by Rebecca York
Terror Mansion (Decorah Security Series, Book #12)
A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novella
By Rebecca York
Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York
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Afterword
DECORAH SECURITY SERIES by Rebecca York
OFF-WORLD SERIES by Rebecca York
About the Author
Praise for Rebecca York
Contacts
ALL BOOKS by Rebecca York
Copyright
Chapter One
This wasn’t Wyatt Granger’s routine nightmare. Usually he had a clear vision of some unfortunate future event that he might or might not be able to alter.
Instead he saw a confusing swirl of murky images with shadowy figures appearing and disappearing, mostly at an old building near the dock in a seaside town. More confounding were the scenes in what looked like a house of horrors, filled with distorted mirrors, a laughing but menacing clown and places where the floor dropped out from under your feet, sending you to the depths of hell.
But always at the center of the whirlwind was a beautiful young woman with terror in her wide-set brown eyes and her sable hair in a tangle around her heart-shaped face.
When his own eyes blinked open, he lay with his heart pounding, fighting his way back to reality. But the here and now kept slithering away. What he saw instead was the woman’s face floating in his mind, the most indelible image from the nightmare.
“Who are you?” he whispered as he sat up and thrust aside the tangled bedsheets.
Although she wasn’t there to respond, he had no doubt that he was going to meet her soon, and the encounter was going to change his life.
A dramatic way to put it? Maybe, but he knew to the marrow of his bones that the dream had been about his own future—even when his prescient nightmares had never been personal before.
“Crap,” he whispered under his breath. He stood up, pressed his feet against the cold floor and walked naked to the window of his condo, where he stood clenching and unclenching his fists as he looked toward the glimmer of dawn on the horizon.
He ached to shake off the vivid confusion of the dream.
But instead of the bare tree trunks outside, he saw the woman’s face, pale and intense and beautiful.
“Who are you?” he asked again, but he heard only the throbbing of the blood in his veins.
He might not know her name, but he had to find her. He could have fought the feeling of urgency that threatened to choke off his breath, but the truth of the dream was burned into his soul, even when he had no way to cope with it on a logical level. All he knew was that he had to go to her. And then he had to take her in his arms and protect her—even when he knew she was going to mount a savage denial that she needed his aid.
Urgency and frustration had him stomping down the hall. In the bathroom, he took a quick shower. In too much of a hurry to shave, he pulled on slacks, a button-down shirt and a sport jacket. Logically there was no way to even know where he was going. But he felt a compulsion to drive east, as though a psychic beacon was pulling him in the right direction, heading toward the waterfront that had flickered in and out of the nightmare.
His destination solidified in his mind when he’d crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. There were lots of waterfront towns in this part of the state, but he took the turn to St. Stephens, which had been a thriving port in colonial times. Now pleasure craft bobbed gently in the small harbor, and Main Street was lined with tourist shops and restaurants.
A welter of emotions grabbed him by the throat as he parked in a lot in the heart of the downtown area and strode toward the dock. Yet some part of him still feared the dream had all been a lie.
Relief jolted through him when he saw the shambling gray building from the nightmare. The feeling was nothing compared to what he felt when his gaze fell on the woman standing outside the barn-like door.
His heart skipped a beat, then started pounding in double time when he saw her. In the nightmares she’d been wearing a black cocktail dress, the fabric clinging to her high breasts and gently curved hips. In real life she was wearing scruffy jeans, running shoes, and a light green tee shirt. Her only adornment was a large silver barrette that caught her hair at the back of her neck.
She’d been scanning the area with a worried expression, and Wyatt froze as her gaze skidded to a stop when she saw him. For a couple of charged seconds, their eyes locked, and he absorbed another truth. He had been right about her not wanting his help—his or anybody else’s.
He tensed, expecting her to come striding toward him, demanding to know why he’d invaded her territory. Instead she ducked back inside the building, and he was left with a mixture of confusing emotions. Elation at finding her surged through him, but it came with a cold dose of reality. She was going to hate his first words.
He wouldn’t like them either. He’d learned a long time ago that the dreams he had of the future were rarely something he wanted to share. But in this case, he had to.
He kept watch on the doorway. When she didn’t reappear, he was drawn forward as though by a powerful invisible force—the force that had brought him to this place and time. Only now that he’d seen the woman at the center of the dream—the compulsion was like an electric current humming through his body.
He’d come down here with no concrete plans, other than the conviction that he was the only thing standing between her and death.
Absurd opening lines zinged through his head.
“Hello, I think somebody’s trying to kill you.”
Or, “I’m here to save your life.”
Praying he could come up with something that sounded more reasonable, he walked to the door.
He heard no sounds from the interior. Hoping to get a little more information before he had to explain why he was there, he stepped inside—past a sign that said, “Silversmith’s Workshop. Private Property; Keep Out.”
When his eyes adjusted to the shadowed interior, he saw a large open room with a scuffed and scarred wooden floor. Old kitchen cabinets lined one wall, and another held racks of tools like hammers and pincers. He also saw a blowtorch, welder’s goggles, and a scarred white kitchen stove with wire mesh sitting on one of the burners.
Business cards were scattered on a long counter. He picked up the top one and read:
Kate Kingston
Fine silver jewelry
210 Dockside
St. Stephens, Maryland
www.silverader.com
Now at least he knew her name and occupation.
He was about to walk farther into the space to get a better look around when he heard a sharp but feminine voice say, “I have a gun. Hands in the air. Turn around slowly and face me.”
Chapter Two
Determination and fear warred inside Kate Kingston as she watched the tall, rangy man turn. For weeks she’d had the feeling that someone was spying on her, even sneaking into her workshop, up to no good. But this was the first time she’d gotten a good look at the guy.
As they stood face to face across ten feet of charged space, she took in a quick impression of dark eyes and hair, a strong jaw covered by a couple day’s growth of beard, and a nose that looked like it had once been broken. It was nobody she knew from around town, and nobody she remembered from her past. Had he come to St. Stephens for the express purpose of harassing her?
But why?
&
nbsp; “Why have you been stalking me?” she demanded, struggling to keep her voice from shaking. She was glad to note that her hand looked steady, although she was thinking she should have brought her phone so that she could call the police.
“I’m not stalking you,” he said as he stood with his hands at shoulder level, palms facing her.
“I saw you lurking outside. Then you deliberately walked past a private property sign.”
“I’m not a stalker,” he said again. But what else would he say, under the circumstances? Still his next words surprised her. “My name is Wyatt Granger. I’m a private detective, and I just got to town.”
She kept her voice even. “Prove it.”
“I’m going to reach into my pocket slowly and take out my identification.” As he spoke, he moved his right hand and came out with a wallet, which he flipped open, showing a card that said he was a Decorah Security Agent. “You can call my office if you need them to vouch for me,” he said.
“If you have a phony ID, you can also have a phony employer standing by to confirm your identity.”
He sighed. “Right, it’s an elaborate ploy.”
Ignoring the mixture of frustration and sarcasm in his voice, she asked, “If you’re a detective, who hired you to spy on me?”
There was a surreal quality to the conversation, perhaps because this was the confirmation that she’d made a serious mistake a little more than a year ago.
She’d moved around so much as a kid that she’d never been able to call anywhere home. Then she’d seen a listing for a vacant property in St. Stephens that sounded perfect for her lifestyle. When she’d come down to have a look, it had been even better than she’d imagined, with a big space she could use for a workshop and a smaller apartment blocked off in one corner. She’d signed a long- term lease. But in the last six weeks, she’d started thinking that perhaps she’d been wrong about St. Stephens. Maybe it could never be the home she’d longed for.
“No one hired me to spy on you.” He cleared his throat. “Would you mind lowering the gun?”
A fair question, she supposed. After an internal debate, she tilted the weapon away.
“Then what are you doing here?” she asked.
His next words raised goose bumps on her arms. “I have information that you’re in danger.”
oOo
Struggling not to show how much this meeting was affecting him, Wyatt watched the play of emotions on her face. Nobody likes that kind of bad news, but he was sure she wasn’t going to believe him. He might have had an intense encounter with her in a dream, but in real life, she had no reason to trust him. Plus he could tell from the few short minutes of this meeting that she was brave, stubborn and independent. He loved the combination, yet he knew that the character traits had put her life in danger.
“I saw someone watching you.”
“Just now?”
“Yes,” he lied because a bluff seemed like his best option.
“You saw someone? And then you sneaked in here? I suggest that unless you come up with something better, you turn around and go back to . . .” She glanced at the card. “Beltsville. If that’s where you’re really from.”
She wanted a better reason to believe him? If he told her the truth, would he just be digging a bigger hole in the shifting sand under his feet?
Judging from her expression, he was pretty sure she was going to laugh in his face. He rarely revealed his ability in a blatant fashion. But now he was thinking it was his only alternative—in the absence of any hard evidence.
He dragged in a breath and let it out before saying, “Okay, you’ve heard of psychics who work with the police?”
She answered with a laugh, confirming his expectation. “And you’re saying you’re one of those?”
“Not exactly. But similar. Like my card says, I work for an agency called Decorah Security.”
She made a scoffing sound. “You picked the wrong person to con with that psychic line. My father owned a carnival, and I know all about psychics.”
That was an interesting revelation.
“Usually he had a fortune-teller, Madame Delilah or Something Else exotic. They were all independent contractors, but they had to pay him for the privilege of fleecing the customers. The fortune- tellers would size up rubes and ask some leading questions that would help them come out with plausible revelations, designed to separate the marks from some of their money.” She laughed again. “And now you’re trying to do the same damn thing to me.”
The cynical assessment made him want to shift his weight from one foot to the other, but he kept his body steady.
“No. Why would I?”
“I’m guessing you want me to pay for your private-detective services.”
He fought the unwelcome desperation rising in his chest.
“This has nothing to do with scamming you. I’m not here to get money out of you. I wouldn’t do that.”
She snorted. “Isn’t that your job—protecting people—for pay?”
“I’m not on a job.” He wanted to add, “This is personal,” but he knew it wasn’t going to help.
She shrugged. “Yeah, well I know you’re playing some kind of game. And now you’d better get out of here, or I’ll call the police.”
Chapter Three
“Great going, Granger,” Wyatt muttered under his breath as he turned and left the workshop, clenching his fingers around the business card that he’d slipped into his pocket.
He’d come here like a knight in shining armor to save a woman he’d only met in a dream. Instead, she’d seen him as a con artist, which meant he was light years from convincing her to trust him. Still, he had unearthed some useful information. She’d said someone was stalking her. Likely someone in town.
But he was pretty sure that wasn’t the extent of the danger. Not when he’d sensed two different threats in the nightmare.
On the face of it, that seemed like too much of a coincidence. Yet he knew there were vortexes in the affairs of humans that swirled around like ocean currents, washing good or bad events in one particular direction. He was sure Kate Kingston was caught in one of those currents, a bad one.
He winced, because the idea of her being in so much danger was like barbed wire twisting in his gut.
“Crap,” he muttered. He hated dreaming of the future, hated having to tell anyone about his ability. On the other hand, a dream had brought him and Kate Kingston together.
He laughed sharply. They weren’t together. He was the last person on earth she wanted to be with.
It was like what had happened with his mother, and the memory still had the power to make him wish he’d been normal.
As a very young child, he hadn’t understood the implications of his dreams. In fact, he’d often been confused about what had happened and what was going to happen.
The first time he’d tried to warn anyone about what he’d seen was when he was eight. He’d woken from a nightmare of his uncle getting killed in an auto accident. Mom had come in to comfort him, and he’d pleaded with her to call Uncle Don. She’d woken him up in the middle of the night, and Wyatt had thought everything was okay, until the next day, when his uncle’s car had been hit by a tractor trailer, and he’d never escaped from the wreckage.
After that Wyatt’s relationship with his mother had changed. It was like she blamed him for causing the accident, and he’d half believed that himself.
It wasn’t until years later that he’d felt the compulsion to tell anyone else about a dream. He’d been dating a girl named Sandy in high school, and he’d known her father was going to have a heart attack. He’d told her, and when it had happened a couple of days later, she’d broken up with him.
Once again, he’d made the wrong decision. After that, he’d kept his mouth shut about future events. It wasn’t until Frank Decorah had come up to him at a campus job fair at the University of Maryland and offered him a job as a private detective that he’d started to think of his nightmares as an asset.<
br />
Frank had told him he looked for agents with special talents, and Wyatt had asked why the guy thought he qualified. The agency head had kept his gaze steady and said, “I think you know.”
In a dimly lit corner of an off-campus bar, they had gotten into a long conversation about Wyatt’s unique ability. It had been almost like having a therapy session. Finally he’d been able to talk to someone who understood what he could do and appreciated it.
And when he’d joined Decorah Security, he’d felt like he’d joined a family. Some might think of it as a family of misfits. He thought of it as being more of a home than anyplace he’d ever been.
oOo
Kate watched the man leave. He’d said his name was Wyatt Granger. He’d said he worked for some outfit called Decorah Security. She supposed she could call them, but as she’d told him, that was no guarantee it wasn’t bogus.
She made a snorting sound. For what reason exactly? Why go to the trouble of scamming a silversmith named Kate Kingston who lived in a little tourist town in Maryland?
As she dragged in a breath and let it out, she thought about Granger—not as a scam artist but on a personal level. Under other circumstances his dark good looks would have appealed to her. But he’d squandered any chance of her being interested in him by sneaking into her building—then coming up with that psychic mumbo jumbo.
And yet, she had thought someone was poking around her workshop. That’s why she’d bought the gun and gone to a firing range where she’d acquired some marksmanship proficiency.
You could say he’d confirmed her worst fears. Or maybe he was working with the stalker.
So now she was elevating her suspicions to conspiracy level?
She made a dismissive sound. She had work to do this afternoon. She used several different methods for creating jewelry. For making earrings and other small pieces, she sometimes worked with flat strips of sterling silver that she could cut with a jeweler’s saw. Sometimes she put small pieces together with soldering silver. But her favorite method was involved using sterling silver clay, a commercial product that came in lump form or as a paste extruded from a syringe—for finer work.