To Stop a Shadow
Page 11
Tina hugged her friend and flashed a smile at Trent. “I put him to work.”
“I think I put you to work, actually.” He grinned back, and her heart melted again. He’d always had a charming smile, but something about the way he looked at her lately had her pulse thrumming in her veins.
Trent had held up his end of their pressure-free friendship gloriously. On Tina’s end, she’d done nothing but fall harder for him.
Logan looked at his watch. “We don’t have a lot of time. The housekeeper will let the caterer in, but I’d like to be home before the guests arrive.”
Allison linked arms with Tina and led her away from the guys. “You are coming tonight, aren’t you? This will be Logan’s first party since I moved in, and I need you there.”
Tina laughed. “Of course I’m coming. A few months ago, I had to drag you to parties like this. Now you’re playing hostess. Who would’ve thought?”
“I know. It’s still hard to believe sometimes. I just wanted to be sure because…well, Trent is staying with us now.”
“So he’ll be there.”
“Yes.”
She widened her grin and caught Trent’s gaze. “Good.”
His dark eyes smoldered as he stepped toward her. “Are you ready for this? You’re not going to freak out this time?” He laughed, but it sounded more nervous than humorous.
“I won’t if you won’t.” She pulled a lightbulb from a drawer and handed it to him. “But I’m not going in there without a light.”
* * *
Trent grabbed a stepladder and grumbled under his breath as he climbed the stairs. He couldn’t blame Tina for refusing to go into that room without a light. He didn’t want to do it either, but he’d look like a wuss if he handed the bulb to Logan. He couldn’t make his friend do it for him, but he could make him go with him.
“Why don’t you lovely ladies wait in the hall while Logan and I shed some light on this creep show?”
“Sounds good to me.” Tina clutched Allison’s arm.
Logan ran his finger over the broken door jamb as he followed Trent into the room. “What happened here?”
“I broke it when Tina got locked in.” Every hair on his body stood on end as he set the step ladder beneath the light fixture. The walls already felt like they were closing in on him, and the air seemed to grow thicker. At least with the door broken, there was no chance of him getting locked in.
Logan stepped deeper into the room. “She got locked in, so you broke the door down?”
“Yeah.” He twisted the burned-out bulb from the socket.
Logan chuckled. “Like a knight in shining armor.”
“Fuck you.”
“What?” He raised his hands in a show of innocence. “You saved the damsel in distress. That had to earn you a few brownie points.”
Trent glanced into the hallway to make sure the women were out of earshot and lowered his voice. “Honestly man, I don’t think I’ll ever really know where I stand with that woman.” Her words certainly didn’t match her actions. Maybe he should’ve let her show him that wow kiss when she’d offered. Nah, he’d still be as confused as ever, and he would’ve had to deal with a massive hard-on too. He’d done the right thing.
He installed the new lightbulb and motioned for Logan to flip the switch.
“That’s better.” Tina strode into the room with her head held high, but the way she repeatedly clenched and extended her fingers gave away her true feelings. She was already freaking out, and Allison hadn’t even done her thing yet.
He moved to stand next to her and put his arm around her shoulders to calm her nerves. In a friendly way.
Yeah, right.
“You’ll be fine,” he whispered into her ear.
“Thank you.” She shivered, leaning into his embrace, and his stomach tightened. He fought the urge to wrap his other arm around her and pull her to his chest. She’d asked for friendship, and that was all he planned to give her…until she asked for more.
Allison crept into the center of the room and turned in a circle. “It’s really stuffy in here. Can you open the window?”
Logan slid the glass pane up and pushed on the shutters, but they didn’t budge. “They’re painted shut.”
“This is the only room that isn’t finished,” Trent said. “After Tina’s experience in here, we wanted to wait until you guys could check it out.”
“I don’t blame you,” Logan said. “There’s a ton of energy pulsing through this room, and it can’t possibly all belong to you guys.”
Allison took Logan’s hand. “Can you shut it out?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Anything for you, baby.”
Allison took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
“Wait,” Tina said. “Don’t you need salt and crystals and stuff? Isn’t this dangerous?”
She opened her eyes. “Most of the time, communicating with spirits is completely safe. We needed salt with Logan’s ghost because she didn’t like me being there, but it’s easier for me to communicate without that barrier. And Logan’s gotten good at creating a shield. He can block things out, while I open up, creating a nice balance.”
Trent shook his head. “I’m not sure I understood a word of that.”
“Trust me, man,” Logan said. “It works.”
“And if I sense any danger here,” Allison added, “we’ll leave and come back with some defenses.”
“Okay.” Tina slid her arm behind Trent’s back, hooking her thumb in his belt loop on the opposite side. He couldn’t recall her ever having done that in the past, but the way she held on to him felt so familiar, a chill ran up his neck.
They were silent as Allison stood in the center of the room. Aside from the deep rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, she went utterly still. “There are some spirits here, but they’re not coming through.” She reached for Logan’s other hand. “Maybe you’re blocking too much. Can you rein it in?”
Logan clutched both her hands in his and closed his eyes as Allison’s eyes grew wide.
Tina whimpered, and Trent squeezed her tighter. “I see them.” She clutched the front of his shirt in her fist.
“See who?” He looked to the wall where Tina and Allison both stared, but he saw nothing.
“There are seven, maybe ten spirits here,” Allison said. “They’re showing me that they’re trapped here. They’re chained to the wall.”
Tina pressed her face into Trent’s shoulder. “Is there some kind of metaphysical key? Can you set them free?”
Allison shook her head. “They aren’t literally chained. It’s just how they’re showing themselves to me. Someone has them trapped here.”
The pounding of Tina’s heart into Trent’s side made his own pulse race. Could these spirits have been what freaked her out the last time she was up here? “Are they dangerous?”
“They can’t leave this room. Wait…one of them is showing me that she can for short periods. She sneaks away. She…” Allison squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. “She appears to detach her hand to break from the chains. That’s weird. But that’s how she would appear to a living person who could see her. She’d be missing a hand.”
Trent rubbed his hand up and down Tina’s back. The room still appeared empty to him, but he’d seen Allison in action. If she saw ghosts, they had to be there. “Who has trapped them here? How can we get rid of them?”
Allison’s brow furrowed in frustration. “They aren’t saying much. Just… ‘She knows…Tina knows.’”
“Oh, God.” Tina lifted her head. “I don’t know. I told her I don’t know.”
Trent brushed the hair from her face. His instinct to protect her strengthened, and he tightened his hold on her waist. “Told who?”
“The handless ghost. I saw her in my dream, when the shadow monster was chasing me.” She jumped as if she’d seen something else.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.” She let out a nervous laugh. “I thought
I saw a shadow from the corner of my eye. My nerves are shot. I’ve never been able to see ghosts before.”
Allison wrapped her arms around Logan’s waist. “Apparently, this one really wants to be seen. And you’ve tapped into a latent ability.”
“When did you dream about a shadow monster?” Trent’s pulse kicked up another notch. Why hadn’t she mentioned this before?
“When haven’t I? It’s been happening all my life.”
“I’ve had the same dream. I’m being chased by a dark, rolling shadow. Sometimes it’s chasing you.” And if she’d been having the dream, did that mean it was real? Or could the ghosts in this room be giving them nightmares?
Tina looked at him wide-eyed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to scare you. I—” His knees gave out, sending him toppling to the floor and pulling Tina down with him. Shit. Not now. Not in front of Tina.
He held her tight to his chest as the darkened corners of the room in his peripheral vision filled with thick, black shadows. He could not black out this time; he had to protect her.
She lifted her head and glanced from side to side. “Please tell me you see it,” she whispered.
“I’m not sure what I see.” Was it the shadow from his dream? Or was it his vision tunneling, threatening to pull him under into another sleep attack?
“Are you okay?” Allison rushed to his side and knelt on the ground while Logan slammed the heel of his hand into the shutters, breaking them open and flooding the room with daylight.
Trent blinked and loosened his hold on Tina. He could still move. “I think so.”
“Was it the shadow? You saw it, didn’t you?” Tina shifted her weight to her arms, but thankfully, she made no move to get off him.
He wasn’t sure he’d be steady on his feet yet. “I tried to take a step, and I twisted my ankle. I didn’t mean to pull you down with me. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She rose to her feet and dusted off her pants. “But I swear I saw the shadow as soon as we started talking about it.” She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced about the room. “It’s gone now.”
Logan offered him a hand up. “You sure it was your ankle, man? It wasn’t another—”
He gave Logan a pointed look. “I twisted my ankle. That’s all it was.”
“This room gives me the creeps.” Tina led the way downstairs and lowered herself onto the sofa.
Trent sat next to her and rubbed his forehead. Thank God he didn’t pass out up there. He needed to convince Tina she couldn’t live without him—not that she needed to take care of him. She seemed to believe his story about twisting his ankle, and as long as Logan kept his damn mouth shut, she’d keep believing it.
Logan sat in the accent chair, and Allison perched on the arm beside him. “You’ve both been having dreams about a shadow chasing you?”
Tina caught Trent’s gaze. “Apparently.”
“And neither of you thought to mention it to the other?”
“Trent did once. Sort of,” Tina said. “He called me one morning and said he had a dream I was in trouble. He never mentioned it again, so I blew it off. It seemed irrelevant.” She shrugged. “I guess we need to learn to communicate better.”
“I guess we do.” He put his hand on her knee and gave it a squeeze. When she didn’t pull away, he left it there. He’d always craved physical contact with her, but watching her act so brave in the face of handless ghosts and a shadow monster made him need her even more. Most women would have run out screaming by now, but not Tina. She was still here, sitting next to him, in a haunted house.
“Tell me the truth, Allie. Is there really a shadow monster? Or are Trent and I somehow having the same psychically connected nightmare?”
Allison bit her bottom lip and glanced between them. “That’s hard to say. I didn’t sense anything negative when you guys fell. But if it was a nonhuman entity, it could easily hide itself from me. From all of us.”
The thought of having any kind of connection with Tina—psychic or otherwise—sent his heart racing. And that option was definitely better than dealing with a real monster. “We’re probably having similar bad dreams because we’ve been spending so much time together. It’s been stressful getting this house ready to sell so quickly.”
“That’s a possibility,” Allison said. “But there’s still the issues of the ghosts trapped in the attic room and who or what is trapping them there. Have you had any problems in any of the other rooms?”
“No.” Tina raised her eyebrows at him for confirmation.
Aside from the coat rack and the experience he had the first time he set foot in the house, nothing major had happened. And those incidents were most likely products of his overactive imagination. “It seems to be concentrated in the third-floor room.”
“Well, then.” Allison rose to her feet. “I’d like to bring Gage out to do a scientific investigation. He can take some readings and try to stir up more activity so I can get a better read on those trapped spirits. And if your shadow monster is real, Gage is the person to talk to about that.” She took Logan’s hand and moved toward the front door.
Tina stood and followed her. “I didn’t know Gage has psychic abilities.”
“He doesn’t, but he’s fascinated by nonhuman entities. He’s probably read everything that’s ever been written about them. Just stay off the third floor until we can check it out.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Trent turned off the lights and locked the front door behind him as he followed his friends onto the porch.
“It might be a good idea to do some research on the house,” Allison said. “I feel like you both have a strong connection to this place. I know the house has always been in your family, Trent, so that makes sense. But Tina…maybe I’m feeling the connection between the two of you.”
Tina’s eyes widened, and an adorable blush spread from the bridge of her nose, across her cheeks. This had to be the first time he’d ever seen her embarrassed.
Allison flashed Tina a triumphant grin and turned to Trent. “Did your uncle leave behind any documents or diaries?”
“We packed everything up and put it in storage. I have a key to his safe deposit box, though.”
“We’ve got to go, babe.” Logan tugged Allison down the steps.
“Maybe start there. I’ll see you both tonight.” She hugged Tina and whispered something in her ear. Tina rolled her eyes.
“See you at home, Trent.” Allison pranced back up the steps, wrapped her arms around him and whispered, “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
She pulled away and looked him hard in the eyes as if she didn’t believe him.
“I’ll be heading that way soon.” He waved as his friends walked hand-in-hand down the driveway, then climbed into Logan’s Mercedes and drove away.
Trent turned to Tina. “Are you going to hang around?”
She pulled her keys from her purse. “Nah. I’ve got some things to do before the party tonight.”
“Right. I’ll see you there.”
A smile brightened her emerald eyes. “You can count on it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tina’s four-inch stilettos clicked on the marble steps as she approached Allison’s front door. Her red peacoat barely skimmed her knees, leaving her calves exposed to the frigid winter air, and goose bumps pricked at her skin. Thank goodness it wasn’t snowing. She pushed open the door, and a gust of warm air greeted her as she slid out of her coat and handed it to the door man.
She smoothed her tight, red sweater over her torso and adjusted the hem of her black pencil skirt. Her outfit wasn’t exactly appropriate for the weather, but with the number of heads turning in her direction as she strutted across the room, it had the desired effect. Now, if it would only work on Trent.
“Tina!” Allison pranced across the room carrying two glasses of champagne and handed one to her. “You’re late; I thought you weren’t coming.”
She glanced at her fiancé. “They’re not all assholes.”
“Here’s to the good ones.” Tina clinked her glass against Allison’s and sipped the bubbly liquid. “And speaking of good ones. Where’s Trent?”
Allison pressed her lips together and gripped Tina’s bicep. “Don’t read too much into this, okay?”
“Into what?”
She turned her around to face a group of people. “He’s got a leech attached to his arm. Maybe you can save him.”
A sinking feeling formed in her stomach. Trent wore dark slacks and a gray button-up with the top two buttons undone. He held a clear drink in one hand, and a red-headed woman was attached to his other arm. She looked gorgeous in her tight-fitting, pink dress, and that made it all the worse.
Tina set her drink on a table and crossed her arms. “I guess he’s taking this ‘we’re just friends’ thing seriously.” A semblance of a sob caught in her throat, and she blinked back the liquid threatening to collect in her eyes. It definitely wasn’t tears. Tina didn’t cry, especially over men.
“Seriously, babe, I’ve been keeping an eye on him.” Allison patted her back. “He hasn’t done anything to indicate he’s interested in her. She’s just been following him around all evening.”
“And he hasn’t done a damn thing to shake her off either.” She picked up her champagne and downed the rest of the drink before taking another glass from a waiter walking by.
“You know Trent. He’s a sweetheart. He probably doesn’t want to embarrass her. Just go talk to him.”
The redhead whispered something in Trent’s ear and giggled, and heat crept up Tina’s cheeks. “Hold my drink.”
She handed her glass to Allison and marched toward her man. Maneuvering her way through the crowd, she didn’t stop until she stood face-to-face with Trent. “We need to talk.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Okay.” He patted the leech on the hand. “Excuse me for a minute.”