Chapter 17

B anned from the house again, Danica worked away in her RV, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do and what the hell was supposed to happen with the house. Was the house dangerous, or was this just some strange possession? When a knock came on her door, she got up and opened up the RV, but nobody was there. Frowning, she turned around. When she heard a knock again, she reached a hand up to her head.

The voice said, That’s where I’m knocking, if you would let me in .

Frowning, she mentally opened up a door, realizing that Stefan was trying to come in. “What the hell’s going on?” she asked, glaring around her small RV. “And how completely freaky is it that you can do this?”

He chuckled. It might be freaky. Yet it’s also a good thing in case of an emergency .

“Yeah, you say that, but I don’t know that I could do it—to call you in the first place, I mean. Besides, will I be dealing with emergencies where I need you?”

Maybe. Did you talk to your grandmother?

“A little bit, but only a little bit. She was nearly ready to collapse again from fatigue. And still I think there’s something else she doesn’t want to tell me.”

Absolutely. I agree. There are things she doesn’t want to tell you, but these are things that you do need to know.

“ Great ,” she murmured. “Something about my mother haunting a hospital?”

Yes, I’ve heard things about that too , Stefan confirmed, a sharpness in his tone. That hospital is on my watch list .

“What do you mean, your watch list?” she asked, surprised. “Do you really track this stuff?”

Sometimes. Sometimes I should. It depends on how much damage these entities cause while they’re here. If they’re just visual, and they scare people, well, I’ve got other things to do with my time. So I don’t worry about that so much, he said, with a laugh. However, if they’re there to cause trouble, that’s a different story.

“According to my grandmother, every Halloween my mother appears badly hurt but has no visible injuries. They end up sending her for X-rays, or whatever, and, on the way, she disappears. But, whoever she grabs at the time, ends up dead. As a result, apparently nobody wants to work Halloween at this hospital.”

No wonder , Stefan noted absentmindedly.

“I don’t know that I believe it. Yet Nana made it sound like they all supposedly died of natural causes, you know, heart-attack-type things. Which could be just from the visual, and yet it’s always the person she touched.”

Very interesting , he murmured. I’ll look into that more .

“Yeah, particularly since Halloween is the day after tomorrow,” she muttered. She got up to pour herself another cup of coffee. “I would offer you coffee, but, in your present state, would it run right through you?”

I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink tea though . Stefan chuckled. I don’t think I can drink it vicariously through you , he added.

She shook her head. “You do know that people think we’re nuts.”

Yep, I’ve heard that a time or two. Thankfully I’m at a point in my life where I really don’t give a damn . He paused and asked, How about you?

“Of course I give a damn,” she admitted, with a sigh. “Nothing is easy about this, about what I’ve gone through. I’ve done everything I could to just shut it down. But some of it, you just can’t ignore. It’s part of who you are.”

It’s definitely a part of who you are, and you’ll be required to step out—

“I won’t,” she replied instantly.

After a moment where he pondered her words, he then added, I don’t know whether it’ll be on Halloween because of your mother, or something else, but something really ugly is brewing in your neighborhood, and I’m really concerned about your grandmother .

“Yeah? My grandmother isn’t likely to make it to Halloween, in case you didn’t know that,” she snapped. “She’s fading quickly, and I’m just hoping she’ll last long enough to tell me everything she needs to say.”

She needs to , he declared. Whatever she is holding back is causing her great stress. That’s not the kind of thing that should go to the grave with her .

“You want to tell me about that stuff—seeing as you obviously know everything about it?”

No, I don’t know everything about it. Your grandmother has me blocked from reading her thoughts. However, I wouldn’t tell you if I did because it’s not my job , he noted in a terse tone, and then started to withdraw. I’m off to talk to your grandmother .

“She’s sleeping.”

No, she’s not , he replied, his tone deepening. That’s the one thing she’s not doing, even when she should . And, with that, he was gone.

Danica quickly packed up her work, saved everything she had opened on the computer, and, with Benji at her heels, raced over to the house. The door opened as she approached. As she walked in, she called out, “Nana, are you here?”

When no answer came, she headed into Nana’s bedroom and stopped at the doorway. Her grandmother was in bed, and, no, she wasn’t sleeping. But Danica wasn’t exactly sure what Nana was doing. Her arms were in the air, as if she were open to embracing someone from above.

Danica frowned, as she looked around. “Nana?” she asked, but no answer came.

A weird hum filled the air. She didn’t know if that was Stefan talking to Nana or something else, but it was definitely odd. Then again, Danica’s whole life had been odd lately. She sat for a few minutes and then realized that her grandmother seemed to be coming out of whatever trance she had been in.

Heading into the kitchen, she put on coffee, hoping to have a cup with Nana, as she finally shared her big secret with Danica. She glanced around at the house and asked, “What will you do when she goes?” She wasn’t sure what lengths this house would go to in order to protect Nana.

When it came to possessed houses, that was a little bit beyond anything anybody had ever mentioned to Danica. Maybe that was part of what her grandmother needed to talk to her about. But when? Or would that be just one more of those things her grandmother didn’t share?

Danica had been locked out of so many discussions growing up. All she could have done mentally was to disappear herself, and that had been hard. She hadn’t gone the same route as her mother and would have taken offense to anybody who would have implied such a thing.

She stared out the kitchen window, wondering about the wasted life her mother had lived and, to a certain extent, the wasted life Danica herself was living. She’d been living off the grid, trying to stay quiet, trying to stay hidden, trying to not cause waves or to attract attention.

Because that was the worst,… bringing attention to yourself, knowing that people just wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t understand, and, because they wouldn’t understand, there was absolutely no reason for them to find out anything. Once they found out, Danica’s life would change.

She glanced out the window toward Cameron’s house and frowned. She thought she saw somebody outside, traipsing around the property close to her place. Not her place, she corrected herself, shaking her head. It was Nana’s place. It would never be hers. Even if it was her place on paper, it still wouldn’t be hers.

She knew, deep inside, that her grandmother wanted the property back, to be joined again. She just didn’t understand why. She’d asked Danica to buy it. She had told Cameron she didn’t want it after all, and she hadn’t told her grandmother that either. Yet, if her grandmother was that close to death, should Danica even tell her about all that at this point? Or was that one of those deathbed things you had to follow through on, or otherwise what? You would get haunted? She groaned at that thought because that was no joke in her world. Hauntings were all too real.

She shook that thought from her head.

She had certainly known more than her grandmother had realized, but that had been found out by listening in, as much as she could as a teen, to conversations between her mother and others. Around the time Danica realized her mother was playing some weird games out there, people were laughing, joking, and calling her a witch. Danica just needed to know more. What she’d found out seemed to mock her and her family. Danica had basically tossed it all off as not being possible. Yet inside she knew.

But the rumor mill, once it started, wasn’t exactly something you could just ignore. Around here, no ignoring something so prevalent. The townsfolk had done enough to have as much fun with her mother as they possibly could. Then, after the fun was over, they had nothing nice to say. How could the men have nothing nice to say at the same time they were getting her into bed? How the hell did that work?

What if her mother really had done exactly what Nana had said? What if Daisy had enticed every one of them through some witchy energy work to fall in love with her? Her mother had broken up a dozen marriages in this town alone and who knew how many from other places during Daisy’s periods of absence. As much as Danica hated to say it, her mother should be pitied for her frantic panic to get away. Yet nobody else cared. As long as Daisy put out, they were happy to take, until she died, and then everything changed.

How did that work?

Danica had no freaking clue. Of course she had always held back with people, like Jace, who had been her friend and maybe a boyfriend of sorts—though they’d never consummated the relationship, not for lack of trying on his part. She’d always been afraid of the risk that she could become a mother in the process.

The coffeepot gurgled along, as Benji trotted to the bedroom to say hi to Nana. As Danica followed him, she poked her head around the doorway to her grandmother’s bedroom. She saw Nana was fully awake now, cuddling the small dog. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

Nana looked over at her, her gaze so sharp it was hard to believe she was close to dying. “I feel good,” she replied in a surprisingly strong voice.

“Good. I put coffee on. You ready for a cup?”

Her grandmother nodded. “Coffee would be perfect,” she said, with a smile.

“Are you getting up, or am I bringing it in here?”

She looked at her in horror. “What? I’m not an invalid. I’ll be up in a few minutes.” And, with that, she waved Danica off.

Danica headed back to the kitchen, pouring two cups of coffee while wondering how a woman could seem to bounce back so easily. Yes, Nana was a healer, but she was now an old healer. Yet she still seemed to wield her gift. Did it have anything to do with the weird stuff she was doing in there earlier? As soon as Nana joined her at the kitchen table and got settled with her coffee, Danica asked her.

“I was meditating,” she replied, with a smile, “connecting to the ethers, trying to stay here a little bit longer so I can tell you everything that needs to be told.”

Danica nodded. “I’m surprised you saw that. I came in to ensure you were okay.”

“You mean to ensure I was alive?” And then she burst out laughing.

Danica shrugged. “I’m not sure what else I should do when you don’t respond. I need to know that you’re alive.”

“No, you don’t. You’ll find out soon enough that I’m not. I’m not mad at you for that. We both know my time is coming, and I certainly don’t begrudge you the need to check up on me.”

Danica frowned and stayed quiet, because something was off about her grandmother’s voice.

“What’s the matter?” Nana asked.

“Something’s different,” Danica studied her. “You don’t sound the same.”

Her gaze narrowed. “In what way do I not sound the same?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to describe it, but definitely something is different.”

“Different isn’t bad. It’s just different.”

“I know that. I’m just saying your voice sounds different.”

“No, it’s the way you are so hyper-focused on me,” her grandmother argued.

Danica took a deep breath. “That is an example right there,” she began, trying not to word it too callously. “Normally you wouldn’t argue with me. Normally you would just let it roll off your back. Yet, right now, you seem to be riled up about something.”

Her grandmother opened her mouth, as if to dispute something, and then closed her mouth again. “Maybe there is some truth to it after all,” she mumbled, but she didn’t elaborate.

“Do you want to explain that to me?” Danica asked.

“No.… I don’t feel like explaining a lot of things to you.”

Danica stared at her. “ Okay . I’m not sure what this is all about, but maybe I should just leave you alone for a little while.”

“Maybe you should,” Nana declared in a snappy tone, glaring at her.

Danica let out her breath in a rush. “Okay, fine.” She slowly got up and moved toward the back door, calling Benji with her.

“You’ll just walk away like that?” Nana asked in the same combative tone.

“Not necessarily,” Danica replied, “but obviously you don’t want company right now.”

Her grandmother blinked several times and then slowly nodded, sagging in place. “Maybe you should just leave me alone for a little bit. I will collect myself, and I promise I’ll be more normal when you come back,” she replied.

The more normal when you come back comment really worried Danica. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she just nodded. “Do you want me to stay? Or do you want me to go?”

“Go. Just go,” she muttered. “It’ll be fine.”

Danica had no other recourse except to leave, yet it bothered her to see her grandmother in whatever this state was. Danica stepped out of the house and stood on the porch, sipping her coffee. Benji was at her side, whining, obviously not happy with what he had seen either. “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, petting the dog. “She’s definitely different at the moment.”

She looked around and then called out, “Stefan, you there?” A grumble came in response in her head. “Did you see my grandmother? She’s different, as if it’s not really her.” Stefan snapped into her head, to the point that she reached up with both hands and groaned.

Sorry , sentences like that are guaranteed to grab my attention.

Danica groaned. “ Great . Maybe we could have a quieter discussion, like a phone call or something.”

Almost instantly her cell phone rang. She stared down at it and muttered, “I didn’t even give you my number.”

You want a phone call or not? he snapped.

When she answered the phone, the pressure in her head eased.

“Now, what do you mean that she was different?” Stefan asked.

“She was combative. Her voice didn’t sound the same. She didn’t talk the same.” She relayed part of the conversation and tried to describe what had caught her attention. “She even told me that I should probably leave now, and she would be ‘better’ or ‘different’ or ‘normal’ or something when I came back.”

“ Hmm .” Stefan gave an audible sigh. “Sounds like you’ve got a hell of a mystery going on at your place.”

“I’m just not sure how any of this is supposed to work.”

“There is no supposed to ,” Stefan replied, “particularly when spirits are involved.”

“ Are spirits involved?” she questioned.

“This didn’t sound like a spirit. It sounded more like a possession. Somebody may have been speaking through her.”

“Oh, good God,” Danica whispered. “I really don’t like hearing that.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. However, you also don’t know a lot of the stuff that’s been going on in that house, which is starting to affect your grandmother.”

“She’s lived here all her life. I can’t imagine that anything going on in this house is just affecting her at this point,” she murmured. “Maybe before, when my mother was alive. Maybe that affected her. I don’t know.”

“Do you know what happened to your mother?” he asked.

“She committed suicide, after she tried to kill me. No, let me rephrase that.” She spoke bitterly. “After she did kill me.”

Silence came on the other end. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me,” Danica stated, “I was declared dead and woke up in the morgue drawer.”

“That was you?” he asked.

She stared down at the phone in shock. “What?” she asked. “You know about that?”

“I know a little bit about that.”

“ That’s nice ,” she quipped. “I don’t even know who you are. Yet you apparently know about the strange incident that completely changed my life.”

“First of all, waking up in a morgue drawer would change anybody’s life,” he replied. “That couldn’t have been an easy experience. Second, add to that how your mother put you there has to be one of the hardest things to sort through.”

“Absolutely,” she muttered, “and none of it makes any sense.”

“So, your mother did commit suicide?”

“Yes, as far as anybody could say, she committed suicide. Although the townsfolk may believe I killed her.”

“Oh, that’s fascinating,” Stefan murmured in a completely conversational tone.

She stared down at the phone. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you,” she admitted, with a hint of a chuckle. “That makes no sense to me.”

“You’re talking to me because I understand this stuff, and you have limited people to talk to.”

“You are correct on both points. I really don’t know anybody who can help me with this woo-woo stuff but you and Nana,” she replied.

“If you ask me, that’s because you refuse to get involved.… Oh, but you haven’t refused to get involved at all, have you?”

Danica sighed. “When it dominates your life, as it’s always dominated mine, I’m involved in a certain amount of woo-woo stuff,” she admitted, “but I’m not crazy involved, like my grandmother.”

“No, but you are doing some energy work. So that’s good. It should at least allow us to move you faster forward with that as a base.”

“Faster toward what?” she asked in confusion.

He snorted. “I really wish she would tell you her secret.”

“Yeah, I really wish she would too. But right now, the woman in there, she ain’t telling me anything, and I’m not sure she’s even the woman I thought she was.”

“That’s a very disconcerting comment,” Stefan noted, as he took a moment. “I’ll get back to you.” With that, he was gone.

She stepped through the grass, groaning. “It would be nice if things would just fall into place every once in a while,” she muttered out loud, “instead of being this massive struggle.”

Then someone across the way replied, “Too bad. Now it won’t be a struggle at all. You should never have lived. You know that too.”

She turned to face the man, just as a shot rang out—strong, steady, and deadly. It pierced through her upper thigh and dropped her in place. Even as she lay here, she heard him calling out, “Excellent,” and he was gone.

She mentally reached out to Stefan, but he was there already.

I’m here. I saw what happened. I heard what happened , he stated. Help is on the way. You stay alive now. Do you hear me? You can’t die now .

“Are you sure?” she asked, almost welcoming the darkness below. “It would be a good end for me.”

No , Stefan snapped. It would not .

“Yes, it would,” she whispered. “Not a whole lot of good has been in my life.”

Yet even more good is coming , Stefan shared, but you must survive this first .

She would have laughed, but the icy coldness moving up her body wasn’t doing anything to keep her in control or cognizant. She closed her eyes and, with a very long, slow breath, whispered, “Say goodbye to Nana for me.”

*

Cameron got up, dressed, and headed for the kitchen. He was two steps away from reaching for the coffeepot when a thought slammed into his head.

Go to Danica, NOW .

He didn’t even give himself a chance to think or to question it. He bolted out the door, barefoot, and raced across the property to Harriet’s house.

As he arrived, he couldn’t see anything amiss, not until he got closer to the porch and saw a body on the lawn. He raced up to find Danica, staring at the skies, her eyes open. A midthigh wound gushed arterial blood, and it appeared to be a bullet wound. He went into full doctor mode.

In between trying to deal with her and calling for assistance, he didn’t even question the instincts that had him running to Danica. Chaos ensued for the next forty minutes, until he got her into the emergency room and up to surgery, where he closed up the leg wound and fixed the arterial bleed.

By the time he was done, he stepped out of the OR to see a deputy standing there, staring at him. Cameron looked at him blankly.

“She was shot, was she?” Benson asked.

Benson’s tone did not sit right with Cameron. “Yes,” he confirmed. “You should go back to the property to find the bullet though. It wasn’t in her leg.”

He nodded. “Has she been conscious? Did she say anything?”

“I haven’t spoken to her. I found her on her back in the grass, and I just went into emergency mode.” He stared at his hands. “I haven’t had coffee or even the chance to think.”

“You have no idea what happened?” The deputy pressed him for more information.

Yet Cameron had no more to give. “No. I have no idea what happened, and she won’t be awake for a few hours.”

The deputy pursed his lips. “Damn. I really need to speak with her.”

“You can try all you want, but she’s still under general anesthesia and will be out for hours,” he stated. “So, that will be a waste of time.”

The deputy looked way more than stumped.

“Better for you to go back and find the bullet, which I didn’t even think about trying to look for because I was trying to keep her alive,” Cameron explained, as he walked with the deputy toward the front of the hospital.

“So, you’re on call right now?”

“No, I’m not, but Dr. Cumberback was already busy, and Danica needed treatment immediately.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I’m not even sure what the hell happened. It’s been such a blur,” he murmured.

“I am sure it has been.”

Cameron studied the deputy, trying to decipher his meaning, but then let it go. “Let me know if you find anything, will you?” Benson just nodded as he walked out of the hospital, but Cameron noted his stiff gait. “She didn’t do this to herself,” he called out.

The deputy turned and asked him, “Are you sure? It would be a hell of a way to throw suspicion off her.” And, with that, he quickly left the hospital.

Cameron stared after him in shock. He looked around at the other nurses, but nobody would meet his eye. “Seriously? You guys think Danica shot herself, hitting an artery?”

“The artery would have been a mistake of course,” replied one of the nurses, trying not to catch his gaze. “If the deputy thinks it’s not impossible, maybe she did.”

“It’s just a leg wound,” one of the other nurses pitched in.

All this grated on his nerves too damn much. He thought about the mess her leg had been in, that he had just tried to fix, and to hear them say, It’s just a leg wound , made his blood boil.

“I don’t think we can consider what I fixed as just anything,” he snapped, glaring at them. “I don’t know what the hell is happening around here or why everybody is all of a sudden on the I hate Danica train,” he snapped, trying hard to control his anger. “Yet she’s a patient here, and she will be treated with the respect and the highest level of care that we offer to anyone in this facility.”

When no one spoke up, he growled, “Is that understood?” He turned and glared at the nurses.

One by one, everyone just shrugged and nodded. He knew that Danica would get whatever care they gave, and it might not be the best, which made him sick to his stomach.

If she wouldn’t get the proper care here, he would ensure that she was moved somewhere else or that he stayed here with her. And, for the umpteenth time, he wondered if this hospital should even stay open.

If this was how they treated patients they didn’t like, maybe it shouldn’t remain open.

As long as Danica was here and remained in danger, from her shooter and even this hospital staff, he would stay and keep her safe.

*

The bitch is in the hospital. Damn. If she hadn’t jerked at the last minute, surely the bullet would have done a better job. He racked his brain over the whole incident. He couldn’t believe he had just caught her in the leg, when he had aimed for her heart. Afterward he’d been so panicked that he ran off.

Should have stayed to finish the bitch.

He stared down at his hands, then looked back to where she was being slowly moved to a hospital room and realized that he really had no choice. He adjusted the color of his white coat he’d snagged from the doctor’s office and considered his options.

Maybe I still can.

Resolutely he turned and followed the gurney, as it carried her upstairs.