Then nothing.
No sound. No pain. No masonry missiles.
Peeking through her arms, Emma viewed the flying tool through a blue mist. The saw was in front of her, hovering at eye level, bouncing against the blue barrier.
The saw struggled to break through. The smaller tools rose from the floor and attempted to penetrate the shield.
Emma looked above her and at her feet, realizing the barrier surrounded her. She wanted to cry out in relief.
The Lady in the Shawl. It had to be. Protecting her, just as she’d promised she would.
Her moment of reprieve didn’t last as fear gripped her. She needed to get out that door, and she needed one of the heavier tools to do it.
Taking a tentative step, she found the mist engulfed her even as she moved. She reached for a small mallet, but as soon as her hand touched it, it jumped up and swung at her. She snatched her hand away and ran back to the door.
Emma never lost focus on the scene before her. And even as she stared wide-eyed and terrified, the blue mist slowly faded to a pale gray. The Lady in the Shawl was weakening. The smaller tools began breaking through.
She reached for her cell phone, but when she swiped the screen open, it flickered like an old-style TV when it was off channel. Whatever was protecting her must be interfering with the service.
Emma pounded her fists against the mahogany wood so hard they turned red and swollen. “Ryan! Help me!”
Oh, God, where the hell was he?
Chapter Twenty
RYAN SAT in his car, double-parked in front of the brownstone, waiting for Emma.
Damn it, woman, hurry up! He didn’t need another ticket to add to the growing list.
Rain hammered his windshield so hard a ticket writer could stand right in front of his car and he would never know it.
His mind swam, wondering if he’d made a huge error in agreeing to go home with her. This had nothing to do with love or anything sexual. This was business. Weird business, true, but business nonetheless.
Ryan turned the wipers on high, trying to see the front door through the pouring rain. Where the hell was she? Thunder shook his car seconds after a jagged streak of lighting traveled down from the sky directly in front of him.
Oh, this is ridiculous.
Annoyed, he pushed his car door open. The rain instantly ran into his eyes. He squinted and wiped them before looking up at the house.
His knees nearly buckled.
Through the window of the master bedroom, he saw a dark red glow and objects bouncing off the pane of glass.
He rubbed his eyes again. He must be seeing things. But when he focused on the window again, the red mist and…oh my God, was that a hammer?
Ryan bolted up the steps, crashed through the front door, and headed upstairs. As soon as he rounded the second landing, he heard Emma’s horrified cries from the master bedroom.
Fear paralyzed him.
Help. He needed help. He couldn’t handle this alone. Someone he loved was in great danger, and he, once again, felt powerless to stop it. His legs moved down the steps. He’d call the police, her men, his men, Sheila, Frankie.
Anyone! But he couldn’t face this alone.
Then he heard her sob, heard her pray.
Heard her ask God to take care of Nicole.
“They can joke around with you, humiliate you, torture you, but no one ever left you.”
Neither would he.
No fucking way!
Something grew inside him. Something he hadn’t felt in five years. At first, the feeling was so alien he couldn’t identify it, but then it became familiar again.
Courage.
Ryan ran to the garden floor and grabbed the large sledge hammer they’d used to demolish the firebox. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. The feeling he could and would do whatever he needed made him light on his feet.
No matter what the situation.
He bolted up the stairs again, barely pausing between landings, the hammer weightless as a newborn kitten.
When he arrived at the third floor, the first thing he noticed was the rattling doorknob. The thunder and rain nearly drowned out the noise, along with Emma’s cries of pain. What the hell was that damn ghost doing to her?
“Emma, I’m here!”
“Thank God! Please, get the door open. It’s trying to kill me!” The trembling and terror in her voice urged him on.
Ryan tried the knob, but that was no use. No time to play around. He picked up the sledge hammer.
“Em, stand back. I’m going to break the door down.”
“Okay. Go.”
Ryan raised the hammer and brought it down on the door. A red vapor surrounded the head of the tool like a force shield. Instead of breaking apart the mahogany, it bounced back, nearly whacking him on the head.
“Oh, no way.” He tried again, with the same result.
“Ryan, now would be a good time—no, stop! Please, why are you doing this?”
At first, Ryan thought she was begging him to stop, but then he realized she was talking to her attacker. The same being that prevented his hammer from knocking down the door.
“Let me in, damn it!” He swung the hammer harder this time, but it still had no effect. Lightning lit up the dim hallway. The thunder drowned out his voice. He growled in frustration. Teeth clenched, muscles tensed, he struck the door over and over until his arms screamed in pain.
Emma cried out.
“No,” Ryan shouted. “You’re not taking away the woman I love.”
With that he brought the hammer down once more. This time its head glowed with a brilliant white light. It momentarily blinded him, but the sound of splitting and cracking wood was proof he’d found his mark. Another swing and it broke through. The door swung open.
The next second, Emma was in his arms. Ryan gripped her, burying his face in her hair. He took her hand and practically dragged her down the stairs. A rushing, screeching clamor, like an out-of-control locomotive followed their flight.
Their feet barely touched each tread. Emma stumbled when they hit the landing. He held her hand so tight he was sure he’d leave a bruise. Ryan didn’t dare look back, but from the panic in Emma’s voice, begging him to run faster, he didn’t have to. He pushed her in front of him, blocking her from attack.
A hammer nicked his ear as it flew past and bounced off the haze-coated wall, nearly tripping him when it fell at his feet. A chisel scratched his arm.
Once they hit the parlor floor, Ryan and Emma ran toward the front entrance. Only a few more feet. The door was already open.
A searing pain shot through his shoulder. Whatever had hit him bounced off the floor, out the door, and down the front steps. His hand slid from hers and he covered his wound. It hurt like a sonovabitch, but he felt no blood.
Stunned by the pain, he found himself outside in the rain, unable to stop until he was down the stairs and against the oak tree near the street.
Emma wasn’t with him.
He stood on the sidewalk, trying to get his bearings. The house was dark and too damn quiet. Then a streak of lightning lit up the brownstone.
A whirlwind of red fog, like a mini tornado, swirled inside the home. Spinning in the vortex were the tools that had flown around the master bedroom. Along the twister’s journey, it had collected tools scattered throughout the house.
Where was Emma?
For a brief second, he’d thought they’d made it. That it was over. But his shaking limbs told him otherwise.
The lightning struck again, and he caught a glimpse of her crawling along the floor, struggling to get to her feet.
“Emma!” He made his way back up the steps, but something swept down in front of him, blocking his path. A tree branch. It was the storm. It had to be. The ghost can’t affect anything outside the house.
Can it?
Then the branch, hard and thin like a wooden snake, wrapped itself around his ankle. He fell, scraping his palms against the hard concrete. What
the fuck?
Ryan untangled himself from the branch, but every time he freed himself from one branch, another gripped him.
No, this isn’t possible.
Ryan searched the block, but it was empty. Where was everyone? Sure, it was raining, but this was Brooklyn for fuck’s sake!
Another bolt of lightning showed Emma back on her feet, running toward the door. She was almost there. She was about to run through the entranceway when she bounced back.
Damn it!
The whirlwind bore down on her.
“No!”
Emma’s hands banged against the invisible barrier, her eyes pleading with him to do something. She shouted, but either the storm was too loud or no sound could penetrate whatever was keeping her trapped inside.
Ryan struggled, frantic to get to her before that thing did. The sky lit up. Ryan lowered his head, wiping the rain from his face. A glint of metal caught his eye. He reached out, inching his fingers along the sidewalk until they wrapped around the wooden handle of the drywall saw.
Clenching it in his hand, he attacked the branch with it. His frustration and panic grew with each pass of the blade. It cut through the bark easily, but the moist innards frayed and split. He was never going to reach Emma in time. As the thought entered his head, the limb broke apart. A second later he was free.
With no idea how he would break through, Ryan ran up the steps to Emma. Her eyes locked with his, her hands pressed up against the shield, like a kid looking through a candy store window. He reached up and matched his hand with hers. The sensation of moving through an icy gel wrapped around his hand as it sunk into the barrier. Like soap on grease, the gel turned white and dissolved. He grabbed her hand. Emma fell through the doorway onto the stoop.
Rain soaked through their clothes. The sky was alight with electric fire. The whirlwind hovered a moment near the door and then dissipated into a red mist, leaving tools scattered all over floor. For a brief second, he thought it formed the shape of a tall woman before it shot up the stairs and disappeared from sight.
With a sigh of relief, Ryan pulled Emma into his arms, his face buried in her neck. She was safe.
He looked at her and cupped her face in his hands. “Are you okay?”
She nodded and let out a long shaky breath. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said and pulled her into his arms again.
Once her trembling stopped, Ryan unfolded himself and stood. Floating tools, surrounded in a blue mist, caught his eye. They formed a straight line. A mallet sailed over to the tool chest sitting in the hallway and lowered itself back into place. The sledgehammer he’d used to break down the door rested itself against the doorjamb near the stairs. The rest of the tools moved out of sight to find their own homes.
God, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Our Lady in the Shawl must be a neat freak, huh?” she said, her voice shaking.
Ryan nodded and helped Emma to her feet. “Those letters are definitely what we’ve been looking for.”
“I’d say you’re right.” Emma looked at him, her breathing still rapid. “So, chicken marsala?”
***
The rhythmic pounding of the wooden mallet helped Emma to focus as she prepared dinner. Somehow smashing the chicken as it lay helplessly on her cutting board made her feel better. Ryan sat at her kitchen table, leafing through the letters, attempting to organize them before they started reading.
He’d tried to convince her to go to the hospital, but she wouldn’t. How could she possibly explain her injuries?
After changing into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt two sizes too big, she’d allowed him to tend to her cuts and bruises. In reality, her injuries were far less scary than the ordeal they’d been through. She busied herself by cooking dinner. If she didn’t, she’d break down into a sobbing puddle on the floor.
“Damn, people had neat handwriting back then. And they were so formal,” Ryan observed.
It amazed her how he, just by sitting at her kitchen table, calmed her fragile nerves. Unfortunately he made other parts of her body un-calm. “The upper crust was like that, I’ve noticed. You’d better not be reading them without me.”
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t take the thrill away from you.”
Emma smiled to herself as she combined flour, salt, pepper, and basil in a bowl. She’d wanted to devour the letters the second they’d arrived at her house, but a worrisome general contractor and her starving six-year-old girl wouldn’t allow it. “I know you’re dying to read them just as much as I am.”
Putting the letters aside, he grinned. “I’m intrigued. And after what we went through to get them, I’d say I have a right to be.”
Emma’s smile melted. She had hoped after what happened on the roof, and then this evening, she and Ryan would share a closeness they hadn’t before. Instead, he was acting like he always did. His words were conversational, but his eyes appeared distant.
“Ryan!”
The distance was gone the moment Nicole ran into the room and threw herself into his arms. “Hey, Angel, how’s it going?”
“Everything’s great! We had show-and-tell in school today and I took that old newspaper Mommy found in the fireplace and even though the kids weren’t interested the teacher seemed very interested. She even showed some of the other teachers and they all wanted to know how I got it and when I told them the story they were all staring at me with their mouths open like this—” she dropped her jaw and opened her eyes wide.
Emma chuckled as her daughter chatted away. How the child prattled on so much without running out of air was beyond her.
“Are you staying for dinner?” Nicole asked Ryan.
“Yes, your mom and I still have some things to learn about the house we’re working on, so she invited me.”
Dredging the chicken cutlets through the flour mixture, Emma placed them in the skillet of hot oil and butter. After browning them on both sides, she added the marsala wine and turned the skillet down to simmer.
“C’mere, Little Miss Thang, and give me a hug-a-bug.” Emma held out her arms.
Nicole propelled herself into them. She’d commented on Emma’s injuries but didn’t seem upset by them. Emma coming home bearing cuts and bruises from the job site was not an uncommon occurrence.
“Ryan and I have some things to do. Why don’t you go into the family room and read? I’ll call you when I need your help setting the table.”
Nicole skipped off to her room.
Emma hopped into her seat with exactly ten minutes to explore the letters. She didn’t want to miss a second.
Ryan handed her the first one. “This was the oldest letter, dating back to March of 1887.”
Emma read out loud. It was hard, at first, the handwriting being slanted and swirled.
Dearest Sister, Rebecca, I hope this letter finds you well. I miss you terribly as I do Sara. The house is so quiet now with only Mother and myself in residence. She never smiles, never laughs and I fear it is her way of masking her sorrow. All she does with her time is sit and read books, no matter the subject.
Yesterday Miss Van Leer came by whilst Mother was out. It was as if she knew I was alone. We talked for such a long time. She is a lovely woman and seems to know what I’m thinking before even I know. I told her about Charles J. Henderson, III coming to call. She insisted he wasn’t the man for me, much like she did with you and Sara.
I’ve tried telling Mother I have no desire to allow Charles to court me. I know she considers him a proper husband, but he scares me. I shared this with Miss Van Leer and she assured me I was not to worry. She said she knew with whom I was meant to be. Then, just as suddenly as she arrived, she was gone – and a mere five minutes before Mother returned home.
Please, dear Rebecca, write back soon and tell me what to do.
Your loving sister, Mary
Emma dropped the letter and looked up at Ryan, wide-eyed and amazed. “Wow.”
“No kidding. I think we can safely a
ssume that Mary was Hilary Smith’s daughter, but who was Miss Van Leer?”
Emma re-read the letter, silently this time. “I don’t know, but she seems kind of shady to me, going to the house knowing the girl was alone. I can only assume Mary was young and impressionable.”
“Guess we need to read on.”
“Yes, but for now I need to make sure dinner doesn’t burn.”
Emma turned off the heat under the pan, hoping Ryan didn’t notice her trembling hands. She could feel his stare as if it caressed her.
She really hoped those letters proved to be fascinating. Otherwise she had no idea how she’d get through the evening without pouncing on the man.
Chapter Twenty-One
RUBY FLOATED toward the ceiling, having neither the energy nor the desire to walk along the floor. So, ghosts can get exhausted. How incredibly odd.
She thought she’d been so clever when she tried distracting Hilary earlier. She pretended to search through the kitchen, pausing every once in a while with an “oh my!” or “oh, now this is interesting,” hoping Hilary would be curious enough to remain. Since Hilary couldn’t enter the kitchen, she had no way of knowing Ruby was simply floating around the room, admiring the new fixtures.
It had worked too…until that horrible scratching sound vibrated from the master bedroom. Actually, Ruby suspected Hilary had felt it more than heard it, since the storm was so loud. She had disappeared before Ruby had a chance to get her bearings. Thank God she’d arrived in time to help Emma.
As tired as she was, delight coursed through her. As she suspected, Emma had found the letters. Her first task was complete.
But what now? Hilary was stronger than Ruby in the master bedroom. The events of this evening had proven so. But how could she keep Emma out of that part of the house?
Even though Emma had not heard him, Ryan had spoken his love for her aloud, thus tightening and strengthening their ribbon. But Hilary’s hate had also grown. Ruby feared if Ryan and Emma did not marry, which was unlikely at this juncture, Hilary would overpower them.
What if Hilary killed Emma and someone else took the blame for her crime? Like Ryan. Hilary had gotten away with murder before. She might try it again.
Ruby's Letters Page 17