Haunted (29 page)

Choking, gasping, lips turned blue, breath fading, blackness before her eyes…

“You'll pay,” she swore.

“But no one knows that you're here,” he told her.

The vise constricted, thumb pressing into her throat. Black pinpoints joined together. Her lungs were bursting. She longed desperately to keep fighting.

But light was fading…fading.

And then….

She was history.

 

Darcy woke, drenched with sweat, gasping for air. She sat up. A late-night show was still playing on the television. A coolness hummed throughout the room, soothing to her flesh, for she had been so hot, tossing and turning, twisting the bedclothes into piles of knots.

She had come to the end. She had seen the spirit die in the flesh. And yet…

She'd seen nothing clearly. No detail of face or form. She had felt the hands around her neck, but she hadn't seen the face.

She smoothed back her hair, and stopped.

She was there again.

The woman in white. Standing at the foot of Darcy's bed.

Then, she turned and started for the door. Darcy slipped
from the bed. The woman turned back in her unearthly haze of white and beckoned.

She opened the door to the hallway and beckoned again.

And Darcy followed.

M
att lay awake, the picture of Darcy, contorted and gasping, replaying in his mind, over and over again.

She needed to be out of this house.

So why didn't he just make her leave?

He couldn't deal with it, he knew he couldn't deal with it, so why let her stay?
Figure it out
. Because he couldn't bear to see her go. So, what? Was he waiting to see if she'd wake up one morning and admit the whole thing was an act, their way of bringing the culprit to justice who was rigging the house to make it appear haunted?

It wasn't going to happen. And though it might be in her own mind, what she thought she saw and felt was real to her.

He was afraid for her, and he didn't know why. He didn't like being away from the house when she was in it. He didn't believe that ghosts could hurt people. But the living could. Why should he be afraid for her then when those she was chasing were ghosts?

He tossed, and turned, and then…

He thought he heard her door open.

He lay still, listening for a minute. Nothing. Nothing he could hear.

He rose anyway.

 

The wraith moved out of the door, and along the landing, heading for the stairs. Darcy followed. The ghost misted down the stairway in a white haze. Darcy paused at the landing.

The spirit stopped, looking back. Beckoning.

Once again, Darcy followed.

She scampered down the stairway, and became suddenly aware that she wasn't just in pursuit of a spirit. She resembled the spirit. She was in a long white cotton nightgown, chasing a specter. They were both puffs of white, the ghost floating, she actually setting her feet upon the steps. Bare feet. She hadn't bothered with slippers.

It hadn't occurred to her that the ghost would lead her beyond the house.

But that was what the specter intended.

She drifted through the foyer, straight to the front door, and then through it.

From somewhere within the house, Darcy heard a door close. She hesitated, then hurriedly began playing with the alarm and the complicated locks on the front door, opened it, and rushed out.

The spirit moved across the lawn and started drifting toward the stables and the outbuildings beyond.

Darcy followed. There was a moon out, and floodlights illuminated the entry to Melody House. But once she passed the stables, the lights dimmed. The ghost was headed toward the old smokehouse.

Suddenly, the apparition went dead still. Darcy, too, paused.

The spirit began to fade, slipping behind the building. Darcy ran after it.

She came around the side of the smokehouse and discovered that the wraith had indeed disappeared. As she stood there, puzzled and frustrated, she heard the snap of a twig. Something warned her not to make her presence known.

She flattened herself against the smokehouse, listening, waiting.

Footsteps fell…slowly, furtively. She held very still.

Closer…

She let her fingers crawl down the wood of the smokehouse door, seeking the handle. She gripped it, and tugged, but it refused to give.

The moonlight was casting curious shadows. Shapes that formed and reformed, billowed and withered, like the rise and fall of branches from the neighboring trees. But then one shadow became distinct.

It was that of a man.

She heard a strange, soft, snapping sound.

The man was carrying something. A cord…a strap…of some kind. An end was held in each hand and he tightened it, eased it, tightened it, eased it.

She'd seen the motion before. In a dream. When a killer had been contemplating murder.

He stood very still in the moonlight. Darcy ceased to breathe, watching, waiting.

Then the shadow moved.

And Darcy did, too.

She shoved away from the smokehouse, coming around the other side of it. She ran as if all the demons of hell were after her, heading back toward the house. At first, she heard thundering footsteps as well, footsteps that fell in hot pursuit.

The porch, blackened by shadow despite the floodlights, was directly before her. She raced up the steps, wincing when her bare foot fell upon a small pebble. She started to hurtle herself toward the door, then tried to halt her impetus, a scream rising in her voice as a massive shadow moved between her and the entry.

She crashed hard into the rising shadow, gasping out rather than screaming, but in a frenzy and ready to rip away and scream.

She couldn't do so.

Arms wrapped around her, fingers bit into her shoulders.

“Darcy!”

She froze. Matt.

“Darcy!”

Matt. Had he been behind her? Had he been the shadow she had seen? Impossible, he'd still be behind her. Unless he had doubled around, leapt the railing, and sped around the porch. She was fast. That didn't mean that he might not be faster.

She had heard footsteps, and then…

Nothing.

“Darcy!” He gave her a little shake.

“What?”

“What?” he echoed. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Chasing your ghost!
She thought.

“Sorry, I was just out on a moonlight stroll,” she said aloud.

She was close to him, and yet startled when his palm fell against her heart, a touch far too intimate, and though platonic, an aching reminder of other nights.

“Your heart is beating a thousand miles an hour.”

“I thought I'd jog.”

“In your bare feet and nightgown?”

He was looking sterner than a turn-of-the-century schoolmaster.

“Matt, what are you doing out here?” she demanded.

“Trying to find out what you're doing. And don't tell me about moonlight strolls.”

“Why? I'm sure you'd believe that far easier than the truth,” she challenged dryly.

“The ghost invited you out?” he quizzed skeptically.

“Yep.”

“And where did she go?”

“She disappeared behind the smokehouse,” Darcy said. “Look, what good is any of this? You think I'm practically
psycho, and it doesn't matter what I say. So—will you excuse me?” He was still blocking her way. “May I go back in?”

He hesitated. She was afraid for a minute that he'd tell her no, that he'd get her things, and drive her into town.

Then, she felt an unwilling tinge of fear. Maybe he had followed her. And maybe he had leapt the railing and raced around to accost her on the porch. Maybe whatever it was going on in Melody House somehow related back to him.

No.

“Matt, please, let me by you,” she said softly.

He didn't budge. “I don't want you running around here at night like this,” he told her.

“May we go back in?”

“Did you hear me? I don't want you around here in the dark like this. Barefoot. Half-naked.”

“I am not half-naked!”

“In the moonlight, Miss Tremayne, you might as well be entirely naked.”

“Sorry. I'll try not to excite the bugs and bats too much,” she said. “May I please go in?”

“Once you've listened to me!”

“Fine, I understand. You don't want me running around the place at night.”

“I don't care if the ghost sits down at your bedside and asks you out for a barbecue, do you understand?”

“Your words are incredibly clear,” she assured him.

He stepped aside, and opened the door. She slipped on in, hoping she could tear back up the stairs and elude his questions and orders for the rest of the night at least.

But the stairway lights were on and Penny was standing at the landing. “What's going on?” she demanded, wide-eyed.

“Darcy felt like a stroll.”

“The woman in white!” Penny said. She gripped Darcy's shoulders. “I told you before—I've seen her, too.”

“You might want to notice that Darcy is wearing a white nightgown,” Matt pointed out.

“Not tonight!” Penny said. “I'm not saying that I saw her tonight. Matt, I've told you this before. I've seen her. She runs down the stairway. As if…”

“As if she wants someone to follow her,” Darcy finished.

“Moonlight plays tricks on the eyes, Penny,” Matt said, shaking his head. His voice had a grate in it. “And I don't think you all are crazy. I think you want this to happen so much that you do see and feel things.” He swore softly beneath his breath. “Look, it's over now, right? Over for the night. Isn't it, Darcy?”

“Yes, it's over,” she agreed.

Penny nodded, turned, and started up the stairway. “Good night then. But you're going to eat your words, Matt Stone. Trust me. You're going to eat your words.”

“Good night, Penny,” Matt called to her.

Darcy headed for the stairway. She was startled, and oddly frightened when Matt's hand fell on her shoulder. He pulled it away as she turned back to him.

“Darcy, I'm seriously afraid for you. I saw your face, at the seance and this afternoon. What happens if you see this thing all the way through? What happens when the murderer goes all the way, and the ghost is strangled to death in your vision?”

He had the ability to speak with a tone that gave nothing away, and to look at her with eyes as shielded as if clouds formed to cover all emotion. She didn't know if he was mocking her, or seriously concerned.

“I've seen the dream to the end,” she said. “Tonight, before the ghost led me down the stairs and then outside.”

It seemed that he drew away from her. Not physically. And yet…there was a new distance between them.

“So then, she's told you her story. Shouldn't this be like the discovery of the skull? Doesn't it mean that she'll be at peace?”
He asked, and she thought that he wanted it to be over, he wanted Harrison Investigations out of his house.

He wanted her out of his house.

“There's something more, Matt. There's something more she wants us to know.”

“And is she this Arabella you read about?”

“I don't think so.”

“Then…?”

“I don't know. But I almost know. I
will
know.” She turned again with precision and started up the stairs. He stayed at the landing, watching her for a minute. She had almost reached the door to the Lee Room when she realized that he had come behind her.

Once again, she felt his hands on her shoulders. She felt force in them, and anger. But once he had turned her into his arms, she saw his eyes again, and she was startled to realize that his anger was directed more at himself than at her.

“Darcy, you can be the most incredibly stubborn fool. You're playing with fire. You're going to wind up hurt!”

She opened her mouth to speak, but never did so. His fingers left her shoulders, fell upon her cheek, and the tension left his touch. He pulled her against him with a volatile emotion that sent shards of shimmering crystal desire racing through her in a matter of seconds. She wished she had the strength to know that it was all a loss, to push him away, but she didn't offer so much as token resistance, but slipped her arms around his shoulders, opened her lips to his, and pressed her body close, savoring the hard feel of muscle, heat, and life, and the extent of his arousal. They clung together there, in front of the door to the Lee Room, entwined in a building passion, kisses wet, searing, openmouthed and desperate, until Matt at last pushed at the door. He walked into the room, his fingers then braided with hers, until he reached the recording equipment and yanked the plugs from the walls.

Then he turned to her, wrapping his arms around her and tilting her chin upward. “If anything happened to you…” he breathed.

“Nothing will happen to me.”

“How can you be so damned certain?”

“Matt!” she stared up at him, drawing her fingers through his hair. “I know what I'm doing, honestly. And you mock me, you don't believe any of it, so why…”

“I have a feeling,” he said, and mockery sounded in his voice, bitterness against himself, “I have a feeling. One of your fucking intuitions, if you want. I have a feeling, and the feeling is fear. Darcy, you should just let this go!”

She didn't have a chance to answer, because once again, it seemed, the desperate need to meld together swept over him, and his mouth crushed down on hers, almost violently, but it didn't matter. His hands were on her shoulders, still a little rough, the white gown that might have belonged to the spirit fell from her body to the floor, and she felt the fire and ice of his heat and the room's coolness, and she found her own hands on his chest, found that she was pressing him back until they both fell on the bed and she was in a fever to touch and kiss every inch of his length, sinking into the heat, into the fire, into the need which had become stronger than any sensation which had ever touched her before, in either the physical or metaphysical sense. Insanity might have even created the depths of the hunger just to touch, the knowledge that there was so much hostility between them, in all that their thoughts ranged in such disparate patterns. His flesh was vibrant with life, a heartbeat pulsing against her lips wherever they fell. His fingers ravaged her hair as she moved against him, and his whispers were hoarse and taut and curt, sound, shadow, light, anger, need, determination, all creating the most vital sense of arousal. She dragged the length of her body against him, fingers, lips, tongue, a starting point, an ending point, and a need, somehow, to make him realize that she was a part of him,
within him, burned against him, never to be forgotten. He swept her beneath him with a surge of power that caught her breath, thrust into her with raw and vivid drive and emotion, and seemed to take her flying into a world of heat, of dampness, where everything physical, the scent of him, the feel of his arms, brush of his palm, ragged, searing, movement, cotton of the sheets, seemed extravagantly wild and real, and still, somewhere else, she was soaring, and the ecstasy for which they arched and pounded was far beyond earthly pleasure. The world exploded and rocked, and she felt the depth of him like fire and steel inside her, and a slow withering that remained, for they were loathe to part from one another. And yet, all in the same moment, she found herself thinking of the dream, of the near-desperate passion that had ranged between the two….