JanesPrize (2 page)

Chapter Two

The book she’d brought with her was
absorbing enough and Jane read until her eyes started to droop. She’d tired
herself out picking up the equipment, carrying around all her boxes. Not to
mention that despite her bravado her nerves had been just a tad on edge since
she arrived. She checked her watch. Nearly ten. The house was deathly quiet.
She hastily revised the adjective. It was calm and peaceful. Although Cove Bay
had grown in size since the house was built, the grounds were still extensive
and provided an effective visual barrier and sound buffer. She yawned and put
her book aside. As she did so, an owl hooted from the woods. Perfect for a
gothic horror novel, she thought. She could make her students’ hair stand on
end next Halloween by telling them about her time in the haunted mansion.

At that moment she heard the crunch of
wheels on the gravel outside. Carefully she raised the edge of one curtain. A
dark-colored car stood in the driveway and she saw the driver step out and scan
the house with a powerful beam of light. She let out her breath. The promised
patrol. It was good to know the lawyers had kept their word. The man tried the
front door and then moved away, presumably to check at the back of the house. A
few minutes later he came back and the car rolled quietly away.

Time to get to work. She had to earn her
prize money.

She picked up the video camera and panned
around the room. All seemed to be working fine. There was even a light attached
that would give enough illumination for nighttime shots. The instructions had
stated that she was to film without using the electric lights. Presumably there
was more chance of seeing a ghost in the dark. She slipped her phone in one
pocket, her can of spray in the other and emerged into the front hall. She
checked that the door was locked and obediently shut off the lights in her room
and the hallway, but left the power on in the fuse box near the entrance. Her
flashlight beam swept up the wide staircase but barely reached the first
landing. Overhead lay deep shadows and the expected hush of unused rooms and
dust-covered furniture.

The camera purred faintly as she walked
though the house. She couldn’t help thinking that she was like one of those
heroines in badly made films who inevitably and stupidly went to explore a noise
in a dark basement. Except that she wasn’t in a movie, her spray and her phone
were in her pocket, she wasn’t going into any basements and she knew exactly
what she was doing. She could click on lights any time she wanted.

It took about twenty minutes to film the
whole house. Nothing was there that wasn’t supposed to be there, although some
of the shrouded furniture did look a bit spooky. When she came downstairs again
she switched the lights back on, quickly used the bathroom and returned to her
nest. She stuck an old Donald Duck nightlight that she’d found in her bottom
drawer at home into a wall socket. The idea was that if she had to get up in
the night she wouldn’t be fumbling around in pitch-blackness to find unfamiliar
light switches. She pulled on a cotton sweatsuit, clicked off the light and
slid into her camping cot, pulling the sleeping bag up to her neck. She closed
her eyes.

Immediately her head filled with the image
of the young man in the oil painting. In her imagination his deep-set, knowing
eyes gazed at her with a melting look of invitation. His lips curved in an
enticing smile. His face was all sharp planes and square jaw. Only his mouth
was soft, tender. She remembered the zing of the tiny shock when she touched
his face in the portrait. Too bad he was long dead, murdered or not. She
wouldn’t have minded being holed up in a mansion with young Mr. Pierce.

She opened her eyes again. Her body was
tired. She just had to settle her mind so she could rest.

The solution was at hand.

She slipped out of bed by the light of the
nightlight and rummaged in her duffle bag to find her handy-dandy fluorescent
pink vibrator.

Back in bed, she slid her track bottoms
down her legs and lay for a moment anticipating the pleasure to come. She
opened her legs a few inches and touched herself with two fingers, finding and
massaging her clit. She sucked in breath as the tingle snaked through her belly
and moisture began to dampen her probing fingers. Pushing her hand further
between her legs, she parted the lips of her pussy and spread the creamy
liquid.

With her other hand she clicked the
vibrator on and heard its gentle buzz signaling that it was ready to do her
bidding, to pleasure her as long and as hard as she wanted.

Sometimes she inserted the vibrator quick and
strong, thrusting as high and deep as she could, bringing on a climax almost
immediately. This time she chose to ease the shivering tip between her spread
lips, teasing her vulva, tantalizing the opening to her vagina.

She closed her eyes and lifted her knees,
moving one hand to her breast, tormenting the nipple with rhythmic pressure
that matched the thrust and parry of the vibrator between her legs. The image
of Pierce filled her mind’s eye once more. She seldom thought of men she had
known when she used her mechanical friend, since most of them had been a
disappointment in bed. She preferred to imagine a lover, a man who would take
her with passion and tenderness, would bring her to the edge of ecstasy and
play with her until she could bear it no longer…

The vibrator snaked deeper into her and she
began to massage her clit again, feeling the lovely shock waves build inside
her until she exploded.

As her body relaxed the vibrator slipped
from between her thighs. She sighed and closed her eyes. Her limbs felt
boneless and warm, her mind cleared of all those nagging thoughts. Her vibrator
did the trick every time but she couldn’t help imagining how it would be with a
real flesh and blood guy beside her every night. She lived with her mom to save
money and her bank account was growing nicely. When she had her own apartment
at last maybe she could find the man of her dreams. With that hopeful thought
she drifted into sleep.

The sounds seemed at first to be in her
dream. She was having coffee with Annice and some people at a nearby table were
arguing. Their voices grew sharper and she turned her head impatiently to give
them the hairy eyeball. It worked with grade five, and often worked with
adults.

But the movement snapped her out of sleep.
For a moment she had no idea where she was. The faint light from the direction
of the wall socket outlined her backpack and clothes thrown over a chair.
Memory flooded back. The Newland mansion! She sat up, trying to get her
bearings. Her heartbeat slowed. It was only a bad dream. Her mother had been
right. Junk food before bed will give you nightmares. Heaven alone knew what
dire consequence she’d predict if she knew about her daughter’s addiction to a
vibrator.

The luminous dial on her watch showed
one-thirty in the morning. Damn, she must have forgotten to pull out the little
button to set her alarm. She’d been supposed to film again at one. She pushed
her hair back from her face and prepared to get out of bed and do another tour
of the house.

The rise and fall of voices came again. Her
fingers froze on her cheek.

It sounded like a radio or a television
show but that wasn’t possible. Was it someone outside? Voices carried a long
way in the empty countryside. There was definitely a man and a woman. Arguing.
Surely the patrol hadn’t come back and entered the house?

Jane slid out of bed and picked up the cell
phone. Damn! The little icon on the side indicated no service. Either she was
out of range or the network was down. She hadn’t checked it earlier, just
assumed it would be available. Leaving the useless phone on the bed, she picked
up both the pepper and the bear spray. Except that with one in each hand she
couldn’t carry a flashlight. She glanced at the window. The moon had risen and
it was a clear night. There was enough light in the room to be able to navigate
obstacles. On the whole she preferred the semi-darkness with two cans of spray.

She crept silently from the room and padded
toward the sound of the argument, stopping outside the big room with the
fireplace and the oil painting.

Gripping her cans with a finger on each of
the nozzles, she peered around the half-open door. Two shadowy figures stood
under the painting, facing each other across a massive oak table.

She froze in shock. Her first thought was
of burglars but she dismissed the possibility. Burglars would be busy stripping
stuff from the house, not having a loud conversation that could be heard
several rooms away. Besides, one was a woman by the sound of the voice. She
crept closer.

As she moved, she checked all the
possibilities in her head. She had been sure all the doors and windows were
secure. If the law firm had kept their word there was a security patrol at
regular intervals outside. How then could anyone be in the house?

They couldn’t be.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and
opened them again. She wasn’t dreaming. The figures were still there in the
faint moonlight. Was this some kind of practical joke? Some actors dressed up
like the people in the picture? Because these two characters were wearing the
exact same costumes as in the oil painting. Pierce Newland and the young wife.

That still didn’t explain how they had made
their way into the house or why.

The two were totally absorbed in their
conversation, paying no attention to her. Or maybe they couldn’t see her?
Whatever they were, they seemed harmless enough.
Okay, let’s suppose they
are ghosts. What do I do now?

If Anita Blake could face rampaging
vampires surely Jane Chartraine could handle a couple of ghosts. For a moment
Jane let herself enjoy looking at Pierce. He was even better in the flesh.
Flesh
?
How could it be flesh? Weren’t ghosts supposed to be insubstantial? A flush of
color highlighted his jutting cheekbones and his head was flung back, shoulders
square. His eyes were slightly heavy-lidded and dark, set beneath straight
black brows. One arm was raised and he pointed a finger at the woman. Jane
followed the direction of his hand. The woman was dressed in a pale floaty
chiffon kind of gown that reminded her of old silent movies. Her short blonde
hair was tightly waved to her head. She brandished a cigarette in a long holder
and her nails were bright scarlet. Talk about your stereotypical vamp!

“I know what you’re up to!” Pierce’s angry
tones rang out in the large room. Jane was pleased to hear that he spoke well,
his voice was deep and clear. He turned away, hands tightly clenched behind his
back, and strode to the window.

The woman took a drag on her cigarette.
“You are wrong, dear Pierce, I assure you. This family has to stay together.
Please let me fix you a drink. I know we can settle our differences.”

She turned away and went to a sideboard
filled with bottles and glasses. Jane blinked. How come she hadn’t noticed that
earlier? Because it hadn’t been there, that’s why.

The woman poured from a cut glass decanter
into a tall glass. At the last moment she took something tucked inside the
bodice of her gown and dropped it into the drink. Jane gasped. Poison. She was
going to poison Pierce. Had it all been true? Had he really been murdered?

Whether she was seeing ghosts,
hallucinating, or these were real people playing a trick on her, Jane’s
instincts took over just as they had when Melanie Brown had choked on a peanut
butter sandwich at the end of term picnic. She took three running strides into
the room and flung herself on Pierce. She dropped one of her spray cans and
grasped his arm. “Don’t drink it! She’s poisoned it.” Still holding on to him,
she swung around to the woman who was standing close, drink in one hand
cigarette in the other, mouth open in astonishment. Jane held her breath and
her finger exerted pressure on the nozzle. A stream of pepper spray hit the
woman directly in the face.

The blonde threw up her hands, sending the
liquid from the drink everywhere, and crumpled, coughing and spluttering. The
glass rolled on the carpet.

“Quick,” Jane said, tugging on Pierce’s
arm. “Close your eyes, don’t breathe.” She pulled him from the room down the
hallway and unlocked the front door. She shoved him out into the clear air and
let go the breath she’d been holding.

“Sorry about that,” she said, wiping her
eyes with her sleeve. “But you have to get out fast with that stuff.”

Pierce had pulled a large white
handkerchief from somewhere and mopped his face.

“Whatever it was you did, I guess you
thought it was the right thing. Your intentions were good.”

“Oh yes, my intentions were exactly right.”

The tears cleared from her eyes and she
took a good look at him. Close up he was just as much a hunk as he’d seemed in
the portrait.

The portrait.

“Just a minute,” she said. “I saw your
picture in there.”

He nodded. “That’s right. My father
commissioned it before he died.”

She cleared her throat. “When was that
exactly?”

“July 1927.”

She had to ask the question. “So what are
you doing here? Who are you?”

He gave a little bow. “Pierce Newland at
your service. Strictly speaking, I’m a ghost.” He rubbed his hands down his
arms. “Or I was a ghost. I feel pretty solid right now. You touched me. If you
touch a ghost you bring it into the present as flesh and blood.”

Jane felt faint. “I didn’t know that about
ghosts. Remind me not to touch another one.”

He laughed. “Not very likely. How many
ghosts do you encounter in a lifetime?”

“Not too many.” She put out her hand to
steady herself and Pierce seized her fingers. His were warm and firm.

“You need to sit down. It’s a bit of a
shock resurrecting a ghost and being responsible for him.”