by Jason Hawes
Mitch let up on the pressure, but he didn’t release her wrist.
Amber looked over her shoulder to see Connie Flaxman approaching. The woman was smiling warmly, as if she and Amber were old friends instead of rivals for Drew’s affections.
Connie walked up to Amber without so much as looking at Mitch. She did glance at the empty space next to him—the space where Amber sensed the mysterious presence—but then she refocused her attention on Amber. Connie put her arms around her and gave her a big hug. As she did, Amber felt Mitch finally let go of her wrist. But she was so surprised by the other woman’s sudden display of affection that she almost didn’t notice. Amber returned the hug in an awkward, halfhearted way.
When Connie drew back, she said, “I just want to say how sorry I am for the inexcusable way I treated you earlier. I was jealous, plain and simple. It’s obvious how much Drew cares for you. You’re a very lucky woman.”
Amber had no idea how to respond. “Uh . . . thanks?”
“Believe it or not, I really am interested in learning more about this fascinating”—she waved her hand in the air as she searched for the words she wanted—“field of study that you and Drew are involved in. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stick around for a while and see what the conference has to offer. Is that OK?”
“Sure.” Amber didn’t know if she believed that Connie’s sudden change of heart was sincere, and right then, she didn’t care. She was too grateful for the distraction the woman had provided.
“I’m afraid I’m not officially signed up for the conference yet,” Connie said. “Would you mind showing me where the registration table is?”
Amber smiled. “I’d be happy to.” She turned to Mitch, and her smile fell away. “See you later.”
She regretted her choice of parting words a moment later when, as she accompanied Connie toward the hotel entrance, she heard Mitch murmur, “Count on it.”
Mitch watched Amber depart with the blonde. She was gorgeous as hell, and normally, he would have felt a stirring of lust at the sight of her shapely, toned ass moving away from him. But right then, all he felt was frustrated fury at having to let Amber go.
“I could still take her,” he said. It wouldn’t be difficult. He could run over, grab her, and carry her back to his car. He was parked close by. Any witnesses would think it was a Dead Days prank of some kind, and by the time they realized otherwise, he would be gone. If Amber gave him any trouble, a good crack on the jaw would settle her down. Same for the blonde. If she tried to interfere, he would hit her, too, although it would be a damn shame to mark that beautiful face.
“Be patient. You’ll have another chance.”
The two women had almost reached the hotel entrance. If he was going to make an attempt to grab Amber, it would have to be now.
“What if I don’t want to wait?”
A couple walking gave him an odd look, but he ignored them. Let them think he was talking to himself. He had killed a man that day, and he could kill them, too, if he wanted. He could kill anybody. He was officially a badass now, and he held the power of life and death in his hands.
“Death? You think you understand death?”
Darkness rushed in to surround him. It was cold, far colder than anything he had ever experienced before. It was a cold that came equally from without and within, and it gnawed at both his flesh and his spirit with ice-needle teeth. Pain suffused his entire being, so intense that he forgot about anything else. His name, even his very identity, was lost, obliterated by agony. He opened his mouth and tried to scream, but nothing emerged. The darkness that had claimed him muffled all sound, denying him even the meager release that screaming could provide. He tried to weep, but he felt darkness press against his eyes, arctic cold sealing his tear ducts shut, the cold so intense that it felt as if his eyes had been seared by an open flame.
He couldn’t cry, couldn’t scream, couldn’t think . . . all he knew was darkness, cold, and pain.
“Hey, are you all right? Do you need help?”
He was looking at a smooth grayish-white surface only inches from his face. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was or even who he was. But then he realized he was looking at a section of sidewalk, and he understood that he had fallen to his hands and knees. The sidewalk wasn’t in front of him; it was beneath him. He glanced up at the person who had spoken to him, a teenage kid dressed in a black robe, white-and-black skull makeup on his face.
Irony’s a bitch, he thought.
“I’m all right.” He rose to his feet, shaky but steady enough. He forced himself to smile at the would-be Samaritan. “Guess I had a little too much fun last night, you know?”
The kid—he couldn’t have been more than eighteen—backed off a step, and Mitch wondered what he saw in his smile that made him want to retreat.
“Yeah. OK. No problem.” The not-so-grim reaper turned and hurried off toward the hotel entrance. He didn’t look back.
“Be patient,” the Dark Lady whispered.
This time, Mitch kept his mouth shut.
Drew checked his watch. There was only fifteen minutes left in Trevor and Carrington’s joint book signing. After that, they were scheduled to make their presentation on the Lowry House. He had gone around the hotel several times looking for Amber, but he hadn’t found her. He had tried calling and texting her but without any response. Sometimes she forgot to turn her cell on, and he hoped that was the case this time. But he was afraid that she had been so upset by Connie’s unexpected arrival that she didn’t want to talk with him. They didn’t have a room in the hotel for her to go to, and since Trevor had driven them there, he doubted she had left the building. Unless she had called a cab. Would she have done that? Was she upset enough to direct the driver to take her back to the bed-and-breakfast, where she would pack up, get into her car, and head back to Ohio? While Amber’s self-confidence had grown over the last couple of months, it was still a fragile thing, and dreaming about Tonya’s murder—then having that dream come true—was enough to make anyone feel emotionally unsettled. And then to have Connie appear and begin playing mind games with her . . .
He felt like such an idiot. He’d had no idea that Connie had any romantic interest in him, although in retrospect, it made sense. Her coldness toward him both professionally and personally was a classic sign of denial, an attempt to mask emotions that made her feel uncomfortable. He supposed that on some level, he should be flattered, but he wasn’t. He was angry at Connie for her impulsive decision to attend the conference in some misguided attempt to get closer to him. Not because it complicated his life—although it did, immeasurably—but because it hurt Amber. While his search for her hadn’t been successful, at least he hadn’t seen Connie, either. If he was lucky, she had realized that her plan had backfired, and she had chosen to leave the conference and go back to Chicago. They would have to sit down and talk when he returned to work on Monday, but at least for the rest of the weekend, he could—
His thoughts came to a screeching halt as he saw Amber approach the book-signing table, Connie at her side—and they were both smiling.
Trevor and Carrington still had fans waiting in line for them to sign books. Trevor paused while signing as he noticed Connie approach, and he gave Drew a questioning look, as if to say, Where did Amber find her?
“Hey, there, sweetie,” Amber said as they drew near. She stopped and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You ready to give our presentation?”
“Amber was telling me all about it,” Connie said. “Do you mind if I sit in and listen?” When Drew hesitated, she smiled. “No need to be anxious. Don’t think of me as your boss this weekend. Just think of me as”—her smile widened—“an old friend.”
He glanced at Amber to see what she thought, and she gave him a smile and nodded.
“Sure,” he said, bewildered. “Why not?”
“. . . and in the end, we were left with a single, perhaps ultimately unanswerable question. Do we choose evil, or does it ch
oose us?”
The screen behind the panel table displayed two photos side-by-side: teenage Trevor, Drew, and Amber standing in front of the Lowry House and a high-school yearbook picture of a smiling Greg Daniels.
Drew put his hand over the microphone in front of him and whispered, “I didn’t know you were a philosopher.”
“Don’t tease,” Amber said to Drew. She sat between her two friends, and she leaned over to Trevor and softly said, “I like the way you ended. Very dramatic—and a nice tribute to Greg.”
“Thanks.”
Trevor allowed the images to linger for a moment before running his finger across the screen of his laptop and ending the PowerPoint presentation. The audience applauded, and the conference worker who had been assigned to help with the presentations turned on the lights in the back of the room.
The presentation room was one of the smaller ones in the hotel, but all of the seats were filled, and several people stood in the back. Carrington and Erin sat in the front row, alongside Jenn and Connie. Trevor hadn’t had a chance to do more than say hi to Drew’s boss before the presentation began, but he was looking forward to talking with her afterward. Drew had made her sound like a dragon lady, cold and dictatorial. Maybe she was, but Trevor didn’t care. She was perhaps the single most beautiful woman he had ever met, and he found the contrast between her physical appearance and her personality fascinating. Not that he was hoping to start anything with her. Not only was she way out of his league, but returning to Exeter and seeing Jenn again had stirred up old feelings for her—feelings that had been a lot closer to the surface than he had realized.
Before this session had begun, he had told Jenn that he would understand if she wanted to skip it. Listening to a talk about ghosts and death might be emotionally difficult for her right then. But she had told him she would be all right, and true to her word, she looked OK.
He had been surprised that Carrington and Erin had attended the presentation. Trevor figured Carrington would rather have headed straight for the hotel bar after their joint book signing was over, and since the incident with the Lowry House had no connection to Exeter, Trevor couldn’t see that the session had any bearing on Erin’s documentary. But Erin had urged Carrington to attend with her. Maybe she was using the presentation as an excuse to babysit him. Or maybe she really was interested in learning about what Drew, Amber, and he had been through. But Erin struck him as an eye-on-the-prize kind of person, one who didn’t do anything without a specific purpose in mind. He wondered what it might be. Whatever it was, he doubted he would like it.
“Thank you very much,” Trevor said as the applause began to die down. “We’ll take questions now.”
Hands went up, more than he expected. A good sign. If people responded enthusiastically today, it boded well for the book’s eventual release. He scanned the audience—a mix of scholars, academics, and costumed enthusiasts—and chose a person at random. He pointed to a middle-aged man with a bushy walrus mustache. He wore a rumpled gray suit, no tie, running shoes, and a black ball cap with the words “Miskatonic University” on it. The hat was a nice touch, Trevor thought, if maybe a bit too cute.
The man rose to his feet and spoke. “You spin a fascinating story, Mr. Ward, but you must admit, it strains credulity. The experiences you relate are almost entirely subjective and therefore impossible to substantiate. One might almost accuse you of fabricating the whole thing.”
Trevor tried to keep his tone civil. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Brian Pratt.” He said it with a small smile, as if he expected Trevor to recognize it.
Trevor did. Amber must have noticed the recognition on his face, for she whispered into his ear. “Who’s that?”
“He’s a professional skeptic whose specialty is debunking what he sees as bogus paranormal experiences.” Trevor had read all of the man’s books, and while he could be derisive toward those whom he viewed as either gullible fools or manipulative hoaxers, in general, Trevor found the man’s approach to the paranormal to be rational and scientific. He hadn’t seen Pratt listed as one of Esotericon’s presenters, but he wasn’t surprised. Pratt had a reputation for guerrilla confrontations, showing up unannounced so the targets of his skeptical inquiry wouldn’t have time to prepare to counter his verbal assault on them. It was his favorite tactic, as he had related in his books on numerous occasions.
Carrington must have recognized Pratt, too, for he turned in his seat and shot the man a venomous glare. Pratt acknowledged Carrington with a smile and a nod.
Before Trevor could respond to Pratt’s accusation, Amber stood up. “Trevor wouldn’t lie—he’s a professional journalist!”
“He wouldn’t be the first so-called professional who made up a story for profit,” Pratt said.
There were more than a few murmurs of agreement from the audience. Trevor was surprised, but he knew he shouldn’t have been. Their experience at the Lowry House had been unbelievable. Hell, he had lived through it, and even he had a hard time believing some of it.
“But I was there!” Amber said. “So was Drew. We can verify everything Trevor says.” She gestured to Drew. “He’s a respected psychologist. Do you think he’d be here, speaking in public about all this, if it wasn’t true?”
Up to this point in the presentation, Trevor had done the bulk of the speaking, although Amber and Drew had interjected points here and there. But now the audience turned its full attention to Drew, and Trevor wondered what he would say—especially with his boss sitting in the front row. Trevor wasn’t worried that he would deny the events they had experienced. Drew was an honest man, and besides, he would never betray a friend like that. But Trevor feared he might soft-pedal what had happened, make the events seem less extreme and more open to interpretation.
Drew motioned for Amber to sit, and she did so, looking a trifle embarrassed at her outburst.
“The three of us are fully aware of how unbelievable our claims sound, and we grant that most of our evidence is subjective at best. But it’s all true, every word. All we can do is tell people our story and let them react however they will.”
“Even at the cost of your professional credibility?” Pratt asked.
Trevor glanced at Connie, but her face remained expressionless.
“Yes,” Drew said.
Trevor had never loved the man more than he did at that moment. He smiled.
“Anyone else have questions?” he asked.
Pratt asked nothing more, and he left as soon as the Q&A session was over. Trevor was grateful. The last thing he wanted to do was get into a heated conversation with the man. But a number of other people did want to talk afterward, so Trevor, Amber, and Drew came out from behind the table and walked into the midst of the remaining audience to answer questions personally. Members of a local ghost-hunting group asked Trevor for tips on how to publish a book about the cases they had investigated. While he answered their questions, he eavesdropped on Amber’s and Drew’s conversations. Amber was talking with an elderly woman who claimed that the spirit of her dead twin sister visited her at night to chat, which was OK, except that she kept the woman up all night, and she was always exhausted. Drew was listening to a well-dressed, portly man in his thirties who was prematurely bald. The man was intently telling Drew his theories for conducting therapy sessions for earthbound spirits in order to help them deal with whatever unresolved emotional issues were keeping them from moving on to the next plane of existence.
Carrington and Erin stood off to the side away from the crowd, talking quietly, with almost a conspiratorial air, and Trevor wondered what they were up to. Erin’s cell phone rang, and she broke off her conversation with Carrington to answer it. She listened for a moment and then shouted, “No fucking way!”
When everyone in the room turned to look at her, she disconnected and placed another call. Carrington looked at her questioningly, but she ignored him as she waited for whomever she was calling to answer.
�
�Do you have an agent?”
Trevor had forgotten all about the local ghost hunters. He gave them one of his cards, told them to e-mail him with any more questions they had, and excused himself. Jenn was still sitting in the front row, chatting with Connie. The woman sure seemed friendlier than Drew had made her out to be. Maybe she was one of those people who were more casual and relaxed when they weren’t at work. He figured this would be a good time to go over and introduce himself to her—but he would have to make sure not to look too interested in her, since Jenn was there. But as he started to walk over, Erin finished her latest call, disconnected, and came rushing over, Carrington in tow. Excitement rolled off of her in waves, and Trevor knew something big was up.
“I just called my film crew and told them to get their asses over to the museum,” she said.
“Let me guess,” he said. “There’s been another death.”
Her excitement ebbed a bit. “Two, actually. How did you know?”
Trevor glanced at Drew and Amber and smiled grimly. “We’ve traveled down this road before.”
SEVEN
“I don’t see why you felt the need to invite them along. I’m perfectly capable of investigating the scene all by myself, you know. After all, I’ve been at this game longer than those three have been alive.”
Carrington stared out the passenger window of Erin’s Beetle. Actually, sulked was more like it, she thought. He could be such a prima donna sometimes.
“Having other investigators along will create a stronger sense of place,” she said. “Dead Days and Esotericon are both going on right now. It’s the busiest time of the year for Exeter, and the place is crawling with professional and amateur paranormal investigators. Besides that, I’m going for an elder-statesman kind of thing here. You’re the seasoned investigator mentoring the next generation, that kind of thing.” These were all lies, of course, created on the spot, but she had to admit that her faux reasons for asking Drew, Amber, and Trevor to accompany them sounded good.