Harrison Investigations 1 Haunted (25 page)

"Because you've let this happen to you!" he exclaimed.
"Darcy-''

He started to take a step toward her. She shook her head
vehemently, backing away. "No, Matt, I haven't let anything
happen to me.
You
should see the psychiatrist. You're so
set in your ways it's amazing that you even agree to daylight
savings time. Excuse me, will you? I'm going back to bed."

She walked by him, heading for the door to the Lee Room. As she
passed him, it was almost as if he touched her. He didn't move. She
could still feel the heat emitting off him in great waves. She
could somehow feel his vitality, his tremendous strength, and
his emotions.

Was that what remained? Such emotion, passion,
laughter, love, anger?

She walked on by, breathing the scent of him.
Beloved
scent of him. Not to be. She wasn't the possessor of an incredible
imagination, and she wasn't acting, from either anything made up,
or anything believed.

Fuck him.

She could bend.

Matt Stone could not.

She wanted to cry. Spin around, beat against his chest. To what
end? She had no power to change what lay within a man's mind. What
she knew, what she did, had no tangible proof.

"Darcy?" Her name sounded somewhat strangled on his
lips.

"Good night, Matt."

She walked into the Lee Room, and closed the
door.

The dream didn't come to her again that night. She slept easily,
yet awoke, a strange sense of fear slipping into her
thoughts.

The sense had nothing to do with ghosts.

She had slept on through the night; she had not been
bothered.

And yet, by day, her vision seemed clear, and her mind entirely
rational.
Someone
had been out there on the landing
with her last night.

Living, breathing.

And with deadly intent.

_______ 12____

Downstairs, Darcy discovered Adam in Penny's office, going
through the many volumes of history and legend there. When Darcy
tapped on the door and entered, he slid his reading glasses from
his nose and smiled at her.

"Good morning."

"Good morning, Adam. What have you found?"

"Well, I've read through the information on Arabella, and she
does sound like a likely candidate, but then again.. .nothing
conclusive. I'd like to do a great deal more reading here, and
then, this afternoon or early evening, around dusk, I'd like to try
hypnotism, if you don't mind."

"I told you last night. It's fine."

He nodded and waved toward the door. "Go get yourself some
coffee. Matt is at work, Penny is off shopping.. .I think Clara is
around working somewhere. Do you have any plans?"

Adam liked to do his reading alone. She knew that. He was
politely suggesting that she make some plans, if she didn't have
any, and let him get on with his work alone.

"Actually, there is something I'd like to do today," Darcy told
him.

"Oh?"

"I'm heading back to the library."

"Oh?"
Adam said.

' 'Mrs. O'Hara told me about someone else who had an encounter
here. A maid who was working right around the time that Matt's
grandfather died. Marcia Cuomo. I'd asked Mrs. O'Hara to have her
call me, but as yet, she hasn't done so. I think I'll stop by and
ask Mrs. O'Hara for Marcia's phone number or address, and see if I
can't speak with her."

' 'I think the library is still closed, with inspectors
checking out stairways and floorboards everywhere," Adam
advised her.

"Ah. Well, then, I'll see if Mrs. O'Hara is answering the phone
there anyway," Darcy said.

Adam nodded his assent, already turning his attention back to
the tome in his hands.

Darcy wandered into the kitchen. As always, coffee had been left
for her. She helped herself to some and then started back up the
stairs to the Lee Room.

As always, she paused when she was in the room, and waited. But
this morning, the ghost was remaining still.

The information operator connected her with the library, where
an answering machine picked up. But Mrs. O'Hara left her home phone
number on the service, should anyone have an emergency.

It was hardly an emergency, but Darcy was beginning to feel a
sense of urgency in regards to the ghost and whatever else it
was that was going on at Melody House.

Mrs. O'Hara was not upset at being called, and was happy to give
her Marcia Cuomo's home phone and address.

Since Marcia Cuomo's phone rang and rang, Darcy thought she'd
drive by the residence just for something to do. She could hope
that Marcia would return in the interim.

Penny had taken her car, but Adam had driven down from D.C. in
his Navigator, a car Darcy loved. She ran downstairs to ask him if
she could take it, and waved a hand in the air, she hurried back
upstairs to grab her purse and Adam's keys.

Someone had been up cleaning her room in her absence. The
balcony doors had been left open. Darcy started to close them, then
paused, tempted to walk out and feel the sunshine and the breeze.
As she did so, she was startled to hear sound from Matt's room. She
walked over to the doors that opened to his room. They were locked.
She peeked in a window.

There was someone in the room. She couldn't see clearly because
the sun was so bright outside and the shadow so deep within.

Matt? Back from work for some reason? She raised a hand to tap
on the window, then thought better of it.

Why speak with him?

Yet, as she stood there, the man at the desk looked up. She
could see nothing but his form in darkness, nothing at all of his
face. He stood stiff and rigid, staring back.

Matt, and he wasn't happy to see her, peeping through his
window.

She turned, walked back into the Lee Room, grabbed her purse,
and started out. Halfway down the stairs, she turned around and
walked back up the stairs. At Matt's door, she paused a minute, but
heard a rustling sound within. Firmly, she rapped on the door.

No answer.

"Look! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare in your
window!"

Nothing.

Beneath her breath, she called him a few names.

"Matt?"

Still no answer. But she was certain someone was in there.

"Fine. Sorry, I'm leaving," she called out.

She ran on down the stairs, but at the landing hesitated. There
was a phone on a little marble table beneath the arch of the
stairway. She walked over to it, and flipped through the index on
it, easily finding his number at work. She dialed, and a woman
answered the phone.

"Is the sheriff there, please?" Darcy asked.

"He's not available right now. May I take a message?" the woman
asked.

"Um, when will he be in?" Darcy asked.

"Oh, he is in-he's just not available. He's in a meeting with
the county code inspectors. Can I have him call you?"

"No, thanks, I'll just talk to him later."

Darcy started to hang up, then hesitated.

She could have sworn she heard an extra click on the phone, as
if someone had been listening in on an extension.

She hung up the phone slowly. She stared up the stairs, then
walked up them resolutely. She lifted a hand to knock at Matt's
door. The door swung inward; it hadn't been securely closed.
"Matt?'' she said, stepping into the room.

She looked around his office area, then walked into the bedroom.
She knew that the place was empty.

Whoever had been in there was definitely gone now.

Her heart thudding, she once again walked down the stairs. It
was all very, very, strange.

Far stranger than communicating with the dead, in her opinion,
she thought wryly.

"Did I have any calls?" Matt asked Shirley, exiting the
conference room.

Since the accident in the library, he had gathered the council
to suggest that a number of their civic buildings be given a
thorough once-over.

Except that he was still having a hard time believing the truth
that he had learned from both the local building inspector
and his friends in Washington-the rot had been caused by the simple
spill of soda. ' 'Imagine what it can do to a stomach, huh?"
Shirley had marveled. He had known then that her kids were going to
be looking at straight water and milk for a long time to come.

"One call, and she didn't identify herself," Shirley said. She
wiggled her brows at Matt. "Great voice, though. Think it was Ms.
Tremayne."

He shrugged. "If it was her and she wants something, I'm sure
she'll call back. I have to be in court. Niles Walker was running
around naked again last month, and I want to see that his family
takes care of him humanely. Call me on the cell if you need
me."

"Sure thing."

Matt started out, then stopped, swearing silently to
himself.

"Shirley?"

"Yep?"

"If Darcy Tremayne calls through and needs me in any way, make
sure that she gets the number, okay?"

"Certainly, Matt." Shirley watched him, somewhat covering
a smile of amusement. Then she frowned. "Do you think she's in some
kind of danger?"

"Why should she be?" he asked.

And realized that he was thinking,
Yes! Definitely,
yes.
And why...

Damned if he knew. Gut feeling. Except that he was determined he
just wasn't going to have any more gut feelings.

He suddenly wished that he didn't have to be in court. No gut
feeling-he was just worried. Darcy had acted so strangely on the
stairway last night.

She had stared at him, as if
he
frightened
her.

Worse than that, she had looked at him with something else in
her eyes.

Suspicion?

Damn the whole thing.

"Later, kid," he said to Shirley.

"Later, Matt," Shirley agreed, and went back to her
paperwork.

Adam sat back, puzzled. Darcy was right-it certainly sounded as
if Arabella was the prime candidate for such a haunting. A woman
who had considered herself a rightful heir to the property, thrown
over so that her lover could marry a proper spouse. Yes, she
sounded just right.

He sat back.

And yet...

He tossed his reading glasses on the desk and rubbed his eyes.
Darcy had told him that there was something else, something she
just couldn't touch.

Yet.

She would.

He rose and walked to the window, worried himself.

Was he putting Darcy in danger? Shouldn't he, at the least,
explain why he had been so determined that they get into Melody
House?

He couldn't, he thought with a sigh. Not yet. He couldn't color
her opinions in any way, make suggestions, or even give hints that
could throw her into the wrong direction. He just had to wait. This
afternoon, under hypnosis, she might reveal a great deal.

He glanced at his watch. An anxious tick pulsed in his
throat.

He should have gone with her.

Darcy was glad that she had driven out. When she knocked on the
door of the old Victorian house near the small, lazy downtown
section of Stoneyville, the door was instantly answered.

The woman might have been young. She was medium height, with
dark hair, blue eyes, and a nice figure. But her face had a haggard
appearance, the type that came from a difficult fife. For some, it
was bearing the burden of a house, husband, job, and children while
struggling under a mound of debt. For others, it was the abuse of
alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Once, this woman had been very pretty.
Now, she just looked exhausted.

But she was very pleasant, smiling at Darcy. "Yes, can I help
you?"

"I hope so," Darcy said. "I'm sorry to disturb you." She
hesitated, then explained. "I'm a psychic investigator."

The smile on Marcia Cuomo's face disappeared. She started to
close the door on Darcy.

"Please! Wait, hear me out. I-I got your name from Mrs. O'Hara
at the library, and I need your help. You definitely weren't crazy
or anything of the like." She bit her lip. "Please, I'm not here to
mock you or malign you, others have had experiences at Melody House
and I really need your help!"

Marcia hesitated, then opened the door. "Come in, please."

Darcy stepped into the house. It bore a look of genteel
poverty.

"Coffee? Or iced tea? This is summer, huh? I don't keep anything
stronger in the house." She stared at Darcy, still stiff. But then,
she sighed, as if believing in whatever empathy she saw in Darcy's
eyes. She made a complete turnabout, admitting, "I joined AA-I
never wanted to give anyone a reason to doubt my credibility again.
Then, of course...there was just life to deal with." Marcia
offered Darcy an ironic shrug. "One good thing about
Melody House. I left there and went straight to a meeting.
How's that?"

"If you're an alcoholic, a very good thing," Darcy said
earnestly.

Marcia smiled, all her defenses seeming to melt away. "Iced tea,
then?"

"I'd love some."

A few minutes later, they were seated in the Victorian parlor
with tall glasses of iced tea. Marcia pointed out a few of the
antiques, and told Darcy the house dated from the 1870s. "Not very
old, not in these parts, anyway. But a great-grandfather of mine
built it, so.. .well, I try to hang on to it. I've been learning a
lot about carpentry myself, and my son comes down from New York to
help me now and then."

"You have a grown son?"

Marcia smiled again. "He's twenty-two. I'm afraid I was one of
those young ladies who had a high-school affair, and finally
ended up with a four-year-old by the age of twenty. I screwed up a
lot, I'm afraid. Danny's father helped out somewhat, but we never
married, and he was killed in an industrial accident a few years
after Danny was born. So... anyway, life is good now. Danny is
great. Went to school on scholarships, and he's got a great job
with NBC now. So...he helps out. I won't accept any of his money,
not yet. It's too hard to live in the big city. But he brings a few
buddies down now and then and we all paint and do odd jobs."