Harrison Investigations 1 Haunted (24 page)

"What do you think?" she asked him.

"I think it's strange, as we've all noticed, that a ghost can be
so afraid."

"Think it can be Arabella?" Darcy asked.

"I don't know. I haven't had a chance to do the research that
you've done," he said.

"I'll show you everything that I dug into tomorrow," Darcy
assured him.

Adam sat back, looking at her. "Matt is still convinced that
there's a living human creating most of his problems."

"I don't know," Darcy said. "I heard noises one night and I have
to admit, I was convinced myself that there was certainly someone
living and breathing making them. But Matt was there, and he walked
around the balcony, and found nothing."

"Someone could have slipped back in the house, right?"

"Sure. But that doesn't account for the dreams, visions, and
other phenomena."

Adam grinned. "I know that, and you know that, but Matt is a
skeptic. Still, it's an interesting situation. Why would someone
pretend to be a ghost?"

"I thought that maybe Penny wanted a ghost so badly that she was
helping to create one," Darcy said. "Or maybe one of the guys was
just having fun at Matt's expense."

"Tell me more about those two-Clint and Carter."

"Clint is a cousin from the wrong side of the blankets, as they
say. Carter is a friend. Heavily into real estate, I believe."

"And Clint? What does he do?"

"Hang around, mostly. Penny is often despairing of him," Darcy
said.

"What does he survive on?" Adam asked.

"I'm not sure. Maybe Matt's goodwill," Darcy said.

Adam nodded. "I'd like to spend tomorrow doing research.
Get some things settled in my own mind. After that...maybe
hypnotism?"

Darcy was not fond of being hypnotized. But it often worked.

"We'll never do anything you don't want to do," Adam said as she
hesitated.

"Oh, I know. I guess, sometimes, still..." she sighed. "Adam, am
I really such a freak? That's how people react to me, you
know."

He smiled. "Elizabeth Holmes is green with envy."

"Yes, but I saw the looks in everyone's eyes tonight."

"You saw the look in Matt's eyes," Adam corrected softly.

She waved a hand in the air. "It's just the look...I get it from
far more people than Matt."

Adam sat back. "I think he's falling in love with you. What do
you say?"

"I say that he's entirely repulsed."

"I say that he's afraid," Adam told her.

"Matt Stone? You know, his name fits. He's chiseled. He's like
coming up against a rock. Hard. And unchanging."

Adam laughed. "Even the hardest stone can be eroded. And maybe
you've shaken him to the core, which always make a man or woman don
a facade as quickly as possible. He's a decent man. Give him a
chance."

"A chance for what?"

"A change of thought. That's difficult to come by, you
know."

Darcy fell silent. Difficult. Impossible. If a ghost walked by
in pure daylight, oozing ectoplasm, Matt would think he was seeing
sunspots.

"By the way-he's worried about you. He doesn't think you should
be here.

"I'm fine."

"He says you woke up terrified last night."

She frowned. "I just can't get a handle on this. I'm more
frustrated than terrified, Adam, really. I see this event
unfolding. I've taken on the persona of the man coming to the
house, and that of the woman inside, waiting. I know that she's
frightened, and I know that he has deadly intentions. When I
have it, the dream goes a little further each time. Then...I lose
it. I know that I'm seeing the past, but something in the dream
bothers me every time. There's something that I should see, but
just don't."

"That means that there is an end out there. We are getting
somewhere, Darcy. You're seeing the event. We know that there is an
entity, trying to tell us something. She's been reaching out, but
she's still terrified herself. Poor thing. It's the depths of the
fear she was feeling when she died. We have to make certain that we
know who she is- you believe it's this Arabella. So, we're getting
close, very close."

Darcy smiled. "Adam, I actually believe that this place is
swarming with ghosts."

"Probably. But the rest of them seem to be happy ghosts. Just
watching over the place. Arabella, or whoever she is, has the
greatest power. And that's because she's so desperate to say
something to us all. We'll get to it. By the way, I've asked David
Jenner to set up a few of the cameras and some tape equipment in
your room. Is that all right?"

"Of course," she said. She's seen Matt's face that night. He
wouldn't be coming back to visit her in the darkness of the
night.

"I'm right here, not a stone's throw away. Call me if you need
me. Call if you think you may need me."

"I know, Adam." She gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Are you all right, Darcy? I haven't seen you this shaken
since...since the beginning."

"I'm fine," she assured him.

She wasn't. She was hurt. But then she'd known better than to
fall for Matt Stone, to become emotionally involved. The
truth of it was that she
wasn't
normal, and there just
weren't many men out there willing to deal with her
circumstances.

Adam was still staring at her. He knew her too well. "Adam, I'm
fine," she said firmly.

"Maybe Matt Stone is right."

"About what?"

"That's it's dangerous for you to be here."

"Adam-"

"What about the library?"

"Adam, this I know-a ghost did not follow me into the library. I
was alone when I stood on those boards. What happened was a
coincidence."

"Still-"

"Adam, I'm close. I know I'm close. There's some little thing
there that I'm not seeing, and once I know what it is, the
situation will be solved. I'm certain. Good night, and please don't
worry about me."

He nodded. Even as she left the room, he was rewinding the tape
to study it once again.

Darcy walked to the Lee Room. It seemed very quiet. She didn't
feel that the eyes watched her. Then she wondered if maybe
the ghost was simply exhausted. Maybe the seance was as hard on
their entity as it was on those living souls who had been
involved.

"Let me help you!" she said aloud. "You don't need to hurt me or
anyone. You have to get the courage together to let us know what
happened."

There was no response.

Darcy locked the balcony doors. There would be no one slipping
through them to see her tonight.

Weary, she got ready for bed, and crawled in.

The emptiness around her seemed absurdly loud.

Matt arrived back at Melody House, but for several long minutes,
he remained in the car, staring at the house. Brick, mortar, and
stone. It was a house, nothing more.

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 mere 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.