“Perhaps you were dreaming,” he said. His tone was logical and matter-of-fact, but he wasn’t looking at her as if she were insane.

“Perhaps I was. But it gets even better.” She paused just a moment, watching him carefully. “You see, Josh was there again. It was as if he had come in behind the woman. And he seemed as natural about being there as if we were back in school, and he had met up with me in the cafeteria. ‘Darcy, please, she just needs a little help. She can reach you, and she can’t get through to her granddaughter. Darcy, it’s a little thing. Just find her granddaughter,’ he told me.”

“So…” Matt said, and the word was elongated, betraying a hint of doubt. “You told Josh that you would find the woman’s granddaughter?”

She smiled. “No.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t really remember. I woke in the morning, certain that I’d had a dream myself. But I couldn’t quite accept that. I went back to the church, and I found the minister, and I asked if there had been a funeral the day before that might have involved a woman named Charisse. He said yes, that a young woman named Charisse Whittaker had been the one to make arrangements for the funeral of her grandmother, Lanie Beacon. He asked if I was a friend of Charisse’s. I told him not exactly, but that I had known Lanie. He seemed surprised, since apparently, Lanie had been very ill for some time. I asked if he could get a note to Charisse for me, so I wrote suggesting that she look in the Shirley Temple doll for the diamonds. He promised to get it to her for me.”

“And he did?” Matt queried.

Darcy nodded. He wasn’t touching her. He just leaned against the balcony, listening, as if she was telling him about any event in her past.

“And then?”

She hesitated. “Three days later, Charisse called me. She was practically hysterical with gratitude, she had been nearly destitute, paying off her grandmother’s bills. Though Lanie had been sick for a long time, apparently, she hadn’t been in her right mind before she had died, and so she hadn’t told Charisse much of anything about her jewelry. She had known that her grandmother had a few pieces, and had hoped to sell them to be able to pay off the funeral and medical bills. As it turned out, Lanie had actually had quite a small fortune in jewelry, gifts her mother had given her from her family, who had been some kind of Russian nobility. At any rate, Charisse was grateful to me, and sadder than ever about Lanie, because her grandmother had been so careful to hold on to the gems so that she might have them when Lanie died. She asked me how I knew, and I told her the truth. She didn’t seem to doubt me at all, she just kept saying thank you and asking me if I needed any financial help or if I wanted any kind of reward. I told her that I was fine and that I hoped everything would go well for her and her children.”

“She didn’t want to meet you to say thanks?” Matt asked.

Darcy smiled wryly. “She couldn’t have been nicer or more grateful—on the phone. She expressed no desire to meet me. I think the whole thing was quite…creepy for her.”

“After that?” Matt asked.

“There were more…happenings. I was a theater major at the time. When I first went to college, despite what had happened on prom night and after, I thought I had the perfect life. I was in school in New York City. There was competition coming out of the woodwork, but I was also in the land of opportunity. I had wonderful film classes as well. An opportunity to work part-time for MTV. And, yes, I had some work modeling and I was making really decent money for a student. Then, I dreamed one night that I was at a funeral with a friend whose brother had died. It was so real that I told her how sorry I was the next day. She wanted to know why I was sorry. I realized that I had been dreaming, but then a week later her brother was killed in a boating accident. Naturally, I went to the funeral. And she accepted my condolences then, but I could see in her eyes she didn’t want me anywhere near her, it was almost as if…as if I had somehow caused it to happen. I was seeing someone at the time too. Fairly seriously. We broke off that night. I felt terrible. As if I were some kind of a pariah. I went out to Queens the next day, to the cemetery. And I didn’t actually see Josh then, but it was as if I could hear him. I wasn’t exactly suicidal—but I was feeling fairly desperate. But while I was just sitting there, I felt as if Josh were by me, telling me that I needed to go and see his father. I remembered Adam, how very kind he had been to me at Josh’s funeral. While I was having that thought, I could swear that I saw all kinds of ghosts walking around the cemetery. One man in particular. He was wearing some kind of a uniform, but I didn’t know what it was. I walked over to the gravestone where he was standing, and saw that he had died in 1780. The gravestone was hard to read, it was broken and untended, but I finally made out the words ‘Revolutionary Hero.’ So…I started telling him how grateful the nation was for all that had been done to give us our freedom, that we were far from perfect, but a truly great nation in the ideals for which they had fought and died. Anyway, he smiled, and disappeared, and I didn’t feel quite so terrible, and the next day, I looked up Adam Harrison.”

“And he told you that you weren’t ill, or insane, but that you had a special gift?” Matt asked. She couldn’t tell if there was skepticism in his voice or not.

“Not that day,” Darcy told him, smiling. “He broke down crying, and asked me about Josh, and I told him that Josh was just as he had always been, kind and there to help. And he asked me, next time I saw or heard his son, to tell him how much he had loved him, and cherished every day that he’d had him with him. Then he asked me to come back. That’s where we began. I did go back. I submitted to all kinds of tests, and I met other people who worked for him. People who experienced events the way that I had, and people with different forms of…extrasensory perception. I wasn’t going to go back to school at first, but Adam suggested that I should, that we would keep close contact, and that he would be ready for me full-time whenever I was ready to come back. My interests had changed, however. I wanted to study human psychology, to help me deal with the people who had a bad time dealing with me. And I was fascinated then with history, architecture, old homes….” She paused, shrugging again. “And I’m a good student. I don’t think my IQ is off the board or anything, but I’d always had a good bent toward the academic. So I studied, acquired the degrees I wanted…and then went back to Adam. Full-time.”

He was quiet, watching her, waiting, perhaps, for her to say more. The night breeze continued to drift gently around them.

There was no more to say. And she was disturbed to realize just how anxious she was for him to say something that would show he wasn’t so disturbed by her that he would turn away. Not now, perhaps. He was, in his way, a true gentleman. Raised to courtesy.

She didn’t want to care. She knew better than to care. She shouldn’t have gotten involved in any way with him, because she had studied so hard, learned so much about the human psyche. When she frightened people, they turned away. By the nature of her existence, she frightened people.

“So…?” she murmured, wishing she didn’t sound quite so desperate. She had longed to sound casual. Things were the way they were. She couldn’t change the way that she was—God knew, she would have done so years ago were it possible.

“There must be a certain satisfaction in feeling that you’ve helped someone,” he said. “Even if it does happen to be someone dead.”

He sounded polite, courteous, and even gentle.

“Are you making fun of me?” she asked very quietly.

“No.”

“But I know that you don’t believe in ghosts, or the occult, in any way.”

He smiled. “I can’t say that I’m convinced. That I can suddenly fall on my knees and say that I’m a true believer.”

“Then?”

“I believe in you,” he told her.

The breeze moved.

She must have heard him wrong.

“What?” she whispered.

He made a move toward her, taking her into his arms. His thumb stroked her chin in a way that made her incredibly warm. His eyes touched hers.

“You are quite different.”

She arched her chin upward. “If you’re not convinced that there is a world beyond that which most people know, you must think that I’m a liar. Or insane.”

He shook his head. “There are often rational explanations for what doesn’t seem rational at first.”

“A scientific explanation for anything?”

“Maybe.”

She smiled. “But you do believe in God, in a greater existence.”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

“How would you explain God, then?”

A slow smile curled his lips. “Hey, we could get into a whole thing here on the missing link, Darwinism, and more.”

“But you’re missing my point. Belief is not tangible. God is not tangible. So…if there is a greater being, then there can be a much greater reality than the one we see daily, that most people accept.”

“How about I say that I’ll try to keep an open mind?” he asked her.

“I say that you’re incredible!” she breathed softly.

“There is one thing of which I am convinced,” he told her.

“Oh?”

“You are a force of nature!” he said. She smiled. He swept her up. She slipped her arms around his neck.

“Manly muscles and sinew, you know,” he teased.

“Totally appreciated,” she assured him.

He walked back into the bedroom.

By the time Darcy slept, it was so deeply that she wasn’t so much as nudged by a vision or a dream.

Chapter 10

10

“A dam!”

Darcy was stunned and delighted when she came downstairs the next morning to find that Adam Harrison was in the dining room, sharing tea with Penny.

“There’s my girl!” He stood, straight and dignified as ever, a smile creasing his features as she hurried forward to greet him with a warm hug.