“Didn’t know?”
I took my chance to make her feel bad, as shameless as it was. “Yes, she’s dead.”
The weight of my words made Will nod sadly but Sarah wouldn’t have any of it.
“Your mother-in-law is dead? You lucky thing,” she cackled. “That’s every wife’s dream.”
“Sarah!” Will admonished from the other end. “Have some respect.”
“Sorry,” she said looking at me (or not) with a saccharine smile. “I guess I have fantasies about Mrs. Lancaster going on her merry way.”
OK. This was definitely getting uncomfortable. Where the hell was Dex? Not that I wanted him to walk into a conversation about his dead mother but still.
“Ignore her,” Will said. “Dig in.”
I tasted some of the corn. So far, so good.
“So how long have you been doing your show?” Will asked.
“Oh, we just started,” I said slowly. I didn’t like talking without Dex, it made me think our stories were going to get crossed at some point.
“Oh? What were you two doing before?”
“I worked as a cameraman. Perry still works in advertising,” Dex said, appearing out of the foyer’s darkness. I wondered how long he had been standing there. Didn’t matter, I was relieved.
He sat down across from me. “Sorry, Jenn called.”
My eyes were this close to popping out of my head. A) the mention of Jenn sent my heart amok and B) there shouldn’t be a Jenn in this scenario, so my reaction had to be as cool as possible.
I looked at Will. “Jenn’s our production manager. She’s very uptight about how things get done.”
Some might say she’s a skinny-ass bitch, I wanted to add but I restrained myself.
I didn’t look at Dex in case that gave anything away but I could tell he was embarrassed by his slip-up. Pretending to be married was going to be hard.
Neither Lancaster picked up on anything being awry though and we were able to eat without much incident and with a lot of small talk.
In fact, aside from a few hostile interjections from Sarah, dinner was actually quite pleasant and by the end I felt a lot more at ease with the Lancasters and our situation. Well, that was until I heard more about our situation.
“It’s really the sheep I am worried about,” Will said, explaining the hauntings. “In a way, I can live with the stones being thrown at the windows and the animals running through the house. I just can’t afford to lose anymore sheep. We’re struggling enough as it is here. The government does nothing to help.”
“Um, animals running through the house?” I asked.
He shrugged. His weathered, jowly face looked nonchalant but he couldn’t hide the seriousness in his tone. “Something running through the house…sometimes it looks like people, sometimes it looks like animals…I can put up with it…”
I couldn’t help but chortle at the absurdity of that. “Yeah but you shouldn’t have to.”
“Well, Maximus couldn’t do anything to help me. If you guys can, I’d be much obliged.”
“Oh, like they would help you,” Sarah abruptly laughed. She had been silent this whole time except for the occasional disapproving stutter.
I exchanged a look across the table with Dex.
“William you are such the fool,” she continued. “They don’t want to help your problem, they want to profit from it.”
“To be fair,” I found myself saying, “he contacted us.”
“Because that damn redhead told him to,” she countered. “You’re just going to rape and pillage this farm and our lives all for the sake of a little notoriety. You don’t want to help us and you can’t. You’re nothing but a bunch of hacks.”
“So you think you do need help then,” I said, surprised at my balls.
She paused. My peripheral vision detected an uncomfortable glance between Will and Dex. The boys were staying out of it.
“I think my husband is losing it. I haven’t seen anything running through the halls. And no, it’s not because I’m blind. I can detect far more than you ever could with your eyes. But the sheep having been going missing and have been killed in, well, gruesome ways and if that isn’t enough to send a man and his bags packing for greener pastures of the mind, I don’t know what is.”
And with that she wiped her lips with her napkin and threw it on the table.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to bed. Having people in the house is tiring.”
Will pushed his chair back and was ready to get up but she whipped her cane up in his direction. “You stay. You know I’m fully capable. You don’t need to make a show in front of your guests.”
Will closed his eyes, muttered something to himself and sat back down as Sarah went upstairs.
“Again, sorry,” he said, fumbling for an explanation. “She just doesn’t deal with new people very well. And she doesn’t believe in ghosts or anything of the supernatural variety.”
“That’s OK,” Dex said reassuringly. “Most people don’t. Even we have a hard time with it.”
That was an understatement.
Will nodded. “Well, I’m glad then that you are here. I needed some proof that I wasn’t going crazy.”
I suddenly felt a flooding of warmth towards him. “You aren’t going crazy Mr. Lancaster. We won’t leave until we figure this whole thing out.”
“Please, call me Will. And thank you. It helps to hear that.”
“So, Will, what have you been seeing? And when did it start?” Dex prompted. “And do you mind if I get my video camera?”
I had totally forgotten about the filming. Somehow it just felt wrong at this moment. Will, however, just lifted his hand and nodded. “It’s fine. I understand.”
Dex left and quickly came back with his small camcorder in hand and some papers. Much less intrusive than the big number he had filmed me with before. He walked over to Will and plunked the papers in front of him.
“Just need you to sign this. Basically that you don’t object to being on camera…unless you do, which may make things a little trickier.”
Will nodded and signed them after a slight hesitation.
Dex smiled. “Perfect. We’ll see if we can get Bird and the others to sign off on them tomorrow as well. I’d like to interview them.”