But before I could even consider putting my fingers back on the planchette, the thing pointed to number one, followed by two, then three, and so on. Trina immediately flipped the board upside down; the planchette flew across the room. We both jumped at the sound of the wood hitting the wall, but once it fell on the floor and lay still, neither of us said anything. We just sat there, staring at each other, shock registering in our eyes.
“What just happened?” I asked finally, looking around myself as I realized the temperature was now slowly warming. It was almost as if the board had been generating the chill in the air. Now that it was turned upside down, there was no chill to speak of.
Trina swallowed hard and glanced down at the board, flipping it faceup again. “Whenever the marker starts to move in alphabetical or numerical order, you have to flip the board over before it finishes.”
“Why?” I asked even though I was deathly afraid for her answer.
“It means we’ve encountered somethin’ that is tryin’ to gain access to us through the board.”
“Oh my God,” I started as I shook my head. “Did you flip it before the thing finished counting?”
She nodded. “I think so.” Then she took another deep breath and closed her eyes. “Spirits, as I blow out this candle,” she paused and then glanced at the candle, apparently realizing it had already blown itself out. “As the candle is blown out, I close this sacred space and ask that protection surround Peyton and myself as well as this sacred space.”
She opened her eyes and exhaled deeply. “Did that work, you think?” I asked sheepishly. “I mean, do you think you got rid of whatever that…was?”
She nodded. “The closin’ prayer always shuts out whatever crossed over. The candle also protected us.”
“Even though it went out?” I asked, sounding unconvinced. I looked around the room but didn’t notice anything unusual, although I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting to see: Blood dripping down the walls, thousands of flies in the corners of the windows, an upside-down cross on the wall? Linda Blair sitting in the middle of a bed with her head spinning all the way around?
She just nodded but somehow I wasn’t sure if she was wholly convinced herself. She stood up and immediately started putting the board and the planchette away, as if she wanted nothing more than to leave the house. I couldn’t say I blamed her. I grabbed the bottle of wine and the two glasses and was right on her tail when she started for the door. Neither of us said anything as we hurried down the staircase and out the front door.
“Aren’t you goin’ to lock it?” she reminded me when I forgot. I just nodded and pulled the key from my pocket, my hand shaking as I fitted it in the lock and turned it. Then we both hightailed it for the Scout and only once we’d pulled away from my house and were well on our way to the French Quarter did Trina interrupt the silence.
“How did you know what the board was sayin’ before it finished?” she asked, her voice sounding strained.
I exhaled and remembered the line I’d read in one of my newspaper articles. “Mrs. Maggio is going to sit up tonight just like Mrs. Toney,” I repeated from memory, the words feeling like molasses dripping out of my mouth.
“What does that mean?”
I shrugged because I didn’t really understand what it meant. “It was scribbled in chalk on the sidewalk back in 1919,” I started. “The police thought it was a message left by the Axeman.”
“The who?” Trina began, leaning forward. I could see the fear in her eyes but I was sure there was more in mine. I couldn’t even begin to understand what had just happened to me, to us.
I took a deep breath and wondered if my heartbeat would ever regulate itself. “Joseph Maggio, Charles Cortimiglia, Louis Besumer, Anna Lowe…they were all victims of the Axeman.”
“Who was the Axeman?” Trina repeated, sounding exasperated and scared.
So I told her. I told her everything I’d discovered about the Axeman from my articles as well as the research I’d done on the Internet. The only thing I didn’t mention was my dream about Drake Montague because I still wasn’t convinced it was legitimate. A simple dream was a far cry from what had just occurred with the Ouija board. Furthermore, the Ouija board hadn’t mentioned Drake the entire time so maybe he was simply a figment of my imagination.
I didn’t know why but I sincerely hoped that was not the case.
I couldn’t sleep all night. My mind wouldn’t stop thinking about everything that happened with the Ouija board. Last night, in the span of ten or so minutes, everything I thought I knew and believed in had simply crumbled away in front of me, until I had no certainty anymore, just questions. And the more I racked my brain, trying to understand what had happened, the more I couldn’t comprehend how the board knew what it did. I was left with only one conclusion—that there was much more to this world than I’d previously imagined.
Once I decided I was okay with the idea that spirits, haunts, shades, ghosts, specters, whatever you wanted to call them, were real, my next line of thinking was, who in the hell contacted Trina and me? Did we somehow communicate with the spirits of all the Axeman’s victims? Or was it more sinister than that? Was it possible that we actually made contact with the Axeman himself? I shuddered at the thought and forced it out of my mind, choosing to focus on the insulation I was supposed to be cramming between the two-by-fours of my bathroom wall.
“Someone’s mind isn’t on the job today,” Ryan scolded me as he paused from stapling the insulation to the framework and arched a brow in my direction, giving me a knowing look.
Glancing over at him, I frowned and removed my breathing mask, deciding to come clean and admit he was right, my mind wasn’t on the job. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he responded as he turned his enormous shoulders in my direction. I shook my head, in awe that mortal men could possibly be so large.
“If they ever make a movie about Thor or Hercules, you should try out for the part,” I suggested, sounding less than thrilled about it.
“I think they already did,” Ryan chuckled. “On both accounts. But, thanks…I think?”
“Welcome,” I grumbled with a yawn, remembering at the last minute to cover my mouth. I was loath to get another lecture from Ryan about my manners or lack thereof.
“Peyton, you look beyond tired. Did you manage to get any sleep last night?”
“Um, no,” I answered matter-of-factly, stifling another yawn.
He nodded as if he understood my pain. “Still thinkin’ about what happened?”
I cleared my throat and nodded, zoning out on the dull metal sheen of the pipes, which stuck out of the bathroom wall across from me.
After I’d dropped Trina off at her apartment in the French Quarter and returned to my room at the Omni hotel, Ryan had called me. Apparently, Trina had told him all about our Ouija board experience, and to say he was concerned was an understatement. He read me the riot act about using Ouija boards in general, apparently the same lecture he’d given Trina. Once his sermon was over, he returned to the caring, consoling Ryan I liked so much.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” I admitted. I took a deep breath as I stared at my open palms and flexed my fingers until my hands looked like starfish.
He shrugged and placed his massive hand on my shoulder, squeezing it tightly as if to let me know he was there for me. His touch felt so good, I wanted to close my eyes and melt. It felt like it had been so long since a man had held me, since I’d felt the warmth and safety of a man’s chest. And as to my ex, Jonathon? He didn’t count, seeing as how we very rarely, if ever, cuddled. Yep, as far as Jonathon was concerned, I considered him the Antichrist.
“Gotta be careful about messin’ with things you don’t understand, Peyton,” Ryan said as he pulled his hand away.
“I know, I know,” I replied grumpily before facing him with a snide expression. “I already got an earful on that exact subject last night!”
Ryan chuckled and, with a big smile, resumed
his job of filling the walls with the pink fibrous insulation. Even though I hadn’t done much in the way of work so far this morning, I decided to take a breather. I sat down in the corner of the bathroom, pulling my knees into my chest as I huffed out my exhaustion. I watched Ryan pause in his routine to study me.
“You wanna talk about it?” he asked.
I bit my lip and shook my head, but the words were already on their way out. “I just don’t understand who we could have contacted with that board. I mean, how could some inanimate piece of wood know the names and other details of all those murdered victims, especially when it happened such a long time ago?”
Ryan shrugged. “Who’s to say? That sort of stuff remains beyond our ability to understand, which is why any talk about the afterlife is better left unsaid.” He stopped stuffing the walls and faced me, his expression serious. “Just promise me you won’t get yourself into any more trouble?”
“I promise,” I answered automatically, having already vowed the same to myself—well about not using Ouija boards, anyway. I narrowed my eyes as I scrutinized him, surprised such an undeniably macho sort of guy didn’t laugh at things that defied explanation.
“Why are you lookin’ at me like that?” he asked.
My eyebrows immediately shot toward the ceiling once I realized I’d been caught staring at him. I shrugged. “I’m just surprised you believe in all this stuff—I wouldn’t think a guy like you would believe in ghosts.”
He frowned. “What’s ‘a guy like me’ mean?”
I laughed, amused to see he was on the verge of getting his tail feathers ruffled. “Don’t get your panties in a wad,” I started.
“My whats in a wad?”
I laughed again at his baffled expression. “I didn’t mean what I said as a put-down. I just meant that you’re a man’s man, you know?”
He continued eyeing me suspiciously.
“Oh my gosh,” I continued, rolling my eyes at the thought I’d have to spell it out for him. Maybe he was just fishing for compliments. “In other words, you’re not some geeky, skinny, unattractive dude who spends all his time playing Dungeons and Dragons.”
Ryan chuckled. “Okay, I’ll take that as a compliment?”
“Yes, Ryan, it’s a compliment,” I assured him. “No more fishing.”
“Fishin’?” he asked while innocently pointing to himself, like I had to be talking about someone else.
I continued to watch him as I wondered if there would ever be a time when looking at him wouldn’t stir the butterflies in my stomach. “I just think it’s funny to find a side to you I never imagined actually existed.”
Shoving more insulation into the wall, he reached for the staple gun and attached the insulation in place before looking down at me with his eyebrows raised. “There’s a lot more to me than you probably ever imagined existed.”
I wasn’t sure how to take the comment. His tone was clearly playful, even flirty, but his eyes were smoldering and very sexy. I gulped down a tide of anxiety that suddenly flowed through me. “I’m sure there is, Ryan.”
He didn’t break his gaze but continued to stare at me with a slight smile on his full lips. “Just like I’m sure there’s lots about you that I don’t know.” He paused for a few seconds. “Lots about you that I would very much like to know,” he added, his voice deepening.
Swallowing hard, I emitted a strange giggle-choke sort of sound. The few moments when my bizarre relationship with Ryan leaned toward the more passionate than platonic side always made me uncomfortable…in a good way, if that were even possible. I immediately ceased whatever odd noise I was in the process of making and cleared my throat. “I think I’m an open book.”
“I think not,” he answered immediately, and if looks could kill, I would have died right there on the spot. There was something so feral in his eyes, my heart sped up. I broke eye contact first. He suddenly made me feel like I was stark naked, standing in front of an audience with no place to hide. When I chanced to look up at him again, his eyes were still on me.
“Remember how you promised me dinner?” he asked in a low, rough voice.
I nodded. I was completely floored that we were even having this conversation—especially with me wearing coveralls, watching him stuff insulation in the wall, errant pieces of which kept falling out all over his hair. It wasn’t the most romantic setting for what I was beginning to think might become a romantic conversation. At least, I hoped it would. “Yes, I remember.”
“What do you think about me takin’ you up on your offer now?” He asked, like there wasn’t a frayed nerve in his body—like he possessed absolutely no trepidation or anxiety at all. Instead, it was like his fair share of apprehension had been most unfairly assigned to me.
I cleared my throat again, trying to buy some time because I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. “Um, last I checked, my kitchen wasn’t even gutted yet?”
“I didn’t mean you cookin’…”
“Okay,” I started, sounding completely confused and awkward.
Ryan chuckled heartily while shaking his head as he secured the last of the insulation in the wall, stapling it in place. Then he turned to face me, still wearing a beaming grin. “Nothin’ with you comes easy, does it?”
“Um, no?” I started, my eyebrows already rising in obvious puzzlement. “Er, I mean yes?”
Ryan’s unconcealed amusement remained on his face. He crossed his burly arms against his chest and continued smirking at me. “I’m tryin’ to ask you out on a date, Peyton.”
“Oh,” I answered immediately before chastising myself for acting so completely idiotic. I offered him a quick smile and lost the staring contest. Now I was paying way too much attention to the tops of my shoes.
“Not exactly the response I hoped for.”
I immediately looked up at him, realizing how bad my utter silence must seem. Well, blast it, but where in the hell was my cool, calm, and collected side? Where was that part of me that could handle my own with Ryan? The part that could banter with him and keep him on his toes? “Well, you didn’t exactly ask me right,” I answered, hoping that part of me had returned.
“Oh?” he asked in feigned shock. “How’s that?”
I stood up, suddenly wanting some space between us. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with him staring down at me. It made me feel like I was as tall as a Smurf. “Well, you basically just told me you want me to cook you dinner, or, failing that, to take you to dinner!”
“What? No, I didn’t.” He shook his head and narrowed his amber eyes at me, but there was a challenge in their depths. Seeing the smile already cresting his lips, it was pretty obvious he was enjoying my bewilderment.
With a nod, I crossed my arms against my chest, attempting to mimic his body language. I figured since I’d already laid down the gauntlet, I’d have to pursue my argument, although I was sure my smile was already giving me away. “Yes, you did.”
“How so?”
“If you recall,” I started, my voice sounding lofty, “my offer was to cook you dinner and you agreed, with the single stipulation that my kitchen had to be finished first.”
Ryan nodded, his grin widening. “Okay, that was true, but if you’ll recall, just now, I said I didn’t want you to cook at all.”
“Right!” I agreed although my voice came out a bit harsh. “But all that means is that you expect me to take you out to dinner, since that was my original offer,” I countered, desperate not to lose the silly argument. “Not that I mind taking you out to dinner…” I didn’t want him to think I was cheap or anything. But I also knew no Southern gentleman would like having it pointed out that I thought he expected dinner to be my treat.
He shook his head immediately, just as I supposed. “That doesn’t mean I wanted you to pay, silly woman.”
“I don’t mind paying…”
“Peyton, why is everything so difficult with you?” he asked while shaking his head again.
“Nothing’s difficult with me,” I
argued. “You just don’t have a good grasp of the English language.”
He sighed. “Okay, let me do this again and make sure I word it correctly.” Then he took a deep, showy breath. “Would you, Peyton Clark, care to dine with me, Ryan Kelly, on the evening of your choosin’ this week? And I will happily pick up the tab.”
I laughed. “Um, sure, I’d love to.”
He clapped his hands together. “Finally! Something that could have taken all of two seconds ended up wastin’ a good ten minutes of our lives.”
“Blah!” I said with a laugh as I waved him away.
“Good Lord, remind me never to ask you out again!”
With my hands on my hips, I pretended to glare at him. “Stop lollygaggin’ around,” I said in a terrible rendition of his Southern accent. “I didn’t hire you to gab, Mr. Kelly, an’ this old house ain’t gonna renovate itself!”
“Que pensiez-vous? What were you thinking?” Drake demanded as he paced back and forth, pushing a hand through his unruly dark hair.
“What?” was all I could think to say. Only seconds ago, I’d been in bed with Ryan. He was kissing me all over my face, while attempting to remove my jeans and whispering in my ear all the fantasies that awaited me. One thing I could say about Drake was, he had bad timing. Really bad timing.
“Peyton!” Drake persisted, even snapping his fingers to get me to focus on him.
I shook my head and took a deep breath, looking around as I sort of recognized my surroundings. The walls were cream, which threw me, but the large, black marble fireplace in the middle of one wall and the five floor-to-ceiling picture windows at the far side of the room told me I was standing in my own living room. The windows were trimmed in cornflower-blue silk drapes and the furniture in the room was decidedly less masculine than the furniture I’d seen in Drake’s bedroom, er, my bedroom. There were two whitewashed, French bergère oak chairs in front of the fireplace, both upholstered in a light-blue fabric. The sofa, loveseat, and ottoman all matched the whitewashed, French country theme inspired by the bergère chairs, complete with the same light-blue upholstery. If I’d had a camera, I would have taken a picture because I quite liked the style.