Touch Me in the Dark

by Jacqueline Diamond

Sharon couldn’t resist asking, “How did the painting session go today?”

  Angela pushed back her thick, dark hair. “It started out terrific, but then Ian had one of his seizures.”

  That was bad news. “Was he hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. But he altered the painting, or—“ Angela paused. “This is weird. I mean, I had the feeling someone else was in the room with us. I even glimpsed something white out of the corner of my eye. Isn’t that bizarre?”

  Sharon remembered how Ian’s face had seemed to morph into someone else’s, right in front of her. “Strange things seem to happen around here. I’m glad you were with him.”

  “I couldn’t do much.” Angela took a deep breath. “I like posing for him, but what he needs is you.”

  “Me?” She hadn’t expected to hear that.

  “Wait till you see what he…” Angela stopped in mid-sentence, gazing past Sharon. “I dropped my credit card.” She held it up.

  Sharon swung around to see Ian. She hadn’t heard him come in. “I hope you don’t mind. She didn’t want to come in here by herself.”

  “That’s fine.” He regarded them both with a hint of puzzlement.

  Angela edged around Ian toward the exit. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you guys.”

  “No problem,” Sharon said.

  “Want me to walk you down?” Ian asked, but the young woman shook her head and hurried out, almost skipping in her haste.

  “What were you two talking about?” Ian asked.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You both had a guilty look when you spotted me,” he said.

  “She told me you had a seizure, and that she imagined some kind of presence,” Sharon said. “I guess I felt guilty because I was discussing you behind your back, not that we said anything you don’t already know.” Okay, that wasn’t quite the whole story. “And I was wondering what you’d painted during your session with her. But I didn’t peek.”

  Ian set down a package of fluorescent bulbs. “I’m flattered.”

  “By what?”

  “Your interest in my work.” He ran his fingers through his overgrown hair. Like him, it had abandoned all pretense of staying neatly within boundaries. “I’ll be happy to show you, although at this point I’m not sure how much of it is my work.

  “Why do you say that?”

  After turning on the overheads, Ian crossed to one of the easels. “Always before, during my seizures, I assumed I was the one who made the changes or damaged the canvas. This time, Angela denies I went anywhere near there. So either I was in some kind of daze while I painted this thing and messed up in the first place, or someone changed it while she was trying to rouse me.”

  “Changed it how?”

  He lifted the cloth. Sharon moved beside him and stood transfixed.

  She could feel the modern house peeling away and an older one emerging, dark and menacing. Something lustful and crude was breaking through the woman’s civilized façade, as well.

  The woman had auburn hair and no trace of innocence in her green eyes. This certainly wasn’t Angela. It wasn’t exactly Sharon either and yet it was a version of her, the bare breasts leaner and harder than her own, the eyes afire with unholy glee. How eerie to see herself in such raw sexual heat.

  Before she could put the question into words, Ian gave the answer. “I didn’t mean this to be you. I could have sworn I was painting Angela.”

  “Things don’t change themselves,” she said. “This is scaring me.” If he’d painted the wrong woman unintentionally, what else might Ian do blindly while appearing wide-awake?

  Around her, the darkness flickered like a thing alive. It illuminated and then obscured Ian, so that he appeared half in shadow, like his father in the hall painting.

  “Sorry. A couple of the bulbs are dying. I just bought replacements.” He flicked off the brights and turned on another table lamp. The room settled into an easy glow.

  The image of Ian flashing between darkness and light stuck in Sharon’s mind, seeming to make tangible a real division within him. Had his head injury and the history of his family combined to turn Ian into two people at once? Might he identify so strongly with his grandfather that at times he almost became Bradley?

  She understood the duality better than she wanted to, because in the past few days she’d begun to feel that she was acting on Susan’s behalf. She worried that her attraction to Ian, this sense that at some level they had known each other all their lives, might spring from over identification with the woman Bradley had loved.

  And murdered.

  “You’ve got this stricken expression, Sharon,” Ian said. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m a little overwhelmed,” she admitted.

  He glanced again at the canvas. “I don’t blame you.” He covered it with one swift motion. Sharon stopped plucking at her sweater, and realized she’d been trying to cover herself more fully. “Despite what I said the night we met, I hope you won’t decide to leave. I think you’re a part of whatever was meant to happen to me and, besides, I like having you here. Seeing how real you are, after I’ve pictured you for years, makes me feel like I’m not so crazy after all.”

  “I might be making things worse,” she said.

  “No.” Ian spoke forcefully. “You might be a catalyst, but I think you’re a necessary one. I don’t mean to sound so clinical, Sharon. Hell, you remind me I’m a man, and you make me want things I haven’t dared to want for a long time.”

  If she yielded to impulse, she’d be in his arms in an instant. “Ian, we’ve only known each other for a few days.”

  “Seems like longer,” he said. “But not long enough.”

  Sharon searched for a way to change the subject. “I went to see a historian today,” she said. “To find out more about the house.”

  A flicker of his lids told her he understood what she was doing. “Did you learn anything interesting?”

  She told him about Millie and the relocated cemetery. “The problem is Bradley’s body. It’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “The casket was stolen during the move,” Sharon said. “The chief suspect seems to be Bradley’s sister, Bella Gaskell’s mother.”

  “That is truly bizarre.” Ian sat on the arm of the couch, like the woman in the painting, and stretched out his legs. “I have something to tell you as well. I went to see my doctor this afternoon, the psychiatrist who treated me after the accident.”

  That sounded like a positive development, Sharon thought. “What did he say?”

  “Dr. Finley’s a she. She thinks I might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said. “She thinks I might have been especially susceptible because my accident came on top of the trauma of my parents’ accident. I fit a lot of the classic symptoms, including having problems with memory and cognition.”

  Here at least was a reasonable explanation for Ian’s problems. “Can they do anything for this condition?”

  He pulled a pharmacy vial from his pocket. “Drugs. Modern medicine’s answer to everything.”

  “Did you take them?” Sharon asked.

  He nodded. “Mellowed me out a bit. I don’t like relying on pills, though, and usually they have side effects.”

  “Maybe for a short time,” she suggested.

  “I plan to take them until Sunday. In fact, that’s why I went to see her,” Ian said.

  “What happens on Sunday?”

  “The anniversary I told you about,” Ian said. “Exactly sixty-five years since Bradley killed Susan.”

  She tried to remember what he’d told her last Friday, but the details escaped her. “Is there some particular significance?”

  “My accident happened on that date, five years ago,” he said. “And thirty years ago to the day, my parents were killed.”

  “It has to be a coincidence,” she said.

  “Possibly,” he said. “Dr. Finley believes some kind of subconscious suggestion might make us so self-destr
uctive. With the medication, she thinks I’ll be all right.”

  “Have you considered moving out?” Sharon asked.

  “This is my home,” Ian said. “Besides, Jody lets me stay here for free and I’m not exactly rolling in money.”

  Sharon decided to let the matter go. “Are you going to leave the painting that way?”

  Ian shook his head. “I’m going to paint out your face and put Angela’s back in. You shouldn’t be shown this way without your consent.”

  The sight of herself in that painting had shocked Sharon, but that wasn’t her. It was another woman with an evil, calculating nature who happened to resemble her. And the work showed brilliance. “Leave it.”

  “You’re sure?” He was pleased, she could tell.

  “The work’s terrific. Go ahead and do whatever you want with it,” she said. “That’s Susan, not me.”

  Ian touched her shoulder lightly. “Thank you. You’re right, it isn’t you. The truth is, I want to paint you as you are. I can’t guarantee how things will come out, but I’m mining a new vein about the past showing through the present. You’re part of both.”

  “I can’t pose,” Sharon blurted without stopping to consider. She couldn’t make herself vulnerable that way, not to Ian of all people.

  “We can arrange to have other people present, if you’re afraid of me,” he said ruefully.

  She didn’t want other people present. She didn’t know what she wanted. “I’d be too embarrassed,” was the closest she could come.

  “I didn’t mean you have to pose nude,” Ian assured her. “You can keep your clothes on. Hell, let’s go outside, in the garden.” He rubbed her shoulders, massaging the tight muscles of her neck.

  Longing rippled through her body beneath his touch. Posing for him, even fully clad, meant submitting to his control. The experience would be almost unbearably sensual, Sharon thought. She wasn’t sure she dared risk letting her own wantonness rise to the surface.

  She turned toward him, meaning to say no, but something stopped her. Just once, she had to touch his shoulder, his collarbone, the rumpled swing of his hair. She had to stare up into eyes so dark they swallowed her.

  Ian must have read her mind. With a moan, his mouth came down to meet hers and he drew her close.

  Sharon tried to resist, and couldn’t. She yielded to the power in his grasp and the passion leaping like a flame through her body. She felt herself poised in the gateway to an unknown land, eager and yet hesitant to cross.

  His sharp edges defined the boundaries of this new world. Sharon lost herself in the roughness of his cheeks and the hungry probing of his hands.

  She was young again and unafraid. Wild, too, the way she crushed her breasts against him and enjoyed his hardness springing to life in response. She wanted to take Ian inside her and reshape him, to mold them both into one fiery being.

  Their movements must have knocked loose the cloth covering the second easel, because at that moment Sharon glimpsed the work over Ian’s shoulder. It was the rough sketch of two figures grappling. The details had changed since she’d seen it. One figure was larger now, the other definitely feminine.

  “That’s us,” she whispered. “Making love.”

  Confused, Ian glanced back. “Oh, hell,” he said.

  “What?” She felt him releasing her, and missed him. Her breath came quickly and the blood was still simmering through her arteries. Ready for more. Trying to remind herself that she couldn’t, shouldn’t have him.

  “I didn’t do that,” Ian said. “Or at least, not while I was conscious. But you’re right. Those are obviously us, or people who resemble us. You see? I don’t know what’s going on, but I do need to paint you. Maybe if I stop fighting my impulses and use the model I really want, things will come together.”

  His eyes held hers for a long time as they absorbed the double meanings in his words. Stop fighting my impulses… come together. They shared a wry smile, and by silent mutual consent moved apart.

  Sharon released a sigh. “You said we could work outside? I guess that’s a good idea.”

  He flipped the cloth back over the painting. “Let’s make a date for Thursday afternoon. I’ll behave myself, I promise.”

  “I hardly know who I am around you,” Sharon said.

  “That’s the problem.” His sympathetic tone gave her the sense that they were partners in some vital venture. “Until we figure that out…”

  “The garden.”

  He nodded. “I’ll find an Edwardian costume, the most buttoned-up thing they’ve got, from the era when this house was built. I’ll even get you a parasol to poke me with.”

  “You’ve got something specific in mind?” Exciting to think that he was already painting her in his mind.

  “Yes,” he said. “There’s a storm forecast for tomorrow, but by Thursday the weather should clear up. Pray for sunshine.”

  “Will do.”

  He held the door as she went out, smiling like a kid who’d just received the gift he wanted most for Christmas. There were so many layers to Ian, Sharon wondered if it was possible to know them all.

  Chapter Nine

  On Wednesday, a deep gloom hung over Southern California. Sharon decided this was a good day to take Greg to Disneyland, but Jody beat her to the punch.

  “I won two free passes at a bingo tournament last month. Didn’t think I’d have any use for them,” the older woman informed her at breakfast. “I’ve been wanting to visit the new attraction—California Adventure. It’s not exactly new anymore, but I haven’t been there.”

  Sharon didn’t want to be separated from her son for another day, or to continue taking advantage of her landlady. When she protested, however, Jody refused to yield.

  “You two were cooped up together all the way from Buffalo and you can’t tell me you don’t need some time to yourself,” she said. “I mean what I say, young lady, and when I extend an invitation, I don’t care to be talked out of it.”

  “We’ll have fun,” Greg assured her. “Aunt Jody lets me eat all the ice cream I want.”

  “Aunt Jody?”

  “I hope you don’t mind,” the older woman said. “His calling me that makes me feel good. We’ll have a great time today, don’t you worry.”

  To refuse would be rude, Sharon decided reluctantly. “He needs to be home early. I have to feed him and get him to my sister’s by seven-thirty.”

  “No problem,” Jody told her, and performed a complicated series of variations on high-five with Greg.

  Feeling restlessly and vaguely guilty, Sharon spent the day fixing up her first-grade classroom and buying school clothes for Greg. By the time she got home, the hour was nearly five and the rain had begun in earnest.

  When she reached her apartment, she was startled to see the door ajar. She’d locked it before she left, and she hadn’t seen Ian’s or Jody’s car in the parking turnaround.

  “Hello?” She stayed outside in the hall, calling out until Bella Gaskell appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing in my apartment?”

  The paisley scarf over her frizzy hair gave the woman a gypsy-like air. “He has been here.”

  “Who, exactly?”

  “The spirit.”

  Irritation drove Sharon past the point of diplomacy. “Could you skip the mumbo-jumbo and explain why you’ve broken into my place?”

  Pete appeared behind his wife and propelled her into the hall. “I’m sorry. We didn’t exactly break in. My wife heard a noise and feared a spirit might have entered your rooms again. After that fire you suffered, we thought we should check it out.”

  “How did you get in?” Sharon demanded.

  “Jody keeps a master key in the refrigerator for emergencies,” Pete said. “Since we’re relatives here, I’m sure we’re all trustworthy.” Apparently he and his wife had gotten the word about Sharon being a distant cousin, although she was related on Susan’s side, not theirs.

  “Next time you’re worried about a fire, check for
smoke. That ought to give you a clue.” Sharon edged past them with her packages. “Please don’t come into my apartment again unless you’re invited or there really is an emergency.”

  “This was an emergency,” Bella said. “Strange things are happening on the eve of the anniversary, and you are at the center.”

  “The anniversary isn’t until Sunday,” Sharon said.

  “Forces are gathering. This is a time of preparation,” the woman murmured, fingering one of her hoop earrings as if it were an amulet.

  “We wish you’d reconsider attending a séance.” Pete’s matter-of-fact manner was better than his wife’s dramatic posing, but right now Sharon was in no mood to be charitable. “We believe Bradley has a message for you. It must be important, if he keeps appearing.”

  Sharon wished she knew how to get rid of these people. “I don’t think anyone’s appeared to me. Anyone supernatural, at least.” As long as they were here, however, she might as well mention the one real oddity she’d turned up. “If there were a ghost, he should be more concerned about his missing coffin than about anything I’m doing.”

  “His coffin?” Pete looked startled.

  “I don’t understand,” Bella said.

  “About forty years ago, his coffin disappeared with his body inside while in transit,” Sharon said. “A historian told me a cemetery in Anaheim was being relocated for construction. Your mother must have known. I figured she would have told you. In fact, she’s probably the one who took it.”

  Agitated, Bella twisted her hands together. “I can’t imagine… I don’t think she would have… well, if she did, I don’t blame her.”

  “You don’t object to grave-robbing?”

  “Let me show you something. Please.” Bella caught her wrist and pulled lightly.

  “What’s going on?” Sharon demanded.

  “You have to see to understand.”

  She considered resisting, but she had planned to talk to the Gaskells anyway. Whatever Bella wanted to show her might be important. “All right, but I’m afraid I’m pressed for time. I’m expecting Greg any minute.”

  “This won’t take long,” Pete said.

  Too much furniture and too many knickknacks crammed their large sitting room. Sharon had to maneuver between antique-style tables and chairs to reach the window, from which she surveyed the rain-shrouded street. There was no sign of Jody’s car.