The Séance

Although even if it had been locked, he would have forced it open, anyway, he had to admit.

He was definitely on edge, he thought, but he’d also heard someone scream.

“You tell me,” Jed said to Dan. “What the hell is going on in here? I heard a scream.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Sorry.” He stepped back so Jed could come in and closed—and locked—the door after him. “Good to see you, Jed. The screamer was Ilona, Tony’s fiancée. She got spooked after Ana insisted on playing with the Ouija board.”

“That’s why the dim lights, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” Daniel agreed dryly.

By then they had reached the parlor and Ana leapt up and rushed over to meet him, giving him a quick hug. “You made it.”

“I said I’d come,” he told her, looking past her to Christina Hardy, who was slowly rising. She was one of those women with the ability to do normally awkward things with the sinuous grace of curling ivy. She walked over, a small smile on her face, and gave him a quick, friendly hug in greeting. “Welcome. There’s still barbecue in the kitchen.”

“Good. I’m famished.”

“Hi, Jed,” Mike said. “You know Tony, but have you met Ilona?”

Jed nodded toward the woman at Tony’s side. They’d met briefly at the funeral. “Nice to see you again,” he told her.

“You, too,” Ilona said.

“Did you know Jed’s a famous writer?” Mike asked.

“I’m not really famous,” Jed said quickly, embarrassed.

“Speaking of which, guess what name those two—” Mike paused to indicate Ana and Christina “—just dredged up. Beau Kidd.”

Jed frowned. Even if his nerves hadn’t already been on edge, the name would have stung. Damn it, he thought. He hadn’t caused what had happened to the cop. He had just built fiction around the facts of what had already happened.

Yeah. Fiction that clearly skewered the man.

“Beau Kidd?” he said, and he knew that his voice was harsh.

“Oh, Jed, don’t sound so mad. We were just playing with the Ouija board,” Ana said.

“After talking about the recent murder,” Dan explained.

“Ouija board?” Jed said skeptically.

“Hey, blame Ana, not me,” Christina said lightly.

“I’m telling you, it spelled out his name,” Ana said stubbornly.

“Come in the kitchen, I’ll warm up some food for you,” Christina said.

“Don’t bother,” Ana teased. “He used to be a cop. He even eats cold pizza.”

“Well you don’t have to eat cold barbecue,” Christina said firmly, then stared at him with those crystal-blue eyes of hers and smiled slowly. “Thanks for coming.”

He shrugged a little awkwardly. “Sure.”

She strode past him, smooth and sleek. He followed.

She was already reaching into the refrigerator by the time he stepped into the kitchen. She handed him a beer.

“So how’s it going?” she asked after he thanked her, helping herself to one, as well, and leaning back against the counter. A subtle grin curved her lips. “When does your next book come out?”

He arched a brow. “Last month, actually.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“That’s cool.”

“I should have kept up.”

“Amazingly, the entire world doesn’t rush out to the store the minute a book of mine comes out.”

She flushed. “Yeah, well, I’m one of Ana’s best friends. I should have known.”

“Not even all of Ana’s friends rush out the minute I have a book on the shelves,” he assured her.

She smiled and dug into the refrigerator again. He realized with an inner smile that she had planned for his arrival as she pulled out a microwave-ready plate with chicken, ribs and corn on the cob.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he was hungry. He’d showered, and the smell of the autopsy room no longer seemed to fill his nostrils.

But he couldn’t forget the dead woman or what had happened at the cemetery.

Couldn’t forget that Christina Hardy was a beautiful redhead.

He warned himself to get his thoughts under control. He couldn’t let himself become obsessed with this, couldn’t let it consume him and everyone around him.

“So how’s it going in jingle land?” he asked. “What’s your latest?”

Her smile deepened as she played with the dial on the microwave. “‘Come to the Grand, walk on the sand, hear the steel band, sunsets and glory, the minute you land,’” she sang lightly.

“That was you? I hear it all the time,” he told her.

“It’s a great resort,” she told him. “I was given a comp weekend when I was hired, so I got to check it out for free. It’s one of those all-inclusive places. Really nice. You step out from your private bungalow right onto the beach.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” he teased.

“As long as I am working.”

“Well, this place is worth a mint,” he told her.

“I’d panhandle before I sold this house,” she assured him passionately, then seemed embarrassed by the emotion she had betrayed. She offered him a wry smile. “Hmm. And are you suggesting I won’t get work?”

He laughed. “Never,” he vowed solemnly.

The microwave beeped. She reached in for his plate, and he walked over to take it from her. The scent of barbecue was strong, but her perfume was more alluring. He remembered how, years ago, he had thought she was a pain in the butt and wished she and Ana would go away.

Things certainly changed, he thought wryly.

She smiled and brushed by on her way to get him a fork, knife and napkin. His muscles tightened. Hell, yes, things changed.

Ana appeared in the kitchen. “Hurry up,” she said to Christina. “You’re the only one who can make that stupid Ouija board work.”

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Christina protested.

Jed felt his muscles tighten again, and not in a good way.

“Beau Kidd?” he said to Christina.

She flushed. “I swear, I didn’t make it do anything,” she protested.

“Whatever you say,” he said curtly.

He hadn’t meant to be so brusque. She barely moved, but he could feel her stiffen from across the room.

“It’s just that I worry, okay?”

She sighed. “I know. I’m a redhead.”

“A beautiful redhead,” he told her, trying to atone.

“I’m a big kid, and I’ve lived on my own for a long time now. I don’t do stupid things.”

“Don’t assume that all victims are stupid.”

“I’m not. But I am careful,” she told him. “Really.” She was irritated. Why not? It was a good cover-up for being frightened.

She walked out of the kitchen, toward the parlor. He followed her, keeping his distance and stopping in the doorway.

“You made that name—Beau Kidd—appear,” Mike said, staring accusingly at Christina.

“I sure as hell didn’t,” she replied, and her voice betrayed her annoyance. “Twelve years ago, I was thirteen and my mom turned the news off every time something came on TV that she thought I shouldn’t know about. In fact, my parents used to argue about it. My dad thought I needed to be aware of what was going on in the world, but my mom just thought I was too young to know some things—no, a lot of things.”

“You still must have heard the name,” Dan said. He was sitting on the floor, back against the wall, arms folded over his knees.

“I’m sure I did, but a lot has happened since then, in my life and in the world,” she informed him, her tone irritated. “I didn’t move the planchette.”

“Right. Beau Kidd did it himself, because there is no copycat killer and he wants us to know he’s innocent,” Mike murmured dryly.

“Maybe he didn’t do it,” Ana said. “And maybe his spirit did move the planchette.”

“Now you’re scaring me,” Jed teased his cousin.

She frowned, staring at him with a stubborn set to her jaw. “Oh, right, Mr. He-man. There’s no possibility that anything you haven’t seen for yourself could possibly be real.”

“What’s the phrase? A ghost in the machine?” Tony said, his tone light, as if he were hoping to lift the tension that had suddenly filled the room.

“If there were a ghost here, it would be Gran, yelling at us,” Dan said, grinning, and evoking smiles from the others at last.

“Was she mean?” Ilona asked.

“Heavens, no,” Christina said. “But she had a very clear vision of right and wrong.” She flashed a smile. “I don’t think she’d be yelling. We haven’t messed anything up.”

“Well, she wasn’t all that fond of the way I’m running my life,” Dan said, shrugging. “I tried to explain to her that I intend to be more than Raccoon Ralph.”

“And you will be,” Christina said. “You’re going to be Zeus.”

“Right. And Halloween is around the corner. I’ll get to play some pretty scary stuff,” Dan said.

“The three-year-olds are trembling in their boots,” Ana teased, then suggested, “Why don’t we ask the Ouija board when you’ll get your big break?”

Mike groaned. “I’m getting another beer.” He started down the hall, almost crashing into Jed, who was still standing in the doorway. “Beer?” he suggested.

“Yeah, sure, one more,” Jed said, heading to the kitchen with him.

A few seconds later, they heard a loud and startled clamor from the parlor.

They frowned at each other and rushed back to the other room. Jed was in the lead, and when he reached the arched doorway, he was almost hit in the head with the planchette.

“Hey, who threw that?” he demanded. Ducking had saved him from a good shot right in the face.

“She did,” Ana said, pointing to Christina.

“I did not!” Christina protested.

Ana met his eyes, looking more than a little scared. “It…it was like it got mad and flew cross the room,” she said.

“Ana, get a life,” Jed snapped.

“What’s going on?” Mike demanded from just behind Jed.

“We asked it if Dan was going to get the part he wants,” Christina said.

“And it spelled out ‘help’ again,” Ilona said, eyes wide.

“They’re pulling your leg, Ilona,” Mike told her.

Ana let out a long, aggrieved sigh.

“Whatever. Let’s put the stupid thing away,” Christina said. Without waiting for anyone to agree, she reached for the box.

“Throw the stupid thing away,” Dan suggested.

“Christina, throw an old treasure away?” Tony teased. “Never.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t throw anything away. You might recall a box I packed up when a few people forgot about it after one Christmas dinner,” Christina said, looking from Mike to Dan and smiling complacently.

“Yes, and we appreciate it,” Dan said, then explained to the others. “We got bonds for Christmas one year when we were kids. We forgot all about them, but Christina stuck them in a box and held on to it. Our bonds matured and ended up being worth a bundle.”

“And we thank her for it,” Mike said, then turned to Christina. “Want me to help you pack anything up?” he asked as he turned up the dimmer switch.

“No, but thank you for the appreciation.” She rose from the floor as gracefully as ever.

Dan yawned, then apologized. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I’m on first shift tomorrow. Costuming at seven in the morning for the eight o’clock breakfast. This was fun. Thanks, Ana. Christina.”

“I should take off, too,” Jed said, anxious to get away. He still couldn’t get the autopsy off his mind, and the last thing he needed was to spend the evening at a party where the conversation kept turning to Beau Kidd.

“Christina, Ana, thanks for dinner, and, Christie, welcome to the neighborhood.”

“Thanks for coming,” she said, and walked over to him for a brief hug. There was still something reserved between them.

His fault, she decided as he waved to the others and started toward the door.

“This is your home, too, just like always,” he heard Christina tell her cousins as they followed a few steps behind.

“Thanks, kid,” Dan told her. “But one day you might have a sex life, and you wouldn’t want us walking in on you.”

“Let’s go,” Mike said. “I don’t want to hear about my little cousin’s sex life, okay?”

“Would you rather walk in on it?” Dan asked.

“Outta here,” Mike said firmly.

Jed was almost at the door, but he still overheard the last remarks from the group in the parlor.

“What the hell was with Jed tonight?” Tony asked.

“The Beau Kidd thing,” Ana said. “When he wrote his book, he was sure Kidd was guilty, but now he doesn’t know.”

Jed headed out the door to his Jeep and gunned the engine.

Ana was right.

Ana left a few minutes later with Tony and Ilona. Dan and Mike had offered to drive her home, but Tony had assured them that he and Ilona would see her safely inside. Ana had bought her parents’ house when they had retired down to their place in the Keys, so she’d never moved once in her life. And at the price of real estate, she was lucky—as Christina was herself.

Christina locked the front door as the stragglers left. One thing she didn’t have was an alarm system. Something she should probably consider in the future, she decided.

There wasn’t much to do as far as cleaning up; paper plates for food that had arrived in cardboard cartons didn’t create much of a mess. She was done in five minutes.

When the water stopped running, the house seemed almost painfully silent.

She walked back into the parlor and immediately noticed the Ouija board. “You suck,” she muttered. Her eyes moved over the many boxes littering the room.

For some reason, all those boxes made her feel uneasy. The fact that the house didn’t have an alarm—which had never bothered her before—now made her even more uneasy. The silence weighed on her.

And she wished to God they had never played with the stupid Ouija board.

She found herself walking around, turning on every light in the house. She even turned on the plasma television in the living room, thinking the noise would be good.

The news came on instantly.

“As is common in such cases,” an attractive young anchorwoman was saying, “there was evidence that the police didn’t share with the public when the Interstate Killer was at work twelve years ago. The police have not yet commented on whether or not the murder of Sherri Mason shares any of those confidential similarities or not. As you may be aware, the Interstate Killer’s spree ended with the death of the man who had become the prime suspect, Detective Beau Kidd. Kidd was familiar with two of the victims, who—”

Christina was tempted to throw the remote control across the room; she hit the power-off switch instead.

Groaning, she rechecked the front door, turned off the lights and started up the stairs.

She hadn’t taken over her grandmother’s room, and she wouldn’t. It was going to be her guest room, she had decided.

“Beau Kidd, indeed,” she murmured aloud in annoyance when she reached her own room. “If this house is haunted, it’s haunted by Granda and Gran. Good people who loved me.”

She had never felt afraid in this house, and she was angry that the night’s events had left her feeling so unnerved.

So she was a redhead. There were lots of redheads out there, natural and otherwise. It was a popular color.

She locked her doors. She didn’t go off with strangers. She was careful.

She looked around her room, the same room she’d always stayed in as a child. It had changed a great deal over the years. She had a new bed, for one thing—a Christmas present from a few years ago. It was a queen, with a handsome cherry-wood sleigh-style frame. Her dresser and wardrobe matched, as did the artfully concealed entertainment center.

She headed straight to it, turning on the television and finding a channel with nothing but sitcom repeats.

“So there. I will have no news tonight,” she said.

Her voice rang strangely loud in the empty house. She was glad when the sound of the television filled the space.

She was even more pleased when a commercial with a jingle she had written popped up on the screen. “Ever soft, ever silky, ever gentle to the touch, oh, dear Biel’s Tissue, we thank you very much.”

Not poetry or even her most brilliant lyric, but it was a good, catchy tune.

She smiled, walked into the bathroom and slipped into the cotton sleep shirt that hung on the back of the door, then washed her face and brushed her teeth. A few minutes later she drew back her covers and settled beneath the clean, cool comfort of her sheets.

And she stared at the television, not seeing a thing.

She rose again and turned on the lights she had turned off earlier. She was certain that from the street, her house was lit up like a Christmas tree. She turned the television down, plumped her pillow and closed her eyes, hoping that the soft drone of the sitcom would help her sleep. It wasn’t as if she had anything imperative going on early in the morning; she was just going to finish setting up the house and emptying boxes.

But she was tired. She wanted to sleep.

She tossed around for a while, forcing herself to lie still with her eyes closed, half listening to the television.

Then, head on the pillow, eyes closed, she felt a strange prickling sensation. She couldn’t pinpoint anything different about the air around her or the sounds she was hearing. It was an old house, and it creaked. But she knew every creak, and she wasn’t hearing anything she shouldn’t have been.

But the sensation stayed with her.

She felt as if she were a child again, frightened as she watched a spooky movie, closing her eyes…

If this had been a movie, though, she would have felt compelled to open her eyes, but this was real life, and she fought the desire. If she kept her eyes closed, she would be all right. It would be like hiding beneath the bed or taking refuge in a closet.

I won’t. I won’t open my eyes, she thought. And it will go away.

But the feeling didn’t go away, and finally she had to open her eyes and look into the shadows, just to prove that there was nothing there.

She opened one eye slowly.

If felt as if her blood congealed and her heart froze.

She closed her eye again. She must have imagined what she thought she’d seen. A shadow. A shadow in the shape of a man. Standing at the end of the bed.

Her frozen heart began to thunder.

A normal response, she told herself, given that there was a killer on the loose.

This was all nonsense, she thought. No one could possibly be there.

She opened both eyes, bolting up to a sitting position at the same time.

Someone was there.

A tall, solid, yet somehow shadowy figure standing at the foot of her bed.

Christina screamed and leapt out of bed, then practically flew out of the room.

She raced to the door, out to the hall and down the stairs. She burst out the front door, onto the porch and leapt over the two steps that led to the ground. She ran until she reached the end of the driveway, and then she finally turned back, gasping, checking to see if he was in pursuit.

It was difficult to see, though, because it was such a strange night. The fog was still lying low to the ground, while above, shimmering through with an illumination like silver, was the great orb of the full moon.

Instinct was kicking in. Fog or not, she would see him coming from the front of the house, and he clearly wasn’t in pursuit. But she didn’t have her keys. That was okay; she could just go next door to Tony’s house, and she would be safe.

In her mind’s eye, she pictured the figure coming after her, catching her, tackling her right before she could reach Tony’s door.

Then there was a tap on her shoulder.

She froze.

Spun around.

Screamed.

He was there.

It was impossible, but he was there. He’d somehow gotten out of the house without her seeing and ended up behind her.

And he wasn’t a shadow, either. Not only that, she had seen his face before.

It took her a moment to remember where she had seen it, and when.

Then she knew.

She had seen it, plastered all over the newspapers after Beau Kidd had been shot kneeling over the body of his latest victim.

“Christie…”

Did he say her name, or was it the breeze? Or was she only deep in some horrible nightmare where the dew-damp grass beneath her bare toes was ridiculously real and the face of the man before her was bizarrely vivid?

“Christie…”

The world seemed to be fading, getting lost in the fog.

“Please…help me.”

She had never passed out before in her life, but she did then, dropping flat onto soft, wet earth, seeing nothing but stygian darkness.

4

“Hey.”

Christina became aware of the deep, rich voice at the same time as she felt the chilling discomfort of the ground beneath her.

The sun was rising, she realized, feeling completely disoriented.

“Christie?”

She blinked. The sun created a haze as it burned off the last of the fog, so she blinked again, turning her head slightly to make out someone standing above her. For a moment she felt a resurgence of fear. But the sunlight was bright, and when she blinked a third time, her vision cleared and she finally saw who was standing there.

Jed Braden.

He hunkered down by her side.

“Are you all right?” His tone was anxious, harsh.

She realized that she was lying on her lawn and frowned.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded anxiously, his hands on her shoulders, his face close, his features tense.

“No, I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”

She saw relief fill his face.

“Fine? Really?”

“Absolutely. I swear it.”

“Thank God you’re alive,” he murmured.

She struggled to rise up on her elbows. “I guess I…fell asleep.”

“You’re joking, right?” he said. His voice hardened to a sharper edge. “You told me you were smart, remember? You said you didn’t do stupid things.”

She stared at him. She must have had a nightmare. She couldn’t possibly have seen the ghost of Beau Kidd. There in the light of day, the idea was just too ridiculous. But she really was lying on the grass, so she really had run out of the house. And she had run because someone had been there. Hadn’t he?

She blurted the words without thinking. “There was someone in my house.”

Jed stared at her, slowly arching a brow. “Someone was in your house?” He sounded both concerned and doubtful.

“Yes.”

Anxiety tightened his features. “So someone broke in and chased you out, then…forced you to sleep on the ground?”

She stared at him. “I’m telling you, there was a man at the foot of my bed.”

“But you’re also telling me you weren’t attacked, right?”

“No. He was just…there.”

“What was he doing?”

“Staring at me. I…felt him there, opened my eyes and saw him, then jumped up and ran out,” she explained.

“You locked up, right? You made sure you locked up after everyone left?”

He stood then, and reached down to help her to her feet. He was in jeans, a knit polo shirt and a casual suede jacket, towering and at ease. “Christina, usually people run somewhere when they’re running away from danger. They don’t just curl up and go to sleep on the front lawn.”

“I didn’t just curl up and go to sleep!” she flashed angrily.

“Oh?”

“Look, I’m not kidding.”

“Christie, bad things are happening,” he said softly, dark eyes on her like onyx. “This is no time to cry wolf.”

“I would never do that,” she said, her temper growing, her tone an aggrieved growl.

“All right, so exactly what happened?”

“I came running out here and…”

“And?”

“And I’m not sure.”

His voice went very soft then. “You’re sure you weren’t molested in any way?”

Was she? She’d passed out cold. But she hadn’t been assaulted or anything. She was certain of it.

“No. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t even touched,” she murmured.

“Okay, so this man broke into your house to stare at you and then did…what when you ran out? Ransacked the place?”