If Looks Could Kill by Kate White Read Free Book Online Page B

my calls. I’d hauled myself out of bed at an ungodly hour for her, and now I was getting boxed out. But it wasn’t
     totally unexpected. This whole Heidi thing was most likely turning into a PR crisis, a work situation, and I was never called
     in to deal with those matters. That’s why God created butt kickers like Leslie. Or maybe Cat was just totally spent.
    At around midnight, I’d climbed into bed with my book and tried to will myself into drowsiness. Ever since my divorce I’d
     suffered from a torturous case of insomnia, often in the form of what’s called “early final awakening.” I’d fall asleep okay
     but then I’d wake at two or three A.M. and never be able to drift back. I ended up putting on the TV and watching a documentary
     on mudslides that wasn’t as mind-numbing as I hoped. The last time I glanced at the clock on my nightstand, it said 2:22.
    Done reading the media spin on Heidi’s death, I was anxious to talk to Cat this morning, but I felt I’d left enough messages.
     Besides, she’d have to make contact at some point, at the very least to tell me how to deal if I got any calls from the press.
     In the meantime I decided to make an attempt to get some work done. I pulled out several files from my tote bag, along with
     a composition book. Though I’ve focused mainly on crime dramas the last few years, I still take on a straight human-interest
     story if it has enough mystery and intrigue to it. My latest story, the one due in four weeks, fell into that category. It
     involved a lower-middle-class family of five near Olean, New York, who suspected that their home was being haunted by a poltergeist.
     They would leave a room for a few minutes and discover upon their return that furniture had been scooted across the floor,
     or pillows tossed from a bed, or, in one instance, wallpaper peeled from the walls. On several occasions, so they claimed,
     objects had been hurled through the air by some, quote, invisible hand.
    I’d gotten wind of the story from a small newspaper clip that a friend in the western part of the state had sent me (I have
     a whole network of friends and relatives around the country who regularly pass along intriguing stuff to me). No one lay dead
     with purple ligature marks around the neck or had vanished without a trace, yet my curiosity was piqued, and when I pitched
     the idea at
Gloss
, Cat said yes immediately.
    I had driven my Jeep out there several weeks ago and spent two days with the Case family. I certainly didn’t come away believing
     the house was haunted, but on the other hand, I couldn’t tell who was creating the commotion—the parents themselves or one
     of the kids. On my second day there, a stuffed animal had gone flying by my head. Several people, including the twelve-year-old
     daughter, Marky, were in the room, but I couldn’t determine who was responsible.
    Early last week I’d done a phone interview with a “parapsychologist” who had been consulted by the family. His conclusion:
     not a poltergeist at all. Rather, everything was being caused by “telekinetic energy” emitted from the somber, sometimes sullen,
     little Marky.
    “In ninety-nine percent of these cases there’s a child, usually a girl, going through puberty or under tremendous stress,”
     he’d explained, feigning patience with me. “Endocrine changes create electricomatic energy. And then, you see, the girl throws
     her energy in a spiral trajectory without realizing what is happening. And
that
is what makes things move and spill and fly.”
    I spent about forty-five minutes going through the transcript of the interview, which I’d gotten on Friday. I still had more
     people to interview, including a professor of child psychology from Georgetown who was here in New York this month, preparing
     to teach at NYU for the summer. He considered parapsychologists to be buffoons and had a different theory on what made things
     go bump in the night.
    After an hour of work,