Kendall stopped reading, suddenly and inexplicably feeling frightened again. Refusing to be cowed, she got up and walked through her apartment, ready to meet the threat head-on, but except for Jezebel, the apartment was empty. When she returned to her bedroom, the cat went with her. It was as if Jezebel, too, needed company.
Kendall set the diary on her nightstand and cuddled the cat close to her as she started watching a romantic comedy.
That wasn’t great, either. All she could think was that just last night…
More nights would come, she assured herself.
But tonight was going to be very long.
She turned to a cartoon station, but the subject was space vampires, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with that right now, either. She finally found a channel that showed nothing but old sitcoms and closed her eyes at last.
Laughter should have filled her dreams.
It didn’t.
At first she thought she was standing on a cliff in the dark. The moon was high in the sky, but the glow it cast down was eerie and filled with shadows. There was a storm brewing somewhere in the night.
She looked around and realized she wasn’t really on a cliff. She was on a small hill, the small hill where the Flynn plantation house stood.
She could see the house, stark white against the darkness. Except for the windows. They looked like eyes staring out blankly at the world. It reminded her of one of the Halloween decorations at the store, and she thought that if she could only plug it in, the windows would fill with light, instead of staring at her with such dark emptiness.
She felt a breeze lift her hair and she looked up.
And there was the ghost.
Fiona MacFarlane Flynn, running across the upper-level wraparound balcony, her mouth open in a silent scream.
She was dressed all in white, her gown floating behind her as she ran in terror. Because she was being chased.
Kendall strained to see her face and then started and tried to escape the dream.
Because she knew that face. It was the face of the girl Aidan was searching for.
Jenny Trent.
Then the face morphed and was no longer Jenny’s. It was the face of Death as she knew it all too well from her tarot deck. And it was no longer screaming.
It was laughing, mouth open and eyes maniacal.
The storm swept around Kendall. She was shouting to the sky that the card didn’t mean death but change, trying to be firm and unafraid. She was fighting the wind, because it was threatening to sweep her to the ground, and she was afraid that if she went down, she was never going to get up again.
It started to rain, and she lifted her hand to see that the drops were blood.
And then, she saw what was coming behind the ghost with the laughing face of Death.
Bones.
A tidal wave of bones.
And it was washing down over her, threatening to engulf her.
She woke up screaming and felt something sitting on her chest and staring at her with eyes that glowed in the night.
“What ghosts?” Aidan asked.
Jimmy’s eyes widened in fear. “I hear them sometimes. From the old graveyard.”
“Hear them doing what?”
“They laugh,” Jimmy said. “And they whisper.”
“What do they say?”
“Do you think I’m crazy? I don’t go out and ask them what they’re talking about. I close myself in here and I pray.”
“Do they whisper after a few beers?” Aidan asked him.
Despite his situation, Jimmy drew himself up straight. “I get off work. I buy two cans of beer and something to eat. I walk here, close the door, eat my dinner and read my paper. I keep the door closed. I keep it closed when it rains, when it’s windy and when the ghosts are out. I don’t get drunk, I just ease down a bit. Then I sleep good. I think the ghosts know I’m here, but if I just stay in here and don’t bother them, they won’t bother me. They’re not always out—not that I hear. Just sometimes.”
Just sometimes when Jimmy had more than two beers?
“You were here last night, right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hear the ghosts?”
“No,” Jimmy said. “Maybe they were out when I was sleeping, but I didn’t hear them.” He brightened, as if he was eager to please Aidan. “I did hear a car. Heard the engine, heard a door open and close.”
Too bad Jimmy was too scared to look out his door, Aidan thought, or he might have gotten a good lead on who’d delivered those voodoo dolls.
“Stay here. Just stay here,” he told Jimmy.
His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he made his way easily to his car. He pulled his keys from his jeans pocket, and went into his trunk and found the sleeping bag he always kept there, just in case. He took it and a couple of bottles of water, then headed back to Jimmy with them. “Here, so you don’t have to sleep on the ground,” he told the man.
Jimmy stared at him with amazement. “You’re going to let me stay here?” he asked warily.
“For now. I’m Aidan Flynn, and my brothers and I own this place now. We’ll talk more come morning. I don’t know what we’ll do then, but we’ll figure something out. For now, just go to sleep.”