NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Read online

  ONE

  I didn’t see the ghost until the very dead of night.

  A very long night.

  I was having one of my more awful bouts with insomnia. Tossing, turning, sighing, tossing some more. Hadn’t slept a wink. I only hoped I wasn’t keeping Rita awake. But I was pretty sure my ex was sleeping peacefully there beside me in her condo bedroom.

  “One more toss and I’m on the downstairs couch.”

  Or maybe not.

  “No,” I apologized, “don’t go. I’ll be all alone.”

  “Then you go to sleep!”

  “I can’t. I’m wound up.”

  Not quite right. Unsettled was more like it. Maybe even apprehensive. Maybe even a little scared. Now why was that? Perfectly normal night. Even the cat was gone. What was there to be scared of? Nothing. Made no sense. Although Katie had insisted I was—what’s that word—‘prescient?' Is that what I was tonight, ‘prescient?'

  “You’re just guilty, Elliot,” from a sleepy Rita. “Stop it. Let it go already. I forgave you for the cat.”

  I sighed.

  “And stop sighing.”

  “It’s not the cat. I’m glad he’s gone. I hated the cat. Well, not hated—but you know, with my phobia and all—it’s probably just as well he left. Don’t you think? Don’t you agree?”

  “I will if you’ll agree to go to sleep.”

  “Right. Sorry. I’m being rude, sweetie. Sorry. Good-night. Sleep tight.”

  Silence.

  I sighed.

  “Strange though…about the cat, you know?”

  “God, please kill me.”

  “Just up and leaving like that. Why? Why all of a sudden like that?”

  “Maybe he was having trouble getting some sleep.”

  “But really, why out of the blue that way?”

  “You mean like the ‘out of the blue” way you left Austin? With what’s-her-name? For the far off swamps of Louisiana?”

  “It’s not that far off. And her name is Katie. She has a name, Rita.”

  “Don’t I know it? You mumble it half the night, during those rare occasions you’re actually sleeping.”

  “I do not. Do I?”

  “--and I know you solved the swamp case, found that poor little girl, went your separate ways—you and what’s-her-name—“

  “Katie.”

  “—how you finally came back here to Austin. And me.” Rita rolled toward me. “Never exactly why, though. We never really got into it that much, you always danced around it. Why, Elliot? Because you were broke? Because you needed a warm body at night?”

  I sighed. Again. “Or you could have said something nice like, ‘Because I Ms.ed you,’ or something practical like, ‘Because I wanted to get tenure.’”

  “I assume you mean with the college.”

  “The school, yes. And you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She said, in a way that sounded like, ‘uh-uh.’”

  Rita pounded her pillow, rolled over again, giving me her back. “You’ll get tenure, Elliot. And even if you don’t, worrying about it at night won’t help.”

  “I like to worry.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s my hobby.”

  “Nice. Mine’s sleeping. You should try it. Relax one muscle at a time…drift off softly and sweetly and dream of screwing the soft and sweet Ms. Bracken.”

  “Her last name you remember. Hmph. And I didn’t screw her.”

  “Sorry. Stick with it.”

  “I didn’t say she rejected me. I said—“

  “I know, I know! Said it so often it sounds rehearsed!”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t care, Elliot! I have an early morning class, I just want to sleep!”

  I rolled onto my side. “Okay.”

  Stared at the nightstand clock: 12:00 midnight. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, just go to sleep.”

  “Okay.” I closed my eyes.

  Opened my eyes again.

  Stared at the nightstand clock.

  “Strange though, isn’t it, Rita—us being back together here in Austin. After that weird adventure in Louisiana. Your telling me it was all over between us, that I should go off with Katie on another crazy adventure into the outré, remember? Insisting, practically, that in reality I hated teaching, hated the school, longed for the uncertainty of the unknown even if I was terrified of it! Remember? Saying that Katie somehow anchored me, allowed me to take risks in a way you never could. Remember saying that?”

  I turned to my ex-fiancée. “Rita--?”

  Silence.

  I turned back to the clock.

  I think I got some sleep then myself.

  Pretty sure of it. Seemed like it, anyway.

  Except the next time I opened my eyes they were puffy with slumber and my feet were freezing. My nose and lips, too. The room was frigid. It was mid-February; had someone left the window open a crack?

  I turned back, shivering, bundling the extra blanket under my chin, wondering what had wakened me. The chilly room was silent except for the loud ticking of the nightstand clock. Thunderous. Maybe the ticking had wakened me, along with the cold room.

  I stared at the hands of the electric nightstand clock. Still 12:00 midnight.

  Shouldn’t the big hand have moved by now?

  I pulled the sheet back over Rita and sat up to check on the window, the thermostat, realizing abruptly that my throat was parched with thirst.

  I padded in pajama bottoms and tee past the window (closed), past the thermostat (68), and into the cool tile floor of the bathroom. Feeling my way there, I kept having flashes of childhood memories, of my old bedroom in Illinois, of being scared of the dark. Why was I thinking about that? Was I scared of the dark now?

  I flipped on the bathroom light, grabbed the sink cup and enjoyed a long drink of cold tap water. Abruptly I dropped the cup rattling into the basin as I glimpsed my reflection in the mirror. “Jesus!”

  I rubbed at my eyes and leaned closer, belly pressing the porcelain lip, eyes roving over my face, head turning incredulously left, then right, then left again. Both temples were near-white with borders of gray hair. Hair that had been dark brown when I’d gone to bed.

  I kept craning around in open-mouthed wonder, trying to get a better look under the ceiling bulb, to see how far around the gray had spread, to see if any had crept up into my thick scalp which, incidentally, didn’t seem as lustrously thick at the moment; instead it looked kind of tangled and flat. And my lips seemed slightly pinched. Cheeks and sockets vaguely hollow…

  “What the--?”

  I backed out of the bathroom under a new seizure of chills, turned and stumbled back to bed, sliding in beside Rita. I shook her warm body, ignoring my cold fingers this time. “Rita!”

  I could hardly hear my fear-cracked voice over the thunderous ticking of the clock. “Rita!”

  Rita slept on.

  Or she was dead.

  I felt a cold stone in my stomach beneath a racing plague of goose bumps. “Rita!”

  Then I sat suddenly rigid.

  Wait a minute. Electric clocks don’t tick. At least mine didn’t. It was always silent as…

  As death, I’d been about to think, reaching frantically for the lamp cord beside the clock and yanking hard. The room remained dark. “Goddamnit!”

  But a deep, cloying fear found me as I pushed up and jammed the heel of my hand over the ceiling switch. The room remained dark.

  Power’s out.

  That’s what I told myself.
Go down in the basement and check the box, it’s just the power.

  Childhood terror thrills gripped me again. Go downstairs through the dark house to the darker, creepier basement and check the goddamn box yourself! I told my inner mind, I’m staying right here under the freaking covers with my ex!

  You’re a coward, I thought, teeth chattering, that’s why she lets you stay in her condo but won’t marry you now, she’s discovered that in your heart you’re a childish little coward.

  That’s right, I told myself, now go fuck yourself!

  It suddenly took every ounce of nerve in my being just to turn my head twenty degrees to the left and check the nightstand clock again, ticking like a ballistic missile beside me.

  12:00.

  I felt the room swim.

  It must be the cat. That damn Garbanzo had given me cat scratch fever before he deserted us…

  I reached over without looking and gripped Rita’s shoulder again, shook hard, tried to lift my quaking voice above the sledgehammer ticking. “Rita!”

  Rita didn’t move.

  Which is probably why she didn’t see the pale specter materialize out of the opaque bedroom doorway.

  * * *

  It stood at the door, a rather small figure but surrounded by a nimbus of light in the dark room; I couldn’t make out its form. It seemed to beckon me and I got up, not caring that my feet were bare on the cold hardwood floor, and followed it.

  Suddenly we were in a long dark hallway and the light was moving fast away from me and around the corner. I hurried to catch up but by the time I turned the corner the figure had disappeared. I stood alone in a large hulking room in almost total darkness, completely still, unable to move.

  Suddenly there was a deep rumbling whisper at my ear, along with the foul stench of rancid animal breath, and I heard the words: “She won’t let me near her…I cannot touch her any more…I had no choice!” I could feel a black, menacing presence behind me and I wanted to turn but I was too terrified to make a move. A claw-like hand, huge and black, gripped my right shoulder painfully, holding me rigid. “I had no choice…” the voice growled viciously, its fetid breath enfolding me, “She made me do it…”

  Then, abruptly, I saw the small nimbus of light standing in front of me again. The voice at my ear roared its fury and from behind me a black vile figure appeared and violently leapt at the tiny specter. Its terrified high-pitched scream seemed to echo about the empty chamber and I stood helplessly as the light disappeared, eaten alive by the dark angry force in front of me…

  Then once more the room was stingingly bright as the power flared on, jolting Rita around with a sleepy little yelp. I was back in the bedroom under the covers and the chamber had vanished.

  Rita kicked at the unwanted sheet again with irritation, then turned languidly to me, squinting, hair tousled, face rife with sleep. “What’s…going on--?”

  I wasn’t sure myself. I was still trembling from the fear that had engulfed me at the sound of that feral voice. The overhead light was glaring, even though I’d turned it off minutes ago. “It was just a power surge, honey. Go back to sleep.”

  But Rita wasn’t looking at me.

  She was looking past me at the walnut bedstead.

  I turned to find the other lovely lady standing there in chinos and an Austin-winter jacket, Garbanzo in her arms. “Did you guys know you left the downstairs door unlocked?” Katie said.

  Rita pushed up on a sleepy arm, yawning. “That was Elliot. He always forgets.” She finger-combed a lock of dark hair from her face. “Where’d you find him?”

  “Elliot?”

  “The cat.”

  Katie dumped him at the foot of the mattress. “He found me.”

  Rita fought another yawn. “Figures.” She rumpled her head, shook it awake, looked up again. “So! How’ve you been, Kate? It’s been months.”

  Katie shrugged. “Tolerable, I guess. Sorry for the late hour. You?”

  Rita stretched. “Oh, you know. Post-holiday student lag, mid-terms to grade, the condo could use a new roof.” She licked her lips, lidded eyes accessing the other woman. “You’ve gained a bit of weight.”

  Katie smiled ingratitude. “Thanks, Rita. A ton.”

  “Oh, puss. I didn’t say a ton. And I think it’s very attractive. Don’t we, Elliot?”

  I sighed. “She looks great. You both look great.”

  Rita shot me a wry look, then turned it on Katie. “Mister Magnanimous. How can you not love him?”

  Katie smiled. “How indeed.”

  “So,” from Rita, companionably, “what brings you back to our little part of the world, Katie? As if I didn’t worry.”

  “Rita,” I hissed, pulling discreet covers above my waist, “maybe you’d like to put something on?”

  She blinked at me, fought another yawn. “Coffee, you mean?”

  I dropped reproachful eyes to her negligee.

  Rita looked down at herself a moment, waved a dismissive hand. “Katie’s seen breasts before. More formidable than mine, I’m sure.” She pulled up her legs, rested her elbows on them. “Unless, of course, you’re worried she’s gay.”

  She turned to Katie. “Are you gay, sweetie?” with maybe just a hint of anticipation.

  Katie smiled.

  Rita nodded, rubbed at her eyes. “Course not, silly of me.”

  She turned and tried to crane around me to the nightstand clock. “Well, it’s only a little past midnight. I’ll put on some coffee.”

  Katie did a double take at the clock. “Is it that late?” She consulted her watch. “I thought it was only…” and she trailed off, looked up at us apologetically. “Listen, this will keep—

  Rita waved her off again. “No, no. I could use a cup, actually. I’ve got decaf.”

  She slipped smoothly out of bed, grabbing her robe from the back of the vanity chair. “Want to help, Ms. Bracken? Or did you have something private to discuss with Elliot in the bedroom?”

  Katie turned with her. “It will keep.”

  She joined Rita at the door, turned back to me a moment. “Mr. Bledsoe? Joining us?”

  I nodded quickly. “In a minute! Be right down.”

  Rita grinned wide, clapped Katie on the shoulder, escorted her through the door. “Nice to see you again, Kate. And nice to see Elliot with a boner, too. Hasn’t had one since forever.”

  Hey! I almost yelled from the bed, I do not have a boner!

  But I remained silent; why underscore it? I watched them depart in tandem, already exchanging pleasantries in the hallway like school chums.

  Besides, I hate lying.

  TWO

  It took me a few minutes to find my robe, and my search included several trips between the dryer and the laundry basket and back. I finally discovered the robe in the washer, two days old and damp with mildew. Neither Rita nor I was great with housekeeping. Maybe if I got tenure I’d hire a maid.

  I found the women laughing in the kitchen amid the rich smell of fresh baked biscuits. Katie’s biscuits. Rita wasn’t great in the kitchen either.

  She sat smoking at the kitchen table, letting Katie whirl around the stove and cupboard, something I’d always heard women hated—another woman invading their kitchen, I mean. Rita seemed outwardly unfazed if inwardly envious.

  “What’s funny?” I asked finding a chair across from my heretofore fiancée. The cat jumped immediately into my lap.

  Rita shrugged, tapping ashes in a coffee saucer. “Just girl talk. Why, you paranoid, dear?”

  “Not unless it involves my boner, or lack thereof. Thank you, though, for bringing it up in front of company. You’re smoking?”

  “Katie’s not company, she’s family. And I always smoke when I’m apprehensive.”

  “You just said she was family.”

  “I didn’t say I was apprehensive about her. Although now that I smell your robe…”

  “I believe it was your turn at the laundry, dear.”

  “I believe it’s your robe. Dear
.”

  “Trouble in paradise,” Katie noted, pouring me a fresh cup whose delicious smell almost overrode the stink coming from the robe. I took a sip, groaned pleasure.

  “Apparently it’s much better if you add cinnamon and a pinch of salt to the Mr. Coffee,” Rita said without malice, “also if you clean the strainer once or twice a year, right, Katie?”

  “So they tell me,” from Katie, turning again in Rita’s apron to take command of the oven. There was something arresting about the apron strings bowed above the tight-fitting chino bottom. I could have watched it for hours. Rita, to my surprise, was watching it too, as Katie bent now before the range, sliding out perfectly round, perfectly timed biscuits.

  “Katie’s agreed to spend the night,” Rita puffed.

  “I did not,” Katie said without turning, running a spatula under her heavenly fragrant masterpieces.

  “Sure you did. That okay with you, Sport?”

  I breathed deeply of yeasty manna. “As long as she makes breakfast, too.”

  Rita washed it down smiling with coffee. “I don’t think that’s why she’s really here, Einstein.”

  “Don’t call me that, Rita.”

  Rita reached for more biscuits. “Go ahead, Katie, enlighten us.”

  Katie sat stiffly. “He’s right, Rita, don’t call him that!”

  Rita’s hand paused above the biscuit plate like a magnet repelled. She looked up innocently at Katie. Then at me. “Well!” Then back at Katie.

  “Excuse me, perhaps you two would rather be alone,” Rita sniffed, and she set down her cup with a clink, pushing back her chair.

  Katie took her wrist, shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. It really is later than I thought.” She rubbed at the bridge of her nose with her other hand. “My watch…”

  Rita extracted her wrist from Katie’s hand, held it with her own, head bent to look up at her sympathetically. “’S’okay, sweetie. Hey? Got a headache? Let me get you some aspirin.”

  Katie forced a smile, squeezed back. “No, I’m fine, really. Little tired is all.”

  I watched the familiar face closely, tried to decipher the real expression. “What about your watch?” I said.

  She glanced up warily between her fingers, took her hand away slowly, eyes traveling over my physiognomy carefully. “You look tired too, Elliot…” She glanced askance at Rita. “Has he been sleeping?”