Darkness Falls

by Trista Ann Michaels

  She smiled at him. “Lunch was wonderful, Sam. Thank you.”

  “I’m thrilled you liked it,” he said with a bow. “Some of the girls were wondering if you would take a picture with them.”

  “Of course. I would love that,” Alana replied, more than happy to take a picture with fans. Not to mention the distraction would help to take her mind off the twins and the things they made her feel.

  Aiden stood back and watched Alana with the girls at the restaurant. It was obvious she loved her fans, both of her books and her show. She took pictures, signed a couple of books that the girls had with them, and even a napkin for a woman who didn’t have any books with her.

  He liked watching her, and so did his brother if the interest shining in his eyes was any indication. But Aiden had more of an indication than that. He could feel Noah’s interest, his desire.

  He could also sense Alana’s hesitance, which was something that had him stumped. Why would he feel anything from her at all? Vaguely he wondered if there was a reason for that. Was that why he and his brother had never experienced such a sharp connection before? They’d been going after the wrong type of woman all this time?

  Or was it all in his head, his imagination fueled by what he could see in her eyes? If she was hesitant, he could certainly understand. It was a lot to dump in someone’s lap, especially someone who didn’t know them well.

  “Sheriff,” a voice came through Noah’s walkie attached to his hip.

  Noah rolled his eyes and pulled it from the clip. Putting it to his mouth, he hit the Talk button. “Yeah.”

  “Are you about done with lunch?” the voice asked, and Noah frowned.

  Alana turned to look as well, her expression one of concern as she heard the man’s spooked tone through the walkie.

  “Yeah, why? What’s up?”

  “I think you need to come by the station. You’re gonna need to see this for yourself.”

  Noah’s frown deepened. “I’ll be right there.”

  He set the walkie into the clip. “I’ll meet you guys at the house later.” With a firm look, he pointed at Alana. “I better not catch you out there alone again.”

  “Noah,” she countered, her brow creased with irritation at his dominant warning. “I’m not four.”

  Noah stepped closer and brought his nose close to hers, his lips twitching with a hint of amusement. “Trust me, darlin’, I know. Just be careful, okay? I have a bad feeling about all this, and I’m afraid we haven’t seen the last of the violence.”

  Worry darkened the green of her eyes. “Do you know something we don’t?”

  “No. Just gut instinct.” He turned to Aiden and nodded before leaving the restaurant.

  “What do you suppose that was all about? At the station, I mean,” Alana said with a thoughtful expression as she watched him leave.

  “Not sure, but if it’s anything important, he’ll let us know later. Are you ready?”

  She nodded and turned to wave good-bye to Sam and his girls. Aiden put his hand at the base of her spine, leading her from the restaurant. It felt right there, like she belonged within his reach, his arms, his life.

  “Tray wants to perform a little experiment later,” she said as they came to a stop at her car.

  He blinked at her change in topic. “An experiment?” Aiden asked intrigued.

  “He believes the ghost has a fascination with Noah.”

  Aiden snorted. “Why Noah?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m not even sure Tray knows why. I think he’s just…” Alana waved her hand. “He’s just looking for some sort of explanation as to why Noah sees her more than anyone else.”

  “Have you ever run across anything like this before?” he asked.

  Alana shook her head as she pulled her keys from her purse. “Nothing to this extreme. I’m still skeptical. I still think this isn’t all paranormal.”

  Aiden leaned against the truck and crossed his arms over his chest. “Now that I definitely agree with you on. Noah’s worried. I can feel it even though he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t like loose ends and unanswered questions. It bothers him that we have zero leads on whoever that was in the house.”

  “Trust me, it bothers me too.”

  “I have to admit, though. I never imagined opening that house up to ghost hunters would be this much fun. I think your job is interesting as hell.”

  Alana laughed. “Interesting is one way to describe it. Another would be tedious. Most of the time we find very little, or we could spend hours watching videos and see nothing. The producer is already talking about turning this one into a three-hour-long special. He and Tray are practically salivating at the mouth. From what I understand, he already has the trailer ready to run.”

  “I also have the vendors, and everything else in place and ready to go for the Halloweenfest. All you have to do is say yes.”

  He could see the indecision on her face, the hesitancy in her eyes. “Businesswise, I would be an idiot to turn it down. Personally…”

  Noah put his finger under her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his. “If it works between the three of us, it works. If it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be. I’m just asking for the time we need to figure out which one it is.”

  “We hardly know one another,” she whispered.

  Aiden nodded in agreement. “You and I know each other better than you and Noah. We’ve been talking longer, but honestly, we probably know each other just as well as anyone else who’s just starting the dating process.”

  “True, but most women don’t start the process with two men at the same time.”

  Aiden dropped his hand. “Well, I know some women who’ve dated two men at once.”

  “Not in the way you’re suggesting, I’m guessing.”

  Aiden chuckled. “Probably not. Just think about it,” he said as he rubbed the pad of his thumb along her jaw. Leaning down, he placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. “I’ll see you at the house later.”

  She nodded, her cheeks blushing an adorable shade of pink. Aiden smiled, then walked to his own car, leaving her to think about what he’d requested.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Noah walked into the station and frowned at the three officers staring at his office as though the ghost of John Wayne was staring back at them through the glass.

  Shaking his head, Noah stood next to them and crossed his arms over his chest, studying the closed door. “What am I supposed to be seeing?” he asked, only slightly amused.

  The young officer next to him jumped. “Damn, Sheriff. I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “Obviously,” Noah drawled good-naturedly. “What is it I need to see for myself, Danny?”

  Danny nodded toward the office door. “But before you go in there, I think you should take a look at the video.”

  Noah frowned in confusion. “What video?”

  Danny pointed toward the small camera in the corner. Noah’s lips twisted as he stared up at it. “I forget that thing is even there.”

  “Yeah,” Danny agreed as his face paled slightly. “Wish I could after today.”

  With a snort, Noah patted Danny on the shoulder. “Let’s skip the dramatics, Danny. Just show me what happened. You’ve got me curious now.”

  “I can assure you, I’m not being dramatic. You’ll see,” he added with a nod that Noah found almost funny.

  Noah followed Danny over to his computer. Several other officers joined them as Danny pulled up the footage. Noah glanced around in exasperation. “Don’t you guys have cases to work?”

  “Oh, no,” John, one of the senior officers on the force, replied with a shake of his head. “We saw this firsthand. Now we just want to see your face when you see it.”

  Noah frowned, wondering just what the hell they were about to show him.

  “Here it is,” Danny said as he pointed to the screen.

  Noah turned his attention to the picture of his office. At first, he didn’t see anything, but as he looked closer, he noticed the
papers flying just beyond the glass window. It was as though someone had turned on a fan, spreading papers everywhere.

  “What the hell?” he murmured as he leaned in closer to get a better look.

  As he watched, he realized it wasn’t just papers. Books flew against the blinds, hitting the window that overlooked the parking lot. Two coffee cups slammed against the interior window, startling two officers as they walked past his office. They stopped and peered into the window, their eyes wide as they watched the papers fly all over the room.

  “No one was in there,” Danny said. “I checked the tape.”

  “Did anyone go in after things settled down?” Noah asked as he continued to watch the screen.

  Eventually the paper storm died down and everything fell to the floor.

  “No. We, uh…thought it would be best to wait for you.”

  Noah scowled at the young officer. Danny shrugged, his face turning red as he glanced toward the floor, too ashamed to look Noah in the eye. “It is your office, boss,” Danny mumbled.

  With a deep sigh, Noah stood straight. “What the hell do you think is in there, Danny?”

  “Noah,” John scolded softly from behind him. “You can’t blame the kid. I didn’t want to go in there either after seeing that.”

  Shaking his head, Noah strolled to his office door. “The whole lot of y’all are worthless,” he grumbled.

  Turning the doorknob, Noah had a split second of uncertainty. Was it possible this really was paranormal? He’d seen the footage with his own eyes: the papers flying everywhere, the cups hitting the window. No one had entered or left.

  Or was it possible his team was playing some sort of elaborate Halloween prank?

  Grumbling to himself, he opened the door and stepped into his office, now in a state of utter disarray. It would take him days to clean this up and put the files back together. He ran a hand down his face, becoming fatigued just thinking about the job ahead of him.

  John made his way slowly into the room and came to stand next to him. His eyes were wide with shock, his expression one of caution, as though he expected something or someone to jump out at any moment.

  “Is this your idea of letting me know I need to organize my office?” Noah asked.

  John snickered. “Wish I had thought of that, but no. Besides, why do you need to organize it? You always know exactly where everything is. Or at least you did,” John added as he carefully stepped over the strewn papers.

  “Yeah, I did,” Noah responded with a tired sigh. Now he wasn’t sure where anything was. “Do you see anything?” Noah asked as he began to make his way slowly around the room, studying every corner, every inch of the wall looking for anything that would explain what happened.

  John shook his head as he ran a hand through his short, dark brown hair. “I’m amazed we would see anything beyond this mess.”

  Noah pinned his old friend and partner with a stare he hoped came across as meaning business. “Are you sure this wasn’t a joke, John?”

  John scowled. “I can assure you if we were going to play a practical joke, it wouldn’t be with police files.”

  Noah sighed and nodded. The officers loved to play pranks, but John was right. They wouldn’t mess with official papers or files. They knew better.

  “Were you working on something on your computer? Something with missing girls?” John asked as he leaned in closer to examine the screen.

  “No.”

  Frowning, Noah walked over to see what John was staring at. On his screen, several Internet pages were open, one after another—pages of missing girls. Web sites put up by families more than likely, an attempt to find their missing child or wife. All of them were in their twenties, all dark-haired, all from different parts of the country.

  “What the hell is this?” he wondered out loud as he hit the Minimize button, putting each page at the bottom of the screen so he could see the one beneath it.

  Twenty-five in all. The last page was one he didn’t expect to see and froze as he stared at the familiar face of Alana’s friend, Lisa. It was her Web site page, her bio specifically. Why would that one be there?

  “Do me a favor, John,” Noah said as he handed John a pad he’d found at the corner of the desk. “Run these girls’ names through the missing persons database.”

  John took the pad and nodded. “Okay. What about her?” He pointed to the screen and the picture of Lisa. “Isn’t she one of the investigators at the house?”

  “Yeah. She’s also the one who was attacked that first night.”

  “Do you think there might be a connection?”

  “A connection to what?” Noah asked in exasperation.

  “Those other girls.”

  “The hell if I know,” Noah replied. “None of this makes any sense. See what you can find out about the girls; make sure they’re still missing. Sometimes they don’t get taken off the list when they’ve been found.”

  “All right. Anything else?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  * * *

  “So…how was lunch?” Tray asked as he dropped onto the foot of the bed, shaking the mattress and forcing the headboard against the wall with a bang.

  Alana glanced up from the laptop resting on her thighs and frowned. “What?”

  “Lunch?”

  “Oh. It went okay. Food was great.”

  She returned her attention to the screen and the sex scene she’d been in the middle of writing. Despite what she did or how she rewrote it, Aiden and Noah’s personalities and skills kept creeping in.

  “Working on the new book?” he asked.

  “Yeah…I guess.”

  “Alana,” Tray called, trying to get her attention.

  She pushed the laptop closed with a sigh. “It seems like no matter what I do, it’s me having sex with Aiden or Noah. I can’t get it out of my mind. It’s driving me nuts.”

  “Maybe that’s not a bad thing. If the sex was good for you, it will be good in the book.”

  She shook her head, sighing. “That’s not the point.”

  “I know it’s not, but I’m trying to help.”

  Chuckling, she set the laptop aside. “I probably shouldn’t have worked on this today. Now tonight when I see them, I’ll already be horny.”

  This time Tray laughed. “I can take care of that for you,” he teased. Smiling broadly, he wiggled his fingers. “I have great hands.”

  Alana threw a pillow at him playfully. “I’m not the right gender, remember.”

  Tray stood and spread his arms. “Hey. Like I said, just trying to help.” He stared at her through his lashes and lowered his voice. “As I have in the past, numerous times.”

  “You’re insufferable. You promised never to throw those times in my face.”

  His grin widened. “I’m not throwing them in your face. They’re gentle reminders.”

  Alana returned his smile, knowing Tray was only teasing her. He was her best friend. Had been for years. They’d been through a lot—lost jobs, lost loves. He probably knew more about her than Lisa did.

  “Have you heard anything from Lisa? I’m beginning to think that maybe we shouldn’t have let her go alone.” Alana steered the subject from anything sexual.

  “Its broad daylight; she’ll be fine. And yes, I talked to her about twenty minutes ago. She’s on her way back and all excited about something she’s found.”

  “What was it?” Alana asked with growing excitement of her own.

  “Don’t know. She wouldn’t say. But if she’s this excited, it’s bound to be something really good.”

  “Hopefully it’s something that will explain our little ghost.”

  “And her fascination with Noah,” Tray added. “Although, truthfully, who could blame her. The man’s a hunk and a half.”

  “He’s straight, Tray,” Alana said, grinning as she watched her friend study the books lying on top of the dresser.

  “Hey, a man can dream, can’t he?” Tray asked as he glanced at her
over his shoulder, wiggling his eyebrows.

  Alana shook her head in amusement as she reached for her cup of tea on the nightstand beside her.

  “I have to admit, I’m jealous,” Tray continued. “I would give my eyeteeth to be the person sandwiched between those two gorgeous brothers. I bet they have dicks the size of my forearm.”

  She choked on her tea, caught between laughing and coughing. “Oh my God, you’re insane!”

  Tray laughed along with her. “Maybe. But I bet I’m right.”

  “Well,” Alana said as she set her cup aside and reached for a napkin to wipe the tea from her chin. “All I’ll say is I had trouble taking all of Aiden at first.”

  “Oooh, yum,” Tray teased, making her laugh again.

  “This is so not an appropriate topic of conversation. I would die if they knew we talked about this, even jokingly.”

  Tray swatted her leg as he walked by. “Nothing’s inappropriate between friends. Now get up off that lazy ass; I think I heard Lisa come in.”

  About that time, Lisa’s voice carried through the room. “Guys? Are you here?”

  “We’re coming,” Alana replied as she followed Tray to the living area.

  Lisa stood at the dining table, dropping her papers onto the surface. “You guys won’t believe what I found out,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement.

  “What?” Alana asked, curious as to what had her friend so thrilled.

  “You wouldn’t believe the history of this house. There have been at least seven deaths, four of which were young girls Karen’s father brought in as sex slaves for private parties that he held. Some were even attended by politicians.”

  Alana snorted. “That doesn’t surprise me. They probably still do that today.”

  Lisa held up a finger as she reached for a piece of paper lying on the table. “The woman the sheriff sees?” She handed Alana a sketch of a young girl. “That’s her. I asked him to describe her to one of his sketch artists, and that’s what they came up with”

  Alana studied the woman’s face and long straight hair. There was something about her eyes that looked familiar. “She looks familiar. Did you find out who she was?”