“Do you mind if I make an observation,” Syd said calmly.
“Sure,” Matt said though never took his eyes off of Jorden and Isis.
“I think that if we are truly done with the investigation in the hospital then we should all return, with the exception of two to sit and watch the monitors back here, and retrieve our equipment as well as search for the logs and diaries. That way there are plenty of us around to watch each other’s backs and the job will be completed much faster than otherwise.”
Damn it Matt hated it when someone in the group made sense and it was the exact opposite of what he wanted done, but Syd was right. “Fine,” he said. “Everyone get ready, we head out in twenty minutes with the exception of Jonas and Jorden, who will stay here and watch the monitors.”
Jorden jumped to her feet, but not without pain, though she hid it well. “Like hell,” she almost growled. “Don’t forget that I’m cofounder of this group and I have every right to decide whether I go or stay.”
The others quickly fled the room, not wanting to see any fireworks that might occur. “That may be, but you were injured and like it or not you are not at a hundred percent right now.”
“You don’t like it?” she challenged with a dangerous, angry fire in her eyes. “Then find a new partner. Until then, I’m going.”
Jorden walked out of the room before Matt could fire off a response, not that he was all that capable of doing so at the moment. Her comment shook him to his core. With all that had happened between them since their arrival she couldn’t possibly have meant it, but there was a deadly certainty in her tone that matched the determination in her eyes that told him otherwise.
Matt turned to follow Jorden but was stopped by Nigel. “I know that you would rather have Jorden stay back, but I’ll do it. And I’ll keep an eye on Jonas for you too.”
The offer was odd coming from Nigel, but no more odd than his behavior over the last day. “I need you with us,” Matt insisted. For some reason he didn’t want Nigel out of his sight until this thing was over. His behavior over the last couple of days was worrisome and a voice in the back of Matt’s head screamed at him to keep the man in his sights.
Nigel shrugged. “Well, I suppose that you could leave Saph or Ana or Syd behind, but I doubt that if Jonas does in fact have anything up his sleeve they’d be able to do anything about it. Besides, I’ve been a bit tired for some reason and would really rather stay behind.”
Matt remained uneasy but didn’t see that he had a choice. “Fine,” he finally agreed. “But don’t let Jonas out of your sight,” he said with a stern warning that earned him a salute and wink.
Matt left the living room and jogged up to the stairs to find Jorden.
It didn’t take long. When he found her she was alone in her room staring out the window and didn’t bother turning around when he entered and closed the door behind himself.
“What?” she questioned in an irritated tone that let him know she knew it was him.
Matt walked up to her and stood behind her. More than anything he wanted to hold her but instead he forced himself to keep his hands to himself. “I wish I could talk to you about this, but I don’t know what to say.”
Jorden didn’t say anything and it only reinforced Matt’s beliefs that he’d made a mistake in allowing even a small portion of his feelings for her to show.
“It’s just that since we arrived on the island I haven’t been able to make a right decision where you’re concerned and it’s frustrating.”
Jorden continued to stand silent.
“I wish that you would talk to me about this.”
Finally, she turned around and he was surprised to see her eyes glassed over with tears that had yet to fall. “And I told you that this is hardly the time or the place for it,” she said firmly. “And I don’t see why you need to do it now.”
Matt’s temper started to rise again and his rein on it finally slipped. “Because I love you damn it! I have for the last couple of years!”
Matt wished that he could have sucked the words back in but it was such a relief to have them out he was glad that he’d gotten mad.
“I know that things between us aren’t always easy and I can’t say that I’m sorry for it. I love arguing with you and just talking to you. I love it when you tell me to ‘stick it’ and I love it when you grab onto my hand when you’re uncertain in a situation, or dare I say scared,” he explained. “I just can’t go another minute without telling you this; keeping it inside is killing me and doing more harm than good as far as this investigation goes.”
Matt couldn’t tell if Jorden was pissed or in disbelief. “You know as well as I do that when you go into a situation such as the one we have on this island you have to shelve your emotions. If we go further into this investigation with heavy emotions we leave ourselves open for a paranormal attack, and with what Isis has been feeling here along with the evidence, I’m almost inclined to say that it’s demonic. That is the kind of trouble that none of us wants or needs.”
“And you think that either of us would have been any safer if I had kept it in?” he questioned.
For the first time in a while, Jorden didn’t seem to have a response, either logical or emotional. “All I’m saying is that you need to shelve anything you’re feeling until we leave this place. Once we’re done and gone from here we can talk about anything you want.”
It wasn’t the answer Matt wanted, but it was the answer he was going to have to live with as Jorden stepped away from him and headed out of the room.
Nigel thought that the others would never leave. The twenty minutes turned into forty-five and even then there were a couple of stragglers, including Isis. He did love the woman but she was beginning to think that something was wrong with him and it was becoming difficult to convince her otherwise. She just wouldn’t buy the fact that he just felt tired…drained.
“Are they at the hospital yet?” Jonas asked as he entered the living room from the direction of the dining room while he snacked on a bag of chips.
“Unless they have jets strapped to their bums, I doubt it. They just left, and Matt and Jorden were none too happy that you weren’t in here.”
Jonas rolled his eyes before he took a seat at the monitor with the thermal images on it. “I could vanish off the face of the planet and it wouldn’t make the two of them happy.”
“Now that’s not a bad idea,” Nigel said as the world around him started to darken and he felt his consciousness slip.
“Huh?” Jonas said and started to turn around but before Nigel could see his deep blue irises, he struck the smug bastard in the side of the head with one of the keyboards.
Jonas was stronger than he appeared and he tried to fight back but two more strikes put him down for good.
“Shit,” Nigel cursed in a voice that was his, yet as he looked at the shattered keyboard in his hands he wasn’t sure that he’d actually said it. “This could slow me down.”
Nigel moved as if on automatic. After dragging Jonas’s useless carcass off where he didn’t have to look at it, and while the others were at the hospital grounds, he spent the next hour methodically erasing every piece of evidence the team had collected from the EVPs to the video footage. He even went so far as to rip the notes from each team members’ notebook and burn them in the fireplace. He didn’t understand why he was doing it, but that didn’t keep him from getting it done.
He finished before he needed to worry about being caught and was out of the cottage before any of the others knew what he did. It was then that the greater darkness took over and he grew suddenly cold. The world faded to icy black…
Lorenzo l’Ospedale Psichiatrico – Doctor Santini’s Office – 12:30pm…
The recovery of the equipment was slow though they were broken up into two teams. Matt’s team headed up to the fourth floor to start the camera retrieval while Jorden led her team through the doctor’s offices looking for diaries, files, or anything else the doctors may have had t
hat had yet to be recovered. Jorden doubted they would find anything, but it was still worth a look. It would be almost like winning the lottery if they could find anything that would give them a peek into the doctors’ minds and what they thought of the place and their patients.
Of course Jorden’s team was also tasked with recovering the cameras on the first floor, but that task fell to Syd and Ana. She was more interested in what she might find in the offices, though for her own safety she made sure that she didn’t go alone. She took Isis with her.
“Mind if I ask you a question?” Jorden asked as she took her industrious search to the desk.
“I’m an open book,” Isis said as she searched the bookshelves that were mostly emptied and broken. What books were left they gathered but none of them so far were of a personal nature. “Fire away,” she offered.
“What’s going on with Nigel?” Jorden questioned. “He’s been a bit…off since yesterday, after the incident in the bell tower.”
Isis immediately grew uncomfortable so Jorden knew that she had noticed the difference in his behavior as well, yet she hadn’t mentioned it and Jorden wanted to know why. “He hasn’t spoken to me about it,” she said almost painfully. “I tried to talk to him when we got back from the investigation this morning, but he didn’t want to speak. He simply laid down and went to sleep. By the time I woke up this morning, he was already out of bed and I didn’t see him until Matt called the meeting.”
Jorden could hear the strain in her tone and knew that Isis was struggling. “There’s some serious stuff going on here and I’m worried about him.”
Isis stopped pulling the few remaining books from the shelf and looked over at her. “You and me both.”
Jorden found that the bottom left drawer of the desk didn’t want to open and she started to pry it with one of the screwdrivers they kept in the camera cases. “I think that you and I should sit down and have a talk with him when we get back.”
Isis didn’t immediately respond and when Jorden looked up at her she could see the worry in her face. “You think we might be dealing with possession?” she questioned anxiously.
“You would know better than me,” Jorden grunted as she pushed the screwdriver into the crease between the top of the drawer and the desk. “Have you felt anything different from him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m too close to know for sure, but what about you?” she asked. “Have you felt anything out of the ordinary when you’re around him?”
“I’m not-”
“Stop it Jorden. You may not be as experienced with your gift and it might, and I stress might, not be as strong, but it’s there and you know it,” Isis said firmly. “Now tell me…in the last day, what have you felt when you’re around Nigel?”
Jorden didn’t like that Isis labeled her as sensitive though she was finding it difficult to continue ignoring it or explaining away some of what she’d started feeling since the moment Eric appeared to her after his death six years ago. She also didn’t know what she should feel and if she might be mistaking something that was within the realm of reason for something out of the ordinary.
“Don’t be afraid,” Isis said as she approached Jorden. “I know how you feel – the uncertainty can be a real bitch. But you need to tell me. I need to know everything you’ve felt when you’ve been around him in the last day, no matter how normal or insignificant it may seem.”
One thing that Isis could do better than anyone was get inside someone’s head and Jorden hated it. Of course Isis insisted that she couldn’t read minds but there were times when Jorden wondered.
“Come on Jorden,” she firmly urged. “Tell me.”
Jorden rolled her eyes and went back to trying to force the drawer open just to stop again a moment later. “Cold,” she said out of the blue.
“Cold?” Isis questioned.
“That’s what I’ve felt when I’m around him, but I don’t know if it’s the environment, Nigel or myself that’s causing it,” she said then braced one of her feet against the frame of the desk while she yanked back with enough force to send her reeling backwards, though she did manage to get the drawer open.
Isis squatted down next to her. “Any kinds of emotion?” she asked carefully. “Even if you thought that you might have been feeling it yourself, but didn’t know why?”
Jorden thought about it and realized that the only thing she’d felt in the last twenty-four hours was her own confusion when she thought of Matt and she shook her head. “Nothing that I didn’t already know was mine.”
Isis continued to look at her with her dark eyes.
“Stay out of my head,” Jorden said evenly as she climbed to her feet.
“I couldn’t get into your head if I wanted to,” Isis admitted, “I’m trying to read your face.”
“Why?” Jorden asked coolly. “If you want to know what’s been on my mind all you have to do is ask.”
“Probably, but I doubt that you’ll tell me everything.”
“And why’s that?” Jorden asked as she headed back to the desk and started fishing through the formerly jammed drawer.
“Because you don’t want to talk to anyone about Matt, including Matt himself.”
Damn that pissed her off and she stood and looked Isis in the eyes. “I thought that you couldn’t get into my head.”
“I can’t,” she admitted then smiled. “You’re just an easy read when it comes to facial expressions and body language. Besides, it’s kind of hard to ignore how close the two of you have become in the last few years and in the last couple of weeks especially.”
Jorden found a stack of papers and pulled them out and carefully piled them on the top of the desk. “When did the conversation switch to Matt and me and off of Nigel?” she asked.
Isis’s smile dimmed until it disappeared altogether. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And you’re right. We should stay on the subject.”
Jorden couldn’t agree more as she sifted through the papers.
“Anything there?” Isis asked as she headed over to a second bookshelf, which was in greater disrepair than the first.
“Damned if I know. It’s all in Italian and German by the looks of it.”
“Put them in the box and we’ll see if Syd can translate them,” Isis said and Jorden agreed.
Jorden and Isis finished gathering up the books and all papers that might have had something of importance on them out of both doctors’ offices and headed to the main stairs outside where they met up with Syd and Ana.
“Anything happen?” Syd asked almost expectant.
Jorden shook her head. “We found some books and papers we need you to take a look at but other than that it was pretty quiet,” she said. “You?”
Syd’s smile grew though Ana appeared a bit nervous. “We were able to retrieve all the cameras including the one I left in the crematorium last night. I think that you’ll be rather interested in what it shows.”
In spite of the fact that Jorden had just about had her fill of the island she couldn’t help but still feel a bit intrigued. “We’ll take a look when we get back to the cottage,” she said. “What about Matt’s team? Have they been in contact yet?”
No sooner than the question was out of her mouth the others headed out of the hospital, all of them pale.
Immediately Jorden grew concerned. “Is something wrong?” she questioned as she jogged up to them.
“Take a look for yourself,” Matt said in near disgust, though the look on his face said that he wanted to vomit.
Jorden and the rest of her team approached Tony, who motioned them over and nodded towards the cases.
Jorden’s heart jumped when she saw what was inside. “Oh my God! What happened?”
“Sometime in between the time we left and came back someone got damned angry with the equipment. All the cameras on the second, third and fourth floors were destroyed,” Tony calmly explained, though the strain in his voice was as clear as the tightness in his expression. “
What about your cameras?”
Jorden looked back at Syd.
“They’re all fine,” Syd confirmed. “At least as far as their integrity, though I would suggest running tests on them when we get back to the cottage to make sure that they’re still functional.”
“Somehow I don’t think that they’re going to be damaged,” Isis said without a hint of doubt in her tone. “The activity on the first floor of the hospital was pretty much nonexistent. It seems that the only places where we’re having problems are in the areas where the mental patients were kept and treated.”
“I agree,” Jorden said, “though I think that we’ll still take a look at the other cameras anyway, just to be on the safe side.”
A thick silence fell over the group of investigators before Tony finally suggested that they head back, which after closing up the cases is exactly what they did. In no way were they prepared for what they found.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Where the fuck is Jonas?” Matt bellowed as he charged through the cottage like an angry bull. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch!”
Jorden couldn’t concentrate too much on Matt’s tirade; she was busy trying to retrieve everything that was lost on the computers. Two weeks’ worth of evidence was gone. Everything from the run of the mill static that amounted to nothing all the way to the spectacular EVPs and mysterious mist caught on video – all of it gone.
Jesse slumped back in disgust and ran his fingers through his thick, black hair. “It’s no use; they’re fried. Every single one of them,” he groaned.
“Even if we manage to use the rest of our time here gathering evidence we have nowhere to store it. Every one of our hard drives needs to be replaced,” Tony confirmed.
“What about our handhelds, the EMF readers and digital recorders?” Jorden asked calmly. “Have any of those been damaged?”
Tony shook his head. “As near as I can tell they’re all fine.”
The Haunting of Isola Forte di Lorenzo Page 25