The Seance (6 page)

“Outta here,” Mike said firmly.

Jed was almost at the door, but he still overheard the last remarks from the group in the parlor.

“What the hell was with Jed tonight?” Tony asked.

“The Beau Kidd thing,” Ana said. “When he wrote his book, he was sure Kidd was guilty, but now he doesn't know.”

Jed headed out the door to his Jeep and gunned the engine.

Ana was right.

 

Ana left a few minutes later with Tony and Ilona. Dan and Mike had offered to drive her home, but Tony had assured them that he and Ilona would see her safely inside. Ana had bought her parents' house when they had retired down to their place in the Keys, so she'd never moved once in her life. And at the price of real estate, she was lucky—as Christina was herself.

Christina locked the front door as the stragglers left. One thing she didn't have was an alarm system. Something she should probably consider in the future, she decided.

There wasn't much to do as far as cleaning up; paper plates for food that had arrived in cardboard cartons didn't create much of a mess. She was done in five minutes.

When the water stopped running, the house seemed almost painfully silent.

She walked back into the parlor and immediately noticed the Ouija board. “You suck,” she muttered. Her eyes moved over the many boxes littering the room.

For some reason, all those boxes made her feel uneasy. The fact that the house didn't have an alarm—which had never bothered her before—now made her even more uneasy. The silence weighed on her.

And she wished to God they had never played with the stupid Ouija board.

She found herself walking around, turning on every light in the house. She even turned on the plasma television in the living room, thinking the noise would be good.

The news came on instantly.

“As is common in such cases,” an attractive young anchorwoman was saying, “there was evidence that the police didn't share with the public when the Interstate Killer was at work twelve years ago. The police have not yet commented on whether or not the murder of Sherri Mason shares any of those confidential similarities or not. As you may be aware, the Interstate Killer's spree ended with the death of the man who had become the prime suspect, Detective Beau Kidd. Kidd was familiar with two of the victims, who—”

Christina was tempted to throw the remote control across the room; she hit the power-off switch instead.

Groaning, she rechecked the front door, turned off the lights and started up the stairs.

She hadn't taken over her grandmother's room, and she wouldn't. It was going to be her guest room, she had decided.

“Beau Kidd, indeed,” she murmured aloud in annoyance when she reached her own room. “If this house is haunted, it's haunted by Granda and Gran. Good people who loved me.”

She had never felt afraid in this house, and she was angry that the night's events had left her feeling so unnerved.

So she was a redhead. There were lots of redheads out there, natural and otherwise. It was a popular color.

She locked her doors. She didn't go off with strangers. She was careful.

She looked around her room, the same room she'd always stayed in as a child. It had changed a great deal over the years. She had a new bed, for one thing—a Christmas present from a few years ago. It was a queen, with a handsome cherry-wood sleigh-style frame. Her dresser and wardrobe matched, as did the artfully concealed entertainment center.

She headed straight to it, turning on the television and finding a channel with nothing but sitcom repeats.

“So there. I will have no news tonight,” she said.

Her voice rang strangely loud in the empty house. She was glad when the sound of the television filled the space.

She was even more pleased when a commercial with a jingle she had written popped up on the screen. “Ever soft, ever silky, ever gentle to the touch, oh, dear Biel's Tissue, we thank you very much.”

Not poetry or even her most brilliant lyric, but it was a good, catchy tune.

She smiled, walked into the bathroom and slipped into the cotton sleep shirt that hung on the back of the door, then washed her face and brushed her teeth. A few minutes later she drew back her covers and settled beneath the clean, cool comfort of her sheets.

And she stared at the television, not seeing a thing.

She rose again and turned on the lights she had turned off earlier. She was certain that from the street, her house was lit up like a Christmas tree. She turned the television down, plumped her pillow and closed her eyes, hoping that the soft drone of the sitcom would help her sleep. It wasn't as if she had anything imperative going on early in the morning; she was just going to finish setting up the house and emptying boxes.

But she was tired. She wanted to sleep.

She tossed around for a while, forcing herself to lie still with her eyes closed, half listening to the television.

Then, head on the pillow, eyes closed, she felt a strange prickling sensation. She couldn't pinpoint anything different about the air around her or the sounds she was hearing. It was an old house, and it creaked. But she knew every creak, and she wasn't hearing anything she shouldn't have been.

But the sensation stayed with her.

She felt as if she were a child again, frightened as she watched a spooky movie, closing her eyes…

If this had been a movie, though, she would have felt compelled to open her eyes, but this was real life, and she fought the desire. If she kept her eyes closed, she would be all right. It would be like hiding beneath the bed or taking refuge in a closet.

I won't. I won't open my eyes, she thought. And it will go away.

But the feeling didn't go away, and finally she had to open her eyes and look into the shadows, just to prove that there was nothing there.

She opened one eye slowly.

If felt as if her blood congealed and her heart froze.

She closed her eye again. She must have imagined what she thought she'd seen. A shadow. A shadow in the shape of a man. Standing at the end of the bed.

Her frozen heart began to thunder.

A normal response, she told herself, given that there was a killer on the loose.

This was all nonsense, she thought. No one could possibly be there.

She opened both eyes, bolting up to a sitting position at the same time.

Someone was there.

A tall, solid, yet somehow shadowy figure standing at the foot of her bed.

Christina screamed and leapt out of bed, then practically flew out of the room.

She raced to the door, out to the hall and down the stairs. She burst out the front door, onto the porch and leapt over the two steps that led to the ground. She ran until she reached the end of the driveway, and then she finally turned back, gasping, checking to see if he was in pursuit.

It was difficult to see, though, because it was such a strange night. The fog was still lying low to the ground, while above, shimmering through with an illumination like silver, was the great orb of the full moon.

Instinct was kicking in. Fog or not, she would see him coming from the front of the house, and he clearly wasn't in pursuit. But she didn't have her keys. That was okay; she could just go next door to Tony's house, and she would be safe.

In her mind's eye, she pictured the figure coming after her, catching her, tackling her right before she could reach Tony's door.

Then there was a tap on her shoulder.

She froze.

Spun around.

Screamed.

He was there.

It was impossible, but he was there. He'd somehow gotten out of the house without her seeing and ended up behind her.

And he wasn't a shadow, either. Not only that, she had seen his face before.

It took her a moment to remember where she had seen it, and when.

Then she knew.

She had seen it, plastered all over the newspapers after Beau Kidd had been shot kneeling over the body of his latest victim.

“Christie…”

Did he say her name, or was it the breeze? Or was she only deep in some horrible nightmare where the dew-damp grass beneath her bare toes was ridiculously real and the face of the man before her was bizarrely vivid?

“Christie…”

The world seemed to be fading, getting lost in the fog.

“Please…help me.”

She had never passed out before in her life, but she did then, dropping flat onto soft, wet earth, seeing nothing but stygian darkness.

“H
ey.”

Christina became aware of the deep, rich voice at the same time as she felt the chilling discomfort of the ground beneath her.

The sun was rising, she realized, feeling completely disoriented.

“Christie?”

She blinked. The sun created a haze as it burned off the last of the fog, so she blinked again, turning her head slightly to make out someone standing above her. For a moment she felt a resurgence of fear. But the sunlight was bright, and when she blinked a third time, her vision cleared and she finally saw who was standing there.

Jed Braden.

He hunkered down by her side.

“Are you all right?” His tone was anxious, harsh.

She realized that she was lying on her lawn and frowned.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded anxiously, his hands on her shoulders, his face close, his features tense.

“No, I'm not hurt. I'm fine.”

She saw relief fill his face.

“Fine? Really?”

“Absolutely. I swear it.”

“Thank God you're alive,” he murmured.

She struggled to rise up on her elbows. “I guess I…fell asleep.”

“You're joking, right?” he said. His voice hardened to a sharper edge. “You told me you were smart, remember? You said you didn't do stupid things.”

She stared at him. She must have had a nightmare. She couldn't possibly have seen the ghost of Beau Kidd. There in the light of day, the idea was just too ridiculous. But she really was lying on the grass, so she really had run out of the house. And she had run because someone had been there. Hadn't he?

She blurted the words without thinking. “There was someone in my house.”

Jed stared at her, slowly arching a brow. “Someone was in your house?” He sounded both concerned and doubtful.

“Yes.”

Anxiety tightened his features. “So someone broke in and chased you out, then…forced you to sleep on the ground?”

She stared at him. “I'm telling you, there was a man at the foot of my bed.”

“But you're also telling me you weren't attacked, right?”

“No. He was just…there.”

“What was he doing?”

“Staring at me. I…felt him there, opened my eyes and saw him, then jumped up and ran out,” she explained.

“You locked up, right? You made sure you locked up after everyone left?”

He stood then, and reached down to help her to her feet. He was in jeans, a knit polo shirt and a casual suede jacket, towering and at ease. “Christina, usually people run somewhere when they're running away from danger. They don't just curl up and go to sleep on the front lawn.”

“I didn't just curl up and go to sleep!” she flashed angrily.

“Oh?”

“Look, I'm not kidding.”

“Christie, bad things are happening,” he said softly, dark eyes on her like onyx. “This is no time to cry wolf.”

“I would never do that,” she said, her temper growing, her tone an aggrieved growl.

“All right, so exactly what happened?”

“I came running out here and…”

“And?”

“And I'm not sure.”

His voice went very soft then. “You're sure you weren't molested in any way?”

Was she? She'd passed out cold. But she hadn't been assaulted or anything. She was certain of it.

“No. I wasn't hurt. I wasn't even touched,” she murmured.

“Okay, so this man broke into your house to stare at you and then did…what when you ran out? Ransacked the place?”

No…somehow he moved faster than I did. He tapped me on the shoulder and scared me so badly I fainted. But she could hardly say that.

She lowered her head, lashes falling, flushing. “I'm not sure.”

“Well, let's take a look around, huh?” He strode toward the house. For a moment she stood watching him; then she hurried after him.

“Jed, what are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.

“I came over to have coffee with Ana, and then I saw you lying out here.” He motioned for her to stay on the porch, his face wearing a stern mask of warning.

“He could still be here,” he said, and it made sense—except that she knew he didn't believe her that anyone had been there in the first place.

But she knew he didn't dare ignore her. He might think that she was crazy, that she'd had too much to drink while playing with the occult, but there was a killer in the area, and he couldn't take chances.

“I think I'd be safer with you,” she called as he disappeared into the house. “In all those slasher movies, when the guy goes off and leaves the girl she ends up dead!”

There was no answer.

She stood nervously on the porch, feeling like a fool. Despite the fact that this was Florida, autumn was well on the way, and she was chilled, standing there in her damp cotton nightgown and bare feet.

“Jed?”

There was still no answer. She looked around, since there was nothing else to do. The day was coming on nicely. By midafternoon, it would be hot. The sky was crystal-blue now, but no doubt this afternoon the thunderclouds would come rolling through.

Jed returned at last, startling her out of her reverie as he stepped outside and shook his head. “Nothing. There's no one in there now.”

She let out a long breath. “Jed, it was real. He was real. I opened my eyes, and I saw a man standing at the foot of my bed.”

“We'll walk through the house together,” he told her, the expression in his dark eyes an enigma. “You can see if anything is out of place.”

She followed him into the house. “Upstairs first?” he suggested.

Upstairs, the rooms that her family had claimed in earlier days were empty and undisturbed. Even in her bedroom, everything looked normal. The sheets were tossed back, as they had been when she bolted, but everything else looked just as she had left it.

“Anything?” Jed asked.

She shook her head.

He stared at her. “You and Ana shouldn't have been playing with that stupid Ouija board.”

“Oh, so now you believe in Ouija boards?” she said.

“No. But I do believe in the power of suggestion.”

They traipsed downstairs. The kitchen was tidy, thanks to her efforts the night before. There was a last garbage bag waiting to go out, but that was it.

In the parlor, the boxes remained where they had been.

Too bad I don't have a ghost who wants to unpack for me, she thought.

No. She didn't have a ghost at all. Besides, if anyone was haunting this place, it would be Gran, just as they'd said last night. And she would be a stern but kindly ghost.

But of course there were no such things as ghosts, she told herself.

“So has anything been stolen?” Jed asked. “Or even moved?”

“No, I don't think so.”

She couldn't help but wish that her hair wasn't sporting blades of grass, and that her cotton sleep shirt wasn't damp and hugging her uncomfortably.

“The silver isn't missing?” There was a dry note in his voice, she noticed.

“No,” she said, increasingly upset.

Looking more disturbed than amused, he said, “Christie, if someone really had been in the house, either something would be missing or you would have been followed out and attacked on the lawn.”

She glanced around the parlor, and then she frowned.

The Ouija board.

It had been moved; she was certain of it.

She had set it on top of some other boxes when they had finished with it the night before, but now…

Now it was back in the center of the floor.

“That moved,” she said suddenly.

“What?” Jed asked.

“The Ouija board.”

He groaned.

“I'm serious!”

He was so silent that she could have sworn she could hear every breath either one of them took and even their heartbeats.

“Sit down, Christina,” he suggested.

She looked at him, puzzled. Then she realized that he was trying to be patient and had reverted to being a cop trying to calm a distraught citizen.

“Christina, I admit I wasn't a cop for all that long, but I never heard of anyone breaking into a house just to move a Ouija board.”

She flashed him an irritated glance and stiffened, refusing to give him the satisfaction of sitting down as ordered.

“I'm telling you, when I went to bed last night, that box wasn't there.”

“Sit down,” he said again. “I can get you a glass of water or put some coffee on if that will help.” He wasn't making fun of her, she knew. He was just treating her the same way he had when they'd all been kids and he had five years' advantage over them.

“Jed, I'm telling you—”

“No. Let me talk,” he said.

He pushed her down into one of the big wing chairs and hunkered down in front of her, taking her hands. “It's hard. Trust me, I understand how hard it is.”

“What are you saying?”

“Christie, you have Dan and Mike, but other than that, you've lost your entire family.” His face hardened for a moment, and she knew why. He occasionally talked about his late wife, and sometimes he would smile or even laugh when he talked about something fun they had done.

But he never, ever spoke about the months of her illness or her actual death.

“I'm really not sure you should keep this house,” he told her.

“I love this house.”

“But you're dangerously close to being haunted by it. By the house itself, by the memories, good and bad, of all the years here. When I lost Margaritte, I stayed in the house for a while. I couldn't part with any of her belongings. They even sent me to a police shrink. Eventually I gave her clothing to charities that could use it and only kept a few special mementos. And I sold the house and moved, because it was the only way I was ever going to stay sane.”

She stared at him and squeezed his hand in comfort. There were so many stages of grief: shock, disbelief, anger…no, fury. Then, sometimes, a dullness. Acceptance. Enough time to learn that you would never forget. A time to forgive. And then…not peace, as some suggested, but at least gratitude for those who tried to help you, and an ability to function and move forward, because that was somehow ingrained alongside the survival instinct.

But she had already accepted her grandmother's death. Gran had lived a long life, and every memory she had that revolved around her grandparents was good.

The house, if it had a personality at all, was good.

“I'm okay. Really. And I love this house. Gran left it to me because she knew that. I'll never sell it,” she told him. “But thank you for your concern.” She cleared her throat. At another time in her life, she mused, she might have been thrilled to have Jed Braden practically on his knees in front of her, but this moment was far too raw for that. “I'm all right,” she said, indicating that she wanted to get up. He stood first, and since his hand was still on hers, he helped her up, too. “Do you want coffee? Or something to eat?” she offered.

He shook his head. “No, thanks. I need to get going. I have a few self-imposed deadlines today, but I'm only a phone call away if you need me.”

He did think she was crazy, she thought. Or at least emotionally fragile right now because of Gran's death.

“We checked every room,” she said. “There's no one here. And like you said, no one breaks into a house just to move a Ouija board.”

He smiled a little ruefully and reached for her, pulling a blade of grass from her hair. “Call me if you need me.”

“Sure. Thank you,” she said, and smiled at him. Like hell, she fumed in silence. That damned Ouija board had moved.

She managed to keep her smile in place as she walked him to the door.

“Christina,” he said gravely, then hesitated.

“I know. There's a killer on the loose with a thing for redheads. I'll be very careful, I swear.”

“Sleeping on the lawn isn't being careful.”

“I wasn't—Oh, never mind. It won't happen again.”

“I really am here if you need me.”

“Right,” she said, thinking, I had such a crush on you once, buddy.

He was still crush-worthy, she had to admit. The character worn into his features by life made him a striking man.

The fact that he was obviously patronizing her was a sharp wake-up slap, however.

“Thank, Jed. Thanks. I will call if I need you—if there's a real problem,” she assured him, and there was only a slight note of coldness in her tone.