More than anything, Brett wanted his sister to be able to live in the open without fear.
****
Jordan hadn’t wanted to leave Courtney and Chelsea alone at the cabins, but there had been no choice. Bennett had left a 9MM and a shotgun behind. Neither woman seemed scared to use a gun. Something to think about.
Watching Grayson while he approached Haskins required manpower. Too much open terrain surrounded the house. Bennett, McCord, Duncan, and Jordan were spread out along the perimeter, each of them a safe yet approachable distance from Haskins’s residence.
Jordan peered through his binoculars, scanning left and right. A reflection bounced off a shiny surface at about the spot where Brett Duncan should be hiding out. He winced. Bennett had given them all some fast, but brief instructions. None of them were trained for a military style operation. None of them except Bennett. The man had to work with what he had, refusing to bring any more people into the circle of those that knew about the plan.
The morning had dragged into the afternoon with no activity. His job had been to determine if Haskins had recruited new men to guard his place. The quiet and the waiting gave him plenty of time to think.
About Chelsea.
She had kissed him and his surprise hadn’t been enough to keep from kissing her back. Then he had refused to apologize. That morning, she had brought up a valid point. How would he ever be able to forget her role in the captivity and death of his sister?
She’d given him her statement that morning and hadn’t left out any details. The woman hadn’t tried to minimize her involvement or pretend she didn’t know what she was doing. Everything she’d done had been rooted in the most basic of survival instincts. He couldn’t fault her for that, but he couldn’t forget that she had been there when his sister had been abused.
Something about her had attracted him even before he knew who she was. He was under no delusions that she would need a lot of psychological help when everything settled down. Would she ever be able to have a somewhat normal relationship? Was he doing more damage to her fragile psyche by allowing this thing, whatever it was, to form between them?
If Kristie’s voice hadn’t whispered in his ear…
Brief chatter erupted over the two-way radio before Grayson made his move. Haskins came out to meet him on the patio. It seemed the two men were engaged in a heated argument. Bennett gave the order for the support team to move in closer.
No sooner had Jordan settled into a spot closer to the house than he spotted a spark out of the corner of his eye. A bit of brick splintered off the house. The ping of the shot finally drifted over the wind and hit Jordan’s ears. Grayson jerked and spun toward the source of the disruption, reaching his arm forward and pushing Haskins. Another shot and the two men were flat on the ground.
Jordan sucked in a deep breath and headed toward the spot where he’d seen the flash. Bennett’s previous instructions had been to maintain radio silence during such an event. Each man now had a job to do. In his peripheral vision, Jordan noticed that Grayson grabbed Haskins and yanked him inside the house.
The horrible thought hit Jordan in the gut that he wished the bullet hadn’t missed.
****
Grayson stormed into the room where the other men where already seated around the table waiting for him. “What happened? Which one of you fired at us?”
“Settle down.” Shaw Bennett presented an unruffled demeanor.
The op hadn’t gone according to plan. Bennett was the kind of guy that didn’t like his plans thwarted. Jordan suspected he was seething on the inside. Grayson’s attitude wouldn’t help ease tensions a bit.
“None of us fired our weapons. Check them if you’d like.”
Grayson ruffled his hair. Jordan had seen him do the same thing several times in their brief association. The man usually presented a calm presence, but getting shot at had the opposite effect on a person. Jordan couldn’t blame the man for being irate. He was probably still dealing with the aftereffects of an adrenaline rush.
“There was someone else out there. Whoever it was knew we were there and shot at Haskins anyhow.” Bennett paused as if to let that observation sink in.
Bennett swiveled in his chair to face Grayson. “We can dive into that later. But right now, Dickerson says he’s not getting anything off the bug.”
Grayson reached into his pocket and dropped the tiny transmitting device on the table. “You might not have seen them, but there were two men in the house. I didn’t get a chance to place the bug without someone noticing.”
Josh McCord spoke up. “I caught a glimpse of them. I’ve never seen them around here before. Must be new hires.”
Grayson filled them in on the atmosphere inside Haskins’s house after the shots picked at the brick beside Haskins’s head. “They wanted to return fire, but Haskins told them to stand down. The shot came from too far away. The shooter was hidden from view. I don’t think his new guys have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. When Haskins said I was okay, they didn’t even question him. Experienced security personnel would have had more questions.”
Brett tossed his question into the tense moment. “So who took a shot at the old man?”
Shaw answered. “I’m guessing Haskins’s connection is reminding him who the real boss is.”
Grayson dropped onto a chair and emitted a noise of supreme disgust. “Isn’t that the way it is? No matter how high up the food chain we go to take an organization down, there is always someone further up the ladder to keep things going. Sometimes this feels like it will never end.”
Bennett put his hands on his hips. Jordan sensed he was about to do his authority act. “We can only deal with one situation at a time, so let’s deal with this one. If we shut it down in this part of the state, then the structure will have to be rebuilt. That takes time. And maybe, just maybe the big boss will concentrate his efforts on a more lucrative market instead of devoting a lot of time to rebuilding this one.”
Josh inserted his opinion. “This is a business and these guys are all about the marketing.”
The thought soured on Jordan’s stomach. The men they were trying to stop were in the business of killing people slowly and painfully through their addictions.
Bennett summed it up. “Well, that could have gone better.”
Grayson had another point to make. “It got me in the door. I left without promising him anything. Haskins still wants me in his business. He tried to hide it, but he’s pretty anxious. I think he might be losing his grip on reality. How could he possibly think I would change who I am so easily?”
Jordan pulled the tab on a soda. “Greed blinds people.”
“I have a question.” Josh McCord bit out his statement.
All eyes turned toward him.
“Why are we here?”
It was a good question. The last time most of them met in the conference room on the ground floor of Shaw’s Landing the ghost of Jeremy Haskins’s had startled them. So far, the place had been quiet, almost as quiet as a cemetery on a peaceful Sunday afternoon.
Bennett smiled with grim satisfaction. “Fred Haskins claimed Jeremy’s bones today and promptly sent them to the funeral home to be cremated.” He glanced at his watch. “Jeremy should have been burned to ashes by now.”
Everyone held their breath and waited. Eyes darted everywhere, watching and waiting. Nothing. The room remained still and quiet.
Bennett addressed Jordan. “So…do you feel any energy here?”
Jordan remained silent, contemplating Bennett’s question. No, he didn’t feel a thing. He shook his head in the negative. It was as if nothing paranormal had ever happened in the room.
Josh broke the heavy quiet. “That’s kind of quick for remains to be released to the family, isn’t it?”
“No one argued.”
Especially not the acting Sheriff of Hill County, and it seemed Epps was more than happy to get Jeremy Haskins out of his morgue.
Bennett had one mor
e thing to add. “I suspect Haskins wanted any forensic evidence destroyed before anyone figured out who killed his son.”
That seemed so backwards to Jordan. Most men would want the person responsible for their son’s death to pay, but not Haskins. If the circumstances of Jeremy’s death were revealed, then Haskins couldn’t rely on his other son Mitchell Grayson to carry on the family business.
Chapter Twelve
When Jordan returned to the cabin, Chelsea and Courtney practically ganged up on him demanding to go to the house on Chelsea Lane. Brett wanted no part of it, so he headed into town to check on the farm. He said it was important to make people believe he was still living there so they wouldn’t go looking for him elsewhere and maybe find his sister.
Jordan hadn’t been able to adequately argue with his logic, but he had sworn to Chelsea that Brett was up to something. She couldn’t imagine what that could be. Truth was, she didn’t know what her brother was capable of any longer. She didn’t want him hunting Haskins down and doing something stupid. Since Brett swore he would stay away from the man, Chelsea had shrugged his departure off without questioning him further.
So Chelsea, Courtney, and Jordan had headed over to Chelsea Lane, without telling Shaw where they were going or what they were doing. Jordan didn’t seem to be worried about what Shaw would think. Besides, he had reasoned, Shaw was too caught up in being county sheriff, even if it was temporary, to keep up with everything they did. He’d left the women in Jordan’s care, and Jordan proclaimed he was perfectly capable of taking care of them.
Courtney hadn’t argued with Jordan as much as Chelsea would have thought she would have. So they had driven into town and parked on Mimosa, one street over from the house. It had been too easy to keep in the shadows and walk the short distance to the back door, out of sight of the neighbors. Things were quiet on that block of Chelsea Lane in the middle of the night. Mostly widow ladies with cats and the occasional old man with a deaf hound dog inhabited the houses. That was what had made the house the perfect site for hiding Cooley’s workers.
Jordan was about to pop the flimsy lock on the back door when Shaw’s voice growled at them from behind. “What are you doing here?”
Chelsea jumped and nearly tumbled to the ground. She grabbed Courtney’s shoulder just as the woman gasped and jerked as if she was going to run.
Shaw slipped an arm around Courtney’s waist before she could get two feet. “Hold up. I’m a friendly.”
Jordan rolled his eyes at Shaw’s military jargon. “Why are you sneaking up on us?”
“I’ve been watching the place in case some of Haskins’s men came back here. Now tell me what you’re doing here.”
Jordan coughed and averted his eyes.
So Jordan was going to play it stubborn. Chelsea had no time for his dramatics. She wanted to get on with the reason for their trip. “We came here to try and call up the ghosts that live here.”
“Why?”
“Well, because I… We…”
“And you were going to do this without me?” A brilliant smile erupted on Shaw’s rugged features. “I just so happen to have an thermal imaging camera in the back of my car.”
Jordan hooted. “Well isn’t that convenient?” He narrowed his eyes at the other man. “You weren’t planning to do a little investigating on your own, were you?”
Shaw rubbed his hand along the side of his face. “I don’t usually do that on my own.”
“So?” Jordan’s voice crackled with irritation. “Are you going to help us with this or not?”
Shaw waved toward the door. “Let’s do this.”
Now they were inside, and Chelsea wished they had waited until another day to do what they contemplated doing. Chelsea and Courtney had gone upstairs to the bedroom where Kristie had died while Shaw remained in the kitchen monitoring the video feed. Chelsea glanced at the camera across the room and wiggled a bit before trying to shake the jitters out of her arms.
Jordan eased onto the side of the cot where Kristie had died. Chelsea shivered as a chill swept over her. The serious expression on Jordan’s face caused the panic to rise in her. Her gut told her it was a serious mistake to be in the room when Courtney called out his sister’s ghost.
“I can feel her presence.” Jordan’s announcement rang around the room.
He seemed so pleased he had finally felt Kristie’s presence that Chelsea couldn’t be unhappy for him.
She pressed her hands over her ears, trying to dislodge what was clogging them, as if she’d gotten out of the shower and her ear canals were flooded with water.
She wrapped her fingers over the edge of the cot to keep from trembling. “I suddenly got real cold.”
He spoke, but kept his eyes trained on the wall on the other side of the room. “They say a sudden temperature drop is a sure sign of paranormal activity. Shaw says what we were hearing might be residual energy, but that doesn’t explain the ghost call.” His voice wobbled. Could the man be as afraid of the unknown as Chelsea was?
She didn’t know much about paranormal investigations or paranormal theory, but she suspected Jordan was right. It seemed to her that Kristie was an intelligent haunt, at least in the way that Shaw had described that type of activity.
Chelsea leaned her head on Jordan’s shoulder, an action that seemed instinctual and involuntary rather than deliberate. Almost as if someone had pressed her head down for her. He wrapped his arm around her, and she didn’t budge, unwilling for him to know that her maneuver wasn’t intentional.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
What else could she do? It seemed their futures were tied together. They both needed to know that Kristie was finally resting in peace, and they both wanted to help her get to that place. Until then, they were living in a crazy sort of limbo.
Chelsea stared across the room where Courtney propped against the wall, her eyes closed and her mouth set into a frown. She was taking the whole thing calmly, considering her previous adventures in ghost hunting had been hard on her. Courtney was being brave, so Chelsea felt she could be no less brave.
“Are you sure she’ll appear in this room?” Courtney’s voice seemed to echo as in a vacuum.
The atmosphere had gone weird and wobbly. Chelsea shook her head to relieve the fuzzy feeling invading her mind. “I’ve heard her in this room before…and I can’t go back down…”
She refused to go back into the basement. She could smell death, even from two stories above the burial site. Shaw had assured her that all the remains buried in the basement had been removed. That didn’t mean much to her. She’d heard the women after they were dead. Many times.
Courtney opened her eyes and stared at the camera on the tripod as if she could see through the lens. Shaw was watching the live feed from the kitchen. She rolled her shoulders and then began her attempt to call up the ghost. “Kristie, are you here?”
She waited another heartbeat.
“We know you’re here. Your brother can feel your presence. Please show yourself to him. He wants to know that you’re all right.”
Nothing happened.
“He’s been worried about you.”
Jordan’s fingers clenched into two tight balls, and his brow scrunched into a serious frown. Chelsea clasped her hands over his, hoping to help him relax.
“I feel her presence. Why doesn’t she answer?” Anxiety laced his words.
The obvious possibly flitted across her consciousness. Chelsea separated from his side, and he seemed distressed by her abrupt distance. His gaze questioned her move away from him.
She tried to explain. “Maybe it’s me. She’s probably angry. I should leave. Maybe you’ll have a better chance—”
“No, you have something you need to say to her. If you leave, you’ll have that on your conscience the rest of your life.”
Jordan was right.
She drew in a deep breath and resettled into the spot next to him.
Courtney inserted her opinion. “Maybe you
should speak to her.”
Chelsea wanted to pop Courtney for suggesting she should lead the encounter with a ghost that probably hated her guts. Instead of arguing, she nodded and proceeded to speak her mind. “Kristie, you said that Sharona was going to haunt me the rest of my life, and if she didn’t, you would. Well, you got what you wanted. I can’t sleep without seeing your face and the faces of all the women that I helped James and Zeke bury. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. You were right. I could have done more to help you. I was scared…”
From every corner of the room, bright light zoomed at her, swirling and circling. High-pitched voices yipped at her. She covered her ears and fell face first onto the bed, trying hard to block out the images that evolved from the light, the faces of all the women who had ever lived in the house with her. Angry faces. Resentful faces. Horrified faces.
The blur of noise and light seemed to go on forever, bruising her psyche, pushing her mind to the limits of its endurance. Harsh accusations pummeled her. At that moment, she wanted to die. So their pain might end. So her pain might end.
Courtney’s voice wiggled its way into Chelsea’s nightmare. “No. Stop hurting her. She came here to help you.”
She must remember.
“She’ll never forget you. She wants to make sure no one ever forgets any of you. I’ll help her make sure of that.”
How did Courtney know that’s the way she felt? How did she know that’s what the spirits wanted?
She dared to open her eyes. The light had begun to dissipate into a million tiny sparks. The siren voices dimmed. She pushed up into a seated position to find a single apparition staring into her soul.
Courtney’s voice cracked. “Jordan wants you to know he didn’t mean the last thing he said to you. He loves you very much. He’s searched everywhere for you. He wants you to find peace.”
A strong wind blew past Chelsea. It seemed that everything that Kristie had ever felt in her life imprinted on Chelsea’s heart. All of her pain. All of her fear. All of her joy. All of her sorrow. The depth of her will to live that just wasn’t enough to overcome the effects of the poison that had killed her. The regret that she’d given up before Jordan found her. It had only been days after she died that Jordan first moved to Arkansas.
Chelsea Lane (Haunted Hearts Series Book 5) Page 14