Chapter Five

Sam held Emma close, waiting for her reaction. His fear surprised him. He expected some kind of derision or disbelief. Even from a psychic. He knew he sounded crazy and overly dramatic. It was why he never mentioned it out loud. But she’d forced his hand. Do you trust me? He didn’t have a choice. Not in this matter. How far would that trust stretch?

Enough to get this matter put to bed, maybe. Her body heat warmed him to his core as her scent wrapped him in a heightened state of awareness. Could that trust go far enough to sustain a kiss? Far enough to sustain casual sex, yes, but anything more?

Having her right on top of him all day and all night long had wrecked his self control as well as his ability to think in a straight line. He was rapidly approaching what he considered barking at the moon mad status.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes free of judgment. “How is the haunting manifesting?”

Couldn’t she take his word for it? Why the need for details. Sam let her go. Ran his hand through his hair and let out the breath he’d been holding. Tried to stop wanting her the way he did, while he attempted to sort out all the insanity running free in his head. It wasn’t an easy task. Between the raw burn of desire for Emma, and the fear he was finally going nuts, he was walking the wrong side of a razor’s edge.

“I see him in dreams. Before this I never dreamed. Now every night, there he is, looking at me the way he did the day I told him I was leaving programming to join the police force.”

“I take it that conversation didn’t go well.”

“We got over it, but at the time, no. We wound up brawling. Then getting drunk together.” He sat back down in the leather wing chair and stared off into the darkness of the multi-paned windows. “In the dream, it’s Keith mad as hell. Like I let him down. Screwed up.”

“You didn’t.” She started to say more but he cut her off. It was time for some truth to come out.

“I failed him, Emma. From time to time he’d asked me to look at a piece of the case, but I never pushed to come up and give it my full attention. I was too involved in Lost and Found. I never expected the company to expand the way it did, but it was my vindication. My own private way to make a police force that would accept me, to make up for the job I’d loved and lost.”

Hearing the words aloud, the ones he’d only thought in his darkest moments, echoed a loud judgment he had no chance of escaping. “I’m the guy who never screws up. I’m the guy who always does the right thing. Except for the one guy that mattered most to me. I let him down and now he’s dead and the best I can do won’t ever be good enough.”

“So he haunts you to remind you?”

“To keep me honest. To keep me on track. I waited months before I brought you in, even when I knew you were next on his list to involve.”

“What made you do it, Sam? If he’d haunted you for so long, why did you finally break down and do something you didn’t want to do?”

“I knew I had no chance in hell of solving this myself. The dreams were making me crazy. I thought I was going insane. So I talked to Eric. You were more than a psychic. And the house.” He looked up and around the room, waved an arm to indicate the enormity of the estate. “The incidents of weird things going bump and shuffle in the night were increasing. I knew it was time to take care of business once and for all.”

Sam left out the part about wanting her more for her bunko detection skills than her psychic talents. Keith wanted her for the psychic part, and practical Sam saw value in her other talents. He’d justified bringing her in by balancing practical against what he thought crazy. Seeing her psychic ability with his own eyes was winning him over to her ways. He told himself his desire to believe in her had nothing to do with his desire to take her to bed. “That’s why Keith is on my case and will be until we wrap this up. And I can’t get anything done with Lost and Found until I do. My life is on hold.”

That was the understatement of the year. His life had been on hold since he’d shot his former partner, Angela, but prior to Keith’s death, this was supposed to be his year. The year he put it all behind him. Took his investigation and security company to the next level, opened the training facility, handed over day-to-day operations management, and began to live again. That had been the plan. Once free of most of the obligations, he could work on fixing his heart and finding a good woman, and starting a family of his own. Part of that had worked out. A general manager was filling in short term to run operations, but only to free him up to hunt phantoms here at Holloway Lodge.

“Have you tried communicating with Keith? Asking the spirit to give you a break?”

“There’s no point. The break comes when we figure this out once and for all.”

Emma came to him, and put a delicate hand on his shoulder in a show of what? Solidarity? Affection? Pity? Fire raced through him from the touch. He shut his eyes for a moment, willing himself under control.

“Sam, I can’t begin to imagine what you’re dealing with right now. And I think anything I say isn’t going to be received. But for what it is worth, you did not fail. And you won’t fail. We won’t fail.”

He turned his face to hers. The dim lighting gave her a haunting look, as if she’d appeared out of a fairy’s mist and if he moved too suddenly, she’d vanish. His pulse quickened with need. He couldn’t recall wanting a woman more than he wanted Emma right now. He knew he could lose himself in her. In passion.

He knew the steps to take, the words to say, and he guessed he might know the right places to touch. He knew she was receptive to him. For one night he could escape the madness in the arms of a beautiful, willing woman and remember what it meant to be a sane, rational, man of flesh and blood. But that night wasn’t tonight. He owed her better than to use her the way an addict used a drug. “Go to bed Emma. I’ll clean up down here. We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

Her expression was too sheltered for him to read. Wordlessly, she left him to his own neurosis. For a few minutes he cursed himself, wondering when he’d turned into such a blithering idiot. He hoped nothing he said would make it into her book. He’d have to tell her that in the morning. She’d be pissed, but he needed to reset the boundaries. Except what would he do tonight, when the only boundary separating him from the woman he dreamed of more than the ghost haunting him was a single door away?

A strange chill worked into his bones. Sam had the sense of being watched, but he was alone. Very alone. He shook off the stupid notion, at the same time trying to shut out thoughts of Emma. Sleep was a joke right now. He turned back to the mountain of information. It wasn’t exactly comfort, but work offered the usual balm of shutting out his darker thoughts.

~ * * * ~

Emma left Sam when she wanted to stay and offer comfort and a whole list of other things she didn’t want to dwell on. She wanted to tell him to stop beating himself up, but she didn’t think he would listen. Not now, and not to her. Sam was a man of action and facts. If they managed a more substantial break in the case that might help him move forward. She detoured in the main hall for the kitchen, deciding to take some ice water up to bed. The lodge, despite the torrential rain, was dry inside and she was parched.

So far all they had was her belief that Jen haunted the place for vengeance, that Brad Heath the caretaker was most likely dead, that there was a dispute over the number of liquor bottles consumed and found the night Jen died, and that Sam was haunted in his dreams by Keith. Since Keith had yet to manifest, Sam’s dream could be an outgrowth of guilt. Emma wasn’t about to take up that delicate argument with him. He was torn over the entire issue and already thought he was half crazy. Her suggestion might come off as a confirmation for Sam and that would only throw gasoline on the flames.

She switched on the kitchen lights, and the modern room lit briefly, then went dark. Cursing, she flicked the switch a few times, and the lights finally caught. She grabbed a large cup and ice and filled it from the tap. Outside, rain fell in sheets. The contrast of temperatures caused the window to partially fog. Even though it was dark, Emma reached out and wiped off the condensation. The window was frigid to her touch, and no sooner had she wiped it clear, than the moisture built back up.

She nudged the faucet lever and cut the water, then with her free hand reached out to the window again. As she touched the glass pane the lights flickered with manic determination. The window fogged completely, and a face appeared. Emma froze. Her brain clicked into gear as her heart hammered in her chest. The condensate vanished and the face came in clear. Jen. Mouth moving in silent speech.

Emma laid her hand flush against the glass. She opened her senses but nothing came through clear. Whispers mostly. Hushed. Frantic. Worried. What was she saying?

Water ran off the window soaking her sleeve and chilling her skin.

Words formed in her head, linked together in rapid fire speech that garbled the intent. She pressed harder. The lights flickered faster. The kitchen looked surreal, a scene from a bad horror film. Emma closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. Her heart calmed. Sensation flowed through her every nerve. There was a pop, and then the barrier broke.

“RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN.”

The screaming voice in her head shattered her concentration. Emma pulled away, and the lights cut out. A frigid breeze blew by her. Cold water saturated her skin. She spun around in fear, overly conscious of being watched. Across the island the dark shape of a man stood in shadows. Malevolence radiated through the room. Her throat constricted. She tried to scream. The pots on the overhead rack rattled dangerously.

Emma backed up against the counter, struggling for breath. She was going down. Down deep. Somewhere dark and horrible and she couldn’t breathe. She was vaguely aware of dropping her glass as her vision dimmed. The shadowy figure advanced. Emma reached for her neck, trying to find what locked her up, but nothing was there.

“RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN.”

The cry reverberated in her skull, propelling her into action. For a fraction of a second the hold on her released and she sprang forward. At the same time the pot rack broke free of its moorings and came crashing down. She dodged it by a hair, but slipped on the water and broken glass. As she went down she used her last free breath to release an earth shattering scream. Then the blackness claimed her.