Harrison Investigations 1 Haunted (32 page)

"So you don't talk to ghosts?" he said, disappointed.

She would never let this man quote her as saying that she did.
"We all have incredible minds, Mr. Aubry. And we don't use all of
our mental power that often. Harrison Investigations is a company
that does a great deal of research. We ferret out shams, and
we can say that there aren't always answers to the unexplained.
They may be there somewhere, not just in our current knowledge of
science and technology. So, if you want to write up what
happened, I discovered the details of the story at the
library."

"You fell through the floor there, too," Aubry told her. "You
weren't hurt?"

"No."

"The sheriff saved you, huh?"

"Yes, luckily, he was around."

He was staring at her, trying to get to something. Darcy didn't
feel daunted; just challenged.

"That was odd, don't you think?"

"What was odd?"

"That the sheriff was there," Aubry said impatiently.

"Why would it be odd? He knew I was doing research there. It was
natural that he might check in to see how I was doing. And luckily,
the timing was good."

"Do you think that a ghost, afraid of what you might discover,
followed you from Melody House to attack you at the library so that
you would cease your meddling?" Aubry asked.

She laughed out loud. "Mr. Aubry! The floorboards gave because
someone spilled a cola on them! The acid ate into the wood. I
hardly think that a ghost drifted over from Melody House, sneaked a
soda into the library, and spilled it all over the floor."

Aubry blushed.

"Weren't you scared, though?"

"When the floorboards gave? Of course."

"Aren't you scared now?"

"Why would I be scared now?"

"Because the ghost must think that you're meddling."

"Mr. Aubry, I don't remember telling you that there was a
particular ghost. And there would be no reason for a ghost to be
disturbed that I was meddling, as you say."

"This is just ridiculous," Aubry argued with her.
"Obviously, Matt Stone called you because of a ghost!"

"Mr. Stone allowed Harrison Investigations in because of a few
reported incidents that had occurred in his home. We're
investigating those incidents, doing research, just as I did when I
heard about Amy's murder, which is how I found the skull, Mr.
Aubry. And that's it. I've talked to you, and I'm afraid that I
really don't have anything else to say."

' 'What do you think about the fact that so many of these
incidents have only started cropping up in the last several years?
Think the Stones are trying to invent ghosts in order to bring in
the tourists?"

"Since Matt Stone doesn't believe in ghosts, he'd hardly go
about inventing them."

"He doesn't believe in ghosts, but he'd do just about anything
in the world to hold on to Melody House," Aubry said. "He was
married to Lavinia Harper, you know. A very wealthy woman. Since
they divorced he doesn't have her money behind him anymore. She'd
once wanted to put all kinds of money into the house. We haven't
seen hide nor hair of her for ages, though. So there you go. Money
problems. You don't have to believe in ghosts to invent them."

"I definitely don't believe that Matt is inventing
incidents at his house, Mr. Aubry. If you need to ask any
more questions, my associate-and the founder of my firm-Mr. Adam
Harrison, is here. Perhaps you should talk to him."

"Where is he?" Aubry asked sharply.

"He was over by the minister," Darcy said, pointing toward the
church.

"Thanks!" he told her.

Darcy leaned against the oak, feeling oddly drained, and once
again, uneasy. Aubry pretty much came right out and said what he
was feeling.

Matt Stone had married for money. Then he'd divorced. He needed
money.

His wife had disappeared.

If he 'd murdered his wife, he wouldn't need the money,
would he? But she was his ex-wife. They'd been
divorced.

She gritted her teeth, furious that she was allowing
people to let such suspicions seep into her mind. Especially
when they didn't make sense. Matt was simply impatient and angry
with the whole ghost concept. And yet, even Matt thought that
something was going on.

He'd loved Lavinia at one time. Been enamored of her.
Their relationship had been one of passion
-
and
hate.

Just like that she had witnessed in dreams, from both
sides...

"Ridiculous!" she said aloud. Just as she did so, the threatened
storm came. First, a few raindrops fell on her head. Then the wind
kicked up as if the hand of God had indeed reached down to stir up
a tempest. The raindrops suddenly became a deluge.

Darcy started away from the oak. The cars were around in front
of the brick wall, but if she leapt over it, she'd reach them far
quicker than if she were to walk around. She headed toward the
wall, and in doing so, needed to skirt by the open grave awaiting
Mrs. Morrison, the centenarian who had passed away in her
sleep.

She wrapped her arms around her chest, lowered her head, and
started to run. She shot through the area where the chairs had been
arranged around the grave.

She didn't hear anything behind her. Nothing at all. But the
rain was pounding and the wind was whistling. Footsteps would
have been washed away.

The wind was strong. Very strong.

And still, she didn't know what kind of force seized upon her
with such strength as she ran by the grave. She only knew that it
rocked her to the side with such vehemence that she lost her
footing, teetered precariously on the uneven ground, then slammed
over to her right.

Railing...

Falling...down. Down, into darkness.

Six feet down, to be exact. Into the deep, damp earth of the
freshly dug grave.

The rain was pounding hard. Matt saw Penny, her summer
shawl over her head but doing little good, come running
toward the passenger door.

He leaned over to open it.

Penny slid in, moving the shawl, and apologizing. "Oh, Matt,
I've gotten the car all wet. You would have thought we'd have been
prepared for this kind of summer storm! Oh, well, thank God it's
summer. You can go for lunch, right? We're all supposed to be
meeting at the Wayside Inn."

"Yeah, I can lunch," he said. "Where are the others?"

"In Adam's car. He drove."

"Darcy?"

"She's probably with Adam. Or else..."

"Or else what?" he asked sharply.

"Max Aubry cornered her. And you know Darcy. She was confident
she could take care of herself. I never had a chance to tell her
that he was a headline-grabbing monster. Clint tried to come
between the two of them, but...Matt, don't worry. Darcy doesn't
like to tell anything, she hates it when people turn her kind
of perception into ooh-aah parlor tricks."

Darcy was with Max Aubry. Great.

He gunned the motor with greater force than he
intended.

"Matt, it will be all right."

"Yeah, sure."

"That was a beautiful ceremony!" Penny said. "Wasn't the
Reverend Bellamy just wonderful?"

"Yep."

"Matt, come on. Sure, it will be in the newspapers. They'll say
that Amy was put to her final rest with tender words. What else can
they say?''

"Let's see-they can say that the sheriff of Stoneyville has
become a complete nutcase, bringing so-called ghost busters in to
solve problems in his jurisdiction because he hasn't the skill to
makes discoveries beneath his own nose."

"Matt, Aubry would never write such a thing," Penny said.

He stared at her.

"Trust me, Darcy won't give him anything to add fuel to the
fire. Isn't this weather just terrible? Can you see where you're
going?"

"Yes, Penny, I can drive. Are you sure we're supposed to go
straight there? Everyone is going to be soaked."

"It's summer-we'll dry," Penny assured him.

It was still pouring when they reached the Wayside Inn. Matt
gave Penny his umbrella, lowered his head, and ran through the rain
himself.

They were the first to arrive. Not even Mae had returned as yet,
but Sim Jones, standing in for her, assured him that they had a
number of tables ready, and could put their party together. "Hell,
Matt, you all are our regulars anyway. No problemo," Sim
said.

He and Penny ordered coffee and sat, awaiting the
others.

Darcy's temple thundered. She had struck hard earth when first
going in, and she might have blacked out. For how long, she had no
idea, though with the rain flooding over her, it couldn't have been
more than a few minutes.

She was quickly becoming engulfed in a mud bath. The rain and
earth were already past her ankles when she made it to her
feet.

"Help!" she screamed as loudly as she could. A sinking feeling
told her that no one would hear her-even if they were still
around.

She bit into her lower lip, hugging her arms around
herself, and feeling the chill of the rain. The sun had gone
completely. In the deep hole in the earth, it was darker than she
could have possibly imagined, the sky above her offering nothing
but gray.

What the hell had happened? A massive gust of wind?
Or a hand with a tremendous force? And why?

"Help!" she shouted again. She dug at the earth around her,
trying to get a hold on anything. But the grave had been deeply and
cleanly dug. There was nothing to grasp.

She tried to claw her hands into the earth, but it merely
crumbed away at her touch. She jumped, trying to reach the
perimeter of the grave. She got one handhold, and slid back.

Gasping for breath, trying to move her soaking hair from her
eyes, she paused for a minute. Someone was going to realize that
she was missing.

Weren't they?

"Help! Help! Help!"

An unbidden sense of panic seized her, and she began to shout
and try desperately to crawl from the grave again herself. The sky
rumbled with a fury. There was a flash of lightning, and then the
sky seemed darker than ever. Already shivering, drenched, and
exhausted, she lay back against the earth of the tomb, trying to
reason.

The darkness, the depth of the grave, the scent of the earth
around her entered into her instinct and made her afraid.

"I talk to ghosts!" she whispered aloud to herself. "Why on
earth would I be afraid,
now,
in a cemetery?"

But she was afraid. The mud at her feet was getting deeper and
deeper, rising now to her calves. She imagined she felt creepy,
crawly things sliding up her flesh. She was cold; it might have
been a summer's day, but she was thoroughly wet and the wind kept
sweeping down. Her teeth were chattering, and she felt hemmed in by
the darkness, as if she was locked in a coffin as well as a
grave.

Cell phone.

The two words popped into her mind, and she almost smiled,
thinking she'd been an idiot. Except, of course, that she'd hit her
head, and it was spinning.

She dropped down to the ground, trying to find the small black
purse she'd carried for the occasion. The ground was pure mud.

So were her hands by the time she opened the purse.

And so were the contents of her purse.

She found the phone easily enough, but it was caked with mud.
She pressed on the keys, talked to the phone, tenderly tried to
clean it.

No good. The water had gotten inside. The water-that kept rising
around her, joining with the earth, making her pit more and more of
a slushy, mucky, mire.

In fury she threw the phone across the pit. It thunked sickly
against the side. The rain was still falling. The day was getting
darker and darker. The wind whipped around, creating an eerie
noise, as if all the banshees in Ireland howled at once.

She closed her eyes, hoping for a word from someone, a sense of
security, of comfort. She was desperate for an assurance that
everything would be all right, she would find her way out of the
grave.

What if...

She was supposed to have knocked herself out completely
when she fell? What if she was supposed to remain there, silent,
lost, while everyone assumed that she was with someone else. And
what if it had been a real hand that had pushed her, forcing her
into the grave?

And that real person was coming back....

"Help!" She screamed the word again.

She closed her eyes. Visions of floating bones swept by her
mental vision. Darkness seemed to sweep around her, touching her.
The way that panic was setting in, she saw so much more. Rotting
corpses, floating to the surface, finding life, swaying before
her...darkness, the mud sucking her down, hands of the dead
curling around her ankles, pulling her deeper and deeper into the
muck.

"No! Darcy, no!" she chastised herself aloud.

They would come. Someone would come for her, soon enough.

"Josh?" she whispered softly.

She didn't see him. But she felt as if a brush of warmth came
over her. "Josh...help me!"

Again, a sensation of warmth, of comfort. In her mind, a
whisper,
You'll be all right.

"Stay with me, Josh. I'm afraid," she said softly.

But then, a huge bolt of lightning flashed across the sky. She
heard an explosion, and didn't know what it could be until she
heard a cracking sound.

"Josh!" she cried.

But there was nothing. No whisper of assurance. No sense of
warmth. She was alone, entirely alone.

A massive creaking filled the air then, and she realized what
had happened.

The oak, the giant oak had been hit by the lightning.

A second later, she screamed as it came crashing down, right on
the spot of the open grave that jailed her.

Adam arrived with his earful of people.

Clint, Clara and Sam.

"Where are the rest?" Matt asked Clint.