The Haunting of Josie (4 page)

She made sure everything was locked up downstairs, then went up to the bathroom across the hall from her bedroom and began running water into the wonderfully deep claw-footed tub. The cat perched on the rim and watched the scented water rising, intent, and she wondered vaguely if he was the kind of cat who actually liked water.

That idle thought followed her back into her bedroom. She went to the dresser to find a fresh nightgown, and frowned when she saw the key lying there. Marc must have gotten her more rattled than she thought, she decided, because she could have sworn she’d left the key hanging on a hook in the kitchen, well out of Pendragon’s reach.

Carrying her nightgown, she started to leave the bedroom—and stopped dead in the doorway. The upstairs hall was fairly dim with only the light from the bathroom and her nightstand lamp illuminating it, but she saw him clearly as he stood at the head of the stairs.

For an instant she thought it was Marc, but then she realized that this man’s face was harsher, his eyes lighter. He had the same raven hair, widow’s peak, and flying brows, though, and the same tall, powerful build.

And he was looking at her.

Josie couldn’t move. She wanted to cry out, but couldn’t make a sound. All she could do was stand there, frozen, and wonder wildly how he’d managed to get into the house.

Then she felt a cold, cold finger glide up her spine, when the man held out a hand to her as if pleading for something…and Josie realized that he wasn’t really there. He couldn’t be, because the hand he held out was insubstantial and she could almost see through it.

“Yahhh?”

She jumped almost out of her skin, her eyes skittering from the visitor to where Pendragon stood in the doorway of the bathroom. The big cat wasn’t looking at her, he was gazing at the head of the stairs, obviously greeting someone because he was a friendly, responsive cat.

Josie followed his gaze, afraid to see the man there, and more afraid not to.

He was gone.

It took her several minutes to get up the courage, but she finally went through the house from room to room, turning on lights and checking closets, her gun in hand.

Every door she had locked earlier was still firmly latched, dead bolts fastened. All the windows were secure. There was no sign whatsoever that anyone was—or had been—in the house with her and the cat.

No one living, that is.

THREE

J
OSIE DIDN’T EXPECT
to get very much sleep that night after the unnerving encounter, but her body had other ideas. Though she was wary enough to lock her bedroom door and leave the lamp on her nightstand on, and had her automatic underneath her pillow—for all the protection any of that would provide against a ghost—she slept soundly from eleven that night until seven the next morning.

In the bright light of a sunny morning, what had happened the night before seemed even more incredible, and she couldn’t help wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing. A ghost? Surely not. Though she hadn’t been adamant about it, she had never really believed in the supernatural, and she felt a bit silly now when she considered the possibility.

Certainly too silly to mention what she must have imagined to Marc. Besides, he had specifically said this house wasn’t haunted, and he should know after spending so much time here.

With that reassurance in her mind, she was able to shrug off what had probably not even happened the night before. After dressing in her usual casual jeans and a sweater, she went downstairs, and was surprised to find Pendragon sitting on one of the kitchen stools waiting for her. He didn’t want out, he wanted breakfast. Josie fed him another can of tuna—her last one—and made a mental note to go to the store for cat food.

Then, while her coffee perked, she searched the house methodically until she found what she was looking for. The cat had been getting in and out on his own since yesterday, so he’d obviously found an open window or some other doorway; Josie didn’t much like the idea of that.

But when she found it, relief replaced misgivings. Pendragon had discovered an actual pet door, one that seemed to have been created before such things had become readily available in pet stores. It was in one of the smaller side rooms, maybe a parlor or sitting room originally and one that Josie hadn’t explored. A set of multipaned French doors opened out onto the porch, and at the bottom of one of the doors a pane of glass had been reset within a narrow frame and hinged to provide a virtually invisible access door for small pets. The glass was tinted a very faint rose color, presumably so that pets wouldn’t forget there was a barrier. There was a tiny but sturdy sliding bolt that locked the door from the inside; it was so small, it would be easily overlooked, she thought, and it was no wonder she’d missed seeing it.

With the rueful hope that no raccoon or other small forest creature would come exploring, Josie left the pet door unlatched and returned to the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee and, sipping it, idly opened the back door. The morning air was cool rather than cold, but she hardly noticed that because of what she saw through the screen door.

Marc had returned the thermos she’d forgotten the night before; he had probably brought it over before beginning his morning walk. It was sitting on the porch railing beside the steps, with a bright purple ribbon wrapped around it and tied in a jaunty bow; the ribbon rather clashed with the black, red, and yellow plaid in which the thermos was done, but the result was colorful and charming.

Josie stepped out onto the porch and retrieved the thermos. She took it back into the kitchen and, smiling, untied the purple ribbon. A nice touch, she decided. She was about to find a place in one of the cabinets for the thermos, but hesitated.

The previous night’s possible ghostly encounter had occupied her thoughts and kept her from thinking very much about Marc and how he’d made her feel. But now there was nothing to distract her, and the memory of his touch was suddenly so vivid that she felt heat sweep up her throat to color her cheeks. Her heart seemed to be beating harder, and she could have sworn that her lips were actually throbbing.

“Good Lord,” she muttered. What on earth was wrong with her? She couldn’t recall ever having reacted this strongly even to the actual touch of another man—and certainly not to the mere memory of his touch.

With an effort, Josie shook off the sensations. And the ridiculous thoughts. After all, it made perfect sense if she considered the matter logically. In her present state of mind—unusually intense, highly conscious of her feelings of aloneness, and more than a little anxious—she was bound to react strongly to most
any
new element in her life. And as for the stunningly powerful response to Marc, after long weeks of convalescence, he had doubtless stored up so much sexual energy, it was practically radiating from his body.

No wonder her first impression of him had been so positive. With the combination of pent-up sexual intensity and extraordinary good looks, he could probably seduce a marble statue.

Josie found herself smiling again, and shook her head ruefully. Enough of this. She was being absurd, and that was all there was to it. Marc was her landlord and her neighbor; last night’s kiss had been in the nature of an experiment—he had, after all, said as much—and that was as far as it would go. All she had to do was be distantly friendly and make it clear she had come out here for solitude.

Simple enough.

Again, she started to put the thermos up in one of the cabinets, and again she stopped and gazed at it, this time thoughtfully. Well…distant but neighborly. Surely there was nothing wrong in being a good neighbor.

“Should I?” she asked Pendragon, who was sitting on a stool washing paws and face after his breakfast.

“Yaahh,” he replied promptly and definitely, holding one paw suspended as he looked at her.

She couldn’t help laughing, but Josie found herself filling the thermos once again with hot, fragrant coffee. Ruefully aware that she might well be setting a dangerous precedent but shrugging off the possibility with a peculiar sense of defiance, she stuck a note to the thermos that said she had to make a trip to the store for groceries this afternoon, and if Marc needed anything, he should let her know.

As she had the day before, she took the coffee across the garden to the cottage and left it hanging on his doorknob, then returned to the house. She made her own shopping list while she ate toast with apple butter for breakfast and listened absently to the radio.

Finished with her meal and the list, she straightened the kitchen and put the list into her shoulder bag, which she left on the breakfast bar.

She was just about to go into the front parlor and begin the mammoth task of organizing the jumble of files and papers into something approaching a system when her gaze fell on something she hadn’t noticed before: a simple little cup hook just to the left of the cellar door.

Pendragon’s key was hanging there.

For a moment Josie felt oddly suspended as she stared at it. That key had been lying on her dresser last night…though she wasn’t at all sure how it had gotten
there.
She had noticed it this morning while brushing her hair, and had left it there in the bedroom. She was positive she had left it there. So how on earth had it gotten down here? The hook was at her eye level, which meant the cat could not have hung the key there even if he’d wanted to.

She went over and lifted the key from its hook, and studied it as it lay in the palm of her hand. Small, old-fashioned key of tarnished brass, faded ribbon. Yes, definitely Pendragon’s key. She half turned and regarded the cat, who was still sitting on his stool. He had finished his morning ablutions and returned her gaze with his usual serenity.

“I don’t suppose you hung this here?”

The cat tilted his head a bit in a very unfeline gesture, then made a throaty little cooing sound.

Josie wished she spoke cat, because she had the unsettling idea that Pendragon had just told her something important. Pushing
that
ridiculous thought out of her mind, she opened the cellar door and reached to flick the switch so the bare bulb at the foot of the stairs glowed to light. Then she paused and looked back at the cat.

“You do realize I’m only doing this because I’m not ready to face all that stuff in the front parlor, don’t you?”

“Yaah,” he responded very softly.

Josie didn’t
really
believe the cat had been placing the key where she couldn’t help but see it; in fact, she would have preferred thinking a ghost had done it. But even if she herself had subconsciously moved the thing—which was, naturally, the only thing that could have happened—it was probably a good idea to find out where it had come from and put it back.

That was all, of course.

Since the light in the cellar wasn’t all that good, she got her flashlight and carried it down with her, tucking the brass key into her back pocket. For a moment she just stood looking around. The place seemed a little eerie, but she told herself that was only because it was so dark and so crammed with boxes and odd-shaped piles of things. There was certainly nothing unusual or supernatural down here, just the forgotten possessions of a family.

Even with that reassuring thought, she felt more than a little jumpy, but forced herself to begin methodically searching among the jumble of boxes, crates, and old furniture. There were remarkably few cobwebs, and no signs of bugs or mice, which was a definite relief since she didn’t like either. And Josie didn’t have to open anything, after all; Pendragon must have found the key hanging from a box or hook, something like that. All she wanted to do was find out where it belonged.

It couldn’t have been much more than ten minutes later, when she’d been distracted by a stack of paintings leaning against the wall and draped with canvas, that a hail from upstairs made her jump.

“Hello?”

“Down here,” she called, recognizing Marc’s voice instantly. Leaving the paintings still covered, she began making her way through the clutter toward the stairs.

He met her at the bottom. “Hi. Sorry to just barge in, but the back door was open—”

“It’s all right,” Josie reassured him. “Was there something you needed?” Realizing belatedly how that question might sound, she felt a tide of heat rise in her face. But Marc either found no reason to comment or chose to pass it up.

“Yeah, I wanted to take you up on your offer and ask you to get a few things for me when you do your shopping this afternoon,” he replied easily. Then he peered past the circle of light where they stood, and added, “Why is it so dark down here?”

“Because it’s a cellar.”

“Funny.” He reached over to a light switch Josie hadn’t seen on the wall near them and flipped it a couple of times. When nothing happened, he took the flashlight from her hand and made his way toward the switch box, saying over his shoulder, “When the place was rewired, I added more lights in a few places, including here. That switch should be on….” He opened the switch box and aimed the flashlight in. “But it isn’t.”

Josie blinked as the click of a switch being thrown was followed by generous light. Now illuminated by three more simple, bare-bulb fixtures, the cellar appeared relatively neat and certainly innocent, and Josie felt a little foolish when she remembered her earlier thoughts.

“This is much better, thanks,” she said as Marc rejoined her.

“My pleasure.” He turned off the flashlight and set it on the fourth tread of the stairs. “So you decided to explore down here after all?”

“Sort of. That key Pendragon found is beginning to bother me.”

“Oh? Why?”

Josie started to tell him about the key turning up in places where she hadn’t left it, but chickened out. She really didn’t want to admit to something that sounded so odd, especially when she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she hadn’t moved the key herself. So, instead, she merely said, “I guess I’m more curious than I thought I was. You don’t mind?”

“Mind your exploring? Of course not, Josie, I told you that. As a matter of fact, if you’d like some company, I wouldn’t mind looking around down here myself. Lord knows what we’ll find, but the search might be fun.”

Josie barely hesitated. “Why not? I was planning to spend at least a couple of hours down here before lunch; that should satisfy my curiosity.” She told herself she agreed to his suggestion only because she’d feel better about exploring in the presence of the owner of the house, but she didn’t believe that rational reasoning.

She showed the key to Marc and explained her thinking on where the cat must have found it, and they began searching different areas of the cellar. For half an hour or so, the search was brisk and they said little to each other beyond brief comments on what they found.

“What is this?”

“An iron. I think.”

“For clothes? You’re kidding.”

“No, and thank heaven for progress; permanent press is wonderful, and so are clothes dryers. A decorator would probably pay you a fortune for that thing—turn it into a cute bookend or something. Country chic.”

“Well, there’s a whole box of them here. I’ll remember if I need some quick cash.”

“You do that. Hey—I found a birdhouse. It must have been on that post in the garden. I wonder why they took it down.”

“I wonder why they put it down here. My relatives kept the damnedest things…. Here’s a pair of shears with only one blade. Why keep that?”

“In the days before planned obsolescence, somebody probably meant to repair them. The way they must have meant to fix this two-legged stool.”

“For God’s sake…”

Though ostensibly helping Josie to look for the key’s origins, Marc didn’t hesitate to open trunks, boxes, and crates “just for the hell of it.”

“We have to look for that lost Rembrandt,” he told her, peering into an old steamer trunk that held an astonishing variety of peculiar kitchen utensils.

“Yeah, right.” But it reminded Josie of the paintings she had been about to look through before he arrived. Abandoning, without much regret, her exploration of shelves full of canned preserves and somebody’s rock collection, she made her way back to where the paintings leaned against a wall.

She had to push a box labeled
books
out of her way in order to get to the paintings, and that box came in very handy when she flipped back the canvas and saw the first painting—because she sat down rather suddenly and the box made an adequate seat.