Ghost Town (8 page)

“You did save us, but considering that it was you who endangered us in the first place . . .”

“Don't pick nits, Amber. Once we were on this side of the mirror, the Darkness and I merged. We'd been together too long to remain separate. It's a permanent part of me now—or I'm a permanent part of it. I'm not sure which.”

“So I can't trust you.”

He shrugged.
“That's for you to decide. I didn't have to reach out to
you like this, you know. I could've just remained on the sidelines and watched you die.”

“And not taunt me? What would be the fun in that?”

“True.”
Greg's smile widened into a grin, and his eyes became pools of swirling black.
“I'll be in touch. Big wet kisses to Drew and Trevor.”

Then he was gone.

Amber stared at her lone reflection in the mirror for several moments before turning and leaving the restroom. As she opened the door, she thought she heard a soft chuckling in her mind, but she told herself it was just her imagination. She didn't believe it.

Amber tried to
keep her expression neutral as she approached the table, but Drew raised his eyebrows and cocked his head, as if to ask if something was bothering her. She smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. He might not be psychic, but he was the next best thing.

She leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Tell you later.”

He nodded, and everyone got up and headed for the door. Trevor remained close to Jenn but not
too
close. Amber knew he didn't want to seem to be hovering over her, even if that was exactly what he felt compelled to do. She wondered if Tonya's death, as tragic as it was, might prove to be the catalyst that would spark a renewed relationship between them. It was obvious they still cared about each other, but whether those feelings would deepen into love once more was impossible to say. For Trevor's sake, she hoped so. He was a good guy, and he deserved to be happy—as happy as she and Drew were.

She smiled at Drew and took his hand as they stepped out of Burial Grounds and onto the street.

Once they were all standing on the sidewalk, Trevor turned to Jenn. “I'm not sure going to the conference is such a good idea for you.”

“I think it's just what I need.” She glanced in the direction of
Forgotten Lore. The police cars and the paramedic van were still parked outside, and Jenn turned her back so she wouldn't have to look at them. She looked at Drew. “You're a psychologist. What's your opinion?”

Drew answered, but even though Amber was listening, she couldn't concentrate on his words. She felt a strange prickly sensation on the back of her neck, as if someone was watching her. She turned toward the bookstore and saw two people standing on the sidewalk slightly apart from the rest of the crowd. She didn't recognize the raven-haired woman in the long black dress. Amber assumed she was in costume for Dead Days, but there was something about her that seemed wrong. She stood too still, almost as if she were a frozen image, like a photograph or a painting instead of a real person. And although she was only half a block away, Amber had trouble seeing her clearly. The harder she tried to focus on the woman's face, the more indistinct her features became. But as disturbing as the woman was, she was nothing compared with the man standing next to her.

At first, she didn't believe it was him. It was easier for her to accept that a dead friend had spoken to her through a mirror than it was to accept that Mitch Sagers stood on a sidewalk in Exeter, staring at her, a woman in black at his side. It just didn't make any sense. What was he doing there? It couldn't be him. It had to be someone else, someone who just looked like him. But then she remembered what Greg had told her.

There are nasty things in this town, and you've drawn their attention.

An ice-water surge of panic raced through her, and her hand clenched tightly on Drew's. She couldn't imagine too many things nastier than Mitch.

“What's wrong?” Drew's voice was filled with concern.

Amber tried to answer, but she couldn't manage to draw in a breath. Mitch stared at her for a long moment, his gaze blank and
unreadable. Then the woman in black took him by the arm, and together they turned and disappeared into the crowd.

“Amber?”

Drew stepped around in front of her, and as soon as he filled her vision, her trance broke. She pulled in a gasping breath of air, threw herself into his arms, and began crying.

Amber had looked
surprised to see him. No, more than that: she had looked
afraid
. Mitch smiled with grim satisfaction. It was a good first step toward getting back the respect she owed him. But he still had more he wanted to do—much more.

Which was why he was so confused to be walking away from her right then. And away from that wimp of a new boyfriend she had. He could snap that asshole in two like a pencil without even trying. The more he thought about it, the more walking in the other direction might seem to Amber as if he were running away, as if he were the one afraid of a confrontation. It was a sign of weakness, and if his daddy were there right then, he would pound the shit out of him for it.

Mitch started to turn around, but the Dark Lady's cold grip tightened on his arm, stopping him. He grimaced in pain. Damn, but she was stronger than she looked!

“It's better this way. Give the fear time to grow within her. Meanwhile, there's something I'd like you to do for me.”

He wasn't the kind to take orders from anyone, let alone a woman. But he listened as she whispered her plans to him in a voice like a midnight wind blowing across an empty field. And when she was finished, he thought,
What the hell? Sounds like fun.

They continued walking down the street, the Dark Lady's whispers growing ever more sinister as they went.

Connie Flaxman gripped
her steering wheel tightly as the strains of Mozart's
Symphony No. 40 in G Minor
wafted through her Mercedes.
Mozart usually soothed her, but this day all it did was set her teeth on edge. She stabbed out a finger to turn off the CD, and the resulting silence came as a relief.

She couldn't believe she was doing this. She had left her house in Lincoln Park at five that morning, after a night of tossing and turning and getting almost no sleep. And now there she was, several hours later, getting ready to take the highway exit for Exeter, Indiana. As she drew close, she was tempted to press down on the accelerator and roar past it. She could find another exit, turn around, get back on the highway, and start heading home to Chicago. If she drove straight through, she could be home by early afternoon. She would have wasted half a day, but that was better than wasting the whole day, right?

She almost did it. But in the end, she lifted her foot off the gas, hit the turn signal, and pulled off the highway.

She had made her feelings quite clear to Drew when he had told her he planned to attend the so-called conference going on there that weekend. He had listened to her politely and said that he understood her viewpoint and that while he agreed that Esotericon wasn't the usual sort of conference he attended, he had made a commitment to a couple of friends to be there, and he wasn't going to let them down. And then he had given her one of
those
smiles—the warm, self-deprecating kind that always made a warm flush come over her—and said, “Besides, what's wrong with going outside your comfort zone once in a while?”

She had acted stern and disapproving, but she had granted his leave request. How could she not? He was a model employee, beloved by both patients and staff. All she would have gained by turning him down was to make herself look like even more of a coldhearted bitch than people already thought her to be.

As she entered the “Most Haunted Town in America,” she drove slowly so she could look around and get a feel for the place. Smalltown Americana, for the most part, with a quaint old-fashioned
business district downtown. It might have been a nice place to spend an afternoon antiquing, if it hadn't been for two things: the childish names of many of the businesses—such as Diner of the Living Dead and Howl at the Moon Saloon—and the throng of fools walking the streets decked out in Halloween costumes. To make it worse, most of them seemed to be adults, at least biologically speaking. Psychologically was a different matter.

She had anticipated this, of course. A quick Internet search the day before had brought her to the town's Web site, and she had read up on its history and its current tourist trade. But she'd had no idea it would be
this
cheesy. More than that, the town seemed tasteless and ghoulish to her. According to the Web site, Exeter was located on the banks of the Mossapeak River, and in the early twentieth century, there was a devastating flood. Hundreds of people were killed, and most of the townsfolk who survived moved away soon after. Some remained to rebuild, and while it was a slow process, Exeter was eventually reborn. An inspiring enough story, she supposed—the phoenix rising from the ashes and all that. But as the years passed, residents began reporting incidents of ghostly visitations and the like. Ridiculous, of course, and undoubtedly tied to repressed feelings about rebuilding the town on the site of what was, symbolically at least, a mass grave. But to turn around and use the tragedy of the flood as a marketing ploy to bring in tourist dollars was nothing short of reprehensible. In all her years as a practicing psychologist, she had run across worse examples of human callousness but not many.

Satisfied that she had seen enough, she ended her little tour and headed for the hotel where Esotericon—and wasn't
that
a toocutesy name?—was to be held. She had programmed the location into her car's GPS, and she reached the hotel without any problem. Once there, she parked, turned off the engine, and then sat, unsure what to do next.

When she had set out way too early that morning, she had told
herself she was going there to check on an employee who was making a very questionable career move. After all, as Drew's supervisor, it was her job to make sure he maintained the highest professional standards in his work. Admittedly, driving all the way from Chicago on a Saturday was a bit above and beyond, but then, she had always been something of an overachiever. And she had been concerned about Drew lately. Over the last couple of months, his behavior had changed, although in some ways for the better. He had always been personable and caring, but only up to a point. It was more than just maintaining professional distance. It was as if he hadn't been able to bring himself to get too close to people. But that wall had come down, and he had begun interacting more with his colleagues at work, forging deeper relationships with them. With everyone but her, it seemed.

But there had been some distressing changes, too. He was willing to explore what he called “alternative explanations” for his patients' problems. He hadn't gone all woo-woo New Age on her, but he was definitely more broad-minded than he had been—and not in a good way. She'd had several conversations with him in which she had told him she was concerned that his new “perspective” might negatively affect the quality of his work. He had, of course, listened with respect, validated her concerns, and told her that he would continue to provide the very best service to his patients of which he was capable.

So she had come to Esotericon to see just how far down the rabbit hole Drew had fallen. And if he was no longer capable of functioning on a professional level as a psychologist, she would have no choice but to terminate his employment. That was the
only
reason she was there. Not because she suspected that one of the two friends he was presenting with was the woman he spoke about so often at work, the one he had been dating for the last couple of months, and who Connie suspected was the reason for his newfound emotional depth. And she most definitely wasn't there
because she hoped to get a look at this woman for herself and see just what it took to capture Drew's heart—and perhaps gain some insight into how she might accomplish that goal for herself.

She looked at herself in the rearview mirror.

“You are so full of shit,” she said.

She checked her makeup, did a quick touch-up, and then, satisfied, got out of the car and began heading for the hotel's entrance.

Drew, Amber, Trevor,
and Jenn were in the Exhibition Hall. Trevor and Carrington were scheduled to sign books soon, but Carrington was nowhere in sight. When they had arrived at the hotel, Carrington had said he needed to “make an offering to the porcelain gods” and headed off in search of a restroom. That had been fifteen minutes ago, and no one had seen him since. Erin had taken his disappearance in stride. “He's either in the bar having a drink, or he's outside smoking. I'll go find him.” In the meantime, Drew, Amber, and Trevor intended to help Jenn get set up for the signing. At the other end of the hall, a crowd had gathered around a table, where a pair of well-known paranormal investigators who had their own popular cable television show were signing autographs. When Jenn saw Trevor staring at them, she insisted he go over and introduce himself.

“Don't worry about me,” she told him. “Amber and Drew will still be here.”

“I know,” Trevor said. “But I'd rather . . .”

Drew caught his eye and shook his head slightly. Trevor picked up on Drew's signal, and although he might not have understood the reason, he knew Drew wanted him to leave the book-signing table for a couple of minutes.

“All right,” he said, a reluctant tone in his voice. “Maybe I can get them to give me a blurb for my book about the Lowry House. But I'll be back soon.”

He gave Drew and Amber a parting look, as if to say,
Take good
care of her,
and then he headed off. When he was out of earshot, Jenn said, “He's a sweetheart, but he can be a mother hen sometimes. It's hard for me to try to take my mind off what happened with him always standing at my elbow radiating concern, you know?”