Adam's Thorn (38 page)

“Spencer who?”

“He’s from the antique shop in the
city, remember?  You met him that day when I…ah…”  She cleared her throat.

“Sucked me off?” he supplied in a
voice low enough that only Barbie could hear him.  His glance was hotter than
ever, but as the door shutting on Spencer’s car sounded, the cool cop eyes
wiped away all lingering heat and Adam turned to face Spencer.

“Officer.”  Spencer nodded at Adam
before focussing on Barbie.  “I heard what happened.  How terrible.”

“It’s okay.”  Barbie came down the
steps, stopping beside Adam to smile at the smaller man.  “Nice of you to call
in.”

“Oh, no worries.  I did promise to
return with prices, but…”  He cleared his throat, hemmed.  “I heard some things
got broken in the break-in.”

“I’m afraid a few things did get
damaged.  Come inside and I’ll show you.  Maybe some it can be salvaged, I
don’t know.”

“Oh dear, oh dear.”  Worriedly,
Spencer hurried up the steps and disappeared into the house.

“Glad to know he’s worried about
you.”  Adam looked after him.

“He’s doing his job, Adam, he’s
not here to care for me.”

His gaze dropped down to regard
her.  “No.  That’s my job.”

Well, didn’t that just make her
feel all warm and fuzzy?  “Just for that, I’m going to suck you dry tonight.”

Adam went so still, his pupils dilating,
his nostrils flaring slightly.  “Christ, Barbie.”

Giving him a cheeky wink, she
bounced back up the steps.  “See you tonight,
baby
.”

She half expected him to come
after her, his big hands actually twitched, but then after casting her one
long, hot look, he swung on his heel and strode across the grass to the car.  After
waving them off, she went inside, turning to shut the door securely behind her
when she spotted a van slowly going past the driveway. As she watched, the man
inside leaned forward and she recognised his face.

Shane, one of the painters.  Frowning,
he looked at the house before suddenly accelerating and driving off.  Wondering
if he had been about to call in and inquire about work tomorrow, Barbie
shrugged.  Shane was an unknown quantity, a man she still didn’t know that well
in comparison to Bruce and Henry.  He kept to himself, didn’t say much, and
certainly didn’t approve of her plans for the house.

That was his problem.

Spencer was talking to Matt at the
base of the staircase. At the sound of her approaching, Spencer said worriedly,
“I really need to see those dolls and the damaged furniture.  Oh, I can’t
believe this has happened.  The value of those things are beyond repair.”  He actually
wrung his hands.  “Oh dear, Patrick will not be pleased.”

“Patrick will be fine,” Barbie
assured him.  “He hasn’t paid for anything yet, so his main worry will be only what
he does pay for.”

“Of course, but still…”  He
started up the stairs.

When he saw the broken dolls in
the box, she thought he was going to cry.  Sinking down onto his knees, he
plunged his hands in the box and picked up broken pieces.  “Oh no.  Oh dear. 
Oh, this is just terrible!”  Putting down the dolls, he looked around
anxiously.  “Did any remain unbroken?  Are - oh, thank goodness!”  Spotting
four dolls still intact on the self, he jumped up, hurrying across the room to
pick them up one by one.

Looking them over, relief was
plain on his face.  “Oh my.  These are so old and in such good condition, they
are worth so much.  It’s a sacrilege!  A sacrilege, I tell you.”  Tenderly, he
placed the dolls back on the shelf.  “I shall have to start packing these up
soon before any more damage is done.”

Personally, Barbie couldn’t get
rid of the dolls soon enough.  They totally creeped her out, and the memory of
them sitting in a line on the floor staring at her… Repressing a shudder, she
looked uneasily at them.  Freaky things.

“Books,” Spencer said.  “You
mentioned some of the books were damaged.  Are any of them still intact?”

“Of course.”  Gratefully shutting
the girl’s bedroom door, Barbie led him into the library.  “Those with torn pages
I’ve put in a small stack in that box near the desk, the rest I’ve put back in
the library.”

Before she’d finished speaking,
Spencer was thumbing carefully through the books in the box, exclaiming
miserably over the damaged books.  “Dreadful, dreadful business.”  He glanced
around the room.  “Everything else seems okay.”

“It was mainly one of the chairs
in the hallway that was smashed against a wall, the legs broken off and the
backrest broken.  That’s outside near the back shed for the tip.”

“The tip?”  Horrified, Spencer’s
eyes grew round.  “Oh, my, that could possibly be salvaged, mended, resold.”

Remembering how broken it had
been, Barbie shook her head.  “I doubt it.”

Almost fretfully, Spencer took the
notepad from his pocket and started making notes in it, crossing out some
things before going to the back and starting a maths sum of some kind.

Not being near enough, Barbie was
pretty sure he was deducting the price of the broken items.

“Dear, dear, dear.”  Spencer
blinked.  “Okay.  Well, I’ll check around, get a listing of the last few things
before I talk to Patrick.”

Barbie left him to it, beating a
retreat down to the kitchen where she busied herself collecting all the old
pots and pans, placing them in big boxes for donation to the Peeron Disaster
Relief shop which was coming the next day to collect everything boxed so far. 
The big sideboard held a collection of old plates which she knew Spencer
wanted, so she left them there for him to pack when ready.

Now that she wasn’t staying in the
house, there was no need to keep the kitchen in working order.  Only keeping
the bare essentials in there to make drinks, she boxed up everything else.

With almost every cupboard bare,
the kitchen had an empty atmosphere about it.

Grimacing, Barbie walked to the back
door and out onto the veranda, stretching and looking around.

It was then that she noticed that one
of the rose bushes had been disturbed.  Frowning, she stepped off the veranda
and approached it.  Several branches had been broken, and the dirt around the
base was disturbed.

Shit.
  A chill crept down
her spine. 
Was something trying to get out?

Chapter 11

She screamed when a hand touched
her shoulder.

“Whoa!  Barbie, it’s me, Ghost.”

Hand to her pounding heart, she
glared at him.  “You arse!  You scared the living crap out of me!”

“Sorry.”  He patted her shoulder
in concern.  “Are you all right?   Do you need to sit down?”

Before she could answer, Matt came
bursting through the back door.  “Barbie!”

“It’s okay.”  She weakly flapped a
hand at Ghost.  “I got a fright.  Sorry.”

Matt looked Ghost up and down. 
“Understandable.”

Ghost flipped him the bird.

Lori stepped out on the veranda,
her gaze darting quickly around before settling on her sister who was standing
near the veranda holding a big bag.  “Hi.”

Talk about understatements.

“We came to set up the cameras,” Ghost
explained.

“You’ll have to wait a few
minutes,” Barbie told him.  “Spencer is still here.”

“Who’s Spencer?”

“From the antique dealer in the
city.”

“Ah.”  He nodded.

“Hello?”  A voice quavered from
above.

Looking up, they spotted Spencer’s
head sticking out of the upstairs window. 

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” Barbie replied.  “Juts an overreaction
on my part.”

“Oh.  Okay.”  The window clicked
shut.

“Nice to see that he came down
here to check personally,” Ghost remarked.

By the time they entered the
kitchen, Spencer was coming down the staircase.  In one hand he held the
notepad, in the other the pen, making Barbie admire the way he could walk and
write all at the same time.

Mumbling to himself, he came to a
stop where she stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked up.  “Okay, I’ve
pretty much gotten everything now.  A few last phone calls, a last bit of
research, and we should have this finished in a couple of days.”

“Great.”  Barbie looked around the
dark hallway.  Personally, she was starting to look forward to when this was
all finished, everything packed and the painters and carpenters having free
range to do their work.

She’d only have to come to do the
massages and inspect the work as it progressed, then it was back to the city.

Back to the city.  Back to start
her own business.

No Adam.

The thought hit her suddenly,
causing her breath to catch. 
No Adam
.

Standing in the hallway, she took
a deep, calming breath. 
Okay, this is going too far, too fast.  There’ve
been no promises.  Don’t panic.  One step at a time, one hurdle at a time. 
Nothing is finished yet, it will still take some time. Just relax and stop over
thinking things.

“Barbie?” Ali queried from behind
her.

Straightening her shoulders, Barbie
smiled pleasantly as she turned to face her.  “Yep?”

“Everything all right?”

“Sure.  Now, where are you going to
set up these cameras?”

Ali’s eyes took on an eager glow. 
“Ghost has the plans in his pocket.  We’ll set up the cameras, show you where
they all are when we’re done, and then we’ll lock the house down.”

Ghost smiled easily, slouching off
while pulling the badly drawn plan of the house from his pocket.  Scooping up
one of the bags, he headed for the staircase.

Following, Ali slipped her hand
into the crook of his arm.

“Will he stay the night?” Barbie
queried. “I don’t think Adam will allow it.”

“Adam won’t,” Matt replied.  “If
he really thought it was a ghost, he’d let Ghost have free rein, but he’s
convinced the intruder is human.”

“Do you think it’s human to try to
dig your way out of a grave?”

Startled, he looked at her.  “Say
what?”

“Look.”  Crooking her finger at
him and Lori, Barbie led them out to the rose bushes and pointed to the disturbed
earth.

“Okay.”  Matt toed the dirt. 
“That’s a little freaky, but there could be an explanation.”

“Such as?”

“You had cops here searching,”
Lori answered.  “The dirt disturbed by their big boots, branches broken.”

“Big, clumsy cops?”

“You sound a little sardonic.”

“I’m sorry.  Maybe that’s because
there are no boot prints around the dirt?”

Lori just smiled.

Ghost was more excited.  He set up
a camera in the shelter of the old shed pointing directly at the graves.

If Barbie thought the camera
setting process would be quick, she found out how mistaken she was, mainly
because Ghost spent a lot of time scoping out rooms for the best positions.

Ali was his eager assistant,
giving her opinion and helping set up the equipment.

Looking at the cameras, both video
recorders and film, Barbie raised a brow.  “Where are the heat detectors?  The
box that whines when a ghost comes in sight?  Things like that?”

“I don’t do that stuff.”  Ghost
closed the door to the boy’s room.  “Spoils the atmosphere.”

“I thought true ghost hunters had
all this paraphernalia?”

“Simple is best,” he replied.

“And Ghost is simple,” Ali
remarked, only to realise how that sounded when he looked at her.  “Oops.”

He made a grab for her.  “Come
here!”

Ali shrieked and dodged, but Ghost
moved faster, sweeping her into his arms and kissing her noisily and with great
enthusiasm.  Giggling, she struggled, but not for long.  By the time he
released her, she was clinging to him with a decidedly dreamy expression on her
pretty face.

Laughing, Barbie left them to set
up the remainder of the cameras.  Downstairs, she found Matt and Lori sitting
on the front veranda chatting softly, so she left them and wandered out the
back again to study the roses.

A sudden memory of something white
under one of the rose bushes jogged her thoughts, and she knelt down to look
around them.  She found nothing except a partially dug hole where she was sure
she’d seen something white several weeks before.  Paper, maybe?  Blown away by
the wind?  But why the hole?

Creepier and creepier
. 
Sitting back on her knees, she studied the rose bushes before realising that
she was kneeling on someone’s grave.  Possibly.  Or maybe it was the empty
grave or the mystery one.  Whichever, it gave her a case of the heebie-jeebies
and she stood up, backing away abruptly.  “Ugh!”  Brushing the dirt from her
knees, she muttered, “Why, Aunt Penny?  Just why?”

Dusk was starting to fall by the
time she locked the house and left with the others.  Hopefully, the camera
recordings would reveal something in the morning.

~*~

The cameras had been in residence
for several days but nothing showed except for empty hours of film.

“Things don’t always reveal
themselves immediately,” Ghost said with the patience of a saint.  “We just
have to keep trying.”

Adam was still convinced it had
been an intruder of the human variety, but to give the man credit, he didn’t
ridicule his friend.  Or, if he did, he didn’t do it in front of anyone else,
including Barbie.

Lying cuddled in his arms, her
body still pleasantly humming from the energetic and totally mind blowing sex
session they’d just had, Barbie listened to his even breathing behind her as he
slept.  Every warm puff of air stirred the hair atop her head, his muscled
chest moving rhythmically against her back.  His long legs were tucked behind
her much shorter ones, one brawny arm across her waist.

Lying there in his bed with the
sound of the nightlife outside the open window, the cats curled up on the end
of the bed, she couldn’t remember a time she’d ever felt so content.