Ghost of a Chance

Revised edition, March 2012

Copyright (c) 2012 by Josh Lanyon

Cover Art by L.C. Chase

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Just Joshin' Publications

ISBN: 978-1-937909-11-6

Printed in the United States of America

Just Joshin

3053 Rancho Blvd.

Suite 116

Palmdale, CA 93551

www.joshlanyon.com

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

A GHOST OF A CHANCE

Josh Lanyon

Chapter One

Like the philosophers say, the line between genius and stupidity is a fine one.

Actually, it wasn’t the philosophers, it was Nigel in Spinal Tap, but the point is still a valid one. Which is why what seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time—namely, prying off the screen and crawling through the open window of Oliver de la Motte’s front parlor —turned out to be a really bad decision.

It’s not like I hadn’t tried to use the key Oliver sent. I’d tried for about two minutes, turning the damn thing every possible way — not easy in the dark of three a.m., and not pleasant either with that clammy sea breeze on the back of my neck — and rustling the overgrown shrubs. Not that I’m the nervous type or I wouldn’t hunt ghosts for a living — well, for a hobby. No one hunts ghosts for a living.

When I couldn’t get the key to work I jumped off the porch and walked around the side of the house till I found an open window. Pulling out my pocket knife, I pried loose the screen, hoisted myself up and climbed through…

And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Something rushed out of the darkness and tackled me around the waist, hurling me to the hardwood floor. The very hard wood floor. My tailbone, elbows and skull all connected painfully. My glasses went flying.

“Christ!” I yelped, trying to get away.

“Guess again,” growled a deep voice.

Human.

Definitely human. And male. Definitely male. I was wrestling six feet or so of hard, lean male. Naked hard, lean male. Definitely not Oliver who is sixty-something and built like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. And no one else was supposed to be here. Was my assailant a burglar? A naked burglar? The guy had muscles like rocks — speaking of which: I brought my knee up hard.

His breath went out in an infuriated whoosh. His weight rolled off me. I rolled over and tried to crawl away, but the rug beneath me bunched up and slid my way. A small table crashed down just missing my head, and I heard glass smash on the floor.

“You little son of a bitch,” said the burglar who was probably not a burglar, looming over me.

I tried to scoot away, but a knee jammed into my spine pinning me flat. He grabbed my right arm and yanked it back so hard I thought he’d dislocated it. The pain was unreal. I stopped fighting.

For a minute there was nothing but the ragged sound of our breathing in the darkness. Then he reached past me and turned on the table lamp.

I had a blurred view of a forest of scratched claw-foot furniture, miles of parquet floors and a herd of dust bunnies. I could make out my glasses a few feet away beneath a wide ottoman.

“I don’t understand what’s happening here.” I got out.

“What part do you not understand?” he inquired grimly.

“Who are you?”

It must not have been the question he expected. “Who the hell are you?” He didn’t ease up on my spine, but there was something in his tone…a hint of doubt beneath the hostility.

“Rhys Davies. I’m a - a friend of Oliver’s.”

He made a disgusted sound. “Yeah, you and every other cheap hustler in the greater metropolitan area—”

“Cheap hustler!” I’m sorry to say that came out sounding way too much like a squeak. The squeak factor was partly due to the fact that with every shallow breath I inhaled his hot-off-the-sheets scent. He’d had a shower before bed, and that sleepy soapy skin smell was even more alarming than the fear he was going to crack my vertebrae.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “Cheap is the wrong word. These things are never cheap.”

“Things?” I repeated. “I’m not…you’ve got this all wrong.”

“Is that right?” He seemed unimpressed.

I requested with an effort, “Could you ease up on my arm?”

He let go of my arm. It flopped weakly down. I flexed my fingers, surprised that they still seemed to work.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Oliver’s out of town for the next month.”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Yeah, but I asked first.” He patted me down with brisk, impersonal efficiency. “If you’re not one of Oliver’s boy toys, what are you? Reporter? You’re not a burglar, that’s for sure.”

And neither, obviously, was he. So who the hell was he?

“I told you who I am,” I bit out. “I’m a friend of Oliver’s. He invited me to stay.”

His weight shifted off my back, and he ran his hands along the outside of my legs — then the inside. He seemed to know what he was doing, but it was invasive to say the least. “Ever hear of knocking?”

“I didn’t know there was anyone to hear me knock. I tried my key — the key Oliver sent. It didn’t work.”

“Your key?” He felt over my crotch with what felt like unnecessary familiarity. And in a tone I didn’t like, he said, “I see.”

“Hey! Then what’s with the Braille!” I recoiled as much as you can with two hundred plus pounds of beef pinning you to the floor.

He hesitated, but only an instant, before pulling my wallet out of my back pocket. He thumbed through it, taking his time.

“Rice Davies,” he said.

“It’s pronounced Reece,” I retorted, muffledly. “Like in Reese’s Pieces.”

Now why had I said that?

Amusement threaded his voice as he continued, “Ten forty-five Oakmont Street in West Hollywood. You’re a long way from home, Reece.”

Yes, apparently I had turned left after The Outer Limits. “Can I get up?”

“Slowly.”

He stepped out of range as I sat up, wincing. I looked up — a long way up. He was a big blur, I had an impression of dark hair, big shoulders narrowing to more darkness, and miles of long brown legs.

“Can I get my glasses?”

The blur stepped away, bent, retrieved my glasses and handed them to me.

I moved onto the settee and put them on. My hands were a little unsteady. I haven’t been in many fights. Not that academia isn’t a jungle, but generally we don’t end up brawling on the floor.

The man now sitting on the giant ottoman across from me came into sharp focus. He was not entirely naked after all. He wore cotton boxers with little red and blue boating flags, thin cotton very white against the deep brown of his tanned skin.

He stared back at me with equal curiosity.

His black hair was unruly — which could have been the result of an impromptu wrestling match. His eyes were very green in his tanned face. His features were too harsh to be good-looking. He looked…mean. But he wasn’t quite as burly as he’d seemed in the dark. About six feet of strong bones and hard muscle.

“You’re Oliver’s nephew,” I guessed, rubbing my wrenched shoulder. “The cop.”

Something changed in his expression, shuttered.

“Bright boy. That’s right. Sam Devlin.”

I didn’t know what to say. This was an unwelcome development, to say the least.

“I didn’t know you were staying here.”

He cocked a dark brow. “I didn’t know I needed your permission.”

“It’s just…I’m here to work.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asked dryly.

I remembered the leisurely way he’d groped me earlier and felt an uncharacteristic heat in my face.

“I teach a course in paranormal studies at UCLA,” I said. “I’m working on a book about ghost hunting along the California coast. Oliver invited me to stay here for a few days while I researched Berkeley House.”

I’m guessing most people never saw that particular expression on Sam Devlin’s face. After a moment he closed his jaw sharply. He studied me with narrowed green eyes.

“Well, well,” he said mildly. “A ghost buster.”

I hate that term. I hate that movie. Well, okay, there are funny bits: Rick Moranis as Louis Tully is a scream — but really. Not good for the image.

“Parapsychology is a science,” I said firmly.

“Yeah, weird science.” He considered me without pleasure. “This oughta be cozy,” he said finally. Planting his hands on his muscular thighs, he pushed up to his feet. “Okay, Mr. Pieces. I can’t see anyone making up a story that dumb. Help yourself to one of the bedrooms. I’m upstairs on the left. There are clean sheets and towels in the cupboard at the end of the hall.”

I stopped massaging my shoulder, gazing up at him doubtfully. “That’s it? You’re going to bed?”

“Did you have other plans, Professor?”

That was going to get old fast. I said a little sarcastically, “I thought you’d demand to see my teaching credential at the least.”

He said through a yawn, “Is that what they call it these days? I think it can wait ‘til morning.” Heading for the hallway, he tossed over his shoulder, “Impressive though it may be.”

I was treated to a final glimpse of his long brown legs vanishing up the staircase.

Chapter Two

A cheap hustler?

Now that was a first. Pretty funny, too. Sort of. C.K. — my ex — would have thought it was a riot.

After a moment or two, I pulled myself together and went outside to get my bags from my car.

The distant moon hung soft and fuzzy above the sharp tips of stiff and silent pine trees. I cut across the lawn, unlocked my car and hauled my laptop and suitcase out of the back of the Volvo, setting them on the gravel drive. I was re-locking the trunk when I caught a flicker of light out of the corner of my eye. I turned.

Beyond the tall wall of pine trees stood the cliffs overlooking the ocean. And on the cliffs perched Berkeley House. It looked like the illustration on the cover of a Hardy Boys’ novel — or a smaller version of Cliff House near Ocean Beach, which was where C.K. and I had been dining when I first got the idea to write the book.

As I stared, light drifted across one of the upstairs windows.

I removed my glasses, wiped them, and looked again.

The house sat in total darkness. But as I watched, that eerie glow appeared once more in the corner room window on the second floor.

Interesting.

In ten years of researching the paranormal I’d never yet come across something that couldn’t be explained by natural causes or human intervention. I had to admit, though, this looked pretty authentic. Not Marfa Lights; this illumination really did seem to be inside the house, hovering from window to window. Probably too powerful to be a flashlight beam — the house was about half a mile away. Maybe a reflection off the sea below, or some trick of moonlight? I was pretty damned tired, maybe I was dreaming….

Fascinated, I started walking toward Berkeley House, watching for that mysterious light. It seemed to float from window to window, then disappear — only to reappear on the other end of the house.

I rounded a bend in the road and the house vanished from view. I kept walking. The night smelled of the pines and the sea. It was quiet except for the sound of my footsteps on the dirt road; I was a city kid, and not used to that kind of quiet. It should have been nice. People always talk about the peace and quiet of the country, but it made me a little uneasy.

I looked back and Oliver’s house was now lost to sight. The woods crowded in on me.

I shook off my disquiet, focused on my destination.

It couldn’t be a coincidence — a physical manifestation practically the moment I arrived? But who, besides Oliver, knew I was coming to investigate Berkeley House? Not even the nephew, apparently.

Just supposing the ghost lights were for real? As unlikely as that was, I decided I couldn’t wait for morning. I needed to check this out now.

I hurried along the dirt road as quickly as I could safely go without risking a sprain or a fall.

When at last I emerged from the copse, I found myself on the edge of what must have once been a formal sunken garden. The hedges were overgrown with brambles and berries, an oblong pool filmed over with scum. A couple of wind-bent eucalyptus dotted the grounds as though placed there by Salvador Dalí. Broken statuary littered the weeds like bone fragments.

I stared across the ruins of the garden to the house. The upstairs windows were unlit. Nothing moved. It could have been a painting – maybe one of those gloomy efforts by Atkinson Grimshaw.

I continued to wait for…something.

But nothing happened. The woolly moon sank further down the sky.

Something swooped over head and I ducked. A bird? A bat? Or — the way my night was going — a flying squirrel?

I peered at the luminous dial of my watch. Four-fifteen. The sun would be up soon. I rubbed the grit from my eyes and decided to call it a night.

Starting back for Oliver’s place, the woods were even darker and creepier, pine needles whispering underfoot, the sea breeze sighing through the tree branches. My night vision was never great and it was especially bad when my eyes were tired. The shadows seemed to shift and slide. I kept my attention on the mostly overgrown road, having zero desire to spend the night in the woods with a sprained ankle.

Rounding the bend that took Berkeley House from view, I realized that someone stood in the road ahead of me.

I stopped dead thinking — hoping — the shadowy figure was just a trick of my tired eyes. The hair rose on the nape of my neck. It — he — was so still. I blinked a couple of times and willed him to disappear. No luck. There he stood: tall, dark and alarming.

Could it be a manifestation? I preferred to think it was a manifestation and not a transient. I waited for him to move or speak.

“Hi,” I offered.

Bushes rustled to my left. I turned instinctively. When I looked back, the figure was gone.

Granted, I might not be the best judge, but I didn’t think that was normal behavior.

Was he lying in wait for me? I stared at the empty road.

Abruptly, I decided to take the shortest distance back to Oliver’s house even though it meant cutting through the woods. I slipped into the bushes to my right, hoping like hell this wasn’t the right time of year for poison oak or lively rattlesnakes.

I was caught between feeling foolish and genuine unease; all the same I stayed low, sticking to the shadows. I moved as quietly as I could, pushing through the branches. Every few feet, I stopped and listened. There was no sound to indicate anyone was following me. I could imagine what C.K. would say if he could only see me now. I was probably going to end up with a tick down my collar and broken glasses.

Except…when I remembered that still silent figure blocking my way, I wasn’t so sure I was overreacting. There had been something weird about the way he stood there. Something…menacing.

It took about fifteen minutes before I stepped out of the woods, brushing myself down, feeling my clothes sticky with pine sap and God knows what. By then I was too tired to care if Barnabas Collins himself was after me. I wanted a bath and bed. Actually, I just mostly wanted bed.

Oliver’s house looked peaceful in the moonlight. I started across the lawn, belatedly remembered the whole reason I’d come outside, reversed, and headed for my car and the bags still sitting where I’d left them on the gravel drive.

Some sixth sense caused me to glance over my shoulder.

I froze.

The blunt outline of a man stood unmoving near the woodline. What the hell? Was this guy following me?

He sure as hell was watching me.

Okay. Enough was enough. I diverted my flight pattern from the car and redirected to the front porch. The peacock blue door, which I’d left propped open with an umbrella stand from inside the hallway, was now closed. The umbrella stand rolled gently in the night breeze.

I crossed the porch and tried the door.

Locked.

Again.

I could have howled my rage and disbelief to the now-non-existent moon.

Once more I tried the handle. Still locked. I shoved my shoulder against the unyielding wood. The only thing likely to give was my shoulder.

I pulled my keys out. This was where I’d come in.

I looked behind me. Did a double take. The figure was now halfway across the lawn. A slash of black silence. For some reason the fact that he didn’t move or speak was more alarming than if he’d made some obvious threat that I could respond to.

I turned back to the door. Leaned into the bell.

No response from inside the house.

I glanced over my shoulder.

He was closer still — only three or four yards from me. Even so I couldn’t make out his features, nothing but a smudge of darkness where his face should be. But that was the light. The lack of light. But the way he stood there…motionless, staring….

I turned back and pounded the door. “Christ,” I muttered. “Open up!”

The porch light blazed on above me. The door suddenly swung open and I half-fell into Sam Devlin’s arms. For a split second a brawny pair of arms closed around me and my face pressed into a warm hairy chest.

We disengaged hastily. I threw a nervous look behind me. The lawn was an empty stretch of…nothing. I blinked. There was no sign of the man who had followed me.

Nothing. Not a trace.

“What is this, some kind of sleep deprivation experiment?” Devlin inquired in less than patient tones. I straightened my glasses and looked back at him. His hair was a lot more ruffled and the addition of gruesome pillow creases down his face didn’t add to his looks.

“Someone was following me.”

“From your car?”

“From Berkeley House. I walked over to see it. There was a light in one of the upstairs windows —” I broke off at his expression. “Someone was out there. He was standing there not two minutes ago.”

“Are you on some kind of medication?” he asked. “Never mind. Dumb question. Have you maybe skipped your medication?”

I didn’t totally blame him. If I didn’t know me as well as I knew me, I might wonder about me too. And we hadn’t started off on the best footing. All the same, Sam Devlin was getting under my skin like no one I’d ever met. But then I’ve never been impressed by big macho alpha males.

“You don’t believe me? Fine,” I said. “Can you just wait here while I bring my bags from the car?”

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Make. It. Fast.”

“Two minutes.” I told him. I sprinted to the car, grabbed my laptop and suitcase, and ran back.

Several times I glanced towards the woods and the road, but there was no sign of anyone.

Sam Devlin’s long form threw a sinister shadow on the grass as I lugged my bags across the lawn, hiked up the stairs, and squeezed past him. He only stepped aside at the last moment.

“Thanks,” I huffed.

“Are you sure you’re in the right line of work?” he inquired. “Fear of the dark seems like it might be a handicap in your profession.”

“Funny.”

“Not really. Are you done for the night?”

“Mission accomplished,” I said, heading straight for the main staircase. “Sorry to have disturbed your beauty rest.”

Amazingly enough no sarcastic comment followed. I heard him slam the front door and lock it after me. The downstairs lights went off as I reached the upper level.

Keeping in mind that Devlin was in the first room off the left, I staggered down the hallway past the master bedroom and two additional rooms — putting a safe distance between me and Joe Friday.

Finally I opened a door into a room with an empty bed. I guess there was other furniture beneath a sloping roof, but all I cared about was the bed. I dropped my bags, climbed onto the mattress and pulled the quilt over me. Sleep settled over me.

* * * * *

The smell of coffee woke me.

For a few moments I lay there, trying to remember where I was. Not at home. Not at C.K.’s… I waited for the inevitable stab of pain. It would never be C.K.’s again. And then I remembered.

I opened my eyes. The shadow of the wisteria growing outside my window moved against the white ceiling.

I blinked, checked my wristwatch. Nine-thirty. Late for me; I never needed much sleep, and lately my sleep patterns were worse than ever. My nose twitched at the promise of caffeine.

Throwing off the quilt, I padded into the adjoining bath. A quick shower and a shave later, I dug a clean pair of Levis out of my suitcase and pulled on a T-shirt.

The bedroom window looked down on a sparkling pool and a brick courtyard. Flowering vines twisted through the top of a redwood pergola. Tidy green lawn stretched in all directions and vanished into the woods. I could just glimpse the blue of the ocean behind trees. It was a beautiful place. A little isolated, but that untouched quality was all part of the scenic charm. I thought I understood what had inspired the elegant, passionless landscapes of Oliver’s early career.

I went downstairs and was making my way across the carpeted hall when Devlin’s voice reached me from the kitchen.

“Flakier than pie crust. And a little old for Oliver. Normally he prefers them straight out of the shell.”

Silence. He was either talking to himself or he was on the phone.

“Early thirties, at a guess.” He added sardonically, “A natural blond. In every sense.”

Me. He meant me.

It’s not like I hadn’t heard all the stupid, close-minded comments before, but my gut tightened anyway. The fact that Devlin thought I might turn tricks for a living sort of appealed to my warped sense of humor, but that he thought I was dumb? I didn’t find that so funny.

Maybe the polite thing would have been to pretend I didn’t hear him. I guess I’m not that polite.

I strolled right into the kitchen. He stood by the gleaming stainless steel counter, coffee machine bubbling over beside him, and I had the satisfaction of seeing him jump. He recovered instantly, turning away and speaking quietly into the mouthpiece. “I’ll give you a call if I hear anything, Thad.”

Hanging up, he nodded to me without warmth. “Morning.”

“Morning.” I nodded at the volcanic spill. “Is it okay if I pour myself a cup of coffee?”

“What’s Oliver’s is yours. At least for the next ten minutes.”

“What happens in ten minutes?”

He handed me a clean mug from the cupboard, his eyes greener than the untidy stretch of woodland behind the house. “Oliver doesn’t have a long attention span.”

“Can we get this settled here and now,” I said, pouring coffee. “I think Oliver’s a charming old guy, but I’m here to investigate Berkeley House. Period.”

“If you say so.”

I gritted my jaw against a lot of stuff that would make future encounters with this asshole awkward, and looked up to meet his gaze. “Look, your uncle invited me to stay for a couple of days, and if there were any strings attached, I’m not aware of them. Since he’s not even here, they’d have to be pretty long strings, wouldn’t they?”

“Puppet-length.”

I took a sip of coffee and nearly choked. “This is terrible.”

He nodded gloomily. “Yeah.”

“It’s probably the worst cup of coffee I ever had.”

“I know.”

I couldn’t quite read him. “Do you… prefer it this way?”

He took a mouthful from his own cup and shuddered. “No. It just always turns out like this.”

He was permitted to carry a gun but couldn’t figure out how to use a coffee machine?

“Would it be okay if I made another pot?”

For a moment I thought he was actually going to smile. “Knock yourself out.”

I poured the seething black contents of the current pot down the drain and set about measuring coffee into the machine. Devlin watched me thoughtfully. He wore a black T-shirt and faded Levis that emphasized his narrow hips and long legs. He had a perfect body, no doubt about it. It made an interesting contrast to his homely face.

“Where’d you say you met Oliver?”

“An art exhibit in San Francisco. C.K. Killian introduced us.”

“The art dealer?”

I was surprised he knew that. He looked like his idea of art would be calendars with sport cars.

“Yep.”

“And what were you doing at an art exhibit?”

I wondered if it were possible for him to ask a question so that it didn’t sound like he was interrogating a hostile witness.

“C.K. is – was — is a friend.”

He raised those black eyebrows again. “Is he a friend for not?”

“He’s a friend,” I said shortly. I wasn’t about to go into my relationship with C.K. My former relationship.

“And somehow you and Oliver got talking about this book you’re writing, and he invited you to scope out Berkeley House?”

“Pretty much. Yes.” When I raised my eyes he was watching me narrowly.

Sure, there was a little more to the story — like the fact that I was drunk off my ass and had actually — humiliatingly — cried on Oliver’s surprisingly comfortable shoulder about getting dumped by C.K. — but no way was I ever going to share that information with him. Or anyone. I sort of hoped Oliver had forgotten it.

Devlin said reluctantly, “For the record, you were right about seeing someone in the woods last night.”

“Are you keeping a record?” I gazed at the coffee machine, willing it to hurry along that precious life-saving elixir.

When he didn’t answer, I glanced his way. “So who was roaming in the woods last night besides me?”

“Thaddeus Sterne. Our nearest neighbor — our only neighbor — unless you count your ectoplasmic buddies at Berkeley House.”

I ignored that crack. “Thaddeus Sterne? The painter?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow.” I meant it. Thaddeus Sterne was a legend in the art world. Even more of a legend than Oliver de la Motte. Probably because Sterne sightings were rarer than albino whales. He was like the Garbo of the oil paint set. According to C.K., the last time Sterne had made a public appearance was the 1980s.

Then I remembered the stillness, the silence of the man who had followed me through the woods, and some of my pleasure died. Sterne might be a genius, but last night I’d felt threatened.

He said curtly, “Yeah, well, see that you don’t disturb him while you’re poking around out there. The property lines are clearly marked.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he was on your property last night.”

“He can go where he wants. If you see him, get out of his way.” He studied me, his eyes flinty in his blunt-featured face.

I swallowed my irritation — which tasted only slightly better than the bitter coffee had.

“Understood. Anything else I need to know before I head over to Berkeley House?”

Talk about a foolish question. Sam Devlin contemplated me for a long unsmiling moment. “I think we better discuss that, as well,” he said. “Are you aware that the property is condemned?”

“The house? Yes.”

“Great. Well, if you want to wander around the grounds at your own risk, that’s one thing, but it’s not safe to go inside the house.”

“I already signed a waiver —”

He interrupted, “I don’t care what you signed. You saw the place last night. One good push and the building will be in the sea. You don’t go inside.”

“I’ve already arranged this with Oliver — the guy who owns the property.”

“I don’t care what you arranged. You don’t put one foot inside that house. Understand?”

What, was the entire universe supposed to be his jurisdiction? I stared at him. It was a stare I had perfected through years of dealing with insolent adolescents and asshole adults. He stared right back. I finally managed a terse, “Yeah, I understand.”

He nodded curtly. “Good. I’ve got a call into Oliver, but just so you know, I believe this story of yours about writing a book.” He managed to make it sound like he figured I was capable of any lunacy.

“Gee, thanks,” I practically stuttered. He was actually going to double-check my story? Who the hell would make up a story like this?

He shrugged. “No offense, but Oliver is a sucker for a pretty face and a sob story.”

Unfortunate choice of words under the circumstances.

I smiled. It probably looked more like a baring of teeth, because he blinked. What an arrogant asshole he was. Poor Oliver. I could just imagine the lectures he had to listen to from Mr. Law and Order.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said.

“Do that.”

Apparently he also needed to have the last word. I struggled to control myself. I couldn’t remember the last time somebody had this kind of effect on me.

“Is there more or am I dismissed?”

To my surprise he gave a twist of a smile. “Not easily,” he said.

Chapter Three

“Hey, be careful there!”

I turned away from my survey of Berkeley House’s pallid and dissolute face — hollow-eyed windows and gaping broken door mouth. A man in jeans and a plaid shirt hurried across the threadbare lawn towards me

As he reached me, he said earnestly, “You weren’t thinking of going inside? It’s a death trap.”

He was about my age. Attractive. Medium height and comfortably built; hazel eyes, soft brown hair and a carefully groomed beard.

“Hi,” I said. I gestured with my camera. “I was just taking a few photos.”

He studied me and something changed in his face. In mine too, probably. The old gaydar picking up those high frequency waves. “It’s private property, you know.” He said it almost apologetically, his smile rueful.

“I know,” I said. “I’m staying at Oliver de la Motte’s.” Remembering Oliver’s reputation, I added hastily, “I’m writing a book about haunted houses along the California coast.”

“Seriously?” The genuine interest was refreshing after Sam Devlin. He offered a hand. “Mason Corwin. I’m president of the local historical preservation society.” His handshake was firm. “So you know the history of the house?”

“Just the bare bones.”

“Interesting choice of words. There are plenty of skeletons in the Berkeley House closet.”

“I’ll bet. David Berkeley was a magician, right?”

“A 20th Century illusionist. By profession and philosophy. He really did subscribe to the notion that the material world was just an illusion.”

“Yeah? How does that tie in with his committing suicide?”

Mason smiled wryly. “Beats me. I personally subscribe to the here and now theory.”

I smiled back, then glanced at the house, feeling its tug once more.

“Come by the museum,” Mason invited. “You can look through our collection. We’ve got all kinds of photos, newspaper clippings, and memorabilia on Berkeley.”

“I’ll do that.”

He smiled at me again. “How long are you staying for?”

“Just through the weekend.”

“Too bad.”

“Why?” I caught the meaning of his smile. “Oh. Thanks.”

His gaze wavered, edged past me. I glanced around. He said, “Old Thad Sterne. He’s another reason to be careful around here. He’s kind of on the weird side. Take a piece of advice?”

“Sure.”

“Ghost hunter or not, don’t hang around here after dark. It’s not safe.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

He nodded. Glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get back. The museum opens at noon on Fridays.” He hesitated. “But I’ll be seeing you, right?”

I smiled. “Right.”

I waited until Mason vanished into the woods, then I ducked around the back of the house. I could do with less of an audience.

Immediately I saw what Devlin and Mason meant. Originally the mansion must have sat several hundred yards from the cliff, but time and tide had done their work. The back porch stairs were now literally inches from the edge.

One of these days — and not too far in the future — the entire structure was going to tip over the side.

I stared down at the hypnotic green swirl. White foam washed across the bronze rocks below. The wind seemed to sing eerily off the cliff beneath me. That might explain any mysterious noises coming from the house, but I couldn’t see anything that would create the mirage of ghostly lights in the upper story windows.

I dipped under the rickety railing, climbed cautiously onto the wraparound porch.

Exposed to the unrelenting elements, the porch was in bad shape, the remaining wooden planks silvery and fragile. I picked my way across, and then pushed open the sagging French doors, which gave with a screech of rusted hinges.

The glass doors opened onto an empty sunny room. Despite the obvious disrepair and smell of damp and mold, the bones of the house — the black wood floor, the arching windows, and graceful architecture — were still beautiful. A giant chandelier, missing crystal teeth and beads, hung from the ceiling, winking and glinting in the light streaming through the windows.

Once this must have been a lovely room in a gracious home. Now…

I stayed quiet, trying to pick up a feel for the house. Listened to the wind moaning down the chimney, keening at the window casements.

The reflection of the water flickered against the bare ceiling and walls.

It was sort of soothing, but I didn’t feel soothed. I felt nervous and keyed up. I told myself it was from having to sneak into the house — the mistrustful awareness that Sam Devlin was probably the type to come and check up on me.

Moving to the window, I considered the choppy water, the wind rippling through the grass. Not hard to imagine that unceasing whisper preying on the nerves of a guy who wasn’t maybe totally right in the head to start with.

The light was very good in here. I pulled my camera out and took a couple of photos of the cobwebbed chandelier.

I proceeded to the next room, which turned out to be a wide and elegant hallway. Chunks of plaster molding littered the floor. A graceful curving staircase led the second story. I studied it, wondering what kind of shape it was in. It didn’t look obviously unsafe, but that didn’t mean a lot given the condition of the rest of the structure.

I started cautiously up. Seven careful steps and there was a loud crack. I hesitated. Took another tentative step — my tennis shoe shoved right through a rotten board.

“Damn.”

Grabbing the carved railing for balance, I pulled my foot out and started back down. Another snapping sound and the edge of the next step broke off right under the heel of my foot. Only my grip on the rail kept me from pitching forward.

Shit. It really was unsafe, Super Cop hadn’t been exaggerating.

I leaned over the railing and looked down at the dusty blackwood floor. An easy drop. I tested the railing, it groaned, but held. I swung a leg over and jumped, landing in a crouch. The crash of my touchdown sounded like I was going to slam through to the cellar, but to my relief the flooring held.

I’d have liked to get some shots of the second story, but it wasn’t crucial.

It did make the lights in the upper story windows a little more problematic. I wasn’t a particularly big guy and it would have to be someone a lot lighter than me to make it up this staircase. So…natural phenomenon?

Or was there another way upstairs?

Since Berkeley was supposed to have topped himself in his downstairs library, I didn’t see why spooklights would be manifesting themselves upstairs, but it’s not like the supernatural had to abide by the rules of human logic. Especially since half the humans I knew didn’t abide by them.

I spent the next couple of hours wandering through the downstairs rooms, using my flashlight to guide the way through the dark interior, brushing aside cobwebs as long as tattered draperies. I took some pictures and made some general notes.

On the inland side of the house I came to a long room overlooking the woods. Daylight spilled through the cracked windows revealing built-in bookshelves and the cracked and fissured façade of what must have once been an elegant fireplace. Silvery sheets of velvety wallpaper peeled off the scarred walls.

Presumably the library. The room where David Berkeley decided to end it all.

And what a way he’d chosen: using the specially-made guillotine from his stage show. Gruesome but effective.

To me, it felt like an empty room in a dead shell of a house. But then I’ve never been particularly sensitive — at least, not in the psychic sense. According to C.K I was ridiculously oversensitive in every other way.

On impulse, I sat down in the center of the room, closed my eyes and just…listened.

Wind worked its way through the holes and loose boards: an eerie chorus in a multitude of different tones and pitches.

Was it just the wind?

I closed my eyes, listening…feeling….

“What the fuck are you doing inside here?”

If Sam Devlin wanted to pay me back for catching him off guard that morning, he got his money’s worth. It’s hard to retain your dignity when you’re scraping yourself off the ceiling, but I tried. At least I didn’t actually scream — although I’m guessing my shocked expression was just as bad.

Not that he spent time gloating. He leaned in through the open window frame, his face hostile but unsurprised — apparently not much of anything surprised him — and said evenly, “I told you the house was off-limits.”

“I told you I’ve got Oliver’s permission.”

“I don’t give a goddamn. I told you to stay out of the house.”

Apparently he read my silence correctly, because he said levelly, “Last warning. Get out before I come in and get you.”

I wasn’t sure if he would try it or not. If he did decide to throw me out, it wouldn’t be much of a contest, he was a lot bigger than me, and I didn’t doubt he was a lot tougher. In any case, there was no point continuing now with him draped over the window sill. Talk about blocking reception.

Feeling a little silly to have been caught trying to…well, what had I been trying to do? Commune with the dead? I crossed over to the window and he backed out, looking as grim as though he’d caught me trying to wriggle out of my straight jacket. I started through the open window and his big hand closed on my shoulder dragging me out.

“Come on, pretty boy.”

“D’you mind?” My shirt — and skin — caught on a nail. “Christ, watch it!”

“All right, all right.” He unhooked me. “Hope you’ve had your tetanus shots.”

“Yeah, since you missed your rabies vaccine.”

He gave a little snort that might have been a laugh.

I got through the window without any further help. Mouth compressed, Devlin watched me as I checked the tear in my shirt.

“Come on!” he said impatiently after a second or two.

“Go. I don’t need a police escort.”

“You’ve got one, anyway.”

I raised my head and glared. “What, you’re escorting me off the premises?”

He made a sharp gesture with his chin, and turned, obviously expecting me to trail after. So, in answer to my question, yes, I was apparently being escorted from the premises.

Devlin strode off across the patchy lawn and I followed at a normal pace. No way was I trotting after him. I watched him stomping along ahead of me through the shambles of the old sunken garden, his dark head gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight.

I fantasized about picking up a piece of broken statuary and lobbing it at his thick skull. But enough damage had been done to the property without me adding to it.

At the end of the garden he paused, waiting for me.

“I think we’ll wait to hear from Oliver before you do anymore exploring,” he said when I finally joined him.

“Oh for —! I’ve only got the weekend!”

He shrugged. Clearly not his problem. “I’m sure he’ll call this afternoon,” he said indifferently.

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak, and he turned and stalked off again. I guess I should have been grateful he didn’t insist that I march in front of him with my hands on the back of my head.

When we reached Oliver’s, I went straight upstairs to shower off the cobwebs and filth of Berkeley House.

Devlin called up to me as I was changing into a clean pair of jeans and flannel shirt.

“Hey, Professor. Phone call for you. It’s Oliver.”

I came downstairs and took the phone from him in the hallway. “See,” he said laconically. “Told you, he’d call.”

“Thanks.” I took the phone without meeting his gaze. Waited for him to depart — which after a minute he did.

“Hi, Oliver. It’s Rhys. Sorry to bother you.”

“Well, my dear. How are you getting along?” I pictured him instantly: tall and elegant with iron-gray hair and amazing green-gold eyes. I figured the connection to the Neanderthal now slamming kitchen cupboard doors had to be by marriage. Probably a forced marriage.

“Well…”

He laughed that plumy laugh. “You mustn’t mind Sammy. He has a very suspicious mind. It comes of being a cop. But it’s all right. I’ve vouched for you.”

I doubted that meant as much as he imagined it did.

I glanced at the door of the kitchen, through which Prince Charming had vanished. “The thing is, Oliver, he’s making it all but impossible for me to step foot inside Berkeley House.”

“Mmm. I heard,” Oliver said vaguely. “But you can surely work around that, yes? You’re a resourceful boy.”

I blinked this over. “Uh, yes. I guess.”

Oliver sighed. “I was so hoping that you and Sammy would hit it off.”

“Hit if off?” I added ungrammatically, “Me and him?”

“Yes! Oh, I know how brusque and hard Sammy seems, but he’s not like that really. Just a big softie, once you get to know him.”

“Sure,” I said, not believing it for a moment.

“You’d be lovely together, you know. You’re just what he needs. And he’s what you need, my dear. Someone you can really count on. Someone steadfast and loyal.”

“You make him sound like a St. Bernard.” I was joking but I was sort of appalled. Was that why the old reprobate had given me permission to investigate the house? So he could pimp me out to his socially retarded nephew?

“His bark is much worse than his bite. I’ve known Sammy his entire life…” He ran blithely on with a full listing of the Boy Scout virtues, but I’d stopped listening as Sammy appeared in the kitchen doorway.

He gave me a level look. Maybe I’d already used up my one phone call privilege. I said, cutting Oliver off, “Okay, thanks. Did you need to speak to him again?”

“No, no. Just give Sammy my love,” Oliver said archly.

I returned something noncommittal and hung up.

“He sounds like he’s having a good time,” I said into Devlin’s formidable silence.

“Oliver knows how to have a good time.”

I wondered if he knew Oliver’s hopes that we would hit it off. If so, I couldn’t blame him for feeling a little hostile. There’s nothing like matchmaking relatives. I’d had my own share of that.

“Satisfied that my intentions are honorable?”

His smile was sour. “You’ve certainly got Oliver convinced.”

But obviously not Sam Devlin.

“So is it settled? Can I get back to work?”

“If by that you mean going back into the house, no.”

“Christ! What is your problem?”

“Look, it’s not safe. You had to have seen that much for yourself today.”

I gazed out the window at the failing light. I wasn’t looking forward to walking through those woods in the dark.

“I don’t get it. I’ve signed a waiver. I’ll be careful. Oliver is okay with it.”

He sighed. “Oliver hasn’t been inside that place for decades. He has no idea of the shape it’s in.”

“Fine,” I said shortly. “I’ll stick to the grounds.”

He eyed me skeptically. It began to get under my skin.

“I said I’d stick to the grounds. What do you want?”

“Your word is fine.”

He said it mildly, and I ignored the little stab of guilt that went through me. We stood there for another minute and he said slowly, “So, Professor. By any chance do you know how to cook?”

Chapter Four

I assumed it was some kind of crack, but as I stared at him I realized he was perfectly serious. Strange but serious.

“That depends. What is there to cook?”

“Follow me.”

I followed him through the large and modernized kitchen then downstairs to the basement and a tomb-sized industrial freezer.

“Perfect for storing a body,” I murmured.

“Yes. Don’t annoy me too much.”

I looked at him and he laughed.

“Funny,” I said. I stared at the frosty packs of food. “This is all frozen solid. What do you expect me to do with it?”

“I thought we could defrost something in the microwave.” He actually looked…conciliatory. Not an expression that fit naturally on his dour face.

“I guess we could. It’s not ideal, but yeah, we could defrost something. What did you have in mind?”

He reached right into the ice cavern and pulled out a neatly-wrapped packet in white butcher’s paper. “Pork chops?” he said hopefully.

I thought it over. It couldn’t hurt to try and make friends with him. Well, friends was unlikely. What I pictured was more in the spirit of throwing a bone — or a pork chop — to a big ugly guard dog.

“If I cook, you clean up, right?”

“Deal,” he said so quickly I thought it must be some kind of trick.

But apparently he was just desperate for a hot meal. He sat at the kitchen table watching every move I made as though he feared I make take off with his precious pork chops.

I checked out the refrigerator, opened a few cupboards, pretended he wasn’t there, but after a few minutes his silence sort of got to me. I leaned against the counter, waiting for the microwave to melt the block of pork chops, “So are you on vacation or something?”

Nothing.

He was an alien life form and I was wasting my time trying to communicate.

The microwave bell rang and I popped open the door.

“Or something.” Devlin spoke curtly from behind me. To my surprise, after another long pause he said, “How did you get involved in the ghost hunting racket?”

I searched the spice rack, selected cumin seeds, black peppercorns, coriander and sea salt. “It’s more of a hobby than business,” I said. “I mostly teach history.”

“How’d you get interested in paranormal studies?”

I realized two things about him: he was a better listener than he appeared to be, and he was not easily sidetracked. I guess that was useful in his line of work.

Combining spices in one of those anchor-sized frying pans, I tried to decide if I was going to be candid or not. On the whole I thought candor with someone like him was a bad idea, so I was startled to hear my voice begin, “My brother was killed…”

I stopped, appalled. Where had that come from?

“Sorry,” he said brusquely.

Silence. I pushed the spices around the pan.

“What happened?” Unexpected as it was, Devlin’s voice jarred me out of my reflections.

I said, “It was a long time ago. I don’t know why I brought it up.” And I really didn’t know.

He said, “How did it happen?” A cop’s curiosity, I guessed.

Easier just to get it over with. I said, “Dylan, my twin —” And was even more startled when I swallowed mid-sentence. I spoke quickly to get past that little stumble. “Was killed when I was eleven. We were riding bikes and a car hit him. It was…fast. One minute he was right there…laughing…and the next minute he was gone.”

I stopped the film running in my head. Stopped myself from saying anything else. I had already said too much. I threw Devlin a quick look. Waited for him to say something — bracing for sarcasm or traffic death statistics or, worst of all, sympathy — not that he looked like the sympathetic type. To my relief he didn’t say anything. His face was expressionless, his eyes alert and curious.

I stirred the spices and the room grew fragrant with the toasted scents. I said, “It just seemed to me…has always seemed to me…that the line between life and death is so…fine…”

“It is fine.”

“But it seemed like because it was just a matter of seconds…” I stopped, realizing I was never going to be able to explain it to someone like him. He thought by “fine,” I meant fragile — that was natural since he was a cop — and while I agreed that life was fragile, that wasn’t what I was talking about. I meant that the dividing line was so flimsy, so insubstantial that it seemed possible — even probable — that you could just reach right across…. If you knew how. If you had the courage.

I flashed him a quick, meaningless smile. “So that’s my traumatic childhood. Sorry you asked?”

His brows drew together as I pulled the blender away from the wall, dumped the spices in and turned it on. The whir of the blender made speech impossible, and I was glad of that. I couldn’t imagine why the hell I’d told him about Dylan. Low blood sugar, probably.

While the pan grew hotter, I scooped out the blended spices and began to dry rub the meat with them. The smell of the heating pan and the spices, the warmth of the kitchen and the scent of Sam Devlin’s aftershave and freshly-laundered flannel shirt had a weird effect on me. I became conscious of my bare fingers deeply massaging the warm raw meat — and that Devlin was watching me with close attention.

I said at random, “So what kind of a cop are you? Oliver never said.”

Another tense pause — I wasn’t sure why the question should make him tense. He wasn’t undercover, right? So what was the big deal?

“I’m a sergeant at the Park police station. Burglary division.”

“That must be interesting.”

He gave me an ironic look.

I tried anyway. “Do you…like it? Being a cop?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t have made it any terser. His eyes went back to my meat massage.

I gave up. Nodded at the wine rack on the far side of the room. “You want to open a bottle of wine?” By then I needed a drink.

He rose, opened the wine with quick efficiency, and poured me a glass. Our fingers brushed as I took the glass – and why the hell I would even notice beat me. I took a sip. A very nice pinot noir. I took another sip, set the glass down and placed the chops in the heated pan.

The room began to feel very warm — the effect of wine and the stove.

“What do you want with the chops?” I asked, squatting down to look for a sauce pan.

He cleared his throat. “Whatever you…”

I glanced around. His gaze appeared to be pinned on my ass. He took a gulp of wine and said, “I think there’s some canned corn in the cupboard.”

“Okay. Toss me a can.”

He got up, opened the cupboard, and tossed me the can of corn — across the table. I almost suspected he didn’t want to get too close to me. Studying the can of creamed corn — I considered the peculiar likeness of the Jolly Green Giant to present company.

I studied Devlin under my lashes. He was a big man, no question. It was probably handy in his line of work. He looked intimidating, and he had the voice and manner to back it up. I wondered what kind of social life he had, being a cop and looking the way he did. It couldn’t be much of one since he was spending his vacation all by himself at his uncle’s isolated retreat. Maybe he’d be in a better temper once he was fed and watered. Granted it would take a lot of feeding and watering…

“I could make stuffing,” I offered.

His face changed. He looked at me with something close to respect. “Could you?”

I nodded. Maybe when he was in a better mood I could work on him again about Berkeley House. Considering the house’s state of disrepair it would be safer to have someone aware of where I was all the time; I didn’t want to have to lie and sneak around, but no way was Sam Devlin getting in the way of this book.

Searching the refrigerator I came up with limp celery, a loaf of stale nut bread and half an onion. I set about making stuffing. Sam Devlin watched me all the time, and unwillingly I watched him back, uncomfortably aware of long legs, wide shoulders, powerful arms.

“So why did you become a cop?” I asked into what began to feel like a very long silence.

“I wanted to make a difference,” he said sardonically.

I sighed. It really was pointless trying to talk to him, but I like talking to people. Generally the wrong people, according to C.K. “And have you?” I asked.

He was silent. Gee, what a change. I glanced at him and once again he was observing me in that assessing way.

“Maybe.”

It took him so long to answer that I’d forgotten I’d even asked a question. I didn’t pursue it.

Dinner was ready in just under an hour, and by then I was feeling the effects of two glasses of wine on an empty stomach. When Devlin came over to the stove to inspect the results of my efforts, I felt awareness of him in every pore.

“You really can cook,” he said, as though he hadn’t believed it until all the evidence was presented.

“My dad’s a chef. Or was. He’s retired now.” I was proud of my impromptu efforts: home-style pork chops and stuffing. It smelled great if I did say so myself.

Devlin made an uninterested noise. “I’m going to build a fire and eat in the study,” he said, serving himself out of the pan.

For the life of me I couldn’t understand why I felt hurt. He had asked me to cook dinner, not dine with him. And I didn’t want to dine with him anyway, right? Because what could be more uncomfortable than trying to choke down food in his silent and disapproving presence. Too much wine, I decided. I was just feeling a little blue, missing C.K.

“Sure,” I said. I set my plate on the table and pulled out the chair.

He eyed me for a moment. “It’s warmer in the study, but suit yourself.” He turned on heel and vanished from the doorway.

I stared after him.

Oh. Okay.

I picked up my plate and trailed down the hall to Oliver’s study.

It was easy to picture Oliver in this room – urbane and easy in a silk smoking jacket, pouring cognac from a decanter, and chatting amusingly about art or whatever caught his fancy. If Oliver had ever been a starving hard-scrabble artist, I didn’t know about it; this room provided the perfect setting for him. The walls were a deep green, the trim and molding white, the furniture leather and masculine. Paintings covered the walls, mostly oils, but a few watercolors — one or two of them looked like Thaddeus Sterne’s work. Not that I was an expert, but you pick up a few things dating an art dealer.

Devlin sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, staring into the flames. His powerful body was relaxed and graceful, one arm resting on an upraised knee, the other leg stretched out before him. In the muted light he looked almost attractive, I thought, and then had to bite back a laugh.

“Something funny?” he asked, catching me by surprise.

“Uh, no.” I sat down across from him. Avoiding his eyes, I stared up at the paintings — a small fortune in artwork. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a state of the art security system to protect it. Maybe Devlin was the state of the art security system.

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” I said, meaning Oliver. I thought of his kindness that day at the art gallery, and felt an unexpected lump in my throat. Oliver had most certainly been on the prowl that afternoon, but the minute he’d figured out what was up with me, he’d been absurdly kind.

“Every day in every way,” Sam returned. An unemotional tone but I realized that there was a sense of humor in there — a sarcastic sense, which appealed to me, since I was a little on the sarcastic side myself, according to C.K.

I really didn’t want to think about C.K. tonight.

We chewed for a while, and he said, “This isn’t bad.”

“Thanks.”

“In fact,” he said grudgingly, “it’s pretty good.”

I nodded, biting back another laugh.

Silence but for the scrape of forks on plates, the crackle of the fireplace and the howl of the wind.

“It doesn’t stop, does it?” I said, lifting my head to listen.

“What’s that?”

“The wind.”

“No. It doesn’t stop.” His head lifted and there was a gleam in his eyes.

I felt my mouth tugging into a smile. I said, “No, I am not spooked by it. I’m not afraid of the dark, either. Or ghosts.”

He actually grinned. He had one hell of smile — when he let himself smile for real instead of that usual sardonic twist.

“Or lions or tigers or bears,” I added.

“Oh my,” he murmured right on cue.

And we both laughed. For real. A shared moment, and a genuine laugh.

After that it was a little easier — another bottle of wine helped. Sam asked about the other ghost houses I was writing about, and I told him about some of the things that had happened during my research of other houses. He listened politely — unimpressed, I think, but polite — which was an improvement in diplomatic relations.

I was telling him about the elderly owner of a Monterey B&B who had invested quite a bit of money in her resident “ghost,” when he startled me by bursting out laughing.

“I’m serious,” I said. “She had to be in her seventies and she was climbing along the outside railing of this giant staircase with a long pole and a makeshift rubber foot attached — all covered in phosphorous paint.”

“What size foot?”

That struck me as hysterically funny. He watched me, smiling, but his eyes were dark and serious. I eventually got control of myself and said, “I forgot to ask. Anyway, she may have been a fraud, but she made the best oatmeal raisin cookies I ever ate in my life, no lie. The best.”

His smile widened. He said, “So the fact is, you’re actually trying to disprove these ghosts, aren’t you?”

That sobered me fast. “Not at all.”

“No? Seven haunted houses and every one of them a fake?”

I shook my head. “It’s not my fault they’re all a bunch of frauds. I’m trying to find proof that these ghosts really exist.”

He looked unconvinced, and for some reason it seemed important that he be convinced.

I said, “I want to believe. I really do.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t ask too many questions.”

I frowned. “That seems like an odd philosophy for a cop.”

“You’re not a cop. I didn’t say it was my philosophy.”

Maybe he didn’t mean to sound as brusque as he did. Maybe he was just too used to talking to bad guys. I changed the subject. “If you spent summers here as a kid, did you ever go inside Berkeley House?”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t safe back then,” he said.

“Okay, okay. I get it,” I said. “Did you ever see anything…?”

He shook his head like I was confirming his suspicions.

“What’s the big secret? Did you see something?”

His mouth did the sardonic thing. “Not really.”

“So there was something?”

Amused, he said, “How do you work that out?”

“Well, if there was nothing, you’d have said nothing, but you said, not really, so there is something.”

He studied my face for a moment. I’d had a lot to drink, and I wondered if it showed. I wasn’t slurring or anything but I felt very…relaxed.

He said slowly, “Yeah, there is something…” And he leaned across and kissed me on my open and astonished mouth.

Since Devlin seemed a little on the socially inept side I was taken aback by the skill of that kiss. He didn’t look like an expert in seduction, but that mouth — pressing coolly and firmly against mine — had had a lot of practice. I found myself wondering hazily who would have dared kiss him…and what I was doing kissing him when I wasn’t sure I even liked him.

“Uh…”

He reached over and carefully removed my glasses. I blinked at him uncertainly. The muted firelight turned him into a fuzzy shadow. I had the impression of gleaming eyes and five o’clock shadow, and then he found my mouth again, parting my lips with gentle insistence. It was the gentleness that undid me.

That, and way too much wine, and not enough sleep, and missing C.K. and…

A lot of excuses for giving into what simply felt…great.

I found myself tipping back, big hands cradling me as I landed on the rug, His kiss deepened, heated. Still gentle, but now exploring…

I lay in his arms responding without hesitation, my hunger surprising even me. I pushed up his T-shirt, ran my hands down his sides. His body was warm and brown and lean; muscles rippled beneath my fingers as he shifted position. It felt good to hold onto someone, to feel bare skin. I wanted more. Needed more. His fingers worked the button of my shirt, his mouth still on mine, his knee insinuating itself between my legs.

He finished unbuttoning my shirt and I half-raised to shrug out of it; he pulled his T-shirt up over his head and tossed it away. His hands went to the button fly of my jeans and I thrust up at him, already so hard the stiff denim was torture. My hands fastened on his belt and I worked it like I had seconds to disarm a bomb — which is what it was starting to feel like. Sweat broke out on my forehead, my breath came fast. I felt wild, out of control with wanting him. Wanting him now.

He had me free of the constriction of briefs and jeans, yanking them down where they hung up on my tennis shoes, and I didn’t give a damn because by then I had got him free as well, and his dick, hard and thick, was giving the high five to my own.

“Oh, God,” I groaned.

He didn’t say a word, his breath fast and rough and scented not unpleasantly of the spices and wine. Usually I’m a little more vocal, but his silent intensity shut me up.

I bit my lip as we humped and ground against each other, fast and frantic like this had been on our minds from the first meeting — which was crazy. The slide and slap of feverish bodies. It didn’t take long at all before I was coming. I yelled and bumped my head into his shoulder, pressing my mouth to the hollow there, somewhere between nipping and nuzzling.

Sam came a couple of heartbeats later in hard economical thrusts, and I felt that blood-hot spill between us.

A shudder rippled through him and then another exquisite little aftershock of pleasure, but he still didn’t say anything. Just expelled a long heated sigh against my ear, stirring my hair.

Chapter Five

We lay there for a few moments, recovering our breath. Sam’s powerful arms felt good about me, comfortable. Right. I like to be held; C.K. hated it, wanted — needed — his space immediately after sex.

And about the last person I wanted to think about right now was C.K.

Not that thinking about Sam Devlin was an improvement because I felt a little stunned at what I’d —- we’d — done.

On Oliver’s Aubusson carpet no less.

“Wow,” I said finally.

He gave a short laugh and let me go. I was sorry about that. Sorry as he lifted off me and moved away. Dazedly, I felt around for my glasses.

“I begin to see the attraction,” he said.

“What’s that?”

He said clearly and calmly, “Now I understand why Oliver’s developed a sudden interest in psychic phenomenon.”

It took a moment for the meaning of his words to sink in.

I stared at the dark blur with the even voice. That’s what comes of having sex with people who you don’t like — and who don’t like you. And how stupid was I that I felt like he’d slapped me?

I slipped my glasses on and got up in one quick movement. I thought he tensed — it was hard to tell in the dim light, but maybe he’d had a lot of experience with people wanting to hit him after sex. He stared up at me, apparently waiting for some reaction.

“Yeah, well there’s no accounting for taste,” I said. “Mine in particular.” It wasn’t a bad exit line, and I took advantage of it, heading for the door.

He didn’t say a word and I left him there in the shadows.

* * * * *

I opened my eyes and groaned.

It was morning. I’d slept through the entire fucking — no pun intended — night. Instead of getting my ass over to Berkeley House and doing what I’d come here for, I’d gone upstairs and, feeling stupidly, illogically sorry for myself, given into the urge to lie down for a couple minutes rest. Only my quick nap had turned into the entire night and now it was…I checked my wristwatch…ten o’clock.

I’d lost an entire night. Totally wasted it conked out in Oliver’s guest room. The entire night and a good portion of the morning as well.

In a very bad temper I rose, showered and went downstairs. No homely scent of witch’s brew coffee this morning, which gave me hope that Prince Charming had taken himself off somewhere — like the cliff behind Berkeley House — but no such luck. There he sat reading the local paper.

He looked up and nodded briefly as I entered the kitchen.

I nodded even more briefly back, felt him watching me as I opened the fridge and scanned the contents. I ignored him.

“I thought you might prefer to make the coffee this morning,” he informed me, like this was a concession on his part.

I snorted. “Thanks. I’ll just get something in town.” I removed a carton of orange juice, poured myself a glass and drank it standing at the sink staring out across the woods at the rooftop of Berkeley House.

He shrugged and went back to his paper. I glanced to see what was so fascinating but the local headlines seemed to consist of a couple of burglaries, the results of the annual garden show, and a successful library fundraiser.

I finished my OJ, rinsed the glass out and left the kitchen.

* * * * *

Ventisca was one of those quaint little seaside villages, though not so quaint that it didn’t have a Starbucks, of course, and I headed there post haste to up my caffeine intake to appropriate levels. I ate a pumpkin cream cheese muffin while I got directions to the Historical Society.

I found the Historical Society nestled in between two calculatedly adorable bed and breakfasts. It was the only building on the street that didn’t have flower boxes in the windows or a brightly painted entrance. Corwin Mason was unlocking the black front door when I pulled up. I got out of the car, waved, and he waved back, his expression lightening.

“Well, hi there! I was hoping you’d turn up today.” He looked relaxed and approachable in a blue striped polo shirt and jeans, and his obvious pleasure was balm to my ego after Sam Devlin.

“If this is a busy time, I can look around on my own.”

He chuckled, gesturing me inside. “We’re not exactly on the Must See list for most tourists.”

I looked around while Mason went about the ritual of opening the museum. There were the usual displays of Indian life and Spanish influence. I skipped over the collection of arrowheads and beads, ignored the sepia photographs of the town’s early history, and by-passed the local arts and crafts section. There were a couple of very nice watercolors by local artists — nothing by Oliver or Thaddeus Sterne — and a lot of battered antique furniture.

And then I saw the guillotine.

It was roughly twelve feet tall and painted in some kind of shiny black lacquer. Golden sphinxes formed the feet of either side of the two tall guides; tiny jeweled eyes winked at me from the bird-like faces. Egyptian gods and goddesses ambled their way down the sides of the “bed,” and the circular collar that held the victim’s head in place was covered in crimson velvet. The morning sunshine glinted cheerfully off the sharp angled blade hanging above my head.

“Christ, is that real?” I asked Mason. “Is that the guillotine he used to kill himself?”

He joined me, smiling faintly. “No. This was a second guillotine Berkeley designed to use in his show. See, his assistant’s head would fit down here.” He leaned across and pressed a small lever. “A dummy head would fall into the basket. The assistant would never be in any actual danger, although it looks pretty realistic from where the audience was sitting.”

“It looks pretty realistic from where I’m standing.” I added slowly, “It’s huge. I don’t know why that never occurred to me.”

“That’s show biz.” Mason pointed to the far wall where a large oil portrait hung. “And that’s David Berkeley.”

I’d seen photographs of this portrait, but the real thing was startlingly vivid. Somber eyes stared out of a long, pale, intense face. Flat black hair and a dapper mustache and beard. The background was green like the sea beneath the cliffs at Berkeley House. I couldn’t think how I’d missed it earlier, because once I’d noticed the painting, it was hard to ignore it. I could feel the gaze of those black eyes as though a real person were watching me.

“Creepy,” I commented.

Mason laughed. “Yeah. It’s painted so that the eyes seemed to follow you wherever you are in the room. I’m used to him now, though.”

“Who painted it?”

“No one.”

At my glance, he clarified. “No one famous, I mean. It was done by a local artist. Aaron Perry.”

“The same Aaron Perry who ran off with Berkeley’s fiancé?”

“The same. Very good. You’ve done your homework. According to the stories, the three of them were inseparable growing up. The girl —”

“Charity Keith,” I supplied, and Mason laughed.

“Now you’re showing off.”

“Yeah. It’s an interesting story. Sad. Romantic. Like most ghost stories.”

“Pure soap opera, if you ask me. Charity agreed first to marry Berkeley, but then changed her mind and ran off with Perry. Berkeley committed suicide at the peak of his fame and fortune — such as it was. The guy was not exactly Houdini.”

He guided me through the rest of the display. There were fragile posters of Berkeley’s performances and yellowed newspaper clippings of his modest triumphs. He’d definitely been junior varsity. No appearing before the crowned heads of Europe and his performance at the Pan-American Exposition had been marred by the assassination of President McKinley.

I glanced over the notice of Berkeley’s engagement to marry Charity Keith and studied the formal still posed portrait of the happy couple. Apparently not that happy, since Charity had eloped with Berkeley’s good friend Aaron Perry.

Even in his engagement portrait Berkeley looked…harrowed. Charity, on the other hand, had that grim expressionless countenance most brides wore back then. Possibly something to do with women not having the right to vote until 1920.

“Are there any photos or pictures of Perry?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Too bad.” It would have been nice for the book, a picture of the love triangle. I mused, “An elopement must have been socially awkward in a town this size.”

Mason laughed briefly. “I bet.”

I moved down the row of black and white photographs, pausing at a picture of Berkeley in Paris. I felt a prickle down my spine as I picked out his tall figure standing next to the unsettlingly realistic guillotine. Something about that tall dark figure in top hat and cape caught my attention; seemed somehow familiar.

“This was the guillotine he used to kill himself?”

Mason peered over my shoulder. He smelt appealingly of pipe tobacco and citrus. He was sucking on a lemon drop, and he shifted it with his tongue before saying, “I don’t know. There were two of them and they were identical, I guess, until Berkeley doctored one for his own personal use. That one was destroyed after the inquest.”

The shudder that rippled down my spine caught me off guard. Mason laughed. “Berkeley’s story really got to you, didn’t it?”

I laughed, trying to brush my unease off. “Maybe. It’s all these gruesome props. Usually I have to use my imagination more. A lot more.”

“I can imagine. Have you ever seen a real ghost?”

“Me? No.” I glanced over my shoulder, feeling those strange painted eyes again.

“Well, if it’s any comfort, it was all about the illusion for Berkeley. He didn’t really chop the heads off volunteers.”

Mason was teasing, and I forced a smile in response; I had no idea why David Berkeley’s story affected me like no other I’d investigated so far. It wasn’t a rational response, that was for sure.

He left me to examine the rest of the photos and memorabilia at my leisure, and I spent the morning glancing over the colorful ephemera of placards and postcards, puzzling over birdcages and boxes and other vintage odds and ends. I took photos of the clippings and the portrait of David Berkeley. I had more than enough information on him for the book, but the more I learned about him, the more fascinated I became.

I was the museum’s only visitor that morning, and I wondered what Mason did to while away the long hours.

“We get a lot more visitors in the summer,” he assured me, when I asked. “Berkeley might never have been a household name, but he’s still pretty well known in magic circles.” He watched me screw the lens cap on my camera, and asked a little diffidently, “What do you think about lunch?”

“I’m all in favor of it.”

I really liked his smile – and the fact that smiling wasn’t a struggle for him. “There’s a little place down the road that makes terrific meatball sandwiches.”

“Sounds good,” I said, and was treated to the easy smile again.

I followed Mason to a little Italian restaurant with a great view of the ocean. The tables were covered in red and white checked table cloths and there were candles in Chianti bottles and faded photos of 1960 Rome for ambiance.

Mason ordered the meatball sandwiches and I went for pepperoni and black olive pizza, having no idea when or if I’d have dinner.

“How long are you staying for?” he asked as we sipped beer from chilled mugs.

“Just ‘til Sunday night.”

“I guess, living in L.A., you don’t get up this way a lot?”

I thought of all the plane trips, all the Friday night drives up the coast to see C.K. How come it had never occurred to me that I was the one doing all the driving and flying and jumping through hoops? Never again.

“No,” I said.

He nodded, stared at the table top.

Someone had left a newspaper folded on the table next to us, and my wandering gaze lit on the story about the recent rash of burglaries — which reminded me of Sam. Now that I had a little distance from the night before, I could see that a certain amount of cynicism was probably part of the cop job description. And it’s not like I was so inexperienced I put undue importance on sex. I was irritated with my earlier reaction to his misanthropic view; what did I care what he thought about me? I put it down to Oliver planting ideas in my head about him.

“What’s the crime rate like here?” I asked, to distract myself from the direction my thoughts were going.

“Almost non-existent.” Mason followed my gaze to the newspaper headline and shook his head. “Oh, that. That’s something new for us. Started a couple of weeks ago with summer houses getting broken into and robbed. Luckily no one’s been hurt.”

I nodded absently.

We chatted about the usual things. Mason was full of praise for small town living. He had moved to Ventisca from San Jose following the death of his longtime partner three years earlier.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He smiled sadly. “Yeah. People sort of forget that AIDS is still killing us.”

I wondered if he had tested positive for the virus or not. I liked him and found him attractive but I wasn’t at the point where it mattered to me personally one way or the other. His uncomplicated admiration and openness was refreshing after Sam Devlin. Not to mention C.K.

But I was still unsettled about my stupidity in having sex with a stranger the night before — unprotected sex at that — and it put me on my guard. I returned the conversation to neutral ground. “So what’s the local word on the ghost?”

“Ask around and you’ll hear plenty of accounts of flickering lights and strange noises. You know: the ghostly slide of a guillotine blade echoing through the woods.”

He grinned, and I grinned back, but I remembered the eerie sensation of those silent woods closing in on me.

“Have you ever seen anything?”

He hesitated. “I hate to tell you this, but I’m not a big believer in the supernatural.”

“Sure. Which means anything you’ve seen will be more interesting. Or at least more reliable.”

He took a swallow of beer and wiped the foam from his mustache. “I’ve seen the lights. I go out to Seal Point sometimes with my telescope. The lights are supposed to be Berkeley traveling from room to room searching for his lost bride.”

“But she wasn’t his bride, right? She ran off before they married, so why would he be looking for her in the house?”

Mason shrugged. “Never thought about it. Maybe ghosts aren’t logical. Maybe his ghost forgot what happened. He did chop his head off, after all.”

I laughed. “Good point.”

I liked the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. I said, at random, “Berkeley killed himself eight months after Charity ran off?”

“So the story goes. Yep. That much is documented.”

“It seems like a weird way to commit suicide, using the guillotine. You think he’d just throw himself off the cliff or blow his brains out.”

“He was a showman up to the end, I guess.”

“I guess. So did you ever hear —”

He chuckled. “I know what you’re going to ask. Did I ever hear the ghostly scrape of the guillotine ax?”

“Did you?”

His face was rueful. “Nope. I’ve made a point of never getting that close to the house at night.”

“Seriously?” Mason didn’t look like the nervous type.

“Seriously,” he said, and his eyes were without their habitual twinkle. “And, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll steer clear of those woods after dark.”

Chapter Six

Mason and I talked a little longer, and then I reluctantly declined dessert and coffee and headed back to Oliver’s. This time I took the back road, skirting the Oliver’s home and parking in the woods not far from the cliffs.

I could smell the sea salt and eucalyptus, and hear the cries of the gulls circling high above the rocks as I unloaded my gear, and lugged it across to Berkeley House. Once I had everything out of the car I lifted it through the broken front windows of the library and began setting up my equipment.

The afternoon was warm and unusually sunny, the wind down to a murmur. I could hear birds singing in the trees. The unease I’d felt the previous day seemed silly now.

I mounted the video cam on its tripod in the corner of Berkeley’s library where it wouldn’t be easily spotted by anyone peering through the window. Setting the timer, I hurried back to the car.

As I pulled away, I was caught between guilt and triumph. Yes, I’d given Sam Devlin my word not to go back into the house, but I’d been coerced into it, so it didn’t count.

Not really.

Besides, Devlin was a jerk.

It took about ten minutes to drive to Oliver’s. I parked in the shady front drive, and went inside the house using the key Devlin had given me before I’d left that morning.

There was no sign of him, and that was a relief.

Sitting down at my laptop, I entered my notes from the museum. I worked for about an hour when the sound of splashing filtered through my consciousness. I rose, went to the window and looked down at the brick patio and swimming pool beyond.

Sam was in the pool. I watched him for a while. He swam with a single-minded ferocity. Gleaming brown arms cut glistening arcs in the air, strong legs kicking as he shot through the water. Each time he reached the length of the pool, he did one of those quick underwater summersaults off the wall and started back across the water.

I was struck again by the beauty and power of his body; I didn’t want to remember how it had felt to be held by him, how his mouth had tasted on mine, the roughness of his cheek and the softness of his hair. I wanted to forget the night before had ever happened, so it was annoying as hell to find it difficult to tear myself away from the window.

But I did. I went back to work, finished entering my notes and then read them over. I thought Berkeley House was by far the most interesting of my chapters, and I wondered if it would be feasible to use David Berkeley’s portrait on the book cover.

“Hey,” Sam yelled upstairs some time later. “You want some dinner?”

I opened my mouth to yell my refusal, but my stomach growled, practically loud enough to answer for me. And the answer seemed to be yes.

I closed my laptop and went to the top of the stairs. “Is that your way of asking if I’ll cook?”

He stared back, but then his mouth quirked like he just might smile. “It’s for your own protection,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

His expression altered. “If you want me to cook, I’ll cook.”

I must have looked unconvinced because he said, “I defrosted a couple of steaks. I can do steak.”

I was too hungry to ignore this olive branch — in fact, I was hungry enough to eat an olive branch, so I shrugged ungraciously and joined him downstairs in the kitchen.

“There’s beer in the fridge,” Sam said, peppering two enormous steaks. “I went to the market earlier.”

I opened the refrigerator and saw that he had indeed stocked up. There was plenty of imported beer as well as perishables like milk and bread and lettuce. Apparently he was planning on staying for a good while. It didn’t matter to me now; I wouldn’t be staying beyond Sunday and I’d already figured out how I’d work around him.

“How was your day?” he asked, his eyes very green in his tanned face.

“Fine.”

“How’d the ghost hunting go?”

I stared at him. Was he making conversation with me? Why?

“It was okay,” I answered warily.

“Learn anything useful at the museum?”

My hand slipped opening a bottle of Beck’s and I almost spilled some of the precious elixir. “How’d you know I went to the Historical Society museum?”

He raised thick brows at the suspicion in my voice. “I saw you with Mason Corwin coming out of Mama Louisa’s. I put two and two together.”

“Oh?”

His mouth twitched a little at my tone. “Is that a touch of paranoia? I was going into the market. I have the produce to prove it.”

Well of course he wasn’t following me; I hadn’t thought he was, but it still gave me a funny feeling, especially since he was being so uncharacteristically cordial.

“Speaking of which, do you want me to make a salad or something?” I offered, mostly to change the subject.

Sam smiled, his expression informing me that he knew exactly what I was doing. “Sure, that’d be great.”

It occurred to me that the offer of beer had simply been a ploy to get me to open the fridge and see the vegetables awaiting my expert hand. “Are you sure you’re gay?” I inquired. “You seem pretty helpless in the kitchen.”

“I’m sure.” He gave me an unexpectedly direct look. “My skills lie in another direction.”

Anybody else, I would have thought he was flirting. As it was, blood rose in my face remembering exactly how skilled he was — and my own uncharacteristic response.

I busied myself tearing up and washing greens, and Sam took the steaks out to the back patio. Apparently his idea of cooking was BBQ.

I gave myself time, drank some beer, then followed him outside. He was sitting in one of the wooden Adirondack chairs idly swiping at flies with the extra-length spatula while the coals heated. I straddled one of the weathered benches taking a turn at observing him for a change.

“How do you want your steak?” he inquired into the silence.

“Medium — hold the flies.”

He turned a gleaming look my way. “Extra protein,” he observed.

“Ha.”

He resumed gazing at the sun-glittering pool.

I swallowed a mouthful of beer, listened to the sound of the pool filter and the scrape of dead leaves on the bricks. Bees hummed around the bougainvillea winding up the wooden posts of the pergola, brilliant scarlet and yellow flowers.

“So what happened between you and the boyfriend?” Sam asked suddenly.

“Huh?” I stared at him, astonished.

“The art dealer boyfriend,” he clarified, as though I had so many I might have lost track.

I continued to stare at him, and his face reddened as though it belatedly occurred to him that maybe this was just slightly intrusive. I figured that Oliver must have filled him in on me — preparatory to handing me over as human sacrifice du jour.

“He didn’t do monogamous,” I said. “Or long term.” I stood up, swung my leg over the bench, aware that he was still watching me with that bright alert gaze. “Are we eating inside or out?”

“What did you want?”

Somehow everything spoken in the last couple of minutes seemed laden with undertones and secret meaning. It took me a second to gather my thoughts. I said, “Outside, I guess. It’s nice tonight.”

“It is nice,” Sam agreed. He rose and applied himself to the grill.

* * * * *

The steak at least was perfect.

After his odd question about C.K., Sam seemed to have little to say. We ate mostly in silence, while the little lights strung across the open patio and threaded through the vines blinked into life like fireflies or tiny stars. Pool lights illuminated crystal water. The evening was perfumed with charcoal and chlorine and freshly mown grass.

Every so often I’d glance up from my plate and Sam would be staring at me with a expression I couldn’t quite pin down. Each time I’d catch his gaze, he’d look away.

“You want another beer?” He asked on his way into the house.

“No thanks.”

We were both sticking to beer — and not too much of it.

“How did your family acquire Berkeley House?” I asked when he returned with his beer. “Berkeley wasn’t a relative, was he?”

“No.”

“The house was abandoned after Berkeley’s death?”

“Near enough. The house went to elderly relatives of Berkeley’s back east. They had no interest in moving out west and the house had a bad reputation locally. Finally it was sold off with the surrounding acreage to Cornelius Wagnalls, who built this house. Wagnalls lost everything when the stock market crashed in 1929, and Oliver’s grandfather bought the estate in auction.”

“And the house was left closed up all that time?”

“Mostly. There are stories about Wagnalls offering the house to his daughter as a wedding present, and her walking inside and walking straight out again.” He raised his black eye brows suggestively. “Atmosphere,” he said.

“Or thirty years of dust.” I smiled absently, reminded suddenly of the previous evening, the way it had felt being together. It was still hard for me to believe that I’d done that. Or that he had.

It seemed risky to even question it. It had been a one off. It had felt good at the time, but now I needed to forget about it. So how the hell come I kept thinking about it?

I said briskly, talking myself away from my wayward thoughts, “Are you ever going to tell me what you saw at Berkeley House way back when?”

Sam tilted his beer bottle up, his eyes studying me wryly over the top.

“Is this going in the book?”

“Not if you don’t want it to.” That was a rash promise; I wasn’t sure if it would go in the book or not, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Okay, well, it’s not like I have an actual incident to report. I used to go over to the house. This is about twenty years ago.”

How old was he? Late thirties? Early forties? I tried to picture him as a little kid. I kept getting tall, grim-faced with five o’clock shadow.

“What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

At my expression he said, “I never saw anything, but…it was an…uneasy place. It had a vibe, I’ll give you that.”

“Did you ever go upstairs?”

“A few times.” He shrugged. “By then there wasn’t much left to see, but when Oliver was a kid there was still some furniture and bits and pieces of Berkeley’s magic apparatus.”

“For real?”

“Yeah. No one seriously ever tried to secure the premises, so piece by piece, it all vanished or was destroyed by vandals. Oliver’s grandfather donated the best of what was left to the Historical Preservation Society.”

“What kind of stuff was there?”

He eyes rested on my face; it was probably my imagination, but for a moment his expression seemed to soften. “Books mostly. A guillotine. A portrait of David Berkeley.”

“I saw that guillotine today. Pretty impressive. The portrait too.”             

He smiled reluctantly. “You love this stuff, don’t you? Everything from the magic tricks to the spooky old house.”

“Well…it’ll make a great chapter for the book and…yeah. I do.” I waited for him to say something rude or belittling, but he just grimaced and reached for his beer.

“What was it like upstairs?”

“Like the downstairs.”

I opened my mouth to object, and he said patiently, “There was a lot of junk and a lot of cobwebs and dust. A few skeletons of sea gulls that flew in through broken windows and couldn’t get out again.”

“Did you go through all the rooms?”

“Yes,” he said. “I did. And I crawled around in the attic.”

Here was a valuable resource if he’d be willing to cooperate.

Correctly reading my expression, he said, “That wasn’t the creepy part.”

“What was?”

“The cellar.”

His eyes flicked to mine and I wasn’t sure if he was about to pull my leg or not. “Cold as ice. A cold like nothing I’ve ever felt. I only ever went down there once. That was enough.”

“The cellar? Not the library?”

“The cellar.”

“But Berkeley killed himself in the library.”

“So the story goes.”

I fastened on this. “Is there any reason to think he didn’t kill himself there?”

“Not that I know of.”

There was nothing about the cellar in any of the stories about Berkeley house, so I couldn’t figure why there would be a cold spot in the cellar. Lights in the upper story and an unnatural chill in the cellar: two supernatural manifestations that didn’t make any sense.

Whether they made sense or not, I wanted to check the house out, experience its secrets for myself.

Afraid that Sam might read my thoughts — he seemed pretty good at that — I changed the subject again. “How long have you been a cop?”

His face tightened. “Ten years.”

Yes, there was something there. Something to do with his job.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you on vacation now?”

He gave me a long level look, planning, if I read his look correctly, to tell me it was none of my fucking business. But instead, he said neutrally, “I’m on…leave.”

“Oh.” Medical leave? He looked healthy as a horse. What other kinds of leave were there?

I was still thinking it over as he changed the subject, turning the tables once more.

“Oliver says you teach at UCLA?”

I nodded, reached for my beer.

“You’ve got a pretty good football team heading into spring practice.”

“Twenty returning starters and an experienced core group of players.”

“And you teach history?” He really had been listening the night before.

“Mostly. One course on parapsychology.”

“How long?”

“Six years.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

It was the slightly awkward conversation you make on a first date. I almost asked him how he felt about Oliver trying to set us up, but remembering how quiet and intense he had been when we’d fucked, I held my tongue. It seemed to me that he was not a guy to tease.

I must have been looking at him oddly, though, because he raised his brows. “What?”

I shook my head. “Thanks for dinner. My turn tomorrow night.”

“Are you staying for dinner? I figured you’d be taking off early. Beat the traffic.”

Meaning he’d hoped I would be taking off early? Probably.

“I…was thinking I might stay over Sunday.” I was?

Sam raised his brows.

“Unless you have a problem with that?”

He shrugged. “It’s not a problem for me. You’re Oliver’s guest.”

“Right. Well…good.” For some damn reason I couldn’t come up with anything else to say. I’d thought — well, I hadn’t really thought anything. I’d hoped — no. No, I definitely wasn’t hoping for anything. In fact, I had no idea what the hell I was thinking or why I had suggested staying another night.

Sam said slowly, “Did you know Berkeley was found just moments after he used the guillotine? The local story is that when they picked up his severed head he opened his eyes and spoke.”

I stared at him. I knew it was just a story, but for some reason my face felt stiff as I formed the question, “What did he say?”

“Dum spiro spero.”

A chill rippled down my spine. “Which means what?”

“It’s Latin.”

“For what?” I asked a little impatiently.

Gravely he said, “While I breathe, I hope.”

He laughed at my expression, and I was glad it was too dark for him to see that I was red as well.

“Funny,” I managed.

He was still laughing.

“So is there actually any story about Berkeley being found after he used the guillotine?”

He sobered. His eyes, black in the uneven light, met mine. After a moment, he said, “No. Of course not.”

I realized he was lying.

“You know, there are scientists who believe that when a head is suddenly severed it takes the brain a while to realize what’s happened. There are recorded instances of severed heads responding to someone speaking their name or touching their cheek.”

He said flatly, “Berkeley was found days later. There’s no story about his severed head.”

“How do you know when he was found? I’ve never read anything about it.”

“Anecdotal evidence. There are still a few old-timers with stories about Berkeley.” He rose and picked up his plate and mine. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you, Professor,” he threw over his shoulder.

After a moment I stood, gathering the rest of the dishes, following Sam into the house. He had the dishwasher open and was loading it.

“I’ll wash up,” I told him, and he nodded and left me to it.

It didn’t take me long. I finished loading the machine, turned it on and went upstairs to bed.

Setting my wristwatch for eleven thirty I lay down to nap, but it took a long time to relax. I could hear the TV downstairs, little twitches of the house settling down for the night, the wind….

I woke at the creak of floorboards down the hall and the sound of Sam’s bedroom door shutting. Raising my head, I checked my wristwatch. Ten-thirty. Early yet. I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep.

My wristwatch was going off softly next to my ear. I rolled over, peered at the luminous dial in the gloom. Eleven forty-five. Time to get moving.

I sat up, pulled on my jeans and shirt. Found my shoes and socks, holding them in one hand as I eased open the bedroom door. I paused.

Moonlight dappled the floor like silver lily pads on the shiny dark wood.

Not a sound from down the hall.

I tiptoed down the lily pads past Sam’s closed door, hesitating at the squeak of a floorboard.

I waited. Behind the door on my right, I could hear Sam snoring, and I bit back a grin.

I continued down the hall, down the stairs and out through the front door, which I locked quietly behind me. I sat down on the porch steps and slipped my tennis shoes on, pulled my sweatshirt over my head.

Rising, I glanced back and the black window of Sam’s bedroom.

I hoped to God the neighborhood burglars didn’t pick tonight to hit Oliver’s.

* * * * *

Berkeley House was, unsurprisingly, quiet as the grave on a crisp and chilly Saturday night.

I crawled in through the library window and hesitated for a moment in the darkness. It was very dark with only my flashlight to guide my way across the uneven floor.

The video camera whirred softly away in the indistinct gloom of the library. I checked the meter. It had only started running two hours ago, so there was still plenty of time and tape.

For laughs, I tried tapping on a few walls. Berkeley was an illusionist. I thought it was likely he might have a hidden room or a secret passageway built into the house. But the place was huge and some of the rooms were no longer even accessible due to broken flooring and tumbled walls. I wondered if it would be possible to lay hands on a set of blueprints for the house. Mason might know.

Remembering Sam’s comments about the cellar, I started hunting for the kitchen. There were two doors at the end of the long former dining room. One door turned out to be false, apparently existing only to add symmetry to the room’s architecture. The second door led down a short passage to the enormous old kitchen. The flash light picked out where the ovens had stood, the wreck of cupboards, and another door leading into what must have been the pantry.

Staring up, I saw the gallery where the lady of the house would have stood to drop her instructions for the day’s menu down to the kitchen staff. Of course there had been no lady of the house in Berkeley’s day, so maybe he had stood up there himself.

For some reason the image of that tall, thin figure standing up in the gallery gave me goose bumps. I turned away, making my way to the far end of the kitchen where an empty door frame led out onto a porch.

That couldn’t be it.

I started back across the wasteland of dirt and debris.

The flashlight beam picked out another door I had missed when I’d entered the kitchen. It was positioned near the kitchen entrance, set off to the side of the hallway. I studied the peeling surface for a moment and reached for the tarnished knob. It seemed stuck. I tugged harder and the handle came off in my hand.

The door swung gently open.

The dank breath of the cellar gusted out. I could feel clammy stink against my face. A chill wave of sick horror came over me.

Okay. Maybe not.

I shoved the door closed and stood there for a moment panting in the wake of that cold miasma.

What the hell was that?

I backed up trying to make sense of it. I’d experienced a few cold spots in my investigations — though nothing that couldn’t be explained by underground springs or faulty architecture — and occasionally I’d felt something that prickled the hair on the back of my neck, but this was the first time I’d ever felt anything quite that…extreme.

Mouth dry as sand, heart banging away in my chest in that flight or fight instinct, I began to reason with myself. It was just bad air. Stale air.

It was dust. Mold. Mildew. The damp.

That scene from the movie The Haunting flashed into my mind. Gloomy old housekeeper, Mrs. Dudley warning poor doomed Eleanor, There won’t be anyone around if you need help. We couldn’t even hear you, in the night. In the dark….

Right. In the night. In the dark. In the damp.

That seeping damp…pervasive and oppressive…like a gust of swamp gas or the tainted air from a crypt. It brushed against my face like a veil.

Even if there was some kind of presence – no, not presence. Presence was the wrong word. Even if there was some kind of supernatural manifestation, that didn’t mean there was any danger. Outside of the movies, no one has ever been killed by a ghost.

I was still telling myself this as I stumbled back towards the door opening onto the dining room. I grabbed the handle, relieved when it turned. Why wouldn’t it turn? Why was I overreacting over a little bit of moist and mildew?

I made my way through the broken planks and plaster, almost falling over a loose floorboard in my haste.

Christ. I was acting like the very nitwit Sam believed I was.

Blundering back into the hallway, I paused to get my bearings.

Something moved in the surrounding pitch blackness and my heart stopped. I swung my flashlight in the direction of that soft sound. A mouse froze in the glare of my flashlight and then whisked itself away behind a baseboard. I sucked in a sharp breath, told myself to get my shit together.

Okay. There were good reasons not to explore the cellar. It was a foul place, and it wasn’t even mentioned in any of the stories about Berkeley House. So no need to prove anything to myself. Logically, there was no reason to go down there.

If I did decide to explore the cellar, it would be better to do that during the day. But actually it would be better to just forget about the cellar because Sam was right. It was dangerous down there. The house really was unsafe. I could break a leg easily. Or my neck.

I reached the library with a feeling of relief.

The relief was short-lived.

As I stood there listening to the breeze through the broken window scuttle leaves or old newspaper around the floor, I got that sensation of being watched.

A feeling of increasing anxiety crept over me. I turned my flashlight into the cobwebbed corners of the room.

Nothing.

I shone it at the black mouth of the doorway.

A prickly shivering darkness seemed to lay in wait beyond the doorway.

Yeah. Right.

Really, what the fuck was my problem?

I resolutely turned from the doorway and scouted out a reasonably clean place of floor space near to the wall. Wrapping myself in my blanket, I sat down with pad and pen.

The spring moon moved slowly across the floor, the shadows lengthened, deepened…

The repetitive rasp of sliding metal, a cold hollow thunk, and the jangling pull of a chain filtered into my dreams.

I started awake.

To a crisp and eerie silence.

I listened tensely.

To nothing.

I rubbed my eyes, checked my watch. Three-thirty. The camera was still running. I took a look at the electromagnetic detector. The needle was trembling, indicating strong erratic fluctuating EMFs.

I watched it in the circle of my flashlight beam. The needle stilled.

I waited for something else to happen.

Nothing did. I jotted down the time and event in my log, then made myself sit down again to wait.

Outside the window I could hear crickets chirping.

Bed sounded better and better. Especially since I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open.

Electromagnetic fields could result from a number of things, but that sound had been so…real. I could still hear the echo of the slow distinct draw of chain, the swift steely bite, and the crunch of blade on…on flesh and bone?

Too much red meat, that’s what this was about. A heavy dinner and not enough sleep.

Unfolding painfully, I set my unused pad aside — I wasn’t about to write down my dreams — folded up the blanket and crawled out through the window.

I hurried through the shambles of the garden, pausing on the edge to look back at the house. The scent of eucalyptus hung heavy in the night air. I told myself that if I saw lights in the second story windows, I would go back, so it was a relief to see only black and broken panes reflecting the night sky. I started back up the road towards Oliver’s house.

It seemed a long way that night — as though the overgrown road were elastic, stretching further and further despite the energetic pace I set.

I began to think about the figure in the road the previous evening.

Except…not a mysterious figure, after all, but rather a famous and well-respected artist. With a penchant for sauntering through the woods at night.

Well, everyone needs a hobby.

But the way Thaddeus Sterne had followed me through the woods — that wasn’t normal behavior. That was…disquieting. The way he’d stood there watching me, moving closer and closer across the lawn. He’d practically emanated malevolence.

Or had my tiredness and imagination got the better of me?

Given the direction my thoughts were going, I guess it wasn’t surprising that when someone stepped out of the bushes right to the side of me, I shot off the ground like I’d had springs installed in my feet.

A blast of fear and adrenaline surged through me, I turned and bolted — slamming right into a thick tree trunk.

Chapter Seven

I was seeing stars.

“Are you all right?” The voice floating above me was soft and alarmed. A black bulk bent over me.

I jackknifed up — and just missed banging heads with the owner of the voice. “I-I think so…” Actually, I felt a little sick in the wake of that rush of fear and adrenaline — not to mention the shock of hitting my head.

I had a blurred impression of massive shoulders and silver fur. It didn’t do much to settle my nerves.

Feeling around in the grass, I found my glasses and examined the wire frames doubtfully. The lenses were fine but the frames fit crookedly when I slipped them on. I viewed my companion.

He was big — even bigger than Sam. Tall and broad with a dark hawkish face and long silver hair and beard. Silver eyebrows too.

“Here, let me help you up.” Forceful hands fastened on my upper arms and lifted me onto my feet. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“You didn’t.” I put a hand to my forehead, brought it away. No blood as far as I could tell. That was good, though I could feel a knot rising beneath my cautious fingers. It pulsed, tender to the touch.

“You’re Oliver’s little friend.” His eyes were very dark, like black holes in his face.

I irritably shook off my fancifulness. An elderly man and the safety of Oliver’s house within sprinting distance: there was nothing here I couldn’t handle. I bent to brush myself off.

“I don’t know if friend is quite the right word,” I glanced up. “I don’t know if little is quite the right word. You make me sound like a pet rabbit.”

He chuckled. “Sure you’re all right?”

“Mostly. You’re Thaddeus Sterne, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” He did that chuckling thing again.

I said as though we were standing in C.K.’s gallery, “I’m a great admirer of your work.”

“Are you?” He sounded amused. “Would you like to come back to my house and see some of it?”

It seemed an odd time for a visit, even if he was one of living legends of the art world. “I should probably be getting back,” I said regretfully.

“I think you should come with me,” he said gently. “David Berkeley’s waiting for you.”

“I…what?” I jerked upright, interested at how calm I sounded. Calm and a little faint. Which was pretty much how I felt.

“Look.” He pointed down the road. I stared. There in the bend where the trees dipped low and the shadows were deep I could see —

No. I didn’t see anything but shadows. And Thaddeus Sterne was almost certainly off his rocker.

But my eyes wouldn’t seem to look away, and as I focused I seemed to be able to pick out the tall, faceless figure. A tall man standing silent in the center of the path.

This was what I had seen the night I arrived. Not Thaddeus Sterne at all. The shade of David Berkeley.

Ridiculous. I was just reacting to the suggestion…

“Why would he wait for me?” I asked carefully, unable to tear my gaze away from the umbra in the path.

“I don’t know.” I could feel Thaddeus’s gaze on my profile. “You keep returning to the house. Maybe he thinks you’re looking for him.”

I was too tired to work this out. And then it occurred to me that I was having a very strange dream. It had to be a dream. I could imagine myself telling Sam about it over dreadful coffee in the morning: I was standing in the woods talking to Thad Sterne about David Berkeley — and David Berkeley was right there listening to us.

I said to Thaddeus, “I thought it was you following me the other night.”

He said, “You’d better come back with me and let me take a look at that bump on your head.”

Yeah, I had to be dreaming. I was tucked up in bed right now. So it was okay to go along with this — it wasn’t for real, and I was curious about how it was all going to work itself out.

I nodded, keeping one eye on the dark shadows where I thought I’d seen…Berkeley’s specter.

We didn’t take the path, though, Thaddeus pushed right through the bushes and I followed him so there was no need to pass that point in the road where Berkeley waited.

“It’s not far,” he assured me. He moved in long powerful strides once we cleared the shrubbery. I trailed after him.

We walked until we came to a house that looked like an Arts and Crafts masterpiece: a rambling shingle-style in dark wood with a multitude of brightly lit windows. Thaddeus trudged up the interlocking stone front path and pushed open the unlocked front door.

“You’re not afraid of burglars?” I asked.

He tittered, holding the door so that I could precede him inside. “No danger of that. What do I have that anyone would want?”

I stared around at an informal wall-to-wall gallery of paintings, a fortune in Thaddeus Sterne art work. It seemed to me pretty obvious what someone might want, but I let it go. There’s no point debating with people in your dreams.

Thaddeus led the way to a large room that was also lined with paintings. Obviously the rumors were wrong; he hadn’t quit painting. He had just quit exhibiting.

I sank down on the nearest surface: a velvet-covered sofa straight out of a Victorian novel. My head hurt, but mostly I just felt tired and a little woozy. Sterne left me for a few moments and returned with an old-fashioned ice pack. I applied it cautiously to my forehead.

Disappearing again, he reappeared with a decanter. He poured two cognacs, one of which he handed to me. I said apologetically, “I probably shouldn’t after a knock on the head.”

He shrugged, set the glass on the flimsy table next to the sofa, and then dropped down in a giant brocade chair. He leaned forward, frowning beneath the shaggy silver eyebrows.

“Tell me about Oliver?”

I shifted the ice pack. “Tell you…what?”

“How did he look?”

“Good. Healthy. Happy.”

He nodded. Stared at his drink. Had that been the wrong answer?

“Did he say when he was coming home?”

“Not to me.” I added uncomfortably, “I think he’s in Paris now.”

“Yes. He loves Paris.” He tossed back the cognac in his glass. “You must have made quite an impression on him.”

I said honestly, “I think he felt sorry for me. I’d broken up with my boyfriend and…I wasn’t taking it well.”

He stared at me.

“He can be very kind,” he said at last.

“He was to me.”

There was a very strange silence. I realized that more than anything I wanted to lie down on this velveteen couch and go to sleep.

“We grew up together, me and Oliver. We’ve always been together.”

I guess it was all how you defined “together.”

I searched around for something to say. He obviously was only interested in one topic. “What was he like back then?”

He said dryly, “Like he is now, only faster on his feet.”

“Did you know Sam when he was a boy?” I heard myself ask — proof that I’d been knocked harder on the noggin than I supposed.

Sterne smiled, his face unexpectedly relaxed. “Oh yes. He spent all his summers here when he was growing up. Sammy’s a sweetheart.”

I made a noncommittal noise. I hadn’t seen that side of him yet, but he certainly had the Silver Panther vote.

Sterne chuckled again. I wished he wouldn’t. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “You shouldn’t go in the house. It isn’t safe. Especially for you, I think.”

I stiffened. “Why especially for me?”

“Not every door you open is possible to close.”

“That’s certainly cryptic.”

He just eyed me in that calm way.

“Did you ever see…?” I realized it was a foolish question. He had seen whatever I had tonight. The question was what had we seen? How much of it was imagination — or suggestion — and how much of it was bad lighting?

“Sam said he used to play —” I paused, wondering if “play” was the right word to describe anything Sam might have done.

“Boys will be boys,” Sterne remarked. He reached for my untouched cognac. “Oliver and I used to prowl through the house when we were lads, too.”

“You know the story about Berkeley killing himself in the library?”

“Using the guillotine from his act? Oh yes. The guillotine was long gone by then, of course, but you could still see the bloodstains on the floor.”

The ice pack was leaking cold water down the back of my neck. I shuddered, studying Sterne, not sure whether to believe him or not. He smiled maliciously.

“Or maybe we just hoped that’s what those stains were.” He eyed me speculatively.

I said, “Is there some legend about Berkeley’s severed head speaking when he was found?”

He laughed heartily. “Where did you hear that old horror story?”

“So there is such a story?”

“Amor et melle et felle est fecundissmismus.”

“Which means what exactly?” Did everyone in this damn place speak Latin?

“Love is rich with both honey and venom.”

I stared at him. “That can’t be true.” Why had Sam lied?

“Of course not.” His eyes were puzzled. “It’s just a story some fool made up. You know the legend of course? Berkeley killed himself when his childhood sweetheart ran off with his best friend.”

“A local painter by the name of Aaron Perry.”

“That’s right!” He looked pleased. “Have you seen the portrait?”

I nodded.

“It’s not bad, is it? Aaron Perry had something. It’s a shame none of the rest of his work survived. Berkeley was at the height of his fame when that portrait was painted. Fame being relative. He traveled all over the world: England, Spain, Paris —” his voice was bitter on the word “Paris.” “He performed in music halls and carnivals and circuses. Anywhere he could. He didn’t come home for years on end, but I suppose he thought the girl would wait forever. She didn’t.”

The silence was definitely awkward.

“I should probably be getting back,” I said.

“Do you know the way?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Take the road. Don’t cut through the woods.”

I didn’t answer that. I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t deliberately trying to spook me — no pun intended.

Sterne followed me to the front door. “Thank you for visiting,” he said politely. “I don’t get much company. Everyone thinks I’m crazy.” He chuckled and closed the door in my face.

* * * * *

“Shit!”

Sunday morning, I studied myself with dismay in the steamy bathroom mirror. A colorful bruise marked my brow bone where the tree branch had whacked me the night before. Now how was I supposed to explain that?

I raked my hair over my forehead. If I didn’t mind it in my eyes, it was long enough to cover the special effects. I just had to remember not to move my head around too much. I sighed and reached for my shaving cream brush. Not so pretty a boy this morning.

Lathering my face, I considered last night’s adventures. If I didn’t have the bruises to prove it, I’d have wondered if I’d dreamed the entire evening. As it was, the events had an Alice in Wonderland quality to them. Or maybe I was thinking of the Jabberwocky. I’d definitely experienced a sinister moment or two in that house. Probably my own overactive imagination, but I couldn’t wait to get hold of the video camera and see what might have been captured on tape.

“What the hell happened to you?” Sam asked, looking up out of the paper when I wondered into the kitchen a short time later.

So much for my hair disguising the damage. I walked over to the coffee maker. This morning Sam appeared to be boiling tar in it. Perhaps he planned on working on the roof.

“I — er — went for a walk last night and banged into a tree.” I replied, wondering if Thaddeus would confirm my story or whether he’d come up with his own version, which was liable to include details about me climbing out of Berkeley House at three o’clock in the morning.

“A walk in the woods?”

“It’s true, believe it or not.”

To my alarm he tossed the paper aside and got up, coming over to examine me. I flinched as he raised his hand — and he halted mid-reach. Just for an instant hurt flared in his eyes. “Rhys —”

I had a sudden understanding of how often people reacted to his size and rough-hewn looks, without giving him an opportunity to be anything else. That wasn’t my problem, but how could he know that?

“Really, Sam, it’s okay,” I said awkwardly.

He brushed the hair off my forehead. I went stiffer than a plank of wood, feeling that gentle touch in every cell of my body. I swallowed nervously, my throat making a little squeaky sound.

“That shade of purple just about matches your eyes,” he said with wry humor.

I smiled weakly. It felt funny having to look up into his eyes — funnier still was the expression in them. I couldn’t make it out but just for a second I thought he was about to…

Actually, I don’t know what I thought.

“There’s coffee,” he said laconically, lowering his hand and moving back to the table.

“Is that what that is?” No wonder he was such a grim guy if he started every morning out with a dose of molten lava.

“I ground the beans myself.”

“They have a machine for that, you know.”

He grinned a wolfish grin. “I waited for you as long as I could.”

Oddly, I remembered Thaddeus saying that Berkeley had assumed his sweetheart would wait forever. Which reminded me.

“I ran into Thaddeus Sterne last night.”

His face changed, the friendliness draining out of it. I said defensively, “I wasn’t looking for him. Why would I? He stepped out of the trees and startled me. That’s how I got this.” I pointed at my forehead.

After a moment he relaxed and nodded. I felt a flicker of guilt. And unease. Maybe I should have shut up about Sterne; now it was sure to come up between them as a topic of conversation.

“How was he?” he inquired.

“I think he misses Oliver. A lot.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. He didn’t seem like the type to waste time sighing over what couldn’t be changed, but that was the impression I had. Then he jerked his thumb back at the stove. “I fried up some Spam and eggs, if you’re hungry.”

“No you didn’t,” I said.

He looked puzzled. “Yeah, I did.”

“Spam? Nobody eats Spam.”

“I got news for you. Spam is delicious and nutritious.”

“I’ll give you delicious. No, actually, I can’t in good conscience give you either of those.”

“Suit yourself,” Sam said. “There’s probably a stale box of oatmeal somewhere.”

I raised the lid on the frying pan and the warm, salty smell of fried eggs and ham hit my salivary glands. I hadn’t realized quite how hungry I was.

“Well, I guess I have to eat something,” I conceded, reaching for a clean plate.

“You do eat a lot for such a little guy.”

“‘Little guy?’ Excuse me, King Kong, but I’m nearly six feet.” His eyes flickered at the King Kong crack, but then he laughed.

“Better keep your strength up then, Cheetah. Especially if you’re going to be taking many moonlight strolls.” It was suddenly hard to avoid his gaze. “What brought on that sudden desire for fresh air, by the way?”

I could come clean right now. I could tell Sam everything that had happened — or at least everything I had dreamed. But if I told him, I knew without a doubt he’d have my equipment out of Berkeley House and me packed and on my way back to Los Angeles before my Spam and eggs were cold. That’s what I told myself, anyway, but what I really shied away from was risking this jokey almost companionable truce between us.

“I wanted to see if I could catch another glimpse of those lights over at Berkeley House.”

He was silent. I kept my eyes pinned on my plate while I shoveled in eggs, waiting for him to press it. I tried to decide if lying by omission was as bad as lying straight to his face — and whether I had it in me to lie straight to his face in any case. I wasn’t sure I could anymore.

So it was a relief — and a surprise — when he all he said was, “Did you see the lights?”

“No.”

He nodded, and then went back to his newspaper.

After my delicious and nutritious breakfast, I went out to the pool to have a heart attack and read over my notes in peace.

Not that Sam was disturbing me, except that somehow his presence was harder and harder to put out of my mind. In fact, I was astonished to realize that I hadn’t given C.K. a single thought in almost twenty-four hours.

It was warm and sunny by the pool; summer wasn’t far off now, and the events of the night before felt more and more distant and unreal. I turned my laptop on, working while the pool water lapped soothingly against the filter and the sun moved lazily across the bricks.

As I tapped and clicked, I began to wonder about Aaron Perry and Charity Keith. Their story seemed to stop with the event of their running off together; no source ever mentioned them after the elopement. Of course, I had never thought to ask anyone about them before…

I plugged “Charity Keith” into Google, but came up with nothing. “Aaron Perry” brought up musicians, actors and basketball players — none of whom fit the profile. There was quite a bit of information on David Berkeley — a lot of it totally inaccurate — and there were several mentions of the runaway lovers, but nothing about what had become of them.

Nothing about the talking head either, for what that was worth. I was pretty sure Sam had brought that up to freak me out, and then for some reason changed his mind and turned it into that silly joke.

Had the eloping couple never returned to their hometown? A little drastic, surely? Or was public opinion so strongly in favor of Berkeley that they had decided they needed a fresh start?

Or had they feared some reprisal from Berkeley?

I thought about this for a moment, eyes narrowed against the sunlight dancing on the water. I wasn’t sure why that idea had come to me; perhaps it was the unsettled feeling I had about Berkeley’s — alleged — specter. If it hadn’t been Thaddeus Sterne in the woods that first night…if it really had been the shade of David Berkeley…then there was no denying the sense of threat I’d had.

But maybe the Perrys had returned. Maybe no one mentioned them because David Berkeley was the star of that show, and what interest was there in a couple of ordinary newlyweds settling down to run-of-the-mill domestic bliss?

Why had none of Aaron Perry’s other paintings survived if he had continued to live and work in Ventisca?

Maybe they weren’t any good? Maybe they had survived but no one recognized them as Perry’s since he wasn’t a famous artist? Maybe he had stopped painting and got a day job. The absence of other paintings didn’t prove the Perrys hadn’t returned to Ventisca; it was just interesting, that was all.

I could check out the local graveyard. Maybe check church records?

A shadow fell across the lounge chair. I glanced up.

“Feel like taking a break?” Sam asked.

“What’s up?”

He said very casually, “I was thinking of going into town for lunch. Want to come?”

I did — how much startled me — but as I opened my mouth to say yes, I realized I would lose a much-needed opportunity to slip over to Berkeley House and change the video tapes, resetting them for the night. I might not get another chance. Besides, I needed to hear whether the ghostly guillotine sounds had been in my imagination or had actually been recorded.

“I’m not at a place where I can stop,” I said reluctantly, nodding to the laptop.

He glanced at his watch and said tentatively, “Well, how about in another hour or so?”

“I — uh — I really need to keep working,” I excused. My own disappointment startled me, but I didn’t see a way around it. “Rain check?” I said hopefully.

Even as I said it I realized how stupid that was. When would there be time for a rain check? I’d be leaving tomorrow.

“Sure,” Sam said indifferently, his face closing up again into its usual hard lines. “See you later.”

He went back into the house and I stared unseeing at the computer screen.

The minute I heard his car pull away, I shut down my laptop and ran inside the house.

I pulled on Levis, stepped into tennis shoes, and hot-footed it over to Berkeley House. There was no sign of anyone in the woods — for a change — and my fears of the night before seemed the result of not enough sleep.

Slipping through the broken library window, I quickly changed the tapes, stuck the recorded video in the smaller video cam and started out again.

Leg over the sill, I hesitated.

Why not take a look at the cellar in the daylight?

Last night I had been overtired and, I had to confess, I’d let the atmosphere of the old place get to me. But today the house was just a slightly depressing wreck, and there was no reason not to check out the cellar. In fact, there was every reason to take a look, since it was my job to investigate paranormal occurrences, right?

I ducked back under the sill and made my way down the hall and through the ruined dining room. The chill hit me as I slipped through the dining room side door, but it was cold inside the center of the house, removed from the light and warmth of the day.

Rounding the corner, I stopped, letting my flashlight play over the scratched and battered door to the cellar.

The door was closed again. The knob had been replaced on its spindle. I stared at it for a long time, trying to remember when I’d replaced it.

I reached for the knob and then let my hand drop back to my side.

My skin crawled at the thought of opening the door to that…to that what? What was my problem?

I yanked open the door.

Cold. Bitter cold seeping through my clothes, my skin, right to my bones….

I slammed the door shut.

Fuck. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make myself step through that door, let alone go down the steps to the cellar.

And that fact alone seemed to indicate that there was something here, something at least worth mentioning in the book.

I’d never felt anything like it.

Everything else…the shadowy figure in the woods, the lights, the noise of the guillotine, everything else could be put down to fatigue or imagination or suggestion.

But whatever was on the other side of this door….

Suddenly I wanted out of that house about as intensely as I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

As I crossed the hall to the dining room my foot stuck to the floor. I shone my flashlight on the sole of my shoe.

A dime-sized piece of plastic.

Not plastic.

Hard candy.

I could see a candy wrapper blowing inside the house but there was no way a half-sucked lozenge of candy had wafted here on its own. And there was no way David Berkeley’s ghost — with or without a head — was eating hard candies.

Someone — a human someone — had been inside the house besides me.

Chapter Eight

Kids, I thought. Not that I had seen any kids around, but candy and trespassing in haunted house seemed to indicate an adolescent hand.

Or perhaps …Thaddeus? He didn’t seem particularly fearful of the house, but he also didn’t seem like the candy-popping type. Or maybe he did. How would I know?

There was a reasonable chance I had the answer on the video tape — assuming the candy-sucking intruder had showed up during the hours I’d been recording.

I remembered the floating lights in the attic and the sounds of sliding metal and clanking chains — had someone faked guillotine sounds and a ghostly presence? Why?

The house was already abandoned and no one seemed to show much of an interest in it aside from me — and my interest was temporary. It’s not like I planned to move in there. The house itself didn’t seem long for this world.

I stick-stuck my way across the floor, the dirt on the wood gradually working the candy loose and off my shoe sole.

Climbing out the library window, I was startled to see that the day had grown overcast, the sun retreating behind heavy cloud cover. A cold salty wind blew off the sea. I crept my way through the overgrown garden and then slipped into the woods, making my way back to Oliver’s.

Sam was still not back, but as I glanced at the grandfather clock in the hallway, I saw that it was nearly four-thirty. He might be on his way back now. He’d been gone all afternoon.

I hunted around until I found a television hidden inside a lavish antique armoire. It took a few moments to figure out the inputs, but at last I had the camera hooked up to the TV.

I pressed play and stood back to watch.

Gray snow and the ear-blast of static.

I turned down the sound and tried different channels. No good. I hit fast forward.

The tape was blank.

“Damn.”

Camera malfunction? Pilot error? I couldn’t make sense of it. I’d used this camera dozens of time without problem.

Could someone have tampered with it? A candy-sucking saboteur? But why wouldn’t such a person simply have turned the camera off — or smashed it?

Hearing the sound of a car in the drive, I snapped off the TV. I wiggled the cord free, grabbed the camera and ran for the stairs.

Foot on the bottom step, I heard Sam’s key in the front door lock. I froze, spied the hall closet door, and jerked it open, setting the camera inside.

I turned as the door swung open. Sam, was balancing white bags of take out while trying to pull his key from the door.

I felt a weird mix of pleasure and guilt at the sight of him, and although I had been planning to make my escape upstairs with the evidence as quickly as possible, I found myself walking towards him.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” He smiled a little self-consciously. “How’d the work go?”

“Good.”

This was ridiculous. I actually felt…shy.

“I thought tonight we’d both get a night off.” He held up one of the bags. “You like Chinese?”

“I love Chinese.”

He gave another one of those lopsided smiles like he was still practicing getting the expression right.

“Grab some plates and a bottle of wine. We’ll eat in the study.” He added as an afterthought, “If that’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

His eyes met mine.

I waited ‘til he vanished into the study, then I opened the closet door, grabbed the camera and took the stairs two at a time. I dropped the camera inside the doorway of my room and raced downstairs.

No sign of Sam, but I could smell woodsmoke.

I uncorked a bottle of wine, found glasses, and carried the plates into the study. Sam had dragged a short table over to the fireplace and was setting out little white cartons.

“Cashew chicken, barbecue spare ribs, sesame beef….”

I poured the wine into the glasses and settled on the floor beside him facing the fire.

Something was different. Something had changed. I could feel it, even though I couldn’t identify what it was. I knew the change was partly in myself — and I knew the change was partly in Sam. Every time I met his eyes — which was frequently — something in his gaze warmed me, lifted my heart.

Suddenly there was a lot to say, each of us rushing into speech, pausing, smiling, to let the other talk. I let Sam refill my glass a couple of times and I looked forward to the night ahead.

When we finished eating, Sam slipped his arm around my shoulders and I turned my head to find his mouth. I closed my eyes, liking the feel of his mouth on mine, firm and warm, liking his gentleness and liking his assurance. My heart started to pound hard in my chest as his tongue brushed my upper lip.

“I’ve never known anyone like you,” he said against my mouth. It almost sounded like an apology.

I smiled and his tongue slipped into my mouth, a dark and sweet kiss. Our tongues pushed delicately against each other, whorled, withdrew.

I laughed, snatched a quick unsteady breath. It had been a long time since kissing had been a big part of my sexual repertoire. With C.K. time had always been of the essence, both of us busy with our careers and outside demands. I hadn’t realized quite how many outside demands C.K. had until one of them insisted he break up with me.

Sam rested his hand on my jaw, turned my face to his and kissed me deeper still, taking my breath away as his tongue touched, tested, tasted. Weren’t there something like eight thousand taste buds on an adult tongue? Every one of mine seemed to be experiencing its very first burst of flavor: a smoky blend of alcohol and cashew chicken and something uniquely masculine — uniquely Sam.

The phone rang above our heads.

Sam stiffened. I moaned. He tore his mouth away.

“Who the hell is that?” I complained.

He kissed the corner of my mouth, and sat up. “Thad probably. No one else ever calls here.”

The phone continued to shrill away. Sam rolled to his feet and picked it up.

I listened to the one-sided conversation. Since that was Sam’s part of the conversation, there was basically nothing to hear.

“Yeah…Okay…Sure…No. No problem, Oliver. I’ll handle it.”

He hung up the phone and studied me ruefully. “Feel like a walk in the woods?”

“Seriously?”

“Oliver says he got a strange phone call from Thaddeus a while ago. He wants me to go over there and check that he’s okay.”

I sat up. “Okay.”

We grabbed jackets from the hall closet and locked the front door behind us.

The moon was lost behind the heavy clouds as we cut through the woods, but our two flashlights provided enough light as we pounded down the dirt path.

“What are you smiling at?” Sam asked during the silence that had fallen between us. If he could tell I was smiling in the dark, he had to be paying pretty close attention.

“I was just thinking I’d put money on you over David Berkeley’s ghost any day of the week.”

He sounded amused. “I thought you weren’t afraid of ghosts?”

“I’m just sayin’.” Actually, I was saying too much, but I wasn’t used to having to deceive anyone in the course of my work. And I liked less and less having to lie or conceal things from Sam. I tried to think of a way to tell him I’d been sneaking into Berkeley House before Thaddeus brought it up, but I hated the thought of losing this new-found harmony.

And maybe Thaddeus wouldn’t say anything. Maybe whatever had us hot-footing it over to his house in the middle of the night would require all his attention. And if he did bring it up, maybe having a third party present would keep Sam from getting too angry, and give me a little time to explain my side of it.

Only one light was on at Thaddeus’s house. Remembering the blaze of lamps the night before, it struck me as ominous. Sam banged on the door, but after a pause that seemed long enough to confirm my fears, Thaddeus swung open the door. He was wearing a purple paisley silk dressing gown and his hair looked like he had stuck his finger in a wall socket. He reeked of booze.

“Oliver sent you,” he said immediately.

“He’s worried,” Sam said. “Can we come in?”

Thaddeus’s eyes moved from Sam to me. He said, “He’s not so worried that he’ll come home.”

For a minute I thought he was talking about me. He continued to stare at me.

“Can we come in, Thad?” Sam repeated. And after a moment Thaddeus moved aside and led the way into the house.

We trailed him into the room where he’d played host to me the night before. Sam sat down as though it was an ordinary visit, and after a moment, I sat too, choosing a chair off to the side. I was sort of hoping Thad might forget all about me.

We watched as he poured himself another cognac. His hands shook.

“You think that’s going to help?” Sam asked.

“It can’t hurt,” Thaddeus retorted. He poured another glass and handed it to Sam. Looking blearily around, he spotted me. “There you are.” He poured a third unsteady glass and I half-rose to take it from him.

Sam savored, swallowed, and said, “What’s going on, Thad?”

“I’m old and I’m tired and I’m lonely,” Thad said pretty crisply for a guy who’d apparently downed a half bottle of cognac. “I’ve come to the end of my rope.”

Sam didn’t have an answer for that, and I recognized it would be best if I kept my mouth shut. I swirled the tulip-shaped glass and then sniffed the volatile aroma.

“I want Oliver to come home,” Thaddeus said. “If he loves me, he’ll come.”

“You know it’s got nothing to do with that,” Sam said.

Thaddeus turned his dark, bitter gaze my way. “I know what it has to do with. It has to do with using pretty little boys like that one to keep the dark at bay.”

I lowered my glass. Granted, I was outside my weight division with those two, but I wasn’t a midget, and I was over thirty. I opened my mouth, but caught the warning look Sam shot my way. By now I had an idea of Oliver’s track record, so I bit back what was on the tip of my tongue.

“It’s still got nothing to do with you,” Sam said.

“No?” Thaddeus laughed — nothing like his usual nutty chuckle — and tossed back the rest of his drink.

Sam said quietly, “Thad.”

Thad refilled his glass from the decanter at his elbow. “Don’t be a boor, Sammy. Allow me my little farewell party.” He raised the glass and toasted something out there in the night.

“Oh, that’s just great,” Sam said disgustedly. “What? You’re planning to off yourself because Oliver’s a spoiled, overgrown adolescent?”

Thaddeus glared. “This is farewell to a dream,” he said with great dignity. “I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of killing myself.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Oliver would find your death very satisfying.”

“It doesn’t matter what he would or wouldn’t find,” Thad returned. “It’s over. I’ve finally given up. I’ve been a fool. I see that now. Flesh and blood can’t compete with….” Once more he turned that dark hostile gaze my way. “Well, it’s finished. Over. Oh, don’t worry. I won’t do anything drastic. That’s why you’re here, I suppose. You can call Oliver right back and assure him I’m not going to cut my throat. I’d have to care to cut my throat, and I don’t care anymore. I don’t feel anything anymore.”

And he drained his glass once more.

“Why don’t I help you to bed, Thad?” Sam suggested. “You’ll see things differently in the morning.”

“Oh, go home, Sam,” Thad said wearily. “And take him with you.”

Sam’s eyes met mine apologetically. I shrugged. I accepted that Thad’s dislike wasn’t personal; I just happened to represent everything he blamed for his unhappiness.

We didn’t stay much longer. Sam made a couple more attempts to help Thad to bed, but they seemed to piss the old man off more than anything, and in the end even Sam had to concede defeat. Thad seemed to be settling into a boozy doze when Sam nodded silently to me. I rose, setting my empty glass aside.

We let ourselves out, standing for a moment on the porch. The wind had picked up again, rustling the tree leaves around us.

“Will he be all right?”

Sam shrugged. “I guess so. He’s not a child. And he’s not self-destructive — unless you count wasting your life loving someone like Oliver.”

“Oliver must care a little. He called you to come check on Thad.”

“Oh, he cares. In his own way.” He added quietly, “The best thing for Thad would be if he could stop loving Oliver. But how do you break the habit of a lifetime?”

That was a depressing thought. I felt tired and dispirited as we headed back to Oliver’s. No wonder Sam was cynical about relationships with a role model like Oliver. And, if I remembered correctly, his parents were divorced as well

“They grew up together?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. They were boys together, went to art school together, achieved fame and fortune together.”

“They were lovers.”

“They are lovers. That’s the weird thing. No one means more to Oliver than Thad.”

“I guess I understand Thad’s confusion.” My own sour memories must have echoed in my voice because Sam glanced my way and then put an arm around my shoulders.

He said, “I don’t understand Oliver. I don’t understand why being with the person he loves the most isn’t enough for him. But it’s not. He needs the fame and he needs the adulation — he likes being a celebrity and he likes being a legend in his own lifetime. And if that’s all it was, it would be difficult enough for Thaddeus, who doesn’t care about any of that.”

“But Oliver also likes pretty little boys.”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Thad isn’t in the best of health, although he won’t tell Oliver that — won’t let me tell Oliver that. So Oliver’s going to wait too long, and that will be that.”

“And you don’t think maybe you should speak up before it’s too late?”

I felt him glance at my profile. “No, I don’t.”

I thought it over, comfortable in the circle of his arm.

“Did you ever hear the story of David Berkeley?” I inquired. “He was a Twentieth Century magician who was so busy building a career based on creating illusions that he fooled himself and lost the woman he loved to another man.”

He said wryly, “Okay, okay. I know about Berkeley, and Oliver knows about Berkeley. Oliver knows life is short — that’s a big part of Oliver’s problem.”

“Non-interference. It doesn’t seem like a cop attitude.”

“I’m not a cop with the people I love.” His voice was different, although I couldn’t define how. “And if it was me, I’d try to spend every minute with the person I loved, instead of focusing on the pain of losing him one day.”

“Is that what it is?”

“I don’t know. Partly, I think.”

I thought it was funny how easily he spoke of love and caring and commitment. He didn’t look like a guy who would waste five minutes on mushy stuff, let alone be able to articulate his feelings. Of course, he didn’t look like a world-class kisser, either, but he was that all right. My mouth still tingled pleasantly from our after dinner encounter.

I started to speak but caught sight of Berkeley House through the trees. I stopped stock still. “Look!”

Sam followed the direction I pointed. In the distance we could see hazy lights moving eerily from window to window on the upstairs floor.

He was silent.

“You see that?”

“Yeah.” He let go of me, automatically reaching up with his free hand, and I knew he would ordinarily have been wearing a shoulder holster. “I need to check that out.”

The last thing I wanted was him investigating the house and finding my equipment. I said, “Unless someone’s using a trampoline, I don’t understand how that can be of human origin. The staircase has rotted through and the dumb waiters are wrecked.”

He snorted. “What, you think that’s David Berkeley looking for a lost sock or something?”

“Maybe he’s looking for his head.”

He glanced at me. “Now that’s a gruesome thought, Professor.”

I shrugged.

“It might be some kind of refracted light. Ships off the ocean?”

I didn’t even bother to answer that one.

“Okay, what do you think it is?”

“You can’t even consider the idea that it might be a paranormal phenomenon?”

He opened his mouth, and then apparently rethought the first words that came to him. “I didn’t say that.” His spoke painstakingly, and I realized that he was making a conscious attempt not to offend me. “But I need something more than —”

He fell silent as the light vanished. We waited for a few moments but the windows stayed dark.

“The moon reflecting off something maybe,” he said doubtfully.

“Whatever it is, it’s over for the night.” I said. “Let’s go back to Oliver’s.”

He thought it over. “Come on,” he said, and to my relief — and pleasure — he put his arm around my shoulders again.

As we continued on I was thinking about my assertion that supernatural forces had to be at work, but what about the lozenge of candy I’d found?

I knew I should tell Sam.

If local kids were fooling around in that house, it had to stop. The place was a death-trap.

But maybe I could wait ‘til tomorrow; ‘til after whatever was going to happen tonight had developed. We’d have a better chance of weathering Sam’s discovery of my deception if things went well tonight. And if I could get my stuff out of the house tomorrow without him finding out, maybe I could find another way to let him know about the house’s other trespassers.

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” he asked.

“About the way things work out. I’m glad Oliver invited me to stay.”

His hand rested lightly against the small of my back, warm, possessive. “Me too.”

When we got back to the house, Sam poured us each a brandy and then called Oliver. It was a brief call, and Sam was unusually curt with his uncle. At least, that’s how it seemed to me, listening in.

He said finally, “Maybe you should tell Thad then.”

He listened to Oliver, and then said with great finality, “Then I guess it comes down to trust.”

Trust. A little frisson of alarm unfurled down my spine, and I was glad I’d kept my mouth shut about sneaking back inside the house. In fact, I was definitely going to get my stuff out of that house without Sam finding out. I could probably pretend to leave tomorrow and then swing back around and park in the woods again.

Sam concluded his call with Oliver. For a moment he gazed down at the phone; his head raised, he met my gaze. “Feel like a moonlight swim?”

“A…swim?”

He smiled — and I found myself smiling too.

* * * * *

We swam naked in the warm buoyant water of the pool behind the house, our voices quiet in the cool empty night air. A tear in the canopy of thick cloud cover revealed the dusting of stars glittering high overhead. Sam had turned on the living room stereo and the music drifted out from the window, a lazy seductive saxophone flirting with a sexy-shy piano.

After a couple of lazy laps, I floated on my back and stared up at the sky. The fleecy black clouds looked low enough to touch. Steam rose from the water. Sam swam up beside me; he moved like an eel in the water, smooth and fast, the water barely rippling around him.

“What time are you leaving tomorrow?”

“I should probably be on the road by lunch time. I have an evening lecture.”

He sank down, swimming under me, slick body brushing my own, surfacing so that I was lying across him. His genitals bobbed against my backside; he was half-hard — and now so was I. The languid graze of hands and legs, the bump of bodies, the glide of water on sensitive skin: it was playful and erotic at the some time.

“Do you —?” I wanted to ask if he ever got down to L.A., but he interrupted quietly, “Yeah, I do.” And his hands slid under me, turning me without effort so that I was lying on top of him.

He kissed me, his lips cool and tasting of chlorine and Sam. I kissed him back.

His legs wrapped around me, his arms slipped under my own, holding me tight. His mouth fastened on mine again and we slowly submerged, the water closing softly over our heads.

I realized I was out of my depth in more than one way.

Chapter Nine

I breathed out a gentle stream of bubbles through my nose while Sam’s breath filled my mouth and lungs. I opened my eyes as we sank past the pool lights, the underwater world washed out aqua and bright as daylight. It was like being in our own sphere, warm as the womb; I let go, let Sam control it, relaxed in his arms as we drifted down. His mouth exhaled softly into mine. Our feet touched against the floor of the pool and he pushed off. We shot back up again in a silver spill of bubbles.

Our heads broke the surface, the night air cold against our wet faces.

It was black as pitch. It took me a moment to realize the house lights were off and the music had stopped.

“Hey,” I said to Sam, wiping my face. “That was some kiss. The fuses just blew.”

The pool water swelled like ink around us as the wind rose again. Sam’s feet and legs brushed mine as we tread water.

“It’s an electrical storm,” he said, staring up at the clouds.

Sure enough, as we watched, lightning forked against the night. The air around us seemed to crackle with a charge — followed by the boom of thunder.

“Oh hell,” Sam said. “Swim, Rhys.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. We raced for the steps, reaching them as the night flashed white — followed by another ear-splitting crack of thunder.

Sam was up and out, reaching back for me. With one hand he practically lifted me out of the water and onto the cement — and I realized exactly how strong he really was.

“It’s close,” I gasped, as another flare lit our way across the bricks to the back door of the house.

“Too close,” he agreed. He kept a hand fastened on my upper arm, guiding me through the blur of wooden patio furniture and potted plants.

The wet slap of our feet left footprints that vanished on the paving behind us like ghost steps. Sam felt for the door knob and pushed into the kitchen. The curtains billowed in the wind from the open windows, shadowy and indistinct in the darkness.

“Stay there and I’ll find candles,” he ordered.

I didn’t bother to answer, stepping back outside, finding my way to the table where I’d left my glasses. I slipped them on and stood there for a moment beneath the vine-covered pergola watching the lightning flash above the ocean. The air snapped with electricity. The hair on my arms prickled with it.

“Rhys?” Sam called from inside the house.

“Right here,” I called back.

Sam appeared in the kitchen doorway holding a thick candle. The flickering shadow cast sinister angles across his face.

I said, “This would seem to limit the evening’s entertainment options.”

A slow and wicked grin crossed his face. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said.

* * * * *

“You’re beautiful,” Sam said huskily. His big warm hand stroked my belly like he’d stroke a cat. It felt extraordinarily nice, and if I’d known how to purr, I would have. Instead I laughed huskily, as my cock filled, twitching like a witching wand.

“So are you.”

“You’re right. That is funny.”

I shook my head, but it was hard to concentrate. I just wanted his hand around me. I dug my heels in the mattress of his bed and thrust up a little. Instead his hand slid upwards, stroking my chest, scratching my nipples with his thumbnail. I groaned.

He murmured, “Beautiful and funny and smart — and a liar.”

My eyes flew to his face. “I’m not lying,” I said — and because my conscience was guilty, I sounded abrupt and defensive.

“I’m teasing you,” he said. “I know you’re not lying. You’re trying to be nice. You don’t have to bother. This mug of mine is useful in my line of work.”

I stared up at his face; there was strength and character in his harsh ugliness. In fact, he no longer seemed ugly. I liked the fact that he didn’t look like everybody else. He seemed familiar and increasingly important to me. Too important to lie to.

“Sam,” I began hesitantly.

His mouth touched mine, stopping my words as though he knew what I was going to say, as though he didn’t want to hear it, as though he didn’t want the moment spoiled. And because I didn’t want the moment spoiled either — because I needed this moment — I let his lips press me into silence, opening to him in another way.

Sam’s kisses made me feel like I’d never been properly kissed before, like it was the first time — like the best of all the firsts: the first giddy swoop of alcohol in your bloodstream or the first sweet bite of dark chocolate on your tongue or the first time you saw a shooting star or felt a man’s mouth close on your dick.

His hands gathered me close, hard and competent but cherishing too. I could feel every beat of our hearts echoing in my veins and nerves, beat and answering beat. I felt safe and complete in Sam’s arms.

His mouth lifted from mine. “What would you like?” His soft words gusted moist and warm against my ear.

I said with simple certainty, “I want to be inside you.”

And he nodded, surprising me with an astonishingly sweet smile. “Sure. How?”

We angled around, knees and elbows bumping, but it was relaxed and easy, as though we were already used to each other, comfortable with each other. Sam stretched out before me, long strong and bronzed in the candlelight. Everything in beautiful proportion, the ripple of muscles beneath supple skin, the black dusting of hair over limbs and genitals. His hands and feet were carefully groomed, the nails trimmed and buffed. His hair was neatly cut. He took care of the details, so he did care to some extent about appearances. I felt unexpected tenderness for him, a desire to make up for things.

Bending, I kissed the back of his strong neck, and he shivered.

There was a tube of sunscreen next to the bed, and I squeezed a dollop of creamy white smelling of sea and sand on my fingers, separating the globes of Sam’s tight buttocks with one hand and probing that tight little hole with the other.

I pushed one delicate finger in and Sam uttered a long, low groan, his body clenching.

I smiled. “All right?” I leaned forward, pressed a damp kiss between his shoulder blades. The ring of muscle pulled at my finger as I slid in and out.

“Believe it,” he grated.

I took my time, although I could tell he didn’t really need it, and then I pressed a second finger in, stretching him, seeking that nub of nerves and gland. Sam pushed back at my hand, drawing me in deeper.

“You’re so gentle…” He raised his head, smiling. “Knew when I saw those long, sensitive fingers of yours…fuuuck…” His back arched as I found his P-spot.

I moved forward, trying to find his mouth at that awkward angle, massaging the spongy bump with careful fingers. My own cock was rock hard, my balls aching. Sam shuddered and moaned as I lowered myself on top of him. I loved the hard heat of his body down the length of mine.

“This feels so good,” I said into his muscular shoulder. “I think I’ve wanted this practically since that first night.”

“You’re killing me here, Professor,” Sam muttered. His buttocks humped back against my groin, and I pulled my fingers out, replacing them in that moist heat with my dick. So… good. I whimpered as his sphincter muscle contracted around me. Began to push and slide in that hot darkness. I couldn’t have stopped to save my life.

Sam let out a deep sound, something between a groan and a growl, and began to rock back hard against me. I thrust back at him, closing my eyes, just concentrating on that welcome velvet grab, trying to push deeper, needing to feel joined, united. Heat on burning heat. His fierce silence in contrast to my own wounded sounds as I pumped into him, reaching further and further for that desperate release —

And finally…after delicious and due diligence…at last…there it was. Rolling up out of the yearning struggle of hungry cock and willing ass, slow sweet climax that pulsed through me, warming me with every heartbeat.

“Sam…Sam…” I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help the helpless noises as I began to come, pouring out stupid emotional things while my muscles turned to rubber and my cock spurted sticky relief into the clench of his channel.

I collapsed on top of him, gasping for breath, quivering head to foot. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even know if he’d come. Although the linens felt soggy enough for several orgasms.

A long, long time later, Sam stirred, tipping me off of him and pulling the covers over us. I wrapped my arms around him, still wanting the closeness, quietly delighted when his arms wrapped around me again, cradling me against his warmth. He kissed my brow bone and my nose, and I smiled, opened sleepy eyes.

Over his shoulder I could see the candle on the bedstand, hissing and guttering hot wax. “Does that candle look funny to you?” I mumbled. “Kind of green and glowing…?”

He half-rolled away, blew the candle out, and pulled me back against his body.

* * * * *

The storm had passed.

I slipped out from under Sam’s arm. Slid out of the warm bed, found my glasses, stuck them on my nose. The clock next to Sam read half-past midnight. For a moment I stood there watching Sam sleep in the moonlight, the hard planes of his face relaxed, his hair tumbled, his mouth soft. He was snoring, a tolerable buzz. I found my jeans and tiptoed out of the room while Sam slept deeply on.

Making my way along the hall, I headed downstairs, retrieving my shoes in the hallway.

I was moving fast, refusing to acknowledge any unease. I needed to make this fast, needed to get back in case Sam woke and wondered what happened to me. I didn’t know how heavy a sleeper he was and I didn’t want to find out the hard way.

So if David Berkeley was lurking in the trees, I didn’t see him as I ran through the woods. I came out on the edge of the sunken garden, paused, hands braced on thighs, to catch my breath. The moon, reflected in the black windows of the house, gilded the eucalyptus trees and the broken statues. Cautiously, I made my way down the moss-slick stone stairs, finding a path through the weeds and brambles.

Skulking along the side of the house, sticking to the shadows, I drew near the library window — and froze. Were those voices I heard? I inched closer, trying to see through the shadows and darkness.

I reached the library window and listened.

Silence.

No — there is was. Echoing down the hallway. It sounded like something heavy being dragged along the floor.

Hands on the window ledge, I hesitated. Leaned in.

I heard it again. A voice. Masculine. I couldn’t make out the words. I swung myself up, ducking under the shattered window, and the roof crashed down on me….

* * * * *

Cold.

Bitter cold. I shivered — had been shivering if the ache in muscles was anything to go by.

My head ached too, the sick pounding of my temples seeming to rebound through my entire body, pulse hammering, heart thudding too hard. Shell bursts flared behind my eyelids.

What was wrong with me? Was I ill?

I pried my eyes open. Pitch…black…nothing.

Panic washed through me. Was I blind? What had happened to me?

I made an effort to sit up. Sweat broke out on my body, nausea roiled through my belly. I twisted to the side and threw up. I groaned. Threw up again.

When the worst of it seemed over, I scooted back painfully, dropping back shaking onto the cold stone. Why was I lying on the floor? What floor?

What…the…fuck…had happened to me?

For a few moments I lay there shuddering, fighting the sickness bubbling in my guts. My head throbbed in time to my heavy heart beat. The cold of the stone floor seeped…

Cold stone?

Where the hell was I?

I forced my lids open again. Passed my hand in front of my eyes. I could just make out a pale glimmer.

It wasn’t my vision. At least…it wasn’t only my vision. I was somewhere very dark, somewhere with a stone floor…

It didn’t make sense. I tried to remember….I recalled swimming with Sam. Warmth washed through my body. I remembered making love to Sam.

That was the last thing I could recollect. It wasn’t a bad place for memories to end, but…

I pushed myself up, having to wait on my hands and knees for the next wave of nausea to subside. I dragged myself the rest of the way to my feet, and hands outstretched, tried to get an idea of the size of the room that held me.

Three steps forward and my hands touched wood. Old wood. Rough and splintered. A door.

Dizzily, I closed my eyes and leaned against the wooden surface.

No way.

No. This had to be a nightmare. I was lying next to Sam right now. Dreaming. And hopefully he would wake me up any minute.

I waited in the unstable blackness. My balance was off and I needed the support of the door to stay upright. I needed to lie down again. But not here. I needed out of wherever here was…

Vague flashes of running through the woods, the moonlight gilding the ruined garden, and then…nothing.

My heart accelerated, zero to ninety in nothing flat.

I was in the cellar at Berkeley House.

I knew it as sure as I knew anything…which was maybe debatable considering the dumb ass way I’d managed things so far.

One thing for sure, no ghost knocked me over the head and threw me into the cellar. I told myself this a couple of times in an attempt to distract my awareness of the sickening chill pressing in on me.

Numbly, I moved my hands over the door, trying to find a knob. A handle.

No reason for panic. Even if there was…something…wrong with the house…and there wasn’t. Of course there wasn’t. Even if there was…it had nothing to do with me. It had nothing to do with my being in the cellar.

I jerked my head around at a whisper of sound behind me.

Was there moment? A breach in the wall of darkness? I turned back to the door, urgently feeling over its surface.

There it was again, the stealthy slide of something metallic. A tinkling like broken glass — links of a chain?

My groping fingers closed on metal. A handle. I twisted it. Tried the other way. The door stayed firmly closed. I yanked hard. The door didn’t budge.

Another insinuation of sound. I threw a frantic look over my shoulder and froze.

Movement in this utter darkness?

I turned, planted my back against the wood, facing…the wisp of smoke that seemed to unfurl in the void a few feet from me.

My eyes strained to see.

From overhead came the slow draw of a chain. I looked up, flinched as something glinted overhead.

“This isn’t real,” I said desperately. “I don’t believe in this.”

I caught motion out of the corner of my eye, jerked my gaze forward. A filmy, cadaverous mist was gathering a few feet away.

No.

I shook my head to clear it. Mistake. The room slanted sickeningly. I could feel something warm trickling down my face. Blood? Tears? My head swam. I blinked hard.

Above me I heard again the metallic rasp of links through a pulley, but I couldn’t look away.

The mist was taking shape before me…a tall figure in old-fashioned garments…shoes with spats…trousers…vest beneath overcoat…a top hat…but all of it indistinct, vaporous, seeming to waver and wane as though moving in a breeze.

The drag of chain was louder, harsher…deafening It was destroying my ears.

The mist seemed to reshape, a familiar face taking form: long, narrow, diaphanous, with hollow burning eyes and a cruel thin mouth.

Overhead the pulley stopped.

“You’re not real,” I told the baleful haze. “I don’t believe in you.”

The eyes seemed to find me in the darkness. It sees me, I thought bewilderedly. The cruel mouth turned upwards.

I heard the screeching release of chain, felt something heavy hurtle my way. I cried out in shock as something massive and glacial and terrifying slammed into me.

From a distance I heard David Berkeley laughing.

* * * * *

“Thatta boy.”

The words trickled through the warm blankness. Someone was stroking my face. My hair. A warm callused hand smoothing from temple to jaw, a long, slow, comforting sweep over and over.

“That’s it. That’s better.”

Sam.

I unstuck my eyelashes.

An indistinct form leaned over me — and beyond his shoulders, the red ball of the morning sun. I was lying on the ground. I could feel the fragrant tickle of weeds and grass, feel the damp warmth of the earth beneath me. Tears of relief flooded my eyes.

I unglued my lips. “Sam?” I croaked.

“Welcome back,” he said. He brushed the back of his knuckles against my cheek, wiping the wet away.

“I can’t —” It was an effort to get my lips to form sentences. I felt battered, exhausted. “Are my glasses —?”

“Your glasses are broken. I found them outside the house.” He added grimly, “That’s how I knew to look for you inside.” He repositioned, slipped an arm beneath my shoulders. “You think you can sit up?”

I nodded. Sat up with his help. “Sorry,” I said to the blur of his face. “Are you pretty pissed off?”

“Yeah, I am. You want to try standing up?”

I nodded. Rested my head in the warm curve of his neck and shoulder. Closed my eyes.

* * * * *

When I next opened my eyes I was in my bed at Oliver’s, and it was late afternoon. I squinted at the clock on the bedside table. Sometime after three? My spare pair of glasses sat next to the clock. I slid them on.

Three-twelve on Monday afternoon.

Shit.

I needed to call the university. I shoved aside the pile of blankets and sat up cautiously. My head ached but nothing like that morning. I reached up, touched a square of gauze and tape. Sam to the rescue, apparently.

I was slowly trying to process everything that had happened since that very long ago night we had spent together, when the open door to the bedroom pushed wide, and Sam, wearing black jeans, black T-shirt and a black expression, looked in.

We gazed at each other for a silent moment. He had the advantage. There’s nothing like being knocked over the head and caught out in a lie to take the wind out of your sales — sitting there in nothing but my underwear didn’t help, either.

“Hi,” I said, subdued.

“Hi. How do you feel?”

“Okay.” That was overstating it. I felt like shit.

“Good. Because I want to know what happened. You up to getting dressed and coming downstairs?”

I guess I could understand why he had no wish to sit with a nearly naked me in my bedroom. “Yeah.”

“I’ll see you downstairs.”

“Sam —”

But he was already gone.

I got up slowly, dressed still more slowly, and went downstairs. Sam was in the kitchen, sitting at the table. There was a mug of tea in front of him.

I took a seat at the table, moving with careful deliberation, trying to jar my head as little as possible.

He watched me without particular sympathy. “You want some tea?”

“Please.”

“Milk and sugar?”

I nodded and wished I hadn’t.

“You’ve got a mild concussion,” he said, observing me. “I had Oliver’s doctor take a look at you while you were out.”

“Thanks.” My spirits sank lower still at his flat tone.

He placed a mug in front of me. I picked it up, hand shaking. I sipped the hot liquid and felt a little better. I wondered if this doctor had left any tablets for my head.

“So fill me in on what happened after you snuck out of the house.” He didn’t sound angry, exactly, just…empty.

I told him everything I could remember — which wasn’t a lot — and I apologized a couple of times for…not listening to him.

“You mean lying?” he asked, the second time I said it.

I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

He was silent for a moment. “Have you ever blacked out like that before?”

“I didn’t black out. Someone hit me over the head.”

“When I pulled you out of that cellar you were…you appeared to be catatonic.”

I stared at him.

“Has that ever happened to you before?”

“No.” I took another mouthful of tea, concentrated on keeping my hand steady. “I didn’t dream it. There’s something in the cellar,” I said.

His green eyes rested on my face. This was the face that people across the interrogation table from him saw. I’d blown it with him; I knew that. He wasn’t somebody to take a light view of being lied to.

“You mean like a ghost?” he asked at last.

“I mean like…” I stopped. “Yes. Like a ghost,” I admitted.

He looked sorry for me. “Rhys.”

So I told him everything. I told him about seeing the shade of David Berkeley in the woods the night I had arrived, how I thought it had been Thad, but now I knew for sure it hadn’t. I told him about hearing the sound of a guillotine when I’d fallen asleep in the library. I reminded him of the horrifying cold emanating from the cellar.

“You said yourself you’d never felt anything like it,” I said.

“It’s an unpleasant place. That doesn’t mean there’s a — an entity setting up house down there.”

“Thad saw David Berkeley too.”

“Thad? Thad is not what I’d call a reliable witness.”

Neither was I apparently. It didn’t look like he was going to bother humoring me at this point.

I said, “What happened to my equipment?”

“Loaded in your car.”

I nodded, looked down at my mug. My fingernails were torn and bloodied; I must have clawed the door of the cellar trying to get out; I was just as glad I didn’t remember that part.

“There’s something down there,” I said.

He stared at me with those hard green eyes.

“I think David Berkeley is insane — was insane.”

“I think he’s dead,” Sam said with finality.

I said, “If there is such a thing as life beyond the grave —” His wearied expression stopped me. I said, “Is it unreasonable to think that if someone was driven mad in life, their spirit might be…troubled as well?”

“Yeah, it is. Dead is dead. Over. Done with.”

I had the sick feeling he wasn’t just talking about mortal coil stuff.

I said, still trying although even I wasn’t sure why, “There’s something in that house. Something that can’t rest. Something that won’t let David Berkeley rest.” I rubbed my head. Speaking of rest, I wanted nothing more than to lie down again.

Distantly I was aware that Sam had risen from his chair. He dropped a hand on my shoulder, squeezing, then letting go. “You should get some sleep,” he said. “You’ve got a long drive tomorrow.”

Chapter Ten

I was packing when Mason showed up that evening.

The door bell ring and then Sam bellowed for me from downstairs. When I came down only Mason sat in the front parlor.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, rising as I entered the room. “You look okay.” He stepped towards me and then stopped.

“I’m fine. Just a slight headache.” I gave him a wan smile.

Had I been interested in Mason? It seemed as vague as everything else that had happened to me since crawling out of Sam’s bed Sunday night.

Mason sat back down and so did I.

“The whole town’s buzzing with the news you got yourself clobbered by the local burglars.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.” He looked puzzled. “Didn’t you know?”

“I don’t remember much about it.”

“Apparently the gang was using the house to store the stuff they stole.”

I stared at him, dumfounded. “I didn’t see any sign of that.”

He smiled his nice uncomplicated smile. “They were using a hidden room.”

“A hidden room?”

He chuckled at my tone. “‘Fraid so. Not so hidden as it turned out. Sam Devlin knew all about it.”

“He knew about it?” I didn’t seem to be able to do more than echo Mason’s words.

“Apparently he spent a lot of time in the house when he was a kid.”

I felt irrationally hurt that Sam had not shared this knowledge with me. Had he thought it would tempt me too much to return to the house? Little did he know.

“So they caught the burglars?” I asked.

“No. They recovered some antiques, a couple of stereos and some TVs equipment. They won’t catch anyone. I’m sure they wore gloves. Everyone knows that much.”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “How would these burglars have known about the hidden room?”

Mason got a funny look on his face. “Now that’s an interesting question.” He lowered his voice. “It would have to be someone familiar with the house.” His eyes shifted to the doorway which led to the room where, from the sound of things, Sam was watching TV — loudly. “Did you know he’s on suspension? Something about missing property in a police investigation.”

My head was really starting to throb again. I stared at Mason. “You think Sam —”

“I just think it’s very convenient that he happens to be the guy who discovered the hidden room was full of stolen property right before the sheriffs descended on the place.”

I absorbed this slowly, shook my head – unwisely — which made me curt. “That makes no sense at all. He couldn’t have been the one who hit me. When I left he was sleeping.”

Silently we both absorbed the implications of my certainty on this point.

Mason said, “He wouldn’t have been the only person involved, you know.”

“He wouldn’t have pulled me out of the cellar if —” I stopped because I already knew the answer to that.

Mason said earnestly, “He wouldn’t have wanted to kill you. No one would have wanted that.”

I nodded. I knew what he was suggesting didn’t make any sense — I knew Sam was not part of any local burglary ring — but I was too weary and muddled to reason out how I knew.

Mason rose. “Anyway, glad you’re okay. I guess…”

He stopped. I stood up.

“Thanks for coming by,” I said. “And thanks for your help…and everything.”

“Yeah. You won’t be headed this way again?”

“My work here is done.” I was trying to put the right note of levity in, but it just sounded dull.

“Sure. Take care,” Mason said.

After he left I spent a few moments sitting in the parlor feeling sorry for myself. I listened to the television blasting from the next room.

Finally I rose and followed the sounds to their source.

Sam was sitting in the dark watching some nature program. Snarling tigers and velvet-eyed antelope — the antelope were getting the worst of it, as usual.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked from the doorway.

A noticeable pause, and then he said, “Sure.” He pointed the remote control at the TV.

I sat down across from him and said, “I think you should dig up the cellar.”

I couldn’t read his face in the flickering light of the television set, but he said without inflection, “Is that so?”

“That cold, that…miasma — it’s classic outward manifestation of a haunting.”

“Look, you weren’t hit that hard on the head.”

“Just listen to me for a moment. A ghost or a spirit is the sentient presence of someone which stays in the material world after the individual dies. Conventional wisdom is that the ghost is the spirit of a murdered person who wants justice.”

“Or someone who died violently and is confused about passing over.” Sam turned his head my way. “I read plenty of ghost stories when I was a kid. I know the drill.”

“I’ve investigated a lot of so-called haunted houses, but I’ve never seen or heard anything like Berkeley House. I guess the sounds and lights can be explained by the burglary gang wanting to scare people off — and maybe someone was dressing up like David Berkeley in the woods — but nothing explains that cellar.”

“I think a case of concussion explains that cellar.”

I was afraid he had a point. “Okay, maybe, but you felt the cold yourself. You said you’d never felt anything like it.”

“The house is built on a cliff over the Pacific ocean. Of course it’s cold. Of course it’s damp.”

I said stubbornly, “I can’t believe that what I experienced down there was all due to concussion. You said yourself I was in shock when you pulled me out.”

He said, “I know you’re not the most honest guy in the world. For all I know, you’re not the most stable guy, either.”

Well, I sort of had that coming. I said, “I’m sorry I lied to you, Sam. I let my enthusiasm for the book get in the way of my judgment.”

He was shaking his head, and I knew he wasn’t interested in hearing it.

“But don’t let your personal feelings for me get in the way of hearing what I’m saying. I’ve never had anything like that happen, never experienced anything that didn’t have a rational explanation.”

He moved as though he were going to get up and walk away, but he stayed seated. “Rhys, Jesus. It’s a creepy room. All right? I don’t think David Berkeley was murdered, and he had plenty of time to figure out what he was doing when he set the guillotine up.”

“I think Berkeley is trying to hide or protect something in the cellar.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“So what’s in the cellar?” Sam asked evenly at last.

“The remains of Charity Keith and Aaron Perry.”

“Really.” It was not a question. Sam’s tone was uninterested.

“I might be wrong —”

“You might.”

“But I think the reason no one ever heard of Perry or Keith again, why they never turn up in any of the historical accounts, is that Berkeley killed them. And I think that’s why he killed himself eight months after they supposedly ran off. Either he couldn’t live with what he’d done or…”

“I’m going to hate myself for asking. Or…?”

“Their spirits were haunting him.”

“Okay,” he said calmly. “Appreciate the theory. What time did you want to hit the road tomorrow?”

* * * * *

My office phone was ringing Thursday afternoon when I got back from giving a seminar on historical research and interpretation. I shrugged out of my tweed jacket, reaching for phone with my free hand.

“Davies,” I said.

“Hello,” Sam said. “How are you?”

I sat down hard; I hadn’t expected to hear from him again. He sure as hell hadn’t indicated he’d be giving me a call when he said his curt goodbye Tuesday morning.

“As good as new,” I said. “It’s nice to hear from you.”

“Yeah. Well. Oliver’s on his way home. He liked your idea of digging up the cellar, so he’s inviting you back for the weekend.”

“Oh.” I said. Oliver was inviting me, not Sam; that was clear. And Oliver had initiated the call; it wasn’t Sam’s choice. My happiness drained away; I was embarrassed to have felt it. Of course it was over. It hadn’t even begun, really. We’d fucked a couple of times and it had been nice and that was that. Leave it to me to start building it into something more.

As tactful as ever, Sam questioned, “Is that a yes, no, or whatever?”

“Whatever,” I said.

Silence. Nothing new there.

“Is that what you want me to tell Oliver?”

It took a little effort, but I got a grip on myself. “No, of course I want to see whatever there is to see. What time should I be there?”

“They’re breaking ground Saturday morning.” He added, like he was reading a script, “You’re welcome to come up Friday evening.”

“Okay. I’ll see y — tell Oliver I’ll see him Saturday morning.”

Silence. “Okay,” said Sam.

Another silence. It was torture.

I opened my mouth, but he said, “Drive safe,” and hung up.

* * * * *

The sun was shining when I pulled up at Berkeley House on Saturday morning. I could smell the brine and eucalyptus on the breeze. There were a couple of trucks parked in the clearing. Voices and the unmistakable gravelly pound of distant jackhammers echoed from inside the house.

I slammed my car door and started walking, but stopped at the sound of someone calling my name.

Oliver waved to me from the sunken garden. Thaddeus was with him — and the contentment on his face was almost painful to see.

“Hello, dear boy,” Oliver greeted, as I came down the mossy steps to meet them. “Have you seen Sam?”

That answered one question; I’d been wondering if Sam would be around for the festivities. I replied, “I just got here.”

“He’s probably inside overseeing the slaves. You’d better go talk to him. He has some bad news for you.”

“In that case I can’t wait to see him.”

Oliver chuckled, exchanging a knowing glance with Thaddeus, who chuckled right back. I never realized how much alike they sounded.

I hiked up to the house, ignoring the anxiety spiraling through my guts. I wasn’t sure if I was more uneasy at the thought of facing Sam or the cellar again, but either way, the best thing was to get it over with.

The boards blocking the front door had been removed and thick brick-colored hoses ran though the doorway and disappeared inside the structure. I stepped over the hoses, following them to the dining room.

It was amazing how the light and noise and bustle diffused the atmosphere. Sam stepped through a side door and spotted me. It seemed to me that he hesitated for an instant. Then he pointed the way I’d come and yelled over the sound of the drills and shattering stone and mortar, “Let’s go outside.”

I nodded, turned and preceded him back out. The sunlight and fresh air were a relief. I hadn’t realized how much I didn’t want to go back inside.

And yet…it suddenly dawned on me that I hadn’t felt that sick taint flowing from the cellar.

Sam took my upper arm, surprising me, drawing me to a halt. “I wanted to tell you before you found out some other way. Mason Corwin’s been arrested for burglary.”

“You’re kidding me.”

He let go of my arm. “No. He turned up on that video tape you recorded Sunday night. Him and another local man.”

“Mason knocked me out and threw me in the cellar?”

“Mike Klinger, the other guy, knocked you out. But Mason let Klinger put you in the cellar, which was pretty stupid, since I’d never have started poking around the house if they’d just dumped you in the garden.”

I thought this over. I’d wondered what happened to the second video tape. Confiscated as evidence, apparently.

I said, “He must have found out about the hidden room by reading through Berkeley’s private papers.”

“That’s right.” His green eyes were approving — and I was sorry to note how much that mattered to me. “He pretty much admitted everything when the sheriffs questioned him. Anyway.”

I shrugged. I was sorry about Mason, but… A little maliciously, I said, “He’d suggested that maybe you were involved.”

Sam snorted. “Did he?”

“He said you were on suspension because of some missing evidence in a case.”

Sam’s face hardened. “Small towns. Yeah, that’s true. But it’s ancient history now. I was cleared and I’ve been reinstated. I start back at work next Monday.”

“Congratulations.”

“Yeah.” He gave me a funny look from under his heavy brows. Reluctantly, he asked, “Are you…pretty upset about Corwin?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Because I thought maybe…”

“While I was sleeping with you?” I interrupted, offended.

To my surprise, he grinned. “Not so much sleeping.”

“Not so much.” I turned my profile to him, stared at the house. The sounds of the drills seemed to have stopped.

He said quietly, “I don’t like being lied to. I don’t like the idea of being manipulated.”

“Manipulated?” My voice rose. His hand closed around my arm again, but the funny thing, I was relieved by that hard grip. Relieved that he seemed to have trouble keeping his hands off me.

“Shhh.” He nodded towards the garden where Oliver and Thaddeus seemed to be in deep conversation by an overgrown hedge. “I may look like a dumb ox, but I’m not.” He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“If you think I was manipulating you, you’re dumber than I thought you were,” I said.

“That could be,” Sam said evenly.

Oliver was laughing. His voice drifted up from the garden. I watched Thaddeus watching Oliver, and even from this distance I could see the hunger and longing on his face. It made me sad.

And I thought I had an inkling where this particular insecurity of Sam’s sprang from. He’d had had a lifetime of seeing Oliver operate. And Oliver was quite an operator.

“Is that back on again?” I asked.

“Apparently.”

“How long is Oliver home for?” I asked.

“He says for good.” Sam watched the two older men. “Apparently Thad scared him this last time. We’ll see.”

I nodded. I could feel Sam watching me. I said finally, “I’m sorry I lied to you. It didn’t seem like a big deal at first, and then when it was, I didn’t know how to get out of it. There was no manipulation. I…liked you. A lot. I mean, after I got used to the fact that you can be a real jerk.”

He didn’t smile as he drew me forward. His mouth brushed mine lightly, and something tight and angry in me relaxed. I kissed him back, and for a moment there was nothing and no one else.

“I realize I’m not exactly your type,” he said abruptly. “Guys like me generally don’t have a chance with guys like you.”

“Is this your unique lead in to asking me out?”

“Yes.”

One of the workmen stuck his head through the window. “Hey, you better get in here,” he said to Sam. “There’s something under this floor all right. It looks like a skeleton. Or maybe two.”

Sam’s eyes met mine. “Congratulations, Professor.”

“Kind of gives you a dim view of romance, doesn’t it?” I remarked.

He said quite seriously, “I’m willing to take a chance. If you are.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just this once.”

About the Author

A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author JOSH LANYON has been writing gay mystery, adventure and romance for over a decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and novels, Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including The Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT Fiction. Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.

Find other Josh Lanyon titles at www.josh.lanyon.com

Thank you for buying this book. It is only because readers like you continue purchase fiction that writers can still afford to write.

~ Josh Lanyon~