Nick had knelt on the ground in front of her and had taken her hands in his. ‘Don’t leave,’ he’d said. She tried not to put too much meaning on that. It stirred something inside her shewasn’t aware of needing. Not lust, not that time. Something far more profound than that. ‘I am your guardian.’
She didn’t need a guardian. But the words to express that wouldn’t come. They reminded her too much of Chambers.
But ‘Don’t leave.’ There had been anguish in those two words.
She might not need him, but she wanted him. And it meant so much that he wanted her to stay, that he trusted her to help him and the spirits trapped here. Like Sally.
She couldn’t let herself think about it. If she thought about it, it brought back Sanderson and then she really would have a breakdown.
Alex busied herself with setting up cameras, recorders and checking that everything was fully charged. Finally satisfied, she retreated to the bedroom and sat on the bed, facing the open door and the portrait of Blaise Chambers.
All she had to do was take the wretched thing down and turn it to face the wall. Or better yet, chuck it out a window or something. Nick had promised to get rid of it for her. But he’d forgotten, hadn’t he? It seemed to slip out of memory the moment after it was mentioned.
She couldn’t bring herself to touch it again. The smirk he wore told her what he thought of her cowardice too. But last time she’d touched it, she’d fallen down the stairs. Fallen…or been pushed. It didn’t help that Chambers’ expression made her think of Sanderson, the way he’d looked at her in the courtroom, when he still thought he might get away with it. Or of Seán in the village, that horrible, knowing, superior sneer.
She had sworn never to do this again but here she was. Investigating. In the last place she wanted to stir up a spirit. Looking right at that bastard’s face.
Diving right in at the deep end, as it were.
She didn’t know why she’d waited until dark to do this. The house was more active at night, but she wasn’t sure she needed that. Perhaps it was just a ghost hunting tradition. No one wanted to believe in ghosts in broad daylight.
She pressed the record button and drew in a breath.
‘Is there anyone here?’
As corny a start as possible really, Gabe would tell her, and hardly good TV, but a really bloody good question when you got down to it.
Was there really anyone there? Or was she imagining it?
This was easy. She had done it a thousand times. Record, ask a question, wait, ask another question. Keep going. Watch the EMF meter, listen out for the REM pod. Record everything. Listen back later.
The boring bit, Gabe always called it.
She stared at the portrait but nothing happened. Blaise gazed back, a small smile playing on his lush lips, his dark eyes amused. She had to stop thinking about him. She was filling in spaces with her own imagination and that would not do.
There was a scientific process to this and she was going to follow it to the letter. She was a professional, not a sensationalist, no matter what the popular media tried to say.
She’d got into this game to solve the mysteries, to provide people with logical answers and to tear down all those misconceptions and charlatans. It had seen her hounded off the internet and out of the States, and now she was holed up here in the middle of nowhere with nightmares coming out of the woodwork all around her. She was not going to give in to hysteria and superstition now.
Alex turned off the recorder, standing up and stretching her tense shoulders as she did so. Some people swore by tape only but she agreed with Eduardo. The more up to date the tech the more reliable and less likely to introduce errors it tended tobe. Tape could carry traces of something recorded on it before, for example. She put in her earbuds, keyed up the sample and pressed play.
‘Is there anyone here?’
Her own voice, followed by nothing much. She could hear her breath but that was all. ‘Why are you here?’ Nothing. ‘What’s your name?’Nothing.‘Do you have a message to pass on?’ Still nothing.
This was getting her nowhere.
‘What do you want with me?’ There was a distinct wobble in her voice and she winced. What was she doing? Her hand slid up to the stop button.
And then she heard it.
A whisper, little more than a hiss, right on the edge of hearing.
‘Alexandra. My beloved.’
‘Oh, Jesus. Fuck!’ She hurled the recorder onto the bed without even meaning to. She just didn’t want it in her hands anymore. Unfortunately, it was still playing and something happened to the volume as it hit the covers. And she still had the earbuds in, still connected.
The voice – his voice – roared in her ears.
