Haunted (28 page)

Clint shook his head. “No. You've gotten under his skin. Big time. He's just being a jerk. Want to make him jealous?”

Darcy smiled. “Thanks—but no.”

“He's nuts about you. And he should just admit it.”

Darcy touched his cheek affectionately. “Clint, I'll agree that he was attracted to me. But nothing will go beyond that.”

“Why?”

“He can't deal with me.”

Clint weighed that for a minute. “He can't deal with his fear for you.”

“Why should he be afraid
for
me?”

“Darcy, you should have seen him last night. Of course…”

“Of course what?” she demanded.

“I'll tell you myself. It was damned scary. And this afternoon was worse.”

She didn't answer him, but took a long swig of her beer.

“Darcy,” he said, “could you take on a past experience with such reality that you could die?”

“I don't think so.”

“You don't
think
so?”

“No. I never get into a trance or allow myself to be hypnotized unless Adam is running things. I trust him implicitly. So…it never gets that far. He says a single word, and I snap out of it.”

“Not today.”

“What do you mean?”

“He spoke to you twice before you recognized his command.”

“He probably didn't speak loudly enough,” Darcy said.

“He spoke loudly,” Clint told her. “Darcy, I have to admit, this afternoon was scarier than last night. I know how determined and confident you are, but…maybe you ought to just drop this case. What if you wind up being in the soul or spirit or whatever it is of the ghost—and unable to get out? Today it was as if…as if you
were
dying.”

“But I wasn't.”

“Still, Darcy,” he said, “Aren't you ever scared yourself?”

“Terrified, at times,” she assured him.

“Then why do you do this?” he asked.

“Why do people become cops, or firefighters? What I do is nowhere near as dangerous as anything like that.”

Clint exhaled, shaking his head as he looked at her, and yet doing so with a certain admiration. “You are a good kid, Darcy. Still, you should give this one up.”

“I can't,” she said simply, and determined to change the subject. “What about you, Clint? What is it that you really want out of life?”

“I think I'm going to get it very soon,” he said.

“What?” she pursued.

“I'm afraid if I tell anyone, I'm going to jinx myself,” he said, laughing. “Hey, but I'm not the old ne'er-do-well you think I am. Ask Matt. Penny runs the household, Matt is the
sheriff. Sure, he has final say. And, of course, we have Sam to run the grounds. But who do you think makes sure that the little things get done on a day-to-day basis? I find the right roofers and carpenters, I see that the outbuildings are repaired. I'm not such a bad guy, really.”

“I didn't suggest that you were,” Darcy said. “I was just curious about what you really wanted.”

“Um, sure, because the house is Matt's.” He laughed suddenly. “Don't look at me like that. I don't have any plans to off my kin so that I'm the only Stone left to inherit the place. I'm not sure I'd want Melody House. The place can be a damned headache. The upkeep is exorbitant. But don't worry about me. I have a few college degrees of my own—I taught for a few years, did you know that?”

“No. What did you teach?”

“English. Hey, don't look now, but the sheriff has been watching us suspiciously. Want to make him jealous?”

“No,” Darcy said, smiling as she shook her head.

“Too bad,” he said, but lightly.

“Well…what shall we do now? Want to order some food? I'm ravenous.”

“Sounds good.”

“And there's an empty table over there. Let me see if I can gather the forces.”

They headed for the table Clint had indicated, gathering their group as they did so. Adam had been deep in conversation with Matt, but the two of them joined them. Whatever his anger had been earlier, Matt displayed none of it at the Wayside Inn.

Neither did he come particularly near Darcy. When the conversation at the table started to veer toward the haunting at Melody House, Matt stepped in to ask Carter about some of his properties, and Adam kept the ball rolling, wanting to know more about the general area. The meal passed pleasantly, and when it was over, yawns around the table indicated that it was time to go home.

Darcy drove back with Adam, Penny, and Carter. They reached the house first. Darcy went straight up to the Lee Room. Adam went with her, taking the video and audio tapes that had been running from the recorders, and resetting them.

“You are all right in here?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she assured him.

“I can stay in the chair, if you want,” Adam said.

“Adam, if I don't let these dreams come, I'll never see it out to the end.”

He nodded. “But you're sure you're all right?”

“Yes! Get out, Adam. Go to bed,” she told him.

He kissed her cheek, and left her.

Darcy had just started to doze when she thought she heard movement on the balcony. She lay in bed for several seconds, listening.

After a moment, she got up and went to the French doors, but didn't open them. She paused, and listened. Sound…movement. She moved the draperies, her heart seeming to pound in her throat.

There was someone on the balcony. Matt. He was at the rail near the door to his own bedroom suite, looking out at the night.

She hesitated, wishing she could go out. There was no reason to do so.

Painfully, she turned, and went back to bed.

 

The woman in white.

That night, Darcy saw her, standing at the foot of the bed. She was in a haze; Darcy saw no details in her face, no colors, just the woman, in sheer white, standing at the foot of the bed.

Then, she faded.

And the dream came. Somewhere inside herself, Darcy knew that the woman was growing more desperate, determined that Darcy understand.

Darcy slipped into the entity. Into the woman. And into the past.

She ran.

She made it out of the bedroom, and to the landing. And it was there that he caught her, falling upon her.

She struggled briefly, aware of his heat and strength as he grappled her down.

Once…

It had been so different. But now, she knew.

Still, she fought fiercely, struggled, desperate, aware that her life was at stake. The very urgency gave her a burst of power she might have never known that she possessed. She scratched, swore, kicked, punched, and fought to gouge out his eyes. She caught him with such a blow against the jaw that he went immobile, and she took full advantage, shoving wildly against his body, casting him off. She crawled to free herself from the sprawled weight of his limbs. She staggered up herself, and made the first step, but his fingers entwined around the hem of her gown, dragging her back down. She fell atop him, the breath knocked from her, and for a moment, they both lay panting. The pain in her temple dazed her; she realized she had hit her head on the second step. At her side, while she remained paralyzed, he rose up to a half-seated position beside her. And again, their eyes met. Something within his softened suddenly. He reached out a hand. She flinched, but his fingers felt as gentle as raindrops against her cheeks. “I did love you so much,” he said.

She touched him in return. He came to his feet, reaching for her hands, drawing her up and against him, and it might have been as many another night, when they had melded together, when passion had reigned every thought, when she could not bear to keep her hands off him, or he her. The room continued to spin, the pain in her temple was deep…but it seemed that he was whispering now, the words that could so arouse…and his hands, they were on her, his lips…nuzzled those whispers against her throat.

It was a fight, surely, nothing more. His eyes could not have been so deadly.

His whisper came again, against her lips, throat, her earlobes, her mouth, hard then, crushing against her. And she was falling…into his arms. She was aware of the sound of his footsteps against the hard wood floor, aware of his movement as he bore her weight.

They returned to the bedroom, and he set down upon the bed, tenderly. She closed her eyes, thinking that the affair was too passionate, ruled by the senses, nothing more, and yes, so totally wrong. But he moved away, and she knew. Knew that he had left her only to shed his clothing so that he could return, and flesh could burn against flesh.

But…

Silence. Nothing.

The moonlight pouring into the room, but no touch of his warmth, no vibrance and heat as he crawled atop her for he did not do so.

A dog howled, a cry to heaven, to the night, mournful, pathetic, prophetic.

Perhaps a storm was coming, and there would be thunder outside, like the rage of desire that was all that had ever really been between them. But a storm could mean a tempest, and that would be fine, for she still felt the adrenaline racing in her veins, but what she had seen before could not be, for he had loved her, loved her more than she had loved him, wanted her first without thought of consequences.

The wind blew…

But his silence continued.

A howl sounded again, eerie in the night. A rage of wind? The baying of the hound. She didn't know. She merely felt her heated flesh began to chill.

She came up on her elbows, searching for him.

He stood still at the secretary. He had not moved, not cast off his clothing in fevered abandon.

He was reading, reading what she had written. He stood
dead still, his eyes riveted on the paper, and the words that she had written.

Then he turned to her, slowly. She saw the tension build in his hand, and rock through his arms and chest. She felt his gaze fall upon her with fury, greater than that she had ever seen before, even when he had first come that night.

Fear, like icicles, ripped into her.

Terror curled around her heart.

His eyes, oh, God, his eyes.

“You wasted no time,” he said aloud.

She had to escape. But perhaps, her only chance lay in playing a game. Pretending that she didn't see the death in his eyes.

“I was angry. You meant to leave me.”

He walked slowly to the side of the bed. “A woman scorned,” he said lightly.

She would never know what the outcome might have been if she hadn't sat down to write that evening. Perhaps, no different. She had seen her own destruction in his eyes when he had first come;

this look was only a compound of that, and when they had struggled in the hallway, it had been a reprieve and nothing more. She had seen him when he had first arrived, seen the way he had looked up at her from the first-floor landing, far below, staring up the stairway, to see her at the railing.

“A woman scorned,” he repeated. “Is deadly. Deadly, deadly…dead.”

She didn't scream. She didn't bother. She cursed him as he came toward her then. Cursed him, and the house, for all eternity. Her hatred was deep. She was about to be silenced. No one would ever know the truth about him, what had really happened. The truth would die with her, and in time, she would be…

Nothing more than legend.

If that much.

She started to spring to her feet once again.

She didn't make it. He fell upon her.

His hands…those hands which had brushed against her with the greatest tenderness and ardor…now closed around her neck.

Tightened, and tightened.

She strangled out curses. Swearing. With the darkening of the light that was her life, she still swore that he would pay, that come hell and damnation, somehow, sometime, through all the powers of existence, dark and light, she would come back, she would find her revenge.