Janice was on top of Derek.
“My God,” he whispered. “She’s tearing him apart.”
He knew that he and Owen would be next if they didn’t run now.
“Owen, get out of here!” he shouted, pulling at the other man.
He had seen so much in his years as a cop—so much gore and horror. But nothing would be imprinted in his mind more clearly than the picture of Janice Lors digging her hands into Derek’s flesh, ripping at it. Clutching at his stomach, Bryan slid into his car and started the engine.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Owen said softly, watching the house. “I don’t understand why Liza had to die. Why did Derek kill her? Who was that woman in there?”
“That house,” Bryan answered vaguely. “It was that house. It ought to be burned to the ground.”
Angrily he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal and sped into town—into the peaceful town of Belle Bay.
28
“Gary, I’m not going back to that house,” Melanie said.
She sat with her husband on a couch in a hotel room, her head on his shoulder. They had been here two days, ever since the hospital checked them over and released them. Gary had been released at the same time and had found a place to hide from reporters just a few miles out of town. It was a small room, with only one king-sized bed, where Kyle and Nancy now slept away their fears. Gina was sitting in a chair, listlessly flipping through a magazine.
“Of course we won’t,” Gary answered, kissing his wife.
She looked at him in disbelief.
“You aren’t going to argue with me?”
“No,” Gary said. “We should have left that house seven months ago. We should have known this would happen again.”
He squeezed her tightly. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Melanie,” he said quietly.
“Lydia Browning tried to warn us,” Melanie said. “Perhaps it was to make up for all the wrongs Jacob committed out of love for her.”
She waved her hand. “But we’re safe now—that’s the important thing.”
Gina stood up now and walked to them, putting her arms around Gary’s shoulders.
“Daddy?” she asked. “Where are we going to go?”
“I was thinking of staying with your grandparents a few months,” Gary said. “Would you like that?”
Gina nodded.
“That’s a wonderful idea, Gary,” Melanie said. “My parents have plenty of room.”
“Are we going to leave the furniture?” Gina asked. “And all our nice things?”
“No, honey,” Gary said.
“We can’t go back to get them!” Melanie cried.
“I’ll call a moving van once we’re at your parents’ place,” Gary said. “We never have to set foot on that property again.”
“Thank God,” Melanie said. She looked at Gina. “Honey, it’s late. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”
“I can’t sleep,” she said, shuffling her feet on the rug.
Melanie stood up and put her arms around the child. As she stroked her hair, she asked, “You aren’t thinking of what happened at the house, are you? You shouldn’t. None of it was our fault.”
“Janice said you killed her,” Gina said softly.
“Gina—” Gary cautioned.
“No, Gary,” Melanie said. “She’s old enough to hear the truth. Gina, I did kill Janice. But it was blocked from my mind until a few days ago. I believed Jacob Armand had done it.”
“That’s why she came back to haunt us?” Gina asked. “It was your fault?”
“Gina, please,” Melanie said. “Janice had tried to hurt Kyle, and she had led you into Jacob’s trap. I had to defend you—so I hit her across the back of her head with a gun. I didn’t mean to kill her. I only wanted to save my children.”
She had begun to cry. Now Gina was crying, pressing her head into Melanie’s heaving breast Her mother held her tightly. Gary, feeling helpless, reached for his crutches and got to his feet. Melanie and Gina moved closer to him.
“Go ahead and cry,” he said. “It’ll make you feel better. But don’t worry. We’re going to get as far away from that house as possible.”
He looked at the two children sleeping in the bed.
“No one will ever hurt you again,” he vowed.
“Wh-what about Alicen?” Gina blubbered.
“Alicen?”
“She must be so lonely in that old hospital,” Gina said. “It wasn’t her fault this happened. Janice made her do those awful things. And now she doesn’t have a father or a mother.”
“She’s right, Gary,” Melanie said. “We can’t just leave that child.”
Gary nodded. “I’m a lawyer. I know who to ask about taking care of her.”
He kissed each of them.
“Alicen can come with us,” he said. “And then, I swear to you, we’ll never be afraid again.”
* * *
Owen tugged at his mustache and stared at the carved double doors of the big white mansion. God, he thought, how could any place so beautiful hold so much evil? From talking to Bryan Davis, he knew now that his sister had been murdered by a ghost and that the ghost had also murdered Derek Miller.
But who would believe it? How could he tell his parents, who lived so peacefully in their Florida condominium, that their precious daughter had been murdered by a ghost?
“You don’t have to tell them anything like that,” Bryan had said as they sat together in the police station that morning. “We have a likely suspect. The man you first accused—Derek Miller.”
“But he’s innocent,” Owen said.
“And dead,” Bryan answered. “He can’t defend himself. And who’s going to defend him? A thirteen-year-old kid? Alicen’s going to be in a hospital for a long time, and by the time she gets well, she won’t remember any of this.”
“Poor kid,” Owen said. “But tell me about her father.”
“Derek Miller had no family except for his daughter,” Bryan said. “And only one close friend—a doctor named Mary Norton. I’ve already told her Derek was going slowly mad over the death of his wife Elaine, and she accepted that theory.”
He lifted a pencil and bounced it a few times.
“Besides, I like the VanBurens,” he said. “If we accuse Janice, they’ll have all sorts of nuts bothering them the rest of their lives. But if we don’t accuse someone, the blame will lie on them. And I don’t want to see that happen.”
God only knew the VanBurens had suffered enough. Bryan should have seen it coming when Gina was involved in that bus accident. The driver had been Janice Lors. She had taken little Alicen Miller into her power and had sent her to the police station with a story about the driver jumping from the bus. That mystery was now solved, too. Bryan would worry about what he’d say in his report later.
“Neither do I,” Owen said, standing. “You go ahead and tell the papers it was Derek who killed my sister. But I won’t rest until the real murderer gets what’s coming to her.”
“Stay away from that house,” Bryan cautioned. “If I find you there, I’ll have you arrested. That place is deadly.”
Owen stared at him, considering the threat.
“All right,” he said at last. ‘There’s nothing I can do to a ghost anyway, is there?”
Yet now he was walking around the house to the back door, barricaded only by yellow tape that read: POLICE AREA DO NOT CROSS. Owen climbed over it.
Pending an investigation into Liza and Derek’s deaths, the house had been left exactly the way it was two days ago. Chairs were overturned, paintings knocked from the walls, the glass windows in the living room were shattered. Absently, Owen bent down and righted the rocking chair, setting it near the fireplace. He looked around in awe at the beauty of the room, with its plush sofa and antique furniture. And then he felt a touch on his arm.
“I knew you’d be back,” a voice said. Owen turned and saw the woman named Janice smiling at him. “I noticed you alone among all those othe
r people here the day I killed Derek. I knew I wanted you.”
Stunned, Owen said nothing. Her eyes were powerful, holding him fast.
“I thought I wanted Derek,” Janice said, moving closer to him. “But he betrayed me. He let those murderers escape.”
She turned to stare through filmy eyes at the fireplace. “But I will have my revenge one day.”
Owen found his tongue and was surprised to hear himself speaking to her as if she were simply one of his patients.
“Why do you want revenge so badly?” he asked. “So far as I know, Melanie was only defending her child. Jacob Armand had turned you into a madwoman. What was she supposed to do?”
“She had no right to kill me!” Janice snapped. “I was only twenty-eight. I was beautiful.”
She leaned forward to kiss Owen, but he backed away.
“Don’t do that,” he said, feeling weak. What was it about her eyes?
“I want you, Owen Crewe,” Janice whispered.
Calling himself a fool for coming here, Owen tried to turn and run away. But he couldn’t feel his legs.
Janice pulled him down to the floor. “Make love to me, Owen,” she whispered passionately.
“Let me go,” Owen said, feeling powerless as a baby. This was happening too fast.
“I waited for Derek,” Janice said, “because I needed him for something. That was a mistake—I lost him. But I won’t lose you, my handsome Owen. I want you.”
Her lips pressed his, her tongue pried them open. Suddenly Owen found his strength and tried to knock her away. She sat up and slapped him, hard, again and again. Her face changed then, bloated and turned green, and became Liza’s face. Blood dripped onto Owen.
“No!”
“I want you with me, brother,” Janice teased, in Liza’s voice. “I’m so alone without you. Oh, so alone! Die, big brother!”
Owen closed his eyes and felt his heart jump. When he opened them again, there was nothing above him but stars and blackness.
EPILOGUE
When the moving company came Monday morning, they found Owen’s body on the living room sofa. His arms were folded across his chest, his hair neatly in place. The effect was like a wake, but Bryan Davis insisted the death certificate should read heart attack. The coroner accepted a sum of money and obliged. Who was Owen Crewe to him?
Though she didn’t know him, Melanie cried when she read the obituary. She was sitting on the porch of her parents’ house, with Gary at her side and the children sitting nearby. They kept close to her these days. Nancy stood up from the game she was playing with Kyle and came to put her head on Melanie’s lap.
“Mommy, why do we all cry so much?”
“Because many sad things have happened to us,” Melanie said, gently rubbing the child’s back. It was a hot day, and Nancy’s sunsuit was soaked with perspiration.
“I don’t want to be sad any more,” Nancy said. “Daddy promised we wouldn’t be sad—didn’t you, daddy?”
“I did,” Gary said. “Melanie, what are you reading there?” Melanie showed him the paper. “Don’t think about it,” Gary said. “You didn’t even know the guy.”
She leaned across the wicker sofa and kissed him. In spite of all that had happened, she still had her career, didn’t she? And her beautiful family. Nothing bad could happen to them again. Not if they stayed away from that hateful, evil house.
Still, the next day, she couldn’t help driving back to it for one last look. She didn’t cry to see the high white towers and bay windows, nor the porch and bay windows. She felt a loss, of course, but also a joy that the terror was at last over. She would have sat there, near the car, looking at it for hours, remembering the good times they had had—and there had been many in spite of everything—if a sight in the upstairs window hadn’t broken her spell. She saw two blond people. Melanie could barely make out the mustache on one. Was that Owen?
“My God,” she said. “The papers were wrong. He didn’t die of a heart attack—she killed him!”
She saw Janice pointing at her. Before those eyes could take her into their evil power, Melanie turned and ran to her car. It carried her at top speed to the highway, to safety. By the time she reached the main street of Belle Bay, she had forced herself to calm down. She had escaped. And it was over.
Her only worry now would be her career, and nothing else.
There didn’t need to be any other worries, for Janice no longer wanted revenge. She had found something in Owen Crewe that satisfied her. He had become her total slave, easily forced into submission by the sight of his sister’s face.
No one ever came back to the house after that, except for a crew to block the door and put up a condemned sign. Gary had wanted the place torn down but was told it would be too expensive. So now the house sat regally upon the hill, rotting and lonely. Winters passed and tore at the shuttered windows, summers made the white paint crack and peel. And as the house grew uglier, legends by the townspeople grew around it.
They called it the Ghost House. And sometimes, if the wind was blowing just right and imaginations were tense, people would swear they could hear the laughter of two people sounding from behind its ancient, dilapidated façade.
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