A Triple Scoop of I Scream (6 page)

“Mm, but it’s so good!”

“Liam’s quite the cook,” Bridget agreed.

“It’s just leftovers,” he said.

Toni stole a glance at Thomas, who frowned and drew a deep breath through his nose.

“You made this stew?” Toni asked, pointing her crust towards Liam.

Liam favoured her with a dazzling smile. “The bread too.”

Toni examined the morsel. “You bake?”

Thomas humphed and let his slice fall into his bowl.

Liam looked like he was trying to keep the self-satisfied grin off his face. He failed. “The Italian side of my family were bakers—six generations back, all the way to Sicily.”

Toni felt a thrill zip up her spine. She’d never cared much about genealogy, but she suddenly found herself romanticising the notion of two Italians—well, one and a half Italians—passionately playing. The idea was very arousing.

“And the Irish side?” she asked, perplexed by the twitch between her legs.

“We just love to eat,” Liam said.

The corner of his mouth jerked upward and Toni’s body reacted as if there were a direct line between his lips and her pussy.

Thomas pushed away from the table, gathered up his dishes and held out his hand for Bridget’s. “Done?”

Bridget bit back a smile and handed him her empty bowl. Mike started to hand over his as well but froze when he saw the look on Thomas’ face. Mike jumped to his feet. “Let me give you a hand with the dishes, Thomas.”

Toni took a gulp of ice water and slid her bowl from the edge of the table. She watched Thomas stack the dishes in the sink and cross to the stove to retrieve the stockpot. He seemed as if he was trying to look everywhere but at Toni. A wave of guilt washed over her. She’d been so ravenous, she’d all but blocked out the spectacle in the upstairs bathroom. With nothing but the sound of clattering dishes and running water to distract her, it all came rushing back.

“Thomas,” she started quietly.

When he didn’t turn from the sink she raised her voice. “Thomas.”

He turned.

“Why don’t you guys leave that for later? I think we need to talk about what’s going on here.”

Thomas switched off the taps and dried his hands. He and Mike returned to the table and sat down as Bridget got up. The redhead yanked open the door of the industrial fridge and pulled out five cans of beer, gathering them up in an aluminium bouquet. She set the bundle in the centre of the table. Everyone wordlessly grabbed a can and popped it open. The five stared at the table top and sipped their beer.

Bridget was the first to break the silence. “Psychic hypnosis?”

Mike nodded. “Looks like it and—I know we’re all thinking the same thing—it wouldn’t be the first time with Toni.”

Toni looked at each of the three ghost hunters in turn, finally landing on Bridget. Bridget’s eyes softened in sympathy. Toni covered her face. She looked up at the sound of Liam’s voice.

“What am I missing here?” he asked.

Mike explained, “We all met Toni at a B & B she owned down in Iowa. I was staying there as a guest and Thomas and Bridge were called in to investigate some strange phenomenon—”

“Right, you guys are from that TV show…” Liam paused as if searching his memory.

“
Paranormal Research Team
,” Bridget offered.

Liam nodded then turned back to Mike.

Mike continued, “The inn was haunted by the ghost of a Civil War soldier. One night we’re all in the dining room and there was this weird—I don’t know—change in the atmosphere. It’s like the air was electrified. Afterwards we all said it felt like we’d been drugged. It seemed like everything was in slow motion and we were all, well, I mean, we all felt—”

“Sexually aroused,” interjected Thomas flatly.

Mike nodded. “Yeah, sexually aroused. But I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill horny. I mean like really, really intensely turned on.”

Bridget winked at Mike and added, “I was in the middle of an excruciating appendicitis attack and all I could think about was jumping that guy!”

Mike smiled back at her. Toni met Thomas’ eye. He smiled at her, but his eyes read something conflicting—pain? Regret?

“And you call it psychic hypnosis?” Liam asked.

Bridget nodded. “It’s a rare but recognised paranormal phenomenon.”

“And you think that’s what happened to Toni and me upstairs?”

Toni crossed her arms over her breasts and stared up at the ceiling. She waited for someone to say out loud what they were probably all thinking. Liam finally did so in the form of a question.

“If it’s so rare, does Toni have something to do with it?”

And…there it was.

Toni stopped examining the kitchen ceiling and scanned the other faces at the table. Bridget gave her yet another sympathetic look. It somehow irked Toni. The annoyance must have shown on her face because Bridget looked away.

Bridget nodded towards Mike. “We’ve discussed this quite a bit—”

“Oh really?” Toni asked, making no attempt to hide the irritation in her voice. She looked back at Thomas. He rubbed his forehead as if trying to massage away a headache.

Bridget shrugged. “It was a pretty remarkable thing, Toni. We all felt it and so originally we thought we were all experiencing something external at the same time, something caused by one extremely strong entity—”

Mike picked up the thread. “But then we started going through our notes. Bridget reminded us that you’d had the paranormal frottage.”

Mike looked at Liam as if to gauge his understanding. Liam wrinkled his forehead so Mike explained, “Paranormal frottage is like ghost dry-humping. The entity would rub up against Toni—sexually.”

“Sometimes bringing her to the brink of orgasm,” Bridget added.

Toni uncrossed her arms and threw up her hands. “Thank you, O’Malley!”

“Well, it’s true,” Bridget muttered.

“It is true, Toni,” Mike said. He went on, “And then there was the ménage à trois with Thomas and the ghost—”

“For the love of… C’mon, Briggs!” Toni yelled.

“Well, he asked,” Mike said.

“He asked if you thought it had anything to do with me. He didn’t ask for all the smutty details!”

Mike frowned as if considering her point. “Yeah, right. Um, well, yes, we think it does have something to do with Toni. See, we all have different energies—kind of like radio stations all have different signals, so when you turn the dial you can get country music or rock ‘n’ roll, classical or whatever.”

Mike looked at Liam, presumably gauging his understanding. Liam leaned in. “And Toni’s ‘station’?”

“Yeah, so, when you turn Toni’s dial, all you get is pure sex.”

Toni planted her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. She heard Thomas spray his beer across the tablecloth on one side and Bridget’s stifled laughter on the other.

Toni waited until Bridget’s laughter was under control before lifting her burning face from her hands.

“Oh. My. God! What the hell are you talking about, Mike? ‘When you turn Toni’s dial all you get is pure sex’! What the hell is that all about?”

Thomas moved to the chair next to Toni’s and laid his hand on her forearm.

“Toni, it’s not something you can control. Like I told you back in Soldiers Orchard, you’re a medium. You’re a conduit for spirits. And, as far as we can tell, your energy—the energy they use to come through—is not only exceptionally strong, it’s almost exclusively sexual in nature.

“We weren’t completely sure after the Buckman thing—since it was only that one time—but after seeing you and…him…upstairs, we’re all pretty convinced.”

Toni looked over at Liam. She realised that everyone else at the table had been through this kind of thing at least once before—and Thomas and Bridget studied paranormal phenomena for a living. Liam was probably thinking he was stuck in a very real, very bizarre dream. She searched his handsome face for some sign of his state of mind. He finally let out a single-syllable laugh.

“Wow. I’ve seen stuff here. Lots of people have seen stuff here. But this is… This is…”

Mike took advantage of the pause. “Liam, what were you feeling when you were with Toni upstairs?”

Liam answered with a look that screamed
‘You’re kidding, right?’
but finally said, “I felt overwhelmed with passion for her. I wanted her—no, I needed her. I craved her. I wanted to be a part of her. I was absolutely desperate to be with her. It was amazing. And it was terrifying.”

Toni reached out and laid her hand on Liam’s arm. “I’m really sorry I brought this here, Liam. Until five minutes ago I didn’t even know that I had anything to do with it. I…”

Liam covered her hand with his. “Don’t apologise, Toni. I’m not blaming you. It’s just a lot to digest.”

Liam looked at each of the three ghost hunters in turn, then back at Toni. “You’re obviously here for a reason. Tell me what I can do to help figure out what it is.”

Chapter Eight

Toni leaned against the candy counter at the back of the ice-cream parlour. She barely recognised the shop. While she’d been upstairs in her psychic stupor, the other four had taken turns cleaning downstairs. The paper had been pulled from the windows and the glass cleaned, letting in the sunlight. They’d managed to get the dishwasher working and had run through all of the serving dishes and the topping dispensers. Every surface had been scrubbed and the sour smell had been washed away. If not for the three ghost hunters milling about setting up paranormal investigation equipment, the place would look ready for business.

Thomas sat down at a tiny bistro table and stared at his cellphone. He shook his head and slid the phone into his front pocket. He frowned at Bridget, who was sitting on one of the red vinyl counter stools. “Do you even know how to use that thing, O’Malley?”

Bridget wrinkled her nose at him then turned back to the EMF meter in her hand. “Yes. Of course I know how to use it. You just… No. I have no idea how to use it. It would be really helpful if Brad were here.”

“Working on it,” Thomas said. “I’ve left two voicemails. He’s not answering his cell. ”

“Knowing him, he probably can’t find it,” Bridget said. Toni had met the team’s original cameraman at the Buckman Inn and recalled that he was notoriously absentminded.

Bridget turned the EMF meter over. “Ha! There you are, you little bugger,” she said and clicked a button along the side of the device. Tiny red, yellow and green lights flashed on.

“Good job, babe,” Mike said as he moved a camera and tripod to the centre of the shop. He stooped to look through the viewfinder. “Just move around a little, Liam.”

Liam paced back and forth behind the soda fountain counter while Mike made adjustments to the camera.

“Okay, the thermal imager is a go,” Mike said.

“What about the night vision camera?” Thomas asked, nodding towards a second camera and tripod a couple of yards from the first.

“It’s framed up. We’ll make final adjustments after dark,” Mike said.

The words ‘after dark’ sent a shiver over Toni’s skin. She pushed away from the candy counter and walked to the windows. Main Street sloped downhill, due west, to the river. The belly of the sun was just above the tree line on the opposite bank and flashes of orange lit up the surface of the water. A surge of anxiety coursed through Toni. It would be dark within an hour.

And then what?

“Who knows?” Liam said.

Toni spun around. Liam was folding a stack of bar towels as if he didn’t realise he’d just answered Toni’s unspoken question.

Bridget didn’t look up from the EMF meter but asked, “Who knows what?”

“Exactly,” Liam said.

“Huh?” Bridget asked.

“Right. Who knows what?”

Toni walked towards the counter. Could Liam hear her thoughts? And if so, could he hear all of them or just some?

As she passed in front of the door it swung inward, narrowly missing her. Toni yelped in surprise. A short, round man in white work clothes was backing into the shop, dragging a dolly stacked two wide and four high with three-gallon tubs of ice cream.

“Geez, sorry to startle ya,” he said. “Miss Bianchi?”

“Yes?”

“Glad you’re still open. This is the last delivery then I can power down the chillers. Gotta hose out the truck tonight.”

The man swung the dolly around in front of himself and pushed it behind the counter, nodding hello to Liam when he passed by. He slid open the dipping freezer and began dropping in the tubs.

“I’ll just go grab the cones and sauces and get out of your hair so you folk can get back to… Say, what are you doing here, filming a commercial? My brother Joe was in a commercial once. He played a customer at our cousin Don’s auto repair shop. Got a free oil change outta the deal.”

Toni waited for the man to pause for a breath. “I didn’t order any ice cream.”

The delivery man dropped in the last tub of ice cream, slid the freezer door shut, then lifted a clipboard from its slot on the back of the dolly.

“Nope, says right here. Two vanilla, one chocolate, one rocky road, one strawberry, one mint chocolate chip, one butter pecan, and one cherry cheesecake—that’s the new flavour. Then I’ve got ya down for a bucket of chocolate sauce, one of caramel, one of fudge, half a dozen cans of whipped cream, a jar of Maraschino cherries and a case of waffle cones. All that’s in the truck yet.”

The delivery man left the clipboard on the counter and started wheeling the empty dolly back towards the door. Toni tried to intercept him, but he just swerved around her. She leaned in to read the name on his work shirt.

“Bob, is it? I didn’t order any ice cream. I don’t know when we’re going to open, or even if—”

Bob pulled a small card—the kind that usually comes with a bouquet of flowers—from his shirt pocket. He tilted back his head to see through the bottom of his bifocals “Compliments of the Main Street Merchants Association. Wishing you sweet success.”

Bob passed the card to Toni and went out to retrieve the rest of the order.

“How awesome is that?” Mike asked. “And it’s Gowers brand. That’s the best. It’s got a high percentage of butterfat and they make it in small batches so it’s denser—not a lot of air bubbles.”