He thought about that for half a second and decided he wasn’t that hard up. “There’s another guy you should talk to—Elton Peterson? I bet he’d love to be on your show.”
While Bellamy might have been able to keep his smile in place, he couldn’t suppress the eye roll. “That guy would like nothing better than to be our expert commentator. To be the expert commentator. But what can I say—he’s just not good in front of a camera.”
What a punchable smile Bellamy had. Cormac shook his head and tried, again, to walk away.
“But wait! You are a detective, right?”
This time, Bellamy actually grabbed his arm. Actually touched him. The only reason Cormac didn’t punch him was Amelia anticipating him and whispering, Calm, calm. . . .
So, with a great deal of calm—he thought—he stepped away from the other man and out of his grip.
The producer’s smile finally fell, as if he realized how close he’d come to injury. He blinked, owl-like, at Cormac, who continued over to Domingo. She seemed to be trying not to chuckle.
“Could have used some help there,” he said flatly.
“I wanted to see if you were really going to deck him,” she said. “What stopped you?”
“Intervention from the great beyond.” Amelia humphed at this. “So how is it everybody around here knows about me?”
“Trina at the inn likes to talk,” she said. “And she knows everyone.”
“I’m used to being a little more under the radar.”
“Too small a town for that, Mr. Bennett. So, have you found anything?”
“I was hoping to do a little work here. Didn’t expect all this.” He waved at the vans and SUVs. Some of the actors were drinking coffee now, while part of the crew cleared a spot in the underbrush to set up some lights on tripods. In broad daylight. He didn’t get it.
“Yeah, I had to let them in. They thought it would be ‘atmospheric.’” She shook her head. “They’re apparently paying the town a lot of money. But getting in the cabin shouldn’t be a problem.”
He nodded at the cabin. “What’s going to happen to it when this is all over.”
“It’s Forest Service property, so as soon as I let them sign off on it, we’ll clean it out and assign it to the next researcher.”
“That’s why you’re getting pressure to close the investigation?”
“Yeah. But I seem to be the only one who thinks this could happen again, and I can’t risk that.”
“Even if we do figure out that something weird’s going on here, I don’t know if I can guarantee it’ll never happen again. Not much about this is ever cut and dry.”
“I know,” she said, sighing.
The longer the cabin stayed empty, the dustier and lonelier it would feel.
The place could use a good cleaning. Magical and otherwise, Amelia observed.
Then why not do it? he thought in response. Clean the place, set an alarm in case that magical vortex struck again. If nothing else, they’d all feel a little better being here.
He went around the whole building, gathering up tape into a huge messy armful, then went back and dumped it in front of the truck, next to Domingo.
“Cleaning house?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he said.
All right, we’ve done this before. Salt, candles, sage.
He could almost picture Amelia rolling up her sleeves and brushing her hands. After gathering materials from her kit in the Jeep, he let her take over, stepping to the back of his own mind. She’d do the work; he’d keep watch. He could still hear and see out of the corners of her vision, sound and movement she wasn’t paying attention to while she cast the spell. He became her subconscious, tapping into an awareness she wasn’t connected to. If anything happened, he’d shout.
Some of the film crew and actors had stopped to watch him. Bellamy in particular had his hand on his chin, looking thoughtful.