Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  But the museum was closed.

  Kristi hesitated. The blonde—what was her name, Maren or Marie? Something like that—had entered without a problem.

  After a moment Kristi strode through the front gate as if she’d intended to head into Wagner House all along, and flew up the steps. Though a sign on the door said CLOSED and listed the hours of operation, she tried the latch and the glass-paned door swung open. Huh, she thought, crossing the threshold and stepping inside. The latch clicked softly behind her and she was alone. In the supposedly haunted house. With no sign of the blonde.

  The foyer, decorated with an antique table and a plaque giving a short history of the house, was empty. A single Tiffany lamp glowing in shades of amber and blue threw a bit of illumination into the deepest shadows of the room.

  From the entrance, stairs led to the upper floors, and a parlor room was to the right. It, too, was lit by a single lamp, the rest of the room in shadow. Antiques and period pieces were placed around a patterned rug and a marble-inlayed fireplace, and mullioned windows flanked a floor-to-ceiling bookcase stuffed with leather-bound, ancient-looking volumes.

  This house, she knew, had belonged to Ludwig Wagner, the first settler of the area, a rice or cotton baron who had left his estate and part of his fortune not only to his children, but also to the Catholic church for the purpose of building All Saints College. Several of his descendants were still on the board and played active politics with the school. But the house had been preserved, used for formal parties and opened on some afternoons as a museum. The velvet ropes, which forced people who viewed the house to file through the rooms without disturbing anything, were still in place.

  Marcia or Marcy, or whatever, wasn’t anywhere to be seen as Kristi crossed to the foot of the stairs. The house was silent. She heard nothing. But the slight scent of perfume still lingered. Kristi thought about calling out, but dismissed it.

  A few days ago Ariel and her friends had walked into this grand old manor. Kristi hadn’t thought much of it at the time; the museum had been open. But now…

  She turned into the dining room where a long table covered by a runner and candelabra gleamed in the semidark. A built-in hutch in deep mahogany filled a wall, and an arched doorway led to a kitchen that had been roped off. Kristi stepped over the velvet barrier and, reaching into her purse, pulled out her keys and the minuscule penlight on the ring. The beam was small but intense and helped her find her way. She looked around the antiquated room that still housed a wood-burning stove along with a newer gas range. A butter churn stood in one corner and the back door led to a huge porch. Kristi stared out the window but didn’t open the door for fear some alarm might go off.

  She listened hard, hoping to hear some noise, but the house was deathly quiet. No sound of air movement. No hum of a refrigerator or tick of a clock. All she could hear were the faint sounds of her own heartbeat and footsteps, the latter muffled by her running shoes.

  So where had the blonde gone?

  Was she meeting someone?

  Was this where she worked?

  A place of refuge?

  Outside, night had fallen, darkness caressing the windows, the few pools of light cast by the well-placed lamps giving off no warmth. The house felt cold and still, devoid of warmth.

  As if it has no soul.

  Oh, God, please, she silently chastised herself. Now she was starting to fall into the trap of everything she’d been reading from Shakespeare’s bloody tragedies that her biker of a teacher, Dr. Emmerson, had assigned. Those plays with their guilt and ghosts were bad enough, but then there were the bloodlusting creatures in Grotto’s class. She thought about Grotto, tall, dark, handsome, and brooding, with eyes that seemed to see into a person’s mind.

  All an act, she reminded herself. Theatrics.

  She continued on, past the pantry door and another that was locked, leading, she supposed, to a cupboard or a set of stairs that accessed the basement. She eased around the back side of the staircase, past a wall laden with hooks for coats, to the front of the house again without making a sound. Once again she was at the foot of the darkened, roped-off staircase. She stared upward into the gloom. No lights burning up there.

  Did she dare?

  She hesitated, then mentally called herself a wimp. The blonde—Marnie, that was her name—was somewhere inside.

  Quickly, before she changed her mind, she stepped over the fading velvet rope and started up the wide staircase. She made little noise as a faded floral runner muffled her steps, her tiny bluish penlight beam guiding her.

  At the landing, the dark figure of a man stood in the corner.

  Oh, God!

  She gasped, her fingers reaching into her bag for her mace.

  She was about to flee when she realized the “man” was unmoving and she shined the penlight at him only to realize he wasn’t a man at all, but a suit of armor standing guard near the landing’s window.

  Kristi set her jaw and counted to ten.

  Stiffening her spine, she dashed up the remaining risers to the second floor, where she expected to see a long hallway with a row of closed doors that opened to bedrooms. Instead the head of the stairs widened to a library area complete with narrow, tall bookcases and a reading nook that housed chairs and a window seat. Across from the bookcases was a baby grand piano, sheet music open above the keys, a silent metronome sitting atop the gleaming wood.

  Kristi moved past the piano and bookcases. Further ahead was a hallway that led into a suite of rooms: his and hers bedrooms separated by a lavish bath that had obviously been added long after the house was originally built. A canopied bed decorated in floral prints and pillows sat before a fireplace with hand-painted tile in one room, while the other was filled with heavier masculine furniture, a hunting rifle hung above the mantel of a massive stone fireplace.

  Lots of antiques.

  But no blonde.

  For a second Kristi wondered if the girl had dashed in the front of the house, zipped through the main floor, and left through the kitchen.

  Maybe she’d made a mistake.

  There was a chance searching through this house was just a big waste of time.

  And yet…

  She reached the staircase again, shining her penlight up the risers to the third floor. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” she said, and began ascending. The steps were narrower as they wound to the upper floor. At the top was the expected hallway with doors on either side.

  The hairs on the back of her neck raised as she remembered searching through the intricate, soulless corridors of the abandoned mental hospital, Our Lady of Virtues, outside New Orleans, and the psycho she’d met within. The memory gave her pause. Wagner House was far different from the old asylum, but poking around in the massive old structure reminded her all too well of the events leading up to her hospital stay and her resulting condition.

  Holding on to her courage, Kristi placed a hand on the first doorknob and opened the door slowly. It squawked on ancient hinges.

  Great. Announce to anyone hiding within that you’re here.

  The room was decorated as a child’s bedroom. A small white bed was pushed into a corner and a rocking horse with fading paint and hemp mane and tail was placed near the window…and it was moving slightly.

  Forward and back on its rockers.

  As if a ghost child were riding it.

  Kristi nearly dropped her penlight.

  In this still house where the air was motionless and dead, the horse was rocking.

  It slowed to a stop but Kristi’s heartbeat was rollicking.

  The closet door was shut. She licked her lips. Did she dare open it?

  What if…?

  Holding her penlight shoulder high, she placed her other hand on the handle and yanked hard.

  The door swung back.

  Revealing a dark, empty space with pegs and a rod, but nothing else. No killer or abductor of women ready to spring out at her, no vampire snarling and showing slick white
fangs dripping with blood, no damned ghost child whispering “help me.”

  Kristi nearly sank from relief. The power of atmosphere. Wow.

  Then she noticed the other door, a glass door separating this room from the next. She walked through and found another room, another girl’s room with a small bed and a table on which a Victorian dollhouse sat, showing off miniature rooms decorated in intricate detail.

  She retraced her steps to the hall. The other two rooms were similar, another bedroom with a larger bed and a small wheelchair parked near the iron bedstead, which was covered with stuffed animals, and a fourth decorated as if a boy, interested in boats and fishing, had last resided within. A game of jacks was spread upon a table near an old slingshot.

  But, again, no blonde with ashen features fleeing the campus.

  Kristi walked to the window and stared out at the night. From this viewpoint, she saw across the quad in the center of the campus and past a few other buildings. Through the trees, she spied the far wall. Beyond that, a roof line was partially visible, illuminated by a street lamp. Dormers peaked from the gables and a light illuminated the room. It was too far to see clearly into the room, but…

  Her heart clutched.

  Was it her apartment?

  She squinted, her heart drumming at the thought that someone standing here could stare straight into…

  A shadow passed in front of the window.

  Of her apartment.

  Inside?

  Was someone inside her home?

  Anger and fear burned through her and she turned quickly, intent on charging back to her place and confronting whoever was searching her rooms.

  And what if he’s got a weapon? What then? Girls have disappeared, you know.

  And whoever was in the apartment might even now be going over her notes, logging on to the Internet through her computer, sorting through her belongings, searching Tara’s things….

  She started toward the stairs when she heard something. A steady noise. Footsteps?

  So she wasn’t alone after all.

  Quietly, she hurried down to the second level, where the steady ticking became louder and she realized it was too perfect to have been caused by footsteps. At the landing she saw the metronome clicking off the beats of some unheard musical piece.

  Kristi’s blood ran cold.

  Someone had set it rocking. Someone knew she was here and was toying with her.

  Someone or something.

  Her fingers tightened over the canister of mace and she shined her small beam into the darkest corners and crevices of the landing, but she appeared to be alone.

  She didn’t believe in ghosts or vampires, but she did think that someone else was inside the house. Marnie, the blonde, messing with her mind? Nah. No reason. So who else?

  She heard the front door open and close and she pressed herself into the shadows of the second floor hallway, her pulse thumping. She heard hushed voices—female voices—and footsteps, more than one. What the hell was going on? Her penlight was tucked under her arm and she gently clicked it off. Carefully, she edged near the railing, looking down to the foot of the stairs, but she saw no one, just heard them pass through the foyer and, she thought, the hallway that led to the back of the house.

  On stealthy footsteps she eased her way back to the first floor. She was still gripping her little canister of mace in clenched fingers as she moved to the back of the house and the kitchen, keeping close to the wall.

  Empty.

  The women had disappeared.

  Kristi entered the kitchen and stopped, ears straining, but she heard nothing. She peered through the windows, but saw nothing outside. The answer was the locked door to the basement; it had to be. She tried the handle. It didn’t budge. So the girls who came here had a key.

  To what?

  She thought of Lucretia’s talk of a cult. Could this be the meeting place, an old manor complete with gargoyles and a haunted history? Could the cult meet here? Her heart raced, perspiration ran down her back, and she gripped the damned mace as if it were the very essence of life.

  Leaning close to the door panels, she closed her eyes and strained to hear anything, but the house was again silent as a tomb. She tried the door again. Nothing. She shined her light over the kitchen looking for a key—anything—that might open the dead bolt, but found nothing.

  And she couldn’t wait here any longer.

  Not if she wanted to catch the person who had broken into her place.

  Holding her can of mace in one hand and her phone in the other, she slipped out of Wagner House and started running across the campus, adrenaline spurring her, unaware of the eyes that were following her every move.

  Run, Kristi, run.

  You’ll never get away.

  Vlad watched her flee across campus and he smiled to himself. He’d known she was in the house, had sensed her presence, seen her from his hiding spot outside on the overhang of the portico. She was a brave one. A little foolhardy, but athletic, strong, and smart.

  One of the elite.

  It was only a matter of time before she joined with the others, and though her sacrifice wouldn’t be as willing, it would be complete. So much more satisfying than those thrill seekers who came to him eagerly. Pathetically. They were searching for something only he could give them, a feeling of family and unity, a chance to no longer be alone.

  They didn’t completely understand, of course. Couldn’t know what would ultimately be expected of them. But it didn’t matter. Eventually they gave.

  As Kristi would.

  He stared after her until she reached the far side of the quad, then he slipped inside the window and started down the stairs. Tonight was the choosing. Later would be the giving.

  He only hoped that the bloodletting would be adequate….

  But of course it wouldn’t.

  It never was.

  The need was insatiable.

  CHAPTER 17

  Kristi hit the speed dial button on her phone as she hurried across the street. She hated to be one of those women who always turned to a man, but damn it, she needed a back up and Jay was the only person she’d confided in. Armed with the mace in one hand and her phone in the other, she reached the rear entrance of her apartment house and paused near the hedge of crepe myrtle by the stairs. The phone rang one time. Twice. “Come on, come on,” she whispered just as Jay picked up.

  “Hey.”

  “I’ve got a kind of a situation,” she whispered without any preamble. “I think someone might be in my apartment.”

  “Are you there now?” he asked urgently.

  “I’m outside. I saw a shadow in the window.”

  “Human?” Jay asked, but he’d relaxed a bit upon hearing she wasn’t in the unit.

  “I think so.”

  “I’m on my way. Don’t go in without me.”

  Suddenly she felt foolish, as if she’d let the night get to her. She was probably overreacting. “Maybe I made a mistake. I don’t know.”

  “I can be there in five. Just wait.”

  “Jay—”

  “I said I’d be there,” he said tersely. “Wait for me.”

  She heard a door open above her, so she hung up, switching the phone to silent. Hiding at the base of the stairs, she stayed in the shadows, waiting for whoever was inside her apartment to appear. There was enough light at the base of the stairs to be able to catch his image on her cell phone, or so she hoped. Then she could follow him on foot or in her car and figure out just who he was and what he wanted. If he had a car, she’d get the license plate number; if he was on foot, she’d tail him.

  Why would anyone break in to her apartment?

  Maybe because it belonged to Tara Atwater.

  Yeah, but that was months ago. Why now? And how? The locks had just been changed.

  Nerves strung tight, Kristi waited on the balls of her feet, ready to match wits and weapons with whoever it was.

  But if he had a gun…?

  Footste
ps descended and she counted off the steps…ten, eleven, twelve…

  And then a pause.

  At the second story.

  Crap! He must’ve seen her. She hugged the building, straining to hear, squinting up at the staircase where a bulb glowed in the ceiling of each level. Come on you bastard, she thought. The footsteps resumed, but they were light and quick, farther away. Not descending.

  What?

  Oh, damn! He’d slipped off the stairs at the second level and was moving along the wide portico of the building to the far staircase, the one located near the crosswalk that led to All Saints. She was off in a shot, springing from the shadows just as a pickup screeched into the parking lot, bright beams of headlights flooding the front of the apartment house.

  Jay!

  He was out of the truck in a second, his face taut and drawn. “What happened?”

  “He’s getting away!” She heard whoever it was clamor down the stairs at the far end of the building, vault over the railing, then run across the street. “That way!” She only got a quick glimpse of a figure in black before he ducked behind the large house and disappeared.

  There was a squeal of breaks, an angry honk of a horn, and a man’s shout: “What the fuck kind of idiot are you!” the driver shouted.

  “Who is it?” Jay demanded, catching up to her as she ran.

  “Don’t know.” She crammed her cell phone and her can of mace into the pocket of her sweatshirt. Her bag flopped at her side as she sprinted, her feet pounding the cement and uneven asphalt. Damn it, she was going to catch the creep!

  Running easily alongside her, Jay whistled sharply, and from the open window of the truck’s cab, Bruno sprang, landing on the pockmarked pavement with a soft woof. Kristi and Jay rounded the building together as the angry driver’s car, a red Nissan, disappeared at the next light, veering toward the freeway.

  The street in front of the campus was suddenly empty.