Free The White Night by Desmond Doane

that
I cared, really. I was happy to let him take over the room. I didn’t—and still
don’t—need to have my ego stroked like the Almighty Ford Atticus Ford.
    Usually.
    Once in a while,
it would be nice to be the brightest bulb in the room.
    Toni quickly gets
back to ignoring me and then speeds through the official pleasantries of
Celebrity Entertaining 101, like drink requests, apologizing for only having
ground coffee that came from a chain grocery store instead of some upper-end,
high-class local market who only sells individually handpicked beans from the
indigenous peoples of some tribe in South America. She offers fruits, then
pastries, then scolds herself after taking another glance at Dakota’s athletic
body, saying, “What’s wrong with me? Protein bar? How about a protein bar?
Mikey, sweetheart, go get the box of peanut butter ones out in the garage.”
    Who slipped in
here and injected my wife with super-hostess stimulants?
    Plus, she hasn’t
called me “Mikey” in years.
    Cut the act, Toni.
    Mikey Sweetheart
is on to your shenanigans.
    By the time I get
back from the garage, Toni and Dakota are sitting around the kitchen island,
drinking steaming coffee out of those blue mugs with the white handles that I
hate, and chatting about life as a reality television star.
    Actually, Toni
peppers Dakota with questions, and she answers politely when she can, and then
defers when there are things she can’t talk about due to confidentiality
agreements. Toni knows exactly what she means, though, because I’ve been
through the same thing, explaining to her how Ford and I weren’t really allowed
to talk about any of the behind-the-scenes stuff, like coaching some of
the clients who were more terrified of the cameras than they were of the
spirits invading their homes.
    If Ford and I ever
let it slip that Carla Hancock fabricated storylines to give certain filming
locations more oomph , she would sue us until she had taken everything,
all the way down to the metal in our fillings. More than likely, TPC’s big
swingin’ dick lawyers would argue for the death penalty.
    Forget I said anything
about that part.
    Don’t get me
wrong, every bit of the investigations were real. Every EVP, disembodied voice,
heat signature, floating black mass or apparition that we captured was one
hundred percent honest-to-God legitimate. I made sure of that, and so did Ford.
We didn’t agree on a lot in the last couple of seasons of Graveyard , but
the legitimacy of our evidence is one thing we never budged on. That was out of
respect for ourselves and respect for the other side.
    I excuse myself
while the two of them chat, and Dakota gives me a glance that says, “Don’t
leave me here,” as I exit the kitchen. Out in the garage, I head to the
workshop where I keep all of my equipment, wondering what I should take to
Dakota’s to conduct a proper investigation.
    It smells like a
group of sweaty socks got together, ran off a cliff like lemmings, and died in
here, and that’s probably because it also doubles as my workout room when I
don’t feel like going out into the world to hit the gym. Lately, that’s more
often than not. The weight bench, stair-climber, elliptical, and treadmill sit
off to the right, stationed in front of a flat-screen television mounted on the
wall.
    That equipment
over there has done more good than thousands of dollars of therapy. I
discovered not too long after the incident with Chelsea, the show’s
cancellation, and the subsequent fallout with Ford, that pushing myself to the
point of exhaustion was a happy place for me.
    Still is.
    On the left side
sit three extra large pelican cases, relics from the early days of the show
when the filming budget didn’t have room to supply us with quality equipment.
Ford and I bought all three of these together, along with the ancient digital
voice recorders and camcorders that sit on the shelves or hang from pegs. Most
guys have hammers, saws, wrenches, and other