Dan began to hum the theme song to The Twilight Zone.
“Do we need some incense or anything?” Mike suggested.
“I think we’re just fine the way we are,” Adam Harrison said, then started considering the seating arrangements. “Let’s see, the house belongs to Christina, and Dan and Mike spent a lot of time here, too. Christina, you’re good where you are. Dan, Mike, either side. Then, let’s see…Ana next to Dan, Katherine next to Mike. Jed, you sit next to Katherine. Tony and Ilona…next to Ana. Who am I forgetting? Ah, Genevieve, you go at the end of the table, with Thor next to you, and I’ll be on the other side.”
“What are we listening for?” Katherine asked. “Knock three times or something?”
“You never know, at a séance,” Adam said.
The music had been turned off. The few candles that Genevieve had lit were burning, but even without them, the room wouldn’t have been totally dark, because light was still filtering in from the hallway.
Christina clenched her teeth, already feeling a sense of dread. When she and Ana had played with the Ouija board Beau had appeared. Now here they were again. With any luck, Beau would appear to someone else tonight.
“Join hands,” Adam advised the group. As soon as everyone did, he began to speak. “Life is crisscrossed with lines connecting the dimensions. Death is perhaps only another line, a different dimension. We know that sometimes lines can be crossed, and we know that sometimes those who should move on, should cross a line, cannot, because their business in one dimension was not complete, or because someone must be helped.”
His voice had a deep, resonant quality. It was almost hypnotic, Christina thought.
“Sometimes,” Adam went on softly, “there are those with very special powers who depart this life and should find eternal peace, finished with the woes of this earth, but they stay because they have found a calling. Sometimes, they help us when we need to speak to the dead.”
He had never once suggested that they close their eyes, never asked them to do anything except hold hands. But as Christina stared down the length of the table at him, the world seemed to change.
The room filled with mist, gently swirling, almost gentle. Now when she looked at Adam, there was something different about him. And when he spoke again, his voice had changed.
“I am Josh, and I am here to help you,” he said.
“Josh?” Christina murmured.
The only things she could see were Josh and the mist, though she could still feel pressure on her hands from Dan on one side and Mike on the other.
Strangely, she wasn’t afraid, even though she couldn’t see them anymore.
“Beau Kidd, will you show yourself?” Josh asked.
“I’m here,” Beau Kidd said, and he was, Christina realized. He was standing behind Josh.
“Why can’t you rest, Beau?” Josh asked.
“Because I’m innocent,” Beau said. “And also…”
“Also?” Josh echoed questioningly.
“I feel a sense of danger surrounding this house.”
“Why?” Josh asked.
“I don’t know, but there’s a connection, and someone has to find it.”
Suddenly a horrific, painful keening tore through the night and Beau simply…shattered.
The mist faded as everyone at the table leapt to their feet, staring at Katherine, who was backing away from the table, still moaning. “I saw him,” she sobbed. “Oh, my God…I saw my brother.”
16
T here was silence.
Dead silence.
Adam Harrison turned on the lights and returned the parlor to its former self.
This was a family of performers, Jed reminded himself. And yet…Katherine Kidd had been the one to scream.
Sucked in by the show? Even he had to admit that it had been a good one. Adam Harrison had done an excellent job of speaking in a different voice, every bit as convincing as Christina carrying on conversations with dead people.
Katherine still looked simultaneously ecstatic and sorrowful.
“I saw him,” she repeated. “I saw Beau.” When no one else spoke, she turned to Adam and asked, “I ruined it, didn’t I?”
“No…no,” Adam said.
“It was so…real.”
Mike cleared his throat. “Maybe for you. I didn’t see a damn thing.”
“Then you weren’t looking,” Katherine insisted.
“I thought it was creepy,” Ilona said.
“There was fog,” Mike said, sounding genuinely unnerved. “There was fog.”
“I saw it, too,” Ana breathed.
Jed noticed that Adam was looking pale, exhausted. “Adam,” he said softly, “you should sit down before you fall down.” Jed might think the man was nothing but a clever fake, but he looked ill, and he was no spring chicken. “In fact, you should probably go lie down. Let me help you upstairs.”
Adam nodded.
Christina sprang into action then. “I’ll get you some water, Adam. And put on more tea.” She hurried out of the room.
“Adam?” Thor said with a frown, watching as Adam accepted support from Jed.
Adam lifted a hand. “I’m fine.”
They made it up the stairs, and Christina arrived a moment later with a glass of water.
“Thank you, my dear,” Adam said.
She smiled. “The tea is on.”
After she left, Jed said, smiling to take the sting out of the words, “The Irish think you can fix anything with tea. Frequently laced with whiskey.”
“They’re not really so far off, are they?” Adam asked.
“About the tea or the whiskey?”
“Both,” Adam said, and sat down at the foot of his bed.
Jed sat across from him in a wicker chair and asked, “So…what are you really?”
“What did you see tonight?” Adam asked instead of answering.
“Mist. And I’ll be damned if I can figure out where it came from, unless it was just a mass hallucination.”
Adam smiled. “Think I hypnotized a whole roomful of people?”
“And your voice…Your voice was entirely different,” Jed said.
“And Katherine Kidd saw her brother.” Adam sighed. “Too bad. We were on the way.”
“On the way where? Where would we have wound up?” Jed asked, well aware of the skepticism in his voice.
“With a link, perhaps. Although…perhaps we found a link after all,” Adam said.
“Adam, do you really think the ghost of Beau Kidd haunts this house?”
Adam smiled. “I seldom tell anyone exactly what I think, unless they happen to be very good friends or in my employ.”
“Mr. Harrison, I’ve heard nothing but good about you. Still…”
“You don’t believe in ghosts.”
Jed shrugged but didn’t say anything.
Adam went on. “You, of all people, should believe in ghosts.”
“Oh?”
“Ghosts can haunt us in many ways. And you are haunted every day of your life.”
Jed stiffened. “What are you talking about?” he demanded harshly.
“You can’t let go. You feel guilt for your wife’s death. You can’t understand how someone so young and beautiful, with everything to live for, should die—and you should still be alive. You see your wife every day of your life. You need the guilt to keep going. And now you’ve transferred that guilt to everything that happened with Beau Kidd. So maybe Beau is really haunting you?” Adam suggested.
Jed drew back, feeling anger—and a strange creeping sensation. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wasn’t even here when they pulled out the stupid Ouija board.”
Adam didn’t reply to that. Instead he said, “I understand they’ve uncovered similar murders in other places.”
Jed stared at him, frowning. “How do you know that?”
Adam smiled. “I have my contacts in the FBI, Mr. Braden.”
“All right. Let’s say you’re right and the killer was very busy here twelve years ago. Then Beau Kidd was killed, and the killer knew he had an out for the murders here, so he started to travel, committing his crimes wherever he found himself. But finally he came back here—back home—and started killing again.”
“Nature of the beast,” Adam said softly.
“Meaning?”
“This is what I think, and I believe you and I are pretty much in agreement on this. The killer started here, and now he’s back, after using Beau Kidd to buy some breathing time. He is intelligent, and criminally clever. He knew when not to kill in his own backyard. But it’s in his nature. He managed to satisfy his blood lust undetected while he was away, and now he’s convinced he can get away with his crimes again here, maybe even find a way to trick someone else into taking the fall for him again.”
Jed nodded. “But what’s going on with Beau Kidd and Christina and this house?” he asked.
“A connection,” Adam said.
“But what kind of connection? And how does it relate to the connection between the victims, a connection I still can’t figure out? I feel as if we’re just going in circles.”
“I don’t think so,” Adam said.
“And why not?” Jed asked.
Adam shrugged. “I’m not sure I should share my thoughts with you, Mr. Braden. You’re far too skeptical.”
“Why? Because I still can’t embrace the idea that ghosts walk the streets at their leisure?”
Before Adam had a chance to answer, Christina came in bearing tea. She stared daggers at Jed as she poured.
Jed stood. “I guess I’ll take Katherine home now.”
“You do that,” Christina said. “Adam, how do you like your tea?”
“One sugar and milk, thank you.”
Jed hesitated by the door, but Christina wouldn’t even look at him. He wanted to tell her that he would be back, that he hated leaving her alone in the house with a group of people who were seriously misguided at best, completely loony at worst—even if she apparently shared their delusion.