The Summoning

by Heather Graham

“All right,” Dunhill told him. After a moment, he added, “And thanks. For, uh, being here.”

  “You really have to thank Adam Harrison.”

  “I do. And on that ‘gut’ thing—trust me. I get it.”

  “Talk to you in the morning.”

  Dallas hung up; he was almost at the house.

  He parked the car. Anxious as he was to get to Kristi, he paused, and looked far across the square.

  The moon that night was a majestic, glowing silver orb.

  But maybe Genie had a point.

  Maybe it was just the direction the moon shone, maybe it was geography, the size of Johnson Square, the shadows created by such a fantastic glowing orb in the sky.

  But he couldn’t help but feel it; Genie had been right. Not even the glow in the sky seemed to touch the strange darkness that lurked around the distant corner and seeped onto the street, settling right around the Murphy house.

  * * *

  Being in the room was becoming torture. Kristi just kept seeing the face.

  And then she heard the sound. As if someone was in the hallway.

  As if they stood outside her door.

  She could almost feel breathing...

  Silly—it was probably Dallas. He’d come back, but now was afraid to wake her if she’d finally gone to sleep.

  She waited a few minutes, and then gave up, flying to her door and out into the hallway and over to Dallas’s door. She knocked and whispered his name.

  “Dallas?”

  There was no answer.

  She knocked harder and tried the door, but it was locked. She had a skeleton key, of course, but it was downstairs. And she didn’t need the key—if he was there, he would have answered.

  She didn’t want to go back to her room—at first, she’d wanted nothing except to escape. But now, she was very weary of her own company. And all that raced through her mind.

  Maybe Jonah would still be awake, watching sports, or reading, or even puttering around the house.

  She had no idea where Monty and Justin had gotten to, and assumed they had gone back to the courtyard, watching, as they had been doing the past few nights. If nothing else, she could go outside and wait with them.

  She smiled to herself. She now needed human contact—whether the person was alive or dead.

  The hallway felt exceptionally empty; her steps seemed loud as she hurried down the stairs.

  The back parlor was empty; Jonah had apparently gone to bed.

  She looked in the front, but there was no one there, and when she checked the kitchen, she saw they had cleaned up well—it was sparkling and ready for the next morning. She headed back out to the rear parlor, and then to the back door, looking out through the window.

  Moonlight showed the trees and the tables, more brightly than usual, and yet, by that new light, enhanced shadows seemed to be everywhere, and nothing was clear.

  For a moment, her limbs seemed to freeze.

  There was someone out there.

  A large man was at one of the courtyard tables; he seemed engrossed in something he was reading on his phone. She could see nothing of his features.

  But he saw her, and he stood, pocketing his phone, and stared at her.

  Then, he started walking toward her. Engulfed in the darkness, he seemed to be something incredibly evil, made of shadow.

  She started to back away, and then a gasped scream escaped her, for she backed into someone warm and very solid, and hands came down upon her shoulders.

  Before she could really scream, she heard Jonah’s voice at her ear, which immediately made her feel as if she had truly become a paranoid idiot.

  “Granger Knox...sitting out in the courtyard all by himself. Couldn’t spend one evening listening to music with his wife and daughter.”

  “Shush,” she warned. “He’s coming this way.”

  “And I’m out of here!” Jonah said, turning away. She heard his footsteps on the stairs; he was hurrying on up to his own room.

  Kristi opened the door and went out. “Hey,” she said to him. “I didn’t mean to bother you. You’re fine out here in the courtyard.”

  “Ah, Kristi, it’s you!” He waved.

  Outside, with her eyes adjusted to the moonlight, she could see him far more clearly. He pulled out a chair for her.

  She wondered if she would have been less unnerved by him or more so if she had seen his face clearly in the moonlight at first—he had the look of an old pit bull, face wrinkled and worn with the years, jowls long and hanging.

  “Miss Stewart—thought you were headed up for some sleep,” he said. “But, well, it’s lovely out here. Quiet. Join me?”

  She smiled and accepted the chair.

  “I couldn’t sleep. But I thought you had headed down to the riverfront.”

  “Just not in the mood, I guess. I almost went,” he said. “Wait, I did get to the riverfront, but didn’t feel like going to a club.” He grimaced. “My poor daughter and sweet little Sydney were both a bit brokenhearted, I think. People recognized Carl Brentwood on the street, and he wound up being charming for some time with his fans—and then he slipped away in a car that Claire Danson somehow conjured. He didn’t make it to the bar. Still, the rest went on! I told them not to worry about me—I was just going to walk back here.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Saw someone behind you in the house—it gave me a fright. I was going to run in and come to your rescue—and then I saw it was just Jonah.”

  “Yes, it was Jonah. But thank you—for intending to come to my rescue!”

  “Of course!”

  “So, you were just sitting out here.”

  He smiled at her and patted his pocket. “Books on a phone—imagine that, huh? I download stuff and I can read anywhere, anytime. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “I agree. What are you reading?”

  He grinned. “Savannah history, of course.”

  “Anything good?”

  He shrugged. “I was reading about the surrender of Savannah... Well, I can’t tell you anything—you’re the expert.”

  “I’m not a historian,” she said. “I just grew up here. And I really do love the city, so I take an interest. I mean, things aren’t all just perfect or anything—we have ugly bits of history, too.”

  “Like here—at McLane House.”

  She was silent.

  “Ah, Kristi, naturally, you have to believe the best of your ancestor. I was trying to see if there was some way to help you out with your theory, but...didn’t find anything, other than the fact Monty McLane definitely had the opportunity to get home, and that... Look, a lot of men would kill their wives before accepting they might have an affair with another man. And that is the way the story goes—unless you have tangible historical proof?”

  “I’m afraid I do not.”

  “Well, there you go, there you have it—and it makes for such a great story, huh? Heck, I’m in construction—don’t really know anything about this kind of thing, and I was completely wowed tonight!”

  She smiled weakly.

  “I’m surprised you hire Shelley as your medium,” he told her.

  “Oh? Why?”

  He hesitated, looking out back, toward the monuments. “Well, she says it’s just sad—she never wants to argue with you, because she understands. But she’s convinced Monty is a murderer. Oh, she’s also convinced Trinity is here—she just has to do the right thing to find her, hit the right night, touch the spirits correctly or some other kind of mumbo jumbo.”

  Kristi kept her smile plastered in place. “Well, Shelley just believes and feels what she...what she believes and feels!”

  She didn’t have to hold her false smile for long; the back door opened. In her present mood, she jumped.

  “It’s just Mr. Wicker,” Granger told her. “You
’re nervous?” he asked.

  “I guess I am. Dallas, thank you for taking Genie home.”

  “Pleasure,” he told her. To Granger he said, “Out enjoying the nice night, are you? You didn’t enjoy the band?”

  “Too many people for me,” Granger said with a shrug.

  Kristi yawned. “Well, lovely as this may be... I think that I will turn in for the night!”

  She turned, touching Dallas’s arm as she slipped by him.

  In the house, she all but ran up the stairs, refusing to even glance at the portraits.

  In her room, she paced nervously.

  It seemed like forever...

  It was a matter of minutes before she heard a soft tap at the door.

  She hurried to the door, and then thought to ask softly first, “Dallas?”

  “It’s me.” She threw open the door, ready to throw herself into his arms. She managed to hold herself back, and also tried to appear as if she hadn’t been crawling out of her own skin since he had left her.

  She stepped back, allowing him to come in.

  “Did anything...happen?” she asked him. “Did you learn anything?” she added anxiously.

  “Kristi, I just gave Genie a ride home.”

  “Right.”

  He stepped forward, slipping his arms around her and pulling her tightly to him.

  He kissed her lips. Gently. Then he looked into her eyes.

  “I spoke with Joe Dunhill, and there will be extra police presence around the area tonight.”

  She frowned. “Now? But I’m telling you, Eliza Malone is already dead. And, if the same person or people took Simon Drake, then...”

  “And if someone else stumbles upon whatever caused disappearances and deaths, that person could be in danger, too.”

  “But we have to find Eliza.”

  “Kristi, it’s illegal—even for the FBI—to blindly dig up property.”

  “But I own this property—we can dig it up all we want.”

  He smiled. “We can get some equipment out here. Geophysical tools, like ground-penetrating radar, that kind of thing.”

  “Well...can we start?”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Kristi, I have to get the equipment out here. I can get that tomorrow. I’ve talked with my tech and research people, and we’ll have a better picture of the people involved. And, as you’ve said—we can start here. In the morning.”

  He pulled her close again, smoothing down her hair.

  “But how do you stand it?” she whispered. “We—we know she’s out there.”

  “We stand it,” he said softly, “because we all do this pretty much every day, and we learn that you have to sleep and live and eat and...” He lifted her chin and smiled at her. “Make love.”

  She smiled back. “I’m just so on edge, so nervous.”

  “I can try very hard to help you relax,” he said sincerely.

  She had to smile in return, and when his mouth touched hers again, she matched him with some very hot, deep and wet kisses in return. His lips traveled down her throat, and she stepped back, sliding her fingers beneath his jacket to ease it from his body. He caught it, and then stepped back to slide his holster and gun from the small of his back, then set them down with the jacket. He looked at her again with a broad smile. He kicked off one shoe and then the other and she laughed, and she was back in his arms, struggling to kiss and touch and remove clothing all at once.

  The clothing quickly wound up strewn about the room; she realized the drapes were open because the moonlight, silver and glowing, fell upon them as they stood there, and she paused to run her hands over the sleekness of his body before moving to close the drapes. Her window looked over the courtyard, not the street—thankfully!—but they had left Granger Knox out there, and her ghosts were, in a way, parental, and she certainly had no intention of entertaining anyone with a show. She glanced out, and saw nothing but that glorious moon glow, and then quickly pulled the drapes across the window. She started to turn back to him, but he was already behind her, the fullness of his body flush against hers, and he pulled her back to him before spinning her around and finding her mouth again. They stumbled to the bed, fell upon it, and the breathless kissing all over each other’s bodies continued, and Kristi marveled that the man could make such a tender caress out of his movement one moment and such an urgent and intimate touch out of the next. She thought that she’d never imagined anyone so amazing, in bed and out, and then she wasn’t thinking at all anymore because his lips were moving over her body, moving downward, and sensation was ripping through her at a frantic pace.

  Little shivers of ecstasy spilled through her as he drew up over her again, whispering, “How am I doing?”

  “What?”

  “As a distraction...how am I doing?”

  She caught his face between her hands and pulled her to him, and she knew he was quite certain she would whisper something tender or sensual or...

  “Do shut up, Mr. Wicker,” she murmured, and kissed him. Then they were entwined together, he was within her, and she could whisper breathlessly that he was doing quite well.

  The whole world was receding, and, wait, he had actually become the world.

  Later, when they lay together, still entwined, she wasn’t anxious anymore.

  Morning would come.

  It would, in fact, she thought, come way too soon.

  11

  Dallas thought he could have stayed in bed all day; it felt so good to be there, to open his eyes and watch Kristi sleep, blond hair splayed in wild abandon over her naked back.

  But he forced himself to rise just as the sun began to peek over the roofs of the houses across the square. Gathering his clothing, jacket, gun and holster, he quickly slipped back into his own room. He’d showered and made it downstairs before anyone else was up.

  It wasn’t even six; he could call in to headquarters soon—even if Angela Hawkins was still home, she’d be ready with information for him. But he’d give his fellow Krewe of Hunters agent the courtesy of another hour of sleep, at least.

  No one was up, per se, but that didn’t mean the courtyard was empty.

  Monty and Justin—were they only flesh and blood and alive—might have been any guests at the B and B. They were seated at one of the courtyard tables, Justin with his legs casually crossed, and Monty with his elbows on the table.

  Both looked up as Dallas arrived; neither bothered to stand, but smiled.

  “Take a seat—preferably not on either of us,” Justin said.

  “Like that oaf last night,” Monty said, shaking his head.

  “Not that I think of Granger Knox as the greatest gentleman,” Dallas said, “but to be fair, he doesn’t see you.”

  “You’d think he’d have some sense of something,” Monty said.

  Dallas shrugged. “Some people do. Many people don’t. Was anyone back here last night other than Granger Knox?”

  “No, just Mr. Knox, and he is quite the odd duck,” Justin said.

  “How so?” Dallas asked.

  “I saw him come back from the riverfront, fumble around for his key—pause, and look up at the house and study it. He raised a fist to the mannequin of me, and then opened the door to the house.”

  “He was inside for a while,” Justin said, “because Monty had walked around to the back several minutes before he opened up the back door and came out here to the courtyard.”

  “Maybe he went to his room.”

  “I don’t think so. Jonah had been downstairs in the back—then I think he was in the kitchen when Knox came back here. Knox kept fiddling with his phone. He told Kristi he’d been reading a book, but I don’t think he was reading anything. He kept poking at the phone and muttering to himself. He was annoyed with something.”

  “Maybe
he’s just a jerk,” Dallas suggested.

  “And you’re an investigator!” Justin said.

  “Yes, and I have people checking on Granger Knox and his family, and everyone staying here. I’m investigating, I promise. Information on everyone is coming.”

  The two of them nodded at him solemnly. Dallas’s phone rang, and he reached into his jacket pocket, and smiled as he saw the caller ID.

  It was Angela, Jackson Crow’s wife, and with Crow, one of the original six from the first case investigated by the Krewe of Hunters.

  She was brilliant with research, able to find information that might have been impossible for anyone else to acquire. At headquarters, they now had several dozen agents—and two floors of forensics and tech and anything else that might be needed. They were almost self-contained, and their offices were separate from the main DC offices, and from Quantico, as well. They had all trained at the academy there, and many of them had worked there for years before joining the Krewe. But once a man or woman had joined the Krewe, they were at a separate and distinct facility.

  Jackson might be the official field leader, but Angela might well be described as their queen—a beloved queen at that!

  “Good morning,” he told her, glancing at the two ghosts to let them know it was business.

  They knew; they were going to watch him eagerly anyway.

  “Good morning, Dallas. Everyone all right?”

  He glanced at the ghosts.

  Was dead all right?

  “So far—we had a séance last night, and—”

  “I saw the séance.”

  “What?”

  “It’s online. I’ve watched it a few times,” Angela told him. “Who or what did Kristi Stewart see? Watching her, I’m sure she must be...talented, gifted, a seer—whichever you choose.”

  He glanced around to assure himself only the ghosts could hear. “Kristi is new to this—she just came into it, as a matter of fact, the morning I arrived in Savannah.”

  “And she’s doing okay?” Angela asked.

  “She’s remarkable. But the séance was different. She believes she saw one of the missing people—Eliza Malone, the businesswoman who disappeared two years ago. She saw Eliza’s face in the crystal ball.”