CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

AFTER LOGAN LEFT, Brielle and Robert tried to get Presley’s mind off Del Vecchio by having her help them do research on the past residents of the haunted house they’d gone to the night before in Delhi. She wasn’t sure why the information was important, but they said it would be helpful when it came to exorcising the ghost later. She figured it was more likely something to try to keep her occupied. She was grateful for their effort but could only read through so many old tax records and newspaper archives before she felt like she was going cross-eyed. Sighing, she shoved aside the folder she’d been looking at.

“Okay, I’m going to head home and wait for Logan to call,” she said.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Brielle asked.

Presley shook her head. “Thanks, but I don’t want to put you to any trouble. I’ll be fine.”

At least she thought she’d be fine. But by the time she got to her sister’s place a half hour later, she wished she’d taken Brielle up on her offer. Even though the building complex probably had hundreds of people in it, she felt like she was alone in the quiet apartment.

“Stop being such a scaredy-cat,” she muttered to herself.

Changing out of her clothes, she made some tea, then sat down with her laptop and tried to lose herself in her journal. It worked for a little while, but the moment the sun went down, she got nervous again. Every time someone slammed a door or honked a car horn, she almost jumped out of her chair. It didn’t help that she was writing out the details of what she’d felt when she saw Del Vecchio on the front page of that newspaper. Just the thought of it was almost enough to make her hyperventilate.

For the hundredth time in the past few hours, she wondered why she hadn’t told Logan and the rest of Paranormal Investigations Unlimited that she’d been seeing ghosts almost nightly since waking up in the hospital. Maybe they would have been more likely to believe her story. Because she was pretty sure none of them did right now.

But she knew if she’d brought up that detail—even to people who looked for ghosts for a living—it would have made her seem even more hysterical than she appeared already. No, she needed them to believe her first and help her prove Del Vecchio was back. Then she’d tell them everything.

Deciding she should write about something else, like maybe the work she’d been doing with Brielle, Presley scrolled down to a new page. She’d written the entry heading and was about to start typing when the screen suddenly went black. Frowning, she checked the power button and saw that the little blue light was still on. That was odd. Then again, the computer was a few years old. Praying it hadn’t picked now to quit on her, she moved her finger back and forth over the touchpad hoping to coax her laptop back to life when she saw Del Vecchio’s reflection suddenly appear in the screen.

Letting out a scream, she whirled around in her chair, expecting to see the psycho killer’s ghost standing behind her, but there was nothing there. Telling herself she was imagining things, she turned back to her laptop. Whatever glitch had made the computer act weird must have been gone because her word processing program was back up, the blinking cursor right where she’d left it.

Sighing, she leaned forward to start typing only to freeze when words suddenly began to appear on the screen of their own accord. Presley stared at them in horror.

 

Time to die, bitch.

 

Oh, crap. Del Vecchio was in the apartment with her.

She leaped to her feet and backed away from the computer, terrified the bastard’s ghost was going to jump out of it and grab her. She probably would have backed all the way to the door if she hadn’t smacked into something. Startled, she turned around to see what she’d bumped into and was shocked to see Del Vecchio standing there.

He looked as frightening as he had that night in her apartment, only now he had a set of ugly scars running down the side of his face from where she had scratched him. For some reason, they made him seem even more menacing. It was the look in his eyes that terrified her the most, though. They were cold and black and lifeless as they regarded her. Something told her if he got his hands on her this time, there would be no escape.

Presley swallowed hard. Yeah, well she wasn’t going down without a fight.

She darted a glance at the door, trying to gauge the distance between her and escape, when the lights suddenly flickered, then went off. She went rigid, afraid to so much as even breathe. Even more terrified than before, she strained her ears, listening for some sound in the darkness that would tell her where Del Vecchio was. But all she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding.

Then she felt a cool breeze against her skin, followed by the unmistakable ice cold feel of a knife blade graze her upper arm. She gasped and jerked away, instinctively reaching up to see if he’d cut her. She didn’t feel any blood but knew that was probably only a momentary respite. He was toying with her exactly as he had that night in her apartment. He would tire of that soon enough, she was sure.

Knowing she was as good as dead if she stayed where she was, Presley was about to take off blindly for the door when the lights abruptly came back on. She blinked at the brightness, looking around wildly for Del Vecchio, but the apartment was empty. Not wasting any time, she ran for the door only to stop in her tracks when the lights flickered again and Del Vecchio’s ghost suddenly materialized in front of her, blocking her path.

Presley’s first thought was to charge right through him, but then she remembered how solid Del Vecchio had felt when she’d bumped into him before. He wasn’t like the ghost she’d encountered last night. She wasn’t going to be able to run right through him. But there was no way to get around him, either.

She stared at him, racking her mind for everything she’d learned from Logan and Mav that weekend about fighting ghosts as she squared off against Del Vecchio. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a shotgun loaded with hematite and rock salt like Logan did. She had regular old table salt, though. Praying it would work as well as rock salt, she turned and ran back into the kitchen as fast as she could.

Unable to remember which cabinet she saw the salt in, she jerked open almost all of them until she found it. Grabbing the container, she raced to the kitchen doorway and frantically dumped a line of salt across the entryway like Logan had done on the bedroom of the first house they’d taken her to. When she was finished, she retreated back into the kitchen until she was against the counter farthest away from the doorway.

Del Vecchio either didn’t know he was supposed to have an aversion to salt or didn’t care because he strode across the living room toward the kitchen as if it wasn’t even there. Presley’s heart pounded as he came closer. If the trick with the salt didn’t work, she was dead.

But when Del Vecchio got to the doorway of the kitchen, he jerked to a halt inches from the salt and took an uneasy step back. Presley sagged back against the counter in relief.

Del Vecchio glared at her, his lip curling into a sneer. He didn’t say anything, but simply regarded her with an expression of pure hatred. She’d hoped when he couldn’t get past the salt, he’d leave, but now she realized how foolish that was. From the look on his face, it was obvious he wasn’t leaving until he got what he came for.

Presley glanced at her purse lying on the counter. It was a lot closer to the doorway and Del Vecchio than she would have liked, but she had no choice. Taking a deep breath, she slowly inched her way over to it.

Del Vecchio followed her movements as he paced back in forth outside the kitchen. When she got near the door, he eagerly took a step forward, but again the line of salt stopped him. Keeping one eye on him, Presley stretched for her purse. As soon as she got a hand on it, she hurried back to the far side of the kitchen and dug through it until she found her cell phone. She automatically started to dial 9-1-1, but then stopped. What the hell were the cops going to do, shoot a dead guy?

That was when she remembered Logan had called her last night. Finding his number in the recent calls, she thumbed the call button, praying he’d answer.

He picked up on the second ring. “Malone.”

“Logan, it’s Presley. Del Vecchio’s here.”

“Shit. Okay, just calm down. Where are you?”

“Home,” she said, quickly giving him the address and the apartment number. “I did the thing with the salt, but Del Vecchio’s got me trapped. I’m scared he’s going to kill me.”

“I’ll be there in five. Sit tight.”

Five? How the heck was Logan going to get there in five minutes from Sleepy Hollow? Then she realized he must still be in Stamford.

Thank God.

She opened her mouth to tell him to hurry, but the sound of a chuckle brought her head up. Her eyes went wide as Del Vecchio materialized through the wall to the left of her salt barricade and walked right into the kitchen.

Presley’s heart seized in her chest. Crap, she hadn’t thought about a ghost being able to do that.