“You’re going alone?”
“Sure. It’s a nice day for a hike, and none of this property is all that far from town. And since the houses are farther apart and we can’t claim a war battlefield in this area, I’m not quite as likely to encounter more distracting spirits while I ramble around.”
Frowning again, Emma said, “This psychic stuff really is bothering you, isn’t it? I thought working for Haven had helped.”
“So did I.”
“Maybe you should call them, tell them what’s going on.”
“I’ve reported in.” Jessie kept her voice casual. “But we learn to control this stuff by being exposed to it, so maybe it’s a good thing that Baron Hollow is so…haunted. Anyway, Maggie told me to concentrate on what I came here to do, and that’s settle with the past.”
“You said you talked to Victor.”
“Yeah, nice and civilized.” She hadn’t confided in Emma about the flash of memories that meeting had triggered, and didn’t intend to. Not, at least, until she could clearly recall what had happened at that particular party; she wasn’t about to leave Emma here in what should be her safe home with the certain knowledge that three or four men she quite likely knew had brutalized her sister fifteen years before, especially not when she couldn’t be sure just who had been in that room.
“Jessie—”
“I’m okay, Emma. Just jumpy today, and a long walk sounds like a good idea.”
“Just be careful, will you, please?”
Jessie looked at her curiously. “Now you’re sounding as jumpy as I feel. Any special reason?”
“No. No reason. Just…there are a lot of tourists in town, a lot of strangers.”
“I’ll be fine. See you later, probably by suppertime.”
Emma watched her sister walk out of Rayburn House, and bit back a sigh. They were still strangers, or as good as. Jessie was restless inside the house, quick to leave on her own to “ramble” around elsewhere, and she never had much to say when she came back. On top of which, Emma was positive she was having nightmares.
She had nearly confided her own nightmares more than once, but the timing had never seemed right. Besides which, she hadn’t had a nightmare since before Jessie had come home, and had already half convinced herself that it was just as the doctor had said, her recovering brain reliving a traumatic event.
Which was why she had been so caught off guard when Jessie had asked her about recent murders.
I should have talked to her about the nightmares then. But she had let that moment pass because the nightmares had seemed so…insignificant. Just dreams, and with a logical explanation for them—her accident. How could they be anything else?
HE HAD ENJOYED tracking her. He knew the forest, the mountain trails, like the back of his hand, so it was a simple thing to shadow her, to move parallel to the trail she followed.
He didn’t need a trail.
All late Sunday afternoon, he had shadowed her, staying far away so as to not attract her notice. When he judged there was enough distance between her and the hikers and trail riders who had chosen a different trail, he moved closer, still easily able to blend with the forest. He was close when she made camp for the night, and though he toyed with the idea of taking her then, he decided to wait a bit longer, to draw out the anticipation he felt.
He hadn’t been able to resist coming back up here hours later just to watch her sleep. His June Rose.
She didn’t know he was there, of course. They seldom did, unless he wanted them to.
A methodical man, he went over it in his mind, the plan for Monday. It would be a busy day for him, so he’d have to catch his prey in the late morning, not too late. Then take her to his trap and leave her there, to be enjoyed later on.
She was actually making it easier for him, since she was hiking in the right direction. When he caught her, he wouldn’t be very far from his trap. Not very far at all.
Smiling, he drifted away from her campsite, leaving her to peaceful dreams he knew would be her last.
He was back very early on Monday, pleased to find her already up and about as well. She had clearly already had her breakfast, and was now briskly packing up her little camp in preparation to move on.
Good. That was good. He had a busy day ahead, with appointments elsewhere, and couldn’t afford to spend too much time shadowing her today.
Not too much time. Just enough to savor.
It annoyed him when she stopped suddenly, frowning as she gazed around her, and yet he was also aware of a thrill of excitement. She might not know it consciously, but some animal instinct was warning her that she was in danger.
Good. Good.
He saw the gun she removed from her backpack, coolly calculating how close he would have to be to surprise her, to make sure she never got the chance to fire that gun—or use the pepper spray.
Close. Unless, that was, she froze in the moment.
She didn’t look the type to freeze.
Good. Good. Worthy prey.
He waited until she walked on, then shadowed her again, his mind racing ahead, following the topography of the mountainside. There was a place he knew. Farther along. A place where he could get close without her seeing him.
A place where the distance between them would be, he judged, just close enough.
He wanted the struggle, hungered for it, but he didn’t want to give her a chance to get off a shot. A gunshot in these woods could easily go unnoticed; he knew only too well how many hikers and campers carried a rifle for protection. But the sound of a handgun was different, and he couldn’t take the chance of the wrong person hearing and noticing that difference.
He had to get his hands on her quickly.
Aware of his heart beating faster, of adrenaline rushing through his entire body, he quickened his silent steps, moving faster so as to get ahead of her. And get in position.
JESSIE HAD A rough map of the area she planned to explore; Trent had sketched it out for her, basing it on the land surveys in his office. Some of it she found vaguely familiar, experiencing a few flashes of memory that were blessedly uncomplicated. Childhood stuff. Walking with friends, swimming in a broad creek in the heat of summer, picking berries.
Pleasant memories.
But, gradually, despite the bright summer day, she found herself shifting her pack as though the light weight was uncomfortable. Nervously tucking a strand of hair behind one ear. Looking around her in a different way. That was when she recognized her own skin-crawling uneasiness.
Someone walking over my grave.
Now, there was a disturbing thought.
And the sensation wouldn’t go away. If anything, it got stronger as she walked. Jessie stopped, looking around to orient herself. The land she’d set out to explore lay at the base of the mountains, in one of the many small valleys—some would say mere ravines—that dotted the area.
Though she hadn’t consciously chosen to do so, she realized she was following, through sparse trees, something a little more than a trail. It was a road. Not much of a road, to be sure, but a road nevertheless, where cars had traveled in the not-too-recent past.
Jessie stood there for a minute or so, her hands gripping the straps of her lightweight backpack. Gripping and easing, gripping and easing, in a rhythm she recognized as a poor outlet for tension. She frowned down at the two faint ruts with grass and weeds growing between them. It wasn’t, she thought, an old road now no longer used and being rapidly reclaimed by nature; it was a road that was used sporadically.
Not exactly an uncommon thing in the area, between teenagers looking for places to park and other teenagers learning to drive—and old roads that simply no longer led to any place of interest.
Frowning, Jessie took another step, and felt the tingly unease increase.
She could have sworn she caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of one eye, but when she turned her head, there was nothing unusual to be seen. Maybe just her nerves…except that it happened at least
three times, and by then what she was feeling was that she was definitely not alone out here.
It was strange, and unsettling, and though training told her to open herself up to whatever energy it was she was feeling, a deeper instinct told her not to.
It was Bad. Whatever it was, it was Bad.
Wherever it led, whatever lay at the end of it, this road was…something to fear. Something she feared.
Jessie didn’t remember the road, but her memories of many things about Baron Hollow were still fuzzy. Still, as she forced herself to walk on, the cold unease grew stronger, colder. And there was something creepily familiar about it. She knew this somehow, knew this feeling, where it came from and even what it meant.
It was…Her mind tried to shy away, and she fought to stay focused. This feeling, this coldness, this…awareness of evil. It was familiar because…
Because it was in her dreams. It was the way she felt when she woke, unable to remember anything except this horrible feeling of having looked at evil, right in the face.
It was broad daylight on a warm summer day, and Jessie’s skin was cold and clammy. The sun beat down on her, yet she was shivering. There was no sign of anything amiss, and yet she wanted to turn and hurry back the way she’d come.
That compulsion was so strong, finally, that she did stop with a jerk, and turn—and nearly jumped out of her skin.
“You can’t run away from this.” It was the same anxious-faced female spirit who had spoken to Jessie in town. The only one, so far, who had spoken to her.
“Why the hell not?” Jessie heard herself demand, hating the spooked sound of her own voice.
“Everything happens for a reason; you know that. You came back here for this.”
“I came back here to settle with the past.”
“Yes. You did.”
Jessie shook her head. “Nothing happened to me way out here—that much I’m sure of. What happened to me was—it was in town. A house in town.”
“That was the start. His first. But he was younger then, and even if he’d been ready, he didn’t dare kill. Not a local girl, someone easily connected to him. He was smarter than that. Even then, he was smarter than that. And he was always in control, always had his monster on a leash.”
If she had believed she felt cold before, that was nothing compared to how Jessie felt when she heard those words. Through dry lips, she heard herself say something she hadn’t been sure of until this moment. “How am I supposed to find out who he is? How, when I don’t remember who was even in that room? There were four of them. That night. That last party. At least four of them. Who—Which one—”
“You can’t turn back now. Follow the road. Follow your instincts. Stop him, Jessie.”
The spirit vanished, there one instant and gone the next.
Which one of them became a killer? How can I single out one when I can’t remember who any of them were?
For what seemed a very long time, Jessie stood there, staring at where the spirit had stood. More experienced mediums had told her about this, about the spirit world’s often enigmatic “help” for the living. For whatever reason, whatever universal rules dictated, direct questions were seldom answered and the information that was offered too often sounded like riddles.
But this…
Jessie shrugged out of her backpack and dug into it for her cell phone. It was dead, despite being wrapped in the protective casing developed by the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit; psychics tended to have strong electromagnetic energy, and that energy tended to play havoc with electronics, especially those worn close to or on the body like cell phones and wristwatches.
The casing was usually effective, at least to a point. But Jessie had forgotten to charge her phone the night before, so what energy it held had been even more easily depleted than normal.
“Dammit. Dammit to hell.”
Slowly, she replaced the phone in her backpack, her panicked urge to call for help slowly fading. What was wrong with her? She was a trained investigator, and experienced. And this was just the sort of situation she was expected to know how to handle.
Spirits. And, possibly, murderers.
But…never before on her own.
The question was, was she supposed to handle this on her own, investigate on her own, because the spirit was right? Had the horrible experience in her past truly been the beginning of something even more horrific involving other women? Was it somehow her fault? Her responsibility? Would things have been different if she’d been stronger that night, if she hadn’t drunk so much or had been able to put up a fight?
If she had reported it, had told someone?
Was there innocent blood on her soul?
Everything in Jessie cringed from that thought, but it had to be faced. Because the universe was about balance; that was another thing she’d learned. And if her own weakness had been some kind of trigger, some catalyst for a killer, then…maybe she was meant to stop him, here and now. Maybe the dead phone was as much a sign as the spirit had been. Maybe it was intended to show her that she had to do this alone.
Some things have to happen just the way they happen.
Their mantra, both Haven and the Special Crimes Unit.
Jessie had joined Haven with no belief in destiny, in fate, but she’d had a total change of mind and heart within the first months in what had become her new life.
Destiny existed. Fate existed.
And some things had to happen just the way they happened.
“Okay,” she said aloud. “Okay.”
She drew a deep breath and swung the backpack over one shoulder. And continued walking along the road, fighting to ignore the dread that grew stronger with every step.
SIX
“They say they’re afraid.”
Emma looked up from her paperwork and lifted an eyebrow at her innkeeper. “Wasn’t this the couple who wanted to see a ghost?”
Penny grinned. “Yeah, our honeymooning couple. But I gather they expected a brief vision of some sort of ethereal figure floating down a hallway. Waking up to strange scratching noises in the walls was a bit more disconcerting.”
Emma wondered briefly if the spirits Jessie kept seeing were quite as benign as she said they were, but dismissed the idea. She’d lived in this house all her life, and she guessed that if anything not benign had existed here, she would have seen or felt something by now—psychic or not.
So, mildly, she said, “Uh-huh. Sounds to me like Jax isn’t doing her job.” Jax was the resident cat of Rayburn House, and a locally famous mouser.
“I thought the same thing,” Penny said, adding, “but everything she catches seems to be in the basement, not any of the rooms. Besides, the last time we had Ed here spraying to make sure the bugs stay outside, he checked for rodents too. Even went up into the attic to make sure no squirrels had chewed their way in since the last check. We came up clean. If there are mice in the walls, I don’t know how or where they’re getting in.”
Since Emma, like her ancestors before her, was meticulous in doing whatever it took to maintain the more-than-a-century-old house, she wasn’t surprised the pest report had come back showing no problems. From cleaning out the gutters and power-washing the stonework to touching up paint on trim and replacing worn rugs and carpets, maintenance was on a carefully planned schedule year-round and kept the old house in excellent shape. Two of the eight guest bedroom suites were completely redone every year on a rotating basis, just to help keep everything looking fresh and updated. And Emma had shut down for nearly six months a few years previously to completely update both wiring and plumbing.
So…
“We shouldn’t have mice in the walls.” Emma shrugged. She hadn’t confided in Penny about what Jessie had seen, so she kept her voice casual when she added, “But maybe we do have ghosts. More than one guest has reported seeing or hearing strange things over the years. And there are the family legends, people killed or dying here in the house.”
“Yeah, I keep hoping
, but so far no luck. I mean, I’ve had no luck seeing or hearing anything paranormal.”
“Well, I didn’t think you wanted to be listed among the family legends as a ghostly presence,” Emma said dryly.
“Hardly. I plan to die peacefully in my sleep at a hundred and one, after having completed every single thing on my bucket list.”
“A hundred and one?”
Penny grinned. “More than a century.”
“Ah. Well, I’m not going to ask what’s on your bucket list.” Without giving Penny a chance to respond to that, Emma said, “As for our guests, maybe they were just imagining things. They came here expecting a haunted inn, and what the mind expects, the imagination tends to create.”
“More than likely,” Penny agreed. “I thought I’d suggest they can move to the other side of the house if they want; the Topaz Room is vacant now.”
Emma nodded, but said, “Better warn them any sounds they hear in there are likely to be from a wandering writer in the room below theirs. Didn’t you put him in the Garnet Room on the ground floor?”
“Yeah, because he’s going to be coming and going, and didn’t want to disturb the other guests. He did promise to be quiet about it, and judging by the way he moved, I’d say he’s not likely to bump into the furniture or anything like that. He’s more catlike than Jax is.”
Eyeing her innkeeper, Emma said mildly, “I see he made an impression.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, come on, Emma—we don’t exactly have an excess of unattached men around here. At least none that you or I haven’t known forever—warts and all. Navarro is an unknown element. You have to admit, even his name sounds…exotic.”
“He’s a writer. We’ve had them stay here before.”
“Not like him, we haven’t.” Penny grinned. “Wait’ll you meet him.”
“Uh-huh. Well, just remember that he’s only visiting. Men like that don’t put down roots in places like Baron Hollow.”
“And innkeepers don’t dally with the guests. Yeah, I know. Don’t worry—I doubt I’ll get the chance to dally. Between my schedule and his apparent determination to explore the town and the wilderness all around us, I’ll be lucky to catch just enough glimpses to fuel my fantasies. Which is probably all I can handle anyway.”