“Rachel,” he said, abandoning the journal on the cluttered nightstand. He stroked a shaking hand over her hair. “Rachel, sweetheart.”
Rachel lifted her eyelids just enough to peer up at him. His face was flushed. His blue eyes seemed unusually bright. His expression was pained.
“Why is the light on?” she mumbled.
“The better to see you with, my dear,” he quipped, baring his teeth.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked, concern knitting her brows.
“Wonderful,” he said sardonically. “Can’t you tell?”
The last fog of sleep drifted out of her head as she realized she was at eye level with his belly button. Her gaze snapped downward, and she gasped. Bryan was roused and ready, and her fingers looked very guilty considering where they were.
“Caught red-handed with the loaded gun, so to speak,” Bryan said. He chuckled as he took in the blush that bloomed on her cheeks. “I’ve heard of sleepwalking, but sleep seducing is a new one on me. What have you got to say for yourself, Miss Lindquist?”
Her initial embarrassment evaporated in the sensual heat that was rolling off him. Beneath her cheek his stomach muscles were like rock. He smelled deliciously male and musky. Desire rippled through her. Scooting down a little farther on the bed, she turned onto her stomach and looked up at him, her hair a wild golden mane around her head and shoulders, her eyes nearly purple with passion.
“I always finish what I start,” she whispered in a languid, smoky voice.
“An admirable trait in a young woman,” Bryan said through his teeth as she lowered her head. He groaned long and with feeling.
Somewhere below them a scream split the air.
“A man could die from this kind of frustration,” Bryan complained as he threw his long legs over the edge of the bed and reached for his jeans. “Cases have been documented. You could look it up.”
Rachel wasn’t interested. She had already thrown on a robe and was rushing down the hall toward Addie’s room in her bare feet.
“Mother? Mother, are you all right?”
“Rachel?” Addie burst out of her room, clutching her pink chiffon robe to her chest with one hand. In the other hand she clutched a rock. “Someone’s broken into the house! Call your father!”
Bryan dashed past them, threw one leg over the mahogany banister, and shot down the polished railing to the foyer. Lights flashed at the end of the hall. The alarm on his electronic sensor buzzed furiously. He ran for the study, adrenaline pumping through him.
“Aunt Roberta!”
Roberta stood in the center of the room, her green eyes wide, her hair literally standing on end. “Oh, my stars, Bryan! I am so glad you’re here! I can’t tell you. I just can’t tell you!”
Bryan flipped off the alarm, pulled off his glasses, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, heaving a weary sigh. Aunt Roberta had always demonstrated an amazing talent for setting off his machines.
“I came down to fix myself a little snack,” Roberta said, pulling a bent cigarette and a lighter out of the pocket of her ratty blue robe. She paused to suck a gallon of smoke into her lungs. “This place is a maze. A maze. I’ve never seen the like, have you, Regina?” she asked Rachel, smoke billowing out of her nostrils. She patted Bryan on the arm. “I don’t know why you’d want such a big place, honey. These old houses are a beast to heat, you know. An absolute b-”
“What happened?” Bryan asked, his normally generous patience wearing thin. He could have been upstairs in the throes of bliss if it hadn’t been for his batty aunt.
“I got lost. Lost.” Roberta said, waving her cigarette at him. Ash sprinkled to the floor. “So, I’m wandering down the hall, and I decide to ask that pale, thin fellow how to get to the kitchen.” She turned to Rachel again, shaking her head. “I hope he’s not your boyfriend, Renita. He is one ugly dude. Ugly. My gosh, he’s ugly.”
Bryan perked up. “A thin man with sunken eyes and white, white skin?”
“White as a ghost. As a ghost! All dressed in white. Pale as death. I guess I startled him. Kind of a flighty guy, isn’t he? Well, I followed him in here and all hell broke loose with these crazy machines going off. Just about gave me a heart attack. A heart attack!” She shook her head and crossed herself reverently with her cigarette. “My gosh.”
“What did the man do?” Bryan asked as he rewound the film in his camera.
“Grabbed a stack of books off the shelf and ran out that way.” She waved her cigarette in the general direction of the French doors which stood open. “Strange time of the day to be going to the library, don’t you think? Very strange.”
While Bryan went to investigate, Rachel introduced her mother to their new guest. “Mother, this is Bryan’s Aunt Roberta. Roberta, my mother, Addie Lindquist.”
Addie stared at the woman, obviously confused. “Who is she? The maid? Of course I knew that, Rachel. You needn’t introduce me to the maid.”
“A little off her rocker, eh?” Roberta whispered behind her hand to Rachel, nodding knowingly. “That’s all right, Renée. I understand.”
Rachel looked from one to the other helplessly. She honestly didn’t know what to say. She felt like Alice must have in Wonderland.
“Great hair, Adelle,” Roberta rasped, blowing out a jet stream of smoke. She reached out to fluff Addie’s pinking-shears special, taking another deep drag on her cigarette. “Did you get it done around here? My gosh, I really like that. I do.”
“Well, there’s no sign of him now,” Bryan said, coming back into the room. “I suggest we all go back to bed.”
The two older women wandered off together, talking beauty secrets.
Rachel stood in the doorway, hugging her robe around her, watching as Bryan stood on a chair and carefully removed the cassette from the video camera he had mounted in the corner above the door.
“I suppose it’s too much to hope for to think they might be having identical hallucinations.”
“It’s unlikely,” Bryan said. He rattled the video cassette. “Just as it’s unlikely that a ghost could pull an iron railing loose or track mud into the house or step through rotted wood. I believe we’ll have all the proof we need right here to show that Rat is our mystery man.”
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t understand why Rasmussen and Porchind would try to drive us out. They know I’m interested in selling the place.”
“They also know Addie doesn’t want to move,” Bryan pointed out. “In any case, they could be trying to frighten you into dropping the price, make you so desperate to leave that you’ll practically give the place to them rather than put it on the market and let someone else have a chance at it.”
He went very still, staring past Rachel, his eyes clear and intense. “Don’t let anyone else have a chance at it,” he repeated. “Yes.”
Rachel ignored his odd trance. She was getting used to such behavior, much to her surprise. “What about Addie’s whimsy? Are you finally giving up that ridiculous belief in ghosts?”
“Not at all. I haven’t figured out where Wimsey fits in yet, but I will.”
Bryan smiled brightly, happy as a clam with his evidence. One mystery was well on its way to being solved. The whole thing would come to a head soon. He could sense it.
Rachel stepped out into the hall. “I’ll see you upstairs. I’m going to go make sure Mother and Roberta aren’t giving each other crew cuts.”
“I’ll be right up,” Bryan promised.
He reset his equipment on the off chance of a return appearance by their ghoulish visitor, then poured himself a drink from the bottle that still resided in the desk drawer. He had told Rachel he would purchase the desk himself, but he needn’t have worried. For some odd reason the study had remained virtually untouched throughout the tag sale. People had avoided the room. He had a strong feeling he knew why.