CHAPTER SIX
RAN RETURNED TO HIS SEAT IN THE LIVING ROOM. KATIE AND Jesse stood near the doorway, ready to set up their gear. Zane was outside keeping watch. Ran had left on purpose, giving Eve a chance to get comfortable with the team. She was talking to Violet, who had asked her why she continued to stay in the house when she was clearly uneasy being there.
“After my divorce,” Eve said, “I sold everything I owned to move here and start a new life. I can’t afford to move again. I’m just starting to rebuild my practice as a psychologist. Plus, the house has been in my family since the late nineteen twenties. It’s where I spent the best days of my childhood. The house holds cherished memories for me. It’s an important part of my heritage.”
“No one in your family ever mentioned anything unusual happening here?” Ran asked.
“No, and I can’t imagine why Uncle George never said anything.”
“You mentioned spending a great deal of time here as a child,” Ran said. “You didn’t notice anything unusual while you were growing up?”
“No, I . . .” Eve fell silent. “Now that you ask . . .” She frowned. “I’m not exactly sure.... At the time, it didn’t seem unusual. But now . . . considering what’s been happening, maybe it was.”
“Go on,” Ran encouraged.
“I remember when I was young, I had this invisible friend. Other kids have them. It didn’t seem odd at the time.”
“What did your friend look like?” Violet asked.
“He was a little boy, maybe four or five. We played together sometimes. It didn’t go on for long. Uncle George discouraged it, and I wanted to please him. In time, I made other friends, and I guess I just grew out of it.”
“Do you remember anything about the boy?” Violet asked. “His name, perhaps?”
Eve shook her head. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t—” She broke off, her hazel eyes widening in surprise. “Wally,” she said. “Walter, but he called himself Wally. I never knew his last name, but I . . . I remember he wore funny clothes.”
Eve closed her eyes for a moment, working to summon the memory. “Wally’s pants were more like knickers than trousers. Navy blue, ending just below the knee, and a waist-length matching jacket. And there was this little navy-blue hat with a tassel on the top. Like a miniature sailor’s suit.” Her eyes found Ran’s across the room. “Good Lord, I can’t believe I remember that.”
“We’ll check it out,” Ran said. “But if I recall my history correctly, that sounds like something that might have been worn by a child in the Victorian era.”
Eve nodded. “Yes, I think that’s right.”
“Too early to be the ghost of someone who lived in a house built in the nineteen twenties,” Jesse reminded them.
Eve’s shoulders drooped. “You’re right.”
Violet leaned forward on the sofa. “Unless something else is going on.”
Eve made no comment.
“Our capabilities change over the years,” Violet explained. “Perhaps as a child you hadn’t learned to block your perceptions yet. As you grew up, you ignored them. Now that you’re older, they’re coming back, more finely tuned than they were before. You notice things that no one in your family had the awareness to feel.”
“Or simply pretended not to notice,” Ran added.
Eve’s grateful glance moved over him and the members of the team. “Well, you’re here now,” she said. “Perhaps you can figure out what’s going on.”
With Eve’s permission, Katie and Jesse headed off to set up the cameras, audio and video recorders, temperature-sensitive instruments, and other miscellaneous gear.
Violet requested the equipment be focused in the back portion of the hall, where Eve had heard voices and had suffered such a strong physical reaction.
While Jesse and Katie worked, Zane checked in, then went back outside to wander the area around the house, continuing to ensure there were no security problems. As time slipped past, Ran took a walk through the house, including the rooms upstairs.
There was a bathroom at one end of the hall. He passed three bedrooms, all furnished with antiques, but less cluttered than downstairs. The main bedroom had its own bathroom with an old-fashioned clawfoot tub. Lovely glass perfume bottles with the names of Parisian designers—Chloé, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent—sat on the dresser.
As he crossed the bedroom to the door, his glance strayed to the pink satin comforter and throw pillows on the bed. He smiled at the feminine décor.
Eve presented a solidly professional appearance, but deep down, he had no doubt she was a very feminine woman.
It was the living room, he realized as he walked in, that continued to project an eerie disquiet, though it might have simply been the power of suggestion. It occurred to him as he glanced around that all of George St. Clair’s many possessions represented a sort of museum dedicated to the St. Clair family, as well as a showcase for all his collectibles.
Ran glanced over at Eve, who sat quietly on the burgundy settee, her hands gripped in her lap. Eve disliked clutter. So did Violet. As a sensitive, Violet felt things at a different level than most people. She felt the vibrations of energy collected over time.
Ran sat down next to Eve. “You doing okay?”
“I’m getting nervous. I think I’ll go outside for a while, clear my head before you’re ready to begin.”
“Come on.” He took her hand. “We’ll both go out.” He looked down at their joined hands and his body stirred.
Ran let go of her hand.
Outside the house, the air was chilled by a wet breeze that blew in off the ocean. “You have an office on the property?” Ran asked.
“Yes, it’s next to the garage. It was added a few years back.”
“No voices? Nothing like that?”
“No.” Eve wrapped her arms around herself against the chill. It was dark out, just a sliver of moon showing through the clouds.
Ran draped his jacket around her shoulders. “We should probably go back inside,” he said.
Eve nodded. “I’m ready.” She looked up at him, her hazel eyes green now and crystal clear. “I don’t like the feeling I’m getting in there. I’m glad you’re here.”
The words touched him. There was something about Eve St. Clair that drew him, an inner light that seemed to shine through the darkness around her. Perhaps it was the reason the energy in the house was attracted to her. The reason he had been drawn to her since the first time he had spoken to her on the FaceTime call.
“Be interesting to know what Zane found out about the history of the house,” Ran said as they walked back inside. The air felt overly warm in the entry after being out in the cold, and there was a heaviness in the atmosphere he hadn’t noticed before.
Too many things, Violet would say. Too many memories attached to too many objects.
“I asked Zane to wait until we were finished before he gives us his findings,” Ran said. “Violet prefers it that way.”
Ran felt the opposite, that knowing as much as possible about the past gave him an advantage.
Katie walked toward where they stood in the entry. “Everything’s ready.”
“We can do this two ways,” Ran said to Eve. “You can stay out of it and let Violet do the work by herself. Or you can join us, watch things unfold. The choice is yours.”
“I need to be there,” Eve said without hesitation.
Ran nodded. He had guessed that would be her reply. Jesse had positioned the equipment along both sides of the hallway and aimed some of it up the stairs. He’d placed one of the dining chairs in the hallway farther down the corridor facing the rear of the house. Violet took that chair.
A few feet behind her, Jesse set chairs for Eve and Ran. Katie and Jesse were busy adjusting the cameras and equipment.
“One thing you need to know,” Ran said, taking the seat beside her. “Not all ghosts are spirits, but all spirits are ghosts.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ghosts were once in human form. Spirits, who were also once in human form, may be a type of energy, something invisible that can express feelings or sensations.”
“You mean they can project their anger or despair, things like that?”
“That’s right. And sensations like heat or cold, pain, pressure, touch. Spirits may have the ability to be visible, but they may not want to be seen.”
“Maybe that’s why I haven’t actually seen anything.”
“Yet.”
“Oh, dear, I’m getting even more nervous.” She glanced down the hallway past where Violet sat a few feet in front of them. “So what do we do now?”
“Now we wait,” Ran said. It was the hardest part of the investigation. Waiting. Waiting. And more waiting. Sometimes nothing happened all night. Or ever. Other times, the air seemed to fill with sensations so strong, everyone could feel them.
Jesse turned off the lamps in the living room, leaving the house in darkness, then turned on the infrared lights, filling the hall with a dull, eerie red.
Everything was ready.
All they needed now was for Violet to find a connection with whatever phantoms might wish to reach out to her from the Other Side.
* * *
Eve checked her wristwatch. Two hours had passed with only a break here and there. As time dragged and the house grew darker, quieter, Eve’s nerves continued to build. Jesse changed the lighting, and the hallway went from foggy red to bilious green.
Eve blinked.
“Night vision,” Ran said to her quietly.
Katie adjusted her camera to handle the difference in the light and sat down in the chair she had dragged over next to her lens half an hour ago when her feet started hurting.
Periodically, Violet tried calling to the spirit, or spirits, speaking quietly, reaching out, hoping they would answer. Finally, discouraged, she got up and moved around, heading first into the living room, then the dining room, then turning around and walking past her chair, farther down the hall toward the kitchen.
Violet had almost reached the kitchen door when the sound of breaking glass shattered the quiet. Eve jumped, and her heart started pounding. Turning, she saw the blue flowerpot near the front door had crashed to the floor and broken into a dozen pieces.
Her gaze went to Ran. “What . . . what’s going on?”
Ran reached over and took hold of her hand. The warmth seeped into her, and her heartbeat steadied.
“Let’s wait and see,” he said softly.
As Katie and Jesse quietly checked their equipment, Eve heard the sound of approaching footsteps. The noise rose into the thunder of a dozen running feet. Not adults. More like children. She prayed Ran and Violet could hear them, too. She wanted to ask, but her mouth was too dry to speak.
Eve started to tremble. Ran’s big hand squeezed hers. Then she heard them, two men arguing, both of them angry. She didn’t realize she had risen from her chair.
“What do you want?” she heard herself ask. “Why are you doing this?”
Icy air enveloped the hallway. Eve felt it in every muscle, bone, and joint. Katie made a sound in her throat. Jesse went to work on the temperature recording device.
The brass chandelier hanging in the entry began to sway, moving back and forth. She saw the red light on the camera go on and knew it was running. Eve tried to imagine what, if anything, would appear on the video recording.
Violet returned to her chair a few feet in front of Eve. “Let us help you,” she said.
Eve felt the cold as it deepened, grew icy, seemed to envelop her. “What . . . what do you want?” she asked again, still standing. A dense, thick pressure seemed to surround her, pressing so hard on her chest it was difficult to breathe.
Make! Them! Leave! The harsh demand was slightly muffled but loud enough to make out the words. Eve started to tremble. She felt Ran’s hand wrap around her arm, urging her back down in her seat.
“We just want to help you,” Violet said, but whatever it was seemed focused on Eve.
You!
There was such hostility, Eve gasped for breath. She couldn’t get enough air, and the room began to spin. A little sound came from her throat as she swayed on her feet, and her wild gaze went to Ran.
“That’s enough!” he shouted, shooting to his feet. “Hit the lights!”
Jesse flipped on the hall light, and Katie turned on the lights in the brass chandelier in the entry. The bright illumination after the eerie red jolted Eve from what felt almost like a trance. She sucked in a badly needed breath of air.
Ran’s arm slid around her waist to steady her, and Eve leaned back against him for support.
“Pack it up,” Ran said to Jesse. “We’re done for the night. Put everything back where it belongs.”
“Man, that was something,” Jesse said, grinning.
“I can’t wait to go through what I caught on camera,” Katie said.
Eve looked up at Ran, his warmth easing some of the tightness in her chest. “Do you . . . do you think we’ll actually be able to see something?”
“I don’t know what we’ll get,” Katie replied. “I’ve got hours of video to go through. With any luck, I’ll find something.” The pretty blonde went back into the hall to take her camera off the tripod and pack it away.
With the lights back on inside the house, a quick rap came at the door and Zane walked in, a gust of air trailing in his wake. For a moment his glance went to the broken blue pot spilling dirt on the floor. He frowned but didn’t ask how it wound up broken.
“Looks like you’re finished in here,” Zane said.
“For tonight,” Ran said.
Eve’s gaze went to his. Ran and his team were planning to come back. Eve wasn’t sure she could handle it. Then again, aside from giving up her home, what other choice did she have?