A Haunting Affair

by Ursula Bauer

Instead of the excitement she expected from him, Sam closed down.

  “What are you driving at?” he asked suspiciously.

  For a cop who was normally quick, Sam wasn’t catching on. “Keith is the change factor. He’s here, Sam. There’s no other explanation for why I can tap into the energy with such ease. I don’t get this boost when I’m off the grounds of the lodge. He took his force of will and his passion to the other side, and broke a hole through the veil.”

  When he remained silent, it was her turn at suspicion. “You aren’t surprised?”

  He shrugged noncommittally. “I didn’t think he was behind the sudden amp up in activity, or your strong connection. But I had a feeling he was hanging around.”

  She shouldn’t be angry. She rapidly reviewed what he’d told her last night when she asked about Keith haunting the lodge. Technically he wasn’t lying to her, but he’d been holding out. “Were you planning to share this with me anytime?”

  “If it became important, yes.” His jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed. A man ready for a fight. A man afraid.

  “Anything else you’ve been holding back? If there is, now’s a good time to spill.”

  They faced off in stony silence, each waiting for the other to break. Emma didn’t understand what the big deal was, but for some reason Sam didn’t want to admit to knowing Keith was around. He admitted knowing the lodge was haunted. Did seeing or knowing a dead friend’s spirit was close at hand freak him out too much? The idea was silly to her, but to a man as grounded in day to day reality as Sam, maybe it was a huge problem. One more major difference between them.

  “Emma, listen,” Sam started to say, but the lights flickered and then cut out completely, plunging them into black. “Give it a sec, it should come back on.”

  As predicted the electricity fired up, but the force blew the bulbs in two of the wall sconces and the overhead ceiling fan. At the same time, Sam’s Blackberry rang. “Hold on a sec. It’s the house alarm. I had the guys set up a relay today while we were out.”

  He glanced at the device. “Damn thing overloaded and shut down with the power surge. I was afraid of that. The electrician told me there were random power draws and shorts, as well as atypical power surges. He thinks the whole lodge needs a rewire. I should have had them set up a separate line and power source, but I wanted to make sure we’d have something on line tonight.”

  Emma was too tired to fight. Too frazzled to worry about the burned out alarm. Storms, spirits, Sam, she’d had her fill. A good night’s sleep would improve everything. “I’m going to bed,” she announced and made for the door.

  “Wait.” Sam grabbed her arm when she passed. “You’re right. I should have come clean.”

  His firm touch sparked up the slow burn that had been building all day and night in his presence. Her senses went wild. She hated being close to him this way. Emma put her hand on his broad chest, stifled the urge to let it roam, and instead pushed back lightly. “You brought me here. You might want to trust me. I’m not a con anymore.”

  Sam didn’t release her. He grabbed her other arm and pulled her close. Slanted a piercing gaze at her. Made her want to be held forever, even though she was spitting mad at the same time. “I’m trying to do the right thing. It’s hard when you don’t know what that is. I’m in unfamiliar territory.”

  The moment spun out between them as tension and desire escalated. Her heart hammered against her rib cage. He must have heard it. Did he see what he was doing to her? Did he care? She drew an unsteady breath and locked eyes with him. “We’re both out of our element.”

  The smile he flashed was boyish and at odds with the predator lurking in his eyes. “Do you forgive me?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “I do.”

  “Prove it. Tell me what’s really going on.” That would do the trick. If he told her, then he was worth her time and bother. If he held back, or worse, lied, she’d do the job she came to do, but other than that, write him off. She didn’t have time for players. “Tell me what you’re holding back.”

  “Keith isn’t haunting the lodge, Emma.” Sam’s wide chest rose enticingly as he took a deep breath. “He’s haunting me.

  Chapter Five

  Sam held Emma close, waiting for her reaction. His fear surprised him. He expected some kind of derision or disbelief. Even from a psychic. He knew he sounded crazy and overly dramatic. It was why he never mentioned it out loud. But she’d forced his hand. Do you trust me? He didn’t have a choice. Not in this matter. How far would that trust stretch?

  Enough to get this matter put to bed, maybe. Her body heat warmed him to his core as her scent wrapped him in a heightened state of awareness. Could that trust go far enough to sustain a kiss? Far enough to sustain casual sex, yes, but anything more?

  Having her right on top of him all day and all night long had wrecked his self control as well as his ability to think in a straight line. He was rapidly approaching what he considered barking at the moon mad status.

  She looked up at him, her dark eyes free of judgment. “How is the haunting manifesting?”

  Couldn’t she take his word for it? Why the need for details. Sam let her go. Ran his hand through his hair and let out the breath he’d been holding. Tried to stop wanting her the way he did, while he attempted to sort out all the insanity running free in his head. It wasn’t an easy task. Between the raw burn of desire for Emma, and the fear he was finally going nuts, he was walking the wrong side of a razor’s edge.

  “I see him in dreams. Before this I never dreamed. Now every night, there he is, looking at me the way he did the day I told him I was leaving programming to join the police force.”

  “I take it that conversation didn’t go well.”

  “We got over it, but at the time, no. We wound up brawling. Then getting drunk together.” He sat back down in the leather wing chair and stared off into the darkness of the multi-paned windows. “In the dream, it’s Keith mad as hell. Like I let him down. Screwed up.”

  “You didn’t.” She started to say more but he cut her off. It was time for some truth to come out.

  “I failed him, Emma. From time to time he’d asked me to look at a piece of the case, but I never pushed to come up and give it my full attention. I was too involved in Lost and Found. I never expected the company to expand the way it did, but it was my vindication. My own private way to make a police force that would accept me, to make up for the job I’d loved and lost.”

  Hearing the words aloud, the ones he’d only thought in his darkest moments, echoed a loud judgment he had no chance of escaping. “I’m the guy who never screws up. I’m the guy who always does the right thing. Except for the one guy that mattered most to me. I let him down and now he’s dead and the best I can do won’t ever be good enough.”

  “So he haunts you to remind you?”

  “To keep me honest. To keep me on track. I waited months before I brought you in, even when I knew you were next on his list to involve.”

  “What made you do it, Sam? If he’d haunted you for so long, why did you finally break down and do something you didn’t want to do?”

  “I knew I had no chance in hell of solving this myself. The dreams were making me crazy. I thought I was going insane. So I talked to Eric. You were more than a psychic. And the house.” He looked up and around the room, waved an arm to indicate the enormity of the estate. “The incidents of weird things going bump and shuffle in the night were increasing. I knew it was time to take care of business once and for all.”

  Sam left out the part about wanting her more for her bunko detection skills than her psychic talents. Keith wanted her for the psychic part, and practical Sam saw value in her other talents. He’d justified bringing her in by balancing practical against what he thought crazy. Seeing her psychic ability with his own eyes was winning him over to her ways. He told himself his desire to believe in her had nothing to do with his desire to take her to bed. “That’s why Keith is on my case and will
be until we wrap this up. And I can’t get anything done with Lost and Found until I do. My life is on hold.”

  That was the understatement of the year. His life had been on hold since he’d shot his former partner, Angela, but prior to Keith’s death, this was supposed to be his year. The year he put it all behind him. Took his investigation and security company to the next level, opened the training facility, handed over day-to-day operations management, and began to live again. That had been the plan. Once free of most of the obligations, he could work on fixing his heart and finding a good woman, and starting a family of his own. Part of that had worked out. A general manager was filling in short term to run operations, but only to free him up to hunt phantoms here at Holloway Lodge.

  “Have you tried communicating with Keith? Asking the spirit to give you a break?”

  “There’s no point. The break comes when we figure this out once and for all.”

  Emma came to him, and put a delicate hand on his shoulder in a show of what? Solidarity? Affection? Pity? Fire raced through him from the touch. He shut his eyes for a moment, willing himself under control.

  “Sam, I can’t begin to imagine what you’re dealing with right now. And I think anything I say isn’t going to be received. But for what it is worth, you did not fail. And you won’t fail. We won’t fail.”

  He turned his face to hers. The dim lighting gave her a haunting look, as if she’d appeared out of a fairy’s mist and if he moved too suddenly, she’d vanish. His pulse quickened with need. He couldn’t recall wanting a woman more than he wanted Emma right now. He knew he could lose himself in her. In passion.

  He knew the steps to take, the words to say, and he guessed he might know the right places to touch. He knew she was receptive to him. For one night he could escape the madness in the arms of a beautiful, willing woman and remember what it meant to be a sane, rational, man of flesh and blood. But that night wasn’t tonight. He owed her better than to use her the way an addict used a drug. “Go to bed Emma. I’ll clean up down here. We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

  Her expression was too sheltered for him to read. Wordlessly, she left him to his own neurosis. For a few minutes he cursed himself, wondering when he’d turned into such a blithering idiot. He hoped nothing he said would make it into her book. He’d have to tell her that in the morning. She’d be pissed, but he needed to reset the boundaries. Except what would he do tonight, when the only boundary separating him from the woman he dreamed of more than the ghost haunting him was a single door away?

  A strange chill worked into his bones. Sam had the sense of being watched, but he was alone. Very alone. He shook off the stupid notion, at the same time trying to shut out thoughts of Emma. Sleep was a joke right now. He turned back to the mountain of information. It wasn’t exactly comfort, but work offered the usual balm of shutting out his darker thoughts.

  ~ * * * ~

  Emma left Sam when she wanted to stay and offer comfort and a whole list of other things she didn’t want to dwell on. She wanted to tell him to stop beating himself up, but she didn’t think he would listen. Not now, and not to her. Sam was a man of action and facts. If they managed a more substantial break in the case that might help him move forward. She detoured in the main hall for the kitchen, deciding to take some ice water up to bed. The lodge, despite the torrential rain, was dry inside and she was parched.

  So far all they had was her belief that Jen haunted the place for vengeance, that Brad Heath the caretaker was most likely dead, that there was a dispute over the number of liquor bottles consumed and found the night Jen died, and that Sam was haunted in his dreams by Keith. Since Keith had yet to manifest, Sam’s dream could be an outgrowth of guilt. Emma wasn’t about to take up that delicate argument with him. He was torn over the entire issue and already thought he was half crazy. Her suggestion might come off as a confirmation for Sam and that would only throw gasoline on the flames.

  She switched on the kitchen lights, and the modern room lit briefly, then went dark. Cursing, she flicked the switch a few times, and the lights finally caught. She grabbed a large cup and ice and filled it from the tap. Outside, rain fell in sheets. The contrast of temperatures caused the window to partially fog. Even though it was dark, Emma reached out and wiped off the condensation. The window was frigid to her touch, and no sooner had she wiped it clear, than the moisture built back up.

  She nudged the faucet lever and cut the water, then with her free hand reached out to the window again. As she touched the glass pane the lights flickered with manic determination. The window fogged completely, and a face appeared. Emma froze. Her brain clicked into gear as her heart hammered in her chest. The condensate vanished and the face came in clear. Jen. Mouth moving in silent speech.

  Emma laid her hand flush against the glass. She opened her senses but nothing came through clear. Whispers mostly. Hushed. Frantic. Worried. What was she saying?

  Water ran off the window soaking her sleeve and chilling her skin.

  Words formed in her head, linked together in rapid fire speech that garbled the intent. She pressed harder. The lights flickered faster. The kitchen looked surreal, a scene from a bad horror film. Emma closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. Her heart calmed. Sensation flowed through her every nerve. There was a pop, and then the barrier broke.

  “RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN.”

  The screaming voice in her head shattered her concentration. Emma pulled away, and the lights cut out. A frigid breeze blew by her. Cold water saturated her skin. She spun around in fear, overly conscious of being watched. Across the island the dark shape of a man stood in shadows. Malevolence radiated through the room. Her throat constricted. She tried to scream. The pots on the overhead rack rattled dangerously.

  Emma backed up against the counter, struggling for breath. She was going down. Down deep. Somewhere dark and horrible and she couldn’t breathe. She was vaguely aware of dropping her glass as her vision dimmed. The shadowy figure advanced. Emma reached for her neck, trying to find what locked her up, but nothing was there.

  “RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN.”

  The cry reverberated in her skull, propelling her into action. For a fraction of a second the hold on her released and she sprang forward. At the same time the pot rack broke free of its moorings and came crashing down. She dodged it by a hair, but slipped on the water and broken glass. As she went down she used her last free breath to release an earth shattering scream. Then the blackness claimed her.

  Chapter Six

  Even with Emma gone, Sam couldn’t focus. His brain jumped too fast to read for long stretches, so instead he studied the interior house photos taken the night Jen died. There was the single empty brandy bottle, clear as day. But it wasn’t the only thing he noticed this time. Mike had said he’d spilled Jen’s water bottle. Sam remembered her habits from social gatherings, she always had a Pellegrino bottle nearby and would pour the contents into a wine glass. If she was drinking Pellegrino, where was the glass?

  He looked closer, searched them all and came up empty. There was nothing in the pictures of the great room that supported Jen drinking her signature mineral water. In fact, the number of glasses also came up short. No bottle. No glass.

  He ran his hand through his hair and stalked away from the whiteboard. How had no one noticed this before? It was a huge gap. Five people, only four glasses, and those were brandy snifters. Not a wine glass in sight. Maybe Mike had not only spilled but broken the glass? Still, there’d be the Pellegrino bottle, and that wasn’t in any of the photos. Did it matter? Five people, one of them dead, one of them insisting they drank two bottles of brandy, yet only one bottle found on the scene. Details. It was always the details, especially the small ones, which broke a case wide open. Now all he had to do was figure out what they meant. If he found evidence, real evidence, he wouldn’t have to rely on Emma. He’d have something admissible in court.

  Sam was about to dig out the police report file again when a bree
ze blew by him and iced him to the bone. He glanced over his shoulder thinking maybe a window was open but they were all latched tight. A strange sensation tightened his gut. It was the cop’s sixth sense. If he were in a dark alley, he’d have his gun drawn. He set off at a brisk clip for the main hall and saw the flickering lights in the kitchen go dark. Then Emma’s scream split the silence.

  He ran to the darkened kitchen, hit the switch, and the lights came on full force. The room was a disaster. Pots and pans and the rack assembly were scattered. He found Emma on the other side of the island, unconscious on the floor. The window frame held jagged shards. Broken glass and water framed her, but she appeared to have no obvious cuts or bruises. His heart squeezed tight and his lungs locked up making it impossible to breathe. The fear that she might be dead struck him like an axe. He checked her pulse, called her name as he assessed for other injury. For some reason her clothes were soaking wet. On the third call of her name she roused.

  “The voice said to run,” she gasped out. “God, my head hurts. What happened?”

  Amnesia. A sure sign of head trauma. “I don’t know what happened.” His words came out angrier than he intended. Sam forced himself to be calm. “How do you feel?”

  “Like I took a swim.” She eased up on her elbows before he could stop her and looked down towards her toes. “I’m all wet. Guess I did take a swim. Help me up.”

  “I’m going to call an ambulance. Stay put. We don’t know how injured you are.”

  “No way am I riding in an ambulance because I took a spill.” She frowned and a worried look came into her eyes. “In fact, I know this sounds crazy, but I don’t think my head hit the floor. I blacked out before it happened. Something broke my fall.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  She rubbed the back of her head with her hand. “No pain. No bump. The evidence speaks for itself.”