“What did she say?”
His gaze held hers. Instinctively, she knew he was about to lie to her.
“Nothing.”
She sighed and then braced for an argument. “I know that wasn’t nothing. You look like you’re about to pass out.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Please. Tell me what she said.”
He shook his head. “Just something she used to say to me…a long time ago. That’s how I know it’s really her. No one else would say that to me.”
“Then maybe she’s still alive.”
He laughed and the sound chilled her to the bone. “I don’t think so.” He shifted his gaze toward the phone. “There’s some pretty convincing evidence that she’s not.”
“Maybe.” Chelsea believed in life after death. She believed Kristie’s spirit lived somewhere, and her spirit had broken through the supernatural barrier.
“You said you’ve seen ghosts in this house. Was one of them hers?”
She’d first seen Kristie’s ghost the night after James died, but she’d heard her voice many times since she died. Yeah, Kristie had confronted her. Warning her that someone was coming.
It was obvious now. The man that had been coming to find her sat right in front of her.
“I used to hear her talking to me, and then after James died, I saw her.”
“Where…where is she?”
“In the basement.”
The floor beneath him drew his eyes away from hers. He lifted his feet and then slowly lowered them. “I shouldn’t have come here alone.”
She shook his shoulder until he looked at her. “You’re not alone.”
The man appeared to be in shock. “No. I’m not, am I?” He pointed at the phone. “Why is she talking to me that way? Why won’t she talk to me like she talks to you?”
His questions scared the pee out of her. He scared her. She’d never met a man that could steal her emotions the way this man had.
“I don’t know much about stuff like this.”
She didn’t know much about how men and women were supposed to be with each other either. Her relationship with James was the only measure she had, and she knew enough about life to know that theirs had been a dysfunctional relationship. More than anything, Chelsea wanted to be normal, and she had the feeling this man would be patient enough to show her what normal looked like…if he hung around long enough.
“But you believe in ghosts, right?”
Yes, she did. She had ever since the dark mass had rescued her from Zach Halsey. If something or someone hadn’t interrupted Zach, he would have probably raped her.
Once again, Jordan gazed at the wood floorboards. “How many women are down there?”
She steadied her twitchy nerves before she answered. “Too many. I lost count.”
“How do you know they’re there?”
Was he serious? She’d lived in the house for years.
“I helped bury them.”
Not an accurate statement, but the only one she could manage at the moment.
Chapter Seven
“I don’t know why that shocked me so much. You told me the women were still in the house.” Jordan’s stomach was still shaky.
The weather had warmed over the last few days, but the house was stone cold. He’d trashed his uneaten burrito, but held onto the coffee, hoping the heat would thaw the chill freezing his insides. Chelsea, on the other hand, had devoured her meal and then stared at his in the waste can.
He leaned his head on the soiled cushion of a threadbare recliner, the only real piece of furniture in the living room. An antique-looking television tray sat next to the chair with what looked like someone’s half-eaten banana still on a chipped plate.
Chelsea sat on the bottom step of the stairs with her knees under her chin and her thin arms wrapped around her legs, her gaze glued to him. “Are you gonna dig them up?”
Her crude question pelted him, hitting him with an unexpected jolt of grief. Of course, she hadn’t been around decent people for years and probably had no idea what was considered diplomatic or sensitive. Jordan was certain the men she lived with hadn’t filtered anything around her.
If he stuck to a professional perspective, maybe he could hide his reaction and answer her question. He cleared his throat. “Not by myself, I’m not. When it’s time, I’ll get a team of forensic anthropologists to excavate the basement. That’s the only way to make sure it’s done right.”
“What’s a forensic…thing-a-what?”
“Anthropologist. Their specialty is examining human skeletons for criminal investigations. Mostly for the purpose of identifying remains.”
“Yeah, I see why you’d want one of them to do that.”
She studied him without even twitching, and her direct observation made him squirm after a while.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I bet you would like to get started so you could find out for sure…you know.”
She might be undereducated and unrefined, but she was sharp. Like her brother, looks were deceiving.
“If one of those women is Kristie, then she isn’t going anywhere. I need to wait for the forensics people.”
“Sure. You’re right.” She rubbed her finger along the wood of the bottom tread of the stairs. “Are you gonna tell me what she said on the phone?”
He closed his eyes. That was the question that he had been avoiding. The woman on the other end of the line had been Kristie. He had not a single doubt that he’d heard her voice for the first time in four years. What she had said shook him to his core.
The memory of the lilt in her voice when she was being a smart aleck popped back into his consciousness. The teasing tone hit his ear when he had answered the phone. She had sounded the same, just the same as she had when they were younger.
She’s the one.
Taken out of context that phrase could mean anything, but he knew exactly what Kristie had meant. The questions used to be, “Is she the one?” Anytime Jordan glanced toward a new girl he’d get hit with Kristie’s sassy question. Kristie had made it a sport to find the one for Jordan, and all her efforts had been disastrous, enough so that he stopped going on blind dates she’d set up for him and refused to double date with her and Brandon.
He opened his eyes and met Chelsea’s gaze. Was she the one? Was Kristie talking about Chelsea? Couldn’t be. Yet earlier he had the internal debate about getting too close to her, as if a personal relationship with the woman was a possibility.
“Are we gonna stay here all day? Why are we still here? If we’re contaminating evidence. This place is freaking me out.”
Her restlessness had manifested in the tapping of her feet, the bouncing of her knees. He wanted to reach over and press on her knee to keep it still, but at the moment, he was afraid to touch her. She was prickly and he was shaky.
He wasn’t ready to leave. Not until he had an…experience. “I guess I’m waiting for…something. To feel something. I thought if I came here, the last place that she’d been, I might somehow feel her presence one more time.”
“And you haven’t felt anything?”
He shook his head. Disappointment pounded his psyche. He wanted to feel so badly.
“Then, how do you know it’s the same Kristie? There are a lot of women named Kristie, you know.” She jumped to her feet. “Wait a minute.”
She raced up the stairs, and although he was reluctant to get out of the chair, he rose to his feet and made his way to the bedroom where she was rummaging around in a dresser drawer. When she found what she was searching for, she held out her hand. In her palm, a locket reflected flecks and sparkles of light off its gold surface.
His hands remained rigidly at his sides, his fists clenched into two tight knots.
“It’s hers, isn’t it?” Chelsea finally broke the silence.
He reached for the necklace. “Brandon gave it to her.”
“Who’s Brandon?”
“Her fiancée.”
He
dropped onto the cot pushed next to the wall with the chain still clutched in his tight fist. “What happened to her?”
He wasn’t any braver than he had been a few minutes ago, but he couldn’t wait any longer. The fear that time was running out pushed him to proceed with his personal agenda. Unsure if he was ready for the truth, he braced himself for the pain. It was time.
Chelsea sat on the bed next to him and wrapped her arm around him, a strange gesture for a woman who had been damaged so badly by men. He would have never expected her to comfort him, or that he would appreciate her comfort quite so much.
“She told me she was dying from the fumes.”
He flinched and she seemed to hold her breath.
“Go ahead. Tell me what you remember. The fumes were from working in a meth lab, right?”
“Kristie and Sharona came here at the same time, but Sharona got sick quicker than Kristie did. Kristie tried to make her well, but…I’ve seen it too many times. Once they get as far gone as Sharona was, they don’t ever pull out of it. Zeke made us bury Sharona. Actually…” She rubbed her lips together as if the truth tasted bad on her tongue. “Actually, Zeke always told me to make one of the others bury the ones that died, so I made Kristie bury Sharona. I think that… After Sharona died, Kristie just kind of gave up.”
Zeke Richards had been a world-class sociopath. There was no better way to make the other women hate her than to put her in the position of making them do something so awful. What she had just told him was repulsive. He wanted to edge away from her. In a way, her hands were soiled with his sister’s blood.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. The remorse that covered her face, that had dissolved her features into anguish, made him stop his action. He had to remember that the woman obviously did the things she did under extreme duress. Over time, she’d probably been brainwashed and programmed to follow their commands without question or suffer the consequences.
Jordan slipped out of her arm and grabbed her hand. “You must have been scared for your life every second of every day.”
A sob escaped her.
“The other women hated you, didn’t they?”
A tremor began in her lower lip and spread throughout her body.
He was right, of course. No matter the reason, she would have to live with her actions the rest of her life. The abuse she had suffered would not alleviate the guilt that she carried. She probably would have been a decent person if she hadn’t been kidnapped. It would take a lot of explaining and legal wrangling to keep her free.
“Am I going to jail?” she asked between sobs.
Had she read his mind? “I don’t know. If you cooperate with us, we’ll probably ask the prosecutor to work something out for you.”
“If I cooperate?” She repeated his word with a snort. “That’s all I can do. I don’t have any choices, do I? I never had.”
Recording her statement could wait until Shaw Bennett arrived and took control of the case. Jordan no longer had the heart to push her to reveal her inner thoughts and fears to him. He’d already gotten too close to her to keep an objective attitude.
Any minute his phone would ring and the two of them wouldn’t be alone any longer. He had to get the personal stuff out of the way before Bennett intruded with his authoritative presence.
“So…you said you saw her…after she died.”
Chelsea sniffed back her tears and rubbed her eyes. “When Sharona died, Kristie told me that Sharona would haunt me the rest of my life, and if Sharona didn’t, she would.”
He chuckled. “That sounds like my sister.”
“Kristie was one of the strongest women they brought here. She tried to escape a couple of times.” Chelsea pushed the hair from her eyes. “It was never a good thing for one of them to try to escape. She was laid up for a week or so after that, and I was afraid they would…” She turned sorrowful eyes toward him. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“It’s okay. Go ahead. Tell me everything.”
She sighed as if the sorrows of the whole world had gouged deep into the bottom reaches of her soul. “I was afraid they’d give her something to…you know…finish her off and then dump her in the woods. I’m pretty sure they did that with the first one that tried…”
Her story must have been as rough for her to tell as it was for him to hear. She couldn’t seem to say what she wanted to say without hiccoughing every other breath.
She began again and her voice was a little rougher around the edges. “After the first one died, they started making us bury them in the basement. After Kristie…I buried her myself. That was the first time I heard her.”
His voice cracked as he asked his question. “What did she say?”
“He is coming.”
Her answer startled him. Not at all what he expected. “Who was she talking about?”
“I’m not sure.”
Her averted eyes told him she at least had a theory as to whom Kristie meant.
“Before she…she used to talk in her sleep. Once I realized she wasn’t talking about someone out in the hall, it just seemed creepy. I never figured out who she meant.” Her chest expanded with a fresh intake of air. “At night. Her voice would come at me and say that. Over and over until I thought I was going crazy. Then it changed to he is here right after...” She paused and stared into his soul.
He felt her examination of his inner self, that part of him that made him who he was, felt her scrutiny down to his toes.
“Right after I first saw you at Laurel Heights.”
He jumped to his feet, frightened of exploring the implications of what Chelsea had just told him. Action was the only thing that would stop him from asking the questions that would lead to answers he probably shouldn’t hear. Because once something is said it can’t be unsaid.
“Show me where she’s buried.”
She stared up at him, her eyebrows raised in an obvious question.
“I need to see the place where she’s buried. I need to be there.”
He reached down and pulled her from the side of the bed where she sat.
“What are you trying to do, Jordan?”
Do something, anything. I just need to do something to keep from saying what I want to say to you. “I want her to speak to me. To show herself to me. I want to see her one more time.” He needed Kristie to make what Chelsea told him make sense.
“Why do you want to do that to yourself?”
He agreed. “I have to do it.”
She surprised him by pulling him toward the open bedroom door. It was obvious she didn’t want to go into the basement and introduce him to Kristie’s ghost, but she was doing it anyway.
He would owe her. At first, the thought irritated him, but then he decided he could live with that. What was this? He’d been pushing her away, and now he was allowing himself to be obligated to her? It was as if his internal debate hadn’t happened. His sudden change in attitude startled the crap out of him.
****
Chelsea’s white knuckles gripped the rough wood banister every step down the stairs. She hated the basement. Hated it with all her heart. Hated what it symbolized. Under the dirt floor, the past had only been buried under a few feet of soil. If not for the lime she had buried with the bodies, the place would probably smell worse than it did.
She tossed a glance behind her and noticed that Jordan had covered his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Did the basement smell like dead bodies? Had she gotten so used to the stench that she hardly noticed it any longer? What was wrong with her?
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he pulled back on her hand. That’s when she realized she still had his clutched in hers. He stared at the dirt beneath his feet. Maybe he was one of those superstitious types that wouldn’t step on someone’s grave. If he was going to spend much time in the basement, he’d have to get over that.
“Where is she?” he asked through tight lips.
Chelsea pointed toward the far corner.
Sympathy swelled inside her when fresh pain covered his face.
“If you follow my steps, we can miss stepping on anyone.”
The man’s face had drained of color, his eyes wide with shock.
“In case you’re wondering…no, I never got used to this.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think that you had.”
She smiled, making sure to force a little warmth into the expression. “You don’t really know what to think of me, do you?”
He had the decency to seem a bit sheepish. “No, not really. I’ve never met anyone like you.”
She laughed, and to her surprise, her laughter was a genuine expression of amusement. “And you probably never will again.”
“Well, I don’t know. I am a cop.”
Yes, he was. And she was on the other side of the law. His comment threw salt onto her raw wounds. She tried hard not to show the hurt, but she couldn’t help the direct hit to her psyche. Trying to hide her reaction, she turned to face forward so he wouldn’t see her expression. Before she could stop him, he had cupped her chin and turned her head to face him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
She snorted with forced derision. “Why are you apologizing to me? I thought we already figured out our place in this situation. You’re a cop. I’m a criminal.”
His eyebrows drew together across his nose. “I think I’ve treated you fairly.”
“Sure, yeah.”
“How did you think I’d treat you?”
She shrugged. “Well, I didn’t expect you to treat me nice at all. I mean…shouldn’t I be in jail or something?”
“No, actually, normally, we would have sent you straight to a psych ward. Is that what you want?”
The thought horrified her. “Why haven’t you? You know the way you’re handling this is starting to seem kind of weird.” Why hadn’t he at least dragged her straight to the nearest lock up?
His face turned twelve shades of pink. “You asked me for help, remember? It’s not like I tracked you down and arrested you. What have you done that makes you think you should be treated like a criminal?”
Chelsea Lane (Haunted Hearts Series Book 5) Page 8