“Oooh, I’m scared!” Clint teased, wide-eyed.

“Me, too,” Carter said. “Thank God I’m hanging on to Delilah.”

“Carter, you rake!” Delilah said with an appreciative giggle.

“Really! However can we expect anything?” Liz demanded indignantly.

“Oh, Darcy’s fine, whatever,” Adam said mildly. “But…are we ready?” He wasn’t really asking the crowd around the table. Just Darcy.

Her eyes were on his. She was as casual as she might be herself, in an attractive green blouse and jeans. She certainly didn’t look like a medium.

“Darcy?” Adam said.

She nodded imperceptibly, and lowered her head.

Silence reigned for several long seconds, then Adam said. “Is Josh with you?”

“He’s calling to me, but says that he can’t enter,” Darcy said.

“Why can’t he enter?” Adam asked.

“He doesn’t know exactly why. The spirit within is too strong now, the emotions remaining are almost overwhelming. There’s terror…and mistrust.”

“Tell Josh to be himself. Gentle, kind.”

They waited. Darcy shook her head, and once again, there was silence.

“Ask the spirit itself to speak with us,” Adam directed her.

She nodded, moistening her lips. “Please, we’re here for you,” she said. “We don’t understand, but we’re here for you. We need to understand.”

Jason Johnstone shuffled his legs. Penny frowned. They all stared at Darcy.

Matt didn’t know what to expect next.

What did come caused the hair to rise at his nape.

“Help.”

It was Darcy who spoke the word, but it wasn’t really Darcy at all. The voice wasn’t hers. Her eyes were closed, her head was slightly lowered. Her lips moved, and sound came from them, but the voice that spoke wasn’t Darcy’s at all.

“I never thought…as bad as it got…a killer, my God, a killer. That he could do such a thing…”

Penny gasped softly. Adam frowned at her sternly.

“Do what? Who are you, please? We can’t help if we don’t—”

“Oh, my God!” Darcy suddenly called in the strange voice.

“What, please?” Adam said.

“Can’t, can’t…can’t breathe, don’t you see…the danger is…here, danger is with us, oh, God, you must see, must see, must…”

“Who are you?” Adam inquired again softly.

There was silence for a minute. Penny’s grip on Matt’s hand was so hard that it threatened to break bone. Her eyes were open, her mouth was formed into an O. Mae, too, was just staring at Darcy, jaw slack with amazement. Clint and Carter were trying to appear skeptical, yet Matt was certain that his cousin was feeling a jolt of fear.

And as for himself…

Yes, he felt the sense of fear, too. A deep, strange unease. He didn’t want to believe. Logically, he couldn’t believe. And yet he felt it. Something very eerie. Something that created a chill, deep in his bones.

Elizabeth Holmes, the ex-medium of the moment, was simply gaping. And Delilah Dey looked as if she would cry out at any second.

Then a scream sounded. Gasping, high-pitched, rising to a shriek loud enough to shatter glass. It was Darcy, and yet, it wasn’t Darcy at all.

They all jumped.

“Maintain your handholds!” Adam directed, and he spoke to Darcy. “Please, we’re here, trying to help you.”

Darcy shook her head wildly.

“Why are you so afraid?” Adam asked.

“Here, here, here…” Darcy mouthed.

“But we’re here, to help you.”

“No!” The voice that wasn’t Darcy’s, but coming from her lips, cried out.

“Please, we need to know—” Adam began.

“No, no!” The voice cried again in terror and anguish.

Once again, the sound of the scream shattered the night.

“Help me, God help me, help me!”

And then, something worse. Choking, gasping, a desperate struggle to breathe. Sounds so terrible, and so real.

The sounds of a murder…

The sound of death.

Chapter 11

11

T his time, it was too much for Delilah Dey. She jerked free from the handholds around the table.

“My God! That’s horrible! Please, turn on all the lights, please, make this stop!”

To Matt’s amazement, he felt the same way himself.

Hands were released. Darcy’s eyes were wide and on Adam’s again. She had a questioning look in her eyes.

“We have to give it up tonight,” Adam Harrison said, staring at Darcy.

“Drinks!” Penny gasped out. “Drinks. Would you all like drinks? I know I want one!”

She leapt up. The circle was definitely broken. Delilah was shaking like a leaf blown in autumn. Jason Johnstone was white. Even Clint and Carter were looking unnerved.

Matt found himself staring hard at Darcy. Still so beautiful. Something inside him had to deny her, though. Deny what he had seen.

It must have been…theater!

A sham, all a sham. She was beautiful, smooth, cool, dignified…and a charade artist. Or half-crazy herself. How the hell had she done the voice? Because it was good, oh, hell, yes, he had to admit, it was good, really good, he had goose pimples rising on his own arms.

Dead was dead. He had seen the dead too many times. The dead did not come back to life.

No matter what he had seen, heard. No matter hints of something more played with his mind.

She knew. Although Adam had locked his gaze with hers, Darcy knew that Matt was looking at her. She turned to him. Distant, challenging, cool, and even contemptuous. As if she knew he was a liar. All the gentle words and tenderness he had offered were false. He might be madly infatuated with her elegant beauty and sensuality, but he was the one who was a sham. He couldn’t handle it.

He was angry with himself, angry with her. He never gave away anything with his expression that he didn’t mean to. He was a sheriff; he’d been a cop too long. But Darcy could see right through him.

She turned away, dismissing him. She rose as if she hadn’t been speaking in a different voice, as if she’d never let out a scream that had just paralyzed an entire room.

“Penny, let me help you. I’d love a drink, myself.”

“I’ll help, too!” Delilah said quickly.

Adam looked at David Jenner. “You got it all on tape?”

“Yes, Mr. Harrison.”

“I think I’ll take it to my room,” Adam said. He looked around at the others. “If you’ll excuse me.”

No one actually answered him. He took the tape from David, and left them.

“I think I should go home,” Mae said, still just sitting, staring blankly in front of herself. “Oh. I didn’t bring my car, Delilah picked me up.” She focused then, looking at Matt. “I…well, I’ll just have a drink, too, then.”

“If you want to go home, Mae, I’ll be happy to take you,” Matt said. He rose so quickly he could have knocked the table over. It was his house.

He couldn’t wait to leave it.

Mae said a few quick goodbyes, and Matt led her out to his car. She was silent as he started up the engine, then she said, “Mother Mary!” Matt knew that she stared at him. “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Yeah, she’s good,” Matt said. Good! What was he saying, admitting? Good. There were many ways to be good.

He realized that he was furious with himself, but he was furious with himself because of Darcy. And it couldn’t be real.

“She can really contact the dead!” Mae said with awe.

Matt found himself barking back at her. “No—I mean that she’s good as an actress. A damned good actress. That was her major before she came up with all those other degrees, you know.”

“Oh, Matt!” Mae said with dismay. “You can’t believe that.”

“I do,” he said stubbornly.

“Granted, I haven’t gotten to know her anywhere nearly as well as you—”

“Right, you can bet on that,” Matt said, a double edge of irony in his voice.

“But we both know she’s not the kind of flimflam artist who would go around…giving people false hope, or making a mint on a pretense.”

Matt stared at Mae. “You can’t really believe that someone can just talk to the dead at will, can you?”

“I sure believe what I saw tonight.”

“What did you see?” Matt said angrily. “You saw Darcy speaking, answering questions that Adam asked her, screaming like a banshee, and that was about it. Did she come up with any answers? Did she give us a name? A reason why this woman would be screaming and asking for help?”

“Delilah jumped up,” Mae reminded him. “She broke the circle, the communication.”

Matt sniffed audibly. “Darcy has been here some time now. And she hasn’t the least idea of what is going on in the house.”

“Yes, but she found the skull in the woods,” Mae reminded him. “And she went through the floorboards in the library,” she added frowning.

“God knows, she probably spilled cola all over the floor herself.”

“Matt!” Mae protested.

“Okay, so that was coincidence,” Matt said.

Mae shook her head. “Oh, come on, Matt. I know what you think. You believe that maybe even Penny is making things happen, because she’s so into the concept of the house of being haunted. Or maybe someone else, for God knows what reason. You thought that if you had Adam Harrison out, he’d find some immediate proof that everything that has happened was bogus. Well, that’s just not true. And I always thought you were so smart. That you listened better than anyone I knew, which made you such a great sheriff. You could handle the really bad guys, and keep young pranksters from going down the wrong path. Well, now you’re just being stubborn and stupid. And you know why? You’re afraid. You’re afraid to let go of any preconceived notion you have. You’ve believed something forever, so it must be true.”