Whispers (3 page)

“
Don’t you wonder why I’m here?”

“
Sure. Why are you here?”

“
There’s a town called Diablo Springs,” she said, her voice rich and melodic. A trace of an unidentifiable accent teased the ends of her words. “It was a notorious place once. Do you know how it got its name?”

Reilly nodded. “Some people say it was named for all the outrageous lies people told about it. Some say not.”

“
That’s right. I’ve even heard it’s haunted.”

She got a far off look in her eyes and became so still that every hair on Reilly’s body stood on end. For a moment he thought of pushing away from the table and bolting, but the idea of it was ridiculous enough to keep him rooted.

As if hearing his thoughts, she snapped her attention back to him. “Others have said it’s home to spirits that will never find peace. You are familiar with this place, of course.”

“
Obviously, you know the answer to that.”

She nodded. “I’ve been called there.”

“
Then you should go.”

“
I’ve been called to bring you. I’m leaving tonight.”

Beside him, Zach said, “Do you know this lady?”

“
Listen Ms. LaMonte—”

“
You may call me Chloe.”

“
Chloe, I don’t know what you’ve heard about Diablo Springs, but I can pretty much guarantee that it isn’t true. It’s just a dried-up old town.”

“
A ghost town, but only the ghosts know it.”

“
If you say so.”

“
Aren’t you curious about who is calling me?”

“
The ghost of Christmas past?” Zach asked.

“
Carolina Beck.”

That got Reilly’s full attention. “You’re friends with Carolina Beck?”

“
Her spirit.”

“
She’s dead?”

“
I’m not sure.”

Reilly leaned forward, intrigued now. “How is she calling you?”

Chloe leaned in, “How did I know you would care?”

A pale man appeared at Chloe’s side, younger than she by about twenty years, but still graying at the temples. Tall and skeletal, he struck Reilly as a hybrid of a vampire and Abraham Lincoln. Where Chloe was color, he was transparent. He put a protective hand on Chloe’s waist and a watchful eye on both Reilly and Zach.

“
You’re looking for your next story,” Chloe went on. “You’re worried because you can’t find one. It’s a question of destiny, but you can’t see what’s right under your nose.”

“
And you can?” Reilly said.

“
You’re part of this story, Nathan Reilly Alexander.”

“
And just what kind of story would that be?”

“
A ghost story, of course.”

Chapter Three

GRACIE leaned back from her PC and stared at the brochure she’d created for a distance education program. The banner read, “See the world from the other side of the textbook.” It was the kind of program she’d longed to go on when she’d been in college. But by then she’d had a baby, a job, and more life experience than she cared to remember.

She saved the file and shut down her computer. Tonight the house seemed cavernous, though in reality it was just a tiny one-story bungalow built in the giddy days following World War II. San Diego was filled with them. Apart from the two bedrooms—hers and her daughter, Analise’s, there was a nook that doubled as an office, a living room/family room, and a kitchen with enough room for a dinette. The yard was small, but Lake Murray, where she could walk her pair of horse-sized dogs, Tinkerbelle and Juliet, wasn’t far off. Their third dog, a petite Yorkie named Romeo, sat on her lap while she worked. Gracie absently scratched behind his ears.

She supposed she should get used to the silence in the house. Analise was sixteen, and soon she’d be off to college. She was an honor student with gifts that ranged from math to music. First-chair orchestra, accelerated calculus; she’d have her pick of universities. Gracie would miss her, but she was so proud.

Standing, Gracie stretched. All three dogs did the same. Analise was at a sleepover tonight at her girlfriend’s and Gracie had worked away the hours without realizing how late it was. Now she was stiff and exhausted.

She headed for the bathroom and a hot bath, snagging her book on the way. Chin deep in suds, she sighed. The hot water and absolute quiet lulled her. Her mind drifted until she gave up on the book and just relaxed, eyes closed, slipping low in the tub so only her face remained above the water.

She’d been a single parent since she was seventeen, but now that the demands of raising a child had lessened, she thought about herself. What would she do with all the years before her? She was only thirty-three. Maybe she’d find someone, but so far the only men she’d dated had proven to be either unreliable or unsatisfactory in other ways. Maybe she hadn’t given them a chance. Maybe she—

The scream brought her straight up in the tub. Suds clung to her skin, making a crackling sound as they evaporated. What had she heard? The echoes of the sound seemed to hang in the air around her. But who could be screaming? Though muffled by the water, the sound had seemed to come from inside, not out.

On the rug next to the tub, the three dogs stood at attention. Juliet gave a low growl that lifted the fine hairs at her nape.

Gracie climbed out of the bath, wrapping herself in her big terry robe. She peered at the clock on the nightstand. Eleven.

The dogs escorted her to the hall. She paused at Analise’s door and listened, though she didn’t expect to hear anything. Analise was gone. The darkness and shadows seemed to fold one over the other as she quietly turned the knob on Analise’s door. Awareness crystallized the stillness in the house.

She took a step forward into Analise’s bedroom, feeling sick with an inexplicable dread tightening inside her. On any given day, a chaos of jeans, peeled off and left inside-out, shirts discarded with sleeves half in, half out, shoes kicked off, stray socks, and hair things would have littered the floor. But tonight it was spotless. All week Gracie had noticed little things that seemed out of character for Analise. Her hair styled out of her face, her makeup less severe, a smile in the morning instead of a grouchy mumble. But none of it sent up the kind of red flag the clean room did. Something was going on.

A sound came from the front of the house and both Juliet and Tinkerbelle spun around with bared teeth and deep growls. Romeo joined in, late on the uptake but determined to be as fierce as his giant counterparts.

Was that a door? Gracie thought as she strained to hear beyond the yapping animals. They sounded frightened, and Gracie realized she was scared too. She just didn’t know why. The pair of big dogs made menacing forerunners as they inched down the hall.

The growls became fiercer with each step, and Gracie braced herself for the dogs to attack, but they only waited, their next move hinged on hers. The hallway had never seemed so long, so dim, so cut off from the rest of the house. They moved toward the darkness at the end like soldiers in a tunnel. She felt the ridiculous need to call out “hello” or “who’s there?” but managed to control it. As the family room came into sight, the shadows seemed to shift, as if cast by a moving light. Tinkerbelle gave a deep, warning woof and Juliet joined in a discordant harmony.

Gracie rounded the corner, three dogs at her feet, snarling with fur standing in a ruff of fury. The room was empty. Of course it was. The front door remained closed, the windows shut tight. But Gracie’s first relieved sweep of the room slowed and the nagging fear amped up.

Without warning, Juliet launched herself at the front door, barking like a rabid wolf. Tinkerbelle charged just a half step behind and Romeo hopped between them. Over their ruckus, Gracie heard a sound, a scratching at the door. Slowly she approached as the dogs frothed in their excitement and fury. Dry-mouthed, Gracie pressed her eye to the peephole.

Another eye stared back from the other side.

Gracie screamed and lunged away, tripping over the dogs and sprawling on the floor. They barked frantically, circling in search of their attacker. From outside Gracie heard a sound that had no place on this earth. It was a shriek, inhumanly high-pitched and loud. It raced through her blood like ice. She stayed frozen, still on the floor, caged by her fear. Romeo hopped in her lap and the girls crowded around, suddenly silent and trembling.

What was out there?

Feeling lead-limbed, Gracie stood and inched back to the door. The dogs circled her legs, whining with each step closer she took. Her heart thundered against her ribs and she felt dizzy with the thought of putting her eye back to the peephole. Her palms were damp as she pressed them on either side and then she looked.

The porch was empty, lit by the bright light outside the door. A strong wind blew the branches of the giant eucalyptus tree in the front yard, making a rustling sound as it swayed through the dangling limbs. There was nothing else, no one outside.

She took a deep breath. Of course there wasn’t.

But then the wind dragged the limbs of the eucalyptus to and fro, and for a moment, for an instant, it seemed that someone stood beneath it. A woman ... a small and bent woman ...

The telephone rang, startling a scream out of Gracie. She spun around and stared into the kitchen where the phone hung on the wall. A red light blinked with each ring, like a warning signal in the darkness.

Late-night calls never brought good news, but it might be Analise, wanting to come home instead of sleeping over at her friend’s, and Gracie was desperate to have her daughter close. She looked once more out the peephole, seeing clearly that the only thing out there was her imagination working overtime. Still, relief was far away.

Apprehension lodged deep in her chest and made the simple task of crossing to the phone monumental. The caller ID displayed an unfamiliar number, with an all-too-familiar area code. Arizona.

Diablo Springs. The realization hit her like a hammer.

Her hand shook as she pushed the talk button. The man’s voice on the other end stirred a memory, though she didn’t place it until he told her his name.

“
Eddie Rodriguez?” she repeated with both confusion and disbelief.

“
Yeah. Remember me?”

They’d gone to grade school, junior high, and high school together. How could she forget? But why was he calling her? And why now, in the middle of the night?

“
Listen, Gracie, I’ve got some bad news. I think you’d better come home.”

“
Home?” Gracie reached for the edge of the counter and braced herself. Diablo Springs was a lot of things to her. But it wasn’t home.

“
It’s your grandma,” Eddie paused, took a breath.

Unconsciously Gracie did too, steeling herself for his next words. “I’m sorry. There’s no easy way to say it. Or explain it for that matter. Gracie, your grandma’s dead.”

The words rolled over her like a numbing tide.

“
Are you there?”

“
Yes. I’m here.”

“
Okay.” He stopped again and this time it made Gracie’s heart lodge somewhere in her throat. “There’s more,” he said finally.

Gracie swallowed, feeling as if she were sealed in an airtight silo that filtered every sound but her thumping heart. She stared at the front door, thought of the eye staring back, of the woman standing outside, looking frail and bent, like an old woman.

“
More?” she prompted, her voice rough and deep.

“
Is—Gracie, do you have a daughter?”

Chapter Four

REILLY had always thought Diablo Springs looked like a Hollywood rendition of the town that time forgot. With the lightning storm giving it a strobe effect, the town seemed to loom up like a spooky relic in a bad horror flick. Ironically, when he’d lived here, he’d thought the world ended at the town’s borders. He was right, he realized now, just not in the way he’d thought back then.

Beside him in the passenger seat, Zach Canning began fiddling with the radio for the hundredth time in as many minutes. Finally, he picked up a station that had to be broadcasting from Phoenix. A staticky voice told them to grab a hump and ride the camel—apparently the slogan went with the KMLE call letters. Smiling triumphantly at having found a station at last, Zach sat back. But a second later, earth-shaking thunder chased the signal away.

“
Welcome to Diablo Springs,” Reilly said.

End of the world, here we come. .
. .

Reilly glanced in his rearview mirror at the minivan following him. Chloe, the Abraham Lincoln/vampire look-alike, and the guy dressed like a priest were in the van. He wondered if they were as freaked out by the weather as Reilly was by the turn of events that had unfolded in just one short night.

The clouds had gathered during the drive from Los Angeles, and each mile east had brought them deeper into brooding skies and quaking thunder. Now the storm seemed to hover just over Reilly’s SUV like a twelve gauge with a tight trigger.

What had he been thinking coming back here? What had possessed him to go home, pack his bags, and hit the road with complete strangers? Chloe said he needed a story, and God knew it was true. But no story—short of discovering Elvis was alive and living in Burbank with JFK—was enough to warrant the impulsive journey. No, it wasn’t the bait Chloe had dangled that had him behind the wheel now.