They reached her walkway. The house looked old and, yes, spooky in the moonlit darkness. There seemed to be a lot of trash around the yard now, too, which was unusual for the area. Then again, a lot of people had come by to ogle the place today, and they were probably responsible for all the trash.
They bypassed the main house and headed for the carriage house, where Sarah took out her keys. “You can check the place out for me, if you want,” she said lightly, but he could read the need for reassurance in her tone.
“Certainly,” he assured her.
The carriage-house-turned-apartment was definitely impressive, Caleb thought. There was still a slight feel of decaying grandeur about it, but there was fresh paint on the walls and a huge four-poster in the center of the single large room. She’d put in a wide screen TV, a sofa sat between it and the foot of the bed, and a small kitchenette had been built into one corner.
“Very nice,” he told her.
“Thanks. There are two smaller rooms upstairs. Once I get the place going as a B and B, I can rent it out to couples and families.”
He opened the bathroom door, revealing both a claw-foot tub and a new glass-enclosed shower stall.
There was obviously no one lurking in the bathroom.
He checked the closet and looked under the bed, then went upstairs to make sure everything there was secure. When he came back down, he checked the lock on the single window, which had been added when the carriage doors had been removed. “Everything looks good to me. Bolt your door and keep your cell phone close, and you’ll be fine,” he advised.
“I will. I don’t see Mr. Griffin trying to break down my door, though,” she said with a hint of a smile echoed in the dazzling silver of her eyes.
He walked past her to the door, careful to keep his distance from her. “Good night. You can call me any time, you know.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not a mass murderer in investigator’s clothing, you know. I work for Adam Harrison. Trust me, his background checks would do any intelligence agency proud.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” she said, ready to close the door behind him.
The thing was, he could tell that she did trust Adam. She just didn’t trust him. Not yet.
The carriage house was like her own little castle. She had kept the historical tone of the house, but with just one nicely updated room, no one could sneak up on her, not with only one window and one door, both of them well-secured.
Sarah wanted to sleep, but she felt wound up. She didn’t want to admit that Mr. Griffin had managed to send a few chills down her spine. She wanted to blame his bizarre behavior on dementia, then realized what a cruel thought that was. She found herself hoping instead that it was the pain that never went away that made him so certain there were ghosts in the house—and that they would talk to her.
Also, she reminded herself, this was the carriage house. She was certain that no equine ghosts were going to come back to life and haunt her.
She scrubbed her face, showered, washed her hair and, as it dried, gave herself a pedicure and manicure. To make sure she didn’t catch the news, she turned to a cable channel that showed nothing but old movies. The African Queen came on and seemed like a good choice.
Finally she turned off everything but the bathroom light, determined to get some sleep. It didn’t help. Her mind continued to race. She kept recalling the arrival of Terrence Griffin III and everything he had said to her, and when she wasn’t thinking about him, she found herself thinking about Caleb. She hadn’t even considered a relationship since Clay’s death, and she certainly wasn’t envisioning a deathless romance with the man, but she was only human, and she was imagining sex. She groaned, determined not to imagine the man naked or think about his hands touching her, and she would absolutely not hear the deep, rich tone of his voice in her dreams.
She slept, and woke, and slept again, tossing and turning until she woke herself up again. She sat up at last, ready to punch her pillow into a more comfortable lump.
Instead she went dead still, a scream frozen in her throat. This had to be a nightmare, she told herself. The kind where danger came, and there was nothing you could do about it, because panic had seized you and deprived you of the ability to move.
There was a man standing at the foot of her bed.
Or was there?
Was she dreaming? She had to be, because he was dressed in the kind of outfit Barry wore at work. Except…
He didn’t look like someone wearing a costume, the way Barry always did. There was something authentic about him. Maybe he wore the vest and frock coat with more comfort. Maybe it was the tilt of his sweeping hat. Maybe it was his face, his eyes, haunted, distant and oddly familiar.
She let out a croak, desperately trying to scream. Because dream or reality, he was standing at the foot of her bed and she was scared.
But she never had a chance to scream, because he spoke then, his tone full of pain.