A Babe in Ghostland

by Lisa Cach

  “Twice now—”

  “You never let things go long enough to be sure there was going to be a bad outcome. Zachariah could have led me right into that fissure, but he didn’t. I was the one who walked up to the edge,” she said. “It drew me, almost like…like a magnetic force. Or gravity. I could feel a pull that had nothing to do with any spirits.”

  “Electromagnetic forces,” Eric said. “I’ve got to go down there and get some readings.”

  “Could it have been the fissure itself that trapped Zachariah?” Megan suggested. “Maybe that pull is harder to resist if you’ve got no physical body to hold you back. Maybe it’s an enormous spiritual magnet or a sort of spiritual black hole.”

  “A vortex,” Eric said.

  Megan shook her head. “A vortex is a doorway. This is more of a sinkhole, or somehow it works as a prison that spirits not only can’t get out of, they can’t easily get in, either. Maybe that’s why Case’s mother sounded like she was such a long way off. She was shouting over the walls, so to speak, and couldn’t risk coming closer.”

  “All of which is more reason for you to put your safety first,” Case said. “Didn’t you once ask me to take you out of here if you were unable to take yourself? You sensed that you might become trapped.”

  “But I’m not trapped! Case, please, believe me. I’m a huge coward, and if I thought I might come to real harm, I’d be out of here so fast you couldn’t catch me.”

  “You can’t send her home,” Eric said, gathering up equipment. “We wouldn’t know any of this if it weren’t for her. If you want this house to ever be livable, you’ve got to let her stay. You know that.” He looked from one of them to the other. “I’m going down to the cellar. Either of you got an issue with that?”

  They both shook their heads.

  Eric made a noise. “I see how highly I rate on the concern scale.” He trundled out with his gear.

  When he was gone, Case came over to where Megan leaned on the edge of a table. He met her eyes. “Are you reluctant to leave because of our bet?”

  She felt absurdly hurt by the suggestion. “It’s not personal gain that keeps me here.”

  He touched her cheek. “It’s not?”

  She shook her head, suddenly too shy to hold his gaze.

  “What does keep you here?” he asked.

  “Pride, maybe,” she said, flashing a glance up at him. “I started this job, and I want to finish it.”

  “Pride’s never a good motive all on its own.”

  “Then there’s curiosity. And…”

  “And?

  “It’s a little embarrassing.”

  He stroked her cheek and ran his fingertip along her jawline, ending at the curve of her bottom lip. She felt the sensation of it all the way down to her sex.

  She met his eyes but didn’t have the courage to say that she didn’t want to leave because she feared he’d stop pursuing her.

  “This is the first time in a long while that I thought my ability was truly useful and might do some good. If I don’t figure out what’s going on here, I don’t know how Zachariah and any others are ever going to be free. And if they aren’t freed, this house will never be the beautiful, peaceful home you’re striving for.”

  “I see.”

  “You almost sound disappointed.”

  “I was hoping you’d say you’d miss me if you left.”

  A flush went through her, and her heart started to pound. “I—” she tried to say, but then he slid his warm palm around the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the tender spot in front of her earlobe. Her eyes half closed in pleasure.

  He bent his head down to her, and she felt the warmth of his breath. Her lips parted of their own volition, her limbs going weak.

  His lips touched hers lightly. Then again more firmly. He brushed her mouth with his own, setting her nerves alight. His other hand went to her waist, and then he was kissing her full on, and she felt herself sinking into the pleasure. Her eyes closed, and she gave herself up to it, vaguely aware of her own arms going around him, her own lips moving as directed by his.

  He pressed his leg between her thighs, and she molded herself against him, arching her back so that she could feel the pressure of his chest against her breasts. It seemed she couldn’t get close enough to him to satisfy her needs, those needs stoked ceaselessly by his mouth on hers.

  She was tingling and dazed when he finally pulled back.

  “I don’t want you to hate me later, so there’s something I should probably tell you,” he said.

  “You’re married?” she joked.

  “No. I’m buying your building.”

  She blinked at him, not understanding. “My building?”

  “The one your shop’s in.”

  She pulled away from him, shaking her head, a sick dread filling her. “No. Don’t say you are, Case, not after I told you how much it means to me.”

  “I’d already made the offer. The seller has accepted. The deal closes in three weeks.”

  “You’re going to have to get out of it!” she said in panic.

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Of course you can! Find a flaw when you inspect it. There are loopholes if you want to use them.”

  “Megan, even if you did win the bet and sold the furniture, it wouldn’t be enough for the down payment on a place like that. The mortgage would have crushed you. You weren’t being realistic.”

  “I knew what I was doing.”

  “It was a fantasy.”

  “Like everything about my life, huh? Is that what you think?”

  “You’re not the only woman to imagine she has psychic powers.”

  “Imagine! Did I imagine the name Zachariah Armstrong?”

  “All we’ve ever seen in writing were the initials Z.A. You probably came across them in the papers somewhere and filled in the full name yourself.”

  She shook her head, her understanding of their relationship shattering into pieces. “You don’t believe in me at all, do you?”

  “I believe you’re well-meaning and sexy as hell.”

  The words struck her like knives. “That’s all this has meant to you, isn’t it? Sex. You don’t care about me. You don’t like me or respect me. You just want to fuck me.”

  “Megan!”

  “You can’t deny it, can you?”

  “I do care—”

  Cold fury rose within her. “Bastard! Liar!” She slapped him.

  He grabbed her wrist, his voice going cold. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  She yanked herself free. “Don’t you ever touch me again. You’re exactly the type of man I took you for when you first walked through my door: a self-satisfied, overconfident, overgrown high school jock. I should have listened to my instincts.”

  “Not to your psychic powers?” he retorted, his face red with anger.

  “You don’t have to be psychic to know a bastard when you see one!” She spun on her heel and stalked from the room, her jaw clamped tight against furious tears. Out in the hall, she hesitated, then went out the back terrace doors into the garden. No one would hear her crying out there; no one would see her falling apart.

  She plunged down the trail into the overgrowth, stopping only when she found the white statue. She sank to the ground, and her fury turned to sadness. She wept, remembering Case telling her his stupid fairy tale; remembering the cozy intimacy of the night before as they worked together; remembering his tender kiss just minutes before.

  It had all been a lie, and she’d fallen for it. He didn’t respect her or think she was gifted. He thought she was deluded, and he only cared about his own crotch. Why hadn’t she listened to herself from the beginning and stayed away from Case Lambert?

  She thought of Antique Fancies and the bank account that she and her mother had filled with $150,000 in hopes of one day having the chance to buy the building. All those years of scrimping and saving had been for nothing. On a whim, Case had taken her dream away from her, and he didn
’t even have the grace to say he was sorry. Instead, he told her she was an idiot for having had the dream, and there she’d been, eagerly lapping up his kisses and attention. It made her stomach churn in shame and embarrassment, and she wanted to retch.

  In time, she sobbed herself out and quieted. What now? She could pack up and go home and never have to see him again.

  “Or I can win my damn furniture,” she said to the statue. “I’ll take the best in the house, and I’m not splitting the profits from the colonial table with him.” It wasn’t much of a revenge, but it beat crawling back home with her tail between her legs. She wanted to see his face when she proved him wrong about her. She wanted to hear him grovel for forgiveness.

  Well, maybe he wouldn’t grovel. But seeing him admit his error and apologize would be almost as good.

  And maybe then he’ll respect me and want me for something more than a night of passion.

  Idiot! she scolded herself for the thought. Christ, if that’s how stupid I am, then I deserve him!

  She went back to the house, surprising Eric in the hall outside the grand salon.

  “Megan, you’re still here?”

  “Why shouldn’t I be?”

  “Case said he thought you were taking off.”

  “He’d like that, wouldn’t he?” she said darkly.

  “What happened between you two?”

  “I found out what type of person he really is. He thinks I’m imagining everything I see, did you know that?”

  “He didn’t make a secret of it.” Eric touched her arm, his voice softening. “You know I’ve always believed in you. I’ve always thought you were the most amazing woman I’d ever met. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world half as special as you are.”

  The words were exactly what she needed to hear, and she felt her heart softening toward him. “Thanks, Eric. I needed that.”

  “C’mere,” he said, opening his arms.

  She hesitated but then gave in and let him hug her. His body was soft, almost feminine, making her feel that she was getting a comforting hug from someone’s grandmother.

  Maybe she and Eric could be friends, after all.

  “You need someone who understands you,” Eric said against her ear.

  But then she felt his erection forming, pressed against her thigh. She shifted, trying to break contact.

  Eric’s hold on her tightened with surprising strength, and his mouth slanted across her cheek and clamped onto her lips. She struggled in his grip and felt his hand grab the back of her head, holding her in place as he kissed her.

  “Eric, no!” she said when she could get her mouth free. She shoved at his sides but couldn’t get her arms between them to push him off. She pinched and twisted both his love handles hard, but he only held her tighter.

  “Get your hands off her!” Case roared, and the next moment Eric was torn from her and thrown halfway down the hall. Case charged after his fallen prey, but Eric stumbled to his feet, turned tail, and ran.

  “Let him go!” Megan cried.

  Case turned and stared at her, but there was no recognition in his eyes. She saw blind fury. “Did he touch you?” Case demanded.

  “You saw.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “What are you asking?” He’d seen Eric kissing her. “Of course he touched me.”

  Case’s neck muscles bulged, his eyes going wide. “I’ll kill him!” He spun on his heel and ran down the hall after Eric.

  “Case! Wait!” Megan cried, running after him. “Don’t hurt him. I’m okay!”

  Case moved with surprising swiftness, the force of his anger seeming to carry him. A sick dread of impending violence seeped through Megan, her stomach turning.

  Case outdistanced her as her legs slowed, growing heavy. Her vision blurred, her eyes unable to focus on a single point. She stopped and leaned her hand against the wall, taking deep breaths and closing her eyes.

  When she opened them, the world had changed. The house was finished, the walls papered, the floor covered in an Oriental runner.

  She heard running footsteps behind her and turned.

  Penelope Smithson, disheveled and pink-cheeked, was running toward her with a look of intense distress. Megan flattened herself against the wall, her own eyes wide with terror at being touched by this vision from the past.

  Penelope slowed to a stop beside Megan, but her gaze was forward, her lips parted.

  Megan turned to see where she was looking.

  Jacob Smithson was dragging a body down the hallway.

  Megan sucked in a gasp of air, sweat breaking out over her body. She recognized the man Smithson was dragging by the ankles: it was Zachariah. The young man’s face was bloodied, his arms trailing above his head.

  Smithson turned into the kitchen doorway, bumping Zachariah around the door frame. They were almost all the way through when Zachariah stirred, grabbing the jamb and convulsing in an obvious attempt to kick free of his captor. He cast a single desperate, imploring look in their direction, fear for his life plain in his dark eyes.

  Megan and Penelope dashed forward together, then stopped in unison as Smithson appeared in the doorway, bent over, and pounded his fist into Zachariah’s face until he lay still.

  Megan looked away and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the past was gone, and she was again in the deconstructed hallway with its string of construction lights.

  From the kitchen, she heard the distant sound of male voices raised in anger.

  Déjà vu washed over her, the past overlapping with the present. She had a sudden certainty that Case was going to beat Eric to a pulp and toss him in the crevice. Only this was the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth, and Case would surely be arrested and convicted as Jacob Smithson was not. Eric would be dead or severely hurt. All three of their lives would be forever altered.

  Penelope—where had Isabella been?—had been either helpless or unwilling to stop her father.

  Megan was neither. She gathered her strength and ran to the cellar door, rushing down the stairs with her feet barely touching the treads.

  “Stop! Stop! Case, don’t kill him!”

  They weren’t in the room. Their voices came floating up from the hole in the floor, the drain cover shoved to the side, an orange electrical cord snaking down inside. Megan threw herself onto the floor and stuck her head into the opening.

  “Case!” she screamed. “Don’t kill him! It’s the house! The house is making you do it!”

  Without waiting for an answer, she sat up and swung her legs into the opening, finding the ladder rungs and descending as swiftly as she could.

  She dropped to the dirt floor and spun round.

  A light on a tripod illuminated the room. The two men were standing several feet from each other, their stances belligerent and defensive, the air thick with testosterone. The harsh light cast stark shadows on the walls of the rough, uneven space.

  “What?” Case asked her, giving her a glance. “Kill him?”

  “Don’t! It’s the house making you do it!”

  He shook his head, his attention reverting to the object of his loathing. “I have no intention of killing him, but I’m going to beat the crap out of him.”

  “Well, don’t throw him in the crevice when you’re done.”

  “Jesus, Megan!” Eric said, edging away from the gap in the ground. “Don’t give him ideas!”

  “I’m not a sociopath,” Case said crisply, some of the anger seeming to fall away from him. “No matter how tempting it is to act like one when dealing with a slimy little bastard who richly deserves a beating.”

  Eric’s eyes narrowed. “At least I’m not a patronizing, smug, know-it-all bully who doesn’t have the wit to think before he speaks or acts and who’s been running around like a stag who smells a doe in heat.”

  Case’s eyes narrowed on Eric. “Sounds like you’re asking me to punch you in the mouth.”

  “This is my battle,” Megan said, intruding between t
hem. “Case, leave him alone.”

  “You’re defending him.”

  “Shut up and sit down, will you?”

  Case’s angry eyes focused on her, and then she saw confusion breaking across his features.

  She sighed and sat down on a rock, feeling a headache coming on. “While you two were acting like angry gorillas,” she said wearily, “I had a bit of an experience in the hallway.”

  That got their attention. “What happened?” Eric asked, just as Case asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. This was a glimpse into the past, I think, one of those ‘recorded’ hauntings I told you about, Case, and that you apparently still believe are a load of crap. But I think what was going on just now between you and Eric—and perhaps me, too—was similar enough that the recorded haunting got triggered.”

  “Go on,” Case said, skepticism thick in his voice.

  Megan explained what she had seen Smithson do to Zachariah.

  “So you see,” she finished up, “there’s no question now that Zachariah was killed and dumped in the crevice. He didn’t lie to me about that.”

  “I thought it was Isabella who was infatuated with Zachariah,” Case said. “Why was it Penelope who was disheveled and following the two men?”

  “Isabella obviously didn’t know what happened to Zachariah. Not for at least a few weeks, given that ad she placed asking about him.”

  “She may never have known,” Eric said. “Her sister may have kept it from her.”

  “Why? To protect their father?” Megan asked.

  “Maybe Penelope was jealous of her sister.”

  Megan nodded. “There’s something else I realized as I was coming down here to stop Case from killing you,” Megan said, and turned back to Case. “The memories in this house, or the ghosts, or something about it might be influencing us. Our thoughts, emotions, behaviors. We might, in some way, be playing roles that were first played by the Smithsons and Zachariah more than a hundred years ago. It seems too big a coincidence, for example, that you two should take your fight down here.”

  “I suppose that makes me Jacob?” Case asked in obvious distaste, standing up again.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t need to be as specific as that. It’s just…” She trailed off, searching for words. “It’s the emotions that may be moving us. Jealousy. Anger.” She paused and blinked. “Lust.”