by Meg Benjamin
She gave Emma a long look that left no question as to who was supposed to be moving the table around.
Ramos stepped forward. “Two feet to the right?”
Gabrielle nodded, her eyes narrowing as she studied the hanging brass chandelier. Emma grabbed one side of the table while Ramos grabbed the other.
Gabrielle studied the new position, which wasn’t actually that much different from the old one. “Oh yes. Much better.”
Yeah right. “Anything else?”
Gabrielle shrugged. “We really should try it, you know. We won’t be sure how well that position will work until we’ve actually used it.”
Emma had a sinking feeling around the pit of her stomach. “You mean sit at the table?” she asked hopefully.
“Not just sit. We need to contact the spirits.” Gabrielle sank gracefully into one of the chairs. “Just a sort of dry run. I can almost feel them hovering around us.” She shot Ramos an insufferably coy look from beneath her mink eyelashes.
He gave her a smile that was more like a lip spasm and turned toward the door. “Glad to know there’s something here for you to work with. I guess I’ll leave you to it.”
“Oh no,” Gabrielle cried. “You can’t leave. We need you.”
Ramos turned back. “You need me?”
“Absolutely.” She beckoned toward the seat beside her. “We need at least three people for an effective séance. The triangular shape, you know. The power of three.”
Ramos’s jaw firmed to granite. “I explained to Ms. Shea here—I’m not going to participate in your séance. She said it wasn’t necessary.”
Gabrielle sighed. “But this isn’t the real séance, the one I’ll do for the show. This is just practice. So that I can see how well this room will work, what kind of spiritual resonance it has.”
“Spiritual resonance?” If it was possible for Ramos’s jaw to get harder, it had just happened.
“Oh yes, of course. I need to know if the spirits can be contacted in this house. Even though they’re here, they may not be willing to speak to us. If we’re to use your home, I need to make sure the séance will be effective.” She gave him another sultry smile, although this one seemed a little calculating.
Emma took a deep breath. “It shouldn’t take too long, Mr. Ramos. Just until Gabrielle gets a sense of the atmosphere.” And has an opportunity to cast a few more come-hither glances in your direction, not to mention hold on to your hand for a few minutes.
Emma held her breath, willing him to do it. If he didn’t, she had a sneaking suspicion Gabrielle would walk, and she’d have to find yet another house.
Ramos looked like he’d just bitten into something sour, but apparently, he got the point. “Okay. No problem.” He dropped down beside Gabrielle, staring at the tabletop.
Emma slid into the chair across from him, mentally crossing her fingers that Gabrielle wouldn’t make too much of a production out of the whole “practice séance” this time.
Vain hope. “Candles?” She turned to Emma. “Where are the candles?”
“I didn’t bring them,” she said between her teeth. “I didn’t realize we’d be needing them yet.”
“I’ve got some in the kitchen.” Ramos pushed himself to his feet and walked out without a backward glance.
Gabrielle sighed as his footsteps retreated down the hall. “Not the most enthusiastic host we’ve ever had.”
Emma managed not to sigh herself. “He didn’t know he’d have to take part in this.”
“I just hope his negative energy doesn’t keep the spirits from contacting us.” Gabrielle regarded her manicure. “They can sense negativity, you know.”
As opposed to Gabrielle herself who apparently had no clue about the negative energy Emma was currently sending her way.
Ramos was back five minutes later with a box of votive candles. Gabrielle sighed again, but Emma ignored her. So the candles weren’t the scented pillars they usually used. It wasn’t like they were in a spa. She placed five of the votives in a line along the mantle, then turned back to Gabrielle. “Are we ready?”
Gabrielle nodded, sighing yet again. Emma gritted her teeth yet again. She lit the candles, then flipped off the overhead lights, plunging the room into twilight.
“Join hands everyone,” Gabrielle intoned in her most resonant medium voice.
Ramos gave her a piercing look, then took hold of her hand, extending his other hand across the table to Emma.
Gabrielle’s fingers were faintly damp, but Ramos’s were dry and hard. His calluses rubbed against Emma’s palm. For a moment she felt something like a mild electric shock tingle through her fingers. She pulled her hand away, staring.
Ramos stared back, his eyes wide.
“Take his hand, Emma.” Gabrielle frowned. “We need to get on with this.”
Emma extended her hand again, touching her fingers cautiously against Ramos’s palm. Nothing. Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing. Probably she’d imagined the whole thing.
Gabrielle raised her head, gazing up into the dim shadows overhead. “Is there anyone here? We call on you to come forth.”
Across from Emma, Ramos rolled his eyes. He had that sour look again. Just hold on a little longer, and we’ll be out of your way.
“Come forth,” Gabrielle whispered.
Ramos looked at her, then shook his head slightly.
And the candles went out.
Emma’s head shot up, and she turned toward the fireplace. There hadn’t been any flickering, any feeling of a breeze. One moment the candles had been burning, and now they weren’t. She gaped at Ramos, who was gaping back at her, his forehead furrowing. Somewhere overhead a door slammed.
At the head of the table, Gabrielle seemed not to notice. “Spirit forces, we call to you,” she crooned.
Something touched the back of Emma’s neck, a quick brush, so light she wasn’t sure she’d felt it. Then it came again, more definite this time, fingertips along the edge of her shoulder. She whipped her head to the right, but she couldn’t see anything in the gathering darkness.
Ramos’s hand jerked against hers. She turned back to him, but he was watching Gabrielle.
No, not Gabrielle. Beyond Gabrielle, toward the fireplace. The mantle glowed dimly in the twilight, as if there were lights beneath it. Then, one by one, the votive candles thumped to the hearthstone in front of the fireplace, bouncing lightly. Another door slammed upstairs.
“Patience,” Gabrielle murmured. “Sometimes the spirits are slow to manifest.”
Emma’s pulse thundered in her ears and her fingers trembled. Ramos jerked again, his hand moving convulsively against hers.
Something touched her cheek, colder this time, almost metallic. She pulled away, trying desperately to see who or what was touching her, but the room was still empty even as the shadows grew in the corners. The touch came again, and Emma whimpered.
Gabrielle turned toward her, frowning. “You must sit still, Emma. And be quiet. You’re disturbing the spirits.”
The spirits are disturbing me! Emma closed her eyes, breathing deeply, willing herself not to say anything. Maybe if she sat still Gabrielle would finish up soon.
“Spirits, we would speak with you,” Gabrielle intoned again.
No, we wouldn’t. Emma took another deep breath.
Invisible fingers tweaked her left nipple. Hard.
Emma gasped, jerking her hands away. Ramos jumped to his feet, sending his chair crashing to the floor. A moment later, the room was flooded with light again as he flipped on the switch for the chandelier.
“Why did you do that?” Gabrielle sounded aggrieved. “I was just ready to initiate contact. I could feel it.”
Initiate contact? Emma stared at her. Was it even remotely possible Gabrielle had missed all of this?
“You ruined everything.” Gab
rielle sighed. “Now we’ll have to begin all over again.”
“No,” Ramos snapped. His face was the color of parchment. “That’s enough for tonight.”
“But we were just getting started. Who knows what might have happened if we’d kept going?” Gabrielle sounded like a petulant five-year-old. “Just because there were no visible manifestations that doesn’t mean the spirits weren’t here with us.”
Emma turned toward the fireplace. The votive candles still lay on the hearthstone in front. She closed her eyes for a moment, but the candles were still there when she opened them. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“Well, I suppose this will have to do.” Gabrielle shook her head, smoothing her skirt as she stood. “I wish we’d had more time for testing, but it’s certainly atmospheric enough in here even if we didn’t get any results. I’m going back to the hotel now, Emma. Call me in the morning.” She gave them a tight smile, then turned back down the hall. Her footsteps echoed against the bare walls until the front door slammed behind her.
Emma glanced at Ramos. His face still looked pale. She wondered if hers did, too. “Are you . . . okay?” Am I?
Ramos gazed back defiantly. “Yeah. Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because . . .” she began, then stopped. Because the candles went out? Because the doors slammed? Because something groped me in the dark when I couldn’t see anything?
What if he hadn’t seen or felt anything either? What if it was just her?
“Never mind,” she muttered. “I’d better go.”
“Right.” He walked down the hall behind her, their footsteps sounding remarkably hollow in the empty spaces of the house.
At the door, she turned. “Well . . .”
“Well.”
“So, thanks. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
She paused for another moment. Surely there was something she should say. So did it touch you too? Was I the only one? What did it do to you?
Maybe not. Quit while you’re ahead, Emma. “See you,” she called as she trotted down the walk. Somehow she managed to keep herself from breaking into a run when she saw her car.
Chapter 4
Ray drank three beers before he went to bed, which wasn’t his usual nighttime routine. He wasn’t a drinking man as a rule, but then as a rule he also wasn’t a man who was groped by unseen hands in his own dining room. An evening like that required a few beers.
He’d forced himself to climb the stairs as soon as Emma Shea had jogged out the door. Two of the bedroom doors were closed, even though he’d left them open when he’d been working upstairs earlier in the day.
Wind, he told himself. An open window somewhere. Or the air-conditioning had switched on and the sudden change in pressure had caused the doors to slam and the candles to blow out.
Caused the doors to slam one at a time. Caused the candles to stop burning without a flicker, to simply extinguish themselves. Magical air-conditioning, in other words.
And then some unseen hands had grabbed his balls. That he definitely couldn’t blame on the air– conditioning. He’d like to blame it on Gabrielle DeVere, but her hands were otherwise occupied at the time.
He watched a couple of idiotic reality shows on the small television set in the kitchen while he downed beer one. He read through a copy of Sports Illustrated while downing beer two. He swallowed beer three in his bedroom, hoping it would be enough to close his eyes for the night.
He did close his eyes. It was what happened after that that really threw him.
He didn’t consider himself an imaginative man. He seldom remembered his dreams, and those he did remember seemed to concern carpentry. But his dreams after the séance were like nothing he’d ever experienced before, or at least not since he’d grown out of adolescence.
The shadowy female presence he encountered seemed willing to perform every sex act he’d ever heard of, along with quite a few that he hadn’t. And yet he never seemed to reach completion—the more sex they had, the more he needed. The endless screwing left him aching and unsatisfied. As he finally pulled himself away from her eager hands, he heard mocking female laughter echoing in his ears.
Now he sat on the front steps with predictable blue balls and an unpredictable feeling of unease deep in his gut.
Something’s not right here. Something’s very wrong—deeply wrong.
He sipped the cup of instant coffee he’d managed to make for himself before he’d come outside. The whole house felt different somehow. He didn’t want to be in there long enough to make a pot of real coffee, even though the stuff in his cup tasted so bad he felt like spitting.
Mourning doves cooed in the live oaks along the walk while a mockingbird trilled through a scale in the side yard. Sunlight spread across grass moistened by dew. It was a glorious morning, and he felt like warmed-over shit.
He heard a car pull up in front but could hardly bring himself to look up. At the moment, he couldn’t think of a single person he wanted to see.
A pair of female feet wearing black low-heeled pumps marched up his front walk. The hem of her navy blue suit hit her around an inch below the knee. Overall, she looked like someone who’d just stepped away from the convent for a quick glimpse of the outside world.
“Good morning,” said Emma Shea.
He raised his gaze to her face and narrowed his eyes. She looked almost as bad as he felt. Her blue eyes were red rimmed and her red-brown hair, usually smoothed down ruthlessly into a coil at the back of her head, ballooned around her face in unruly ringlets. Her suit jacket looked crooked, and she’d missed one of the buttons on her white silk blouse.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Ray sighed. He really hated those words. “We do?”
She nodded. “Is there more coffee inside?”
“Instant. That’s what I’ve got here.”
The corners of her mouth turned down. “That won’t do it. Where’s the nearest Starbucks?”
Ray pushed himself to his feet, tucking the coffee cup behind a front porch pillar. “Blue Star Coffee’s closer. I’ll show you the way.”
“I’ll buy.”
He didn’t argue with her. At that point getting away from the house seemed like a very good idea.
They sat at a table next to the window, maybe even the table where he’d sat with Rosie the day before. Yesterday. That had been yesterday—even though it felt like a couple of years ago. What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours . . .
Emma sipped her Coffee Maximus straight, with no cream to mitigate the bite. “What happened to us last night?”
Ray shifted in his chair. He considered pretending he had no idea what she was talking about, but all of a sudden he felt too tired for games. “I don’t know exactly. I assume it wasn’t what usually happens when your medium does her stuff.”
She shook her head. “Gabrielle is about as much an authentic medium as I’m an authentic movie star. I don’t think she even believes in it herself, except for public consumption. Plus she didn’t seem aware of any of the stuff that was going on around us. And I don’t think she could pretend to be innocent if she’d been behind what went on—she’s not that good of an actress.”
“Yeah. I noticed that.” He rubbed a hand over his face. At least the caffeine would probably kick in soon.
“So tell me what happened. The things that happened to you, that is.” Her bright blue gaze was fixed on his.
Ray sighed. He couldn’t think of any good reason not to tell her. “Your medium said some mumbo jumbo about wanting to talk to spirits and the candles went out. Some doors slammed. The candles fell on the floor.”
Emma took a swallow of coffee. “And?”
“And?”
“And did anything else happen to you personally? Did you . . . feel anything?”
He wrapped
his hands around the cup, absorbing the warmth against his palms. “I felt something. I’m not sure what it was. Something brushed my face a couple of times. Felt like . . . I don’t know. Fingers or something.”
“Just your face?”
Crap. This really, really wasn’t something he wanted to talk about with her. “No. Something grabbed me.”
“Grabbed you? Grabbed you how?”
The woman was freaking relentless. “Grabbed my balls,” he said between clenched teeth.
“That was why you jumped up. When your chair turned over and everything stopped.” She frowned.
“Yeah. It was sort of . . . unexpected.”
She nodded slowly as she took another swallow of coffee. “It was my breast,” she said after a moment.
“Pardon?”
“It grabbed my breast. It hurt. Sort of.” Her cheeks were flaming. Apparently, it wasn’t something she enjoyed talking about either.
Ray set his cup down quickly so that he wouldn’t spill it. “And you also got the touches before that?”
She nodded, gazing at her cup. “Something brushed my face. Fingers. Only they were cold.”
He blew out a breath. “What the hell?”
She raised her head to look at him again. “I don’t know. So help me, I don’t know. I know your first thought is probably that this is some kind of trick the show came up with, but I swear it’s not. Whatever happened at your house last night had nothing to do with us.”
“Except that it happened after Gabrielle DeVere had her test séance.”
She sighed. “Yeah. Except for that. Only I’d bet good money Gabrielle had nothing to do with it either. I mean, if she’d actually called up some spirits, she’d know, wouldn’t she? And it seemed like nothing happened to her. She didn’t even notice the candles.”
Ray paused, considering. “I’ve been in that house for almost a month now. Nothing like that has ever happened there before, at least not while I was around. So you’re saying it was a coincidence that it happened after DeVere held her run-through?”
Emma’s lips thinned. “Sounds pretty flimsy, doesn’t it? Only Gabrielle hasn’t really called up spirits during all the time I’ve worked with her, and that’s two years now.”
