The Haunting of Josie Read online

  Josie was putting a pot on the stove and didn’t look at him. “I’m having soup, I think. Would you like some?”

  Not about to pass up any invitation, he said, “I’d love some, thanks.”

  “Then why don’t you take your groceries over and put them away, and by the time you get back, the soup should be ready,” she suggested.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Josie held the door for him, then stood there watching until he vanished into the cottage. She closed the door and began opening cans of thick, rich soup.

  It had turned into a good day for soup, gray and dreary with the temperature chilly enough to make things miserable without being cold enough for snow or sleet…and why had she invited Marc for a belated lunch?

  As a tacit apology, dammit.

  The methodical task of shopping had calmed her somewhat, leaving her guiltily conscious of having overreacted to his skepticism. After all, she’d realized, it was a ghost they’d been talking about, something that was, by definition, a thing difficult to believe—even if you saw it with your own eyes. To be perfectly honest, she admitted reluctantly, if he had been the one to tell her he’d seen a ghost, she probably would have been a bit skeptical herself.

  More than a bit, actually.

  She couldn’t throw stones. Besides that, what did it matter? So he didn’t believe she’d really seen a ghost—so what? She probably hadn’t seen it. She’d been tired, the upstairs hall had been shadowy, and he’d looked like Marc because Marc was on her mind, not because what she’d seen was—or had been—Luke Westbrook….

  Josie shook her head and put the coffee on, and then began assembling ingredients for sandwiches while the soup bubbled. And even if she had seen a real ghost—so what? It was certainly no big deal. In seeing a ghost, she had joined the ranks of those who had experienced some paranormal encounter, without rhyme or reason, probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and there was no reason to fret about it.

  But she couldn’t help fretting, because the circumstances struck her as odd. Marc’s reaction told her that the house didn’t have the reputation of being haunted, and one would wonder why Luke Westbrook chose to pop up now, fifty years after his death.

  Unless…he had appeared before but only at specific times during which the house happened to be empty. Like maybe…the anniversary of his death? Wasn’t that supposedly a reason ghosts appeared? He’d suffered a violent death, even if self-inflicted, and perhaps the anniversary of that death demanded his presence in the world of the living. If this place had mostly been used as a summer house, then it was possible no one had been in residence at this time of year, and if Luke Westbrook had died in the fall…

  When Marc knocked on the door a few minutes later, she opened it and immediately asked, “When did Luke Westbrook die? The month and day, I mean.”

  Without a blink, Marc replied, “April fifteenth. I’ve always remembered because of taxes.”

  Discouraged, Josie retreated to the stove to stir the soup.

  “I thought of that too,” Marc said as he leaned back against the breakfast bar.

  “Thought of what?” she murmured, self-conscious.

  “Why Luke might suddenly have appeared now after all these years.”

  She turned her head and eyed him. “You don’t believe he did appear.”

  Marc smiled faintly. “I’m trying to be open-minded about it. Look, Josie, I’ve never believed in ghosts. But I believe you believe you saw something last night. So…I’ve been thinking about it. As far as I know, he’s never appeared in the house at all in fifty years, and even though the place hasn’t been occupied steadily, there have been people here most summers and even a few winters.”

  Sighing, Josie said, “Pour yourself some coffee and have a seat. The soup’s done.”

  Marc fixed coffee for them both and set the cups on the bar, where a plate of sandwiches covered by a napkin waited. Josie dished up the soup, and they ate sitting at right angles to each other at the bar. For a while neither said anything beyond the normal pleasantries of commenting on how good the soup was or requesting that the salt be passed, but when they were finishing up the meal, Marc spoke thoughtfully.

  “Have you ever had an experience with the paranormal? Before last night, I mean.”

  “I’m not even unusually intuitive,” she replied, glad that their careful politeness with each other had passed. “You know that experiment that’s supposed to test psychic ability—the one with the cards with all the symbols on them?”

  “Square, circle, wavy lines—like that?”

  “Right. In college, some friends and I duplicated that experiment and tested each other. My score was well below what I should have guessed right out of sheer dumb luck. I wasn’t even as good as the law of averages.”

  Marc sipped his coffee, then mused, “I seem to remember reading somewhere that an unusually low score on that test might actually indicate psychic ability.”

  “Really?” Josie thought about it, then shook her head. “In my case, I doubt that’s true. I haven’t even had a glimmer of anything paranormal in my life. Not even lucky hunches or expecting the phone to ring before it does.”

  “So why would the ghost of my ancestor suddenly appear before you?” Marc kept his voice thoughtful, considering, and made certain there was no hint of disbelief in his tone.

  “Beats the hell out of me. Since I’m obviously not psychic, it isn’t because I’m sensitive to the paranormal. The only connection I have to him is the fact that I’m here in his house, and I don’t even know much about him beyond the fact that he wrote books I happen to enjoy reading. This isn’t the anniversary of his death.” She brooded. “What about his birth date?”

  Marc half closed his eyes in thought. “Ummm. July, I think. Around the fourth.”

  “Scratch that.” Josie sipped her coffee and continued to brood. “I don’t suppose you knocked out any walls or unsealed any rooms while you were renovating?”

  Startled, Marc said, “Definitely no sealed rooms. But even if we had found one—he died in the front parlor, remember? And he’s buried in the family plot between here and Richmond. There’s no question about either of those facts. So his—his spirit could hardly have been trapped here in the house by some physical barrier, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “For somebody who doesn’t believe in ghosts,” she noted neutrally, “you seem to know all about them.”

  He shook his head. “When I was a kid, as I told you, my cousins and I used to hope this place was haunted, and we often scared ourselves silly telling stories. I also have a good friend with a wide range of interests who happened to get on a paranormal kick a few years ago, and he told me a few things.”

  “Things you didn’t believe?”

  “Well, eventually he invited me to attend a séance he held one Halloween night. After that, I sort of took everything he said with a grain of disbelief.”

  Solemn, Josie said, “I gather the spirits weren’t in a talkative mood?”

  “Apparently.” Marc had never quite gotten over the notion that his friend had arranged the whole damn thing just to pull his leg, but Tucker swore…“So, anyway, I’ve picked up a few of the most widely accepted precepts of haunting. Like the importance of anniversaries and the significance of sealed rooms. But neither of those seems to apply here.”

  Josie shook her head. “And we still come back to why now. Fifty years since his death…and why now does he suddenly appear? Look, as far as I can see, only two things are different about the house at the moment. You renovated recently, and I moved in. I don’t see how it could be me—so it has to be something that was done to the house. Don’t you think?”

  Whether or not he believed in ghosts, Marc had always enjoyed puzzles, and this was a good one. “Well, I have to admit I don’t see another possibility, at least not so far. But the renovations were pretty basic, you know. The general structure of the house wasn’t changed. The kitchen was redone, expanded, but the
extra space came from a large pantry and closet that were unnecessary. New heating and updated wiring, so there was some work done in the walls—but if the workmen found anything, they didn’t let me know about it.

  “The chimneys were swept, fireplaces sandblasted. The floors were refinished, and a lot of the woodwork stripped and refinished. New windows and shingles. Paint. That’s about it.”

  “Is the furniture original?” Josie asked.

  “You mean from the forties? Not much of it, no. Some of the small tables, I think. That settee in the side parlor, and the secretary in the front parlor, I’m pretty sure. Oh—and everything in the largest bedroom.”

  Her bedroom. “You mean all that stuff belonged to Luke?”

  “Yeah, it was his bedroom. The furniture was really good—solid and heavy, well-made—so it’s lasted.”

  “Maybe that was why he was holding up his hand,” Josie noted wryly. “Telling me to get out of his bedroom.”

  Marc frowned. “Was he commanding—or asking? You said he held his hand out as if he wanted something of you.”

  She thought about it, then nodded. “Asking. At least that’s the way it seemed to me. It was almost…pleading, that gesture. And there was something about his expression that really got to me. He seemed so anxious, so troubled about something.”

  “But we don’t know what that something is.”

  “No, we don’t.” Josie slid off her stool and went to open the dishwasher. “And unless I find some ghostly writing on a mirror somewhere, or some other hint to explain what’s going on, I don’t see how we can know.”

  Marc got up to help clear away the remains of their meal, and for a little while they were silent, both absently saying hello to Pendragon when the cat leaped up on a stool and greeted them politely.

  Then Marc said, “I wouldn’t blame you a bit if you were uneasy about staying here now. Are you?”

  Josie shrugged. “No, I don’t think so. It was definitely a spooky experience, but I’m not afraid anything’s going to happen to me. I just wish I could figure out why I saw him, and what he wants of me.”

  “These Westbrook men,” Marc said lightly, as if it didn’t mean anything. “Appearing suddenly in your life and…demanding something of you. Maybe you just fascinate us.”

  “You haven’t demanded anything,” she heard herself say in an amazingly casual tone.

  “I don’t want to. To demand, that is. But I am glad you’ve appeared suddenly in my life.”

  Josie tamed the leap of her heart, and as she closed the loaded dishwasher with a firm hand, she managed to keep her voice dry and calm. “Luke’s dead and you’re bored—that might account for it. You’ve both been alone too long.”

  “I can’t argue with your assessment of him,” Marc said, “but I will defend myself. Bored I have certainly been, but nobody’s ever accused me of not knowing my own mind.”

  Josie wished the cleaning-up hadn’t gone so fast; she badly needed something to do with her hands. Grabbing a dishrag, she began wiping the counter. “Even a smart man might be driven to do something dumb if he’d spent too much time alone,” she observed in a determinedly offhand tone.

  “That might well be true. But I haven’t spent too much time alone; I have several friends who’ve visited regularly, and I’ve been fairly well occupied—no matter how pitiful I sounded when you first arrived. I haven’t been just sitting around waiting to pounce on the first attractive female who happened to come my way, you know.”

  His wry tone made Josie abandon her dishrag and turn to face him. They were about three feet apart, with him leaning casually against the bar and her with her back to the counter near the sink. She was very, very conscious of that space between them, and she had the odd notion that he wanted to touch her and yet had made up his mind not to.

  “We were talking about the ghost,” she said.

  “We’ve exhausted that subject for the time being,” Marc said. “Now we’re talking about us.”

  “There is no us. You’re just bored, and—”

  “Stop selling yourself short, Josie. This has nothing to do with me acting out of boredom—a thing I generally don’t do, by the way. I’m also not in the habit of moving so fast when I find myself interested in a woman.”

  “Too fast,” she blurted. “You’re moving too fast.”

  “I know,” he said unexpectedly. His smile was crooked. “I don’t want to scare you off, believe me. I just…had to tell you that much at least. I don’t want you to think—as you obviously do—that all I want is an amusing little flirtation to while away the time until I go back to work. I admit I’m not thinking much beyond getting to know you, but I definitely want to do that.”

  Very carefully, Josie said, “I came out here—specifically looked for and picked a house in the middle of nowhere—so that I could be alone to try and write. Without interruptions or…distractions.”

  “You know what they say about the best-laid plans,” he murmured. Then he sighed and shrugged a little. “In another two weeks, I’ll be back at work, and probably not even out here except on weekends. I’ll try not to make a nuisance of myself, really. That is—if you’ll occasionally take pity and spend a little time with me?”

  Josie frowned suddenly. “You don’t do humble very well.”

  His wistful expression melted into amusement. “Bear with me, it’s a new emotion in my life.”

  She couldn’t help but be a little amused, even though she felt decidedly wary of him and definitely unsure of her own emotions about a possible involvement with him. For nearly ten years all her energy and attention had been focused on the task she’d set for herself; she hadn’t even considered what she would do after it was all over, what direction her life might take.

  What she did know for sure, what she had always known, was that she couldn’t allow anything—or anyone—to distract her or interfere with her plans. There was no room in her life right now for anything else. But she couldn’t explain all that to Marc, and before she could frame the words to create some sort of delay to give herself time to think, he was speaking again in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “There’s no hurry, of course. You’re still settling in here, and I won’t be a hundred percent until after this cast comes off. We have plenty of time.”

  “Marc—”

  “Plenty of time,” he repeated. “Time to get to know each other, to talk. About the ghost of my ancestor, for instance, and why he’s picked here and now for a visit. Which reminds me…” He stepped to the counter where Josie had left a pencil and notepad, and wrote something a bit awkwardly with his right hand. “The phone number at the cottage. In case old Luke decides to rattle a few chains in the middle of the night.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured, deciding to accept the implicit offer neutrally.

  “No, I should be saying that. Thanks for the shopping and the lunch.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Relieved that he was going, because she needed time alone to think about this, Josie followed him to the back door.

  Halfway out, he paused and looked back past Josie at the cat sitting silently on one of the barstools. Almost hesitantly, he said, “Have you noticed anything…odd…about Pendragon? I mean—has he done anything especially uncatlike?”

  Puzzled, Josie shook her head. “No, not that I’ve seen. He’s been pretty catlike, on the whole.”

  “Oh.” Marc smiled. “Of course. Well…thanks again. See you later.”

  Josie watched him across the garden, then shut the door and looked at Pendragon. “Now, what was that all about?”

  Pendragon yawned and then began to purr. Loudly.

  The remainder of the afternoon and evening passed uneventfully for Josie. She continued to settle in and get organized, familiarizing herself with the house and putting away her belongings so she could begin to feel at home. She found that she wasn’t at all nervous, just as she’d told Marc, and even after darkness fell and the rain began coming down steadily, she found her sur
roundings more cozy than eerie.

  She was not disturbed by another ghostly visitation, and Pendragon’s key stayed where she’d rehung it on the hook by the cellar door. As for the black cat, he remained companionable and definitely catlike, doing nothing at all unusual except hiding his catnip mouse underneath her pillow and burrowing to find it in the middle of the night.

  Friday dawned gray and wet. It continued to rain steadily, discouraging any outdoor activities, and Josie was more than content to remain inside. She kept busy, reluctant to think too much about Marc and what he’d said, even though she couldn’t seem to push him entirely out of her mind.

  It was better not to think about him, she decided. Better to think about other things, even things she knew only too well would be painful.

  She approached her task in the front parlor at last and spent most of the day in there getting organized. Her laptop computer was plugged in, its batteries charging; reference materials were unpacked and placed on the shelves of the secretary; and a stack of pristine legal pads as well as new boxes of sharpened pencils and the brand of pens she favored were on a table beside the comfortable sofa where she expected to do most of the work prior to the actual writing.

  Josie put all the file boxes within reach of the sofa, wondering how long it would take her merely to organize all the information they contained into the most workable—and convincing—sequence of events. There was so much. Letters, notes, police reports and records, all the paperwork documenting investigations by arson experts and the insurance companies involved—and that was only part of it.

  She didn’t actually begin work, preferring to put that off at least another day, but Josie couldn’t help sitting down just a minute and opening one file folder she was only too familiar with. Inside, yellowed and faded, its creases so worn they were practically disintegrating, was the entire front page of a major newspaper, dated twenty years before.

  She didn’t bother to unfold it. The picture and headline were enough. Even after so many years, after so much time spent staring at this, Josie felt the shock of it, the enormity of what had happened. The photo of a burning hotel was all too clear, the horror of helpless firemen and onlookers obvious.