Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

any of it. She ended with how she had made the connection with Ellie, un-looked-for, and how she had tried to explain it to Leslie. “I suppose I could have said nothing, but I was trying to make things easier for Ellie. Help her to understand what’s happening to her. I don’t think there’s any way to keep a lid on it, not now—she already knows too much.”
    George had listened silently, without any questions. He finally spoke. “I can see why Leslie wanted some time to process this. It’s not easy when your understanding of the universe is suddenly upended. I honestly thought this psychic stuff was a load of crap, which I guess puts me right up there with your Brad, Abby. But Ellie is . . . special. She always has been. I think she’s always sensed things, but she’s never been the gushy type, you know? Sometimes when I’ve been worried or upset, she’s said something like, ‘You okay, Daddy?’ If I go back and add up all the times something like that has happened, I’ll probably see the pattern. I just never thought about it.”
    “Most people wouldn’t, George,” Ned said. “The question is, what now? The rabbit is out of the hat.”
    “I know.” George checked his watch quickly. “I’d better go. Look, at the risk of echoing my wife, I need to think about this. I don’t want to talk with her about it until I’ve got it straight in my head. But we’ve got to tell Ellie something sooner rather than later.”
    “What’s going to happen when school’s out?” Abby asked.
    “We’re still wrestling with that. Neither of us can take off a lot of time over the summer. Usually we plan a two-week vacation somewhere, and other than that, Ellie goes to day camp nearby, and Petey’s got a summer nanny, a local college kid, who drops Ellie off and picks her up. But I think I hear you asking whether there’ll be more time for . . . other things?”
    “Kind of. It’s an opportunity, maybe.”
    George stood up. “Well, I think we have to get you two face-to-face with Leslie before we start talking about anything like that. Or maybe just you, Abby, since you were kind of the trigger for all of this.”
    Abby stood too. “George, I’m sorry if I caused trouble. I never meant to.”
    “We know that, Abby. And I think we need you to help us through this. We’ll talk, okay?”
    “Yes. Please.”
    “I’ll see you out, George,” Ned volunteered, and the two men went out the front door. Abby didn’t follow, but sat down at the table and thought. What had she learned? That Leslie was still pissed at her. That Ellie knew that something important was going on, whether or not she understood it or could even put it into words, and she wasn’t going to let it go, not even to keep peace in the family. Abby tried to remember herself at age seven. As she recalled it—and her mother might have a very different view—she had been a fairly quiet, independent child. She had read a lot, even at seven. She had had friends, and they had amused themselves in a variety of ways, in those distant days before computers and electronic games took over. Sure, they’d watched television, but they’d also played outside, often creating stories to act out, or made things. And she had had no inkling of this ability that lay buried inside her. It had taken a perfect storm of emotions to awaken it, and she still felt like a novice. So how was she supposed to help seven-year-old Ellie to cope? Especially when her mother was resisting acknowledging the whole thing?
    This was not going to get dinner on the table. She stood and confronted her stove, with two working burners and a wonky oven. “Look, I know you’re old and you probably haven’t been cleaned as often or as well as you should have been, but I’m asking you to help me out here. Just keep going for a little while longer, will you? Please?” The stove did not reply.
    Ned finally returned. “You’re talking to the appliances? Do they have spirits?”
    “I