by Leslie Kelly
When they got in the car and started driving back toward Seaton House, she remained quiet, peering out the window into the dark night, seeming to be enraptured by the lights going off one by one as Trouble rolled up its sidewalks for the night.
Reaching over, he put his hand on hers. “You okay?”
She said nothing for a second, then she turned in her seat. “No. I’m feeling like crap.”
Surprised, he just waited.
“I was jealous tonight.”
He knew better than to smile.
“Jealous of every woman who flirted with you or asked you to dance. I swear to God if that woman in the Aphrodite costume had asked you one more time if you could help her refasten her strap that kept accidentally popping open, I was going to find the nearest urn and really go Grecian on the bitch.”
Unable to help it, Simon started to laugh softly. He liked Lottie in this fierce mood and damned if he didn’t like her being jealous over him. Because it meant she felt something for him. Something beyond physical attraction.
A voice of reason quickly told him what. It’s protectiveness. She was worried about him, that was all. Other than sex, all they really had between them was her desire to nurture and an old murder case.
“I wasn’t even aware there were any other women in the room tonight,” he admitted, no longer laughing. “You were—and are—the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
She seemed a little mollified. As they reached the turnoff for the private mountain road leading up to Seaton House, she unfastened her seat belt and shifted around. Wriggling closer, she put her hand on his chest and her head on his shoulder. “You really think I’m beautiful? Because honestly, in this outfit, I realized I have the Santori women’s butt. I’m lucky I didn’t split a seam.”
His mood immediately lifted as it so often did when something outrageous and unexpected came out of her mouth. He began to smile. Sliding his arm behind her, he reached down to squeeze her ass. “This butt is amazing. Everything about you is amazing.”
She wriggled against his hand, her breaths audibly picking up their pace. Simon didn’t move his hand, especially when she pushed back against it. With a little shiver of excitement, she leaned closer, rising to her knees and parting her legs.
“Do you know how much I love touching you?” he asked.
“Do you know how much I love having your hands on me?”
Shifting in his seat as his body reacted to her hot breaths against his neck and the warmth dampening her clothes, he couldn’t resist touching her more. Stroking his fingers back and forth across her cleft, he listened to her desperate whimpers in his ear.
Shifting even more, she reached down, stroking his chest and his stomach, then moved her hand to his lap. “Oh, God,” she whispered, tracing the outline of his rock-hard cock through his pants. “I have to feel that.”
“We’ll be home soon,” he said, forcing the words out of his suddenly tight throat. He wanted nothing more than Lottie’s touch, but he feared he might drive off the mountain if he got it right now.
But she obviously didn’t want to hear that. Reaching for his waistband, she began to slowly unbutton the fly of the old-fashioned trousers. “Mmm, easy access. I don’t have to worry about catching anything on a zipper.”
“Lottie…” he said, shaking his head, not sure whether he really had the strength to resist if she persisted.
She persisted. Slowly tugging the dress shirt up and out of the way, she worked her hand into the opening of his briefs and encircled his cock. “I really like what you can do with this thing.”
Choking out a desperate laugh, he said, “I really like it, too, sweetheart, but I don’t particularly want to drive off the side of a mountain and be found with my dick hanging out of my pants.”
Laughing softly she continued touching, up and down, squeezing and stroking him to full, throbbing arousal. She soon had him almost shaking, and almost flooring the gas so they could get back to the house and have safe, wild sex—in the car if necessary.
When she lowered her head and replaced her hand with her mouth, he muttered a soft curse and clenched his hands around the steering wheel.
“Keep your eyes on the road, sweetheart,” she whispered, her lips brushing the head of his cock. Her tongue flicked out, wetting him, then she sucked him into her mouth.
He leaned back as far as he could in the seat, keeping his eyes on the road even though his mind was anywhere else. Lottie’s warm, wet mouth was like heaven and for a few moments he just gave himself over to sensation.
Though he knew he should keep both hands on the wheel, he couldn’t resist dropping one hand to her head, twining his fingers in that thick hair. She moved, up and down, taking as much of him as she could, then releasing him to press light kisses on the tip of his shaft, only to plunge down again.
Simon thought he would go out of his mind with the anticipation—and the sheer physical pleasure of it.
Seeing the sign for the parking lot entrance, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Both that they’d made it up the mountain alive and intact, and that within sixty seconds or so, he was going to be plunging into Lottie’s tight, wet body and finishing this right where he wanted to.
But as he pulled into the private driveway that led to the garage in the back of the house, something caught his attention. He would have sworn that absolutely nothing could distract him from what Lottie was making him feel. However the scene before his eyes was so startling, he sat upright and hit the brake. Hard.
Lottie must have thought he was stopping for another reason because she sucked harder, pumped faster. Cupping his balls in her hand, she carefully squeezed, as if wanting him to shoot off in her mouth.
He might have. If he weren’t so certain he’d finally lost his mind. And not just out of pleasure.
Because a few dozen yards away, near the spot where the wagon had gone over the cliffs, stood a woman. Her hair was blond—falling over her shoulders. A strange light was coming out from behind the large boulder where he and Lottie had taken refuge a few days ago during the carriage incident.
The light illuminated the figure and even though she was far away, he could make out the short red skirt she wore. And the white top. Only, it wasn’t completely white. Under the mysterious, glowing light, he could see splotches of red. Like paint splattered on a drop cloth.
“Or blood,” he whispered. Blood splashing onto a white blouse. “No. It can’t be.”
Lottie, still down below the dashboard, mumbled something that sounded like, “Don’t stop me.”
Looking down, he realized he was still hard, she was still blowing him, but he felt almost removed from the situation. He was in a daze, shocked by what he had seen.
A blonde in a bloody blouse and a red skirt.
It can’t be.
The impact finally hit him and he felt like someone coming out of unconsciousness. His body caught up with what his eyes had seen. Though Lottie had made him feel incredible, his body was no longer in control. His mind was.
She obviously noticed. She looked up, confusion on her face. “Simon? Is something wrong?”
Cupping her cheek, he tugged her up. “It’s fine,” he murmured, knowing it wasn’t fine. He wasn’t fine. Laughing almost desperately, he said, “I need you to look at something and tell me if I’m losing my mind or not.”
She didn’t make any sassy comeback about how good a look she was getting at something right there where she was. Instead, immediately sitting up, she stared in his eyes and gently asked, “What’s wrong? What is it?”
“I saw something,” he whispered, looking ahead again, out the windshield, though he knew what he would see.
Absolutely nothing.
“What did you see?” Following his stare, she swung her head around and looked toward the back lawn. “Was something there?”
Shaking his head slowly as the dull throbbing of a headache began to build in his temple, he murmured, “I don’t know. I honestly
don’t know.”
AN HOUR LATER, sitting in the office after chewing a couple of aspirin and washing them down with coffee, Simon stared into the fire roaring in the fireplace. Lottie had lit it while he’d been in the bedroom taking off his costume. Then she’d gone to undress, leaving him alone with his thoughts, not starting the conversation he knew they were about to have.
In the car, after admitting she’d seen nothing unusual on the cliffs, she’d gotten very quiet, not pressing for answers. Once he’d gotten his pants back together, they’d walked inside pressed closely together. Now, staying at bay, she seemed to be giving him time to regroup.
Regroup. Get a grip. Figure out what the hell was wrong with him.
Something was. He couldn’t pretend any longer. During all the time Lottie had been here, he’d been able to shove away his misgivings, ignore the tension or the occasional hairs standing up on the back of his neck. There’d been no major headaches, no more weird pictures on his laptop, no smells. But in the back of his mind, he’d noticed a few things. Drafts in empty rooms. Sounds in empty hallways. Plus the strange things that had happened to Lottie.
He’d been putting off dealing with what had been going on here for the past three months. But tonight, seeing that figure on the cliffs—a figure who looked so disturbingly familiar—he knew he had to find out what was happening to him.
If he was really losing his mind. Or if there was some other explanation he hadn’t yet grasped.
“You sure you don’t want hot cocoa?” Lottie asked as she came into the room, her hands curled around a steaming mug piled high with whipped cream. “Coffee’s going to keep you up.”
“I don’t think I could sleep anyway.”
She sat beside him, carefully sipping her hot drink. Still silent, offering only a quiet layer of support that he could take advantage of the moment he was ready.
Now, he supposed was as good a time as any.
“Have you ever questioned things you see, wondered if they’re really there or if your eyes are playing tricks on you?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. A twenty on the table when I’m expecting a five-dollar tip at the restaurant. That kind of thing.”
“I mean something a little more…dramatic.” Like ghosts.
She didn’t answer, instead leaning over to set her mug on the table. “What did you see, Simon?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
He hesitated for a brief moment. This was the point of no return, and if it were anyone other than Lottie sitting beside him, he wouldn’t have been able to go on.
But it was Lottie. And he trusted her like he’d never trusted anyone before in his life. “I saw her. Standing next to the cliffs.”
Turning to face him, she bent one leg and tucked it beneath her on the couch. “Who?”
“The woman from Charleston.”
Her shocked inhalation told him she hadn’t expected that.
“Look, I know she’s dead. I don’t believe in ghosts. But I swear, Lottie, for a few seconds, she was there.”
“Maybe the wind, the trees?”
“It wasn’t a shadow or a weird reflection.”
“It was pretty dark out. How could you be sure it looked like her?”
“There was a strange light shining on her.”
She bit her bottom lip before saying, “You were a little…distracted.”
Forcing a smile, he slowly nodded. “Yeah, thanks for that. I fully intend to get back to what we were doing sooner or later.”
“I vote for sooner.” Then her smile faded and she got serious again. “But I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it, that you were just caught up in a moment and your eyes were playing tricks on you? Because you weren’t exactly concentrating on what you were looking at.”
Sure. It was possible. When taken with all the other odd things that had happened around here, however, he somehow doubted it.
Lottie didn’t know about those things, however, so he slowly began to tell her. Starting with the first incident, about ten days after he’d taken up residence in Seaton House, when every window in every room on the third floor had been opened.
“That’s freaking weird,” she muttered.
“It was just the start.”
Going into more detail, he told her about empty beds that bore the indentation of human bodies, the sounds, the locked doors that suddenly unlocked, and vice versa. She narrowed her eyes in deep concentration, not for a second looking as though she doubted him.
When he brought up the smells, she immediately said, “I remember. When I came in your office that day, you were so shocked that I smelled it, too.”
“Yeah, I was. Before that I’d figured it was some weird chemical warning from my brain about an impending migraine.”
“So it happened often?”
“Yes. Every time preceding a pretty bad episode.”
“Mmm…”
He wasn’t nearly finished, however. It was time to admit the rest, however crazy it might seem. “Tonight, on the cliffs, it wasn’t the first time I’ve seen her.”
“What?”
“That day when you came in here and I’d smelled that odor, I thought I saw a blond woman walking by the window out on the veranda.” Thinking back to the night she’d arrived, which almost seemed another lifetime ago, he added, “And the night you showed up in the storm—I was in here trying to fight off a migraine.”
He swallowed, remembering those moments when he’d felt absolutely certain that he was going insane. “I opened my eyes and saw crime-scene photos of the body on my laptop screen. I closed my eyes and they were gone a few minutes later.” Vividly reliving those moments, he glanced toward his computer, sitting on the desk. “At first, I thought I’d just dreamed the whole thing. But when I saw my own handprint on the screen from where I’d tried to block it out, knew I’d been awake.”
Lottie’s mouth was open, her eyes widened in shock. He didn’t blame her. Taken individually, the incidents were strange but easy to brush aside. Especially by anybody who simply didn’t accept supernatural explanations.
Like him.
But heard all together—experienced all together, as they had been by Simon over the past few months—it was a hell of a lot harder to laugh off.
Lottie obviously agreed because she was still silent, her eyes flashing, her jaw clenching. She looked over his shoulder, into the distance, her mouth moving a little as if she were speaking under her breath.
“What?”
“The attic…when I got locked in the attic.”
“I know. That was the first thought that crossed my mind.”
“And the buggy?”
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? It feels crazy to even be wondering about this shit.”
Lottie leaned back, dropping her head on the headrest and staring up at the ceiling. “You haven’t, by any chance, made my bed while I’ve been here, have you? Or sprayed some perfume around my room?”
Instantly curious, he shook his head. “Absolutely not. I don’t even bother to make my own usually.” Then, remembering when he’d gone up to move her things down, he added, “As for the perfume, I smelled it and thought you’d decided to take a bath in the stuff.”
She nodded, still looking straight up, not over at him. “Other than there being too much of it, did you like the smell?”
He didn’t want to offend her, but he had to be honest. “Not particularly.”
“Neither did I.”
“It wasn’t yours?”
“No.” She was still quietly contemplative, a million thoughts apparently leaping around in that beautiful head of hers. “Simon, do you remember what it smelled like?”
Nodding absently, he lifted his feet and placed them on the coffee table, leaning back in the couch to stare up at the ceiling, which seemed so fascinating to her. No brilliant answers came to mind. But when he closed his eyes and focused on the perfume, he remembered that it had smelled familiar.
And suddenly, he remembered
why.
“Jesus. This sounds crazy, but I think—it might have been her perfume.”
“The woman from Charleston,” she said, sounding completely matter-of-fact, as if she’d expected the answer.
“Yes.”
“I thought as much.”
That surprised him more than anything Lottie had said yet.
The rational part of his mind knew none of this could be supernatural. There were no such things as ghosts—he wasn’t being haunted by the restless spirit of a woman he’d killed. But the utter strangeness of it had him confused. Even a bit in shock.
Maybe if he’d been his old self—completely recovered, the confident, laid-back guy he’d always been before June 20th, he would have laughed it off. Or at least not started questioning his own senses.
He wasn’t that man anymore, though. He’d seen the darkest that the human race had to offer. His trial by fire had introduced a new reality into his life because he’d seen close-up, vivid proof that evil really did exist. He’d personally come to grasp the concept that someone could attack and murder another human being with no provocation or reason.
It made him question everything—everything—he’d ever thought about life and humanity. And if that didn’t change a person, he didn’t know what would.
So this new Simon was a little too ready to accept ugly possibilities. Like the idea that he was losing his mind.
No. Lottie has seen some of this. I am not crazy.
Finally, after a few more minutes of silent contemplation, Lottie sighed deeply and lifted her head. Her face creased in a frown, she scooted closer on the couch, so their thighs touched, as did their arms.
Reaching up to cup his cheek, she rubbed the tip of her finger across his scar, as she always did—whether she realized it or not. “It’s going to be okay.”
He couldn’t contain a bitter laugh. “You think so? How? Is somebody going to come along and put me in a special coat and a room with rubber walls and give me pills to make me feel all better?”
She shook her head, leaning close to press a gentle kiss on his mouth. “No, love. You see, I think I know what’s going on. We just need to figure out what to do about it.”