“No,” Delia replied, lips now twitching in amusement.“I think a nice suit should be fine.You might not need to wear a tie, though.”
That would be good.Temperatures had been inching up, and although they hadn’t hit triple digits yet, he was sure the local weather would be kissing the nineties in a few days.Not being strangled by a tie could only be a good thing.
“I wonder why they chose this place,” he commented, and Delia shrugged.
“It’s pretty,” she said.“And that part of the extended family is big.I think Olivia probably wanted to have her wedding someplace that was classy enough that it wouldn’t upset my Aunt Vicky, but was also out of the way enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about inviting the entire family.Otherwise, she would’ve probably had at least three hundred people attending.”
Caleb had to admit that sounded like a pretty big crowd.No wonder Olivia wanted to duck out and have a destination wedding.Sure, some of the family would be there — it looked as if the chapel could hold about a hundred guests — but having the ceremony here in Las Vegas seemed to guarantee that she wouldn’t have to worry about pissing off Great-Aunt Edna or long-lost cousin Eddie if they were somehow not included in the guest list.
While he and Delia were talking, they’d been slowly moving down one of the outer aisles toward the dais at the front, which held a white lectern and several white wooden planters filled with white rose trees.Although nothing about the setup looked at all out of the ordinary, a certain tension began to grow in Caleb’s midsection, a knowing without understanding how he knew that something wasn’t quite right about this place.
Just as they reached the dais, the temperature in the room seemed to drop at least ten degrees.He looked up, wondering if they’d just paused under an especially industrial-sized air conditioning vent, and that was the reason for the suddenly icy breeze that seemed to blow past his face.
However, no vent was anywhere close to the spot where they stood.
Caleb had grown up with cold weather, but the skin along his forearms prickled anyway.He looked over at Delia, whose expression seemed serene enough.
It sure didn’t look to him as if she’d felt the odd shift in temperature.
And then the whispers began, at first so soft that again he wondered if they came from the ventilation system, just like the frigid air that seemed to have descended on him.They grew louder, though, surrounding him in waves of sibilant sound, of words he couldn’t quite catch.
In that same moment, Delia reached over and took his hand, fingers tight on his.“Do you hear that?”she murmured.
So he wasn’t imagining things.“Yes,” he said in a similar undertone, even as he kept his hand firmly wrapped around hers, making sure she knew he was there for her no matter what was going on.“Can you understand anything of what they’re saying?”
Face paler than it had been a moment earlier, she stood quietly and appeared to listen to the whispery voices surrounding them.“No,” she said after a moment or two.“Every once in a while, I’m able to catch just a syllable here and there, but none of it makes any sense.”
“Whatever it is, it’s not natural,” Caleb replied, and she nodded, fingers still clinging to his.
“No,” she said.Voice more strained than ever, she added, “Can we please get out of here?”
He didn’t even have to pause to consider her question.“Absolutely.”
Still holding hands, they walked away from the dais and toward the entrance to the chapel.As they went, the whispers died down and had dwindled to nothing by the time they stepped out into the lobby.
What the hell was going on here?
The woman behind the desk gave them a pleasant nod, but since she was on the phone with someone, it didn’t seem as if she was inclined to engage them in conversation.
Good thing, too.Caleb really didn’t want to try explaining to her that her chapel might be haunted.
He and Delia emerged into the warm evening air.The sun hadn’t quite set and cast a baleful orange light across the city’s hotels and casinos, their many windows glowing like charged citrine.
By some unspoken agreement, neither of them said anything until they were safely inside his Mercedes and he’d begun to back out of his parking space.Once they were out on Las Vegas Boulevard and heading south toward the Cornish Pasty, though, Delia looked over at him, wide-eyed.
“Just what the hell wasthat?”
ChapterTwo
Caleb’s jaw was set,and Delia could tell he wasn’t any happier about the supernatural phenomenon they’d just experienced than she was.
“I don’t know,” he said as he guided the E-Class toward their destination, which luckily was only a few blocks away.
After an experience like that, she knew she could use a drink.
And she also had absolutely no idea what was going on.As she’d told him just a moment earlier, she thought she’d picked up a syllable here and there from those weird whispers in the chapel, but certainly not enough to even piece together a complete word, let alone a sentence.
The sign for the Cornish Pasty Company appeared on their left, lit up by some neon but not too much by Vegas standards.Caleb pulled into the parking lot out back and put the car in park, although he didn’t turn off the engine.Cool air continued to stream into the cabin.
