Ree grabbed his wrist and tore his flesh with her nails. He dropped the syringe and with an outraged grunt, pressed both hands into her throat. He was crazed now. Like her, only stronger. Spots danced before her eyes as she tried to fight him off. She reached for his mask, fell short, and grabbed a fistful of gown while her left hand scrabbled along the floor. Fingers closing around the syringe, she used every ounce of strength she could muster to bury it in his neck.
He jerked back, spurting blood and screaming in pain. Ree kicked her way free and struggled to her feet. He would come after her. She had no doubt about that. Stumbling to the door, she flung it open and sprinted down the long, empty hallway.
It wasn’t until she was back in the south wing that she looked down and saw a silver medallion clutched in her fist.
Now it was Hayden who looked white as a sheet. “Jesus, Ree. We have to go to the police with this.”
“No! No police.”
They were seated in a dark corner booth at the bar near campus where Ree had asked him to meet her. She was too afraid to go back to her apartment.
“We can’t go to the police,” she said more calmly. “They’d never believe me.”
“What do you mean, they won’t believe you? You have his blood all over you.”
She looked down at the tiny spatters and shuddered. “It takes time to run a DNA test. And how do we know the results wouldn’t be compromised? Dr. Farrante apparently has some powerful allies. If I level any sort of accusation against him or the hospital, my career’s as good as dead.”
“Better than you being dead.”
“Look at this.” She slid the silver medallion across the table. “It’s just like the one I saw in my dream. Whoever attacked me…he’s one of them.”
Hayden said slowly, “But as you pointed out, it was just a dream. Or are you starting to believe that Ilsa really is trying to communicate with you?”
Ree thought about that warning touch at her neck right before the lights went out. “I don’t know what I believe right now.” She massaged her temples with her fingertips.
She didn’t want to talk about Ilsa’s ghost anymore. She wanted to talk about what she’d seen in that file. She’d told Hayden most of it over the phone, but she still needed to process it. “What was done to Ilsa that night was a secret that would bind those men together forever. No one dared speak the truth because if one fell, they all fell.”
Hayden said nothing but his gaze was very intense.
“She was lured to the cemetery that night by her own stepbrother. And when he was finished with her, he left her there for the others. Instead of seeking justice, James Tisdale covered it up. He sacrificed Ilsa in order to protect his son and the family’s political aspirations. She never ran away to Europe. She was committed to an insane asylum.”
He reached over and took her hand. He seemed to understand that she needed to talk about what she’d read in those files, as if sharing the horror would somehow diminish it.
“Her family abandoned her, leaving Milton Farrante free to conduct his gruesome experiments. She was subjected to electroconvulsive shock therapy more than ten years before the procedure was formally introduced. He may have performed one of the first lobotomies on her.”
“Unbelievable that he could do all that without anyone knowing,” Hayden said.
“The asylums were full of the forgotten back then, including Ilsa’s baby. Violet was born perfectly healthy, but she spent her whole life inside that hospital, a human experiment from birth to death for three generations of Farrantes. Poor Ilsa died when Violet was just seven years old.”
“But I don’t think she moved on,” Hayden said. “I believe her ghost remained in the asylum with Violet. Think about it. All those years, helpless to stop the experiments as she watched her daughter grow into a lonely old woman. But the moment Violet died, Ilsa was set free. And there you were, at Violet’s bedside, a way for Ilsa to finally leave the hospital.”
“I’m sorry, Hayden, but I just can’t believe something that—”
“Irrational? Illogical? Crazy? How else can you explain the dream?”
“I can’t. But there has to be another reason. Maybe something I read or heard a long time ago stuck in my subconscious and Miss Violet’s death triggered it.”
“What about the cold spots, the frosted windows, the frigid breath at your neck? That’s not your subconscious or imagination. She’s there, Ree. You can’t see her, but she’s there. And she’s not going away until you give her what she wants.”
“And what is that?”
His hand tightened around hers. “Put yourself in her place. After everything that was done to her and her daughter, what would you want?”
“Revenge,” Ree said and shuddered.
“Exactly. And she needs a conduit, a way to channel her rage.”
Ree drew her hand away. “That’s crazy. Even ghosts, even Ilsa, can’t make me do something against my will. She can’t use me unless I let her.”
Hayden’s dark eyes burned into hers. “I wish that were so, but we really have no idea what we’re up against.”
The Charleston Institute for ParapsychologyElsewhere, it’s called the Institute for Parapsychology Studies, not Paranormal Studies.
Studies was located on the fringes of the historic district, in a glorious old antebellum with long, gleaming columns and three levels of piazzas to catch the Lowcountry breezes. Hayden let himself in the side entrance and made his way down the hall. He’d called ahead to make sure Dr. Shaw would see him at so late an hour and the older man had agreed. Now he looked up curiously as Hayden entered the office, and motioned for him to take a seat. Tall and dignified, with vivid blue eyes and a shock of white hair, he’d always struck Hayden as the epitome of the slightly absentminded professor.
He steepled his fingers beneath his chin as he waited for Hayden to settle in. “You’re out and about late. Are you just returning from the cemetery?”
“I didn’t go out there tonight,” Hayden said. “Something came up. Which is why I’m here. I’m hoping you can give me some advice. I think my friend is being haunted by the ghost of a woman who was committed to a psychiatric hospital over eighty years ago.”
One brow rose ever so slightly. “I’ve always found that mental patients make for some of the most fascinating cases. Please go on.”
Quickly, Hayden told him everything Ree had experienced, starting with the Oak Grove episode and ending with her attack earlier that night. When he was finished, Dr. Shaw sat pensively for a moment.
“Where is your friend now?” he asked.
“At my place. She’ll be physically safe there, but I want to know how I can protect her from the ghost.” It was ironic, Hayden supposed, that he’d dedicated nearly ten years of his life to searching for spirits and now that he’d found one, he hadn’t a clue what to do.
“You could try a cleansing.” Hayden gave him a look and Dr. Shaw nodded. “Yes, my feeling precisely,” he muttered.
“Ree still isn’t convinced, even after everything that’s happened. She wants to believe it’s her imagination.”
“Have you seen any evidence of possession? Personality changes, addictions, depression? Not that these signs would necessarily indicate ghost or demon possession. They could also be symptomatic of mental illness.”
“I’m aware of that,” Hayden said quietly.
“Yes, of course, you would be.”
Dr. Shaw was one of the few people who knew about Jacob’s suicide, and how it had led Hayden to ghost hunting.
“As to a personality change…I haven’t known her long. I might not even notice. But my guess is, the sleepwalking episode was the first manifestation,” he said.
“A trial run, so to speak. Perhaps testing Ree’s limitations as well as her own. From what you’ve told me of Ilsa’s history, I’m afraid the likelihood of cohabitation is strong. Ghosts that invade—not just attach—are usually those spirits that were addicted to earthly pleasures.”