbow. “Come over here and talk to Dennis. He seems a little confused about what his role here is.” He turned her in the direction of the couch, mouthing “Sorry” to Andie over Kelly’s head.

Kelly craned her head back. “But Andie and I were just-”

“Oh, you go on ahead,” Andie said. “I’ll just stand here and… drink.”

Southie steered the little blonde across the room, but it didn’t last. Kelly patted Dennis’s shoulder and left him and Southie to go to Bill, who was going through his camera bag. Bill looked surly, and she looked like she was trying to do something about it, so Andie joined Dennis and Southie on the green-striped sofa to watch.

“Bill does not look happy,” she said to Southie.

Dennis looked at his drink with caution. “I hadn’t noticed. This brandy is interesting. Did you say they make it in the basement?”

“That was a joke,” Southie said, and then sipped his brandy again. “I think it was a joke.”

Andie leaned closer to Dennis. “So what is Kelly up to?”

“I don’t know.” Dennis sipped his brandy, made a face, and sipped again. “She was very interested in hauntings, but now…”

“I’m beginning to wonder, too,” Southie said. “She hasn’t been asking about the ghosts, she’s been asking about the kids.”

Andie drank her brandy, tasting an odd but not unpleasant woodsy undernote that the tea must have muted, and watched Kelly as she bent close to Bill, whispering to him between belts of her own brandy. Kelly was socking it right down, woodsy undernote be damned. “Well, her specialty has always been children.”

“Child ghosts?” Dennis said. “That’s a narrow specialty.”

“No, live children. In peril. And as it happens, I have two of those. I don’t trust her.” She glanced up at Southie. “And you brought her.”

“She brought Dennis,” Southie pointed out. “It’s a package deal. The kids-in-peril thing, though, that’s bad.”

“Well, the peril is…”-Dennis heh-hehed-“not true. There are no ghosts. Ghosts don’t exist. People are very good at faking them, but in the end, that’s all they are: fakes.”

Andie knocked back the rest of her drink and put her glass on the table beside Dennis’s. “If I take you upstairs, show you where I saw Alice’s rocker move, can you tell me how those things could be faked?”

“Of course.”

“Then come with me.” Andie stood up, and the brandy rushed to her head and made her blink.

“Now where are you going?” Kelly said gaily from across the room, and Andie said, “Away,” and waited until Dennis refilled his glass and then took him out through the Great Hall while Southie blocked Kelly from following by handing her another glass of brandy and asking her about the séance.

There is no séance, Andie thought, and took Dennis upstairs.

“It was here,” she told Dennis when they were standing in Alice’s room while Alice propped herself up by her elbows in bed. Dennis was sipping his drink and looking at the drawings she’d done on her walls with a mixture of academic interest and paternal disapproval. “The rocking chair, right there.”

Dennis stared skeptically at the chair at the foot of Alice’s bed. “That chair.”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s not surprising that it rocks. It’s a rocking chair.”

“I know.”

“Is she there now? Your, uh, ghost?”

“I can’t see her.” Andie looked at Alice. “Alice, is the woman in the old-fashioned dress there now? Or your aunt May?”

“What woman?” Alice said, pretending to yawn.

“The woman in the long dress with the tiers, the flounces, that we saw out by the pond. Is she the one who makes the rocker move?”

Alice slid down under the covers and ignored her.

“You said she was wearing a long dress with flounces,” Dennis said. “Was her hair in a bun?”

“Yes,” Andie said. “How did you know?”

Dennis pointed to the Jessica doll on Alice’s bedside table, her age-mottled dress in three tiers and her hair in a bun.

“Yeah,” Andie said. “I noticed that, too, but I can’t figure out what it means.”

Dennis nodded, and Andie wanted to kick him. Then he said, “Could I see you in the hall, Andie?”

Andie picked up the Jessica doll and put it beside Alice. Then she leaned over and kissed the little girl on the top of the head. “Good night, baby.”

“Good night, Andie,” Alice said, her voice muffled in the covers.

Andie followed Dennis into the hall and closed the door.

“I think Alice is a telepath,” Dennis said.

“What?”

“Oh, she doesn’t know it. She’s had a most unusual childhood and she’s highly emotional and those probably combined to awaken latent talent. She’s probably a natural. Add to that the fact that she’s been alone so much, and that she probably wants to see somebody sitting at the end of her bed taking care of her, and it’s not surprising that she imagines there’s somebody there. That’s very common, the imaginary friend.” He smiled at her reassuringly. “It’s not at all dangerous. She’ll be fine.”

“Imaginary friend?” Andie said. “But I saw the woman by the pond.”

“You saw the telepathic image that Alice projected, based on the doll.” His tone was kind, he wasn’t patronizing her at all, but he was very definitely in the there’s-no-ghost-here camp.

“Okay, Alice is telepathic,” Andie said. “But the chair rocked.”

“Telekinesis. Making a rocking chair rock would not be a problem for somebody with the psychic energy Alice has probably accumulated.”

Psychic energy. “There is no ghost.”

“I’d say almost certainly.”

“Almost.”

“There is no ghost.”

Andie tried to wrap her mind around it, wanting to feel relieved and yet… “What about May, the kids’ aunt? I thought I was dreaming but I don’t think so anymore, I think she was real. The room was really cold.”

“But you’d had a drink,” Dennis said, swirling what was left of his brandy in his glass.

“Tea with Amaretto,” Andie said. “One cup of spiked Earl Grey. I don’t think-”

“But it was at night, you were half asleep, and this house has a very definite mood to it.”