The Haunting of Josie

by Kay Hooper

  The people jumping and falling to their deaths.

  Two hundred and thirty people had died. Two hundred and thirty people.

  As an accident, it would have been devastating. As arson, it was horrendous beyond belief. That anyone could have, in the dark quiet of a summer night, deliberately set fire to a hotel filled with people defied all understanding.

  Then, it had shocked a nation. It was not, Josie reflected dismally, such a surprising thing today. Terrorism around the world had made such things more commonplace, had numbed the sense of disbelief that people could deliberately harm innocents for whatever reasons.

  But even now, even after being numbed by terrorist bombs planted in shopping centers and restaurants and office buildings, even now the deliberate arson of a hotel for no other reason except the greedy desire for money still had the power to shock and enrage.

  Even now a man who had deliberately or carelessly killed two hundred and thirty people by destroying heavily insured property was viewed as a monster.

  Was a monster.

  Josie unfolded the paper carefully and stared down at another picture on the front page. The black-and-white photo didn’t show vibrant red hair or unusual violet eyes, but it did show a charming smile in a handsome face.

  She didn’t have to read the caption, because she’d read it so many times before. Matthew Douglas is being questioned in the arson of his hotel.

  Josie touched the picture with the tips of her fingers and murmured, “I’ll get him, Dad. I swear I’ll get him.”

  FIVE

  FOR ONCE, THE weather forecasters were right; the rain fell steadily and at times heavily all the way through Sunday night. Added to a chill breeze that often picked up energy and wailed mournfully, the rain hardly invited neighborly visits—even across a small but very wet garden.

  Josie was relieved by that fact. Accustomed to being alone, she was rarely lonely, and if she thought from time to time of Marc, it was only—well, mostly—to remind herself that she didn’t have the energy or the inclination to cope with charming lawyers no matter how much she might wish otherwise. She kept herself busy, talked to Pendragon, and generally kept her thoughts focused on why she was here and what she had to do.

  The cat remained with her for the most part, but he did vanish for at least a couple of hours every day, returning with his glossy black fur wet, and suffering without protest or comment Josie drying him with a fluffy towel. She thought he probably visited Marc during those absences, and wondered idly why the cat had apparently adopted them both. It reminded her that she really should put an ad in the lost-and-found section of the local newspaper, and she made a mental note to herself to make the call on Monday.

  And never mind that she hoped no one would claim Pendragon. He was far too personable a cat to be a stray, but although Josie felt guilty whenever she thought of someone—a child, perhaps, or lonely adult—yearning for their lost pet, she had the odd notion that Pendragon had decided where he should be, that he was no more lost than she was.

  Still, she was duty bound to place the ad and had every intention of doing so. On Monday. Tuesday at the latest.

  Sunday night brought a storm, which didn’t disturb Josie until the lights flickered twice. Houses in the country, she reminded herself, did sometimes lose power because of lightning strikes or fallen trees, and it was best to be prepared for that eventuality. She had several flashlights, but she also remembered seeing a box of candles and at least two kerosene lamps in the cellar.

  Accompanied by Pendragon, she went down to investigate. The lamps were where she’d remembered, both at least half-full of kerosene, and she carried them up to the kitchen triumphantly. She returned to the cellar to search for the box of candles, which proved far more elusive. Pendragon tried to help—from his point of view, anyway—but after Josie had to rescue him from a trunk she’d absentmindedly closed him in, she told him he’d be more help if he just sat down somewhere.

  Offended, the big black cat stalked away, and a few minutes later Josie realized that he was sitting on a box and staring fixedly at Luke Westbrook’s portrait.

  She carried her small box of candles over to the cat and joined him in looking at the painting. “I think I would have liked him,” she told the cat consideringly, able to study the roughly handsome face more objectively now that the memory of encountering his ghost had faded into dreamlike uncertainty.

  “Yaaahh,” Pendragon commented.

  “I suppose I’d better cover him up again so he doesn’t get dusty.” She did so without bothering to check the other paintings stacked behind Luke’s; since she didn’t know enough about art to recognize a Rembrandt if she fell over one, Marc would have to find his own lost masterpiece, she decided.

  With the portrait hidden once again, Pendragon looked down at the box he sat on and began to bat at a piece of tape that had come loose. Josie watched him momentarily, then frowned as she read the block-printed notation on the top and sides of the box. BOOKS.

  “I have all mine in storage,” she murmured, to the cat or to herself. “And if the weather in these parts stays as miserable as it’s been so far, I’m going to be spending a lot of time indoors.” She looked around briefly, realizing that this was the only box of books visible in the cellar.

  Well, she doubted Marc would mind if she took the box upstairs and put the books on the now empty bookshelves in the den; books were always better off on shelves than packed away. And, besides, she might discover another kind of treasure for Marc if the books had been packed away long enough. A first edition, maybe, or perhaps copies of some of Luke Westbrook’s own mysteries.

  “Make way,” she told Pendragon, gently nudging the cat off his seat. She set her small box of candles atop the medium-sized box of books, then lifted both of them carefully and took them upstairs. She put them in the den, where a cheerful fire burned and where she’d been watching a fuzzy picture on her small television set before going in search of emergency lighting.

  The storm distracted her then, becoming rather violent, and she elected to turn off the TV before beginning a methodical search for the several candleholders she had seen in the house. It took about an hour to mate candles to holders and place them and matches about the house in strategic locations, but Josie felt better once it was done. One of the lamps, dusted and with wick trimmed, was placed in the den, while the other went to her bedroom.

  She was coming back down the stairs when the power flickered again and the lights went completely out for three or four seconds—just long enough for Josie to catch a glimpse of something odd in the direction of the front parlor. When the lights came back on, she stood there on the bottom tread for a moment or two, indecisive.

  The cat, probably. Except that what she’d seen looked like a kind of glow, and cats didn’t glow. There was no fire in the parlor fireplace, and the light hadn’t been a flash like lightning—just a kind of glow.

  Finally she turned in the direction of the front parlor. She wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight if she didn’t check it out, she knew. Better to go and look, and satisfy herself that there was nothing weird.

  Except that there was.

  As Josie paused in the doorway, one hand lifted toward the light switch, a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the room. And the man. He was standing near the fireplace, a frown on his harshly handsome face, looking around as if searching for something. And this time he didn’t appear semi-transparent. This time he looked as real as any flesh-and-blood man would.

  With perfectly eerie timing, the storm arrived overhead at that moment, massive with its own intensity. Thunder was a continuous roll of sense-numbing sound, and flashes of lightning came so swiftly that one dazzling burst of light followed another like a sequence of strobes.

  Virtually blind between flashes, Josie could see only during them.

  In that rapid series of stop-motion images, she saw the man turn his head and look toward the door, toward her. Still frowning, clearly frustrated now
, he moved toward her. His left hand extended to her, imploring again, but this time with a touch of impatience.

  Flash by flash, he was closer, seeming to glide rather than walk. His mouth was moving, but the thunder was so loud, it was all Josie could hear even if he was speaking, and ghosts couldn’t speak, could they? Closer, his eyes so directly fixed on her face that she knew he saw her, she knew he did, and he wanted her to do something, he needed her to help him—

  Her fumbling fingers touched the light switch at last, and a shaky breath left her as light flooded the room. Gone. Gone as if he’d never been there.

  Josie leaned against the doorjamb, feeling her heart pounding against her ribs. Her knees felt weak, and she knew she was trembling. She wasn’t frightened exactly—but definitely unnerved and shaken.

  Would he have touched her if she hadn’t turned on the light? Could he have? And why had he vanished when the light had been turned on? Before, in the hall upstairs, it had been shadowy; here only lightning had illuminated him. Was there something about inorganic light that rendered a ghost invisible?

  Now, there was a disturbing possibility. Maybe there were actually ghosts all around the living, everywhere and all the time, only they couldn’t be seen in the unnatural light provided by electricity….

  Josie got a grip on herself. Nonsense. Of course it was nonsense. Because if they could only be seen in organic light, then why was sunlight apparently off-limits to them? Ghosts were always seen at night, everybody knew that, usually in the wee small hours after midnight….

  She looked at her watch and frowned, her intelligence beginning to take firm control of her nerves. Apparently, the ghost of Luke Westbrook had his own particular witching hour. It was just after ten, which was just about the same time of night she had seen him upstairs in the hallway. She had no idea why she hadn’t seen him on any of the nights in between—unless it was simply because they hadn’t been in the same room when he had made his nightly appearance?

  Another disturbing thought.

  Josie found herself backing away from the parlor door—and leaving the light on. She returned to the den, where Pendragon was curled up napping on the back of an overstuffed chair near the fireplace, and she just stood there for a few minutes almost compulsively stroking the cat and listening to the slowly diminishing sounds of the storm.

  She was momentarily tempted to go into the kitchen and find the phone number Marc had left. It would have been nice to hear his deep voice, steady and reassuring…even if he didn’t believe her. And this time he’d really be ready to have her hauled away and locked up. After all, what could she say to him?

  Hey, guess what? Luke came calling again, but this time it was really creepy and I’d rather not be alone tonight….

  No. She wasn’t going to ask him to run over and hold her hand, especially when he didn’t believe her. She didn’t need him. She refused to act like a frightened child when she was really only a little bit nervous. After all, Luke Westbrook hadn’t done anything to her. Except send her blood pressure soaring to new heights, that is.

  On the other hand, it seemed fairly obvious that he definitely wanted her to do something for him. And he was getting rather insistent about it.

  It was only when she considered that point thoughtfully that Josie realized she had calmed down. Her pulse was normal, her knees no longer felt like jelly, and the urge to look nervously over her shoulder had faded. Good. Now she could try to figure out what Luke Westbrook expected her to do for him….

  Or she would in the morning. Right now it was getting late, she was tired, and the storm was coming back. Or maybe it had never left.

  Josie picked up the cat and went to bed.

  “I know it was storming,” Josie said with determined detachment. “And I know things always look and seem a little weird during storms. But I also know what I saw. And this time he looked as real as you do.”

  “But in the front parlor this time?” Marc asked.

  “Yeah. He seemed to be looking for something. Then he saw me—and came toward me. I turned on the light just before he reached me, and he was gone.”

  “You still believe he wants something of you?”

  “Definitely. In fact, I think he’s getting impatient that I haven’t already done whatever it is he wants me to do.”

  “From all I’ve heard and read,” Marc said somewhat dryly, “that certainly sounds like Luke. He was well-known for his impatience.”

  They were on the porch, both of them half sitting on the sturdy railing and sipping coffee. It was midmorning, the temperature had risen to something approaching mild, and the sun was trying hard to push through gray clouds. Returning from his morning walk—slightly delayed by the weather—Marc had seen Josie on the porch and had come over.

  “You weren’t nervous after that?” he asked.

  “Oddly enough, no. I thought I might be, but…I don’t know. Even though last night was a little creepy, I’m not afraid of him.” She tried to lighten her tone. “Of course, what I told you before stands—if he starts rattling chains, I’m out of here.”

  “I can’t say I’d blame you.”

  Josie smiled suddenly. “Your friend didn’t happen to tell you how to exorcise ghosts, did he?”

  It took Marc a moment to remember that he’d mentioned Tucker’s brief fascination with the paranormal. “No, I gather that wasn’t his aim. He wanted to meet one—in the flesh, so to speak.”

  Dryly, Josie said, “Then you might want to invite him out here one night. As far as I can tell, the show starts just after ten.”

  Marc frowned and spoke slowly. “Just after ten every night? You didn’t tell me—”

  “Well, I haven’t seen him every night. Although it did occur to me that maybe we just weren’t in the same room when he decided to appear. But both times I have seen him, it was a little after ten o’clock. Why? Is that significant?”

  He hesitated, then said, “According to the police report, Luke died between ten and midnight.”

  “Oh.” A useful syllable, Josie thought vaguely. Indicating a variety of possible responses. Acknowledgment. Comprehension. Oh, I see. Oh, I understand. And it filled the silence nicely when one just didn’t know what to say.

  Then she did know what to say. “Wait a minute, now. He died fifty years ago, and you know what the police report says? What is it, family folklore?”

  Marc shook his head. “As a matter of fact, I…found a biography of Luke among some of the books in the cottage, and I’ve been reading up on his life. And death. It was written by somebody who’d known him and published a little more than a year after he died.”

  “I’d like to borrow it when you’ve finished,” Josie said.

  “Sure.” In a rather careful tone, Marc said, “Look, if my ancestor is lurking about the place, I’d sort of like to see him. Do you suppose I could come over tonight? Say, a little before ten? We could always roast marshmallows, or pop popcorn. And I can bring the bio; I should be finished with it.”

  “What if he doesn’t appear tonight?”

  “Nothing ventured. And there’s always tomorrow.”

  Having more or less decided to do everything in her power to discourage Marc from spending time with her, Josie should have either come up with some excuse or simply refused outright. That was what she should have done. What she planned to do.

  But that wasn’t what came out of her mouth.

  “Sure, why not. I’ll even supply the popcorn and marshmallows.”

  “Terrific.” Marc handed over his empty cup. “Thanks for the coffee. I’m going to go away now and let you get to work.”

  “Work?”

  “Your writing. Remember?”

  Josie felt her face getting hot. “Oh, right. Luke’s visit sort of pushed everything else out of my head.”

  “Understandable.” Marc’s voice was grave.

  She had a feeling he knew very well that it hadn’t been Luke but his descendant who had pushed work out of her mind.
She found herself looking at him and feeling peculiarly exposed for an instant, almost frighteningly vulnerable, as if something, some curtain, that had been hanging between them was suddenly stripped away.

  There was too much of him. It wasn’t just that he was tall and powerful and so impressively handsome; it wasn’t only the intelligence and humor in his tarnished-silver eyes or the charm of his smile; it wasn’t even the deep and beautifully liquid voice that surely must have swayed more than one jury. No, what overwhelmed her most of all was something far more elusive in him, something she could only sense.

  He was…

  Whatever he was, whatever she felt about him was thrust away violently as Josie looked away from him. She wondered if she was breathing, and her voice sounded shockingly normal when she said, “See you tonight, then.”

  Marc didn’t appear to notice anything peculiar, or at least didn’t comment if he did. He merely said, “I’ll be here,” and then headed back toward the cottage.

  Far more unnerved than she had been by the appearance of a ghost, she nevertheless couldn’t help watching him as he crossed the garden. Maybe that was the worst of it. That she couldn’t fight the urge to watch him.

  If she hadn’t known he had injured his leg, she wouldn’t have suspected anything; his stride was steady and even, she thought absently. And convalescence certainly hadn’t robbed him of his athletic build, that was for sure. He was definitely a man people—especially women—would always notice. Powerful shoulders, a narrow waist, obvious strength. Despite forced inactivity, he still looked as if he was physically capable of doing just about anything he wanted to do….

  Josie felt her face get hot as, totally unbidden, sensual images filled her mind. It was something that she could not remember ever happening to her before, and she was even more unsettled when pushing them out of her head proved difficult. Very difficult.