Haunted

  It was living history.

  He thought about it and knew that he loved his house, no matter what.

  And he was falling in love with Darcy.

  No.

  They’d shared some time together. She should be perfect, soft-spoken, clear-eyed, dignified beyond belief, beautiful in her every movement. Kind to others…

  And just plain damned weird.

  Shaking him and everyone else straight down to their foundations.

  He thought about Mae’s words with irritation. Whether she meant to do so or not, Darcy was perpetuating ridiculous beliefs. Maybe she really believed everything she said. The power of the imagination was tremendous. He knew that. But to believe that ghosts could come back, or even that a ghost could be causing dangerous events, even come back as a killer….

  He’d known killers; too many of them. Men who killed in the pursuit of gain. Men and women so hung up on drugs they’d stab their own mothers for a dollar. Even those killers who thought that God or dogs ordered them to kill. And then there were those who killed for the sheer pleasure of it.

  Flesh, blood, real. More terrifying than anything imagined that could go bump in the night. And he had dealt with them so many damned times that to believe that brutality could exist in some fifth dimension was preposterous.

  And yet….

  How the hell had he known to go to the library the other day?

  He swore softly and exited the car. He’d taken his time getting home.

  And to his great pleasure, his house was empty.

  He locked up and climbed the stairs to the second landing.

  He paused there. Darcy’s door…the Lee Room. She wouldn’t be expecting him. He knew that. It had nothing to do with ESP or instinct.

  He had seen the way that she had looked at him.

  He went into his own room and closed the door.

  The dream came again.

  She had dreaded that it would, but she had been anxious as well, desperate to experience what had happened, and see. See clearly, know exactly what had happened.

  She entered into the mind of the man in the past. Saw what he saw.

  The woman.

  She was, the man knew—beneath the rage that had risen within him—always urgent, obsessive, beautiful. He had seen in her again everything that he had desired when she had appeared at the upper landing. He had seen the structure of her face, the shadow and light of the night, enhancing the sculpture and curves of her body, granting moonlit magic to her hair. She could create a fire with a single glance, whisper words that could drive a man to pure frenzy.

  She could touch a man….

  And do so many things. Bring arousal to life in seconds, manipulate the senses, tear into the mind.

  Ah, yes, and she could do so much more.

  His head was spinning, torn with pain. And she was running, but it appeared she did so in slow motion. He rose in much the same way, seeing the wall, the bed, the clock, ticking away the seconds, minutes, hours.

  Ticking away the night.

  He staggered to his feet. She was running; he had to run, too. She was so gorgeous in flight. Her appearance so fragile, so innocent. She ran….

  As if she could escape.

  She wasn’t so fragile, and certainly not at all innocent.

  Still, he was far stronger. He followed her out the door.

  And faster.

  She was captured in the replay of the past, yet her own resources blindly guiding her, Darcy rose in her sleep, anxious to catch up with the specters of time gone by. She moved like a wraith in the night, sliding across the floor, opening the door—that through which the spirit images had so easily drifted.

  She came to the landing, to the rail, and looked down the stairway.

  But a sound behind her startled her back to life. She felt a fierce shove, slamming her hard against the railing where she teetered precariously for several seconds.

  She came to full wakefulness in a split second, realized her position, and instinctively fought to right it. She was strong enough herself, and quickly maintained her grasp and equilibrium, her mind working quickly and with outrage.

  Someone real, alive and well, had been on the upstairs landing. She had heard a real noise. And real hands had attempted to push her over!

  Righted, she spun around.

  Matt’s door was moving.

  Opening? Or closing?

  She stood against the rail, her heart in her throat, staring. The door seemed to close another inch, and then to open.

  In boxers and a robe, Matt emerged, striding out on the landing, eyes touching on Darcy, then looking up and down the second level.

  “What are you doing out here?” The question sounded like a bark.

  She swallowed hard. She knew him—didn’t she? Or did she think that she knew him because she had been so tempted to sleep with him?

  No. Whether they ever spoke two civil words again to one another or not, she didn’t believe that Matt Stone was the type of man who would push a woman over a railing to her death.

  “Darcy! What’s going on?”

  Still, she hesitated. She couldn’t tell him. She didn’t believe that she had been accosted by a ghost, but then…it hadn’t been until she had heard the noise, felt herself in extreme danger, that she had really snapped clearly from the force of the vision.

  And whether she told him that she believed she had been attacked—by either a ghost or a living being—he would start insisting again that she was somehow in danger. He would force her from the house. And her instincts were good—she really could protect herself.

  She hoped.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she lied. “I was just trying to…imagine what might have happened here.”

  “You should never lean against a railing like that.”

  “No? I suppose not.” She pushed away.

  He was tense. His hands were knotted at his sides, his features drawn. She was certain he had no idea he looked so fierce.

  “You shouldn’t run around the house at night,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “You know that I believe there’s a person behind all this.”

  “Oh? Who, Matt? You, Penny? Or do Carter and Clint slip into the main house at night? Or could it be the groundskeeper, that great guy, Sam, who works out there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said flatly. “The point is, you, of all people, shouldn’t be running around the house at night.”

  “Why me, of all people?”

  “Because you’ve got an imagination that would put any child to shame.”

  “Really?” she inquired icily.

  “Oh, come on, Darcy, that’s the point. You really do believe everything that you say.”

  “Ah. Damn, I really need a psychiatrist.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  It seemed as if the words pained him. His fingers were still balled into his palms. A pulse throbbed at his throat.

  “Why are you so ridiculously angry with me?” she demanded.

  “Because you’ve let this happen to you!” he exclaimed. “Darcy—”

  He started to take a step toward her. She shook her head vehemently, backing away. “No, Matt, I haven’t let anything happen to me. You should see the psychiatrist. You’re so set in your ways it’s amazing that you even agree to daylight savings time. Excuse me, will you? I’m going back to bed.”

  She walked by him, heading for the door to the Lee Room. As she passed him, it was almost as if he touched her. He didn’t move. She could still feel the heat emitting off him in great waves. She could somehow feel his vitality, his tremendous strength, and his emotions.

  Was that what remained? Such emotion, passion, laughter, love, anger?

  She walked on by, breathing the scent of him. Beloved scent of him. Not to be. She wasn’t the possessor of an incredible imagination, and she wasn’t acting, from either anything made up, or anything believed.

  Fuck him.

  She could bend
.

  Matt Stone could not.

  She wanted to cry. Spin around, beat against his chest. To what end? She had no power to change what lay within a man’s mind. What she knew, what she did, had no tangible proof.

  “Darcy?” Her name sounded somewhat strangled on his lips.

  “Good night, Matt.”

  She walked into the Lee Room, and closed the door.

  The dream didn’t come to her again that night. She slept easily, yet awoke, a strange sense of fear slipping into her thoughts.

  The sense had nothing to do with ghosts.

  She had slept on through the night; she had not been bothered.

  And yet, by day, her vision seemed clear, and her mind entirely rational. Someone had been out there on the landing with her last night.

  Living, breathing.

  And with deadly intent.

  12

  Downstairs, Darcy discovered Adam in Penny’s office, going through the many volumes of history and legend there. When Darcy tapped on the door and entered, he slid his reading glasses from his nose and smiled at her.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Adam. What have you found?”

  “Well, I’ve read through the information on Arabella, and she does sound like a likely candidate, but then again…nothing conclusive. I’d like to do a great deal more reading here, and then, this afternoon or early evening, around dusk, I’d like to try hypnotism, if you don’t mind.”

  “I told you last night. It’s fine.”

  He nodded and waved toward the door. “Go get yourself some coffee. Matt is at work, Penny is off shopping…I think Clara is around working somewhere. Do you have any plans?”

  Adam liked to do his reading alone. She knew that. He was politely suggesting that she make some plans, if she didn’t have any, and let him get on with his work alone.

  “Actually, there is something I’d like to do today,” Darcy told him.

  “Oh?”

  “I’m heading back to the library.”

  “Oh?” Adam said.

  “Mrs. O’Hara told me about someone else who had an encounter here. A maid who was working right around the time that Matt’s grandfather died. Marcia Cuomo. I’d asked Mrs. O’Hara to have her call me, but as yet, she hasn’t done so. I think I’ll stop by and ask Mrs. O’Hara for Marcia’s phone number or address, and see if I can’t speak with her.”

  “I think the library is still closed, with inspectors checking out stairways and floorboards everywhere,” Adam advised her.

  “Ah. Well, then, I’ll see if Mrs. O’Hara is answering the phone there anyway,” Darcy said.

  Adam nodded his assent, already turning his attention back to the tome in his hands.

  Darcy wandered into the kitchen. As always, coffee had been left for her. She helped herself to some and then started back up the stairs to the Lee Room.

  As always, she paused when she was in the room, and waited. But this morning, the ghost was remaining still.

  The information operator connected her with the library, where an answering machine picked up. But Mrs. O’Hara left her home phone number on the service, should anyone have an emergency.

  It was hardly an emergency, but Darcy was beginning to feel a sense of urgency in regards to the ghost and whatever else it was that was going on at Melody House.

  Mrs. O’Hara was not upset at being called, and was happy to give her Marcia Cuomo’s home phone and address.

  Since Marcia Cuomo’s phone rang and rang, Darcy thought she’d drive by the residence just for something to do. She could hope that Marcia would return in the interim.

  Penny had taken her car, but Adam had driven down from D.C. in his Navigator, a car Darcy loved. She ran downstairs to ask him if she could take it, and waved a hand in the air, she hurried back upstairs to grab her purse and Adam’s keys.

  Someone had been up cleaning her room in her absence. The balcony doors had been left open. Darcy started to close them, then paused, tempted to walk out and feel the sunshine and the breeze. As she did so, she was startled to hear sound from Matt’s room. She walked over to the doors that opened to his room. They were locked. She peeked in a window.

  There was someone in the room. She couldn’t see clearly because the sun was so bright outside and the shadow so deep within.

  Matt? Back from work for some reason? She raised a hand to tap on the window, then thought better of it.

  Why speak with him?

  Yet, as she stood there, the man at the desk looked up. She could see nothing but his form in darkness, nothing at all of his face. He stood stiff and rigid, staring back.

  Matt, and he wasn’t happy to see her, peeping through his window.

  She turned, walked back into the Lee Room, grabbed her purse, and started out. Halfway down the stairs, she turned around and walked back up the stairs. At Matt’s door, she paused a minute, but heard a rustling sound within. Firmly, she rapped on the door.

  No answer.

  “Look! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare in your window!”

  Nothing.

  Beneath her breath, she called him a few names.

  “Matt?”

  Still no answer. But she was certain someone was in there.

  “Fine. Sorry, I’m leaving,” she called out.

  She ran on down the stairs, but at the landing hesitated. There was a phone on a little marble table beneath the arch of the stairway. She walked over to it, and flipped through the index on it, easily finding his number at work. She dialed, and a woman answered the phone.

  “Is the sheriff there, please?” Darcy asked.

  “He’s not available right now. May I take a message?” the woman asked.

  “Um, when will he be in?” Darcy asked.

  “Oh, he is in—he’s just not available. He’s in a meeting with the county code inspectors. Can I have him call you?”

  “No, thanks, I’ll just talk to him later.”

  Darcy started to hang up, then hesitated.

  She could have sworn she heard an extra click on the phone, as if someone had been listening in on an extension.

  She hung up the phone slowly. She stared up the stairs, then walked up them resolutely. She lifted a hand to knock at Matt’s door. The door swung inward; it hadn’t been securely closed. “Matt?” she said, stepping into the room.

  She looked around his office area, then walked into the bedroom. She knew that the place was empty.

  Whoever had been in there was definitely gone now.

  Her heart thudding, she once again walked down the stairs. It was all very, very, strange.

  Far stranger than communicating with the dead, in her opinion, she thought wryly.

  “Did I have any calls?” Matt asked Shirley, exiting the conference room.

  Since the accident in the library, he had gathered the council to suggest that a number of their civic buildings be given a thorough once-over.

  Except that he was still having a hard time believing the truth that he had learned from both the local building inspector and his friends in Washington—the rot had been caused by the simple spill of soda. “Imagine what it can do to a stomach, huh?” Shirley had marveled. He had known then that her kids were going to be looking at straight water and milk for a long time to come.

  “One call, and she didn’t identify herself,” Shirley said. She wiggled her brows at Matt. “Great voice, though. Think it was Ms. Tremayne.”

  He shrugged. “If it was her and she wants something, I’m sure she’ll call back. I have to be in court. Niles Walker was running around naked again last month, and I want to see that his family takes care of him humanely. Call me on the cell if you need me.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Matt started out, then stopped, swearing silently to himself.

  “Shirley?”

  “Yep?”

  “If Darcy Tremayne calls through and needs me in any way, make sure that she gets the number, okay?”

  “Cer
tainly, Matt.” Shirley watched him, somewhat covering a smile of amusement. Then she frowned. “Do you think she’s in some kind of danger?”

  “Why should she be?” he asked.

  And realized that he was thinking, Yes! Definitely, yes. And why…

  Damned if he knew. Gut feeling. Except that he was determined he just wasn’t going to have any more gut feelings.

  He suddenly wished that he didn’t have to be in court. No gut feeling—he was just worried. Darcy had acted so strangely on the stairway last night.

  She had stared at him, as if he frightened her.

  Worse than that, she had looked at him with something else in her eyes.

  Suspicion?

  Damn the whole thing.

  “Later, kid,” he said to Shirley.

  “Later, Matt,” Shirley agreed, and went back to her paperwork.

  Adam sat back, puzzled. Darcy was right—it certainly sounded as if Arabella was the prime candidate for such a haunting. A woman who had considered herself a rightful heir to the property, thrown over so that her lover could marry a proper spouse. Yes, she sounded just right.

  He sat back.

  And yet…

  He tossed his reading glasses on the desk and rubbed his eyes. Darcy had told him that there was something else, something she just couldn’t touch.

  Yet.

  She would.

  He rose and walked to the window, worried himself.

  Was he putting Darcy in danger? Shouldn’t he, at the least, explain why he had been so determined that they get into Melody House?

  He couldn’t, he thought with a sigh. Not yet. He couldn’t color her opinions in any way, make suggestions, or even give hints that could throw her into the wrong direction. He just had to wait. This afternoon, under hypnosis, she might reveal a great deal.

  He glanced at his watch. An anxious tick pulsed in his throat.

  He should have gone with her.

  Darcy was glad that she had driven out. When she knocked on the door of the old Victorian house near the small, lazy downtown section of Stoneyville, the door was instantly answered.

  The woman might have been young. She was medium height, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a nice figure. But her face had a haggard appearance, the type that came from a difficult life. For some, it was bearing the burden of a house, husband, job, and children while struggling under a mound of debt. For others, it was the abuse of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Once, this woman had been very pretty. Now, she just looked exhausted.