Haunted

by Ella Ardent

  It was mesmerizing.

  It was weird.

  What was even more weird was that a mist emanated from the open mouth of Madame Amelia. One of the other guys swore softly and they all stared in horror as the mist formed into the shape of a guy floating over the table.

  Not just any guy, either. It was the image of the guy who he was supposed to impersonate.

  “Luke!” Caitlyn cried with amazement. She’d turned pale and looked like she was going to faint. Zach watched her with concern.

  “Do not break the circle,” the black servant intoned. “Or Madame Amelia will be lost.”

  Zach looked between the servant and the vision, his consternation clear.

  “Caitlyn,” the vision whispered, his hoarse voice carrying from every corner of the room. “Caitlyn, I’m burning for you. Help me, Caitlyn…”

  Devon didn’t know how the hell they did it, but it was a helluva show.

  And it was just the introduction he needed. He stifled his smile, thought about the key to Caitlyn’s room in his pocket, and knew that neither of them would be getting any sleep tonight.

  * * *

  Athena was just heading up to dress for a late dinner with Julius when the phone rang in the office of The Phoenix. She debated the merit of answering, then considered that Julius might have been delayed. Her cell phone was upstairs, so if he’d tried that number first, his call would have gone to voice mail.

  “Hello?”

  “There’s a problem,” Steele said, his voice low as if he feared someone might overhear his call.

  “I’m not talking to you…” Athena began.

  “Then don’t talk,” Steele snapped. “You have to listen, though.”

  “I don’t have to do anything…”

  “Someone in your office was checking out an actor named Devon Nelson,” Steele continued, ignoring her protest.

  “I don’t have to tell you…”

  “No, you don’t, but there’s a lot you didn’t find about this guy. He’s not who you think he is. We just found the real Devon Nelson in a chest freezer, and it looks like he’s been there a while.”

  “No,” Athena said softly, even though she believed Steele. She sat down hard.

  “Why were you checking him out? Did you hire him?”

  Athena thought for about four seconds before she answered. “He’s part of a fantasy fulfillment,” she admitted. “On Windswept.”

  Steele swore with a vehemence she didn’t expect. “I knew it!” he muttered, then continued in a savage tone. “This guy is an identity thief, looking for a place to lie low for a while.”

  Athena gripped the phone. “Which Devon Nelson applied to us?”

  “When did you get the application?”

  Athena went straight to the files. “A month ago.”

  “Then it was our boy. The real Devon was dead by then.” Steele cleared his throat. “Athena, this guy is a forger, a thief and a killer, wanted in five countries under twice as many names.”

  And he was on Windswept.

  With Rex.

  Athena found herself shaken. “You’re just getting even with me,” she argued, because she didn’t want this to be true

  “I’m breaking a whole bunch of protocol to warn you,” Steele retorted. “Look, there would have been clues for someone who looked carefully. This guy is good at hiding himself, but I’ve never seen anyone as good as Amy. Didn’t you take her back? Her skills are what you need to defend yourself against this kind of thing.”

  “She’s being disciplined,” Athena admitted softly. “By having no computer.” She winced when Steele swore again.

  “And now there’s a storm over the Atlantic. They’ll have grounded all the small helicopters.” His frustration was audible. “Who’s on the island? Anyone you can contact? You have to have a security contingent. Rex thinks of everything.”

  Athena bristled a little at that. “Of course, but Rex is there, with Amy. She had a scheme to make someone’s dream come true and Rex wanted to watch.”

  Steele dropped his voice. “This guy likes to kill, Athena. You might be making an unexpected fantasy come true.”

  “I’ll call.”

  “I’ll come over.”

  “No.” Athena stood. “There’s nothing you can do before tomorrow. I’ll let you know if I don’t talk to Rex.”

  “But Athena…”

  “I appreciate your warning, Steele, but this doesn’t change anything. You still betrayed my trust.”

  “Can’t I earn it back?”

  “It’ll be harder than this.”

  Steele sighed. “Just call. We’ll talk about it later.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. Athena’s fingers were shaking as she hit the autodial for the island’s control center, and she drummed her fingers as the phone rang. “Get Rex,” she said, not bothering to state her name. Her voice would be recognized. “Get Rex and get him now.”

  * * *

  Holy fuck.

  Amy didn’t know what to say. She was in the rooms hidden at the back end of the manor house, facing a very grim Rex.

  These hidden rooms didn’t keep up the illusion of the island. There were phones here, landlines mostly, computers and sensors. Screens displaying the footage from hidden cameras throughout the house lined one wall, and casually dressed staff monitored all of it. There was a low murmur of conversation as fantasies were tracked and the safety of guests was assured.

  Now there was one very big screw-up in progress, and it was hers.

  It was beyond belief that her success in earning back Rex’s trust hinged upon the actions of a psychopath and multiple offender. It was infuriating that after her sound and light show had gone so flawlessly everything was in the shitter.

  Rex was taut with a displeasure that didn’t bode well for her future.

  The head of security on the island, a taut athletic woman named Dagmar, had invited herself to the conversation. She didn’t say anything, but her gaze flicked between Rex and Amy, her attention as sharp as a knife.

  “How did Steele find out?” Amy asked, although she knew the answer.

  “I don’t know,” Rex said with frustration. “Does it matter?”

  Amy heard the condemnation in his voice and knew this was her last chance to take charge of her destiny. “Actually, it does,” she insisted, to his visible surprise. “If Steele found the trail, I would have found it. I probably would have found it sooner, because I would have been doing a background check on this guy, instead of pushing around a bunch of paper files and trying to make miracles happen.”

  Staff looked up from their monitors, unable to hide their interest in the conversation any longer.

  Rex’s lips thinned. “You’re not going to say it’s my fault for not letting you use a computer.”

  “No.” Amy waited a beat, knowing the power of timing. “I’m going to say it’s your fault for denying me access to the Internet. You’ve kept me from doing what I do best, and now everything is at risk.”

  “He doesn’t have all the keys…”

  “Yes, he does.” Amy saw Rex’s shock. “He demanded them, and since he’s a paying client fulfilling the fantasy of another, I gave him a passkey.”

  Rex’s eyes flashed. “That’s your mistake.”

  Dagmar stepped between them. “Enough talk. We have to contain this guy and we have to do it now. You can argue about the blame later.”

  “Agreed,” Rex said.

  Dagmar held a finger to her ear and Amy realized she was wearing a slender headset. “Put up the display from the heat sensors in the attic, please? Let’s locate him and begin to seal him off.”

  “You can do that?” Amy asked.

  “The entire house was designed to deal with the worst case scenario.” Dagmar was resolute. “A killer loose in the house with a passkey is pretty close.”

  “He’s moving,” said one of the staff, pointing to a monitor. “He’s headed for her room.”

  “Seal all the access points
to the main house from the attic,” Dagmar said. “One through twenty-four, secured now.”

  The staff began tapping at keyboards. The map displayed on the main monitor showed barriers sliding into place, even as Devon could be seen moving closer to the staircase that gave access to Caitlyn’s room.

  “Block him off,” Dagmar said. “Quickly!”

  “But not that one,” Amy cried. “We have to keep Caitlyn’s fantasy.”

  Dagmar gave her a cool look. “Being murdered in her bed probably isn’t part of it.”

  “But we have to do something!” Amy knew that Caitlyn’s fantasy had to be fulfilled, not just to provide customer satisfaction but to ensure that she made progress on Rex’s challenge. “Wait. Her room is beside Zach’s. I noticed how he looked at her.”

  “She is exactly what he desires,” Rex said quietly.

  “Then we can make this work.” Amy pointed to the display. “You have to leave this access open, the one at the top of the staircase in the wall between Caitlyn and Zach’s rooms. He has to think that everything is normal.”

  “You can’t mean to confront him,” Dagmar was incredulous.

  “He’s dangerous,” Rex said.

  “I have to make this work,” Amy insisted.

  “No,” Rex said, but she was already on the run.

  “Let me into the hidden passageway, then seal it off again,” Amy said, sounding as commanding as she could. “I’ll make him go back up those stairs.”

  “But how?” Dagmar demanded.

  “I’ll think of something.” Amy took a deep breath. “Dreams have to come true at The Phoenix,” she whispered and felt Rex watching her.

  Their gazes locked for a moment and Amy knew this was her chance to prove herself.

  He gave a minute nod, the door opened to the passageway, and Amy ran.

  Chapter Two

  Devon was hard with anticipation. He eased through the attic of the manor house, hearing the wind whistle around the chimneys and the floor boards creak under his feet. The entire house was quiet, as if everyone except him was asleep.

  He couldn’t imagine anything better than a houseful of unsuspecting victims and a passkey in his hand that would open any door. He could take any of them!

  The illusion of the manor house was fabulously maintained. As someone who routinely made things look as they weren’t, Devon appreciated The Phoenix’s concern with the details. There were even old trunks in the attic, dressmaker’s dummies and broken pieces of furniture. The house could have been a hundred and fifty years old, instead of just one or two. The roof was pitched and angled, and the tops of the many staircases hidden from casual view.

  The doors that sealed the access to those staircases, though, betrayed their modern origins. They were smooth steel, insulated, and slid open silently on tracks that illuminated for the barest moment. In each door frame was a card slot, with a tiny light that gleamed green when the passkey was accepted. The passkey was a card with a magnetic stripe.

  Devon had memorized the layout of the attic, and went directly to the access door he needed. He’d checked it out earlier in the day. There was a flight of solid wooden stairs leading down from it. Once through the portal, the house looked antique, as if stepping through a doorway could toss a person back in time. At the foot of the staircase was was a small area between the stairs and the outside wall of the house, maybe the size of a foyer, with a door on the left and one one the right. Another staircase continued downward to the left beside the first one, descending into darkness. There were no lights in the passageways, but Devon’s eyes adjusted to the darkness well enough.

  In the house itself, the magnetic key didn’t work. He had a brass church key that unlocked the period doors and he fingered it as he began down the stairs. The steel door slid closed behind him, but he’d expected that.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust, then put one hand on the wall and started down the stairs.

  How would he take her first?

  The dead guy he was supposed to impersonate had had pretty tame tastes, at least from what Devon had been able to find out about him. There was one picture of Caitlyn hog-tied and blindfolded. She was smiling in that image, though Devon would have liked it better if she’d been afraid.

  Or weeping, even.

  Begging for mercy. He clenched his fist and closed his eyes, loving even the thought of that kind of power over another.

  Devon carried a black rope, much like the one in the picture, and a blindfold. His idea had been to begin with their established game and go from there.

  He should gag Caitlyn, he decided, then she’d never be able to raise an alarm if things moved a little bit faster than Devon had planned. He’d have to innovate, maybe find something in the room to use as a gag.

  Devon was putting the church key into the lock of the door that opened into Caitlyn’s room, his heart pounding, when a sudden noise startled him. Someone was coming up the stairs to the left!

  “I can’t imagine why you need to check on the fires now, much less why you have to use this access to do it,” a woman said, her voice gruff. There was a lot of stamping of feet, as if several people were trudging up the stairs together. “I understand about fire hazards and regulations, but it’s the middle of the night, and I would have liked to have gotten my sleep.”

  “It’ll only take a moment,” a girl replied, her voice high and squeaky. “We have to ensure the safety of our guests.”

  Two of them. How many more?

  Devon slipped back up the stairs toward the attic, hiding himself in the shadows. He could wait a moment for this group to move on. He didn’t want to be disturbed once the game began.

  He saw a flashlight shine around the small landing, as the gruff woman continued to complain, and took another couple of steps up to ensure that the darkness cloaked his presence.

  But there was only one woman on the landing, a small one.

  It looked like Madame Amelia.

  She suddenly shone the flashlight straight at him, blinding him for a moment. “The spirits are strong,” she whispered, and Devon knew she meant to stop him.

  As if that could happen! But she seized the church key he’d left in the lock and flung it down the stairs. It clattered as it fell, and Devon roared that she had impeded his access.

  Deceitful bitch!

  But a stupid enough one to have tried to stop him alone.

  Devon dropped the rope and blindfold, then leaped down the stairs and tackled her. They fell together, wrestling, and Madame Amelia proved to be stronger than she looked. Maybe it was desperation. The flashlight fell and rolled as they struggled together. He locked his hands around her throat and felt her pulse leap.

  This was the good stuff. He banged her head once against the floor and she sagged back on the floor, no longer fighting him. Devon tightened his grip and chuckled, giving her time to appreciate that he was going to kill her. The lighting was perfect, the only illumination from the flashlight. The way it was cast at the ceiling made the shadows long and stark like a horror movie.

  “Nobody stops me,” he whispered with glee, even as she scratched as his hands in a futile effort to free herself.

  Devon squeezed, watching her struggle for air, taking his time. She rallied one last time then the fight went out of her and her eyelids fluttered.

  He had time to wish she’d been more afraid.

  Then she kneed him hard in the genitals, making a sudden and remarkable recovery.

  Devon recoiled in pain and she rolled on top of him immediately, fighting like a tigress. She scratched his face and clawed at his eyes, beating him about the head with her fists. He heard more running footsteps and people calling from below, then managed to throw off her weight.

  She seized the flashlight and swung hard. She was fast.

  She hit him on the side of the head and Devon staggered back at the impact. He decked her and kicked her feet out from beneath her, then ran back up the stairs. He fumbled for his passkey and open
ed the steel door, only sighing with relief once it was sealed behind him.

  * * *

  Rex was beside Amy when her eyes opened, his fingertips on her pulse. “Stupid,” he said when she opened her eyes. “Impulsive and stupid.”

  She could see, though, that he was relieved.

  So was she. Devon hadn’t killed her, after all.

  “It had to be that way,” Amy argued, sitting up with an effort. “He had to run, but not realize how much was at stake.”

  Rex ran a finger down her bruised throat. “You could have been more hurt than this.”

  “Dangerous,” Dagmar said flatly, her disapproval clear, then listened. “He’s sealed into the attic,” she said to Rex who nodded agreement. “The other guests are safe.”

  “Good.”

  Dagmar spoke into her headset. “Excellent. Leave him one way out. You know the routine.”

  “Make him sweat first,” Rex murmured and Dagmar nodded agreement.

  “Where will you let him out?” Amy asked.

  Dagmar smiled coldly. “Into the infirmary, of course. We have cages for his kind.” Her eyes glinted, then she turned away, directing the capture in a steady murmur as she descended the stairs.

  “Did you find the key?” Amy asked as Rex helped her to her feet.

  “Why?” He extended his hand and the brass church key was on his palm.

  “Because we have to finish this.” Amy took the key, then touched a warning fingertip to her lips. She retrieved the rope and blindfold that Devon had dropped on the stairs, then turned out the flashlight.

  She quietly unlocked the door to Caitlyn’s room as Rex watched.

  Caitlyn, it appeared, slept with a light on which would be useful. Yes, Amy liked how the light from it poured into the hidden passageway.

  Amy arranged the rope and blindfold, just inside the hidden passage but so that the light from Caitlyn’s room fell on them. Rex stepped into the shadows on the descending staircase as Amy unlocked the door to Zach’s room.

  She let it squeak as it opened. Then she left it ajar just enough that the light from Caitlyn’s room would be visible in Zach’s room.