by Julie Kenner
“No,” she whispered. “He’s reading my mind.”
Kiley shot Jack a look, surprise or something like it in her eyes. Then she drew her gaze back to Cindy’s. “He’s going to help me clear the house.”
“It’s not going to work. We had three different people come in and try to clear it, but nothing worked.”
“Maybe not, but if anyone can clear this place, Jack can,” Kiley went on. “The thing is, our chances of success are much better if we can figure out what’s really going on, what’s causing this. To do that, I need to know what happened. What did you see, what did you hear, what did you feel in that house?”
Brad looked at Cindy, willing her not to say a word.
Jack said, “Knock it off, pal. If you don’t want to help us, that’s your choice. Don’t try to make her responsible for your bad karma.”
Brad rolled his eyes and looked away. “I don’t believe in karma.”
“I do,” Cindy said. “I believe in a lot of things I never did before.” She licked her lips. “There’s more than one ghost in that house, Ms. Brigham. There’s the woman in the tub, she’s the main one.”
“You mean you saw her, too?” Kiley asked.
Cindy nodded. “Once in the upstairs bath, once in the downstairs one. But there are others. So many others. And some of them are angry. Some of them—lash out.”
“Where have you seen these others?”
“We never saw them.” Brad was speaking now. “But there were—incidents. Mostly in the cellar, but once in a while they’d come into the main parts of the house. Threaten us. Shit like that.”
“Not us,” Cindy said. “Just you, Brad. They never tried to harm or frighten me the way they did you.”
“What did they do to you?” Jack asked the other man.
Brad pursed his lips, lowered his head, shook it.
“There was the time he was going down the cellar stairs to check a circuit breaker, and the light bulb exploded. He was in total darkness, and when he turned to come back up for a flashlight, there was a wound-up piece of wire on the stairs.”
“I’d have sworn it wasn’t there when I went down,” he said.
“You fell?” Kiley asked.
He nodded. “Broke a leg and two ribs.”
“And there was the incident with the water heater. The way the pilot kept going out, the matches kept blowing out, the gas was running into the cellar. And when Brad tried to come up the stairs, the door was jammed. Wouldn’t open.”
“My God, how did you get out?” Kiley asked.
“I don’t know. Eventually they just…let me.”
“They didn’t want you dead,” Jack said. “They just wanted you to pay attention. What do you do for a living?”
The man looked up slowly. “I’m a cop.”
KILEY SPENT THE AFTERNOON at her office, trying to at least look as if she were working on a story. But the pages she keyed into her computer were not work. Not the kind she was paid to do, at least. Instead, she filled screen after screen with a detailed account of everything that had been happening in her house, everything she had learned and everything she feared.
It accomplished little, she decided later on. In fact, it accomplished nothing, except to keep her mind focused on her fear. She supposed that was better than leaving it focused on the change in her relationship with Jack McCain, which was something that scared her more than any ghost ever could. What the hell was up with that, anyway?
Sighing, she glanced at the clock, realized the day was spent and thought it was time to go home. Then she shivered. Damn, but she didn’t want to go back there. And yet, her spine straightened and she got to her feet. She was not going to let anything scare her out of her home. She was not going to become so needy that she couldn’t go into her own house without a chaperone. No way in hell.
She shut down her computer, shouldered her purse and picked up her keys. Fifteen minutes later, she was standing beside her car, staring at the house. The lights were still on. She’d never turned them off. She was glad of that now, even though it wasn’t completely dark yet. Taking a breath, she marched up to the door, punched in her access code and went inside. And then she stood there, with the door wide open and the entire house spread out before her. Empty, she told herself. But it didn’t feel empty. It felt as if there were eyes on her, watching her, waiting.
Kiley looked around the empty house. “Listen up, okay?” She said the words loudly, and felt like an idiot for standing in her open doorway talking to herself. “I don’t even know if you can hear me, but if you can I have something to say, so pay attention.”
She felt something. Or maybe it was her imagination. Whatever, her courage rose a notch, and she found herself stepping farther inside. “I know you’re here. I know there’s something wrong, something you want me to understand. I know that now. And I’m going to find out what it is. I’m going to do everything I can to figure it out and make it right. I’m going to dig until I uncover the truth, and—”
She stopped there, because a vase tipped right off a stand and shattered on the floor.
Kiley jerked backward, almost turned and fled right back through the door, but then she stopped herself. “What?” she asked. “Something I said?”
Nothing. No sound.
“Okay, then. Okay. I just…wanted to let you know I’m on your side, here. All right?”
She listened, half expecting the ghost or whatever the hell it was to reply. But it didn’t.
“Of course, if you hurt me, or scare me out of the house, the deal’s off. So how about you give it a rest for a while, give me a few days to get to the bottom of this?”
Again, there was no reply. Then again, she hadn’t really expected one. She sighed and moved through to the living room, sinking into a chair and sighing again. “I’ll be fine here by myself,” she muttered. “Until I have to use the bathroom. What the hell am I going to do then?”
“Kiley?”
She lifted her head, startled by the voice calling her name, but only for a brief instant. It was only Jack. He stood in the doorway, a large pizza box balanced on one hand, a brown paper bag in the other.
Hell, she thought. She shouldn’t be so damned glad to see him. And yet she had to fight to keep herself from smiling ear to ear and running to him.
“I stopped by the office, but you’d already left.”
“Figured I had to face it sooner or later. You didn’t have to come, Jack.”
“I couldn’t have slept a wink with you out here alone. Besides, I’ve been doing some research, and I think I’ve come up with an idea.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded, striding through the formal dining room and into the cozier kitchen. She followed him.
“Sit,” he said. “I brought dinner.” He put the pizza box on the table, set down the bag, and then went to the cupboards for plates and tall glasses.
“Health food, I see.”
“Hell, yeah.”
She peeked inside the bag, found a six-pack of cola and a large bag of potato chips, and smiled. “What, no tofu? No herbal tea?”
He put the plates on the table, went to the fridge and filled both glasses with ice. He glanced her way, seemed a little nervous.
“What is it, Jack? What’s wrong?”
He sighed. “I…don’t really eat tofu and bean sprouts or drink herbal tea. You were right about that stuff. And I’m telling you this now, because it’s suddenly very important to me that you not think of me as some garden variety con man. So I figure honesty is the best policy.”
She tipped her head to one side. “So…the flaky fake diet is just to go with the image?”
“Exactly.”
She sighed, flipped open the pizza box, pulled out a gooey slice and put it onto her plate.
“You’re…disappointed,” he said.
“No. Actually, I’m relieved. Just…worried.”
“Relieved?”
She almost told him she couldn’t imagine herse
lf being with a man who subsisted on nuts and twigs, but she bit her tongue in time. “Never mind why I’m relieved. It’s why I’m worried that’s important here.”
“Okay, then why are you worried?”
She looked across the table at him. “I’m worried about whether the rest of your claims are just as false. Tell me the truth, Jack. Can you help me, or are you just playing along to keep me from finally getting the goods on you?”
He licked his lips, lowered his head. “If I can’t help you, Kiley, then I don’t know who can.” Then he met her eyes again. “To be honest, I’ve never dealt with anything like what’s going on here in this house before. I really don’t know if I can do it. After tonight, though, maybe you and I will both know.”
She sighed, nodding. “What happens tonight, Jack?”
He studied her, looking a little relieved. “You aren’t throwing me out?”
She smiled a little, shook her head. “I appreciate you being straight with me. Now, will you tell me what you have planned for tonight?”
He seemed to relax, took a bite of his slice of pizza, then chewed while pouring cola into both their glasses. He said, “Tonight, Ms. Brigham, we are going to hold a séance.”
Kiley blinked and held his gaze. “A séance,” she repeated. “Like, where you conjure up spirits from the other side?”
“Exactly.”
She blinked twice. “Jack, we already have spirits from the other side. What we need to do is boot them out, not call them in.”
He nodded, smiling a little, an act that made his lips far more attractive than they should have been. “When we figure out what the ghosts are trying to tell us, we’ll know how to get rid of them, right?”
“I…guess.”
“So, we hold the séance, give them the perfect way to try to tell us.”
“And we’re going to do this ourselves? Just the two of us?”
He averted his eyes. “Well, I tried to get some of the local mediums to help us out, but seeing as how they’ve all been the subjects of your columns at one point or another, they all said thanks, but no thanks.”
She thinned her lips, lowered her head. “They didn’t put it quite that nicely, did they?”
“No. I think one of the more memorable phrases was, I hope the ghost eats her skinny white ass.”
She pursed her lips. “Well, I can’t blame them, I suppose. But then again, why would I want any of them? I caught each and every one of them faking, otherwise they wouldn’t have made my column in the first place.”
Jack caught her chin, lifted it and held her gaze. “Just because they weren’t one hundred percent genuine, Brigham, that doesn’t mean they were one hundred percent phony.”
“No?”
“No. This isn’t black and white. There are shades of gray. All kinds of them, apparently.”
“You sound surprised by that.”
He pursed his lips. “I never used to believe it. Then again, until recently, I’d never—”
He stopped himself. She could almost see him stomping on a mental brake pedal. “You’d never what?” she asked.
Jack shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we make this work.”
“You think it will?”
“I think neither of us has any better ideas. Do we?”
She gnawed her lower lip. “I tried to contact Mr. Miller today, but he wouldn’t take my call, much less return it. He wants nothing to do with this place.”
“Then we’re left with the ghosts. We can’t solve this unless they tell us what it’s about. No one else will.”
She pursed her lips, lowered her head. Then raised it again when she felt his hand sliding over hers where it rested on the table.
“I know you’re scared,” he said.
“I’m not—”
“The hell you’re not. I’m scared too, Kiley. And not just about the damn ghosts.”
A frown tugged at her brow and she stared down at their hands. Then, jittery for reasons beyond her understanding, she got up from the table, slipping her hand from beneath his, turned and began pacing across the room.
Jack got up, came to stand behind her, very close behind her. “I want this thing solved as badly as you do,” he whispered. “I want it out of the way, so I can see what’s left when it’s gone.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, turning to face him as she spoke.
“Yeah, you do.” He lifted a hand and gently pushed her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Then, slowly, he lowered his head, brushed her lips with his. Once, then again.
Kiley’s heart fluttered and her stomach tied itself in knots. The soft, tender kisses went on, until, trembling, she slid her hands up his chest, over his shoulders, and then linked her arms around his neck. His arms closed around her waist, and he pulled her tight to him and kissed her long and deeply. She let her lips part, tasting him, loving it.
Finally, he lifted his head away, and when she opened her eyes she found his probing them. Kiley licked her lips, tasting him on them. She sought for words, and heard herself muttering, “B-but I don’t even like you.”
He smiled, and it made her want to kiss him all over again. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Kiley. But trust me, it isn’t gonna change a thing. It didn’t for me, anyway.” He leaned in, nibbling at her mouth again. “And you can get rid of that notion that there’s no affection involved here, lady. We kissed this time.”
“Is that why you kissed me? To prove it’s not just physical so you can get me into bed?”
“No. I kissed you because I wanted to. I’d like to keep on kissing you all night. But we’ve got other things to worry about, unfortunately.”
Kiley wanted him. She wanted to make love to him, now, tonight. She pushed her hands through her hair. “This is so much to deal with. And with everything else going on—ghosts and hauntings and dead women in my bathtub—”
He nodded, sliding his arms from around her waist. “I know. I’m sorry, Kiley, I shouldn’t have—no. Hell, I’m not sorry.”
She smiled up at him. “I’m not, either.”
“Good. So now maybe you understand why I’m in such a hurry to get all that other stuff out of the way.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Okay. So…we’ll have the séance.”
“Great. I’ve got everything we need out in the car.”
He turned as if to go out and fetch his props. “No, Jack,” she said, stopping him in his tracks.
He turned to face her. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind?”
She shook her head. “We’re not doing anything,” she told him, “until I’ve finished my pizza.”
CHAPTER TEN
JACK WAS SETTING UP the table in the formal dining room, feeling more nervous than he’d ever been in his life, when the doorbell chimed. Kiley was in the kitchen, putting away the leftover pizza, stacking the dishes in the dishwasher. So he went to the door and pulled it open.
Chris stood there, smiling. Behind him were two of the psychics Kiley had nailed in her column over the past year. Maya, a thirtysomething witch, blond, blue-eyed and petite, nodded hello to him as he stepped aside to let them in. She wore jeans, a cozy-looking sweater, and a pentacle around her neck. Right behind her was John Redhawk, a shaman. Aside from the turquoise beads and ponytail, he, too, was dressed casually, jeans and a green polo shirt under a denim jacket.
Jack heard Kiley come in from the kitchen. She started to say something, then stopped in her tracks.
To break the awkward silence, Jack said, “I, uh—thought you two couldn’t make it.”
John sent a tight look at Kiley. “If there are spirits trapped here, they need help to get across.”
Maya nodded. “We can’t punish them for her actions.”
“Great,” Kiley said. “They’re on the goddamn ghosts’ side.”
“Fortunately your interests and theirs are the same,” John said, moving farther into the room. �
��As are your goals and ours—to free them, so they can move on.”
Jack turned to Kiley, knowing she was about to roll her eyes or make some sarcastic comment. But he caught her in time.
“No doubt, Ms. Brigham, you think we can’t be of any help anyway,” Maya said.
Kiley pursed her lips. “I did catch you faking.”
“You caught us being inaccurate,” John explained. “There’s a very big difference.”
“You totally ignored all the times we were dead on target with our work,” Maya added, “and focused only on the times when we missed the mark.”
Chris nodded hard, then put his own two cents in. “You failed to take into account all the people they helped. And the fact that no one was ever harmed by what they did.”
Kiley pursed her lips, lowered her head. “I get it, Chris.” Then she lifted her eyes again, took a breath. “You two just admitted you’re not always right. I suppose I need to do the same.”
John nodded slowly. “Some of the people you condemned in your column were frauds, Ms. Brigham. Some of them were doing harm, and were sorely in need of exposure. I was glad to see them go. They just make the rest of us look bad. But it’s a mistake to paint all psychics with the same brush. And it’s just as bad to hold us up to standards that are impossible for anyone short of a god to meet.”
She nodded. “I’m starting to realize that.” Then she frowned. “But if you’re not batting a thousand, then how the hell can an outsider ever tell the difference?”
“They can’t,” Maya said. “But we can. We know who’s for real and who’s just running a scam to make a buck. Maybe in the future, you could work with us, instead of against us.”
Kiley blinked, clearly stunned. “You…would do that? Work with me? My God, I never thought—”
“Because you never asked,” John said. “But believe me, we’d love to help you put the frauds out of business.”
Kiley shook her head in something that looked like wonder.
“Chris filled us in on the details,” Maya said, changing the subject. “So where are we doing this?”