Harrison Investigations 1 Haunted (17 page)

She grasped out desperately for any hold, all the while
wondering,
How? Why? Mrs. O'Hara would never have
sent
anyone upstairs if it wasn't safe-

The sound of wood crashing to the floor below came to her ears
just as she managed to reach out and grasp hold of the nearest
crosswise support beam. Her downward impetus was so strong
that her desperate scramble for hold caused instant agony in her
shoulder sockets, and yet, there was an instant of relief and
incredulity when she realized that she had stopped herself.

For the moment.

For the moment, yes, only the moment, her grasp upon the
crossbeam was so tenuous, and it already seemed that her fingers
were slick with perspiration and slipping.

Another scream sounded, and not from her own lips.

It was Mrs. O'Hara, crying out from beneath her.

And it was then that she fully realized herself that she was
dangling from the crossbeam, her legs swinging a good twenty feet
above the floor below.

She rued the long-ago wealthy plantation owner who had designed
such a library.

"Hang on! Hang on!" Mrs. O'Hara cried out to her. "I've called
911. Books! I'll pile some books, the cushions from the chairs,
just hold on dear, hold on!"

No other thought had occurred to Darcy, but even as the woman
called out, Darcy could feel the terrible pressure on her
arms and shoulder blades. She hadn't really realized her own
imminent danger until that minute-she had only congratulated
herself on catching hold of the crossbeam.

But how long could she hold on?

Mrs. O'Hara had dialed 911. Darcy wasn't certain that help could
be there momentarily. And still....

It had been seconds, surely. No more than minutes. Her arms
ached as if she had been stretched on a medieval rack. She wasn't a
total weakling, but neither was she ready for championship
wrestling.

"Darcy, oh, dear! Hang on, dear! There's help coming!"
Mrs. O'Hara called to her.

Darcy looked down. She shouldn't have. The distance between her
and the ground floor seemed gaping. Looking downward seemed to
create a greater burden on her arms. She winced, grated her teeth,
and began to fear that her fingers would slip no matter how she
strained to hang on.

"I can't imagine how this has happened!" Mrs. O'Hara cried
anxiously. "Please, please...hang on." There had been no one else
in the small library at that time. Too early for the
schoolchildren, and perhaps too late for any legal assistants or
local researchers. Darcy felt faint, looking at the distance
between her own dangling body and the puny little cushion Mrs.
O'Hara was trying to arrange beneath her.

She closed her eyes, in agony, wondering if she would just break
most of her bones if she gave up her hold, or if she'd break her
neck and die as well. Despite the pain in her arms and the fear
that any second they were simply going to wrench from their
sockets, it seemed as if a haze of blackness was beginning to take
over. She wondered desperately if she still had the strength to try
to swing her legs upward and find a hold with her ankles and calves
on the torn-up floor above her.

"Darcy?" Mrs. O'Hara called.

"I always knew I should have trained for Cirque du Soleil!"
Darcy tossed back, wondering why she felt that she had to sound
light and okay even though she definitely wasn't. She looked up at
the hole in the floor. She'd have to kick through other boards to
get back up. But if the one had given, then maybe...

Fingers, hands, and arms in anguish, she gave a swing, kicking
at the boards above. She nearly broke her toes.

All the other floorboards were as tight as could be. The effort
nearly cost her the tenuous hold she had on the crossbeam. Black
dots were forming before her eyes. She clenched her eyes tightly,
knowing she would lose her grip any second.

"Darcy!"

She was startled to hear Matt's voice. So much so that she
thought she was losing her grip on reality.

"Darcy, it's me, Matt. Just let go. I'm going to catch you.
Trust me."

Trust him. Just let go.

"Darcy, I'm below you. Let go. I won't let you get hurt."

Trust him... it had nothing to do with trust. She
couldn't
hold on any longer.

Her fingers were too stiffly wound around the crossbeam,
but it didn't matter. They were slipping. She never really let
go.

She simply fell, because her fingers lost their grasp.

And a scream of instinctive terror tore from her lips.

In the split second in which she fell, she anticipated her bones
crushing, her blood splattering across the floor, her head...

"Darcy!"

______ 8____

Matt didn't fall, but staggered back as Darcy fell into his
arms. The distance hadn't been so great, but she was
naturally trying to resist the impetus of the fall upon her
body, and she flailed wildly, desperately grabbing him as he caught
her.

For a moment, they wavered, then he lost his balance, even if he
did so with a certain amount of coordination. He went down upon his
knees, cradling her against him. For several seconds, she had a
death grip on him, and then her eyes met his, wide, those of a
startled rabbit, and a shudder of relief went through her.

"You all right?" he asked quickly.

She nodded. Then her fingers went through his hair and she
smiled. "You're covered in dust."

"Your shirt is ripped and your arm is bleeding," he told
her.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" Mrs. O'Hara said, hovering
over them both. They could hear a siren then. A car from the
station. "This was all so impossible! We have building inspectors
in regularly! I walk on that floor all the time and I know that
it's sound. Was sound. Oh, my God, I had thought that it was sound.
The schoolchildren go up there when they're studying. Lord, it
could have been a child, a little boy or girl who couldn't get a
grasp to save themselves...oh, Darcy! I am so sorry! Matt, thank
God that you arrived when you did."

Thank God that he had arrived when he did.

Strange chills ripped through him, and he stared at Darcy, still
in his tense grip as they both lay sprawled on the floor.

Darcy eased her hold from around Matt's neck, stumbling to
her feet, offering him a hand to rise as well. He took her hand,
but stood up on his own power. She was still shaking. She might be
smiling, ready to make light of the whole thing, but it wasn't an
incident that could be dismissed.

"Go ahead and put a Closed sign on the door, Mrs. O'Hara," Matt
said.

"Yes, yes, of course," Mrs. O'Hara said, but still stood looking
at Darcy. "The police car is coming but we need an ambulance."

"No!" Darcy protested. "I'm fine."

"Your arm is bleeding," Matt informed her firmly.

"A scratch. I'm all right, honestly. I just hope I didn't break
any of your bones, falling on you as I did."

She, too, was covered in dust, or sawdust, whatever had given
with the flooring. As he stared at her, Matt heard the car outside
screech to a halt; Thayer Martin and Jimmy Tyson came bursting into
the library.

"It's all right!" Matt called out quickly, still staring at
Darcy.
But it wouldn't have been all right. By the time they
would have arrived, Darcy would have been on the floor. Maybe not
dead, but surely, severely injured.

"What the hel-heck happened?" Thayer demanded, staring at Matt
and Darcy and the debris, and then Mrs. O'Hara.

"Flooring collapsed," Matt said briefly. He turned to look at
his two officers who were surveying the damage with amazement. '
'Get the building inspector in here right away."

"Will do," Thayer told him, pulling out his radio. Matt was
dimly aware that Thayer was calling the situation in, and that
Jimmy was walking carefully around the downed boards. He couldn't
take his eyes off Darcy, and he was suddenly feeling chilled and
strange himself.
What in God's name had suddenly convinced him
that he needed to come to the library? If he hadn't been here. But
he had been. He never just drove to the library in the middle of
the day. But despite being determined to head for the Wayside
Inn, he had come here.

Another siren, and then, Jenkins and Smith from fire rescue were
coming through the door. Thayer briefed them, and Smith headed for
Darcy.

"We'll get you to the hospital, miss," Smith said
politely, looking her over with a trained eye.

"I don't need to go to the hospital, please!" she
insisted.

"Show him your arm, Darcy," Matt said curtly. Too curtly. He saw
her frown, but then she opted to turn with Smith and allow him to
take a look at her.

"Let's get you into a chair and take a look," Smith said.
Fifty-five, gray, bearded and bushy, Harry Smith was as competent a
man as any to be found anywhere. He had a manner about him that was
calming under the worst of circumstances, and Darcy accepted his
pressure on her arm, taking a chair by the library desk.

Matt could hear them speaking softly as he strode the stairs up
to the loft himself to take a look at the spot where Darcy had gone
through.

Moving carefully along the floorboards, he got down on his hands
and knees as he neared the faulty area. It looked as if a section
of the boards had rotted right through.
Only
a
section.
The library was hundreds of years old, he
reminded himself.

So were half the buildings in the town. They were also
sound.

"Matt!"

He walked carefully to the railing to looked down. Smith was
staring up at him. "Miss Tremayne refuses to come to the hospital.
She says she's fine. We're going to drive her back to Melody House.
She wants to drive herself. Penny's car is here. Can someone
take it?"

Darcy had jumped up beside Smith. "I am fine!" she called up to
him. "
I
fell on
you!"

"You're still shaken up," Smith informed her.

"Really, I'm just fine. My arm is just scratched!" Darcy
protested.

"I'll get Penny's car back," Matt said. "That's not a problem.
Darcy, let them give you a ride. I'll be along in a bit. I want to
be here when the building inspector shows up." He offered her a
grimace and a wave.

"Honestly, I can drive," Darcy protested.

"I'm sure you can. Humor us all," Matt told her.

Looking up at him, her shirt ripped, covered in sawdust, she was
still stunning. Hair wild and eyes large, body stiff with
indignity, she was more appealing to him than ever.

The girl is strange,
he tried to remind himself.

She was ethical, dignified, beautiful, and often remote, as
well. There was something about her manner that cried out to him in
a way that he had never known. Lust, sure. She was supple, sinuous,
elegant, and entirely sensual in her every little movement.
Somewhere under it all, she was also wounded.

He could only hurt her worse, he thought. And still...

He doubted that could keep him away.

"I'll be back to Melody House as soon as I can," he said.

She set her jaw out stubbornly, looked as if she'd protest
again, then accepted Smith's arm, thanking him for his care and
concern.

Penny waited anxiously at the door, having received a call from
Mrs. O'Hara at the library. She raced out the moment she saw
Smith's rescue vehicle pull up by the front door.

"You poor, poor dear!" she told Darcy, slipping an arm around
her shoulders before she had quite managed to exit the car door.
"Come right in. We'll get you going in a nice hot bath. That will
ease your muscles. Then I'll make you some tea with whiskey-the
Irish swear that it's a cure-all. Thank God you weren't hurt worse!
It's a miracle. You might have broken your neck. Or every bone in
your body. My God! How could we have let such a thing happen
in Stoneyville?"

Darcy smiled at her. "Penny, I keep telling everyone that I'm
absolutely fine, and no one wants to believe me."

Harry Smith had come around the front of the emergency
vehicle and stood in silence, watching the exchange. "Would you
like some coffee or tea?" Penny asked him. "You're on duty, so I
can't lace yours, of course," she said, disturbed that she sounded
so prim. She bad always liked him. Such an incredibly kind man,
always so calm and capable. Her heart had simply bled for him last
year when his wife, just fifty-two, had succumbed to cancer.

"Thanks, Penny, I'm going on back. I left my partner at the
library to take a quick look at Matt. I've got to get him and get
back to work."

"Matt is hurt?" Penny said anxiously.

"Not a bit. We just wanted to make sure."

"Thank you," Penny said, still standing there, her arm around
Darcy.

"Well, see you both later," Harry said. "Miss Tremayne,
you get a headache, anything out of the ordinary-"

"I never hit my head on anything, honestly," Darcy said.

He nodded, waved, walked around and got into the emergency van.
Penny and Darcy watched him leave, then Penny collected herself.
"Poor thing! Up, up. Clara Issy even went into the Lee Room to get
your bath going. In fact," Penny added, looking at Darcy wryly,
"she was up there yelling at the ghost."

"Yelling at the ghost?" Darcy said.

Penny hesitated, then said, "Yes, dear. We were both thinking
that...well, we're thinking that the ghost should just be left
alone. We know that the ghost has violent urges, and we're afraid,
that for some reason, the ghost is now out to get you."

Darcy shook her head. "The ghost is trying to tell us something,
Penny. Not hurt me."

"Come in, let's get you out of all that dirt and sawdust,"
Penny said. She looked Darcy over. Mussed, yes, daunted, no.

"Honestly," she said softly, leading Darcy into the house. "I
don't want you to take this the wrong way, but...I think you should
leave."