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.“It’s hard to explain,” he said.“Occasionally, other people who have died are sort of.available to us.It’s not just thought projection, but it’s less than talking.You can sort of send out questions, and you get answers, but you don’t always know where they’re coming from.”“Sounds like Facebook,” I said.“Wait a minute.” I paused, brush in mid-air.“Doesn’t that mean you can just find and ask Terry what happened to her? Will she be back at the real estate office?”“No, everybody’s circumstances seem to be unique to them,” Paul said, not looking at me.“Not all ghosts are tied to one place, and not all people who die appear as ghosts.Terry Wright seems to be one of those; I would know if she was available to talk to.Some ghosts can move around and some can’t.In the same way that Maxie can move things easily, but it’s much more difficult for me.I don’t know why—maybe I’ll know more when I’ve been dead longer.”“So how do we proceed from here?” I asked.“Any other dead detectives you can ask on the Ghosternet?”“No.” Paul looked annoyed, but he pushed on.“So.to make a plan, we need to operate on a theory.And the only one we have now is that Kerin and someone she’s working with are the people trying to scare everybody out of this house.So we assume it’s because they want this house or something in it.Maybe the best way to get them to stop trying to scare you out of the house is to convince them.” His hand moved down, into the radiator cover, and then came up through its top, and when it did, the quarter came up with it.He held it aloft.“Aha!”“Convince them of what?”Paul beamed, looking at the quarter, which he moved from one hand to the next, very slowly.“Convince them that whatever it is they want, you have it.”Twenty-seven“I didn’t think I’d hear from you again,” Adam Morris said.He walked from the door, where he’d let me in, to his desk, and gestured that I should sit in the low-slung leather chair in front of it.Indeed, I hadn’t expected him to be in his office on a Saturday—I’d expected to get voice mail—but there he was, plotting to take over the world, or at least part of the Jersey Shore.I chose the stiffer, but less-cruel-to-animals, fabric-covered seat a few feet away.I pulled it to the desk and sat down.This was the first stop on Paul’s prescribed tour-o-suspects (which meant my reinterviewing everyone, in person this time, including the planning board), so I’d have to pace myself.No sense showing any hostility yet.Adam’s assistant, Bianca, (no doubt thrilled to be working on the weekend) was the usual woman in her early-to-mid-twenties with the kind of lovely face that looked like you could have seen it on a dozen other lovely women the same day.Adam had shown a less-than-genial side of himself when he hollered at her through the door that he wasn’t taking any visitors without appointments, and then, just like last time over the phone, had changed his mind when he heard I was here to discuss 123 Seafront.My name wouldn’t open any doors in this town, but my address apparently would.His office was attractive in an institutional way.There wasn’t anything the least bit personal in it—no photographs of family on the desk, no pictures or diplomas on the walls.A few paintings, mostly of buildings Adam had developed.Adam himself was equally attractive, and equally impersonal.He was a handsome, dark-haired man whose face I would be at a loss to describe ten minutes after I left.“Well, I said I’d be thinking about your offer on my house,” I told him.“And I’m here to give you my decision.Are you still interested in buying it?”“Possibly.” Adam Morris was nothing if not a keen negotiator.“It would depend on the price.”“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in selling at any price,” I said, and waited for the eruption.There was none.Paul had been emphatic in his advice that I not “play games” with Adam, that I stick to the script Paul had worked out, but seriously, what fun is there in doing something if you know how every part of it will go before you start? Especially if you can irritate a man you instinctively don’t like? The rules were already going by the wayside.“I’m sorry to hear it,” Adam answered, showing not one second of disappointment or anger.“I would have liked to include that property in the development, but I guess we’ll have to work around it.”“The development would continue anyway, even without my house?”Adam nodded.“Oh yes, absolutely,” he said.“We’d always planned on continuing the project either way.It just would have been easier, and more aesthetically pleasing, to include that piece of property.Too bad we can’t.”Visions of condos surrounding my quaint little guesthouse—condos whose owners would probably rent them out during the summer months as vacation homes—once again filled my head.I could actually hear my income projections hit the ground and keep tunneling.I pictured Melissa and myself living in a homemade tent on Seafoam Avenue next to a sign reading, “Will See Ghosts for Food.” I could picture all the happy vacationers going by with boogie boards and beach umbrellas toward their rented new-construction condos, while Melissa and I were bundled up in unseasonable overcoats, scarves and hats with earflaps.“Are you all right?” he asked.I must have seemed like I was going to pass out.But only because I was.“I don’t know.“What.how much.where is the land you’ve already acquired?” I asked.Adam stood up and walked to a floor-to-ceiling wood cabinet.Then he opened the doors and reached in for a tube.He walked back to the desk, watching my face the whole time.“This is a plan of the development,” he said, pulling a rolled-up map from the tube.“Normally, I’d show this to you on a screen, but I wasn’t set up for a presentation when my assistant said you were here.” In fact, I’d heard him yell something quite rude to poor Bianca about how she’d better get the A/V system working or she’d be looking for work soon.“Sorry for the intrusion,” I said.“Not at all.” It was a reflexive reaction; no matter what Adam Morris thought of my busting into his office, he’d be civil about it.You can’t trust people like that.“Now, here’s the section where the townhomes will be built
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