It wasn’t Aidan’s fault. Will was thankful his cousin kept her away from him. Under other circumstances, Will might feel jealous at how much time Aidan got to spend with her, but not now, and not with Aidan.
He heard them laughing in their office or in the edit room, muffled by a closed door, and longed to join them.
More than once he’d sat at Abby’s grave and talked to her, reminding himself why he couldn’t give in. Not this time, not to this woman.
Never.
There were times Aidan took Kal out of town with him. With both of them gone, Will felt like a piece of him had been ripped out.
This is too much.
He couldn’t feel this way about her, he barely knew her despite the feelings she instilled in him. Why this woman, and why now after all these years with his goal so close at hand?
Will had decided to tough it out, to try to stand it as long as he could. It wouldn’t be fair to Aidan to bail on him, and it certainly wasn’t Kal’s fault, no reason to punish her. She was young and a good person and deserved a chance to have a successful show like this under her belt.
Still, he kept his distance from her as much as possible.
After one particularly bad day, Will forced himself to go home and try to sleep. Always a problematic issue, even on a “good” night.
A good night meant he only awoke once or twice from a nightmare and didn’t relive that final day.
This, however, wasn’t a good night.
Even knowing it was a dream didn’t help. Having lived the events meant he couldn’t change the dream, couldn’t change the outcome to a happy ending. He still went on assignment with Aidan despite both Aidan and Ryan telling him it wasn’t necessary. A routine scouting mission through the barrier to a near-Earth realm, checking out a few rumors filtering through the grapevine. Will hadn’t wanted Aidan going by himself with the reports they’d heard from Bera, and the other guys weren’t strong enough to open the barrier alone if something happened.
As always, the sudden horrible, heavy feeling staggered him, forced him to reach out to Aidan. He grabbed his cousin’s arm for support.
“What’s wrong?” Aidan asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know—”
The pain. The searing agony that drove him to his knees and ripped a primal scream from deep within him.
Aidan looked up, receiving the call even through the barrier. He grabbed Will—
Appearing in his own living room. Ryan cornered, desperate anger on his face and a sword in hand, taking on two…Will wasn’t sure what they were but the tall, huge, bulking bipedal creatures obviously originated from some unfamiliar off-Earth realm. Two lay dead on the floor already, and from the looks of Ryan’s bloody sword he’d been the one who took them out.
When the two remaining creatures realized they no longer held the advantage, one immediately disappeared. The second died on the end of Ryan’s sword after making the mistake of taking his eyes off Ryan to look at Will and Aidan. Injured, Ryan slid down the wall and left a bloody smear behind him.
Will’s instincts finally kicked in despite his agonizing pain. He rushed to Ryan’s side. “Where’s Abby?” he gasped.
Ryan squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
Will immediately screamed her name, calling out to be with her. Aidan, his eyes wide, stared into the kitchen. With his heart a chilly boulder in his chest, Will started for the doorway when Aidan tackled him, forcing him to the living room floor, not letting him see.
“No,” Aidan begged. “Don’t, Will. Please, don’t. You don’t want to see. There’s nothing you can do.” Aidan summoned Purson and Gery, who immediately appeared. After a silent order from Aidan, they pinned a hysterical Will to the floor.
Ryan, tears streaming down his face, dragged himself to his feet, the sword left behind and his left arm hanging limp. He staggered to the kitchen doorway and stared inside, then dropped to his knees.
“I’m sorry, Will,” he sobbed. “I tried. I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t get here in time.”
Aidan stood. He walked to the kitchen doorway and bowed his head, eyes closed, tears silently coursing down his cheeks.
They wouldn’t let Will see her. Ryan ordered Purson and Gery to take Will to Atlanta and forcibly hold him there while he stayed behind with Aidan. When Ryan and Aidan returned several hours later, both men looking haggard and distraught, Will threw his amulet at Ryan and screamed, begged Ryan to kill him. He didn’t want to live without her.
He couldn’t. Not without his soul mate.
Aidan took Will to her. Will instinctively knew the high-collared robe she wore carefully tucked beneath her chin hid a sight he didn’t want to see.
On his knees and sobbing, Will held Abby’s hand, kissed it, stroked it, tried to find any sign of her, any thought.
Nothing.
Part of his soul died when they killed her.
Will awoke from his dream with his cheeks wet and feeling the familiar pain in his chest from his aching soul. The intellectual part of him this many years removed could silently thank Ryan for what he did, trying to protect her, and then protecting him from the horrifying last image he would have had of her. He knew Ryan had his own experiences and wanted to spare Will that, at least. But then…
Then it was all Will could do to not throw himself into the grave with her coffin.
As it was, he could remember her laughing, smiling, wrapping her arms around him as she kissed him good-bye before he left with Aidan, just hours before she died.
How she’d said, “I love you.”
With all that said and done, Will still hated Ryan for not letting him die, keeping him from joining her, especially since Ryan had personally experienced the kind of agony his soul suffered.
Eventually, Will fitfully slept.
* * * *
The network arranged a huge shoot that would sorely test Kal’s patience with Will Hellenboek. The crew packed and drove south and east across the state to Miami Beach, to investigate a famous old hotel that was being renovated. The location’s sheer size and notoriety forced Will to go along on the shoot with the other investigators, although he drove his car and didn’t follow the crew caravan. Kal, as usual, rode with Aidan. Will arrived and checked in before the rest of them, his room located on a different floor from Kal and Aidan and the other crew.
He’d had the hotel switch his reservation to arrange that despite the fact that Kal had requested all their rooms be together when she made the reservations. Kal swallowed her pride and anger and tried to let it go. At least he’d shown up.
The next morning, Kal ate breakfast with Aidan, Gery, and Purs to go over their production schedule before meeting with the crew and volunteer investigators. She sensed the men’s collective tension. Halfway through their discussion, Kal laid down her notepad and looked at them.
“Okay, boys. Let’s have it.”
The men exchanged a glance. “Have what?” Aidan asked.
She sat back and crossed her arms. “The Great Brooding One is especially broody this trip. Can one of you please ask him to at least put in an appearance at a production meeting? It’d be nice if I could spend more than five minutes in a room with him.” She’d tried being nice, tried being friendly. If Hellenboek wanted to act like a jerk, she’d act like a witch. Obviously the other crew didn’t have a problem with her, because they had no issues working with her.
Aidan looked nervous. “He’s got a couple of other projects in the pipe—”
“No. Please do not make excuses for him, Aidan.” She pointed at the men. “Nobody leave. We’re not done.” She angrily shoved her chair away from the table and stomped across the lobby to the elevators. When she hit the call button, she tapped her foot in irritation while she waited. The elevator finally arrived, and she rode it to the fifth floor where Will was staying. She’d never directly confronted him like this before. Maybe it was time she did.
Kal quickly oriented herself and found his room.
She angrily pounded on his door without saying anything.
Seconds later he threw it open, surprised and startled to see her. Then it looked like a mask dropped over his face to hide his emotions.
“Downstairs, five minutes,” she told him in her sternest, no-bullpucky voice. “Production meeting in the restaurant. I won’t keep you from whatever your freaking personality problem is for more than thirty minutes, but I need your rear end there to go over production notes.” She ticked off points on her fingers to hide her trembling hands. “This is a huge shoot. We’ll have a lot of crew on location, and crowd control issues to deal with, so quit busting my butt and just show the heck up for once and give me a little respect.” She turned to go.
“Kal.”
The sound of his soft voice startled her. He rarely spoke to her. She stopped but didn’t face him, her fists clenched. “What is it, Hellenboek?”
He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry. I’ll be right down.”
She let out a silent, relieved sigh. “Thank you.” She hadn’t expected him to agree. In fact, she’d expected him to refuse, get into a fight with her, and force her to call in Ryan Ausar to handle him, despite her promise to Aidan not to mention the man’s name.
Not exactly the way she’d wanted to handle it.
Maybe she should have been witchy to Will from day one.
True to his word, Will walked into the restaurant a few minutes later. He sat at the far end of the table, as far as he could sit away from her, and studied his clasped hands on the table the entire time.
She wasn’t sure he was even listening until he softly offered a suggestion on a more efficient way to split up the crew for shooting the B-roll shots.
Startled, Kal nearly tripped over her tongue. “Okay. That’s a good idea, Hellenboek. Thank you.” Kal had settled for treating him with cool professionalism since nothing else apparently thawed him out.
She felt Aidan practically ready to vibrate out of his chair next to her, the tension radiating off him in nearly visible waves. Over Will’s behavior? She suspected so.
When Kal ended the meeting, she didn’t look up from her notes as she called out to Will, “We’re having another meeting at two, Hellenboek. If you have better things to do and places to be, feel free to blow it off like you normally do. Good grief, I certainly don’t want to interrupt your CSI: Miami reruns or whatever it is you’re doing.”
He nodded and left without comment.
Aidan slumped next to her. She looked at him. “Don’t say it,” she warned him.
“Say what?”
“Whatever the heck you were going to say to me about him. Dang it, I’m the producer, and he can darn well show up every once in a while and give me a little respect. He’s acting like we’re mortal enemies or something.”
“No, sugar, that’s not it at all—”
“Oh, please. Spare me, Aidan. Do not give me the ‘it’s not you’ speech again. If I hear that one more time, I’m going to puke.”
Will spent most of the first night avoiding Kal. That meant he spent most of it in front of the camera, a place she knew darn well he hated being.
She derived a little silent satisfaction from his discomfort.
Kal spent most of the evening acting cold or downright snotty to Will the few times she saw him. Two could play that game. Aidan ended up helping her at base and with the technical end of things.
That Will was willing to be uncomfortable to avoid her made Kal feel even more determined to find out what the heck was going on with him. She wished he’d at least man up enough to come tell her to her face why he was acting like this. Instead, his quiet, chilly avoidance was even worse than if he’d been obnoxiously confrontational with her. That she could handle, especially after a life spent placating her father.
Why couldn’t he be a prima donna, or snooty, or even an insufferable know-it-all?
At one point Aidan went to help check out one area that other investigators reported showed signs of paranormal activity. As Kal was checking the cameras, she noticed one had somehow moved out of place.
Might as well go fix it myself.
She grabbed a two-way and went upstairs to take care of it. As she walked down the corridor, around the corner she heard Will talking with Aidan.
Shoot. She thought they were one floor down.
She steeled herself, threw back her shoulders, and started down the hall when Will’s voice came to her and stopped her in her tracks.
“You know why, Aidan. Drop it.”
“You’re going to hurt her feelings, dude. There’s no reason to treat her the way you’ve been treating her.”
“It’s nothing personal! It has nothing to do with her. You know that. Just tell her for me.”
“You tell her. You’re acting like an asshole, Will. What’s she supposed to think? She’s a real sweetie. Why don’t you just be nice to her, huh? Is that too much to ask?”
“Subject closed.”
Kal gritted her teeth and rounded the corner. In the corridor, Will looked up, startled.
Alone.
That was enough to stop Kal in her tracks. “Where’s Aidan?” she asked.
Will looked like he was about to poop a cinder block out his butt. “What?”
She cautiously walked forward, a chill running through her. “Aidan. You know, him, right? Big guy, loud shirts, your flippin’ cousin. I heard you talking to him.” There was no place Aidan could have gone, no doors, no stairs, nowhere. He’d have to walk past her to get back to the elevators.
Will shook his head. From the guarded look on his face, she knew he was lying. “Just me.”
Kal shivered again and ran her hands up and down her arms. Maybe there was something supernaturally weird going on in this building. Instead of arguing with Will she shoved past him, adjusted the camera, and angrily stalked back to the elevators.
When Aidan showed up at base twenty minutes later, Kal turned in her chair. “What the heck is going on? I went upstairs to adjust camera five, and I heard you and Will talking. I walked around the corner and it’s just Will. Where the heck did you go?”
Aidan’s turn to lock down. He slowly shook his head. “No, sugar, you’re wrong. I was with Cabrio.” He walked over and gently laid one hand on Kal’s shoulder as his other reached for something hanging around his neck. It felt like her brain clouded over. “I was with Cabrio,” Aidan repeated. “I wasn’t talking with Will…”
She felt like she fell into his sweet butterscotch-colored eyes. Five minutes later, Kal startled awake. Apparently she’d nodded off over the monitor bank. That was definitely not like her.
Aidan sat next to her, an amused, albeit slightly forced-looking smile on his face. “You okay, sweet cheeks?”
She couldn’t stifle the yawn. “Was I asleep?”
He grinned. “Yep. You were mumbling something about a corridor.” But his body language changed, relaxed.
Relieved.
“I went upstairs to adjust a camera.”
He laughed. “So that’s what you were talking about. No, sugar, you’ve been right here. Sorry, you looked so cute, I couldn’t help but let you sleep for a few.”
Whatever was going on, Kal had too much on her plate to worry about it. Although it was more comforting to think she’d dozed off on the job and dreamed the incident than to question her sanity. Then again, that answer didn’t feel right to her either.
They prepared to wrap for the night. A private security company would stand guard over their equipment until they returned the next evening to finish the investigation. Kal had switched off the monitors and was going over her notes when she felt more than heard someone walk into the room behind her.
A glance in one of the darkened monitors showed Will’s reflection in the doorway. She stiffened. It didn’t matter that she apparently dreamed something, it didn’t change the fact that he exhibited as much warmth as a block of ice where she was concerned.
“Yes, Hellenboek?” She didn’t turn
to face him.
In the monitor, she watched as he stepped a little closer, but not by much.
“I…is there anything else tonight?”
Kal took her time responding. “Nope. You can scurry off to your hidey-hole until tomorrow evening. Not that I expect you to show up, but eleven o’clock, lunch, in the hotel restaurant. Production meeting.”
“Kal—”
“We’re done here tonight, Hellenboek. You can get out of here. I know you’re dying to get away from me.”
Her eyes flicked to the monitor again. He hesitated, then turned and left without further comment. When he was gone, the nervous breath Kal had been holding escaped her in an explosive rush. She could certainly give him a taste of his own medicine.
Although she hated being mean like that. Well, it was her or him, and she wasn’t going anywhere. Trying to do things the nice way hadn’t gotten her squat.
* * * *
The next day, Will not only showed up for the lunchtime production meeting, but the afternoon one as well.
He didn’t speak but at least he was there. Kal softened her attitude toward him slightly, toned back her grouch mode. That made her feel less guilty even if it didn’t change his reaction any.
The film crew managed to pick up a few interesting things on tape, and two of the volunteer investigators captured EVPs—Electronic Voice Phenomenon. That meant a really good show to cut together. She could splice the plentiful incidental scares in with the captured evidence and have a pretty great episode.
At four in the morning, Kal declared the shoot officially wrapped and ordered everyone to start breaking down and packing equipment. She rode an elevator upstairs, alone, to retrieve one of the cameras when the car stopped with a jolt and the lights went off.
Shoot.
She fought her racing heart. She’d never been scared of the dark before, but she’d left her two-way on the monitor table, and her cell phone was clipped to her backpack at base.
Crud.
Five minutes later, the elevator hadn’t moved and no emergency lights came on. Kal felt her way around to the panel and tried to remember which button was the emergency button.
Dalton, Tymber - Good Will Ghost Hunting: Demon Seed [Good Will Ghost Hunting 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 5
