Chapter 18: Plantation
"I'm so sorry," Shana's father said gently to Cam.
"I am too. I don't know what got into Siobhan this time, she was really over the top tonight." Sean didn't take his eyes off the road, but they could hear the anger in his voice.
"Are you okay?" Shana's father handed Cam a tissue; that simple act of kindness threatened to undo the tenuous hold she had on her emotions and she almost started crying again.
To cover that she scrubbed her eyes with the tissue. "I'm sorry for being such a baby," she stammered. "I should be used to it by now, I heard it all the time growing up and later at school in New York."
"You are family now," Sean interrupted again, this time taking his eyes off the road and fixing her with a look that told her just how angry this O'Hara brother was with his sister. "There is never a time when you should 'be used to it' coming from your own family."
"But you're not really—I'm not really—"
"Dad said you were. So you are. If you want to argue about it, you can argue about it with Shan and Dad, but I'll warn you ahead of time you're not going to get anywhere with that argument. Even when Shan was little, I didn't win arguments with her often. When Dad was on her side—never."
Mr. O'Hara looked toward the back row of seats in the SUV, where a thundercloud named Shana O'Hara had been sitting, suspiciously quiet but certainly not settled. "Shan? You haven't said anything since we left."
"Keep that bitch away from me." The venom in her voice would have killed a cobra.
Mr. O'Hara sighed. "Shan—"
"Don't. Don't 'Shan' me, Dad. She's pissed me off lots of times before but I always forgave her because she was my sister. But this time…I can't forgive her. I won't. Cam sacrificed so much to come and get me—I owe her my life, and I wasn't expecting my own sister to value my life so little that she would just cut Cam's feelings open like that. Tell her and Mom I never, ever want to see her again." Mr. O'Hara opened his mouth to remonstrate with her, but she shook her head. "That's it. I'm done."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be the one who caused problems," Cam ventured timidly.
"You aren't the problem. Siobhan is." Mr. O'Hara said determinedly.
"Here it is," Sean said suddenly, making a hard right turn onto what they could dimly see out the darkened windshield as a winding, tree-lined driveway. "The number on the mailbox is this address."
They all sat forward and looked through the windshield as a large white house came into view. Shana reluctantly let go of her anger and looked too—and whistled. "Wow. It's not the size of the old plantation houses, but that's still pretty sizable." She reached for her bag, fished around in a zippered pocket for the keys. "They gave me keys when they gave me the deed—here we are—"
The house was immaculate. It was obvious that Kennedy Financial had been determined to make an impression on the business guests who stayed at this Atlanta retreat; the chandelier hanging in the roomy entrance hall with its high trey ceilings was a masterpiece of crystalline beauty, hung with tiny crystal prisms that caught the light and threw dancing rainbows everywhere. The curved staircase from the foyer floor arched gracefully toward the second floor, ornamented by a solid wooden banister. Snake Eyes, Cam, Charlie, Mr. O'Hara, and Sean put the bags they carried down in the middle of the hall floor and stared around them in delight.
Shana vanished down the hallway directly in front of them, and a moment later she yelled from the kitchen, all trace of her bad mood missing from her voice. "Whoa! You should see this place! Look at this kitchen!" And they all followed her down the hallway.
The kitchen was outfitted with stainless steel everything. Stainless steel refrigerator, a top of the line, expensive model that had every feature they could possibly imagine; stove, double sink, dishwasher, gleaming expanse of granite countertop. There was a breakfast nook in the corner that was big enough to seat ten, and through an archway on one side, there was a spacious recreation room with a huge TV that had to be at least fifty inches, three of the most popular electronic video game systems complete with a selection of games for each one, and an installed sound system that made Sean's eyes pop. "Whoa. Shan. You own all of this now?"
This and three million dollars. Snake Eyes' hands flashed; Cam translated for Shana's father and brother.
"The restitution judgment from the case." Shana's father nodded. "My baby girl's a millionaire. Oh, hey, Sean, Siobhan doesn't know that yet, does she? She left the courtroom before the judge ruled on that. And I think I neglected to tell your mother."
Sean grinned maliciously. "Won't that be one in her eye. She'll apologize to Shana just to get a look in here."
"She's not coming here. I don't want her in here. This is my place." Shana looked around the rec room, then turned off the light and led the way back through the kitchen, past the half-bath in the hallway, and then up the staircase to the bedrooms on the second story. This too was airy and spacious, six rooms, each with their own full bath, tastefully decorated in subtle earth tones and warm brown shades. The master suite, at the end of the hall, had an enormous California King sized bed, four dressers that, upon inspection, were empty, and a master bath easily the size (and as well-outfitted) as the one she and Snake Eyes had designed for themselves at their California cabin.
"This one's yours," Cam said immediately as soon as she saw the suite. "You'll probably want to redecorate at some point, though. The décor here doesn't really fit your personality."
Shana grinned as she dropped her bag on the floor. "And where are you and Charlie going to sleep?"
"We got the room at the other end of the hall." Cam grinned cheerfully. "I thought you'd want your privacy, and Charlie and I wanted ours too. This way there won't be any…overlapping sound."
They dropped their bags in the bedrooms they'd chosen and met Mr. O'Hara and Sean downstairs. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Mr. O'Hara said a little anxiously.
"We'll be fine, Dad," Shana said, smiling cheerfully, her good mood restored. "What do you think is going to happen? Think maybe this place has a ghost?"
Sean shuddered, and she eyed him in disbelief. "Sean. All those horror moves we watched when we were younger, and you shudder at the thought of a ghost?" He shrugged. She laughed at him. "Go on. We're going to be fine here. They wouldn't have used this as a business retreat if it were haunted."
"We'll stop by and see how you're doing in the morning. Also, if you're going to be staying here, I'm guessing you might want to rent a car...or buy one, seeing as how you're a millionaire," he teased, and Shana smacked him lightly, affectionately, on the arm. "Good. There's my girl. See you tomorrow, Shan." Mr. O'Hara gave Shana a last kiss on the cheek and hustled Sean to the door.
With the house now theirs, Shana put her hands on her hips and turned to look at her three companions. "Okay. Let's see what we can find to eat; my sister got me so wound up I didn't eat much, and I'm starving."
The refrigerator was practically empty save for a six-pack of beer sitting in the back of the fridge; not the kind Shana and Snake Eyes preferred but still a good brand nonetheless. They each took one, even Cam, while Shana scoured the rest of the kitchen. The freezer was stocked with frozen vegetables and TV dinners, the cabinets were full of canned, nonperishable items; the cabinets under the kitchen island was generously filled with all sizes and kinds of pots, pans, and cooking utensils, so after a consultation with them, Shana decided to cook up some pasta, open some canned chicken ("Would be better with fresh chicken, preferably grilled, but we can try that tomorrow once I have a chance to go grocery shopping,") added some olives and sprinkled grated Parmesan on top, then tossed it all in a light vinaigrette dressing.
They settled in the rec room with their dinner, eating with good appetite—this wasn't as filling as the perfectly-done roast and potatoes and gravy that they'd had in front of them at Shana's parents place, but the company was infinitely better—and Shana even turned on the big-screen TV, flipping through channels till she found a comedian they were all familiar with, and they sat and had a wonderful laugh as the comedian went through his routine with his ventriloquist dummies. The levity helped relax them after the tension of the early evening, and they were all relaxed and much happier when they finished and stood up just before midnight, intending to retire to their rooms.
That was when they heard a tremendous crash from underneath them.
"What the hell—?" Shana frowned as she turned, trying to identify the sound. "Where did that come from?" They backtracked through the kitchen and finally saw a door half-hidden behind some draperies lining the hall toward the front foyer. When Shana opened it, it disclosed a set of steps leading downward.
Cam drew back, and Charlie put a hand protectively on her shoulder. Shana reacted first, going to the kitchen island and pulling out a large chopping knife from the block on the counter; then she reached out, groped for a light switch on the wall beside the top of the stairs and descended down the steps.
"It's a wine cellar," she called a moment later. "It looks like a bottle of wine here fell and shattered. Come on down, it's okay." Snake eyes descended first, Cam in the middle, Charlie bringing up the rear, and they followed Shana down.
It was indeed a wine cellar. Cool and dark, one wall lined with a wooden rack that held dusty bottles of wine and whiskey. What struck them as odd was that usually there would be a small wet bar in a basement room like this—it was big enough to be a male recreation room, and Shana could almost see a pool table in the middle of the room and another TV in the corner. However, even though it was finished and would have been perfect for one, the only thing down here was the wine, and even the sink and small counter to one side looked dusty and unused. "I wonder why this was never finished," Shana said as she crossed the floor to the source of the noise.
The wine bottle had shattered on the floor after ostensibly falling from the wine rack. Not an especially expensive vintage, Shana noted as she picked up a shard and saw 1986 on what remained of the label, but a respectable age, and the bottle was even dusty. She frowned at it. "I wonder what caused this to just up and fall off the shelf like that?" she wondered aloud as she looked at the empty spot on the rack where it had apparently been, then reached over and grabbed the side, giving it a tug.
The rack didn't move an inch. Neither did any of the other wine bottles. It had all been built very securely and sturdily into the wall to keep just such incidents like this from happening.
"Oh well." She shrugged and put the piece of bottle down carefully, then spotted a broom and dustpan off to one side. "Just what I needed. Let's sweep this up and mop up the wine and we'll go to bed."
They cleaned up the mess, put the mop, bucket, broom and dustpan back, and were turning back toward the stairs when there was a crash from the wine rack. And this time Shana saw it out the corner of her eye; the wine bottle lifted out of the cradle the rack made for it, slid out a short way, and then just fell to the floor.
"There was no one there!" She was already in motion, skidding to a stop next to the broken glass. "I saw it. There was no one there, nothing touching it. It just lifted out of the rack and fell!"
"I saw it too, I think," Cam said slowly. "But there was something else, something there. The air sort of…shimmered, like heat rising off the pavement on a summer day."
"Think the place could be haunted?" Charlie asked Shana.
"I don't know," she said tiredly, heading for the mop and bucket. "Come on, let's get this cleaned up."
This time, after they'd cleaned up, she put her hands on her hips, facing empty air. "Now listen here, you," she said firmly. "We're tired, we've flown a long way, and we want to get some sleep. Stop breaking stuff, okay? I'm the new owner of this place, it belongs to me, and I have no problem bringing in an exorcist if I have to in order to get rid of you. If you like it here, fine—just don't get in my way."
There was silence; everyone subconsciously held their breaths. There was an odd sort of feeling in the air, as of someone was listening and had agreed, and then abruptly the presence they somehow felt was there suddenly departed.
"You've acquired a haunted property," Cam said to Shana, eyes wide.
"I'll settle it tomorrow. I don't feel like dealing with it now. Seriously," Shana addressed thin air. "I'm going to bed now and I will deal with you later. If you break any more wine bottles it'll just stay on the floor until tomorrow, okay?" she turned toward the stairs and ascended them firmly. Cam, Charlie, and Snake Eyes followed.
Just before she closed the basement door, she paused to listen. No more crashes, no more breaking glass. She smiled and closed the door. And then took the precaution of grabbing one of the chairs from the rec room and propped the back of it under the doorknob, tilting it back on its rear legs so that it would wedge the door firmly closed.
As they climbed the stairs Shana turned to them. "You don't seriously think the place could be haunted, do you?" she said.
"I don't know," Cam shrugged. "The place is certainly old enough to have a ghost, as such things usually go. And you also have to think that not only did Kennedy Financial own the place and bring business clients here, it's also possible Kennedy himself may have used this when he was in Atlanta, and if he did…what he did…to us on his island, what do you think he might have done while he was here by himself? Tomorrow I'd like to take a look at the whole estate, see if I can find a place where he could have…you know."
Shana raised her eyebrow, then shrugged. "Okay. Tomorrow. For now, let's turn in. I am absolutely exhausted."
She got dressed—or undressed, as it happened, since they were in a place of their own and it was unlikely that there would be an emergency that would require her to get up in the middle of the night, so she took a quick shower in the luxurious master suite and then slipped between the sheets with Snake Eyes, both of them gloriously naked, and said cheerfully, "So what do you think so far?"
Your sister is a bitch and I never want to see her again.
Shana's face clouded. "Well, besides that."
Snake Eyes tilted his head, looked at the ceiling above them. The place is beautiful. I really do like it. Except for the ghost in the basement.
"You really think there is a ghost?"
I don't see what else it could have been. There was definitely no one there but us when that second bottle lifted off the rack and shattered on the floor. And yes, I did sort of feel the presence of something else down in the basement with us. I'm not ready to say yet that it definitely was a ghost, but it certainly seems like it. However, I guess as long as it stays in the basement and restricts itself to breaking cheap bottles of wine, I can't see that we have much to complain about. But the refrigerator does need to be stocked if we're going to stay here.
"Do you want to spend our honeymoon here? Or are we going to go on to the cabin in California like we planned?" They'd decided to come and check out the plantation, but with the caveat that if they didn't like it they'd go out to the Sierra Nevada cabin.
Let's try it here for a bit. This place has its attractions. As long as your sister stays away.