She stroked the muscles of his shoulders and then, with the whisper-light touch of her fingertips, caressed the length of his chest to the quickening muscles of his belly. In a fever she followed that touch with taunting kisses, pushing him back, straddling him, looking down at him until, smiling, she bent, her hair wickedly teasing his flesh as she played and stroked, lower and lower. At last his hoarse cry sounded, and she herself writhed and twisted and arced, desperate and hungry, almost wild, savagely in need of him, body and soul. Sensation coursed through her, and despite the volatile thunder and erotic friction of their lovemaking, beneath it flowed a subtle tenderness, a swell of emotion that elevated what was so simply human and physical and made of it something so much more.
She found herself beneath him, her breath frenzied, her heart in an uproar, and she lost the sense of being in her own body as he moved within her. All the while, his kisses fell on her breasts, her shoulders and then her lips. At last, locked to him by the joining of their flesh, she was rocked by the explosion of climax. Her limbs locked around him as she reveled in the cocoon of his embrace. Wonder filled her as she drifted back to earth, trembling in the aftermath of passion, her hot skin cooling, bathed in a fine sheen of sweat. He was damp at her side, their hair slick and tangled together on the pillow, and she marveled at how incredible it was to be so loved, so happy.
In dreams.
Because she knew she was dreaming, but she would not let the dream go. She entwined her fingers with his as she lay spooned against him, his hand resting on her belly. She felt the muscles of his chest where she rested her head.
This closeness was so familiar; they lay together just as they had so often when he’d come home late and slipped into bed. First had come lovemaking, then a few lazy words about the day, or their plans for the future.
I’m afraid for you, he whispered now.
Afraid for me? Matt, you were a reporter. You know what it feels like to see something wrong and feel obligated to set it right, and you know I have to discover the truth about what happened here.
He listened, considered her words, carefully formed his own answer before whispering it into the lush silk of the hair against her ear.
Yes, I know that, but I can’t help it—I’m afraid for you. He was silent for a minute, almost as if it were painful to continue. I can’t be with you. Trust Joe.
She started to tell him that she was constantly surrounded by people—including cops—so how could she be in danger, but then she stopped as she remembered the dig. As the day had passed, she’d convinced herself that the roof had caved in on her, but was that true? She had been focused on the niche in the wall where the record book had been, but she’d been sure she’d heard…something. Sensed…something. But she was certain no one else had entered after her, and she was sure no one had already been there when she came in. So…
I felt it this morning, a sense of fear for you, but there was nothing I could do. But Joe was here, and it was all right. Don’t trust anyone else, do you hear me? Only Joe.
All right, she said slowly. But why?
“The basement.”
Leslie woke with a start, certain someone had spoken the words aloud. She bolted up to a sitting position, the covers clutched to her chest. Her hair was a tangled, damp mess. Sometime in the night she had torn off her nightgown, and the sheets were hopelessly rumpled.
She groaned, feeling almost as if she had a hangover. She touched the top of her head, but the lump was almost gone.
“The basement?” she said aloud.
If she’d expected a reply, she didn’t get one.
She rose and showered, then dressed in a T-shirt and khakis with a half-dozen pockets, three on each leg, and hurried downstairs. She was still early enough to have the place to herself. She put the coffee on, then went through to the servants’ pantry.
She pulled back the braided rug and found the trapdoor leading to the basement beneath. She’d been in the basement before, of course, long before the night of the gala. They’d hoped to find all kinds of treasures down there, especially because the simple cellar had changed very little since the house’s early days, but in the end it wasn’t a treasure trove as some basements and attics could be. Over the years, the owners of the house had cleaned out their own belongings, along with anything that had come before.
Now the hole in the floor gaped wide and dark, like the entrance to an abyss.
She left the trapdoor open and went back to the kitchen. The coffee was ready, so she poured herself a cup and sipped while rifling through the drawers, certain she would find a flashlight in one of them. Then she paused.
The spectral woman was back at the hearth, stirring her spectral pot. Finally she paused, turned and looked straight at Leslie.
“He wants you to help me,” she said, a note of such poignant gratitude in her voice that empathy swept through Leslie with so much force that she nearly dropped her coffee cup.
“I would love to help you. Who are you?”
“Elizabeth Martin. Please. I never left my child.”
Leslie stared back at her, noting that she could see right through the woman’s spectral body.
“They’re…all gone now, you know.”
The woman looked agitated. “They have to know the truth. I never left my baby.”
“Elizabeth Martin,” Leslie said. “I’ll do my very best.”
The woman smiled. “The basement,” she said.
Leslie did drop the cup then. It shattered on the floor just as Elizabeth Martin faded from view.