Krewe of Hunters 8 The Uninvited (16 page)

“Did Mr. Dixon come to?” She couldn’t hide her anxiety.

“Yes,” Julian said.

“Thank God—he’s out of the coma!”

But Tyler shook his head grimly. “No, he fell back into it. He
came to for about twenty seconds, sat up in bed and spoke one word.”

“What was it?” she asked.

“Allison,” Julian said.

“What?”

“That’s what he said,” Tyler told her quietly. “He said one
word.
Allison.
He said your name.”

9

T
yler watched as Allison sat by Artie
Dixon’s bedside. Unnerved, she’d been convinced that Haley Dixon had misheard
what her husband said.
Allison
could have been
a reason
or any other combination of words.

But he’d noted right away that she cared about Todd and Todd’s
family, and because Haley had asked that Allison come to the hospital, she had.
Now she sat on the bed, holding Artie’s hand and talking to him. She kept
telling him she was fine and he didn’t need to worry about her. He needed to
wake up and be with his sons, who loved him and were worried sick, and his wife,
who adored him. Bad things had happened, she said, but a wonderful federal unit
had arrived to sort everything out.

The ghost of Julian Mitchell had accompanied them at first. He
and Tyler had stood outside the room, watching through the glass. After a few
minutes, Julian had looked at Tyler with a pained expression. “I’ve got to get
out of here. I’m going to take a walk back to the house. Maybe if I just keep
hanging around there, I’ll see something the living can’t.”

Tyler had merely inclined his head. Todd was with them, and he
didn’t think the boy needed to wonder what invisible being Tyler was
communicating with.

Tyler and Todd continued to wait and watch. Tyler rested his
hands gently on Todd’s shoulders. Meanwhile, Logan and Kelsey were with Haley
Dixon, going over everything that had happened when they’d taken the tour at the
Tarleton-Dandridge House and later that night in the hotel room. Kat was reading
to Jimmy Dixon and coaxing him to tell her what he could remember about that
day, and Sean was searching for Dixon’s doctor.

Tyler doubted they’d learn anything new, but sometimes, one
tiny bit of information could make all the difference.

“His hand moved!” Todd said suddenly. He gazed up at Tyler,
eyes huge. “I saw it! My dad’s hand moved. He squeezed Allison’s hand—I’m sure
of it!”

“Maybe he did, Todd,” he said. “Let’s see what happens
now.”

They waited longer. He could hear Allison’s voice, filled with
warmth and reassurance. She wasn’t going to give up easily.

But eventually, Sean found Dixon’s doctor, who walked past them
and into the room. Allison rose, squeezing Dixon’s hand, telling him she’d be
back.

When she joined them in the hall, Todd nearly jumped on her, he
was so anxious. “My dad moved, didn’t he? I know he heard you. I saw his hand
move.”

The doctor had followed Allison out. “That might just have been
a physical reaction. It doesn’t mean she reached his mind. It doesn’t mean she
didn’t. But don’t be discouraged, Todd. Your father’s vital signs are strong and
the scans reveal he hasn’t suffered any kind of permanent brain damage.” The
doctor turned to Allison. “Thank you for coming in and trying to talk to
him.”

“I’m glad to,” Allison said.

“Did you hear Mr. Dixon when he spoke?” Tyler asked the
doctor.

“No, but Clare—the nurse who was with Mr. and Mrs. Dixon when
he spoke—is still on duty. I’ll call her for you.” He smiled at them and
departed down the hall.

“Don’t look so shaken,” Sean said to Allison. “It could be a
perfectly logical thing. You were one of the last people he saw before he lost
consciousness, so…”

“I just wish I could help,” Allison mumbled.

“I wasn’t with my dad. I was with my aunt, getting chips from
the machine,” Todd said. “I wasn’t there. He spoke and I wasn’t there!” Todd
felt the anguish of a child who blamed himself for choosing something
insignificant over being with his father.

“Don’t fret about that, Todd,” Allison said, smoothing the
boy’s hair. “Your dad knows how much you love him, and we all believe he’ll be
okay.”

“But why doesn’t he wake up?” Todd asked.

They were spared from having to answer when a young
platinum-blonde nurse came walking over to them. She nodded at the group and
told Todd, “It’s a good sign, you know. I heard your dad speak plain as day.
It’s a really good sign!”

She offered her hand to Allison and Tyler. “I’m Clare. I was
with Mrs. Dixon when Mr. Dixon sat up and said ‘Allison.’”

“I guess you just answered the question we had for you,” Tyler
said, introducing himself and Allison in return.

“Maybe he said the word
malice,
”
Allison said hopefully. “Or something like
talk to me,
son?
”

Clare shook her head. “No.” She smiled sympathetically. “I
guess he’s worried about you, Allison. Wherever his mind might be right now,
he’s worried about you. I’m glad you came in to see him. We’ve learned through
our experience with other coma patients that they do remember things they heard
or that happened before they were in that state. And there’s evidence that they
can understand what’s said to them.”

When she left them, Todd looked at Allison. “You’ll keep coming
to see my dad, won’t you?”

She nodded. “I promise.”

It was late when they got back to the Tarleton-Dandridge House.
Allison seemed exhausted and distracted. Kelsey, Kat and Jane chatted with her,
trying to make her feel more normal, as they made tea and then went up to
bed.

The entire crew was worn out, but Tyler spoke to Logan and Sean
down in the entry. Sean had finished setting up the computer to record anything
caught on the cameras he’d placed throughout the house.

“Did Haley Dixon say anything I might not have heard already?”
Tyler asked Logan.

“She was upset about the painting. She said that Todd felt
there was something funny about it, and his father said it was the weirdest
damned thing he’d ever seen. He felt the painting was somehow alive—like a
special-effects painting.”

“We’ve looked at the damned thing. It’s a painting, believe me.
I’d know if there was anything that’d been altered on it,” Sean insisted.

“Well, let’s give it up for now and get some sleep,” Logan
said.

“Good plan,” Sean agreed.

They went up to their rooms. Tyler had just crawled into bed
when he felt a weight shift the rope beneath the mattress and his bedroll. Tyler
still didn’t know all the “rules” that went with being a ghost, but he did know
that they could learn to move things and that they could be
felt
if not really touched. Maybe they could tell when someone tried
to touch them with warmth and good intentions.

Julian was perched at the foot of the bed. Tyler almost groaned
aloud; it had been a long day.

“Hey,” Julian said.

“Hey,” Tyler responded tiredly.

“I think I’m going a little crazy,” Julian said.

Crazy? You’re dead.

Tyler refrained from saying the words.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t pinpoint it, and I’ve been through the house and
the grounds since. But when I got back here, I had the feeling that someone had
just left.”

“We’d all just left. We went to the hospital.”

Julian shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. We’d
already been gone a while. There was some…I don’t know, residual energy?
Something that made me feel convinced that someone had been here.”

“Did you see anyone?” Tyler asked. “See a car leave?
Anything?
”

“No, I was walking along feeling sorry for myself, trying to
sidle up next to people I passed on the street. I think I gave a few of them
chills,” he said, chortling to himself.

Tyler rolled his eyes. Most personalities didn’t change when
they became ghosts. Julian was the same prankster he’d been in life.

He rued the fact that Sean hadn’t set the cameras to record
until they’d returned.

However, the call about Dixon had come quickly. Sean hadn’t
actually had a chance to ensure that they were set up for the night or to see
what went on in the house when they were sleeping.

“The board members still have keys,” Tyler said. “We can ask.
Maybe one of them came by for some specific purpose.”

“You need to get those keys from them,” Julian said.

Tyler shrugged. “We can get the keys, but if any of them are
guilty of something, they’ve had plenty of chances to make copies. I think we
should just set up our alarm system to see if someone with a key does come and
go. Sean will take care of it.”

Julian started to rise as if Tyler would automatically join
him.

“In the morning,” Tyler said. “I really don’t expect anyone to
come into a house filled with agents. Whoever it was knew we were going out this
evening—although I have no idea how.”

“In the morning,” Julian repeated. “For now, I’m going to go
down and be the alarm system. I’ll be on the sofa in the entry.”

He left. Tyler prayed for sleep.

But an hour later, he still lay awake in Lucy Tarleton’s room,
staring at the painting of Lord Brian “Beast” Bradley. He looked so different
from the Brit envisioned in the painting below.

There had been other instances, probably in every war, when men
on one side or the other had carried out covert executions. During the
Revolutionary War Nathan Hale had been executed by the British. John André had
been executed by the patriots for convincing Benedict Arnold to sell out. But
for the most part, murder during conflict was not the norm, unless war itself
was considered the greatest form of murder.

The story associated with the house was almost a fairy tale, a
very romantic one about love and the price paid for love. It had a dashing
heroine, Lucy Tarleton, and a patriot hero, Stewart Douglas, Lucy’s true love,
and it had an ogre, as well—Beast Bradley.

But the man depicted in the painting in Lucy Tarleton’s bedroom
did not seem capable of the vicious and cold-blooded murder of a young woman in
her own home.

Tyler rolled over.

Even with his bedroll over the straw mattress, he wasn’t very
comfortable. That didn’t really bother him; he’d spent many a night on the cold
ground in Texas. What bothered him was the case.

First,
was
there a case?

Allison could have a reasonable theory—that Julian Mitchell had
imagined he was being followed. He’d imagined the painting doing terrible things
to him and had set his own chin on the bayonet and died.

Except that the attic office had been trashed. And Julian
claimed
he’d been murdered.

Tyler rolled over again and punched his pillow, still troubled
by the fact that Julian suspected Allison could be in danger.

And Artie Dixon had come out of his coma long enough to say her
name.

She had to know
something.
She
didn’t know she knew it, but that was the only reason someone might search the
office in the attic and kill a man who’d just been up there.

Still, the painting in the study… Sean had inspected it. There
were no trick lights or cut-out eyes. It was a painting, nothing more or
less.

He was glad Allison was sleeping directly across the hall.
She’d chosen one of the family guest rooms, and to the best of his knowledge,
nothing had ever happened there.

With a groan, he rose and threw on his robe. He was worried
about her. He had Julian to thank for that—Julian, and the man in the hospital
who’d woken just long enough to say her name.

The house was quiet. He could hear the old grandfather clock
below in the entry clanging out the hour. Two o’clock.

Tyler walked across the hall. Allison’s door was ajar. He
tapped lightly, but she didn’t answer. He opened the door farther and saw that
she lay there, sleeping peacefully.

He left her door ajar and started to walk back to his own room
but paused. He had a sudden feeling that something about the house wasn’t quite
right.

He walked to the stairway and heard another door creak. He
turned silently, but it was Logan, who’d come out of his room. He joined Tyler
at the landing, looking down the stairs.

“Did you hear anything?” Logan asked him.

Tyler shook his head. “I think I’m just restless. Worried.
Maybe our ghost does have me concerned that someone’s out to hide something and
may think that Allison has knowledge regarding whatever it is. Did you hear
anything?”

Logan, too, shook his head. “No, but I was awake. I had the
same feeling. That strange
something is moving in the
darkness
feeling. Want to check out the first floor?”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” Tyler said.

They walked down the stairs together. There was a greenish glow
from the computer with the different screens Sean had set up. They studied them,
but there was nothing to be seen. The ghost of Julian Mitchell was sound asleep
on the sofa. Julian didn’t rise or acknowledge him. Tyler smiled inwardly. So
much for Julian as a watchdog.

Logan checked the front door and the alarm.

“I’ll take the salon, dining room and pantry. Can you look into
the study, the ladies’ room and the music room?” Logan asked.

“Sure,” Tyler said. “Meet you in the back.”

He went into the study first; night-lights glowing softly in
the corridors led the way.

He saw nothing there, but in the shadows, the painting of Lord
Brian “Beast” Bradley seemed more cruel and cunning than ever before. Tyler
stared at it for a moment, then went to the doorway leading to the ladies’ room
and, after that, the music room. He found nothing in any of the rooms.

Nothing that wanted to be found, at any rate.

Julian wasn’t even stirring. He certainly wasn’t watching over
the house where he’d died.

When Tyler met Logan, who was checking the lock and the alarm
on the back door, he asked, “Anything?”

“Nope. But we both needed the walk-through. Strange, I just had
a feeling,” Logan said. “Our imaginations can come into play.”

“That’s true, but…sometimes it
is
something.”

“Well, there’s still some sleep to be had,” Logan said.

“Yeah, let’s get back up.”