Heather Graham - The Séance

Christina became aware of the deep, rich voice at the same time as she felt the chilling discomfort of the ground beneath her.

The sun was rising, she realized, feeling completely disoriented.

“Christie?”

She blinked. The sun created a haze as it burned off the last of the fog, so she blinked again, turning her head slightly to make out someone standing above her. For a moment she felt a resurgence of fear. But the sunlight was bright, and when she blinked a third time, her vision cleared and she finally saw who was standing there.

Jed Braden.

He hunkered down by her side.

“Are you all right?” His tone was anxious, harsh.

She realized that she was lying on her lawn and frowned.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded anxiously, his hands on her shoulders, his face close, his features tense.

“No, I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”

She saw relief fill his face.

“Fine? Really?”

“Absolutely. I swear it.”

“Thank God you’re alive,” he murmured.

She struggled to rise up on her elbows. “I guess I…fell asleep.”

“You’re joking, right?” he said. His voice hardened to a sharper edge. “You told me you were smart, remember? You said you didn’t do stupid things.”

She stared at him. She must have had a nightmare. She couldn’t possibly have seen the ghost of Beau Kidd. There in the light of day, the idea was just too ridiculous. But she really was lying on the grass, so she really had run out of the house. And she had run because someone had been there. Hadn’t he?

She blurted the words without thinking. “There was someone in my house.”

Jed stared at her, slowly arching a brow. “Someone was in your house?” He sounded both concerned and doubtful.

“Yes.”

Anxiety tightened his features. “So someone broke in and chased you out, then…forced you to sleep on the ground?”

She stared at him. “I’m telling you, there was a man at the foot of my bed.”

“But you’re also telling me you weren’t attacked, right?”

“No. He was just…there.”

“What was he doing?”

“Staring at me. I…felt him there, opened my eyes and saw him, then jumped up and ran out,” she explained.

“You locked up, right? You made sure you locked up after everyone left?”

He stood then, and reached down to help her to her feet. He was in jeans, a knit polo shirt and a casual suede jacket, towering and at ease. “Christina, usually people run somewhere when they’re running away from danger. They don’t just curl up and go to sleep on the front lawn.”

“I didn’t just curl up and go to sleep!” she flashed angrily.

“Oh?”

“Look, I’m not kidding.”

“Christie, bad things are happening,” he said softly, dark eyes on her like onyx. “This is no time to cry wolf.”

“I would never do that,” she said, her temper growing, her tone an aggrieved growl.

“All right, so exactly what happened?”

“I came running out here and…”

“And?”

“And I’m not sure.”

His voice went very soft then. “You’re sure you weren’t molested in any way?”

Was she? She’d passed out cold. But she hadn’t been assaulted or anything. She was certain of it.

“No. I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t even touched,” she murmured.

“Okay, so this man broke into your house to stare at you and then did…what when you ran out? Ransacked the place?”

No…somehow he moved faster than I did. He tapped me on the shoulder and scared me so badly I fainted. But she could hardly say that.

She lowered her head, lashes falling, flushing. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, let’s take a look around, huh?” He strode toward the house. For a moment she stood watching him; then she hurried after him.

“Jed, what are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.

“I came over to have coffee with Ana, and then I saw you lying out here.” He motioned for her to stay on the porch, his face wearing a stern mask of warning.

“He could still be here,” he said, and it made sense—except that she knew he didn’t believe her that anyone had been there in the first place.

But she knew he didn’t dare ignore her. He might think that she was crazy, that she’d had too much to drink while playing with the occult, but there was a killer in the area, and he couldn’t take chances.

“I think I’d be safer with you,” she called as he disappeared into the house. “In all those slasher movies, when the guy goes off and leaves the girl she ends up dead!”

There was no answer.

She stood nervously on the porch, feeling like a fool. Despite the fact that this was Florida, autumn was well on the way, and she was chilled, standing there in her damp cotton nightgown and bare feet.

“Jed?”

There was still no answer. She looked around, since there was nothing else to do. The day was coming on nicely. By midafternoon, it would be hot. The sky was crystal-blue now, but no doubt this afternoon the thunderclouds would come rolling through.

Jed returned at last, startling her out of her reverie as he stepped outside and shook his head. “Nothing. There’s no one in there now.”

She let out a long breath. “Jed, it was real. He was real. I opened my eyes, and I saw a man standing at the foot of my bed.”

“We’ll walk through the house together,” he told her, the expression in his dark eyes an enigma. “You can see if anything is out of place.”

She followed him into the house. “Upstairs first?” he suggested.

Upstairs, the rooms that her family had claimed in earlier days were empty and undisturbed. Even in her bedroom, everything looked normal. The sheets were tossed back, as they had been when she bolted, but everything else looked just as she had left it.

“Anything?” Jed asked.

She shook her head.

He stared at her. “You and Ana shouldn’t have been playing with that stupid Ouija board.”

“Oh, so now you believe in Ouija boards?” she said.

“No. But I do believe in the power of suggestion.”

They traipsed downstairs. The kitchen was tidy, thanks to her efforts the night before. There was a last garbage bag waiting to go out, but that was it.

In the parlor, the boxes remained where they had been.

Too bad I don’t have a ghost who wants to unpack for me, she thought.

No. She didn’t have a ghost at all. Besides, if anyone was haunting this place, it would be Gran, just as they’d said last night. And she would be a stern but kindly ghost.

But of course there were no such things as ghosts, she told herself.

“So has anything been stolen?” Jed asked. “Or even moved?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

She couldn’t help but wish that her hair wasn’t sporting blades of grass, and that her cotton sleep shirt wasn’t damp and hugging her uncomfortably.

“The silver isn’t missing?” There was a dry note in his voice, she noticed.

“No,” she said, increasingly upset.

Looking more disturbed than amused, he said, “Christie, if someone really had been in the house, either something would be missing or you would have been followed out and attacked on the lawn.”

She glanced around the parlor, and then she frowned.

The Ouija board.

It had been moved; she was certain of it.

She had set it on top of some other boxes when they had finished with it the night before, but now…

Now it was back in the center of the floor.

“That moved,” she said suddenly.

“What?” Jed asked.

“The Ouija board.”

He groaned.

“I’m serious!”

He was so silent that she could have sworn she could hear every breath either one of them took and even their heartbeats.