John's roar tore through the air, cutting the old man off mid-sentence.
"You said black hair?!"
"That's right..."
I had just added the cemetery manager's contact on my phone when I heard John exhale.
I looked up slowly. Our eyes met.
The tension in his face had dissolved. Something unspeakable had settled in its place—relief. He pointed at me and let a few quiet words fall from his lips.
Stella, so the one who died was your father...
My entire body went numb.
I was about to explain, but John suddenly laughed.
"Stella, your dad was always like this. Couldn't stand to miss out on anything free. I built this house for my father, and yours just had to come stay a few days. Fine, stay then, but he went and set the place on fire..."
As he spoke, his amusement curdled into anger.
"People like your father are insufferable. Can't even die without causing a scene. This house cost me four hundred thousand dollars to build! He dies in it, and now what? How is my dad supposed to live here?!"
His words struck me like lightning. I stood frozen, rooted to the scorched earth.
So he really believed it was my father who died in there.
So this was what he'd always thought of my dad.
So my father was dead, and he could actually stand there and laugh.
He seemed to have forgotten that the money he used to fund his rescue squad, to launch his business, every last dollar of it had been scraped together by my father through years of scrimping and sacrifice. Even this house he'd built for his own dad, my father had paid for more than half of it.
The frantic anguish that had been tearing through my chest moments ago went suddenly, eerily still.
John, still seething, was already on the phone.
"Listen, I need you to find me a few spiritualists right now. Someone died in a fire at my family's old house. Get them out here to perform a rite and suppress the spirit."
After he hung up, he jabbed a finger at me, teeth clenched.
"Your dad loved staying here so much? Then let his ghost rot in this place forever."
"Running into this kind of thing first thing in the morning. What rotten luck."
"Denise, get away from here. I don't want any of this bad energy rubbing off on you. Go wait in the car."
As he turned, I caught a glimpse of Denise's eyes, darting and evasive.
She didn't look so smug anymore.