“She’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Penny, please be quiet,” Adam said.

“Must…be careful. More than me, I’m certain. I knew…the girl. I thought…for the power, for the money,” Darcy said in the strange voice.

“Who? Please, you’ve got to be more specific,” Adam prodded gently.

“Afraid…”

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Adam said.

Darcy began twisting in distress.

“Adam!” Penny said.

Another voice interrupted them from the hallway. “Hey, what the hell?”

Clint had come up the stairs, and was standing behind Penny.

Adam kept his voice low, his tone even. “I need you two to either go away, or stand there silently.”

“But—” Clint began.

Adam waved a hand at him and Penny, trying to shoo them away. Darcy was becoming more and more mired in the emotions that had once raged her, but Adam was certain that they were very close to a breakthrough, and he didn’t want to break the tenuous thread that was connecting them to the spirit.

“She’s…she doesn’t look well!” Clint said, deeply concerned. “You should stop.”

“We will,” Adam said calmly. He stared at Clint. “When I’m ready.”

Clint was unhappy, and uncomfortable, but he locked his jaw and was silent.

Darcy murmured something low.

“I can’t hear you,” Adam said, rising, and going to sit on the bedside.

Darcy’s muscles were tensed like bowstrings. A sheen of perspiration had broken out on her face. She tossed on the bed, hands going to her throat.

Clint rushed into the room. “You’ve got to stop this!” he told Adam.

“Here, here, here…” Darcy murmured.

The door slammed inward with force. Adam saw that Matt Stone had arrived on the scene.

“What in hell is going on here?” he demanded.

A sudden breeze blew and the balcony doors flew inward. Distracted, Adam looked toward the balcony. He heard something scrape against the wall, just beyond the doors.

“Here, here, with us, run…go, no, no, there’s no help, I have no help, alone, oh, please if you could hear me, if you could just hear me…help!”

Darcy screamed, clawing at her throat.

“Stop it!” Matt snapped.

Darcy was contorted, her back arched. For a moment, it appeared that she had been dragged straight upward, almost off the bed.

“Stop!” Matt shouted with thunder in his voice.

Darcy started to let out the terrible choking sound they had heard the night before. Her face was growing more and more flushed, beginning to resemble the red of a boiled lobster.

“Redhead!” Adam said.

She didn’t respond. It seemed as if there were a rope, suspended from the ceiling, drawing her ever upward.

“Here, he’s here! Are you blind!” she garbled out.

Here? Adam thought. Was that it? Both specters lived on in this room, with the poor girl reliving her own death every time she tried to cry out for help?

“Here!” Darcy shouted, then began choking.

They heard her breath, rasping, ridiculously loud in the room. Shorter, shorter…she ceased to fight, her body was falling….

As if she were dying.

“Jesus, stop this, stop it instantly!” Matt said.

The sound continued.

“Adam!” Matt shouted.

“Redhead!” Adam stated loudly.

Darcy fell back on the bed like a rag doll, every bit of tension eased from her body, the color fading as quickly as it had come.

Her eyes didn’t open.

Matt pushed his way over to the bed, slipped his arms around Darcy, dragging her up.

She lolled, still like a doll…broken.

He pressed his fingers against her throat, feeling for a pulse.

“Darcy!”

She began to blink, then stared at him blankly, not even aware of the way he held her.

“Darcy!”

“Yes!”

He was shaking. “Darcy, are you all right?”

“Fine, I’m fine!”

His eyes had been filled with anxiety and fear. They seemed to take on a clouded edge. He swore angrily, still shaking, set her down, and strode from the room.

As the others watched him leave, Adam became aware again of a scraping sound against the outer wall.

Chapter 13

13

P enny and Clint were staring at her, Darcy realized, as Matt Stone left the room. Adam could bring her out of a state of trance quickly and completely, but that time, she had felt a little disoriented, the more so because it seemed that she had opened her eyes to see Matt staring down at her like a raging bull. The force of his emotion sent a sinking sensation throughout her, then a rise of anger. She didn’t know what had happened, but it must have been something that clearly demonstrated there was something beyond their known world. Matt simply didn’t want that to be the truth, and so he continued to deny it, no matter what he saw or heard.

Darcy looked to Adam, but he was the one person in the room not paying any attention to her. Adam was heading out the balcony doors.

“Darcy?” Clint said hesitantly. “Good God, Darcy! Do you feel faint, ill? Should we call a doctor? Do you need something?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I’m really, truly, honestly fine. If there’s any sense of danger, Adam gets me out of a trance. And once I’m out of it…I’m fine. Please believe me.”

Clint kept staring at her, but then nodded slowly. “What…what happened?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” she told him.

“You don’t know anything?”

“I’m afraid not. Did we learn anything?” she asked anxiously.

“I…don’t think we learned anything more,” Clint said, looking at Penny.

“It was like last night,” Penny said. She added softly, “Very scary. You’re…not scared now?”

Darcy shook her head. “I’m sorry. I must have been very deeply under. I don’t remember anything. I was listening to Adam…and then looking into Matt’s eyes.”

She was surprised by the look of anger that flashed across Clint’s face then, and she thought it was for her. But it wasn’t. “I’m sorry that Matt can be such a jerk,” he said. “But, hey, that’s his problem.” He walked forward into the room, offering her a hand. She accepted it, rising. “I think we should get out of here. How about it?”

“Go out? The two of us?” she said. She really didn’t remember anything, and yet she was still a little slow as she made the transition back into the world of the living. Hypnotism was very different. Sometimes, she knew snatches of what happened, as if she had been a distant observer. Sometimes, as on this occasion, she had no recollection at all of anything that had gone on.

He smiled. “Not a date—you’d turn me down. I mean, I think we should go out. You, me, Adam, Penny, Carter, if we can find him. Clara, if she’s around, even old Sam. Anyone we can round up. We need to get out of this house for a while.”

Adam walked back in from the balcony, wearing a frown of deep introspection.

“Adam?” Darcy said.

“Yes, what?” he said, as if startled by being drawn from thought.

“Would you like to go out?” Darcy said.

“Out where?” Adam asked.

“Anywhere away from the house. Heck, even the Wayside Inn,” Clint said.

“It’ll be fun,” Penny said, but didn’t sound entirely certain.

Adam smiled. “Sure.”

“I’ll see who I can round up. We’ll meet downstairs in ten minutes?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Adam said.

Penny and Clint turned to leave them. When they were gone, Darcy walked to the door, closed it, and turned to Adam.

“Well?”

He grimaced. “We’re close.”

“Is it Arabella?”

“I don’t think so,” he said slowly.

Darcy frowned. “Then…?”

“I don’t know. But I agree with what you’ve been feeling, that we’re very close, that the ghost is afraid, so afraid that she can’t quite tell us what she is so desperate to say. We have to figure it out.”

“But it seems that we’re hitting a wall at the same place every time,” Darcy said. “And I’m afraid that I’m going to be thrown out of here any minute now.”

Adam waved a hand in the air. “Matt would never force you to leave.”

“You haven’t seen the way he looks at me.”

“I know Matt.”

Darcy arched a brow.

“Scared ghost—scared sheriff,” Adam said, shrugging.

“Neither makes much sense, does it?”

“When you’re dealing with matters of life and death, faith and belief, things don’t have to make sense, Darcy. You know that.”

“Maybe we’re letting this all go too easily. They’re gone now. You should hypnotize me again, we should pursue this with greater intensity—”

“Darcy, no. Whether you want to admit it or not, there’s too much stress in what we do to repeat it with that kind of frequency. And I’m not sure we could make contact again. Spirits seem to possess only so much energy themselves. Clint has the right idea. Let’s get out, do something. Are you ready? Do you want to change or anything?”

She grinned. She was in jeans and a tank top. “For the Wayside Inn? No, I think I’m formal enough.”

He offered her his arm and started for the door.

“Adam,” Darcy said suddenly.

“What?”

“What were you doing out on the balcony?”

“Oh…nothing. Looking around.”

“Why?”

“I thought I heard something out there, while you were under. But when I went out, there was nothing, no one. Must have been birds, or a squirrel or something. Heck, maybe the old place even has a rat population.”