Haunted (25 page)

Matt's door was moving.

Opening? Or closing?

She stood against the rail, her heart in her throat, staring. The door seemed to close another inch, and then to open.

In boxers and a robe, Matt emerged, striding out on the landing, eyes touching on Darcy, then looking up and down the second level.

“What are you doing out here?” The question sounded like a bark.

She swallowed hard. She knew him—didn't she?
Or did she think that she knew him because she had been so tempted to sleep with him?

No. Whether they ever spoke two civil words again to one another or not, she didn't believe that Matt Stone was the type of man who would push a woman over a railing to her death.

“Darcy! What's going on?”

Still, she hesitated.
She couldn't tell him
. She didn't believe that she had been accosted by a ghost, but then…it hadn't
been until she had heard the noise, felt herself in extreme danger, that she had really snapped clearly from the force of the vision.

And whether she told him that she believed she had been attacked—by either a ghost or a living being—he would start insisting again that she was somehow in danger. He would force her from the house. And her instincts were good—she really could protect herself.

She hoped.

“I couldn't sleep,” she lied. “I was just trying to…imagine what might have happened here.”

“You should never lean against a railing like that.”

“No? I suppose not.” She pushed away.

He was tense. His hands were knotted at his sides, his features drawn. She was certain he had no idea he looked so fierce.

“You shouldn't run around the house at night,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You know that I believe there's a person behind all this.”

“Oh? Who, Matt? You, Penny? Or do Carter and Clint slip into the main house at night? Or could it be the groundskeeper, that great guy, Sam, who works out there?”

“I don't know,” he said flatly. “The point is, you, of all people, shouldn't be running around the house at night.”

“Why me, of all people?”

“Because you've got an imagination that would put any child to shame.”

“Really?” she inquired icily.

“Oh, come on, Darcy, that's the point. You really do believe everything that you say.”

“Ah. Damn, I really need a psychiatrist.”

“Maybe you do.”

It seemed as if the words pained him. His fingers were still balled into his palms. A pulse throbbed at his throat.

“Why are you so ridiculously angry with me?” she demanded.

“Because you've let this happen to you!” he exclaimed. “Darcy—”

He started to take a step toward her. She shook her head vehemently, backing away. “No, Matt, I haven't let anything happen to me.
You
should see the psychiatrist. You're so set in your ways it's amazing that you even agree to daylight savings time. Excuse me, will you? I'm going back to bed.”

She walked by him, heading for the door to the Lee Room. As she passed him, it was almost as if he touched her. He didn't move. She could still feel the heat emitting off him in great waves. She could somehow feel his vitality, his tremendous strength, and his emotions.

Was that what remained? Such emotion, passion, laughter, love, anger?

She walked on by, breathing the scent of him.
Beloved
scent of him. Not to be. She wasn't the possessor of an incredible imagination, and she wasn't acting, from either anything made up, or anything believed.

Fuck him.

She could bend.

Matt Stone could not.

She wanted to cry. Spin around, beat against his chest. To what end? She had no power to change what lay within a man's mind. What she knew, what she did, had no tangible proof.

“Darcy?” Her name sounded somewhat strangled on his lips.

“Good night, Matt.”

She walked into the Lee Room, and closed the door.

The dream didn't come to her again that night. She slept easily, yet awoke, a strange sense of fear slipping into her thoughts.

The sense had nothing to do with ghosts.

She had slept on through the night; she had not been bothered.

And yet, by day, her vision seemed clear, and her mind
entirely rational.
Someone
had been out there on the landing with her last night.

Living, breathing.

And with deadly intent.

D
ownstairs, Darcy discovered Adam in Penny's office, going through the many volumes of history and legend there. When Darcy tapped on the door and entered, he slid his reading glasses from his nose and smiled at her.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning, Adam. What have you found?”

“Well, I've read through the information on Arabella, and she does sound like a likely candidate, but then again…nothing conclusive. I'd like to do a great deal more reading here, and then, this afternoon or early evening, around dusk, I'd like to try hypnotism, if you don't mind.”

“I told you last night. It's fine.”

He nodded and waved toward the door. “Go get yourself some coffee. Matt is at work, Penny is off shopping…I think Clara is around working somewhere. Do you have any plans?”

Adam liked to do his reading alone. She knew that. He was politely suggesting that she make some plans, if she didn't have any, and let him get on with his work alone.

“Actually, there is something I'd like to do today,” Darcy told him.

“Oh?”

“I'm heading back to the library.”

“Oh?”
Adam said.

“Mrs. O'Hara told me about someone else who had an en
counter here. A maid who was working right around the time that Matt's grandfather died. Marcia Cuomo. I'd asked Mrs. O'Hara to have her call me, but as yet, she hasn't done so. I think I'll stop by and ask Mrs. O'Hara for Marcia's phone number or address, and see if I can't speak with her.”

“I think the library is still closed, with inspectors checking out stairways and floorboards everywhere,” Adam advised her.

“Ah. Well, then, I'll see if Mrs. O'Hara is answering the phone there anyway,” Darcy said.

Adam nodded his assent, already turning his attention back to the tome in his hands.

Darcy wandered into the kitchen. As always, coffee had been left for her. She helped herself to some and then started back up the stairs to the Lee Room.

As always, she paused when she was in the room, and waited. But this morning, the ghost was remaining still.

The information operator connected her with the library, where an answering machine picked up. But Mrs. O'Hara left her home phone number on the service, should anyone have an emergency.

It was hardly an emergency, but Darcy was beginning to feel a sense of urgency in regards to the ghost and whatever else it was that was going on at Melody House.

Mrs. O'Hara was not upset at being called, and was happy to give her Marcia Cuomo's home phone and address.

Since Marcia Cuomo's phone rang and rang, Darcy thought she'd drive by the residence just for something to do. She could hope that Marcia would return in the interim.

Penny had taken her car, but Adam had driven down from D.C. in his Navigator, a car Darcy loved. She ran downstairs to ask him if she could take it, and waved a hand in the air, she hurried back upstairs to grab her purse and Adam's keys.

Someone had been up cleaning her room in her absence. The balcony doors had been left open. Darcy started to close them, then paused, tempted to walk out and feel the sunshine and the
breeze. As she did so, she was startled to hear sound from Matt's room. She walked over to the doors that opened to his room. They were locked. She peeked in a window.

There was someone in the room. She couldn't see clearly because the sun was so bright outside and the shadow so deep within.

Matt? Back from work for some reason? She raised a hand to tap on the window, then thought better of it.

Why speak with him?

Yet, as she stood there, the man at the desk looked up. She could see nothing but his form in darkness, nothing at all of his face. He stood stiff and rigid, staring back.

Matt, and he wasn't happy to see her, peeping through his window.

She turned, walked back into the Lee Room, grabbed her purse, and started out. Halfway down the stairs, she turned around and walked back up the stairs. At Matt's door, she paused a minute, but heard a rustling sound within. Firmly, she rapped on the door.

No answer.

“Look! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare in your window!”

Nothing.

Beneath her breath, she called him a few names.

“Matt?”

Still no answer. But she was certain someone was in there.

“Fine. Sorry, I'm leaving,” she called out.

She ran on down the stairs, but at the landing hesitated. There was a phone on a little marble table beneath the arch of the stairway. She walked over to it, and flipped through the index on it, easily finding his number at work. She dialed, and a woman answered the phone.

“Is the sheriff there, please?” Darcy asked.

“He's not available right now. May I take a message?” the woman asked.

“Um, when will he be in?” Darcy asked.

“Oh, he is in—he's just not available. He's in a meeting with the county code inspectors. Can I have him call you?”

“No, thanks, I'll just talk to him later.”

Darcy started to hang up, then hesitated.

She could have sworn she heard an extra click on the phone, as if someone had been listening in on an extension.

She hung up the phone slowly. She stared up the stairs, then walked up them resolutely. She lifted a hand to knock at Matt's door. The door swung inward; it hadn't been securely closed. “Matt?” she said, stepping into the room.

She looked around his office area, then walked into the bedroom. She knew that the place was empty.

Whoever had been in there was definitely gone now.

Her heart thudding, she once again walked down the stairs. It was all very, very, strange.

Far stranger than communicating with the dead, in her opinion, she thought wryly.

 

“Did I have any calls?” Matt asked Shirley, exiting the conference room.

Since the accident in the library, he had gathered the council to suggest that a number of their civic buildings be given a thorough once-over.

Except that he was still having a hard time believing the truth that he had learned from both the local building inspector and his friends in Washington—the rot had been caused by the simple spill of soda. “Imagine what it can do to a stomach, huh?” Shirley had marveled. He had known then that her kids were going to be looking at straight water and milk for a long time to come.

“One call, and she didn't identify herself,” Shirley said. She wiggled her brows at Matt. “Great voice, though. Think it was Ms. Tremayne.”

He shrugged. “If it was her and she wants something, I'm sure she'll call back. I have to be in court. Niles Walker was running around naked again last month, and I want to see that his family takes care of him humanely. Call me on the cell if you need me.”

“Sure thing.”

Matt started out, then stopped, swearing silently to himself.

“Shirley?”

“Yep?”

“If Darcy Tremayne calls through and needs me in any way, make sure that she gets the number, okay?”

“Certainly, Matt.” Shirley watched him, somewhat covering a smile of amusement. Then she frowned. “Do you think she's in some kind of danger?”

“Why should she be?” he asked.

And realized that he was thinking,
Yes! Definitely, yes. And why…

Damned if he knew. Gut feeling. Except that he was determined he just wasn't going to have any more gut feelings.

He suddenly wished that he didn't have to be in court. No gut feeling—he was just worried. Darcy had acted so strangely on the stairway last night.

She had stared at him, as if
he
frightened
her
.

Worse than that, she had looked at him with something else in her eyes.

Suspicion?

Damn the whole thing.

“Later, kid,” he said to Shirley.

“Later, Matt,” Shirley agreed, and went back to her paperwork.

 

Adam sat back, puzzled. Darcy was right—it certainly sounded as if Arabella was the prime candidate for such a haunting. A woman who had considered herself a rightful heir to the property, thrown over so that her lover could marry a proper spouse. Yes, she sounded just right.

He sat back.

And yet…

He tossed his reading glasses on the desk and rubbed his eyes. Darcy had told him that there was something else, something she just couldn't touch.

Yet.

She would.

He rose and walked to the window, worried himself.

Was he putting Darcy in danger? Shouldn't he, at the least, explain why he had been so determined that they get into Melody House?

He couldn't, he thought with a sigh. Not yet. He couldn't color her opinions in any way, make suggestions, or even give hints that could throw her into the wrong direction. He just had to wait. This afternoon, under hypnosis, she might reveal a great deal.

He glanced at his watch. An anxious tick pulsed in his throat.

He should have gone with her.

 

Darcy was glad that she had driven out. When she knocked on the door of the old Victorian house near the small, lazy downtown section of Stoneyville, the door was instantly answered.

The woman might have been young. She was medium height, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a nice figure. But her face had a haggard appearance, the type that came from a difficult life. For some, it was bearing the burden of a house, husband, job, and children while struggling under a mound of debt. For others, it was the abuse of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Once, this woman had been very pretty. Now, she just looked exhausted.

But she was very pleasant, smiling at Darcy. “Yes, can I help you?”

“I hope so,” Darcy said. “I'm sorry to disturb you.” She hesitated, then explained. “I'm a psychic investigator.”

The smile on Marcia Cuomo's face disappeared. She started to close the door on Darcy.

“Please! Wait, hear me out. I—I got your name from Mrs. O'Hara at the library, and I need your help. You definitely weren't crazy or anything of the like.” She bit her lip. “Please, I'm not here to mock you or malign you, others have had experiences at Melody House and I really need your help!”

Marcia hesitated, then opened the door. “Come in, please.”

Darcy stepped into the house. It bore a look of genteel poverty.

“Coffee? Or iced tea? This is summer, huh? I don't keep anything stronger in the house.” She stared at Darcy, still stiff. But then, she sighed, as if believing in whatever empathy she saw in Darcy's eyes. She made a complete turnabout, admitting, “I joined AA—I never wanted to give anyone a reason to doubt my credibility again. Then, of course…there was just life to deal with.” Marcia offered Darcy an ironic shrug. “One good thing about Melody House. I left there and went straight to a meeting. How's that?”

“If you're an alcoholic, a very good thing,” Darcy said earnestly.

Marcia smiled, all her defenses seeming to melt away. “Iced tea, then?”

“I'd love some.”

A few minutes later, they were seated in the Victorian parlor with tall glasses of iced tea. Marcia pointed out a few of the antiques, and told Darcy the house dated from the 1870s. “Not very old, not in these parts, anyway. But a great-grandfather of mine built it, so…well, I try to hang on to it. I've been learning a lot about carpentry myself, and my son comes down from New York to help me now and then.”

“You have a grown son?”

Marcia smiled again. “He's twenty-two. I'm afraid I was one of those young ladies who had a high-school affair, and finally ended up with a four-year-old by the age of twenty. I screwed up a lot, I'm afraid. Danny's father helped out somewhat, but we never married, and he was killed in an industrial accident a
few years after Danny was born. So…anyway, life is good now. Danny is great. Went to school on scholarships, and he's got a great job with NBC now. So…he helps out. I won't accept any of his money, not yet. It's too hard to live in the big city. But he brings a few buddies down now and then and we all paint and do odd jobs.”

“How wonderful,” Darcy said.

“You're sweet. But you're here for a reason.”

“Yes.” Darcy stared steadily at her. “I believe with my whole heart that there is a ghost in the Lee Room, and I'd like to hear about your experience there.”

Marcia stared back at her, and then shrugged. “You see, the thing of it was, I was drinking that day. I went to work with a little flask all the time. I loved the place, too. I'd worked for Matt's granddad now and then, knew all the guys around the place, even pretended I didn't know about a lot of the fooling around going on there, you know what I mean? Lots of women thought it was hot to let guys like Carter, Clint, and even Matt pick them up, you know, then screw around in a supposedly haunted room as truly historic as the Lee Room. The old man was tolerant of Clint, of course. And even Carter. Matt was gone a lot—he was working in D.C. before his granddad got sick, but when he was home, well, you meet a pretty girl, you get to tell her that you live in an incredible mansion like Melody House…Well, that's all beside the point. I was cleaning up there one day and suddenly it feels as if my hair is being pulled. Not tugged by a breeze, or anything. Pulled! Hard. I whipped around, thinking I was losing my mind. Then I hear this voice. And it's soft and moaning and going, ‘Help. Help me! Please, for the love of God, help me!' I thought at first that one of the fellows was just kidding around. So I yelled at them to stop. Then…I thought I saw something. Like a little glimmer of light, heading out of the room and down toward the landing of the stairway. So I followed…peeked down the stairs, and the
next damn thing I knew, I was lying at the foot of the stairway! By the mercy of God, I didn't break my neck. Penny found me there, and I suppose I reeked of alcohol. Still, I started raving, told her what had happened, that I'd been shoved down the stairs by a ghost. Penny is just dying to have ghosts there—I would have thought she would have believed me. But then again, I don't think she'd ever realized before that I did drink on the job. She didn't fire me. Only Matt could fire me then—his granddad had passed away. But with the way Penny looked at me, all disgusted over the way that I smelled, I knew that no one would believe me. Not even Penny. And Matt…if he knew, he'd say it was the alcohol for sure.” She let out a long sigh and shrugged. “I told Penny that I was leaving, to please tell Matt. And she told me to get help, and she'd never tell him the real reason that I left. So…some people know now. Cathy O'Hara, over at the library, is a saint. She had a run-in with vodka in her twenties, and was my mentor at the meetings. So…she knows all about me. And my experiences. The thing of it is, though, I don't talk about it, even when I hear about new episodes at Melody House, because I wouldn't be credible in any way to most people. Hell, I'm not sure I would have been credible to myself at the time.”