Nightmare (13 page)

There was no child to be found, though she called out to us
again every fifteen minutes or so.

Once again, the Stanley had not disappointed.

"Wait, what time is it?" Jordin asked, halting suddenly in
the dark.

Did she already notice ... ? I wondered. "Three thirty-two."

Jordin had been sharp this trip, I had to admit. She'd come
pretty far in a short time.

"We've had major activity since three," Jordin noted. "And
didn't the same thing happen back at Waverly?"

"Three a.m. is believed to be the hour when spirits-and dark
forces in particular-are most powerful," I said. "And as you've
already seen, it's often true."

"Why?" she asked.

"It's called the witching hour," I replied. "Some call it the
demonic witching hour. Its significance comes from the fact that
Jesus is believed to have died at three p.m. on Good Friday. So the
exact inverse of that hour is when dark spirits most often choose
to manifest. It's a perversion of Christ's death on the Cross."

Jordin shivered. "Wait a minute ... `dark forces' ... Are you
saying this little girl isn't a little girl at all?"

I shrugged. "It's not a universal rule. I've been to plenty of
places where nothing happened at all at three, or most of the activity occurred at other times of the day. Or things happened
at three that were quite harmless."

"But ... you said we weren't going to deal with demonic
hauntings," Jordin protested.

"We're not. Though demons are definitely the darkest of
entities."

"What other kinds of dark entities are there?"

"Angry spirits. Malevolent ghosts," I said, and decided it was
time to call it a night. "Come on, I'm ready for some sleep."

As we were walking back to our rooms, Jordin seemed to
become sullen again, like she was during our travel to Estes Park.
I was tired and couldn't handle her mood swings anymore.

"What?" I said, a little louder than I should have in the dim,
quiet corridor.

Jordin looked up as if suddenly remembering I was next to
her. "Huh?"

"What's with you? You've been temperamental all day long."

"Oh,"Jordin replied, almost whispering. "I, uh ... Derek and
I had a fight. He's my fiance."

Great. I'd just ventured into territory I had no desire to get
into. Jordin's personal business was way outside my interests. I
was here as her employee-I didn't need to be her confidante.

Despite this, my mouth betrayed me and formed the words
"What happened?"

Jordin grimaced. "I told him about you. About this. Our ghosthunting trips."

"We're not `ghost hunting,' " I said mechanically.

"Right, right, I meant our paranormal investigations."

"And Derek doesn't approve?" I asked, though it was
obvious.

"I can't remember if I told you before," she said, stopping in
the hallway, "but Derek's a religious studies major. He's planning to go to seminary in a couple of years and eventually start
a church of his own."

She didn't have to say any more. It all made perfect sense. Of
course her fiance didn't approve of his future wife carrying on with
a "ghost hunter." Such things were taboo for most of evangelical
America. If it got out after the two of them were married that
his wife had once been obsessed with the paranormal, it could
do major damage to his reputation.

I'd never met this Derek, but didn't at all think less of him for
being concerned about his social status. If anything, I empathized.
My own reputation was a daily concern for me; I often worried
that my past might keep me from ever being taken seriously by
my peers as a law enforcement professional.

I had to wonder how much Jordin really loved her fiance if
she was willing to risk his future by going on these trips with
someone like me. Or maybe her reasons for doing it were just so
important they blinded her to all other concerns.

Another thought occurred to me, and I had to suppress a
tiny laugh.

"What?" she asked, not offended and ready to join in on the
joke.

"It's just an odd picture...." I tried to explain. "A minister...
married to one of the richest women in the world. Who happens
to be defying his wishes and his beliefs by investigating things he
probably thinks are dangerous and better left alone."

Jordin nodded knowingly. "People never quite seem to `get'
me and Derek. I know we're an unlikely pairing."

"Hey," I said, "I'm the product of an unlikely pairing. I'm not
gonna judge. So, what, were you childhood sweethearts?"

I was half joking, but she replied, "We were, actually. Best
friends since kindergarten, in love since high school."

"So," I said, trying to get a better picture of the two of them
in my head, "do you ... share his beliefs? His worldview?"

Jordin almost seemed surprised that I'd asked. "Oh, of course,
totally! That's one of the reasons we met and fell in love-we went
to the same private Christian school growing up."

"Huh," I said, without humor. "You don't strike me as a
typical Christian."

"What's a typical Christian?"

I paused. "In my experience, they tend to be very closedminded. But you're not."

She sort of shrugged. "I suppose that's true. About some
things."

Okay. Kind of makes sense, I decided. More than it did before, anyway. Jordin and Derek's union would certainly present its share
of challenges when her money was someday combined with his
ministry. I couldn't imagine a scenario where that would end
well.

But it really was no stranger than my own parents-a devout
Catholic married to a strict agnostic. There were always those
who beat the odds.

"But he doesn't believe in ghosts, right?" I asked. "I mean,
you said you had a big argument. It had to be about that."

"He doesn't think it's all in my head or anything," she said,
quick to defend her beloved. "He's never condescending. He's not
that kind of guy. He thinks the stuff we're investigating is real. But he doesn't believe in ghosts. He thinks it's ... something
dangerous."

I knew exactly what that meant.

"So if Derek doesn't want you to be doing this, and you love
him as much as you say you do, why are you defying him?"

I was pretty pleased with myself for finding a way to ask the
same question I'd been asking of Jordin since this whole thing
began. But she was too clever to let me get away with it.

"I told you ... it's none of your business, Maia. No offense,"
she added quickly.

I sighed. "Well, you're going to have to tell me sooner or later,
'cause as long as we keep taking these trips, I'm never going to
stop asking."

"Fair enough,"Jordin replied. "When I'm ready to talk about
it, I'll tell you."

Derek found me at St. Luke's Hospital the morning after the
attack, around eight-thirty. I was poring over a book on criminal
psychology that one of my dorm mates-who also offered to let
me crash on her bottom bunk-had been kind enough to let me
borrow. Even in my condition, I was trying to work ahead for
my first class of the semester, which was scheduled to begin that
afternoon. And I was determined to be there.

Word had spread overnight about the girl in Hogan who
was hurt in the night, but in the absence of facts, fiction was
distributed without qualm. The most prevalent story was that
some kind of bomb had gone off in my room, utterly destroying it but miraculously leaving all the other rooms on my floor
untouched.

I was covered in scratches and bruises over nearly every square
inch of my skin, but thankfully nothing was broken. I'd had
more stitches than I could count, in numerous places, but all
things considered, I was very fortunate. And at least my face
had been spared aside from a few mild scratches, so as long as
I wore warm clothing and kept the wincing to a minimum, no
one would be the wiser.

What really hurt was knowing that I'd lost everything I
owned-everything I had brought with me to school, anyway.
Many of my clothes were salvageable, and thankfully I'd backed
up my laptop hard drive on a USB flash drive that didn't get
destroyed. Otherwise, there was very little that was irreplaceable, but the thought of losing so many personal belongings
still stung.

The ER doctor-an alarmingly short man with perfectly
groomed hair and fingernails-decided to keep me until morning for observation, because I had a big, ugly egg on the top of
my head.

Derek arrived just after an unappetizing breakfast, and once
he was sure I was okay, I told him everything I could remember.
Knowing full well what he would think it was.

"It was a demonic attack!" he whispered to me conspiratorially as a nurse left the room after taking my blood pressure for
the millionth time. "I told you, you shouldn't be nosing around
in the paranormal all the time! You've opened the door to something and your life is in danger!"

I normally welcomed a good intellectual debate, but I didn't
feel up to it this morning, so I changed the subject back to our
attempts to find Jordin. Last night's attack only strengthened
my resolve to find her.

"No luck, I take it?" I asked, referring to the tattoo parlors
in Martha's Vineyard.

He shook his head.

"Me neither. Most of the places I talked to were kind enough
to look back through their records for a small tattoo at the top
of the neck, but ... their records ..." My voice drifted off as a
new thought came to mind.

"What?" he asked.

"Her journal," I said, thunderstruck. "When we were traveling,
Jordin recorded all of her experiences in a journal, and if she was
planning to keep investigating without me, she probably kept
writing in that journal all summer. Possibly right up until her
disappearance. Did you ever see it?"

"Never," he replied, his features pained, probably at the
thought of another part ofJordin's life he knew nothing about.
I could only imagine what terrible fears he might be fighting
against right now, like wondering if he ever really knew Jordin
at all. I hoped he wouldn't give in to those worries.

The doctor showed up a few minutes later to go over some
of the results of the tests and give me the good news: I was being
released. No permanent damage had been done, and as soon as I
signed some papers and changed my clothes, I was good to go.

When he was gone, I picked up our conversation where we left
off. "We need to find that journal," I said with conviction. "Maybe
one of those girls she went to Martha's Vineyard with-"

I was interrupted when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the
number, so I asked Derek for privacy before answering.

"Hello?"

"Um ... is this Maia Peters?" asked a timid female voice. I
didn't recognize it.

"Yes," I replied. "Who is this?"

"It's Carrie-Carrie Morris. We talked yesterday? About Jordin. You gave me your number. "

"Oh," I said in shock. I hadn't actually planned on her calling
me. But she was and she didn't sound well. I said so to her.

I thought I heard Carrie's voice trembling as she spoke. "I,
uh ... I'm scared. I think something's really wrong."

"Okay. . ." I said, thinking fast. "Do you want to tell me
what's going on?"

She let out a shuddering breath. "Could you just come to
my dorm? Please?"

Somehow it sounded like a setup, and I didn't feel like playing any games. Still, something about her voice ...

"When would you like me to-?"

"Right now, if you can," she said, sounding close to tears.
This was no joke.

I sighed. Apparently restarting my own life, heading to class,
and finding a room would have to wait.

"What dorm?"

I knocked hard on Carrie's door, ignoring the stares I drew
from other girls in the hallway on their way to class. Apparently
girls in this dorm didn't look like they'd lost a fight with a bear. I
hoped whatever it was Carrie needed to tell me would at least be
quick. Class time was soon approaching and I didn't like being
late. It made a very poor first impression.