After the Midnight Hour

by Linda Randall Wisdom

  Now that he could see the room more clearly, he knew exactly where he was. The khaki-green canvas duffel bag sitting in a corner of the room was the same one he’d left there that fateful afternoon before he’d headed out to The Renegade. The stack of CDs and DVDs lying nearby were also his. For the past week he’d slowly but steadily been moving his few possessions into the aging house he’d inherited from the mother he barely remembered. Curtainless windows that obviously hadn’t been washed in years allowed little light into the room—which was probably a blessing. That way he couldn’t fully see the balls of dust covering the floor, but he noticed for the area he’d been lying in had been swept clean.

  “Hello?” His voice sounded rusty to his ears. Judging from the pain still crushing his chest, he’d hazard a good guess he had a couple of cracked ribs. He knew as long as he didn’t laugh, sneeze, cough or breathe too hard he’d be fine. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t experienced before.

  “You are awake again.”

  The Hispanic woman approaching him was the exact opposite of the angel of mercy who’d looked after him the previous night. She was dressed in a brown, shapeless, ankle-length dress that looked as if it was made from a rough material. Her waist-length, graying black hair was pulled back in a loose braid. She squatted by his prone body, surveying him with black eyes that he swore saw all the way down to his lack of underwear.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  At first, she looked as if she wouldn’t answer his question.

  “I am Maya,” she said, her voice powerful with pride of who she was.

  “So, Maya, what are you doing here?”

  “You will live,” she pronounced, not sounding all that pleased with the idea—and, he noted, evading his question.

  “Sorry I’m going to ruin your day.” He glanced past her. “So where’s your friend?”

  She ignored his question and straightened up. “Can you stand?” She held out her hands.

  With her assistance he was able to slowly rise to his feet. He hissed out a few harsh curses as the pain in his chest hit him, so hard his vision momentarily blurred. Once he could see clearly again, he took a better look at his surroundings. He considered it ironic that his attackers had deposited him in his own house. Now the question was, how did the woman get in here when he knew he kept the doors locked? And what were they doing here? He had found trash left by squatters, and teenagers who wanted some privacy, because the house hadn’t been well secured. The first thing he’d done was install heavy-duty locks on the doors and windows.

  “Mind telling me how you got in here?” he asked, feeling the breath-stealing pain of injured ribs. “But then, the idiots who dumped me here obviously got inside, so maybe the locks I installed aren’t that good, after all. If you’re here to steal, don’t worry about me. After the way they worked me over there’s no way I can fight you. Take what you want and go.” He pressed an arm against his chest as if the pressure would keep the pain away.

  “You do not have to worry about us, niño,” she said flatly. “As for you, I think you look well enough to go now.”

  Jared tried to ignore the pain that had turned into his new not so best friend.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “I don’t feel the need to hurl, I’m not seeing double and my legs can hold me upright. I’d say I feel well enough to walk around as long as there’s nothing more involved.”

  The woman’s manner was less than subtle as she looked at the open doorway, then back at him. She picked up his leather jacket, which had doubled as his pillow, and handed it to him.

  Jared started to laugh and managed to stop just in time. He knew that if he did his ribs would punish him with pain that would suck the life out of him. He thought about reminding her that they were standing inside his house and she was the uninvited visitor, but he sensed the revelation wouldn’t bother her one bit. She’d still show him the door.

  “Wow, you really have a gift for diplomacy,” he muttered, as he took one cautious step, then another. He looked around. “I’d like to thank your friend.” He wanted to do more than just thank her. He wanted to get another look at the delicate beauty, to make sure she was real and not a figment of a pain-fueled imagination. He wanted to find out her name. Most of all, he wanted to know how she’d ended up in his house.

  The woman lifted her chin in a haughty manner worthy of an ancient queen. Nostrils flared as if she’d just discovered a strange smell. “I will tell her you are all right.”

  His own nose wrinkled. He swore a faint exotic scent seemed to wrap around him. He thought he’d smelled it before, but his head still felt too muddled to give a rock solid answer.

  “Thanks for taking care of me,” he told the woman.

  “De nada.” Her gaze flickered toward the door again. There was no denying she wanted him gone now.

  Jared winced as he slowly pulled on his jacket and walked to the doorway.

  “You don’t need to come back, señor. We will be gone.” The woman spoke as if she sensed the direction of his thoughts.

  “Maybe I better explain something to you. This is my house. I live here, even if it doesn’t look like it right now. I don’t want to leave the two of you out here unprotected. If you’ll let me help you, I can make sure you have a safe place to go,” he replied earnestly. “You helped me out. Let me help you.”

  “That is not your worry, señor.” She effectively dismissed him. “We take care of ourselves.”

  Jared shook his head at the woman’s stubborn nature as he slowly made his way down the dirt drive leading to the main road. He wasn’t looking forward to the walk back to The Renegade. As he limped away, he felt the old woman’s eyes boring into his back as if she wanted to make sure he left the property. He stopped once and turned around to study the house, which now legally belonged to him.

  Thanks to the paperwork he’d been given, he knew the property had belonged to his mother, who was a descendant of Caleb Bingham, one of the founders of Sierra Vista. He’d inherited a ranch house and fifty acres of what had once been a working Thoroughbred horse ranch. Until then, he’d had no idea he was related to one of Sierra Vista’s leading citizens. He’d only known that he was the son of one of its less desirable ones.

  The lawyer also explained that Jared’s mother had stipulated that if she died before Jared’s thirtieth birthday, the land be held in trust until that date. Jared didn’t need to be told why she’d made that condition. She wanted to make sure his father wouldn’t get his hands on it. Jared knew his father would have sold the land in a heartbeat to have plenty of whiskey on hand.

  Jared would have preferred the woman had thought to take him with her years ago, instead of leaving him property now. But he knew his father only too well. His dad’s mean-as-a-snake temper meant she’d probably had to run for her life and didn’t stop to think that she was abandoning her kid to a hell on earth.

  If he believed in fate, Jared would say it was happenstance that he’d inherited the property he had visited so much as a kid. Back then, stories circulated about Caleb Bingham, that his spirit haunted the house and property, protecting his hidden treasure—and anyone old Caleb caught would be pulled down into hell. Young Jared had already considered himself in hell. Facing a frightening ghost was easier than facing his drunken old man.

  He knew little else about Caleb Bingham other than what he’d learned in school.

  The man had built the two-story ranch house in the early 1870s. Since it boasted seven bedrooms, there was no doubt he had planned on having a large family, even though he died childless, with the property passing to a relative living in the East. Surprisingly, the ranch remained pretty much intact over the years, except for small parcels being sold off from time to time by whatever descendant owned the land at the time. The remaining acreage held the house, the barn and several corrals. More property than Jared could conceive of ever utilizing.

  He knew the place held a lot of history, and not just because of the rumors of Caleb Bing
ham’s restless ghost. Local legend claimed there was a key hidden somewhere—a key that had something to do with a treasure. Specifics about the key and the treasure were never revealed, which only kept the legend living on and more than one person coming out in hopes of finding a fortune hidden somewhere on the property. So far, they’d all come up empty-handed. Jared wrote the stories off as odd ramblings from folks who wanted to sound self-important.

  The first thing Jared had done was go through the house and decide what he would do with the interior. He planned to use the parlor as a den, since he doubted he’d ever be formal enough to require a living room. He figured he could turn the study into a home office. He also had plans to update the old-fashioned kitchen, which was complete with a cast-iron, wood-burning stove. He decided this was the perfect time to tap into his vacation time and work on the renovations.

  Jared was already very familiar with the house. As a boy he’d sought out the place as a sanctuary from his abusive father. The times he’d crept in there, he’d never encountered Caleb’s ghost, but he imagined that an unseen someone watched over him the nights he’d spent in the empty building. He considered it ironic that the house he’d once considered a sanctuary was now his.

  He glanced up as a movement on the second story caught his attention. The tattered sheets hanging haphazardly in an upstairs window fluttered as if a breeze had caught them. Except there was no breeze and he could see that the window wasn’t open.

  “Maybe I’ve got a ghost, after all,” he muttered to himself. “Or Ms. Personality is making sure I’m leaving.”

  It was still early in the day, so there was no traffic as he walked down the road toward The Renegade. He made sure to walk against traffic on the dirt shoulder, so no vehicle coming around the curve could catch him unawares.

  Right now, his primary concern was retrieving his bike. He hoped the bastards that trashed him had left his ride alone. If he found one mark or scratch on his Harley, he was going to be really pissed.

  He checked his jeans and jacket pockets. He wasn’t surprised to discover his wallet had been emptied of all cash, but he was suspicious that his attackers had left behind his credit cards along with his expensive new watch and the keys to his bike.

  “They probably checked my credit limit and decided they weren’t worth lifting,” he muttered to himself, looking down at the toes of his boots kicking up clouds of dirt. “Sure, Stryker, do yourself a favor and save money by moving into the house you inherited. There’s no reason to pay rent on an apartment you only sleep in to begin with, when you have that big old house you can live in instead. What you should have remembered is that a big old house that’s been abandoned for years means serious repairs. For all you know, you’ll probably be spending the rest of your life making that place habitable.”

  He found The Renegade’s parking lot empty and silent, since the bar was closed at this hour. He looked toward the second floor, where Lea had fixed up an apartment for herself. He noticed the upstairs windows were closed and there was no sign she was awake. He headed for the rear of the building. When he rounded the corner he saw his bike parked under an overhang by the barn that housed Lea’s truck. A canvas tarp covered the motorcycle.

  He smiled as he uncovered the Harley and found it unblemished.

  “Bless you, Lea,” he murmured, digging into his jeans pocket and pulling out his keys.

  When he got back to his apartment, he’d call and thank her. He would also suggest she keep an eye out for men sporting raw knuckles from a fight—not all that rare in The Renegade—and anyone who still might be walking funny after Jared did his bit to make sure the bastard wouldn’t be fathering children anytime soon. Right now, he had something else on his mind. Well, someone else, really. The engine rumbled a well-tuned roar and he made his way out of the parking lot. He was soon on the road. The chill morning air felt good on his face as he rode down the road toward the turnoff that led to the ranch.

  Jared carefully made his way back up the dirt driveway toward the ranch house. He made a mental note to arrange to have the road graded for easier navigation. He stopped at the end of the drive to study the house before him, and the outbuildings nearby. The first thing he noticed was that, considering the two-story building’s age, it had held up pretty well, which said a lot for the craftsmanship back then, though the lack of greenery around the building gave it a sad air of abandonment. He imagined it with a fresh coat of paint slapped on the exterior, maybe a few chairs set by the front door on the wraparound porch, and lush green grass planted around the house. He even thought it might be a good idea to set up a backboard and basketball net at the rear, so he could unwind by shooting hoops.

  An unwelcome pang touched him. Jared only had to look at the house to know it was meant for a family. He easily imagined the man of the house mowing the lawn, while the wife tended a flower garden and the kids raced around.

  Instead of that picture-perfect family, the house had got him, and he wouldn’t consider himself any prize. He was a cop who didn’t trust anyone enough to have any kind of long-term relationship, a man who didn’t have any hopes of finding married bliss. Sadly, there would be no wife tending a flower garden or kids running around. There would be just him.

  For a house he had never occupied, it held a lot of memories for him. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d ridden his bicycle out here and spent the night, positive his father couldn’t find him. The elder Stryker might have had a cruel streak, but he was also leery of anything he didn’t understand. For some reason he had a superstitious streak a mile wide. All the ghost stories kept the man far away from the Diamond B property.

  The first time Jared found himself at the house he couldn’t have been more than six years old, a scared little kid who only knew he needed to get far away from his drunken angry father and his swinging fists. Night was falling as Jared stumbled upon the dark, empty house. Even then he’d known the place was reputed to be haunted, but anger coupled with fear of his dad outweighed the idea that a ghostly Caleb could drag him to hell. After that first night, Jared returned to the house anytime he needed a refuge, because he had convinced himself it was the only place he was safe.

  “Look at the bright side of living out here,” he told himself now. “You won’t have to listen to the neighbors next door when they’re fighting. You won’t have any unhappy wives calling up with the excuse they thought someone was trying to break into their apartment when their husbands aren’t home. No angry husbands accusing me of boffing their wives when they aren’t home. No listening to oversexed teenagers fooling around in the swimming pool in the middle of the night.”

  He slowly circled the building before parking his bike in the rear. He unlocked the back door and walked inside. As he passed through each room he could sense the emptiness. A couple of times he lifted his head as he caught the distinctive scent of jasmine drifting in the air. He turned around to study every shadowy corner, but he found nothing there. Yet he still had the sense he wasn’t alone, even after a thorough exploration of the house proved he was indeed the only one there.

  A quick search of the barn and outlying buildings revealed nothing more than the usual trash he was sure had been left behind by teenagers.

  “What they lack in imagination for a romantic spot, they make up for in smarts. I’ll give them credit for practicing safe sex,” he muttered to himself as he found more than a few discarded condom wrappers lying on the ground.

  Jared climbed back on his bike and headed for his apartment. Once there, he swallowed a couple of aspirin, wrapped some tape around his aching ribs, shed the rest of his clothing and fell into his bed.

  His last thought before sleep overtook him was the memory of a woman’s face and haunting violet eyes looking down on him.

  “Nice that you could join us, Stryker. I hope we didn’t interrupt anything important while you were off doing God knows what. Or did you decide to begin your vacation a few days early and forget to tell us you wouldn’t
be coming in?”

  Jared winced at Lieutenant Sam Adam’s sarcasm. The man had a tongue that could flay one of his detectives in record time. Since he was involved in filling a mug with coffee, Jared didn’t turn around until the mug was filled to the top. Right now, he was in need of a mega caffeine jolt. He’d count his wounds later.

  His superior’s gaze narrowed when he viewed his damaged face. Jared knew what he saw. He’d already seen it all in the mirror that morning when he’d tried—and failed—to shave after he took his shower.

  His face sported a beauty of a black eye, a jaw showing an explosion of black and purple and a split lower lip. He knew he wasn’t a pretty sight, and wouldn’t win any awards at a beauty pageant.

  “The good thing is they left the family jewels intact,” he said cheerfully. “Actually, I am on my vacation time now. I just stopped by to pick up a few things from my locker.”

  Lieutenant Adams’s expression didn’t change. “Interesting, Stryker. I don’t recall seeing an assault report cross my desk this morning, yet you look as if someone used you for a punching bag.”

  “You didn’t receive additional reading material because there wasn’t all that much to report. The guys who jumped me didn’t exactly leave a calling card. Plus it was out on county land.” Which meant it was under the county sheriff’s jurisdiction and not the Sierra Vista Police Department’s.

  By no trace of expression revealed the lieutenant’s opinion of the county sheriff, although Jared had heard rumors that Sam Adams once stated a blind and deaf Labrador retriever could do the job better.

  “Did you at least go for medical aid?”

  Jared shook his head. He wasn’t going to mention the two mysterious women who’d taken care of him. “Since it wasn’t anything serious, I went the self-prescribing route. After I took some aspirin, got some sleep and took a hot shower, I felt almost human again.”

  Adams narrowed his gaze. “Did you leave any damage?”