“People having sex?”
His matter-of-fact statement, laced with a husky undertone, sent ripples of reaction over her skin. “Full blown and with extra volume. Not as noisy as a Fourth of July fireworks display, but easy to hear. I’m really surprised Aunt Lucille didn’t hear it this time.”
“Did she say she heard it every night?”
Dana shook her head. “No.”
His face turned speculative and he looked around the huge foyer and up at the crystal chandelier sparkling with light. Pinpoints of color seemed to flicker through his eyes. “Did you flip on all the lights as you went through the house?”
“Yes.”
“And you still heard the noises when you turned on the lights?”
“Yes. Where are all these questions leading?”
Instead of answering her, he poured on more queries. “Did the noises of people having sex get louder in any particular part of the house?”
She considered it. “Just at the bottom of the stairs. As if they were going at it in the basement. Just like it would if real people were down there.”
Nodding, he headed for the stairs. “Come on.”
Shivering, she descended the basement stairs, walking behind him. She recalled the last time they’d barreled downstairs, rushing to avoid inhalation by tornado. The mad scramble and almost falling backwards into his arms. What a strange time to think about this. Get with the program and attend to business, Dana.
At the bottom of the steps, Marshall opened the door, flipped on the light and stepped into the large room. When he stopped she almost ran into him.
“What is it?” she asked.
He moved ahead, not bothering to answer her. One of these days she would brain him for that nasty habit. She followed and when they reached the heart-shaped bed, she saw why he’d stopped earlier. Red satin sheets and lace-trimmed pillows spilled across the surface like someone had slept here or perhaps made torrid love.
“Oh boy,” she said.
He placed his hand on the center of the rumpled sheets. When he glanced up his gaze showed a cross between cynicism and amazement. “Put your hand here and tell me what you notice.”
As ordered, she laid her hand almost in the same spot he’d touched. In surprise, she snatched her hand back from the sheets. “It’s actually hot.”
“Like someone has been lying here.”
When he looked at her as if she might know something about the condition of the bed, she decided on a swift retort. “Don’t look at me. I haven’t been down here in quite awhile.” Dana’s mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. “Gives new meaning to the saying, burning up the sheets.”
“Do you think Lucille would have a reason to sleep down here?”
“If you’re implying what I think you’re implying—”
“Don’t get defensive. Just answer the question.”
She swallowed another hot reply and continued. “She was upstairs in her room when I heard the noises. You saw her appear at the top of the stairs.”
He seemed to consider the information carefully. “When was the last time you saw this bed made up?”
Dana shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked down here in at least two days.” She added an accusing tone. “I’ve been recovering from the concussion and staying in bed.”
Right then, a cough caught hold of her, air rasping through her dry throat. She covered her mouth and released a few bone rattling, wheezing coughs.
Marshall’s eyes narrowed. “You all right?”
“Never been better.” She gave him a weak smile. “These coughs aren’t as bad as they sound.”
After a long pause, he nodded. His expression turned solemn. “You’re sure? Eric said you’d be okay.”
Her heart softened. “Yes, thank you.”
He switched his attention to the bed and the moment disappeared. “Something fishy is going on here.”
“Tell me about it.” A chill swept through her at the idea someone might have slept down here while she and Aunt Lucille had snoozed upstairs without a clue.
Marshall grabbed a knitted throw hanging over a chair near the bed and walked toward her. “You’re cold.”
She didn’t know what to say to the truth. When he swirled the throw around her shoulders, then tucked it close, she shook with a different feeling. How could she read his mood when he switched from brusque to sweet in five seconds flat?
Dana huddled into the fabric. “Thank you.” Instead of replying, he continued that unnerving assessment that she couldn’t interpret. “What are you staring at?”
“You.”
“All right. Me. Why are you staring at me?”
“I was thinking you and Lucille should pack some things and stay at your friend Kerrie’s house.”
Startled, she gaped at Marshall like he’d told her the sky had turned purple and that scientists had confirmed life on Mars. He moved toward the stairs, but she caught up with him and grabbed his arm. He swung around and she stepped back to keep distance.
“Why do you think Aunt Lucille and I should stay at Kerrie’s? Do you think there’s something seriously wrong?”
“I don’t want to worry about you all the time, that’s why.”
Warmth flowed into her, and it sure didn’t come from the cover bunched around her shoulders. “You’re concerned about my safety?”
He made a noise on a higher note than his usual grunt. “Damn, but you ask a lot of questions.”
Exasperation made her reach for his forearm again. “I only ask questions when people act like a stubborn ox and don’t tell me the whole story. Come clean. You wouldn’t tell me to leave here unless…” A new possibility came to her, and it made her release him. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I have anything to do with this?” When he looked down and said nothing, she received an ugly feeling. “Why you…you…how could you believe that?”
That purposeful, stolid blaze entered his look. “I don’t know you from Eve, Miss Cummings.” Marshall’s expression turned speculative. “Call Kerrie tomorrow morning and see if she’ll let you bunk at her house.”
“I’m not going.” Planting her hands on her hips, she allowed the throw to slip from her shoulders and land at her feet. Screw it anyway.
He leaned in closer, his stance threatening, his eyes dark with demand. “You will if your aunt asks you to.”
She gasped, and poked him in the chest with her index finger. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would.”
Exasperated, she made a disgusted sound. “God, you’re unbelievable.”
Once again he turned and headed up the stairs. “Just do it.”
Dana chose to make a sound of protest, one that probably came out childish. But the man made her so mad she didn’t give two hoots. She stomped her foot and clenched her fists. “Ooooooo!”
Chapter Six
“Dana, I think Marshall is right,” Aunt Lucille said. “If you stay with Kerrie, maybe you’ll be safe from whatever is haunting my home.”
Dana huffed. “He wanted both of us to go to Kerrie’s. I’m not leaving you here alone.” Dana settled into a chair in the big kitchen nook. She took a sip of hot orange spice tea. “Now, are you going to tell me what you think is going on here, or am I going to have to hurt you?”
The evening after Marshall had ordered Dana to leave, she still hadn’t called Kerrie about staying with her. And she didn’t plan to.
Lucille wore an eggplant-purple fleece turtleneck and matching pants. Comfortable, yes. Ugly, yes. Totally Lucille, yes. Lucille grinned like a little girl and poured water into her cup over a peppermint tea bag. She moved to the antique Eastlake table and sank into a chair. “Ghosts are taking things, moving them around. My goodness, I’m lucky they haven’t taken my teeth.” Her gleaming grin took on new proportions. “They make the most peculiar racket, you know.”
“Your teeth or the ghosts?”
Lucille laughed, then lifted her cup. “The ghosts.”
“So, do you have any idea who the ghosts are? You must have heard something about this old place before you bought it.”
“Well, yes. I didn’t say anything to you or your mother because I didn’t really believe the gossip.” She waved a hand to encompass the area. “I’ve got an open mind, but I’m not totally gullible, you know.”
“Of course not.”
“Apparently, back in 1900, a young couple fell in love in this house. You know, a well-to-do young lady, pauper-boy story. The young man was a stable hand, and he fell in love with the only daughter of J. P. Nicholson.”
“Wait a minute. I’ve heard about Nicholson. Didn’t he own several businesses in town for years? Didn’t he murder his daughter and the stable hand?”
Aunt Lucille nodded. “That’s the one.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, as if afraid the ghosts might hear. “The daughter and the stable hand had a tryst in the house while her father was away. The father came home and caught the daughter and the stable hand making love. Then he shot them both.”
Dana shuddered, imagining a tragedy staining the house with its vibrations. “Wasn’t there a messy trial and Nicholson lost everything?”
“That’s right. He committed suicide in his prison cell about a year later. The house had scads of owners over the years. When I decided I wanted to move out of my other house and I took a look at this one…well, I fell in love with the place. Didn’t even think about spooks. That’s one of the reasons the price was right. No one else wanted it, even though it’s in good shape.” Aunt Lucille turned her mug around and around, then heaved a sigh. “The noises and the hot sheets you encountered last night certainly give credence to the idea of randy ghosts on the prowl. Someone or something was having sex on that heart-shaped bed last night, and it certainly wasn’t me.”
Dana wanted to cringe. Talking with her aunt like this felt too much like chatting with her mother about sex. “We don’t know the sounds I heard or the bed sheets being messed up had anything to do with ghosts doing the horizontal tango.”
Aunt Lucille leaned forward and the steam from her cup rose around her face. “Darling, I’ve been around enough years to know what it sounds like when people are making love. Sex wasn’t invented last year, you know.”
Heat rose into Dana’s face, and she wondered if her nose glowed like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. “Marshall probably thinks we’re both loony tunes.”
“Surely not.” Lucille put let her hands up in her trademark dismissal. “He felt the sheets and saw the bed was messed up. If anything he thinks I’m the one with walnuts for brains.”
Indignation rose in Dana. “He told you that?”
Lucille shook her head, an indulgent, warm expression on her face. “Now don’t get all worked up again. The stress isn’t healthy. You and Marshall need to take a chill pill.”
Dana almost choked on her tea. “Chill pill?”
“Cool expression, eh? I learned it from Tabitha.”
“Tabitha?”
“She’s Dr. Dawes’s nine-year-old girl. A real pistol.” A lock of gray hair fell over her forehead, and she pushed it back as if annoyed. “A pain in the kisser sometimes, but she’s a good girl at heart. Just has too much of her mother in her.”
“Dr. Dawes is married?”
Lucille shook her head. “No, she died about a year ago. Sad business. She took Tabitha out for some shopping in Casper. A really bad snowstorm came over Aspen Pass. Really bad.” Lucille’s face clouded like the storm she described. She tapped the side of the mug with one well-manicured, shell-pink fingernail. “Fool woman came back over the pass when she should have stayed in Casper. They slid off the cliff.”
“Oh God.” Dana’s stomach lurched, a sick feeling engulfing her.
“Exactly.” Lucille grimaced. “Tabitha’s mother, Eva, died instantly. Somehow, by a miracle only, Tabitha survived. She had a broken arm and broken ribs.”
Goosebumps rippled over Dana’s arms as she imagined the little girl trapped in the car, injured, with her dead mother beside her. “It’s hard to believe she made it.”
“Eric was frantic to find them when they didn’t come home on time. Marshall went with the rescue team. He’s a part of the volunteer group. He rappelled down the cliff and found Tabitha first.”
Dana again imagined what it would be like to come upon the horrible scene. “At least the girl lived. Dr. Dawes had to find that a blessing.” She knew she spoke the words to comfort herself too. “Losing both of them…”
“Yes.”
Dana felt Lucille didn’t want to speak of it anymore, and right now she didn’t either. How could Eva have been so careless with her daughter’s life? Dana’s writer’s brain spoke too much and showed too much. Horror might be her trademark, but she only enjoyed the wild imaginings when they came from fictitious experiences she created. Real life horror meant disaster and unimaginable human suffering.
“Sounds like Marshall makes a habit of rescuing people,” Dana said.
“Oh, yes. He’s quite the man.” Aunt Lucille cleared her throat. “Enough talk about ghosts and Marshall. When are you going to finish that new novel?”
Dana knew she couldn’t avoid talking about it. “I’m hoping that bed-bouncing ghosts won’t get in the way of my inspiration.”
“Yes, but why do you have a block in the first place?”
Dana shrugged, then took a sip of her cooling tea. “If I knew, I’d get rid of the problem. Maybe I wouldn’t even be here.” She knew she’d said the wrong thing when her aunt’s face grew sad. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I want to help you discover what’s happening in this house. You know that.”
Aunt Lucille’s expression lightened. “I know the last month or so has been hard for you. You’ve got so much to look forward to, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.”
“Maybe I’m just a one-hit wonder. You know. Margaret Mitchell. Harper Lee. Not that I think anyone will think of me on the level with those writers.” She took the last sip of her drink, then headed to the kitchen sink. She methodically washed the cup. “Only one book written. Pfft! Kerplooey!”
“No, darling. You’re more talented than you know. I’ve read your work and while I was never a fan of horror, your book is so well written. The characters are fresh, lively, inspiring. Scary as all get out. I see you with hundreds of books over the years.”
Dana returned to the table, leaning forward and propping her elbows on the gleaming wood surface and listening to the chatter of birds outside through the open window. A soft breeze filtered through the butter-yellow curtains. Dana reached over and patted her aunt’s hand. She marveled at how frail Lucille appeared, yet she knew strength lay in her bones, muscles and heart.
“You’re the best, Aunt Lucille.” She smiled. “And don’t you forget it.”
“Thank you.” Aunt Lucille seemed to brighten with the praise, and then she rose from the chair. “Now, I say we head out for some serious shopping.”
Happy to see her aunt enthusiastic again, Dana liked her proposal. “Sounds great. For what?”
Aunt Lucille started walking toward the living room. “You need a new party dress.”
Dana paused in the kitchen doorway. “Why?”
“Because, my dear, you’re going to a party tomorrow night.”
As Dana and Aunt Lucille strode across the grass toward the community building close to the center of town, Dana noticed a bush half obscured a “Do Not Walk On The Grass” sign.
“Crud,” Dana said.
“What dear?” Aunt Lucille came to a stop under a streetlight. Fog drifted across them with a cool mist that dampened the skin.
Dana shook her head. “Nothing. Let’s get this party over with.”
Earlier that day, Aunt Lucille announced that Gregory and Neal, her stepsons, had arrived in town. Dana didn’t like Gregory one iota, but Neal was good to Aunt Lucille.
Taking her niece’s arm, Aunt Lucille guided her toward the wood double doors on the
old log building. “I’ve never seen you so negative. Are you certain something isn’t wrong?”
“Other than the fact this hemline creeps up like thong underwear and the neckline dips lower than the Royal Gorge?”
Aunt Lucille stopped again before they reached the door. Her frown said Dana had pushed over the line. “Now Dana. Really! If you didn’t like the dress, you could have said no.”
“Right. You would have nagged me until I bought this…” She looked down at the velour. “This dress is for twenty-year-olds with x-rated bodies.”
Dana reached for the door and held it open.
As Aunt Lucille went through the door she said, “Darling, you’re not serious. You’re just nervous. Besides, you have a stunning figure.” They moved into the entrance hall. “Slim, long legs—”
“Fantastic!” The deep voice made Dana jump about a mile.
A tall, sandy-haired man in his late thirties stepped up and engulfed Aunt Lucille in his arms for a hug.
“Gregory!” Aunt Lucille hugged her stepson.
He wore brand new jeans and an expensive, startling gold silk sweater over a white shirt and tie. Huh. Probably matches his new Lexus.
She had nothing against luxury cars. Except when jerks drove them.
Dana had never liked her stepcousin. His closely spaced eyes ruined his classic cut nose and rugged jawline. Of course, she didn’t dislike him because of his looks, but for the things he’d said and done in his life. He gave her what she’d call an icky feeling. Gregory’s new position as CEO of a computer firm in Casper had inflated his already watermelon-sized ego. His brother, Neal, a lawyer in New York, was much nicer and easier to get along with.
Gregory turned toward Dana and swaggered a couple of steps. She wanted to gag. Every movement of his powerful body spelled arrogance. His false charm and pretenses slid into a person’s space like a lethal virus on the hunt.
“Dana, you look fantastic. What a dress.”
Smarmy. Dana managed to stretch her lips into a smile. She shook his hand to discourage him from hugging her. “Hello, Gregory. Haven’t seen you in a long time.”
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