“I’ve slept in that room,” Clint said, “and honestly, nothing ever happened to me.”
“I know the Lee Room like the back of my hand,” Carter teased. “It holds the fondest memories in my heart,” he told the bride with a wink.
She flushed and laughed uneasily.
“Matt,” Penny said, “There’s a cup of strong tea for you right there, end of the table.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll reheat it in a bit. I’m going to get a few things out of the caretaker’s cottage, so you two can slip on over when you want.”
“Hey, Mr. Stone, I…I don’t want to put you to any more trouble,” Roger said.
“I can’t sleep in this house!” Jeannie wailed.
“It’s no trouble,” he assured them both.
All he wanted to do right then was get out—he didn’t think he could bear to hear another of Penny’s speeches on ghosts. He allowed her, on Friday and Saturday nights, to give a “Legends of Melody House” tour, during which she liked to go on and on about various stories involving the house, and how it was rumored to be haunted by different characters, including historical figures.
He had adamantly refused to let her call it a ghost tour. But since she did attract dozens and dozens of paying tourists, people staying as diversely far away as Williamsburg, Richmond, Harpers Ferry, and even D.C., he had to allow the endeavor. She served cider, tea, cookies, and pastries in the middle of the tour, and he knew that she was right—they paid a whole lot of bills thanks to those tours. He still didn’t like them, or anything that suggested that Melody House was really haunted. However, he tolerated it all, for the sake of the house.
“Go on, Matt—we’ll keep them entertained for you,” Clint told him laconically. Matt arched a brow. Clint could be openly lascivious. He had surely enjoyed the spectacle of the bride, wrapped in the antique quilt and nothing more.
“Thanks,” Matt said dryly, and left them all to their arguments on whether there was or wasn’t a ghost.
An hour later, he was moved back into his room at the main house, and he and Penny and Roger had packed up the newlyweds, who were now happily settled in the caretaker’s cottage. Penny returned to her apartment over the stables.
Matt had barely gotten back to sleep before he heard a ringing sound. He fumbled around to turn off his alarm, but it was the phone instead. One of his officers was on the other end, anxiously urging him to get moving; they had a domestic violence situation threatening to turn explosive.
Matt hurriedly dressed, his thoughts half on the night gone by, and half on the day to come. There it was—the truth again. As his dad had once told him, when he had shivered at the sight of an old cemetery, the dead were the safest people around.
It was the living you had to watch out for.
That day was hell for Matt. He was so tired most of it, he could have toppled over. It began with the situation at the Creek-more house, old Harry threatening to kill his wife and kids, accusing her of sleeping around, claiming he didn’t even know if the kids were really his or not. Thayer had kept the situation under control until he got there. Matt had managed first to get Harry to let him in, then pretended to share most of a bottle of whiskey with him, convince him he could do DNA testing on his kids, finally get the shotgun, and haul Harry off to jail.
Somehow, he endured the rest of the week, staying in the main house, hearing the honeymooners in the pool at all hours, day and night.
Jeannie came to thank him personally for not throwing them out. Her honeymoon, between the pool and the horses and the incredible Jacuzzi in the caretaker’s house, was bliss.
She had forgotten about the ghost. She admitted that she’d had a lot to drink.
Penny kept insisting that there was a ghost, and he was being a blind fool to ignore it. Either something bad was going to happen, or—on the bright side!—were they to prove that a ghost existed, they could get so rich they’d never have to worry about the upkeep of the place again.
Finally the honeymooners departed and everything went back to normal. Then, Penny started at him again. She wanted to have a seance.
He said no.
She persisted.
He begged her to leave him alone. He had too much work on his plate at the moment.
At last, Penny backed off and contented herself with her tours. Matt thought that life was pleasantly back to routine.
Until she came to him with the letter from Adam Harrison, Harrison Investigations.
It was a month later that Clara Issy, one of the five daytime housekeepers, stopped dead in her tracks.
It was a sunny morning. The beautiful old bedroom in Melody House was as it always was. The bed she had just made with its shiny four-poster and quilted cover sat against the right wall. The polished mahogany bureau held the modern touch of the entertainment center within it. The television was off. The French doors to the balcony and the wraparound porch were ajar because it was such a nice day and the breeze was fresh and clean, causing the white draperies to stir and dance. That was natural, and she was accustomed to the smell and feel of fresh air. She loved it, and she wasn’t at all fond of the air-conditioning that ran through the summer months. No, the room itself was just as it always was.
She stood near the open French doors, jaw agape, and stared.
Because she was alone in the room, yet something else was moving. Something that drifted from the bed. Something in a hazy form, something cold, something that felt threatening.
It approached Clara. She felt something touch her face, almost like the stroke of fingers against her cheek. Very cold fingers. Dead fingers. She thought she heard a whispering. Scratchy, against her ear. Something that pleaded…or threatened.
Her hands were frozen in a vise around her broom handle. Her body felt as if it had jelled into ice. Fear raced up and down her spine.
The cold…wrapped around her. Tightly. More and more tightly.
At last, her jaw snapped shut. She broke the sensation of terror. She screamed, not a bloodcurdling sound, but one that barely held a gasp of air.
Then she found life, and ran.
Out to the second floor landing; there was no one there. Down the flight of stairs to the grand foyer, where again, the house was empty. She headed toward the second doorway to the right of the sweeping stairway. Surely, for the love of God, someone would be in the house office—Penny, a tiny bastion against anyone evil, but someone, at the least.
Clara breathed a sigh of relief. Matt was there. Bursting out the doorway before she could reach it. He was in his work uniform, but he hadn’t headed out for the station yet; it was still very early. Thank God.
He hurried toward her, as if he had heard her cry—being Matt, of course, he had heard it!—and had been preparing to rush to her rescue. Except that she had fled the room upstairs with greater speed than a greyhound. And so she was here, spurting into his arms.
“Clara! What is it?”
She was fifty-five. Twenty years older than Matt, at least. But he was Matt; solid as a rock. A tall man in his prime with a way about him that commanded respect which in turn offered her a feeling of security that allowed her to speak when her mouth was still all but completely contorted.
“I—I—quit!” she gasped out.
“Clara, what on earth?” he asked kindly, holding her at something of a distance from himself and searching out her eyes.
“Let me tell you, that bride was not crazy. There’s a ghost in that room!”
“Oh,