Back to the hotel, he commented he had a couple of Zoom calls he needed to make, so I left him occupy the living area and decided it was time to revisit the soaking tub, placed right by a big window to the street. I don’t know what got into me, but I felt like giving the place a little atmosphere to make it more relaxing. The spa staff had gifted us with not one but two baskets of products, including many scented candles, so I lit some of them around the tub and turned off the lights. I put my hair up in an improvised bun, stepped into the paradisiac steamy water, and just lay there with my eyes out the window, losing track of timeI’d just drained the tub to refill it with fresh steamy hot water when I heard Brandon say, “Son of a bitch.”I sat up in the tub and found him kicking his shoes off and taking off his shirt at the same time. A moment later, I guided him to sit between my legs and lay back against my chest.“Fuck yeah,&rd

Mike had cleaned the driveway all the way to Greenwich Road, so Brandon didn’t have any problem driving past the gates to park only a few steps away from the Manor.Good thing I recalled turning on my speaking app even before climbing down from the truck, because the front door opened by itself a moment later. Brandon hesitated, so I took him by the hand to make him keep walking.“Happy New Year!”“Hey, twins! Happy New Year!” I looked around. “Trisha isn’t home?”“Not yet.”“Come, come.”“In a minute.”Brandon had stopped with one of his suspicious frowns. I let go of his hand and opened the SLS app on my phone. It showed two sticks figures standing on the porch by the open door. Two adults. I showed him the screen.“Bet those are Ann Marie and Edward,” I said. “A formal welcome to the Manor.”

BOOK 2: THE HEART OF THE HAUNTER We’ll keep on coming till we get it rightThis place, we’ve seen it a million timesI won’t forget youCan’t remember me without youBut I can’t call you mine.—Daughtry, Call You Mine**The bad weather delayed the inspection until the first week of February. The representative of the Blotter estate arrived in a lavish Mercedes Benz that came splashing in the slush down Greenwich Road on a bright winter morning. I went out to wait on the porch, and the driver stepped out to open the backseat door. Oh, well, Mercedes and a driver? Rich much? The man helped out a woman in her early sixties, wearing a sober black dress under a long black coat with fur collar and cuffs. Tell me about old fashion fancy.She looked over at the closed guesthouse on her way to the porch, then turned to look up at me and smiled, starting u

“I don’t like what you said about souls.”Amy showed out of the bathroom in our hotel room, toothbrush in her mouth and a questioning frown shadowing her eyes. I got in bed before facing her.“All that about reincarnation, souls traveling in packs, and your son in one life being your father in the next one.” I shrugged. “It’s like, in the end, you have no saying in anything. You get drawn to this or that person because your soul knows them, even if you don’t remember.”Amy hurried back into the bathroom to wash her mouth and came back out, now pouring facial cream on her fingers.“Like, that’s why you and I get along so well, despite the age gap? I mean, you’re my mom’s age. Was I your daughter in some other life? Or were we sisters? That’s why you’re able to put up with my temper?”“You’re not talking about you and me,” she replied, co

New York was… Wow! It was New York. Enough said. To my utter surprise, we would be staying in Manhattan, just one street away from Central Park. It was a cheap hotel, and I would be sharing a bed with Trisha, while Amy took up the other one all for herself. The décor was standard cheap, the bathroom almost didn’t make it past the restroom category and our window opened pretty much to the kitchen of an apartment across the street. But who the hell cared —it was fucking Manhattan!We went out for a stroll around, had dinner and came back to have our first out of five nights in the Big Apple.The next morning, Amy and I left Trisha sleeping and grabbed a taxi to go meet with her famous mentor. Hugo Walker was one of those babyboomers that had gotten way before the rest of his generation that they didn’t need to be a ruin when they turned seventy. He was seventy-five, and I could bet my right hand he would beat me on a sprint from the Manor to the Quabbin any given day. Not at all what I