The Uninvited

Todd gestured at Allison. “She doesn’t understand,” he said. “But she can help us, and you can help her. Please?”



“I’ll do whatever I can, buddy.”



He wrote down his cell number and handed it to the boy, then took Allison’s arm to lead her from the hospital. She steeled herself not to wrench her arm out of his grasp.



When they exited, she moved away from him. “That was wrong,” she told him.



“What was?”



“You made that poor boy think we could help him by convincing a ghost to leave his dad alone!”



“I didn’t say that.”



“But you believe they exist!”



They’d reached his car. He leaned against the roof, looking over at her as she waited by the passenger door.



“I went in and spoke with Mr. Dixon’s doctors. There is absolutely nothing physiological causing his problem—nothing they can discover. Of course, they’re still testing. And he may come out of it himself. One of the theories his primary physician has is that he put himself in the coma to avoid some horrible fact or illusion he’d seen in his own mind. Whether you want to believe I’m a quack or not, you have to admit that the power of the human mind can be incredible. Maybe if we look into this and find something to say to the kid, the family or even Mr. Dixon himself, we can reverse the situation.”



“If we can find something?”



“You know the history and the house better than anyone else.”



Allison lowered her eyes, remembering the way she’d felt when Todd was in the house yesterday, so convinced that something evil was still alive there.



She looked back at Tyler. “I’m an academic. I believe in the power of men and women to do good or evil. I don’t believe in spirits.”



“But you believe in history?”



“Of course. You can’t not believe in history,” she said.



“Ah, but what about the famous saying: History is written by the victors. And sometimes the victors might exaggerate or lie or leave things out. Sometimes history has to be rewritten. It isn’t an unchanging, monolithic entity. Attitudes change, and they change history. So do new facts as they emerge.”



Allison sighed, wondering how the granite Texan could be so ethereal in his statements.



“History didn’t kill Julian Mitchell,” she said. “Or put Mr. Dixon in a coma.”



“Belief is everything,” he countered. “And, Allison, I do believe it’s obvious that something is going on. Even if by some remarkable chance Julian accidentally killed himself or just decided, Hmm, let me think of a really gruesome way to kill myself, it still wouldn’t explain what happened in the attic.”



“Maybe Julian trashed the attic.”



“Why would he have done that?”



“I don’t know! Why would he have sat down with his rifle—and then leaned his head down on the blade?” she asked wearily.



“Those are things we have to know. Other people could die,” Tyler said.



“You mean Mr. Dixon. He wasn’t at the house when he went into a coma.”



“No. But he’d been at the house, and you found a friend dead there a matter of hours earlier. Dixon saw the news about Julian’s death before going to sleep.”



“So, he dreamed a ghost had followed him home and it was so real and frightening to his sleeping mind that he slipped into another realm,” Allison said. “I don’t know the answers to any of it. I just know that it’s real and horrible and I’m so tired I can’t think. Will you take me home, please?” she asked. “I’d just like to be alone.”



He looked over the top of the car at her and Allison saw that his gaze was filled with disappointment. Of course. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted. But it was more than that; it was disappointment in her, and somehow that was disturbing.



“Certainly. I’ll take you right home.”



Allison had no idea why his reaction bothered her. It just did.



“I really need some time!” she said, almost pleading. “Julian is dead. Not in a coma. There’s no coming back from that.”



“I completely understand. Really.”



She slid into the passenger seat. He was silent as they drove and she watched him, feeling a clash of emotions. Life had become so painful and intense overnight. It was still hard to fathom that Julian was dead. She was still tired from last night. She’d discovered the body of her friend. Then she’d dealt—for the first time in her life—with the police, and with crime scene techs trying to find out what she’d touched and what she hadn’t. Later Adam Harrison and this man had shown up… And today she’d spent time with a heartbroken child. She was mentally and physically exhausted, and dismayed because she was disappointing a stranger. And now, she was staring at that stranger, wondering how someone with such a strong jawline and intense eyes, such a tall, powerful build and compelling presence, could be part of a team of ghost busters.



Yesterday she’d been herself—a teacher who loved history and brought that love to costumed interpretation. She loved her life, and she had good friends, a great family. And this morning…



She looked straight ahead. She wasn’t being selfish. She needed to go home. To speak with her coworkers and friends from the board and— Good Lord! She had to call her parents and let them know she was all right.



He drove to her house and stopped the car. Turning to her, he said quietly, “I’m very sorry about your friend, and truly sorry that you were the one to find him.”



She nodded. “I just need some time,” she said again.



“Call me when you feel you want to get back into it.”



“Of course.”



He was watching her so intently she wondered if she had food on her face.



“You’ll need my number,” he reminded her.



“Oh. Yes.” She gave a deep sigh. “I do want to help the kids. I do want to help you, even though it did look like a horrible accident.” Allison took out her cell phone as she spoke.



“The trashing of the attic wasn’t an accident.” He removed his phone from his pocket. “I’ll dial you,” he said.



He already had her number. Of course. He was an FBI agent.



She clicked on the call and added his number to her phone. Then she realized she’d asked to be taken home and they’d arrived, but she was still sitting in his car.



“I’m not sure what I can do for you,” she told him. “You’re here, Mr. Harrison is here, the police have been through it all. I don’t know what I could contribute.”



“I doubt that anyone is as familiar with the house or its history as you are.” She caught herself studying the color of his eyes. They were a mixture of blue and green, a kind of aqua she’d never seen before. He was a very striking man.



She blinked, suddenly aware that she was staring and that she needed to reply.



“There have been some tragic and terrible incidents at the house, but I don’t think something that happened years ago could have any bearing on what happened yesterday.”



He shrugged, smiling wryly. “That’s what we’ll find out.” He exited the car and walked around to open her door.



She remembered that she was supposed to get out.



“Thanks,” she mumbled.



“Are you sure you’ll be right alone?”



“Yes, thanks. We’ll, um, be in touch.”



“Thank you,” he said with a nod.



Awkwardly, she started up her front walk. She knew he was watching her, and when she fit her key into the door, she turned around to wave. He waved back, then got into his car and eased out onto the street.



Inside the house, she closed the door and leaned against it for a moment. She’d wanted to be alone.



Now she didn’t.



But she walked in and dug out her phone before tossing her purse on the sofa and sitting down next to it. She had to start returning calls.



But even as she decided that she had to call her mother first and then the board and her coworkers, the silence in the house seemed to weigh down on her. She got up and turned on the television. A news station was playing, with a reporter standing in front of the hospital. Mr. Dixon’s strange fall into a coma was being added to the tragic news about musician and tour guide Julian Mitchell.



She changed the channel. The speculation on the “evil” within the house on news stations struck her as overkill.



With a comedy repeat keeping her company, she looked at all the calls she’d ignored while she was with Tyler Montague. She called her parents, who’d gone to their home in Arizona for a few weeks, and made a point of being calm and sad and completely in control. As much as she adored her mom and dad, she didn’t want them coming back here because they were worried about her.



They’d met Julian a few times and offered their condolences, but when they questioned her safety, she made it sound as if the media were going wild—which they were—and described what had happened as a tragic accident. She assured her mother that as a Revolution-era woman or even as Lucy Tarleton, she didn’t carry a musket with a bayonet.



Next she spoke to Nathan Pierson. She told him she was fine, and he promised he’d be there for anything she needed with the police or the house. He’d talk to the rest of the board, too. She didn’t have to call anyone else, he said; she should just relax.



Nathan was the easiest member of board to deal with. He was a good-looking man who had never married. She wasn’t close enough to ask him if there was a long-lost love for whom he pined, but if so, it didn’t seem to affect his dating life. At various functions, she’d seen him with different women, all of them beautiful and elegant. He was unfailingly polite and courteous to her. Sometimes he teased her, claiming that he was waiting for her to notice him and ignore the age discrepancy; he teased a lot of people, though, and he had a way of making his words sound like a compliment rather than licentious.