The Uninvited

Page 26

 

  She offered her hand to Allison and Tyler. “I’m Clare. I was with Mrs. Dixon when Mr. Dixon sat up and said ‘Allison. ’”

  “I guess you just answered the question we had for you,” Tyler said, introducing himself and Allison in return.

  “Maybe he said the word malice,” Allison said hopefully. “Or something like talk to me, son?”

  Clare shook her head. “No. ” She smiled sympathetically. “I guess he’s worried about you, Allison. Wherever his mind might be right now, he’s worried about you. I’m glad you came in to see him. We’ve learned through our experience with other coma patients that they do remember things they heard or that happened before they were in that state. And there’s evidence that they can understand what’s said to them. ”

  When she left them, Todd looked at Allison. “You’ll keep coming to see my dad, won’t you?”

  She nodded. “I promise. ”

  It was late when they got back to the Tarleton-Dandridge House. Allison seemed exhausted and distracted. Kelsey, Kat and Jane chatted with her, trying to make her feel more normal, as they made tea and then went up to bed.

  The entire crew was worn out, but Tyler spoke to Logan and Sean down in the entry. Sean had finished setting up the computer to record anything caught on the cameras he’d placed throughout the house.

  “Did Haley Dixon say anything I might not have heard already?” Tyler asked Logan.

  “She was upset about the painting. She said that Todd felt there was something funny about it, and his father said it was the weirdest damned thing he’d ever seen. He felt the painting was somehow alive—like a special-effects painting. ”

  “We’ve looked at the damned thing. It’s a painting, believe me. I’d know if there was anything that’d been altered on it,” Sean insisted.

  “Well, let’s give it up for now and get some sleep,” Logan said.

  “Good plan,” Sean agreed.

  They went up to their rooms. Tyler had just crawled into bed when he felt a weight shift the rope beneath the mattress and his bedroll. Tyler still didn’t know all the “rules” that went with being a ghost, but he did know that they could learn to move things and that they could be felt if not really touched. Maybe they could tell when someone tried to touch them with warmth and good intentions.

  Julian was perched at the foot of the bed. Tyler almost groaned aloud; it had been a long day.

  “Hey,” Julian said.

  “Hey,” Tyler responded tiredly.

  “I think I’m going a little crazy,” Julian said.

  Crazy? You’re dead.

  Tyler refrained from saying the words.

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t pinpoint it, and I’ve been through the house and the grounds since. But when I got back here, I had the feeling that someone had just left. ”

  “We’d all just left. We went to the hospital. ”

  Julian shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. We’d already been gone a while. There was some…I don’t know, residual energy? Something that made me feel convinced that someone had been here. ”

  “Did you see anyone?” Tyler asked. “See a car leave? Anything?”

  “No, I was walking along feeling sorry for myself, trying to sidle up next to people I passed on the street. I think I gave a few of them chills,” he said, chortling to himself.

  Tyler rolled his eyes. Most personalities didn’t change when they became ghosts. Julian was the same prankster he’d been in life.

  He rued the fact that Sean hadn’t set the cameras to record until they’d returned.

  However, the call about Dixon had come quickly. Sean hadn’t actually had a chance to ensure that they were set up for the night or to see what went on in the house when they were sleeping.

  “The board members still have keys,” Tyler said. “We can ask. Maybe one of them came by for some specific purpose. ”

  “You need to get those keys from them,” Julian said.

  Tyler shrugged. “We can get the keys, but if any of them are guilty of something, they’ve had plenty of chances to make copies. I think we should just set up our alarm system to see if someone with a key does come and go. Sean will take care of it. ”

  Julian started to rise as if Tyler would automatically join him.

  “In the morning,” Tyler said. “I really don’t expect anyone to come into a house filled with agents. Whoever it was knew we were going out this evening—although I have no idea how. ”

  “In the morning,” Julian repeated. “For now, I’m going to go down and be the alarm system. I’ll be on the sofa in the entry. ”

  He left. Tyler prayed for sleep.

  But an hour later, he still lay awake in Lucy Tarleton’s room, staring at the painting of Lord Brian “Beast” Bradley. He looked so different from the Brit envisioned in the painting below.

  There had been other instances, probably in every war, when men on one side or the other had carried out covert executions. During the Revolutionary War Nathan Hale had been executed by the British. John André had been executed by the patriots for convincing Benedict Arnold to sell out. But for the most part, murder during conflict was not the norm, unless war itself was considered the greatest form of murder.

  The story associated with the house was almost a fairy tale, a very romantic one about love and the price paid for love. It had a dashing heroine, Lucy Tarleton, and a patriot hero, Stewart Douglas, Lucy’s true love, and it had an ogre, as well—Beast Bradley.

  But the man depicted in the painting in Lucy Tarleton’s bedroom did not seem capable of the vicious and cold-blooded murder of a young woman in her own home.

  Tyler rolled over.

  Even with his bedroll over the straw mattress, he wasn’t very comfortable. That didn’t really bother him; he’d spent many a night on the cold ground in Texas. What bothered him was the case.

  First, was there a case?

  Allison could have a reasonable theory—that Julian Mitchell had imagined he was being followed. He’d imagined the painting doing terrible things to him and had set his own chin on the bayonet and died.

  Except that the attic office had been trashed. And Julian claimed he’d been murdered.

  Tyler rolled over again and punched his pillow, still troubled by the fact that Julian suspected Allison could be in danger.

  And Artie Dixon had come out of his coma long enough to say her name.

  She had to know something. She didn’t know she knew it, but that was the only reason someone might search the office in the attic and kill a man who’d just been up there.

  Still, the painting in the study… Sean had inspected it. There were no trick lights or cut-out eyes. It was a painting, nothing more or less.

  He was glad Allison was sleeping directly across the hall. She’d chosen one of the family guest rooms, and to the best of his knowledge, nothing had ever happened there.

  With a groan, he rose and threw on his robe. He was worried about her. He had Julian to thank for that—Julian, and the man in the hospital who’d woken just long enough to say her name.

  The house was quiet. He could hear the old grandfather clock below in the entry clanging out the hour. Two o’clock.

  Tyler walked across the hall. Allison’s door was ajar. He tapped lightly, but she didn’t answer. He opened the door farther and saw that she lay there, sleeping peacefully.

  He left her door ajar and started to walk back to his own room but paused. He had a sudden feeling that something about the house wasn’t quite right.

  He walked to the stairway and heard another door creak. He turned silently, but it was Logan, who’d come out of his room. He joined Tyler at the landing, looking down the stairs.

  “Did you hear anything?” Logan asked him.

  Tyler shook his head. “I think I’m just restless. Worried. Maybe our ghost does have me concerned t
hat someone’s out to hide something and may think that Allison has knowledge regarding whatever it is. Did you hear anything?”

  Logan, too, shook his head. “No, but I was awake. I had the same feeling. That strange something is moving in the darkness feeling. Want to check out the first floor?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” Tyler said.

  They walked down the stairs together. There was a greenish glow from the computer with the different screens Sean had set up. They studied them, but there was nothing to be seen. The ghost of Julian Mitchell was sound asleep on the sofa. Julian didn’t rise or acknowledge him. Tyler smiled inwardly. So much for Julian as a watchdog.

  Logan checked the front door and the alarm.

  “I’ll take the salon, dining room and pantry. Can you look into the study, the ladies’ room and the music room?” Logan asked.

  “Sure,” Tyler said. “Meet you in the back. ”

  He went into the study first; night-lights glowing softly in the corridors led the way.

  He saw nothing there, but in the shadows, the painting of Lord Brian “Beast” Bradley seemed more cruel and cunning than ever before. Tyler stared at it for a moment, then went to the doorway leading to the ladies’ room and, after that, the music room. He found nothing in any of the rooms.

  Nothing that wanted to be found, at any rate.

  Julian wasn’t even stirring. He certainly wasn’t watching over the house where he’d died.

  When Tyler met Logan, who was checking the lock and the alarm on the back door, he asked, “Anything?”

  “Nope. But we both needed the walk-through. Strange, I just had a feeling,” Logan said. “Our imaginations can come into play. ”

  “That’s true, but…sometimes it is something. ”

  “Well, there’s still some sleep to be had,” Logan said.

  “Yeah, let’s get back up. ”

  As they walked upstairs, Kelsey was coming out of the room she shared with Logan.

  “What did you find?” she asked anxiously.

  “Nothing. Sorry I woke you,” Logan said.